Duke Lane

Elsewhere on this forum, under the "Curtain Rods" thread, Mark Carter posited that Michael and Ruth Paine were "high ranking members of the Communist Party" and that Ruth "framed" Lee Oswald by concocting an elaborate ruse involving the supposed bundle of curtain rods:

... My opinion is that the curtain rod story was a "frame job" created by Ruth Paine her best friend Randle and her younger brother Frazier!!! The curtain rods were supposed to be the rifle that Oswald used to shoot the President with. Michael and Ruth Paine were high ranking members of the Communist Party. So what I am asking here is why are there no connections between the Communist Party and the assassination ever mentioned in any of the books and documentaries about the assassination. In my new book I have uncovered hundreds of links between the JFK assassination and the Communist Party.

Some members met this pronouncement with incredulity, myself included. Greg Parker went a step farther to note that not only were the Paines not "high ranking members of the Communist Party," but moreover Ruth's estranged husband Michael leaned to the opposite extreme:

Michael Paine gave the game away on his own politics when he spouted JBS propaganda as fact before the commission. Apart from that, there's nary a tittle of evidence to suggest either were pro-Communist -- let alone high ranking members of the CPUSA.

This intrigued me, and lacking specifics (or a response to my query as to what "propaganda," exactly, Paine had espoused), I decided to read the testimony in whole to see what this was referring to. While I haven't had time to read through all of Paine's 80 pages of testimony (in three appearances), this is from his first:

Mr. Liebeler

. Are you a member or have you ever attended any meetings of the John Birch Society?

Mr. Paine

. I am not a member. I have been to one or, I guess chiefly one meeting of theirs. ...

Mr. Liebeler

. Would you tell us the circumstances of your attendance at that meeting and what happened?

Mr. Paine

.

I had been seeking to go to a Birch meeting for some time

, and then I was invited on this night [the night Stevenson spoke in Dallas,

op cit

] so I went. It was an introductory meeting. ...

Mr. Liebeler

. For the record I think the record should indicate that Mr. Stevenson was in Dallas on or about October 24, 1963. Who invited you to this meeting?

Mr. Paine

. I had tried once before to go to a meeting which didn't occur. There happens to be a member of our choir, a paid soloist who is a John Birch advocate so

I have been applying — so I have been telling her, that I wanted to go

. I suppose, I don't remember for certain but I suppose she was the one who told me where and when. ...

Mr. Liebeler

. May I ask, did you go out of curiosity rather than sympathy or rather how did you happen to go?

Mr. Paine

. I am not in sympathy. —

Mr. Dulles

. So I gathered.

Mr. Paine

. — I have

been to a number of rightist meetings and seminars in Texas

. I was interested in seeing more communication between the right and the left;

there isn't much liberal out there and so I wanted to be able to speak their language and know that their fears — and be familiar with their feelings and attitudes

. (

2H287-89

)

While there is a lot more to Paine's testimony than the handful of pages I've read so far, the picture that emerges thus far is that Michael was - or wished to portray himself as - a "student of political philosophies" who was "interested in seeing more communication between the right and the left," and who absorbed himself with the more "radical" elements of either side as if to be able to somehow facilitate that dialog.

His father, George Lyman Paine, according to the son, was himself apparently really a "high level" left-winger who took young Michael - at Michael's "considerable insistence" - to meetings of the various CPUSA factions in New York. Nobody, he said, attempted to recruit him to the cause, but they "were glad to meet Lyman's son." One might conjecture that nobody would have felt the need to "recruit" an "heir apparent" ... and if anyone was to have to "recruit" young Paine, it would be the elder who would do so.

According to some sources from the above Google link, the senior Paine was "was a founding member of the Johnson-Forest Tendency of the Socialist Workers Party" on the one hand, while on the other reportedly "went undercover as [a] communist" in partnership with one James Burnham (who himself reputedly "went on to teach the newly formed CIA about covert operations [and] to teach philosophy at Yale and recruit CIA agents from among his students") and "infiltrated the leadership of the American Trotskyist movement -- the world's largest Trotskyist organization — and helped tear it apart."

Michael, at age 34 in front of the Warren Commission, said that he had "very little specific knowledge about what [his father] does." Even as a youngster, he "had [his] own dreams of how [he] would like to see society at the time and it wasn't along-the same line" as the Trotskyists he was introduced to by his well-thought-of father. He did, however, at one point became a "member" of the ACLU - an organization decidedly not right-wing - but his support of the organization and its ideals were tepid at best: he supposed "you become a member as soon as you contribute money, and I may have contributed money a good many years back," but "I didn't start going to a meeting of the organization until I was — I have only been to about four perhaps, in Dallas, four meetings" (2H387).

Not exactly what you'd call an "activist" by any stretch of the imagination, hardly a devout follower, and really not much of a "member" at all when you get right down to it.

ACLU ... JBS ... CPUSA ... what exactly was Michael anyway, if he could be classified at all? Despite the appearance of frugalilty - not to necessarily say "poverty" - while his wife lived in a tiny Irving bungalow, and which he himself claimed as home in March 1964 (he lived in an apartment in Dallas during the year prior that he and Ruth were separated), Michael was a design engineer at Bell Helicopter in nearby Fort Worth (he said it was "difficult to say" if he had a security clearance for his job), not generally a meager profession, and especially in the times of and leading to Vietnam.

His profession aside, Michael Paine did not come from poor stock. According to a page on which Michael and Ruth are referred to as "a tiny footnote in history," Michael Paine was of a lineage that has more recently culminated with former Democratic Presidential candidate and Senator from Massachusetts John Forbes Kerry (another "JFK" from Massachusetts - how ironic!), but which also included the former president of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone company, the CEO of the shipping empire of William Russell (founder of Yale's Skull and Bones Society), a shipping captain who "played a prominent role in the outbreak of the Chinese Opium War," a railroad tycoon, and a wealthy US Governor General of the Phillipines (ref: Wikipedia, "The Forbes Family of China and Boston").

Michael's mother, the former Ruth Forbes, was the Governor General's niece. The elder Ruth was an artist and a great-grandaughter of the man who owned Walden Pond and who employed the writer Henry David Thoreau who made it famous, Ralph Waldo Emerson. She was also reputed to be a long-time friend of Mary Bancroft, Allen Dulles' wartime lover and his chief contact with one of the leaders of the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, according to JFK researcher Richard Bartholomew.

After being divorced from Lyman, Michael's mother married her third husband in 1948, philosopher and inventor Arthur Middleton Young, who has been called "the greatest theoretical genius since Einstein," and whose most prominent and lasting invention was the Bell helicopter. I think it's fair to say that it wasn't at any country "folk dance" that Michael's mother met "A.Y."

Thus, even while Young was no longer directly associated with Bell after 1953, it would nevertheless seem that Michael may not have been such an "ordinary" engineer after all, and that the good folks at Bell Textron were as happy to meet "the stepson of A.Y." as the Trotskyists were to meet "the son of Lyman." It is difficult to imagine that he was paid at a level to only be able to afford for his wife, a kindergarten teacher from whom he was estranged since September 1963, a mere thousand-square-foot tract home.

That home is valued at under $100,000 today, meaning that in the early '60s, the Paines probably bought it for well under $5000. Surely an engineer with a pedigree such as Michael's, working as a "favored" employee (as a step-son to the inventor of Bell's raison d'etre) and - supposedly, but also likely - with trust funds of his own supporting him probably could have much done better if he'd wanted to.

(For those ultra-conspiracists among us, it should be noted that an anagram of "Arthur M. Young" is "naughty rumor" ... which we all recognize as being those things that the Warren Commission sought hardest to quash, even while the rest of official Washington sought only to edify the man's creation!)

What is interesting to me is that Michael Paine's testimony seemed to hold its share of self-corrections, which one might almost preface with an "oops!" For example:

There happens to be a member of our choir, a paid soloist who is a John Birch advocate so I have been applying — [

oops!

] so I have been telling her,

that I wanted to go

.

... and later:

[T]here isn't much liberal out there [around Dallas] and so I wanted to be able to speak their language and know that their fears — [

oops!

] and

be familiar with their feelings and attitudes

"Oops," he didn't mean to say he'd been applying to become a Bircher, he merely "wanted to go" to a meeting out of mere curiosity, and "Oops," he wasn't trying to assimilate/ingratiate himself into the ACLU by learning to "speak their language," but merely wanted to "be familiar with their feelings and attitudes." One can only wonder where the comment about their "fears" was headed before he'd caught himself!

If I'm remembering correctly - I haven't finished reading his testimony yet - one of the four ACLU meetings he'd attended in Dallas is one that he went to in the company of Lee Oswald and (again, if memory serves) at his behest, not Oswald's.

While dad Lyman appeared to be one of the "higher-ups" in a Trotskyite movement, the claims of his having "infiltrated" and "tore apart" that would suggest that he was not necessarily what he appeared to be. As I recall from one of more of the "Lyman" Google links, he was also considered in the '50s to assist the CIA in some fashion, but the idea was rejected for unspecified reasons. He did, however, do something for the Company in the '60s. If that and his association with a man reputed to have trained CIA operatives are true, it would stand to reason that his "Communist" leanings were a mere facade.

Thus, even if Communism was, in fact, "a generational trend passed on to their children," it doesn't appear to be one that was necessarily "passed on" to young Michael ... if indeed such a "trend" existed in the first place (like bleached blond hair being a "dominant gene," eh?). Indeed, based on their lineage, it would seem that Messers Paine would more likely gravitate toward the conservative - that is "right" - spectrum than the liberal. Even if Lyman were a dyed-in-the-wool Trotskyite (a far cry from Marxist-Leninism), young Michael wouldn't be the first progeny to reject, even rebel against the politics of his forebear.

Bell Helicopter also doesn't seem like the kind of place to harbor Commies either, especially in its design engineering departments, security clearance or not. ("Now, Michael, remember to promise that you won't give these plans to anyone with a funny accent, okay?")

Even if Michael and Ruth were "card-carrying" Commies, about all that that might prove is that they were FBI informants since without FBI "infiltrators'" dues, chances are that there'd be no "Communist Party" in the USA! I don't have the reference at hand, but it strikes me that there were literally hundreds around the country who were true "threats" compared with many hundreds more who wore a badge when they weren't at a "party" meeting!

Without delving too far into how "convenient" it would be to have the "patsy" and his Soviet wife in the care and custody of a pair of right-wingers cum "liberals," it makes entirely much more sense - as perhaps betrayed by Michael Paine's words about "applying" to the JBS and his purported espousal of their "propaganda" as "fact before the Commission" - that the Paines were much more comfortable than they portrayed during that time period, and that they were much more likely conservatives than "high-ranking members" of the left-wing Communist Party.

Sorry Duke, didn't see your request.

What I was referring to was this part of his testimony:

Mr. LIEBELER - Did you ever join any of these organizations?

Mr. PAINE - Well, I didn't know of any organization as such.

I went to this meeting in downtown New York. I didn't know--so therefore I knew three groups. Maybe it was the Socialist group and the Stalinist group and I think the group that Lyman was in, I don't know, maybe he was a Socialist.

Mr. LIEBELER - Which was the second group, was it the Stalinist?

Mr. PAINE -

I mentioned the Stalinist, Dubinsky, David Dubinsky

, was the only name I remember aside from Stalin, was a name I remember there, and I can't now remember whose side who was on.

The only way anyone could call Dubinsky a Stalinist would be by believing Bircher propaganda. Dubinsky was in the CIA's pocket as part of the use of labor in anti-Communist projects. Bircher's were the only ones to ever call him a "Stalinist".

With regard to MP attending meetings of right wing groups... this activity started just after his split with Ruth in '62 when he attended a NIC meeting. This was also about the time Larrie Schmidt was trying to infiltrate that particular group (see CE 1036 letter from Schmidt to Jones dated Nov 2, 1962).

Mr. PAINE - No; I have never seen General Walker that I can recall.

Mr. LIEBELER - You have never seen Walker?

Mr. PAINE - Unless he was--in a year previous to that I had been to the Indignation Committee meeting--no-- that is the answer to your previous question.

That said, MP was deposed in March 1964 or thereabouts. It does seem to be an odd detail to remember if that was the source. If you pick apart what he was saying in context - and without taking the time to read the rest of his testimony right now surrounding it - he "knew of three groups" apparently in New York. They were all Communist groups of one ilk or another. He remembers one "benefactor" as being Stalin, and may seem to recall Dubinsky being a benefactor of another?

Or perhaps it's just a case of bad punctuation? Remember: this "written record" is not a record of what people wrote, but of what they said as taken down by a court reporter. We don't add punctuation to our spoken words, and even people who write often, even professionally (like court reporters), don't always use it correctly. A comma, a period, an em dash, ellipses ... they all denote pauses of (perhaps) different lengths, so who's to say what should have been in the sentence above if the reporter used incorrect punctuation. A comma, as used in the written record, would indicate only a brief pause ... but was it?

So another interpretation might be that since he did not ever "mention" Dubinsky elsewhere in his testimony (tho' he could have been referring to preliminary discussions off the record), he could have been speaking more like this:

You've done it yourself sometime in your life: talking about one thing when something else you'd couldn't remember popped into your head. "I mentioned the Dallas cops - Lane. Duke Lane, the guy I remember besides Tippit...." Did you just say that I was a Dallas cop? It could be read that way.

I think it's fair to say that he qualifies the fact that he's not calling Dubinsky a Stalinist, per se, since he does remark that "I can't now remember whose side who was on."

interesting and detailed. Can't add much of substance except to the speculative portion. While things do pass on in generations, often it is the opposites to some extent that is passed on, i.e., a conservative father may in a questioning son produce a mind open to the more radical and vice versa. ... [He was at an] age and responsibility level he is at he is probably already set in his basic ideas, and wanted ... to compare and orient himself in relation to other views.

Further curiousity/speculation: if kids often feel compelled to veer to the opposite direction of Mom and Pop, what of when Pop ain't what he seems to be? While Lyman was "big" in Trotskyite circles - but not a Marxist-Leninist (sound familiar?) - and his public persona fit that, would he have been the same in private, "compelling" his son to veer to the right ... in the same "direction" as dear old dad, but unbeknownst to the kid?

... Ronald Reagan was [an FBI informant] for example, and a supporter of JBS ....

I thought it was interesting in reading the testimony of Mike's pal Frank Krystinik that the two overlapped somewhat in that Paine had mentioned that he had been to just one JBS meeting, which happened to be the night of the "Stevenson incident" (which, incidentally, Larrie Schmidt of Conservatism USA - Bernie Weissman's group, as it were - was quite proud of: see CE1032 et seq.), thus "distancing" Paine from that little demonstration ... while Krystinik mentioned that he'd spoken with Oswald after the ACLU meeting (he was predisposed from talking with MP toward not liking LHO) and that Oswald had mentioned having been at a JBS meeting "the night before" the Stevenson incident.

Thus it would appear that, in addition to bringing LHO to an ACLU meeting, MP also brought him to a meeting of the JBS, something he doesn't mention in his own testimony. Paine's stated rationale for getting involved with LHO in this arena (bringing him to meetings) was to broaden Oswald's horizons, expose him to additional political thought ... but it nevertheless seems odd that he would go to a JBS "recruiting" meeting (that he told the WC about) on the very night of a JBS "party," but not mention his bringing LHO along for the ride.

Krystinik said that the meeting was "the night before" the Stevenson deal, which actually makes better sense when you consider that it is usually the dyed-in-the-wool types of any organization - Moose, Masons, Elks, VFW, etc. - who conduct "recruitment" or "indoctrination" meetings. It would thus seem that they, perhaps more than any other Birchers, would want to be at the Stevenson protest rather than away from it ... unless it came up suddenly and they couldn't rearrange already-laid plans. There would also be the advantage of being able to add new recruits to the demonstration the next night, which they clearly couldn't do if both events were on the same night.

That MP shied away from admitting that LHO had gone with him to the (only?) JBS meeting that he went to also suggests that MP would want to distance himself from the spitting by saying he "couldn't possibly have been there" because he was at another meeting across town. His skirting the one issue puts the other under suspicion.

Duke,

01:20 - gunman turns onto Jefferson Blvd.

What do you make of the "six or seven witnesses" who claimed that Oswald ran up the alley, and not Jefferson? Depending on the time and the location of the officer and witnesses, some people saw a suspect running down Jefferson. and some people saw a suspect running down the alley between 10th and Jefferson. Is it possible that they were witnessing two different individuals? You can follow the progress of the suspect as he heads west on Jefferson from Patton St. up until about 1:32PM, and then everything seems to change.

1:19PM

The Dispatcher tell Unit 85 (Patrolman R.W. Walker)

Suspect running west on Jefferson from the location.

85: 10-4.

and more of the same...

On November 22nd, patrolman J.M. Poe arrived at work to patrol his normal patrol region of the western part of the downtown area. (WC vol. VII, pp. 66+). When the call came over the radio that the President had been shot, he reported to the scene of the crime. While he was guarding the building with his partner, L.E. Jez, a call came over the radio that Officer Tippit had been shot. He responded to 10th and Patton, where he wound up interviewing Helen Markham.

Later in the day, he reported to Chief Curry what he had done that day. (Dallas Police Archives, Box 7 Folder # 5, Item # 8). In his official report, Poe wrote that:

"We were met by a white female who identified herself as being Helen Marsalle, 328 E. 9th St., who stated she witnessed the shooting of the officer... "There were approximately six to eight witnesses, all telling officers that the subject was running west in the alley between tenth and Jefferson Streets"

Later in the day, Poe filed a Supplementary Offense report (Box 7, Folder # 2, Item # 37). Here he wrote:

"We were met by a white woman who identified herself as being Helen Marsille of 329 E. 9th Street who stated that she witnessed the shooting of the officer... 6 or 7 witnesses said that the suspect was running east in the alley that was between Tenth and Jefferson".

Steve Thomas

We do know that Poe was at 10th and Patton with Helen Markham (and a cigarette cellophane containing ".38 automatic rather than pistol" shells!) as opposed to wandering around the neighborhood as, say, Jerry Hill was. If he went poking around, it's news to me ... or maybe I've just forgotten, but I don't think he did.

That said, Poe's witnesses - however many there were - probably were at the same location if he heard anything that they said, directly to him, among themselves, or otherwise. Without an identification of who these "six to eight" or "six or seven" people are, it's hard to qualify their statements beyond general observation.

... And that general observation is that enough people saw him go at least to Patton & Jefferson and thence west to prove that the shooter didn't take the alley from Patton to points west ... although it is clearly possible that he went in the alley AFTER he went behind Bellew's Texaco at Jefferson & Crawford (although I have different hypothesis entirely).

If those witnesses saw him in that portion of the alley, west of Crawford, then it would be interesting to know who they were. They were not the Brocks at the Texaco, who didn't say that they had any customers in the shop at the time, and it wasn't anybody in the Abundant Life Tabernacle, at least not per Jerry Hill, the only one who made even a perfunctory "search" of the place (and given its size, it's pretty amazing it didn't attract more than just his attention! See this tour for a photo).

Otherwise ...? Yes, it is possible that they may have witnessed two different men in the alleyway ... which goes several blocks east of Patton, and two or three blocks west, all the while being "between Jefferson and Tenth," so where they saw him east or west of Patton matters, too.

... Which is the long-winded version of saying "I don't have an opinion" I guess!!

I have lived in Dallas my entire life, and yet I am not familiar with the location of the 'other warehouse that Ruth Paine references, in her WC Testimony and in her recollections in other media. Does anyone have an address for the Texas Schoolbook Depository Warehouse, (not the one) on Elm St. Was it on Harry Hines Blvd.?

Robert, it's not there anymore, but the warehouse was located at 1917 N Houston. See CE1381 among other references. It was only about a block away (if that) since, in 1963 and until construction had been completed on Houston Street in 1964, Houston curved into Ross beginning at Pacific, which is the street one block north of Elm (Ross is two streets north).

There was (is?) a building north on Central Expressway, I think, on the west side of the highway where you could (can?) clearly read "Texas Schoolbook Depository" as you travel. I haven't seen it in a while, so couldn't tell you if it's there still. At least, that's where I recall it having been.

Thanks for the information, one can get lost in the WC Hearings and Exhibit's, it's hard to know every nook and cranny. BTW, I have been looking through the 1444 documents, would you happen to know if the Waggoner Carr Collection contains any corresponding info on the 'Oswald Phone Call's matter,?' I've read Walt Brown's article in the April 2006 DPQ and feel he brings up some interesting points.

My observation was based on a WC document (introduced in Worrell's testimony, I forget the number, but maybe 369 or something like that?) that shows Ross curving into Houston and joining it at what might be called a "K" intersection at Pacific with Houston continuing north; a 1962 and 1967 Dallas Transit Company map showing the curve, but Houston NOT continuing north (just merging with Ross and turning east); and a 1963 Mapsco that shows Houston going north to intersect at right angles with Ross a block north of Pacific and continuing on to McKinney Ave, pretty much as it all does today. The latter two I obtained recently at the downtown main Dallas Library. I have no way of knowing with certainty which is correct since I didn't get here until the late '80s.

I have lived in Dallas my entire life, and yet I am not familiar with the location of the 'other warehouse that Ruth Paine references, in her WC Testimony and in her recollections in other media. Does anyone have an address for the Texas Schoolbook Depository Warehouse, (not the one) on Elm St. Was it on Harry Hines Blvd.?

There was (is?) a building north on Central Expressway, I think, on the west side of the highway where you could (can?) clearly read "Texas Schoolbook Depository" as you travel. I haven't seen it in a while, so couldn't tell you if it's there still. At least, that's where I recall it having been.

There is apparently no dissent that the limo braked on Elm St just prior to the last shot(s) that killed JFK before entering the Triple Underpass. Likewise, it is clear that by the time the motorcade entered the Stemmons Freeway entrance ramp, the limo had passed Chief Curry's lead car, which then in turn passed the limo to lead the way to Parkland.

This suggests that the lead car had also slowed down, or at least had not continued ahead at the same speed as it had previously been moving, otherwise it would seem as if it would have or should have been a longer distance ahead of the limo as the cars emerged from under the bridge.

Walt Brown makes much ado about this in his book The Warren Omission, but doesn't seem to ask the question whether the lead car might have slowed down because they noticed the limo lagging farther behind than it had been before it had braked, or if the limo braked in response to the lead car having braked first.

Offhand, the fact that Sheriff Decker called in to have his officers get over to the railroad tracks suggests that the lead car hadn't found itself suddenly far ahead of the limo since Decker was apparently still in Dealey Plaza, if not when he made the radio call, at least when he heard the (final?) shot(s) that killed Kennedy.

Alternatively, I've also read elsewhere on this forum (a post by Al Carrier, I think?) that USSS protocol was for the driver to keep his left foot on the brake pedal to be able to brake in emergencies ... so that when Greer turned around to his right at the time of the fatal shot(s), his left foot naturally depressed the brake pedal.

Never having before noticed anyone question this particular aspect, I wondered if in fact there is any evidence that shows the lead car's brake lights on as well, and if so, did they come on before or after the limo's? Or is it more likely that the second (Carrier) explanation is the correct one?

Just curious ....

The official time of 1:15 for the shooting of J.D. Tippit is an estimation based on a reconstruction of Oswald’s movements after the assassination. The timeline is exceptionally tight. If the shooting occurred earlier, then another culprit was involved. Presented below is evidence that the true time was 1:00 - a full fifteen minutes earlier than the official time.

His death certificate gives Tippit's time of death, after being picked up and delivered by ambulance to the hospital, as having been pronounced at : 1:15 P.M. I think the document speaks for itself.

Chuck

According to the Warren Commission, at 1:15 Tippit is driving slowly in an Easterly direction on East 10th St. in Oak Cliff. It is alleged that his body is collected by an ambulance from Dudley Hughes Funeral Home at 1:19.

Another factor not documented by anyone is the haste in which everyone acted, with the singular exception of the one man who actually looked at his watch, who had been caught in a strange time warp. If the shooting took place at zero minutes, zero seconds (00:00), then:

Benavides was a bit shy about admitting how he'd been sitting on Bowley's lap as if Bowley wasn't there, and it took Bowley more than a week to get over having Donnie on his lap by which time he'd forgotten that detail and did not mention it in his affidavit. That happens when you'rrrrrrrrrrrre mmmmmmmooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvingggggggggggggggggggg ssssssssslllllllllllllllllllooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww lllllllllliiiiiiiiiiikkkkkkkkke tttthhhhhhaaaaaaaaaattttt. (Ref: Star Trek #183)

With no strain noted in the voice on the radio and that all of the above events having occured as fast or faster than estimated, it is then possible to conclude that it was Donnie Benavides who made the transmission within a minute of the shooting.

Something else to consider: if you can manage to get ten people to stand near you at any given time (try this, it is a real experiment!!), ask each of them to "mark" the time on their watches and to tell you what it read at the moment you said "now."

If, in the age of quartz and satellite-coordinated watches, any of them differ by more than 30 seconds from yours, ask them when the last time they set their watch to a standardized (atomic) clock or time-of-day service was.

If any differ by more than one minute, ask them when the last time that their watch stopped was, and if it was because they hadn't wound it.

If nobody has a wind-up watch and any time is different by more than 90 seconds, consider what it must have been like when people did have to wind their watches, when watches actually stopped as often as once a month or more frequently, and when they couldn't set their watch by the clock in the corner of their computer screen even if they don't ping an atomic clock once a week. When the word "ping" didn't even exist and a computer had vacuum tubes that filled a very cold room.

Then ask yourself it if makes one good gosh-darn what anyone's "professional qualifications" were when determining how "reliable" they were when they told someone what time it was. They were only as reliable as their watches ... which probably weren't all that terribly accurate!

Someday, I'll have to post why the time on Bowley's watch doesn't mean much either....

See also the topic "A Paine on the 'Right' Side" elsewhere on this forum.

Elsewhere on this forum, under the "Curtain Rods" thread, Mark Carter posited that Michael and Ruth Paine were "high ranking members of the Communist Party" and that Ruth "framed" Lee Oswald by concocting an elaborate ruse involving the supposed bundle of curtain rods:

... My opinion is that the curtain rod story was a "frame job" created by Ruth Paine her best friend Randle and her younger brother Frazier!!! The curtain rods were supposed to be the rifle that Oswald used to shoot the President with. Michael and Ruth Paine were high ranking members of the Communist Party. So what I am asking here is why are there no connections between the Communist Party and the assassination ever mentioned in any of the books and documentaries about the assassination. In my new book I have uncovered hundreds of links between the JFK assassination and the Communist Party.

Michael Paine gave the game away on his own politics when he spouted JBS propaganda as fact before the commission. Apart from that, there's nary a tittle of evidence to suggest either were pro-Communist -- let alone high ranking members of the CPUSA.

While there is a lot more to Paine's testimony than the handful of pages I've read so far, the picture that emerges thus far is that Michael was - or wished to portray himself as - a "student of political philosophies" who was "interested in seeing more communication between the right and the left," and who absorbed himself with the more "radical" elements of either side as if to be able to somehow facilitate that dialog.

His father, George Lyman Paine, according to the son, was himself apparently really a "high level" left-winger who took young Michael - at Michael's "considerable insistence" - to meetings of the various CPUSA factions in New York. Nobody, he said, attempted to recruit him to the cause, but they "were glad to meet Lyman's son." One might conjecture that nobody would have felt the need to "recruit" an "heir apparent" ... and if anyone was to have to "recruit" young Paine, it would be the elder who would do so.

According to some sources from the above Google link, the senior Paine was "was a founding member of the Johnson-Forest Tendency of the Socialist Workers Party" on the one hand, while on the other reportedly "went undercover as [a] communist" in partnership with one James Burnham (who himself reputedly "went on to teach the newly formed CIA about covert operations [and] to teach philosophy at Yale and recruit CIA agents from among his students") and "infiltrated the leadership of the American Trotskyist movement -- the world's largest Trotskyist organization — and helped tear it apart."

Michael, at age 34 in front of the Warren Commission, said that he had "very little specific knowledge about what [his father] does." Even as a youngster, he "had [his] own dreams of how [he] would like to see society at the time and it wasn't along-the same line" as the Trotskyists he was introduced to by his well-thought-of father. He did, however, at one point became a "member" of the ACLU - an organization decidedly not right-wing - but his support of the organization and its ideals were tepid at best: he supposed "you become a member as soon as you contribute money, and I may have contributed money a good many years back," but "I didn't start going to a meeting of the organization until I was — I have only been to about four perhaps, in Dallas, four meetings" (2H387).

Not exactly what you'd call an "activist" by any stretch of the imagination, hardly a devout follower, and really not much of a "member" at all when you get right down to it.

ACLU ... JBS ... CPUSA ... what exactly was Michael anyway, if he could be classified at all? Despite the appearance of frugalilty - not to necessarily say "poverty" - while his wife lived in a tiny Irving bungalow, and which he himself claimed as home in March 1964 (he lived in an apartment in Dallas during the year prior that he and Ruth were separated), Michael was a design engineer at Bell Helicopter in nearby Fort Worth (he said it was "difficult to say" if he had a security clearance for his job), not generally a meager profession, and especially in the times of and leading to Vietnam.

His profession aside, Michael Paine did not come from poor stock. According to a page on which Michael and Ruth are referred to as "a tiny footnote in history," Michael Paine was of a lineage that has more recently culminated with former Democratic Presidential candidate and Senator from Massachusetts John Forbes Kerry (another "JFK" from Massachusetts - how ironic!), but which also included the former president of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone company, the CEO of the shipping empire of William Russell (founder of Yale's Skull and Bones Society), a shipping captain who "played a prominent role in the outbreak of the Chinese Opium War," a railroad tycoon, and a wealthy US Governor General of the Phillipines (ref: Wikipedia, "The Forbes Family of China and Boston").

Michael's mother, the former Ruth Forbes, was the Governor General's niece. The elder Ruth was an artist and a great-grandaughter of the man who owned Walden Pond and who employed the writer Henry David Thoreau who made it famous, Ralph Waldo Emerson. She was also reputed to be a long-time friend of Mary Bancroft, Allen Dulles' wartime lover and his chief contact with one of the leaders of the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, according to JFK researcher Richard Bartholomew.

After being divorced from Lyman, Michael's mother married her third husband in 1948, philosopher and inventor Arthur Middleton Young, who has been called "the greatest theoretical genius since Einstein," and whose most prominent and lasting invention was the Bell helicopter. I think it's fair to say that it wasn't at any country "folk dance" that Michael's mother met "A.Y."

Thus, even while Young was no longer directly associated with Bell after 1953, it would nevertheless seem that Michael may not have been such an "ordinary" engineer after all, and that the good folks at Bell Textron were as happy to meet "the stepson of A.Y." as the Trotskyists were to meet "the son of Lyman." It is difficult to imagine that he was paid at a level to only be able to afford for his wife, a kindergarten teacher from whom he was estranged since September 1963, a mere thousand-square-foot tract home.

That home is valued at under $100,000 today, meaning that in the early '60s, the Paines probably bought it for well under $5000. Surely an engineer with a pedigree such as Michael's, working as a "favored" employee (as a step-son to the inventor of Bell's raison d'etre) and - supposedly, but also likely - with trust funds of his own supporting him probably could have much done better if he'd wanted to.

(For those ultra-conspiracists among us, it should be noted that an anagram of "Arthur M. Young" is "naughty rumor" ... which we all recognize as being those things that the Warren Commission sought hardest to quash, even while the rest of official Washington sought only to edify the man's creation!)

What is interesting to me is that Michael Paine's testimony seemed to hold its share of self-corrections, which one might almost preface with an "oops!" For example:

... and later:

"Oops," he didn't mean to say he'd been applying to become a Bircher, he merely "wanted to go" to a meeting out of mere curiosity, and "Oops," he wasn't trying to assimilate/ingratiate himself into the ACLU by learning to "speak their language," but merely wanted to "be familiar with their feelings and attitudes." One can only wonder where the comment about their "fears" was headed before he'd caught himself!

If I'm remembering correctly - I haven't finished reading his testimony yet - one of the four ACLU meetings he'd attended in Dallas is one that he went to in the company of Lee Oswald and (again, if memory serves) at his behest, not Oswald's.

While dad Lyman appeared to be one of the "higher-ups" in a Trotskyite movement, the claims of his having "infiltrated" and "tore apart" that would suggest that he was not necessarily what he appeared to be. As I recall from one of more of the "Lyman" Google links, he was also considered in the '50s to assist the CIA in some fashion, but the idea was rejected for unspecified reasons. He did, however, do something for the Company in the '60s. If that and his association with a man reputed to have trained CIA operatives are true, it would stand to reason that his "Communist" leanings were a mere facade.

Thus, even if Communism was, in fact, "a generational trend passed on to their children," it doesn't appear to be one that was necessarily "passed on" to young Michael ... if indeed such a "trend" existed in the first place (like bleached blond hair being a "dominant gene," eh?). Indeed, based on their lineage, it would seem that Messers Paine would more likely gravitate toward the conservative - that is "right" - spectrum than the liberal. Even if Lyman were a dyed-in-the-wool Trotskyite (a far cry from Marxist-Leninism), young Michael wouldn't be the first progeny to reject, even rebel against the politics of his forebear.

Bell Helicopter also doesn't seem like the kind of place to harbor Commies either, especially in its design engineering departments, security clearance or not. ("Now, Michael, remember to promise that you won't give these plans to anyone with a funny accent, okay?")

Even if Michael and Ruth were "card-carrying" Commies, about all that that might prove is that they were FBI informants since without FBI "infiltrators'" dues, chances are that there'd be no "Communist Party" in the USA! I don't have the reference at hand, but it strikes me that there were literally hundreds around the country who were true "threats" compared with many hundreds more who wore a badge when they weren't at a "party" meeting!

Without delving too far into how "convenient" it would be to have the "patsy" and his Soviet wife in the care and custody of a pair of right-wingers cum "liberals," it makes entirely much more sense - as perhaps betrayed by Michael Paine's words about "applying" to the JBS and his purported espousal of their "propaganda" as "fact before the Commission" - that the Paines were much more comfortable than they portrayed during that time period, and that they were much more likely conservatives than "high-ranking members" of the left-wing Communist Party.

So let's see if I have this right. ... "Aha," proclaimed White, "I've finally proven that the Zapruder film is faked!" ... So now White is claiming that not the Zapruder film but the Moorman film has been faked.

It is, I think, an example of what was meant when they said that "the physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient!"

The Polaroid 5 print taken by Mary Moorman cannot be genuine because the retouchers who added (or altered) the two "people" on the pedestal made a major mistake by LEAVING OUT FOUR WINDOW OPENINGS which should be in the photo. The attached study would stand up in any court in the land as proof that the extant photo has been tampered with, and thus is worthless as evidence. Unfortunately, this might also negate its importance in showing the badgeman figure and other things. Who did the tampering and why is unknown. Apparently it was done in connection with Zapruder and Sitzman alleged to have been on the pedestal.

Jack

Why do professional historians avoid the JFK case like the vampire avoids holy water? I am sure there are a congeries of reasons for this neglect. ... I think there has been a cloud over this subject in academia largely because the "Who Killed JFK" seems to attract all kinds of people who think that history is all conspiracy.

I don't subscribe to this view at all. I am convinced that, in time, professional historians, political scientists, and others with a serious interest in the history of this poor perishing republic will be forced one day to come to terms with Dallas. This is, to my mind, the beginning of America's slipping into the Dark Ages and if we want to make some sense about what brought about this decline and fall we will have to face up to the forces and motives responsible for the murder of JFK. ....

Take, for example, the television show '24' in which the current POTUS has apprently been complicit in several activities that could have had - and in some cases, such as the assassination of his predecessor, actually did have - dire consequences for the nation. Clearly, he doesn't want his involvement in these things known, and, while admitting to "mistakes," defends against disclosure of these incidents because "it would cause people to lose faith in their government" and undermine if not destroy its very legitimacy.

For that reason alone, the truth will officially be denied and obfuscated at least for our lifetimes. Regardless of who killed Kennedy or who was behind it or why it was done, quite simply it was the government - through a commission appointed by, reporting to and, when all was said and done, endorsed by its chief executive - that prosecuted, promulgated and propagated what is surely the world's most expensive work of fiction.

The government - together with our "fourth estate" - that has steadfastly and emphatically denied any other possibility than the lone-Oswald theory for forty-plus years can scarcely afford to tell the world that, "heh-heh, we were only kidding" about its investigation into and solution of the murder of its own chief of state. Every word spoken in support of the Warren Report only cements their inability to ever extract themselves from the morass.

Everyone may know that the emperor is naked, but only a few have the nerve - or little enough to lose - to fail to admire his new clothes. Besides, why belabor the obvious? And so I think it is with historians as well as lawyers: if you know you can't win the argument, at least have the good grace not to start it. Your work will not only go unheralded (no matter how true it may be), but you will be ridiculed by those who have no choice but to perpetuate the lie they'd foisted on you, if only to maintain their own credibility and seeming integrity, without which they could not survive.

In 1963, close on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis (and the "accession to Communist demands" with the ceding of missile sites in Turkey - which is, after all, what we objected to, "guns" aimed so close to our own heads), in the midst of the Cold War and the Red Scare, not long after the witch hunt that was the McCarthy era (a good idea gone wrong?), there seems little doubt that many people considered JFK to be a real threat to the national security who unfortunately - and misguidedly - enjoyed the support of a majority of the American people because of his youth and charisma. If Truman and Eisenhower were "witting tools of the Communist conspiracy," what could the perception of people who believed that have been of Kennedy?

You can also toss in the "Negro situation," the imbroglio over steel prices and oil depletion allowances, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs and myriad other misguided, "unamerican" programs and initiatives represented by JFK, and you have a sure recipe for "disaster" - after all, people (and especially institutions) do not like change - and a wider spread of support for removing the "threat" by whatever means available. God knows, we could not have depended upon the American people - the "average Joe" does not know what's good for him - to have done so at the polls in 1964, so a more dependable solution had to be found to ensure that the country would continue on the "right" course.

In 1963, it was "good for the country." If later it was a "mistake," it was nevertheless done, and no "good" could have come out - or could still come out of - admitting the error: we cannot and we will not. When a government admits its wrongs, its effects are far-reaching. Consider why nations don't often "apologize" when they can instead "regret" incidents, or why the Catholic Church - a nation-state itself - does not apologize for or admit to to the things it's done that seem glaring errors (to be generous) now, but may not have been at the time they were committed (the Inquisition being a good example, as might be the Pope's acquiescence to - if not downright collaboration with - Nazi Germany).

The historian must recognize this historical fact, replete with vast precedent, and in recognizing it for what it is, cannot sensibly refute the "official truth" because it would mean that he's learned nothing from his profession and therefore loses credibility - not only for being a "conspiracy theorist," but for attempting to buck the system that cannot be bucked.

Actually, it's sort of difficult to get past Manchester's contradiction in terms:

This is what William Manchester had to say about the response of the SS agents in Dallas in The Death of a President (1967):

... It was even fathomable that Patrolman James M. Chaney, mounted on a motorcycle six feet from the Lincoln, should think that another machine had backfired. Chaney was an ordinary policeman, not a Presidential bodyguard. [T]he White House Detail['s] ... experience in outdoor shooting was limited to two qualification courses a year on a range in Washington's National Arboretum. There they heard only their own weapons, and they were unaccustomed to the bizarre effects that are created when small-arms fire echoes among unfamiliar structures - in this case, the buildings of Dealey Plaza. ... They were supposed to be picked men, honed to a matchless edge.

But, then, that's Manchester (and a host of others) for ya!

There is an expression to the effect that someone who falls for something is "drinking the Kool-Aid." I think this may have originated with the story, whether it's true or not, that Jim Jones used Kool-Aid to poison his followers at Jonestown.

... Michael Paine gave the game away on his own politics when he spouted JBS propaganda as fact before the commission. ....

That's an interesting proposition, as I often think of Michael Paine in the role of Lee's "ACLU sponsor," as in "let's go to a meeting, Lee," quite the opposite of "spouting JBS propaganda as fact."

Paine as right-winger would actually make a lot of sense in myriad ways. As in "welcome to my house, let me help get you set up?"

See also the topic "A Paine on the 'Right' Side" elsewhere on this forum.

Duke:

Jack Dougherty also testified to the fact that going to the men's room was the first thing that LHO did as he came in the door that morning.

That may be in one of his statements -- I haven't checked, but I cannot find it anywhere in his WC testimony.

What he did testify to was that he only caught a glimple of Oswald as he entered. If it was just a glimpse, I see no reason to label him a xxxx for saying he didn't see anything being carried.

I believe he was carrying his lunch as he (is alleged to have) told Fritz. By odd coincidence, Frazier described his lunch as being exactly the same as what Oswald claimed he himself had. Pity no one could corroborate Frazier here as -- for the first time -- he ate alone in the basement that day.

This would mean a) Frazier did see Oswald with a bag - perhaps an oversized one for a lunch bag - but that's what it was Dougherty missed seeing it in his glance at Oswald c) Frazier was pressured to lie about his lunch and it's contents by saying it was his - presumably in case someone remembered seeing it in the Domino room where it was left d) his testimony re the size of Oswald's bag was to the best of his memory and e) he either did misremember what Oswald said was in it, or was also pressured to say he was told it was curtain rods, but not about the size of the bag - this aspect being less important as they could always claim he was mistaken about that.

I'm not labelling Dougherty a xxxx over his "glimpse" statement. I am, however, suggesting that he's a character who perhaps bears a tad more scrutiny than he's gotten, and that given much of what he said he did that Friday afternoon, the "glimpse" statement could well be a lie.

You do realize, don't you, that Jack Dougherty is the only male TSBD employee who was on-site at lunchtime (and killing-time) whose actions and whereabouts were not corroborated by anyone until more than five minutes after the shooting although they should have been able to be? (Oswald's supposed whereabouts, while likewise not corroborated, were not such that anyone else necessarily "should have" seen him.)

You note about Frazier that it was "for the first time" that he'd eaten lunch alone in the basement that day ... but he did end up out front at shooting-time with Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady. Also "for the first time" that day, Jack Dougherty didn't take his entire lunch break and instead went back to work on the fifth and sixth floors after a quick bite in the first-floor domino room ... and he didn't eventually end up anywhere around anyone else ... or at least not anyone who thought to mention him.

The "quick bite" is only according to Junior Jarman, who also did not see Jack on the fifth floor by the elevators or even testify to having heard him - or anyone else at all other than the two boys he was with in the windows, who also did not see or hear Jack or Lee or anyone else - on the fifth or sixth floor. This despite the "fact" that it was "so quiet" that they "heard" empty shells hit the floor above them.

Bonnie Ray Williams also did not see Jack while they were both on the sixth floor, nor did he see Jack on the way down to the fifth floor or when he arrived there. Neither of the other two boys saw him when they arrived on the fifth floor either ... yet he was there(?).

Or maybe they did see Jack and felt that it was more prudent to deny it.

It was Jack who rode the elevators up and who was the only person who'd been in a position to ensure that the freight elevator could not be called down by someone else by leaving the gate open, and it was he who rode the elevator down from the fifth floor while Baker and Truly were running up the stairs to the fifth floor after encountering Oswald on the second.

According to Truly, the elevators were both on the fifth floor when they began their trek upstairs from the ground floor, and neither was available from the second floor either after the lunchroom encounter. When they arrived at the fifth floor, one elevator had gone down - "presumably" taken by Jack, said Truly - and he and Baker then took the other (passenger) elevator to the top.

If the "Lee Harvey Oswald was a loser who sought fame by killing someone rich and powerful" supposed motive has any credence whatsoever, then such a motive applied manifold to Jack Dougherty, who served only a matter of months in the US Midwest pulling guard duty during WWII when every other able-bodied male his age was off getting shot and killed, in for the duration while Jack was given a medical discharge for problems that he clearly did not perceive - even as late as 1964 - that he had.

On the second pages of the two interviews he gave to the FBI prior to his WC testimony was noted the following, as addenda to the interview reports referenced:

In his testimony, he denied both a problem with his speech and any sort of medical issues while he was in the military. (That Jack's father also happened to be able to be at his side when he was interviewed on the afternoon of the shooting is another of those interesting sidebars to the story.)

Jack - who was "borderline retarded" according to some descriptions, and at 40 years old still lived at home with mommy and daddy (a fact not lost upon other TSBD employees, especially younger ones) - was a "special" employee of the TSBD company who arrived at work and entered the building an hour earlier than everyone else - including Troy West, it may be noted here - so that he could "check for leaks" in the pipes and problems with water pressure before everyone else arrived.

Jack's apparent initiative did not escape Roy Truly's notice either ... at least not after the assassination.

What other opportunities that those "extra duties" may have afforded him is certainly open to speculation ... but could clearly have encompassed both paper and tape among other large and bulky items.

The point to this exercise? Simply to emphasize that just because Jack said he saw Lee and that he didn't see anything in Lee's hands is no reason to believe either statement. If there's anything else, well, I guess those are some pretty large lines to read between, eh?

Mark...you have the story mostly correct.

I think if you check, you will find that there was a slight mist that morning and that LHO hurried a few yards ahead of Frazier. Their parking place was about three blocks to the north, in an area of railroad tracks, and

I recall Frazier saying that he lingered to watch a locomotive switching some boxcars, and Oswald got far ahead of him, and entered the TSBD first. This is strictly from memory.

Jack

Above I was stating ONLY that "Mark" related the OFFICIAL STORY of the CURTAIN RODS accurately. I was not commenting on other aspects of his posting, such as his suspicion of a "communist" connection or that the Paines were communists. THAT COMMENT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CURTAIN ROD STORY!

I was pointing out that any testimony that Frazier and LHO ENTERED the TSBD TOGETHER WAS FALSE. Frazier lingered far behind while watching a switch engine move a train. Oswald was seen entering the building ALONE and NOT CARRYING A PACKAGE. The curtain rod story was a fabrication BECAUSE THE PLOTTERS NEEDED A WAY THAT THE MC RIFLE GOT INTO THE BUILDING.

Some are not interested in comprehending what is written, but only in making scurrilous personal attacks. Pity.

Jack

"Cars" might be railroad cars, or they might be cars that he could see on the Stemmons Freeway. Either way, he only "glanced up" at them; it was not how he was passing the time.

Frazier did not "linger far behind while watching a switch engine move a train" (my, how we can add details that aren't in evidence, eh?). He did say that he "usually" liked to do that, but he stated under oath that he was a mere 50 feet behind Oswald when Oswald entered the TSBD:

Despite all the extraneous verbiage in his account, Frazier never said that he'd watched a switch engine move boxcars or anything of the sort that morning.

It is a distinct possibility that Oswald hurried somewhat ahead simply because he had to attend to a call of nature. Not only have I heard that second-hand from Frazier, but Jack Daugherty also testified to the fact that going to the men's room was the first thing that LHO did as he came in the door that morning.

Proof of the second-hand story I'd heard? Maybe not, but at least some credibility and substantiation given it. If, that is, you can believe anything at all that Jack Daugherty said. Besides Buell Frazier, Daugherty was the only person who said he saw LHO entering the TSBD that morning: one saw a package, the other didn't. Which shall you believe ... and more importantly, why?

Moreover, the police - sorry, I don't recall which one right now, but I'm inclined toward saying it was Will "No Notes" Fritz - said that LHO denied taking curtain rods to work that morning, and had said that Frazier had been "mistaken" on that, that it had actually been another morning he'd brought them. Machts nichts, of course, since there's no proof of anything Oswald did or didn't say while being interrogated, but there you have it.

Finally, Jack, you note that "the curtain rod story was a fabrication because the plotters needed a way that the MC rifle got into the building." Fair enough ... but how did it come to pass that they managed to get 19-year-old farm-boy Frazier, who was all of two months new to the Big City, to not only concoct that story but moreover, to steadfastly deny that it was long enough to actually contain even the disassembled Carcano?

It seems like, in that scenario, Frazier defeated his own purported purpose: put forth the story and then deny the details that make it possible. It makes one wonder why those apparently resourceful enough to murder a President and get away with it for 40+ years would entrust such an important part of the mission to a young hick who talked too much (look at all that grey text above!!) and couldn't keep his facts straight. I've also never heard it said that Frazier was well rewarded for his part in the conspiracy and cover-up either.

Frankly, it makes better sense that the "NO curtain rods" story is the preferred one, and that Daugherty not only lied about not seeing a package in LHO's hands, but was actually the receipient of such said package, either directly from LHO on his way in the door, or indirectly if LHO simply left it in the wash room to be exchanged or picked up later by someone he knew or not, or saw or not. (That scenario if fairly easy to construct - right up to the time of the shooting - using what information is on record, actually.)

In the end result, you're right, of course - and Mark is wrong - that LHO and Frazier entered the TSBD together, but the devil is in the details and - just as you say - one must try to "comprehend what is written" by at least reading what actually IS written!

Francesca, Let's not be too quick to judge until all the facts are in.

Are you joking or being serious? For a start where does it show in any of the numerous films or photos Clint Hill turning towards the TSBD and 'signalling' Oswald to shoot? ...

[Every]body ... must have heard the story of the curtain rods ....

... Frazier then told the Warren Commission that when they got to work that he and Oswald walked through the side entrance of the TSBD building together and Oswald carried this long package tucked up under his arm as they walked throuh the side entrance together.

The problem with this story is that one of Oswald's co-workers Jack Doughtery watched Lee walk through the side entrance of the building at 8:00 AM .... [Oswald only worked in the Texas School Book Depository Building for five weeks before the assassination happened.] Jack Doughtery worked there for "seven years" before the assassination happened. Wesley Frazier only worked there for two months before the assassination happened! Who do you believe?

From my experience of studying the testimony of the employees of the TSBD building is that the people that worked there for only a month or two were constantly caught lying to the Commission. It seems like these "short term" people were planted in the building.

... In my new book I have uncovered hundreds of links between the JFK assassination and the Communist Party.

Duke,

You can find an online copy of the report here:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...928&relPageId=2

Steve Thomas

Duke - maybe it's this one:

...

http://www.manuscriptservice.com/DPQ/sports~1.htm

William Weston may have it - he may reference it in the piece he did, linked above.

- lee

Without being able to download the film and see just what guy you're talking about, I just wanted to point out that Roy Truly raced to the front door of the depository in order to cut off officer Baker.

FWIW, Robert Groden identifies Baker in the Couch Film on his Assassassination Films DVD.

Otherwise ...?

man< i don"t kNow what to sat about YALL.! YOU GUYS ARE GREAT!

THANKS DUKE & ROBIN AND EVERY ONE ELSE, WHAT A CLEAR PIC. YES I'M CONVINCED- THAT IS BAKER.

JIM

If you view the film - even the crappy online version that you'd referenced earlier - you will see, off to the "left" of Baker (from the film's perspective), you will see another runner moving in the same direction, also pretty fast. He disappears into the "haze" of the online version before long; I don't know what you'll see on a better version.

In the photo above, you'll see a sort-of-triangular sign to Baker's left, just to the right of the dark "square." Below and to the right of that sign, you see what appear to be the figures of two people (men?) standing nearby each other, and to their right, a couple of "bumps" that could be two people's heads standing very close to each other. One of those two is actually running to the east, pretty much apace with Baker. You'll have to watch the film ....

Right now, my verdict is that "the tie goes to the runner" whether or not Worrell was in DP at all that day. About 10-15% of what I've put together so far is started on another thread here (James Worrell: Fact or Fiction?). We'll see where it goes ....

HI LEE, I THINK I FOUND WORRELL. ... GOOD HUNTING

JIM FEEMSTER

Below is a freeze-frame from Couch, with the "running man" highlighted and identified as Baker. Note the boots (motorcycle cop!), belt and something on his head (helmet?). The traffic light overhead and what hardscaping you can make out at the lower left, it appears that there's a curb ("kerb" to our British friends!) there: it would appear as if this is the "peninsula" between the Elm Street "parkway" and the Elm Street "extension" that runs in front of the TSBD. The dark square appears to be the "alleyway" between the west end of the building and the storage adjunct that used to be there. The man running to our right would thus appear to be running toward the main entrance to the Depository.

Between the apparent uniform and his actions, I'd have to agree that it's Baker. Too, if Mack's estimate is correct, it just gave LHO 25 more seconds to get to the 2nd floor ...! (Not that it really matters.)

Does anyone have a copy of - or an online reference to - the report referenced in the subtitle of this topic? Of particular interest is the statement(s) made by or attributed to Sam Pate on or around page six of this report. Thanks in advance for your help!!

Duke,

It's all very confusing. I have the feeling that Worrell may have invented the Love Field story just to give the reporter something to write about--he's a young kid, now famous, on his way to Washington. It's not like he's obstructing the authorities from relentlessly searching for the assassin--the Government and the press has already played the role of judge and jury. The only other explanation might be that he got confused and hitchhiked from Love Field, not to Love Field. A longshot, but there's no other way he could have made it, IMO.

On the question of what was seen in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, it's hard to go past James Romack's unequivocal statement that no-one ran from behind the TSDB in the first five minutes. Worrell's statements to the contrary may be another invention, IMO. I just can't see the team in the TSBD screaming out the back entrance straight after the assassination. It's too unsophisticated and obvious and they had no way of knowing who might see them. They would have departed in a more unobtrusive fashion. Just speculating, of course.

This portion is solely about the Love-to-Dealey aspect of Worrell's day ... assuming, that is, that it even happened as he said. At this point, I'm hardly convinced that it did, but have to admit that it's possible ... and nothing more.

I'm just putting out the evidence - or, in cases, lack thereof - from as many points of view as possible. Mainly: is the evidence getting fair treatment? Let's not worry about the conclusions as yet, especially since I haven't made any firm ones myself. I think you'll find things in this you either might not have known, or may not have considered from one perspective or another. Hopefully, it'll turn out to be as complete as I think it will!

(Two full pages or more on a 30-minute bus trip alone should tell you something!! Before I'd even gotten to the Romack part in the first rewrite, I'd printed out nearly ten, and there's still more to go!!)

The following is submitted for the consideration and critique of forum members. It is the first installment of a several-part examination of the actions and statements of James Richard Worrell, Jr., as related to Dallas Police, area news sources, and the Warren Commission, among others.

This installment examines Worrell's stated actions prior to his arrival in Dealey Plaza on Friday, November 22, 1963. Later submissions will look at the assassination and its immediate aftermath as described by young Worrell, focusing on material from publicly available sources. A final installment will detail additional information developed independently by this writer in recent weeks (including after this installment is posted).

Your comments are greatly appreciated.

[Edits below in red]

________________________________________

On the morning of November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy awoke in a hotel in downtown Fort Worth. About 30 miles away, a 20-year-old high school senior prepared to leave home to see the 35th President of the United States during his trip to Dallas. The following day, Saturday, November 23, the young man contacted police and made the following statement:

The sworn statement of James Worrell is important because it establishes the possible existance of someone in the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) who fled the scene of the President's murder just moments after the shots were fired. While Worrell initially identified the man as having been Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin, based on photos and news coverage, in the end he allowed that, despite any resemblance he may have thought, he was unable to identify the fleeing man and had only seen him from the rear.

Worrell's statement eventually led to his being called to Washington DC in March 1964 to testify before the Warren Commission. Before embarking on the trip (together with assassination witnesses Amos Euins, Arnold Rowland and Dallas Times Herald photographer Bob Jackson), Worrell gave an interview to Times Herald staff writer Darwin Payne in which he'd added a new twist to his story that he was to expand upon four days later: "It was so coincidental," Worrell told Payne. "I had gone to Love Field to see the President but it was too crowded. I cam[e] downtown and just happened to pick that place" in front of the TSBD to stand and watch the parade.

If nothing else did or could have, that addition to his story alone raises questions to his credibility. It caught Arlen Specter's attention to the extent that he asked Worrell, "Are you sure you were at Love Field when the President arrived there?" Worrell replied "oh, yes," and Specter conceded the point before continuing his questioning. A thorough examination of Worrell's statements - under oath and otherwise - is therefore warranted, and shall here be compared and contrasted with others' recollections of the events to which Worrell testified.

THE ITINERARY

James Richard Worrell, Jr., testified on Tuesday, March 10, 1964 before the Warren Commission in its offices located at 200 Maryland Avenue NE at Washington DC. Asked to state his whereabouts and actions leading up to his witnessing the assassination of John F Kennedy in downtown Dallas, he described how he had woken up that morning and waited for his mother and sister to leave their home at 13510 Winterhaven Drive in the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch before embarking on the trip that eventually culminated in his visit to the nation's capital.

Worrell stated that he'd hitchhiked (about nine miles) to Love Field, and arrived there sometime around 9:00 a.m. He "messed around" until the President arrived and, not being able to see him very well - "I just saw him get off the plane and I figure that I wasn't going to see him good, so I was going to get a better place to see him" (emphasis added) - Worrell decided to catch a bus downtown where he hoped for a better vantage point.

He left Love Field before the motorcade's departure and travelled "so far on the bus ... as far as, I don't know where the bus stops, anyway I got close to [Dealey Plaza] and walked the rest of the way." He estimated that he arrived downtown at "about 10, 10:30, 10:45, something around there. There weren't many people standing around there then," he explained. The presidential motorcade, he said, arrived "an hour; an hour and a half" later.

Leaving aside the bad math that "an hour; and hour and a half" before the JFK arrived in Dealey Plaza at 12:30 was not "about 10, 10:30, 10:45, something around there," Air Force One did not land at Love Field until 11:37, so it is clearly not possible for Worrell to have seen the plane land and been at Dealey Plaza so far in advance of the motorcade's arrival there. In fact, he could not have been in Dealey Plaza any more than just a few minutes before, but the fact remain that he could have been in both places.

In the early 1960s, bus service was provided by the Dallas Transit Company, which later became the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system (DART). Over the years and through the successive purchases and reorganizations of the company, all copies of the bus schedules for 1963 have been lost or destroyed, and nobody contacted by this author has kept copies among their personal memorabilia, so it is not possible to determine the exact schedule of busses from Love Field to downtown that day through "official" means.

A bus still follows the same route today - with an added jog to a new terminal building - as the bus that Worrell would have had to take to make his rendezvous with Fate. In 2006, bus route #39 takes 42 minutes to travel this distance over the same streets as it did in 1963. Long-time employees and retirees of DART and its predecessor companies have, however, consistently remarked that busses ran more frequently and carried more passengers than they do today ... and the vehicles themselves were larger then than they are now.

(A case in point is the route from Oak Cliff to downtown, taken by Helen Markham to and from work: according to Commission Document 630h, the bus stopped at Jefferson Boulevard and Patton Street every ten minutes on weekdays; today, it comes by only once every 45 minutes.)

The general concensus regarding the Love Field-to-downtown bus is that it probably ran every ten minutes on weekdays, and certainly no less frequently than once every 15 minutes. It also probably took less time - about 30 minutes - to arrive downtown since traffic was not as heavy as it is today.

Thus for Worrell to have alit from the bus at its stop closest to Dealey Plaza, at about the same location as the current West End Terminal at 800 Pacific Avenue just five blocks - 0.2 miles or about five minutes walking distance from Dealey Plaza - in time to witness the assassination, he could have departed Love Field as late as 11:50 that morning and arrived in the plaza five minutes before the motorcade.

If he'd had to orient himself, ask directions, etc. - a distinct possibility, it would seem, since he said that he didn't know where the bus stopped and he'd gotten off (2H191-192) - it could have taken him longer. But Worrell stated that he'd caught the bus before the motorcade had left the airport at 11:50, so he could have caught a bus as early as 11:40 (three minutes after Kennedy was on the ground and Worrell realized he wouldn't be able to see him well), conceivably getting him to Dealey Plaza by about 12:15.

Even arriving then, it would have been well past the point when "there weren't many people standing around there then," as he'd testified. JFK was due at the Trade Mart roughly four miles away at 12:30, and would thus have passed through Dealey Plaza several minutes earlier if the motorcade was on time. Consequently, if Worrell arrived at 12:15 or afterward, almost as many people as would be there already were. If he'd arrived any later, he stood a good chance of missing the motorcade altogether, but not having transportation of his own, he had no control over that and was at the mercy of the bus and traffic.

Not that it has an effect on Worrell's ability to be in both locations to witness all that he'd said he did, one additional possibility that obviates the busses' schedule departure times is ... a curious bus driver.

If a bus was scheduled to leave Love Field at, say, 11:35 - just before JFK landed, theoretically forcing Worrell to wait until at least 11:45 to board a downtown bus - but the driver decided to linger past his scheduled departure time to catch a glimpse of the President (he could alway blame his lateness on security delays or additional traffic, roadblocks or detours, plausible excuses all), Worrell could have caught a bus that normally would already have left the airport, getting him downtown a little earlier than our previous estimates, especially if the driver drove a little faster than usual to make up lost time.

Finally, since Worrell's bus - whichever one he was on and whatever time it was actually scheduled to depart - left Love Field ahead of the motorcade, there is no reason to suspect that its travel was in any way impeded by traffic or police patrols. According to a voluminous 34-page, detailed November 30 Dallas Police "chronological report of events" prepared for Chief Curry (HSCA record #180-1017-10137, file number 003019), the pilot car left Love Field just three minutes ahead of the motorcade; patrol officers assigned to security along the route did not halt traffic until that car arrived, the bus most likely proceeded along its regular route without incident.

There is no doubt that Worrell could not have been at Love Field and seen JFK if he had been downtown either "around 10, 10:30, 10:45" or "an hour; hour and a half" before the motorcade arrived in Dealey Plaza. Nevertheless, given the approximate travel time by bus to reach downtown from Love Field, and absent any documentation showing the departure times and frequency of the busses leaving the airport, it remains possible that James Worrell was, in fact, both at Love Field and in Dealey Plaza, although he may have had to hurry to get to his destination in time.

It must be noted that all of the estimates herein are dependent upon Worrell being in a position to board a bus in a reasonably short period of time. Since we do not know - even if we think we can infer - where he was "at Love Field," we don't know if he was in the midst of the 2000+ throng of onlookers, if he was at the fringe of the crowd, or if he was nowhere near it at all (having been "messing around" and all ... doing what and where?). More information will be forthcoming in later installments as it is available.

[To be continued ....]

Future additions:

Chapter 2 - Downtown at the Depository

Chapter 3 - Aftermath

Chapter 4 - The Periphery