Duke Lane

NOTE: 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. A Person of Interest The Man on the Sixth Floor Copyright © 2007, M. Duke Lane All Rights Reserved 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.

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.

I genuflect in your direction Charles. The unfortunate thing about this entire discussion is that it has, actually, turned into something of a "religious" debate, you against me, us against them. Most amazingly, this thread started over a technical issue, Jack's being accidentally logged off by the system - as has happened to me and probably most of us one time or another - and his misunderstanding of it. Then it - and John Simkin, et al. - turned into "part of the great conspiracy" based on a system glitch. Ho-hum. Houston, we seem to have a problem. Meet us in the studio. Above all, this is Simkin's party; none of us has an unalienable right to be here, research or diatribes or education or ad hominem or anything else considered. So, if you have a problem, get over it or get lost. alt.jfk.conspiracy is looking for people just like you; join them if you wish. If not, contribute what you will, and leave your whining at home. This site is not sponsored by PBS or Uncle Sam, but in the UK where "inalienable rights" might even be considered something of a slap in the face by its unruly cousins across the pond! Behave yourselves like the guests you are - smoke in the right rooms, don't spit on the floors, don't start fights, play nice in the sandbox together - or at least don't feel slighted when you shat on our host's kitchen table and he didn't like it and asked you to leave. In sum, grow up and play by the rules, or find somewhere else to make your own up. Now can we end this silly clutter?

Tim, How about a full quote on this nervousness? Context, circumstances, etc. I'm just curious what Russo has to say about it (I don't have his book) since I have Paul Harvey's viewpoint on it.

If someone threatened his father and mother, you can bet that would guarantee his cooperation. It would be interesting to know if anyone in Jack's immediate circle had a bad experience in the days preceding the assassination. My impression is that that wouldn't have been necessary, and suspect that if people who treated him well handled him properly, he'd have been a willing participant ... whether he knew the ultimate goal or not. After the fact, how could he not have? What kept him quiet after his parents died? Jack himself has gone to the great knoll in the sky by now ... SSDI says back in the '90s. That is exactly the way Larry Ray Harris described him to me. Larry actually took a job as an order-filler at the TSBD where he got to know Jack Daugherty. Daugherty refused to be drawn into any discussion of November 22nd, but he did, as Duke says, act like he knew something that nobody else knew. I would be interested in knowing who is Duke's source for this comment. A former TSBD employee. Same as above.

I can appreciate the skepticism, but ownership and sighting are not necessarily at issue here. The fact is that a rifle was found on the sixth floor, and Jack had been on the sixth floor, ergo Jack had the means. I'm not necessarily postulating that Jack fired the rifle (as will be seen), although if I were someone who'd enlisted Jack's support in getting me into and out of the building, I would probably make sure that he did if only to ensure his silence about his complicity. If Jack fired a (or the) rifle, it's my guess is that his was or were one of the shots that missed (e.g., hit the roadway behind the limo, at the manhole in the park seen by some cops and bystanders, and/or the one that hit near Tague). My estimation of Dougherty is, first, that he was a 40-year-old man who was still living at home with his parents. He didn't drive and had a speech impediment (note in his testimony where he's asked if he has any trouble speaking, which he denies. While it cannot be evident from written testimony, the fact is that he clicked his tongue or smacked his lips - I forget which one - when he spoke) and was made fun of by the younger guys at work (these from a former TSBD employee). Moreover, he served in the Army - briefly - in WWII, a time when every able-bodied male saw it as his patriotic (and manly) duty to come to the aid of his country. Jack not only never saw battle, but also never left the United States (well, he did go "out of the country" to Indiana ... which is distinct from the Republic of Texas!), never did more than pull guard duty, and was medically discharged due to his mental/emotional deficiencies. In sum, Jack was "less than a man" and "less than patriotic" because of his aborted wartime service, even if perhaps only in his own eyes. He was, however, a faithful pet, one who showed loyalty to those who treated him well. One such person was Roy Truly, who entrusted Jack with the important duty of checking the pipes and such in the basement each morning for leaks before anyone else got to work. Truly also speaks kindly - if not slightly condescendingly - of Jack in his testimony before the Commission. One can almost sense Jack's feeling of self-importance as he relates this information to counsel. As with undue influence over callow youth (yes, I'm attached to the phrase, it seems!), so too might someone who ostensibly treated Jack with respect be able to not only elicit his support in a plot, but also appeal to his possible desire to overcome what he perceives as his own inferiority by participating in a "patriotic" endeavor to rid the nation of the "Communist" who was going to sell the country out to the Reds, and a chance at last to "be a man" by shooting the rifle and participating in this important effort. The trust shown in him might well have been enough to ensure his undying loyalty (read: "silence"). (Lest there be doubt that intelligent, educated and otherwise reasonable people felt exactly this way at that time, I suggest reading the WC testimony of Revilo Pendleton Oliver (15H709-744) and his collected works at revilo-oliver.com, especially those relating to Jack Kennedy - "Marxmanship in Dallas" and "The Aftermath of the Assassination," among others.) In sum, an appeal to Jack's sense of pride at the least, and to his politics (of which we know nothing), could well have inveigled his witting or unwitting accomplicity, even unwitting up to the point that someone brought out a rifle. What he might've been told to that point is anyone's good guess. I have been told, however, that afterwards, Jack "always acted like he knew something about the assassination that nobody else knew." Did he? Even if none of the above is or was "motive" on his part, the means and the opportunity existed. I'll lay it out in my next post, and leave now with the thought that Jack - if he had any involvement at all - was not a "lone nut" acting on his own. Thanks for that, Greg! (I want to say Baker's description that you threw in for the "halibut" will probably "flounder," but I'm resisting the pun!) Weren't there more than these, including one of someone in dark clothing, or am I thinking sideways? At this point, I'll qualify that by saying that I presently have no idea what Jack normally wore or was wearing that day, it's just an avenue of inquiry at the moment ....

Assuming we have eliminated Oswald, Truly, Frazier and Norman/Jarman/Williams as possible perpetrators, that would seem to leave Jack Daugherty as the one male TSBD employee who might fit the bill as someone who could have assisted the perpetrators. Daugherty was on the sixth floor shortly before the shooting, I think he testified, and was on the fifth floor when he heard the shots. OK Duke, bring on your theory about Jack Daugherty. After forty years it must be ready for Prime Time. Shoot, Ray, are you telling me you think I'm over 40? God love ya! There is the old adage about "means, motive and opportunity," and it can be said that Jack definitely had the means and the opportunity, although a motive would be much harder to discern. It might be as we've discussed about "callow youth" being easily influenced - Jack, while older, was not emotionally mature - or there could be more to it. Still, the fact that he was never even considered a suspect - or a "person of interest" - is pretty amazing. Unfortunately, at the moment I'm a bit pressed for time, and an analysis of Jack's means and opportunity will necessarily take quite a bit of it. In the meanwhile, it might be useful if someone was able to recap the various descriptions witnesses claiming to have seen someone in any of the upstairs windows gave to the authorities, if anyone's got that at hand. As an added bonus, I'll show that one of the participants in the immediate investigation following the shooting probably actually saw the shooter(s), but didn't realize it at the time (or any time thereafter). And just for the sake of saying so, it wasn't Baker who saw him or them, so discard any thoughts about parsing his 11/22 affidavit! Gotta run, be back tonight!

A trifle -- OK, I missed something. What does Jayne Mansfield have to do with Oswald, and what the hell is a "domino room"? I know Mansfield came from Texas and I know that the domino room was the lunch room of TSBD. But why is it called the "domino" room? Because of its decor? Kathy Well, you're one up on me 'cuz I didn't know Jayne was from Texas ... tho' I do know what Mansfield is in Texas, just southeast of Fort Worth! Hmm ... I wonder if there's a connection? A correlation, perhaps, with Head Elementary? Actually, it was an oblique reference to John Hinkley's intent to impress a famous actress of his time, Jodie Foster, when he shot Reagan. Of course, the reference to Marina was based on the supposition that Oswald shot Kennedy because Kennedy was everything Oswald was not - handsome, rich, blah, blah - and that by so doing, Lee was going to show Marina what a "man" he was, and she was going to love him forever after as they sailed off into the setting sun. Yeah, right. Ain't no hula music happenin' here.

Tim, Thanks for those additional two points; is it not correct to also note that the sack held none of LHO prints, or am I mistaken on that point? Also, no fibers from the blanket in which the rifle - subsequently and supposedly wrapped in the sack - was supposedly stored in the Paines' garage? Is that a total of four more? At this juncture, I'm just trying to enumerate the theoretically-exonerating aspects of this part of the case, i.e., those that might induce a "reasonable doubt" in someone's mind ("reasonable" always being in the eyes of the beholder, eh?). As to Russo, I haven't read his work, but such a characterization surprises me given that the two have a mutual and reasonably close acquaintence in common. Not having been present for an (attempted) interview nor privy to any exchanges leading up to one, I can only conjecture that any "nervousness" could have been based on Russo's approach. Hard but not impossible to say. Guess I'll have to break down and buy another book, eh? While I had observed - at 2:30 or so in the morning! - about the relative youth of Oswald and Frazier, it should also be fairly pointed out that callow youth can often be unfairly and unduly influenced into doing things that they don't realize their import until much later. A fer-instance: Oswald's getting the TSBD job in the first place. One of "the boys" testified that they had been working on the sixth-floor flooring as a means to provide work in lieu of laying off workers, as was TSBD's usual wont. As they struggled to find ways to employ their existing workers, does it seem odd at all that they would hire any additional people, and especially one whose duties would require more training than simply saying "here's a hammer, go bang nails?" At least one guy who already knew where all the books were had to have been removed from that duty and made a nail-banger to make room for a new hire; someone (else?) also had to train the new guy. This at a time when cutting costs was commonly paramount? Why hire and train a new guy when you're trying to "make" work for the ones you've already got? While 19-year-old Wesley Frazier was certainly not in a position to make such hiring decisions, could it have been he through whom the knowledge of such an employment opportunity flowed to the Oswald family? The underlying question of course is how, if someone knew of Lee Oswald's need of a job (as well as his past identification as a Soviet defector), could they have been certain that bringing a job opening to the attention of young Wes Frazier that the news would eventually reach the ears of its intended target? (This goes to bringing the patsy to the parade, rather than the parade to the patsy, of course.) There wasn't any obvious way to ensure that, having been told of said employment opportunity by said brother, that Linnie Mae would get it to the attention of her neighbor's boarder's husband, especially given Linnie Mae's contention that, prior to the first week of October, 1963, she had never "officially" met Marina, and was only vaguely acquainted with Ruth Paine. Linnie Mae testified (2H245, et seq.) that, despite having lived across the street from Ruth Paine, she had never actually met her prior to October, 1963 (other than perhaps at a birthday party her kids had attended at the Paine's home?), but had been friends - and visited often - with Ruth's next-door neighbor, Dorothy Roberts. While visiting Roberts, Linnie Mae had observed and heard and perhaps to some extent participated in some degree of stilted conversation with Marina over the fence between Dorothy Roberts' yard and Ruth Paine's. She knew, for example, that Marina did not speak English (but does not purport to know what language she did speak), and said that it was "common knowledge" that Marina's husband didn't have work, and after all, "her baby was due right away as we understood it," so "being neighborly and everything," they "felt sorry" for her. Roughly translated, that means "we gossiped about her all the time." Linnie Mae indicated that she had suggested the Marina's husband look for work at some of the places that her brother had done, including a couple of delivery places where Lee couldn't have worked because (according to Ruth) he couldn't drive. Another was the TSBD, where Wesley had obtained employment the month before (2H212) during what was then what Linnie Mae called "the busy season" of getting schoolbooks out to schools. More likely, it was the end of the busy season - or fast approaching it - since most schools would want to have their textbooks on hand before the school year starts, which in Texas is - I'm not sure if it was, in 1963 - in August. The testimony about layoffs supports the perspective that things were winding down by October and November, when Lee was hired and working. While it doesn't seem likely - and maybe not even possible - that Frazier played any role in getting Lee the job (or him even finding out about a possible opening), he could still have play a thoroughly unwitting role in securing it for him ... if there was any sort of move afoot by that time to find a patsy. Without any knowledge of what transpired at Oswald's interview - presumably with supervisor Bill Shelley, and possibly with VP and Superintendent Roy Truly - it is not unlikely that Oswald said that he'd heard about the job opening, ultimately, from Frazier ("and don't forget to tell him to mention my brother's name!"). Frazier, in turn, would or could presumably have known of Oswald from the gossip Linnie Mae undoubtedly repeated: he has a Russian wife; he's a disgraced Marine; he defected to the Soviet Union ... but above all, he needs a job. She needs him to have a job. Maybe Wes even thinks she's sort of cute, even if unavailable, who knows? He's 19, she's 22 .... "So, Wes, this guy came in today, applied for a job, says he knows you. What can you tell us about him?" Keep it simple, don't make it sound bad (the guy needs a job to support his kids, after all) ... you get the picture. To determine if this scenario even has any validity at all, you'd have to compare it against the dates when Kennedy's visit was proposed (assuming any kind of insider knowledge) through when it was announced and decided. To then get Frazier to be bringing in a package - contents unknown - on November 22 without it being seen by Lee (and why not?), well, how might it have transpired? Who'd have convinced him? Where'd he have gotten the package - separately as paper and rifle, or already put together - to put into his trunk and thence into work? On what pretext - other than bringing a gun into work - might it have been accomplished? It's been my understanding - or more accurately, I've heard it said - that it wasn't necessarily a case of Frazier lingering as much as it was Oswald hurrying since Nature was calling, somewhat urgently. Didn't Jack Dougherty, the only person to see Oswald enter, say he went immediately into the washroom? Conversely, Frazier's explanation for having lingered in the first place was because he'd had an old heap that needed to be run to recharge the battery. Having been a grease monkey myself in years gone by, and being familiar with generator systems both 6V and 12V (I don't know which his old Ford or Chevy had), why would one need to rev the engine to spin the generator to charge the battery, when driving from Irving had just revved the engine, spun the generator and charged the battery? That and the trips to the basement - both on his way in and especially during lunch - are the only things that I see to "indict" Frazier into any activities taking place in support of the shooting. Are there more? Nervousness, for any reason, 35+ years after the fact, doesn't seem to weigh in. Unless, of course, you consider "the Wise Allegation" regarding Carl Mather to be of great significance? (I'm not saying it's not ....) Tim, did he ever specifically say it was too short, or just more or less stick by his length estimate? If his estimate was correct, it was indeed too short for the M-C -- but perhaps not for a different rifle? Consider the curtain rod story. Frazier could not tell the police that LHO said the package was his lunch - that wouldn't wash with anyone. Frazier either lied to the WC or at the Shaw trial as to where he usually ate lunch. I believe he inadvertently told the truth to the WC when he said he usually ate in the domino room - thus bringing into question why he chose that particular day to take his lunch upon arrival down into the basement (and later, eat it in that location). When Frazier told Ball about this trip downstairs, Ball immediately responded by asking if he'd seen Oswald there. Obviously Ball thought it might have been an initial hiding place for the M-C. If it was thought to be a potential hiding place for Oswald's rifle - the same must be said of any package Frazier may have had. How could anyone who had no personal knowledge of the rifle say it was "too short" ... or avoid revealing personal knowledge of the rifle if he did? Clearly, "another" rifle could have fit into a shorter package, if it was shorter - or could be disassembled shorter - than the MC rifle. As I recall, Frazier only stuck by his length estimate in any case. Duke, I'm focusing on what the evidence suggests to me. I don't believe Frazier or Oswald shot anyone that day - with or without any grudges they may have had. I think perhaps Frazier was asked to take a package to work and put it in a particular place without being noticed - but if he was, then he was just to say it was curtain rods. He did not adjust his estimate of the package to help frame Oswald because he had not known (prior to the assassination) he had been used to help with that frame. I tend to go along with Greg, and Greg seems to agree with the possibility that someone else could have cajoled the callow into doing things they might well have not done on their own without, perhaps, some trust in persons maybe older than they. Still, Frazier had only been employed at TSBD for a couple of months: who would want to trust him not to look into the package? And why would he not - other than threat to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness - not tell investigators of being asked to bring in such a package, surreptitiously and without even attempting to guess its contents? How could anyone be certain he wouldn't crack under pressure, which there likely may not have been any way to be confident that there wouldn't be any pressure? As it was, there wasn't, of course, but before the deed was done, who could've known? And how did he get his sister to go along with the "short bundle" story if it didn't happen that way? As to Oswald's statements, it's always difficult to discern which may be accurately quoted and which may not. After all, the main man who was telling everyone what he'd said, himself claimed to have "taken no notes," a fact that either is not true (based on the notes that surfaced many years later) or such notes were fabricated long after the fact. Either way, there's no credible evidence to know what he did or didn't say while in custody about anything except what he said in public. Oswald said he brought his lunch? Says who? Frazier says not. Does that necessarily make Frazier or Oswald the xxxx, when the person himself who alleged that Oswald made this claim either did make notes (which he denied under oath) or made them up later, but either way lied? All we can say for certain is that Fritz said that Oswald said something that contradicted what Frazier had said. (What was VB's whole deal about how Oz lied about all of this, too, that he "couldn't have" gotten his lunch from the roach coach and all that, any more than he couldn't possibly have decided to have a Coke instead of Dr Pepper? It "makes no sense" for him to be like normal people, I guess.)

Interesting thoughts, but devil's advocacy at the moment. Have I pretty well covered the major areas which have been cited to elicit "reasonable doubt" whether LHO did or did not bring the rifle in, get it to the sixth floor and shoot it at the proper time, and manage to actually escape the building (as opposed to, say, merely leave it)? Either way, while there certainly those with a more evil bent than others, the thing that's sometimes difficult to realize since I was so young when all this happened and they were so much older than I was then, is that Buell Frazier was a skinny little 19-year-old kid, and Lee Oswald wasn't much bigger or older. The were little more than kids, actually. And somehow we can put them, in our minds, in the center if not the lead of a small conspiracy as if it were all just a smaller, earlier version of Columbine with a slightly more high-profile target. Suddenly, it's all so clear. My life is complete. OK, not really. Wrong color wings, anyway. The point behind all that was, tho', that for some reason we're focusing on the young guys, and not those who typically hold a grudge. This wasn't to impress Jayne Mansfield, after all, and probably not Marina either. Other thoughts to follow...

Ah, so, grasshopp-ah! To this we shall surely return! Duke, had Bugliosi cared to read some testimony, he'd have found it wasn't so rare an occurrence. ... Just so. As I'd said, "VB gets Frazier to say...." There you go. Marina clearly, in her discussions with Miss Prissy, called a Dr Pepper a Dr Pepper. There is therefore, no basis to claim that elsewhere she may be referring to a Dr Pepper when she says "Coke". This whole thing with Bugliosi seems to boil down to Bishop's uncited reference, and Marina's remark about him going for Dr Pepper occasionally. Yet he leaves out her reference to him drinking Coke at other times. Go figure. Well, if I was Ronald Reagan, I'd be saying not "there you go," but "there you go again!" One time does not a habit make, and the exception - if it was - does not create the rule. There is nothing "clear" about Marina's discussions with Miss Pris since Marina's exact words are not recorded, merely Pris' narrative recollection from notes about what Marina actually said. If she said "Dr Pepper" once, twice or even ten times, then that means she never used the word "coke" to describe a soft drink? I usuall drink Pepsi, and generally call it a Pepsi, but sometimes refer to it as a "coke," not meaning just a generic soda-pop, but a cola drink. I call an RC cola - which I also drink - a "coke" too, it being a dark-colored cola drink (... similar, actually, in appearance to a Dr Pepper!). I generally do not drink Coke. So if I say I'm going to get a "coke," do I mean it's going to be a Pepsi? An RC? A Coca-Cola? If I mean a Pepsi, I can't say "coke," especially if once I called it a Pepsi? Promise me you won't go shopping for me. Ever. (Y'know, part of the issue may be the capitalization: if the stenographers - who are never identified - weren't familiar with the "coke" colloquialism, they would capitalize it according to their own use of "Coke," to mean "Coca-Cola." The only important point is that when someone says "coke," they are not necessarily referring to Coca-Cola.)

While I'm not a doctor or nurse, it would seem to me that practitioners would not merely insert a tube and let it follow the path of least resistance, willy-nilly in any direction it chose to take. In a throat that hadn't perhaps been punctured antiorly, that could seemingly be as easily ipward as downward; that is, the tube would end up going out the mouth as easily as toward the lungs. Would there not be at least some effort toward ensuring that the tube was going in its intended direction, e.g., inserting it at an angle that would make it go toward the lungs rather than out the back of the head? I would think so, but while reading through the nurses' testimony, I re-read some of Perry's, and he said something about McClelland helping him put the tube in place. This implied that he'd momentarily had trouble. Keep in mind also that a number of the doctors--Perry, Clark, and Jones if I remember correctly--concluded on the 22nd that the throat wound was an entrance, and that the head wound was an exit. Now something made them feel comfortable with the idea the bullet traveled up the neck. What was it that led them to accept this seemingly unlikely possibility? If the tube followed the path indicated by the nurse and Turner, then we have our answer. Not being a doctor or nurse, I don't know if someone else helping insert a tracheostomy tube actually implies you're having trouble, how much trouble of what sort you might be having to need help, or whether it's perfectly normal to have help doing this even under the best of circumstances. Maybe you can elucidate and make this clearer for us lay-types. My understanding has always been, correctly or not, that the neck wound and head wound were respectively presumed to be of entrance and exit primarily because of their appearances - small, neat hole going in; nasty, ugly wound going out - rather than any presumption of the bullet's path. I don't think there's anything further than that which led them to a "conclusion" that "the bullet travelled up the neck," which I don't think they concluded at all. As I remember from Lifton's book, there were a couple of the Parkland doctors who were of the opinion that there was an entry in the head as well, like the left or right temple area. Likewise, I don't think there's any indication that anything "led them to accept" any "unlikely possibility;" I think they simply reported their observations - wound of entry, wound of exit - without resorting to the path of the projectile, or whether there was one or more projectiles for that matter. They did not know at the time, for example, what position JFK might've been in, or where the shots originated, to make any determination of the likelihood of any trajectory; likewise, they didn't see or know anything that indicated that the bullet that went in in front necessarily came out the back of the head ... or out at all: remember, they didn't see the back wound(s)! Likewise, with a "blasted" skull in the back or on the side (depending upon which iteration you want to take the most stock in), there was nothing to preclude the possibility that there was not also a wound of entry in the same general region, or one that had been completely obscured by a later exit wound, or for that matter, an entry wound that didn't show at all to them because it happened after the large wound was already extant. Earl Rose would've been the one to make those determinations, but alas, that wasn't the case. At Parkland, all they were doing, effectively, was guessing. Bottom line is that you're left with a pretty big "if," IMHO, or at least one that's not convincing to the average Joe.

The shooter/decoy was allowed to escape by Roy Truly. It was the person encountered by Baker on the third - or more likely - fourth floor as per his affidavit. Baker never encountered Oswald an any floor. There are a number of extremely enlightening threads relating to this currently on the Lancer forum, and I have previously discussed the issue here.I suspect the 40+ information you refer to is not Baker's affidavit -- however, your ideas are always interesting, so I hope you do start that debate. How could I resist? See Sixth Floor Candidates: If not Oswald, then who?.

The shooter/decoy was allowed to escape by Roy Truly. It was the person encountered by Baker on the third - or more likely - fourth floor as per his affidavit. Baker never encountered Oswald an any floor. There are a number of extremely enlightening threads relating to this currently on the Lancer forum, and I have previously discussed the issue here. I suspect the 40+ information you refer to is not Baker's affidavit -- however, your ideas are always interesting, so I hope you do start that debate. Well, let's see how much debate there is. The debate against the charge that Lee Oswald was on the sixth floor shooting at the President provides much "reasonable doubt," which itself argues against a legal conviction of the man for the crime that History alone says he committed. Part of that debate includes: Whether, how and when he got a rifle into the TSBD and up onto the sixth floor: the doubt arises from Buell Wesley Frazier and his sister Linnie Mae Randle's insitence that the package he'd brought to work wasn't as long as was necessary to enclose the rifle, even disassembled; Frazier's description of the package fitting completely under his arm, cupped in his hand at the bottom and not extending past his shoulder; Lee's apparent lack of access to the materials needed to construct the package (they were determined to have come from a recently-used roll of paper in the TSBD shipping department, which Troy Eugene West said he rarely if ever left), the lack of time necessary to construct it in situ (necessary since the tape machine wet the tape when pulling it out, and the need to use it right away), and the lack of any observation by Frazier of Oswald's brining it home with him on Thursday night (it was too bulky to conceal easily); and the failure of anyone to see Oswald either bringing it into the TSBD that morning (or any other), or seeing him retrieve the package from anywhere within or without the building and bringing it to the sixth floor; and, of course, the failure of the crime scene investigators to photograph it in place or at any other time within the TSBD building. His whereabouts before, during and after the shooting: he was last admittedly seen on the sixth floor at about 11:50-11:55 as "the boys" working on the flooring broke early to wash up prior to the start of the parade, yelling to someone to "send the elevator back up" so he could presumably ride it back down; his own statement of eating lunch in the presence - but not necessarily the company - of two black guys, one who was short and the other who went by "Junior" (both of whom said they were there at the time in question, but did not admit to seeing Oswald ... but if he wasn't there, how would he know they were?); his being seen on the first floor by a female employee (I'm bad with names!) at 1:15 or possibly later (when, with the motorcade due to arrive in a matter of a few minutes, he should've been setting up his ambush); his ability - indeed the necessity - to get down four flights of stairs after the shooting within about 90 seconds in time to be confronted by Officer Baker while appearing "cool" and "calm" (which, as noted above, he would have no way of knowing would happen, whether or not he was a - or the - shooter); and his being seen shortly after that encounter by Geraldean Reid walking through the main office area on the second floor, coke (or Coca-Cola) in hand, again (or still) calm and collected; and his own purported statements to DPD Captain Fritz as to his whereabouts during these times. His not being seen nor heard by anyone upstairs before or after the shooting: Bonnie Ray Williams, "Junior" Jarman and Hank "Shorty" Norman(!) claimed to have not heard any commotion on the floor above them other than the "clinking" of shells on the floor (but not the thump of racing footsteps); Bonnie Ray had himself been on the sixth floor as late as 12:15-12:20 and did not see him - or anyone else - despite the fact that Oswald would have had to have been there, very probably having to pass Williams' eating spot, to be in the "sniper's nest" in time for the motorcade's passing; and the failure of Jack Dougherty, another TSBD "order picker" to either see or hear Oswald either on the sixth floor or on the stiarway down from there, near which Dougherty was standing as Oswald purportedly made his dash downstairs; and the failure of any of these four men to have heard either the shooting itself (or adjudged its location) or either the rifle being tossed among the boxes upstairs, or the boxes being moved to allow the rifle to be hidden among them. This list is by no means all-inclusive nor exhaustive, but is at least representative of the arguments against Lee Oswald having been shooting at the President. Where Oswald made statements that were backed up by others' testimony (e.g., being in the domino room during lunch, being on the first floor later, etc.), he was adjudged a "xxxx" without any explanation of how he'd have known some of those things without having been where he'd claimed. Before proceeding further, what other items might be included in this immediate scenario (i.e., leaving aside nitrate testing, etc., that happened later) that are typically cited to cast doubt upon Oswald's role as a/the shooter? The floor is open for suggestions .... (Note: I've amended the last paragraph simply to add to the list before moving on to "If not Oswald, then who?" part of the discussion. I'm sure that no matter how many I've put in, I'll have overlooked one or a dozen that people think are important. This list was just off the top of my head ....)

Not to belabor the point, but to me, it is something like the word "soda." It is a generic term where I grew up, essentially meaning any carbonated drink. Coca-Cola is a "soda," as is Dr Pepper, as is a grape or orange carbonated drink. On the other than, when one orders a "whiskey and soda," one is hardly telling the bartender to "put any carbonated drink into it you want." There are many people to whom "soda" means only the soda-water to which flavored syrup is added. Another example is the term "y'all," a contraction of "you all," used extensively throughout the South. It as frequently refers to the singular as it does to the plural (despite the joke that the plural of "y'all" is "all-y'all"). Someone moving south from, say, New England might well try to "fit in" by adopting - and sometimes over-using - the colloquialism "y'all" even while a native Southerner might as easily use the word "you" in many circumstances. (Marina probably would've said "вы" instead of "вы-all.") She didn't say "fixin'", and adopting idiomatic language is more likely with verbs than with nouns. Reason being, names of things tend to be entrenched. Or... fixed, if you will... I realize she didn't say "fixing," but "to fix" in the conjugation I used is "fixing." She said Lee would "fix" himself a sandwich (we'll leave out the "coke" part). One does not "fix" a sandwich in New England or New York. As you say, it's more likely to adopt a verb form of idiomatic speech - like "to fix?" So what's the argument here? Yeah, that's my memory, too. But every one who mentioned either or both machines made the distinction: the one in the Domino Room was a Dr Pepper's... the one on 2nd floor was a Coke. Your point is well taken though that the Coke machine could well have had Dr Pepper in it. I'll take whatever concessions I can get ("concession" as being a noun formation of "to concede" as opposed to something one sells at a "concession stand" ... like a Coke or a Dr Pepper!). He seems to have done so a few times prior to Nov 22nd. Maybe he was setting up his alibi from the time he started? In setting up the "Dr Pepper case," VB actually makes a (TFIC) fairly strong case for why Buell Wesley Frazier was interrogated at length over his ownership of an Enfield rifle: while he himself preferred Dr Pepper, "from time to time" he actually wanted a Coke! The Dr Pepper machine on the first floor apparently had "other drinks like orange and root beer" in it, but the Coke machine in the second floor lunch room "only had Coca-Cola in it." It was "rare" that the worker-guys would go to the second floor to get a Coke, VB gets Frazier to say, because "we had our own machine on the first floor, where we ate our lunch. It was more convenient to use the machine on the first floor" (my emphasis), Frazier explained. Yet, convenient or not, Frazier occasionally felt like having a Coke instead of a Dr Pepper, and thus - if that occurred at work - he himself had to go to the second floor lunch room to get one (Frazier did not say that the Dr Pepper machine had other drinks in it "like Coca-Cola" too!). Because LHO, like Frazier, preferred Dr Pepper; because it was "rare" that someone would (apparently) want a Coke over a Dr Pepper enough to suffer the "inconvenience" of going to the second floor lunch room to get one, and because Frazier "could not say" if LHO had ever gone to the second floor to get a Coke rather than a "convenient" Dr Pepper (which he preferred in any case, except maybe "from time to time" like Frazier) and could "only recall seeing him with a Dr Pepper," VB therefore concludes that LHO going up to the second floor to get a Coke "doesn't even make sense" when what you usually drink is available on the floor you already claim to have been on. Why go upstairs, after all, to get a Coke - if you decide that today, "from time to time" - you'd rather have a Coke than a Dr Pepper and you can't get a Coke on the first floor? Why not just get the Coke from the Dr Pepper machine, even if there's no Coke in it? Or choose an orange or a root beer instead? I mean, c'mon, Lee! What were you thinking!?! All I can say for Frazier is that it's a good thing that Friday, November 22, 1963 wasn't one of those "from time to time" days he decided to have a Coke from the second floor, because then he'd rightly have been under even greater suspicion himself! It is probably also wise advice to watch your friends: if they normally drink Pepsi from one machine, but suddenly and inexplicably decide to buy a Coke from a different machine (an even more radical departure for a Pepsi fan than Coke is for a Dr Pepper fan!), do not rent a limousine that day! (It makes one wonder why Jackie Kennedy didn't remark how Jack "didn't even get killed over something important like civil rights. Instead, he was killed by a silly little Coke fiend" instead, doesn't it?) Bugliosi, from Reclaiming History: There is another very powerful reason why we can know that Oswald, at the time of his confrontation with Baker in the second-floor lunchroom, had just come down from the sixth floor, not up from the first floor, as he claimed. It is an accepted part of conspiracy dogma to believe what Oswald told Fritz during his interrogation—that he had been eating lunch in the lunchroom on the first floor at the time of the shooting and had walked up to the second floor to get a Coke from the Coke machine just before Baker called out to him. Assassination literature abounds with references to "the Coca-Cola machine in the second floor lunchroom." And indeed there was a Coca-Cola machine in the subject room. But to my knowledge, there is no direct reference in the assassination literature to a second soft drink machine in the Book Depository Building, and in a phone call to Gary Mack, the curator at the Sixth Floor Museum in the building, he told me he was "unaware" of any other soft drink machine in the building at the time of the assassination. What prompted my call to him was not the frequent references in the literature to the Dr. Pepper bottle found on the sixth floor after the shooting, since some soft drink machines contain a variety of drinks, but a reference in stock boy Bonnie Ray William's testimony before the Warren Commission to his getting "a small bottle of Dr. Pepper from Dr. Pepper machine, and stock boy Wesley Frazier's testimony that "I have seen him [Oswald] go to the Dr. Pepper machine by the refrigerator and get a Dr. Pepper." Neither Williams nor Frazier expressly said what floor this machine was on, and I was aware, from a photo, that there was a refrigerator next to the Coca-Cola machine on the second floor. Through a few phone calls I was able to reach Wesley Frazier, whom I hadn' t talked to since 1986, when he testified for me at the London trial. Still living in Dallas, he told me that "there was a Dr. Pepper machine on the first floor." Where, specifically, was it? "It was located by the double freight elevator near the back of the building." Was there a refrigerator nearby, I asked. "Oh, yes, right next to it." (And indeed, I subsequently found proof of the existence of the machine, with the words "Dr. Pepper" near the top front of it, in an FBI photo taken for the Warren Commission of the northwest corner of the first floor, and it is located right next to the refrigerator.) Frazier said that "almost all the guys would get their drinks for lunch from this Dr. Pepper machine. It mostly had Dr. Pepper, but also other drinks like orange and root beer." I asked him, "What about the Coca-Cola machine in the second-floor lunchroom? Did it have other drinks too?" He said it "only had Coca-Cola in it" and "the only time anybody would go to that machine is if they wanted a Coke, which I did from time to time." When I asked him whether or not "it was rare" for the workers to go to the second floor to get a Coke, he said, "Yes. We had our own machine on the first floor, where we ate our lunch. It was more convenient to use the machine on the first floor." Frazier said he could not say whether Oswald ever went to the second floor to get a Coke or ever drank soft drinks other than Dr. Pepper, but "I only recall seeing him with a Dr. Pepper." Author Jim Bishop, in his book The Day Kennedy Was Shot, writes (without a citation, however) that Oswald "invariably drank Dr. Pepper. And we know that Marina told her biographer, Priscilla McMillan, that when he was working at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall in Dallas in 1963, "after supper" he would walk down the street as he often did "to buy a newspaper and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. So we see that apart from all the conclusive evidence that Oswald shot Kennedy from the sniper's nest, and therefore had to have descended from there to the second floor, his story about going up to the second floor to get a Coke doesn't even make sense . Why go up to the second floor to get a drink for your lunch when there's a soft drink machine on the first floor, the floor you say you are already on, particularly when the apparent drink of your choice is on this first floor, not the second floor? Why indeed? What kind of reason is "because there was no Coke on the first floor?" I agree that it makes absolutely no sense to want a Coca-Cola, and the simple fact that someone decided that they wanted on that particular day - when they could've had anything else they'd wanted (except a Coke) - proves a certain mental imbalance, especially if you have to walk up a flight of stairs to get one, and a soft drink that you didn't feel like having was much closer! (Makes ya really wonder about those guys who'd "walk a mile for a Camel" when they could've bummed a Kool from someone, doesn't it?) QED. Case Closed. Frazier did it.

Duke, I'd heard before that "coke" was used generically in Texas... but wonder how relevant that really is. Does anyone really think he got a Dr Pepper's on the first floor and took it up to the second floor? Do you think Marina used the term generically when she told Miss Prissy that he helped himself to the Hall's icebox to "fix himself a Coke or a sandwich"? IMO, that's hardly likely... If you spent some time in Texas, you'd think it very likely, methinks, and I'll be Jack White will agree with me. Marina had been in the US only a couple of years, and only in Texas (except for a brief stint in NO), so why wouldn't she pick up this idiom? Coca-Cola wasn't in the USSR that long ago, so I doubt she'd make the distinction. To her, with most of her exposure to English being Texan, a "coke" was anything fizzy. (How colloquial is someone "fixin'" something like a Coke (or a coke) anyway? 'Taint from Minsk, I can tell you that! "He went to fix himself a sandwich?" In New York, they'd say you'd "make" yourself a sandwich. Texan.) I will need to find out a bit more about the machines, but given the colloquialism, I don't necessarily think that a "coke machine" would not have Dr Pepper in it then, even if a "Coke machine" would not have it in there today (well, actually, it might: I think Coca-Cola makes Dr Pepper, or is that Frito Lay? I don't drink the stuff myself, but I'm told if it ain't from Dublin, it ain't Dr Pepper!). In those days - speaking from experience - most pop machines were self-filled from wood-and-wire cases stored on the floor, so you could put anything in it you wanted, no matter what it said on the outside. As someone else noted, tho', is there really any original source that says the he drank Dr Pepper, exclusively or preferably, to the exclusion of anything else? Either way, if the downstairs soda machine was empty of whatever it was he'd wanted, and it could be gotten out of the 2nd floor soda machine, then yes, it's possible he'd gone up to the second floor to get a "coke." Baker should have been interrogated regarding the significant discrepancies between his testimony and his affidavit of 11/22. There's a lot of coulda-woulda-shoulda's in the WC investigation. This is no more or less surprising than any of the rest. The shooter/decoy was allowed to escape by Roy Truly. It was the person encountered by Baker on the third - or more likely - fourth floor as per his affidavit. Baker never encountered Oswald an any floor. There are a number of extremely enlightening threads relating to this currently on the Lancer forum, and I have previously discussed the issue here. I suspect the 40+ information you refer to is not Baker's affidavit -- however, your ideas are always interesting, so I hope you do start that debate. Roy Truly? Why do you think that? And how did he accomplish it, do you think? If Baker said he'd encountered someone on the third or fourth floor that explicitly wasn't Oswald (it's been a while since I've even looked at his affidavit), then he wouldn't have been the only one who did, and there's another of those things that "shoulda-been" explored more than was. And then there's the guy on the fifth floor ... but by all means, do expound on that Roy Truly thing ....

Sheesh! ... I'm tellin' ya ... Yankees! Has nobody ever heard the sort-of joking dialog between the two Texans were one says "I'll have a coke," and the other asks, "what kind of coke did you want?" The first replies "I'll have an orange." There's hardly any native Texan who will ask for a "soda," and most people in Texas don't call it "pop," either. Sure, a "Dr Pepper" is distinct from a "Coke" or a "Coca-Cola," but it's not at all distinct from a "coke" ... any more than a 7-Up is. Parse it any which way you want, you absolutely must take into account the colloquialism. You should also take into account that, when Baker made his written statement, he crossed out "holding a coke." Hal Weisberg made a big issue of this in one of the Whitewash books. Weisberg figured Baker out to be a xxxx, but it nevertheless remains possible that LHO did not, in fact, have anything in his hand. Baker likewise testified that LHO didn't have anything in his hands, as Ron Ecker pointed out above. I likewise think that it has been long and often debated whether or not LHO could have done the things that were attributed to him given the time constraints that he had, which were at the time unknown to him. That is was possible was proven, in my opinion, by Mack and Perry in Unsolved History, even while I object to the program's use of a fitness buff to portray the hurrying Oswald (or the crack shot to portray the shooter Oswald). What is true, however, is that Oswald didn't know he'd have any time constraint: he had no idea he'd encounter Baker until he encountered Baker, and thus couldn't have known he'd have to rush down the stairs so quickly and cover his tracks by being in the lunch room, coke-in-hand or not. What intrigues me more than the arguments about whether LHO could've done what he's purported to have done or not is that nobody seems to consider the actions of anyone else who didn't apparently have any such constraints, and managed - if his actions were deliberate or at someone else's direction - to work around them quite admirably ... to the extent that not even today, much less back then, nobody considers anyone in the building other than Oswald to be a possible perpetrator. Nor do they seem to have worked out how someone - other than Oswald - could have abetted the shooters' escape (presuming there to be more than one, and none of them Oswald). Yet information to support this possibility has been before us for more than 40 years. That would be an interesting debate! Maybe someday, I'll start it ....

While I'm not a doctor or nurse, it would seem to me that practitioners would not merely insert a tube and let it follow the path of least resistance, willy-nilly in any direction it chose to take. In a throat that hadn't perhaps been punctured antiorly, that could seemingly be as easily ipward as downward; that is, the tube would end up going out the mouth as easily as toward the lungs. Would there not be at least some effort toward ensuring that the tube was going in its intended direction, e.g., inserting it at an angle that would make it go toward the lungs rather than out the back of the head?

Whatever else there may be to such a trail, how do you - other than the DeMohrenschildt and Marina testimonies - arrive at LHO "attempting to assassination General Walker?" The bullet found in Walker's study wall was a mutilated, steel-jacketed, large (possibly .38) caliber slug. No bullets of such a nature have been tied to Oswald and certainly not to the Carcano, and other than supposition and speculation, there is no physical evidence (e.g., slug rifling) to tie him to the murder attempt. It is also fairly inconsistent to suggest that because someone shot at a liberal president (probably "extreme left wing" to some folks aound Dallas!) would also shoot at someone who was at the far opposite extreme. Maybe he only admired centrists? First, it must be established the Oswald shot at Walker - which can't be done beyond inference - before you can walk that primrose path.

The WC had more information than what's in CE 2113, which I'll get to in a moment ... but first, regarding your point #8, Houston Street was under construction starting a block north of Elm. At best, the limo could've gone one block before being met by barricades and a torn-up road after that (see in part the testimony of James Romack and Pops Rackley, the former of which talks about moving the barricade to allow Sam Pate's KBOX Radio car through from the construction area. Sam has confirmed the condition of the roadway to me, and I believe I've posted that somewhere here). It then would've had to swing 90° to the right at whatever high rate of speed it might've attained, which depending upon how effective such a turn might have been - and not too many parked cars and/or trucks (the area was a shipping and warehousing district then) - they might well have found themselves boxed in. Not a good scenario. I've long thought, too, that simply having come down Elm Street instead of Main would've posed no particular problem, but the decision seems to be a political one - more people seeing the President - than one based on security. Today, exactly the opposite is true. I've never been entirely and factually convinced that a turn greater than 90° was ever prohibited, any more than the bit about welding manhole covers shut. CD 81.1(f) details meetings between DPD and USSS in the days leading up to the Presidential visit, starting on Wednesday, November 13. The report, made to Chief Curry by three assistant and deputy chiefs, is quite detailed. In it, the chiefs report that USSS SA Winston Lawson noted to them on Thursday, November 14, that the route that was eventually taken "seemed to be their preference at the moment," nevertheless "because the route had not been finalized, no statement should be made by this department [DPD] as to the route" [CD81.1, page 54]. On Friday, November 15, "the only thing mentioned that pertained to the police was the possible route to be taken by the motorcade," which would be determined by the city's host committee and the USSS: "[Chief] Batchelor was asked for his opinion of the best route to take from the police stand point [sic] and he stated that of the three possible routes, Lemmon Avenue to Central Expressway to Main Street would be the route requiring the least manpower for traffic, but it was immaterial to the department and we would police any route that the committee and the Secret Service selected." There was "no mention at this meeting which would be the final selection," although they did discuss the route that would ultimately be selected without apparently actually deciding on it. [ibid., page 55] By Monday, November 18, however, the decision had already been made because the chiefs not that, starting at 10:00 a.m., they began to make arrangements for the parade starting at Love Field, and then "ran the parade route at the speeds suggested by Mr Lawson, timing the route in its entirety" [ibid., page 56]. Even as late as the day before the parade, it had not been entirely decided - or at least not discussed with senior police personnel - what the arrangement of cars would be since Chief Stevenson "had planned for a car behind the Vice-President," which Curry further stated that he "thought we had planned that Capt Fritz would be in the motorcade behind the Vice-President's car." Lawson stated that LBJ's car would have a USSS follow-up car, and that the USSS wanted to have a police car assigned to the rear of the parade, to which it was suggested Fritz be assigned [ibid., page 63]. The question of motorcycle assignments arose next, and interestingly, according to this document, "[Captain P.W.] Lawrence said there would be four (4) motorcycles on either side of the motorcade immediately to the rear of the President's vehicle," that is, a total of eight motors, but that SA Lawson "stated that this was too many, that he thought that two (2) motorcycles on either side would be sufficient, about even with the rear fender of the President's car." Lawrence was told to disperse the other motorcycles along each side of the motorcade "to the rear" [ibid., page 64]. What inferences might be drawn from this, I leave to you.

It's actually pretty ho-hum stuff, been around for years; the only problem is that it never seems to make it into the mainstream of information. Everyone's still fixated on LHO being able to make it to 10&P by 1:16 without giving any consideration whatsoever that led up to the particular event of a radio call. Most people are willing to attribute the call to Donny Benavides than to Tom Bowley, simply because Donny testified and Tom didn't. I guess. No "hard questions" were asked anyway. Who was it that called this killing "the Rosetta Stone of the assassination?" David Belin, I think? The original Rosetta Stone was something that allowed language scholars to decrypt older documents, based on the fact that there were five ways of saying the same thing on the stones, two or three of which scholars then knew, the others that they didn't. Being able to translate two or three of them - and them saying all the same thing - they were able to make sense of the others, and thence use the glyphs to make sense of other documents. A=E, C=Z, that sort of thing; a "decoder-ring" on a different historical scale. A "Rosetta stone," therefore, is not a "QED" or "proof," but rather a means to decipher something. When Belin said that the Tippit killing was "the Rosetta Stone of the assassination," what he was saying is not that the supposition that Oswald killed Tippit "proves" that Oswald killed Kennedy, but rathat that "if you understand the Tippit murder, you'll understand how Kennedy was killed." Whatever he said beyond those words is merely butt-covering. If you then take that proposition into consideration, some of the questions posed to - for example - Harry Olsen ("Do you know this guy? That guy?" ... none of whom figured into the assassination proper, or even gave statements) or counsel's calling Pat Dean a "g--- xxxx" on record (and his issues about it) take on a different light, or several other things gain a different perspective. David Belin was by no means stupid. He did not choose the words "Rosetta Stone" by happenstance or in error: he knew of what he spoke, without actually speaking it. Few if any of us have chosen to heed his words. Until we do, we'll never understand the rest of the heiroglyphs.

Tim, the timing works; that is, it matches what Tom Bowley said. It doesn't bode well for nailing LHO for the crime. R.L. Thornton Elementary is located at 6011 Old Ox Rd., Dallas 75241. According to Google maps, it is 7.1 miles and 13 minutes using what it deems to be the best and most direct route, including taking the expressway into Oak Cliff. Google Earth uses the same route, says it is also 7.1 miles, but estimates 15 minutes driving time. If you have Google maps avoid highways, it goes north on Marsalis - just as Bowley said he did - and gives you a distance of 6.4 miles but a drive time of about 19 minutes. If you move the starting location to the other side of the street (a more likely place for him to be waiting if he had to drive north), it avoids having to make a U-turn, and reduces the distance and time to 6.2 miles and 18 minutes. I don't know where he was exactly when his daughter got out of school; he could've been parked on or across Red Bird Lane, too. What is not in Bowley's affidavit is that his wife was to have gotten off at 1:00 from the phone company, and they were then going to go on vacation for a week in San Antonio (which also explains the December 2 affidavit date: Tom told me that because he hadn't seen anything actually happen, he was allowed to go pick up his wife on the promise he'd give a statement when he returned. December 2 was the next Monday). The latter they did; the former didn't happen because the phones went nuts after the assassination, and Mrs B wasn't able to leave on time, and actually not for a few more hours. She was, however, supposed to have gotten off five minutes after he picked his daughter up, which obviously he couldn't make, but he did his damnest to get there as quickly as possible afterward. I think he said that his daughter was actually supposed to get off earlier than she actually did, too. This, he says, explains why he was looking at his watch, both at the time his daughter (finally!) got out of school, and when (damn!) he had to stop before reaching his wife's work: he was concerned about keeping her waiting. I asked him specifically about this because I was trying to determine whether he was wearing a Timex or a Rolex, i.e., how accurate it might've been. He told me the reasons why he was looking at his watch; I still don't know what kind it was! So, between his probably-excessive speed, and his rush to pick up his wife, if those are the times he said he'd been at each place, those are, in fact, the times he was at each place - at least according to his watch - in any case, "about" 15 minutes apart. In considering the timing, because he could see there was a problem ahead - a cop lying in the road - he decided not to drive all the way up to the site of the shooting (tho' he didn't know that's what it was yet) to spare his daughter from seeing anything untoward (she was only 5-6 years old). He thinks that he stopped just west of the intersection of 10th and Denver, but says he might've been on the other side of Denver. He walked - didn't run - to Patton. If you allow a couple of minutes or so for him to check Tippit's condition - which he did - and stand by waiting while Donny Benavides fumbled with the microphone before finally giving up, if he made the call at 1:16 "official time," then he arrived at the scene within a couple minutes either way of 1:10, if not at 1:10 exactly, and after Tippit had already been shot and the shooter fled and people had begun gathering. Even if it was as late as 1:12 when Bowley arrived, it had been a couple of minutes since JDT had been shot, so call that 1:10. If he arrived at 1:10, then the shooting was at roughly 1:08. If Tom had actually gotten there at 1:08, then JD was dead by 1:06. Whichever one of those is true, the shooting times all correspond with giving Helen Markham enough time to walk another block to Jefferson, cross the street, and catch her 1:12 bus to downtown ... tho' a 1:10 shooting would've been pushing it. (Markham, if I recall correctly, estimated the shooting at about 1:06.) Hope this helps.

A question about the veracity of Ed Hoffman's arose in a thread entitled "Ed Hoffman's Activities and Obserations: Fact or Fiction?" elsewhere on this forum. At first, I was skeptical, and pulled no punches about saying so; then a couple of members pointed out that Ed had written a book about his experiences and suggested my reading it before passing judgment. They even arranged for me to get a copy of the book from the publisher, JFK Lancer. I spent a lot of time reading Ed's book (actually "ghost-written" by a friend of his), and comparing it and contrasting it with other accounts written by Jim Marrs (Crossfire) and Bill Sloane (Breaking the Silence), and what bits I could find from Nigel Turner's broadcast (The Men Who Killed Kennedy). I also did additional research with WC testimony, exhibits (CEs) and unpublished documents (CDs). Leaving aside the many variations in the stories as variously published, even Ed's own definitive account left out some important information that, had he included it, might have given his tale more credibility. Conversely, these same facts would have made his story completely impossible to have occurred the way he said it did. The final word on Ed Hoffman's supposed whereabouts on November 22, 1963, is this: he was anywhere else but where he says he was. The proof is in the fact that, as and after the motorcade was entering Stemmons Freeway, there was a traffic jam on the highway directly in front of Ed, and between him and Dealey Plaza. It was created by no fewer than a dozen police officers on motorcycles holding traffic at the railroad overpass beyond which Ed had parked his car. For Ed to have been where he claimed, he would have had to have been not seen by an officer on a three-wheeler almost directly across the highway from him for 40-50 minutes, whose job was specifically to see to it that nobody was doing what Ed claims he was. Additionally, two other motorcycle officers about 200 yards from him on the same side of the highway would also have had to not see Ed. More to the point, however, is that for Ed to have reached his car, he would have had to run by these dozen officers holding traffic, and they, too, would have had to ignore a man running and waving his arms, then running right past them, jumping into his car, and taking off - from their point of view - after the motorcade at a high rate of speed. This right after a President had been shot just a few hundred yards away, at that! For the full story, read my article "Freeway Man," currently online as a PDF. Unfortunately, while it is heavily annotated, the links to the documents cited do not presently work in the Acrobat file. This will be corrected in a later HTML version. I am adding a conjectural addendum to this, that being that I don't believe - based on the very same "gut feel" that had told me that the story wasn't factual in the first place - that Ed set out to tell a tall tale to the world. I believe - again, entirely without basis other than the fact that Ed seems like a nice man, if perhaps a little gullible - that he was caught in the traffic jam or was perhaps driving by the other direction, and later told his family about his having "been there. Whatever else he might've added to the story is immaterial inasmuch as it was probably intended only for his family and friends' consumption. It is possible that it was ridicule and cajoling by his co-workers - and embarrassment at having to back down from his story - that led to his 1967 and 1977 FBI interviews, although it surprises me that a man of Ed's apparent character would carry the story so far forward, but perhaps he never expected the FBI would do anything with or about it (as they did not!). It is important to note, however, that in neither case did Ed demonstrably go to the FBI entirely of his own volition. The same is also possibly true where a relative of his brought him to the attention of Jim Marrs at Jim's JFK class at UTA. Again, I'm guessing that Ed figured he'd be telling the story to a bunch of awe-struck youngsters without realizing that Jim would aid in its eventual worldwide publication, and Ed's inclusion among frequently-cited "witnesses." If he were to back off the story after that, he would have lost tremendous "face" with his family and friends to whom he'd been privately telling his amazing anecdote to for years with little if any harm done. I think he'd have been better off to have somehow managed to beg off from all of it, but for whatever reason, he didn't. The data I've uncovered - if indeed it had ever been in any way hidden - demonstrates conclusively that Ed not only wasn't where he said he was and didn't do the things he's claimed to have, but moreover that he couldn't have. There will continue to be nay-sayers and defenders of the story, but their defense will necessarily have to be limited to conjectural "what ifs" and "coulda-shoulda-woulda's" as if the fact that most of DPD did their jobs properly during the parade and afterward is itself a fiction, or that Ed could somehow have managed to evade their detection for 40-50 minutes and in the crucial period - especially for Ed's story - immediately after the shooting. The world in 1964 was not out to prove Ed a xxxx, purposely glossing over the fact that they simply hadn't noticed him or chose to ignore his presence where he was not supposed to be allowed to be. I think it fair to also note that it is practically impossible that not one of a dozen cops noticed a man running frenziedly to his car and at least appearing - if only momentarily - to chase after the motorcade. I don't have a particular difficulty with the fact that Ed never noticed or mentioned the cops or the traffic jam; I have a problem with imagining the cops never noticed him, especially in light of their jobs and the emergency situation that had only just arisen: cops don't go into a panic at such times, and generally become much more vigilant and protective. All of that said, I invite any comments on "Freeway Man" as may be.