Thomas Graves

Dear William, Did you look at the very, very last instant of this GIF? This one right here? William Miller wrote: "Was there any confusion when I said the following in my previous post .... ' I saw the head rise slightly ... which doesn't take much to reach PM's arm when the camera is looking slightly upward from the street. A shift in posture could account for this. However, it was suggested that this individual had stood up and I don't believe for a second that this person heard shots and decided to sit down on the steps ... which is not what Lovelady said he had done. ' So cook with gas if you like .... just stop inhaling its fumes before reading my postings so to better understand what I have said. " ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Dear William, What year did you graduate from the Vince Lombardi School of Charm? If I have ever said I thought the "Lovelady" figure in Couch-Darnell "stood up" from a sitting-down position, or a squatting-on-"his"- haunches position, or a kneeling-down-on-the-steps position, then I deeply apologize for having chosen those particular words, because that's not what I believe now at all. What I do believe now is that at the beginning of this GIF, "Lovelady" is leaning-forward / bending-over so that "he" can talk to and / or listen to the woman dressed in black directly in front of "him". I do hope that you are capable of understanding that, for I cannot put it to you more simply than that. The GIF I'm referring to: Now, as regards your statement made approximately '3 hours ago' that "A shift in posture could account for this" [i.e. "Lovelady's" head rising in the GIF], I completely agree. In fact, that's exactly the point I've been trying to get across to you for some time now -- that "his" head-raising shift-in-posture consisted specifically of "his" straightening up from "his" leaning-forward / bending-over position which previous position we can reasonably intuit from the GIF, now can't we. But I've got to ask you: When, pray tell, have you previous to approximately 'three hours ago' said anything to the effect that "A shift in ['Lovelady's'] posture could account for this"? For I seem to have missed that, Dear William. "My bad," I'm sure. Or was that just some 'three-hour-ago' damage-control addition? All the best, -- Tommy

Dear William, So, you do admit that the head of the person I'm calling "Lovelady" does rise "a little bit," right? Fantastic. Are you capable of imagining that, regardless of who that person was, he or she might have leaned forward a little bit to talk with someone standing a couple steps below him or her? I mean, given the noise factor and everything? Great. Now we're really "cooking with gas"! -- Tommy

Dear William, Regarding whether or not "Lovelady" rose up somewhat while standing (broad definition of "standing" here) on that step, I suggest that you look at Prayer Person's right arm and ask yourself whether or not he / she moves it in a downward direction. If he / she doesn't, then how else than "Lovelady's" rising a little bit or a lot (straightening up from a leaning-over position?) could explain the fact that his ("Lovelady's") head rises above said arm at the very, very end of the GIF? -- Tommy

Sandy, I think we can see the woman in black leaning towards "our" Lovelady, and, yes, that might be her bare left arm that we see. If she was wearing "heels" for our handsome President and his elegant wife to see, she might have wanted to stabilize herself while standing on that step by holding onto the building. I mean, I always try to hold onto something when I'm wearing my high heels. (lol) Question: Is the woman in white to her immediate right trying to pull her up the steps, or does she have a black sweater or something draped over her left forearm? -- Tommy

Sandy, It's interesting to note that the woman in black directly below "her" is not moving up the steps, but is just standing there and might even have her bare left arm raised as though she's pointing to something. (IDK) Regardless, could the woman in black be talking to "her"? -- Tommy

Sandy, Absolutely. I'm a photograph and film expert with many, many years of experience, and I clearly see a woman who's wearing a light-colored headscarf that just happens to make her look like she's got a bald forehead and very short hair (for a woman) on the sides, who's wearing a white t-shirt under her strangely cut-low-in-the-back "rain coat" (which just happens to have a white horizontal line on its sleeve), and whose light-colored headscarf has two black spots that just happen to look like eyes and another spot that looks like a mouth. LOL -- Tommy

Dear William, Huh? All the best, -- Tommy

What about the possibility that Shelley went for a widdle stroll all by him widdle self, while Lovelady stayed on the steps and was caught in Couch-Darnell as he was semi-crouching (and talking or listening to someone else there? edit: Gloria "Big Girl" Calvery!), and then slowly rising to his "full height" (lol), right below Prayer Person's right elbow? Why did Shelley and Lovelady have to stay together, wherever that might have been? Because they later said that they had? -- Tommy

Or maybe Oswald wasn't PM after all, but was inside the lobby and was briefly stopped, while leaving, by Marion Baker as Officer Baker was rushing in? -- Tommy

Dear Paul, The Webster-like description falsely attributed to LHO by FBI special agent John Fain in early 1960 was not that of "Popov's Mole," but was used in a CIA "marked card" operation in an attempt to catch the putative "mole" inside U.S. Intelligence who had supposedly leaked information about Popov to the Ruskies, which supposed information led to the arrest of Popov, by the Ruskies, in Moscow one day before LHO arrived there, himself. Capisce ? -- Tommy

edited and bumped

Wouldn't it be interesting if it turned out that Army Intel agent James W. Powell was the mysto man who claimed to have seen a 5'10, 165 lb. suspect running away from the back of the TSBD, and reported same to DPD Inspector O. Herbert Sawyer? -- Tommy

"No, I haven't read Bill's State Secrets. I have a lot to learn." Dear Steve, as my Mother used to say, "A word to the wise is sufficient." 'Nuff said. -- Tommy

Nope. That's not it, Detective Clark, although now that I've read it again, I do see your point. MY roundabout point was that, IMHO, not all the images (plural) in the GIF are so degraded as to make it impossible to identify the figure in question as Billy Nolan Lovelady. -- Tommy

How about a local library?

Hint: When you're looking at a long text, press "ctrl" and "F" at the same time and type into the little drop-down "search box" the word, phrase, or name you're looking for, and wah-lah -- said word, phrase, or name will be highlighted everywhere it appears in said text, if indeed it's in said text. It's a big time saver for me.

Good post, Jim. -- Tommy PS Yes, I knew about the bungled tradecraft that led to Popov's being caught. As to whether or not JAA was sufficiently un-paranoid to believe that, I rather doubt it.

Dear Paul, Believe it or not I'm not an expert yet on all of this, and answering complicated questions like this is quite time-consuming for me. All I can suggest to you is that you google "state secret" (in quotation marks) and read it thoroughly, especially the parts including footnotes regarding Bright's possible connections to Angleton, Phillips, Scott, etc. LOL -- Tommy In the context of what we've been talking about, Bill Bright's SR/CE /P colleague, Will Potocki, and Will's CIA-employed (under Bill Harvey) wife, Anita, are worth a good "look," too. Bright is mentioned 27 times in this chapter, and the Potockis are mentioned 19 times altogether. https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/State_Secret_Chapter2.html Enjoy!

Dear William, LOL -- Tommy

Paul, I believe the original mish-mashed LHO-Webster "marked card" info put together by Fain in a plausibly-deniable way ("Marguerite told me that!"), after having been told by CIA to do so and being given Webster's biometrics, was originally used for CIA's "Popov's Mole" mole-hunting purposes (after Bright had entered the info into the "Biographics Registry" computerized data base) and was later used for other "mole" hunts between early 1960 and, say, 11/24/63, including in Mexico City during the Fall of 1963, and was therefore "tweaked" quite a bit as it was bifurcated into different files along the way. IMHO, we should consider the distinct possibility that Oswald really was a wanna-be spy, and from time to time "jacked around" certain FBI / CIA-types regarding his name, height, address, etc, -- but especially his name. Also, we shouldn't discount the possibility that honest "typos" were made on certain LHO-related Intelligence documents. Which might explain some of the confusion regarding Oswald's name. -- Tommy

Steve Thomas, Yes, as in a "marked card" / "barium meal" counter-intelligence operation. Documents that have intentional mistakes in them so that when someone ("Mole X") who's not supposed to have it (and is unwitting that it's bogus) forwards it to someone else, said document can be traced back to "Mole X". Now, what if there was a suspected "mole" in one of the Active Army Counter Intelligence Corps units in Texas, and that's why he or she had had the bogus LHO description sent (or otherwise made available) to him or her in the first place, i.e. to see if he or she would forward it to someone not "on the list"? Or perhaps a "mole," who shouldn't have had such a document on Oswald, sent that unbeknownst-to-him "marked card" bogus description to someone at that Army Counter Intelligence unit in Texas, and then it was either used by him or "piggybacked" by someone else in his office who was privy to it and fed to DPD officer Sawyer, not knowing that the description of Oswald in it was bogus. -- Tommy Question for self: When did the "Popov's Mole" mole hunt end, anyway?

Steve, You ask who was sent down there to impersonate LHO (basically by saying over the phone on October 2(?) that his name was "Oswald')? Well, we do know that Bill Bright (the Soviet Russia/Counter Espionage Division guy who, in 1960, had put into CIA's computerized "Biographics Registry" the Webster-like biometrics which had already been glommed onto LHO by FBI special agent Fain in Ft. Worth) had recently been attached to the M.C. Station as a rather mysterious all-around M.C. Station trouble-shooter and Spanish-speaking helper-outer for Bill Harvey's "Department D" HT/Lingual phone tapping program. Now, I don't know if Bright (or if not him, whoever was "sent down there" to impersonate Oswald) was 5' 10", 160 lbs (going from memory here), but I don't think it really matters much because, as we now know, the M.C. Station later claimed, truthfully or otherwise, that their camera was "broken" or "out of service" at that time, anyway, and let us also bear in mind that neither Sylvia Duran nor Ascue at the Cuban Consulate said that the "Oswald" they dealt with resembled someone with those physical measurements. Also -- You seem to be positing that LHO was arrested in a case of semi-mistaken quasi-identity. Sorry, but that sounds overly complicated to me. Regardless, when you say "Harvey Lee Oswald," above, can I logically infer from that that you subscribe to the "Harvey and Lee" theory, at least in part, or am I just getting all paranoid, again? (lol) Question: Have you read "State Secret" by Bill Simpich? Minor point: LHO weighed only 131 lbs at autopsy. -- Tommy

Dear Paul, Huh? -- Tommy Edit: Never mind, Paul. I see where you're coming from -- whether or not the "marked card" info might have been intentionally or unintentionally "embellished" in Texas. Good question.

Paul, We know that FBI special agent John Fain inserted that highly-inaccurate, Robert Webster-like description of LHO into the report of his interview of worried-about-her-son Marguerite Oswald in early 1960, and that Fain cleverly attributed that Webster-like description to Marguerite, herself. The FBI forwarded a copy of Fain's report to CIA, and Bill Bright of the CIA's Soviet Russia/Counter-Espionage division (who later showed up working for Bill Harvey's "Department D"-based HT/LINGUAL program in Mexico City while Oswald or "Oswald" was there) incorporated Fain's bogus description of LHO into the CIA's computerized "Biographics" data base, probably to be used as a "marked card" in the then on-going "Popov's Mole" mole hunt. What I'd like to know is whether or not any of the military intel bases in Texas were privy to that old, purposefully-inaccurate description of LHO in 1963. If so, they (or someone privy to what they had) may have been fooled by it themselves, and that might explain why DPD Officer Herbert Sawyer was given an inaccurate description of the scapegoated Lee Harvey Oswald. Which, in turn, might point a guilty finger to a military intel "mole" who was unaware that the description of Oswald was incorrect. -- Tommy

So how did it come about? Expected answer: "Because about ten people were reading it." LOL -- Tommy PS I think I see your point. It started with just one person reading it, and then a bunch of other people noticed that, and it "went viral." Probably because "Robert Anderson" is such a fascinating subject to JFK assassination students and researchers.