Pat Speer

He was told there were shots. He subsequently said "Well, that loud sound I heard must have been a shot." But he only heard one and the loud sound he heard came from directly above him over by the elevators, and not from the open windows directly below the assassination window. It follows then that he heard something other than a shot. He was also consistent in that he returned to work five minutes or so after the shots were fired. And well, hell, if one assumes he was correct then it seems likely the loud sound he heard had something to do with Baker and Truly coming down from the roof. And, by golly, Truly said he saw Dougherty on the fifth floor as he came down in the elevator. That Dougherty returned to work AFTER the shooting thereby becomes the only logical conclusion...one which the WC staff avoided like the plague. From reading all the testimony, moreover, it becomes clear that they knew this. If not, they would have asked Piper at what time he talked to Dougherty after the shooting. In fact, they probably did ask him this...just off the record. And when he didn't tell them what they wanted to hear they both failed to ask him about it on the record, and bad-mouthed him in the Warren Report--saying he was confused while at the same time using him as a witness against Adams.

I don't know. He said he ate lunch in the Domino room. But he may have been in the bath room when the actual shots were fired. In any event, he was almost certainly somewhere near the back of the building seeing as he didn't hear any shots.

Dougherty was downstairs at the time. They twisted his testimony to make it look like he was upstairs. If he was where they said he was, furthermore, he would have been but 15-20 feet from where Oswald was racing past him on an open floor. There was no way he could have missed him. So they left a lot of questions unasked and hoped no one would notice.

The movie received lots of attention and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. As a documentary, of course, it didn't play in drive-ins or at the mall. It was confined to the art houses, where, prior to the advent of cable, all docs went to live or die.

It's a curiosity for which I'm not sure there's an answer. If I recall the FBI was giving the WC grief at this time. The FBI (essentially Hoover and his suck-ups) was upset that the WC was thinking of using non-FBI experts to confirm the FBI's conclusions regarding the forensic evidence, and they threatened to cut off all assistance to the WC. Then suddenly the DPD goes out and interviews some of the depository witnesses. This may have been at the request of the WC. But, get this, these reports were not sent the WC for months, and at least two of them were not sent at all and can only be found in the Dallas archives. So I think there's an untold story there.

Sorry, it is the Oswald-did-it-crowd that avoids the evidence like the plague. Well, at least the evidence in its proper context. 1. "The rifle bag with Oswald's palm print" that was twice the size of the bag described by Buell Frazier, who saw Oswald carrying a bag that morning...and was not photographed in situ nor by the DPD on the day of the shooting, that had an identifiable print in the evidence photos that was not identified, and that was "found" where a number of people had been standing before its discovery without...hmmm...noticing it. And to make matters worse, that was misrepresented by the WC to suggest Oswald had carried it by reversing the location of the supposed Oswald prints. They said the palm print was on the bottom and the fingerprint on the middle when it was the other way around. So, no. Not a solid piece of evidence. Its introduction in a court of law may have led to a reasonable doubt. 2. "The rifle with Oswald's print on the barrel" that had a misaligned scope that had settled in when first tested, meaning it was not accurate and could only have been fired with accuracy at Kennedy by an experienced shooter with lots of practice. So, not Oswald. As far as the print...hmmm...no print was discovered on the barrel by the FBI and the only print seen on the rifle in the first day photos was on the trigger guard, which the FBI repeatedly refused to ID as Oswald's. Making matters worse, the supposed barrel print lift was not mentioned to the FBI or sent to the FBI for days afterward, and was only determined to have come from the rifle after the commission's report was completed, when the FBI reported in unsworn testimony that marks on the lift resembled marks on the rifle...but FAILED to provide clear photos demonstrating as much, or even where this was on the rifle. And then, of course, there's a problem with the trigger guard prints. Prints, plural. A taped off print was visible on the rifle when Lt. Day walked through a field of reporters on the 22nd, that disappeared from the record, and that's not even to mention that the DPD's photos of the other print would eventually become available, and revealed as identifiable, which makes it curious as heck that the FBI refused to ID it as Oswald's print. Hmmm...could it be that it was someone else's print? And wait, oh yeah, good ole Lt. Day mentioned that there was yet another print that he didn't get to before the FBI scooped up the rifle--that he thought was the best print. And this print just disappeared from the record. The FBI said no identifiable prints were found n the rifle...period. So, no, not a solid piece of evidence. Its introduction into evidence could have raised lots of questions that may have led to reasonable doubt. 3. "His prints on the sniper nest boxes" for which there was no proper chain of custody. Both Det. Studebaker and Lt. Day claimed they'd personally developed a print on box D that they then tore off the box. Amazingly, they failed to take a picture of this box...prior to the 25th. Even more amazingly, they then submitted photos of this box with the torn-off piece back in place to the FBI, without noting that this was a photo taken three days after the shooting. (It took an FBI investigation to clear this up.) Lt. Day then testified that he'd signed his name to the piece of cardboard on the day of the shooting, when the photos with the cardboard back in place--taken on the 25--prove this to be untrue. Even worse, Capt. Fritz's records reflect that there was another print on this box that then went whoosh! Also telling...the FBI was so skeptical of this print--which was supposedly developed without being photographed in situ--and then tore off the box--that they pretended in their reports and testimony that it had been cut off the box--y'know, the way a professional concerned with the evidence would do. As far as the other boxes....the only other Oswald prints were found on Box A, which disappeared from the sniper's nest on the day of the shooting and was replaced by a box made to look like it for the photos taken on the 25th. So where was it? What happened to it? The only innocent explanation I can come up with is that Studebaker or some other numb nuts from the DPD took it home as a trophy. But, failing that, it seems mighty suspicious that the FBI found Oswald's prints on this box--and that this was the only box missing from the 23rd to the 25th. So, no, not a solid piece of evidence. The introduction of these prints would have raised lots of questions that may have led to reasonable doubt.

At one point, I absorbed all the testimony regarding what happened in the building and noticed a disgusting pattern. From patspeer.com, Chapter 4: A Quick Review: the Suspicious Omissions (and Commissions, with a Few New Additions) in Chronological Order From reviewing the suspicious omissions, and placing them in chronological order, one can get a sense of where the Commission went astray. It went astray because it wasn't willing to get it right. It seems clear, moreover, that, prior to taking any testimony, Messieurs Ball and Belin had already decided to push a scenario in which Oswald stayed upstairs during lunchtime and raced downstairs after the shooting, and Jack Dougherty rode the elevator from the fifth floor on down as Baker and Truly raced up the stairs to the fifth floor. 12-20-63. The FBI omits from a report on an interview with Eddie Piper that Piper feels certain he saw Oswald on the first floor around 12:00. March 64--September 64. The Warren Commission fails to call Carolyn Arnold to testify, even though she told FBI investigators on 11-26-63 that she believed she saw Oswald on the first floor around 12:15. March 64--September 64. The Warren Commission fails to call Carolyn Walther to testify, even though she told FBI investigators on 12-4-63 that she saw a man with a rifle on an upper floor of the school book depository, and that there was another man behind him, to his left. March 1964--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to call Lillian Mooneyham to testify, even though she told the FBI on 1-8-64 that she saw a man standing in the sniper's nest at a time the Commission presumes Oswald to have been running down the back stairs. March 1964--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to call Sandra Styles to testify, even though she could confirm Vickie Adams' claim she raced down the back stairs just after the shooting and didn't see Oswald. March 1964--September 1964. Warren Commission attorneys Joseph Ball and David Belin fail to follow-up on the Secret Service's interviews of Pierce Allman and Terry Ford, in which they placed themselves near the back of the building at the time the commission presumed Adams and Styles had raced down the back stairs. 3-11-64. In a desperate attempt at getting them to change their recollection of the size of the bag they saw Oswald carrying on the morning of the 22nd (which they remembered as being too small to hold the rifle found in the school book depository) Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball asks Buell Frazier and his sister Linnie Mae Randle to hold their hands apart to demonstrate the length of the bag. He then asks them to do this again, and again, at least ten times, according to Frazier, giving them the feeling he won't stop asking until they lie and tell him the bag was longer than they believed it was. 3-24-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to follow up with witness Harold Norman and find out how his not playing dominoes at lunch made him think someone else was in the room--an inquiry that would almost certainly have led to Norman's saying he thought this someone else was Oswald. 3-24-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to point out during testimony or subsequently acknowledge that James Jarman and Harold Norman's claim they re-entered the building via the back door towards the end of their lunch time supported Oswald's claim he'd been sitting in a room with a view of the back door area during lunch time, and had observed Jarman and Norman. 3-25-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorneys Joseph Ball and David Belin fail to follow-up on Officer Marrion Baker's claim he saw two white men by the elevators when he came into the building with Oswald's boss Roy Truly, at a time when no white men besides Baker and Truly were known to be on the first floor. 4-1-64. Warren Commission attorney David Belin argues with witness Ronald Fischer about the color of the hair of the man Fischer saw staring out the window of the sniper's nest. According to Fischer, Belin tries to "intimidate" him, because Oswald's hair was not as light as the hair of the man Fischer saw, and he "wanted me to tell him that the man was dark-headed and I wouldn't do it." (Note: this was detailed in a December 1978 Dallas Morning News article by Earl Golz.) 4-7-64--Warren Commission attorney David Belin shows Vickie Adams a diagram of the first floor depicting where she claimed she saw Lovelady and Shelley, but fails to enter this diagram into evidence. 4-7-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Billy Lovelady any of a number of relevant questions regarding Eddie Piper and Jack Dougherty's actions after the shooting. 4-7-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball also fails to ask Lovelady if he saw Roy Truly and Officer Baker by the elevators, and whether or not he could be one of the white men observed by Baker. 4-7-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball asks William Shelley if he saw Roy Truly enter the depository building, but fails to ask him the more important question if he saw Truly and officer Baker by the elevators, and whether or not he could be one of the white men observed by Baker. 4-7-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask William Shelley any of a number of relevant questions regarding Eddie Piper and Jack Dougherty's actions after the shooting. 4-7-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission's diagrams for the first floor of the school book depository strangely fail to include the west loading dock, through which Shelley and Lovelady re-entered the building, which was presumably left unsecured for some time after the shooting. 4-7-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorneys Joseph Ball and David Belin fail to interview Gloria Calvery and re-enact the actions of William Shelley and Billy Lovelady after the shooting (in order to develop a timeline for Shelley and Lovelady's return to the building, which is essential to their assessing the credibility of Vickie Adams), even though Ball and Belin know from their testimony that Shelley and Lovelady's sense of time for the moments immediately following the shooting are at odds with the re-enactments Ball and Belin had already performed. 4-7-64--September 1964. Ball and Belin fail to consult newsreel footage which could help them establish the timing of Shelley and Lovelady's walk around the building, which could, in turn, help them establish the credibility of Vickie Adams' claim she ran down the back stairs just after the shooting, and saw Shelley and Lovelady on the first floor. 4-7-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to ask Joe Molina about Vickie Adams even though it has reason to suspect he would confirm Adams' claim she was outside on the front steps within a few minutes of the shooting. 4-7-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to ask Mrs. Avery Davis about Vickie Adams even though it has reason to suspect she would confirm Adams' claim she was outside on the front steps within a few minutes of the shooting. 4-7-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney David Belin fails to follow-up and establish the identity of a policeman observed by Vickie Adams just after the shooting, even though the identification of this policeman could help the Commission establish the veracity of Miss Adams' claim she raced down the back stairs just after the shooting, and didn't see Oswald. 4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney David Belin fails to follow-up and clarify the record when Charles Givens testifies to leaving his coat in the domino room upon his arrival at work, but then going back up to the sixth floor to get his jacket after everyone else had left for lunch--a brand new addition to Givens' story that allowed Belin and the Commission to place Oswald in the proximity of the sniper's nest shortly before the shooting. 4-8-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney David Belin fails to point out in testimony or subsequently acknowledge that Givens' new story was in conflict with both his previous recollections, and that of his co-workers. 4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney David Belin goes against the precedent established during the testimony of Bonnie Ray Williams and others and allows Charles Givens to dispute the claims of an FBI report--without putting the source of these claims on the record. 4-8-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to follow-up with Givens' 11-22-63 lunch partner, Edward Shields, to see if he will confirm Givens' claim he saw Oswald on the sixth floor around 11:55. 4-8-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney David Belin, the man behind a number of re-enactments, fails to re-enact Givens' purported sighting of Oswald, to see if Givens could actually have seen Oswald where he said he saw him. 4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Eddie Piper where on the first floor he saw Oswald at 12:00, and thereby conceals from the Commission and public that Piper felt certain he saw Oswald just where Oswald said he was during the lunch period--in the domino room. 4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Eddie Piper about his discussion with Jack Dougherty, something that was desperately needed for the establishment of Dougherty as the passenger coming down in the west elevator after the shooting. 4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Jack Dougherty what time he came down for lunch, and thereby conceals that Dougherty had previously claimed he was on the sixth floor until 12, and would thereby have been on the sixth floor when Charles Givens claimed he last saw Oswald. 4-8-64. Warren Commission Attorney Joseph Ball fails to ask Jack Dougherty if he called the west elevator to the first floor after lunch, or if it was on the ground floor waiting for him, something that Dougherty may not have remembered, but something that was of vital importance and needed to be asked. 4-8-64--September 1964. The Warren Commission fails to test whether or not a rifle shot from the sixth floor sniper's nest window could have been heard by Jack Dougherty, standing near the opposite end of the building, as a sound coming from above him. 4-8-64--September 1964. Ball, Belin, and the Warren Commission fail to explore the possibility Dougherty went upstairs to work after the shooting, after someone else had taken the west elevator to the ground floor. 4-8-64--September 1964. Attorneys Joseph Ball and David Belin and the Warren Commission as a whole fail to acknowledge that their conclusion Jack Dougherty rode the west elevator down to the first floor as Baker and Truly ran upstairs places Dougherty on the fifth floor by the west elevator as Oswald crossed an open stretch of floor before him. 4-8-64. Warren Commission attorney David Belin allows Dallas Police Inspector J. Herbert Sawyer to testify as though Charles Givens' new-found story (about seeing Oswald near the sniper's nest after everyone else had left the sixth floor) had been common knowledge on 11-22-63, when Belin knew this wasn't true. 5-13-64. Dallas Police Detective Jack Revill testifies in support of Givens' new-found story, and offers Dallas Police Detective V. J. Brian as a witness to his discussion with Givens, only to have Warren Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin fail to ask Brian about Givens in testimony taken just after Revill dropped his smelly surprise. 5-14-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball cuts off Eddie Piper after Piper volunteers that he has no idea who brought the elevators down just after the shots, and steers him to what he believes is a more productive course--that he failed to see Vickie Adams come down the stairs. 5-14-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball not only fails to ask Eddie Piper the questions about Jack Dougherty he'd claimed in a memo needed to be asked, but uses the failure of Piper to provide answers to these never-asked questions as a means of discrediting him. 5-14-64--September 1964. Warren Commission attorney Joseph Ball inexplicably fails to ask William Shelley about Jack Dougherty's 4-8-64 testimony, in which Dougherty claimed Shelley had told him he saw Oswald with a large package on 11-22-63. 5-19-64. The February 17-18 statements of Vickie Adams, who claimed she raced down the stairs just after the shooting, and Otis Williams, who claimed he raced up to the fourth floor shortly after the shooting (and who later claimed he'd taken the back stairs up to the second floor just after the shooting), are inexplicably missing from a batch of statements taken by the Dallas Police that are only now provided the Warren Commission. 6-4-64--September 1964. Vickie Adams' boss, Dorothy Ann Garner, lets it be known she'd be willing to testify in support of Adams' and Styles' claim they raced down the stairs after the shooting, and goes one step further by claiming she saw Baker and Truly run up the stairs after Adams and Styles ran down the stairs...and is totally blown off by the Warren Commission... June-64--September 1964. Chapter IV in the Commission's Final report is presented, approved, and sold to the public even though it includes an egregious lie, which, no surprise, helps sell Oswald's guilt. In support of the Commission's conclusion Vickie Adams was mistaken, and that Oswald did in fact race down the stairs within a minute of the shooting, the report claims: "Victoria Adams, who worked on the fourth floor of the Depository Building, claimed that within about 1 minute following the shots she ran from a window on the south side of the fourth floor, down the rear stairs to the first floor, where she encountered two Depository employees--William Shelley and Billy Lovelady. If her estimate of time is correct, she reached the bottom of the stairs before Truly and Baker started up, and she must have run down the stairs ahead of Oswald and would probably have seen or heard him..." It then strikes: "Shelley and Lovelady, however, have testified that they... reentered the building by the REAR door several minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the front entrance". So where was the lie? I sure hope you caught it. It was the bit about Shelley and Lovelady re-entering the building through the REAR door several minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the front door. While Shelley and Lovelady both struggled with their time estimates, and thereby helped the Commission in its effort to discredit Adams, they also were consistent in that they both testified--in the testimony the Commission cited by footnote to support they'd re-entered by the rear door, moreover-- to re-entering the building through the side door. By claiming they re-entered the building through the REAR door, instead of the side door, the commission had effectively doubled the distance the men were presumed to have covered in the "several minutes" of their estimate.

When Baker and Truly looked up from the ground floor they saw that both elevators were locked on the upper floors. When they got up to the fifth, however, there was but one. IOW, an elevator descended as they ran up. Well, who was in that elevator? The WC pretended it was Dougherty, who said he took an elevator down after going back to work and going upstairs. But there's a problem with this. Dougherty specified that he went back to work around 12:35 or so. So that would mean he took an elevator back up that had been brought down by someone else. Well, the WC in the person of Joe Ball couldn't have that, so they made out that the loud sound Dougherty heard on the fifth floor was one of the three shots fired from the sixth floor, and that he had thereby returned to work before 12:30 . But this was disingenuous. He heard but one loud sound from above him, and not from the open windows on the far side of the building. And he claimed he was standing near the elevators at the time of the shooting, which would have put him in sight of Jarman, Williams and Norman when they ran to the west side windows a few seconds later. And, well, they didn't see him and he didn't see or hear them... And here's the kicker... Truly testified to seeing Dougherty working on the fifth floor as he came back from the roof. It's clear, then, that Dougherty heard a loud sound from above him a few minutes after the shots while working on the fifth floor. Well, Truly and Baker would have to have closed a hatch door up on the roof as they came down, And this door was right near the elevator shaft. So that was almost certainly the sound he heard. So, yeah, someone took the west elevator down after the shooting, and none of the depository employees would cop to it. Ball made out that it was Dougherty, and that the inconsistencies in Dougherty's story were because he was retarded, and had no grasp of time. Well, a few years ago I found an article on Ball in a legal publication and it turns out he was famous for getting rapists off the hook by convincing juries the victims were just too stupid to be believed. If you read Dougherty's testimony in this light, you'll see that Ball set him up to look stupid, so they could say he was in the elevator that came down as Baker and Truly ran up. But it wasn't him...

(6-27-11 interview with Barry Ernest as recounted in his 2011 online article Another Ignored Witness Found) "The focus of my call to her, of course, was Victoria Adams, whether Mrs. Garner was indeed in a position to have seen Baker and Truly or anyone else on the back stairs, and who she had made the comment to that appeared in the Stroud document. "I was at the window with Elsie Dorman, Victoria Adams, and Sandra Styles," she said. Did Miss Adams and Miss Styles leave the window right away, I asked her. "The girls did," she responded. "I remember them being there and the next thing I knew, they were gone." They had left "very quickly…within a matter of moments," she added. What did Mrs. Garner do after that? "There was this warehouse or storage area behind our office, out by the freight elevators and the rear stairway, and I went out there." Her move to that area clearly put her into a position where she could have observed activity on the back stairs as well as on the elevators. But how fast had she arrived there? Mrs. Garner said she immediately went to this area, following "shortly after…right behind" Miss Adams and Miss Styles. She couldn't remember exactly why she went out there, other than to say, "probably to get something." Mrs. Garner said she did not actually see "the girls" enter the stairway, though, arriving on the fourth-floor landing seconds after. When I asked how she knew they had gone down, Mrs. Garner said, "I remember hearing them, after they started down. I remember the stairs were very noisy." Were the freight elevators in operation during this time? "I don't recall that," she answered. "They were very noisy too!" Mrs. Garner said she remained at that spot and was alone for a moment before "several came out back from the office to look out those windows there." The presence of other employees at the west windows was confirmed by Bonnie Ray Williams who, with Harold Norman and James Jarman, had watched the motorcade from the fifth floor and then, after several minutes, made their way to the first floor by way of the stairs. Williams testified he arrived on the fourth floor "where we saw these women looking out of the window." If Victoria Adams went down the stairs when she said she did, and Mrs. Garner was now confirming that, perhaps Miss Adams had descended those stairs so fast she was ahead of Oswald."

You keep running away from the facts, David. The stairs were noisy. Garner followed Styles and Adams back to the stairs. She heard them go down. She then heard and saw Truly and Baker come up. No Oswald in between. The only possibility you should be entertaining then is that Oswald made it past the fourth floor before Adams and Styles reached the stairs. The timing for this is a problem. Thus, the charade put on by Ball/Belin.

I wish I had an 8 year old quote with which to respond. But the reality is that those stairs were not quiet, and that Garner said she followed Adams and Styles as they ran to the stairs. And stayed behind in the storeroom... So, no, she never made out that she was watching the stairs every second. But she was insistent that Baker and Truly came up the stairs AFTER Adams and Styles ran down... For Oswald to have raced down the stairs and be in the second floor break room as Baker and Truly ran up, then, he would have to have raced down BEFORE Adams and Styles reached the stairwell. This was considered highly doubtful by Ball/Belin, so they pretended Adams was wrong about when she ran down the stairs, and ignored the statements of Styles and Garner.

I suspect that many of the tapes were destroyed, and that this wasn't an isolated incident. I remember for sure that the tapes for the 1-22 session in which the WC discussed the possibility Oswald was an agent were supposed to be destroyed...by Warren's supposed bodyguard, Elmer Moore.

The chicken remnants and pop bottle were taken to the DPD on the 22nd and presumably disposed of some months later after Bonnie Ray Williams admitted they were his. The problem is that the Dr. Pepper bottle would almost certainly have had prints on it. Williams was eating chicken after all. So the DPD, if it wasn't the POS outfit we now know it was, should have had reports on the bottle from the first day, which asserted the prints were either too smudged or not Oswald's. That no such report exists indicates then that rather than admit these prints were not Oswald's (and that therefore someone other than Oswald had been near the sniper's nest) the DPD had opted to just throw their reports (and in time the evidence) in the trash. I mean, think about it. They sent a paper bag supposedly found near the sniper's nest to the FBI print lab on the night of the shooting, even though prints are not routinely found on paper, but they failed to send a bottle found near the sniper's nest, that almost certainly had prints? That makes no sense. Unless...they'd already checked...and realized the prints weren't Oswald's....

This is something I looked into. First of all, it is a myth that the un-pulled order forms are evidence suggesting Oswald's guilt. I have read numerous statements from people indicating as such. If you've ever worked in a warehouse, you know that orders are thrown in a basket and that the order pullers grab the orders from the basket and go off to round up the orders. And that they then return with the product and place it on a shipping table. Whereby it is double-checked by an order-checker, and shipped out by a shipper. There were only a few pullers at the TSBD. If one was sloughing off and building a sniper's nest, etc, his co-workers would know because...heck...why aren't there any orders to check and ship? In Oswald's case, the checker was James Jarman and the shipper was Troy West. Jarman said Oswald was working that day and that he even caught an error on one of Oswald's orders and sent him back upstairs to fix it. West never said anything to indicate shipping was slow that day or that anyone was wondering what happened to Oswald. Well, then what about the order forms? The WC was able to verify that the order forms found on the sixth floor were for books stored on the sixth floor, and that there was nothing suspicious about the forms being found on a clipboard on the sixth floor. It only made sense that Oswald would leave his clipboard upstairs when he came down for lunch. So they tried to make out that the clipboard's being found 15 feet or so from where the rifle was found was somehow suspicious. But this was smoke. The combined statements of his co-workers suggested no elevator was available when Oswald came down for lunch, and his leaving the clipboard near the stairwell only made sense. That the rifle was found nearby suggested as well that someone came down the stairs but it was close to the elevator as well. So it might mean simply that the shooter thought of going down the stairs but then decided to stash the rifle and take the elevator. In either case, it does not reflect back on Oswald. I mean, really. The WC concluded Oswald fired the shots. And that he then carried the rifle back across the building and stashed it by the stairs. Did he have the clipboard with him at this time, and, if so, why stash it at all, seeing as it would give him an alibi for being upstairs? Their belief the proximity off the rifle with the clipboard suggested Oswald's guilt was a stupid one. As far as the re-enactment photos....I go into this in detail on my website. The DPD either failed to take important crime scene photos (e.g. the bag supposedly discovered in the sniper's nest in situ...the box from which they'd torn a piece of cardboard in situ) or destroyed them. So they went back on the 25th and took photos of a re-created sniper's nest, with the boxes in what was supposedly their original position. But it was a hoax. The window boxes were moved nearly a foot to the west and a stack of boxes right behind them was removed. Well, this gave the appearance there was much more room than there really was. In any event, they gave these photos to the FBI, who, unbeknownst to the DPD, had taken some photos on the 23rd, that failed to match the re-enacted photos. The FBI then investigated and it was only then, after being caught in their lie, that the DPD admitted the photos were a re-creation performed on the 25th. More troubling perhaps is that the top box in the window stack--the one supposedly containing Oswald's prints--was a different box in the re-enactment photos than in the first day photos, and was a different box than the one subsequently sent to the archives. This suggests, then, that Box A--the only part of the sniper's nest captured in the first day photos that could be linked to Oswald--was missing on the 25th. Well, this would have made it inadmissible should Oswald have come to trial. (Unless, of course, no one noticed, or the DPD offered up a plausible excuse once it was noticed.)

I would like to congratulate Max for making an interesting film. While his own suspicions of Ruth come through in the end, he allowed Ruth plenty of screen time. This allowed her to project herself as a person and not just the boogey-woman some would like her to be. In the end, she wins, IMO. I recently watched Grey Gardens, an award winning film from the 70's about some of Jackie Kennedy's relatives. Edie lives in a rotting mansion, and delights in dancing and flirting with the film-makers. While she comes across as a bit of a fruit-loop, the strength of her character comes across, and the film helped her gain the attention she'd always craved. I feel that your film does the same for Ruth Paine. She gets to tell her story, and a lot of those watching will believe her.

It makes perfect sense to me. I have a currently-married ex-gf who regularly mentions how she thinks we'll end up in a retirement home together. People can connect in a way that transcends time, where they can enjoy each other's company even though they are no longer "lovers".

Presumably under the influence of Dr. John Lattimer, the HSCA FPP concluded that it was indeed a shored exit wound. And this even though Dr. Charles Petty, presumed to have been the FPP member with the most experience with gunshot wounds, was working on a textbook at the time that said shored wounds, while small, are nevertheless invariably larger than the corresponding exit wound. While some, including Dr. Wecht, wish to believe the HSCA FPP members were simply misguided, and anxious to blame it on Oswald, without realizing their conclusions were in contradiction with what they'd claimed elsewhere, I am not able to give them a free pass on this stuff. I think they knew what they were doing, and didn't care. This came to a head, literally, a few years back when I was reading everything I could on gunshot wounds to the brain, and found an article that described Kennedy's wounds to a tee, and reported that such wounds were symptomatic of a blow downwards at the top of the head. I was shocked to realize that the authors of this article were Dr. Russell Fisher (leader of the Clark Panel, and mentor to most of the HSCA FPP) and Dr. Richard Lindenberg, a consultant on Kennedy's wounds to the Rockefeller Commission (and former poopoo). There is no way these guys didn't realize that Kennedy's brain wounds reflected a blow at the top of the head, with the force heading downwards, and not a blow from the back, with the force heading upwards, or even evenly across the top of the head. But I don't know. I'm just a reader. It appears that doctors throw out what they've read (and written) when they see a chance to get in good with Uncle Sam.

It was a memo reporting on the autopsy written in response to a phone call by S and O during the autopsy. It seems obvious to me it was a simple mis-reporting by either S and O or the person receiving the call (most likely the latter) of the fragment found behind the eye. When one looks at the case one finds dozens if not hundreds of such mistakes in both the reports of the media and the reports of the FBI. It is a mistake to make much of it when it appears to be s simple mix-up...such as when people said the rifle was found on the fifth floor or that a bullet was found behind the ear.

I haven't focused much on it, no. But as I recall a number of anti-Castro Cubans were funded by the mob. I seem to recall, moreover, that the Chicago plot led back to Cubans backed by the mob. But I could be confused with another plot. In any event, it's hard to separate the mob from the CIA in that period of time. The mob had the CIA's blessing and encouragement to kill Castro. And the mob looked at this as a get-out-of-jail free card. So it wouldn't surprise me if 1) the mob decided to kill Kennedy and expected the CIA to help them cover it up, or 2) an element of the CIA decided to kill Kennedy using mob-related figures to muddy the waters. I should probably re-read it. But the best look into this mess was performed by Larry Hancock, in Someone Would Have Talked.

I just ate, so my stomach is not in the best condition to read through all this. But it appears that you think the Clark Panel actually concluded the red spot in the cowlick was the shape of the wound measured at autopsy, and was therefore this wound. And this while your own eyes tell you that that measurement is incorrect... Let's use some common sense, shall we? The Clark Panel was tasked with refuting the "junk" in Thompson's book. Among this "junk" was that a trajectory from the sniper's nest through the EOP entrance and exiting the top of the head at Z-313 made no sense. So VOILA! the Clark Panel "discovered" a red spot in the cowlick area that they said must be the actual location for the entrance. But there was more than one measurement for this wound. They couldn't all be wrong, could they? Well, no, they knew they needed to say the measurements were accurate, but for one 4 inch mistake... OOPS. So they pretended/lied that this red spot was 6 by 15 mm, the size of the wound measured at autopsy. (This can be readily observed in the photos they thought you'd never see.) And they pretended/lied that it was one inch to the right of the midline, when it was nowhere near that far to the right. (This can be readily observed in the photos they thought you'd never see.) It was a HOAX, David. Such a hoax even that die-hard LNers like John Canal and Max Holland came to see it as such, and published an article on Max's site proclaiming it as such.

If I recall, they tried to account for the differences by having the JFK figure sit on book or some such thing. In any event, the re-enactment cast great doubt on the SBT. This was one of the prime reasons those supporting the SBT later cooked up some bogus animation--to demonstrate what the WC could not when using live figures.

Wow. You're scaring me, dude. Here I was thinking of myself as a moderate, who voted for a Republican on occasion, and was glad when Biden won out over Bernie, etc. And yet all this time I've been a commie-symp reciting Russian propaganda! Heck, if I go only slightly further left I can apply for a job in the right-wing media, where at least I could get paid for regurgitating Russian propaganda! But seriously, you need to get out of your bubble. The vast majority of soldiers understood that the NVA and VC were the bad guys and that they were the good guys. But a lot of them failed to understand why that was THEIR problem. I mean, you seem to take it as a given that the US is the policeman of the world, when the American people do not. Hmmm... I'm wondering if there's a religious element to your thinking... I mean, would you support an American military intervention in support of a communist government...if they were under attack from a brutal right-wing Christian Army backed by big oil? Or would you expect us to support the attackers? “We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” —President Lyndon Johnson in a speech at Akron University on October 21, 1964, two weeks before the presidential election.

Holmes was talking out of his butt. His report--which he failed to create till weeks after the assassination--said Oswald told him he was upstairs when the shots were fired and that he came down to see what all the commotion was all about. Bugliosi pretended that this weeks later report proved Oswald had admitted being upstairs when the shots were fired. Uhh, no... It seems to me that Holmes spent the bulk of his time with Oswald asking about P.O. Boxes, etc. He wasn't tasked with verifying or disproving Oswald's location at the time of the shooting--that was Fritz's job. When later asked about the details of what Oswald said, moreover, he didn't want to admit he didn't remember what Oswald said beyond his responses regarding the P.O. Boxes. So he made stuff up... and said what he thought others had told him Oswald said.

You can live in your bubble if you like, but you should really not confuse apples with oranges. 1. While we supported the nationalists in China, we did not thrust hundreds of thousands of young American soldiers into a seemingly endless ground war. So, no, it is not the same. 2. Our support for South Korea was in league with the United Nations. And, if I'm not mistaken, there was no significant support for North Korea in the South. So, no, this is also not the same. P.S. Neither myself nor anyone in my family are or were "far-left." We were a Republican pro-Reagan, pro-Nixon household up until 1972 or so, at which time my sisters and mother became anti-war--in large part because we had Marines in our house every weekend, who accepted that they could get shipped off to die any moment..for a cause they did not understand. My sisters and mother shifted further to the left as the seventies dragged on and the women's movement and anti-nuclear movements gained momentum. But my father remained a die-hard Republican until his death, and my brother was a small government Republican until Trump took away his party. I, myself, was a huge fan of Lincoln's as a child, and always rooted for the Republicans growing up. But that changed with Watergate, and then Reagan. And yet, even so, I've remained Independent and have never registered as a Democrat.

I did a ton of research on Specter, and what I found wasn't pretty. In the 1960's he both viewed the back wound photos and told the media that if the back wound turned out to be a back wound and not a back of the neck wound, then the autopsy doctors should be arrested for perjury. A decade later, of course, the HSCA released drawings proving it was on the back, and not the back of the neck. So how did Specter handle this? Did he insist Humes and Boswell be arrested? No, of course not. He'd arranged for his son to be an assistant on the committee and was alerted to what was coming down. When asked to testify he then lawyered up. (If I recall he and Gerry Ford were the only former WC members and staff to lawyer up for their testimony.) He then perjured himself by denying that he saw the photos proving the wound was on the back before publishing the drawings showing it to be on the back of the neck.