Duke Lane

Karl, you can go right on believing anything you want to. I've never said a word counter to three of the five people you listed, and if you want to use the word "xxxx" in reference to the other two, you're certainly welcome to. Nor have I ever said ("according to you") that "there were no Ramblers around during the shooting, and no men getting into" them. Craig is validated by a photograph showing a Rambler station wagon on Elm Street; while there's no photographic evidence of him seeing Oswald - or anyone looking even remotely like him - getting into that wagon, he is apparently CORROBORATED by Cooper and Robinson. As to the other two, physical impossibilities are what trip up those stories, and the trips pile up the more closely anyone analyzes their statements critically, with even a modicum of skepticism. Like the WCR continues to stand up among some people, it is for the same reason that those men's stories do: they (and you) want to believe it, it fits in with their (and your) outlook, and anyone attacking, criticising or disproving it clearly has no idea what they're talking about. You (and they) only have to accept the premise; it doesn't matter if facts get in the way, they can be easily enough disposed of with an "LOL" or two, and a handful of incorrect and baseless claims. You probably think that there was a party at Clint Murchison's house on November 21 because someone you choose to believe said there was. And BTW - I think it's in this thread somewhere above - NOT "everybody" can see a Rambler on Record Street in the Paschall film. But then, I suppose if anyone disagrees with your (and LNers') hypothesis, they're a "nobody" anyway. Edit: wow, imagine my surprise that it's immediately above! We wouldn't even be having this discussion if it wasn't for people who challenged the "facts," yet it is that so many who've accepted that those WCR "facts" should have been challenged, have no patience whatsoever for having their "facts" being challenged because they're as "absolutely factual" as others think the WCR is. Disconcerting, isn't it?

Steve, I thought I'd responded to that in another thread; no? Either way, my best guess is that it's because he was still appealing the original verdict when he died. Most attorneys don't permit (or at least, advise against) testifying in public when there's an on-going defense.

The notion of a "route" is not a correct one, but officers were assigned to regular patrol areas ("districts") with administrative boundaries that were often crossed for a variety of reasons (e.g., lunch, officer assist, nearby call, etc.). There is a map that is a Commission Exhibit that shows exactly where these were. The patrol district ID number is the same as the radio call number assigned to/used by patrol officers. Their car number did not enter into it since that could conceivably change even on a daily basis if necessary (e.g., car in for repairs, still in use by prior shift, etc.), tho' my experience has been that most professional drivers of any stripe prefer to drive the same, familiar vehicle whenever possible. In Tippit's case that day, he was assigned to District 78 (and used call sign "78") while driving Car #10. But ultimately, the point: what the heck has patrol car #107 got to do with anything? Earlene Roberts never firmly stated that the vehicle number was that except to say, incorrectly, that she had reported the vehicle as #107 and not #207 several months ago. She said that once in her testimony, and also said more than once in the same testimony that the car was #106. The only firm thing she said about the number was that it was NOT #170, which two officers for whom she had "worked for" had driven.

Just pokin' around ....

Steve, I can only GUESS that reason is that the man CONVICTED of murder with malice was still APPEALING his case at the time of his death, and hoped to overturn the verdict. I can't imagine any attorney allowing his client to submit to an open interview about his possible involvement in ANOTHER murder; can you?

This in reply from another thread (see link) about "Oswald and Bus 1213" elsewhere. This deserves a thread of its own, which I'll open with my last post in the other thread: Sulphur Springs is still a relatively small town, just more than 15,000 residents as of 2010 and presumably quite a bit fewer 50 years ago. While I think the above quite coincidental and maybe even interesting, I'm not certain I find it suspicious inasmuch as (1) there's no reason to believe that because Jack Ruby (or anyone else) knew both Dallas cops and someone who lived in the town, that the person he knew must also have known the local used car dealer, or (2) that the patrol car was "sheep dipped" through a small town (where "everyone knew everybody else" and, presumably, their business) some 80 miles or so away. More to the point is (3), that the car was simply spirited away and stored in April 1963 for some unknown future use that turned out to involve the shooting of the President whom nobody even knew was coming anywhere at all nearby at that time. Did someone have decommissioned Houston and Austin and Fort Worth cars standing by "just in case" as well? It seems (4) a particularly expensive and inconvenient - not to mention incriminating - means to involve some sort of "decoy car." Which, after all, would be cheaper: buying a decommissioned police car (would - and did - DPD sell their cars with all markings intact?) and "sitting" on it for months, or simply painting a black car like it to have white doors and black "Dallas Police" lettering and LOOK like a police car? And if something unexpected happened - say, it was in an accident - would any conspirator (particularly one employed by the city who sold the vehicle) want the car to be traceable to DPD through its VIN? Better all around to use a fake patrol car than a decommissioned legitimate one, don't you think? So, while I concede that "It would not require a great deal of intelligence to speculate" about this, it would take a LOT more information - and much better logic - to actually create a case that it was the same car and that the transaction involving Sulphur Springs was both nefarious and involved the connections drawn above. But that speculation is not even the largest issue here, which is this: There was no investigation regarding car #107 other than the response indicated above from Chief Batchelor in August 1964, preserved in CE 2045, which seems to be (particularly given the late date) an effort to clean up some loose ends. Earlene Roberts' testimony seems to have created it (6H443-444): Mr. Ball. Did a police car pass the house there and honked? Mrs. Roberts. Yes. Mr. Ball. When was that? Mrs. Roberts. He came in the house. Mr. Ball. When he came in the house? Mrs. Roberts. When he came in the house and went to his room, you know how the sidewalk runs? Mr. Ball. Yes. Mrs. ROBERTS. Right direct in front of that door-there was a police car stopped and honked. I had worked for some policemen and sometimes they come by and tell me something that maybe their wives would want me to know, and I thought it was them, and I just glanced out and saw the number, and I said, "Oh, that's not their car," for I knew their car. Mr. Ball. You mean, it was not the car of the policemen you knew? Mrs. ROBERTS. It wasn't the police car I knew, because their number was 170 and it wasn't 170 and I ignored it. Mr. Ball. And who was in the car? Mrs. ROBERTS. I don't know--I didn't pay any attention to it after I noticed it wasn't them-I didn't. ... Mr. Ball. Had that police car ever stopped there before ? Mrs. Roberts. I don't know--I don't remember ever seeing it. Mr. Ball. Have you ever seen it since? Mrs. Roberts. No--I didn't pay that much attention--I just saw it wasn't the police car that I knew and had worked for so, I forgot about it. I seen it at the time, but I don't remember now what it was. Mr. Ball. Did you report the number of the car to anyone? Mrs. ROBERTS. I think I did---I'm not sure, because I--at that particular time I remembered it. Mr. Ball. You remembered the number of the car? Mrs. ROBERTS. I think it was--106, it seems to me like it was 106, but I do know what theirs was--it was 170 and it wasn't their car. Mr. Ball. It was not 170? Mrs. Roberts. The people I worked for was 170. Mr. BALL. Did you report that number to anyone, did you report this incident to anyone? Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes, I told the FBI and the Secret Service both when they was out there. Mr. Ball. And did you tell them the number of the car? Mrs. ROBERTS. I'm not sure--I believe I did--I'm not sure. I think I did because there was so much happened then until my brains was in a whirl. Mr. Ball. On the 29th of November, Special Agents Will Griffin and James Kennedy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed you and you told them that "after Oswald had entered his room about 1 p.m. on November 22, 1963, you looked out the front window and saw police car No. 207? Mrs. Roberts. No. 107. Mr. Ball. Is that the number? Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes--I remembered it. I don't know where I got that 106---207. Anyway, I knew it wasn't 170. Mr. Ball. And you say that there were two uniformed policemen in the car? Mrs. Roberts. Yes, and it was in a black car. It wasn't an accident squad car at all. Mr. Ball. Were there two uniformed policemen in the car? Mrs. Roberts. Oh, yes. Mr. Ball. And one of the officers sounded the born? Mrs. Roberts. Just kind of a "tit-tit"--twice. Mr. BALL. And then drove on to Beckley toward Zangs Boulevard, is that right? Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes. I thought there was a number, but I couldn't remember it but I did know the number of their car--I could tell that. I want you to understand that I have been put through the third degree and it's hard to remember. Car #170 was what Roberts was focused on; the rest, after her being subjected to "the third degree" and her "brains was in a whirl," is superfluous, not to mention both confused and confusing. While I haven't seen the interview report by SAs Griffin and Kennedy of their Roberts interview, CD 205 page 532 is an FBI report dated early in the investigation (Dec 12, 1963), stating that Roberts had reportedly said she'd seen car #207, not #107. Subsequent investigation by DPD focused on car #207, the initial result appearing in this FBI report, and more details of it appearing in an FBI report (which seems to me to have been a regurgitation of a DPD report over Batchelor's signature) that was part of CE 2645 (CD 1108) found at 25H914. So, all of this said, the looming issue here is not the disposition of a patrol car #107, but rather why, since Earlene Roberts only mentioned it once in her testimony, anyone is even concerned about the disposition of this unlikely vehicle. (Has anybody wondered why such a relatively new car was sold, by the way? A 1962 model sold in April 1963? It couldn't have been more than 18 months old, and then only if it was one of the earliest 1962 models brought out in late 1961. A possibility that it was wrecked? There is simply no comment and no question about it, and the "fact" that it could have been brought back to Dallas months after its sale - months before anyone knew JFK was coming to Texas - is taken at face value, with no critical examination at all, and as if #107 was "the" vehicle reported by Earlene Roberts, which it clearly was not.)

Karl, Elsewhere on this forum I did an extensive analysis of what Richard Randolph Carr could've and couldn't have seen, what he said and when, and to whom under what circumstances, pointing out the inconsistencies and embellishments in each. The bottom line is that the chances are good-to-excellent that Carr did NOT see either Rambler that he claimed; one he most certainly COULD NOT have seen. They are red herrings, and should be ignored. The "escape route" of the Record Street Rambler is contrary to Carr's claim in any case. Please also note that NO vehicle could have escaped northbound on Houston inasmuch as the street was torn up and barricaded, and the particular section directly behind TSBD was observed by two credible witnesses who said that no such thing happened. Ed Hoffman was not where he said he was either, ergo didn't see - and couldn't have if he was! - any such vehicle where he lately claimed, so you're down now to the one Rambler photographed in front of the TSBD.

Thanks for the update, Steven. I like the condensed version much better. There are quite a few Tippit threads, and I couldn't tell you whether this is one of the more extensive ones or not. I probably posted in most if not all of them. I don't believe I've ever said or even left the impression that I have any faith in the "harried stop" story. The Top Ten phone call is credible largely because it can fit in the timeline of Tippit's movements; the stop cannot. Work it out; use Google Maps to work out the distances and (to a lesser extent) times. They don't work; can't work. But it's got a nice "wow" factor, don't you think? Other than that "there's no reason not to believe" the story, why should we? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. Can you make the case for it? Of course, we'll never know if I'm absolutely correct about any or all of this until and unless someone involved steps forward and admits that the story as we know it isn't quite right. In the meanwhile, one measure of evaluating the verity of any story is how well it fits into a cohesive whole. Or whether it fits into another one. But those are a little harder to find.

1. You'd get a LOT of opposition from me that Tippit was at the viaduct, or anywhere else other than where he said he was. The evidence supports his being at Kiest and Bonnieview; other evidence supports the viaduct cop being one of the cops who was NOT supposed to have been there, but was. DPD Channel 1 tape evidence will tell you who they were. 2. Moot. 3. To find out if his girlfriend was home and if she was pregnant. He apparently figured since he wasn't needed downtown, there was plenty of time to make this rendezvous. Plenty to support this notion. 4. Diversion from downtown shooting investigation. It worked. I've posted extensively on all of this, with citations.

OK, that's how you like to play it. I'm done here. Get back to me when you're sober.

Tommy, I didn't "verify" what you'd said, don't play word games; I merely said that the English used could have been - and most likely was - a cop's, and that the idiomatic "mistakes" could as easily have been attributed to someone with an education and/or otherwise "normal" intelligence as to Jack. There is nothing in the affidavit that reflects on Jack Dougherty or his intelligence unless Jack Dougherty wrote it AND wrote it exactly the way it was typed. You're forming a supposition (assumption?) that he was more intelligent than he was given credit for based on the reasonably good grammar used, which you attribute to Jack based upon the "mistakes" he made: "he used good grammar so it proves he was intelligent, and I know it was him using it because he also used bad grammar. He's smart because he shows signs of also being dumb." As I said, check the Dallas City Archives online for the original handwritten copies. The English may be "very good," but nothing in the typed affidavit makes it Dougherty's other than pure conjecture. I'll get a more first-hand opinion when I think of it. Incidentally, it is not a question of him or anyone else being "helped," but rather of efficiency in processing. I think you'll also find that few if any of the affiants actually "appeared (in person) before" Patsy Collins, and maybe that she didn't even type all of them up afterward. Again, I'll get a more first-hand opinion when I think of it. As to "that" instead of "who" (or "whom"), yeah, I'm afraid so: "Are y'all fixin-ta go out with your friends that's got a car?" A-yup, I'm tellin' ya! Rankles the hell out of me, but what can ya do? Listen and translate on the fly. I have no idea what Texans are taught in school - much less what they actually learn! - since I didn't go to Texas schools. You'd only know that for sure if you spent some time in Texas ... by which I mean more than just a few days or weeks. You might find ESL an easier subject to teach to Czechs than to Texans.

Analyzing the syntax and grammar used by Jack Dougherty in his affidavit, one realizes that it is very good, better than most Americans in fact. Unless he was "helped" with it, it would appear that he wasn't the low-intelligence guy he has been portrayed as being. Must have been "helped" with it, right? Actually, I don't think so. He did make one grammatical mistake when he used the singular form of the infinitive verb "to be" in the past tense (i.e. "was") when he should have used the plural form (i.e. "were"), thereby indicating that it really was Dougherty who spoke these words instead of some highly-educated "helper". Idiomatic. You'd be surprised at how many Texans with decent educations do the same thing. Police only recently have been required to have some college education. It's not indicative of anything of the sort. It's equally possible that an officer might have gotten frustrated and sent Jack off to do his own affidavit, but from what I've been able to gather over the years, LEOs took the statements and wrote them down for later typing. Check the Dallas City Archives online for the original handwritten copies.

The only questions that are material, really, are those related to the delivery of and payment for the weapon. David wants to promote the notion that "it doesn't matter" because you can infer a connection based on the handwriting on the order slip at one end, and possession of the weapon on arrest at the other. While that might "make sense," it is not legally sufficient and is probably not even admissible because it "calls for a conclusion" that's not based on established fact. The oddity in all of this is that, while it had all the information it needed to establish the facts through REA, no apparent effort was made to do so. Why did the Seattle FO not drive over to REA's office to get copies of their paperwork at the shipping end, and the Dallas FO do the same at the receiving end, particularly the means and documentation of final delivery? It is particularly inexplicable in light of the length that the FBI went to establish the provenance of an unemployment check, even to knowing which train it was transported on. Nobody killed anyone with a check, but nothing near to that level of apparent effort went into establishing the provenance of a purported murder weapon. In any criminal investigation, the standard is not "we didn't feel we needed to," but only that "we were unable to." In this case, and especially in light of the efforts put forth to squelch any "dirty rumors" of conspiracy, the FBI apparently did nothing to show that Oswald had no confederates, in particular that there was nobody else in custody of the murder weapon and that only Oswald had possessed it beyond reasonable doubt. The complete lack of apparent investigation of this entire link in the chain of custody leaves open the possibility that someone else picked up the weapon from REA, a hole one would think the FBI would want to close. That there is no mention of any investigation of this leg of the pistol's journey can suggest either that (a) the FBI didn't even think to nail this down - a presumption belied by its tracing of the unemployment check's journey from Austin to New Orleans (why could they not have been satisfied that "the check was mailed and then was cashed," each on a particular date to prove that Oswald had, in fact, received this innocuous bit of the puzzle?) - or ( that they did investigate it and got results that ran counter to its expected or intended conclusion. If they'd investigated it and been unable to make any determinations, they'd have said so. After all, even presuming that Oswald lied about having any knowledge of or involvement in any shootings, that doesn't preclude that he was involved with someone else. One would think that, absent a confession of both being involved and acting completely alone, there would be a presumption that others might have been involved, and an investigation into who that might have been, vice an effort to prove that nobody else was involved. The absolute fact remains that, once Oswald was in custody, all search for and investigation of others was immediately halted, and DPD stood down as if there was never any doubt whatsoever that they had gotten their one and only man, not only in the shooting of one of their own - the only thing that Oswald was supposedly in custody for - but for the shooting of the President as well. That a man "missing" from the TSBD had been taken into custody for one crime hardly means that he was absolutely, positively the perpetrator of another crime to the extent that any search for others involved could or should have been called off. After all, Oswald hadn't been caught red-handed (all anyone knew at the time - at best - was that he had a weapon and Tippit was killed by one) and hadn't confessed, so why would anyone have cause to believe that there was no further need to search for anyone else on either count?

Just goes to prove the old axiom about when ya "assume!" I just figured that a new book contained new information, not 43-year-old information! Outside of his first learning about the case, I never got a sense he was talking about 1968, and had an impression of a much later date throughout. Maybe 420 pages on a Kindle will do that to ya, reading only short snippits at a time! For an in-depth interview, however, he really didn't say much about it at all, and really didn't portray it as such:

"Mr. And Mrs. Donald R. Higgins managed the house at 417 East 10th Street, directly across the street from where Tippit was killed, but they were not called on to testify or questioned by agents of the Commission although they heard the shots and witnessed some events subsequent to the flight of the assailant." Mark Lane - RUSH TO JUDGMENT page 165 - Fawcett paperback edition 1966 Nice one Robert. My bad, based on a bad choice of words? According to Walt Brown's Global Index, the Higginses are also mentioned once in Garrison's On the Trail of the Assassins. Not for the purpose of discrediting them, but what else have they had to say, or have they merely been identified as having "heard the shots and witnessed some events," which, for the sake of saying so, were "subsequent to the flight of the assailant," which suggests that they didn't see the assailant(?). There's also the curiosity why, if they were identified by 1964-65, they haven't been a more significant part of the discussion than one mention in each of two books, especially if they said something back then that flew in the face of the "official reconstruction." The point: is their 1:06 timestamp a new embellishment? Not that it matters much: it's pretty clear between the statements of Markham and Bowley, along with a little "assassination logic," what time the shooting took place ... and it wasn't any 1:15!

Continued from above .... I have no issues with John, and I don't think he has any issues with me, and I'm pretty sure neither of us much care what anyone else thinks of the other. Anyone who "hates" someone because of their beliefs in this or any other matter isn't worth discussion or consideration, present company included. That said, making something sound plausible doesn't make it so. As much as Assassination Logic "tells us not what, but how to think about" evidence, the "logic" touted also reflects a fair amount of bias in its evaluation of facts. One case in point, tho' not excerpted from the book that I remember, is the above statement; another is the treatment of Mrs Mooneyham's sighting of a figure or figures in the 6th floor windows. In that case, the arbitrary determination that her timing was correct was the only thing that "invalidated" her observation when, in fact, it is just as possible that her time estimate was wrong as that what she saw was. Left unaddressed was the question of who she must've seen if in fact she had seen someone in those windows "five or six" (or however few) minutes after the shooting and not at the time of the shooting. As far as I can recall, there should have been no one there then. If we concede that she did see someone there, then it's incumbent to at least hytpothesize who else it might have been. Besides, isn't the passage of time another one of those things that makes witness testimony so unreliable? So how is it that it becomes more reliable when it helps to illustrate a given point? If the number of people who heard echoes from one direction rather than another is important in any way (other than to help determine who was located nearer to what), by all means, please explain why. One thing I've come to realize over the years is that CTers and LNers both use the same devices to "prove" their points, and disdain each other for doing it. Pots and kettles, ya think?

But Gil totally ignores Newman's own explanation as to WHY he thought that Kennedy was hit "in the side of the temple": During his 2003 interview, Bill Newman goes into some detail about his observations, when he says that his opinion about the direction from which the head shot came was derived more from the "visual impact that it had on me more so than the noise".... Ah, yes, that 40-year-old memory, just as sharp if not sharper then than the day it happened. Whatever became of those maxims that memories closest to the event are the most accurate, that witnesses tend to "grow" their memories as time goes by, or have them influenced by any number of things that they've heard or seen or been told in the intervening time? I trust we're not going to suggest that the people we most believe tend to be more accurate than those whose views we disagree with, are we? Or that people who tell the truth as we believe and they perceive it tend to embellish/forget/misremember less than those whose "truth" we don't hold in such high esteem? I don't think it's appropriate that an interview held almost a lifetime ago be trotted out to tell us what Newman or anybody else thinks they remember from so long ago. Do YOU, really? Or will you concede that everyone's memory is just as accurate today as it was in late November 1963? I suspect, based on a conversation or two I've had with him, that Newman is pretty tired of being told "what he thinks" that he's become more adamant about what he thinks now, and partially in response to what people think he thought then ... no matter what he thought then. Fair enough, Duke. But I think a key is the extremely low number of "Two Directions" witnesses. And even CTers like Galanor and Thompson have the number of "2 Directions" witnesses being very, very low. And you're not going to find a single witness who corroborates the Oliver Stone theory of THREE different locations for gunmen. That should probably be a pretty big hint right there that there weren't THREE guns popping away at JFK (as many conspiracists firmly believe, and not just Oliver Stone). David, you know fully as well as anyone else here that the number of people who thought they heard anything has zero effect on the "echo effect," so quit the misdirection. If the shots came only from the TSBD and people thought they heard them coming from the grassy knoll (or elsewhere), then clearly they heard echoes; it doesn't matter where they were. Echoes by their very nature are not unidirectional. To say that people who thought the shots came from the knoll are the only ones who heard echoes is baseless. Furthermore, your query about why Newman didn't hear shots coming from more than one direction is perhaps answered in part by your (or John McAdams') observation that very few people claimed to have heard shots from more than one direction; so why, then, should Newman have? Given that echoes could have bounced off of the Dal-Tex or Courts buildings just as much (or more!) than they could have echoed off the Triple Underpass, it would strike me that, if "echoes" are a valid thesis as to why people only "thought" they heard shots from the knoll, they are even more valid an explanation why others thought the shots came from the direction of the TSBD: after all, aren't flat, brick buildings in the open more conducive to echoing than a somewhat-"ornamental" bridge surrounded in large part by foliage is? The low number of "two direction" witnesses likely has more to do with where they were located than where the shots were actually fired from, and the difference in the number of people who variously thought the shots came from the TSBD vs. the knoll seems quite reasonable since there were fewer people nearer to the bridge than to the TSBD and the other echo-producing buildings. ... continued next post (the new, more restrictive forum software kinda sucks in limiting nesting!)

Given the "echo effect" of Dealey Plaza, or the lack thereof, then the same must be able to be said about those who only (thought they) heard sounds from the knoll area, no?

A good point. I'm reminded of the maxim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs." While there's no particular reason to doubt Barry Ernest's account involving Mr. & Mrs. Higgins, there's also no particular reason to accept the Higgins' story at face value. Consider just two things: Mark Lane's canvass of the neighborhood in search of witnesses, and Larry Ray Harris' "penetration" into the neighborhood as a postal carrier, not to even mention all of the amateurs and hacks and maybe even official investigators (e.g., HSCA?) who have questioned people living in the area over the years. I would be much more inclined to accept the Higgins' account of that Friday afternoon if we had some bona fides that they actually lived there at the time. Two sources of verification could be the phone books and City Directories published then: were they in either? My experience over the years has been that people are willing to tell you anything you're willing to accept. One otherwise fine and upstanding citizen who exemplifies this is a retired DPD officer who regales visitors at Dealey Plaza with his role in Oswald's arrest at the Texas Theater: undercover as a "beatnik" on a drug operation, he describes how he helped wrestle Oswald into submission, apparently unaware that there were photographers snapping pictures that managed to, uh, help maintain his undercover status. He is also apparently unaware that rosters provided by DPD to WC list him as a patrolman on the First Platoon out of the Northeast Division substation on the midnight-to-8:00 a.m. shift (Batchelor Exhibit 5002 at 19H122). The need for proofs of this man's involvement has just increased, wouldn't everyone agree? Is there any reason that the same proofs - which is not necessarily to say "skepticism," although a healthy dose of it seldom hurts - shouldn't apply to civilians who purport to have a different take on the "official story?" Or should their claims be unquestioned because there's "no reason for them to lie," any more so than there is for the retired patrolman mentioned above? Unfortunately, Dallas is in the midst of building a new school campus in the area, and most of the neighborhood around 10th & Patton has been razed (yes, including the Abundant Life Temple), and none of the past residents are in residence any longer, so it's not quite so easy to check out. There is also (no longer) a Donald R. Higgins listed in the phone book, and Mrs. Higgins' first name isn't mentioned in Ernest's text. There are many elements of the story as related in the book that raise questions, but the more important aspect is that the fact of the story itself didn't apparently raise any. It's my opinion that anyone bringing forth new information has an obligation to provide bona fides, and that anyone who considers themselves to be a serious student of the assassination needs not to accept new information simply because someone, no matter how otherwise trustworthy, says it's so. Rock-throwing may now commence.

I meant "won't even get into...." Phone. Oh well.

I meant "won't even get into...." Phone. Oh well.

But, as everybody knows, the evidence in the JFK, Tippit, and Walker cases against Oswald could never be strong enough or withstand the scrutiny of Internet conspiracy theorists. Never. No way. Regardless of its strength. And that's because Internet conspiracy theorists have set the bar so high for "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt", that no amount of evidence could ever hurdle it. And a great example of this "infinitely high bar" is the Tippit murder. Here's a case with a dozen witnesses who positively IDed Oswald as either the one and only killer of Officer Tippit or the one man fleeing the scene of the murder with a gun in his hands (many of those witnesses saw the gun at any rate), plus the ballistics evidence (the shells) dumped at the murder scene by the killer himself (Oswald), plus the fact that Oswald is arrested nearby with the Tippit murder weapon in his own hands -- and yet that aggregation of evidence is still not even NEARLY enough to convince many CTers that Oswald could have been guilty. And I'd still like to know how the CTers deal with Ted Callaway's IDing of Oswald (plus other after-the-shooting witnesses too)? Witness testimony is downplayed when someone in Dealey Plaza said something about what they'd seen or heard that seems to contradict a theory, but suddenly becomes paramount when it can be used bolster another. Example (without weighing in on the validity of any observation): We have a sheriff's deputy, a trained LEO, who says he saw Oswald running down the slope toward the street (and him) and get into a Rambler station wagon. Granted that he didn't ID Oswald in a lineup, but is such an identification invalid (e.g., victim sees perp walking down the hall, yells "that's him!")? He is nevertheless quite clearly wrong, in part because Oswald was "already somewhere else" blocks away at the time he was supposedly catching a ride. We know he was elsewhere because an elderly woman said she saw him on a bus - she was the only one on the bus who even thought they saw him - doing things that nobody else on the same bus saw him do, including the guy that sat directly behind him. On the other hand, we have mechanics and cab drivers, waitresses and used car salesmen (the epitome of those you can count on accuracy from ... at least when a shooting's involved!) all saying "it was Oswald that I saw" and there is no question about the accuracy of their observations despite the fact that most of them saw the perp from 50-100 feet or more away, and none more than momentarily. Why would their ID be more accurate and valid than a LEO's ... even though, it might be noted, none of them could tell time? If witness testimony is "notoriously unreliable," then that must apply to all witnesses and not just the ones we don't agree with. Isn't that a great question? Presuming that BOTH Earlene Roberts' and all of the 10th&Patton witnesses' IDs of Oswald are correct, then he was in two places a mile and only minutes apart, with enough - but barely enough - time to get between them by the only known means of transportation he had: his feet. We can even allow for the supposition that Oswald didn't really spend 3-4 minutes searching for a jacket and pistol in his room, but really only a minute or less before scooting back out the door to his next rendezvous with history to ensure that there's plenty of time. We can now say that Oswald shot Tippit at or around 1:16 after having covered 9/10 of a mile at approximately 4.5 mph walking speed, or about 1½ times the "normal" rate of an adult male. In so doing, we must discount what the only two witnesses to the event or its aftermath who had reason to be paying attention to the time had to say. Even setting Markham and her "1:06 or 1:07" estimate aside for the moment, we not only have to put Tom Bowley ("1:10") on the scene only bare seconds after the shooting and have a small crowd assemble almost instantaneously if in fact the "citizen call" - unquestionably attributable to Bowley no matter what Donnie Benavides or the WC had to say about it - was made within a minute or so of the shooting. This would seemingly "make sense." It is, at least, the effect of any insistence on a 1:15-1:16 shooting time. ... OR we could go with Markham and Bowley's just-as-sensible testimony that Tippit was shot between 1:05 and 1:07, that Bowley drove up around three to five minutes later, and he didn't get immediately on the radio but did like most other decisive people would do: assess the situation before taking action. We also have the choice of credit Benavides' testimony that he ducked down in his truck "for a few minutes" or that he "really meant" a few seconds because it "makes better sense" ... that is, to believe Donnie Benavides knew what he did and that he had a rudimentary sense of the passing of time, or to assume that he panicked, had no sense of time, and was wrong. If he was wrong, 1:15-1:16 works; if he was right, it doesn't. We have, in essence, the options to take witnesses' time and timing statements at face value, eliminate those that are impossible (e.g., statements saying the shooting took place after it was called in on the radio), and arrive at a working hypothesis, or we can start with the working hypothesis and mold witnesses' statements to make the hypothesis possible, and then declare it factual. Using the unfiltered and unmodified data, we have Oswald two places almost a mile apart in less than 10 minutes (actually a bit more than five). If we do that, then we have these options: Oswald was an Olympics-level athlete; He was never at the rooming house, but walked directly to the 10th & Patton area (and must've had the gun with him or hidden somewhere else?); He was at the rooming house and got a ride from a person or persons unknown to the 10th & Patton area, and either (a) asked to be dropped off there for an unknown reason ("hey, I've gotta kill a cop near here"), or ( was let off there, possibly forced from the car(?), for another uknown reason, or © was heading somewhere we don't know about or have suspicions of, or (d) he wanted to get some exercise before sitting through a couple of movies; He was at the rooming house but not at 10th & Patton; or He was at neither location. Only one of those options allows for no mistaken identities and only one person involved. The only option available to supporters of the ODI theory is that Tippit actually got shot later than the evidence would suggest, further meaning that a crowd was waiting just offstage to gather immediately, and Tom Bowley was parked around the corner on Denver resetting his watch to the wrong time and waiting for a "bang! bang-bang! ... bang!" so he could drive down the street, jump from his car, shove the quick-thinking and "mistaken" Donnie Benavides out of the way to get on the radio to call in the shooting, all of this and more occuring within less than 90 seconds to two minutes of the shooting. As Professor McAdams would say, "Think Scenario." Instead of addressing these things directly, they are simply set aside amid the rant of "conspiracists' distortions and cockamamie theories," and claims of what "makes sense" to "reasonable people," withstanding or not the "impossibly high standard set by internet conspiracy theorists" that "no amount of evidence could ever hurdle" the bar of what constitutes, for them, "reasonable doubt." The only proofs, it would seem, are those that either side of the argument are willing to accept (and ne'er the twain shall meet!); all others are mistaken, delusional, paranoid, conspiratorial, naive, or apropos of some other dismissive descriptor. It does concern me, however, that LNers are just as willing to make accomodations to make the evidence better fit the theory as CTers are willing to consider virtually any far-out theory that doesn't leave Oswald guilty as charged. Each group is just as selective and manipulative as they accuse the other of being, it would seem.

Simply because it doesn't. The evidence is at best circumstantial, and those who attempt to build a case upon it refuse to acknowledge other evidence that doesn't sit with their theory, dismissing it in the same way CTers dismiss other evidence that doesn't suit theirs, while complaining that CTers dismiss inconvenient evidence in the same way that they do. It's not a question of "sowing doubt," it's a question of the evidence being strong enough to withstand questions and arguments against it, and its ability to prevail over conflicting data. The assertion must convict; it is not up to a defendant to prove himself not guilty. When incriminating evidence is brought forth by the prosecution, the jury (i.e., us?) must be convinced by it of the defendant's guilt. In this case, all one needs do is ask clarifying questions and find that there is a paucity of answers that validate the assertions, and a plethora of points that seem to contradict them. For example: Ask the question of the witnesses what time JDT was shot and you'll get a wide range of answers from them, but the only two people who asserted a particular time based upon their own actions are ignored because they're inconveniently early even though they corroborate each other. Ask how we can be certain that the weapon in evidence is even the weapon siezed at the theater and you'll get a lot of incredulous exclamations from LNers ("oh, come on! Are you seriously trying to suggest ...?!?"), but you'll never get a shred of proof from them. Ask the question of why JDT was in central Oak Cliff in the first place and you'll get a convenient response about the "draining of police resources" that actually disproves itself, but that WC apologists don't have a clue about, much less an answer to. There is a certain set of data that they have chosen to believe - which, incidentally, is one of their chief complaints against CTers - and nothing that contradicts it in any way is either valid or worthy of consideration, it's all "imaginary" in the same way that CTers claim everything is "faked." Ultimately, the "jury" is hung, and those on either side of the question refuse to acknowledge that those on the other are even "reasonable" people ... even though, oddly enough, if they didn't have any idea what a person's "politics" on this particular issue might be, they'd otherwise consider them quite reasonable people indeed, and maybe even colleagues, peers and friends. Incidentally, relative to the post immediately above, "common sense" has no standing in a courtroom, as in "you must believe it, it must be true because it makes sense!" The standards are "what do the facts tell us?" and "what [among the assertions] are facts?" I myself am alternately praised and reviled by either side when I question either of their facts and either prove them to be false or show that they can't hold them up to be. LNers love it when I shoot down a Richard Carr or Ed Hoffman while CTers despise me for it and call me a "plant" or something, and CTers cheer me on when I hold the LNer foot to the fire to prove their points while LNers attempt to paint me as just another "unreasonable" CTer. Go figure.

What makes you think there would necessarily have to be a "trail" of a person who merely picks up his mail at the post office? Now, since Oswald owed $19.95 + $1.27 COD on the revolver, then obviously (if the gun went to the P.O.) the post office would have then forwarded the money to REA. But whether THAT type of routine transaction would have left a paper trail behind at the post office, I really don't know. But since Oswald didn't owe any money on the rifle when it was delivered by Klein's, then no such "COD" transaction was required at any location. So when Oswald went to get his Carcano rifle, all he was really doing was picking up his mail. It just so happens that in the "rifle" instance, he had to get the package at the front desk, because the bulky object couldn't fit inside his small P.O. Box. I've picked up packages at the post office before. You take the little yellow slip of paper to the post office and the clerk gives you the package. End of transaction. You actually think the post office retains those yellow slips (or whatever color they are in other cities) that people bring to the front desk? I kinda doubt those are saved, Jimmy? I'm guessing those slips end up in File 13 by the end of the day. Yes, I know I wandered away from the "revolver" transaction and went over to the rifle -- but I wanted to add that part about Oswald getting his rifle too, because you (of course) think there should have also been some kind of a "trail" left behind when Oswald picked up the Carcano too. But you (of course) are wrong. Oh, good lord. Apples are fruit and oranges are fruit, so apples are oranges? Using the lack of necessity for paperwork for one transaction is not proof of no paperwork being necessary in another. Right: a package on which no money is owing would be or could be picked up by the cursory showing of some form of ID sufficient to establish a right to obtain it (I could not, for example, pick up a package for either of you even if I had a card from the box showing there was a parcel waiting). But in the case of the pistol, money was due; somebody collected it. It is probably fair to say that REA didn't mail it to the post office after it arrived in Dallas, at some additional cost that nobody paid REA for doing, such that USPS would be obligated or authorized to collect the COD amount. It is also fair to say that REA did not act as a carrier for USPS, which had its own transportation means as established by tracking the unemployment check. USPS also had a reasonably sophisticated tracking system, also established the same way. USPS had no record whatsoever of any transaction involving this parcel. If USPS collected the money in any form, it would have been forwarded to the shipper (or "mailer" in USPS jargon), which would be REA. REA would receive it and deposit it before sending it, along with any other sums due, to Seaport, which they did. We know that Seaport received money from REA because their internal documents showed that to be the case. We can accept that at face value unless Seaport was merely trying to fool itself into believing it had been paid via normal channels, i.e., the same one through which they had shipped out. Finding no documentation at USPS and knowing that shipment had been made via REA, why do we not explore what happened while the parcel was in REA's possession? Let us count the ways: 1) The FBI never thought of that! 2) REA did not utilize paperwork of any kind in its shipments and transactions. 3) REA routinely destroyed all documentation after 30 days (the IRS be damned!). 4) It was tracked and found to show the gun was received by someone other than Oswald. 5) Knowing that Seaport shipped it COD to Dallas and eventually got paid for it, nothing further was needed. 6) (Someone help me out here!) Effectively the argument here is that you were seen drinking at a bar, you're home now, so you must've driven drunk, you're under arrest. The proofs should be self-evident, and any reasonable jury would convict you if they "knew" you did it no matter what evidence did or didn't show, or did or didn't exist. I mean, c'mon: the police only arrest guilty people. We could save a lot of money in courts and their upkeep if everyone just realized this, don't you think?

Seaport shipped Revolver V510210 to Oswald's PO Box. I assume we can both agree on the above fact, can't we Jim? You surely don't think that Seaport lied about having the "Hidell" invoice in its records on Nov. 30th, do you Jim? You surely aren't silly enough to think that the whole paper trail from Seaport, through REA, to PO Box 2915 was "faked", are you? How could something that doesn't exist be "faked?" All that exists in evidence are Seaport's internal documents that they shipped the pistol - no question about the contents of the parcel - via REA to a final destination of PO Box 2915. There is no evidence that REA gave it to the Dallas Post Office to deposit into the PO box, or that the Post Office collected a COD amount on behalf of REA, on behalf of Seaport. Nor is there evidence that a "notice card" was put into the PO box that the parcel could be picked up at REA. Yes, there is Seaport documentation that they were eventually paid, by REA, the amount due them. So, no: I don't think that we can agree that the revolver was "shipped to Oswald's PO Box;" there is no proof of where it ended up, or who claimed it wherever it was claimed, either the Post Office or at REA. The "paper trail" was wholly internal to Seaport Trading; there was no documentation whatsoever - no "paper trail" at all - outside of Seaport. And that's the point that remains unanswered - cannot be answered - but is instead obfuscated by inference, logic and reasonableness. It's like trying to prove the Virgin Birth to a non-Catholic, or attempting to convince a devout Catholic that is physiologically impossible: folks, it ain't gonna happen. Lacking the evidence, all you can do is take it on faith. We're being treated to a very fine display of that principle right here. I for one am impressed by it.