Duke Lane

I don't make "startling conclusions." It sounds great for a blurb on the back of a book, but otherwise is a useless phrase as far as I'm concerned. It'll be interesting to see when there's commentary on what's actually in the article rather than ancillary issues and on-going "partisan" debates.

Ah, but of course: I've uploaded a larger version in its place anyway.

There is an interesting document put forth by DPD chiefs about the issues considered and decisions arrived at regarding the motorcade route, CD81.1, which you can find on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site. For example, according to the chiefs, it was USSS advance man SA Winston Lawson who made the determination that four motorcycles around JFK's limo was more than enough (DPD had suggested eight). Perhaps more interesting (and damning?) is that, according to the testimony of at least one TSBD employee, it was the usual practice of the TSBD company to lay off employees by October, when LHO was hired. The comment that strikes me is that they had the guys laying flooring so that they wouldn't have to lay people off, a nice gesture on the part of the company. Yet in the midst of this normally-impending layoff, they hire an additional person who needs to be trained what to do, etc., so that the experienced men can bang nails. Sometime I'll have to detail the movements and activities of Roy Truly and Jack Dougherty during the minutes following the shooting that might even make a few people wonder what part they might've played in the killing! In that light, it is a question of whether LHO was hired specifically to be in that area or in that particular building. If that's so, it would show a curious coordination between people in Washington and others in Dallas.

Lane is not famous for answering his phone nor returning his messages. "Ouch!" on the rest of your message, which is best not quoted.

I can't imagine a good reason why not!

After a lengthy delay for proofing and fact-checking, the final word on Ed Hoffman's supposed whereabouts on November 22, 1963, is this: 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.

Myers also notes: Why was Tippit ordered to patrol Oak Cliff after the president's assassination? Dallas police dispatcher Murray Jackson, realizing that numerous squads responding to the president's shooting were draining some of areas adjacent to downtown Dallas of patrol officers, ordered Tippit to move out of his district and into central Oak Cliff where he would be in a better position to respond to any emergency in either his assigned district or the Oak Cliff area. He ignores the fact that another police officer had reported being in Oak Cliff at the same time: Immediately before 12:45: 56: 56 clear for 5. DIS: 56, your location. 56: East Jefferson. "East Jefferson" is only located in Oak Cliff. Unit 56's assigned patrol territory was located 8-10 miles east of his reported position, near the border with Mesquite (see map below). Seven transmissions by the dispatcher only 30 seconds later: DIS: 87, 78, move into central Oak Cliff area. 78: I'm about Kiest and Bonnie View. 87: 87's going north on Marsalis at R. L. Thornton. DIS: 10-4. Unit 56 was last heard from at 12:27-12:28, reporting "...traffic, on a '56 Chevrolet. I can't see the license number." The dispatcher tried raising him again, unsuccessfully, about three minutes later. Finally, at 12:32-12:33, dispatcher asks "does anyone know where 56 is?" Unit 56 next calls in from Oak Cliff, less than 30 seconds before Tippit is ordered into the same area where 56 is. In addition, the officer usually assigned to patrol the central Oak Cliff area, W.D. Mentzel, checked out for lunch at 12:21, the ONLY on-duty DPD officer to have done so during the time JFK's motorcade was in motion. He was at the Luby's Cafeteria on Jefferson Blvd., and did not come back on duty until immediately after Tippit's shooting, when he was sent to investigate an accident. Tippit was shot at approximately 1:10 or a couple of minutes before, based not only upon the time on Tom Bowley's watch (1:10), but also that Helen Markham was on her way to catch the 1:12 bus on Jefferson into downtown. This map shows the invalidity of Murray Jackson's long-stated rationale for sending JD Tippit into Oak Cliff: JD Tippit's patrol district is shown in dark blue; the patrol district where he was killed is in green. All of the patrol districts in yellow responded to the "Signal 19 involving the president" downtown, including officers who were on patrol in the areas surrounding central Oak Cliff, and closer to central Oak Cliff than Tippit's own. Why was Tippit assigned to this area when other officers were closer and available? What, also, could Myers possibly mean by saying that Tippit "would be in a better position to respond to any emergency in either his assigned district or the Oak Cliff area," when we can see by this map that there were three other patrol districts between Oak Cliff and his assigned district? The map below shows the route that JD Tippit most likely took into central Oak Cliff from his position near Kiest and Bonnieview. I have driven this route personally several times, and coincidentally enough, it takes eight minutes to travel at a normal rate of speed (about 40 mph), which is likely how Tippit was driving since he was not told to proceed to Oak Cliff at speed (Code 1, 2 or 3). (That Tippit reported covering this distance in eight minutes shows that he was at Kiest and Bonnieview as he'd said, and NOT at the Gloco station at the base of the Houston Street viaduct, which was only about a minute from 8th and Lancaster, judging by Nelson's covering the distance on Marsalis from R.L. Thornton to the Houston Street viaduct in about two: if Tippit really was at the Gloco, he'd have had to linger somewhere for seven minutes before reporting being at a place that just happens to be eight minutes from where he reported being.) On this map below, you can also see where R.C. Nelson was positioned when he responded to his own reassignment at Marsalis and R.L. Thornton Expressway, heading north. He next reported, at about 12:48, being at the south end of the Houston Street viaduct, which is at the top of Marsalis. (All of East Jefferson is also shown on this map, going from Beckley east and north into downtown. There is no other "Jefferson" listed on any map of Dallas.) So, after losing track of unit 56 for a while, and then finding out he's in Oak Cliff on East Jefferson, why did Murray Jackson send Tippit into Oak Cliff, too? To "remain at large for any emergency that might come in," or to be killed and thus divert most of DPD away from Dealey Plaza and nearer to where the patsy was or would be?

That is true, Jack. Saying that was a mistake on his part though, attributable to his being "the village idiot." What's more, though, is that he had "means" and "opportunity" that LHO did not: access to the paper and taping machine when nobody else was there. Troy Eugene West, the shipping clerk, said that he was "always" at his table, only leaving to make a pot of coffee when he arrived at 8:00 a.m. and presumably - as Harold Weisberg put it - to complete "the necessary functions of life." He even ate his lunch at the table. Thus, he presumably would have known if LHO had been able to get to it, which he said LHO did not. Moreover, as you also know, the tape was the now-old fashioned wet-adhesive style that ran through a machine that wet the adhesive as it was dispensed from the machine. The tape, once installed, could not be taken from it without getting it wet; taking tape from a fresh, unused roll would have called attention to that roll having been used (it could have been wet with a sponge, for example, if it wasn't run through the machine). Jack D arrived an hour before anyone else. Perhaps significantly, a former TSBD employee (ca. 1963) has said privately that Jack "always acted as if he knew something about the assassination that nobody else did." I believe that, in fact, he did. I'm only surprised that nobody else has glommed onto this in 45 years. Roy Truly corroborated much of Jack's testimony, especially with regard to his coming in early, his being on the fifth and sixth floors during lunch, and Jack's taking the elevator down as he and Baker were coming up the stairs. The only question is whether Truly's mad rush into the building and his yelling up the shaft to "send the elevator down" was a signal to the guys upstairs that the cops were in the building and they needed to be ready to come down. The argument against that is that Truly continued to run upstairs when Baker stopped to confront LHO, and that instead of making LHO out to be "a person of interest" he told Baker instead that he was "okay." On the other side of the coin, he did point out LHO as being "absent" when LHO was far and away not the only person "absent" during the "roll call" that not only didn't take place, but couldn't have taken place since many TSBD employees were prevented from returning into the building by police after the shooting. These are in addition to people like Charles Givens, who'd been up the street with an employee from the TSBD warehouse (behind the main TSBD building, north on Houston), and one or two women who'd gone to the bank and gone shopping while the parade was going by (see CE1381). Truly's report of LHO not being present, however, may have been based on a report by another employee (his dog-showing pal Bill Shelley?), in which case the employee also didn't take the factors into account of all of these other people "missing" as well. Incidentally, one of the female TSBD employees was the subject of a second "re-enactment" that is not part of the common knowledge, that it took her only a minute or so to reach a spot where she, too, had seen LHO on the second floor, possibly in the hallway leading to the lunch room. I want to say that this was Victoria Adams, but I can't swear to it at the moment. Bottom line: there was someone else on the sixth floor that nobody knows about, probably doing the shooting ... not LHO. In fact, it would not particularly surprise me if Jack D hadn't shot off a couple of rounds, tho' the purpose of that was more to fire the gun and to draw attention to the window rather than to actually hit anybody (e.g., the "Tague bullet" which may or may not have been the one that ricocheted off of the storm sewer cover on the plaza). This potentially as a "reward" to "the village idiot" who was one of very few able-bodied men to actually be discharged from a stateside post in the Army during WWII (1942): this was his long-sought opportunity to "defend his country" as he was not allowed to during the war, this time against that "commie" Kennedy, who was going to "surrender the US to Russia" if allowed to live. They were, however, seen by a Dallas sheriff, possibly the only man alive today who can identify them.

It is only the alleged gunman who had to do anything hastily. Anyone in the scenario I'd drawn had just about as much time as it would take for Marion Baker to get to the sixth floor to do whatever they had to do and walk down to the fifth floor. That's not to suggest that they knew they had, say, two minutes before the cop got there, but certainly they had to consider the possibility that someone would eventually show up up there. I was just reading that Itek had analyzed photos of the "sniper's nest window" and determined that there was activity in terms of changing the box setup "within the first two minutes" of the shooting. The only conclusion to be reached from that is that it wasn't Oswald doing it; the inferences are myriad. Incidentally, Jack Daugherty always took "the full hour" for lunch, but "went back to work" immediately after eating his sandwich on that particular day. I'm amazed that, given his activities during the shooting period, that Jack Daugherty wasn't even considered as a possible accomplice to Oswald, and the fact remains that his actions did provide the means of escape for others, whether or not they actually provided the fact of escape. It is only his diminished mental/emotional capacity that seems to have enabled him to have been exempt from scrutiny over all these years. Otherwise, I don't understand why he hadn't been.

Actually, your first observation is quite right: two "plainclothes officers" came down the stairs, passing Luke Mooney, who was on his way up. Mooney was the first cop (actually, sheriff's deputy) to enter onto the sixth floor, within just a couple of minutes of the shooting; the only one on the record to be upstairs before him was Baker. So who were the two on the way down, and from where? They were not part of the investigation, given the timing. Getting in unobserved was a simple matter of getting on the elevator with Jack Daugherty and riding upstairs with him while everyone else was outside or going outside to watch the parade. Anyone going down from the upper floors would not have been able to signal an ascending elevator to go down on, and the freight elevator was on the fifth floor already with its doors open, rendering it inoperable. They wouldn't have been able to see anyone going up in the closed passenger elevator. No need to be sneaking around in air conditioning ducts. Getting out was accomplished by waiting on the fifth floor at the elevators where both were parked until Truly called up to "send that elevator down here" (nobody did), then riding the elevator down while T&B were clamoring up the stairs. When they arrived on the fifth floor, T&B took one elevator up to the seventh floor; the other had descended, "plainclothes officers" and Jack within. They only descended to the third or fourth floor - T&B could not hear it operating because of the noise they were making on the enclosed wooden stairwell - after T&B had gotten above them. Jack - who Walt Brown charitably calls the "village idiot" - was the inside guy with full access to the building and with a set of keys. He was Truly's "pet," it seems, and came in every day an hour before everyone else to check the boiler pipes and such. He testified to having been on the fifth and sixth floors during the time of the shooting, and may have "suggested" to Bonnie Ray Williams to go downstairs with his buds to watch the parade to keep the other two out of sight and unidentifiable ... if, that is, they didn't worry about that, just warn that colored boy to keep his mouth shut if he knows what's good for him. They were not constrained by the timing of having to run downstairs to meet Baker in the lunch room, and thus had plenty of time to hide the Carcano. Any other weapons could have been left in an office - such as that of Warren Caster, who'd had two rifles in the building earlier that week (the day before, was it?) and was showing them around (he says he took them home, but how do we know for certain?) - or even a storage closet on their way downstairs. While DPD did a "floor-by-floor" search of the building, there is no indication that they did an office-by-office or closet-by-closet (or under-every-desk) search at all. (Caster was one of only six employees of the companies in the building who were absent from the TSBD that noontime, the others being Jack Cason - the president of TSBD - who had gone home for lunch; Helen Palmer, who had taken the day off and had seen JFK at Love Field, and who came to TSBD afterward; Frankie Kaiser, who'd gone to the dentist; Vicky Davis and Dottie (Mrs James L.) Lovelady, who were out for the day. The last three never came to TSBD that day; the others all did.) Whoever they were coming down as Mooney went up, they didn't raise Mooney's suspicions, nor apparently did they raise anyone else's. Who they were and where they went - and why Mooney thought they were plainclothes officers (maybe they were carrying rifles?) - is anyone's good guess. My bet is that Jack scared up Ozzie, and the "plainclothes" guys hustled him out of the building, but I've got no proof of that. The rest is - and has always been - part of the record ... absent the inferences, of course.

Yes to all of the above ... but I think you'll find it a lot easier to find if you go thru the volumes on MaryFerrell.org or HistoryMatters.com. Just click on each volume's link and search for "tower" or "Bowers" and you should come up with something. The Commission Documents are also there, and there are LOTS of photos, but unfortunately, not so terribly easy to find.

Because he never actually saw the rifle being fired - or for that matter, by whom - you're quite correct. As noted, the important thing here is that he was able to convey the idea of a rifle, which on that afternoon would've been enough reason to pay the man some attention. After all, it's not every day cops have Presidents in town shot dead by gunfire. The idea that, because he couldn't speak English aloud, he'd have been dismissed or ignored is ludicrous. Instead, he decided that he "couldn't communicate" with your ordinary, run-of-the-mill cop and decided to drive around town instead of even trying. "Unable" to find "anyone" (his uncle, incidentally, did not have any assignment associated with the visit), he decided to go home. This is "credible"?!? Unless he already knew where the FBI office was (doesn't everyone?), he "somehow managed to get directions" there from someone, according to Sloan, but nobody explains - and few people seem to ask - how he managed to communicate "FBI" to people when he couldn't communicate "rifle" to them. Credible? So he went home. Incredible.

Actually, Ed never made any such claim. He said he saw a puff of smoke, which he initially thought to be from a cigarette, and then saw "suit man" running toward "train man" with a rifle in his hand, etc. He never said that he saw a gun being aimed or fired, so it really doesn't matter which shoulder Ed pantomimes it being fired from anyway, does it? What is significant is that he can pantomime a rifle being fired, just like any kid playing bang-bang shoot-'em-up. I'd imagine he could have done the same on November 22, 1963 (rifles haven't changed significantly since then, nor have kids' games), and that's really all it would have taken to get a cop's attention that day or to convey to the FBI that a gun was involved. Neither occurred, because he "couldn't communicate" with any of the cops.

Miles, this is overwhelming. You seem to be actually suggesting that hearing people might have a way to understand signing people without being qualified or certified. You might want to document this, as it is anathema to this whole thread and contradicts Ed's book. That is irresponsible and conjectural, and clearly has no basis in fact. While you are gathering FACTS, please also try to determine how a SIGNING person would or could possibly attempt to get across the idea of a rifle to an UNsigning person. I'm quite confident that doing a "bang-bang shoot-'em-up" like a little boy would do is considered gauche, so there must be another more swah-vay way of doing it that takes a little more brain power, training and certification. Lacking that, I don't think that your observations - conjectures! - are baseless, immaterial, and undeserving of the dignity of reply, much less consideration. Have you actually ever even read a book about this? If you haven't, then you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Please come back with your puissant viewpoints when you think you're a little better educated. In the meanwhile, I suggest that you try NOT to interrupt a good story with what you consider to be facts, ill-founded as they may be. Bull Muehller PS — While you're at it, please work on your math: going from one's LEFT shoulder to their RIGHT is not 180 degrees! Sheesh! Try it: put a gun to your left shoulder, then to your right: did it turn 180°? No, of course it didn't! But if it had, maybe we wouldn't have to be reading this juvenile claptrap! Oops! Forgot to put the bold on!

oops ...

Sure do ... and this time I agree with you 100% ... tho' probably not for the reasons you might think.

One could think that those who came out critiquing Ed without even bothering to read his book - also had an invested interest. "Vested." If one knew the meaning of the word, one would not think what you say they might. Exactly the opposite would be true. There are many, many people who never even knew - and many who still don't - that Ed had ever published anything. It's not as if it's ever been widely publicized or advertised - there's not even anything on the publisher's own forum. I've been to the freeway with Ed, and based on that - and really, anything else - I think most people are entitled to form their own impressions on what input they've got, which is never 100% of everything possible. I thinketh thou protesteth overmuch. But ... it's all you've got on this one.

The bigger question might be: what does Ed's ability to pantomime shooting a rifle from either shoulder say about why that little detail about the rifle is not included in any of the FBI reports from '67 and '77?Is it because: the FBI wasn't and isn't qualified to interpret ASL; they never played "shoot-'em-up" as kids; they were trying to discredit Ed's story before he'd told it; federal agents lie constantly and consistently; Ed didn't include it in what he "told" them; or none of the above? A few more of these, and I'm going to send the list off to Letterman! Sez who? "CSW"?

Are the troops in retreat, or at least regrouping?

Your comment about my civility is completely uncalled for, unless of course you consider it to be "uncivil" to have an opposing view to your own. Your entire experience with me - which is 100% limited to this board - has been civil (tho' I can't say the same for mine with you); you have no cause whatsoever to think I'd be any different elsewhere. I have repeatedly said that I have nothing personal against Ed, and that I likewise consider him a kind and gentle man. That doesn't mean that I have to believe his story. Ron has a vested interest in Ed's story, and I'm sure he's not the only qualified ASL translator in the area. It seems, however, that Ed may not be up to an interview - or so I've heard - so the question is moot. I have judged the story ... on facts, many or most of which will soon be published for the first time ever ... and they are not 40-year old memories of aging men. Eye Witness tells us that Ed has no proof - emphasis in the original - of having been where he said other than his "detailed description" of the scene. Crossfire cites a couple of examples of things he "couldn't have known if he wasn't there," particularly there being a cop on the railroad bridge (there were actually two), spectators on the highway (not exactly true, but close enough), and Hickey's AR-15. But there's more, and that Ed didn't tell us about those things, and they are very significant to his story. They are things that have not been written about ever before, and hence not part of the "assassination lore" - and we must remember that Sloan says (and Eye Witness does not refute, instead calling Breaking the Silence "a very good description of Hoffman's life and experience" compared to which "none" of the other accounts are "as complete" - Eye Witness, 3, 24) that Ed has "read every article and devoured every published detail about the case" and thus he would presumably know "assassination lore." The details I'm referring to are a lot like the things that cops leave out of murder reports so that only the perp who was actually there would know anything about them. If he had mentioned these - even alluded to them obliquely - I'd say that despite sworn testimony to the contrary, Ed was probably there. But he didn't - and they are absolutely critical to his story - and that proves that he wasn't. (Tell me: If I showed you a photograph taken from south of where Ed was standing, including the highway and entrance ramp with the limousine on it, and there was no Ed in that photo, would that change your mind? Or would that be the ONLY proof you'd accept? Be honest ... "if you can!")

Yes, I witnessed that modus-operandi in action when several critics of Ed's story admitted they had not so much as read Ed Hoffman's book before attempting to cite certain things as fact. I will keep doing what I can to find it. I know this has come up in the past, thus I have a specific memory of it. Until then you guys can keep busy voicing opinions about other books you haven't read. I, myself, never voiced an opinion about Ed's book, which I hadn't read; I voiced an opinion about Ed's story, which I was familiar with from three other and very different versions of Ed's story out there (not to mention much more widely circulated) - Crossfire, Breaking the Silence and, of course, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. One presumes that with Ed telling the story to Marrs, Sloan and Turner - indeed, in the last, actually acting it out himself - one would have the "facts." But we learn in Eye Witness that American Sign Language (ASL) is not really a "standardized" language because you've got to be "qualified" to be able to "interpret" it ... and, unfortunately, none of the previous authors or their help were so qualified. (I guess one must have a certificate in order to travel to Germany and pass as a native, or even know for certain that he's asking for a beer! But wait! German is a real language, even standardized - replete with idioms even! - very much unlike ASL?) Thus, Ed's story "never changed," it was merely "misinterpreted" by everyone! English, to Ed, is "like a foreign language" ... sort of like it is to a native German speaker, or German is to an Anglophone, but "different" and not "understandable" like other foreign languages! Makes one wonder how the Chinese ever communicated with anyone when they don't even use the same alphabet ... or any alphabet at all!! Ed's book, of course, begins by offering the caveat that "there is no proof that he was even present at the scene," and that "the only 'proof' he can show ... is his detailed description of the scene" (italics and quotes in the original). Unfortunately, that "detailed description" offers no proof when he doesn't describe "the scene" even close to accurately at all. While Marrs and Sloan both offer that Ed's story contains things that "he couldn't have known if he wasn't there," each and every thing that he describes has, in fact, been published. That these facts aren't included in the FBI reports of 1967 and 1977 are due, of course, to the fact that the FBI wasn't "qualified" and thus "couldn't interpret" what Ed was saying. And Sloan - whose account Ed's book describes as a "very good description of Hoffman's life and experience" compared to which "none" of the other accounts are "as complete" - tells us that Ed has "read every article and devoured every published detail about the case." Given that Ed's "corroborating details" didn't appear until Crossfire was published in 1985, that leaves an awful lot of "article and published detail about the case" for Ed to have "devoured." As an example of these, Eye Witness states that Ed's story is "corroborated" by the testimony of Lee Bowers. This relates to a conversation Ed says he witnessed between "suit man" and another man in a plaid shirt prior to the shooting. This detail is revealed in Crossfire, which cites Bowers as saying: One man, middle aged, or slightly older, fairly heavyset, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers. Another younger man, about mid-twenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket. ... They were facing and looking up toward Main and Houston and following the caravan as it came down. (Note that "suit man" is missing his jacket in Bowers' decription! Are we even talking about the same man?) In place of the ellipses there are Bowers' additional testimony (the above are actually Bowers' responses to two separate questions; there was another one in between) which reads that they were "standing within 10 or 15 feet of each other, and gave no appearance of being together." [6H287] Tell me how giving "no appearance of being together" corroborates them having a "conversation!" I could add several other things, but the bottom line is that the actual description of "the scene" where Ed was - the only "proof" he has to show, in his own words - has never been published in the "popular press," although it has been on record since 1964. It is thus missing many crucial details that Ed would've known if he was there. You'll soon enough learn what those were, and if you still believe that Ed was where he said he was and saw what he claimed to have seen ... well, suffice it to say that I'll be surprised. Maybe.

Duke, Regarding the apocryphal "Weitzman Report" which Miller claims to exist, but which others question if it ever existed, does this mean that Miller's excuse of being removed from hard copy is invalidated? Therefore, one can conclude that it does not exist & never has existed. Yes? One certainly may draw that conclusion, but one wouldn't necessarily be correct. Questioning its existence is not the same as proving it doesn't exist. The burden of proof, however, is always upon the person who makes the claim to validate it, not on others to disprove it. Unless someone knows of this report's existence and can provide a citation to it, there's no sense in scouring everything you can lay your hands on to find it and then being told that you've simply looked in the wrong place, you need to keep looking because someone's "sure" it's somewhere, but wants you to do the legwork to (not) find it.

The meaning here is that in the area of the (north) end of the viaduct somebody said that some man had run up the the tracks from the (north) end of the viaduct. One infers that the somebody who said this, said this to Foster. However, it is possible that this somebody who had said this, had not told this to Foster at all but had told this instead to someone else, who then in turn relayed the information to Foster, et cetera. The point is that Sneed's editing distortion & condensation of Foster's 30 year old recollections creates enough blur to force discrediting the account on that ground alone. I don't understand why you continue speculate on the multitude of possibilities surrounding something that doesn't seem to have happened, and then having supplied such unending possibilities, opine that it proves or disproves anything at all. It has nothing to do with anything. I don't know what Sneed's source materials were. Were they sketchy notes he'd made, or tapes of his various subjects' recollections, and if the latter, were they culled from a question-and-answer format, a casual conversation, or an uninterrupted "oral history" by them? Not knowing any of that, much less what was actually said (if not what Sneed wrote), I'm not going to suggest that he either condensed or distorted anything. The "blur" is not caused by something that someone may have said to Foster, or to someone else who mentioned it to him, or something he may have remembered but not reported or testified to. It is caused by his recollection of facts that are in direct contradiction to what he said in '63-64, especially about searching the boxcars. It is the contradictions that make this "running man" story dubious, not anything in particular to do with that part of the story itself. Had he not told of doing things he specifically said he didn't do, then the story of the supposed encounter might have been more plausible.

This was discussed and cited at length earlier in this thread. Do a keyword search on the word "sergeant" - a reference Foster made in his testimony, which was quoted - and you should find it. The sources are Sneed's book No More Silence, and Foster's own sworn testimony at 6H248ff. ... Since I just came across this while searching for something else, I'll add Foster's report to Chief Curry, dated 12/4/63, which states in relevent part: After the motorcade turned from Houston Street to Elm Street, I was watching the railroad employees very closely so that I would be in a position to prevent any incident. When I heard the shots, I was standing directly in back of these railroad employees and I then moved to the railroad overpass banner to see what was happening. I saw the President slumping over in the car and other persons falling down on the grass in the vicinity of the President's car. The President's car and a couple of other cars left the scene immediately at a high rate of speed with a motorcycle escort. I then observed some officers running toward the building on the northeast corner of Elm and Houston. I immediately rand towards the same building and assisted in blocking off the building. [CE1358 at 22H605) This clearly omits any encounter with someone who saw anyone running up the railroad tracks and Foster's searching the railroad cars immediately thereafter. Interestingly, J.C. White filed his report on the same day, and wrote as follows: A Texas and Pacific freight train was traveling North on the railroad tracks between the parade and me. I did not hear the shots. I did not see any of the parade until some motorcycles and a couple of cars out of the parade went West from under the overpass. There was no one on the West side of the overpass watching the parade, but there were some railroad employees on the East side of the overpass watching the parade. As soon as the train cleared the tracks, to where I could cross to where the search was being made, I went to the location to help block off the building. [CE1358 at 22H604) It's a curiosity why, even so early in the game, White was claiming that a train obscrued both his vision and his hearing so that he heard no shots and had no idea where they came from and didn't see a thing that might prove useful.

This was discussed and cited at length earlier in this thread. Do a keyword search on the word "sergeant" - a reference Foster made in his testimony, which was quoted - and you should find it. The sources are Sneed's book No More Silence, and Foster's own sworn testimony at 6H248ff. Here is a synopsis: Shortly after the 1997 publication of Eye Witness, Larry Sneed compiled a series of interviews he had conducted over a several-year period with assassination witnesses and investigators into book form (No More Silence, University of North Texas Press, Denton TX, 1998). The interviews were by no means forensic, but rather the unchallenged and uncorrected recollections of the principals of over 30 years later. One interviewee was former Dallas police officer J.W. Foster, one of two officers assigned to secure the Triple Underpass from unauthorized pedestrian traffic (not the railroad overpass atop Stemmons, as reported in Eye Witness [page 7]). In his account of the events of November 22, Foster informs us that after the shooting, an unidentified officer ran up to him and told him that the shots came from the overpass, to which Foster responded that they had not (he believed them to have come from the TSBD). "Then I moved around to the end of the viaduct [i.e., the north end of the Triple Underpass] where somebody said some man had run up the railroad track from that location. So I proceeded up to the yards to check the empty boxcars to see if anybody had run up that way. I was in the yards maybe ten to fifteen minutes looking in the [box]cars, but I didn't find anything." [sneed, 212] While apparently corroborative of Hoffman's account of "train man" running north on the railroad tracks after disassembling "suit man's" rifle, Foster's later account contradicts his sworn deposition with Warren Commission assistant counsel Joseph Ball: Mr. Ball. Now, tell me what you saw happen after the President's car passed -- turned onto Elm from Houston. Mr. Foster. After he came onto Elm I was watching the men up on the track more than I was him. Then I heard a loud noise, sound like a large firecracker. Kind of dumbfounded at first, and then heard the second one. I moved to the banister of the overpass to see what was happening. Then the third explosion, and they were beginning to move around. I ran after I saw what was happening. Mr. Ball. What did you see was happening? Mr. Foster. Saw the President slump over in the car, and his head looked just like it blew up. Mr. Ball. You saw that, did you? Mr. Foster. Yes, sir. Mr. Ball. And what did you do then? Mr. Foster. Well, at that time I broke and ran around to my right -- to the left -- around to the bookstore. ... Mr. Ball. Was any shot fired from the overpass? Mr. Foster. No, sir. Mr. Ball. Did you see anyone with a weapon there? Mr. Foster. No, sir. ... Mr. Ball. Where did you go from there? Mr. Foster. Went on around the back side of the bookstore. Mr. Ball. Immediately? Mr. Foster. Yes, sir. [6H251] Not only did Officer Foster go directly and "immediately" to the back side of the TSBD, he also did not search any cars or boxcars in the railroad yards: Mr. Ball. When you got over to the School Book Depository Building, what did you do? Mr. Foster. I was standing around in back there to see that no one came out, and the sergeant came and got me and we were going to check the -- all the railroad cars down there. Mr. Ball. Who was that sergeant? Mr. Foster. Sergeant came up there. Mr. Ball. Did you search the railroad cars? Mr. Foster. No; he sent me back down to the inspector. Told me to report back to Inspector Sawyer. Mr. Ball. Where? Mr. Foster. At the front of the Book Depository. Mr. Ball. Did you talk to Sawyer there? Mr. Foster. Yes, sir. [ibid] Among other misstatements in Foster's interview with Sneed, he also "remembered" a train passing over the Triple Underpass at the time of the shooting (one didn't), and contradicted fellow officer Joe Marshall Smith's account of a man in a suit behind the picket fence producing Secret Service or other credentials. [sneed, 213] Thus, Foster's faulty recollection serves more to aggrandize his own part in history than it does to substantiate Hoffman's tale.