John Armstrong blasts the mail order rifle “evidence”

[Sandy Larsen]

Lance's view is merely Lance's opinion.

There is decisive evidence out there somewhere. Hundreds of millions of postal money orders were processed through the Federal Reserve System every year during the 1960's. Somewhere there are bank manuals, elderly postal or bank employees who were directly and knowledgably involved in the process, other processed money orders and similar resources that would settle once and for all whether punch card postal money orders were stamped by banks as they made their way through the Federal Reserve collection process and whether the "failure" of a this particular postal money order to bear any stamp other than the Klein's deposit stamp would have been fatal. This issue could be resolved by some diligent inquiry, but what fun would that be? It's far more fun - and far more likely to sell books - to speculate that a veritable team of FBI, Secret Service, Postal Service and Treasury Department officials were involved in an elaborate scheme of fabrication and deception. Has anyone noticed that the "evidence" Sandy now regards as dispositive in not the evidence on which Armstrong relied at all in formulating his claims? And that the "evidence" Armstrong did rely on has gone poof? And that massive new evidence to the contrary, such as the File Locator Number, has surfaced and been blithely ignored? As one who truly has no dog in this fight, I'm just following the evidence where it, logic, common sense, and reasonable inferences and probabilities seem to lead. If extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, I would respectfully suggest that the "evidence" on which you rely does not come close to the level of being "extraordinary." If the postal money order is such a critical issue, I would suggest that someone do the sort of diligent research that Armstrong should have done before making his claims and then get back to us. And I am emphatically not talking about vague and off-the-cuff questions to anonymous bank officials, which are then reported back to us with assurances in the vein of "Yeah, he really seemed to know what he was talking about, and he agreed with everything I said."

Lance,

I will note that, between you, myself, and John Armstrong, I am the only one relying solely on hard evidence.

As for this statement of yours:

And that massive new evidence to the contrary, such as the File Locator Number, has surfaced and been blithely ignored?

It is fully rational to "ignore" the FLN if the lack of a bank stamp indicates that the PMO wasn't processed. Because if it wasn't processed, then clearly the FLN was forged.

Based on the hard evidence, the conclusion is clearly that the PMO likely wasn't processed. I qualify my conclusion with the word "likely" because something unusual may have occurred. The most obvious being that somehow the Hidell PMO got passed up in the bank stamping step of the collection process.

There is also the SLIM possibility that you are right, that there was some sort of document that was separate from and superseded what was printed in FRB circulars, a document stating that PMOs did not require bank stamping. I find that possibility to be HIGHLY unlikely, because such information could have been printed in the circulars themselves. There is simply no reason to have informed banks of this exception in a separate document.

[Ray Mitcham]

Lance's view is merely Lance's opinion.

There is decisive evidence out there somewhere. Hundreds of millions of postal money orders were processed through the Federal Reserve System every year during the 1960's. Somewhere there are bank manuals, elderly postal or bank employees who were directly and knowledgably involved in the process, other processed money orders and similar resources that would settle once and for all whether punch card postal money orders were stamped by banks as they made their way through the Federal Reserve collection process and whether the "failure" of a this particular postal money order to bear any stamp other than the Klein's deposit stamp would have been fatal. This issue could be resolved by some diligent inquiry, but what fun would that be? It's far more fun - and far more likely to sell books - to speculate that a veritable team of FBI, Secret Service, Postal Service and Treasury Department officials were involved in an elaborate scheme of fabrication and deception. Has anyone noticed that the "evidence" Sandy now regards as dispositive in not the evidence on which Armstrong relied at all in formulating his claims? And that the "evidence" Armstrong did rely on has gone poof? And that massive new evidence to the contrary, such as the File Locator Number, has surfaced and been blithely ignored? As one who truly has no dog in this fight, I'm just following the evidence where it, logic, common sense, and reasonable inferences and probabilities seem to lead. If extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, I would respectfully suggest that the "evidence" on which you rely does not come close to the level of being "extraordinary." If the postal money order is such a critical issue, I would suggest that someone do the sort of diligent research that Armstrong should have done before making his claims and then get back to us. And I am emphatically not talking about vague and off-the-cuff questions to anonymous bank officials, which are then reported back to us with assurances in the vein of "Yeah, he really seemed to know what he was talking about, and he agreed with everything I said."

Lance comment:- "This issue could be resolved by some diligent inquiry, but what fun would that be? It's far more fun - and far more likely to sell books - to speculate that a veritable team of FBI, Secret Service, Postal Service and Treasury Department officials were involved in an elaborate scheme of fabrication and deception. "

Or to state that what you say is right.

If the evidence is there to back your submission, go find it and have some fun.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Ray Mitcham

[Sandy Larsen]

Jim,

As you know, I have determined to my satisfaction that the Hidell money order was forged. I consider the fake PMO to be a "smoking gun." In contrast, there are other unusual things that, when taken alone, can be explained away as innocent mistakes. For example, the 2/15/63 date on the deposit slip you posted, which could conceivably have been an innocent mistake. It's only when the whole picture is being considered that such things can be convincingly exposed as being mistakes made by cover-up artists.

I'd like to play devil's advocate, the purpose being to identify additional "smoking guns." This exercise could prove useful, for example when trying to persuade others that the mail order gun purchase never took place.

No rhetorical sleight-of-hand can keep this evidentiary house of cards from collapsing and utterly destroying the Warren Commission's story of the so-called mail order rifle purchase. Not only is the Magic Money Order demonstrably fraudulent, so is the rest of the so-called “evidence” allegedly supporting it!

We're told that the fine document reproduced below is a deposit slip indicating that Klein's deposited $13,827.98 with the First National Bank of Chicago, which included a $21.45 Magic Money Order from “Lee Harvey Oswald.” Look at it!

Note that there is no bank or date stamp on the document indicating it was actually received by the bank! Try bringing a document like that to your local bank and ask them to come up with THE MONEY YOU CLAIM THEY DIDN'T DEPOSIT TO YOUR ACCOUNT! Without a dated bank stamp, they'll laugh at you, and rightfully so! Anyone can make up a document like that.

I assume that the back side of the deposit slip isn't available to view. Is there any reason to believe that receipt markings should be seen on the front side of the slip?

But that's not the worst problem. Look at the date: 2/15/63—February 15, 1963.

That's right! THE DEPOSIT SLIP FOR THE MAGIC MONEY ORDER WAS ALLEGEDLY WRITTEN OUT A MONTH BEFORE THE MAGIC MONEY ORDER WAS ISSUED IN DALLAS! A MONTH BEFORE!!!

This could have been an innocent mistake.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[David Von Pein]

To David Von Pein...

[...]

Please don't run away to your blog of IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS...

It's a mystery to me as to why you still insist that I have archived "imaginary" material at my website (blog). I guess it won't matter how many times I point out that you're dead wrong about that, you'll still keep using that silly word "imaginary", won't you Jim?

But there's nothing "imaginary" about it. I simply choose to archive the portions of Internet forum discussions that I am involved in at my website. If that's unacceptable to you, Jim Hargrove, that's just tough. It's my site and I'll archive the material the way I want to do it.

If anyone wants to see the entire lengthy discussions that I'm involved in (including every last imaginary theory espoused by the CTers), I provide a link for that very purpose (unless the moderators decide to delete the whole thread, which has happened twice at this forum in the last few days re: the PMO topics; but if the original link survives, I've linked to it, even if I have to use the Wayback Machine at Archive.org to retrieve the threads, which many times I have used).

I'm sure you'll post REAL EVIDENCE ABOVE (or below... or whatever....)

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Let's review....

>> Oswald's writing is on the Hidell money order (per multiple handwriting analysts---all of whom were total boobs or incompetents or liars, per people like DiEugenio).

>> Klein's stamp is on the back of the M.O.

>> A File Locator Number is on the M.O. (which is ONLY put there AFTER the M.O. has gone to the FRB).

>> The M.O. is found just where it should be found (per CD75) on 11/23/63---the Federal Records Center in Alexandria/Washington.

>> The "bleed thru" issue is now a total NON-issue, as proven by Tim Brennan (via his pointing out the "No Bleed-Thru" status that exists in the M.O. as seen in Cadigan Exhibit No. 11.)

But all of the above is FAKE/FRAUDULENT, per many CTers.

You're fighting a losing battle, CTers. The money order was handled by Lee Harvey Oswald, Klein's Sporting Goods, and the Federal Reserve Bank. Maybe it's time for conspiracy theorists to accept that fact.

[...]

ALBERT DOYLE SAID:

Do you understand that the Money Order could be processed, or partly processed, and still be 'handled' through the system in order to frame Oswald?

In other words, it could have a legitimate File Locator stamp and still be planted on Oswald in order to frame him.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I love that constant moving of the goalposts by CTers.

Since it couldn't be more obvious that the Hidell money order now has a proper path to legitimacy (and conspiracy theorists like Albert Doyle know it), we're now treated to more sheer crackpot speculation about how the LEGITIMATE money order (with Oswald's writing on it that was bought and handled by Oswald HIMSELF) was being used to frame Oswald anyway.

The CTer mind is a spinning whirlwind of ever-expanding and forever changing concocted claptrap.

IOW --- Whatever it takes to pretend Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy on 11/22/63, an Internet CTer is ready and eager to do it -- even if the number of goalposts that must be moved reaches triple digits.

[...]

A "Money Order Timeline" summary [yet again]....

Please note that there is solid evidence to support every step of the Hidell money order's journey --- from the post office in Dallas all the way to the document's final resting place at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia (just outside Washington, D.C.)....

1.) The Dallas "G.P.O." Post Office handled the CE788 "Hidell" money order --- via the two stamps applied to the M.O. at the post office (i.e., the "Dallas, Tex.; G.P.O.; Mar. 12, 1963" stamp and the "$21.45" stamp that appear on the money order).

2.) The purchaser, Lee Harvey Oswald, handled the money order --- via the fact that Oswald's handwriting is on the document.

3.) Klein's Sporting Goods Company handled the money order --- via the Klein's "Pay To The Order Of The First National Bank Of Chicago" stamp on the back of the M.O.

4.) The First National Bank of Chicago handled the money order in question --- via the FBI interview with First National Bank Vice President Robert Wilmouth on November 23, 1963 [see CD75]. In that interview, Wilmouth verified that his bank received a $13,827.98 deposit from Klein's on 3/15/63, which contained a U.S. Postal Money Order in the amount of 21 dollars and 45 cents. Wilmouth also verified that the subject money order was sent to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on March 16, 1963.

5.) The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago handled the Hidell money order --- via the presence on the document of the ten-digit "File Locator Number" in the upper left corner, which is a number that is stamped on a money order (or check) only after it has reached a Federal Reserve Bank for processing.

6.) And the CE788 money order was recovered on November 23, 1963, by employees of the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia, which is precisely where approximately 75% of the U.S. Postal Money Orders were being sent for storage by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in March of 1963 [see CD75, Page 669].

Now, if ALL of the above things are fake, fraudulent, or just a bunch of lies, then I think we can all agree that miracles are, indeed, possible.

[...]

JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:

...I go back to my original argument: if everything about a transaction is dubious, from A to Z, it is illogical to assume that one last step in the process is genuine. And that is what DVP and Payette want you to believe. Which is why they avoid almost everything else. In fact they do not even want to bring it up. But from Oswald's time cards covering everything that morning...

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I think it's quite possible that Oswald went to the post office and purchased his money order BEFORE he went to work on March 12th. But other possibilities certainly exist as well, as Gary Mack speculated about in this e-mail to me in 2011:

"True, there's no evidence showing Oswald to have been anywhere but J-C-S that day, but do his time sheets list his working hours AND breaks - including lunch - NO. Of course not, they just show that he was paid to be at J-C-S for a full day.....and he was. As for Oswald's J-C-S times sheet, researcher Mary Ferrell, whom I had great respect for, wrote, "OSWALD'S time sheet for March 12 is evidence that he probably lied sometimes about his hours. On the day he ordered the rifle, he signed in from 8:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m., (Exhibit no. 1855, Vol. 23, p. 605)." She then wrote that the post office opened at 8am, after noting Harry Holmes' testimony that the envelope was mailed in the early morning. The simple fact that Marina and Marguerite both admitted back then and for years later — I've heard the story directly from both women — that he posed for pictures with the guns he ordered trumps everything else." -- Gary Mack; March 25, 2011

JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:

...to the fact that no one admits giving him the rifle...

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

You expect way too much from the post office clerks eight months after one of them handed a package to a person who was—at the time in March of '63—just one of hundreds of ordinary people who picked up packages at that post office that same day.

JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:

...and that the postal regs would not allow him to get the rifle...

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Well, Jim, I guess you should really be scolding the bumbling patsy framers—yet again—for still another stupid error on their part. The alleged plotters were trying desperately (from the look of things that you claim are "bogus") to make it look as though Lee Harvey Oswald ordered and took possession of Rifle C2766 in March of 1963, and yet they rigged the evidence in such a way so that it would have been impossible (legally) for the patsy to have obtained the "Hidell"-ordered Mannlicher-Carcano through the postal system?

Oh, those brilliant conspirators!

JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:

...and every step in between--this evidentiary trail is bogus. Including THE FACT THAT IT'S THE WRONG RIFLE!!

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

And no matter how many times I point Jimbo to the reasonable explanation which reconciles this "rifle length" discrepancy (linked again HERE), DiEugenio will still insist the discrepancy has never once been explained in a logical manner. Go figure.

Jim, don't you think maybe it's time for conspiracy theorists like yourself to finally shed at least a couple of the conspiracy myths that were debunked and/or fully explained in non-conspiratorial ways years ago? Such as your silly "Wrong Rifle" canard.

And the "Postal Zone 12" theory is very likely another myth that should be dumped at sea as well. Here's why.

[...]

JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:

Armstrong is coming. Guns blazing.

Jon [Tidd] is correct.

And he is also right in asking why on earth did the HSCA or the ARRB never investigate this?

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Why on Earth would they have felt any NEED to investigate such a stupid claim regarding alleged fakery of the Hidell/Oswald money order? As far back as 1964, everybody in officialdom already knew the money order was totally legitimate. And that's because they knew it had Lee Harvey Oswald's very own handwriting all over the front of it, plus the Klein's stamp which proves that Klein's handled it, plus the fact it was found in the exact spot where it should have been found on 11/23/63. What more did they need?

It's only the obsessive conspiracy theorists of the world who have the slightest desire to pursue this subject to the ends of the Earth. And that's because they'll do anything they can--no matter how far-fetched--in order to take that rifle out of the hands of the man who obviously purchased it, Lee H. Oswald.

And the ARRB's job certainly wasn't to "investigate" anything anyway. (Doug Horne's crazy notions notwithstanding.) Why in the world they took ANY testimony from any witnesses is still a mystery to me. There was no need for it whatsoever.

But this fascination that many CTers continue to have with "Money Order Fakery" isn't surprising to me in the least. I pretty much could have predicted months ago that most of the hardcore Internet conspiracy theorists would never actually have the balls to come out and admit they were wrong about the money order being fraudulent. Because if they were to do that, it would force them to re-examine a few other things relating to Oswald's rifle purchase, such as the order form (CE773) that Oswald sent to Klein's to buy the rifle, plus Waldman Exhibit No. 7, which proves that Klein's did ship the C2766 rifle to Oswald's very own post office box in Dallas and also proves that Klein's did receive payment from a certain "A. Hidell" in the amount of $21.45 via a money order on March 13, 1963.

And if U.S. Postal Money Order #2,202,130,462 is a real and legitimate document that was handled by Lee Harvey Oswald and was mailed to Klein's Sporting Goods by Lee Harvey Oswald, then where can the conspiracy theorists go with the idea that all of that other stuff relating to the same rifle purchase is somehow fake and fraudulent?

In short, if that money order is the real deal, then Lee Harvey Oswald did order a rifle from Klein's Sporting Goods in 1963. And many conspiracists just don't like that idea at all. Right, Mr. DiEugenio?

[...]

There are just too many things about the Hidell PMO that are proving beyond all reasonable doubt, in my opinion, that it is a legitimate document that was handled by every person or company or bank that should have handled it if it had been properly handled and processed in 1963 -- from Oswald himself, to Klein's, to the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, and then to the FRB storage facility in Alexandria/Washington.

So I guess a good question to ask conspiracy theorists at this point might be this question:

How many things that appear to be legitimate about the Hidell money order does it take for a stubborn CTer to admit that the money order is, in fact, very likely a legitimate document?

I also have little doubt that even if a few First National Bank markings had been stamped on the Hidell PMO, there would still be a dedicated group of conspiracists who would continue to claim that the PMO is a fake, with those CTers merely adding any and all FNB endorsements to their list of things that were forged by the unnamed plotters who were allegedly framing Lee Harvey Oswald.

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/10/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-1058.html

Edited March 4, 2016 by David Von Pein

[Guest]

It is fully rational to "ignore" the FLN if the lack of a bank stamp indicates that the PMO wasn't processed. Because if it wasn't processed, then clearly the FLN was forged.

Can you truly not see the logical flaws in this statement? The money order bears the physical imprint of the File Locator Number. The money order was physically located after the assassination at the request of Postal and Secret Service officials at the Federal Records Center where processed money orders were stored. The Secret Service report describes in detail how the money order was easily located by Records Center employees once their machines were up and running, which means that the File Locator Number was likewise duly imprinted on the magnetic tape.

And yet you believe it is "fully rational" to ignore this reality because a Federal Reserve operating circular indicates "cash items" should be "endorsed" - even though at least one highly experienced lawyer (that would be me) has explained (pretty convincingly, I believe) that your reading of the operating circular is not consistent with the principles by which regulations are construed? This is like saying it is fully rational to ignore the Grand Canyon because you have a photo showing no canyon and are convinced it hasn't been photoshopped.

I have today sent the following inquiry to the Postal Museum Library at the Smithsonian Institution:

I am an Arizona lawyer. A "controversy" has arisen within the community of researchers studying the assassination of President Kennedy. It concerns the punch-card Postal Money Order that Lee Harvey Oswald ostensibly used to purchase his rifle in March of 1963. The Postal Money Order is stamped on the bank with the rifle seller's deposit stamp for its account at the First National Bank of Chicago. The First National Bank of Chicago, a Federal Reserve member bank, then submitted the Postal Money Order to its regional Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago for processing and payment as the agent for the Postal Service. The Postal Money Order was subsequently imprinted with a File Locator Number by the Treasury Department and placed into storage at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia. After the assassination, the Postal Money Order was retrieved from the Federal Records Center at the request of Postal officials and the Secret Service. A fringe group within the research community maintains that the Postal Money Order is demonstrably "fake" because it does not bear "bank stamps" from the First National Bank of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. I realize this is a highly technical and esoteric question, but I personally have exhausted all online resources in researching it. I am hopeful that the Library of the Postal Museum may have someone within its circle of contacts who is highly knowledgeable about the processing of Postal Money Orders in the era of 1963 and who perhaps can shed some light on this issue. Thanks very much indeed for any assistance you can provide.

I have already received a response from a real live human being, saying he will be "back in touch." If I were a serious researcher, as opposed to a hyperbolic seller of $90 books, the above is the approach I would have followed before declaring the money order a fake on the basis of an FBI interview in which the subject (Robert Wilmouth) did not actually say anything like I was claiming he had said. But perhaps I'm just fussy.

Let's see some of you other supposed researchers take some measures that look a little more like genuine research than cheerleading.

[David Von Pein]

The Postal Money Order is stamped on the bank [sic] with the rifle seller's deposit stamp for its account at the First National Bank of Chicago.

You meant to say "back" here, instead of "bank", didn't you Lance? (I am, of course, absolutely positive you meant "back", since the word "bank" in that sentence makes no sense at all. So I changed it to "back" when I quoted you for my website page. But I also want to get "official verification" from you that you meant to say "back", so that the change I made on my site will be official, above-board, and non-"imaginary", so that Jim Hargrove won't jump down my throat again.)

Edited March 4, 2016 by David Von Pein

[Guest]

There are just too many things about the Hidell PMO that are proving beyond all reasonable doubt, in my opinion, that it is a legitimate document that was handled by every person or company or bank that should have handled it if it had been properly handled and processed in 1963 -- from Oswald himself, to Klein's, to the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, and then to the FRB storage facility in Alexandria/Washington.

So I guess a good question to ask conspiracy theorists at this point might be this question:

How many things that appear to be legitimate about the Hidell money order does it take for a stubborn CTer to admit that the money order is, in fact, very likely a legitimate document?

I also have little doubt that even if a few First National Bank markings had been stamped on the Hidell PMO, there would still be a dedicated group of conspiracists who would continue to claim that the PMO is a fake, with those CTers merely adding any and all FNB endorsements to their list of things that were forged by the unnamed plotters who were allegedly framing Lee Harvey Oswald.

You and I, DVP, have fallen down a rabbit hole where the normal rules of evidence and logic simply do not apply. I can see this, you can see this, others can see this, but the residents of the rabbit hole cannot see this because they are operating according to the rules of evidence and logic that apply within the rabbit hole. It's a simple as that. The rabbit hole has sturdy brick walls, and you and I are only beating our heads against them.

Why did no one before Armstrong discover all of the obvious fakery surrounding the money order? Precisely as you suggest, because there was nothing to discover. By the rules of rabbit hole evidence and logic, however, the non-discovery itself becomes further "proof" of just how widespread and diabolical the conspiracy was.

Although some have taken umbrage at my references to religious fundamentalists and other communities of true believers, those references were not intended to be insulting. (OK, references to "loons" and that sort of thing were intended to get under the skin of the Armstrong cheerleaders, but you and I have been the target of similar gibes and worse.) I actually do have pretty wide experience with the rabbit hole logic of such communities. It is simply a fact that such communities become so fixated upon a notion that the normal rules of evidence and logic fall by the wayside. There is a fascinating 1956 book, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World, that explores how such communities remain intact even after the notion on which they have been fixated collapses like the house of cards it was. Precisely as you suggest, they simply move the goal posts and declare any and all new evidence to be fake. The members of even the wildest of such communities are not necessarily "mentally disturbed" in any clinical sense; any number of psychological factors can contribute to making a community such as this attractive to a "normal" person. I am not equating the Armstrong cheerleaders to such a community, merely suggesting that they do operate by rules of evidence and logic that apply only within the walls of their community. For this reason, nothing - even a definitive response from the Postal Museum Library - will ever persuade them the money order is genuine and all the brouhaha has been much ado about nothing. My participation here has not been because I find the silly money order issue to be fascinating or worthy of hours of my time, but because I do find observing how these communities operate to be fascinating.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Guest

[Guest]

The Postal Money Order is stamped on the bank [sic] with the rifle seller's deposit stamp for its account at the First National Bank of Chicago.

You meant to say "back" here, instead of "bank", didn't you Lance?

Yes, right. Thanks. Now that I have a contact, I'll correct that.

[Sandy Larsen]

Here's another fine document:

The previously mentioned $13,827.98 deposit contained hundreds of items for deposit that are listed on 5 pages of adding machine tape (see below). According to Waldman there are two entries in the amount of $21.45, both listed in the column "Checks on other Chicago Banks." One was supposed to be an American Express money order and the other was supposed to be a postal money order.

However, a close examination of this WC document reveals there were a half-dozen deposit items in the amount of $21.45 ($21.45 items noted in green by David Josephs), and none were identifiable as to cash, check, money order, bank draft, etc. There is no way that Waldman, or anyone examining this list of deposit items, would know the source (check, money order, etc) of a particular item. And when an FBI report states that Waldman (or anyone else) identified a $21.45 money order from this list, then we know that such information was simply not true.

Actually Jim, there is a very simple explanation for this.

The FBI initially searched through Klein's internal invoices looking for the rifle with serial number C2766. They had to manually inspect thousands of these invoices (which is why it took seven hours to find the correct one).

The C2766 internal invoice showed that the rifle was purchased with a money order made out for $21.45.

Then the FBI inspected microfilmed purchase orders (described as "order letter" by Chief Curry), looking for one ordering a Carcano rifle and paid for with a $21.45 money order. This searched yielded two candidates orders.... one paid for with a postal MO, the other with an American Express MO.

Thus, of the numerous $21.45 entries on the deposit slip, two were known to have been paid for with a $21.45 money order.

Please, anybody, correct me if I am wrong in my thinking here.

[Guest]

I am heartened by the fact that I have now had an exchange involving several emails with my contact at the Postal Museum. I sent him a photo of the money order itself to clarify what I was talking about. This may go nowhere, but librarians can be some of the most helpful people on earth and it's clear that he is more than just some unhelpful website monitor. There is or was a guy who was clearly the acknowledged expert on the historical aspects of postal money orders and wrote several articles; I am hoping my email finds its way to him, but I don't know whether he is still alive. I am not going to weigh back in on this topic (translation: I am not going to keep beating my head against the wall of the rabbit hole) unless and until I learn something definitive - but I will weigh back in even if the Postal Museum responds, "My God, this is astounding! The money order is a blatant fake! Can we get wholesale discount on 500 copies of Harvey and Lee?"

Edited March 4, 2016 by Guest

[David Von Pein]

The Postal Money Order is stamped on the bank [sic] with the rifle seller's deposit stamp for its account at the First National Bank of Chicago.

You meant to say "back" here, instead of "bank", didn't you Lance?

Yes, right. Thanks. Now that I have a contact, I'll correct that.

Repeating my 10:43 AM edit from my earlier post:

(I am, of course, absolutely positive you meant "back", since the word "bank" in that sentence makes no sense at all. So I changed it to "back" when I quoted you for my website page. But I also want to get "official verification" from you that you meant to say "back" [which Lance has provided], so that the change I made on my site will be official, above-board, and non-"imaginary", so that Jim Hargrove won't jump down my throat again.)

Edited March 4, 2016 by David Von Pein

[Sandy Larsen]

It is fully rational to "ignore" the FLN if the lack of a bank stamp indicates that the PMO wasn't processed. Because if it wasn't processed, then clearly the FLN was forged.

Can you truly not see the logical flaws in this statement?

When writing this statement:

"It is fully rational to "ignore" the FLN if the lack of a bank stamp indicates that the PMO wasn't processed. Because if it wasn't processed, then clearly the FLN was forged."

I did not take into account anything superfluous to the statement. You did when you read and evaluated it. Which I suppose explains why you think the statement is logically flawed.

The statement is a self-consistent, completely logical remark.

Edited March 4, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[David Josephs]

I am heartened by the fact that I have now had an exchange involving several emails with my contact at the Postal Museum. I sent him a photo of the money order itself to clarify what I was talking about. This may go nowhere, but librarians can be some of the most helpful people on earth and it's clear that he is more than just some unhelpful website monitor. There is or was a guy who was clearly the acknowledged expert on the historical aspects of postal money orders and wrote several articles; I am hoping my email finds its way to him, but I don't know whether he is still alive. I am not going to weigh back in on this topic (translation: I am not going to keep beating my head against the wall of the rabbit hole) unless and until I learn something definitive - but I will weigh back in even if the Postal Museum responds, "My God, this is astounding! The money order is a blatant fake! Can we get wholesale discount on 500 copies of Harvey and Lee?"

I'm sure we'll be able to get you a good deal on those books...

http://ctka.net/2015/JosephsMOTimeline.pdf is a link to a timeline I compiled from the various sources of Evidence on the PMO. By putting these events into their proper perspective we can see the dual lines of the FBI, SS and USPS Inspectors as they find this PMO a number of times throughout Saturday

http://ctka.net/2015/JosephsRiflePart1.pdf is a link to the full analysis of this evidence. Page 54 has the FBI report on Wilmouth the 1st Nat'l Bank's VP who tells us about this deposit and provides subtotals for the tapes which are not reflected in Waldman's evidence. The deposit dated 2/15/63 matches the tapes from 3/13/63 yet does not jive with what Wilmouth says is in this deposit.

You see, while this thread shows how difficult it is to pin down evidence related to the PMO it distracts from the real issue - there is no evidence Kleins ever had C2766 to ship in March in the first place other than a list of 100 rifles for which not a single other rifle has EVER been found - only C2766. There is also nothing to refute the locations the FBI claimed did not sell the rifle even though as we see below, 2766 appears in a shipment in June to Empire Wholesale. As we come to learn - there were no rifles without prefixes in the 100 rifle shipment claimed to go to Kleins so to assume these 1300 rifles did not have a letter prefix appears to be quite a stretch.

In addition, SOP for Rupp and Crescent is to accumulate orders and then instruct Rupp to remove rifles and prepare them to ship when enough orders are ready to go from Kleins. The Hidell Order of C20-T750 being shipped in March and recorded on the microfilm with 900+ other orders would have to be part of a larger # of shipments of C20-T750 orders, fulfilled by any one of the other 99 rifles.

If this was going on for all C20-T750 orders - a $19.95 36" TS carbine being replaced with the larger 40" FC rifle then surely ALL C20-T750 orders fulfilled after Feb 22 would have shipped one of these rifles. The FBI could shut the door on the entire matter by showing Kleins record of doing the same thing with all their C20-T750 orders... yet not one is ever seen, ever offered and not one of the 99 rifles has EVER been found.

The PMO is a distraction - part of the minutia Salandria warned us about. Since Oswald's Jagger time card shows he was at work all day the 12th, and there are no records from the USPS that a PMO stub was left behind that matched to the Hidell PMO as Holmes claims - all the USPS and FBI had to do was show the USPS record of that PMO... but that never happens...

We are expected to take the word of the FBI and Harry Holmes - both of which have shown their proclivity to alter, remove and add evidence as they see fit.

Page 29:

Rupp is the only person in this story who sends “Crescent-to-Klein’s” order info to Feldsott in NYC after shipment. For Feldsott to have order info for a June 18, 1962 shipment, Rupp or some other rifle dealer needs to have completed an order and sent it to Klein’s. Rupp offers no such evidence while the Century Arms to Empire Wholesale Sporting goods order of June 29, 1962 had a “2766” Carcano in the shipment. Amazingly none of the 1300 rifles sent from Canada have the letter prefix – whether this is “C”2766 cannot be known.

WCD881 p67 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11277&search=rupp#relPageId=70&tab=page

[Sandy Larsen]

David J.,

The reason the PMO issue is important (not a distraction) is because it has a short learning curve and is easy to understand.

[Sandy Larsen]

I have today sent the following inquiry to the Postal Museum Library at the Smithsonian Institution:

I am an Arizona lawyer. A "controversy" has arisen within the community of researchers studying the assassination of President Kennedy. It concerns the punch-card Postal Money Order that Lee Harvey Oswald ostensibly used to purchase his rifle in March of 1963. The Postal Money Order is stamped on the bank with the rifle seller's deposit stamp for its account at the First National Bank of Chicago. The First National Bank of Chicago, a Federal Reserve member bank, then submitted the Postal Money Order to its regional Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago for processing and payment as the agent for the Postal Service. The Postal Money Order was subsequently imprinted with a File Locator Number by the Treasury Department and placed into storage at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia. After the assassination, the Postal Money Order was retrieved from the Federal Records Center at the request of Postal officials and the Secret Service. A fringe group within the research community maintains that the Postal Money Order is demonstrably "fake" because it does not bear "bank stamps" from the First National Bank of Chicago and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. I realize this is a highly technical and esoteric question, but I personally have exhausted all online resources in researching it. I am hopeful that the Library of the Postal Museum may have someone within its circle of contacts who is highly knowledgeable about the processing of Postal Money Orders in the era of 1963 and who perhaps can shed some light on this issue. Thanks very much indeed for any assistance you can provide.

Talk about a loaded question!

Regardless, I think you're asking the wrong people. Other than for the Postmaster General and those close to him, those in the Postal Service wouldn't know anything about FRB regulations or bank procedures.

The obvious people to contact would be those who actually stamped financial instruments... bank employees.