Duke Lane

That's fine Duke, the point was if the house is 'ramshacle' and I feel confident that no amount of correction can change that a number of lines don't square up. Just wanted to see if 'feel confident' is borne out. The gutter, the top veranda. The veranda posts and the corners of the house (and other things) point in different directions and the difference remains while the degree may change. I also found a larger (not clearer) photo showing that the way it was cropped is not so clear.

Well, as I noted, I aligned the window sashes on either house at the farther edges of the image where I could see as much of the line of them as possible, then used to the doorway sash to rotate the image to vertical. As you can see, all three of these do line up when so corrected, they are not off at odd angles. The horizontal lines also line up, again within a pixel or two.

By that measure, the houses are not "ramshackle," and aren't "funhouses" ready to tilt over. They were probably fairly old, though, even then: I'll bet built in the '20s? ... And not for very much money, even in the dollars of those days. "Ramshackle" as in direpair? That I'd say is probably the case. But not falling over.

Do you know what was written on the sign?

No idea.

Interesting. What seems clear is that Harry for some reason was into being obfuscating about that.

Sorry about being a bit pedantic about the distortion. I just want to be sure you're happy with the result. I'm interested to see if the previous analysis holds, and I'm happy to do it with a correction you're happy with. Here's the image on the size format of the least cropped image I've come across in that series. Could you correct it and post, please?

I'm down to 4.92K global space left, so am posting a very poor quality version; have sent you the better one by email?

The vertical and horizontal lines (almost none of which you can see on this version) by the dark window at the left, by the door in the center, and by the window at far right were drawn in with Photoshop's line tool with the shift key held to force them to 90°. The photo objects (windows, door) are all within a pixel of being absolutely vertical. I did not correct for barrelling because /a/ the lines look straight enough, and /b/ I don't know what lens was used, and there are variations for so many of them!

Hope this helps!

Sorry about being a bit pedantic about the distortion. I just want to be sure you're happy with the result. I'm interested to see if the previous analysis holds, and I'm happy to do it with a correction you're happy with. Here's the image on the size format of the least cropped image I've come across in that series. Could you correct it and post, please?

I haven't had a chance to do anything with the photo, but thought you might be interested in seeing a lighter and clearer photo on James Richards' site; look at the lower part of the image, probably below your screen's bottom.

Interesting. What seems clear is that Harry for some reason was into being obfuscating about that.

Sorry about being a bit pedantic about the distortion. I just want to be sure you're happy with the result. I'm interested to see if the previous analysis holds, and I'm happy to do it with a correction you're happy with. Here's the image on the size format of the least cropped image I've come across in that series. Could you correct it and post, please?

If anyone was being pedantic, it was I. I'll see what I can do, but you realize that it renders the original as "altered," with perhaps some important clue removed. It's bad enough that every single image taken in DP is "doctored," and a pity that the Oak Cliff images will be too!

As for Harry, the things he describes are peripheral, ostensibly innocuous in the larger scheme of things. His prevarications call attention to them and make one wonder what's so important about them to warrant the lies.

It seems to be from an article by a Bill Drenas (rev '98) hosted here quoting an iterview with Olsen by a William Turner (Car 10 Where Are You?) I know that in itself would be a problem for some but it's in a section pf articles mcadams says he doesn't necessarily agree with but puts up because he thinks they are objective. I'd say be your own judge. It's an interesting read.

I'm very familiar with the article; Bill Drenas' number is on my cell phone speed-dial, so you can be certain that we've discussed it more than once. I referenced it regarding the Gloco Station in another post on this thread (leading to the "Duke, Duke, Duke of Oil, Duke, Duke..." ditty!).

That is what Harry told Bill Turner when Turner (ex-FBI) interviewed Olsen on behalf of Jim Garrison.

Harry is obfuscating. In 1964, he told the WC that the house belonged to an elderly aunt of a DPD motorcycle cop who was in the motorcade (maybe) and who had asked him to fill in for him. He could recall the names of neither the elderly aunt nor the motor cop.

Three years later it became the "estate" of a "dead person" who was male, and Harry'd been hired by an attorney representing the estate of such dead person. But note that in 1964, Harry told WC that /a/ he had been outside at some point following the assassination, and /b/ had gone back inside to answer a phone call from a woman friend of the elderly aunt.

Problem: how many friends of deceased people call them at home after they've died? Even if the friend didn't know of the death, upon learning of it - as I'm sure anyone answering said dead person's phone would tell upon learning it was a friend of said decedent on the phone - would carry on with a total stranger about the assassination of the President like the death of their friend was of no import, and talking to a "security guard" was the most natural thing in the world?

Harry is also the person responsible for the characterization of Jack Ruby as being distraught over "poor Jacqueline" having to come back to Dallas, etc., etc., on the night before Ruby shot Oswald, this during a conversation held between him, girlfriend (later wife ... so as not to be able to testify against him?) Kay Coleman, parking garage attendant "Johnny" (last name unknown) and Ruby.

The FBI interviewed "Johnny" (John Simpson) in August 1964, four months after the Olsens' testimony, who said that he did not take part in the conversation, did not eavesdrop on it, and did not overhear any of it ... and moreover, while he recognized the "other" three participants to the conversation "by sight," he "did not know them well enough" to carry on any sort of conversation with any of them beyond a simple greeting.

Also, in December 1963, the FBI interviewed Harry at Baylor Hospital, where he'd been recuperating from an auto accident. At that time, Harry described Ruby as being "no more upset than the average guy."

Take your pick: which do you think is the true story? Either one (or any) of them?

What I'm curious about is just what Harry was really doing at a house - any house, large or small - that just happened to be along the same route that Tippit took from Kiest and Bonnieview, to 8th and Lancaster?

Duke, I'm not a hundred percent sure I understand lens distorion fully. I use Richard Rosenmans plugin. Here the two lower are set to 35 and 50 mm lens presets. The top half of the 50mm most closely corresponds to your correction. Could you comment before I look at the lines, please? As you can see I've applied the correction before rotating the picture. Your correction is placed over 'mine' at 50 % transparency to compare.

I'll relocate the 'ramshackle' quote and post.

As to distortion, a good photogammetrist would probably take me apart (to paraphrase Howard Brennan), but basically, the wider-angle a lens used, the more barrelling you'll get (a fisheye is usually about 8mm, vs a standard wide-angle of about 24mm, vs. a "standard" lens of about 40-50mm).

The corrective order is supposed to be barrelling/pincushioning, then perspective, then rotation. I did not correct for distortion because I don't know what lens was used, and simply decided from the photo's content that it was probably a standard lens (a wide-angle lens would probably have more content in all directions from the distance this photo was taken).

There is more street than sky or building, suggesting the downward angle, substantiated by the "V"-ing of the usually-parallel lines of the window frames at either side of image. I aligned the window on the left-hand house with the far-right window edge on the right-hand house, those being the lines closest to the edges. Then I used the doorway to correct rotation.

I use Andomeda's LensDoc plug-in. I process literally thousands of images of homes - interior and exterior - every month with it.

I was just curious,after much speculation regarding the CLEAN VAN. What was that van doing parked in an area, that looks to be mainly train tracks and carriages. Is it part of the GENERAL carpark area?

No, not general parking. Check the testimony of Pop Rackley (Virgie's father) and James Romack. They indicate that, despite the construction going on there, there were still truck delivery companies operating from the area behind the TSBD at the time. The van appears to be a delivery-type van. Romack, as I recall, drove them.

“Olsen said that on the day of the assassination he was guarding a ramshackle house in Oak Cliff, sitting inside."

For curiosity, where is this quote from? Harry testified to no such thing, actually, although it is clearly the impression he gave to Bill Turner for the Garrison deal. Also - if one is to believe anything that Harry told anybody - the "estate" was on 8th Street (2 blocks to the north) near the "Stemmons freeway" (actually R.L. Thornton ... but they are just names for different sections of the same highway), that is, north and east of the murder site. This is furthered by Kay Coleman's having stopped at the 7-11 to get Harry some milk for lunch, the 7-11 being located at 8th and either Marsalis or Lancaster (I can't remember which right now, but they're only a block apart).

This, incidentally, is the same photo corrected for perspective and rotation(the original shot was taken at a slight downward angle, hence the "V" of what are normally parallel lines at either side of the photo, and none of the usual things that you'd think were vertical - e.g., doorways, the vent window of the car, etc. - were actually vertical. This is stuff I do literally every day):

Take a look at it using the same "gridded" and highlighted technique as above, could you?

"Does this house qualify as 'ramshackle'?" I think it does. Here are various edges highlighted and even taking into account lens distorion some of the lines don't obey lens distortion consistently but are higgledy-piggledy as if there's been assorted foundation shifts and leans.

I'm curious to see how it appears ....

... Among the DPD files are some curious photos related to the Tippit shooting such as of the fender and of a street sign that has been knocked down as if there was an investigation to explain some damage to the car. ...

From William Scoggins' testimiony:

As to the rear-ending-the-cop-car story, I'm sure the boyfriend-caller sounded particularly "completely unrehearsed" and "spontaneous" since he'd heard the story from someone he generally believed, but it's impossible to say how the girlfriend would've sounded if she'd been the caller!

Do you think it possible that Tippit reversed his car to that position?

Absent any suggestion of that from either Helen Markham or Bill Scoggins, both of whom were watching the car as it pulled up to stop, I'd say no. With white reverse lights even back then, it would be something that would have been noticeable and noticed, even aside from the obvious change of direction of the car (to Markham, at least), since both were in a position to have seen them.

Well, "possible," yes ... but about as likely as that Tippit was practicing parallel parking or had actually been towed there.

Bell Frame: Notice what appears to be a "white van" parked back near the train cariage.

[Also] Bell Frame showing the 6th floor window, and the white van.

What is the significance of the van?

William Ball

: What did you notice then?

Helen Markham

: Well, I noticed a police car coming.

William Ball

: Where was the police car when you first saw it?

Helen Markham

: He was driving real slow, almost up to this man, well, say this man, and he kept, this man kept walking, you know, and the police car going real slow now, real slow, and they just kept coming into the curb, and finally they got way up there a little ways up, well, it stopped."

... The crime lab photo ... on page 162-63 of With Malice shows Tippit's car cantered at an angle of about 10-degrees relative to the curb. ... The front wheel appears very slightly turned to the left. Markham has the car going towards the curb. The photo has it going away. It looks as if the reason the car stopped as it did is because someone stepped into the road. Or at least approached the curb as if to intercept the patrol car.

I don't think the photo is per se inconsistent with Markham's description inasmuch as it's highly unlikely that the patrol car was - or that anyone would expect it to be - travelling within a foot of the curb, but rather much more toward the center of the roadway, which is significantly to the car's left. The car had, apparently, moved "into the curb" from its "normal" route of travel; that it turned outward just before it stopped is not in opposition to that description.

Your rationale for why it ended up parked as it was is certainly sound, although I've always gotten the impression from Markham that the car had pulled up beside the shooter before the shooter approached it. (I do not, incidentally, consider Markham an entire non-credible witness, at least not with respect to her usual itinerary and what happened before she went hysterical after the shooting.)

The right rear tire is still within(?) a foot of the curb even though the front tires have the car pointed away from it. I cannot tell from the photo how much the front wheels are turned, if at all, so can't deduce whether the car pointing away from the curb is the result of several feet of travel after Tippit began to turn the car slightly away from it, or if it's the result of an abrupt movement just before he'd stopped. Can you?

Another rationale for the car's position could be that Tippit turned to look over his right shoulder just before stopping, turning the steering wheel to the left as an unintended part of that movement; another might be that Tippit had been pulling to the curb (to park the car, for example) when, for whatever reason, he decided notp to complete that movement and intended to look to the man walking as if he (Tippit) was not going to be parking the car, but rather was merely driving by. In the first instance, it would appear that Tippit was headed toward the curb from the normal route of travel; the only question is what caused his car to be positioned the way it was just before he stopped.

I tend toward the latter possibility - that Tippit didn't want the man to think that he was going to park the car, but was just "driving by" (albeit abnormally close to the curb) - based on several factors:

• It is an established fact that Tippit had (at least) a dalliance with someone who was separated from her husband at the time, and who lived in Oak Cliff during that separation. (She reconciled - at least temporarily - with her husband on November 23, 1963).
  • Larry Ray Harris established that she received her mail during that time via general delivery at the Marsalis postal station, only a few blocks away, proving that she lived in that area if not at that particular house. (Larry Ray took whatever other information he had about her to the grave, and reportedly was "very circumspect" about anything else to do with her.)
    
  • In her (unsworn and unrecorded) interview with the HSCA, the woman - by then remarried as Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon - claimed that "the affair was over" at least a few weeks before November 22. Even while that may be true in a technical sense - i.e., that "as far as she was concerned" it was over, or that "nothing physical" took place after late September - it does not preclude any man from attempting to continue that relationship even after it's "over," nor that she may not have been telling the complete truth.
    

  [*]William Scoggins' testimony that "I wasn't paying too much attention to the man [in the police car], you see, just used to see him every day," coupled with Charlie Virginia Davis' testimony that the police car "was parked between the hedge that marks the apartment house where he lives in and the house next door" to the Davises' home (that is, between the second and third houses east of the corner of 10th and Patton, the Davises' home being the one on the corner) shows that Tippit was a "regular" in the neighborhood

  • Scoggins himself was a "regular" at the Gentlemen's Club at 125 Patton, south of 10th, as evidenced by his characterization of his first driving by the club looking for a place to park:
    
    (O)ne of the guys hollered at me and asked me did I know the President had been shot, and I made the remark that I had not heard that one. ... I thought it was some kind of a joke.
    
    

    It is not the normal course of events for "one of the guys" (itself a term of familiarity) to yell to a stranger passing by about anything, and given the seriousness of the news, highly unlikely that a passing stranger who had been yelled to would think that "it was some kind of a joke." If Scoggins was a regular at the club and "just used to see [Tippit] every day," then - discounting a complete misidentification of Tippit by Scoggins - it stands to reason that Tippit was, in fact, in the neighborhood fairly frequently if not exactly "every day."
    

  • Charlie Davis' statement in effect means that Tippit was in the neighborhood frequently enough that she actually thought he lived two doors away from her (or at the very least, that some officer did, again requiring a complete misidentification of Tippit by Davis, too). Clearly, Tippit did not live in that house, the neighborhood, or even nearby.
    • The third house in was a multi-unit home - an "apartment house" by Davis' description - so she would not have seen Tippit - even if he'd lived there - out mowing the lawn or trimming the hedges. Given that Tippit lived about five miles away and had a family, it's unlikely that Davis would have seen him lounging around on the front porch in the evenings either.
      
    • If she'd only seen him in the evenings or on weekends, Tippit was not high enough on the food chain to have brought his patrol car home, so she would not necessarily know that her "neighbor" was a patrol cop in that area, even if she had seen him in uniform. So, if she saw Tippit frequently enough that she thought he lived just a couple of doors away, it was most likely during the day, perhaps thinking that he was coming home for lunch.
      

    (Incidentally, I don't buy her disclaimer in With Malice that she "didn't know why" she'd made the statement about Tippit living two houses from her.)

  [*]According to DPD Officer Tom Tilson, who claims to have known Tippit well, it was "common knowledge at the station" that Tippit had a "girlfriend" who lived "on the south side of 10th" (sorry, I don't recall the source for that particular statement).

It is therefore possible, at least, that Johnnie Maxie still lived in Oak Cliff, and in the "apartment house" two doors away from the Davises, and if so, that Tippit was dropping by to see her.

In such a case, he would be slowing down (and would have been "every day" that Scoggins saw him from his vantage point on Patton Street) and pulling toward the curb - and he was clearly at least driving near the curb prior to his pulling away ... which he only could have been doing since he hadn't been driving on the sidewalk, something anyone would have noticed, even Markham! - to stop in front of that house.

Why, then, would he have subsequently been pulling away from the curb before he actually stopped the car? Scoggins noted in his testimony about the man walking on the street that "I kind of looked down the street, saw this, someone, that looked to me like he was going west, now, I couldn't exactly say whether he was going west or was in the process of turning around, but he was facing west when I saw him."

Scoggins further noted that when he noticed the man walking, he was "ust a little east [of the police car] is the best I can remember. ... just a little bit forward [of it]. The police car headed east and he was a little bit, maybe not more than the front end of the car," that is, in a position where Tippit could see his face.

If the man had first been walking east and had, as Scoggins allowed, been "in the process of turning around," that means that Tippit might have seen that there was someone walking along the street, but did not know who it might have been until the last moment when the man turned around. In that case, Tippit might have hoped that the man wouldn't notice him if he kept driving down the street, and the man's suddenly turning around meant that that wasn't going to happen.

If Tippit was visiting the house surreptitiously, he well might not have wanted anyone to see him pulling up and stopping; that might be especially true if he thought, perhaps, that the man walking was Johnnie Maxie's estranged husband (who may also have thought the affair was over and would find out that it wasn't, or who might confront Tippit if he encountered him there), or if he noticed that the man was someone he knew and didn't want to catch him approaching a possible tryst.

Either way, Tippit could no longer pull away from the curb and continue down the road if he was caught in the act of parking his vehicle. If it was Johnnie Maxie's husband, the man might not have recognized him by face, but only known that JM's paramour was a cop, QED. Even still, JD was "caught in the act," but had no good reason to stop and probably would have been better off - even ignoring that he was subsequently shot to death - if he kept on driving anyway: let Johnnie Maxie deal with the husband, and JD could apologize to her later. If it was the husband, JD had every reason to keep driving ... but didn't. There's no sensible reason why not.

Thus we're left with only a couple of possibilities:

1. JD really was stupid and wanted to engage himself in "real friendly-like" conversation with the husband who was obviously prowling the streets waiting to encounter - and probably confront - the competitor to his wife's affections;
   
2. The man was just some "John Doe" walking down the street and JD decided to stop and chat with him on such a pretty fall day, possibly about the playful squirrels or the uplifting chirping of songbirds; or
   
3. JD recognized the man and, moreover, knew that the man recognized him and that, even if he'd continued driving away nonchalantly like he'd never seen or recognized the man, the man would bring it up to him again later, so there was no way to actually avoid the encounter, but merely to postpone it. JD was "caught" and there was no getting away with it.
   

Since Scoggins was specific about the man facing west and being in front of the patrol car (that is, facing the patrol car, ahead of it), we can eliminate my first proposal about Tippit turning around in his seat to see who was walking on the sidewalk and inadvertantly turning the steering wheel to the left to account for his position. We can likewise eliminate the possibility that the car ended up in line with its prior line of travel because directly behind it was nothing but grass and sidewalk, and Tippit had obviously not been driving on the sidewalk or grass.

We can probably also eliminate the possibility that the man - supposedly Oswald - was walking east and that Tippit pulled over to confront him as a possible suspect if only because there would have been no need to park in a "nose out" position to talk with a pedestrian on the sidewalk. The purpose of police nose-out street-side parking is to act as a shield to deflect traffic from hitting the officer from behind when involved in a traffic stop; no such protection is needed if the officer is going to be not only on the right-hand side of the car, but on the sidewalk to boot.

Finally, since Scoggins had testified that the man was on the sidewalk, facing the patrol car and, from his point of view at least, slightly in front of the vehicle, we can probably also eliminate the possibility that Tippit pulled out from the curb as any kind of evasive action.

Thus, the most likely scenario is that JD saw and was seen by someone he knew. He attempted to turn back into traffic unnoticed, but once he knew he'd been seen, he didn't have much choice other than to act as if he'd always intended to pull over and talk with the man (nose-out parking notwithstanding: it probably would have seemed more curious if he'd attempted to turn back into the curb before stopping, thus bringing more attention to the fact he'd tried pulling away from it in the first place).

... Unless there's another possibility I haven't considered here?

Prior knowledge usually relates to prior intent.

A call has been made to the Department of Homeland Security regarding each of us here on the forum since what we know from our study of this murder bodes ill for a large segment of humankind.

Would each of you please enter your home and work addresses below to make it easier for them to be rounded up en masse?

All Secret Service, ATF, DEA, FBI, CIA and other federal, state and local agents and police, especially those acting under cover, will be decommissioned so to no longer pose as threats to society based on their prior knowledge.

I, on the other hand, intend to be your lawyer (having some prior knowledge of the law), so please remit fees to the address below.

Thank you!

Duke on whether Tippit was really parked at a Gloco watching traffic from DP - There is one "non-discrepancy" that belies this entire scenario (which I've argued ceaselessly with Drenas) and that is where and when Tippit gave his locations on the radio. At one point (12:46?) he gave his location as being at Kiest and Bonnieview, a location in SE Oak Cliff. Eight minutes later, he was asked his location, and he said he was at 8th and Lancaster.

The most direct route from where he was to where he went is Bonnieview, which becomes 8th, which in turn intersects with Lancaster just west of the R.L. Thornton Expressway (I-35E - see map below). I have driven this route several times at "normal" speeds - remember that JD was not told to proceed at code (lights and/or siren) - and guess what? It takes just about exactly eight minutes!

They say "the devil's in the details," and this is one that's difficult to fake, "pretending" to get from somewhere you're not to somewhere else in just the right amount of time that it would normally take.

Greg - It seems to come down to either believing Tippit was truthful about his whereabouts at 12:46 and the five Gloco witnesses lied (or were all mistaken) or, Tippit lied and the witnesses got it right. If the latter, the timing issue you raise is (for once!) a true coincidence. Whatever the case, it could not be as you say, a case of "pretending" to get from point "a" to point "b" in just the right amount of time as he presumably had no idea when his dispatcher was going to call.

Precisely. And since he had no idea, arranging to get from Gloco to Lancaster & 8th in the right amount of time after the dispatcher had called, from a place that was only 2-3 minutes away requires some duplicity on his part, either cruising slowly to make up that extra five minutes (at odds with the Gloco people's description, unless he braked heavily as soon as he was out of their sight) ... or else not being 2-3 minutes away at the Gloco station.

I opt for "the five Gloco witnesses lied (or were all mistaken)." If you've ever been to Dealey Plaza on the 22nd, you have some familiarity with the people who inject themselves into history by making wild claims of things that just never happened so they can have their 15 minutes of fame. A few years ago, a former detective sergeant told me of how he'd been at TT and was one of the guys involved in subduing Lee Oswald. Trouble is, he said that at the time he was "undercover" and that his hair was "long," and there's no such person shown in any photo at TT, or any officer who provided a report - or was named by any other officer - by his name.

To be generous, there could have been another cop there, including Patrolman V.R. Nolan, who was driving unit 222 (Accident Prevention Bureau), who indicated at 1:15 that he was at the intersection of Colorado and Sylvan (shown as '1' on the map below). Prior to that, he was last heard of at 1:11 immediately after 91 (Mentzel) was contacted about the accident at 817 Davis ('2' on the map). Dispatch merely said "222," and Nolan responded without any directions of what to do, "en route." (Of course, he was on the APB, so it would have been natural for him to respond.) Prior to the 1:11 call, he called in "clear" (not busy, ready for whatever you need me to do) at 12:41.

According to Drenas' account, "Tippit" arrived "at approximately 12:45 ... at the Gloco (Good Luck Oil Company) gas station which was located at 1502 North Zangs Boulevard" (shown as '3' on the map), where he could be "watching the cars coming over the Houston Street Viaduct from downtown Dallas." Since Nolan was in the vicinity 30 minutes before the West Davis call (i.e., starting at 12:41 to 12:45), and the time between his first response to the Davis call (1:11) and his radioing in his location as "Colorado and Sylvan" (1:15) was four minutes, and since Yahoo maps shows the driving time from 1502 Zang to Colorado and Sylvan as three minutes, it seems reasonable to deduce that it very easily could have been Nolan - not Tippit - who was at the Gloco. (The one-minute discrepancy can be explained by the imprecise time-calling on the DPD radio.)

Another point, for whatever it is worth: currently, Lancaster dead-ends a little way south of where it would intersect with Zang; I don't know if it was the same way 40 years ago, but I'll see if I can find out. If it was, then nobody could have taken off from the Gloco and driven south on Lancaster. Either way, immediately to the west of Lancaster is Marsalis, which is a much broader and faster street with fewer stops (signs or lights), so if I were going to take one or the other, it would be Marsalis. Also for what it's worth: Yahoo's current driving directions tell you to go from 1502 North Zang, south on Marsalis to Colorado, and then turn west on Colorado to Sylvan as being the most direct route to take.

My guess? The Gloco people were simply mistaken. They saw Vern Nolan (maybe they just wanted to see Tippit one last time before he'd died?). Tippit was at Bonnieview and Kiest.

Duke -

• [Truly and the TSBD crowd] made up and coordinated a story to implicate Oswald that survived - or merely fit into - the recollections of all of the other building employees. The latter case would seemingly require advance or immediate knowledge of what each of those employees said in their statements.
  

Greg - Who was in charge of gathering the evidence? Not Truly. Stories changed to fit what was needed, when it was needed. That's a fact. How that was accomplished doesn't change that fact. The floor laying crew is another example. They seem to have had pressure put on them to say they'd seen Oswald on the 6th floor as they were going down for lunch - whereas in initial statement's it was pretty well unanimous that Oswald had been on the 5th.

Actually, I think "put[ting] pressure on" people to conform to the predetermined conclusion is a pretty fair thing to say about the entire WC/FBI rubber-stamp pseudo-investigation. You're quite correct in that TSBD didn't collect the evidence; that was left to DPD and FBI in that order. DPD was the first on the scene, so to speak, and in the best position to influence the initial direction the investigation would take, based on the evidence it gathered (or manufactured?) and passed along ... or not. Yank this one from the list.

Duke - I'm familiar with McWatters' statement about his thinking they wanted him to ID the kid, bu there are still the nagging little matters about McWatter's transfer being found on Oswald's person after he'd been arrested, and dear old Mrs Bledsoe's ID'ing him on the same bus.

Greg - McWatters: even the WC called him "vague". A little confused maybe. He thought the kid must be the assassin. He realised the kid (Milton Jones) wasn't Oswald the next day when said kid got his bus again.

The transfer: According to Fritz' testimony "He was searched, the officers who arrested him made the first search, I am sure. He had another search at the building and I believe that one of my officers, Mr. Boyd, found some cartridges in his pocket in the room after he came to the city hall. I can't tell you the exact time when he searched him." The search in which the transfer was alleged to have been found was a bit more than two hours after he was brought in. So imagine for a minute... there he is... the possible presidential assassin, sitting around for at least two hours with cartridges, a box top and bus transfer all still in his pocket/s (there were conflicting accounts as to which pocket - pants or shirt the cartridges were in). Do you really buy that? Do you buy this transfer as having come out of Oswald's pocket after what he'd been through?

Bledsoe: She admitted in testimony that /a/ she only glanced at him briefly; /b/ that the SS had brought the arrest shirt to her - thus she stated Oswald had a shirt/jacket with a hole in the elbow (too bad the arrest shirt/jacket was not what he had on at the time) and /c/ that Sorrel had helped her prepare notes for her testimony.

I don't believe that O was on the bus either; McWatters and Bledsoe clinch it. It was, however, McWatters' transfer, so it had to be obtained from him somehow.

The WC may have called him "confused" or "vague," but that was only a means to downplay his testimony, which was not particularly supportive of the story WC wanted to tell. Clearly, he was very nervous - much like some people say "y'know" a lot, McWatters' favorite phrase was "in other words," which he said 188 times in the 31 pages of his testimony, including as much as seven or eight times in one response, even two or three times in a sentence (see example below)! - and got more so as time went on, but "confused" or "vague" were not adjectives I'd used to describe him or his testimony (maybe because he'd put things "in other words" so many times, the Commissioners were getting confused?).

I used to ride a city bus as a teenager, and got transfers daily, so am familiar with the general means by which transfers were given, and how they were torn from the packet of transfers drivers kept on the bus with them. Basically, the transfer was torn - using a little straight-edge gadget roughly similar to how someone might use a ruler to rip paper in a straight line - with the numbers indicating the time the transfer was given, within 15 minutes prior to the quarter-hour time shown on the transfer (i.e., if you got on a bus at 12:46 or 12:47, the transfer would read 1:00; if you got on at 12:40, it would read 12:45). One of our favorite little "tricks" was to ask for the transfer getting off the bus so you hopefully had 15 more minutes to goof off before getting on the next bus.

McWatters was pretty clear about the fact that he had issued only two transfers prior to leaving downton: one to a woman who had a 1:00 train to catch and didn't want to get stuck in traffic in the bus, and another to a man who had gotten on the bus about seven blocks from TSBD (at the intersection of Elm and Griffin, between regular bus stop locations, while the bus was stopped in a travelling lane); he gave them each transfers at the same location, between Poydras and Lamar, when they both got off of the bus.

McWatters had left the corner of Elm and St Paul at 12:36 and had made three stops and was on his way to the fourth when the man pounded on the door to be let in. He got off two blocks later, asking for the transfer after the woman who had to meet the train. (The whole "grinning" incident - someone laughing about the President being shot "in the head" - took place much later.) If the transfer was cut at 1:00, then either /a/ the man got on the bus at or after 12:45, or else /b/ McWatters was particularly generous with the time allowance since he'd punched the tickets and set them up in the ripper prior to 12:36 when he left the St Paul stop. (I suspect the latter is probably the case based on laziness or convenience, since he'd have to reset the position of the transfers in just nine minutes anyway.)

Old Cecil recalled the occasion specifically:

He later stated, "I only gave two transfers going through town on that trip and that was at the one stop of where I gave the lady and the gentleman that got off the bus, I issued two transfers. But that was the only two transfers that were issued." Asked if he was "able to identify it any further as a particular transfer you had given to any particular passenger," he replied, "No, sir."

Nowhere in the course of his testimony did McWatters volunteer that the man in question looked at all like Oswald, whom McWatters had undoubtedly seen between November 22 and March 12, the date of his testimony. Nor was he asked at any point to confirm that he even resembled Oswald. He stated that, with regard to the lineup he viewed, "I told them that there was one man in the lineup was about the size and the height and complexion of a man that got on my bus," and that the man on the bus "was just a medium-sized man ... just of average weight, and I would say a light-complected ... 135 or 140 pounds ... probably be five-seven or five-eight, in that vicinity" but "as far as positively identifying the man [in the lineup] I could not do it," and did not do so during his deposition, saying "as far as actually saying that [the man in the lineup] is the man [who got on the bus] I couldn't ... I wouldn't do it [then] and I wouldn't do it now."

Translation? It probably wasn't Oswald, although the transfer was undoubtedly given out at the time and place McWatters described to one of only two people, one of whom was a woman and certainly not Oswald. Thus, if it wasn't Oz, and the police did end up with the transfer two hours after he'd been taken into custody ...?

(To be completely fair, however, McWatters did say that he ""didn't pay any particular attention to [the man who got on the bus]. He was to me just dressed in what I would call work clothes, just some type of little old jacket on, and I didn't pay any particular attention to the man when he got on," which might account for his reticence in "positively" identifying Lee, but doesn't account for how much if any attention he paid to the man when he asked for a transfer during the course of an incident he recalled so clearly.)

This actually covers a couple of past posts, in no particular order ....

Duke - Here's what I guess I'm not quite getting yet:

• What was Truly's role in the conspiracy; how did he fit in?
  

Greg - I can't say unequivocally that no one has ever looked deeply into the backgrounds of Truly, Campbell and Cason, but if they have, I've yet to come across it. And if no one ever has in 40 plus years, it is one of the great failings of the research community.

It would seem to me, then, that it would have to all be speculation as to what his role was and how it was carried out. It is not like, say, "the Cuban Connection" where it can be shown that so-and-so worked with so-and-so during such-and-such operation, or even that "Cop A and Cop B were known to associate with each other." Truly & Co. are "outsiders" to any of the usual suspects. This is not to say that someone couldn't - or even hasn't - unearthed some connections involving the TSBD brass, but like you, if they have, I haven't heard or read about them. In fact, as close as I've heard is that both Truly and Shelley showed dogs, and I've seen separate photos of each of them with show(?) dogs, but not together in the same photo (those photos might be on this forum somewhere ...? If so, I haven't found them). I don't know if it's even true that they were "show" dogs, or that Truly and Shelley even discussed dog shows, much less attended them together (or plotted JFK's demise at them!), but that is, in any case, the sole "background check" I've heard of about them.

Duke ...

• How did Truly & Company "get to" Baker to get his testimony to conform with their "cover story?" What was his (or Campbell's or Cason's) connection to the DPD that they could have brought any kind of pressure to bear on him? Was that connection direct or indirect (i.e., did they know someone or just have their own influence)? Or was it merely a case of continual "reminders" of "what happened" whenever Baker came back to the building for official purposes? Or did maybe Baker come back unofficially to refresh his own memory, and have it "refreshed" for him?
  

Greg - Truly's role seems to have been limited to "manufacturing" a temp position for Oswald, and in ensuring that Oswald would appear to have decamped without clearance to do so after the assassination. Baker's charge into the building was probably not expected and he made an "executive" decision on the spot to go with him in the search to ensure he didn't nab anyone. It wasn't "Truly & company" who needed to get Baker to fall into line. It was the DPD who were of framing Oswald. Truly had merely set the rabbit running so the frame could take place. Not all cops would even have to have been conspirators before the fact. It would only take a handful of senior ones. Except for the magnitude and implications of the crime - this in all other respects was just another frame-up. No big deal for any of them. They'd done it before, and they'd do it again.

Further to your earlier comment:

... you are moving into a realm where there are no records, few if any written memoirs, and little enough verbal lore except perhaps among those who were a bit more extreme, more patriotic than the mainstream. I was reading something recently - I don't remember what, maybe a newspaper - that discussed, albeit briefly, how conservative Dallas was in the 1960s ("conservative" in that era, in the South, translating roughly to "intolerant" today; "patriotic" translating to anti-Communist, anti-Semitic, anti-integration) and how, as much as they didn't like it, Dallas eventually got used to the civil rights changes of the Great Society, and the old "conservatives" have generally faded away.

The point is that nobody talks about their "patriotism" back in the '60s; nobody wants to hear - nobody wants to know about Grandpa's proud exploits stringin' up n__ers, takin' pot shots at them damned Yankees signin' the darkies up to vote, and makin' sure them Commies know they ain't welcome in this here town; nobody today - correction: few people today would agree with Dr. Revilo P. Oliver's ringing endorsement of Senator Joseph McCarthy as "a great American patriot."

Yet, according to non-assassination related literature from the period (see The Decision Makers about Dallas' Citizens' Council, for example), that was very much the Dallas of the '50s and early '60s, absent the lynchings of course. Witness DPD CID's concerns over such "radical" groups as the ACLU ("liberals" - and probably Communists - all) and the Veterans' Forum, of which Joe Molina was a member (and who actually sought to obtain military benefits for Mexican-American veterans in line with white soldiers'!).

Thus, even if someone was a member of the Klan, a Bircher, a Minuteman - for many of which, Dallas was considered a "stronghold" at the time - it is unlikely today that barring some obscure reference (say, an arrest record of someone who might - yeah, right! - have been arrested for spitting on Adlai Stevenson), anyone would discover that Truly or anyone else was actually a member of such a group. It was "a different world back then," and nobody's broadcasting their '60s-era sympathies with them either.

Through such connections, however, one might well find the "missing link" that explains how, for example, Roy Truly could have been in any way clued into, "in on," or otherwise involved in a conspiracy that might include Dallas cops. It would seem highly unlikely to me, however, that his "only" job in relation to that would be to set Oswald up with a job without knowing any of the other details. Once the shots rang out and Oswald was accused, his role would have come crashing in on him if he was unaware that he'd done anything to further larger plans. If he did rush in to try to direct Baker - or any other cop who attempted to come in right away - in any particular direction, then he was fully witting of the plan even if not all of the mechanics of it.

I differ with you in one point only, and that is that it would not necessarily have to be senior police personnel - at least not in terms of rank - to effect an assassination plan and the implication of a dead patsy. Think about it: what chance would the Chief of Police stand if he knew that a corporal was part of the plot? If they've got the gumption to kill the President of the United States in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, one would think that the chief - or the mayor or the governor - would be a piece of cake, like swatting a fly. (Well ... maybe not the mayor, whose brother was a US Army general and no stranger to high-level intrigue ... tho' a bit of a dim bulb for a general, I gather.)

Duke on what he perceives my take is on TSBD role

• Hired Oswald, specifically, on a pretense together with Charles Givens when the actual trend was to start laying off employees due to slackening times rather than hiring them. The only "excuse" - if that's all it was - to do so was to have the available manpower to re-surface the upper floors (in which case, why not use the inexperienced men to nail boards to the floor rather than fulfill orders?
  

Greg - Can't recall off-hand when Givens (re)started with TSBD - but in all other respects - yes. You've nailed it.

Givens only testified that he'd worked there "off and on for six years," and that he had been laid off in the past during "slack periods." He was not asked, nor did he volunteer how long he had been there for that particular stretch. He was doing the floors. (I still don't get why they'd put inexperienced people - Oswald - filling orders while other order-fillers were flooring. I mean, anyone can nail plywood down, move boxes and the like, so why not have the "temp" do that rather than something that he'd have to take time to learn?

(On the sinister side of that question lies the answer that it gave him access to the entire building and kept him out of most other people's sights most of the day, ergo if he wanted to do something, he had the opportunity.)

Duke -

• Enabled the shooter(s) with entry to the building and a guarded exit meaning, too, that the shooter(s) was or were known to them, at least by sight (and none of these people suffered "mysterious deaths!"). This, it would seem, would necessitate some orchestration of the other inhabitants of the building during the crucial period, or else their complicity to one degree or another;
  

Greg - Enabled entry - yes. Not sure about about "orchestration" or "complicity" needed by all workers in the building. There were a number of companies operating in there, and anyone who saw a stranger walk by would probably automatically assume he was there on bussiness with one of the other companies and think no more of it. Office security then is not what it is now. Then there is Danny Arce's "old man". At the risk of sounding suspicious about everything (and I most certainly am not), this is another story which changed over time. In his initial statement, he merely said he saw the person leave the building. By the time he got to the WC, he now not only saw him entering as well, he also spoke to him, and helped him inside because the "old man" had a weak kidney and needed to pee. In other words, by the time of his WC testimony, he had a completely innocent reason ready for the man being inside. But getting back to the main point here... can you name anyone else who remembered seeing this "old man"?

Nope. At least, nobody who mentioned him; on the other hand, nobody else was asked about him either and, if they saw him, they might not have considered it important enough - or in any way connected with the shooting - to be germane.

My father once told me an interesting story about my grandmother that may illustrate this scenario. The deal was that Dad had taken Grandma somewhere, I don't remember where, and they became separated. Something happened; it might have been a car crash or something to do with a train, but in any case, something "sudden" happened. When Dad first hooked back up with Grandma a couple of minutes after the crash (or whatever; it was loud enough that it became something of a spectacle), she really didn't know much about what had occurred. Dad said that, later, it was almost as if Grandma had been directing it given her steadily increasing knowledge of exactly what had happened.

Speaking for myself, I've had several times when I've been asked about something right after it happened and provided what information came to me at the moment. Later, as I had time to reflect on it, I remembered details that might have been important, but didn't really impress themselves on me when I was asked about it. Recently, when I was taking the dog for a walk, there was a commotion at a neighbor's house, flashlights looking all around for something or someone. I realized that the noise that I'd heard earlier might have something to do with it. When I went to the neighbor's gate to tell him what I'd seen (this is someone who lives nearby, not someone I'd ever met before), up comes a camoflaged assault rifle aimed right at me, with him barking behind it, "Hit the ground, motherf__er!"

When the cops showed up, I was both irate and ... well, not scared anymore (I was at first!), but certainly still excited. Y'know, I didn't think to even tell the cops what had occurred from my perspective in terms of what had apparently set my neighbor off to begin with (it was kids playing pranks in the park behind his house, apparently doing something to his fence, hence the noise I'd heard ... and the kid I later remembered seeing running from the place!). And I remember thinking at the time that I am generally someone who "makes a good witness," but I damned sure wasn't that time!

The point? Just that what someone says the first time may not be the whole story ... and what they say afterward may be "manufactured," or it may be details that they remembered later ... or may just be bullspit. There is not "best" recollection of events based on its proximity to the event being reported.

Duke - I've gotta run for now, but wanted to make at least these few points. By no means am I suggesting that any of this is necessarily impossible, but in order to be even vaguely possible, much less probable, these things would seem to need to be accounted for. Your thoughts?

Greg - My thoughts on your thoughts? Some of them I see as valid and really push me to think things through further - a damn good thing cos looking after two two year olds all day and night is turning my brain to mush! That said, a couple of your points puzzle me as to why you even see them as a concern.

Such as?

What makes you think I'm not still? Actually, wasn't the story that I'd come from Langley to "turn" Mack and Perry? So who was under whose influence when?

No...quite the contrary. The speculation is that you were a young trainee sent down to train in the field under an expert operative. This was intensified when it was reported that your "company" had transferred you "to Virginia". Perry is good. How he turned GM 180 degrees is still a mystery. "Mind control?"

"The speculation is ...?!?" So has all that training paid off, do you think, all these years in the field?

Jack, the really important question is whether someone can tell well enough what they're looking at when they see it to be able to recognize a "change." No offense, but ... apparently not: nothing has ever changed. Even despite AFIO.

Most employees (including Oswald) left their jackets in the Domino room on the 1st floor while working. He was still "at work" (Though at lunch) when seen by Reid. He put on the woolen/flannel grey jacket when he returned to his boarding room. It's immaterial what clothing description Baker gave since I firmly believe the person he encountered was not Oswald.

Refresh my memory: who was it that found a jacket, supposedly Oswald's, at TSBD a couple of weeks later. Same guy who "found" the clipboard, I think ....

The proof that it was not Oswald is in the fact that Oswald was in the same room awaiting interrogation as Marvin Johnson took Baker's affidavit. If it had been Oswald, the affidavit would say something like "the person I encountered was the suspect now under arrest." At the very least, he would have got the description right with Oswald sitting right there across from him. ... In any case, as pointed out, Marvin Johnson later claimed Baker ID'd Oswald, and Baker himself said in testimony he saw Oswald in the room as he was having his affidavit written. Unfortunately for Baker, no such evidence exists in the affidavit that he recognised Oswald.

I will buy into Baker's getting Ozzie's description correct if they were in the same room together and Oz had been the same man he'd seen on the stairs, but two ... no, three considerations come into play here:

1. Since Baker was, according to this scenario, not clued into what was supposed to be happening here, and since other TSBD employees were at DPD providing statements, and since Oz worked at TSBD, there is not necessarily any reason for Baker to have realized that Oz was a suspect rather than someone simply giving a statement, even if Baker recognized him from an (alleged) encounter at TSBD.
   
2. As to recognition at the time of his statement, put yourself in Baker's shoes: you've just come from running into a strange building after a barrage of gunfire had sounded, looking for a potential shooter. You encounter someone that the building super had identified as being "all right." There is no longer any reason to remember this guy: he's a "nobody" as far as your investigation goes. "Trained observer" or not, it is very possible that Baker didn't put two and two together even while describing what the man he'd seen had been wearing, if only - or especially - because O wasn't wearing the same thing anymore, and was therefore a "different person." That is human nature.
   Baker's later "recognition" of LHO can be attributed to what I call "manufactured memory" or that some others might call "the power of suggestion," which simply put refers to a situation akin to someone saying "gee, now that you mention it, he does look like the guy who robbed the bank," and therefore, guess what: he is the guy you saw rob the bank (whether he really is or not).
   
3. Even if Baker did recognize Oz, it would not be proper procedure to identify someone who happened to be in the same room at the time of making a statement for a couple of good reasons:
   1. 
      
   2. There is no absolutely-certain way to identify who is in a room at any given moment, and if there are more than just one other person in the room, the reliability of his identification could be called into greater question (this is where, at trial, they would call in Johnson to state that, while taking Baker's statement, Baker had indicated that the man he'd encountered at TSBD was then in the same room while Baker was giving his statement, and Baker had pointed out the defendant to him, Officer Johnson); and
      
   3. If Oz was later found not to be the person Baker had encountered, Baker's written contemporaneous account identifying LHO as the individual he'd encountered could jeopardize his testimony at trial since, if whomever he had encountered was clearly not Oswald, how therefore could his later identification of another perp be considered reliable?
      

To paraphrase another witness, "a good defense attorney could take him apart" with that kind of testimony; a good prosecutor wouldn't even have called him as a witness to this effect. For example:

The prosecutor would have had Truly come in as back-up to identify the man the officer had described as his employee, Lee Oswald. But if Baker's Friday afternoon statement had reflected this information as fact, you can see how easy it could have been to call his entire judgment and recollection into question (and I'm not even a trial lawyer!). Cops, I'm told, don't particularly like "reasonable doubt," and sure as heck don't want to give it up without a fight!

[*]A statement is intended to reflect the facts of what happened at the time of the events being described. Even if Oswald had come into the interrogation room and greeted Baker with a hearty "Hi, remember me? I met you on the stairs about an hour ago," that would not be germane to the events Baker had been describing (it might, however, have been pertinent to testimony provided later by either Baker or Johnson at trial).

Oops, that was four considerations! Oh well: all of that merely to say that Baker's lack of identification of Oswald in his statement does not necessarily have any real significance, and does not necessarily "prove" anything.

Greg - Somewhere between the time [baker's] affidavit was taken and the time Truly gave his on the Saturday, it was decided to (1) claim this encounter had been with Oswald, and (2) to switch it from third or fourth floor to second. These switches would be necessary since it is likely Baker did encounter the real gunman (or a decoy) and Reid's statement had placed Oswald on the second floor. Truly, I believe, went with Baker to ensure Baker did not arrest this man.

Duke - One could speculate how these things were possible, but how would they have been accomplished? Here's what I'm getting so far:

• Baker gave his report on Friday, stating he saw a man on the 3rd or 4th floor "walking away from the stairs; this person was not Oswald in the second floor lunch room, as evidenced in part by the apparent fact that Baker didn't recognize Lee while he was sitting in the same room at DPD HQ;
  
• In the meanwhile, someone (who?) decided that it was unacceptable to have had "the cop" (I'm guessing nobody knew his name?) encounter a conspirator (shooter or otherwise) on his way downstairs, and thus used Geraldean Reid's statement placing Lee in the second floor office coming from the lunch room to re-manufacture the encounter as having occurred on the second floor to coincide with Reid's encounter with him.
  
• Some time after this, "the deciders" somehow convinced Baker that he needed to play along with the scenario, which could have been easy enough if only based on Baker's inferior knowledge of the building (vice Truly's: "no, officer, you'll remember that this door was swinging shut ..."), his likely adrenaline rush (he was after someone shooting at the President), and his focus on what may have been going on in the upper floors.
  

Am I missing anything?

Greg - That's pretty much it. I don't think it would have taken a great deal to Baker to comply. It's not like cops in any force in any country have never covered for each other, never encouraged subtle but telling changes to witness accounts in order to help secure convictions, sweep away technicalities which may get cases thrown out of court, or tampered with or manufactured evidence. Baker in fact, ended up so confused in writing further statements later, he wasn't apparently sure whether he was supposed to now include the coke Reid saw Oswald drinking - first including it, then crossing it out. Who prompted him on that, I wonder?

Objection, your honor; non-responsive. The witness was asked how this was accomplished and by whom.

When did Geraldean Reid give her statement about seeing Lee on the second floor? In order for Truly to have accomodated his testimony - and presumably thereby influence Baker's later recollections - he would have had to have known either what Reid said or was going to say. The former seems much more likely if only inasmuch as Reid might not have played along ... and if someone was going to get her to play along, it would seem much more effective to try to get her not to say she'd seen Oswald. Thus her statement would seem to have thrown a monkey wrench into what Baker had said, which somehow needed to be accomodated, hence Truly's statement. Is that in fact the sequence of events: Reid's statement first, then Truly's?

Either way, someone then had to "get to" Baker. As of Saturday, Lee was still alive and stood a chance of making it to trial and could have contradicted the entire account of the lunchroom encounter if it didn't happen. Having failed to kill Lee at least once, maybe twice, confidence in his not surviving until then must have been greatly diminished (after all, the third time is not always the charm!), so making up the encounter out of whole cloth and expecting it to survive would seem pretty misguided. What if Ruby's bullet hadn't killed him, and O had spent the rest of the time pending trial under heavy guard at either or both Parkland and/or the country jail? Three failures to eliminate the defendant and his testimony would have certainly weighed in Oswald's favor, don't you think?

This entire scenario presupposes Truly's collaborating with police - and police with Truly - to first, use his building to shoot the President and hide the weapons; second, to ensure that no "real" cop (one bent on actually doing his duty, i.e., not clued into the conspiracy) questioned or arrested - or preferably even saw - any of the active players; third, to get the details of both Baker's and Reid's statements back to Truly; fourth, to concoct a story that was somehow compatible with both statements (at least in the major details); fifth, to convey Truly's account to Baker and thus confuse Baker at best ... or coerce him, at worst, to change his own account; and sixth, well in advance, to have gotten Truly to hire Lee in the first place a month before all of this was to come down.

At some point, there may arise a theory as to what Truly was doing - and how he did it - when he rushed in after Baker, but for now I'm curious how all of the above was accomplished and who did the deciding. Speculation is all well and good - "building a case" is fine - but absent hard evidence, you've at least got to provide some foundation and fill in as many gaps as you possibly can; otherwise, it's purely speculation. Since you're making the proposition here, let's return to the "prosecution" and ask:

As to:

Greg - ... I don't think it would have taken a great deal to Baker to comply. It's not like cops in any force in any country have never covered for each other, never encouraged subtle but telling changes to witness accounts in order to help secure convictions, sweep away technicalities which may get cases thrown out of court, or tampered with or manufactured evidence. Baker in fact, ended up so confused in writing further statements later, he wasn't apparently sure whether he was supposed to now include the coke Reid saw Oswald drinking - first including it, then crossing it out. Who prompted him on that, I wonder?

The whole bit about Baker's crossing out the "drinking a coke" portion of the statement was covered in detail by someone; I'm thinking it was Harold Weisberg in one of his Whitewash series. Might've been someone else: sometimes I get confused about those little details!

You speak of cops "sweep[ing] away technicalities which may get cases thrown out of court," etc., with the same disdain police officers speak of defense attorneys who introduce those "technicalities that get cases thrown out of court" after the cops' arduous work in getting the case into court in the first place. If the cops want to shade the truth just a little bit - as no doubt the defense will do! - is that such a bad thing? Do the ends justify the means, even sometimes? Or does the answer to that question depend upon one's perspective?

Gotta run for now; there's more to look at in the morning!

Duke...you have come a long way since the days you were under the influence of Dave Perry. Wish I could say the same for GM. Much of your recent research is very interesting.

What makes you think I'm not still? Actually, wasn't the story that I'd come from Langley to "turn" Mack and Perry? So who was under whose influence when?

Sometimes it is simpler to prove what wasn't than what was, such as the story of "David Atlee Phillips" "under arrest" at Fort Worth and the records and photos of "his" arrest having "disappeared." I'll also have something to say very soon about one 20-year-old in the plaza ... or not. It's been an interesting story so far, we'll see how it turns out.

What, nobody's beating me up on this?

I kind of liked

. As LBJ used to say, "It pays to switch!"

The links at the right change for every film short you watch. Some are interesting, some are great big yawns.

Duke,

Someone identifying themselves as the unit assigned to district 56 ... District 56 ... is located at the far eastern edge of Dallas, bordering on the towns of Garland and Mesquite. If the individual claiming to be "56" was actually assigned to that area and was in fact on East Jefferson then he was about 10 miles from his assigned patrol district.

Patrolamn W.P. Parker was assigned to Districts 56 and 58. Captain Talbert told the WC that this was east Dallas, the Garland Road area. This is 25H913

Thanks, Steve. You are quite right about the location of 56, which the illustration below may provide some perspective for. I had merely assumed that you can see the "56" on the radio map.

You can see that the area from the Dallas Mapsco I've selected fits neatly into the area hand-drawn by DPD for this exhibit. District 56 is roughly the square numbered "3" on the inset map; square "1" is Dealey Plaza, square "2" is Oak Cliff. District 58 is, of course, the next patrol district to the east, or away from downtown and Oak Cliff.

The starting location I selected for the 10 mile estimate was Buckner Blvd at Garland Rd, which is marked on the upper left of the larger street map by a red square. This is closer, rather than farther, from downtown and Oak Cliff than if he had been, say, in his other district, #58, so I'm saying he was fewer miles out of his area than I could have.

(To be eminently fair, placing him at the extreme southwest corner of the district by the highway (then known as the Fort Worth Toll Road, of Donald Wayne House fame) so he could make the trip as fast as possible, Yahoo maps show it was still 10.3 miles, taking approximately 12 minutes.)

Thanks also for the reminder of where I had gotten the information about officers' assignments that afternoon!

I have equivocated by saying "someone identifying themselves as" because of the discrepancy between what W.P. Parker did (according to CE2645) and where "56" said he was ("East Jefferson"). Unfortunately, this report is the only place Parker is referenced by name in the entire 26 volumes and Report, and believe it or not, it does not appear that anybody has mentioned him in any of the gazillion books on this subject. At least, his name does not appear at all in Walt Brown's "Global Index."

The two sides to the coin are that there is no way for certain to say that the voice identifying itself by Parker's call sign was Parker; on the other side, if he was in Oak Cliff around the time Tippit was killed, it was only a 10-mile drive, much of it via highway, so - what? - 15 minutes later he could very well have been setting up roadblocks just as was reported.

(Of course, one of the difficulties about these assignments is determining how the officers got them since they were not broadcast over either DPD radio channel. As already noted, 56 was not the originator or intended recipient of any broadcast after his 12:44 broadcast indicating he was on East Jefferson. No other mention of "roadblocks" is on the tapes either, so it must have been spontaneous decisions by these officer to set them up - or else they all called in by phone, or someone rode around telling them in person, somehow knowing exactly where to find them without using the radio?)

I retired from Detroit Homicide and let me assure you nothing effects a cop like the murder of another officer-frankly, I think Tippit was killed to "encourage" responding officers not to take Oswald alive. I participated in a number of searches for cop killers and arrest was always the last and least preferred option.

Well, isn't it a relief to actually hear someone say that! My cousin, Francis Xavier Fenton, was off duty at a Hartford (CT) tavern when someone tried robbing the place. Franny acted and ended up dead for his efforts. I've heard from some members of the force who were active 'way back then that, when the news that one of their own was down, even off-duty officers responded.

If Tippit was killed, as you say, to "encourage responding officers not to take Oswald alive," then it can only stand to reason that killing Tippit was part of the plan from the very beginning. Either that or it was pure serendipity.

If I were a conspirator involved in assassinating the President of the United States, I think I'd do my damnedest to do whatever was necessary to cover my tracks. Even if the entire DPD hated JFK with a passion, the vast majority of them would have reacted in a thoroughly professional manner and done their jobs to track down his killer(s). The proof of this is in the reports that the officers on duty that afternoon filed: all but a very few (who took up roadblocks in their assigned areas, who were assigned to the Trade Mart, or who went to Parkland) immediately responded to Dealey Plaza.

I actually have a map of this somewhere. Let's see ... ah, here it is!

This is a copy of a Commission Exhibit provided, I think, by Inspector Sawyer. The color-coding is mine. Here's basically what happened and what the map tells you:

• 12:38 - the DPD dispatcher broadcast "a shooting in the downtown area involving the President."
  
• 12:41 - Dispatch radios, "Attention all squads in the downtown area: Code 3 [lights & sirens] to Elm and Houston with caution."
  

Whereupon, according to the channel 1 radio transcript and the officers' reports (filed during the following several days and available among the Commission Exhibits, probably CE2003 - but don't quote me on that!!), all of the officers in the districts marked as red and yellow on the map proceeded to Dealey Plaza. (Obviously, quite a few non-patrol officers did as well.)

Those whose districts are not marked (i.e., the white ones) did not file reports - that I've seen, anyway - or were assigned to the Trade Mart or motorcade route. Those colored light blue remained in their districts and most if not all set up road blocks or went on heightened patrol. What this map shows is that most of the patrol districts surrounding downtown Dallas had no patrol officers remaining in them.

• 12:44:45± - Someone identifying themselves as the unit assigned to district 56, located at the right middle of the radio patrol map, calls to say that he'll be "clear for 5," in other words, out of the car (or out of service) for five minutes.
  In response, dispatch asks "56, your location?" to which 56 responds "East Jefferson."
  

East Jefferson Boulevard is located only in Oak Cliff, and runs from Beckley to the Jefferson Viaduct into downtown (see second map below; East Jefferson is marked in red); there is no other entry for "Jefferson" anywhere else in Dallas.

District 56, on the other hand, is located at the far eastern edge of Dallas, bordering on the towns of Garland and Mesquite. If the individual claiming to be "56" was actually assigned to that area and was in fact on East Jefferson (why he'd say so otherwise is anyone's good guess), then according to Yahoo maps, he was about 10 miles from his assigned patrol district.

(56 was last heard from at around 12:28 in conjunction with a garbled transmission regarding "...traffic, on a '56 Chevrolet. I can't see the license number." Six minutes later, at 12:34, dispatch calls him, gets no response, then makes the general query: "Anyone know where 56 is?"

(When he reappears to indicate that he is "clear" some 20 minutes later and 10 miles from his assigned area, it is without comment by dispatch other than to ask his location, which also draws no comment ... but seemingly prompts them, after hearing that he's in Oak Cliff, to think that nobody's in Oak Cliff and they need to get Tippit over there right away!)

• 12:45:30± - Dispatch orders units 87 (R.C. Nelson) and 78 (Tippit) to "move into central Oak Cliff." Tippit responds that he is located at "about Kiest and Bonnie View" in his regular patrol district (dark blue on the map); Nelson indicates that he is "travelling north on Marsalis at R.L. Thornton [Expressway, now I-35E]," just one or two blocks south of East Jefferson at the southeast edge of Oak Cliff.
  (Nelson will continue into downtown via the Jefferson Viaduct, informing dispatch of his progress - without comment from the dispatchers - until he radios that he is "out down here" at Dealey Plaza. He is not heard from again until after the citizen "officer down" call by T.F. Bowley.)
  

These calls are significant, being just about 30 seconds between them: no sooner does a patrol unit indicate that it is available in Oak Cliff than DPD dispatch decided that - in dispatcher Murray Jackson's later words - "we were draining resources from Oak Cliff" and needed to send his friend, JD Tippit, to cover the shortage of manpower.

It should also be noted that the officer who normally patrolled this section of town, W.D. Mentzel, was in the area eating lunch at the Luby's Cafeteria on Jefferson Blvd. Mentzel was the only patrol officer in the entire city of Dallas taking lunch during the time the President was in town (he cleared for lunch at 12:28, when the motorcade was on Main). He would remain at lunch until 1:07, and would then be sent to investigate an accident on Davis St.

As is shown by the radio map, Oak Cliff was clearly not the only part of town that had had its "resources drained," and indeed most of the city - including the area immediately surrounding the assassination site as well as large sections to the north, south and east - was devoid of police patrols.

The usual question - and the only one that "unofficial spokesmen" for DPD at this time respond to - is "why was Tippit sent to Oak Cliff?" (the usual response being his bravery, dependability and so forth); the real question that should be posed, perhaps, is "why was anyone sent to Oak Cliff ... and why only to Oak Cliff?"

• 12:54 - Dispatch again radios 78 asking "you are in the Oak Cliff area, are you not?" to which Tippit responds in the affirmative, he is at "Lancaster and Eighth." He is then told to "be at large for any emergency that comes in." It is his last complete transmission.
  

The gist of this sequence of events is that, knowing that there were twice as many officers in Oak Cliff as was usual (albeit with one indisposed at lunch), Jackson anxiously monitored his "friend's" progress into the area and then - as desperate as Oak Cliff was for a police presence - was cut adrift and told to simply "wander around as you see fit" in case something - anything - happened.

Fifteen minutes later, he was dead.

As I have noted and illustrated elsewhere under this thread, the most likely route that Tippit would have taken from Kiest and Bonnieview takes almost exactly the same amount of time to travel today - at normal speeds - as it took between the transmissions sending Tippit into Oak Cliff and confirming he was there. This is too coincidental to suggest that anything other than what Tippit purportedly did is exactly what he did do.

It also suggests a dispatcher who was "watching the clock" to be certain that Tippit got into Oak Cliff quickly. His choice of words - "you are in the Oak Cliff area, are you not" rather than a more colloquial (and most of the dispatches were fairly colloquial) "are you in Oak Cliff yet?" likewise suggests someone who was more than a little "keyed up."

According to former patrolman Tom Tilson (hero of "The Black Car Chase," a busy man that day despite his being off duty), who also claims to have been a friend of Tippit's, it was "common knowledge in the department" that JD had a paramour "on the south side of Tenth Street" in Oak Cliff, coincidentally just where he was shot and killed. If that is true - and I cannot state if it is or not - then it is possible that he was expected to show up there soon after he was put "at large," which he did.

• 1:02 to 1:03± - Dispatch calls "78, location?" There is no response.
  

Not only is there no response, but there is no follow-up call, and no reference to 78 again until after the "citizen call" reporting an officer down; it is the very first transmission following Bowley's giving them the location of the shooting at 1:16 p.m., more than ten minutes after the previous no-response call to Tippit.

Is it a complete flight of fancy to imagine that the first non-responsive call was expected, that Jackson knew that JD wouldn't answer, and that he could pay no particular additional attention to him - despite his not answering - until somehow someone would inform them of his shooting, whether by radio or by phone? Upon getting that news, the first order of business would, under such a scenario, be the confirmation that JD Tippit would not and could not answer.

The "officer down" call had its desired effect - if that's what it was - of drawing a large number of police who were securing and searching the downtown crime scene away from where the President of the United States had been killed on their watch, under their protection. If one were to imagine any from among a long list of crimes, there are few - if any - others that would cause police officers to drop whatever they might have been doing, however important it may have been, to rush to another crime scene except the shooting of a fellow officer.

All this goes to prove that the murder of JD Tippit was not the desperate act of a desperate killer (Oswald) intent on escape, but a cold and calculated diversion to draw the focus of attention from Dealey Plaza as well as to the area where the soon-to-be accused assassin would be found.

Underscoring this is the fact that only a short while after being informed that an officer ("56") was "clear for five" on East Jefferson in Oak Cliff, dispatchers did not even attempt to contact him as the officer closest to the scene of Tippit's shooting. 56 was never called, nor did he broadcast on the radio again for the rest of the afternoon: his last call was immediately before JD was sent to his death, letting JD's "friends" in dispatch know he was on the job and ready to roll.

Greg - I can't recall who - but one of those present at the interrogations claimed Oswald had said Shelley gave him permission to leave. Even if this were true, Shelley had no authority to do so, and would have been acting under orders from Truly or Campbell. According to Don Willis, Shelley may have in fact, also left early. Google "The Employee Who Was Missing from the TSBD--William Shelley" for details.

All I could find was a (yawn!) thread from one of the alt.whatever.jfk newsgroups on this. I found some other Donald Willis stuff (e.g., "Fact After All: Tippit Shot With an Automatic"), but not that.

Duke - Well, it really doesn't matter what authority Shelley or anyone else did or didn't have, what matters most is what the person he told anything to perceived him as having. ... Even still, it would seem to have to be an incredible coincidence that the very guy that "they" wanted to get out of the building and would set up as the patsy was the first one not only whose name was taken down, but who was let loose ... as nobody after him was for at least ... what? Half an hour or 45 minutes?

Greg - I don't see it as coincidence. He was let go deliberately before anyone else.

Greg (later) - I've found my notes on this. It was Fritz who made the claim in testimony that Shelley gave him permission to leave. This however, was absent from his notes which only indicate he'd seen Shelley out the front, and that he left, because as you said, he thought there'd be no more work that day. This is from Holmes' testimony:

"And he didn't say whether he took the elevator or not. He said, "I went down, and as I started to go out and see what it was all about, a police officer stopped me just before I got to the front door, and started to ask me some questions, and my superintendent of the place stepped up and told the officers that I am one of the employees of the building, so he told me to step aside for a little bit and we will get to you later. Then I just went on out in the crowd to see what it was all about." And he wouldn't tell what happened then."

Compare Holmes' recall of what Oswald said with what was reported here in Australia:

"During the frantic search for the President's killer, police were posted at exits to the warehouse. Police said a man, whom they identified as Oswald, walked through the door of the warehouse and was stopped by a policeman. Oswald told the policeman that 'I work here,' and when another employee confirmed that he did, the policeman let Oswald walk away, they said."

Well, Harry's little bit there sort of shoots the O-giving-fake-address thing, as well as him giving his info to a cop and being told he could leave. I have to admit, though, it did have the ring of truth to it!

Duke - Again, I take your points, and it gets hairy here ... and you're right, it does require Oswald to be a party in some way if the direction you're going is correct. The question is, in what way? I think it's fair to say that it was not as a witting patsy ... wittingly as a patsy, that is: I have difficulty imagining someone - anyone - going along with the plan that "you're going to get blamed, you have to run, you're probably going to get killed."

Greg - He certainly would not have been told he was going to be killed.

Duke - I likewise have difficulty imagining someone as reasonably intelligent as Lee Oswald thinking that his leaving TSBD after the shooting - assuming he knew (and how could he not?) that that's what spurred his having to go into action - thinking that his leaving would not cast suspicion on him.

Greg - A number of possibilities here... if he was completely uninvolved, why would he worry about leaving when he had permission and a solid alibi? More likely though, he was still acting as a decoy and was told he would either be arrested and that none of the evidence him would hold - or - that he would be flown out of the country. I doubt the first since in this scenario, he was the one who gave a false address. I also have trouble with him agreeing to leave the country (presumably permanently) as this would likely involve never seeing his kids again.

Ah, but we're no longer certain that he gave a false address, as true to form as that may have been, are we. That he knew something seems pretty apparent, if only from his statement - if I'm remembering correctly that this happened at all - that "it will all come out at my trial," or words to that effect. Of course, if it did, it no doubt redoubled people's concerns about what he'd say about them, and sealed his fate ... if it hadn't been sealed already.

I've read of some scenarios where Oz was supposed to have been an infiltrator of sorts - they "listen" pretty well, actually - in Dallas into the whole Fort Hood/Terrell Armory weapons thing. That would lend some sense to why he would have been set up as the patsy - a big "gotcha!" - and might even lend some credence to his getting into someone's car in DP and heading off to Oak Cliff: how could he refuse them? Like an undercover narc who's gotten into a big coke ring or something having to tag along for and even participate in killings to maintain the cartel's trust. But when all's said and done, I really can't imagine anything as to what did or even might have happened at TSBD with Oz after the shooting ... or after he knew there was a shooting. It's just unfathomable to me, I can't get into a dead man's head.

Greg - Those I believe were involved in the planning had strong local ties.

Duke - Interesting. To whom or what?

Greg - MIG with insiders in DPS intelligence units and media. Robert Morris and the whole Bircher crew and their associations with congressional committees and anti-Castro exile groups.

Well, I guess that "whole Bircher crew" could include the Roy Trulys of the world. You can't forget the Walker group either, tho' I suspect they really didn't have anything to do with it, but that only from Walker's own attitude about it, having people checking into things and so forth: it almost seemed as if he knew more than the WC did!

Have you ever read the testimony of Revilo Pendleton Oliver, "America's premier patriot and scholar?" If not, before you do, read his articles about the assassination first, particularly "Marxmanship in Dallas" and "The Aftermath of the Assassination." Actually, you can check out the website dedicated to his fond memory at revilo-oliver.com, which includes several recordings of his speeches. According to one site discussing his patriotism and scholarship,

It would be gut-busting hilarious if he wasn't so god-awful serious. The man is Rush Limbaugh on steroids.

Greg - I have made an intense study of all statements/testimony regarding what went on in the TT, and have concluded that Oswald never had the weapon solely in his hands. I can expand on this if needed.

Yes, please do.

Additionally, it seems McDonald wasn't going to kill Oswald himself. Reporter Jim Ewell watched the arrest from the balcony and stated that he saw a cop train the barrell of a shotgun down through the tangle of bodies. Here's his account of it:

... Then there was a commotion. I stepped to the railing where I could look down onto this. Just about that time the house lights came up and Nick McDonald made his move on Oswald.

So I'm in a position looking down on where Oswald sat. not knowing who he was. Then I saw the fight that broke out. First, Nick was shouting, and then there was just a swarm of officers that came in. What I'm describing is what appeared to be a football play from above. John Toney remembered that

some officer screamed out that they were breaking his arm

. Another officer, Paul Bentley, the Chief Polygraph Examiner for the Dallas Police Department, who was well known to us all, came out of there with a broken ankle.

What I saw rather astounded me. Someone was trying to hold the barrel of a shotgun, or train the barrel of a shotgun down among the heads of these officers. I thought, "What's he going to do with the shotgun?" I didn't know what was going on, but this person was holding a shotgun; I did see that. And it all happened in a matter of seconds!

Yet every single cop failed to see a shotgun ... or to testify to seeing one anyway.

As you read those accounts, you'll probably come across Pinky Westbrook's anecdote - which may be the same as above (underlined) - about how (ha-ha) one of the officers' hands was cuffed, someone apparently mistaking it for Oswald's. How, I don't know, it's not like Lee was dressed like a cop or detective. Did it have a gun in it at some point? Nobody who testified before the WC mentioned this incident other than Westbrook.

I believe that it was either Thomas Hutson or C.T. Walker who also commented that someone wsa telling Oz to let go of the gun, and he'd responded "I can't" or "I'm trying," like he was unable to let loose of it.

Duke - I don't think it makes sense that McD would attempt to pass off the idea that LHO threatened him with a gun and then not shoot him while the weapon was in his hand. In other words, it's very difficult to prove - or, really, even suggest - self-defense after you've disarmed the perp ... and McD did do just that and handed the gun off to someone else; the threat was neutralized, no good cause for shooting.

It would seem the much easier approach given those facts would have been simply to shoot him, turn around and get the gun from someone, put it in the dead guy's hand and then say "he tried to shoot me." No, I think McD was just another "poor dumb cop" if anything.

Greg - Simpler, but problematic given the number of potential witnesses. McDonald, imo, tried to shove the pistol into Oswald's wasteband when he claimed he was patting him down. Oswald then grabbed Mcdonald's hand and part of the gun - then in seconds, he was covered in cops with a shotgun aimed at him. This is when he started yelling that he wasn't resisting - which is probably what saved him (at least temporarily).

Interesting scenario. I'm guessing this will be in the installment about officers' testimonies about the goings-on at the theater?

Duke - Maybe so ... but don't you think that someone would have to have a grudge or something against him? I mean, you don't just go killing fellow officer

Greg - I don't think it was a fellow officer who did it.

Duke - You either have to really want the guy dead, or at the very least consider him the absolute pits as a cop. You also would have to think very little of his family or otherwise - as they say the Mob does - "set them up" financially afterward. They would probably have to accept the whole deal for it to be credible, no?

Greg - I'll expand for clarity. The DPD was virtually in the service of the extreme right - many cops were in fact members of r-w groups themselves. He was expendable to those who killed him.

So, who killed him?