Duke Lane

For the last time (well, probably not ... sigh!): no man was seen on the sixth floor wearing a brown sportscoat who was later seen leaving from behind the TSBD and getting into a Rambler. This does not even fit Richard Carr's supposed "Sportscoat Man," who was neither on the sixth floor (he was alternately on the fifth and "top" floors ... oh, and let's not forget that he was also behind the picket fence!) nor seen getting into a Rambler (except in his original story, and that Rambler was on Record Street driven by a "young Negro male;" later, the story morphed so that a Rambler supposedly somehow connected with the same man was (not) seen on Houston Street beside the TSBD, and it was two dark-complected Latin men who got into the car while "Sportscoat Man" walked south on Houston. Carr did not say that he'd seen any other man or men with "Sportscoat Man" in any upper windows. Carr's story is bullspit. He made it up and embellished it and couldn't even keep it straight from one telling to the next. See the "Richard Randolph Carr" thread for more info. Amos Euins said that he never said that the man he'd seen was bald, despite police including that description in his affidavit. Arnold Rowland said he saw someone in the southwest window, but not with a sport coat. "Named suspects" are important because, 45 years after the fact, we can't exactly be expecting someone to go looking for someone neither we nor they ever saw, and whose descriptions probably fit some 100,000 men in the city of Dallas at that particular time. Those are just specters without any substance, even if they did exist. How tall were any of them? Heavy or muscular or slim? Color hair? Facial hair? Complexion ruddy, light, medium? Big nose, little nose, pug or hawk or Bob Hope "ski jump?" Age? Weight? C'mon, to be a "suspect," shouldn't we at least be able to give investigators something to go on?

Why not check here and let us know what you find out? This isn't difficult ....

Have you read Covering the Body? In it, the author, Barbie Zelizer, as her doctoral thesis in journalism, argued that, in essence, the press has put itself forward as "the" authority in the Kennedy assassination since, after all, they were "there" and you and I weren't. She went on to cite the various instances where press attacked the Garrison investigation as well as Stone's JFK film because it didn't jibe with their own perceptions of the events that they were "participants" in, even if only as observers ... as if, if you will, someone riding in the press bus could actually tell that it was Oswald who fired the shots and that, by "knowing" this, they can also know that nobody else participated in the killing with him. It's a rather compelling argument, no pun intended (but effective nevertheless!).I think you would be arguing against the historical record to suggest that the WC was intended to salve rather than to solve. You do not read or hear about any of the former Commissioners or their counsel arguing that "we told you what you wanted to hear;" they - and those that argue their point of view - state unequivocably that not only did they "answer all the questions," but also provided all the answers. No stone was left unturned; no question left unresolved; it was the most intensive, thorough, complete and comprehensive investigation ever undertaken by the United States Government in any form or fashion up to that time. The only equivocation the WC itself offered that its investigation fell short of a solution to the crime is that it "found no evidence" of conspiracy, which of course morphed into the fanciful claim that since it "found" none, effectively then there was none. And so the press "sold" it, in many cases repackaged under its own umbra. While for a period following Watergate, many of those whose notions of government wholesomeness was eroded by the antics of those - I almost hesitate to use the word - conspirators in those activities actually supported the HSCA's formation, exactly unlike it supported (and actually undermined) Garrison's actions that ran counter to their own. HSCA's failure to perform publicly until its own Final Report; to pursue all leads until closure; or to reach a final conclusion - opining that the assassination "most likely was the result of a conspiracy," but failing to define or pursue it on its own (which, of course, it could not) left as big or bigger a void as the WC may have in the first place: the WC was at least certain in its faulty findings; the HSCA equivocated and left if for someone else to fill that void. For the purposes of the US press, the HSCA might as well never have been formed; Zelizer argued that it "opened more questions than it started out to answer," was thus "ineffective," and thereby marginalized by the press: whatever it may have added to the discussion, for the purposes of mainstream journalism, it never existed. What keeps the murders from being resolved is thus, in part, the fault of the media which does not want its authority undermined or repudiated: if they say that Oswald did it and did it alone - and can you name a single "mainstream" production that suggests otherwise? - then he must have, and to suggest otherwise is anathema to the authority and legitimacy of the media. The media has jurisdiction everywhere: when Dan Rather hauls Walter Conkite out of his coffin to once again reassure the nation that "the Warren Commission got it right," there are millions of people watching; when a Posner or Myers or Bugliosi upholds the mainstream's point of view, their book is hailed as a "monument" upholding the truth. When you or I or Mark Lane or Harold Weisberg or E. Howard Hunt on his supposed deathbed tells us something different, it barely - if it even does at all - deserves below-the-fold mention on page 52 of a 50-page newspaper. What is "jurisdiction," whether or not the legally prescribed entity to pursue a legal recourse believes there to be such recourse, if the non-jurisdictional media decides to try the case in print? When Garrison named Shaw, et al., as conspirators, he was taken down in the press; when the trial showed "a conspiracy," though not necessarily involving Shaw, et al., it somehow "proved" that there was "no conspiracy" involving anyone. When the HSCA could not define it, and the Justice Department failed to take up the gauntlet of further investigation thrown down by the HSCA - and indeed provided additional argument against any such conspiracy - it underscored the non-existence of conspiracy, named or unnamed. The "mainstream" considers Garrison a fraud, the HSCA a non-entity. And the beat goes on. There are at least six likely conspirators in the crime against Officer Tippit who are still alive today. That none was in any way identified in, for example, a "show-up" is only because none were brought into one; the opportunity never arose to so identify them by eyewitnesses. Would they have? It's a guess, but it's also a possibility. Their further lack of identification may simply be because, to date, the conspiracy was successful in what it intended to do, namely to not only do the deed, but also to shield the names of the participants from investigation. I wish I could think of the journalist who, at the end of a no-conspiracy show, that the lack of evidence attests to "the fact that there was no conspiracy ... or that it was a very good one," which I submit is ultimately the intent of any conspiracy and any murder: to not be discovered. It's even easier not to be discovered when nobody wants to look for you and in some cases, hopes nobody ever finds one. What credibility would CBS or the New York Times have if - after 45 years of hawking the "lone gunman" theory, calling critics "crackpots" and "frauds" and "parasites" ("liars," according to Bugliosi), and arguing against any "conspiracy" that didn't begin and end with Lee Harvey Oswald - it was suddenly faced with a different reality? Would it call for those conspirators' meeting swift justice or call for any such investigation's meeting a swift end? You don't think that the lack of any other "named conspirators" proves that Oswald "must have done it," do you? Wasn't that Henry Wade's modus operandi: if you don't have anyone I think is a better suspect, then the one that I favor must've been the one who did it?" Twenty men so far have been released after being sent away for a crime DNA now tells us that they didn't commit, despite Wade's gaining a conviction. Does this perhaps tell us that some people only collect the evidence that they want and feel they need to the total disregard of anything else? Should we then have faith in the Oswald "conviction" that was already decided when the manhunt for the President's killer ended upon Oswald's capture? Is a bird in the hand always worth two in the bush?

Try this on for size:There was a DPD patrol car thought to have been Tippit's at the Gloco station around the corner that had been sitting there for a while. It suddenly tore off at speed down Lancaster Street, which was open to the main drag back then (it no longer is). "Oswald" was in the house for three or four minutes. It takes approximately the same amount of time to go around the blocks to 1026. I'm not convinced that the man inside the house was Oswald ... or at least, it's possible that it wasn't.

Boy, ya gotta love that you can read the same message four or five times, one right after the next, and multiple copies of each reply, too, just on the off chance that you might forget something that was in the original.

Shhh ... nobody's supposed to know about that!

An important question is why you believe his story. He is not difficult to find: just go to the Knoll any warm, sunny weekend. Bob Groden probably has his number, too.

Quite right. I travel everywhere by chauffered limousine.As I'd've suspected from a member of the Trilateral Commission. Haven't you told everyone about that, Ray? Oh, Jimmy and Zbig say hi, kisses and so on!

If anyone was there, they'd have been listing for that, one would imagine. But according to one of the floor-layers' testimonies - I'm thinking it was Billy Lovelady or maybe Hank Norman - you really didn't hear the elevators operating, but "if you were listening for the boss coming," you might, but not because of their operation, but because the boss normally rode the passenger elevator and you heard the "hand pedal" thump into place when it was stopped. Whether you could hear that "thump" all the way diagonally across a 100'-by-100' floor filled with boxes, or whether you could only hear it when you were closer, near where they'd been laying floor that morning, wasn't addressed. If my recreations and memory are correct, however, Williams was upstairs before anyone else was there. That doesn't matter, though: if someone was "constructing the sniper's nest" before he arrived, two things are certain: 1) when the "thump" was heard 150 feet away in the northwest corner, the person on the elevator was going to be off of it almost before you could react to it; and 2) someone would have to either a) come up with some convincing reason why they shouldn't be there so they'd go back down (in which case they're remember later that you were there ... but if you were the soon-to-be-dead Oswald, so what?), be able to stop doing what you were doing until they left, hiding successfully in the meanwhile, or c) have some way to constrain them from taking any sort of action against you - whether trying to subdue you or going down to let someone know what you were up to - until you could do what you'd been there to do. Option c) would seemingly require either someone else to keep control of the interloper while you finished your work on the "nest," or else someone dumb enough to sit and watch you, eating their lunch, only a little curious about why you were setting up those boxes with your rifle nearby, and totally incurious of what you were going to do after you managed to get them to go downstairs without ever remembering seeing you there.. Of those two options, I'm going to rule the second one out. Option only works if you're willing to remain hiding while your target leaves the area by in the event that the person who'd come up didn't leave in time, or that you could threaten him at gunpoint to go down and act as if you weren't there ... but again, once Oswald was dead, he was no longer a threat, so why not go ahead and eyewitness him as being there? Option a) doesn't work at all unless you were willing to risk that the person wouldn't go back down, or that they would and would alert someone else to your presence now or later. Again, once Oswald was dead, why would Williams not have told everyone that he'd been upstairs instead of claiming he'd seen or heard nobody? In fact, why would he have claimed to have seen nor heard nobody since he was there immediately prior to the shooting and well within sight and hearing range of the "nest" unless either a) nobody was there, or whoever was there wasn't dead? The presumed fact that Williams ate his lunch sitting less than 20 feet away attests to one of three things: 1) that he was upstairs and eating before whoever had come up there to shoot JFK had arrived; 2) that he was indeed a mindless idiot who was fascinated by what you were doing in preparation for the shooting and obediently and placidly went downstairs when asked so he didn't have to "witness" anything; or 3) that, whether or not the lunch was his in the first place, someone else ate it, because if he'd come up after the "construction" started, he'd not have been allowed to eat while the preparations were underway. In fact, I'd say he'd have been to scared to. If Bonnie Ray or anyone else had come up on the freight elevator, there would have been no thump and, thus, no warning. Cross that one off the list. More like 15-20 feet away. Whoever had been there prior to Williams' arrival would have had to have been done doing what he'd been doing to set up the "nest" also prior to Williams' arrival, and then have had to remain stock-still so as not to be heard, while hoping Williams would go somewhere else, like, now. If that is so, then a couple of things: 1) whatever anyone claimed to have seen from the street level in any window must be a false sighting unless they'd seen Williams behind the closed second set of windows; and that because 2) they were finished setting up by 12:05 when Williams got there, and remained motionless for the next 20-plus minutes during Williams' lunch and until he left, just in time as it turned out, and three minutes late if the motorcade had been on time. You think? Are there any options I haven't considered?

I can tell you didn't used to (or don't) ride a lot of busses, Ray! Everyone pays the same amount getting aboard. That amount entitles them to travel within a certain zone, or perimeter. When you cross over into a farther zone - usually determined by its distance from the center of the main city - the fare goes up and you pay the difference when you get off the bus or, if the driver's so inclined to stop and collect, when you cross over into the new zone. Usually, the next zone was only an increment of the original fare (e.g., 35¢ original fare, 10¢ into the next). Generally speaking, though, within the main city, you could travel on one route (bus) from the farthest reaches in one direction to the farthest reaches in the other without paying an additional fare, and could also travel from the farthest reaches of one route, transfer to another route, and travel to the farthest reaches of it. Maybe Ball knew that. It might have closed the question more securely by asking it, but when you consider it was only a three-mile bus ride, why would anyone expect to have to pay an additional fare? It wasn't a cab, after all! Where I grew up, the next zone didn't start until you were more than 10 miles out of downtown!

Knowing how outgoing and personable, a regular "life of the party" that Lee was, there probably wasn't an awful lot that he said getting on or off the bus. "Hi, Cecil, how's fares today? Hey, lady, can I help you with that bag? Going to the train station, are you? So, how was school today Milt? Think I'll grab this seat over here. Sure turned out to be a nice day today, didn't it? Great day for target practice. Me, I'm gonna go catch a movie. Hey, has anyone ever seen 'War is Hell?' ...." There'd be no reason to say anything getting onto the bus: its destination was displayed plainly on the front. If he'd ridden the bus before, he wouldn't have had to ask what the fare was, and maybe it was on a sign getting in even still. Getting off after the "train lady," maybe he only stuck his hand out to take a transfer and McWatters understood what he meant, maybe only said "me too" or "transfer" or even "can I have a transfer too?" In sum, not necessarily a lot for Bledsoe to hear, if anything. (It was also several months later when she testified, and Oswald's saying something routine might well not make as much of an impression upon her as his - to her - unusual appearance.) Everything she says about Oswald she noticed on his way into the bus, when she had a chance to look him over as he stood with his back to her to pay his fare and walked back into the bus. After that, she was studiously avoiding him. Sitting where she was (see modified diagram below) and given that Oswald would've seen her in profile if she looked straight ahead (i.e., toward the left side of the bus), she probably turned slightly and looked out the front window of the bus so all he'd see was the back of her head and thus never have cause to strike up a conversation with her. The only inconguity is in her offering advice to the woman across from her: might not Oswald recognize her either by face or by voice once she started talking and presumably looking at the woman? She did say, however, that she'd thought he'd gone "to the back of the bus" (or "halfway back down" from where she was sitting); perhaps she thought he was out of hearing range? Like I said: incongruous. (She probably could've carried on a conversation looking at the woman sidelong across the aisle, her face still held mostly toward the front, appearing intent upon where they were going as opposed to making sure someone didn't recognize her.) But here's the deal in something of a nutshell: 1) Only one man and one woman got on the bus near Murphy Street (Crossing, today); they were not together (all agreed with this) 2) The woman was going to the train station and sat in front, the man walked farther back to sit down (Jones agreed with this) 3) The bus got caught up in traffic, the lady decided to walk, got a transfer and got off (McWatters agreed with this) 4) The same man that got on with her also got a transfer and got off (all agreed with this) 5) McWatters only gave out those two transfers on that leg of his trip 6) He would've changed the time to 1:15 on it after crossing Lamar 7) Both new passengers passengers got off just before Lamar 8) Bledsoe knew about the woman, said she saw Oswald, and that the man who got on and off with her was he 9) Both Jones and McWatters said the same man got off with the woman 10) Oswald had a 1:00 transfer from McWatters' bus. It therefore must have been one of those two transfers, and Oswald who was on the bus. She also described the same shirt that Whaley initially did, and I'll dare to say that she, as a woman, was more likely to notice his clothing simply because she'd known him and had always considered him to be neat, clean and fastidious which, after working in a warehouse all morning, Oswald was not on this particular occasion. Believe me when I say that I've tried to work it out so that Bledsoe was wrong. She wasn't. Or at least, I can't make her to be. Right bench, wrong seat. I've added some details to the diagram you'd used, which is a Commission Exhibit (good work, by the way; such patience!!). First is that, inboard of each of the doors are steps to go from street level to seat level. Second and more importantly is that, directly abaft each set of steps was a wall or barrier separating the passenger compartment from the stairwell. I've added these in blue: I don't know that it can be seen in the original copy of this diagram; I'm describing this from experience riding similar busses for many years along with common sense; here's why: if the bus stopped severely, there had to be something to keep the passengers restrained from falling into the stairwell. Likewise, if the bus started quickly, nobody wanted boarding passengers to fall onto passengers already seated. These walls were supported by floor-to-ceiling poles, which also supported an overhead rail that ran the length of the bus; additional vertical poles provided support along the length of the bus, including one at each side of the rear exit door. These also helped standing passengers to stabilize themselves when the bus started, stopped, turned, etc. Mrs. Bledsoe - who was then 67 years old, had had a stroke, tired easily, etc. ("frail?") - said that she sat in the first seat on the right-hand side. Since sitting in the middle of the bench (the second "seat") would not give her the advantage of something to hold onto when the bus started and stopped, it doesn't seem to follow that she would not take advantage of that to keep herself from swaying as the bus maneuvered (I wouldn't either). Thus, I've moved her one "seat" forward to being beside that wall and pole (which looks now like it extends too far into the aisle, but oh well: the point is made). Milton Jones is who'd marked up the diagram. He'd placed the lady going to Union Station ("train lady," or "TL" on the diagram) in the first seat behind the driver by marking an "L" on the original diagram. He also placed the man ("M" on the original, "LHO" on mine) in the seat behind him, which he'd marked with what appears to be an "O" on the original ("RMJ" for "Roy Milton Jones" on mine), the first forward-facing seat on the right-hand side of the bus. I've placed each of them nearer to the wall than the aisle since that's a fairly normal thing to do for most guys when they board a bus. Jones had also pointed out where a pedestrian ("P" on his diagram, not shown on mine) had been standing when he'd told the bus driver from the outside of the doorway about the shooting. She might have only caught a fleeting glimpse of Oswald as he boarded the bus right beside her, enough only to recognize him. While he stood in front of her, probably with his back and left side to her to pay the fare, she had the opportunity to assess the state of his clothing and mentally contrast it to his more usual "clean and neat" appearance while he was looking for a job. The "madman" and "wild looks" are probably the result of her additional animosity toward him since learning the guy who wouldn't entertain her and interrupted her naps so she threw out of her house after living there only a week had killed the President (and, oh! what a life he'd have left behind for her if he'd stayed, the S.O.B., cops running in and out, reporters interviewing her, her life and afternoon naps disrupted like poor Earlene Roberts! Good riddance to him, I say! She'd probably have revelled in it, actually!). From that point, his clothing alone would have identified him; she didn't have to see his face. His right elbow was amost directly in front of her face - might even have been crooked as he held onto the pole while getting the transfer, his elbow sticking through the hole - as he exited the bus. So, all of that said, it either had to be Oswald on the bus, or it had to be someone wearing the shirt Oswald would have on when he was arrested (and who managed to get him to wear it!), who looked enough like him so that his former landlady mistakenly realized later in the day she'd been on the bus with him, and who managed to somehow to get that transfer to DPD so that they could "find" it in a near-identical shirt hours later. While such a scenario is possible - e.g., hustle Lee out the back door of the TSBD into a car, take him to Oak Cliff while his double rode a bus and cab to near his rooming house (and then, if that were the case, why not have Whaley stop right in front of 1026 to further incriminate Oswald?), got his gun, shot Tippit, eventually turning up wherever his captors had kept him, force him at gunpoint to put the shirt on, then leave him at the corner of Zangs and Jefferson just as the squad cars were screaming along Jefferson, spooking Lee into ducking into Brewer's shoe store and then into the theater to hide from what seemed to be his certain fate (which he could've avoided simply by paying for the theater ticket!) - it doesn't seem likely and does seem fraught with calamity (but would explain why "Oswald" didn't recognize Bledsoe!). I could even construct that scenario, even taking into account the Pate's Garage episode, but the apparent evidence argues against it, and actually supports it being Oswald on Bledsoe's bus. If you can put together something more plausible, I'm all ears.

Steve,I went into some detail about the curtain rods on the "Why Oswald is Innocent" thread in this post. Mary Bledsoe was indeed shown the shirt by USSS prior to her deposition, but two things need to be considered against that: first, that William Whaley also said initially, in his November 23 affidavit, that Oswald was wearing a brown shirt; and second, that Mary Bledsoe also recounted the story of the woman who'd gotten on and off the bus at the same time as Oswald (and gotten a transfer in the process) getting back onto the bus after they'd gone around onto Houston Street and before she or the bus had reached Union Station, her destination. It was the latter that convinced me that she was on the bus; Whaley's description merely solidified it. The fact that both McWatters and Milton Jones described the man who got onto the bus as wearing a short jacket and not mentioning the shirt is a major factor in why I didn't think she'd been on the bus (plus the fact that neither of the other two mentioned her, and her lack of any real proof of Oswald having lived at her house other than the markings "To Oswald" and "From Oswald" on the days he'd supposedly moved in and out. The handwriting wasn't Oswald's, and was probably hers).

I recall reading Tatum's address somewhere, and that he lived in Oak Cliff, somewhere south of Jefferson off Beckley, I think. There is also an article here somewhere in which the writer cited something that made the claim that Tatum had been driving on East Jeff going to get a drink(!), had passed his usual watering hole and because making a u-turn on Jefferson "would have been illegal" (which it wouldn't have been), he turned around by going up Denver to 10th. The "would've been illegal" is a clear memory; the rest is vague. As to Baylor, the one thing that's necessary to realize is that Baylor is not "a hospital," but an institution. It has and had many, many locations around Dallas and to many points beyond (it was at one point, I think, funded through the Southern Baptist Conference, or operated under its auspices). The Baylor Dental School is located east of downtown, near Fair Park (Orange Bowl, etc.), and is favored by many people of lesser means because its services are less expensive than going to a "real" dentist: it is a teaching college, and if a student doesn't operate on you, some are in attendance just to see what the doctor/professor is teaching. Where Tatum worked is west of downtown at another of their facilities, the same hospital on Gaston Avenue where Harry Olsen had spent time recuperating from smashing up his car, ribs and knee early in 1964 (that building was imploded a few years ago). Oswald's exhumation autopsy was conducted at yet another Baylor University facility. There is no connection between any of the events or circumstances described beyond the Baylor name. I'll try to turn up that article, but a search on the phrase "would have been illegal" didn't give me any results ... or rather, too many.

The proof of Oswald's innocence in the downtown shooting is this: Junior Jarman and Hank Norman did not begin their walk to the fifth floor until they'd heard - either over a police radio or through the buzz of the crowd after someone else had heard it - that the motorcade was on Main Street. This was mentioned on Channel 2 two times, once at 12:22 and again at either 12:26 or 12:27, but the earliest time 12:22. They walked from the front of the building, up Houston Street and entered the building, first noting that the passenger elevator was not in its first-floor stop, then walking around to the freight elevator, which they rode up to, according to their testimony, the fifth floor. There was nobody else on that floor as they made their way to the front windows. This walk and elevator ride - the latter at one floor every six seconds, or 24 seconds total - could have taken as little as a minute and a half, possibly a little shorter or longer. Bonnie Ray Williams had been on the sixth floor, claimed that he'd heard footsteps or something below him, and rode the passenger elevator - that he'd taken up during the lunch hour - down to the fifth floor, where he joined his compatriots at the front windows. Only Hank Norman equivocated about whether Bonnie Ray was there when he and Junior had gotten there or if he joined them later; the other two agreed he joined the two of them later. Also on both the fifth and sixth floors, "getting stock," was "great big husky fellow" Jack Dougherty, whom none of the three claimed to have seen. If Bonnie Ray ate his lunch where he said he did and where remnants were later found, there is no way anyone could have been in the southeast corner without being seen or heard by him: anyone who's stood at the end of the next set of windows from the "sniper's nest" exhibit on the sixth floor would agree. If anyone planned on shooting at Kennedy, they'd have had to have been ready to do so no later than 12:25 when the motorcade was scheduled to arrive (five minutes before the 12:30 luncheon at the Trade Mart), and earlier in case the motorcade was ahead of schedule. If Hank and Junior didn't start to go upstairs until after 12:22 and Bonnie Ray was upstairs until after the other two had arrived on the fifth floor, then Bonnie Ray was on the sixth floor even later than the latest he'd estimated (12:15), to within a minute or so before 12:25 or - if Hank and Junior didn't start up until after the 12:26/27 broadcast of the motorcade's being on Main Street, as late as 12:28 or even 12:29. Either of those times being so, Bonnie Ray was on the sixth floor when whoever was setting up to shoot was there, and within 20 feet or less from him or them. That being so, if the shooter was Oswald, by the time Williams had much to say to anyone, Oswald was dead: what harm could there possibly be in identifying him as the shooter, eyewitnessed by someone who knew him? When he heard what he thought was a "backfire," Jack Dougherty was standing "10 feet west of the west elevator," that is, right smack dab where the fleeing Oswald had to have run to get downstairs in time to meet Baker & Truly in the second floor lunch room. Dougherty remained there with the gate up until after Truly yelled up to "let that elevator loose" and began his ascent with Baker by stairs. If Oswald didn't run by - or even into - Jack Dougherty, then he didn't run down the stairs to the lunchroom. There's more to the story, but this is sufficient to mark the main points: Williams didn't see Oswald and neither did Jack Dougherty, ergo Oswald wasn't there. If they saw anyone else, they didn't say ... and if they saw anyone other than Oswald, they may very well have had something to fear. But if Oswald had done what he supposedly did, then there'd have been no reason not to identify him.

Why try to make it appear as if what didn't happen, did, or argue with what you agree with? You got what you wrote right. You just missed the clincher, that's all. Read Junior Jarman's testimony: Bonnie Ray Williams was upstairs on the sixth floor until just two or three minutes before the shooting. So was (were) the shooter(s). If that be Oswald, why didn't Bonnie Ray just come out and say so? What could Oswald do to him?

"Strongly suggesting" something is entirely different than "proving" it. Let's look at some of those suggestions: 1. Lee kept a rifle in the Paines garage. Ruth Paine was a pacifist who stongly opposed guns, and would not have allowed one in her home (or her garage), as she testified. She was unaware of its supposedly being there, as was Marina, this even despite the fact that she and Marina had unloaded her car after Ruth had brought Marina back from New Orleans with the Oswalds' possessions in it. Since it was supposedly wrapped in a blanket (which is not a hard case), would you not suspect that its shape would have revealed itself when either of them carried it? Can you suggest a reasonable explanation of why they might not have noticed it? How then do we know any such rifle was ever in the Paines' garage? 2. Lee visited his wife at the Paines the previous evening, conflicting with his usual routine. Ruth Paine was planning to have a child's birthday party at her house on Saturday, conflicting with her usual routine. Did Lee decide to come out on Thursday so he could avoid a houseful of screaming kids on Saturday? He never had the chance to say. In that light, however, is it any longer suspicious that he changed his routine the one time? 3. Lee never mentioned curtain rods to anyone but his ride into work the following morning. Lee didn't talk much with anyone about anything. Why would he mention something as mundane as needing curtain rods to anyone? He only said so to Frazier because Frazier asked him. 4. Lee's rifle was discovered in the TSBD after the shooting. A rifle attributed to his ownership was found, true. Since nobody who recognized one rifle from another had ever seen Lee in possession of it (and the only one who did was his wife, who was effectively threatened with deportation back to Soviet Russia if she didn't "cooperate" with the investigation), it cannot be proved that he ever had it. There is also a question about whether the rifle that he presumably ordered and was shipped to him (according to the shipping documents) was actually the same model (Carcanos had different barrel lengths) as the one that was found. Even presuming his possession of the same at one time, since it can't be proven that the rifle was in the Paines' garage, and since it was not seen at the Beckley Street boarding house by anyone there (and I'll bet a dollar to a donut that Earlene Roberts did rummage through people's stuff!), it can't be proved that Oswald didn't sell the gun to someone when he was in need of cash during one of his several periods of unemployment. Likewise, nobody at any of the other locations he lived ever claimed to have seen the rifle, so if it wasn't at the Paines' house, where was it? 5. Lee's rifle was missing from its usual location in the Paines garage after the shooting. Refer to #1 6. The discarded packaging was found in the TSBD. What does that prove? And, for that matter, can you prove other than by citing testimony that the package was found in the TSBD? Show me the crime scene photo that depicts it. Even presuming that the package was found in the TSBD, even where it was claimed to have been found, how and when did Lee construct it? He did not have access to the building outside of regular hours; Troy West, the man who had charge of the wrapping apparatus, said that he had never given Lee any of the paper and, since Lee had no off-hours access to the building and West never left his seat except, one presumes, for "the necessities of life," he couldn't have obtained it surreptitiously. He did not apparently have this heavy wrapping paper with him when he went to Irving on Thursday evening with Frazier, which would have been bulky and probably crinkly even folded up, and Frazier - the only person he rode to and from Irving with - didn't see any such paper with Lee at any other time they'd ridden together. Furthermore, Troy West also testified about the tape machine that dispensed the tape used to construct the package: the tape was drawn across a mechanism that wetted the dry adhesive so it would stick, and could not be withdrawn from the machine without being wetted. All ends of the tape were cut by the cutter on the machine (as opposed to being cut by scissors or a knife, for example), so it therefore must have been drawn through the machine. Possibly the tape could have been allowed to dry and then re-wetted and stuck to the paper to form the package, but maybe not: I don't know if that was possible, but let us presume that it was. Now in addition to getting the paper while West wasn't around to see, Lee also would've needed to pull the right lengths of tape from the machine and abscond with them, again while West wasn't there to notice, and put them someplace where they could dry. He would then also have to transport that dried tape to Irving without either folding it or allowing Frazier to notice it. Then he would have to go out to the garage not only without being noticed (and he was not seen going to or being in the garage), but also with a sponge or some other way to re-moisten the tape which may or may not have stuck to the paper after having dried the first time. He might have snuck out of bed in the middle of the night to accomplish this, but where did he hide the paper and tape all during the evening with Marina if he never went to the garage? Outside? Possibly, but you've got to be careful about allowing him to make a lot of movements and noise in that small house without attracting anyone's attention; just folding (and presumably first unfolding) the paper probably would've made a racket. And what if that light mist so often mentioned in connection with the following morning had started falling during the evening? It may have; I don't recall ever hearing about it either way. Have you reached the point of "reasonable doubt" yet, or do I have to go into the fact that no gun oil was found on the bag despite the Carcano having been "well oiled" (and we also must wonder when and where Lee would supposedly have cleaned his gun), it being over 40 inches in length (try putting a yardstick under your arm and cupping the end in your hand), and nobody having seen such a thing enter the TSBD that Friday morning? 7. The curtain rods were never found anywhere. How would we know which were "the" curtain rods? Curiously, the Dallas police received two curtain rods - four pieces - on March 15, 1964; their origin (other than having been received from Secret Service Agent John Joe Howlett) is not specified on the form. Commission Exhibit 1952 (at 23H756) is the receipt, request for and results of a check for fingerprints. Only one "legible" print was found them, and it did not belong to Oswald. Let me ask you: how many times have you handled two curtain rods with one finger? Right. So out of at least two fingers that handled each of these curtain rods one time (presuming none belonged to Agent Howlett or any investigator who handled them prior to him), only one finger left a legible print on only one of the two curtain rods. From this, can we deduce that whoever handled them only used one finger? Of course not. So there were at least three other fingerprints on them that couldn't be "read," none of which could have belonged to Oswald, right? And since they could not have been Oswald's, can we therefore deduce that they didn't belong to anybody? Right: they could have been Oswald's, but we can't say that they were. We can, however, probably deduce that investigators considered the possibility that they might've been handled by Oswald; otherwise, why look for his prints? Their failure to find his prints, however, did not rule out the possibility of his handling them. Well, I could leave the story hanging right there, leave you and others wondering about this, as the person who posted the YouTube video I mention below did because he apparently didn't complete his homework assignment (you'll see what I mean). The reality is that CE1952 refers to two "curtain rods" found in the Paine garage, which are Ruth Paine Exhibits 275 and 276 (21H4, bottom of the page), which might more accurately be described as "drapery rods." They are ones that are hung at the top of a window so that the drapes are suspended out from the wall, or used for the little "half-curtains" that are also hung at the top of the window, rather than the type that you hang the lower curtains from half-way down the window. They were wrapped in lightweight, plain wrapping paper like the stuff you get in a grocery store (as Ruth herself testified that she did). Stored in her garage along with these two "drapery rods" were two sets of venetian blinds, also wrapped in the same paper. Ruth testified (3H72, et seq.) that she'd removed them about a year prior to the assassination and replaced them with "pull blinds," presumably meaning the paper or cloth type that roll up and down. Her memory of these two packages was fairly sketchy, but she was not asked - nor did she volunteer - anything about what she'd had hanging prior to that replacement. She'd obviously taken down the upper "drapery rods" because they were stored in the garage; she does not say if she replaced them with new rods of the same sort, with something different, or with nothing at all. If she replaced them with nothing, then all she had on her windows were these "pull blinds" and nothing else. If she pulled them up to admit daylight, then she had no privacy, a seemingly unlikely thing for a respectable Quaker woman to not have. If she replaced them with similar rods, did she hang drapes or curtains from them: did she then have only long drapes and the "pull blinds," more but still not very much privacy? Or did she have the upper part of a curtain set hanging there, coming down less than a foot from the top of the window, also offering no privacy? Either way, did she have curtains hanging over the lower part of the windows, either before or after her replacement of the venetian blinds and upper rods? If so, with what were those portions of the curtains hung? Given that she'd wrapped those rods as well as the blinds in that wrapping paper (Ruth Paine Exhibit 272, 21H3 top), is there a possibility - not asked, not volunteered - that she'd also wrapped regular round curtain rods and put them together with the upper rods and blinds, and that Lee figured he'd help himself to them since she obviously wasn't using them? Incidentally, her testimony reflected that the upper rods were about 36 inches wide (or long) as were the venetian blinds, both being roughly equal to the width of her bedroom windows. Now, get this: round curtain rods - the type that go half-way up your window - that are designed to span a 36-inch window slide together to be about 26-28 inches wide (or long). Coincidence? Who knows. The point being that if there were these type curtain rods missing from her garage - she was very offhand about the whole thing - whether or not they were found, would that not be indicative of Lee's having taken them? As an aside, at the start of her March 23 testimony (9H396, et seq.), counsel Albert Jenner asked, since they were now in a different jurisdiction (Irving, TX) than they had been the previous week (Washington DC) when she gave additional testimony, "may I swear you?" (i.e., put her under oath), to which she - a reasonably pious Quaker woman - replied "you may affirm me," to which Jenner acceded: "All right. Do you affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" to which she replied, "to the very best of my ability, I do so affirm." "Affirmation" is made in lieu of swearing, which is stated by the preamble "do you solemnly swear" and ending with "so help you God," that is, by those people who don't believe in (a) God or who might not want to "swear by" God. An interesting thing, nothing more. 8. Lee didn't need curtain rods at his rented room in Oak Cliff. I won't belabor the whole "privacy" issue again here, but if Lee had only drapes - and maybe sheers, or even venetian blinds that didn't close completely covering his windows at the front of the house, perhaps he may have wanted curtains as well. There is also a photo - which I've only found a copy of in this video - that shows Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, the owners of the boarding house, apparently putting up curtains or drapes or something over Lee's windows. Maybe they got pulled down by the cops searching the room earlier in the day, or maybe they'd been taken down for whatever reason weeks or even months before: the room had been used as a library, if I remember correctly, before Oswald moved in, and would not necessarily have required them. Did the Johnsons want simply to not portray that they would put someone in a fishbowl, for all the world to see in his skivvies at night? Or maybe finally get around to replacing them when they realized they'd be having "company" (news people and cops)? I don't know, but it's apparent that a bland statement that he "didn't need" curtains is not fully supportable. 9. Lee denied taking a package into the TSBD (conflicting with witness testimony). Yup. So the cops said. Let's not forget the blanket, for what little it might be worth.The "evidence" tying the gun to the bag is fibers from the blanket presumably (or supposedly) used to store the gun in the garage. You must be aware, however, that all three were transported together by the FBI to Washington, aren't you? And if they were separated by the FBI, they were nevertheless photographed touching each other by DPD prior to their being transferred to the FBI in Dallas: the photo is reproduced in Jesse Curry's Assassination File if nowhere else. If I get around to it, maybe I'll scan and post it. Paul, out of the nine points you made and the response I provided, you might well disagree with some or, dare I say, all of them. Nevertheless, most of them show that there's "not as much as meets the eye" in them.

If "an event of great magnitude had to happen" to draw police to Oak Cliff, and Tippit's murder was that event, then that effectively eliminates any role for Tippit in a conspiracy, doesn't it? If his murder "had to happen," then his fulfilling the role you'd described would've precluded his murder, wouldn't it? Could a lone cop be certain to be able to subdue a grown man and put him into his patrol car - all in front of potential witnesses - ensure his captive would remain docile and wouldn't assault him while he drove? Could he "cover" his captive as he drove - what if his captive got behind him? - or somehow ensure that he wouldn't jump out of the car? There was no protective grille in the car, and to my knowledge they didn't remove the back door handles back then. Handcuffs might've helped, but how to explain those marks on the dead man's wrists at autopsy?Certainly, he couldn't have the captive drive the patrol car: even presuming that he'd have the captive don the jacket hanging in back so he looked like a cop driving, if the captive might figure he was "done for" anyway, might he not do something conterproductive like crash the car? What's the cop/captor going to do, shoot his captive while he's speeding down Jefferson Boulevard? Explain that to the world when the cop car smashes into someone else or runs over a dozen people on the sidewalk! "Officer Tippit explained that he wasn't driving his patrol car when the accident occurred; he said his captive was." Based on these things, that Tippit was alone fairly well proves he wasn't "part of the plot," at least not an active part of it (unless we surmise that he volunteered to get killed). The only thing a lone cop could've done was either to (1) shoot the suspect, again in front of potential witnesses, or (2) call for backup, which he didn't do. A sound plan that included apprehending and subduing the patsy would've had failsafes to ensure something like what did happen, wouldn't. If Tippit was on the lookout for Oswald - knew who he was and what he looked like - he'd presumably have radioed something in before stopping so his co-conspirators would know where to find him, to come help him, or at least to let them know that things were going according to plan. He could've shot Oswald through the window, saying that Oswald drew down on him first and he fired in self-defense, and then put a gun in Oswald's hand afterward. The trouble with that is that Tippit didn't have an extra gun with him, and knowing that Oswald would have his own gun with him posed a significant risk that Tippit was clearly not prepared for (he'd have had his gun out and at the ready before stopping). If Tippit wasn't part of the plot and still his murder "had to happen," then Oswald - if Oswald was Tippit's killer - would also have had to have been part of the plot to make himself the patsy. How else, without him being aware of his impending role, could anyone have been certain that he'd go home and get his gun? And why would he shoot a cop in the middle of the street, which wouldn't have gone unnoticed for very long and which could only have served - and apparently would be designed to serve - to get lots of cops into Oak Cliff, where he just happened to be, all alone with no backup of his own? "Okay, Lee, you shoot the cop so we can get a response, and of course after that, you're on your own. Good luck!" Would he - could he - not have seen the writing on the wall if that were the case? And still he went through with it to the very end? If Tippit's murder "had to happen," then the only way to ensure that it did happen was to have someone who could be relied upon absolutely to do it and get away with it. The only thing Tippit's murder could have accomplished was to attract a massive police response - even despite the shooting of the President of the United States downtown - to the area, and as we know, that's exactly what did happen: 43 Dallas Police officers who had been in Dealey Plaza, along with 20 sherriff's deputies, responded to the "citizen" broadcast of the shooting. It had the additional (and unintentional?) consequence of removing more than half of the cops from Dealey Plaza. And oddly enough - based on the actual radio traffic and the fact that even the FBI determined that, after 2:48, there were "no more pertinent transmissions" relating to the assassination - no sooner was Oswald in custody than the manhunt for the President's killer(s) was ended. What do you make of that?

What is the evidence of this "smuggling his rifle into work that day?" The guy who drove him in from Irving, Buell Wesley Frazier, described a package that resembled that which curtain rods were typically wrapped in (based on his experience working at a hardware store), which was only about two feet long and which Oswald carried cupped in his hand and under his armpit; this does not describe the rifle, even disassembled, nor the bag purportedly found on the sixth floor.Frazier's sister, Linnie Mae Randle, described the package she'd seen from a farther distance than her brother did, and estimated its length at about the same as he did. Both said that the bag they were shown was not the one that they'd seen on November 22. The only person who saw Oswald enter the TSBD that morning, Jack Dougherty, said that Oswald had nothing in his hands that he, Dougherty, could see ... but if Oswald did have a package in his hands, then it only lends credence to Frazier's description of the package being under Oswald's armpit, completely hidden from view. Nobody else claimed to have seen Oswald enter the building, or to have seen any unusual package in the building. And, of course, police said that Oswald himself denied having brought any package to work that day, containing curtain rods or otherwise. The only "evidence" that he did bring a gun to work is the fact that a gun was found in the building, so he "must" have brought it, and since he "must" have brought it, then he also "must" have lied about bringing it. QED, right? Other than that, what've you got?

In another context, Mentzel would be someone I'd term a "person of interest."Have you posted a question to Dale Myers' blog? He might tend to differ with something we've said.

Well, it seems fairly certain that something caused him to leave quickly, to have decided that there was "no more work" that day just two or three minutes after the shooting when it wasn't entirely yet certain that something significant had occurred. Given that he was seen 75-90 seconds after the shots were fired in the second floor lunchroom and then walking "calmly" through the secretarial pool toward the front of the building without his shirt, there wasn't much time to assimilate what little data must've been "normally" available to him - he hadn't been outside, didn't have much time to hear any buzz about the President getting his head blown off, and apparently didn't talk with any of his co-workers about what had taken place outside - something must've given him a clear indication that he needed to get out of there.I used to have doubts about whether it was he who was on McWatters' bus, but it seems fairly clear that he was: what cinched that was not only Mary Bledsoe's recollection of what he wore nearly identical to Bill Whaley's initial description (which she might've read about, seen on TV, etc.), but Bledsoe's testimony about the woman going to Union Station who got on and off the bus the same time as Oswald did (which Bledsoe wouldn't have known about if she hadn't been on the bus). Whaley's initial description of him - despite Oswald's boisterous lineup performance - seems to match up, and Oswald wasn't wearing the brown shirt with metallic stripes during the lineup, which Whaley described him wearing when he made a statement on Saturday morning. Where all seemed to agree that he'd gotten on - Elm & Murphy Street (now Murphy Crossing, a pedestrian boulevard) area - is 4/10 mile from TSBD, which at a normal pace should've taken about eight minutes to reach, but which the FBI timed at 6½ minutes (3.7 mph vs. a "normal" 2.9 mph, not a huge difference). If he'd left much later, he'd have to have been really beatin' feet get there at 1:40, just a couple of minutes after Whaley had left his timed checkpoint. It would seem as if that would've attracted a fair amount of attention, which it apparently didn't inasmuch as nobody came forward to claim to have seen him - or anyone - running down Elm Street around that time. So it's clear that he left the building fairly soon after his encounter with Baker & Truly. I think, however, that it's difficult if not impossible to speculate on what the impetus was that caused him to leave the building without having some fairly definite idea of who had done the shooting. While I've got a suspicion, I can't put him or them together with Oswald such that he'd have an inkling of any plans he or they might've had, or how or why they might've given him any insight into anything that was going to happen that day or co-opted his assistance in any way. I've never been convinced that he'd brought anything other than curtain rods to work in the morning, and while I don't downplay the possibility of the barrel only being in such a package simply because the brainstorm of its possibility came along nearly half-a-century later, somewhere along the line the stock had to be gotten to someone if he'd ever had it in the Paines' garage in the first place (didn't Marina and Ruth unpack the stuff from New Orleans? Can we really speculate that neither of them could feel a rifle inside of a blanket, or guess - or at least wonder about - its contents when they carried it, especially if it was Ruth?). In considering the possibility of his bringing in the barrel alone, there are several things to account for. First, that the paper normally used to wrap curtain rods (as I recall it) might've been of the same color as the shipping paper used in the TSBD, but it was not of the same weight; it was much flimsier. Frazier, who had worked in a hardward store, would seemingly have thought a heavier paper as being unusual and not concluded that "it looked like" what curtain rods purchased at a hardware store would've looked like. Second, what purpose would the long bag - assuming that it had any connection to the shooting and even though it was never photographed in situ and thus has a spotty pedigree at best - have served if the stock would have been brought in separately and in a much shorter casing? Merely for it to look like Oswald had brought in the assembled rifle in one package? The rifle would also have had to have been assembled prior to the shooting, but since it wasn't Oswald shooting it or presumably even assembling it, it is not difficult to account for that activity. But it is likewise not a real consideration until and unless it's shown that the rifle was introduced into the building disassembled and in two separate packages. As a final point, Oswald's departure could, at least theoretically, be attributed to his guilt in the shooting. If that is so, then it leaves only(?) Oswald to have assembled the rifle at some point, and there is no indication of when that might've been or how he accomplished it without a screwdriver, especially if the assembly was done at the last minute, as it theoretically had to have been if Bonnie Ray Williams was on the sixth floor, which he clearly seems to have been. Unfortunately for that scenario, Bonnie Ray was provably on the sixth floor to within no more than six minutes of the shooting and possibly within half of that, during which time the shooter(s) had to be at the ready since the parade was scheduled to pass through Dealey Plaza five minutes earlier than it did, and certainly a killer wouldn't want to be racing to the window hoping to get a shot just as the limo was taking the last corner - and the likelihood that the parade could have been early was just as high as the possibility it was late, and one would hope that the mission was not a failure simply because they'd failed to take that possibility into consideration. Is being in place five minutes before the scheduled arrival of the motorcade a fair minimum to presume the shooter(s) to be in place to carry the plan out? Is ten minutes too much? If so - and especially if the rifle had yet to be assembled - Bonnie Ray was on the floor with the shooter(s). If you've ever been to the Sixth Floor Museum and stood where Bonnie Ray ate his lunch, looking toward the "sniper's nest" window even with boxes in the way, it is absolutely inconceivable that any activity could have taken place that short of a distance away without it being heard and/or seen by Williams. If it was Oswald in that window, and with Oswald being dead before the weekend was done and thus beyond the ability to be a threat to anyone, why would Bonnie Ray not identify him as the shooter since Bonnie Ray was there (even despite his efforts to distance himself from it time-wise) and had to have seen whoever was there in the ten or fifteen minutes leading up to the shooting, and even if he was downstairs during the shooting? Ah, but we stray off-topic! I'll have to get to the Oak Cliff portion of the story later.

Mark, the term "patrolman" is a rank or grade as much if not more than it is a job function. C.W. Brown, for example, was (according to his partner, C.N. Dhority) "a patrolman temporarily assigned to" the Homicide and Robbery Bureau of DPD on November 22, although he represented himself during his April 3, 1964, deposition as "a detective." He may have had the job function of "detective," but he was still in a "patrolman" pay grade after 13 years on the force. Several police officers I know eschew sergeant's stripes because it can limit their assignment options, especially while they're a "junior" sergeant (i.e., time in grade) and have to take "bad" shifts or jobs, or not allow them to perform job functions they enjoy (e.g., motorcycle patrol). You might also compare those who were assigned to the Southwest Area Substation (see this page) for those who were "patrolmen" in Tippit's part of town; not all were "radio patrol" officers, at least not who were identified with any kind of call sign associated with their names during the course of that afternoon (see critics' tape transcript, link above). Two things are striking about Rowe's placement on the duty roster: first, that he's assigned to the first platoon, which is the midnight-to-eight a.m. shift (that is, he was already technically "off duty" for the day, hours before JFK landed at Love Field); and second, that he is listed as being assigned to the Northeast Substation, a good distance from Oak Cliff. The other thing, having nothing to do with the duty roster, is his failure to submit an "after-action" report. A sworn officer is always "on duty," even when he's not in uniform. If he was out with his family at a restaurant and thwarted a robbery as they were leaving, his being "off shift" does not absolve him of the administrative and other details of the "after-action" sort other than perhaps giving him over to another officer who was actually "on shift" to take into jail (in some jurisdictions, he might even be required to fill out his reports that night rather than the next day; bring the family home and go into work). It's still possible that he lived in or near Oak Cliff, heard the squawk on the scanner (did they have those then?), or that he was still working a case, or any of a laundry list of other possibilities, but the apparent evidence is that he was nowhere near the Texas Theater when Oswald was arrested. I don't believe he was, but the possibility remains, although the likelihood doesn't.

I told you, Bill. I mean, we're talking some great cover here, y'know?

I wouldn't take much of anything in this interview, either, as gospel truth. Mentzel checked out to lunch - the only patrol officer in the city to have done so - at 12:32 according to his own contemporaneous account (a report of his actions to the Chief; search "Mentzel" in WC docs on MFF), and remained in Luby's for around 30 minutes - basically his whole lunch break - in one account having "tried on several occasions" while eating lunch to contact headquarters unsuccessfully, ultimately leaving his lunch unattended.You'll find Mentzel's transmissions on the Kimbrough/Ferrell transcript from the "critics' copy" of the DPD tapes here. If he heard that the President had been shot while in the Luby's, then he took his sweet ol' time figuring the killers might head his way. As a point of info, Luby's is a cafeteria-style restaurant, meaning that you enter, get a tray, go through the serving line, pay, sit down and eat. There is no waiting for someone to take your order or for it to arrive, yet in 30 minutes this guy claims not to have finished his lunch? And if he did try "on several occasions" to get through to DPD by phone, what could possibly have been the reason, and if it was indeed news of the downtown shooting, why didn't he go out to his car and radio in? It is noteworthy that dispatch did not call Mentzel (91) at the time that Tippit (and Nelson, who ignored the order) to "move into central Oak Cliff," nor was he called at any time prior to his assignment to the accident scene, then only after he'd checked back in service. He also spent long enough at a "fender bender" that he missed at least one call to him after the "citizen" call announcing Tippit's shooting. The whole Oak Cliff business stinks to high heaven. It appears as if he really did leave the TSBD almost immediately after the shooting. My hunch is that someone told him "boy, we left your rifle upstairs, you're as good as dead when you get caught for shooting the President," and he high-tailed it out of there. I'm more than confident that he was not on the sixth floor during the lunch hour, otherwise Bonnie Ray would've fingered him, which he didn't.

Now, if I respond "you're damned right I am," does that mean you get to put "arrogant" back in?

Stubborn's good. Nice comeback. Short reply.