Duke Lane

Sam Pate, a news announcer for KBOX-AM radio, has been a topic of at least one other thread here, one recently. In preparation to an interview (or plural) with him, I'd ask a couple of things of anyone with an interest: (1) If you have any questions for Sam about his whereabouts, actions or statements, or those of any other news broadcasters or agencies, please post them here for me. I will make sure that as many as possible are included. (2)Ditto any questions or comments regarding the Oswald "news conferences" or Jack Ruby. There is, of course, a quid pro quo of sorts: I need a wee tad of help. (1) Somewhere here or on Lancer (or elsewhere; I think it was in a thread, anyway) the was a recounting of the incident, I believe involving James Worrell, where he had seen someone running from the back of the TSBD. Someone - I forget the name - disputed Worrell's story, saying that he'd been right there, too, and saw nothing of the sort. The latter told of moving a construction barricade to allow a car to come through. Can anyone please direct me to this info so I don't have to reconstruct it all? Many thanks in advance! (2)If anyone has a photo - preferably color, but b&w is okay - of the (or "a") red KBOX car with big white letters on the side anywhere in DP - or even a photo of one totally unrelated to November 22 - please let me know. Sam asked about this, and if I can provide him a small token of appreciation for his time, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. If possible, please let me know ASAP as I hope he'll be visiting soon. Many thanks in advance!

While I agree with your conclusion, I don't agree with how you reached it.First, traffic on these side streets is never "heavy," nor even close to anything you would so describe. Maybe four cars in a row rushing to lunch, tops, or six cars turning off of Jefferson to get home at the end of the day, but nothing much more than that. "Traffic" does not necessarily mean "heavy traffic," especially on a side street where several if not many minutes can pass without a single vehicle travelling it. I've been there often enough to know this to be the case today, when there are many more cars and trucks on the roads than there were in 1963. Part of the problem is in "assuming." You can't assume that when Markham said she was waiting for "traffic" to pass that she meant that the City really should have put a crossing-light in there, or that there was a long line of cars and trucks coming. In fact, we can only state unequivocably that this "traffic" consisted of Tippit's patrol car, Donnie Benavides' pickup truck, Jack Tatum's car, and Tom Bowley's car a block away. Scoggins' cab was parked, and hardly could be counted as "traffic" of any sort. That she had to wait to cross the street necessarily only means that she had to wait for a couple of cars to pass (Tippit's and Tatum's, and maybe Benavides' if he hadn't put on his signal), not very long at all. Likewise, the "official time" of the report of the shooting is essentially meaningless because you don't know exactly where Bowley's car was parked, exactly how long it took him to get from there to the scene of the shooting, or exactly how long he had to wait for Benavides to get out of the car so he could use the mike himself. Bowley checked his watch as he got out of the car because he was going to pick up his wife at the phone company where she worked to go on vacation, at 1:15, and he wanted to know the time relative to that (this from a recent conversation I had with him at his home). It read 1:10. There is no way to know how accurate it was since there were no such things as quartz watches back then, nor ones that synchronize themselves with satellites as there are today. He also did not travel the route regularly, and did so that day only because of the planned family vacation, and did not regularly pick up his wife at any particular time, so we can't surmise whether his watch was even close to the time on the phone company's clocks, which we might reasonably presume to be accurate since most phone companies provided dial-in "time of day" services at the time, and people - and companies and police departments and radio stations and bus companies - routinely set their own clocks by those. Also, when he arrived the phone company to pick up his wife, she did not get off as planned because she was a phone operator and the phones "went crazy" after the assassination ... so if he was late, she was even later. We don't even have a reference of his wife berating him for being ten minutes late (she didn't get off until after 4:00 p.m.) since there was no reason for him to notice or remember, much less to actually report it. It could have taken him six minutes to get from the car to talking on the radio, but maybe it took less ... or more. That it was Bowley on the radio is beyond question no matter whether or not Benavides thinks he made the call or not, or whether the WC credited him with having done so, simply on account of the fact that there are not TWO calls reporting the shooting, and even Benavides said that the PD acknowledged Bowley's transmission. (I could spend an awful lot more time on this, but won't.) Likewise, Markham's movements are open to some question inasmuch as there is no guessing how fast or slow she typically walked. We can assume that she usually if not always caught her regularly scheduled bus, and that she left her home in enough time to get to the bus that took her downtown to work. How much time is that? How much longer did she need to get to her bus stop from the corner where she watched the shooting take place to catch the bus? If she walked "deliberately," it could have been a minute, give or take. If she was more of a "dawdler," a "meanderer," a "mosey-er" or a "slow-poke," then it could have been any amount of time longer. No matter what time she normally left her house for her regular bus, all one can state is that, however fast or slow she went, she got to the bus stop before the bus did, and that's all. Maybe she got there five minutes ahead of it, or maybe just seconds ahead of it, but in any case she got there in time to board the bus on a regular and routine basis. We can reasonably presume the bus company's clocks to be accurate - and their drivers' watches to be synchronized reasonably often to them - although once again, we cannot presume that Markham's clock at home (or her watch, which she did not indicate that she wore) was as well. All of that said, your final "proof" of the eight-minute boot-camp mile being "doubled" when walking is without basis. There are 63,360 inches per mile, and the average male's stride is about 30 inches, thus taking 2112 paces to cover a mile. To do that in 16 minutes, one would have to take 132 strides a minute or 2.2 strides per second; in other words, a bit less than one second from the time the left foot first strikes the pavement until the next time it does and the right foot starts forward. Not a very brisk pace ... in fact, pretty leisurely, so why double the time? Even if you do double the time and estimate 16 minutes to travel a mile, first of all it is only 9/10 of a mile to 10th and Patton from the rooming house (16 x .9 = 14.4 or 14 minutes, 24 seconds), and second and more importantly, starting when? Was there a clock on the wall that Earlene Roberts happened to look at, or did she check her watch if she wore one? Why would she have if she didn't know "O.H. Lee" had done something wrong and she'd have to remember the time; if she did look, why make any note of the time in the first place ... and in any event, how can we assume that the clock/watch was accurate? If the Beckley clock - even assuming that there was one (nobody mentioned one, and even Earlene Roberts did no more than "guesstimate" what time it was that LHO - presuming it was even him - arrived and left again) - was off by as much as five minutes, and if Bowley went almost instantaneously from car to cruiser (did I mention that there is no record of where he stopped, no photos of it or testimony about it, and he has no memory himself?) and his watch was spot-on accurate, there's 15 minutes for someone to make the supposed 14 minute, 24 second trip, shoot and flee, more (or less) if Bowley's watch was NOT accurate, if he walked rather than ran from one place to the next, if Benavides spent one minute or five trying to use the radio in Tippit's car, or ...? I think it's fair to say that DPD's dispatch time clock was accurate, as were the phone company's (not that it came into direct play here) and the bus company's (to meet schedules). Those are the only absolutes when it comes to what happened and when. I believe anyone could have walked the distance from Beckley to 10th and Patton in 14.4 minutes or less (one of these days, I'll actually do it myself ... and I'm older than David Belin or Oswald was back then!) ... ... But the fact that someone could have done something is far from proving that they did do it. Likewise, dealing with Oswald's supposed timings and an unfounded and vaguely estimated belief of whether or not someone could cover a specific distance in a specific time does not disprove anything either. You are, however, absolutely correct about the bus: if nobody was there, it wasn't going to stop. Markham was, however, mistaken about the time of the bus: it was only "1:15" by her own reckoning, not by its schedule. If she and the WC were both correct, Markham's bus was already going by while she was still a block-and-change from where she needed to be ... and there's absolutely no reason to suspect that that was true.

Nevertheless, it is always interesting when conservatives raise the cry against the "liberal media." What does all that mean? That the "conservatives" who control the media are "liberal" compared to the conservatives they "undermine;" that the conservatives raising the cry are trying to blame "liberals" who really aren't liberals, but rather other conservatives (a "right-wing conspiracy to blame the Communists," to put it in another context); that "liberals" truly do control the media, but aren't liberal enough for "true" liberals and are therefore "conservatives;" that this is a case where you truly can "have it both ways" ... or what?If the "conservatives" truly "run" the mass media, then why do the conservatives rail against the "liberal" media? Conversely, why do liberals (for whom the media is supposedly writing) decry the conservative bias - and ownership - of media outlets? Does it make sense to anybody?

Drop me an email. I'm local and can not only give you directions, but can also play guide if you'd like if I'm not too very busy.

I found a link to the whole article starting here.

I've got a DVD copy of this "Unsolved History" broadcast, and have voiced my opinion regarding the use of a guy who skeet-shoots from the hip with 100% accuracy to fill in as the "Oswald shooter" and a fitness instructor to stand in for the "Oswald runner/walker" (the scrawny Oswald being described as "young and fit former Marine," suggesting that all Marines are, of necessity, in top physical conditioning). I don't know what - if any - objections Mack and Perry raised in this respect, but in fairness it must be said that their jobs were to ensure the accuracy of the physical setups, locations and routes and to be objective observers of the results: it was not "their" scenario insofar as the participants were concerned, but that of the producers.The show set out to "prove" that Oswald could have done all the things attributed to him at the TSBD and in Oak Cliff. It required certain assumptions, it seems, that could only be "assumed" after the fact: e.g., the real shooter(s) could not have known in advance about the speed(s) of the limo, when it would slow down or speed up, whether it would maintain any kind of constant speed or what that constant speed would be, or where on the roadway it would be situated (i.e., in the middle, or nearer one or the other curbs). As with most people who want to "prove" something, it was skewed in favor of them reaching their verdict. Whether or not Oswald could have done something does not, of course, prove that he did any of the things he might've been "able" to do, and neither of the "actors" involved even approximated anything we know about Oswald such that their performances could reasonably be considered "proof" of anything. That, of course, won't keep this broadcast from being cited by those who wish to "prove" their own points! (It's sort of like having Tiger Woods "replicate" a golf shot of mine, basing it on the fact that I've played golf and so has Tiger, so he's therefore "as good as me" whether or not I'm as good as he!) Frankly, tho' I'm twice Oswald's age, I think that I am a better "stand-in" for Oswald, having been a "pretty good" (but by no means "excellent!") "shot" in my younger years, but having had no practice for quite a few now. I can now walk, even at a brisk pace, a whole mile(!) now, thanks largely to a quadruple bypass ... but in my teens, my best aerobics run was probably only a 6:15 to 6:30 mile (and I stuggled mightily to break 7:30 early on!). Since I live near enough to Dallas and know where the warehouse used for the "re-enactment" is, perhaps one day fairly soon I'll try to re-create it myself and let you know what my own results are. In the meantime, however, I think that it is indeed possible that Oswald could have run down the stairs and into the lunch room, unwinded, if he was on the sixth floor to begin with, and could have walked from the rooming house to 10th & Patton in plenty of time to shoot Tippit, if he was ever at 10th & Patton to begin with. I don't think either happens to be the case, however, so it doesn't really matter, does it.

A potentially meaningless aside: the Pappas family has quite a large collection of restaurants of various types in and around Dallas, including Pappadeaux (seafood and Cajun), Pappas (Greek), Pappacitos (Mexican) and others. As to the other part of the family mentioned in the 76th Legislature's resolution - the Basses - I don't know if there's any connection, but the Bass family is one of the "old money" families in the region and is quite generous in its support of the arts, historical preservation and other civic endeavors. (They are also filthy rich.)The new Bass Performing Arts Center in Fort Worth is one of the most beautiful and undoubtedly enduring (the stone walls' thickness is measured in feet!) memorial buildings that has ever graced the city or even the State of Texas. If you are ever in Texas, put it at the top of your "must see" list together with the Alamo and, of course, Dealey Plaza!

See Z435. In it you will see two additional yellow stripes, from Z's perspective, on either side of the tree, one of them between the tree and the Ft Worth Turnpike sign. They are visible but not as clear in adjacent frames, but they do continue almost to - if not all the way to - the bridge.I didn't notice any before Z295 when it appears in front of Mary Moorman's left foot. From Z231 to Z292 there's not much curb showing at all; before that, I noticed no such stripes. If you posit a shooter from the TSBD, presumably SE 6th floor window, it almost seems as if these marks would be useless as that portion of the curb is almost in the line of sight of such a shooter. Perhaps not at the SW corner windows, but most likely from the SE window. I'll check it out when I'm downtown next. It might be helpful if you could email me an overhead view showing where the stripes are ...? The "range finders" down by the bridge seem totally useless to anyone in TSBD.

I don't think there was a concensus at all as to how long there was between shots, only that the second two were more closely spaced than the first two. Either of the two "timings" above fit that bill.It's my humble hypothesis that the first shot was taken by someone who "jumped the gun," so to speak, that is, fired before he was supposed to. He would be someone who had the time to stash the gun even given the Marrion Baker timeline, and clearly had time to leave the floor without being seen - in fact, he testified to that very thing, as did others, tho' he's never been connected to the shooting before. As to motive, it could have been as simple as the one most often ascribed to Oswald. First off, it is my opinion that the motive was-----------------------MONEY! Secondly, you are apparently quite correct in the "jump the gun", which would indicate a variation from the plan, in event the yellow stripes are in fact some form of referenc for "range markers". Quite coincidental that the second shot/aka Z313 headshot was only some 5-feet past the first of these yellow markers, with a 5.8 to 5.9 second wait between shots. The "jump the gun" appears to be the lack of experience factor which caused the shooter to let go with the first shot as the head of JFK came from under/behind the tree limbs. However, even at this close range, it should have been a "gimme" as the distance from the ledge of the sixth floor window, to the position on Elm St. was only between 175 to 185 feet. Nobody has ever ascribed Oswald's motivation to have been money. What anyone else's was ...? I wasn't commenting on that. I think the "lack of experience factor" plays well with this inasmuch as the shooter, while certainly old enough, saw virtually no active duty during WWII and had NO combat experience and in fact did not serve throughout the entire war as most men of the time (who survived) did.

The garage was owned by Mack Pate, no relation. I asked Sam, and that's what he said ... along with an anecdote about his (Sam's) and his dad's bank accounts getting mixed up with Mack Pate's for a while, unfortunately not to their benefit! I don't know if Sam was a part of that taping or not. I'll ask him when I see him in the next couple of weeks. He ain't no shrinking violet, that's a fact!

Here's another interesting one, does anyone want to comment on it? News car parked under the bridge as limo was turning onto Elm?

I don't think there was a concensus at all as to how long there was between shots, only that the second two were more closely spaced than the first two. Either of the two "timings" above fit that bill.It's my humble hypothesis that the first shot was taken by someone who "jumped the gun," so to speak, that is, fired before he was supposed to. He would be someone who had the time to stash the gun even given the Marrion Baker timeline, and clearly had time to leave the floor without being seen - in fact, he testified to that very thing, as did others, tho' he's never been connected to the shooting before. As to motive, it could have been as simple as the one most often ascribed to Oswald.

Yeah, our first "lone nut vice president!"

You completely left out the fact that he was an avowed Communist and was in the process of turning the country over to Kruschev, which he probably would have completed in his second term. Just ask any Bircher.The Birchers, incidentally, proclaimed that Kennedy's predecessors Truman and Eisenhower were "willing and witting instruments of the Communists." That being so, what would they have considered Kennedy to be? What would they have been justified in doing to have saved the country from going Red? At the same time, consider that the FBI was then of the opinion that the Klan (it was at the home of a high Klansman that the John Birch Society was born, by the way) was "abetted by law enforcement at the local level." The next question would seem, then, to be: could they have pulled it off?

So, then, you're suggesting that the acoustics studies are invalid, and that "earwitness" testimony and "courtroom gymnastics" are preferable to them?From a purely hypothetical, practical standpoint, if you have just ONE shooter with a scope on his rifle, we'd have to suspect that he'd seen the blood fly at Z312/313, why would he shoot AGAIN four seconds later? I can understand TWO shooters doing this (maybe), but not ONE. Makes no sense. Also with respect to other points of impact, several witnesses testified to seeing things hit the street, sparks flying, etc. You can't discount those simply on account of the fact that nobody took photos of where they were or counted them among the "missed" shots. You've also got to deal with the windshield crack/hole and the dent in the window frame, and the "Tague shot" too. Or was all that what that later, post-313 shot was for?

First off, the US Secret Service had in their possession a FIRST generation copy of the Z-film.Secondly, it doe not take any knowledge of the forensics and/or pathology to recognize the head strike at Z312/313. Therefore, why would one have to know the pathology & forensics of any shot striking. no picture was taken at 5+00 mark as this was about 4 feet from impact of the third shot." No one that I know of is speaking of "fragments" So, if I understand, you're suggesting that the original/first generation Z-film shows a shot striking (somewhere) 31 feet (how many Z-frames?) past the Z312/313 head shot and that, since the USSS had a copy of that and (presumably) showed it to Robert West, his survey nail at that location proves an additional shot took place and where it impacted?Presuming that to be so for the moment, one WOULD need to have knowledge of the forensics if only to know from which direction it came. The sole supporting "evidence" of there being but "ONE shooter" (emphasis yours) cannot be just that it was "possible" for two shots to have been fired from the Italian MC in the time it took for the limo to travel 31 feet at whatever speed it was then going. Because it could have been done that way does not mean that it was done that way! Hence, if you don't know where the shots originated - the pathology does not tell us conclusively - then you can't posit how many shooters there were or weren't. Likewise, we can't base the raison d'etre of a (second) survey nail 31 feet from Z312/313 on the presumptiion (assumption?) that the original/1st generation copy of the Z film shows any such thing (since most - if not all - of us have never seen either the original or a first-generation copy), or that, because West did a survey for USSS, that it necessarily showed him such a film. Z312/313 + 31 feet = how many Z-frames = how many seconds? So, eliminating (or ignoring, as the case may be) the possibility that West simply made a mistake on either one or both of the two surveys (and, if only one, which one?), what proof exists of another post-Z312 shot? For that matter, while "no one that [you] know of is speaking of 'fragments'" (I don't know who's speaking at all, in this matter; pardon me if I missed that somewhere), even where eyewitnesses have spoken of other impacts, even these don't talk about "fragments" - or even "whole bullets!" - but merely "strikes," so what does "fragments" have to do with anything? Since eyewitness accounts are considered "less than reliable" if not wholly unreliable and are generally discounted (correctly or not), what else is there that's certain? Tom, I'm asking these things as honest questions, no sarcasm intended ... unless, of course, there are no unassailable answers! Call me "Arlen's Advoc -" ... er, um, I mean "Devil's Advocate!"

Interesting concepts.First, that "impact positions" could be determined when the exact trajectory through JFK's body is not known, but is at best only extrapolated, and the point of entry at the rear (back? neck?) is not unquestionable and the hole at the throat cannot definitively be said to be either one of entry or of exit. Those not being proven scientifically / forensically, we cannot state with 100% certainty - other than based upon a belief - where the shots originated from. That applies equally to both the LN sixth-floor-window-only argument as well as any front-shot (grassy knoll, bridge, sewer drain, etc.) argument. Robert West could not have been using any more scientific data than is available to the rest of us since it plain ol' doesn't exist. How then a surveyor could determine points of impact when points of origin cannot be determined with certainty is beyond me ... unless, perhaps, he used a metal detector to find bits of metal embedded in the asphalt, which suggests MORE bullets than the ones that hit anybody! Also interesting to suggest a point of impact just 31 feet after the head shot. Is that a point of impact made before the head shot caused by a missed bullet, or one made after the headshot in the short time span it would take the limo to travel that distance (someone more mathematically inclined can figure that one out if they'd like)? What scientific proof did West apply to determine such a post-headshot impact? Finally, given that streets in Dallas, in Texas, and throughout the United States are public thoroughfares and wholly unrestricted in their use (provided any such use does not impede the regular flow of traffic or public utilities, or destroy the surface or appurtenances of said streets), why would someone "risk arrest" for walking down Elm Street with a metal detector? It's not even jay-walking (a mere ticketable offense) if the traffic light for oncoming traffic is red!

Tim,Good suggestion, that could very well be. None of the men whom witnesses saw at the TSBD windows, or who were seen running from it, wore police uniforms. But there was the unidentified uniformed officer whom Mabra encountered in the railroad yard, and there is of course Badge Man. .... Ron,That is not strictly true. White shirt and brown coats were the "uniform" of senior DCSD personnel and their version of "plain clothes" (versus shirts with badges and stripes and all that). Luke Mooney was the first officer on the sixth floor other than Marrion Baker, and when he arrived there, he traversed the floor several ways and encountered nobody, then went up to the seventh floor. On his way up in the elevator, it stopped to pick up two women, but the electricity apparently went off (or they didn't close the door correctly?), so they all went upstairs on foot. One of the women was Victoria Adams, who testified (6H391) to the same thing. On his way upstairs, Mooney encountered an unnamed "deputy sheriff like myself" coming down the stairs from above. The FBI (whose Hoover was big on "civil rights" of subjects of investigations ... as in "violating my civil rights" as opposed to the "civil rights movement") concluded at the time that organizations such as the KKK, JBS, NSRP and other "right wing" and "extremist" groups were "aided and abetted by police at the local level," and DPD officers have said privately that "half the force was Klan" at the time ... so why might anyone need to "obtain" police uniforms?

Roy,The Triple Overpass spans Commerce, Main and Elm Streets, which run east-west, thus the railroad tracks atop the bridge run north-south. It is more accurate to say that White was assigned to the west side of the overpass and Foster on the east side, thus they would be at the north end at the east and west sides, i.e., over Elm Street, the northernmost of the three streets that converge at this point. Hope that helps some.

I consider it unfortunate that this thread's focus was shifted to the security stripping issue, which isn't integral to the fake assassination attempt hypothesis. That Oswald had been sheepdipped as pro-Castro, that there were a few wildly stray shots in Dealey Plaza which may have been deliberate misses - these have no necessary relationship to security stripping. But being misled to believe a fake assassination attempt was in play would explain a great deal about the position Oswald found himself in. Sorry, but the "focus" seems to have been shifted from the start: I'm not sure how that last bit pertains to "the position Oswald found himself in," but I'll run with it for a moment. Yes, if Oswald were led to believe that there was a "scam" assassination attempt to take place, it might help to explain Oswald's "position," but what remains to be explained is why, how or by whom he'd have been "misled to believe" such a thing.As to Chicago and Tampa, if we believe correctly that those were authentic assassination attempts (why set up three fake ones?), then there is all the more reason to exclude the possibility that, amid these authentic attempts, the USSS would stage such a scam - or allow one to be staged - for any reason, most certainly one driven by solely political considerations (re-election). Repeat: absurd.

By "suspicious elevator operator," you mean "an elevator operator who was suspicious of Jim Braden" as opposed to "a suspicious person who was an elevator operator?"

Tim,My "scenarios" were intended to be absurd, just as I consider the idea that the SS would stand aside even for a staged, fake "attempt" if only on account of the (however remote) possibility that something might go wrong. Like using real people in crash tests instead of dummies on the premise that the car won't accelerate to a speed sufficient to cause "real" injuries. (Oops!) If such a "fake attempt" were to be planned and approved, a much better fail-safe would of necessity have been employed or the USSS would never have undertaken it (the USG was quite familiar with the notion of "fail-safe" at that point in time ... and to the USSS, the death of a president on their watch was not far afield of an accidental dropping of a nuclear bomb on Moscow). The key is in your observation of an attempt "without risking anyone's life." A shooter rushing in on JFK in a crowd and allowed to get within a few feet of him with defective ammunition (which alone, being live ammo, would have been anathema to the USSS) and being deflected, even killed at the last moment would seem more plausible for an "allowed" fake attempt than gunfire during a motorcade. Of course, then you'd need to find someone willing to die for the "cause," which I don't think entirely likely (without, of course, getting into the issue of "government mind control" and "Manchurian candidates"). Even in such a case, the "risk" would have been too great. On the other hand, someone being caught planting a bomb along JFK's route, whether in a motorcade or where he was making an appearance - something that would not involve direct or proximate contact with the protectee, and certainly not anything that could cause him bodily harm, much less death - would seem to fit the bill both as something the USSS could "live with" (since the situation - and the bomb! - would be defused long before the protectee would be in potential harm's way), as well as something that could be shown as an "assassination attempt" by Castro or anyone else. The "risk" is greatly reduced if not entirely eliminated. In sum, any such "attempt," to pass muster, would have to be something that had a much greater element of control to ensure the safety of the protectee than the events in Dallas could have possibly allowed. While perhaps the idea of a "staged attempt" might not be wholly implausible, the suggestion that the "game plan" in Dallas was among those seriously contemplated and allowed to move forward is, yes, patently absurd, if simply on account of the element of risk, and possibly coupled with the notion that the USSS could possibly just "stand down" at the sound of gunfire from some unknown direction. Indeed, the only way I could see this scenario being advanced is by someone actually intent upon "hijacking" it and hoping nobody would see the ruse. Edit: Incidentally, other than political gain (re-election), what would blaming the right wing in Dallas have achieved of significant national strategic value that the USSS would acquiesce to any such scheme, no matter the element of risk or control? Blaming the right wing would achieve exactly the opposite of blaming Castro, wouldn't it?

It does only if you can get past the absurdity of the idea in the first place. Isn't it a bit like testing your brakes by racing into a bridge abutment at 70 and hitting your brakes ... well, let's try 50 feet first, and then, if we survive, we'll try 40, and then ....?No, it's actually more ludicrous than that: it's like saying "why install brakes since we're not going to crash into a bridge abutment anyway?" This from the recently released Wine House tapes: Unidentified speaker: "Okay, guys, here's the plan. Today, we're going to set aside, nay, abandon our entire reason for being, our professional charter, our sworn duty and, in the spirit of fun, we're going to see if POTUS can, indeed, be killed when we're not around. Of course, we know nobody's going to try, but let's not upset the apple cart here, guys, or our salaries, pensions and budget, we've gotta keep up the pretense that somebody actually might, so today, we're gonna fake it, okay? Yeah, we all got this great idea last night at The Cellar, y'all really should've been there ...." I don't think this "fake assassination attempt" scenario even qualifies as a straw man, does it?

What is a code (or "signal") five? "Code" usually refererred to how officers travelled in their vehicles, Code One being "directly with haste," Code Two being "with lights," and Code Three being "lights and siren" (or very similar descriptions; it is among DPD testimony, I want to say Lt Pierce -?). I can't imagine anything faster than that, and don't know anything about a "Code Five."Parker (or #56) may not have been the "closest officer to Tippit's position." It is quite possible that that distinction belongs to the man who was regularly assigned to the patrol district in which Tippit got killed, who was eating lunch less than a mile away at Luby's Cafeteria. It is also worthy of note that not everyone who responded to the Tippit "Signal 19" (shooting) reported having done so, so whether or not Parker(?) or #56 was part of that whole deal is an open question for the moment. If, however, #56 reported being in or near central Oak Cliff at 12:45, it raises the question why Tippit and Nelson were told to report there just three minutes later, doesn't it? Especially since the regular officer was already there .... code 5/signal 5 is en route to location/out to lunch or a break. Parker, as far as I have been able to determine, made no further radio contact on the transcript I referenced, which ended shortly after 2:00 p.m. Yeah, I would really like to know why Parker would decide to go to the area where Tippit was murdered at the exact moment that channel 2 was asking for all available cars to go downtown. In checking the transcript, #56 says "Clear for 5" which doesn't really say it's a code or a signal 5. I wonder if he is saying he is clear for #5 (Lumpkin)? Then dispatch asks his location to which he responds "e. jefferson". Immediately following this is the report of the shooter's description. Chuck Chuck,In common radio parlance, "Clear for 5" would refer to minutes, that is, he will be "clear" of his radio for five minutes. "Out for 5" could mean the same thing. As often as not, someone radioing "clear" would also radio that they were back on the air, but that's not always the case. Do you have a reference for this transmission? I'm scanning through CE1974 (radio transcripts) and not finding it. East Jefferson Boulevard is a stretch of road about 1½ miles long, running from Beckley east and north to the viaduct over the Trinity River. Click here to see a map of where 56 could have been relative to where things were happening. I don't find it as interesting that Parker or any cop was in the area where another cop would soon be murdered as much as I do that there were already two cops in central Oak Cliff when dispatch found it necessary to send Tippit (and Nelson, who ignored the order) in to patrol "at large for any emergency that might come in."

Somehow, the "quotations" seem not to be working, so I've got to look back at who said what to whom. Apologies, and be back you soon!