Duke Lane

Pulitzer Prize, anyone?

There's an old saying: never say never. Well, this has been a strange and heady couple years with regard to literature in the JFK assassination case. After being a fervent believer in a conspiracy in President John F. Kennedy's death (from about the age of 12 to 41!), the Spring of 2007 yielded the Oswald-did-it-alone masterpiece "Reclaiming History" by the highly respected author and former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi that, quite literally, made my world upside down and had me reassess everything I knew (or thought I knew) about JFK's murder. Result? While I still believed there mere multiple conspiracies (plural) to kill Kennedy, and that (speaking as the leading civilian Secret Service authority) the Secret Service was grossly negligent on 11/22/63 in Dallas, at the end of the day, Oswald beat everyone to the punch, so to speak; for all intents and purposes, that solved it for me, albeit with a great deal of discomfort.

Then came ANOTHER masterpiece of even greater length (spread over 5 volumes) that, once again, turned my world upside down (some would say, right side up)!

...

I recently admonished people in the research community (of which I am one) to, quote, "get a life" (shades of William Shatner, huh?). Well, disregard that bit of advice: instead, GET DOUGLAS P. HORNE'S BOOKS...NOW! 5 PLUS STARS; THE HIGHEST RATING HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

Vince Palamara

5 star Amazon.Com reviews (should be posted there soon) In the meantime, see my two Listmanias:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania..._pdp_lm_title_1

http://www.amazon.com/Douglas-Horne-Americ...vlm_f_2_rlrsrs2

This would help to get avoid of a suspicious way of thinking that he appeared just because for a self promotion tour. Like this out of breath announcement ....

Like Martin, I've come to the conclusion that Vince is nothing more or less than a shameless self-promoter, ready to ride whatever bandwagon comes along as long as his name and endorsement attaches to it. Has anyone ever read any of his "5-star Amazon.com reviews?" I can't recall anything that he hasn't heaped lavish praise upon, capped by his sterling credentials as the self-proclaimed

"world's leading civilian authority on the Secret Service."

The singular significant exclusion is Posner's Case Closed, which he belatedly reviewed in 2005 while promoting another book du jour (from Vince's broad point of view), intoning "ZERO stars: get ULTIMATE SACRIFICE instead!" (which latter half attaches to quite a few reviews he wrote during the period of Ultimate Sacrifice's immediate post-release, including those he gave what he calls "THE HIGHEST RATING HUMANLY POSSIBLE!" (just not quite as good as Ultimate Sacrifice, y'see).).

In fact, you'll find 20 pages filled with 358 (as of Dec 22, '09) reviews, the vast majority of which he graces with five stars. There are more writers out there destined to be "classics" than we'd have imagined!

For good or ill, blurbs do help sell books, and for that I hope Vince has enough good sense to be cashing in on his high praise. It's all well and good to try to sway the great unwashed and uninitiated masses, but it's fully another to try to foist off his goggle-eyed and pendular pseudo-conversions to diametrically-opposed points of view on those who at least claim to be critical thinkers in the JFK case, who should expect if not suspect that Vince has that good sense.

... Unless, of course, his intent is to show the "critics" to be non-critical, in which case he's generally succeeded as each of his revelations first brought derision of his treachery, and then relief at his "coming to his senses." What's most amazing is his posting of a new personal conversion and then dropping off the face of the forum(s) while people carry on the conversation without him.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna go drop that $125 ($81.25 at discount rates) just cuz Vince said to. After all, his opinion counts, whatever it really is, doesn't it?!

How I wish I had the resources and time to take on a TSBD book project.

Don't we all! I've been working on one for better than 10 years, and actually have a couple of hundred pages done.

What, for rhetorical instance, was the reasion for Bonnie Ray Williams stating that he ate his lunch on the sixth floor all the way up to ten minutes before "Oswald" is alleged to have fired?

Allow me to paint a theoretical picture here, and let's see if it makes any sense.

Let's say that BRW went upstairs after most or all of the others had gone outside; let's say that his "washing up" in the men's room was a little more - shall we say - involved, encompassing the several minutes after everyone else had washed up and eaten their lunches before going out. He emerges from the bathroom, doesn't see anyone, and - as he said - figured they'd gone upstairs, back to the floor they'd most recently been working on, to watch the parade, as he testified they'd discussed earlier.

It doesn't matter if that's exactly what he thought - we can never know - it is what he said he'd thought. So up he went.

Now let's say that when he was up there, one of two things happened: while sitting there eating his lunch, someone else came onto the sixth floor, passed the north end of the aisle where he was eating his lunch, and continued to the southeast window, less than 20 feet from where he was sitting, not entirely concealed by boxes, a fact confirmed by one of the crime scene photos taken across the floor from the southwest corner toward the southeast.

Whoever that was, they were carrying a rifle or rifles, maybe talking and carrying on like they didn't expect anyone was there. That could even have been the case if, say, someone like Jack Dougherty - who only had an alibi, given as an afterthought in his testimony, only from Danny Arce, an 18-year-old Mexican kid who'd eaten in the domino room and was supposedly going to be one of two people (the other being Billy Lovelady) who were going to meet BRW upstairs, and both of whom went outside instead - was waiting by the loading dock door near the west elevator for someone to slip in and directly into the elevator and thence upstairs.

Let's even say one of them bore a slight resemblance to Oswald.

No matter: BRW came up on the east elevator, which according to other testimony, was not noisy in its operation and was the only one of the two elevators workers might hear if they were listening for the boss to come up when the elevator operator threw the "hand pedal" to stop it when it got to its destination. Jack might not have heard BRW getting in, starting it, or ascending away from the first floor. Jack and his "friends," who weren't familiar with the building, didn't notice the east elevator missing from the first floor since it could be seen only through a grate that was at or above eye level. A good guess is that they were concentrating more on getting in and up without being seen than noticing every little detail like whether the other elevator had move or was still in place.

So they arrive on six, unconcerned about anyone being there - Jack, after all, had seen them all go outside ... "all," that is, except BRW, who was still in the bathroom, unbeknownst to Jack - and then, too late, suddenly noticed BRW sitting there with a sandwich half-raised to his open mouth, transfixed by the arrival of these strange men with rifles.

... Or, alternatively, the men already being upstairs by the window as BRW meandered over to the second set of windows and nonchalantly sat eating his lunch while the men did their best to keep quiet, hoping he'd go away, but ultimately having to either make themselves known to him or abort their mission.

Either way, we have BRW somewhere where he surely would have wished, under those circumstances, that he wasn't. We now have two or three Southern(?) white guys whose politics are such that they'd shoot a US President in broad daylight, faced, in Dallas, with a skinny Negro fellow who now knew who they were and would soon see why they were there.

Well, the motorcade hadn't arrived yet, so shooting BRW was out of the question if only because a gun going off in the area would attract attention to them, not an acceptable option prior to their target's arrival. BRW was safe, at least for a while; after the President had been shot, he'd have been done for, the first of "Oswald's" casualties (like Tippit supposedly was) shot to clear his way for escape.

Then came the noise of other men on the floor below. Perhaps they could hear footsteps; maybe they heard them talking, but surely someone was closer than anyone wanted them to be. They, too, had to be contained, especially since - if Junior Jarman's time estimate of arriving between 12:26 and 12:28 is correct, as can be supported by other evidence - there was no time left to try to shoo them back downstairs because the motorcade was already late and could arrive literally at any second.

Their arrival was perhaps literally a stay of execution for BRW, and for themselves as well since it may well have proven difficult for someone with only limited ammunition to shoot BRW and two other grown men while the shooter(s) were trying to escape: would that scenario have passed the "smell test" of Oswald being capable of doing all that with only four bullets, two or more of them being needed to fire at the motorcade?

So Jack escorts BRW downstairs to join and contain the other two men via the east elevator, which was then on the sixth floor. That puts both elevators on the fifth floor where Roy Truly later saw them, the east one being inoperable except by someone inside it, thus effectively trapping it on that floor. BRW is told to go over with the others at the front windows and to keep his mouth shut, while Jack opens the gate of the west elevator (Hank or Junior testified to having closed it so others would be able to use it if needed) causing it to be incapable of being called remotely.

BRW probably didn't keep his mouth shut; could you under similar circumstances? If all happened anything like I've described it, the man would have been understandably and quite palpably nervous, and spilled all to his likewise-dimunitive black friends. With the two elevators effectively "locked in place," Jack could also have meandered over, possibly with gun in hand but being "great big [and] husky," might well have intimidated the black men by sheer force of presence. And, of course, being white.

The black men's lives were spared by the simple logistics of the shooter(s) not having enough ammunition to kill three men who might've "tried to capture Oswald as he escaped" but were cut down as he succeeded in his desparate flight. Their escape was cut off most ostensibly by Jack positioning himself where he could prevent their being able to use either the elevators or the stairs whether by dint of his size or the threat of a weapon, or by Jack watching over them in closer proximity.

Having their lives spared hardly precludes their lives - or the safety and well-being of their families - being threatened, implicitly or explicitly, by Jack or the shooters during the brief wait for the motorcade go buy, or in the seconds or minutes between the shooting and their escape, should any of the three men say anything about seeing them.

When the gunfire erupted, Jack might have returned to the elevator/stairwell area, behind the "wall" of boxes and essentially out of sight, and thus invisible to them. That "wall" provided a rationale for "not seeing" Jack despite his admission of being there (which the boys might not even have realized he'd done), their run(?) to the west windows could have been to try to attract attention by leaning out or waving their hands (but not yelling!), and perhaps they were more stealthy about it, what with Jack and the shooter(s) still upstairs, and moved much slower than they'd testified, possibly accounting for the "delay" described by Richard Gilbride in TEET.

They perhaps didn't think they could describe their actions in that manner, for the question could then arise about who they were trying to avoid being seen and heard by. They were better off "never having seen" Jack than trying to remember to all say the same things about what they'd seen him doing and where, and explaining why they didn't say anything to him (even taunting him about why he was working during the lunch hour).

If they spoke up, they might've run the risk of themselves or their families getting hurt or killed. They certainly didn't want to volunteer information, but what were they to do if investigators in Dallas or Washington were to ask them direct, compelling questions?

They couldn't say anything, and they couldn't will investigators to probe them along lines that would force them to give full and complete answers about what and who they'd actually seen despite their "best efforts" at trying to conceal the facts that would have ultimately betrayed the shooters, hoping against hope that they'd be arrested and locked away, and they and their families would be safe.

But they - and BRW in particular - could drop enough hints that the investigators couldn't help but draw conclusions that would force them clear up the questions that the hints engendered.

Bonnie Ray estimated going upstairs at around 12:05, first having stayed there "only two or three minutes," just long enough to wolf down his sandwich and leave his trash behind, later admitting it could have been "10 to 12 minutes," and later as late as "12:20" or thereabouts, when Oswald - with or without quotes around his name - might well be expected to have been arriving, getting tired of hiding, his movements drawing attention to him, or even having no choice but to set up his shots in anticipation of the motorcade's 12:25 scheduled arrival.

If that wasn't enough, Junior Jarman testified to the time that he and Hank had gone upstairs - after hearing that the motorcade was on or approaching Main, which was 12:26, a notion corroborated by Roy Truly - and himself estimated that their arrival on the fifth floor was "12:26 or 12:28," scant minutes before the motorcade arrived, and to the fact - substantiated by BRW himself - that BRW joined them after they'd arrived at the front windows one to three minutes after the motorcade had been scheduled to pass, easily one to three minutes if not more after the shooter(s) had to be prepared to act and thus already set up to shoot.

If all those things are true, then there can be little if any doubt that BRW was well aware of the shooter(s), that Jack Dougherty couldn't have been one of them if he was also on five containing the men from running downstairs and outside to alert anyone to their presence (and if he wasn't, then someone had to be), and that all of them knew that whoever pulled the trigger, it wasn't Oswald.

And the most telling aspect of that is, if only the parts about the timing were true, and Jack is presumed to have been colluding with Oswald rather than someone else, since Oswald was dead by Monday and nobody had anything to fear from him, they could have and would have told investigators quite plainly that it was Oswald they'd seen upstairs doing the shooting.

If it had been Oswald, and Jack was not colluding with him, then Jack would have told the truth and said that Oswald practically ran him over when he was escaping down the stairwell.

And Jack, after hearing the "backfire" and hearing from Eddie Piper that the President had been shot, would have notified his superiors and police about what he'd seen and heard rather than to have blithely gone back to work "getting some stock" as if nothing had happened at all.

If it was Oswald, then it's inconceivable that neither BRW nor Jack Dougherty saw him, given the facts above; that neither of them did, even when they couldn't have been contradicted or harmed by Oswald, shows only that it wasn't Oswald and by no means that it was.

When Oswald and the need for the shooter to be four floors downstairs in time to meet up with Baker within limited time constraints are removed from that picture, and all of the other immediate post-assassination events are added back in, a new and clearer picture starts to emerge.

It's one that also explains why Bonnie Ray and the boys lied ... AND, I might as well add,

... I haven't heard any theories on how the shooters got into place.

... this was accomplished when everyone went outside and BRW was still in the bathroom "washing up," and after Danny Arce - the only person to have claimed to have seen Jack downstairs, eating with the men in the domino room - had also gone outside, but before Billy Lovelady had come back downstairs from the second floor to get a coke, Jack could simply have gone over to or toward the loading dock door by the west elevator and let the men in, got them onto the elevator, and ridden them up on the elevator to the sixth floor so he could "get some stock" before all of the above transpired.

It may also be noteworthy that the two men who'd supposedly planned on meeting BRW on six, didn't: Lovelady did go "upstairs," but only to the second floor, he says; was he instead turned back by Jack at the elevator? And Danny became Jack's sole alibi witness, at least to his ever having been downstairs among the rest of the labor crew during the first few minutes of the lunch hour.

Nobody commented - or was asked to comment - on this being the only time Jack didn't take the full lunch break available to him.

The escape is a touch more problematic, but only by the introduction of having seen Baker's white helmet while not seeing Roy Truly at the same time. If we'll recall from TEET, at least one of the three black men claims to have ridden the elevator down rather than having taken the stairs down after Baker & Truly had gone up on the east elevator: is it possible if not likely that the three men were also herded quietly onto the elevator to prevent them from alerting Baker & Truly, who were making a lot of racket coming up the stairs, as soon as the west elevator cleared the floor?

If so, it explains Truly's absence from their testimonies (if Baker was in the lead, his helmet might've been all that they'd seen before the top of the elevator descended below the level of the fifth floor), as well as why neither Baker nor Truly neither heard (because of the noise they were making on the stairwell) nor saw the elevator cables moving (the elevator stopped just one floor below them, which it could've done in just five of the seconds it took B&T to run up the double flight of stairs).

Am I missing anything? Can any of it be shown to be impossible?

In the famous Altgen picture which shows the Man in the Doorway, that man is an Oswald lookalike. I think we all agree on that. But it's not the face of Billy Lovelady. But it looks a lot like Michael Paine. Comments?

Other than a vague resemblance, I can't think of any reason to support a hypothesis that Paine was in Dealey Plaza, especially with Buell Frazier being present nearby and not having seen his neighbor. The Paines, after all, hadn't been separated all the time, had they?

That said, while it's generally accepted by many people that it was, in fact, Billy Lovelady there in the photo, I'd recently read an analysis of why it might well not have been Billy based upon several factors including most notably that he wore his shirts buttoned to the top button (still not an uncommon sight in Texas, even among younger men of Billy's age - 26 - at the time), and that the collar being open three buttons down is in keeping with Oswald's more worn shirts.

If it was Oswald, who'd maybe only gone outside for a few moments and gone back in soon after JFK took the corner, it's possible that nobody happened to notice him since he was generally unobtrusive around the TSBD.

I can't rule it out being Lovelady, but neither do my own observations and readings support that it could only have been Lovelady. I'm not inclined to put Michael Paine into the picture, if only because he wasn't a complete stranger and someone who knew of and might well have recognized him didn't see him.

... One of these days, I'll get around to posting my perspective on this - what I call "The Three Blind Mice" ... "Mice" covers everyone's movements in between as best as they can be determined.

Ah, such chutzpah! What I should've said was that "'Mice' covers everyone's movements in between as best as I can determine them." They're pretty detailed, and I believe they're accurate. In any case, "Mice" includes details of testimony involving people's movements and observations that are not included in "Elevator Escape;" some may be significant.

... If Gilbride has the notion that some testimony might've been coerced by other external factors, he doesn't say so in the first 15 or 20 pages; he might draw that conclusion later, but if so, I haven't gotten that far yet.

Other than official disinterest in, for example, Arnold Rowland's reports of a black man on the sixth floor, and the suggestion that Slim Givens might have concocted his "cigarette trip" return to the sixth floor at or around noon (based on Jack Revill's belief that he'd change his testimony "for money"), no other coercion is suggested: any and every story that was inconsistent or contradictory, the only possible reason was to cover the witnesses' own guilty knowledge of and participation in the assassination.

The real thesis of Richard Gilbride's article does not seem to be, as he says at the outset, merely to "demonstrate that Depository employee Jack Dougherty escorted two snipers down in that west elevator," but rather what he states at the end: the TSBD "was a Potemkin Village populated expressly for JFK's assassination." He makes this claim even while excusing anyone within the TSBD who'd have been able to accomplish such a purpose from complicity, and implicating a host of low- to mid-level employees who'd have been hard pressed (at best!) to erect such a "Potemkin Village."

The list of those complicit - the "brood of vipers," in Gilbride's language - includes Bill Shelley, Billy Lovelady, Jack Doughterty, Bonnie Ray Williams, Hank Norman, and Danny Arce, none of whom had the apparent authority to bind the TSBD company to a lease of the building, to move its offices into it, to sublet additional office space to client companies, or to move stock and reassign workers to the new location, a feat they nevertheless seem to have engineered and accomplished. Roy Truly, whose authority as building superintendent even approached that level, was "intimately involved" in only the subsequent cover-up, while the two working officers of the corporation - company president Jack Cason and vice president O.V. Campbell - aren't even mentioned, much less considered, in this narrative.

(One might theorize that Bill Shelley, who Gilbride acknowledges had been with the company "since 1945," was able to do this based upon his claim to a reporter that he'd been "intelligence officer during World War II" - which ended in 1945 - and "thereafter joined the CIA," which incidentally wasn't formed until 1947. Having been employed by the TSBD company since two years earlier, one can "only" deduce that Shelley was a "sleeper agent" left in place to orchestrate a presidential assassination to take place 16 years in the future on a man who hadn't as yet even entered politics!)

This brood ("pit?") of vipers also had quite the unusual consituency for an arch-conservative city in the deep South during the early '60s: not only was there the usual complement of white guys (undoubtedly with ties to the KKK and JBS), but also including cohorts who were both black and Mexican, some as young as 18 or 19 and fresh out of high school, all of whom not only trusted each other(!) but also were confident that their roles would be kept secret by the whites who in any other context might well lynch them with half an excuse.

My chief criticism, however, is that every inconsistency, every contradiction, every change in statements by anyone has but one connotation: sinister. People "lied" and "committed perjury" deliberately (which may not be disputable) and for only one reason: they had guilty knowledge to hide (which may well be disputable).

He ignores various bits of evidence, makes statements that are "undoubtful," "unavoidable," "certain" and "indisputable" (among other absolutes) when there is no evidence to support them, and even goes to some lengths to show how someone very well might not have done exactly as they'd said in the time they'd thought (Sandra Styles and Vickie Adams), and then uses exactly what he'd just seemingly disproved to "prove" that others (Shelley and Lovelady) had lied

Likewise, he takes inconsistencies or lack of corroboration in several people's testimonies to "disprove" others' statements. This is not uncommon, and generally requires us to believe that the people there made strict mental notes of every minor detail of what they saw, heard, did and said, almost as if they - everyone - knew this would be an important day, that they needed to mentally record everything down to what people wore, knew their words would be scrutinized and dissected for decades afterward, and wanted to be sure to miss nothing and to get it all absolutely right.

Thus, when Gloria Calverly said she went "immediately" back to her office after seeing Kennedy's head get blown off and didn't mention seeing Shelley and Lovelady, then it means that Shelley and Lovelady were lying about seeing her, just the same as when, several months after the fact, the two men testified to doing things that aren't supported by film and photos, they "lied," and only for sinister purposes, no innocence or error to be attached or even considered. This despite Joe Molina (another of the "front step gang?") also saying that Gloria was visibly upset, the "crying" attributed to her by Shelley and Lovelady dismissed with the observation that "most people do not break down in tears until they've acclimated to the shock of the event" (even her "crying" was a "lie").

He questions the veracity of Givens' "cigarette trip;" is apparently unaware of how Oswald could've gotten downstairs after Givens went down on the east elevator; notes that Eddie Piper recalled Oswald saying he was "going up" to have his lunch, omitting the "or out" that Piper added in his observation; determines that Oswald could only have seen the "short Negro" and the guy he knew as "Junior" only after the shooting based on second-hand reports and the fact that, upon being arrested for a cop-killing (with no mention being charged with killing the President until after a late-night "news conference"), Oswald failed to give complete details of his lunchtime activities at work on Friday afternoon, not even raising anything to do with where JFK had been shot until - surprise - the next day, after he'd been charged!

All of this leads to the "virtually certain" conclusion that Oswald was "on the upper floors from approximately 11:55 to at least 12:10, if not significantly later."

Most incredibly, he seems astounded that Jack wouldn't have noticed the three black men on the same floor, or they him, and this "large, white" guy Jack got onto the elevator without being noticed by the same three men who - get this - received at least one rifle from the upstairs shooters after they came down the stairs, which only could've happened before they got onto the elevator with Jack and without their rifles, which they then hid and would have been caught with if only Marrion Baker had looked behind the stack of book boxes at the fifth floor landing.

Yet he illustrates, in effect, how the gunmen could've come down the stairs to where Jack was with rifles, passed them off to the black guys without Jack seeing them do that, and then left with Jack on the elevator without the black guys being aware of Jack's presence.

Yet oddly, Gilbride doesn't even notice (or mention) that, if Jack heard the shot while standing by the west elevator, and the west elevator hadn't left the fifth floor by the time Truly had reached the elevator shaft 30 seconds or less before encountering Oswald in the lunch room, then Oswald, if he'd run down the stairs - we know he didn't use the elevator - had to run by Jack, something else that Jack didn't see.

He didn't see it because it didn't happen, and Jack proves it, a point lost in this narrative.

This reality has no impact on the theory whatsoever. Things that make no sense whatever are readily accepted, while unfounded speculation (that is, no foundation is laid to show how it could be so) is stated as certain, established fact, including what people "must have" done in the time it "makes sense" for them to have taken to do it.

Sadly, what starts out as a promising re-evaluation turns into another "everybody did it" scenario complete with an "Oswald double" (not that John Thomas Masen wasn't involved!) "proven" to be there and, despite all the certainty expressed throughout, doesn't even include the slightest speculation on what Oswald was doing upstairs or what he saw (since it's "virtually certain" he was there), or when or why he went downstairs and what he was doing and why he was so blissfully unaware of what had transpired upstairs even after he'd just left the area and seen others milling about. Was he also on the upper floors and saw nobody like everyone else was and didn't? Oswald simply wasn't seen by anybody, ergo "was" upstairs, even while not attempting to determine who might have seen him if they and he were both in the same place at the same time ... and the fact that nobody was in the same place at the same time as Oswald "proves" he "wasn't there" if such "proof" puts him anywhere other than where we want him to be.

All of that said, however, there are still several "wow!" moments when Gilbride examines things that generally aren't, and his compilation of DP witness observations of men in upstairs windows in one place is indeed useful (even if in need of verification due to the other inconsistencies and omissions previously noted). Gilbride succeeds in raising awareness of and questions about Jack Dougherty, and of the oddities in the actions and activities involving Jarman, Norman and Williams (my "three blind mice"), which are reasonably accurately, if incompletely, portrayed and about which, in my opinion, he makes incorrect (albeit "unavoidable") conclusions.

The dialog is joined, and that in itself is a good thing.

I submit that discovering what really happened on the fifth floor of the TSBD is key to understanding the assassination itself. This of course brings into serious question the accounts of Williams, Jarman and Norman.

Absolutely. One of the first things that I studied and seemed "off" to me, were the testimonies of these three men. I immediately felt that there was something that was left out, and that there were many inconsistencies among the statements by these gentlemen. Together they just didn't jive.

Also the same went for Jack Dougherty, I just couldn't put my finger on it. It took someone of the caliber of Duke Lane to figure some of these inconsistencies out. I read about half of the writing in the link provided by Greg Parker.

I don't know about this "caliber" stuff (if anything, .223!), but I've been reading Richard Gilbride's article and have several disagreements with and disconnects from what I've read so far.

The disconnects come largely in the form of resolving - or rather, not resolving - apparent conflicts in testimony, a couple of things to remember about which is that their own first-hand accounts (testimony before the WC) came about four months after the actual events, during which time one's memories might change to either include or exclude things previously said, and that second-hand accounts (reports made by police and/or FBI and/or USSS) were the interviewers' "take" on what they'd said, and may or may not have included every word they'd spoken or point they'd made, and could just as likely as not be distillations of the "important" facts as the interviewer perceived them that were ultimately recorded: that a second-hand report didn't include something that was later recounted in testimony can mean either that the interviewee didn't make the comment, or that the interviewer didn't feel at the time that it wasn't germane.

There's also the distinct possibility that they were told that they were "mistaken," for example, if someone said that they'd seen Oswald in or near the domino room around lunchtime, they were "mistaken" because he was "actually" on the sixth floor, or "couldn't" have been somewhere because it didn't fit their theories.

If Gilbride has the notion that some testimony might've been coerced by other external factors, he doesn't say so in the first 15 or 20 pages; he might draw that conclusion later, but if so, I haven't gotten that far yet.

Another disconnect comes where he notes Roy Truly having seen Givens, Jarman and Norman leaving the front of the TSBD heading in an easterly direction, presumably across Houston toward the parking lot (which location was misstated in the article). Truly thought that the three of them were all walking together across Houston, while Jarman and Norman state that they walked around the Houston Street to the back of the TSBD. Here Gilbride presumes that Jarman and Norman "lied" and "omitted" this "fact" of crossing or partly crossing Houston without apparently considering that Truly presumed himself that Jarman and Norman were still "with" Givens - or that they ever were, as opposed to leaving the immediate area separately but at the same time - if Truly saw only Givens in the middle of the street.

It likewise presumes that Truly's recollection of events in November was absolutely accurate by the beginning of April.

Here's another: he relates that during "the great elevator race," the flooring crew had gone downstairs and Oswald had yelled something to the effect of "how about an elevator, boys," but that the crew had "ignored" Oswald and not closed the west elevator door to allow him to call it back up to the upper floors when he was ready to use it. This without any evidence that whenever Oswald might have tried to call the elevator that it wouldn't respond.

Gilbride goes on to relate Givens' "cigarette trip," but omits - if memory serves - that Oswald had also mentioned to him to make sure that the gate was down on the west elevator, and - more importantly - that when Givens got downstairs and went around to the west elevator, the west elevator wasn't there.

Givens didn't look to see where it was, but it could only have been above him. This means either that someone else had gotten into the elevator and ridden it upward while Givens was upstairs or coming back down, or that the crew hadn't "ignored" Oswald, had closed the gate, and that Oswald was thus able to call the west elevator upstairs while Givens was on his way downstairs in the east elevator, or even walking around to the other side of the shaft to check to be sure the gate was closed.

(According to Givens' "cigarette trip" story, Oswald was walking toward the elevators and Givens as Givens was getting ready to get back into the east elevator to go back down. At five seconds per floor, that put Givens on the first floor in about 25 seconds, which is sufficient time for Oswald to have walked from where Givens saw him last to the west elevator entrance to call it upstairs, and even more sufficent if you add the 5-10 seconds or so that Givens needed to open the east elevator gate and walk around the elevator shaft. Since Givens didn't look up the shaft, we don't know that the west elevator wasn't on its way up at Oswald's call, and we sure don't know where it stopped.)

The elevator timing of five seconds per floor movement (based on Billy Lovelady's statement of having timed them at 30 seconds to travel the six stories from seven down to one) is used to indicate when Jack Dougherty took the elevator down from five to one, and likewise presumes that Jack came directly from five to one. The reality is that he could have (not that I believe that he did, mind you!) started down while Baker and Truly were in between the first and second floors, and have been downstairs by the time they reached the third floor after encountering Oswald on two: it was a mere 20-second trip.

What we DO know is that it was gone by the time that B&T got to the fifth floor; we don't even know for certain that it had gone down in that time - although it's a reasonable conclusion that it did - or how far down it might have gone. We also know that Truly knew that Baker thought shots had come from inside the building, and despite his own belief that they hadn't, he gave no consideration to the cop's suspicions or the possibility that, if Baker was right, an elevator was a reasonable means of escape for anyone who'd been inside the building.

Instead, upon reaching the fifth floor, Truly completely ignored the fact that the west elevator wasn't present even after having seen it there only a minute or so before, while directing Baker (who hadn't looked up the shaft) to the east elevator which Truly knew to have been there because he'd seen it there. Even months later, while testifying before the WC, either this disparity hadn't dawned on Truly or he simply chose to omit it from his testimony. To be generous, it's possible that he'd come to the conclusion that Jack Dougherty had taken it downstairs, and thus was able to ignore the obvious possibilities.

What's lacking is any kind of timing from the second to the sixth floor by the two men: Baker's trip to the second floor was re-enacted and has been dissected six ways from Sunday over the years, but never has there been any sort of attempt to determine how long it took them to cover the rest of the distance upstairs.

We do know that the elevators weren't as noisy as some people like to portray; that the two men were making a considerable amount of noise running up the enclosed wooden stairway in boots and shoes; and that they paused, however briefly, at each floor for Baker to look around (that he didn't see the three black men when on five can be because of him following Truly's lead to the east elevator and didn't look back over his shoulder, just as easily as it could be that the men didn't do exactly as they had claimed to, which latter explanation Gilbride settles upon).

There's much more, even as far as I've read, but my intent here is not to review Gilbride's work, but merely to point out additional areas of consideration and research, as well as to note that additional and opposing conclusions can be reached from the same (or more) data. One of these days, I'll get around to posting my perspective on this - what I call "The Three Blind Mice," part two of a three-part essay including "The Great Elevator Race" and "The Invisible Man," which respectively deal with what happened with the elevators in the time leading up to noon (when Eddie Piper saw Oswald and heard him say he was going "either 'up' or 'out'" for lunch, despite Gilbride's only noting the former of the two options), and examining Jack Dougherty's story in detail; "Mice" covers everyone's movements in between as best as they can be determined.

I kind of like the format the Elevator Escape Theory is presented in, and might ask Greg to post it there (Greg? Send me an email on this) ... or maybe I'll use it to put the theory that John McAdams will even post conspiracy articles on his website!

More later, maybe.

Go to Options on the top right-hand side. Then select from the three types of "Display Modes".

John, is there somewhere we can go to get an explanation of the three modes?

"Standard" mode is displayed in the same "default" way the entire forum had displayed in the past, with posts appearing sequentially as they were posted.

"Outline" mode displays a "tree" of the thread, with the ability to click on the replies to particular messages, but with many or most of them hidden, and not all of them(?) visible when you click on them.

The "linear" mode seems to combine both display methods above, with the sequence of appearance being the order that replies to the each message were posted, but as yet I haven't been able to determine whether replies to replies are posted under the message they are replies to, or if there's some other methodology in this view.

Can you offer any insights?

Is there a way to turn off the "thread view" and return to the previous "page view" of the forum? It's nice, I suppose, for some people to be able to follow a thread according to its responses, but to have to click three, four or five times to read even a short thread is counter-productive, and a real pain in the rear. I don't like it at all.

Oh, nevermind: I found it. Anyone else running across this, it can be changed using the Options button at the upper right of the topic or message. That makes the change universal.

According to Wikipedia (you can only trust about half of its entries), Cuneo worked for LaGuardia only during 1931-32, prior to being admitted to the New York bar. He wrote a book called Life with Fiorello (1955), so my bet would be that if he had anything to do with CAP's founding, it would be in there. He is not recognized as having anything to do with it. He worked with OSS during the war.

That you're "sure" that CAP kept and presumably keeps "records and files of members, who they were, where they came from, what they were doing and where they were going" does not make it so. Indeed, other than their original membership application, which is not very in-depth, awards, promotions, and official SAR exercises and missions, CAP doesn't keep records of much at all, and certainly not their comings and goings, or any other kind of on-going data (other than if they moved and joined another squadron somewhere else).

CAP is not what you seem to think it is by a long stretch. Call it what you want, it's really not much different from the Boy Scouts. Or were they a subversive part of the plot as well?

The word is "ludicrous," by the way.

I thought it might be worth starting a thread on David Harold Byrd. ...

During this period Byrd became very interested in aviation. In 1938 Governor James Allred appointed him to the Texas Civil Aeronautics Commission. In September 1941 he formed the Civil Air Patrol. During the Second World War Byrd commanded an antisubmarine base for the Civil Air Patrol at Beaumont. ...

Richard Bartholomew suggested in Byrds, Planes, and an Automobile that Byrd knew David Ferrie via the Civil Air Patrol.

Tony Atzenhoffer was in the Civil Air Patrol in 1955 at the Moisant Airport. He knew David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald. He told me that DH Byrd was in charge of the Lousiana and Texas regions of the Civil Air Patrol. He came to Moissant Airport on special occasions such as orientation meetings for new recruits. Thus Byrd knew Ferrie and was part of that New Orleans Civil Air Patrol milieu.

... Byrd's private national intelligence network - the Civil Air Patrol, and its New Orleans connections certainly tie these people together with Ferrie, Bannister, Shaw, et al., but I don't think those Yahoos were behind what happened at Dealey Plaza, while Byrd's personal relationships with Art Collins, General LeMay and the Joint Chiefs is hotter and closer to the strategic center of the 11/22/63 coup.

It wasn't the Yahoos - Ferrie, Banister and Shaw who put together Oswald and Dealey Plaza, though Byrd was associated with them and their networks via CAP, it was Byrd's connections with Art Collins, LeMay and the JCS at JMWAVE that cuts to the heart of not only the assassination at Dealey Plaza, but the coup that took over the government.

Some of these threads are tenuous at best, at least insofar as the CAP goes. Let me correct a few thoughts based on my own extensive experience with CAP, which will put some things into perspective.

I was associated with CAP from 1964 through 1976, closer to the time period we're discussing that it was to today. My father joined and started a cadet squadron, which he served as commander to while rising to the rank of major. He was thereafter promoted to the wing (state) staff, where he eventually became deputy wing commander. I joined his squadron (coincidentally, the Gen. Curtis E. LeMay Cadet Squadron) and, after he was gone, served as cadet commander and on the wing-level Cadet Advisory Council. Several friends of mine from that era are still active with CAP, and several of them have served as squadron, and three as wing commanders, in different locations. I also worked at HQ CAP while I was in the Air Force.

The actual founders of the CAP were former New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who was then serving as director of the Office of Civilian Defense, and USAAF General John F. Curry, who was its first national commander. The organization was formed over several months before being officially chartered on December 1, 1941, less than a week before Pearl Harbor, as a way to use America's civilian aviation resources to aid the war effort instead of grounding them, with an emphasis on coastal and border states, of which Texas is both. Ultimately, CAP pilots were credited with having sighted over 150 submarines, and having sunk two.

Clearly, more than just LaGuardia and Curry were involved in the formation of the CAP, and from well before its December 1 inauguration date. Byrd, in his capacity with the Texas Civil Aeronautics Commission, was among CAP's "founders," although they are not officially recognized as such; other men (and possibly women) in other states in similar capacities were instrumental in the organizations founding at the same time.

Byrd served as Texas Wing commander from December 1, 1941, to May 28, 1948, and remains the longest-serving wing commander in Texas' 68-year history with CAP, whose national headquarters was located at Ellington Air Force Base near San Antonio for many years. Thereafter, Byrd was the commander of the Southwest Region of CAP, which coordinated and supported the efforts of six states including Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona. He served on CAP's national board from 1954 to 1960, serving as its chairman from April 1959 to April 1960. He was later promoted to Brigadier General after his retirement.

To make a point of all this, to suggest, first, that the CAP is or was anyone's "private national intelligence network" is ludicrous, made up as it was an is of ordinary American citizens, many of whom happen to fly airplanes. That David Ferrie was a member does not paint even a quarter of CAP's members with the same brush.

Second, given my father's position and, to a lesser extent, my own in the CAP, when you consider that the deputy wing commander's son, himself a high-ranking cadet, never met a sitting region commander (I knew one before he was region commander) during his entire CAP career, nor to my knowledge did my father more than maybe once. I don't consider it likely, based on that experience, that Oswald or even Ferrie ever met Byrd either.

Third, "cadet orientations" are routine matters handled at the local (squadron) level. Many or most of those new cadets will not even be members in two years. It is not of such moment that even a wing commander would attend, much less a region commander. Indeed, when you consider that cadets who'd been members five years or longer who received the CAP's highest cadet honor, the Spaatz award, even the wing commander didn't always attend such functions (and in my experience, a region commander never did), it's again much less likely that a region commander went to a cadet orientation.

This perspective is underscored by the vast amount of territory making up Byrd's command, and the large number of squadrons holding monthly or bi-monthly orientations, there wouldn't have been time to attend very many or get to know very many people at the squadron level. That includes Ferrie, even if he was the squadron commander, and much less likely if he was anything lower in rank.

Lastly, as you might gather from much of the above, the region commander (Byrd would have had no reason other than occasional reciprocal official visits to have gone to Louisiana while Texas Wing commander) is in a fairly lofty position, and doesn't often mingle with the rank-and-file. This is true not only of CAP, but of other organizations as well: most Masons have never met their (statewide) Grand Master, Knights of Columbus their Supreme Knight, or Elks or Eagles their state presidents. When they travel, they typically mingle with those now or formerly in leadership positions. One simply does not have the HMFIC "drop in" unannounced at a meeting or function, and protocol demands that he be given special recognitions when there.

Long and short, there may be some connections between some of the people described in these threads, but it is highly unlikely, in my studied opinion, that there was a "CAP connection" between Byrd and anyone involved, directly or peripherally, with the assassination (other than that they belonged to the same organization).

... I wonder if he ever saw any.

Probably. "Unidentified aircraft" are a whole lot more common than UFOs.

Just for curiosity: any guesses why two other cops - one whose normal patrol was out east by Garland, the other whose beat was up north by Carrollton and Farmers Branch - happened to be in Oak Cliff before and during Tippit's reassignment?

Since you said guess, I'll be happy to.

My guess is that one or both of them could be the shooter(s) of Tippit.

I have wondered for years now why the one cop did not respond when paged by dispatch, and further, why his call sign (I believe it was 56) was not mentioned again in the available transcript after being paged by dispatch.

I'd think that would be a good guess.

Dispatch called for 56 twice - once asking if anyone else knew where he was(!) - during the first minute after the shooting, and got no response. It was during this time that 91 - W.D. Mentzel, assigned to central Oak Cliff - called in "clear" from an unexplained traffic call. He later claimed to have called in a "Signal 5" (meal break), and in fact he reported that he went to the Luby's Cafeteria on West Jefferson, and he is not heard on Channel One until after 1:00.

Patrolman W.P. Parker, who was assigned to district 56 in far east Dallas (see map below), called in just before 12:45 to say that he'd be "clear for five." Dispatch acknowledged that and asked his location, which he said was "East Jefferson." A search of all Dallas streets will return only one "Jefferson" anywhere in the city, in Oak Cliff, with East Jefferson only being between Zangs Boulevard and downtown, including the viaduct over the Trinity River.

Parker was somewhere within a mile of central Oak Cliff.

One minute later, JD Tippit was ordered into Central Oak Cliff. Other than a description of the suspect in the downtown shooting, it was the very next transmission originated by dispatch.

Two minutes later, Officer J.M. Lewis, assigned to district 35 in northeast Dallas, calls in "clear," and asked his location says he's at "105 Corinth" (see Google map). When Tippit had been ordered into central Oak Cliff, he'd indicated his location was at Kiest & Bonnie View; he is next heard from nine minutes later at 8th & Lancaster. The most direct and sensible route to take from the first location to the other to go into central Oak Cliff is shown on this map; any other route would involve going through central Oak Cliff first.

Look here to see where 105 Corinth is relative to JD Tippit's route into Oak Cliff, and the approximate time it takes to get there from where Tippit was.

When 35 called in "clear" at 12:47, he was told to "remain in service." Five minutes later - seven minutes after Tippit left Kiest and Bonnie View - he called in again, stating that he'd "go on down that way, downtown," which dispatch agrees to without argument after having previously told him to remain in service, presumably in his own district (if the dispatcher didn't know that 105 Corinth wasn't in district 35, which is hard to believe ... but not as hard to fathom as that dispatch would tell him to "remain in service" in another district 10 miles away!).

Two minutes later, at about 12:54:30, Tippit said he was at 8th and Lancaster.

So, to recap, we have:

What makes this even more interesting is that according to dispatcher Murray Jackson several years later on a television broadcast, the reason that he'd ordered Tippit into central Oak Cliff is that Jackson realized that "we were draining resources from Oak Cliff" - in fact, by the time Tippit got his order, there were only three other officers in Oak Cliff besides him and Mentzel, who was presumably(?) at lunch - and there wouldn't be anyone available to answer emergency calls in the area.

Given that, it's odd that one of those remaining officers, W.E. Smith - in district 77 directly west of Tippit's patrol district - was ordered downtown less than a minute after Jackson "realized we were draining resources from Oak Cliff," further draining those resources. And despite the fact that 56 and 35 were in the Oak Cliff area, neither of them was called on to shore up those depleted resources, and 35 was also "allowed" to go downtown (where we can only presume he'd actually gone).

R.C. Nelson, assigned to district 87 southwest of Tippit's district 78 and who was also ordered into central Oak Cliff with Tippit, was nearly in central Oak Cliff when he received the order, on Marsalis at the R.L. Thornton Expressway. Two and a half minutes later at 12:48, he indicated that he was at the "south end [of the] Houston Street viaduct," which Google says is 1.2 miles and three minutes away from his previous location. He was at the north end of Oak Cliff, farther from "central Oak Cliff" than he'd been when he got the order to go there.

Four and a half minutes later, at about 12:52:30, he indicated that he was "out down here" without any question from dispatch either why he was "out" (unavailable) or where "down here" was, but merely a simple "10-4." It later came to pass that "down here" was at the TSBD. (Google thinks it takes five minutes to get there, not 4½.) The only officers officially left in Oak Cliff were Tippit, Mentzel (at lunch) and R.W. Walker, presumably on duty in districts 85 and 86; there is no record of his activities other than his response to Tippit's shooting and being on Jefferson Boulevard within three minutes of the report (he didn't see anyone) and having gotten a description of the Oak Cliff suspect within six.

(The description was of "a white male, about thirty, five eight, black hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, a white shirt and dark slacks.")

At no time during the interval from 12:30 until 1:07 when he radioed in "clear" (available) did dispatchers ever attempt to contact Mentzel, and gave him no instructions until four minutes later when he was sent to investigate an accident at 817 W Davis, remaining there until 1:19 when he cleared and was told of Tippit's shooting. (Dispatch attempted to contact him after the "citizen call" and after twice calling for Tippit, but Mentzel didn't answer.)

There are only two short broadcasts from 35, neither indicating where he was or what he was doing. For all the need to find 56 immediately after the downtown shooting, and to need to know where he was fifteen minutes later when he finally did call in, there were no further broadcasts to or from him through after 2:00.

As interesting(?) asides to all of this, East Jefferson Boulevard winds west and north from central Oak Cliff to join with Zangs Boulevard again about a block east of the former Gloco Station, where Tippit was supposedly sighted before his death. Is it possible that it was actually Officer Parker who was there instead?

Also, for all of the attempts to determine the identity of the driver of the police car seen by Earlene Roberts in front of the rooming house, no officer who filed a report claimed to have been in that area at all. Was Earlene so blind that she could not distinguish a police car from any other, or did someone simply not respond to the investigation entirely truthfully? If the latter, what was there to conceal if they were there on legitimate business? J.M. Lewis reported that he was downtown at the crime scene all afternoon, and W.P. Parker indicated only that he'd manned a (one-officer) "roadblock" in his district.

... for now, Seamus has requested I take it down for further editing.

I realize that I'm just an American who doesn't always "get" the colloquialisms, but some minor edits jumped out at me, such as the fact that one does not "bare" something in mind, he "bears" it in mind (the past tense is "borne in mind," not "bared in mind"), and two things being the same thing are not one "in" the same, but one "and" the same. There are also several instances of things that are actually one word (in America, anyway) that Seamus breaks into two (e.g., "landline" rather than "land line") and possible mis-spellings (something solid may well have come "fourth" from the 3rd Floor Homicide Office? Did he mean "have come forth," or did he mean that three other things came before it?).

I'm unclear on why "further confusion may have been caused due to Daylight Savings Time in New Zealand." I appreciate the history lesson of when it was adopted (in 1974 in NZ, and 1966 in Dallas), but DST has never been in effect in the US during November; with NZ being in the southern hemisphere, is DST is in effect there during the same months it is in the US, or six months opposite? Does it really matter if neither location used DST at the time?

I'd rather think that any confusion might lie in the "zig-zag" nature of the Date Line and observed time zones in the Oceanic region, as shown in this US Navy map, which shows NZ in the "L" zone between meridians, but observing the "M" zone's time. According to this map and chart, Dallas is in the "S" zone which is GMT (UCT) -6, while "M" is GMT +12 with some of the more easterly island groups being +13 and +14, even on the other side of the Date Line. (e.g., French Polynesia used the "M†" time zone GMT +14, which is two hours later than NZ. It is east of American Samoa, which is on the "X" time zone GMT -11 and a day ahead of the latter! At midnight GMT on January 1, it is 2:00 p.m. in FP on January 1, but 1:00 p.m. on December 31 in AS to the west!)

These are just some thoughts. It also seemed as if some things were left hanging (just a feeling; I'd have to go back and re-read to see if I still agree with myself!), and I never could quite tell whether extolling or belittling Perry's "Mr. X" article or what, and sometimes seemed to vacillate between the two.

Otherwise, a good work. It does seem as if the difference during CST and NZST is indeed 18 hours, but with DST it sure does get confusing (there are only 17 hours difference between US Central Daylight Time and New Zealand Standard(?) Time at this precise moment).

... like I said Duke, you are blowing hot air. And you damn well know it. P.S. Do try not to keep throwing these little hissy fits and tantrums every time someone 'dares' to disagree with you please. I realize you've had some articles published but frankly your head is so far up your own backside I truly do worry about you suffocating.

Tsk. Despite your truly enlightening and enlivening sense of humor, please try to stay on topic. Nobody cares about my beathing or your opinion of it.

You've made it abundantly clear that neither you nor anyone else can claim a definitive time for the Tippit slaying ....

Have I? If you say so. I've also made it abundantly clear that it wasn't at 1:16 or even a minute or two before that, but at least several minutes before that. Whether that was at 1:05 or 1:07 or 1:09, if it took Oswald more than 11 minutes but less than 12 to get there, then he had to have left the rooming house earlier than 1:00 to make that walk. Each preceding milestone must then be moved correspondingly backward to accomodate "known" time lapses. Ultimately, it has Oswald leaving the TSBD before the shots were fired.

If Oswald left 1026 after 1:00 and the shooting took place before 1:10 or even 1:12 (when Helen Markham should have been getting onto her bus), and especially if it took place between 1:06 (Markham's estimate) and 1:10 (when Bowley arrived after the shooting), then Oswald either ran there or had other transportation. OR it was someone other than Oswald who pulled the trigger.

Just for curiosity: any guesses why two other cops - one whose normal patrol was out east by Garland, the other whose beat was up north by Carrollton and Farmers Branch - happened to be in Oak Cliff before and during Tippit's reassignment?

Hey, Robert, that is an interesting story. Who was the writer of this piece? Can you tell if it was reported first-hand or as part of a series of second- and third-hand reports (e.g., "my friend who was there told me that ...")? Either way, the guy in the plaid jacket isn't the guy Carr claimed to see ... tho', y'know ... he could be Ed Hoffman's "railroad man," ya think?

(Please let's not even go there beyond that!)

Your quote of the earlier message also reminded me of something I'd meant to post a long time ago to make a point:

THANKS FOR THAT DUKE, IT EXPLAINS A LOT - BK

What do you think it explains, Bill?

Well, after giving us your take on Carr: "my estimation is that he's very simply just a wannabe: someone who simply wanted to be important and thus created a story based upon bits of what he knew of others', thus giving him his own 15 minutes of fame."

You tell us that we never would have heard of him at all if it wasn't for a group of girls who he told his story to, and one of them immediately called the FBI. And who were this group of girls? Mary Sue Brown, Holly Jordan and Elsie Johnson.

Mary Sue had lived with Eva Grant, Jack Ruby's sister, and Elsie Johnson knew Ruth Paine, but was closer friends with Michael Paine, who she knew from both the ACLU and the Unitarian Church they both attended.

To refresh your memory, Michael Paine took Oswald to an ACLU meeing shortly before the assassination, so Elsie Johnson may have even met Oswald, the accused assassin, who was killed while in police custody by Jack Ruby, Mary Sue's friend and brother of the women she once lived with.

Let it not be said I've spread false information. Well, not entirely false, but misleading. In truth, it caught me up the first time I read it, but after doing a little more looking into it, I found that the connection I'd seen at first didn't actually exist.

That is: the Elsie Johnson that Ruth Paine knew was not the Elsie Johnson that Carr knew. They were just two women who happened to share the same name.

Even tremendous odds work out sometimes: how do you think people win lotteries (a 1:532,568,923 chance in winning)?

God Duke, you really are as long winded as hell, lets keep this nice and simple for the folks , yes?

God, Dennis, I didn't realize I was talking to idiots who can't quite handle compound sentences. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Or are you asking me to put it in terms that you can understand? I'd suggest that if you can understand it, most other people can too. I don't see any need to "dumb it down" for "the folks," but I'm sure they appreciate your concern for my overtaxing their intellect.

Fact: Earlene Roberts could have been two min fast in her estimate.

Fact: Bowley's watch could have been one min fast.

Fact: Oswald could have got to the scene in under twelve min.

Fact: Tippit could have been shot at ten past one.

Fact: The above shows Oswald could have killed Tippit.

Fact: Your earlier statement that "That's why it doesn't matter which way Oswald got to 10th & Patton because, no matter which way he presumably got there, he couldn't have done it that fast" is plainly inaccurate.

Duke, you're a damn good researcher, arguably the best on this forum but you have a bad habit of presenting your opinion as fact, its not.

I present facts and tell you what I think of them, or what I think they mean. You don't have to agree, but your disagreement doesn't establish a different fact.

Tell you what: start at 1:16 and work your way backward to 12:30 or earlier. Use the WC times, as well as conflicting statements under oath (e.g., Whaley's statement of how long it took him to drive the cab route in his own vehicle, versus how long it took the AAG to drive Whaley's cab over the same route with Whaley as a passenger), as well as reasonable estimates for other things to have occurred, such as the gathering of the crowd before Bowley's arrival.

If 1:16 is the late end of the timeline, the early end is when McWatters was let go from the check point at St Paul Street. You do the work this time and I'll tell you where I think it's wrong.

Feel free to explain it in detail for "the folks." I think they'll "get it" even if you don't.

Of course, if Oswald didn't shoot Tippit, then none of this is relevant. Can the time of Tippit's death/murder be established apart from Oswald's supposed movements? If Oswald was framed as the Sixth Floor sniper, then why couldn't he have been framed for the Tippit murder by one of the Oswald impersonators? - BK

Bill, this is "out of the box" thinking. The problem I keep coming across is that when someone proposes something "out of the box," a few people say "wow, I've never thought of that before," and the rest continue to examine it from smack dab in the middle of the box.

As we've seen above, if you posit that Tippit was shot at a time when Oswald couldn't have been there, the proposition is false because Oswald couldn't have gotten there in time. If you cite a piece of evidence, "it could be wrong," and we re-examine it from the perspective of when Oswald could have gotten there.

It reminds me of when teachers used to erase the chalk board, but vestiges of the earlier lesson remained and kids will be looking at the ghost of the math problem during spelling class. In sum, there's no such thing as a clean slate: most people can only view it from the perspective of what they've learned before.

It's clear that Oswald did it at 1:15 because there's nothing to say that he didn't or couldn't have.

That statement is not accurate Duke. Read the information contained in Judge Joe Brown's Autopsy Permit. Consider that the time given [1:15 p.m.] would have been after Tippett had been picked up and transported to the hospital.

You're right: the statement is not accurate. It was made with tongue firmly in cheek.

It was made in response to an earlier comment that it "isn't possible" to determine any kind of timeline regarding Tippit's death, which claim began by questioning Earlene Roberts' reliability ... as if anything that Oswald was doing at any time had anything at all to do with the murder. First we begin with the conclusion and then we examine the possibilities: Oswald shot Tippit, so could he have gotten there in time?

The answer, of course, is "yes" ... but only if we first make the underlying presumption that Tippit was shot at a time late enough for Oswald to have been able to cover the 9/10-mile distance. I think we're safe in saying that Oswald couldn't have run a four-minute mile; does anyone disagree? (I didn't think so.) So, if Tippit was killed in less time after LHO was seen elsewhere (in other cases, we'd call that an alibi!), then it means that ... whoa! Tippit couldn't have been killed that early!

Get it?

The proof is that he could have gotten there in under 12 minutes, which was before the shooting had been reported (and clearly the report wasn't made before Tippit was shot; we can all agree on that, too). That the shooting likewise could have occurred at any time prior to the 1:16 report is limited by the least amount of time it could take Oswald to get from one place to the next: if he could run a six-minute mile, then the shooting could have occurred as early as 1:10, but since there's no evidence that he could do that, it's not possible for Tippit to have been shot that early.

Simple, isn't it?

All you have to do is start with a firm conclusion - Oswald shot Tippit - and the evidence will support it. Where it might not, it's simple enough to realize that people's perceptions are not always correct - Earlene Roberts' time estimates were probably wrong, as Bowley's watch probably was, too - so at the very least, they don't undermine the conclusion. Since there's no way that unreliable evidence can prove anything beyond the all-too-obvious conclusion, then the conclusion must be correct.

Judge Brown's order can't be correct, at least not relative to DPD radio time, since the shooting wasn't reported over the radio until 1:16; at that time, the body was still in the street. It would imply that Judge Brown knew Tippit was dead before DPD did.

If it is correct, then it's not based upon the time he signed the order nor on the time Tippit arrived at the hospital dead, but possibly on the time the ambulance attendants estimated that they had picked him up, already dead. Today, EMTs can pronounce; then, it's not impossible that medically trained ambulance drivers could do so, but that, not being doctors, they'd have nevertheless rushed him to the hospital "just in case."

So, once again, we are left with this evidence:

For a 1:05 estimate:

• An unanswered radio call to the officer prior to 1:04
  
• A woman who took the bus to work every day at the same time who said, first, that it was 1:06 and later that she'd "be willing to bet" that it was 1;06 or 1:07 (and being adjudged "confused" because of these markedly different times);
  
• A man who got out of his car after the officer was on the ground and after a crowd had gathered who looked at his watch and said it was 1:10.
  

For a later estimate:

• A "citizen" radio call at 1:16
  
• Oswald couldn't get there any sooner
  

Arguing against the latter are these:

• prior to Bowley making the radio call, Donnie Benavides had been trying to do so unsuccessfully for a minute or longer;
  
• prior to taking the mike from Benavides, Bowley had gotten close enough to Tippit to give him a cursory examination and decide that he was "beyond help" (and had picked up his gun from the street);
  
• Bowley had walked half-a-block from his parked car after having driven it a half-block from Denver Street;
  
• A small crowd had already gathered when Bowley first saw Tippit lying in the street; and
  
• The small crowd had time to gather.
  

So unless one is willing to suggest that Oswald shot Tippit with an audience surrounding him, it's pretty clear that Tippit was dead at least two, three or four minutes before the radio call, and very possibly longer, giving him eight minutes to get there with a crowd present, or even less if one considers that crowds don't form instantaneously.

If there's a problem with that, then one simply realizes that Earlene Roberts was wrong, and it wasn't even as late as 1:00 when Oswald arrived at the rooming house, and/or that he didn't stay anywhere near as long as she'd estimated. And Whaley and the FBI were wrong, that it either took less time to get to where Whaley had dropped Oswald off or that he'd left his cab stand earlier than presumed. In the latter case, it also means that Cecil McWatters' estimates were wrong, as was the route supervisor's releasing him from the time-check stop too early. This in turn means either that Oswald got to where he'd gotten onto the bus earlier than presumed, and again that the FBI agents who timed the walk to that location did it entirely too slow, or that Oswald had left the TSBD well before 12:33 and therefore before he encountered Baker and Truly in the lunch room and possibly before he'd even shot the President. Ultimately, it proves that JFK was not shot at 12:30 as we've all suspected, and that both the clock over the TSBD on the Hertz sign was also wrong, and so was the DPD clock that we've all been using as a gauge of time.

So, back to my inaccurate statement: there is no evidence, and since there's no evidence, it must have occurred exactly as proposed. Please don't let facts get in the way; they have a way of working themselves out to our satisfaction.

All I can say on that is that he [bowley] 's been adamant about his watch being correct, tho' it was apparently nothing special like a Rolex or something. The reason he'd looked at his watch at all was because he was late picking his wife up from work to go on a week's vacation.

Duke: I can find nothing about Bowley (except his WC affidavit) in Maryferrell.org or the Sixth Floor website. Can you give us the exact source for Bowley's statement that his watch was accurate on 11/22/63?

He was also interviewed twice by the HSCA; sorry, don't have the RIFs handy. The source is Tom Bowley, from his lips to my ears. I've met with and interviewed him several times.

the WC made an attempt at doing so, and based on that attempt - including knocking nine minutes off of William Whaley's time - the earliest they could get him into the house was at 1:00, and then only if he "power walked" up Beckley.

Re: Knocking nine minutes off Whaley's time... Where can we find further info on this? Have you posted about this before?

Whaley's testimony. It's been discussed in threads regarding "LHO's escape from the TSBD," tho' I couldn't tell you what thread at the moment. It was one in which I at one point had suggested the possibility of DPD getting a transfer from McWatters' bus when they stopped him on his evening run to get him to view a lineup. Got real detailed in this as to elapsed times ....

. and [Tippit's girlfriend's] current address.

More to follow on this?

In due time. For now, I'd only mention as an aside that she was detained briefly at one point, years ago - long after 1963 - for having said something stupid in an airport, like "hijack!" (tho' I recall it was a bit more profound than that, like saying she'd had a gun in her luggage or something).

... and current address.

According to one former OC cop, it was "common knowledge" at the station that JDT had girlfriend in Oak Cliff living "on the south side of Tenth."

Duke, that statement is in sore need of corroboration.

Absolutely ... but I fear that such a thing might not ever be forthcoming from very many of his fellow officers, so we need to either take it at face value or discard it unequivocably.

According to William Scoggins, who was an habitue of the domino club down Patton Street for lunch, remarked that he'd "seen [Tippit] all the time," and thus paid little attention to him as he passed on Tenth.

I am not sure that Scoggins positively identified Tippit as someone he knew by sight. He may have meant only that he used to see cop cars all the time, and paid no particular attention to this one. Even if Scoggins was referring specifically to Tippit, Scoggins did not state that he'd "seen [Tippit] all the time" AT THAT PARTICULAR LOCATION.

"I just seen him all the time" probably could mean any cop. Could be, too, that Scoggins wasn't referring to himself when he made that remark, but about any cab driver. Or maybe he just didn't realize that he was being asked about a particular incident at a particular location on a particular day: "well, y'know, sometimes I'd see him downtown, and at other times I'd see him in the south part of town, and other times over by the river there, so when I saw him here, well, of course it just seemed perfectly natural."

That "the boys" in the gentlemen's club on Patton would be "joking" with him about the President getting shot likewise seems pretty normal: Texas is a friendly place, and chances are that people are going to strike up a conversation and try to pull the leg of just about any stranger who comes walking into their little neighborhood clubhouse. For all we know, it could have been his first time there, so "all the time" could mean just that once.

One of the Davis sisters-in-law apparently saw him enough that she thought he lived two doors from her: "he was shot in front of the hedgerow between the house next door [to us] and the house that he lived in."

Posner (&ors) argue that Davis meant the house WE lived in, and there is no other testimony that Tippit "lived" next door to the Davis girls.

I know. "He" and "we" sound an awful lot alike, and the court steno could simply have gotten it wrong, too. But funny thing: there was a hedgerow between the house next door to the Davis girls and the house beyond that one, but not one between the Davis's house and the one next door, so how could she have meant that? Maybe she meant a bush. All that required was backing the car up one house and dragging the body a short ways down the street, which might explain why Helen Markham put her work shoes on top of the patrol car, too.

These are small points, to be sure. I do agree that the evidence shows that Lee Oswald was not in the vicinity of Tenth & Patton at the time of the shooting, and that the plot required the killing of a cop.

I think I'm going to go back to the Hoffman thread where everyone believes every word he speaks. When Ed says he saw three cars of different colors and makes than Lee Bowers, it's quite clear that Bowers must be "mistaken;" when Ed says he saw "suit man" get into a green Rambler parked between Bowers' tower and the Pullman cars (which were between Hoffman and Bowers), it's a "significant detail."

There is no evidence, Ray. Earlene Roberts is unreliable, Markham's time estimate "doesn't inspire confidence," Bowley's watch could be wrong, Scoggins wasn't specific enough, Davis was misquoted and didn't mean what she said anyway, and more cops need to speak up about JD's girlfriend. Given the large number of other witnesses who were interviewed by the WC who lived in the immediate area, you'd think that at least one of them would've said something, eh? I mean, other than Jimmy Smith, who was AWOL and consequently must be entirely unreliable.

It's clear that Oswald did it at 1:15 because there's nothing to say that he didn't or couldn't have.

Anyone attempting to create a definitive timeline for Oswald or Tippit regarding the murder time, based on witness testimony and statements are pursuing an exercise in futility. And any researcher who claims with such utter conviction that Tippit was killed "at about 1:05" and therefore "no matter which way he (Oswald) presumably got there, he couldn't have done it that fast" is, quite frankly, blowing hot air.

What is the evidence concerning Tippit's time of death?

For a 1:05 estimate:

• An unanswered radio call to the officer prior to 1:04
  
• A woman who took the bus to work every day at the same time who said, first, that it was 1:06 and later that she'd "be willing to bet" that it was 1;06 or 1:07 (and being adjudged "confused" because of these markedly different times);
  
• A man who got out of his car after the officer was on the ground and after a crowd had gathered who looked at his watch and said it was 1:10.
  

For a later estimate:

• A "citizen" radio call at 1:16
  
• Oswald couldn't get there any sooner
  

Then there's the testimony of Helen Markam, she witnessed the murder as she walked towards the scene. She first says, "I believe it was a little after 1" but when pressed for a more accurate time she says "I wouldn't be afraid to bet it was 6 or 7 minutes after 1". I don't know about anyone else but the words "I imagine" and "I wouldn't be afraid to bet" don't exactly fill me with confidence. The only truly accurate timeline Markham can give is that she left home at 1:00 to catch her bus at 1:15, she therefor witnessed the murder between these times.

The bus schedule (CD630h) shows that the bus was due to arrive at 1:12, not at 1:15, no matter what time she said it was. Maybe she rounded the time? Or perhaps always kept her clocks and watch running a little ahead so she wouldn't miss things (my wife does that, by 20 minutes)? I don't know, but I do know that it only takes about 1½ minutes to walk the short block from her front door to the corner she was standing at, so how many minutes after her 1:00 departure would you suggest it actually took her to get that far?

You're placing far too much faith on the totally unreliable Earline Roberts, whom even you admit was more interested in her T.V. The statement in her testimony "it must have been around 1 o'clock, or maybe a little after, what time I wouldn't want to say." clearly shows the woman was far from sure what time Oswald arrived at the boarding house, she could easily have been as much as 5 minutes out. Which in itself completely shatters any attempt at a timeline.

Not actually, since the WC made an attempt at doing so, and based on that attempt - including knocking nine minutes off of William Whaley's time - the earliest they could get him into the house was at 1:00, and then only if he "power walked" up Beckley.

The only witness who states a time with any real conviction is Bowly. He arrives on the scene at 1:10 and Tippit has already been gunned down. Bowley's conviction for that time is based on the fact that he looked at his watch on arrival, very sensible, this surely is a reliable witness indeed, trouble is what we don't know is how reliable his watch was. You yourself Duke, present a far more eloquent argument for not trusting Bowley's time piece than I ever could, post #4 here: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=6322

As I've already noted, Markham gave her times consistently, her semantic presentation of them aside. As to my "eloquent argument," it did not speak to Bowley's watch or his winding habits. All I can say on that is that he's been adamant about his watch being correct, tho' it was apparently nothing special like a Rolex or something. The reason he'd looked at his watch at all was because he was late picking his wife up from work to go on a week's vacation.

Me, I'm not for throwing out all the available evidence because of corroboration or because the way someone said something doesn't "fill me with confidence." No matter what else anyone might say about Helen Markham and her reliability as a witness, when it comes down to the simple things she did, and especially the things she did every day like take a bus to work, I don't have any serious issues with her time estimate except that six minutes seems an awful long time for her to have taken to walk a short suburban block that I've walked in under 90 seconds. (Odd that, among all those reconstructions, her walk to that corner was not specifically noted, although it was noted that it only took to the tune of two minutes to walk all the way to the Jefferson Boulevard bus stop.)

It's also worth noting that Tippit was last heard from at 12:54. He had more than enough time from 8th & Lancaster to reach Top Ten, place an unconnected phone call, and get over to 10th & Patton by 1:04 or 1:05.

So, not only do no two witnesses agree on the murder time ....

But two do. You choose simply to disregard both of them.

As I claimed at the start "Anyone attempting to create a definitive timeline for Oswald or Tippit regarding the murder time, based on witness testimony and statements are pursuing an exercise in futility." And I stand by that claim. The only 'time' facts regarding the Tippit slaying that are trustworthy are that Oswald arrived at his boarding house at approximately 1pm, Tippit was killed between 1:05 and 1:15 and that Oswald, walking at a brisk pace, could have covered the distance in 11min 10 seconds.

Actually, as noted, the bus came at 1:12, so your timeline must be shortened.

For anyone to cover 9/10 of a mile in 11:10 (or 11.16 seconds) requires an average speed of 7.1 feet per second. By comparison, military "double time" is 7.5fps, not quite what one would call a "brisk walk." I'm not overly convinced by comparing Oswald's abilities to a fitness instructor's, any more than I am by comparing his marksmanship to a guy who shoots skeet from the hip. Possible? Sure. Likely? Not so sure.

Dougherty isn't dead, is he? And even if they are all dead, what's keeping us from determining the truth, especially if they were lying?

Social Security Death Index shows a Jack Edwin Dougherty of Texas deceased in 1992, as I recall, at about age 69 or 70.

Actually, it's probably us who keep us from learning the truth. Jimmy Files would say he'd never heard of them, someone else would say that Mac Wallace told them that it was someone else who can't be named yet, Ed Hoffman never saw anyone remotely resembling them, and none of 'em drove a green Rambler anyway.

If Euins man was Black, it was far more likely to be Piper than Bonnie Ray. And in the event it was Piper, the "bald spot" was likely the reflection from his glasses which he only wore while working, and may have had pushed up on top of his head when not needed. If Euins man was Caucasian, then there is thread over at Lancer which may have identified him.

In Amos' testimony, he was adamant that he did not describe the man as black or white, that a policeman had "interpreted" him to have said that. What he'd actually said, he testified, is that the man "had a white spot on his head." Bonnie Ray Williams later brushed one out of his.

The man standing at "parade rest" by another witness could conceivably have been Jack Dougherty, whose wartime service was entirely spent at an air base in Illinois guarding planes.

Except that you have JD as looking like Hulk Hogan... not the cool, svelte figure described by others.

Roy Truly described him that way, and my only comment on that was related to his supposed "inability" to have been able to see the President.

Even so, this fact gave Jack access to Troy West's wrapping table, as well as the paper and tape machine apparently used to construct the "bulky package" said to have contained the rifle, or for him to allow someone else access to it. For his part, Troy West said that nobody - not Oswald or anyone else - could or did get to it or borrow any from him at all the time he was at work. ... That leaves relatively few people, among those employed by the TSBD Company being: Roy Truly, O.V. Campbell, Jack Cason, Bill Shelley and Jack Dougherty (and possibly Eddie Piper).

Okay. Fair enough, you're right. Why pick on the poor working man? Anyone in management could have done it. And Truly is, let's face it, a suspicious character in all this. But you need to drop the "possibly" from Piper. His hours were different to the others and he did not leave the building until 7 or 8 at night.

... at which time a cleaning crew came in.

Oswald was beyond any doubt, on the first floor at the time of the assassination. Now if you'd only drop the nonsense about Bonnie Ray and the others... ! I live in hope

Ummm ... the only person who firmly places Oswald on the first floor at noon is none other than the "infamous" Eddie Piper ... and, of course, Oswald himself.

As to the "nonsense about Bonnie Ray and the others," Hank and Junior didn't come upstairs until they'd heard that the President was on Main Street. You can check Channel 2 to see when that was. It took a minute or two to walk around the building and take the elevator upstairs. Then BRW came downstairs, and Jack hung out by the elevators and stairwell and didn't respond to Truly's call for the elevator - neither his yell nor his ringing the bell - tho' he was standing right there, and was gone with it when Truly got to five.

Complete, utter nonsense. Nothing to it, I'm sure. Eddie Piper's our man.

Bonnie Ray Williams had been on the sixth floor, supposedly alone, until he thought he heard Hank and Junior downstairs, at which point he rode down the east elevator to the fifth floor and joined the other two at the front window, according to both his own testimony and that of Junior Jarman (Hank Norman "couldn't remember" who was there first).

A story which is markedly different to what he said on 11/22 - as you are well aware, but deem to be the result of confusion amid turmoil on his and/or the part the those taking his statement.

Yet the first statement we have from Norman was taken in December - well after the mayhem of that day and THAT statement is also markedly different to what he would tell the WC. On that basis, I don't think your "chaos" theory holds much water regarding Bonnie Ray et al.

If there were someone on the sixth floor who was NOT Oswald and who remained a potential threat, would we expect that all of these fellows - all black in Dixie - would immediately cop to "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" If, as Gary Mack apparently told someone here or elsewhere, all of them are dead, I guess we'll never know for sure. If any told their kids, would we believe them?

"didn't think he'd be able to get out to see him," an odd comment from someone described by Roy Truly as "a great, big husky fellow."

Isn't he described in an FBI document as 5' 9"? Hardly "great big and husky", though I guess Truly himself was the antithesis of his middle name-sake. But then, it always struck me that Truly was determined to paint JD as a Lennie Small type character. Did Truly ever buy him a mouse to pet, I wonder?

I'll ask around. Truly's middle name was "Sansom," not "Samson," but your point is made: all things are relative. All I can say at this point is that that's how Truly described him. Others' points here are also well made.

First, we must recall that the motorcade was running behind schedule by at least five minutes.

Good point! Now let's look at what time Eddie Piper ORIGINALLY said the shots occurred. 12:25pm! How did he know? Why, he ran to the nearest clock at the sound of the shots specifically to see what time it was. The question is, was the TSBD clock 5 minutes slow... or was Piper setting up an alibi on the basis of the time he THOUGHT the motorcade came by?

Before anyone jumps on me, I'm not accusing Piper of any shooting. I do think he was used and possibly set up and had that over him to keep him quiet. Scapegoats need alibis too, is all I'm saying... especially when they were in fact in the wrong place. Can we say elderly Negro?

All well and good, but can you put him on the upper floors other than by nobody else mentioning his being on the first floor? Of course, nobody was investigating Piper, so had no reason to ascertain where he might have been at any time. Nobody else mentioned JD either, who also wasn't being investigated or under suspicion of anything (after all, the perp was known and dead, right?). Nobody else even mentioned seeing LHO for that matter, which is the "damning evidence" that put him on the sixth floor to begin with.

The WC spent quite an inordinate amount of time questioning Piper about when and why he ever went above the fourth floor. Do you think maybe they suspected he was actually there on the 6th floor? Yes, I believe they did think that.

An "inordinate amount of time?!?" Six questions in seven total pages of testimony is "inordinate?"

Seven, and he'd probably have been "grilled" about it! No offense, but if this is what makes you think that Eddie Piper was actually on the sixth floor prior to the shooting - or that the WC thought that he was - you've got a lot less to go on than my hypothesis you're enjoying a good chuckle over.

More ...

An excellent post - first off. I think, however, that the fundamental problem here is our expectation that everyone is recounting the events honestly and accurately. Synching everything would be much easier if this were indeed the case.

For example (Bonnie Ray Williams testimony) ... Just as I do not believe Williams ate a sandwich containing chicken on the bone, I also do not believe his WC version of the details. ...

Like the title of Chinua Achebe's book, 'Things fall apart.' What is more logical, it seems to me, is that Williams, Jarman and Norman received significant coaching from Ball prior to their WC testimony - and that loose ends concerning the circumstantial case against Oswald [chicken bones, soda bottle, elevator positions, who was on 5 and 6, etc.] had to be nailed down. What is missing from the actual details of what transpired is that which needed to be concealed.

The WC may well be the grinch here, but it is by no means certain. It would seem a counter-productive thing to call attention to such coaching by bringing up earlier testimony, including reports and affidavits, as the excerpts you quoted do. "Coaching" does not necessarily imply "telling the witness to lie."

While probably not impossible, it is at least difficult to embroider an entirely interwoven story made from disparate lies.

Not everything would require lying either. Why, for example, would Jarman lie about walking around the first floor, eating his sandwich with one hand, holding his coke in the other, putting up his coke bottle and throwing out the trash before going outside? Given that they were all questioned separately, and none told exactly the same story, their being coached together or in coordination seems less likely. To suggest that they lie separately increases the likelihood that they'd trip each other up, and it's really too much to believe that anyone would tell them "okay, you two remember this, while you should 'not recall' anything about it."

If there was coaching of any sort, it would of course have been toward the "conviction" of Oswald. That being the case, why not simply tell them to say they'd caught at least a glimpse of Oswald, whether Bonnie Ray on the sixth floor, or him or any of the other three on the fifth floor? If there was going to be "significant coaching," and especially if there was to be any subornation of perjury, gaining an actual "eyewitness" to Oswald's supposed activities would seem the preferable goal.

That they did not gain an "eyewitness" to Oswald's activities argues against "significant coaching." Why coach anyone toward anything less conclusive? If you can't get the whole enchilada, don't get 'em to lyin' about soft tacos versus hard tacos. Because that's when "things fall apart," when the web gets too tangled.

On the other hand, if my scenario has any validity, then it would seem that they would want to gloss over any number of details that might let on that they knew more than they were saying, tho' it might not be beyond the realm of possibility that any of them might want to drop hints without elaborating. For example, BRW gave several versions, even in his testimony, about how long he'd been upstairs on six: was his longer one perhaps designed to get them to say "hey, wait a minute, didn't you just say --?" That they failed to do so couldn't be rectified without his directly and voluntarily testifying about what what actually occurred ("can't you read between the lines? I'm trying to tell you that ..."), which, if they knew someone else was up there, might get back to whoever they were and have dire consequences.

Better to plead ignorance than open that can of worms. They had plenty of time - starting right after it happened - to agree not to tell anyone what they'd seen, but maybe also not to deny it if they were asked directly.

That nobody said anything about seeing Oswald - whom they needn't fear from the grave - shows either that Oswald wasn't the one who was there, or that he was an extremely lucky guy. It certainly does not put him there despite his not being seen. That they didn't testify to seeing Oswald or anyone else does not eliminate the possibility that someone else was there.

So our questions then become: if it wasn't Oswald, could someone else have done it? If so, how?

(I am particularly adverse to claiming doctored or "coached" testimony because once you start, there's no way to determine where to stop. Then, all testimony is subject to question, and none of it means a thing because you don't know whether all or part of it or none of it is fake. Who was it who said something to the effect that "it's all a lie except the words 'a' and 'the'?")