David Von Pein

In addition to his appearance in 1988's "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", Dr. Robert McClelland also performed a "hand-on-his-head" demonstration for the PBS-TV camera in another 1988 television program, "Who Shot President Kennedy?", hosted by Walter Cronkite.

In that PBS program, Dr. McClelland twice put his right hand over the upper-right portion of the back of his head to indicate where he said the large wound was located in President Kennedy's head (see the screen captures below).



The late Doctor Robert McClelland, in my opinion, had some very strange beliefs concerning JFK's head wounds and what he was seeing when he viewed the autopsy photographs at the National Archives for that PBS/NOVA program in 1988, which I discuss HERE and HERE.

Here's an excerpt from Vince Bugliosi's book concerning Dr. McClelland:

[Book Quote On:]

“When I spoke over the telephone to Dr. McClelland in late September and early October of 2002, McClelland, a respected Dallas surgeon whom no one accuses of trying to deliberately mislead anyone, only of being completely wrong in what he thought he saw (the most honest people in the world can think they saw the darndest things), said he was positive the president had a "massive hole to the back of his head."

He said at the time of his observation he was holding a metal retractor that was pulling the skin away from the president's trachea so Drs. Perry and Carrico could perform their tracheotomy. "I had nothing else to do or to distract me so I fixated on this large, gaping hole to the back of the president's head for ten to twelve minutes."

When I wondered how he could see the large hole when the president was always lying on his back, he said the wound was so large that he nevertheless could see "most of it." If what he said was true, I asked, how is it possible that on the Zapruder film itself, the explosion is clearly to the right frontal portion of the president's head with a large amount of brain matter spraying out, and the back of his head appears to be completely intact?

Dr. McClelland gave an answer that deserves some type of an award for inventiveness: "What the explanation for this is, I just don't know, but what I believe happened is that the spray of brain matter and blood was kind of like a bloodscreen, similar to a smokescreen, that precluded a clear view of the occipital area."

If, I pursued the matter, the exit wound was to the back of the president's head, where was the entrance wound for this bullet? McClelland, who believes the shot to the head came from the grassy knoll, said he believed the president was struck "around the hairline near the middle of his forehead."

If that was so, I asked, how was it that seventeen pathologists, including Dr. Wecht, all agreed that the president was only struck twice, both times from the rear, and none of them—from photographs, X-rays, and personal observation (by the three autopsy surgeons)—saw any entrance wound to the president's forehead?

Again, McClelland, who acknowledged, "I'm not a pathologist and I've never conducted an autopsy," said, "I don't know the answer to your question." But he remained sincerely inventive in his imagination. "What I believe happened is that none of the pathologists saw the entrance wound because it became a part of the destruction to the whole right side and top of the president's head. In other words, it was no longer a separate hole that could be identified."

(Of course, none of the autopsy photographs show any such massive injury to the president's forehead extending to the right side of his head, and none is referred to in the autopsy report, nor in the reports of the Clark Panel and Rockefeller Commission. As the HSCA said, "There is no evidence that the president was struck by a bullet entering the front of his head.")

"So you do acknowledge," I said, "the explosion to the right front part of the president's head?" "Oh, yes," the doctor said, "but that's not where the bullet exited. It exited in the occipital region of his head, leaving a hole so big I could put my fist in it."

When I pointed out to the doctor again that not only didn't the Zapruder film show any large hole to the back of the president's head but autopsy photographs never showed any large hole there either, he said that although it was pure "supposition" on his part, at the time the photographs were taken, someone "could have pulled a flap of the president's skin, attached to the base of his neck, forward," thereby covering the large defect. When I asked him if he saw any such loose flap of skin at Parkland, he acknowledged, "I did not."

It was getting late in the evening, Dallas time, but before I ended the interview I reminded Dr. McClelland of the fact that in his Parkland Hospital admission note at 4:45 p.m. on the day of the assassination, he had written that the president died "from a gunshot wound of the left temple." "Yes," he said, "that was a mistake. I never saw any wound to the president's left temple. Dr. Jenkins had told me there was a wound there, though he later denied telling me this."

Since there was no bullet wound to the left side of the president's body, and since the conspiracy theorists allege that Kennedy was shot from the grassy knoll to his right front, conspiracy author Robert Groden solves the problem and avoids having his star witness, Dr. McClelland, look very confused and non-credible simply by changing McClelland's words "left temple" to "right temple" in his book, The Killing of a President.

When I called Dr. McClelland the following evening to discuss further one of the points he had made, he quickly told me he was glad I had called because "since we hung up last night, I've had some second thoughts about the exact location of the exit wound."

Unlike the many conspiracy theorists who have exploited Dr. McClelland's obvious errors to their benefit, he told me, "I don't question the integrity of all the pathologists who disagree with me" (he wasn't so kind to his colleague, Dr. Charles Crenshaw: "Chuck had a lot of problems and fabricated a lot of things"), saying, for instance, that he and the three autopsy surgeons were "obviously looking at the same head and the same wound," but that the area on the head where they placed the wound differed because of "the different positions from which we viewed it and also because of the different interpretations of what we saw, which is normal."

But he made a major concession in an effort to reconcile his position with theirs. "I have to say that the sketch I first drew for Josiah Thompson's book a few years after the assassination was misleading. Since last night, I've been thinking that I placed the large hole in the president's head farther back than it really was, maybe. It may have been a bit more forward."

When I asked him where he now put it, he said, "Partially in the occipital region and partly in the right back part of the parietal bone" (which I told him was actually consistent with the original position he took in his Warren Commission testimony), but he still insisted that this large exit wound was not to the right frontal area of the president's skull as concluded by all the pathologists.

Dr. McClelland told me he believes there were two gunmen, Oswald and someone else, and further believes that "the CIA and FBI, mostly the CIA, were behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, and they brought in the Mafia, who carried out the killing."

He said he didn't know but suspects that "the Warren Commission covered up the conspiracy." On that note, I thanked the good doctor for his time and bid him a good night.” -- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 405-407 of "Reclaiming History"

We can argue forever about the exact time that Officer Tippit was shot. There will always be disagreement amongst LNers and CTers concerning that point. But it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference precisely when Tippit was shot, because regardless of what the exact time was, we KNOW (or at least I do) that Tippit's murderer was positively (and beyond all possible doubt) Lee Harvey Oswald.

And we can know this for a fact not only due to the many witnesses who positively identified Oswald as either Tippit's one and only killer or as the one and only gunman who fled the scene of the crime....but also due to the even-more-definitive ballistics evidence that Oswald was kind enough to leave behind at the scene of the murder---which consisted of those four bullet shell casings that positively came from the same gun that was used to kill Officer Tippit, which was also the same gun that Oswald still had in his very own hands just 35 minutes after Tippit was slain.

Yes, virtually all CTers will argue that those bullet shells were faked or planted or switched to incriminate the resident "patsy", but when asked what proof the conspiracy theorists possess to support such an extraordinary and vile allegation, the silence becomes overwhelming. In short, no such evidence exists and every reasonable person knows it.

And therefore....

Marcus,

Why wasn't the "real assassin" seen by anybody coming down those same back stairs?

I guess you think the real killer(s) must have just stayed up on the Floor Of Death for several extra minutes, running the great risk of being caught right there on the sixth floor. Is that it?

7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

In Shelley's first-day statement, he says that after the shots, he ran across the street to the concrete island, where he bumped into Gloria Calvery. He then went back to the steps, went  inside, and called his wife. In Lovelady's first-day statement, he says that after the shots he went back inside the TSBD. So they both went back inside right after the shooting. Through the front door. It is therefore no surprise if Vickie Adams saw Shelley and Lovelady after she ran down the steps.

I see that Sandy still hasn't given up on his very silly notion about both Lovelady & Shelley telling a pack of lies to the WC.

Mr. Larsen can't seem to accept the simple notion that Lovelady and Shelley merely provided more details in their later (1964) statements than they did in their earlier statements. (As discussed years ago at the link below.)

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/Shelley-And-Lovelady

..........

12 minutes ago, Keven Hofeling said:

...multiple lay witnesses describe the same blown out right side of the back of JFK's head.

You're not really suggesting that these photos below are implying that all three of these Dealey Plaza witnesses (Abe Zapruder, Bill Newman, and Gayle Newman) saw the "back of JFK's head" blown out, are you? Because these hands-on demonstrations are showing no such thing, of course:

On 1/1/2024 at 2:20 AM, Pat Speer said:

Well, so much for the theory she [Victoria Adams] never said anything about Shelley and Lovelady, and that the Leavelle report was a fake, and that the portions of her testimony about Shelley and Lovelady were added in to make her look bad. 

Good riddance to total bs. 

Exactly!!

The big question I have now regarding Victoria E. Adams is:

Why on Earth would she have told author Barry Ernest (in the early 2000s, was it?) that she had definitely not seen Shelley & Lovelady just after she got to the first floor of the TSBD on 11/22/63?

Prior to her interviews with Ernest, had her memory of events been so diminished that she had actually thought the Warren Commission had added things to her sworn testimony? I suppose the "fading memory" explanation is always a possibility to consider. (Victoria passed away in November 2007. She was 66.)

Also, I'm wondering what Barry Ernest's opinion was/is of Victoria's "mental state" when he interviewed her? Did her memory of the events seem clear and vivid? Or was it somewhat shaky and murky? (I'm just wondering.)

5 minutes ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

No, i have Oswald thinking about getting his jacket while Oswald is still on the 2nd floor (after Baker & Truly had passed).

But the jacket can't possibly have the bus transfer in it that he got from McWatters. So what the heck are you talking about (re: Oswald wanting to save money on his bus fare before he ever exits the TSBD)?

9 minutes ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

Re Adams & Styles....... they left the window after say 10 sec.

Why have you decided to just make up this "10 seconds" figure? You know full well that Adams testified she stayed at the 4th-floor window for "15 to 30 seconds". So why are you now pretending it was as little as ten?

Plus, there's this 2011 info from conspiracy theorist Sean Murphy:

"Sandra Styles claimed she told Ernest what she was now telling me: that she and Victoria Adams did *not* go to the rear stairs anything close to as quickly as Victoria had claimed."  -- Sean Murphy; January 27, 2011

1 minute ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

Oswald got a potential refund on his original bus ticket in Elm St when he got off & got a taxi.

But that was only AFTER he left the TSBD. You've got him desperately trying to get his jacket BEFORE he ever switched from the bus to the taxi. You've got your chronology all messed up here.

6 minutes ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

1. Baker did not enter the lunchroom. Baker called Oswald over to Baker.

Any other nitpicky points you want to bring up?

I've got to give you credit though, Marjan. You've posted more hunks of pure speculation (aka: fantasy) in these last 24 hours on this forum than anyone else I can ever think of. Congrats.

8 minutes ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

And in the end Oswald tried to save a few cents on his bus ticket while being hunted.

Huh??  What's that got to do with his blue jacket?

Are you suggesting he had a "Get On The Bus Free" ticket in his blue jacket?

25 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

So, she and Styles DID run off toward the stairs in just seconds. Bolsters her story imo. That would not have been enough time for Oswald to stand up, run to the far end of the 6th floor, stash his rifle...then start his run to and down the stairs and beat Adams and Styles to those stairs below them imo.

JEAN DAVISON SAID:

I have a question for anyone who accepts Vickie Adams' time line and believes that she came downstairs before Truly & Baker had reached the freight elevator on the 1st floor.

If she's right, how does her story prove that Oswald didn't come down those stairs?

In the WC version, Baker spotted Oswald just after each man had reached the second floor landing. That means that while Truly & Baker were rushing up from the 1st floor to the second, Oswald would've presumably been hurrying from about the 3rd floor to the 2nd. So where were Adams and Styles during that time, according to Adams? Already outside the building!

Can someone explain how her time line prevents Oswald from using those stairs?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

It doesn't prevent Oswald from using those same stairs. And that is something I have also pointed out in my posts in the past:

"I'll say this regarding Vickie Adams' timeline....The more I think about this subject, the more I realize that even if Adams DID descend those stairs as quickly as she said she did, that particular scenario really does no harm whatsoever to the "Oswald Did It" conclusion.  Why?  Because...then Adams and Styles very likely BEAT Lee Harvey Oswald to the stairs. Hence, it's likely that Adams & Styles were always AHEAD of Oswald on their descent down the stairs. And if Adams & Styles were really THAT fast at getting to the first floor, then they could have possibly beaten Baker & Truly too, with B&T only getting on the stairs after A&S had vacated the stairwell." -- DVP; February 17, 2011
 

28 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Did Adams really state in the interview that she and Styles waited a full minute ( 60 seconds) after the shots to begin running out to the stairs?

I don't recall her saying any such thing in her 1966 interview. (But maybe she did and I just missed it.)

But here's what Adams told the WC:

Mr. BELIN - How long do you think it was between the time the shots were fired and the time you left the window to start toward the stairway?

Miss ADAMS - Between 15 and 30 seconds, estimated, approximately.

Mr. BELIN - How long do you think it was, or do you think it took you to get from the window to the top of the fourth floor stairs?

Miss ADAMS - I don't think I can answer that question accurately, because the time approximation, without a stopwatch, would be difficult.

Mr. BELIN - How long do you think it took you to get from the window to the bottom of the stairs on the first floor?

Miss ADAMS - I would say no longer than a minute at the most.

3 hours ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

If Adams was on the stairs after all 3 men had already used the stairs then Garner would not have seen Baker & Truly on the 4th floor.

Why not? We know Baker & Truly DID briefly emerge on the 4th floor during their journey thru the building.

We merely need to accept these possible alternative scenarios:

1. Baker & Truly were both inside the lunchroom with Oswald on the 2nd floor at the precise moment when Adams & Styles were also on the 2nd floor making their mad dash toward the ground floor.....and, therefore, A&S didn't see B&T (or Oz).

or....

2. Dorothy Garner got the chronology mixed up SEVEN MONTHS LATER (on June 2, 1964) when she tried to reconstruct the timeline for Assistant United States Attorney Martha Joe Stroud.

3 hours ago, Marjan Rynkiewicz said:

Nope, read my earlier comment.

Oswald fires his shot-1 at pseudo Z105, the slug ricochets off a guy-rod of the overhead signal arm, the slug puts a hole in the floor of the limo, the fine lead splatter hits jfk on the back of his head, & jfk utters my god i have been hit.

Oswald fires his shot-2 at Z218, the magic bullet.

Oswald stands up & back from the window, he duznt fire his last bullet.

Oswald sees that Hickey accidentally fires an auto-burst of his AR15 at Z300 to Z312, hitting jfk in the head.

Oswald takes off.

Oswald gets to the 2nd floor after 48 sec.

Oswald just missed seeing Hines walking along the corridor near the lunch room & entering the office door from the corridor at about 46 seconds.

Oswald stops.  What to do next?

Should he continue down to the first floor?

Should he go to the first floor via the front stairs?

Should he lay low in the lunch room?

His jacket is in the Domino Room.

Uh Oh -- He hears Adams & Styles klomping down the stairs in a real hurry on a mission.

Best to visit the coke machine & hope that whoever it is goes clean past.

They pass. He comes back out. What to do next?

He can't decide.  He will be less conspicuous if he takes the front stairs, but he would then have to walk back into & throo the storage area to get his jacket in the Domino Room.

He decides to continue down the back stairs.

He makes a start but then Truly hollers up the elevator shaft, so he goes back up.

Then he hears Baker & Truly galloping up the stairs, & he retreats to the coke machine a second time.

He walks slow & cool.

He would have been better off diving into the lunchroom in a hurry, & laying low, he knows there is no-one in there, but he knows that if seen rushing (by Truly & Co) it will be a sure sign that he is guilty of something.

He nearly makes it, another couple of slow steps & he will be out of sight.

But damn, Baker spots a bit of him throo the glass of the door & says to come back.

Truly says that Oswald works here, & Baker & Truly gallop off.

They get to the 5th floor & take the east elevator to the 7th floor.

Oswald gets a coke to look less guilty & more cool if confronted again.  And assassinations go better with coke.

The back stairs are now dangerous.  He heads for the front stairs, either forgetting about his jacket or deciding that his jacket is a dead duck.

But just in case more dumb cops are entering along the corridor he goes via the office.

Damn, he meets Jeraldean Reid as she returns to her desk.  Mrs Hine is also in the office but she doesn't notice Oswald, or forgets.

Reid in 3 re-enactments took exactly 120 sec to get to her desk, which is about right (ie to meet Oswald).

She says something as they pass & he mumbles something back.  Its not a good look.  He has no business in the office, unless wanting change for the coke machine. Its not even a short cut to the stairs. Damn.  Anyhow no big deal.

He goes down the front stairs & mixes with the growing throng in the lobby near the front door without raising any suspicion.

Someone asks him about a phone.

Ok, things aint so bad, praps he can take a chance & get his jacket from the Domino Room anyhow.

Hmmm – he can get his jacket by going out the front door & down the steps & around & entering via the Houston dock (like he does each morning), & walking 16 paces to the jacket.

Getting caught walking in shouldn’t result in getting bitten by a cop.

So, off he goes, but he gets a little ways up Houston & he sees Officer Barnett on sentry duty at the dock, & Barnett looks vicious.

So, a quick U-turn & back down Houston.  Buell Frazier sees him walking south along Houston.

No, the jacket is a dead duck.  He decides to get out of there asap, he crosses Houston & then crosses Elm.

Tippit is waiting.

Boy, Oswald was sure desperate to get that jacket, wasn't he?

But.....why?

From a 2011 discussion (which includes participation by Barry Ernest; see link below).....

DAVID V.P. SAID:

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.

David Von Pein
February 14, 2011

24 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Thanks! Now I'm going to be up late watching the movie [1978's "Ruby And Oswald"].

It's actually a very good movie (accuracy-wise), with very few mistakes. Some 1978 cars are shown on the street in a couple of scenes, and the Hertz sign atop the TSBD says "Fords" instead of "Chevrolets". But those aren't really things I would regard as mistakes, because they couldn't really be corrected within the type of TV Movie budget they had to work with.

Also please note that the real Jim Leavelle is handcuffed to Oswald (Frederic Forrest) in the film.

8 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Interesting about the self-closing heavy doors that are heard easily on the stairway.

See one of those stairway doors in action in the cued-up video clip below (which is from a TV movie that was filmed inside the TSBD itself in 1978):

Thank you, Bill Fite, for posting the link to the 1966 interview with assassination witness Victoria Adams.

Adams, of course, is a witness that a lot of conspiracy theorists love to prop up as "proof" that Lee Harvey Oswald could not possibly have gone down the back stairs of the Book Depository just after the assassination due to the fact that Miss Adams did not see or hear anyone on those stairs when she and Sandra Styles used them to descend from the 4th floor to the 1st floor very shortly after JFK was shot on 11/22/63.

But the notion that the entire case against Lee Oswald should be flushed down the toilet merely due to the estimated timeline of events as described by Vickie Adams is a very silly notion indeed....as I talk about in great detail on my webpage LINKED HERE.

I think the most interesting thing that is heard in the 1966 interview with Adams is when she talks about the three mistakes that were made by the Warren Commission during the time she was providing her testimony to the Commission in April of 1964. And the three errors that Adams mentions are things that are completely innocuous and relatively unimportant in nature, with none of the three items dealing with any substantive matters at all.

And yet, to hear many conspiracy theorists tell it, Victoria Adams was one of the many witnesses who has said she had key portions of her published testimony "altered" or "changed" by the Warren Commission.

But if that had truly been the case, then why on Earth wouldn't she have said something to Mark Lane and Mort Sahl about that very important fact during her fairly lengthy 1966 interview when she starts talking about the various things that the Commission got wrong in her published testimony?

But instead of raking the Commission over hot coals for "altering" or "eliminating" some of the things she had actually said during her testimony, she didn't say a single word in her 1966 interview about the Warren Commission altering anything that anyone could possibly consider to be of great value or substance whatsoever. She talked only about three very unimportant things that the Commission stenographer got wrong, which are things that I would classify as merely "typos" and nothing more than that.

After hearing Vickie Adams' total silence in 1966 when it comes to certain parts of her WC testimony allegedly being "altered" before it was publicly published (relating specifically to Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady), it makes me wonder if this rarely-heard 1966 interview with Victoria Adams has inadvertently debunked (at least in part) yet another conspiracy-flavored myth that has endured for decades. That being: the "Altered Testimony" myth (at least with respect to Vickie Adams' testimony specifically, at any rate).

And we must keep in mind when listening to Adams speak in the '66 interview that she most certainly doesn't come across as a fan or a supporter of the Warren Commission in any way whatsoever.

Therefore, I think it's also quite obvious that her complete silence about any alleged "Shelley/Lovelady alterations" during the interview was not brought about as a result of Miss Adams being frightened of what might happen to her if she dared speak out in a negative manner about Earl Warren's Commission.
 

If you'd like to hear Rob Reiner misrepresent the evidence concerning the events surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald's movements on November 22nd and the "Coke" and the "Lunchroom Encounter", then CLICK HERE to listen to Part 8 of Reiner's 10-part "Who Killed JFK?" podcast.

Anyone who is not familiar with the things that Oswald told the Dallas Police after his arrest, and anybody also unfamiliar with the details concerning the Coca-Cola and Lunchroom Encounter topics, will probably tend to believe the untrue things that Mr. Reiner has uttered in Part 8 of his conspiracy-oriented podcast series, such as when Reiner tells us that Oswald told the police that he was on the second floor of the Book Depository when the President was shot.

But Oswald most certainly did not tell the police he was on the second floor at the precise time of the shooting. He specifically told Dallas Police Homicide Captain J.W. Fritz that he had been eating his lunch on the first floor of the building when JFK's motorcade passed the Depository....

From Captain Fritz' typewritten report:

"I asked him [Lee Oswald] what part of the building he was in at the time the President was shot, and he said that he was having his lunch about that time on the first floor." -- Warren Report; Page 600

In his podcast, Reiner has utilized some sleight-of-hand to try and make his podcast listeners think that Oswald must have been located on the second floor all throughout the key minutes before, during, and after the assassination of President Kennedy. Because when Reiner selectively reads this direct quote from the Hosty/Bookhout FBI report that appears on page 613 of the Warren Commission's Final Report....

"[Oswald] went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch"....

....Mr. Reiner conveniently omitted the very next sentence that is written in that same Hosty/Bookhout report, which is this sentence:

"Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building." --Warren Report; Page 613

So, as we can see, Oswald's "alibi" wasn't that he was on the second floor when JFK was shot. Oswald claimed he was on the first floor at that time.

In addition, Mr. Reiner's utilization of the wholly unreliable and inconsistent story of Carolyn Arnold is another sign that Reiner's arguments are mighty weak ones, as I discuss HERE.

And Rob Reiner engages in an even bigger and more blatant misrepresentation of the facts when he inaccurately claims that Roy Truly and Marrion Baker saw Lee Oswald "sitting in the lunchroom with a Coke in his hand".

But anyone who knows the true facts relating to the testimony of both Depository Superintendent Roy S. Truly and Dallas Police Officer Marrion L. Baker, knows that Oswald was most definitely not "sitting" when he was seen by Truly and Baker on 11/22/63. He was standing. Plus, neither Truly nor Baker testified that Oswald had a "Coke in his hand".

Mr. Reiner, like many other conspiracy theorists worldwide, has merely accepted as fact the long-ago-debunked myth about Oswald holding a Coke during the lunchroom encounter with Baker and Truly.

Lots of additional facts concerning the Lunchroom Encounter and The Coca-Cola and Oswald's Whereabouts At 12:30 PM On November 22, 1963, sans any speculative conspiratorial spin, can be found at the link below:

DVP's JFK Archives / Index / Lee Harvey Oswald