Jump to content
The Education Forum

One Last Thing Before Xmas Eve: 2nd Floor Lunch Room Encounter


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 338
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

The Sydney Morning Herald (11/23/63) reported that “Oswald walked through the door of the warehouse and was stopped by a policeman. Oswald told the policeman that ‘I work here’, and when another employee confirmed that he did, the policeman let Oswald walk away.”

Detective Ed Hicks told the London Free Press (11/23/63) that "Oswald apparently came out the front door of the red bricked warehouse. A policeman asked him where he was going. He said he wanted to see what the excitement was all about.”
Page 57 Prayer Man, Stan Dane.
Hicks was not at the interrogation and would not know of Oswald's claim.

What he reported meshes nicely with what Oswald told Holmes.

Postal Inspector Harry Holmes sat in on the November 24 interrogation, took notes, and testified that Oswald had stated that “A police officer stopped me just before I got to the front door, and started to ask me some questions, and my superintendent of the place stepped up and told the officers that I am one of the employees…” (VII p. 302)

Mundane explanation to follow I'm sure.
Now one might be thinking these mundane explanations are excuses and equal apologies.
And if they are apologies then that makes one an apologist.
Add to the equation that these are really Warren Commission explanations, mundane or not, then that would make one an Warren Commission apologist. The maths are straightforward.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This very statement is typed out and signed by Baker again! The 3rd/4th fl encounter is not just an oversight

Bart, you can't justify this second sentence here. Yes, the handwritten affidavit was signed, it was taken to the typist, and that copy was signed. The typed language still means only that the split-level stairway meant, to Baker, that when he reached the landing where he saw Oswald, he was on the 3rd/4th floor.

Will Fritz's report a month later

i.e. to Curry on December 23, item 6:

"While we were still searching the building, Mr. Roy Truly, 4932 Jade Drive, reported to us that one of his men was missing, a Lee Harvey Oswald, whose address was 2515 W. 5th Street, Irving, Texas. We also found that this man had been stopped by Officer M.L. Baker while coming down the stairs. Mr. Baker said he stopped this man on the third or fourth floor on the stairway, but as Mr. Truly identified him as one of the employees, he was released."

Of course this should raise an eyebrow, and a gullible researcher will conclude that it supports a hoax and only a hoax. Neglecting the possibility that Fritz could have mistakenly reported the location of the Baker-Oswald encounter. Neglecting the aggregate of evidence which obliges us to conclude that the lunchroom incident couldn't have been hoaxed.

Fritz evidently consulted Baker's affidavit, and did not speak to Baker, when he composed this report. And so a description about a man "walking away from the stairway" morphed into a man "coming down the stairs". Fritz had a vested interest in placing Oswald on an escape route from the sniper's nest, and that probably explains why he wrote that Baker met Oswald "coming down the stairs".

The lack of any questioning by Belin and co about the discrepancy regarding the floors

Nothing definitive here. The floor layout was not confusing to Belin, he had just been inside the TSBD a few days earlier. A WC lawyer has an agenda and he's not required to un-confuse every last detail in the record. It would be beneficial, if there were a big secret to hide about the TSBD, to leave behind some confusion to help muddy the waters.

The fact that the word "vestibule" is only used in regard to the TSBD to describe an area on the second floor- and then only in regard to the Baker-Truly-Oswald encounter. Meanwhile, the only real vestibule is on the first floor- yet it is never called one except by Oswald via Holmes. This semantical ploy says it all.

Belin had used the word- to refer to the foyer- in Baker's March 24th testimony. Holmes had used the word- to refer to the front entrance area- in his April 2nd testimony. The connection that you are making does not logically follow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ray Mitcham- Baker described the man he saw as "30 years old, 165 lbs, dark hair and wearing a brown jacket". Not only did he not know what floor he was on, but he also described somebody who wasn't Oswald. Strange that.

With his brown work-shirt untucked, and starting to bald, I don't have a problem with Baker's overestimation of his weight and age. Skin color, hair color, shirt color are the strongest markers for me. That's how I evaluated all the witness descriptions of the sniper's nest.

Did Baker see Oswald "walking away from the stairway" or did he see him through the window in the door? How did somebody who was at a loss when it came to readin', writin' and 'rithmetic manage to get into the Dallas Police?

Again, you are better off applying energy to counter the 6 conditions I laid out in post #131- which oblige us to accept the reality of the lunchroom incident- than losing the forest for the trees, trying to literally-interpret Baker's sixth-grade education (III p. 242).

And if you know anything about the background of JD Tippit, who at age 28 was evaluated by a psychologist as "wholly devoid of any imaginative facilities", you'll understand that scholarship and being a fine cop ain't necessarily symbiotic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did Baker see Oswald "walking away from the stairway" or did he see him through the window in the door?

How did somebody who was at a loss when it came to "reading', writing' and rithmetic' manage to get into the Dallas Police?

What else could have drawn Baker away from his roof raid, through a door, into a hallway and accost a man drinking a soda?

They had to add the element of walking away.

This fit with his fourth floor walking away suspect in his original statement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: Ed LeDoux, post #257

Ed, please read Inside Job p. 3. I cover all of these unofficial accounts of Oswald exiting the Book Depository and also include Jarman's HSCA account.

Hicks, by the way, worked for the Auto Theft Bureau. He reported to work at 3:00 PM and so heard his information second-hand.

But anyway, these 4 sources give a strongly-corroborated account that Oswald encountered a policeman (Barnett) and a supervisor (Shelley) while exiting the Depository.

How you can twist this into painting me as a WC apologist escapes me. Sarcasm, anger, youth- whatever it is, mister, let go of it. The hoax mullarkey produces nothing, leads nowhere, adds confusion, incites divisiveness- and it's your problem that you fell for it. Because you have fellow believers adds not one drop to its veracity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The question of whether or not the FBI is bricking it is irrelevant to the content of the Sept. 23rd affidavit On the contrary, and your denial attitude becomes obvious here The fact is that Baker, 6 months beforehand, had already gone through a lengthy testimony and had spent considerable time in the TSBD doing re-enactments considerable... you are doing some poor defending here, and the re-enactment was fraudulent from a timing perspective His location of the lunchroom was without doubt during his testimony. He wasn't quite as sure when he initially related this information to SA Burnett on Sept. 23rd Major speculation, you are just making stuff up, shameful really.

A hoaxer has to take the position that Baker, a man of limited intellect, wove his way masterfully through 6-7 pages of testimony about the lunchroom, but had a failure of nerve on Sept. 23rd- he flubbed the cover story Speculation again, you are dreaming this stuff up. There is no basis for this whatsoever. You seem to have adopted proof by repeated assertion as your flag.

A stretch, to say the least. You are throwing up a smokescreen and avoiding this uncomfortable fact. Am I? And all this speculation amounts to what exactly?

Bart, you seem to be tagging me as "speculating" whenever I offer an explanation that undermines the hoax hypothesis. It is as clear as day to me, that Baker had no doubts during his testimony regarding the location of the lunchroom, but he had an initial doubt 6 months later- he was confused, and he had a limited education, so that any doubts about his location in his 1st-day affidavit are also attributable to his confusion and limited education.

You are cordially invited to explain the hoax-hypothesis view of why Baker crossed out "or third floor" in his Sept. 23rd affidavit. Because without that, I would surmise that this particular reply of yours is just a further smokescreen, just a bunch of rhetoric that avoids addressing the Sept. 23rd affidavit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You omitted the first line of your paragraph-excerpt from First Day Evidence, and you omitted some more.

"The man who said he was the building superintendent was outside and met me at the door and went in with me. Shortly after I entered the building I confronted Oswald. The man who identified himself as the superintendent said Oswald was all right, that he was employed there. We left Oswald there, and the supervisor showed the way upstairs. We couldn't get anyone to send the freight elevator down. In giving the place a quick check, I found nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, so I started back to see what had happened. Not knowing for sure what had happened, I was limited in what I could legally do.

Omitting that bit out is my fault, but it still does not change anything. Oh, really? Your omission wouldn't have anything to do with Parker's contention that "Truly was inside" already- disputing the will-call bump- would it now, Bart? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that you were your own man. Baker gave the game away. Hey, in la-la land, everything's possible. The fact that you are not admitting this shows the true state of denial you live in. Denial is a river in Africa.

The traditional hoaxer critique concerns the misplacement of sending the freight elevator down. It's an afterthought, from a man with a limited intellect. That's all there is to it. Oh, really. You seem to be missing the all-important fact that he encountered Oswald shortly after they entered and before they went up! And you seem to be missing the all-important fact that Baker only had a 6th-grade education.

And, please remember that there is a 1986 filmed testimony as well. Don't you think that Baker would be a tad apprehensive, had a hoax occurred, that Bugliosi would smell it out? Speculation again, and now Bugliosi gets the credit... Oh hey, I forgot, Baker crammed all night with his hoax notes, and fooled Bugliosi!

There's no trace, zip. The film evidence is superstrong. This is where you hoaxers go off the reservation. And it will be to your enduring discredit that your character assessment of Baker is 180 degrees wrong. Again merely an opinion by you. Is the fact that you do not recognize modesty and integrity due to the lack of it in your self?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tommy, I'm trying to get some details on the actual soda machines and empty pick up crates in the building circa 63. One of the things that complicates matters is in those days many people

referred to any soda as a "coke", coke was a generic term. If somebody went to the trouble of saying Dr. Pepper, that likely means they saw a Dr. Pepper. Right now what I don't

know is if soda machines on the first floor and break room were both stocked with both types of sodas. Working on it.

Larry,

I agree with you that "Coke" was commonly used to describe many different soft drinks back in the day, but I'm wondering if "Coca-Cola" was used in the same way. I rather doubt it. Why use four syllables ("Co - Ca - Co - La") when you can get by by using only one ("Coke") to refer to "soda pop," in general?

The machine in the second floor lunch room was definitely a Coca-Cola (brand name) machine, leading me to believe that it dispensed only "Coca-Cola" soda pop. I think the reason so many empty Dr. Pepper bottles can be seen in the "empties" box near the "Coca-Cola" machine is because many workers bought their (perhaps more popular?) Dr. Pepper from the machine on the first floor and took them up to the second floor lunch room on their breaks and during lunchtime, drank them there, and rather than take the empty bottles back downstairs to put in the "empties" box near the Dr. Pepper machine, put them in the Coca-Cola "empties" box on the second floor, instead.

A small thing I just now noticed about the way Belin asked Holmes the question might give us a clue as to what, exactly, Belin was asking him about. He asked, "Was Oswald drinking a Coca-Cola, or anything like that? (Or words to that effect.)

It seems to me that if Belin was using the term "Coca-Cola" in a generic-kind-of-way to mean just "soda pop" or "soft drink," he wouldn't have added the or anything like that? because to do so would have been redundant. I seriously doubt that Belin was wondering if Oswald was drinking a bottle of Evian, a plastic bottle of organic carrot juice, or a glass (?) bottle of apple juice. My intuition tells me he must have been talking about carbonated beverages, and Coca-Cola (brand name) in particular.

--Tommy :sun

PS Note the brand name "Coca-Cola" on the "empties" box in the second floor lunch room. Which strengthens my suspicion that the machine it was close to dispensed only "Coca-Cola" soda pop, if you will.

Edited by Thomas Graves
Link to comment
Share on other sites

...I expect a serious list to counteract...

1- While inside the front lobby, Baker asked Truly where the stairs were (III pp. 221, 249) There is possible evidence to refute this not just from Peggy Hawkins but Truly's statement that they saw no one there. Bart, I am 61 years old. Would you please extend me the common courtesy of citing a reference for these pronouncements? Truly's statement is from his 11/22 FBI statement. There's nothing on Peggy Hawkins in the Warren Volumes. In WCD 897 pp. 35-36 we find that Peggy Hawkins and her small child watched the motorcade from the sidewalk in the vicinity of the Stemmons sign. They ducked behind the retaining wall when they heard shots. And then she probably heard Decker's transmission about getting some men into the railyard from probably Baker's motorcycle radio. She then re-entered the TSBD via the front door and went up to the 3rd floor via the elevator- little doubt here that was the passenger elevator.

So you are out of your tree if you think Peggy Hawkins was in the front lobby in time to see Truly & Baker there.

Truly's statement is interesting; Sean pointed this out. There's no ostensible reason for him to say "They saw no one there"- it's a denial about PrayerMan. But your logic is skewed if you think this Truly-statement refutes Baker, inside the lobby, asking where the stairs were.

Good night. I have done enough work for one day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Marrion L. Baker was born on August 12, 1930 in Blum, Texas, USA as Marrion Lewis Baker.
Here is Marrion "Lewis" Baker (top middle)


lewis_zpszdfiwycj.png



Baker_zpslhp8ldtu.png

Note that he was receiving a "distributive education". Definition of Distributive Education. : a vocational program in marketing and sales set up between schools and employers in which the student receives both classroom instruction and on-the-job training.
Hmmm working and going to class. It seems to have been for a sheet metal company.

Mr. BELIN -
What did you do after you graduated from high school?

Mr. BAKER - I think I got married.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, at this time I must go to the court, we have a session of the court today hearing arguments and Mr. Dulles, you are going to be here through the morning, so if you will conduct the meeting from this time on.

Excuse me, gentlemen.

(At this point, the Chief Justice left the hearing room.)

Mr. BELIN - After you got married, sir, what did you do. I mean in the way of vocation?

Mr. BAKER -
I took up a job as a sheetmetal man at the Continental Tin Co.

Mr. BELIN - How long did you work for Continental?

Mr. BAKER - Approximately 3 months.

Mr. BELIN - Then what did you do?

Mr. BAKER - At that time I quit this job and went to the Ford Motor Co.

Mr. BELIN - What did you do at Ford?

Mr. BAKER - Well, at that time I stayed there approximately 11 months and they laid me off and I went to the, I believe they call it Chance Vought at that time, aircraft.

Mr. BELIN - What did you do at Ford, sir?

Mr. BAKER - I was a glass installer, I believe that is what you would call it.

Mr. BELIN - All right.

When you went to this aircraft factory what did you do?

Mr. BAKER - I was a material clerk.

Mr. BELIN - How long did you work for them?

Mr. BAKER - I didn't understand?

Mr. BELIN - How long did you work for the aircraft company?

Mr. BAKER - It seemed like somewhere around a year and a half.

So let's nip this Marrion 'was a good cop but he was always slow' stuff in the bud.
Some are relying on the nickname momma son and the word of Stavis Ellis to suggest Baker was not bright - going so far say he couldn't read, write or add... the cops (as represented by Ellis) had a vested interest in painting Baker as "not real bright" because let's face it, that covers him for a multitude of "sins".
As for the nick-name "Momma Son"... it sounds more like a nick-name for someone a bit effeminate rather stupid.
Some would try to reinforce the "stupid" angle by bringing up Tippit.
But in Tippit's case, the evaluation was by a trained proffesional, not a cop with a motive.
Tippit was not good at writing etc. His employment file shows he had to get others to do his paperwork for him - something that no doubt made him pretty unpopular with colleagues.

Now getting back to Baker - Baker graduated High School, graduated the Police Academy (I think Tippit graduated only due to the GI Bill http://forums.officer.com/t45596/) - and last but not least, Baker worked as a MATERIAL CLERK at Chance Vought.

Here is a description of the work a material clerk does.

https://www.mymajors.com/career/material-clerk/

Receive, store, and issue materials, equipment, and other items from stockroom, warehouse, or storage yard. Keep records and compile stock reports.

Not something a slow momma's son would be tasked with for a year and a half, and graduated high school while working, graduate the academy and work for the force 23 years til retiring in 1977.

What did Marvin Johnson say in his statement:
"After determining the origin of the shots, he jumped from his motor and ran into the building. He found a man who said he was the building manager. Officer Baker and the building manager then went to a stairway and started up the stairs to search the building. On the 4th floor Officer Baker apprehended a man that was walking away from the stairway on that floor. Officer Baker started to search the man, but the building manager stated that the man was an employee of the company and was known to him. Officer Baker released the man and continued his search of the building. Officer Baker later identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man he had seen on the 4th floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

Which part makes him slow or a momma's son? The rushing into a building he thought shots had originated part?

When Patrolman ML Baker identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man that he stopped in the Texas School Book Depository Building, Patrolman Baker was in the Homicide Bureau giving an affidavit and Oswald was brought into the room to talk to some Secret Service men. When Baker saw Oswald he stated, 'that is the man I stopped on the 4th floor of the School Book Depository.'"

Fritz says 4th floor.
http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/26334/rec/9

Stavis recalls 4th floor,
http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/7204/rec/8(page 3)

That's a huge conspiracy Richard... all these folks telling a lie.

What was it Mark Twain said, history is a lie agreed upon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[...]

Ed,

That's wonderful. So Baker wasn't such an idiot, after all.

By the way, what did you mean when you said that Belin's asking Holmes about whether or not Oswald had mentioned Coca-Cola during the 11/24/63 interrogation was "a different question, about a different time" (i.e., had nothing to do with Oswald's alleged claim on 11/24/63 that he went down to the first floor "vestibule" when the "commotion" started)?

Now, if you can't answer my question (see post # 241, this thread), I completely understand. In which case, perhaps Barto or Parker can?

Thanks,

--Tommy :sun

Edited by Thomas Graves
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tommy, I'm trying to get some details on the actual soda machines and empty pick up crates in the building circa 63. One of the things that complicates matters is in those days many people

referred to any soda as a "coke", coke was a generic term. If somebody went to the trouble of saying Dr. Pepper, that likely means they saw a Dr. Pepper. Right now what I don't

know is if soda machines on the first floor and break room were both stocked with both types of sodas. Working on it.

Larry,

I agree with you that "Coke" was commonly used to describe many different soft drinks back in the day, but I'm wondering if "Coca-Cola" was used in the same way. I rather doubt it. Why use four syllables ("Co - Ca - Co - La") when you can get by by using only one ("Coke") to refer to "soda pop" in general?

The machine in the second floor lunch room was definitely a Coca-Cola (brand name) machine, leading me to believe that it dispensed only "Coca-Cola" soda pop. I think the reason so many empty Dr. Pepper bottles can be seen in the "empties" box near the "Coca-Cola" machine is because many workers bought their (perhaps more popular?) Dr. Pepper from the machine on the first floor and took them up to the second floor lunch room on their breaks and during lunchtime, drank them there, and rather than take the empty bottles back downstairs to put in the "empties" box near the Dr. Pepper machine, put them in the Coca-Cola "empties" box on the second floor, instead.

A small thing I just now noticed about the way Belin asked Holmes the question might give us a clue as to what, exactly, Belin was asking him about. He asked, "Was Oswald drinking a Coca-Cola, or anything like that? (Or words to that effect.)

It seems to me that if Belin was using the term "Coca-Cola" in a generic-kind-of-way to mean just "soda pop" or "soft drink," he wouldn't have added the or anything like that? because to do so would have been redundant. I seriously doubt that Belin was wondering if Oswald was drinking a bottle of Evian, a plastic bottle of organic carrot juice, or a glass (?) bottle of apple juice. My intuition tells me he must have been talking about carbonated beverages, and Coca-Cola (brand name) in particular.

--Tommy :sun

PS Note the brand name "Coca-Cola" on the "empties" box in the second floor lunch room. Which strengthens my suspicion that the machine it was close to dispensed only "Coca-Cola" soda pop, if you will.

Bumped for Larry Hancock

Edited by Thomas Graves
Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I recall people in this part of the country commonly saying "coke" for soda, I do also recall them using the term "Coke-Cola" specifically for Coke - sometimes its hard to get

the pronunciation because of our accents...grin. Its a purely subjective impression but I it would sometimes go like this - "hey, lets go get something to drink, who wants what - OK that's three

Dr. Peppers and two Coke Colas (if you were trying to be a wise guy, otherwise you would just say two Cokes...I knew a few wise guys).

Your observations on the second floor machine machine make perfect sense to me. And I think your comment on Belin is interesting, why not just say soda? Or did he want to

generate a generic answer - "yeah, he had a soda pop" for some reason.

Easy to put too much into the wording I suppose, but actually which sort of bottle Oswald was holding might be very important. If he had a Dr Pepper bottle in hand it seems he would

have come up from downstairs... if he had a Coke in hand, there would have to have been sufficient time for him to buy one out of the machine on the second floor before being

challenged.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While I recall people in this part of the country commonly saying "coke" for soda, I do also recall them using the term "Coke-Cola" specifically for Coke - sometimes its hard to get the pronunciation because of our accents...grin. Its a purely subjective impression but I it would sometimes go like this - "hey, lets go get something to drink, who wants what - OK that's three Dr. Peppers and two Coke Colas (if you were trying to be a wise guy, otherwise you would just say two Cokes...I knew a few wise guys).

Your observations on the second floor machine machine make perfect sense to me. And I think your comment on Belin is interesting, why not just say soda? Or did he want to generate a generic answer - "yeah, he had a soda pop" for some reason.

Easy to put too much into the wording I suppose, but actually which sort of bottle Oswald was holding might be very important. If he had a Dr Pepper bottle in hand it seems he would have come up from downstairs... if he had a Coke [sic] in hand, there would have to have been sufficient time for him to buy one out of the machine on the second floor before being challenged.

Larry,

You actually said "Coke-Cola" instead of "Coca-Cola?"

Jesis Maria.

If one of your friends wanted a (brand name) Coca-Cola, would they ask for a "Coke-Cola" or a "Coca-Cola?"

I think I understand correctly that in your neck of the woods people would say "Coke-Cola" when they wanted a (brand name) Coke, right? Or was "Coke-Cola" only used to refer to a soft drink in general? I'm so confused...

What would they say if they wanted a Dr. Pepper? LOL

Fascinating stuff.

--Tommy :sun

PS You do realize that, technically, the machine in the second floor lunch room was a (brand name) Coca-Cola machine, not a (brand name) Coke machine?

Do you think that Jewish, Washington D.C.- born and Iowa-raised David Belin said "Coke-Cola" and it got transcribed incorrectly? What about former Kansan, Harry D. Holmes?

Do you think Oswald might have said "Coke-Cola" to mean Dr. Pepper to Holmes and Company, or to anybody for that matter?

Edited by Thomas Graves
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...