Gene Kelly

On 11/5/2022 at 12:43 PM, Paul Cummings said:

People have said he went into the theatre to avoid detection by not paying. What I'm saying once he's inside his actions are anything but to avoid being noticed.

Point well taken, Paul.

There is so much that we will likely never know ... maybe it was Lee (not Harvey) since Burroughs spoke of him "sneaking up the stairs".  Maybe he was wandering through the theatre and sitting next to people (e.g., a pregnant woman) because he knew Tippit had been murdered (or would be sacrificed) and didn't want to be shot himself. 

On 11/3/2022 at 11:18 PM, Paul Cummings said:

Odd that Oswald was willing to buy popcorn but snuck into the theatre without paying.

Paul

My take on the popcorn is that it makes him look less conspicuous when he is seated in the theater (ostensibly waiting for a contact). Butch Burroughs told Jim Marrs that Julia Postal had sold Oswald a ticket but didn't mention him (Burroughs) checking it.  In Burrough's interview with James Douglas (in "JFK and the Unspeakable"), he stated that Oswald bought popcorn from the concession stand at 1.15 pm.

Mr. BURROUGHS. During the week I worked behind the concession. On weekends I usher.

BALL. During the afternoon of the week-do you take tickets too?  BURROUGHS. Yes-I take tickets every day.

Mr. BALL. And, run the concession? Mr. BURROUGHS. Yes.

Mr. BALL. If anybody comes in there without a ticket, what do you do, run them off? Mr. BURROUGHS. I make it a point to stop them and ask them to go out and get a ticket. I just failed to see him when he slipped in.

Mr. BALL. Did you see that man come in the theatre? Mr. BURROUGHS. No, sir; I didn’t. Mr. BALL. Do you have any idea what you were doing when he came in?

Mr. BURROUGHS. Well, I was-I had a lot of stock candy to count and put in the candy case for the coming night, and if he had came around in front of the concession out there, I would have seen him, even though I was bent down, I would have seen him, but otherwise. I think he sneaked up the stairs real fast.

Theater patron Jack Davis told Jim Marrs said that only minutes past 1:00 pm, during the opening credits of the first movie, he was startled by a man who squeezed past him and sat down in the seat next to him. This man moved around in the theater and eventually got up and walked toward the lobby. Eventually, the man (later identified as Oswald) came back and sat in the center section.  There is no evidence that Burroughs ever provided an official statement ...  no interview of him by either the Dallas Police or FBI, and no mention of him in the Warren Report.

Gene

15 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

Thank you.

No plotter would have depended upon a motorcade going to the Trade Mart. a location the WH refused to use, and held firm on until a week before the trip.

All the people saying Oswald had to be hired at TSBD in order for the JFKA to happen are not only wrong, they also miss the real reason Oswald got hired at TSBD:

He lived in Dallas, was about to have another kid, and desperately needed a job.

Matt

You forgot to add "... and he didn't drive a car". I'm not trying to poke fun, or even disagree with you, as you seem firm in the belief that Oswald landed in the TSBD by innocent circumstance.  Big picture, I can't give Ruth Paine a free pass on that job referral (or all of the incriminating evidence conveniently left in her garage).  Nor do I believe that Oswald only became a convenient patsy - who just happened to be working in that building - after the motorcade route was established.  

Gene

55 minutes ago, Paul Brancato said:

I have a question. Why do you think all the sheep dipping of Oswald was related to planning an assassination? Painting him as pro Castro leftist had other intelligence uses. 

Paul:

How does one explain Oswald ostensibly taking a shot at General Walker in April ... what did that have to do with intelligence and/or Cuba?

How does one explain what Shaw and Ferrie were doing with Oswald in Clinton and the East Louisiana State Hospital?  That had nothing to do with "intelligence" ... and everything to do with painting the patsy as a mentally unstable person. 

How does one explain the visit of "Leon" to Sylvia Odio in late September, characterized as a former Marine, expert marksman, and kind of "nuts" by claiming “we Cubans, we did not have the guts because we should have assassinated Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs”. 

How does one explain the incidents leading up to the assassination including his test-drive at a car dealership in Dallas and an episode at a shooting range ... it appears that the only intelligence use of Oswald was as a scapegoat for JFK's murder, tied to a "Communist" (the bogeyman of the Cold War).  

Gene

Pat

I agree with you that there were likely several contingencies being set up.  Given the gravity of what was to go down, it's difficult to imagine having only one plan.  I have often thought that Chicago, Miami and LA might have been just dry runs ... to test the tactics and timing.  Dallas was likely the ideal/primary spot, where local police and military could be counted upon to assist. How else does one explain the sheep-dipping of Oswald that was previously going on in the summer of 1963, including the leafletting, the Clay Shaw Clinton story, the Odio visit in late September, the ersatz Mexico City visits to the Cuban Consulate and Soviet Embassy. Nonetheless, Oswald returned to Dallas ... and all of these machinations occurred before Oswald got his job at the Depository, and well before the motorcade route was established. Are we to believe that he randomly ended up in the Depository, where he was then conveniently used? 

Gene   

6 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

Thanks for this bit of info, Gene. On what day was that conversation?

The White House rejected a lunch at the Trade Mart all the way until November 14th. How could anyone possibly count on the TSBD so far in advance with that situation in effect?

Matt

A good reference for the timing and planning is the JFK Records Collection, Chap. 2, "Planning the Texas Trip" in the National Archives.  The conversation you ask about was on November 8th:

On November 8, when Lawson was briefed on the itinerary for the trip to Dallas, he was told that 45 minutes had been allotted for a motorcade procession from Love Field to the luncheon site.

The agent in charge of the White House detail (Gerald Behn) asked Sorrels to examine three potential sites for the luncheon. One building, Market Hall, was unavailable for November 22; the second, the Women's Building at the State Fair Grounds, was a one-story building with few entrances and easy to make secure, but it lacked necessary food-handling facilities. The third possibility, the Trade Mart, a handsome new building with all the necessary facilities, presented security problems, but on November 4th, Sorrels believed these could be overcome by special precautions. Kenneth O'Donnell made the final decision on November 14th to hold the luncheon at the Trade Mart. 

Gene 

More humor.

And after entering the theater without paying, a literal squadron of DPD policemen quickly descend upon the Texas Theater ... apparently, sneaking into a movie without paying was a very serious crime in Dallas. 

Matt

I respect your opinion, but simply disagree. Nor do I think we can ever answer how CIA (alone) controlled the motorcade route. The assassination wasn't necessarily orchestrated by a single group, and CIA would be expected to expertly cover its tracks (as history has proven) using cutouts, 3rd parties and infiltrated organizations such as the DPD. 

I also believe that there was Secret Service complicity at some level, and the slow hairpin turn at Elm and Houston was an integral part of the plot ... similar to the assassination attempts made on Charles de Gaulle a year earlier. In "The Devil's Chessboard", David Talbot wrote that John Kennedy had learned of Allen Dulles’s involvement in plotting to overthrow de Gaulle and assured the French of his support while warning them:

“The CIA is such a vast and poorly controlled machine that the most unlikely maneuvers might be true.” 

The basic decision on the November trip to Texas was made at a meeting of President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and Governor Connally on June 5, 1963, at the Cortez Hotel in El Paso, Tex. In September, the White House decided to permit further visits by the President and extended the trip to run from the afternoon of November 21 through the evening of Friday, November 22 (see JFK Records Collection, Chap. 2, "Planning the Texas Trip").  When Governor Connally called at the White House on October 4th to discuss the details of the visit, it was agreed that the planning of events in Texas would be left largely to the Governor.  (Oswald ''s job inquiry and interview occurred on October 14-15). The motorcade route became the responsibility of Secret Service Special Agent Winston Lawson, a member of the White House detail who acted as the advance agent.  He was informed that 45 minutes had been allotted for a motorcade procession from Love Field to the luncheon site; the last portion of the journey, where the motorcade would pass through the northwest corner of Houston and Elm Streets, was only 5 minutes from the Trade Mart. 

It was Dealey Plaza that was pre-selected for the killing zone, and others have already addressed how the Trade Mart speech location assured that the motorcade would pass through the Plaza. The TSBD location itself wasn't that critical (imho) - the fatal shots actually came from elsewhere (and from several locations) - it is simply where the sniper's nest and patsy were staged. Perhaps a patsy could've been staged in the Dal-Tex and Annex buildings, the Dallas County Records Building, or the County Courthouse. The key to staging Oswald in that particular building was that the Book Depository was owned by D. H. Byrd and inhabited by individuals (Truly, Shelley, et al) associated with the plotters.  I find it no "coincidence" that Byrd co-founded the Civil Air Patrol (which David Ferrie and Oswald belonged to), was a member of the Dallas Petroleum Club, and was close to Jack Crichton. 

The assassination was a team effort.

Gene

Sandy

In my later years, my nuclear work has been in risk management, using probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) models to examine a complex system's potential risk, and identify what problems could have the most impact on safety. PRA uses (a) event trees to model the plant response; (b) fault tree logic to model various combinations of failures that disable an overall system and calculate the overall failure probability.; and (c) human reliability analysis to assess the probability of human mistakes in light of factors such as training, procedures, and expected conditions during an event.  So, I am no stranger when it comes to probability and statistics.

A red face (or straight face) test is whether something is legitimate or serious based on whether a given statement or legal argument can be made sincerely, without any compulsion to blush (or laugh). Saying one passes the red face test means one would not be embarrassed by disclosing something to others or doing something ... saying one fails the red face test means a situation would cause them discernible embarrassment.  We use it a lot in my workplace, when trying to convince colleagues of a particular argument. 

So, asserting that Mr. Oswald getting that job was simply a confluence of coincidence doesn't pass that test for me.  

Gene

The article in the March 2011 issue of The Dealey Plaza Echo "A Last Wild Ride for George de Mohrenschildt" by Nancy Wertz Weiford is very interesting.  I didn't appreciate how strained the relationship between George and Jeannie D. had become, nor the depth of personal problems.  

Sandy

Nuclear engineer for the last 40+ years ... undergraduate in physics.  Led plenty of investigations (technical in nature) in my time.  Used various root cause techniques.  Worked previously for the government as an inspector. More recently in risk management (hence the probability/statistics comment).  If one uses Bayesian mathematical techniques to analyze Ruth Paine's "coincidences" and Oswald's timely appearance as a stocking clerk at the TSBD, it doesn't pass what we call in my business as the "red-faced" test.

Gene

Sandy

FWIW, I do not believe that Oswald got that job in the TSBD randomly, by chance. Not with everything that we now know about his short life, and Ruth Paine's intersection in it. And the auspicious owners of the building, and some of its workers (e.g., Arce, Shelley). And the fact that the location was moved in the summer of 1963, into a well-planned ambush or killing zone.

Mathematicians define coincidence as “a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, with no apparent causal connection.” Psychologists characterize a coincidence as being in the eye of the beholder. Statistics alone do not explain it any further than chance, so random is not enough of an explanation for me.  We use rational process to learn cause and effect. We look for patterns, and weigh whether it seems likelier that the event was caused by chance, or by something else ... we draw inferences from patterns.

In this Book Depository case, the coincidence in question falls in a realm between being certain that something is false and being certain that something is true ... and if enough suspicious coincidences of a certain nature pile up, uncertainty can cross over into belief.  This is how we sometimes stumble into scientific discoveries ... these types of coincidences alert us to the "mysterious hiding in plain sight.” (Ref: Julie Beck (Feb. 2016) "Coincidences and the Meaning of Life" The Atlantic.)

Gene

And William Colby is later murdered in 1996 (15 years later) ... hard to believe that it was an accidental drowning.  He was fired by Ford in 1976 and replaced by George Bush 9for one year). Colby's courage and revelations actually saved the Agency:

https://www.justsecurity.org/68065/how-late-dci-william-colby-saved-the-cia-and-what-that-can-teach-us-today/ 

His son said the following:

He took on the toughest, dirtiest assignments that the White House could throw at him, and then they used him up and hung him out to dry. He was the reformer who saved the C.I.A. from itself. The price he paid was becoming the sacrificial lamb. Somebody had to take the fall. I think he took on the whole mess and was in turn consumed by the flames. It was like he purged himself of all the guilt and then walked away and re-invented himself just like phoenix rising from the ashes.

Sandy

I got the idea of Shelley 'helping' Oswald leave the building (but actually setting him up) from reading several accounts:  

1. "Important to Hold That Man" by Jerry Rose (May 1986) 
2. Barry Earnst's "Accidental History: The Girl on the Stairs" (summarized in Kennedy's and King) 
3. Bart Kamp's “Anatomy of the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter (April 2017)
4. William Weston's “The CIA and the Texas School Book Depository”. (April 2020 in Kennedys and King)
5. John Armstrong's articles “Escape from the 6th Floor” and “Oswald Did Not Run Down the Stairs” on his website

Armstrong's belief is that the three men seen by NBC news reporter Robert MacNeil - who came into the TSBD in those early minutes - were Shelley, Lovelady, and Oswald. MacNeil reported seeing a man using the pay phone (likely Shelley) who in an affidavit made that same afternoon said:

"I went back into the building [from outside where he viewed the shooting of the president] and went inside and called my wife and told her what happened."

One wonders if it was actually Shelley's wife whom he called (seems fishy to me) ...  perhaps it was Tippit or Westbrook. Armstrong then posits that Oswald picked up his jacket from the domino room and was escorted out the rear of the building by Shelley. Oswald was seen a minute later by Wesley Frazier as he walked down the steps from the loading dock, and then walked south on Houston toward Elm St. A few minutes later, Shelley met and escorted police to the upper floors, described in his affidavit. Armstrong wrote the following in his "Escape from the 6th Floor" piece:

Oswald did not realize that Shelley knew that he (HARVEY Oswald) would be arrested and charged with killing the President of the United States. Not only did Shelley deny being with Oswald, but it was also very likely Shelley who directed Oswald to leave the TSBD, board the Marsalis bus (#433), and meet a contact at the Texas Theater. After the shooting someone instructed Oswald to go to the Texas Theater, and someone gave Oswald the halves of two one-dollar bills that would likely be used to confirm his contact. If not Shelley, then who? 

In assessing all of the sources, and following this EF thread closely, it seemed plausible to me that Shelley helped Oswald leave by the rear building loading dock, on his journey to the patsy trap. Not long after Oswald departed from the scene, Shelley told Truly that Oswald was missing. Truly notified Captain Fritz, who immediately thought that it was "important to hold that man.”  Shelley was also suspiciously lingering in the rear of the building in the immediate aftermath ("guarding the elevator") ... and he subsequently changed his story several times about leaving the building and going down to the railroad tracks. 

Officer Marion Baker came in through the front door and met Roy Truly and saw two white men sitting by the stairs. Truly paused to tell Shelley to guard the stairs and elevators (ostensibly to make sure no one used them). The paradox about this scenario is explained in William Weston's 2020 article.  During Barry Earnst's 2002 interviews with Vickie Adams and Sandy Styles, they both told Barry that they did not see either Shelly or Lovelady when they descended from the fourth floor to the first. Their story rings true to me, and I believe the S&L encounter was a false construct prompted by the Warren Commission attorneys. William Weston goes on further to say that this WC construct likely included coaxing Shelly and Lovelady into making an ersatz trip across the street to the railroad yards, before their return to the TSBD, at which time they allegedly saw Styles and Adams.

Gene

Stansfield Turner, CIA Director, 1977–1981

Following congressional investigation into CIA activities by the Church Commission (1975-1976), presidential candidate Jimmy Carter put Langley in his sights. His CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner announced that he would reduce staff in the CIA's Operations Directorate. Turner’s arrival in 1977 challenged agency norms, leading to the dismissal of many old-guard officers, who resented the “Navy mafia” brought in to shake up the CIA. Turner (a Naval Academy graduate and Rhodes scholar) was Carter’s second choice for the CIA job—the first was liberal lawyer and onetime Kennedy aide Theodore Sorensen, but the Senate rejected him. 

Morale within CIA at the time was low, following three years of congressional probes and newspaper exposés that had left CIA in scandal along with Watergate and the Vietnam war.  In the five prior years, the agency had been headed by five different directors. Turner had an office in the Old Executive Office Building - next to the White House - and he met the president frequently for one-on-one briefings.

President Carter and Congress both took measures to: (a) Clarify in writing that the CIA had no business conducting U.S. operations unless it was necessary and closely tied to their main mission ... foreign matters; and (b) dismantle those departments which were solely engaged in domestic operations. A large number of “operatives” within the CIA were not working on foreign matters but were working on domestic matters (the purview of the FBI) ... illegal actions under US law and human rights violations. Turner’s tenure was also notable for the release of 20,000 documents relating to Project MKUltra, a covert operation during the 1950s and ’60s that involved experiments aiming to modify the behavior of citizens, using LSD, hypnosis and various forms of abuse.

On Oct. 31, 1977, in what the media dubbed the "Halloween massacre," Turner announced the elimination of 820 positions among the CIA's clandestine operations staff ... 649 jobs would be eliminated through attrition, 154 by involuntary retirement and 17 were simply fired. Turner later called two meetings of 500 senior CIA officials each in August 1979 to warn that the firings were imminent. He also sent out a detailed memo explaining how the cuts were being made. Some of the officers who left had been with the CIA since its inception in 1947. The cuts were undertaken partly in an effort to open up advancement paths for a number of younger officers in the middle grades.

Turner shifted the Agency's focus on high-tech intelligence collection such as satellites.  He aimed to make intelligence gathering more computer-based and less reliant on unethical techniques that compromised agents in the field. The admiral’s military bearing, and reformist approach, clashed with the agency’s ranking establishment of clandestine officers. Turner later expressed regret for the extent of “the Halloween Massacre,” as the job cuts were known. The revelation led to a Senate inquiry in 1977.

Larry

Truth is, I'm just now reading Red Bird Leads ... catching up (so to speak). I respect the work that you and David do; nothing is ever as it seems, and this story is more than 50 years old.  LHO was quite the enigma ... and he had a lot of experts manipulating him.  Calls to mind the comment about Tippitt ... poor dumb cop (by the taxi driver, Scroggins).  Someone exploited Oswald's agenda.

Gene

David:

Wow ... Carlos Hernandez certainly looks and sounds like our Oswald shepherd ... do you know what became of him?  Going further, was the objective of Oswald's escort to control him, and keep him in line (in essence, lead him along and set him up) ... or was it more collaborative and consensual?   I have a difficult time believing that Oswald was that naive. 

Gene

Thanks all ... great stuff.  Carlos "Batea" Hernandez Sanchez has all of the right connections:

• JMWAVE and AMWORLD; BOP Brigade 2523
• Personal bodyguard for Artime
• Associated with Nestor Izquierdo and Rafael Quintero 
• Paramilitary with black belt in judo and a sharpshooter
• Began his CIA paramilitary training under Carl Jenkins at the CIA's Panama camp, later at CIA camp outside Belle Chasse, Louisiana
• "Sheep-dipped" as a malcontent and officially taken out of the program - but moved into safe houses and then into Cuba infiltration missions out of Florida Keys
• When Robert McKeown declined the weapons sales proposition, he recalled one of the two men from his gun running to Cuba, a man known by the name Hernandez
• DRE visitors in Dallas in October, where an unidentified speaker made hostile remarks about President Kennedy. After the speech, upon learning he had been taped, the speaker (who warned that he had a black belt) took the tape by force
• One of the AMWORLD recruits taken off of the grid in September 1963 - covertly exfiltrated "black" via an AKL ship called the Joanne and via a "chartered" DC-3 - only to reappear in January/February of 1964 in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.  

However, he doesn't appear to be "stocky" (or overweight) and its unclear if he has a scar over one eye.

Gene

David

Does anyone have pictures of DRE member Carlos Hernandez?   I tried the Tango Down JFK site, but no luck.  Since Paul Bleau lays out more than 30 sightings of a stocky Latino escort, one would think there would be some pictures from one or more of those episodes.  Is Carlos one and the same with Celso Hernandez, who participated in the New Orleans leafletting skirmish along with Carlos Bringuier?  Or maybe the Cuban named Victor Hernandez who showed up with Oswald at Robert McKeown's house to solicit rifles. 

Gene

Ron

The more that I read about the Book Depository, the more that I come to believe that it was full of "spooks" ...

Gene 
 

Denny

Appreciate the compliment, but I'm still learning.  Until these recent threads, I hadn't given the 2nd floor encounter or Roy Truly and Bill Shelley much thought. Too many other scenarios and subplots of interest to chase down and understand.  The articles in Kennedys and King really provide educational reading and references, by credible knowledgeable authors. And following the experienced and talented researchers who frequent this Forum (e.g., Pat Speer, Jim DiEugenio, Jeff Carter, Paul Jolliffe, Larry Hancock, William Weston, John Armstrong, just to name a few) is very enlightening and thought-provoking. Once you connect all those dots - like a puzzle - the picture becomes clearer. 

After this current thread (and some fact checking), Truly and Shelley become much more interesting to me.  And there are other "insiders" who may have helped to set up the sniper's nest on the 6th floor, plant the weapon, and perhaps take some diversionary shots.  Someone had to help the shooters leave the building ... for that matter, someone helped Oswald leave the building.  I have come to believe that someone was Bill Shelley, who sent him out the back door, off to the Texas Theater to meet an ersatz contact ... only to walk into the patsy trap. 

And it appears that Roy Truly distracted Officer Marion Baker - probably an honest cop who unexpectedly got off of his motorcycle and went into the TSBD quickly - by taking him up the stairs and onto the roof.  What they didn't count on was that Baker would actually see Oswald briefly on the 1st floor ...  and Truly cleared him, by saying he worked there. Hence the fictitious 2nd floor encounter and coke. Before Baker got off his bike and made his infamous dash towards the front entrance, he was riding escort with the motorcade near the 3rd camera Cam Car.  Stavis Ellis, Baker’s supervisor, stated that he put Baker this far back in the motorcade, as he did not regard Baker to be the sharpest officer; and he had harsh words for Baker and his subsequent actions. But after returning from the roof, Truly and Shelley promptly fingered Oswald as missing - although there were over 60 people working in the building, many of whom weren't inside at that moment - and set the patsy manhunt in motion.   

Gene

PS. The beauty of this Forum is the interaction and dialogue ... and if I'm missing something, or there's a better explanation, then others much more knowledgeable than I will add to what I've posted, expanding the knowledge base. 

Ron

It seems that, when it comes to the Book Depository and its occupants, anything is possible.  In the April 2020 Weston article in Kennedys and King, Carolyn Arnold, a secretary for Ochus Campbell (VP of the Depository), told a friend in 1994 that she had been, and still was, terrified. She said that “there is a whole lot more to tell about the TSBD than what has been published ... that the whole building should be suspected as more or less of a ‘safe base’ to operate from that day in November 1963.”

The Texas School Book Depository (whose auspicious owner was D. H. Byrd, of Civil Air Patrol fame) had only occupied the building at 411 Elm Street for a few months prior to the assassination, moving into a new location in the summer of 1963.  Prior to this time, the building was occupied by a wholesale grocery company. Weston and others allege that the TSBD may have been used for smuggling activities and arms shipments (hence the various rifle stories and sightings) for right-wing groups and Cuban exiles.  There is an interesting February 2006 EF thread begun by Weston called "Spiders Web", where he posits that Depository and book company executives used schoolbooks to disguise shipments of firearms and narcotics. 

Gene

Paul

I agree that Lovelady was not a witting conspirator. Not only was he naive, gullible and used by Shelley ... so apparently was Oswald.

In following this thread, and digging into the 2nd floor encounter, it really opened up a lot for me.  It shines an unfavorable light upon both Roy Truly and Bill Shelley (neither of whom I knew much about).  For one, Truly wasn't just a manager; he was a member of the Board of Directors of the TSBD and had been part of this organization for a long time (so he had to know what was going on behind the scenes).  Roy Truly took the infamous call from Ruth Paine to hire Oswald, and later lied about the fictitious 2nd floor encounter ... a story that Officer Marion Baker was unable to keep straight.  Shelley also changed his story several times about where he was after the shooting ... but he appears to have killed the building power temporarily, 'guarded' the elevator, got Oswald out of the building and then flagged him as missing to Truly, and finally identified Oswald for the police when he was brought into the DPD station.   

I encourage you to read William Weston's April 2020 article in Kennedys and King about the strange goings on at the TSBD. He references a Jerry Rose article, “Important to Hold that Man” that challenges Oswald being singled out, since there were at least 14 people missing from the building at the time (and they would not return until 1:30 pm). And Weston chases down the so-called Glaze letters, written by a Lubbock journalist (Elzie Dean Glaze) who interviewed Shelley, where he allegedly claimed to have been an intelligence officer during World War II and thereafter joined the CIA. 

Not only was Lovelady harassed, so apparently was Roy Truly, who according to Jim Marrs (in Crossfire) was, up to the time of his death in 1985, continuously frightened by "federal authorities." Truly's wife Mildred refused to talk about the assassination even with members of her own family. 

Gene

Joe

Regarding your question about Shelley, John Armstong's website has a page called "Escape form the 6th Floor" where he posits that Bill Shelley (Oswald's supervisor) may have traveled to Louisiana in August 1963 and been in contact with Harvey Oswald in New Orleans. When Oswald was passing out FPCC literature, in front of Clay Shaw's International Trade Mart, a man who looks very much like Shelley was standing close to Oswald. There is no proof this man was Bill Shelley, but the physical resemblance is unmistakable.

Armstrong points out that Oswald himself said that he was "out with Bill Shelley in front" during the shooting (recorded on handwritten notes by Capt. Fritz and FBI agent Jim Hosty). Apparently, Oswald expected his supervisor and CIA contact (Shelley) to confirm that he and Oswald were together during the shooting.  But Oswald did not realize that Shelley was part of a plan to make sure that he quickly left the TSBD shortly after shots were fired ... a hasty departure that would appear as though he was evading capture. When Shelley was later questioned about Oswald's whereabouts after the shooting, Shelley denied being with Oswald.  Armstong believes that it was also possible that it was Shelley who instructed Oswald to leave the TSBD, instructed him to board the #433 bus, and instructed him to meet a contact at the Texas Theater. 

Armstrong adds more suspicion of Shelley by suggesting that he might have orchestrated other suspicious activities in the TSBD. It appears the electricity in the TSBD was turned off as the escort car turned from Main St. onto Houston St., less than one minute before shots were fired at the President. The electrical panels were located on the back side of the building on the first floor, close to the domino room and close to Bill Shelley's office. Roy Truly probably knew Shelley was responsible for turning off the electricity, which is why Truly ignored the passenger elevator, failed to look at the electrical panels, and said nothing about the two men he encountered (almost certainly Shelley and Lovelady). Officer Marrion Baker was asked by Warren Commissioner Senator Cooper if he saw anyone else while in the building, (other than Oswald and Truly) and Baker replied:

"On the first floor there were two men. As we came through the main doorway to the elevators, I remember as we tried to get on the elevators I remember two men, one was sitting on this side and another one between 20 or 30 feet away from us looking at us." 

David Belin knew there were two unidentified "white men" at the back of the TSBD, only one minute after the shooting. But when Belin interviewed Roy Truly a few weeks later, he never questioned Truly about these two men, nor did Truly say anything about these two men.  Neither Baker nor Truly provided any information to the Commission as to the two unknown "white men" seen at the back of the TSBD within two minutes of the shooting. Shelley and Lovelady's April 1964 testimony was accepted by the Commission, which concluded that Shelley and Lovelady were outside of the TSBD during and after the shooting, and only returned to the building 10 minutes later. 

Before running up the wooden stairs with Officer Baker, Truly told Bill Shelley not to let anybody up and down the elevator or stairway, as testified before the Warren Commission:

"Mr. Truly left me guarding the elevator, not to let anybody up and down the elevator or stairway...."

Only one minute after shots were fired, Armstong asks what possible, legitimate reason could Shelley and Lovelady have for being at the rear of the building?  Notably, the electricity was turned back on when these two men were on the first floor near the electrical panels. Finally, Shelly was one of the building employees who later identified Oswald for the police when he was brought into the DPD station.  The picture below of an individual in New Orleans with Oswald during the leaflet charade bears an uncanny resemblance to Shelly. 

Gene

Pat

On your question about the timing, my source was Roy Truly's May 14, 1964, WC testimony:

BALL. Tell me about how many minutes you think it was from the time you obtained the address of Lee Oswald until you told Captain Fritz the name and address? TRULY. I think it was immediately … after I called to the warehouse and got his name and address in Irving, I turned around and walked over and told Chief Lumpkin. And I remember Chief Lumpkin talking to two or three officers and I stepped back, and he went ahead and told them a few things-it could have been 2-4 minutes.  And then he came to me and said, “All right, let’s go up and see Captain Fritz and tell him this.”

BALL. You have no exact memory as to the time you discovered he was not there? TRULY. It was 15 or 20 minutes after the shots were fired, but after retracing my trip to the roof and the time delay and back, I would have to say that it was farther along in the day than I had believed, so it could have been 1 or 1:05 or something like that.

When Truly returned from the roof, he quickly notices that Oswald is missing, calls the warehouse to get Oswald's Irving address, informs Deputy Chief George Lumpkin (who was also a Captain in the Jack Crichton's 488th Military Intelligence Detachment), and seems in quite a hurry to get to the 6th floor to tell Captain Fritz:

BALL. Now, what did you tell Chief Lumpkin when you came down from the roof of the building?  TRULY. When I noticed this boy was missing, I told Chief Lumpkin that, “We have a man here that’s missing.” I said, “It may not mean anything, but he isn’t here.” I first called down to the other warehouse and had Mr. Akin pull the application of the boy so I could get-quickly get his address in Irving and his general description, so I could be more accurate … the only one I noticed at that time.

He didn't make a check of all of his employees ... his focus is on Oswald: 

BALL. Did you make a check of your employees afterwards?  TRULY. No, no; not complete. No, I just saw the group of the employees over there on the floor and I noticed this boy wasn’t with them. With no thought in my mind except that I had seen him a short time before in the building, I noticed he wasn’t there … (10 or 12 minutes earlier, in the lunchroom).  I asked Bill Shelley if he had seen him around and he said “No.”

This all appears to have happened in the first 20-30 minutes after the shots rang out.

Gene