Robert Prudhomme

I believe in keeping an open mind on this matter.

In regards to Dan Rather, there is one thing he describes in the "other" film he supposedly viewed, that is repeated in the testimony of an eyewitness.

Sam Holland was standing atop the Triple Underpass and witnessed the entire shooting. Below is an excerpt from his WC testimony:

"Mr. HOLLAND - Well, it was pretty loud, and naturally, underneath this underpass here it would be a little louder, the concussion from underneath it, it was a pretty loud report, and the car traveled a few yards, and Governor Connally turned in this fashion, like that [indicating] with his hand out, and another report.

Mr. STERN - With his right hand out?
Mr. HOLLAND - Turning to his right.
Mr. STERN - To his right?"

Coincidentally, or not, this is exactly the same thing Dan Rather reported seeing Connally do when he viewed the Zapruder film, only days after the assassination. Of course, Connally is not seen extending his right hand toward JFK in the Zapruder film we see. Both men also describe JFK raising his right hand to his head after the first shot, another thing not seen in the Zapruder film we see.

I have no trouble maintaining a civil tone in discussions on this forum.

Ah, who am I kidding; to be honest, I have to work very hard at resisting the temptation to respond in a nasty manner. In fact, it is a good thing we are all separated by the Internet, as there are a couple of members I likely would have punched in the head by this point in time.

That being said, James is right, of course. When things are allowed to degenerate into mudslinging and insults, the exchange of ideas ends there, too. Also, many other members, not involved in the fight, will quit posting on that thread, and their contributions are lost, as well.

Something I would like Greg to consider. I was banned from his forum for the most groundless of reasons, and mainly because another member on his forum threatened to leave unless I was removed. This member, of course, now denies he ever threatened this. Good thing I saved a few of those posts, eh?

Was this unjust? To be quite frank, I don't really know or care. The point of the matter is that, although I could spend the rest of my life bad mouthing Greg and his members on other forums, I choose not to do so, simply because I believe I am better than that, and will not lower myself to such levels.

Dave

Earlier, you wrote this:

"Most important (to me): I assisted Steve Bello in developing the basic view of the Walker shooting as a staged affair. Steve wrote dialogue that captured that idea, if only briefly, and it was the first time that, to my knowledge, the Walker affair was publicly explained in that fashion. As contrived."

Do you personally believe the Walker shooting was a staged and contrived affair? If so, could you elaborate on this, and possibly list the player(s) you felt was (were) involved?

Robert:

Yes, I believe the Walker shooting was contrived.

The rest of my analysis will be set forth in Final Charade.

DSL

Dave

By "contrived", do you mean to say that LHO did not act alone in the Walker shooting? By saying something is contrived, one is given to assume two or more people are involved.

Dave

Earlier, you wrote this:

"Most important (to me): I assisted Steve Bello in developing the basic view of the Walker shooting as a staged affair. Steve wrote dialogue that captured that idea, if only briefly, and it was the first time that, to my knowledge, the Walker affair was publicly explained in that fashion. As contrived."

Do you personally believe the Walker shooting was a staged and contrived affair? If so, could you elaborate on this, and possibly list the player(s) you felt was (were) involved?

Disagree, Ron.

Truth is always raw, always new, always foreign.

That's art, and that's science.

"You want the truth?? You can't handle the truth!!"

From Marguerite's testimony...

So this is where the picture comes in.

While there, Marina--there is an ashtray on the dressing table. And Marina comes with hits of paper, and puts them in the ashtray and strikes a match to it. And this is the picture of the gun that Marina tore up into bits of paper, and struck a match to it.

Now, that didn't burn completely, because it was heavy--not cardboard--what is the name for it--a photographic picture. So the match didn't take it completely.

Refresh my memory, Greg. Which photo is it that Marguerite testified to Marina burning?

David

What time did you see the post last night? I am in British Columbia and I believe we are both in the Pacific Standard Time Zone. I was up quite late, too, and, from time to time, I was checking this forum for new posts, and there did not seem to be any by Greg Parker until I checked the forum again today. Are you sure he deleted the post? I tried that with a post here once (a real boner that was the result of assumption) and I could not remove it. All I could do was remove the text, but the post was still there.

Anyways, you don't seem to need the post, as you are doing quite well quoting him from memory.

Now, let's think about this note a little before we draw too many conclusions. I always believe in looking both ways down the road, as it is just as easy getting run down from the east as it is from the west.

"Marina said that she placed the note inside of a cookbook."

Just when, and to whom, did Marina say this? Was that part of the "acceptance" program she went through?

Here is what I think about this notion. Marina had just arrived in America from a totalitarian state in which innocent people regularly were "disappeared" to the gulags in the middle of the night, and often never seen again. Often, these people were denounced by some citizen with a grudge or some ambitious person wishing to curry favour with the state, and the charges brought were inevitably groundless and contrived. Innocent people lived in constant fear, so where would that leave someone with something to actually hide?

Needless to say, Marina would have learned, from a very early age, not to keep anything with any potential to incriminate herself or anyone around her. Something like the Walker note, if found by the authorities in Russia, would not only earn LHO a one way ticket to the camps, it would also guarantee Marina a long sentence in a camp as well, for not immediately denouncing her husband as an enemy of the state.

Do you really think any of us here with even ten working brain cells would consider for one second that Marina, a child of the Stalinist era, would put the Walker note away for safekeeping in a cookbook?? For what reason? As a keepsake to hand down to their children some day?

No, if LHO wrote the Walker letter, I can guarantee you it would have been burnt or shredded within hours (or minutes) of Marina reading it.

Which is EXACTLY what she did with the ONLY (potentially, but not in reality) incriminating photo she had! She burned the damn thing.

I rest my case.

That's a good question, Paul. Before this last month, this is a part of the assassination I had never really looked at before. As you know, I tend to look more at the ballistics side of the case, as I feel more at home in this arena.

Greg Parker seems to have some knowledge in this matter, and perhaps we should be asking him if he can produce copies of Oswald's writings (in Russian) while he was in Russia.

http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t50-lho-and-russian-things

Good thread, Greg. You found a grammatical expert in Russian language, code named 9K116, to give an opinion of authorship based on the quantity of grammatical mistakes.

That is certainly a valuable datum, and should be widely perused.

Yet as 9K116 told you, a deeper linguistic analysis should also be done. I agree.

Yet in order for English speakers to perform a linguistic analysis to compare two documents for authorship, we must first have good, solid English translations in hand.

It would have been too much to ask, I believe, that your grammarian would also provide us with translations. Certainly 9K116 gave us a valuable transliteration in the Walker note, but as for the Minsk writings, we did not get any translation -- though we did get a useful error accounting. (The same with Ruth Paine's efforts).

Furthermore, what 9K116 provided was more than I'd ever read on that topic.

Either I'm wrong, or after a half-century, nobody has provided an easily accessible English translation of the Russian writings of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Hi Paul

This is one of the things I like about Greg, and something I try to practice in my own research. Instead of rehashing the same old fifty year old arguments, Greg is exploring new unexplored areas, and coming up with some amazing things, I might add.

Granted, he may not always be right but, I would admire him more for being wrong and being outside the box, than I would admire him for being right about something that everyone has been over a gazillion times.

David

What time did you see the post last night? I am in British Columbia and I believe we are both in the Pacific Standard Time Zone. I was up quite late, too, and, from time to time, I was checking this forum for new posts, and there did not seem to be any by Greg Parker until I checked the forum again today. Are you sure he deleted the post? I tried that with a post here once (a real boner that was the result of assumption) and I could not remove it. All I could do was remove the text, but the post was still there.

Anyways, you don't seem to need the post, as you are doing quite well quoting him from memory.

Now, let's think about this note a little before we draw too many conclusions. I always believe in looking both ways down the road, as it is just as easy getting run down from the east as it is from the west.

"Marina said that she placed the note inside of a cookbook."

Just when, and to whom, did Marina say this? Was that part of the "acceptance" program she went through?

Here is what I think about this notion. Marina had just arrived in America from a totalitarian state in which innocent people regularly were "disappeared" to the gulags in the middle of the night, and often never seen again. Often, these people were denounced by some citizen with a grudge or some ambitious person wishing to curry favour with the state, and the charges brought were inevitably groundless and contrived. Innocent people lived in constant fear, so where would that leave someone with something to actually hide?

Needless to say, Marina would have learned, from a very early age, not to keep anything with any potential to incriminate herself or anyone around her. Something like the Walker note, if found by the authorities in Russia, would not only earn LHO a one way ticket to the camps, it would also guarantee Marina a long sentence in a camp as well, for not immediately denouncing her husband as an enemy of the state.

Do you really think any of us here with even ten working brain cells would consider for one second that Marina, a child of the Stalinist era, would put the Walker note away for safekeeping in a cookbook?? For what reason? As a keepsake to hand down to their children some day?

No, if LHO wrote the Walker letter, I can guarantee you it would have been burnt or shredded within hours (or minutes) of Marina reading it.

You've got me there, Dave. This is the first time I've ever looked at this part of the assassination and, until Greg Parker mentioned them, I was unaware of letters written in Russian by Oswald while he was in Russia, let alone that they were written in a far superior Russian.

I'm just hoping that if I keep bringing the topic up, Greg or someone else will actually post some of these letters, and we can get the ball rolling on analyzing them. Maybe you're right, they might not even exist.

That's a good question, Paul. Before this last month, this is a part of the assassination I had never really looked at before. As you know, I tend to look more at the ballistics side of the case, as I feel more at home in this arena.

Greg Parker seems to have some knowledge in this matter, and perhaps we should be asking him if he can produce copies of Oswald's writings (in Russian) while he was in Russia.

No, I have never even seen the letters Oswald wrote in Russia, and I don't speak Russian. Considering that most people who have read Oswald's "while in Russia" letters believe them to be written by a person far more fluent in Russian than the author of the Walker letter, I would dearly love to see a frank and open discussion of the matter.

Have you read the "while in Russia" Oswald letters, Paul?

The note is authentic, IMHO, because its content matches the character of OSWALD as I read him.

The writer of this note is about to do something rash. The note is written in a hasty manner. The writer tries to give the impression of being in charge.

Well, OSWALD always kept the family money on his person. He would dole it out to Marina on a daily basis, if she really needed it, and only as much as she needed.

In this case, he leaves her all his cash -- not very much.

Also, he refers her to the Red Cross. When Lee Harvey OSWALD was in the USSR, he not only got 90 rubles a month for his job at the radio factory in Minsk, but he also got 70 rubles a month from the Red Cross -- almost doubling his monthly salary. Marina was impressed.

This would explain why OSWALD referred Marina to the Red Cross in case he got "arrested". He does not say in the note what he might get arrested for -- and this worried Marina until midnight when he came home, pale and sweating.

The note belongs to OSWALD on internal grounds.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

And, of course, Marina would NEVER discuss any of these things with Ruth while she was staying with her.

Why does everyone seem reluctant to pursue the comparison of the Walker letter with letters Oswald wrote (in Russian) while he was in Russia?

Ron Ecker,

Assuming Marina showed her husband the letter, which I doubt, she should have said to him: "You have written this letter in poor Russian. What am I to make of it? Please tell me."

In which case, Marina's husband, skilled in speaking Russian but deficient in writing Russian, should have said:...

Jon (commenting on your response to Ron Ecker):

Please keep in mind that Marina was already jumpy and uncomfortable about Oswald having ordered a rifle.

Now, with that in mind. . . also keep in mind her puzzlement when (on the evening of 4/10) she saw that note.

Her reaction was not: "The grammar is wrong" or "the syntax is wrong."

Rather, her reaction (almost certainly) was; "What the hell has my 'crazy husband' done now?"

Then, (I am tempted to write "CUT TO" because this really sounds like a bad screenplay):

Lee rushes in and says he has just attempted to murder General Walker.

What does she do?

No, she does not say "The grammar in this letter you wrote is wrong, you idiot!"

Nor does say: "Someday, a genius named Greg Parker will appear, and prove that you did not write this! There are ortho-whatever mistakes. . so it was not you who wrote this! Where is the author, Lee? Is he hiding in the closet?"

Nope. None of the above.

So. .. what does Marina say?

She says: "Who is General Walker?!"

That's right: that's what she asks: "Who is General Walker?"

At that point, Lee holds forth that Walker was an American fascist, who deserved to die--and that's why he did it. That's why he attempted to murder the man.

Marina, mortified, responds along the lines of: "You have no right to kill another human being just because you don't agree with his politics!"

etc etc.

Anyway, that's what happened on the night of April 10, 1963.

Lee's behavior marked a major turning point in their marriage.

From that point forward, she was deeply shaken --Lee was not Mr. Nice Guy (who she met in Minsk). Rather, she was concerned she had married a man she really didn't know.

So what is really going on here?

I'll tell you what I believe: In plain English, Lee had successfully gas-lighted Marina (See the movie "Spellbound"if you want to know more about that term; or just Google the term).

Of course, these are subtleties that are beyond Mr. Parker. Greg Parker is ready to head a lynch mob, falsely accuse Ruth Paine, and string her up for a crime she did not commit. And he is wallowing in a false sense of certainty; but, unfortunately, he has this whole matter analyzed incorrectly. All wrong.

For those who doubt my analysis--and especially anyone who is involved in a marriage or other serious relationship--it is a testable hypothesis. Only half-humorously, I suggest the following:

1. Go and order a gun

2. Put the gun in your residence within easy view of your wife.

3. One evening, retrieve the gun, and leave a note (akin to the Walker note, and with grammatical errors).

4. Come running into the house, later in the evening, and say you have shot at someone--e.g., President Obama, or perhaps Vice President Joe Biden, who was visiting your city.

Now here's the proposition to be tested:

Which of the following occurs?

(a) Your wife says: Joe, what's wrong with you? This letter has grammatical errors!

( b ) Your wife says: Joe, have you gone mad? Why are you shooting at a public figure?

(c ) She says: "Joe, Please leave the premises. I never liked you; and I never want to see you again!"

IMHO: It was that kind of a moment, and of one thing I am fairly certain--the answer will not be (a).

DSL

4/22/15 - 5:30 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

Will you address the claim by Greg Parker that the letters Oswald wrote earlier in Russia were written in a far superior Russian than the letter Oswald allegedly wrote to Marina regarding the Walker shooting?

I'm not sure how we can accomplish this but, I would dearly love to see all of these letters analysed by an impartial party, fluent in Russian.

bump

"We're here, because we're here, because we're here, because we're here......."

Ron Ecker,

Assuming Marina showed her husband the letter, which I doubt, she should have said to him: "You have written this letter in poor Russian. What am I to make of it? Please tell me."

In which case, Marina's husband, skilled in speaking Russian but deficient in writing Russian, should have said:...

Jon (commenting on your response to Ron Ecker):

Please keep in mind that Marina was already jumpy and uncomfortable about Oswald having ordered a rifle.

Now, with that in mind. . . also keep in mind her puzzlement when (on the evening of 4/10) she saw that note.

Her reaction was not: "The grammar is wrong" or "the syntax is wrong."

Rather, her reaction (almost certainly) was; "What the hell has my 'crazy husband' done now?"

Then, (I am tempted to write "CUT TO" because this really sounds like a bad screenplay):

Lee rushes in and says he has just attempted to murder General Walker.

What does she do?

No, she does not say "The grammar in this letter you wrote is wrong, you idiot!"

Nor does say: "Someday, a genius named Greg Parker will appear, and prove that you did not write this! There are ortho-whatever mistakes. . so it was not you who wrote this! Where is the author, Lee? Is he hiding in the closet?"

Nope. None of the above.

So. .. what does Marina say?

She says: "Who is General Walker?!"

That's right: that's what she asks: "Who is General Walker?"

At that point, Lee holds forth that Walker was an American fascist, who deserved to die--and that's why he did it. That's why he attempted to murder the man.

Marina, mortified, responds along the lines of: "You have no right to kill another human being just because you don't agree with his politics!"

etc etc.

Anyway, that's what happened on the night of April 10, 1963.

Lee's behavior marked a major turning point in their marriage.

From that point forward, she was deeply shaken --Lee was not Mr. Nice Guy (who she met in Minsk). Rather, she was concerned she had married a man she really didn't know.

So what is really going on here?

I'll tell you what I believe: In plain English, Lee had successfully gas-lighted Marina (See the movie "Spellbound"if you want to know more about that term; or just Google the term).

Of course, these are subtleties that are beyond Mr. Parker. Greg Parker is ready to head a lynch mob, falsely accuse Ruth Paine, and string her up for a crime she did not commit. And he is wallowing in a false sense of certainty; but, unfortunately, he has this whole matter analyzed incorrectly. All wrong.

For those who doubt my analysis--and especially anyone who is involved in a marriage or other serious relationship--it is a testable hypothesis. Only half-humorously, I suggest the following:

1. Go and order a gun

2. Put the gun in your residence within easy view of your wife.

3. One evening, retrieve the gun, and leave a note (akin to the Walker note, and with grammatical errors).

4. Come running into the house, later in the evening, and say you have shot at someone--e.g., President Obama, or perhaps Vice President Joe Biden, who was visiting your city.

Now here's the proposition to be tested:

Which of the following occurs?

(a) Your wife says: Joe, what's wrong with you? This letter has grammatical errors!

( b ) Your wife says: Joe, have you gone mad? Why are you shooting at a public figure?

(c ) She says: "Joe, Please leave the premises. I never liked you; and I never want to see you again!"

IMHO: It was that kind of a moment, and of one thing I am fairly certain--the answer will not be (a).

DSL

4/22/15 - 5:30 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

Will you address the claim by Greg Parker that the letters Oswald wrote earlier in Russia were written in a far superior Russian than the letter Oswald allegedly wrote to Marina regarding the Walker shooting?

I'm not sure how we can accomplish this but, I would dearly love to see all of these letters analysed by an impartial party, fluent in Russian.

Shouldn't we be trying to compare the Walker letter with the letters Oswald wrote while in Russia that Greg speaks of? It seems odd that everyone is quietly ignoring this small but significant item.

I don't know who wrote the "Walker Letter".

Greg Parker has written here that a native-speaking acquaintance of his studied the note and judged it was written by Ruth Paine.

I've had the letter studied by my 32-year-old daughter, who has no dog in this fight. She has taught Russian language at an Ivy League university and is expert, although not native speaking, in Slavic languages and literature. My daughter does not give a fig about the letter. She analyzed it as a teacher in Russian I in an Ivy League University.

My daughter tells me her first semester Russian language students would not make the mistakes of this letter. They wouldn't because she would have taught them not to make such mistakes. IOW, in my daughter's view, and she is an American expert on the Russian language, whoever wrote this note did not know written Russian well.

I asked my daughter whether a native speaker would get the written language wrong. She said no.

I offer this information FWIW.

Jon:

Some years back, I went over Oswald's Russian fluency. Oswald, I learned, was an "aural learner"--and a very good one, at that. An aural learner picks up a language the same way a parrot functions--they learn by "hearing" as opposed to studying a textbook which contains information re grammar, syntax, etc. If Oswald was an aural learner--and I have been persuaded this was in fact the case--then I would assume it is entirely possible that his spoken Russian could be quite good, whereas when he sat down to write a note--like the one he left for Marina--he made a variety of errors (as your daughter noted). Anyway, I see no reason to extrapolate from these errors to the notion that Oswald was not the author of the letter. And incidentally: Marina never questioned that it was her husband who wrote the Walker note. Nor is there any evidence at all that Lee Oswald ever said, "I didn't write that note. Someone must have gotten into the apartment and left that note for you to read; it was not me!" etc.

My conclusions:

1.Oswald wrote the note

2. Oswald came rushing into the apartment, just as Marina has described, breathless, etc. --and said (I stress "said") that he shot at Walker. That doesn't mean he did shoot at Walker; but he definitely said that he did. And then he sat down in front of the radio, and was twirling the dial, looking for news coverage of the event.

DSL

4/21/15 - 9:10 p.m. PDT

Los Angeles,California

Your conclusions are seriously flawed.

Did you miss the part where it was determined that OTHER Russian writings of Oswald contained only a small fraction of the errors contained in the so-called Walker note?

"Nor is there any evidence at all that Lee Oswald ever said, "I didn't write that note." Damned sorry I missed the seance where Oswald was given the opportunity to deny authorship!

Do tell us all about it, Mr Lifton, sir!

Excellent response, Greg. I fear another has gone over to the Dark Side.

Some quotes from the thread I pointed to:

Russian speaker:

Walker note contains more mistakes than `While in Russia` one (however, I was able only to read first and half of second paragraph, other text is too blured to be understable).

Walker note certainly is written by non-Russian, while `While in Russia` one only shows few elements indicating the Russian in not mother language of author. My conclusion is both notes in terms of grammar and orthography is not written by the same person.

I have heard rumors claiming Ruth Paine knew Russian better than Oswald and he became mad when he was not able to understand conversation in Russian between Ruth and Marina. I find this untrue - author of both notes should know Russian good enough to be able understand conversation, even if his own speaking skills are not so great.

Me:

Okay. Got it. The Walker note and the "in Russia letters" were either written by different people or, if both written by Oswald, his ability had greatly diminshed between the times of those writings (even though for lot of that time, he was still living in Minsk).

Here is some Warren Commission testimony that may interest you:

From Ruth Paine:

Senator COOPER - 1 have just one or two more. You said at one time you came to the conclusion that he wasn't an agent or spy because you didn't think he was intelligent enough. I believe you said that.

Mrs. PAINE - That and the fact that as far as I could see had no contacts or any means of getting any information that would have been of any interest to the Soviet Union.

Senator COOPER - Yet he was intelligent enough that he had learned to speak Russian.

Mrs. PAINE - His Russian was poor. His vocabulary was large, his grammar never was good.

From Peter Gregory:

Mr. GREGORY - Yes, sir. It was in the middle of June 1962. On that particular morning, I was in the office, my telephone rang, and the voice on the other end told me that my name was given to him by the Fort Worth Public Library. He knew I was teaching Russian at the library, that he was looking for a job as a translator or interpreter in the Russian and English languages, and that he would like for me to give him a letter testifying to that effect. He spoke to me in English, so I suggested to him, not knowing who that was, that he might drop by my office and I would be glad to give him a test. He did. He came by the office, about 11 o'clock that morning, and I gave him a short test by simply opening a book at random and asking him to read a paragraph or two and then translate it. He did it very well. So I gave him a letter addressed to whom it may concern that in my opinion he was capable of being an interpreter or a translator.

Mr. LIEBELER - What happened after you gave Mr. Oswald--this individual was Lee Harvey Oswald?

Mr. GREGORY - Yes, sir; that individual was Lee Harvey Oswald. After that, I asked him--I noticed that he spoke with what I thought to be a Polish accent, so I asked him if he were of Polish origin, and he stated that he was not, that he was raised in Fort Worth, Tex., but that he learned Russian in the Soviet Union where he lived for 2 1/2 or 3 years. He also told me that he married a Russian girl, and that he brought his wife with him, and that they also had a baby. I told him that I knew of no openings at the time--I didn't know of any--for services of a translator or interpreter, but that if he would leave his address I would be glad to get in touch with him if and when I learned of any such openings. He gave me his address. He lived with his brother at that time at the western edge of Fort Worth.

Me:

Since I do not believe Oswald 's ability in the Russian language diminished to any degree,

and since I do not believe Oswald took any kind of pot-shot at Walker,

then I have to conclude that someone else wrote the so-called Walker note and tried to imitate what they thought was Oswald's level of ability.

and since Ruth Paine though Oswald's level of ability was not that high...

Senator COOPER - Yet he was intelligent enough that he had learned to speak Russian.

Mrs. PAINE - His Russian was poor. His vocabulary was large, his grammar never was good.

despite the more expert opinion of Peter Gregory... (I gave him a short test by simply opening a book at random and asking him to read a paragraph or two and then translate it. He did it very well. So I gave him a letter addressed to whom it may concern that in my opinion he was capable of being an interpreter or a translator.)

I would have to conclude Mrs P is a likely candidate as the author.

Question time.

Did Marina continue to live with Ruth Paine following the assassination? If so, for how long?

Did Michael and Ruth Paine ever re-unite? I so, how long after the assassination?

P.S.

Excellent work, by the way.

Here is the so-called Walker letter.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1133&relPageId=26

Can anyone ID the bridge at point 11?

Interesting question about the bridge, Greg. Looking at a map of Dallas, Main Street seems to cross the Trinity River just west of Dealey Plaza, where the city jail is located. Taking this route west would lead To Irving, just west of Dallas. Could this be what was meant in point 11?

Do his directions correctly locate the jail and the landmark travelling from Irving?

"If I am alive and taken prisoner, the city jail is located at the end of the bridge through which we always passed on going to the city (right in the beginning of the city after crossing the bridge)"

I have made some interesting discoveries. Just after going under the Triple Underpass, and just after the Stemmons Freeway on ramp, Elm St., Main St. and Commerce St. seem to merge into one road that is called West Commerce St. About 800 metres past the TUP, W. Commerce St. crosses the Trinity River, and guess what is the first avenue crossing W. Commerce St. on the western bank of the Trinity River? Give up? It's North Beckley Avenue, and no more than 3.5 kilometres south on N. Beckley Ave. is Oswald's rooming house.

But there's more. Four blocks south of Oswald's rooming house on N. Beckley, and two and one half blocks west on West Neely St. puts us at 214 West Neely St., the supposed locale for the famous back yard photos.

Dealey Plaza is definitely the beginning of the Dallas downtown area and, depending on how things translate from Russian, some might interpret entering the "city" as entering the downtown area, while for me, entering a city begins when I reach the suburban outskirts.

And, if I was driving from 801 West Irving Boulevard in Irving Texas, and headed for downtown Dallas, one quick route might be going east on W. Irving Blvd. for 2 kilometres, south on Highway 12 for 8 kilometres and then east again on the Tom Landry Freeway. After 5 kilometres on the Tom Landry Freeway, take the Ft. Worth Ave. exit going east, and follow this road until it becomes West Commerce St. and crosses the Trinity River and voila! you are in Dealey Plaza.

The thing I think we should keep in mind is that anyone could have figured all of this out, and included the directions to the city jail in the note when it was written. I am still far from convinced that Oswald wrote this note.

I can't seem to find a name for this bridge, and Main St. seems to turn into Ft. Worth Avenue once it crosses the Trinity River.

Here is the so-called Walker letter.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1133&relPageId=26

Can anyone ID the bridge at point 11?

Interesting question about the bridge, Greg. Looking at a map of Dallas, Main Street seems to cross the Trinity River just west of Dealey Plaza, where the city jail is located. Taking this route west would lead to Irving, just west of Dallas. Could this be what was meant in point 11?

Two misconceptions about the Altgens 6 photo that are a result of compression from a telephoto lens.

1. Lovelady was standing on the far left side of the TSBD steps in the Altgens photo and, by the time Wiegman films him, he has migrated to the right side of the steps.

2. Lovelady's left arm can be seen in the front of the black man's chest.

Can we discuss Prayerman here?

I'll bet you were a troublemaker when you were a school boy, too.

So, if he is standing behind the black man, is he also scratching the front of the black man's neck?