Jim Hargrove

Ray, To heck with the shoulder. LOOK AT THAT GUY'S FACE!!! I never thought I'd believe in this Mission Impossible face mask business, but to my old eyes there is CLEARLY another face pasted over the original in this image. John Butler is right! Highlights and shadows do not explain this, at least for me. I have no idea why anyone would do this, but that sure looks like a "face mask" to me. Why don't you put aside for a moment your obvious beef with John B, and just look at the picture?

Why on earth would anyone want to change the shirt pattern? Seems like a long shot that any of these old newspapers will answer the alteration question, doesn't it?

David, The name John Pittman was on a list provided to the HSCA by the CIA of Americans who had defected or at least were in the Soviet Union between 1958 and 1964. His name stayed on the list as a number of filters were applied, essentially to find people like LHO. see: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ../jfkinfo4/jfk12/defector.htm My bet is that he, like LHO, was a spy, although quite a bit older.

Sheesh… is there ANYTHING that’s clear cut in this whole friggin topic? We do have the right building, eh? Regarding Sandy’s comments above, if Lovelady actually WAS wearing this shirt on 11/22/63 (a big IF), then do we have a picture of him at all that day?

Sandy, It looks to me like Lovelady was wearing a plaid shirt, at least in police headquarters. The FBI report about the vertically striped shirt appears to be inaccurate. https://youtu.be/FnwhfOQz3Fg

Paul, Thank you for the article links. This is very interesting. Seems entirely possible to me that focusing on 1963 instead of 1957 was a clever misdirection. It reminds me of the following: The FBI became aware of reports that a “Lee Harvey Oswald” was active in New York City political demonstrations in early 1962, while Classic Oswald® was still in the Soviet Union. The reports indicated that the New York Oswald was staying with some other operatives at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan. In order to examine this claim, the FBI sent agents to the Roosevelt Hotel--in New Orleans! A very careful examination of records at the wrong hotel yielded (surprise!) no evidence that “Lee Harvey Oswald” stayed there. John A’s write-up about this is here: THE STORY OF TWO STEVEN LANDESBERGS

Tony, I have Lovelady's own words in his own handwriting describing the shots and stating, "After it was over we went back into the building....." Not a word about all the later nonsense about spending nearly a half hour outside doing this and that.

I don't think so, Bart. Both Shelley and Lovelady wrote affidavits in their own handwriting on 11/22/63, just a few hours after the assassination, and both indicated that they went back into the building quickly. Moments after the last shot was fired at President Kennedy, Shelley and Lovelady were at the back of the TSBD on the 1st floor, and both men then accompanied police officers as they searched the building. In Shelley's 11/22/63 affidavit he wrote, "I went back to the building & went inside & called my wife & told her what happened. I was on the first floor then & I stayed at the elevator & was told not to let anyone out of the elevator. I left the elevator and went with the police on up to the other floors." (see affidavit below). In Lovelady's 11/22/63 affidavit he wrote, "After it was over we went back into the building and went to work took some police officers up to search the building" (see affidavit below).

John A. spoke to Barry Ernest several times, including a reasonably extensive interview, before he completed the article linked below. I've always trusted John's instincts when it comes, as it so often does in this case, to analyzing wildly contradictory evidence. Mr. Ernest noted both in his book and his conversation with John that Ms. Adams was very uneasy about the Lovelady/Shelley question. ESCAPE FROM THE SIXTH FLOOR

It sure is a mess. Assuming your document summary above is accurate, the only thing left out of this discussion recently is Baker’s testimony that he, moving with Truly, encountered two unknown white men at the back of the first floor. Baker said one of the men standing was standing near the stairs, the other about 20-30 feet away, which should be near the electrical panels. Baker’s encounter with the two white men must have been within seconds of Vickie Adams’ alleged encounter. Who else could those two men be? Baker would have had no reason to be able to identify two TSBD employees, but Truly sure as heck would have known them. Why on earth didn’t the WC ask Truly who the two men were? Call me a cynic, but I’m beginning to think the WC really wasn’t a very good investigation. John A. told me recently that Barry Ernest has put up interviews on YouTube with both Adams and Sandra Styles. John said that in the Adams interview, she denies the Shelley/Lovelady encounter but, although Mr. Ernest said Styles also denied the encounter, she didn’t do so in the YouTube recording. The questions about this may just never end. My gut feeling is that the Shelley/Lovelady encounter did happen, and Adams was browbeaten over the decades to deny it.

Some people believe that the Warren Commission altered Vickie Adams’ testimony to fabricate her encounter with Shelley and Lovelady on the first floor by the rear staircase and freight elevators. This was done, these researchers believe, so it would appear that she arrived on the first floor later than she estimated, giving time for “Lee Harvey Oswald” to run down the stairs unseen and unheard. This is not an unreasonable argument, especially after Barry Ernest interviewed Vickie Adams decades later and she denied seeing the two men. John A. and I have argued that if her Shelley/Lovelady encounter was added later to her testimony by the WC, it is very odd that Joseph Ball questioned both men about seeing her on the first floor, and that these questions were asked just a couple of hours after Adams’ testimony. There is another problem with the altered testimony theory. If Warren Commission attorneys invented her encounter with Shelley and Lovelady to change the timeline of her climb down the stairs, why didn’t they change her statement that it took her “I would say no longer than a minute at the most” to run from the fourth floor window to the first floor via the back staircase. If the WC attorneys were inventing this whole encounter, why on earth wouldn’t they alter her “no longer than a minute” estimate in the first place? That was their whole problem right there. It doesn’t make sense. Below are relevant excerpts of Ms. Adams’ testimony. Emphasis added by me: Miss ADAMS - And from our vantage point we were able to see what the President's wife was wearing, the roses in the car, and things that would attract men's attention. Then we heard---then we were obstructed from the view. Mr. BELIN - By what? Miss ADAMS - A tree. and we heard a shot, and it was a pause, and then a second shot, and then a third shot. It sounded like a firecracker or a cannon at a football game, it seemed as if it came from the right below rather than from the left above. Possibly because of the report. And after the third shot, following that, the third shot, I went to the back of the building down the back stairs, and encountered Bill Shelley and Bill Lovelady on the first floor on the way out to the Houston Street dock. Mr. BELIN - When you say on the way out to the Houston Street dock, you mean now you were on the way out? Miss ADAMS - While I was on the way out. Mr. BELIN - Was anyone going along with you? Miss ADAMS - Yes, sir; Sandra Styles. Mr. BELIN - When you got to the bottom of the first floor, did you see anyone there as you entered the first floor from the stairway? Miss ADAMS - Yes, sir. Mr. BELIN - Who did you see? Miss ADAMS - Mr. Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady. Mr. BELIN - Where did you see them on the first floor? Miss ADAMS - Well, this is the stairs, and this is the Houston Street dock that I went out. They were approximately in this position here, so I don't know how you would describe that. Mr. BELIN - You are looking now at a first floor plan or diagram of the Texas School Book Depository, and you have pointed to a position where you encountered Bill Lovelady and Mr. Bill Shelley? Miss ADAMS - That's correct. Mr. BELIN - It would be slightly east of the front of the east elevator, and probably as far south as the length of the elevator, is that correct? Miss ADAMS - Yes, sir. Mr. BELIN - As I understand your testimony previously, you saw neither Roy Truly nor any motorcycle police officer at any time? Miss ADAMS - That's correct. Mr. BELIN - You heard no one else running down the stairs? Miss ADAMS - Correct. Mr. BELIN - When you got to the first floor did you immediately proceed to this point where you say you encountered Mr. Shelley and Mr. Lovelady? Well, you showed me on a diagram of the first floor that there was a place which was south and somewhat east of the front part of the east elevator that you encountered Truly and Lovelady? Miss ADAMS - I saw them there. Mr. BELIN - I mean; you saw them? Miss ADAMS - Yes. Mr. BELIN - Would that have been a matter of seconds after you got to the bottom of the first floor? Miss ADAMS - Definitely. Mr. BELIN - Less than 30 seconds? Miss ADAMS – Yes. Are we to believe that all the above references, as well as the direct questions posed to Shelley and Lovelady a couple of hours later, were fabricated in order to impeach Ms. Adams' time estimate (below)? Why not just change the time? Why invent all the other stuff? 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. Mr. BELIN - So you think that from the time you left the window on the fourth floor until the time you got to the stairs at the bottom of the first floor, was approximately 1 minute? Miss ADAMS - Yes, approximately. Mr. BELIN - As I understand your testimony previously, you saw neither Roy Truly nor any motorcycle police officer at any time? Miss ADAMS - That's correct. Mr. BELIN - You heard no one else running down the stairs? Miss ADAMS - Correct. Mr. BELIN - When you got to the first floor did you immediately proceed to this point where you say you encountered Mr. Shelley and Mr. Lovelady? Well, you showed me on a diagram of the first floor that there was a place which was south and somewhat east of the front part of the east elevator that you encountered Truly and Lovelady? Miss ADAMS - I saw them there. Mr. BELIN - I mean; you saw them? Miss ADAMS - Yes.

Isn’t that the truth?! Had Oswald lived and gone to trial, the cover-up would have certainly failed and the whole conspiracy may well have unraveled. Our whole nation would have demanded justice for the perpetrators. There could never have been a trial in this case, and the Dallas Police somehow ensured that. Many years ago, my mother and I started talking about the Kennedy assassination, and she said something like, “Well, the day Ruby killed Oswald, we all knew it was some kind of conspiracy.” NBC News did a report recently that indicated there has never been a time in recent history that a sizable majority of Americans didn’t believe that JFK was murdered as a result of a conspiracy.

Tony, As we discussed last Feb. when you showed this same clip as above, I’m not at all convinced that is Shelley and Lovelady in your circled detail. One man seems to be just passing the other. In the 3/18/64 FBI report, remarkably different from his 11/22/63 DPD affidavit, Shelley told the FBI, "Immediately following the shooting, Billy N. Lovelady and I accompanied some uniformed police officers to the railroad yards just west of the building and returned through the west side door of the building about ten minutes later." Where are the police in the frames above? You can see well ahead of the two circled men and well behind them. These two unidentified men do not appear to be accompanying any police officers. Why do both Lovelady and Shelley add more and more time to their return to the TSBD as the weeks and months after the assassination went by? John, If it is true that the Shelley/Lovelady sighting was added by the WC to David Belin’s questioning of Ms. Adams, then the questions asked during the testimony of Shelley and Lovelady just a couple of hours later by Joseph Ball also had to be altered. As just one example of many: Mr. BALL - Did you see Vickie Adams after you came into the building and did you see her on the first floor? Mr. SHELLEY - I sure don't remember. Mr. BALL - You don't. Mr. SHELLEY – No. If Adams’ sighting of Shelley and Lovelady was added later to her testimony, how is it that Joseph Ball asked about it to other witnesses on the very same day Adams testified?

Thanks, John, As hard as it is to figure out who to trust in this case, I’ll take almost ANY organization over the FBI, which was clearly tasked with creating the cover-up. The Bureau (in examples such as the Carcano reports) had a bad habit of giving earlier dates to documents written at later times. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t one of them, though the Shelley/Lovelday story changed even more by the time they testified.

Note the extreme care Lt. Day took to avoid getting other prints on the alleged assassination rifle.

Mr. Von Pein’s confidence that the Dallas Police followed proper procedures in investigating this case is indicative of his sheer mastery of this subject. The brilliant work of the Dallas Police covering the JFK assassination included these highlights: * The DPD was apparently unable to distinguish between steel- and copper-clad bullets in the Walker shooting, though the FBI said that was quite normal. * Blessed with almost immediately obtaining two different wallets containing Oswald and Hidell ID’s, the cops lost only one of them! Heck, batting .500 in baseball is GREAT! * The cops were unable to agree on whether “Lee Harvey Oswald” was arrested in the balcony or on the main floor of the Texas Theater. * Following a total of 12 hours interrogation, Dallas Police found it unnecessary to make any recording of the accused assassin’s voice, to get any signed statements from the accused, to make a single transcription of ANY of the interviews, or even to take detailed notes of the interviews, beyond the pitiful scrawls of Fritz released decades later. * According to Fritz’s pitiful scrawls, the cops didn’t bother to ask “Oswald” why he went to Russia, whether he was a spy, or how he got to the Texas Theater so quickly, among almost everything else. * Police did a bang-up job protecting the life of the accused assassin for almost two full days before they let a strip club operator kill him in their own headquarters! * Five years after the assassination, in 1969, former Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry said at a press conference that he wasn't convinced Oswald shot at President Kennedy. "I'm not sure about it," he said. "No one has ever been able to put him [Oswald] in the Texas School Book Depository with a rifle in his hand." Curry was chief of the Dallas Police Department at the time JFK was murdered. According to the Dallas Morning News story covering his press conference, "Curry told reporters he takes Connally's word for it that he (the governor) was hit by a different bullet than one which possibly pierced the President's throat." How foolish of anyone here to think the DPD would do anything but behave brilliantly in this investigation.

John, Is there an FBI document issued in 1963 indicating that Lovelady said on 11/22/63 that he and Shelley “chased” the presidential limousine immediately after the shooting? I’m not aware of one and would appreciate it if you would point me to anything indicating the existence of something along those lines. The whole point of John A’s write-up is that the stories of Shelley and Lovelady changed dramatically over time, in each case making it appear that they took longer to go back into the building after the shots rang out. That is the subject of this thread and the Escape from the 6h Floor write-up.

Considering her involvement with Harvey and Marina and her nearly limitless help locating new “evidence” against the patsy, Ruth Paine’s relationship, including her initial contact, with “LHO” should have been put under a microscope. But exploration of this potentially much earlier contact appears to have been deliberately avoided by Jenner. This is yet another smoking gun in the FBI/WC’s increasingly obvious murder of the truth in this case.

It's pretty limited, Paul, but see pp. 166-167 of Harvey and Lee, summarized and excerpted here. Ruth graduated from Antioch College in 1955. "On November 29, 1963 Sgt. Donald Swartz, of the Intelligence Unit of the Columbus, Ohio Police De­partment, received information that Oswald attended classes at Antioch College 'for a short period of time.' Sgt. Swartz said, "He was dismissed because he was unable to prove his graduation from high school.50" [H&L, 166] Antioch College was a mighty small Yankee school for these two southerners to just happen to attend. Add to it Ruth Paine's study of Russian and her involvement with the Young Friends Movement, through which she may have met Harvey Oswald, and the coincidences begin to sound unreasonable. From H&L: After the assassination FBI Agents John R. Wineberg and William Betts interviewed people who knew Ruth Paine when she attended summer sessions at the University of Pennsylvania in 1957. An FBI informant, "PH T-1", advised that Ruth had studied Russian and was a member of the Young Friends Movement. This group, located in Philadelphia, was interested in relaxing East-West tensions. The FBI informant said that it was through the Young Friends Movement that Ruth Paine had first got in con­ tact with Lee Harvey Oswald through pen pal activity. 52 NOTE: Warren Commission attorney Albert Jenner briefly touched on the subject of ''pen pal activity" with Ruth Paine. Jenner said, "And out of this interest and activity arose the Russian pen pal activity and bringing of some Russian students over to America to see and observe America?" When Ruth answered, "Yes," Jenner said, "I won't go into that."53 Jenner, and the Warren Commission, refused to explore the possibility that Ruth Paine's first contact with Harvey Oswald was in the 1950's . Sgt. Swartz passed the information about Oswald's possible attendance at Antioch College to FBI Agent Robert F. Mahler. If Lee Harvey Oswald was in Yellow Springs, Ohio for a few weeks in the fall of 1957, he soon left and moved to New Orleans. Harvey's pattern of briefly attending schools without evidence of prior coursework at other schools is quite familiar by now.

Vickie Adams seemed pretty consistent over time about how quickly she and Sandra Styles got to the back door--a minute or so. What changed dramatically as the months went by were Shelley and Lovelady's descriptions, adding more and more time to their arrival by the freight elevators.

They're definitely two different rifles. One has a scope, the other doesn't, among other differences. I know John B. has some expertise here. I was wondering if there was any chance that the rifle in the left photo was a Mauser.

Donald P. Norton, the CIA agent who received $150,000 from David Ferrie in 1958 and delivered the cash to Havana, was given another assignment involving Cuba in the fall of 1962. On this occasion he was given a case full of money and told to travel to Monterrey, Mexico and meet "Harvey Lee." Norton took the case, traveled to Monterrey as directed, and checked into the Yamajel Hotel. Before he was able to get to his room Norton was met by "Harvey Lee." The two men went into the hotel bar to drink a couple of beers and relax. Norton recalled that "Harvey Lee" refused to look him in the eye. He described "Harvey Lee" as a man of slight build who was dressed casually and said that he was from New Orleans. When Norton saw photographs of "Lee Harvey Oswald" in the newspaper following the assassination, he said the man was identical to the "Harvey Lee" he met in Monterrey, except that his hair appeared to be thinner. Norton delivered the case full of money to "Harvey Lee" and was given a briefcase full of documents in re- turn. --Harvey and Lee, p. 412

I just ordered my copy. Thank you for the heads-up!

Tony, It doesn't seem odd to me that Harvey Oswald might write such a letter. This was more than a year before the assassination, and the evidence seems to show that the plot hadn't even been hatched yet. The actions of this young man weren't put under a microscope until 11/22/63. What strikes me as entirely possible, though, is that Bargas still had the letter (or some accounting paperwork listing the address), and it was Ruth Paine's address at 2515 W. 5th in Irving. When the FBI/WC discovered this, the dreaded Conspiracy Alarm went off, everything was suppressed, and Bargas's testimony was altered. This is obviously conjecture, but I'd sure like to see the stenographer’s notes on Bargas's testimony. Can you name anyone else of interest to researchers who lived in Irving?