Thomas Graves

Sorry to disagree with you, Gerry (R.I.P.), but the police sketch of the man Veciana met with shows a man with lots of sun spots or "birth marks" on his face. Photos of Dave Phillips show that he had marks like those on his face, whereas photos of Esterline show that his face had none of them. --Tommy

Maybe this is "old news," but in the interview Veciana says he met Maurice Bishop in Havana, and it was there that Bishop asked him to work for the CIA. Just wondering: Was Dave Phillips ever in Cuba after Castro came into power? --Tommy Never mind. I just found the answer to my question in the first sentence of this article: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/09/15/george-f-will-a-perfect-failure/ Also, A. J. Weberman says that Phillips was infiltrated into Cuba in June, 1961 and met with Veciana.

Blair, Since there was another kid with him, I guess it was a conspiracy. (The big question is, was a mail order BB gun?) --Tommy

Larry, Yes, and it's fascinating, too, that Phillips and Win Scott were Anne Goodpasture's bosses at the Mexico City CIA station while she was trying to figure out who, in penetrating LIENOVY, had impersonated Oswald over the phone with the Russian embassy there. Could Phillips have orchestrated this impersonation of Oswald? --Tommy

Larry, Thanks for identifying the "Oswald" ID card Nagell was carrying as having Nagell's photograph on it. I couldn't tell who it was from the photocopy of it in TMWKTM. All I knew was that it sure didn't look like Oswald. --Tommy

You're so funny! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Not

The information I received months ago about release of this suppressed film originated from a source in the Intelligence Community who said that the Intelligence Community had decided to release the film in connection with the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. Of course the Intelligence Community does not want its fingerprints on its release. It had to be done another way, which is what I wrote in my Oct. 8 forum reply. I might add that some 20 years ago I was a witness in a case before the U.S. Tax Court. The hearing was held in Dallas in a federal building that is opposite Dealey Plaza. The room was high enough up in the federal building that when I looked out its windows I could easily see both Dealey Plaza and the Textbook Depository. The thought occurred to me at the time that it would have been a perfect place to have seen what happened in the assassination. I do not know if that same federal building was in existence in 1963 but if it was (or another federal building), it would have been the perfect place to have filmed the murder, which, of course, means whoever made the film knew in advance of what was to going happen. Also on Oct 8, the date that I posted my information in my reply on the forum, I sent the same information to a major media source who acknowledged receipt of my email by commenting on it. Douglas, Yes, the Postal Annex Building (aka the Terminal Annex Building), across Dealey Plaza from the Texas School Book Depository, did exist in 1963. In fact, Oswald had a PO box there and Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes had his office there on an upper floor. (Holmes testified that he watched the assassination through binoculars from his office.) I found out by doing a little online "research" that the Navy had a recruiting office on an upper floor, and an old-time ONI special agent told me that the Dallas ONI office was in that building. I think that an ideal place for a "command center" for the assassination would have been in that building in an upper-floor office facing Dealey Plaza, and have often wondered if the spooky-looking fedora, trench coat, and sunglasses-wearing "E. Howard Hunt" figure, captured in the crowd of people crossing Elm Street by the photographer Frank Cancellare, could have been coming from there. --Tommy

James, I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but I don't understand. Please reread your post. The only conclusion I can come to is that you got your terms mixed up? Sincerely, --Tommy edited and bumped

bumped by mistake

James, I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but I don't understand. Please reread your post. The only conclusion I can come to is that you got your terms mixed up? Sincerely, --Tommy

I've always wondered what is keeping the bag upright in that photo. Curtain rods! --Tommy

This statement reminds me (in a twisted kind of way) of Billy Lovelady's testifying that although he and Shelley "saw a girl on the first floor, but I couldn't swear that it was Vicki Adams." But he wasn't asked if the girl was Vicki Adams. He volunteers this statement about Vicki Adams out of the blue. Which suggests that Lovelady had been told to say he had seen Vicki Adams on the first floor, but he hadn't. LOL --Tommy

Robert, Whoever wrote this letter confused (perhaps intentionally) the gay Brass Rail bar (in Hillcrest, a couple of miles north of downtown San Diego; "open since 1960") for the no-longer-existing, downtown San Diego Gold Rail bar, which was owned by the most feared hitman on the West Coast, Frank Bompensiero, and Frank Paul "One Eye" Dragna, son of Los Angles boss Jack Dragna (who, by the way, was an associate of Johnny Roselli). FWIW, a couple of years ago I knocked on the door of the Brass Rail before it opened one morning (I'm not a patron -- LOL) and asked the manager if it had ever been owned by a couple of Hungarians. The answer was "No." http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1999/mar/11/cover-fateful-check-us-grant/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bompensiero --Tommy Edited and bumped because Bill Kelley apparently found some value in it way back in March of 2011. Well, at least it didn't go "unnoticed" by him and that really really really made my day. LOL Bumped again because the letter was printed in today's (11/21/13) edition of the San Diego Reader magazine, in an article by the illustrious Martin Potter. PS The exclamation marks, excellent vocabulary, grammar and punctuation used by the writer reminds me of Gerry Patrick Hemming [R.I.P.] .

Bill, That's an excellent question and that's why I'm trying to find out if Pierce Allman was captured on film running down the street of the Grassy Knoll towards the Newman family as he claimed he did, or, after speaking with Bill Newman (and hearing from him that JFK had been struck in the head), running up the Grassy Knoll with reporter Bob Jackson and thence (probably via the Elm St. Extension) to the TSBD to ask Oswald where the phone was, all of which he claimed to do. I mean, if Allman did all of this, shouldn't he have been caught in a photograph or film? Unfortunately, nobody seems to know. As you probably know, If Allman did everything he claimed he did, he may have gotten to the TSBD too late to have asked Oswald where the phone was, because Oswald (if Sean Murphy's theory is correct) may have already spoken briefly with Baker and Truly somewhere near the front entrance and / or gone upstairs to the second floor lunchroom to get a Coke. Or something like that. Of course another way to look at it is that if Allman did interact with Oswald after doing all of that running around, then Oswald was there at or near the front door a lot later than a lot of us would want to admit, because it would tend to conform with the idea that Allman spoke with Oswald while Oswald was escaping from the TSBD. So there's a lot at stake here. But, unfortunately, nobody seems to know whether or not Allman was captured on film in the Grassy Knoll area right after the assassination. If Allman (or to a lesser extent Ford and Jackson) wasn't captured on film during this critical period of time when so many photographs were being taken of the general area of the Grassy Knoll and Elm Street, then that would suggest to me that maybe Allman didn't do everything he claimed to do, and therefore might have arrived at the TSBD much sooner than we have been led to believe, and may have interacted with Oswald early enough to preclude the possibility that it was during the "great escape" by LHO. But as I said, nobody seems to know if Pierce Allman (or sidekicks Terry Ford and / or Bob Jackson) were captured on film in the Grassy Knoll area right after the assassination. Perhaps Robin Unger or Gary Mack or someone else will accept this not so veiled challenge to find and post photographic proof that Allman did what he claimed to have done. And you know what would be a really cool bonus (or not)? A photo or film showing Allman and / or Ford standing near Howard Brennan, like Allman said they were, a short time before the shots rang out! --Tommy bump

Tommy, The too-good-to-be-true coincidence of Baker's and Brennan's 11/22 descriptions is indeed troubling. I believe Baker went back to City Hall that afternoon and told his superiors the truth: he and the building manager went upstairs and saw and found nothing and nobody. This caused consternation, so Baker was given the 'Oswald' description (as well as the detail as to 'tan jacket', which had come in either from Tippit witnesses or from someone at the Depository imperfectly recalling Oswald's tan shirt [CE151]) and instructed to go on the record with a phoney story about intercepting an employee who was obviously coming down the stairs. Just as Baker was giving this affidavit, Oswald was brought in. Baker was shocked when he recognised the suspect in custody as the man he had met at the front entrance. Up to this point, he had assumed the affidavit was simply a white lie designed to nail a truly guilty man--and a cop-killer to boot. How did Baker react to this sudden revelation that he was being enlisted to frame an innocent man? He refused to make a positive ID of Oswald. And he clammed up for several months. [emphasis added by T. (Mahon) Graves] Sean. What you're saying here works for me. It's ironic I suppose that you and I both believed a year or so ago that Baker's third-or-fourth-floor guy might have been the same guy as the "Tan Jacket Man" in the railroad yard / parking in the Robert Hughes. Right color jacket, apparent white spot on top of head, possible furtive hand off to possible Diaz Lanz guy next to him, etc, etc. But not the requisite (but possibly fabricated) 165 pounds, and, unfortunately, probably spotted as an innocent, umbrella-toting onlooker in other films or photos taken in Dealey Plaza. --Tommy

[...] Truly was bounding up the steps ahead of Baker... when they ran into someone on the stairs ... no doors, door window, coke machine, etc... [...] David, Can you please support your statement, with documentary evidence, that Truly or Baker said that they'd encountered someone on the stairs? I can't find it in Baker's affidavit of 11/22/63. http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/baker_m3.htm Thank you, --Tommy PS It's interesting to note that the light-brown-jacket-wearing guy Baker encountered "on the third or fourth floor" comes suspiciously close to CIA's "marked card" description of Oswald in Russia in late 1959. Oswald was 5'9" but weighed only 131 pounds at his autopsy. His own mother said that he never weighed more than 140 pounds in his life, if I remember correctly. I might be a little off on what Marguerite said, but whatever it was, it wasn't anywhere near 165 pounds. And didn't Howard Brennan somehow arrive at the conclusion that the shooter he'd seen in the sixth floor window was 5'9" and 165 pounds, which description was broadcast to the patrolling policemen right after the assassination, if my memory serves me well?

Chris, the guy in Altgens is Billy Lovelady. Oswald cannot be seen in Altgens, for he is standing slightly behind and to the right of Lovelady--as shown in the Wiegman film. The Altgens Doorman issue has been one big decades-long distraction. It did however throw the FBI into a panic on the evening of the assassination. Oswald in custody was putting himself "out front" at the time of the shooting, and the presence of an Oswald-resembling man on the steps in Altgens seemed to be bearing him out. So they made a beeline to Billy Lovelady's home and, in Lovelady's own words, gave a sigh of relief when he told them it was him. Yeah, and we're lucky that the FBI apparently didn't look at Wiegman and Couch/Darnell as closely as we have. If they'd noticed Prayer Man and seen the resemblance between him and Oswald, those films might not be available now. --Tommy

The website Marxists.org has list of Castro speeches. Two speeches in 1963 are transcribed in this website: http://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/ One is dated January 2, 1963; (Fourth Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution ) and the other is January 16, 1963.(At the Closing of the Congress of Women of the Americans ). Can you find in any of those speeches a quote by Fidel Castro to the effect that USA better watch out if they are trying to kill him? If you believe the website has omitted any of his 1963 speeches, can you point to a transcript on the internet (or to a book with such transcript) of the speech you believe was omitted? I just found this interesting website of Carlos Bringuier's, in which he says something about Castro's impromptu speech on September 7, 1963, at the Brazilian Embassy in Havana: JFK’S ASSASSINATION-FIDEL CASTRO’S TRAIL By Carlos J. Bringuier As we reach another anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy I believe that it is important to show the facts surrounding the tragic events that culminated on November 22, 1963. 1) 1959. Mafia boss Santos Trafficante is arrested in Havana and is released due to the intervention of Major Rolando Cubela Secades and Trafficante is allowed to leave Cuba with his money and start working with Castro’s Secret Service as an informant. 2) 1959. During his time in prison Mafia boss Santos Trafficante received the visit of Jack Ruby. 3) March 1961. Cuban Major Rolando Cubela established contact in Mexico City with the CIA. Contacts continued until 1965. 4) June 1962. Lee Harvey Oswald leaves the Soviet Union to return to the USA. 5) July 18, 1962. The KGB sends a secret telegram to Ramiro Valdés, chief of the Cuban secret services informing him of Oswald’s return to the USA and identifying Oswald as a sympathizer. 6) November 1962. Cuban G2 established contact with Lee Harvey Oswald and assigned as his case officer Major Rolando Cubela Secades. 7) April 10, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald carried out his first test as "sleeper" for the communists by attempting to kill General Edwin Walker in Dallas, Texas. 8) August 5, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald tried to infiltrate the Delegation of the Cuban Student Directorate (Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil) DRE in New Orleans, Louisiana. 9) August 9, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested on Canal Street after a disturbance when he was passing out pro-Castro literature. 10) August 12, 1963. At the Second Municipal Court in New Orleans, Louisiana, Lee Harvey Oswald is sentenced to a $10.00 fine for disturbing the peace. 11) August 21, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald is confronted in a debate at Radio Station WDSU in New Orleans, Louisiana where he defended the dictatorship of Fidel Castro. 12) September 7, 1963. Fidel Castro at the Brazilian Embassy in Havana, in an extemporaneous speech to the press Fidel Castro stated: "Kennedy is the Batista of his times...and the most opportunistic American President of all times. He is fighting a battle against us they cannot win. Kennedy is a hypocrite, and a member of an oligarchic family that controls several important posts in the government. For instance, one brother is a Senator and another Attorney General...and there are not more kennedys officials because there are not more brothers." Later on in his speech he went so far to threaten the leaders of the United States: "We are prepared to fight them and answer in kind. United States leaders should think that if they are aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders, they themselves will not be safe." 13) September 27, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald established contact with intelligence agents of the Cuban government in Mexico City among them the chief of Cuban secret service General Fabián Escalante. Oswald attended a party organized by the Cuban Embassy in Mexico and met the daughter of Octavio Paz, winner author of a Nobel prize, and Ms. Paz was told: "Stay away from him, he’s a dangerous man." 14) September 1963. Néstor Sánchez, became CIA Case Officer of Cuban Major Rolando Cubela and using and assumed name met with Cubela at the Pan American Games in Porto Alegre, Brasil. 15) October 29, 1963. Desmond FitzGerald, in charge of the CIA Special Affairs Staff and close friend of Robert F. Kennedy, using an alias, met with Cubela in Paris. During the meeting Cubela requested a "high powered rifle with a telescopic sight that could be used to kill Castro from a distance". 16) November 18, 1963. In an speech delivered at the Assembly of the Inter-American Press association in Miami, Fl., president Kennedy stated: "It is important to restate what now divides Cuba from my country and from all the American countries: it is the fact that a small band of conspirators has stripped the Cuban people of their freedom and handed over the independence and sovereignty of the Cuban nation to forces beyond the hemisphere. They have made Cuba a victim of foreign imperialism, an instrument of the policy of others, a weapon in an effort dictated by external powers to subvert the other American Republics. "This and this alone divide us. "As long as this is true nothing is possible. "Without it everything is possible. "Once this barrier is removed we will be ready and anxious to work with the Cuban people in pursuit of those progressive goals which, a few short years ago, stirred their hopes and the sympathy of many people throughout the entire hemisphere. "No Cuban need feel trapped between dependence on the broken promises of foreign Communism and the hostility of the rest of the hemisphere. For once Cuban sovereignty has been restored we will extend the hand of friendship and assistance to a Cuba whose political and economic institutions have been shaped by the will of the Cuban people." This speech was intended as a "message" from President Kennedy to the group headed by Rolando Cubela. 17) November 22, 1963. In the morning a small plane from Mexico landed at the private Redbird airport in Dallas carrying as a passenger the chief of Cuban secret services General Fabián Escalante. Meanwhile in Paris a new meeting is going on by the CIA attended by Desmond FitzGerald and Rolando Cubela which meeting is interrupted by the news that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested after, trying to escape, he killed Officer J. D. Tippit. At night time, after Oswald had been arrested the small plane left Redbird airport in Dallas carrying General Fabián Escalante back to Mexico City as documented in a secret memo by Marty Underwood, assistant of President Lyndon B. Johnson. 18) November 1963. President Johnson send FBI Supervisor Laurence Keenan to investigate Oswald’s clandestine contacts there. Less than 72 hours later when everything was pointing to Castro, Laurence Keenan was called back, ordered to stop his investigation and forget everything that he had learn. Now Mr. Kennan has said: "I had the chance to solve the case of our President’s murder, and I screwed up. I’m still ashamed of that to this day." Recently General Alexander Haig, who in 1963 was Robert Kennedy’s right hand man in carrying out military sabotage activities against Cuba, stated: "Bobby Kennedy is personally responsible for at least 8 assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. Kennedy wanted to get rid of Castro, but Castro got him first." 19) November 24, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald is assassinated by Jack Ruby. Oswald was not allowed to have his day in court or to give away his connection with the Castro government. 20) December 30, 1964. Manuel Artime, ex Chief of the 2506 Brigade and close friend of Robert F. Kennedy have another meeting with Rolando Cubela who is again trying to infiltrate the CIA. At the meeting Cubela stated that is coming a coup de E’tat in Cuba by a group of which he is the leader. According to Cubela the other involved were: Efigenio Ameijeiras, Juan Almeida y Comandante Guillermo García Frías. Artime reported to the CIA that Cubela could not be trusted and on June 23, 1965 in a cable to stations the CIA stated: "Convincing prove that entire AMLASH (Cubela) group insecure and that further contact with key members of group constitute menace to CIA operations against Cuba as well as to the security of CIA staff personnel in Western Europe." The CIA ordered all contact broken and warned Artime that he was right in that Cubela was not to be trusted. 21) March 1, 1966. The Cuban government announced the arrest of Maj. Rolando Cubela and Maj. Ramón Guin for counterrevolutionary activities involving the CIA. Cubela was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in jail. Eventually, after a few years, he was "released" and allowed to leave Cuba. Years later Comandantes Arnaldo Ochoa y Antonio de la Guardia were not awarded the same leniency and were executed for crimes less grave that working with the CIA to assassinate Comandante Fidel Castro. 22) Two vigorous opponents of Fidel Castro: Manuel Artime and Jorge Más Canosa died, at young age, of "natural" causes. November 22, 2006 Author’s note: A day like today in 1967, 78 years old Andrés Sar Alvarez was executed in La Cabaña prison. In 1982 Roberto Rosales Jústiz was murdered at Juraguá Beach in Santiago de Cuba. In 1963, at Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a Castro agent. Recommended bibliography: Live by the Sword, by Gus Russo. Operación Judas, by Carlos J. Bringuier The Castro Obsession, by Doh Bohning Red Friday, by Carlos J. Bringuier Rendezvous with death, (Documental) by Wilfried Huismann. [...] [emphasis added by T. Graves] --Tommy

Bill, That's an excellent question and that's why I'm trying to find out if Pierce Allman was captured on film running down the street of the Grassy Knoll towards the Newman family as he claimed he did, or, after speaking with Bill Newman (and hearing from him that JFK had been struck in the head), running up the Grassy Knoll with reporter Bob Jackson and thence (probably via the Elm St. Extension) to the TSBD to ask Oswald where the phone was, all of which he claimed to do. I mean, if Allman did all of this, shouldn't he have been caught in a photograph or film? Unfortunately, nobody seems to know. As you probably know, If Allman did everything he claimed he did, he may have gotten to the TSBD too late to have asked Oswald where the phone was, because Oswald (if Sean Murphy's theory is correct) may have already spoken briefly with Baker and Truly somewhere near the front entrance and / or gone upstairs to the second floor lunchroom to get a Coke. Or something like that. Of course another way to look at it is that if Allman did interact with Oswald after doing all of that running around, then Oswald was there at or near the front door a lot later than a lot of us would want to admit, because it would tend to conform with the idea that Allman spoke with Oswald while Oswald was escaping from the TSBD. So there's a lot at stake here. But, unfortunately, nobody seems to know whether or not Allman was captured on film in the Grassy Knoll area right after the assassination. If Allman (or to a lesser extent Ford and Jackson) wasn't captured on film during this critical period of time when so many photographs were being taken of the general area of the Grassy Knoll and Elm Street, then that would suggest to me that maybe Allman didn't do everything he claimed to do, and therefore might have arrived at the TSBD much sooner than we have been led to believe, and may have interacted with Oswald early enough to preclude the possibility that it was during the "great escape" by LHO. But as I said, nobody seems to know if Pierce Allman (or sidekicks Terry Ford and / or Bob Jackson) were captured on film in the Grassy Knoll area right after the assassination. Perhaps Robin Unger or Gary Mack or someone else will accept this not so veiled challenge to find and post photographic proof that Allman did what he claimed to have done. And you know what would be a really cool bonus (or not)? A photo or film showing Allman and / or Ford standing near Howard Brennan, like Allman said they were, a short time before the shots rang out! --Tommy

Sean, Excellent point. As is your point in your earlier post that Baker and Truly may have been prevailed upon after-the-fact to not have noticed (or put another way: to forget) the east elevator's simultaneously coming down as they were going up in the other one. ( I need to do some more "research" in order to figure out why you say that B & T took the elevator up to the fifth floor. Didn't Baker say in his same-day affidavit that he had encountered a man on the third or fourth floor who was wearing a brown jacket? ) [Never mind-- I just re-read your post and realized that you didn't say that!] Getting back to this post, I agree that the possibility that Prayer Man was just someone from the crowd who wanted to get a better view of the motorcade is obviated by the fact that Prayer Man apparently did not change his position in an attempt to see what was going on with the President after the shots rang out. It's also interesting that Oswald himself did nothing to see what was happening down Elm Street, if, indeed, he was Prayer Man. I wonder why not? Keep up the good work, --Tommy

Incredibly, David, I have never seen JFK's head turn at z157 pointed out before, or even heard of it, for that matter. I'm a bit confused, though. Does he make a lightning fast snap in both directions, or just one? It's a bit hard to tell from the gif. How many oddities, and outright contradictions of eyewitnesses, have to be pointed out before it is admitted the Z-toon is a lie? It's interesting that JFK snaps his head to his right (in response to an audio stimuli?), whereas the SS agent seems to be visually interested in something on the other side of the car. [edit] I just found this on the Richard Randolph Carr Spartacus page : From the Staff Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations (March, 1979) [...] 110. In an FBI interview on November 24, 1963, Mrs. Virgie Baker (nee Rackley) reported that at the time she heard the first shot, she looked in the direction of the triple underpass and saw what she presumed to be a bullet bouncing off the pavement. Mrs. Baker was located immediately across the street from the depository when she heard the shots. She thought they came from the direction the triple underpass. In the FBI report, no further details or information were given by Mrs. baker about the location or direction of the object she believed to be a bullet. 111. Mrs. Baker testified before the Warren Commission of July 112, 1964. At that time, she stated that the object she believed to be a bullet hit the pavement in the street at the point of the Stemmons Freeway sigh on Elm Street.She said it hit in the middle of the lane on the other side of the street, which would have been the left-hand lane going in the direction of the triple underpass. At first Mrs. Baker said the bullet hit behind the President's car. Then she said she could not remember whether it hit to either side or behind the President's car. Mrs. Baker said she was sure she saw the object hit before she heard the second shot. 112. Committee investigators were unable to locate Mrs. Baker. 113. In a sheriff's department notarized statement dated November 22, 1963, Royce Skelton stated that he also saw a bullet hit the pavement in the left or middle lane, to the rear of the President's car. Skelton gave this account of the sequence of events: We saw the motorcade come around the corner and I heard something which I thought was fireworks. I saw something hit the pavement at the left rear of the car, then the car got in the right hand lane and I heard two more shots. I heard a woman said "Oh no" or something and grab a man inside the car. I then heard another shot and saw the bullet hit the pavement. The pavement was knocked to the south away from the car. 114. In his Warren Commission testimony on April 8, 1964, Skelton said that he saw smoke rise from the pavement when the bullet hit. Skelton said also that the sound of the gunfire came from the area of the President's car. Skelton said he was located on the overpass directly over Elm Street at the time of the motorcade. He said the sound of the shots definitely did not come from where he was. Skelton also offered that the smoke he saw rising from the cement when the bullet hit "spread" in a direction away from the depository; he said the "spray" of flying cement went toward the west. On the photograph designated Skelton exhibit No. 1, Skelton marked where on the street he saw the bullet and in which direction he saw the "spray." 115. Committee investigators were unable to locate Royce Skelton. Question: Could the phenomena that Mrs. Baker and Mr. Skelton are describing be what Secret Service agent Hickey is looking at in the video clip, above? Based on a comparison between the full Z-film and the clip, above, and using the blue and yellow cars behind Clint Hill as a "landmark," it looks like Hickey starts looking down around Z-frame 145. --Tommy edited and bumped for David Josephs (perhaps a moderator could move this to a more appropriate thread?)

Richard, Greg, There was a Dr. Pepper machine located right by the rear stairs, right beside which was a crate for Pepper and Coca Cola empties. Apparently one did not have to go back up to the second floor to dispose of an empty Coca Cola bottle that had earlier been dispensed from the second-floor lunchroom. I've speculated that the "storage room on the first floor"/ "small storage room on the ground floor" where Ochus Campbell is quoted as locating on 11/22 a post-shooting Oswald sighting is the small storage room just off the front lobby. However it's also worth keeping in mind the possibility that Campbell was talking about the small alcove in the photo above. Did Oswald, after the Baker-Truly encounter at the front entrance, go to the rear of the first floor and dispose of his coke bottle there before leaving the building? ** Interesting in this light that two Canadian journalists visited Dallas a few days after the assassination and were given to understand by a member or members of DPD that Oswald had been seen "sulking around" the first floor just after the shooting. From the Toronto Daily Star 11/28/63 (click to enlarge): [emphasis added by T. Graves] Sean, I can't find this "alcove" on the first floor plan. It's supposed to be in the northwest corner by the stairway, right? --Tommy PS I found it! In the Warren Commission photo you posted above entitled "Northwest Corner, First Floor," it looks like the infamous elevator shafts, up which Truly claimed to have looked and seen both elevators stuck on the fifth floor, are enclosed by the wall that juts out toward the viewer on the right side of the photo. Notice the closed "overhead door" that's barely visible between the infamous "up" stairs (which Baker and Truly claimed to have taken to the second floor) and the elevator area. This corresponds with the floor plan (which I seem to be unable to post here from the MF site), and the walls of the Dr. Pepper machine "alcove" are shown on the plan, too. The entrance to the stairway going down to the basement is partially visible at the far left edge of the photo. The so-called "Domino Room" was on the other side of the room in the northeast corner. Now if I could just find a good photo of that darn (free) "pay telephone" on the first floor for Bill Kelley. LOL

Chris, I agree totally. I also think instead of rushing into the building with Mr. Truly, it would have made more sense for Baker and a couple other policemen to try to seal off the building as soon as possible, wait for more policemen to arrive, and then do a systematic search, floor by floor. But maybe I'm wrong. Thoughts? --Tommy

Thanks for the concise summary, Sean. Well-written, sensible, and plausible. And the Sandra Styles e-mail revelation to you seems to tie it all together, especially if Vicki and Sandra came down the northwest stairway as soon after the shots as they claimed they did. Vicki may have very well heard the fake or real assassin(s) or coming down from the sixth floor in an elevator. Good work and thanks for sharing that. I think it's understandable that Sandra Styles didn't notice the sound of the moving elevator cables although Vicki evidently did. It could be due to where exactly Sandra and Vicki were in relation to each other on the stairs, or to the simple possibility that the sounds just didn't "register" with Sandra. Thanks, --Tommy Afterthought observation: Although it seems from Dougherty's testimony that he was in the habit of taking an elevator to go from one floor to another in the TSBD every day, it's obvious that he would have had to run down from the fifth floor after hearing the "backfire" for the simple reason that neither elevator was on the fifth floor at that time! And I just thought of another question about the fishy Jack Edwin Dougherty testimony: Why, if Dougherty heard just one what-seemed-to-him "backfire," did he go downstairs from the fifth to the first floor to ask Eddie Piper about said single "backfire?" I mean, didn't he have book orders to fill? LOL

Bill, What importance do you give the fact that the American-looking (based on clothing?) guy Goodpasture chose to confuse with Oswald might have been KGB agent Yuri Moskalev? Thanks, --Tommy edited on 2/23/14 for Bill Simpich