Duke Lane

Is it me, or is everyone else seeing what im seeing? Every year it seems there is less and less coverage of the anniversary of our Presidents death. ....

I think it's worthwhile to note that, if in 2007 the interest of the media in JFK's assassination seems subdued, that in 2007, the interest of the public - at least that attending the memorial ser-cus - seemed likewise subdued. I was one of only maybe 100 people there. Were it not for the presence of a high school hockey team, I might put the number at half or three-quarters that. I think I saw one actual TV camera, tho' a couple of mobile units did drive by, perhaps seeing if there was anything to shoot.

And they missed it! Someone came up with the brilliant idea of having a 10-foot "Big Tex" - a guy in a costume similar to the Texas State Fair's mascot - standing around the pergola near "Zapruder's perch" during the entire ser-cus. While nobody admitted to being the perpetrator or knowing who it was that came up with this stunt, I can only say that the good folks from COPA made no effort to distance themselves from the huge dummy, but rather stood with their banners facing Elm Street and railed against a local journalist who called this memorial "service" a "circus" (see below) and about the important work they were doing ... all with Big Tex waving in the background!

Couldn't they at least have gone over to the other side of the pergola? Or was this their way of proviing it was a circus, by "mocking" the columnist's mockery? D'oh! Yessir, these folks should be taken seriously! (This does not necessarily reflect my opinion of COPA, but seriously: what were they thinking!?!)

Of course, Thanksgiving intervened and probably kept many people away who might otherwise have been there, but once again: if there's little coverage, it's very possibly because there seems to be little interest. At least this year. At least by anyone "serious."

Just ask Big Tex.

From The Dallas Morning News

In the absence of official JFK observance, we get a circus

By Jacquielynn Floyd

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

People may drift down to Dealey Plaza on Thursday, but there won't be any official ceremony or city-sanctioned observance to mark the 44th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

It's not a tradition that ever took hold here, and the absence is understandable. Dallas, which endured its own unique grief in the years immediately following 1963, may well have been too traumatized to mark the anniversary.

By some accounts, the city – and, later, The Sixth Floor Museum – have deferred to the Kennedy family's longstanding wishes that the date not be observed.

And after all these years, public grief has largely given way to a general relegation of this terrible event to memory. There are many Americans who remember that day in bleak detail – but there are probably more now who don't.

In fact, I can think of only one reason why the city might, at this late date, consider organizing an officially sanctioned event to recognize the worst day in its history.

Just this: Too often, on Nov. 22, people have gone to Dealey Plaza in a genuine and respectful spirit of remembrance – and have found an embarrassing, exhibitionistic carnival.

In the absence of any structure, the date has become a high holy day for conspiracy cranks, a swap meet for oddballs to peddle their strange obsessions. The grassy knoll isn't just a magnet for people who want to bend your ear ad nauseam about the Warren Commission report; now it attracts people waving banners extolling such offensive sentiments as "9/11 = INSIDE JOB."

This is not a suggestion that anybody's First Amendment rights be curbed. People get to air their crazy ideas if they want to, even if it's tedious and obnoxious and nobody wants to listen.

But it's a cruel shame that people who feel a genuine desire to visit the site to pray or meditate and remember the slain president have to put up with a chaotic, disorganized circus on this, of all days.

Four years ago, for instance, my colleague David Flick visited Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22.

"In the absence of any structured events," he wrote, "proceedings ... were dominated by conspiracy theorists."

He described a confused scene of at least 5,000 people, some of them apparently expecting a formal program. Instead, there were noisy crackpots and publicity seekers. The headliner among them was former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who bellowed that he was the "only elected official who had the courage to come here today."

A marching drum band showed up unannounced. Conspiracy theorists set up microphones. TV helicopters buzzed overhead. Festive pranksters popped open umbrellas on a prearranged signal in a "flash mob" event.

If the date and place had attracted only genuine mourners and historians, it might have been a moving, spontaneous observance. The cranks and partiers made it silly and disrespectful.

That was the assassination's 40th anniversary; round numbers have powerful appeal. If the scene was this tawdry for 40, what do you suppose 50 will look like?

Here's a promise: A lot of people are going to show up, whether there's an official observance or not: camera crews, trinket vendors, mourners, tourists, conspiracy theorists, attention seekers and possibly street jugglers and reality-show contestants.

In the absence of any other consistent tradition, this is the one that seems to be taking hold. The way things have been shaping up in recent years, 2013 will be a major blowout for the wackos.

Neither Dallas nor The Sixth Floor Museum is obligated to plan an "official" assassination observance, for 2013 or for any other year. Maybe it's better to let Americans observe the sad occasion as they see fit.

But they might want to think it over. If there's going to be a public gathering, it ought to have some focus and purpose beyond grabbing some free publicity. It ought to have dignity.

[dupe]

... Just letting you know I appreciate the effort, and even though I don't agree with you on key points regarding Givens and Williams, you nevertheless put your case well.

You say: If Slim Givens concocted his "cigarette trip" out of whole cloth, he is certainly a gifted storyteller who managed not to trip himself up on any of the fine details - an amazing feat requiring much prescience to know anyone would even scrutinize those fine details!

Trouble is, he did trip up on the fine detail - just as others did - and as with those others, he was not called on it.

Belin - who could only have had the "cigarette trip" in mind with this question asked: "Did you wear a jacket to work that day?" to which Givens responded: "I wore a raincoat, I believe. It was misting that morning."

And then the following exchange:

Mr. BELIN. Did you hang up your [rain]coat in that [Domino] room, too?

Mr. GIVENS. Yes, sir.

No jacket... and his coat was a raincoat - which he'd hung it up in the Domino room - as was usual practice with most of them.

While I'm by no means attempting to "apologize" for these guys, I still have to say that if this is the only mistake he made - you only cited one "mistake" he'd made, if it was that - then it is an impressive "story" if it's not true. I'll also add that not only Sylvia Meagher (cited above), but also Patricia Lambert made strong arguments that these guys were full of it. Unfortunately, they were so intent on portraying the WC as suborners of perjury, they missed out on some of the "big picture" things, and by so doing, call some of their own details into question.

One thing that's overlooked in large measure, I think, is that up until the time of the shooting and its aftermath, it was just a normal day ... with the sole exception that they'd be seeing a parade featuring the President of the United States during the lunch hour. Nobody had any reason up to that point - and may well have been wrapped up in the anxiety and activity afterward - to pay attention to seemingly inconsequential details that had no bearing on anything until much later. If only they'd known what was going to happen, perhaps they'd have paid closer attention. (NOT!)

A case in point (besides where Hank left his jacket) is what I call "The Great Elevator Shuffle." There are charges of "lying" when different people place other men on different elevators as they went downstairs, but we overlook the point that, since it was a "kid's game" just to pass the time, nobody had any reason to make note of who rode down on which elevator at the time. Asked even half an hour later, they might've gotten the answers wrong.

But in reality, there is absolutely no question about which elevator who was on if we confine ourselves to the question of "where were YOU?" and not concerning ourselves with where they thought anyone else was. In fact, we'd find that, out of five men involved in the "elevator race," only one made a mistake about where anyone else was, and that mistake is confined to where only one of the other four was. One of them wasn't even asked about this, and another gave answer only in a different context.

I'd also point out that they both make a big deal out of Hank's supposedly seeing Oswald on the first floor at 11:50. If either of them had considered this more fully, they'd have known that this was impossible because at 11:50, both Hank and Lee were on the sixth floor. Hank also said in the same statement that they'd broken for lunch from the floor-laying project (which Hank was not actually a part of, but let's not split hairs here) at 11:30, which we also know not to be a fact. So was Hank "lying," or merely mistaken in his time estimates? Why lie and say "I saw Lee downstairs at 11:50 reading a newspaper, and then saw him five minutes later, upstairs, with a clipboard in his hands that seemed to have orders on it; I presumed he was working?" Makes no sense at all as a lie, but makes quite a bit as a simple error.

Since my last post on this question, I've put together about 20 pages or so of examination of the events surrounding the elevator usage both before and after the lunch hour. The first part - "The Great Elevator Shuffle" - I'll probably finish (with or without citations) in the next week or so; it deals with events before and up to noon; the second - "The Three Blind Mice and the Invisible Man" - will look at those after noon and to within a few minutes after the shooting. (I have no idea how long that's going to take.)

I think that, in it, I show fairly conclusively that Givens' "perjury" actually did more to exonerate Oswald than it did to incriminate him. The "incrimination" came only in the "spin," which was of course to place Lee alone on the sixth floor near the southeast corner while everyone else had gone downstairs. In reality, it was exactly what anyone should have expected, but we'll have to save the proof of that until I'm done with the article. The use of "spin" can be also be illustrated in the fact that Frankie Kaiser was "always making" those clipboards that the WC chose to say was "appropriated from him" by Oswald: hell, the man even stole clipboards from other employees, whaddaya mean he didn't shoot the President? Exactly the sort of behavior you'd expect from an assassin, don't you thinK?

If the WC had really wanted to suborn perjury, they could've come up with some much better and more conclusive stuff. That they didn't shows that they didn't try to.

I'll also add, by way of idiom, that a "raincoat" does not necessarily mean either a yellow slicker or a London Fog belted raincoat, but might mean any jacket that repels rain ... or, more accurately, mist. I myself have what some might call a "windbreaker" - a single layer nylon (or some material) coated jacket - for that purpose; I submit that an Eisenhower jacket - or that of the type(s) that Lee wore that day - might fit within the definition of a "raincoat" that might be worn to protect against a light "mist," hence your note of "no jacket ... and his coat was a raincoat" are not necessarily exclusive: his water-repellent jacket might well have been a "raincoat."

As to his hanging it up downstairs and then having it upstairs later, you do realize that at least two of the men on the floor-laying crew actually testified to going downstairs to use the bathroom during the morning, even tho' none of them were specifically asked if they had? Ergo that those who didn't volunteer the information may have as well?

Moreover, every morning at about 10:00 - that Friday being no exception - a catering truck came by the TSBD, from which the employees bought sandwiches and such. Wesley Frazier bought his lunch from it from time to time, as did Junior Jarman, Billy Lovelady ... and Lee Oswald. Even tho' none made particular note of a "morning break" - someone did mention an afternoon break in connection with playing dominos - it certainly appears as if they had one, and hence another opportunity for Hank to have grabbed his jacket to bring upstairs. (Lee had also told Wesley Frazier that he was going to buy his lunch that day. Guess from where.)

We must also remember that smoking inside was commonplace then (and into the '90s, actually), so the supposition of his wanting to smoke upstairs is quite reasonable.

Anything more will have to wait till I'm done with "Shuffle."

Similarly, Williams failed to mention anything about going up to the 6th floor for lunch in his original statement. In fact, he clear indicated in that statement that he went straight to the 5th floor with Jarman. His belated effort to explain why he went to the 6th floor (which was that they'd all agreed to meet back there to watch the motorcade) was not corroborated by the actions of anyone else during lunch - nor by any statements or testimony they later gave. Williams was suborned to place himself on the 6th floor in order to account for the chicken bones and/or the "elderly Negro" witnesses had placed there.

A careful reading of the testimonies of "the three blind mice" will show that Williams probably had damned good cause for lying, if he did ... but leaving that aside for now too, do you think his claim that they'd all agreed to meet back on the sixth to watch the motorcade is inconsistent or incompatible with Hank and Junior's actual fact of their going back upstairs - if only to the fifth floor - during lunch? Or that Hank's explanation that they'd gone to the fifth floor rather than to the sixth because Hank "was more familiar with" the fifth floor is somehow more credible?

I will say this for now: Hank and Junior were only on the fifth floor for less than five minutes before the shooting, and Bonnie Ray joined them after that. Consider the implications ....

One question: are there any reports as to the disposition of the Dr Pepper bottle or lunch sack found with the chicken lunch? That fingerprints were found on it and that they belonged to Bonnie Ray, or that none were, or ...?

Aww, c'mon, now! There's parsing and then there's parsing!.

No, Duke, this not parsing strange. No.

Well, that pretty well sums it up, doesn't it?

Miles, can you actually name a single stenographer for the Dallas or Washington depositions, much less delineate his or her qualifications?

If not, then you're dealing in "theoreticals," trying to prove something on the basis of what you reasonably believe to be true. While maybe reasonable, it's not necessarily factual.

Theoretically, the Chief Justice of the United States would never have permitted his name to be associated with the "justice" that was done to the case of the murder of the Commander in Chief of the United States of America, yet he did ... and a future President and Commission member stood by it. Both are theoretically inconceivable and impossible, but there you have it.

... And we're now discussing the placement of a couple of punctuation marks?!?

That, my man, is parsing ... in CAPITALS!

Mr. BOWERS - Directly in line, towards the mouth of the underpass, there were two men. One man, middle-aged, or slightly older, fairly heavy-set, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers. Another younger man, about midtwenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket.

Mr. BALL - Were they standing together or standing separately?

Mr. BOWERS - They were standing within 10 or 15 feet of each other, and gave no appearance of being together, as far as I knew.

Mr. BALL - In what direction were they facing?

Mr. BOWERS - They were facing and looking up towards Main and Houston, and following the caravan as it came down.

Bowers responded in a direct question about whether he saw anyone on the "High Ground" ...

Oops. You have conveniently omitted "high side" from Ball's question. From Ball's question it is clear that Bowers easily could have interpreted (or allowably misinterpreted) Ball's question to mean from Elm up to higher ground.

Bowers response, in fact suggests this. Bowers responds:

"Directly in line, (Comma!) towards the mouth of the underpass, there were two men."

Bowers means, because of the COMMA, directly in line down to Elm along his LOS between the pergola & the east side of the short leg of the picket fence.

Because of the COMMA, Bowers is not saying in direct line to the mouth of the underpass.

and Lee mentioned the two guys, "They were facing and looking up towards Main and Houston, and following the caravan as it came down." Common sense tells me ...

Never trust common sense. That's what has led you astray & continues to lead you astray. Only rely on the facts & on careful logic.

Aww, c'mon, now! There's parsing and then there's parsing!

Lee Bowers did not insert the comma, the stenographer did. Lee Bowers also waived signature, meaning that he didn't read it before publication, so he therefore also did not amend the written word to include the comma. I'm also fairly confident that he didn't speak in punctuations, like "well comma ya-apostrophe-see comma what I meant is this colon I don't talk that way exclamation point."

The comma, thus, is an invention of the stenographer and has absolutely nothing to do with what Bowers did or didn't mean.

That is "common sense, fact and careful logic." I don't feel led astray.

Hell, if you remove the subordinate clause between the paragraphs, you get "directly in line there were two men." Directly in line with what? Each other? Two points (men) are always "in line" with each other and cannot be otherwise. The only thing that Bowers gave as a reference point to be "in line" with was the mouth of the underpass. The stenographer's comma was actually extraneous.

Duncan, ... didn't Bowers say that one of the men after the shooting was still at the same location. And didn't Officer Joe Marshal Smith possibly meet one of them?

I think a closer reading of Bowers' testimony is certainly in order. Bowers said that there were two men standing behind the fence, but that they didn't appear to be together and were standing some 10-15' apart. Neither of them did he describe as wearing a suit, which is one attribute that one might expect of the Secret Service. If memory serves, Smith indicated that the man was reaching inside his jacket, and if so, it rules out either of these men.

That is not, however, to say that Smith didn't meet up with someone claiming to be USSS.

Duke,

You said:

"I think a closer reading of Bowers' testimony is certainly in order. Bowers said that there were two men standing behind the fence. . ."

I take it you've read Bowers' testimony closer. Where does he ever say that there were two men standing behind the fence?

Ken

Actually, Ken, he didn't, anywhere in his testimony. There, he merely says that the two of them are "on the high ground" between his tower and the opening under the Triple Underpass. I never actually said otherwise, but that seems to be the concensus of others' opinions here, so why upset the apple cart?

It is, in any case, a defensible interpretation that they were behind the fence because he could see one of the men's trousers, a difficult exercise through a 5-6' stockade fence, even from Bowers' elevated position.

It may also be what he said in the RTJ film, which I no longer have either a copy of or a transcript from, so I don't know. I'm merely aping the opinions of others.

No "gotcha" here!

... He had something in his hand. I couldn't be sure but it may have been a head piece.

J. C. Price

I had to laugh on seeing this because I've just been perusing Michael Kurtz' Crime of the Century in which he says that Price had seen someone running, carrying something that may have been a gun. So, I checked the endnotes on this and found the reference to ... Julia Mercer's two-page affidavit! (Price's is only about half-a-page, and is several pages after the reference given.)

My impression is that you are likewise too intelligent to suggest that the man did. Bowers "couldn't" say that the man didn't, so I'd think anyone who didn't actually witness it would be hard pressed to say that he did.

Using a man who may have been wearing a jacket (or maybe a shirt or maybe a coat) to rule in him being the possible USSS fraud is disingenuous, and then saying that you didn't mean him, but the guy with the white shirt because, well, he could've put on a jacket since we can't rule out that he did, or that he may have also been wearing a jacket in addition to the white shirt Bowers described but "wasn't descriptive enough" to include ... well, I'm not sure what I'd call that.

Bowers described two men behind the fence in the RR yard. How many men do you think were behind the fence that Bowers couldn't see?

An indeterminate number: he didn't see them, so how can we count them? Does his not seeing someone preclude their being there? Does the possibility of someone being there prove that anyone was?

Hoffman said the man at the fence wore a coat and hat. So why would a man in a white shirt be hard to see against the trees? And isn't it ironic that the person caught in Moorman's photo known as Hat Man (hat because he appears to be wearing a fedora) has backed away from the fence enough to only show the top section of his hat and Hoffman said the man he saw had fired a shot and moved back away from the fence before walking to the steam pipe.

Still quoting Hoffman when it's now pretty damned obvious that he wasn't where he claimed to have been? Read the facts here.

... Lane is the blame for not getting more information out of Lee Bowers when he had the chance.

So I guess to make it simple - we have a limited amount of people seen behind the fence just moments before the shooting occurred. Bowers claims he lost track of one of the men because he was now too hard to see against the trees. I find that statement rather doubtful. Hoffman says he saw a man at the fence where the smoke was and that the man immediately moved away. Moorman's photo tends to support what Hoffman described. Whether one believes all of Ed's story or only a part of it ... I find that the man with the hat is supported by Moorman's photo and unless there was someone beside him with a gun - Hat Man fired the shot which also supports Ed's story on that one particular matter.

You leave out the option of not believing any of Ed's story, and the obvious other side to the equation that Ed's story simply includes something other people have talked about for years. But this isn't about Ed, as bad a "witness" as he is to cite.

One of Lane's biggest issues in RTJ the book was how WC counsel cut people off from making explanations of things that might've been important, and definitely "shame on him" if he didn't better prepare for the occasion. In what limited defense I might raise for him (we're not related, incidentally ... but that should be fairly obvious, eh?), what additional questions you and I and others might think up after he's asked his aren't really his "fault" for not having thought of first.

It's been a while since I've seen the film - I gave my copy to a friend - and have not seen the unedited transcript or footage, I vaguely remember on several occasions when watching it wondering why in hell he didn't have someone show something, or go where they were talking about, rather than just describe or point to it. I suppose if either of us had done it, it would've been more perfect, but still far short of someone's expectations!

I don't mind an "obvious conclusion" or a "logical extrapolation," but I do have issues with things that are made up of whole cloth.

I have seen you sit quiet when a lot of that kind of stuff was being posted. Post being made claiming Bowers saw 'red plaid' ... Holland running immediately off the underpass when Dillard #3 taken about a minute post shooting shows differently ... those were classics made up of whole cloth.

If I spent time responding to each and every thing that is made up of whole cloth on this forum, I wouldn't have time to sleep, much less earn a living! What difference does it make anyway? I spent considerable time unspinning one whole-cloth story, but it hasn't done a thing about it still being quoted as holy writ. (I suppose it's my fault for mentioning "Ed Hoffman's 'shooter'" in the first place!) Some people are just hell-bent on seeing things their way, rightly or wrongly, which is okay, I suppose, if they can be convinced otherwise by facts. It's those that can't or won't who are frustrating, and I don't see much of anything to be gained by hitting them in the head if all it does is hurt your baseball bat. It's why I haven't mentioned Ed Hoffman in any of this.

Duke, you come across as too intelligent to not have followed the responses better than this. ... Bowers just happened to describe seeing a man in the RR yard at a time prior to the shooting as wearing a plaid shirt or jacket. ... Lee [bowers] wasn't descriptive enough to say that the man only wore a white shirt, nor could he say that the man hadn't put on a jacket and hat after Lee took his eye off of him to watch the caravan enter the plaza some 45 to 60 seconds before he looked back at the one man still in the same general area as before the shooting.

My impression is that you are likewise too intelligent to suggest that the man did. Bowers "couldn't" say that the man didn't, so I'd think anyone who didn't actually witness it would be hard pressed to say that he did.

Using a man who may have been wearing a jacket (or maybe a shirt or maybe a coat) to rule in him being the possible USSS fraud is disingenuous, and then saying that you didn't mean him, but the guy with the white shirt because, well, he could've put on a jacket since we can't rule out that he did, or that he may have also been wearing a jacket in addition to the white shirt Bowers described but "wasn't descriptive enough" to include ... well, I'm not sure what I'd call that.

I must say too, that unless I missed it - I didn't see where Smith said the man actually reached into a jacket.

Which is exactly why I use such phrases as "if memory serves" (as it sometimes - maybe even often - doesn't) so that nobody thinks I'm quoting scripture. Er, um, I mean "testimony!" (My wife would say that my memory never serves!)

So, overall, I would say that it's sometimes difficult to follow responses when so much vitriol is involved, of which you seem to be a significant source, unfortunately and in contradiction to your obvious intelligence. I'm not going to go down that road ....

Now that we've beaten around this bush a bit, can you explain exactly what your position is regarding the men that Lee Bowers saw and "hat man" and the USSS fraud and - while we're at it - Ed Hoffman's "shooter?" Are you suggesting that the "details" that Bowers "left out" for not being "descriptive enough" are the truisms that we're obviously missing here, or are you just playing with the cards that have been dealt?

I don't mind an "obvious conclusion" or a "logical extrapolation," but I do have issues with things that are made up of whole cloth.

Since you think I'm intelligent, please don't insult such intelligence - or defeat your own ability to evaluate it - by beating around the bush or erring - as sometimes seems to be your wont - by erring on the side of liberal interpretation rather than observed and sworn facts.

I think a closer reading of Bowers' testimony is certainly in order. Bowers said that there were two men standing behind the fence, but that they didn't appear to be together and were standing some 10-15' apart. Neither of them did he describe as wearing a suit, which is one attribute that one might expect of the Secret Service. If memory serves, Smith indicated that the man was reaching inside his jacket, and if so, it rules out either of these men.

That is not, however, to say that Smith didn't meet up with someone claiming to be USSS.

I thought Bowers mentioned that one man wore a plaid shirt or JACKET ... did I dream that or what???

Bill Miller

Mr. BOWERS - Directly in line, towards the mouth of the underpass, there were two men. One man, middle-aged, or slightly older, fairly heavy-set, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers. Another younger man, about midtwenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket.

I think you'd be dreaming if you seriously contend that the USSS would wear a plaid jacket while on duty. I know it was a leap of faith on my part that I would use the term "suit" above, and then expect someone to actually think "suit jacket," as in one that matches the trousers.

Wearing a sports jacket is not "wearing a suit," which is what I said Bowers did not say, and he didn't. The Secret Service wore and wears suits, not sports jackets, and damned sure not plaid ones.

To really pick at nits, Bowers did say "plaid shirt or plaid coat or plaid jacket," so to presume that to mean only a plaid jacket is to read only what one wants to read. To presume that the jacket is plaid and worn by someone claiming - apparently successfully - to be USSS is probably delusional, doubly so if you want to call a plaid jacket a plaid suit. No self-respecting agent would have been caught dead so dressed, especially in Dallas, 1963.

If he was trying to blend into the crowd by wearing mufti, where's the Stetson, another article of clothing that we probably would never expect USSS to wear?

Thanks to Chris for sending me the excellent quality Life scan of Bond 4 to to support my claim for Hatman in Bond 8. My analysis shows that I am correct, and that Bill is wrong with his foliage nonsense. Hatman appears in both Bond 8 and Bond 4. Case closed. Hatman is NOT a shooter.

Duncan

Duncan,

I've not studied photographic evidence to the extent others have, so humor me with an answer to the question of how far apart in time that Bond 4 and 8, and Moorman 5 were taken.

I ask this to discern how long "hatman" would have had to remain stationary to be photographed in the same position in three photos. It is not that staying stationary is, per se, an issue, but with all the commotion going on, I might argue that any person in such a position would have moved away from where they were, whether out of curiosity or self-preservation ... with as much force as the argument that a sniper would or wouldn't remain in position for any given period of time.

If "hatman" is a human being standing behind a six-foot fence, how do we see so much of him? And where did he get off to when people started looking around behind the fence? If he ducked, say, into a car trunk (a reasonable avenue of escape for someone shooting from behind there), why did he wait until after there were so many people in close proximity to him, running up the knoll?

Depending upon the length of time involved, I might be more inclined to believe that "hatman" is indeed foliage ... which would have no cause whatever to hide itself or run away, and would not move. Just an inclination, mind you ....

Duncan, ... didn't Bowers say that one of the men after the shooting was still at the same location. And didn't Officer Joe Marshal Smith possibly meet one of them?

Bill

I think a closer reading of Bowers' testimony is certainly in order. Bowers said that there were two men standing behind the fence, but that they didn't appear to be together and were standing some 10-15' apart. Neither of them did he describe as wearing a suit, which is one attribute that one might expect of the Secret Service. If memory serves, Smith indicated that the man was reaching inside his jacket, and if so, it rules out either of these men.

That is not, however, to say that Smith didn't meet up with someone claiming to be USSS.

... You say: If Slim Givens concocted his "cigarette trip" out of whole cloth, he is certainly a gifted storyteller who managed not to trip himself up on any of the fine details - an amazing feat requiring much prescience to know anyone would even scrutinize those fine details!

Trouble is, he did trip up on the fine detail - just as others did - and as with those others, he was not called on it.

Belin - who could only have had the "cigarette trip" in mind with this question asked: "Did you wear a jacket to work that day?" to which Givens responded: "I wore a raincoat, I believe. It was misting that morning."

And then the following exchange:

Mr. BELIN.

Did you hang up your [rain]coat in that [Domino] room, too?

Mr. GIVENS.

Yes, sir

.

No jacket... and his coat was a raincoat - which he'd hung it up in the Domino room - as was usual practice with most of them.

Ah, details, ya gotta love 'em ... if only because there's no end to them!!

I do agree that the general WC practice was to accept whatever testimony implicated LHO and to ignore - or steer the witness away from - anything that might tend to exonerate him ... which, as we'll see, is the point of this entire exercise, to establish (at least) an "alternative scenario" that stands up to at least as much scrutiny as the "official scenario" ... which admittedly leaves me lots of latitude!!

Was it in this section - yes - where I point out that Givens himself walked all over the building and the downtown streets in 35 minutes, yet the WC expects us to believe that if LHO was in one place at 11:55, he therefore was in the same vicinity 35 minutes later and "couldn't" have gone anywhere else? If the situation were reversed - where Givens was to be the "patsy" - Lee might've testified that the last place he'd seen Slim was upstairs on the sixth floor.

A "human" element left out of the above - which may be incorporated as a footnote - is that boxes that had occupied the western half of the sixth floor had been moved by the flooring crew in just the past few days. Ergo, the places where Lee might've gone previously to "get some stock" (a catch-all Jack Dougherty quote!) were no longer the same, and it's very likely that he'd have had to spend a few minutes or so searching around for the books that used to be somewhere else.

Ultimately, no matter the intended purpose of Givens' (and possibly Williams') supposed perjury, the end result is that it really did nothing to make the case against Oswald, and in part exonerated him as potentially being the operator of the freight elevator that was "missing" when Givens got down to the first floor.

We will also see that this scenario sets up Bonnie Ray to have gone upstairs at least several minutes after is generally supposed. We will also see that it is likely that he was on 6 several minutes later than is generally supposed ... but that has little or nothing to do with Givens' "smoke run."

Overall, I think Slim did quite well covering all the bases if he was making all this up. One slip-up on a "jacket" (a heavy shirt?) does not necessarily perjury make. Personally, I'd think if he was going to perjure himself - and especially if it was suborned by counsel (who, we will remember, were under general orders not to challenge or "cross-examine" witnesses) - it would have been much better to have Slim eat his lunch, go looking for his cigarettes, remember they were upstairs, and then go "find" them at 12:15 or so rather than almost immediately after "the boys" had gone downstairs for lunch.

As it was, in the end, his description of LHO's whereabouts 35 minutes before the fact was meaningless, and he actually provided substantiation for LHO's means of egress from the sixth floor. Still, it's all in what you make of it, and the WC made it sinister ... and so it was. QED.

Add that together with multiple failures to tell the authorities about the "cigarette trip" through previous statements and it's hard, despite your sterling effort, to put him back on the 6th floor after his descent.

Similarly, Williams failed to mention anything about going up to the 6th floor for lunch in his original statement. In fact, he clear indicated in that statement that he went straight to the 5th floor with Jarman. His belated effort to explain why he went to the 6th floor (which was that they'd all agreed to meet back there to watch the motorcade) was not corroborated by the actions of anyone else during lunch - nor by any statements or testimony they later gave. Williams was suborned to place himself on the 6th floor in order to account for the chicken bones and/or the "elderly Negro" witnesses had placed there.

The converse side of that argument is that the "rationale" - such as it was - that Hank and Junior gave for going to the fifth floor is pretty flimsy itself ... but I'll be getting to that.

As to the chicken bones, Bill Shelley gave a statement on 11/23 that he'd actually observed "an employee other than Oswald" eating chicken over in the same area "fairly early in the morning" of that Friday (presumably one of the colored boys who, Shelley observed elsewhere, "are always eating chicken"). Just a day later, he didn't identify who the employee was ... or the agent who transcribed his statement didn't think it important enough to inquire about or write down. But we'll go there, too.

The cigarette trip might likewise have been one of those details that was "unimportant" until nobody else could put LHO upstairs after everyone had gone down ... which, actually, five or six other people testified to anyway: Givens' testimony was only that LHO was "still" up there a mere five minutes after the rest had gone downstairs, and then at a time that it was customary for the laboring employees (distinct from executive and clerical employees) to quit to wash up. Big deal.

And as for the "elderly Negro?" Bonnie Ray with sawdust in his hair? More on that later, too.

If those boys lied, it was for another reason than putting Lee in the right place more than a half-hour early and explaining away someone else's chicken bones. Just because Lee didn't bring lunch with him does not mean that he didn't buy it off the "roach coach" that came in the mornings, a lead that apparently wasn't followed up beyond maybe one or two people saying that they didn't remember him doing so; at least one other employee, as I recall, said that he did: why not Lee?

And, of course, we'll go there, too!

This has been a disjointed effort so far, inasmuch as I've had to spend several days away from what amounts to a "short story" and then try to piece what I've hand-written in the meanwhile with what had already been typed in. That is a long story. Working on transcribing Part IV, just too damned tired to even think about posting it now.

NOTE: Once again, readers responding to this post are requested NOT to copy the entire post into your replies as the material is copyrighted and should be expected to undergo several revisions before being considered complete. Thank you for your consideration and cooperation.

We have seen thus far that "the boys" re-flooring the sixth floor broke for lunch a few minutes earlier than their normal time - 11:55 - and raced both elevators down to the first floor, where they washed up, and generally gathered their lunches and ate. At some point, Jack Dougherty also came down and was eating lunch at the same time as Danny Arce was, in the domino room. This suggests that Jack had re-called the freight elevator and ridden downstairs in it before Charles Givens rode the passenger elevator upstairs to retrieve his smokes.

Givens stated that he'd washed his hands - "that's all" - and had a drink of water before realizing he'd left his cigarettes upstairs. He went to the nearest elevator - the passenger elevator to the east - and rode it back upstairs. He made no mention of the position or any movements of the freight elevator. According to Slim's testimony, Lee Oswald was still on the sixth floor - apparently alone other than for Slim - showing that Jack had apparently gone downstairs by that time.

Had he not, both Jack and Lee would have been on the sixth floor together, where the stacked book cartons occupied only about half of the floor. Since most of the boys racing the elevators down weren't certain whether Lee had called out to them while they were still on the sixth floor, or if they were passing the fifth floor when he did, it's possible that Jack and Lee were on the sixth floor together even before the flooring crew left.

If Lee was on the fifth floor when the boys went down, then either Jack called the elevator back up and passed Lee as he was still on 5 or walking upstairs to 6, or else encountered Lee - if only briefly - when Lee had ascended to the sixth floor. For Jack's denial of seeing Lee at any time after 11:00 a.m., the only possible alternative is that Jack rode the elevator downstairs from 6 before Lee ascended to there from 5.

That likewise would provide the only opportunity for Jack to have been in the domino room eating lunch at the same time Danny Arce was, for Danny went outside with Junior Jarman, Hank Norman and Slim Givens shortly after Givens had once again ridden the elevator downstairs and checked the freight elevator's gates for Lee.

According to Slim's testimony, Lee was still upstairs at 11:55, approximately five minutes after the "elevator race," and he'd been about 30-40 feet north of the southeast corner - the "sniper's nest" - about 10 feet west of the east wall, among cartons that had been stacked up along the wall since two or three days before - out of their normal positions, in many cases - walking toward the elevators when Slim was getting ready to get back on the east elevator, itself about 20 feet east of the west wall, or about 70-90 feet from where Lee was walking from. [Note 1]

Slim got on the elevator and rode down. Both elevators, we know, travelled at about the same speed, with the east passenger elevator being slightly faster (it "won" the race, but had to adjust itself at its stop before its passengers could alight). According to a statement made by Billy Lovelady, who'd said that he'd actually timed the elevators at other times, it took 30 seconds for either one to travel from the seventh to the first floors, six stories. That's six seconds per floor, or about 25 seconds to get from the sixth to the first.

Even at a "standard" rate of 30 paces per minute and a stride of 30 inches, Oswald could easily have reached the west-side freight elevator doors and pushed the button by the time Slim reached the first floor (there is no indication of how fast or slow Lee was walking when or after Givens saw him, but Givens did make a point of saying he'd announced to Lee "it's near lunch time," which may have caused Lee to walk a little faster). Allowing a moment or two for the passenger elevator door to open, and another couple of seconds for Slim to have walked around the elevator shaft to check the freight elevator doors, the freight elevator could reasonably have been on its way back up to the sixth floor if the gates were closed to begin with.

The natural reaction of anyone approaching an elevator - even one they think might be in operation - is to push the button to call it. Lee Oswald would likely have done the same thing upon reaching the gates, on the chance the gates would be closed and the elevator would respond. Apparently, it did. The only other option, according to the testimonies taken by the Warren Commission, is for Jack Dougherty to have ridden the elevator up to the sixth floor (as per his own testimony) and met Oswald on the sixth floor, which he said he did not do.

Besides, by 11:55 - the usual quitting time for lunch - or 11:57 or even 12:00 noon, Jack hadn't time to eat in the domino room at the same time as Danny Arce. Thus, the most likely and most logical conclusion is that it was Lee Oswald who'd called the elevator up before Slim Givens got to it on the first floor. This conclusion is further supported by Frankie Kaiser's finding Lee's clipboard "right in front of the elevator ... right next to the stairway" ... right where someone who'd planned on coming back upstairs after lunch might reasonably leave it before getting on the elevator and retrieve it later when he went back to work.[Note 2]

At this point in time, 11:55 a.m., it was only just time for Lee Oswald to have "legally" quit for lunch, at "five minutes before time." Up to then, his job was to have been working, which it appears that he was.

DID Charles "Slim" Givens actually make the trek back upstairs in search of his cigarettes? Not everyone thinks so. At least two writers - Sylvia Meagher in her 1971 commentary about "The Curious Testimony of Mr. Givens" (The Texas Observer, August 13, 1971; online here) and Patricia Lambert in her piece about "Secret Service Report 491" (The Continuing Inquiry, Volume 2, Issues 3 and 4, October and November, 1977) - have also questioned the veracity of Slim Givens' story about having to retrieve his cigarettes, suggesting that it was contrived to incriminate Oswald by making him the last person on the sixth floor, having been "in the vicinity" of the southeast windows, at a time "close to the assassination" (we've already examined all that Givens did in the 35 minutes between his alleged sighting of Lee Oswald on the sixth floor at 11:55 and when he heard the shots at 12:30; certainly Lee could have travelled as far from the sixth floor as he is alleged to have ... only as far as the first floor).

Bonnie Ray Williams was the only one who testified that he thought - almost five months later - that Lee had called out to them while they were on the elevator on either the fifth or sixth floor to send an elevator back up, to which Givens responded "'Come on, boy,' just like that." According to Bonnie Ray, this occurred while they were on the elevators, and - if Lee was on the fifth floor when the exchange(s) occurred - already in motion. Givens himself said that he'd seen Oswald standing by the elevator on the fifth floor on their way down, so it would seem unlikely that he'd call out to him to "come on" when the elevator was already passing him!

Bonnie Ray's account sounds very similar to Givens' own testimony about his trip back upstairs and seeing Oswald. Slim testified that he "was getting ready to get on the elevator, and I say, 'Boy, are you going downstairs?'," an invitation to Lee to hurry up and join him if he was going down. It thus seems more likely that Bonnie Ray remembered this "come on, boy" bit of information from conversations he'd had with Slim after the fact; it is unlikely that he actually remembered Slim inviting Lee onto the elevators while they were already moving or as the "race" was about to begin.

It is likewise noteworthy that of all the six men who were on the sixth floor before noon - Bill Shelley, Danny Arce, Bonnie Ray Williams, Junior Jarman, Billy Lovelady, and johnny-come-lately Hank Norman, who'd been shooting the breeze with the others before lunch - only Williams's testimony described anyone talking to Oswald; the others only mentioned Oswald calling out to them, none the other way around.

Givens also recalled having ridden downstairs the first time in the passenger elevator with other men (it is impossible to say which elevator each man occupied based on the testimony of others since no two testified to the same people being on the same elevator; we can only trust their own recollections, and some were not asked). On his second trip, Slim said he was on the same elevator he'd ridden down in - the passenger elevator - and that he was alone going both up and down. These would thus seem to be separate recollections.

Perhaps most noteworthy is that Givens recalled having alit from the passenger elevator when it reached the first floor the second time, and then having walked around the elevator shaft to check that the gates on the freight elevator were closed, as he said Lee Oswald had asked him to do, but the elevator wasn't there. If the "come on, boy" exchange had happened as Williams described it, the freight elevator would have been there, discharging the other men who had raced downstairs. And since there were men on the freight elevator on the first trip down, there would have been no need for Slim to have gone around and checked the gates since the other men would have or could have closed them.

If Slim Givens concocted his "cigarette trip" out of whole cloth, he is certainly a gifted storyteller who managed not to trip himself up on any of the fine details - an amazing feat requiring much prescience to know anyone would even scrutinize those fine details! - and take such care to ensure that his story didn't contradict anyone else's. Otherwise, he told the truth ... which is what this present writer believes to be the case.

Thus, the following scenario presents itself:

• The boys "raced" both elevators downstairs at 11:50-11:55 and went to wash up and eat their lunches;
  
• Slim Givens realizes he left his smokes upstairs and takes the passenger elevator up to the sixth floor. It was the elevator he'd just ridden down on, and the one closest to the wash room. He sees Oswald near some books to the east of the elevators (this shouldn't be surprising since the west side of the floor had been cleared so new flooring could be laid), asks Lee if he's ready to come down; he's not. Lee asks him to make sure the gates on the freight elevator are closed so he can call the elevator upstairs when he's done;
  
• Slim rides the passenger elevator down; as he does so, Lee approaches the freight elevator shaft and pushes the button to call the elevator up. Surprisingly, the freight elevator begins its ascent: the gates must've been closed, or Slim was already downstairs;
  
• Slim arrives downstairs in the passenger elevator, walks around to the west elevator shaft and finds that the elevator is not there; he does not say if it is still moving, only that it's not there. He joins his friends Junior Jarman, Hank Norman and Danny Arce and goes outside;
  
• The freight elevator descends to the first floor(?); Oswald emerges for lunch(?).
  

With both elevators now on the first floor, both Bonnie Ray Williams and Jack Dougherty will enter them and ride each to the sixth floor. It will soon become apparent that Bonnie Ray did not do so right away, nor as soon as was attributed to him by the Warren Commission; Jack's timing is a question open to speculation. But before we can allow Bonnie Ray and Jack to enter the story in full, we must first examine the subsequent actions of Mr. Givens and company in light of the above.

- - - - -

NOTESNote 1: It is tempting to note that it was still more than half an hour before the shooting, and a man can cover a lot of ground in 35 minutes. Slim Givens himself went downstairs, stood by the window with his friends for a few minutes before deciding to go outside, where he ate his lunch in front of the Depository building before deciding to walk two blocks to watch the parade - another block away - with two other of his friends, and had walked almost another block after the parade had gone by before he'd heard the shots. Had the circumstances been reversed, and Lee Oswald had testified that he'd last seen Slim on the sixth floor 35 minutes before the shooting, would his testimony still have been incriminating to Givens? We shall, however, confine ourselves to the events immediately at hand ....

Note 2: Some have posed the question why it took someone "a week, week and a half" to find a clipboard on the sixth floor when the entire floor had been exhaustively seached by law enforcement personnel that very afternoon, and no mention was made of a clipboard. The answer is twofold: first inasmuch as a clipboard is not generally considered a dangerous weapon, something often carried about by an assassin to take notes during the shooting, and it was, after all, at the extreme opposite end of the floor; second, as Kaiser testified, the particular books that were stored in that corner was a "particular teacher's edition of ... Catholic 'Think and Do' books," separated from the rest. Kaiser had actually found the clipboard because he "went up there to get a teacher's edition," and it was "just laying there." The call for teacher's editions of Catholic handbooks was apparently not that great.

FYI, I'm trying to find the cite for Bill Shelley's having seen LHO on the first floor "around noon" or "just after noon" or whatever. Does anyone have that handy?

So if he [Givens] "implicated" Oswald at Belin's behest, he immediately qualified it and made it an innocuous rather than sinister thing.

You wouldn't call it innocuous if you were defense counsel for Lee Oswald. One of the Key conclusions in Chapter Four of the Warren Report is headed:

"Oswald's Presence on Sixth Floor Approximately 35 Minutes Before the Assassination"

As we see from page 143 of the Warren Report, this conclusion is based entirely on the new and improved recollections of Charles Givens, in response to the questioning of David Belin. http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wcr/page143.php

If Givens's memory had not undergone the remarkable transformation uncovered by Sylvia Meagher, the evidence would have indicated that Lee Oswald went downstairs at lunchtime, right behind the others, and may have sat reading a newspaper for a while, per Givens's first account, which would be consistent with Carolyn Arnold.

Wow: 35 minutes before the assassination! That would be, let's see ... 11:55, when half of the guys who were working up there that morning said that they broke for lunch and "raced" the elevators down! By that measure, about a third of the TSBD Company employees were implicated!

If I were defense counsel, I'd probably opt toward downplaying the "revelation" than trying to prove Givens was lying.

n the end, we will see that neither what time or even whether Slim Givens went upstairs to retrieve his cigarettes has much actual bearing on what transpired later or determining what times things happened. (Part III is coming up fairly soon .... ph34r.gif )

Bring it on.

It is surprisingly difficult. The things that you have in your head - knowing who was where, doing what, etc. - and trying to explain it in a way that [a] is not confusing to most people, and covers all the bases - i.e., addresses questions and criticisms before they arise - whew!

Part III - getting just to where Bonnie Ray gets on the passenger elevator going upstairs (probably not as early as many or most people perceive) - has proven particularly so; what happens after that ... wow! If nothing else, it will end up as one of those "alternate scenarios" that LN's always seem to demand when you say something like "Oswald couldn't have shot JD Tippit" and they want to know who else could have with as much detail as the WC presented.

This one, while maybe not entirely provable, may just stand up to scrutiny!

I do not mean to disrupt the flow of this thread, which deals with Jack Daugherty, but this seems a good juncture to take another look at Sylvia Meagher's 1971 article on Charles Givens. http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspir...a027305b50cc932

While Duke's comments about brief affidavits Vs extended depositions is a valid comment about Commission witnesses generally, I think the sinister comments of Jack Revill must be noted in the case of Givens, as must the most peculiar manner in which David Belin "handled" this particular witness, by failing to confront Givens with his previous statements.

Sylvia Meagher accused Givens of perjury, and she accused Belin of suborning perjury. If Belin did not suborn perjury then Meagher's article was a very grave libel indeed. Any lawyer with a modicum of respect for his own reputation would have sued for libel, yet it is a fact that David Belin decided not to. Perhaps Belin feared that, being a public figure, he would have difficulty proving Actual Malice on Meagher's part, or perhaps he did not sue because he knew that Truth would be Sylvia Meagher's defense.

Oddly, I don't find Meagher's treatise to be particularly compelling, especially since she seems to have made more than a handful of errors, at least insofar as is compared with testimony. In particular, the times that the boys on Six broke for lunch: in testimony, they were confused over a five-minute period, from ten before noon to five before noon. She quotes as early as 11:30. Shelley, I recall, said that he'd seen Oswald "around noon" downstairs; she says ten till, which is the same time Shelley later testified to their having broken for lunch (or maybe five till ... but not in time to also see Lee downstairs "later" at ten till).

More importantly, she seems concerned about Givens' "willingness" to say that he'd seen Oswald "over by the window" - or words to that effect - while reading his testimony shows that he actually said no such thing, but only that Oz was approaching the elevator from the eastern portion of the building, and actually - if I'm not mistaken - from books that were just to the east of the elevators. So if he "implicated" Oswald at Belin's behest, he immediately qualified it and made it an innocuous rather than sinister thing.

Sylvia also doesn't seem to consider the possibility that "changing testimony for money" could work several ways, not only in favor of the WC, i.e., Belin would suborn perjury, but nobody else anywhere else would or could "lean on" Givens with any other, um, "incentives?" Nor that Revill - not necessarily a white knight in this drama - was merely attempting to discredit or dismiss Givens as a potential witness?

There may have been other instances where reporting officers simply ignored witnesses, saying that they "saw nothing" and hence were never interviewed. Imagine someone saying, for instance, that Donny Benavides didn't go to the lineup and wasn't interviewed further because he "didn't see anything." What would the effect on his testimony be if, say, Sylvia had read a report that he would've "changed his testimony for money?" Should we then, in such an instance, dismiss everything he said about even being at 10th and Patton?

I do agree that the "cross examination" aspect was lacking almost entirely throughout the proceedings, but there are those on the staff - possibly Liebeler? - who say they were pulled quickly back in line when they tried stuff like that (witness the Patrick Dean debacle). To have reconciled the stories between Revill and Givens would have been about the same thing (tho' they were, in fact, certainly hostile to some witnesses).

In the end, we will see that neither what time or even whether Slim Givens went upstairs to retrieve his cigarettes has much actual bearing on what transpired later or determining what times things happened. (Part III is coming up fairly soon .... )

As to Belin's reaction to being accused of subornation (or lack thereof), it is not at all dissimilar to that evidenced by Arlen Specter, whom Hal Weisberg accused multiple times of multiple sins and even dared him to sue. While there is truth to the old saying that the best defense is a strong offense, sometimes it's also true that the best defense is no defense at all, i.e., not dignifying it with a response.

The Texas School Book Depository Company moved its offices and shipping departments to 411 Elm Street sometime during 1961.

Duke, I've seen references to it moving to 411 Elm that range between 1960 right up to 1963.... As can be seen, it quite clearly states that, according to Truly, the building had been occupied by the Texas School Book Depository for only "a few months." Is it any wonder this question never arose in testimony? This timing is particularly interesting to me as my own research of late has centered on the Dallas Host Committee... where some very interesting connections are cropping up.

I've done a little looking around - by no means necessarily extensive - and you're right that several dates crop up, and possibly interpretations as to what "occupied" means: they entered the lease, the started putting things in, people started working there, the executive offices relocated there.... The date is by no means critical to my deal, so I'll just leave it out.

Might I recommend to you - if you don't already have it - a little but very timely book called The Decision Makers: The Power Structure of Dallas (Carol Estes Thometz, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, First Printing: October 1963; Second Printing: November 1963; 103 pp.)? I got my copy off the net a few years ago for about US$5.00, I think. It does not name the individuals it discusses, but only identifies them by profession. A little knowledge of who was who then will fill in the blanks. I suspect you'll find many of them connected with the Host Committee.

In any case, Slim Givens went to the washroom after arriving on the first floor, washed up, got a drink of water and noticed that he'd left his cigarettes upstairs.

I assume you're aware this account of returning to the 6th floor is absent from all accounts rendered prior to his WC testimony?

Yes, but I don't find that surprising or even noteworthy. People's testimonies were not constrained by many of the factors that did earlier accounts, such as that most affidavits and statements fit on single pages and sometimes two; were generally transcribed by others who may not have found some points "important;" and required actual writing on the affiants' and/or transcribers' parts (vice stenography), which has constraints of its own (keeping up with the speaker, writer's cramps or the desire not to have them).

There was likewise no room for clarification, such as may be in a case like this where Givens may have made a statement like "we went downstairs and washed up, I realized I forgot my cigarettes, so went upstairs to get them, and then we went outside." Either he or the transcriber - whoever was doing the actual writing (or even typing) - decided a more succinct way of getting the substantive details on paper was to say "we came downstairs, I got my cigarettes, and we went outside." Would you as an affiant have a problem signing that? Especially if you were a black man in 1963 being told by a cop, "okay, sign this?"

When given the opportunity to go into more detail by speaking, most people did, even if they didn't say everything they might have been able to if it was just free-flowing discussion rather than deposition.

According to Hank, as the boys were descending in the elevators, Lee was standing south of the elevators and called to them to wait for him, or to send the elevator back up to him when they'd gotten downstairs; Billy Lovelady, Charlie Givens and Bonnie Ray Williams also noticed Lee, although their descriptions of where he was - on the fifth or sixth floor - and exactly what he'd said vary.

According to at least Williams, it was Givens who called out to LHO on the way down. This is another reason to disbelieve Givens went back up. To believe it, you'd have to believe he forgot all about it until he got before the commission and that he had the same conversation with Oswald twice within a matter of minutes.

If more than one person had said that anyone had spoken with Oswald in any way prior to their "racing" downstairs, I might consider it a reason to question the account, but I'm not sure I'd find it reason to "disbelieve" it. As it is, nobody else said that anyone said anything to Oswald - most in fact stressed that they did not speak with him when counsel would ask about them "talking" to or with Lee upstairs. I've got a cite somewhere for this particular thing, and if I find it, I'll put it here in red, but I'm pretty confident that it's in one of the four guys' testimony (Williams, Norman, Jarman or Givens).

Something to remember is that about four months had gone by between the event and the testimony, four months of four black guys working - and talking - together, so I'm not going to give particular weight to something someone said about someone else ... especially in light of the "rule" that "earlier accounts tend to be more accurate" about one's own actions!

Bonnie Ray Williams got his "chicken-on-the-bone" sandwich from the domino room, pulled a Dr Pepper out of the Dr Pepper machine on the first floor, and rode the passenger elevator back up to the sixth floor, and ate it near the third set of windows from the southeast corner facing Elm Street. We will return to Bonnie Ray's actions later.

Another who forgot he went back to 6th floor until his turn before the WC. As with Givens, I believe his earliest account to be the honest one.

For reasons stated above, I don't consider "honesty" to necessarily be an issue in most cases. These guys' accounts are among them.

Concerning the freight elevator... I have read something recently (though can't find it at the moment) that the freight elevator made a hell of a screech when operating. FWIW.

I'll see what I can learn about this, but as for what's on the record, the only thing anyone said - Norman, I think - was that the passenger elevator made a "bang" or a "bump" when you moved the hand lever, and that, really, the only time you'd necessarily hear either of the elevators was if you were "listening for the boss."

Either that, or it made a helluva racket that nobody mentioned - and would've disturbed the people on the lower floors as it went by! - and a very effective lube job was done after the fact so the WC folks wouldn't notice.

Also consider the fact that both Truly and Baker said that they didn't hear the elevator descending as they were running upstairs. Sure they were making some racket, but a screeching elevator ...?

I'll see what turns up.

Thomas H. Purvis says: One last time for those who actually care!

Is that an actual promise, or along the lines of "I'm not posting anything any more till ..." with a dozen follow-up messages?

PS - If it's not illegal where you live, can you send me some of that stuff you've been smoking?

Interesting, but can you speculate on motive or 'influence' a bit more. Thanks for this. Peter

Realizing that it will of necessity be speculation, I will be getting around to that, not in terms of terms of what made Jack tick, but also possibly why nobody "heard anything" upstairs after the shooting, what they may have seen, how "diversions" were set up up there, and - for even broader speculation! - why, ultimately, Kennedy was killed (this is somewhat a function of who the players were). I may also even be able to show that people may have even seen the shooters after the fact, but before they got out of the building.

Where I lose it is how they also got Oswald out of the building without anyone noticing: the end play may have been relatively easy, but if he wasn't a willing tag-along, how did they manage to get him out against his will?

NOTE: Once again, readers responding to this post are requested NOT to copy the entire post into your replies as the material is copyrighted and should be expected to undergo several revisions before being considered complete. Thank you for your consideration and cooperation.

The Texas School Book Depository Company moved its offices and shipping departments to 411 Elm Street sometime during 1961. The company also operated a warehouse about a block-and-a-half north on Houston Street. During October and November, 1963, as the "slow season" came upon it, men were moved from their regular positions as warehouse personnel and order-fillers and -checkers to work as laborers laying new flooring on the fifth and sixth floors, where books were stored prior to shipping. They had spent about four weeks refurbishing the fifth floor, and had begun laying flooring on the sixth floor just a few days before November 22. It was at about the time that the fifth floor was begun that Lee Oswald was hired as an order-filler, on October 15, 1963.

By November 22, they had only completed about one fifth, or about 20 feet, of the sixth floor from the west wall. Boxes that had occupied that portion of the floor had been moved toward the east side of the building and were stacked several tall, effectively blocking the view of the eastern portion of the floor. At sometime between five and ten minutes before noon, the "boys" who'd been working on the flooring - Billy Lovelady, Danny Arce, Bonnie Ray Williams, James "Junior" Jarman, and Charlie "Slim" Givens - broke for lunch and "raced" each other to the first floor on the elevators. The east elevator, incidentally, won.

There were two elevators serving the upper floors of the Depository (a third one, located at the front of the building, served only the first and second stories). They were situated near the northwest corner of the building, east of the stairwell, and were installed back to back; that is, the gates into each elevator faced away from each other, easterly and westerly. The east elevator was designed as a passenger elevator, had just one gate, and operated using a hand lever; it only operated when someone was in it. The west elevator was designed for freight and operated with a push-button, had two gates, and could be called from one floor to another even when nobody was in it as long as the gates were closed.

Hank Norman had also been on the floor, just shooting the breeze with the boys before the lunch hour began. Lee Oswald was also there, gathering stock to fill an order. According to Hank, as the boys were descending in the elevators, Lee was standing south of the elevators and called to them to wait for him, or to send the elevator back up to him when they'd gotten downstairs; Billy Lovelady, Charlie Givens and Bonnie Ray Williams also noticed Lee, although their descriptions of where he was - on the fifth or sixth floor - and exactly what he'd said vary.

(Since Lee Oswald didn't live to testify to his own actions, we cannot state for certain whether he was on the fifth or sixth floor when the boys elevator-raced downstairs, but since his supervisor Bill Shelley and others testified that Oswald "mostly" pulled orders for the Scott-Foresman Company - it was the only company whose books Lee had been trained to pull, Shelley said. The majority of their books were stored on the sixth floor, the remainder being on the first floor. It would thus seem more likely that Lee was on the sixth floor rather than the fifth, especially considering the fact that Oswald's clipboard - found by order-filler Frankie Kaiser a few days later and discussed below - contained three unfilled orders, all of which were for Scott-Foresman books [CD7, p381].)

In any case, Slim Givens went to the washroom after arriving on the first floor, washed up, got a drink of water and noticed that he'd left his cigarettes upstairs. He rode the east elevator up to the fifth floor, and crossed to where he'd left them by the third set of windows on the west side of the building. On his way back down, just as he was getting ready to get on the elevator, he noticed Lee Oswald walking toward him from the east side of the building with a clipboard in his hand. He asked Lee if he was going down; Lee said that he wasn't, but asked Slim to make sure the gate on the freight elevator were closed.

Slim rode the elevator down to the first floor and went around to check the gate on the freight elevator, but it wasn't there. He then walked toward the domino room where he met up with Hank Norman and Junior Jarman and went outside to watch the parade; Danny Arce went with them. Givens walked up the street to meet with two of his friends; Norman and Jarman stayed in front of the Depository with Danny Arce.

After coming downstairs at a few minutes before noon, Hank and Junior had also washed up and eaten their lunches: Hank ate his in the domino room - he couldn't recall who else was in there with him, but thought that there were others - while Junior got his lunch from the domino room and ate it out on the main floor by the bins. Danny Arce had also eaten his lunch in the domino room, where he'd also seen Jack Dougherty eating his lunch at the same time. (Lee Oswald also told police that he'd eaten in the domino room while the others were there.)

As for the others who'd been working on the sixth floor, Bill Shelley also recalled having seen Oswald after he - Shelley - had come downstairs for lunch, which he ate part of in his office, and saved the rest for later. Billy Lovelady had come downstairs, washed up, retrieved his lunch from the domino room - where he said nobody was at the time - went to the second floor lunchroom to get a coke, and ate on the front steps.

Bonnie Ray Williams got his "chicken-on-the-bone" sandwich from the domino room, pulled a Dr Pepper out of the Dr Pepper machine on the first floor, and rode the passenger elevator back up to the sixth floor, and ate it near the third set of windows from the southeast corner facing Elm Street. We will return to Bonnie Ray's actions later.

As we have seen previously, Jack Dougherty had also been on the sixth floor before lunch "to get some stock" (his standard answer for any question about what he was doing upstairs at any time). While he is not mentioned by any of the boys who'd been upstairs - perhaps because he hadn't called out to them about an elevator, and perhaps simply because nobody'd asked them about him - his testimony leads the reader to presume that he was upstairs before they had broke for lunch and gone downstairs. If so, his denials of seeing Lee Oswald ring hollow.

Jack testified that he'd been on the sixth floor immediately before lunch, and had ridden the freight elevator downstairs "alone" when he was done. He ate lunch in the domino room where he remained "just a short length of time" before he returned to work, contrary to his usual habit of taking the full 45-minute lunch period to eat and relax. Thus a couple of scenarios present themselves:

Scenario "A" suggests that Jack had been on the sixth floor getting stock and had called the freight elevator back up at the same time that Slim Givens was getting ready to come back downstairs with his cigs, or while Slim was actually riding down on the passenger elevator (other testimony establishes that the elevators were not noisy and could not necessarily be heard moving: Hank Norman said that if you were listening for it, you could hear the passenger elevator when it stopped because it made a "bang" when the hand lever was moved to the "stop" position; Roy Truly also was unable to hear the elevator operating later during his rush up the stairs with Officer Baker, or during their ride on the freight elevator to the seventh floor); or

Scenario "B" has Jack finishing his lunch and riding the freight elevator to the sixth floor while Givens was either upstairs, or on his way up or down in the elevator.

Either scenario belies Jack's claim to not having seen Lee after 11:00 that morning since he would have been on the opposite side of the elevator shaft as Givens and Oswald were having their exchange about making sure the gates were closed when Givens got downstairs, or had arrived there shortly after Givens had descended in the passenger elevator. In that case, the freight elevator that Oswald was going to call upstairs so he could ride it down arrived even before Lee had called for it, and he took it downstairs when Jack got off. (This is a possibility that will be explored later.)

Scenario "C" is that someone else altogether, whose identity or identities remain unknown, was on the freight elevator. That could include TSBD employees working in the third or fourth floor offices who had called the elevator so they could come down to watch the parade, or someone who had come in the back door of the Depository and gotten directly onto the elevator and gone up. The only TSBD employee who was in a position to be able to see the gates to the freight elevator was Troy Eugene West, but he testified that he usually sat at his wrapping table facing Elm Street, with his back to the elevators.

It is known - or can at least be deduced - that Lee went from where he'd been last seen by Slim Givens to the freight elevator. Givens saw him coming diagonally toward the east elevator from the southeastern section of the sixth floor, clipboard in hand; days later, Frankie Kaiser - another TSBD order-filler who'd had the day off on November 22 to go to the dentist - found Lee's clipboard on the floor in the corner between the up and down staircases, in line with the freight elevator door. He may have lain it down knowing he wouldn't need it during lunch - he wasn't bringing any books down with him, completing any orders - and gotten aboard the elevator that he'd requested and was expecting ... or he may have walked down the stairs. Or ...?

(To be completely fair with all possibilities, he may also have remained on the sixth floor to go shoot JFK, but in any case, he had apparently gone to the immediate vicinity of two egresses from the sixth floor before setting his clipboard down. That he was seen downstairs by Carolyn Arnold at 12:15 or even later shows the last possibility to be unlikely. Still another scenario will be introduced later.)

Since according to Slim's testimony, he and Hank Norman and Junior Jarman had gone outside immediately after Givens' arrival back on the first floor (and Hank and Junior's testimony that Danny Arce was with them when they'd gone out), it is clear that the other three had finished their lunch before going outside, a fact they all testified to. Therefore, if Jack was in the domino room eating at the same time Danny Arce was, then the "missing" freight elevator when Givens went to make sure the gate was closed was NOT a result of Jack getting ready to come downstairs to eat at noon.

Thus it would appear that when the boys had finished their "race" downstairs, Jack had recalled the freight elevator and ridden it down alone, just as he said he did, leaving Lee Oswald upstairs. This occurred while the boys were washing up and getting their lunches, and would have been invisible to them since the doors to the freight elevator were out of sight from the main portions of the floor (see CE362), including the washroom and the domino room.

The question remains who was using the freight elevator when Slim Givens went to make sure the gates were closed so Lee could call it back up to the sixth floor. Since Jack testified that he had, in fact, remained "only a short length of time" in the domino room before returning to work, and that the others who'd eaten in the domino room had also finished their lunches, it seems likely that the elevator was "missing" when Givens went to check it because Jack Dougherty was riding it back upstairs to, he said, the sixth floor.

Maybe.

Greg, thanks for the post. Is it your position that no non-employee of the TSBD could have gained access to the building and shot at JFK from the sixth floor (east or west window, take your pick)? I do not find that hard to believe. What about the witnesses who saw someone fleeing out the back door?

Sit back and relax....

We'll be looking at "two-elevator monte" next ....

As Greg pointed out, I'd said "all that Jack said he did dovetails exactly with what a suspected assassin - or assassin's assistant - might be expected to do." I suspect him more as an "inside man" than a "mastermind," a facilitator and look-out, and as a shooter only for the sake of having a rifle fire - well-aimed or otherwise - and thus to make him absolutely complicit and possibly feed his ego.

More on all of that later....

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Jack Dougherty was a man in whom the police, FBI, Warren Commission and all other investigatory bodies took little notice and no interest with regard to his possible involvement in the JFK assassination. This despite the fact that not only did he work in the TSBD and have full run of the place - just as did the accused killer Lee Oswald - but he was also unquestionably and admittedly in all the "right" places at all the "right" times to have been involved in one capacity or another. We shall soon see that his actions can be considered suspicious in light of his usual habits and the events leading up to and following the shooting.

While the case against Lee Oswald requires hurried if not harried stealth, split-second timing, superb acting skills, mistaken witnesses, proof against his supposed "lies" about his whereabouts during the shooting (corroborated by others), and faith that minute details tend to incriminate rather than exonerate him, building a case against Jack Dougherty requires no such circumlocutions: he all but admitted to the possibility of his involvement, far more so than Lee Oswald ever did. Indeed, other than his failure to actually implicate himself, all that Jack said he did dovetails exactly with what a suspected assassin - or assassin's assistant - might be expected to do.

We will see that Jack was in a much better position than Oswald to have either or both committed the murder on Elm Street and/or abetted in its commission. The ONLY factor that argues even remotely successfully against Jack's involvement is his apparently diminished mental and/or emotional capacity. Even if Jack wasn't smart enough or stable enough to have planned, executed and masked his involvement in the shooting, that hardly constitutes proof that he wouldn't have or couldn't have simply kept his mouth shut for the rest of his life. His infirmities were such that, should he have "tripped up" in testimony (as he did), it would have been understandable, even expected, and thus excused by his questioners (as it was).

In terms of the classic profile of a murder suspect - having the means, motive and opportunity - Jack certainly had both means and opportunity: a rifle was unquestionably on the sixth floor (regardless of how it might have gotten there: nobody has been able to state with certainty how Oswald may have been able to get it there either), and Jack was also on the fifth and sixth floors, apparently alone and unobserved, throughout the period leading up to and immediately following the assassination. That he was actually not alone will be seen later.

Only Jack's motive is indiscernable ... as, in fact, was Lee Oswald's. Even the Warren Commission, which investigated Oswald's background extensively, concluded that "[t]here remains the question of what impelled Oswald to conceive and to carry out the assassination of the President of the United States. The Commission has considered many possible motives .... None of [them] satisfactorily explains Oswald's act if it is judged by the standards of reasonable men." It was only "a large amount of material available in his writings and in the history of his life which does give some insight into his character and, possibly, into the motives for his act." [Report, pp375-76]

In truth, the speculation that led the WC to its conclusion that Lee was at least capable of shooting the President could be said to apply equally if not more so to Jack Dougherty: "Perhaps the most outstanding conclusion of such a study is that [he] was profoundly alienated from the world in which he lived. His life was characterized by isolation, frustration, and failure. He had very few, if any, close relationships with other people and he appeared to have great difficulty in finding a meaningful place in the world." [R376]

Its similar conclusions based on Oswald's military service and defection to the Soviet Union, his dissatisfaction with and alienation from the world around him - "he would not be happy anywhere, 'only on the moon, perhaps'" [ibid] - might equally apply to Dougherty, whose stint in the Army at the start of WWII was cut short and may have left him, if only in his own mind, "less of a man" for not having fulfilled his patriotic duty like most other men of his age.

Jack's motives are no more or less certain than Lee's. History tells us little more about Jack or his background, largely because it was never examined, much less investigated to the extent that Oswald's was. We know only that Jack was 40 years old in 1963, born August 12, 1923, and got out of Sunset High School in 1937, apparently at the age of 14 without graduating. He enlisted in the Army on October 24, 1942, and remained in the service for "two years, one month and 17 days, to be exact," or until about December 9, 1944. His entire term of service was spent at Seymour, Indiana, pulling guard duty and other menial jobs; he saw no active service in the theaters of war.

Despite having denied it under oath, Jack was given a medical discharge from the Army before the war ended. He returned home to live in his parents home, and apparently remained unemployed until 1952 (i.e., from age 21 to age 29), when he began work at TSBD. In 1963, at age 40, Jack still lived with his parents. As far as is known, he continued to do so for the rest of his life.

We know of his medical discharge from the Army and his emotional or mental problems only from his father, who accompanied Jack to his interviews with the FBI following the assassination, on November 23 and December 19, 1963. Appended to the FBI reports of Jack's interview were his father's statements that Jack "received a medical discharge from the U.S. Army" and "had considerable difficulty in coordinating his mental facilities with his speech." The elder Dougherty "assisted [Jack] in furnishing answers to questions asked" during the December interview because Jack "had difficulty in coorelating his speech with his thoughts." [see Dougherty Exhibit A, Exhibit B and Exhibit C at 19H618, et seq.]

(Despite this, when Jack was asked by Warren Commission assistant counsel Joseph Ball if he'd ever had "any difficulty with your speech," Jack twice stated that he did not. What is not apparent from either his written testimony or FBI reports is that Jack had a habit of "smacking his lips" when he spoke, according to former TSBD employees. One thus imagines Jack's responses to Ball's queries about his speech as being along the lines of "[smack] no [smack]." Jack also denied having "any difficulty in the Army with any medical treatment or anything of that sort" when further questioned by Ball.)

While Jack's whereabouts during the noon hour are not in serious question, he was unable or unwilling to account for them accurately. The only consistencies in his estimates of the times where he was, was that he was anywhere but on the sixth floor during the shooting, and that he didn't see Lee Oswald at any time after 11:00 a.m.

The latter seems unlikely inasmuch as Jack claimed to have been on the fifth and sixth floors just prior to the lunch hour, and had seen the men who were laying flooring there then [6H377]. We know from various testimonies that Oswald was likewise there, and lingered after they had "raced" downstairs in the elevators, calling after them to send an elevator back up to him. Jack likewise remained on the upper floors until about 12:00, taking an elevator down from the fifth floor to the first for lunch [6H378]. Was this elevator actually intended for Lee's return trip downstairs, or did it arrive back there after he had already decided to walk down?

While Jack stated that he ate lunch on the first floor in the domino room - a fact corroborated by Danny Arce [6H365] - and that he remained in the domino room "just a short length of time" and then went back to work [6H378], he also variously claimed that he went back to work at 12:30, 12:40 and 12:45. Jack "usually" took the entire 45 minutes of the lunch break [6H377]; on Friday, November 22, he went directly "back to work," to the sixth floor, almost as soon as he finished eating [ibid].

(He also claimed that he "would have went out and watched" the parade, but "the steps were so crowded - there was no way in the world I could get out there" ... but admitted that he didn't even go outside to have known that. [6H378] This tidbit was offered as an explanation why he'd gone directly back to work, gratuitous and untrue.)

On this one day, when most of the other employees in the building, including management, had gone outside to watch the parade or were eating lunch, Jack Dougherty alone claimed to have gone back to work against his usual custom of taking the entire 45 minutes of the lunch break. Even Lee Oswald was apparently eating lunch during this timeframe, according to both his own presumed statements to the police, as well as the testimony of others who saw him on the first and second floors of the Depository between 12:00 and 12:15 or 12:20.

Only Jack Dougherty was AWOL during this crucial period, and he himself acknowledged having been on the same floor as where shots were apparently fired from, and in a position to have known if anyone had come down the stairs or attempted to use one of the elevators after the shooting. His actions during the latter timeframe, from "a short length of time" after eating lunch until after JFK had been shot, will be the subject of a further installment.

Just bringing this back to the fore in the hope you'll keep us updated. Also, if anyone has any pics of Dougherty, Piper or West, it may help greatly.

I'm working on it. It's funny how, no matter the fact that you've got stuff in your head, all of these myriad details and how they correlate to each other, they never simply flow out onto paper (so to speak). Of course, there's the added burden of citations, not simply saying "Joe Schmoe said this and did that," which slows things down even more.

Maybe I'll post it in parts ....

I don't have photos of any of them, but Troy West, you'll remember, never left the wrapping table, even for lunch, and was still eating his lunch when the cops started coming in after the shooting.