Duke Lane

Confusion between Eddie Piper & Charles Givens

... The first chink appeared in the papers on 11/24/63 when it was widely reported that "A building porter said he took Oswald to the 6th floor in an elevator. When he got out, Oswald asked the porter to send the car back up for him. The porter went to the ground floor to watch the Kennedy motorcade." Piper was not a porter, but did describe himself as just that in at least one interview.

The story died, then resurfaced in a slightly different version through a story given to Thayer Waldo by the Howard brothers in February. papers outside Texas carried the story this way: "A Fort Worth Newspaper said last night that it had been told that a witness being held in protective custody can identify Lee Oswald as the slayer of President Kennedy. The report was denied by government spokesmen. The newspaper said its informant identified the witness as a porter who was working at the Texas School Book Depository on Nov 22.The witness has been in protective custody since the day of the assassination and will appear before the Warren Commission investigating the slaying. Edwin O Guthman, spokesman for the Justice Department in Washington said 'there is no truth to the story at all, and no such witness exists.' In Dallas. Police Chief Jesse Curry said that he knew of no such witness to the assassination. The Dallas County Sheriff, Bill Decker, said 'I know absolutely nothing about it. I do not have such a person in my custody.' Roy S Truly, superintendent of the depository, said, 'The only janitor we have is still working there. I know nothing about all this'. Toledo Blade, 2/10/64.

Note that the person is continually referred to as a "porter"... until we get to Truly, and all of a sudden, he is referring to a "janitor" - Eddie Piper! ...

I don't see the problem here.

Can anyone tell me who--besides Wesley Frazier and Jack Dougherty--testified as to what Oswald did or did not carry into the building that morning? Thanks.

Nobody else claimed to have seen him entering the building.

Of the two you mention, one said that, whatever he had in his "package," the package was tucked under his armpit and not visible; the other said he didn't see anything at all in Oswald's hands. Consistent or contradictory?

For example, he points out that there is no such thing as a "left-handed" scope for a rifle.

Comments? ...

Of course there's no such thing as a "left-handed scope," but who ever said there was? Straw man.

The description I recall is that the scope was "set up for a left-handed person," or words to that effect. A different animal entirely, and a definite possibility.

But quite right: there is no such thing as a "left-handed scope." Points for accuracy. And demerits to whomever mischaracterized a scope being "set up for a left-handed person."

Wasn't Parker in the area at that time? We discussed this long ago. He went out for 5 on e. Jefferson and was not heard from again that day. Dispatch tried to contact him, with no success.

I'll leave my suspicions about Parker for another topic.

There were two cops in the area that we know of - i.e., have documentary evidence of their whereabouts - in the Oak Cliff area in an "unauthorized" capacity. Neither were sent there, one of them was told to remain in his own area (after reporting that he was well outside of it, leading one to wonder if the dispatcher(s) didn't realize he was out of area), and both of whom were within 2 miles of Tippit's murder scene, one of them within just a few blocks of it.

One was WP Parker, assigned to far southeast Dallas, out by Mesquite and Garland; the other was LM Lewis, assigned to northwest Dallas up by Carrollton and Farmers Branch. Parker reported being on "East Jefferson," and Lewis reported being at "105 Corinth," both without giving any other indication that they were outside their regular patrol areas. Could their dispatchers have been unaware that the locations that they did report were not in their assigned areas, especially since dispatchers were assigned duties according to patrol area?

After reporting their locations, Parker signed off the radio ("out") "for five" (minutes?), and Lewis - after having been told specifically to remain on patrol in his area - stated that he was going downtown. What either of these men did after making these reports is open to speculation.

What is particularly interesting is that after Parker reported in after a frantic search for him by dispatch (a couple of calls for him specifically after the downtown shooting, then a general request to know if "anyone [has] seen 56"), he says he is "out," is then asked his location ("East Jefferson") which is acknowledged, and then, within 30 seconds later, Tippit is dispatched to the same area Parker reported being. Lewis' location was about half-way between the two locations Tippit reported (Kiest & Bonnieview, and 8th & Lancaster), along the most direct (and only logical) route between those points, also reporting that he was leaving that location (ostensibly for downtown) at about the same time that Tippit would have been crossing the intersection where Lewis had reported being.

Neither of the two men, however, indicated that they were anywhere near Andrews' purported location several blocks west of Zangs Boulevard. I'd have to look to be certain if Andrews was even in district 91, the northern of Mentzel's two patrol districts (north of Jefferson), and within its western boundary (don't recall the street name). The districts to the west of 91 and 92, Mentzel's, were assigned to an Officer HM Ashcraft (districts 93 and 94).

According to my notes, at 12:34, an Officer Pate from District 24 (where Parkland is) was sent to Inwood and Stemmons to "direct an ambulance to Parkland," and Ashcraft was assigned to join Pate there at 12:36. This ambulance never arrived anywhere near where they were, and dispatch seemed to know what became of it. Prior to that assignment, Ashcraft was already outside of his district by about two miles, in a "landlocked" area hemmed in by the Fort Worth Turnpike (I-30) and the Trinity River known as West Dallas. He and Pate were released from this "phantom ambulance chase" just after Tippit's 12:45 assignment into central Oak Cliff, and was told to report to the TSBD.

Presuming that Ashcraft did as he was told, he was not in his district west of Mentzel's during the time between Tippit's reassignment and his murder. All of the officers assigned to all of the surrounding districts (with the exceptions of 83 and 84 to the south of central Oak Cliff, and south of Mentzel's southern patrol district 92) are accounted for elsewhere.

Since none of these officers could have been who stopped Andrews, we are left with three possibilities:

• Tippit stopped Andrews;
• Another, unknown officer not authorized (or directed) to be in that district stopped Andrews; or
• Andrews wasn't stopped.

If there's another, what is it?

Since being west of his last reported/claimed location at Top Ten and then speeding off even farther westward doesn't jibe with his last reported/claimed turn after Top Ten to the east, and his murder to the east of Top Ten only minutes later, and that the behavior purported behavior by Andrews between the time Tippit left Top Ten and arrived at 10th & Patton belies the behavior reported at the murder scene, I cannot reconcile that Tippit was indeed who stopped Andrews, and have to conclude that he was not.

That being so, either someone we don't know anything about stopped Andrews for no apparent reason and went off in a direction away from central Oak Cliff, or Andrews simply wasn't stopped and made up a story for a receptive audience. Unless until we can come up with somej officer who was - or even probably was - in that area, I can't see doing anything other than opting for the latter.

Can anyone else? I think there is too much on record about most officers' movements, and we simply know too many minute details about what went on that day to simply give complete credence to Andrews' account with it's only support being that some officer might have been in the area.

I don't agree with Duke that we should assume that Tippit was part of any conspiracy, and knew what was going on.

I think that Bill means to agree with me in larger part because I've certainly never suggested that Tippit was a part of any conspiracy, but rather an intended victim of one.

It doesn't appear that Tippit did know what was going down, or knew that he was part of it, or would become part of it, and may have been just trying to figure things out himself, just was Oswald was.

And while the story did come out in a haphazard way, there is no implication of conspiracy if the story is true.

It's just that Tippit stopped someone, looked in the back seat and sped off to his destiny.

And as suggested, perhaps he was checking the back seat of the car to see if it was the vehicle that they were looking for, one that the gas station attendent reported had a rifle in the back seat

Maybe instead of trying to fit Andrews story in with what is assumed to be true, we should reexamine what we assume and see if it that fits.

There again we seem to be going down the same path different ways. What I thought I was saying is that the Andrews story just doesn't make sense. It does not fit with either known facts nor even assumed ones that I've examined and found that "fit" with those that are known. A quick recap:

• The guys at Top Ten Records last claim to have seen Tippit leave northbound, then eastbound. This jibes, at least, with the fact that Tippit died north and east of where these guys saw him.
• The Andrews stop - if it ever happened - was north and west of Top Ten, and afterward, "Tippit" took off, again going west. Then, in what could only have been a few minutes later at most, he was several blocks east of the stop location, going easterly.
• "Tippit" "sped off" from the "Andrews scene" and is described as acting like a "wild man." That short time later, in addition to the above disparities, he was cruising slowly across 10th and approached his killer slowly and "real friendly like."

Why would Tippit approach a man in a car, in the direction opposite he was last seen, like "a wild man," yet approach another on foot in a diametrically opposing manner? Why would he "speed off" westbound and end up east of this location, cruising slowly?

Do you notice police officers' name tags when you get a ticket? And if you do, do you really remember it for any period of time? Imagine a cop "herding" you to the side of the road, jumping out of his car, sprinting back to you, looking into your car and then sprinting back to his without saying a word: if you weren't going to make a complaint or an inquiry, why would you even look at his name badge, much less remember it? And then not say a word to anyone for a couple of decades, but recall what is ultimately an insignificant detail with utter clarity?

I simply don't buy it. It doesn't "listen" well, and runs counter to the facts, particularly where, how far away, and when Tippit died. Just because Andrews claimed "his" cop was acting "like a wild man" does not incite me to re-think whether Helen Markham and Bill Scoggins might both have gotten his demeanor entirely wrong.

As to:

...perhaps he was checking the back seat of the car to see if it was the vehicle that they were looking for, one that the gas station attendent reported had a rifle in the back seat

... the problem is that this car was not reported over the radio - the only way Tippit could have known about it - until after the "citizen call" when he was already dead. It doesn't seem fruitful, then, to consider that there is any connection between the incidents, at least not insofar as Tippit was concerned or involved.

Either the incident never happened, it was another cop, or Tippit was the fastest guy on the department, and/or the only one who could get to a point in the east by driving west. The only other cop acknowledged to be in the area - WD Mentzel, the only patrol cop on break throughout the city - was eating lunch at Luby's. If we can't name the "other cop," then there's only one other conclusion.

Certainly the Andrews story is provocative, if true. One can go mad conjuring up possibilities and implications of all the loose threads in this case. I guess that's how breakthroughs are made. To me the bona fides of this incident are weak....

I have to agree that the story lacks in bona fides, particularly in the way it came out (and that it never had before), and especially since it is so out of synch with what we know (or believe) about both prior and subsequent events. Let me expound on that.

First, consider the setting of someone asking you about someone thought to possibly be part of a conspiracy to murder the President, possibly even being a shooter. Perhaps I'm not giving Greg Lowery enough credit, but I can say first-hand that it's sometimes very difficult not to give away your own point of view on the issue you're interviewing someone about. Like a homicide detective asking questions about a "person of interest," the interviewee can often if not generally discern that that you're suspicious of the subject you're discussing. It's very nearly "second nature" to tailor one's responses and the information volunteered to the interviewer's point of view: you think he's suspicious, you're making me think he's suspicious, so let me tell you about some suspicious things. In this case, you think there's a conspiracy, so here's something that supports that notion.

Next, consider what we know about the events leading up to Tippit's death. For a guy who was supposedly waiting to play some part, however peripheral, in a conspiracy to either kill the President of the United States and/or to facilitate his supposed killer's escape (or whatever else someone might suspect he was supposed to do), the record shows that he was pursuing a rather mundane agenda in the moments leading up to his big role, dealing with someone suspected of shoplifting from a small market store in his regular patrol beat.

We know he reported being at Kiest & Bonnieview when first called - and if he was supposed to be playing some role, waiting for his cue from dispatch (for, other than hanging around a payphone somewhere, how else would he have been contacted?), why would he report being anywhere other than where he actually was? - and then, eight minutes later, reported his location as being at 8th & Lancaster which, coincidentally, takes almost exactly that amount of time to reach driving the current 40mph speed limit (Tippit was not told to proceed to central Oak Cliff "on code," i.e., with any combination of lights and siren) via Bonnieview north, which curves around to become 8th before crossing the freeway and intersecting Lancaster.

Sidebar: the Gloco station was a lot closer and would've only taken 2-3 minutes to reach and possibly (if not probably) less. If it was Tippit at the Gloco, who "peeled away" at speed when he was "notified" of being needed, reported an incorrect location, first, what took him so long to get such a short distance? Second, why would he report a second incorrect location if he was trying to convey, say, being "in place" for whatever he had to do next? And third, how did he pick two incorrect locations and manage to report being at each of them almost exactly the same amount of time that it would actually have taken him to go from one to the other?

The eight-minute travel time from Point A to Point B (that I've repeatedly driven in the same amount of time) does not depict a man in a great hurry, and nothing about his next order - to "remain at large for any emergency that comes in" - does not, unless it was "in code," suggest that he needs in any way to "shake a leg" for any reason, nor does a presumed ability to understand the "coded language" of his last order suggest that he needed to call in to dispatch for any sort of clarification, an implication of his side-trip to the Top Ten Record Store to use the phone. Indeed, it makes little sense that this "coded message" to call in would be result in an unanswered call (tho' admittedly it is possible that he merely listened and did not respond).

We last hear from Tippit at 12:54, giving him a little more than 10 minutes to travel to the Top Ten, make a call, depart "in a hurry" and arrive at 10th & Patton in time to meet his killer (tho' one would hardly suspect that he'd expected to do that!), a very do-able estimate. Dave Perry has opined that a possible reason for his Top Ten call was to find out if "the rabbit had died," that is, to get in contact with his girlfriend (who had a baby girl some 7-8 months later) to learn if she was pregnant. Given the okay to "remain at large" (i.e., "patrol at your leisure") but not having "all day" to check in on her given the emergency downtown and the possibility that he'd be called to assist in some way, nothing about this side-trip is out of character with such a personal mission; the only question, perhaps, is why he didn't just drive by her place without calling first.

So he left Top Ten "in a hurry," at least in the estimation of the shop's owner. He drives quickly up a block, doesn't stop (fully?) for a stop sign, and disappears from sight to the east. Then, according to Andrews' story, he then proceeds to act like a madman ("acting wild") in pulling him over, peering into his car, and speeding off again without a word. Then, within five minutes of this manic encounter, he's cool, calm and collected again as drives slowly down the street (at least, not fast enough to have previously gotten Helen Markham's attention as she prepared to cross the street), pulls slowly to the curb, "talks through a window" to a guy walking on the street, and gets out of his car "real friendly like" before being gunned down.

So where does all this "frenzy" come from during his purported encounter with Andrews, and where does it disappear to within just a couple of minutes of his leaving? What happened to the aggression of "curbing" someone in a car driving down the street, jumping out, looking for something or someone in the front and back seats of the car before speeding off again in "pursuit" of some unknown thing, that by the time he got to 10th & Patton had become that can only be described as casual friendliness? Why didn't he exhibit the same kind of behavior such a short while later as he supposedly did with Andrews when he pulled up beside his killer?

There was nothing in his post-mortem tox screen to suggest what he'd been under the influence of, and nothing in his past to suggest that he was given to episodes of extreme but fleeting anxiety and aggression such as Andrews describes; other than that he left the Top Ten "in a hurry" and maybe "ran a stop sign," there is no suggestion that the abortive phone call he made changed him into a raving lunatic or a "man on a mission." Why, then, should we consider that it actually happened?

There are many more odd goings-on in Oak Cliff in the 30-45 minutes or so before JD Tippit's murder that are much more suspicious – and are contemporaneously documented – that are much more deserving of attention than some long-after-the-fact account of a completely out-of-character and out-of-context (not to mention "out-of-control!") encounter that makes absolutely no sense when viewed from a broader perspective.

And after all of this, should we not also consider that Tippit was last seen heading north and east from the record shop, and that the location of Andrews' purported encounter was north and west of the record shop? That means that, if it happened, Tippit changed directions twice - first after turning "east on Sunset," and then to get back east to 10th & Patton after the "encouter" with Andrews to the west while driving (and departing) westward - before his "routine" patrol down 10th Street, to the east and in an easterly directlion.

There's nothing sensible about this story at all, is there? If so, I'd love to hear it....

Thanks for the update, Greg.

I had a five-way bypass nearly six years ago, and it was very tough going for a while, but knowing that you got through the surgery, and will feel unbelievably better in due course, is a great incentive to keep fighting.

Keep fighting it, Jack. Believe me, there will be good days and bad days, but soon you will be having more good ones than bad ones, and that is when you will really start to feel on top of things again.

Chris

Thanks, Chris!

Jack

Welcome to the "zipper club," Jack! Quad, '05, myself.

... Nothing out there on the poodle salon or wife "Betty J." You might ask Duke to check out the property transfer history of the address Capt. Marvin gave the WC. ...

Isn't "Betty" a dimunitive of "Elizabeth?"

http://www.lawenforc.../news/view/6543

Dallas to honor man whose 'officer down' report led police to Lee Harvey Oswald

http://www.dallasnew...ey.2fc35b6.html

By SCOTT K. PARKS / The Dallas Morning News

sparks@dallasnews.com

Temple F. Bowley's life changed forever when he came upon a Dallas police officer lying dead in an Oak Cliff street on Nov. 22, 1963.

"You don't run upon a dead man every day," Bowley said...

TF Bowley Age 82

Wow, looking at that photo, it's been a few years since I've been to visit! It doesn't seem like it, but the hair color has sure changed and the demeanor seems to have brightened along with it!

Well I saw it Friday at the Half-Price Books store on Shadybrook; like I said I was unimpressed. So I didn't really pay that close attention. It was written in the Libra/DeLillo style, in the sense that there were, what looked like conversations not part of the Warren Commission or HSCA Elsurs or accounts given; Which was why I was so uninterested. Imagine my surprise when I saw your post, this morning and google book searched and ditto amazon.com with nary a result.

The only thing I can say is I guess it possibly could have been an advance copy, or co-written with his name last, or I simply am mistaken, which I doubt seriously.

I even went back there today to at least get the title, ISBN #, specifically for you and it had apparently been bought already. I do know his name is Temple Ford Bowley, and he got the reward recently from the City of Dallas.....

I am sure something about this will pop up, but if your hoping for a magnum opus, I am warning you, you will be disappointed.

No, no magnum opus expected. More of a curiosity than anything else. I've been in touch with Tom (Temple) for years, and it surprises me that he's never mentioned anything of this sort. Says he doesn't even like talking about the subject, but he'll engage as long as you keep his interest; when he's bored, you're on the road again.

I've tried to find out a little of the background of the recent award - it didn't pop in from thin air, so someone must've recommended it, someone must've looked into it, etc., etc. - but with no luck, the local fount of knowledge seemingly having dried up on this one or too humble to admit his part in it, if y'know what (and whom) I mean.

If you see it again, grab it for me. Not likely, but always possible. The conspiracy museum guys downtown used to do weekly rounds of the HPBs in search of little ditties like this, and it may just be that this was their week for that store. C'est la vie, I suppose. (HPB has no clue what they get: I've picked up several copies of the GPO WCR in great shape for $5, and I'd expect they're probably offer me $15-20 for my 26, tho' they "probably don't have much of a market for these old things."

Thanks for the info!

Also has the issue of someone allegedly taking Tippit's revolver ever been confirmed, addressed?

Ted Callaway. Old news. I think Donnie Benavides talked about it, I'm pretty sure Callaway did too.

T F Bowley has written his JFK Book, I thumbed through it at a book store, and was singularly unimpressed....Anyone else?

This is new news. I'm surprised, given Tom's attitude about this whole thing. Will have to drop by to visit with him sometime when I'm in the area. What's it called? Where did you run across it?

... With respect to Vickie Adams, the ONLY thing a person needs to accept in order to have Oswald on the back stairs within one to two minutes after the President's assassination is to accept the almost certain fact that Victoria Adams was simply inaccurate in her time estimate about when she and Sandra Styles were on the back staircase.

And if she's off by a mere ONE MINUTE, or even less, then her whole story unravels and it then becomes quite easy to accept the fact that Oswald used the back stairs just after shooting President Kennedy from the sixth floor.

The key to pretty much knowing without a doubt that Adams and Styles were on the stairs only AFTER Lee Oswald used the same stairs is not really Oswald himself--but Roy Truly and Marrion Baker.

Because if Adams was really on the stairs as early as she said she was, she would have had virtually no choice but to have seen (or heard) the two men who we know for a fact WERE on those stairs within about 60 to 75 seconds of the assassination -- Truly and Baker.

Since Adams saw nobody and heard nobody, the very likely solution is that she was mistaken about her timing (which couldn't be a more common error with human beings), and she was on the stairs AFTER all three men (Oswald, Baker, and Truly) had already utilized the same stairs. ...

... remember to keep asking yourself one important question --

If Lee Oswald wasn't the sixth-floor assassin, then how did the "real killer(s)" manage to remain completely out of the sight of Vickie Adams and Sandra Styles and Dorothy Garner and Roy Truly and Marrion Baker following the assassination of the President?

Since you made a link to the thread, I refer you back to the posts made by Sean Murphy in that thread: the real killer did not escape the notice of Baker and truly. Adams and Styles, in case you forgot in the last nano-second, missed him because they had gone down BEFORE Baker and Truly had gone up (according to Garner). As for Garner herself... who knows? Was she ever asked who else she may have seen?

Did the "real killer" somehow manage to make himself invisible to all of those witnesses right after the shooting? Or did the real killer (if it wasn't Oswald) decide to remain on the sixth floor for many minutes after he shot at JFK, running the fearful risk of being captured on the TSBD floor where Oswald's rifle and the three spent shells were found?

I think even most hardened conspiracy theorists would find that latter option a little hard to swallow.

I think even the most credulous of LNs can see right through your posts.

Adams and Styles, in case you forgot in the last nano-second, missed him because they had gone down BEFORE Baker and Truly had gone up (according to Garner).

Couldn't have happened. Not in the real world. Not unless Miss Adams and Miss Styles were world-class sprinters. And we know they stayed at the south-side windows for a certain period of time, too. And yet they still supposedly managed to beat Truly and Baker to the stairs?? Hogwash.

In short -- It's a thousand times easier to explain away Garner's 6/2/64 statement provided by Barry Ernest than it is for conspiracists to explain away all of that incredibly incriminating evidence against Lee H. Oswald that was discovered on the sixth floor.

David,

The key concept throughout your discourse is "acceptance." Once one "accepts" something, all the rest is QED. Moreover, it's as if the only "acceptance" that's acceptable is that which you've accepted as true. When one "accepts" - i.e., "regards as true or sound;" regard: "to conceive, look at, or conceive of in a particular way" - that there was a conspiracy or another shooter or shooters, then why should a conclusion other than your own be not as "acceptable?"

You note what you perceive to be "problems" with Adams' story, particularly the "inherent inaccuracy" of her time estimate, and are quick to dismiss data that supports what she had to say, but you act as if the things that "couldn't be a more common error with human beings" do not apply to the timings of the Baker-Truly re-enactment. Do you know something that we don't - Baker and Truly weren't human beings? - or do you have insights that demonstrate otherwise why those timings are not subject to the same potential error as Adams'?

You are very nearly correct in noting that "if Adams was really on the stairs as early as she said she was, she would have had virtually no choice but to have seen (or heard) the two men who we know for a fact WERE on those stairs within about 60 to 75 seconds of the assassination -- Truly and Baker," but only if you can establish their being where you say when you say as the "absolute fact" that you claim it to be. What we do know for an actual fact is the time for Baker to make a direct, running course from his motor at the curb to front door of the TSBD. After that, we really don't know anything that happened inside those doors as an "absolute fact."

To paraphrase your own disclaimer, if Baker & Truly's actions took even ONE MINUTE longer, then all but the "acceptance" goes straight to hell.

I may be overstating it - I've never had an aptitude of cataloging films and such in my head, so someone else can fill in the missing details for me - because I do know that there's a film that shows Baker running toward the TSBD from his motor, but I don't know whether it shows him getting all the way to the door, or if the film stops, or if he runs past the edge of it; nevertheless, his arrival at the door can at least be approximated from that. Then there's Truly. He's in photos, might be in films; do any of them show him following Baker into the building? Did he rush in, or did he stare at the door for a second or two before reacting, and then how long did it take him to get into the door?

Once he hit the door, all bets are off because there's no footage of anything that occurred on the other side of it. We know from Baker's testimony that he looked around; was it for two seconds, or five, or for fifteen or more? Did anyone inside the door offer their immediate assistance, or did they wonder what the hell he might've wanted, just gawking at him and not offering any help, or not responding immediately (some of the guys had a "history" and may not have been overly cooperative; others were black, and might not have trusted a white motor cop, who knows? Nobody, actually).

We know that Truly offered his identity and assistance, but we don't know how long it took him to getting around to doing it. Immediately? Five seconds? Ten? Twenty? Longer? We "don't have any reason to believe" that it was anything other than immediately, but we don't know whether it was or not. And then again about any hesitancy in getting to the building: we might presume that he got inside directly on Baker's heels, but unless it's recorded somewhere, there's no certainty, no "absolute fact" in either of these.

We also don't know how long, exactly, they conversed before setting off toward the stairs. Maybe Baker had to repeat himself so Truly would "get" what he wanted; maybe Truly put up an argument about no shots coming from "his" building that Baker had to forestall. It might've been only seconds, or it might not have happened; but the mere fact that nobody said anything about it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

As listeners, we think of it as one thing happening immediately upon the next, when in truth, some time must elapse between each event they relate. When people recollect their actions, they usually say "I did this, then I did that, and then I did this when I got there," but they don't say "I wondered for 25 seconds what had happened, then thought for 10 seconds about my options of what to do. It took me three seconds to get here, and another six to get through the gate after spending 22 seconds trying to figure out what the cop actually wanted. And then, 11 seconds later ...."

We don't know how long the two of them took looking up the elevator shaft, or waiting for a reaction from the one elevator they tried to get to respond. We don't know how long they - or Truly in particular - waited before looking up to figure out where the elevators were. We don't know how good his vision was or if he had to squint before deciding they were both "dead" upstairs. Then telling Baker they were "stuck," going to the bell button, waiting, yelling up to "let loose that elevator" when nothing seemed to happen, or when Baker finally got impatient enough to finally say "let's take the stairs" and Truly to agree and come around to lead.

Do you really believe that Truly's actions and observations were done in one flowing movement: "The elevator's over there, press the button, it's not moving, they're both in the fifth floor, let me ring the bell, nobody answered, let me yell, ok I did, nobody answered, let's take the stairs," all in three seconds flat (or however long it took you to read that sentence)?

We know all of that did happen; what we don't know is how long any of it took. Even THIRTY SECONDS puts a monkey wrench in the works. There is no "absolute fact" about exactly what occurred inside the TSBD, only that IF the two men did exactly - and only - what they said, one immediately upon the other.

And along comes a letter that puts Baker & Truly going upstairs after Vicky Adams went down, and the "only conclusion" we can reach, based on all this scientific "acceptance," is that maybe Martha Joe Stroud related what Miss Garner said incorrectly, or Miss Garner's recollection wasn't entirely accurate or just "mistaken." It certainly leaves open the possibility if not the probability that things between Baker and Truly didn't happen lickety-split-no-time-to-waste-let's-go.

Do you think it's possible that - quote - "the very likely solution is that they were mistaken about their timing," and that, despite our "acceptance" of the proposition, it is not an "absolute fact" that Truly and Baker "WERE on those stairs within about 60 to 75 seconds of the assassination?"

Because, you know, just like Vicky Adams, if Baker and Truly (and by extension, the WC re-enactments) are "off by a mere ONE MINUTE, or even less, then the whole story unravels and it then becomes quite easy to accept the fact that" Adams used the back stairs just after the shooting and before B&T ascended and while Oswald was supposedly running down the stairs.

She didn't have to be a "world class sprinter" if any of what I'd described above took place half as fast as it could've. That's the real "real world."

If you can find the "extra time" for Oswald to have done so before Adams descended, it'll be interesting. If you can't, and if this information is true - and you have only as much or as little reason to believe that it is true as you do anything else said in testimony - then you've got an Oswald who wasn't a shooter on your hands.

That is, if you can "accept" that humans don't always get things right and WC counsel was sometimes wrong.

If you can't, you have the added burden of slipping Oswald past Jack Dougherty unseen and unheard, but that's a discussion for another time.

Did the "real killer" somehow manage to make himself invisible to all of those witnesses right after the shooting? Or did the real killer (if it wasn't Oswald) decide to remain on the sixth floor for many minutes after he shot at JFK, running the fearful risk of being captured on the TSBD floor where Oswald's rifle and the three spent shells were found?

I think even most hardened conspiracy theorists would find that latter option a little hard to swallow.

It's not, and can be demonstrated fairly easily.

But you won't be able to accept it.

I understand that few Buddhists - or scientists - accept the virgin birth as "absolute fact" either, so you'll at least be in good company with a fairly substantial portion of the world's population when relying on such faith to define your world.

Barry Ernest has a blog and a facebook page: http://mysite.verizon.net/restu5kb/

Scary. I hope the book's better!

I first began this thread over six years ago. Since that time I have covered a lot of research ground and believe that Prouty is a guy who may have shot from the hip a little to much which caused his aim to be off at times. On the other hand I do believe that he was positioned to know some information about the way that things were supposed to have been done in Dallas and was knowledgable enough to know that something had gone wrong. Even more I might suggest that while he could not quite pinpoint exactly what went wrong Prouty may have allowed his speculations to become sure facts within his own mind which has created some problems. ...

Let me ask this question since you've done so much work along these lines, Jim: has anyone ever substantiated that Fletch Prouty actually did what he said he did? For work, that is?

Chris...you are doing important calculations here, which are not going unnoticed.

Jack

Thanks Jack,

I believe once I'm through with this topic, many eyes will open up.

chris

Will you or have you condensed these four threads (your part, anyway) into a cohesive whole anywhere, e.g., downloadable paper, etc.?

If the calcs are even a little hard to follow, they're made harder by all of the breaks and others' posts.

(No sex. Be still my heart.)

(not "Ladies of") the Confederacy's Texas division.

Sorry. That inner child again. Was taking the piss out of the way they portray themselves as saintly Southern Belles doing charitable work. Thought I'd give 'em a name more in line with that...

Well, at least you didn't say anything about them being white ...! Goose, gander, all that.

I mean, really......

You are so full of crap that its coming out your ears.

We can and will learn who exactly were behind the murders of the assassination witnesses during the HSCA investigation.

For those who don't have Dick's book and would like to read the interview, here it is:

http://jfkcountercou...doug-horne.html

I do believe that I said it was a whimsical thought on my part, but at least one that would seem to make sense of the seemingly unsensible (is that a word?).

What Horne said in the interview was this:

On what basis, unless Humes and Boswell were part of the murder plot, would they do what Horne posits and not say a word of it in their lifetimes? "For national security reasons," Doug says. What national security reasons? Ones that won't go away during our lifetimes?

Pat's assessment may not be too far off, if the above were true, although I think that someone serving in the Senate for nearly 50 years until his own death would be savvy enough to recognize the "national security" implications if this information came to the fore, and not just how it might affect him and his family if and when he ran for president.

If my scenario were valid - and I'm by no means suggesting that it is - the chances are that the actual killer or killers were known to the national security apparatus shortly after if not at the moment of the shooting in DP. Any retribution would not take place, I would think, until well after it would not longer be attributed to being retribution, after enough time that the connection wouldn't be obvious except to those with guilty knowledge.

If I wanted to get back at someone for something they did to me, that's how I'd try to pull it off.

Frankly, on my first reading of H&B's testimonies before the ARRB, I couldn't see where this conclusion was being drawn from. Maybe I missed something, or got bogged down in the minutiae, or didn't understand something someone said, but it wasn't obvious to me.

Mary's brother Porter German enlisted into WWI but for unknown reasons was discharged after just 3 months on Dec 9, 1918. Mary had another brother named Ernest who died as a toddler.

Mary's father was a Dr J.W. German.

Unless she lived in Japan, she was in a horticultural group, not a beauty therapy group.

James Richards mentioned at the start of the thread that there was a possible connection between Edwin Walker and an (alleged) member of Mary's family (alleged only because I haven't been able to verify it). I would be amazed if the Our Ladies of the Confederacy were not Walker's numero uno fans. In the DPD assassination files, there is ample evidence of the number of elderly female admirers he had... and I daresay Mary and friends were not heart broken by the assassination.

Was the family name "German" or "Germany?" I found both in the Ancestry Rolls of the United Daughters (not "Ladies of") the Confederacy's Texas division.

Forget the Bledsoe document. Why bother wasting time on a fake document?

Because Dave Perry said it was a fake, which means it's not. Or so I gather the logic goes.

... It was at the Green Glass where I heard the story of one of Jack Ruby's girls who used to hang there too, I think it was Penny Dollar, though I might have that name wrong. She was a dancer who married a Dallas policeman. Her husband, the cop, said he went out to get some ice cream and returned to find her dead from ingesting some industrial cleaner like drano, a story that I found to be too bizarre to have been made up, though I never checked it out any further. ...

I just tripped across this name - Penny Dollar - in the past few days. There was a Commission Document I'd referred to in the "Bus 1213" thread (near what is now the end), and I'm thinking that's where I'd tripped across this interview, as I recall it was.

If my memory serves me on the details, what struck me about this deal is that the woman who was being interviewed said that her daughter went to work as a stripper at one of Ruby's clubs. There was some story about that which I don't recall, but the interesting thing was that this woman said that she, too worked as a stripper for Ruby: mom and daughter in the same line of work for the same guy (but apparently not as a team). Wow.

Ah, here we go: CD86, pp289-91 regarding Mrs. FANNIE BIRCH. Penny Dollar was her daughter Patricia, who was by then married as Patricia Kohs. Fannie (mom) performed only on Friday nights for about two months in 1960 as FRANCINE.

In this report, Fannie tells the interviewing agents that she had "noticed a group of about six or seven men seated at a table and she also noticed these men to have a tattoo design of what she took to be a dagger, located between their thumbs and forefinger" which she took to be a "pachuco mark."

She also told the agents that she believed herself to be a psychic, that she "wasn't surprised" by JFK's assassination or Oswald's murder, and that she was also "undergoing treatment for a nervous condition" under the care of a doctor named in the report (and probably contacted the next day by the agents!), and that she's "required to remain very quiet and does not normally leave her husband except to visit the doctor and an occasional trip to the store."

Ah, the connection and why I was looking at this: the only active-duty police officer she said she knew by name was one Billy Swafford, whom someone else connected (in the "JD Tippit: Was he part of the conspiracy?" thread) to the "estate" guarded by Harry Olsen on 11/22/63 (a tenuous and probably incorrect connection, btw).

I have come to the conclusion that we will never discover the truth about the people behind the assassination of JFK. I think in time, probably in about 2063, the US government will appoint a respected historian to examine the classified documents related to the case. They will then report that a conspiracy and a cover-up did take place but the available evidence makes it impossible to identify those responsible for these events.

I was reading Dick Russell's interview with Doug Horne in his compendium On the Trail of the JFK Assassins (I haven't started digging into Horne's stuff yet) in which Horne feels that Humes gave up part of the ghost during his ARRB testimony; that the different groups of observers as delineated originally by David Lifton did see what they said they saw; and that, opposite Lifton's theory, the official autopsists performed a "pre-autopsy autopsy" themselves to create the scenario to support a lone, deranged gunman being the sole perp.

I thought about how, back years ago, the mainstream media was raising questions and calling for new investigations before turning on their heel and constructing the trench for the WC's defense. About Bill Clinton's comment about believing there was a conspiracy and his silence on the topic after gaining office. About the Kennedy family's lack of interest in the matter. The destruction of USSS documents in apparent anticipation of their legally ordered release. Panels created to sanctify findings that differ from the original (e.g., a head wound that moves four inches). The list goes on.

And I wonder if it isn't possible that, however gruesome as it may sound, there is an official policy, a contingency plan put into effect upon the violent death of the chief executive by whatever means, that ensures not so much that justice can never be served, but that nobody can claim credit for the act.

"Mr. President, about that 'conspiracy' statement you'd made. Sir, we just cannot allow [insert extremist threat here] or anyone to be able to claim that they were able to assassinate the President of the United States. So if you please, sir, let us outline what will happen to you - to your body, sir - and what your government will do to insure the integrity of your office and the invulnerability of the United States. If it cannot be proven who killed you, sir, then fewer people will try. You will be killed by a lone nut, sir, someone we could never have identified or controlled or even seen coming, much less stopped. Evidence will be constructed to support this version of events. Some poor sap will be blamed, and either killed or spirited away. It's unfortunate but necessary ...."

Of course, were something like this to be true, it could only be carried out if couldn't be found out. It could be an on-going contingency such that, applied as it would be to each succeeding POTUS, it could not be revealed as having taken place even 100 or 200 years hence absent a radically different contingency being developed. Its records of implementation, if there were any, would remain classified and exempt, whether as "on-going national security operations" or as not being "assassination-related" (at least not to any particular POTUS's death) or destroyed "routinely" before they could be examined. Their destruction could be questioned, but never reversed.

The actual perpetrator(s) would probably become known to a selected few - there would be a real but very secret investigation if the answer was not already known - and "justice carried out" against them. It may be done quickly to make a strong point, or sufficiently in the future to appear unconnected. The immediate family would probably be aware of at least the broadest developments and results ("we know who did it, and this has been done to them?") to dampen any enthusiasm any of them may have for a "full investigation" in the future. The government would in any case survive any attempt at disclosure by family members, its "lone nut" cover story well entrenched and supported by all "rational" factions, a support voiced all the louder the closer or more forcefully an actual solution - or disputation - might come.

This is just a notional whim that, even (and especially) if true, could never be proved, merely a passing thought ... but given the odd ways that governments seem to think and act, not a complete impossibility. (If I'm ever visited in the middle of the night and become a vocal LNer - or a "strange death!" - it may have some some actual validity!)

Given the discussion regarding the lodgers at 1026 North Beckley on the Hank Killam thread, I thought it might be worthwhile having a look at Mary Bledsoe and 621 N. Marsalis.

Remembering that Oswald stayed a short time at this rooming house in October and if it wasn't for Bledsoe not liking Oswald, he would not have had to relocate to North Beckley.

Mary Bledsoe is a very interesting person. A member of the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Camillia Club, plus she was the President of the Dallas Navy Mothers Club. She was married to J.E. Bledsoe (friend of G.B. Dealey) and who was an official at Southern Pacific Railroad. They had two sons, Porter and Dick Bledsoe.

During the late 1940's and early 1950's, Porter attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C.

Her brother was James 'Pete' Germany who attended the Lubbock Flying School and at the time of the assassination was plant manager of Taylor Press Inc.

....

The Camillia Club is either a horticultural society, a "garden club" if one prefers the term (see for example http://www.pensacolacamelliaclub.com/; plants of the genus camillia) or a cosmetics club (see for example http://www.us.shisei...ovations/04.htm): "The Camellia Club was inaugurated in 1937 for regular Shiseido customers. Members were women who regularly used Shiseido cosmetics, and its purpose was to spread correct beauty methods to enhance feminine beauty and cultivate the tastes and culture of the modern woman."

The Dallas Navy Mothers Club is presumably a chapter of the Navy Mothers Clubs of America (http://www.navymothe...sofamerica.org/), and given the membership criteria, would probably mean that one of her sons was in the Navy at some point.

The Daughters of the Confederacy (or United Daughters of the Confederacy; see Texas chapter's website at http://www.txudc.org...estorindex.html) is still thriving today. The Texas site lists an "Ancestor Roster Book" indicating the names of the Texas Confederate Soldiers to whom a member must presumably trace their ancestry. This might be Thomas Arthur Germany, based on Mary's brother's surname and presuming a paternal lineage. The UDC's website says that it "is the oldest patriotic organization in our country because of its connection with two statewide organizations that came into existence as early as 1890 -- the Daughters of the Confederacy (DOC) in Missouri and the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Confederate Soldiers Home in Tennessee. The National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy was organized in Nashville, Tenn., on September 10, 1894, by founders Mrs. Caroline Meriwether Goodlett of Nashville and Mrs. Anna Davenport Raines of Georgia. At its second meeting in Atlanta, Ga., in 1895, the Organization changed its name to the United Daughters of the Confederacy." Its membership is open to "women no less than 16 years of age who are blood descendants, lineal or collateral, of men and women who served honorably in the Army, Navy or Civil Service of the Confederate States of America, or gave Material Aid to the Cause."

Mary was 67 in 1964, meaning she was born in or about 1897. Her sons could have been born in the 1920s, which might well put one or both of them in the Navy during the 1940s, and make Porter somewhere around 80 in 2005. Mary would have been born only about one generation removed from the War Between the States.

The School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University was founded by Father Edmund Aloysius Walsh, S.J. An entry at Wikipedia gives this summary:

He is also listed as one of the 25 "most evil people of the 20th century" (http://one-evil.org/people/people_20c_Walsh.htm).

This is just getting too weird......

I had earlier mentioned my interest in the Tippit shooting and its relation to the "estate" on Tenth Street, which Harry Olsen [married Kathy Kay, Ruby Stripper]

was guarding on the day of the assassination.....

Whether, there is any connection remains to be seen, but on the latter.....

The historical record regarding the "estate on Tenth Street" appears to be in serious need of another look.....

I would admonish those who may have heard the suggestion that John Armstrong [Harvey and Lee] made to researchers to check your original source documents, instead of quoting, or referencing other books as applicable in this case. Why

Read on

Mr. Specter. Where did you live in September of 1963?

Mrs. Olsen. On Ewing.

Mr. Specter. What was your specific address?

Mrs. Olsen. I think it was 325 North Ewing.

Mr. Specter. Where did Mr. Olsen live at that time?

Mrs. Olsen. In September?

Mr. Specter. September of 1963.

Mrs. Olsen. 1963? I think he was at Theatre Lane.

Mr. Specter. Where did Mr. Ruby live in September of 1963?

Mrs. Olsen. I think he lived on Ewing, too. I don't know the address; it was out further.

Mr. Specter. Tell me as precisely as you can recollect what you did on Friday, November 22.

Mrs. Olsen. Harry was guarding an estate on 8th Street just a ways from where I lived, and I fixed a lunch for him and stopped off at the 7-11 store to get him some milk, and that's when I heard that there had been some trouble downtown; a colored lady told me that.

Mr. Specter. What time was that that you stopped at the 7-11 store?

Mrs. Olsen. Oh, I guess about 12:30.

Mr. Specter. In the afternoon?

1964 Dallas White Pages Residential Telephone Listings

Swafford, Annie Mrs. 611 W 8th Street WH 2-1541

Key to understanding why this is important, is that the estate of the old lady whom Harry Olsen was "guarding" was a relative of Dallas Police Officer Billy Swafford.

SWAFFORD, BILL -----

Sources: WC Vol 22, p. 915; CD 85, pp. 228-229

Mary's Comments: Dallas Police Department officer, relative of old lady whose "estate" Harry Olson was guarding on 11/22/63.

The plot thickens

611 West 8th Street is 1.3 miles from 325 North Ewing, a fairly considerable distance for a guy on crutches to walk twice in a day, and not really what you'd call "just a ways from where [Kay] lived." A 7-11 store, incidentally, is still in the same location as it had been 50 years ago at the corner of Marsalis and East 8th, about 1/5 mile (about 3 blocks) from Kay's apartment. See this map showing Kay's apartment at "A" and the 7-11 at "B" and 611 W 8th at "C".

Remember that Harry claimed that the officer whose "elderly female relative" owned the "estate" was a motorcycle officer who was working in or in conjunction with the motorcade. Swafford was part of the radio patrol division, which typically drove automobiles as I understand it, motors being generally assigned to Traffic. Just because Harry said it doesn't mean it's true, but if it is, it tends away from Swafford being the officer in question.

Swafford's assignment, if he was on duty, should be among the DPD reports. He was assigned to District 105, which was downtown, according to one of the references above. He is also referenced in Batchelor Exhibit 5002, "Dallas Police Personnel Assignments, November 1963" at 19/121 as being assigned to the First Platoon whose work hours were from midnight to 8:00 a.m. This would not have precluded Swafford from guarding his relative's house - if that was really the case - during the parade as he'd have been off for more than four hours by the time it started.

As I recall, Harry also said that the "estate" was located just a couple of blocks from the "Stemmons Freeway" (which, while being the same physical highway (now I-35E), it is named the R.L. Thornton Expressway along the stretch in Oak Cliff) and possibly east of it. This likewise tends away from the "estate" being located on West 8th Street.

FWIW, as you go east on 8th from the freeway, it curves south and becomes Bonnie View, which in turn leads south to Kiest. It is the most likely route that JD Tippit took from Kiest & Bonnie View to 8th & Lancaster, and takes 8-9 minutes to drive at the speed limit (40 mph most of the way), about the same amount of time as between Tippit's two radio calls stating his location.

Peter Cimino, Apt 7 403 E. Tenth Street, Dallas, Texas advised SA's Henry J. Oliver and David H. Barry that on November 22, 1963 he was residing at 405 E. Tenth Street in an apartment with his wife.

On November 22, 1963 he and his wife had lunch together in a cafe in this neighborhood, and he believes just after he had lunch and was leaving the cafe he heard that President Kennedy had been shot. He and his wife then walked from the cafe to his apartment.

When he got home, his brother, Frank Cimino, told him that an officer had been shot in front of their residence. Peter Cimino advised he had not heard any shots nor had he seen any of the shooting and stated he could not furnish any information regarding the shooting of President Kennedy.

He also advised that he had never heard of Jack Ruby or Lee Oswald and could not furnish any information regarding these persons.

http://www.maryferre...8&relPageId=422

... There isn't any valid reason, in my mind, as to why this person wasn't given a polygraph test and the same nitrate test, they gave Oswald, even though nitrate tests are a thing of the past now, they weren't in 1963. I mean Gene Roberts, was a very credible witness, for the Dallas police to not act on his statements, reeks of "we've got our man on both counts."

I bolded the address, note initially, the address is 403 E. Tenth Street, then 405 E. Tenth Street, I suppose they had more than one apartment. Although he references his "apartment," duplexes were in vogue back then...... I also can't help but notice that the above address is not too far from 8th Street, on which street, the "estate" Harry Olsen was guarding was said to be. The estate, ostensibly belonged to a woman who was related to Dallas Police Officer Bill Swafford......

I definitely do not plan on just letting this drop without some follow-up, the same as some other threads I have posted lately.......

Aside from the fact that the "estate" story was BS - the "elderly female relative" who received a phone call from her friend while Harry was on watch, later turned into a deceased man whose friends probably realized he wouldn't answer the phone, among other inconsistencies - what leads you to the conclusion that the officer who (according to Harry, who could not remember the guy's name) was on a motorcycle in the motorcade was Bill Swafford?

That area of 10th Street was loaded with duplexes and even quad-plexes at the time. It's been undergoing a lot of renovation and reconstruction these past few years.

That is a very clever (although I'm sure that was not your intent) interpretation of my meaning. However, it is wanting for context.

What did I misinterpret? You said that the Honolulu conference ignored its marching orders to discuss the "only" topic that "JFK ordered," when in fact plans for possible withdrawal were only to be included in the agenda (per the CABLE), not discussed exclusively. As proof you point to "only three short paragraphs" in an abbreviated document, but seem to have ignored whatever might be in the original document. based not on the original document's non-existence or unavailability, but on the notion that the full document "'should' have been memorialized, IMO" [sic] in FRUS.

First, like I said, I remain convinced that the information you posted is inadequate to the task of providing any sound rationale for Bundy's having written a reversal of JFK's policy in Vietnam.

The weight of the evidence, including JFK's explanation of the purpose of the Honolulu meeting in his press conference of November 14 - in large part, to determine "what our policy should be" - proves that, whatever his hopes or desires, JFK's actual policy - the words he spoke not written by someone else adding "gloss" to the "formula" - was not "unambiguous" nor final. One cannot "reverse" a policy that is not headed in only one direction.

Second, I don't find the need to defend my credentials as a researcher. Third, suggesting that it is unreasonable for a researcher to ask unanswered questions out loud is a shallow yardstick by which to measure his or her "reputation". Fourth, like I said before, thanks for thinking...

Absolutely; I agree. One may certainly and responsibly ask unanswer questions out loud. What one should not do is to draw conclusions from questions and accuse people of complicity in societal murder, and certainly not without having examined all of the evidence. It's increasingly clear that not only haven't you, but you're not going to on your own, and you seem to want to dismiss if not completely ignore what others point out to you.

It's not "research," it's as you said: asking unanswered questions. Questions only provide answers if you actually look for them.