Jim Hargrove

Cory and Ron, I think it is obvious that Lee HARVEY Oswald had a gun in the theater, but I sincerely doubt it was the weapon used to kill Tippit. The .38 revolver, and the murder of J.D. Tippit, were all part of a plot to set up Oswald as the patsy for the murder of JFK, a plot that had been unfolding for weeks in and around Dallas. (If you’re planning to gun down a sitting U.S. President in broad daylight, you’ve GOT to have a patsy. Otherwise, the search for you will be relentless—and you will be caught.) The FBI/WC story of how Oswald got the hand gun seems unlikely at best. John Armstrong has a very short write-up on it HERE. It just takes a couple of minutes to read. More likely, I think, is that someone gave a .38 pistol to Oswald along with a story and the two torn-in-half dollar bills and instructed him (Oswald was a spy; he was accustomed to following even difficult orders) to meet a contact at the Texas Theater who held the other half of the dollar bill(s). The contacts were never there, but the plot to set up the patsy was nearly done. At the theater, Officer McDonald got the revolver from the patsy-to-be and handed it to Officer Bob Carroll. In the back seat of Captain W.R. Westbrook’s unmarked car, Officer Jerry Hill, who worked directly for Westbrook, got the gun from Carroll and at about 2:15 pm brought it directly to Westbrook’s office at police headquarters, where it stayed for an HOUR! Westbrook was in charge of personnel for the DPD. Why on earth was the gun in his office instead of where it should have been for all that time: Homicide and Robbery? We think Westbrook substituted the gun used to kill Tippit for the gun obtained at the theater. After the assassination, Westbrook became an advisor to the Saigon (Vietnam) police, suggesting he had intelligence connections. For the details on how we think Westbrook obtained the Tippit murder weapon, see this page (which, unfortunately, is fairly lengthy): https://harveyandlee.net/Tippit/Tippit.html This is obviously a theory. I can’t prove that there were two revolvers and that a substitution was made in Westbrook’s office. But I CAN prove that a lot of the evidence in this case is as phony as a stack of three dollar bills. Because of that, it doesn’t seem much of a stretch to me to say that ALL the evidence against “Lee Harvey Oswald” is phony. If he was just a patsy, the evidence has to be phony, doesn’t it? This was an elaborate plot, with many of the earmarks of an intelligence operation.

Please show any proof you have that "Lee Harvey Oswald" retrieved a .38 revolver at the rooming house where Earlene Roberts worked. Here is the tiny closet "LHO" supposedly lived in. Earlene Roberts said she would have found any weapon "Lee Harvey Oswald" allegedly hid in that "room," but she never saw anything. Please show me any evidence you have that "Lee Harvey Oswald" left his Russian wedding ring in Ruth Paine's home on November 22, 1963, or thereabouts.

Fair enough, Cory. But if I handed the court PROOF that the FBI and Warren Commission deliberately altered the statements of critical eyewitnesses, altered sworn testimony even of their own special agents, and fabricated documentary evidence, do you think your wish would have a better chance of coming true? The short (3 minute) YouTube video below demonstrates quite clearly how the FBI altered the observations of three critical Dealey Plaza witnesses who believed shots may have been taken at JFK from outside of the Texas School Book Depository, thus contradicting the official story. Among many other things, the FBI went to extraordinary lengths to suppress evidence of what CIA accountant James Wilcott called the “Oswald Project,” including sending out agents within hours of the assassination to confiscate original school and teen-aged employment records of “Lee Harvey Oswald,” all of which disappeared to be replaced by black and white photos. In the wee hours of the night of Nov 22-23, 1963, the FBI secretly took “Oswald's Possessions” from the Dallas Police Department, transported them to Washington, D.C. altered them, and then secretly returned them to Dallas, only to publicly send them to Washington. D.C. a few days later. Among a great many other alterations, a Minox “spy camera” became a Minox “light meter.” Tax records, not found by Dallas police who said they initialed each scrap of paper, magically appeared without DPD initials. FBI agent James Cadigan inadvertently spilled the bean about the secret transfer during his sworn WC testimony, which was altered by the WC. To see examples of how the FBI fabricated documents allegedly related to the magic rifle, see: https://harveyandlee.net/Guns/Guns.html Literally dozens of other examples of fabricated and altered documents can be seen on my web page: https://harveyandlee.net

All of the evidence against “Lee Harvey Oswald” is phony. If Marina really saw her husband’s wedding ring on top of their bedroom dresser, why wasn’t it found by the Dallas cops who searched Ruth Paine’s house? Why was the ring not listed on the original police inventory of Oswald’s possessions? Why was the ring not photographed with all the other Oswald possessions at the Dallas Police Headquarters the evening of November 22? Why was the ring not listed even in the vastly expanded joint Dallas Police/FBI inventory of Oswald’s so-called possessions made on November 26, 1963?

The “official version” of the Kennedy Assassination has been in the garbage heap of history for more than half a century. You don’t need recent releases of anything to see that. Since you seem to sound sincerely interested in the truth, why don’t you spend three minutes to see a small part of the truth in the short video. It takes just three minutes of your time. Would you like to see more of the truth?

Stuart Reed not only got a photo of Oswald’s arrest, but on that same afternoon and on the same role of film, he also got a shot of the School Book Depository... and two shots of Bus 1213 stalled in traffic. This series of photos suggests to most of us that Reed either had pre-knowledge of the assassination, or someone instructing him did. It also suggests, at least to me, that Reed or someone instructing him expected at least one “Lee Harvey Oswald” to get onto McWatters’ bus, not to get on a certain Nash Rambler station wagon.

Rick, Shortly before the Robert Vinson observation there was, as Steve Thomas put it above, “the whole T.F. White thing.” White was an auto mechanic who told his boss he had seen a man “identical” to Lee Harvey Oswald sitting in a car with the engine running at about 2 pm on November 22. White’s story was made famous by future Dallas mayor Wes Wise, who contacted the Dallas County Tax Office to trace the license plate number Mr. White had written down. It turns out the plate was registered to Carl Mather, a “best friend” of J.D. Tippit and an employee of CIA-connected Collins Radio, Whether the car Oswald was seen occupying was a Ford Falcon or a 4-door Plymouth has confused researchers for years, but I’m pretty convinced John has solved the mystery. See his write-up here: Wes Wise The other fairly well known sighting that is probably of LEE Oswald, as you say, involves his arrival at a nearly empty C-54 cargo plane that departed Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and landed on a road under construction near the Trinity River south of Dallas on the afternoon of November 22. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, here is a YouTube interview with Robert Vinson, a decorated Air Force veteran who was a passenger on the C-54 plane: Robert Vinson

With a little help from me, John has written a completely new introduction to THE MURDER OF J.D. TIPPIT page on HARVEYANDLEE.NET. Here is the new material: It may seem hard to imagine why anyone would plan to murder a uniformed Dallas policeman in broad daylight in front of numerous eyewitnesses, but it was simply the final act in the long drama in which LEE Oswald framed HARVEY Oswald for the murder of President Kennedy. Tippit had to be eliminated, because he knew both LEE Oswald and HARVEY Oswald. As LEE Oswald shot and killed Officer Tippit, circa 1:06 PM, HARVEY Oswald was sitting in the lower section of the Texas Theater, moving from seat to seat looking for his contact. After killing Tippit, LEE Oswald left the scene and began walking toward the Texas Theater. He likely met up with Capt. Westbrook near the alley and the Abundant Life Church behind the Texaco station, and was likely driven to the theater by Westbrook in order to avoid possible arrest while walking to the theater. At first it may seem bizzare to think that LEE Oswald, after murdering Tippit, would be driven in a police car to the theater. However, after careful consideration it appears that driving LEE to the theater may have been the only practical solution. Minutes after Tippit was killed the police were looking for the suspect, who was last seen walking west on Jefferson Blvd. If LEE Oswald had been stopped and arrested by police anywhere between 10th and Patton and the theater, the whole carefully planned operation to blame HARVEY Oswald for the murder of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit would have been compromised. HARVEY Oswald, sitting quietly in the theater, could not be blamed for killing Tippit nor blamed for killing President Kennedy. Therefore, it was absolutely imperative that LEE Oswald arrive quickly and safely at the Texas Theater, and who could take LEE Oswald to the theater without fear of interruption by the police? Captain Westbrook, who I believe drove through the alleyway between Jefferson Blvd. and 10th St. and dropped off LEE Oswald in the alley behind the theater. LEE walked thru the narrow walkway from the alley to Jefferson Blvd, quietly bought a theater ticket, and hurried up the stairs to the balcony. Not a single person saw LEE Oswald walking toward or entering the Texas Theater, wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants. En route to the theater I believe that LEE Oswald removed his jacket and then left his jacket, wallet, and .38 revolver with Westbrook. In less than an hour these items would be used by Westbrook to identify the suspect as HARVEY Oswald, the man who shot and killed Tippit. Within 30 minutes Westbrook planted and then "found" the jacket given to him by LEE Oswald in the parking lot behind the Texaco station. A few minutes later Westbrook showed fellow police officers the wallet given to him by LEE Oswald, which contained identification for Lee Harvey Oswald and A. Hidell, which linked HARVEY Oswald to the Manlicher carcano rifle and the assassination of President Kennedy. A half hour later, at police headquarters, Westbrook switched LEE Oswald's .38 revolver with the .38 revolver taken from HARVEY Oswald at the theater that was brought to his (Westbrook's) office by officer Gerry Hill. Capt. Westbrook was instrumental in framing HARVEY Oswald as the man who murdered Officer Tippit. Around 1:13 PM LEE Oswald, following orders, purchased a theater ticket from Julia Postal and quietly walked up to the balcony in the theater, where he could observe HARVEY in the lower section. LEE Oswald was to remain in the theater until the police arrived and either shot or arrested HARVEY Oswald. If HARVEY did leave the theater, LEE was probably instructed to follow HARVEY outside. At this time, circa 1:13 PM, it is important to remember that both LEE (white t-shirt) and HARVEY (long sleeve dark brown shirt) had purchased theater tickets and were sitting quietly in the theater--and there was no reason for anyone to be alarmed and call the police !! Twenty minutes later Johnny Brewer claimed to have seen a nervous "Lee Harvey Oswald," wearing a dark brown shirt, duck into the entrance to his shoe store as police cars drove past and then sneak into the theater. But Brewer did not see either LEE nor HARVEY sneak into the theater, because both men were already in the theater. I believe it was Tommy Rowe, who also worked in the shoe store, that told Brewer he saw a man, wearing a long sleeve brown shirt, duck into the entrance of the shoe store and then sneak into the theater. What is going on ?? I believe that Brewer, assuming that Tommy Rowe was telling the truth, hurried to the theater and asked Julia Postal (cashier) if she had sold a ticket to a man who had hurried or snuck into the theater. Postal called the police while Brewer went inside the theater and told Butch Burroughs about the suspicious man. Burroughs said that he had not seen this "suspicious" man, and assumed the man went directly to the balcony. Julia Postal was not the only person to call the police. According to researcher Leo Sauvage (who interviewed Dallas Assistant District Attorney Jim Bowie), "there were over a half-dozen anonymous phone calls made to the Dallas Police advising that a suspicious man had gone into the Texas Theater." I'll bet one of these phone calls was made by Tommy Rowe, a very close friend of Jack Ruby's. As Brewer was looking for the suspicious man in the theater, Capt. Westbrook was at 10th & Patton showing fellow police officers the wallet given to him by LEE Oswald that contained identification for Lee Harvey Oswald and Alex Hidell. A few minutes later, after receiving a "half dozen anonymous phone calls," the police dispatcher announced that a suspect had entered the Texas Theater and was hiding in the balcony. Soon, over a dozen Dallas cops arrived at the theater while HARVEY was still on the main floor. Police were looking for a suspect wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants (LEE Oswald), but HARVEY had been sitting in the lower section since 1:01-1:07 PM wearing a long sleeve dark brown shirt. Inside the darkened theater it was Tommy Rowe (not Johnny Brewer), who told police the man in the long sleeve brown shirt was their suspect. But how would Tommy Rowe (or Brewer) know the color and style of HARVEY Oswald's shirt when he had never seen this man enter the theater? Perhaps from his good friend, Jack Ruby. From the balcony LEE was insulated a bit as HARVEY was arrested, but after hearing the commotion below began to leave the balcony area and walk down the stairway. As Deputy Sheriff Bill Courson was running up the stairs he passed by a young man and later said "he was reasonably satisfied in his own mind" the man he saw was Lee Harvey Oswald." Seconds later LEE Oswald was stopped by police Lt. Cunningham and Detective J.B. Toney, who began to question him, perhaps because his clothing matched the most recent police description of the suspect wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants. As Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers rushed up the stairs, he saw these officers as they were questioning the young man. Capt. Westbrook, in charge of personnel, was the highest ranking police officer at 10th & Patton and at the Texas Theater. Seconds after HARVEY Oswald was arrested Capt. Westbrook, who surely knew that LEE Oswald was upstairs in the balcony, told police officers to "cover his face--HARVEY Oswald's face--and get him out of here." As HARVEY Oswald was taken out the front of the theater, Capt. Westbrook walked toward the back of the theater to the fire door exit by the alley. A few minutes later LEE Oswald was arrested in the balcony and brought downstairs. Theater concessionaire Butch Burroughs saw a man who "looked almost like Oswald, like he was his brother or something" taken out the back of the theater in handcuffs "three or four minutes" after HARVEY Oswald was taken out the front of the theater. Bernard Haire, the owner of Bernie's Hobby House, two doors east of the theater, saw police take this man out the back of the theater and place him in a police car. Mr. Haire thought he had witnessed the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald in the alley behind the Texas Theater. But the man seen by Mr. Haire was LEE Oswald, and not HARVEY Oswald, who had been taken out the front of the theater and driven directly to police headquarters. The identity of the police officer(s) who placed LEE Oswald in the police car in the alley and drove away remain unknown. But within minutes a high ranking police officer, certainly not a patrolman, released LEE Oswald. Who was this high ranking police officer who had the authority to release LEE Oswald, instead of taking him to police headquarters? Likely Capt. Westbrook. The arrest of HARVEY Oswald, and framing him as the "patsy," for the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of Officer Tippit was now complete. Following are the details....

Thank you for the doc links, David. Very helpful. On the first read-through, one thing I’m NOT willing to accept as necessarily true is the statement that “Michael Roux referred to above has been located by French in Paris and it has been determined he is not identical with Jean Souetre” in the 3/13/64 airtel from Hoover. Interesting that the Director himself felt the need to quash this case of mistaken identity. This case sure would be easier if we could trust the FBI.

Steve, Nevertheless, the paragraph from the April 1, 1964 CIA document quoted in Mr. Fensterwald's affidavit is fascinating. A barely legible reproduction of the doc is here: https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/cia/russholmes/104-10434/104-10434-10381/html/104-10434_10381_0002a.htm A transcript of the document, done in 2012 on this forum by Thomas Graves, is below. There appear to be some minor differences between the graphical version and the transcription. 8. Jean SOUETRE aka Michel ROUX aka Michael MERTZ – on 5 March [Mr. Papich] advised that the French had [hit] the Legal Attache in Paris and also the [sDECE man] had queried the Bureau in New York City concerning subject stating that he had been expelled from the U.S. at Fort Worth or Dallas 48 hours after the assassination. He was in Fort Worth on morning of 22 November and in Dallas in the afternoon. The French believe he was expelled to either Mexico or Canada. In January he received mail from a dentist named Alderson living at 5803 Birmingham, Houston, Texas. Subject is believed to be identical with a Captain who is a deserter from the French Army and an activist in the OAS. The French are concerned because of De Gaulle’s planned visit to Mexico. They would like to know the reason for his expulsion from the U.S. and his destination. Bureau files are negative and they are checking in Texas and with the INS. They would like a check of our files with indications of what may be passed to the French. Mr. Papich was given a copy of CSCI-3/766,742 previously furnished the Bureau and CSDB-3/655,207 together with a photograph of Captain SOUETRE . WE/3/Bublie; CI/SIG; CI/OPS/Evans Something like the above strikes me as hard to ignore. Do you know if the complete copy of the doc is available at Mary Ferrell's or anywhere else?

Hmmm.... I really couldn’t follow all of that, but.... If the summary of Souetre’s travels and meetings in 1963 are accurate, and if it was true that he was in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and that he was expelled from the U.S. about 48 hours after the hit, this strikes me as an area well worth additional research. Unfortunately, beyond the April 1, 1964 CIA document, these allegations in Fensterwald’s affidavit are largely unsourced, at least in the material we have.

Which really sounds more like American-born LEE Oswald than Russian-speaking HARVEY. LEE was taller and heavier than HARVEY. Some of this was done, I think, for domestic consumption here in the U.S. LEE Oswald had spent enough time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that some people might have noticed the difference in appearance from HARVEY in a good picture. That is probably why someone in U.S. intel provided the following image to a news service, soon published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, of “Lee Harvey Oswald.” That photo is about as washed-out in the image above as it was in the Nov. 1, 1959 printed version of the Star Telegram. Not much risk there in someone noticing this wasn’t the Oswald they knew in Fort Worth! Decades later, John Armstrong wrote to Associated Press/Wide Work Photos and asked for a clearer copy of the “defection” photo above. This is what he got: WC defenders will be quick to tell us this is just the sort of thing that happens with photography. Heh-heh-heh.

Thanks, Steve... this is interesting. According to Dick Russell, Le Cavelier also said: “Arms were furnished by the intermediary at the [American] Guantanamo naval base [in Cuba]. Training took place at the New Orleans region of Mandeville. Their Q-G (‘Quartier General’ or ‘Headquarters’) was 544 Camp St.” [TMWKTM, p. 562] It had never occurred to me that Le Cavelier’s anti-OAS position might have colored his reports. I’ll try to find the time to look into that, as well as Irving Brown. This reminds me, though, that my long held opinion about JFK research is that the field has become so vast many of us have to specialize in order to cope. The "Oswald Project" is complicated enough, at least for me! And so more about that below....

Bill’s source for the Hunt/Souetre 1963 meeting is a lengthy affidavit filed by Bernard Fensterwald on behalf of Gary Shaw in 1980’s Shaw v Department of State lawsuit brought in DC District Court. The specific page referenced alleges that Jean Souetre not only met with E. Howard Hunt in Madrid in 1963, but that he also met that same year with Carlos Bringieur in New Orleans, Edwin Walker in Dallas, and even trained anti-Castro Cubans around Lake Pontchartrain. Does this strike anyone as suspicious? The affidavit soon delved into issues such as Eugene Dinkin and the French/Algerian OAS terrorists. Without getting too deep into the woods on those issues, I’d like to know if any others here have an opinion about the allegations of Souetre’s suspicious meetings in 1963 and thereabouts. The affidavit, titled “A POSSIBLE FRENCH CONNECTION,” includes a verbatim quote from an April 1964 CIA document stating that Souetre was in Fort Worth in the morning of 11/22/63, in Dallas during that same afternoon and was expelled, the French believed, to either Canada or Mexico about 48 hours after the assassination. The affidavit has a total of 47 source notes, including books, newspapers, magazines, and government documents.

Yes. See the last paragraph in the 6/3/1960 document from Hoover below.

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. I don't think Hoover had foreknowledge of the assassination, but he most certainly had foreknowledge of two Oswalds. For example…. BANISTER, former head of the Chicago FBI office, was very close to Hoover and spoke with him almost every day. Banister had to have known that Ferrie had LEE Oswald in his CAP in 1955, and that both he and Ferrie knew HARVEY Oswald in 1963. Both men were eliminated because they knew about Harvey and Lee. Hoover sent agents to Stripling JHS on Saturday morning to confiscate LHO's school records. Hoover sent agents to Tujague's on Friday afternoon; he most certainly knew that LEE had worked at Tujague's from July 1955 through Aug/Sept, 1956, because the FBI took all of LHO's time cards. Hoover sent agents to Pfisterer's Monday morning; employees were told not to discuss the LHO matter with anyone; all records were confiscated. FBI created/forged all w-2 forms for LHO's employment in 1955-56 FBI secretly received 225 LHO possessions the evening of 11/22/63 and three days later returned 455 items, many of which belonged to LEE Oswald. FBI obtained and then destroyed all original NYC school records; "located" and obtained from the US Post Office the uncashed money order allegedly used to pay for the rifle. Hoover knew about Ralph Yates and tried endlessly to discredit him. Hoover knew from FBI interview of McBride that LHO was in New Orleans in 1957-58 and lived at the Hotel Senator. He sent FBI agents to the Hotel Senator who asked for hotel records from 1955-56--intentionally avoiding 1957-58, when Harvey Oswald was actually there.

I think the brown-shirted Oswald (Harvey) bought a ticket and entered main floor of the theater at 1:07 or so, perhaps a minute after Tippit was murdered. He probably stayed on the main floor level looking for a contact that wasn’t there. I think the white-shirted Oswald (Lee), murdered Tippit at 1:06 pm (Margie Higgins said a tv announcer indicated it was 6 minutes after 1 just as she heard the shots). I think Westbrook and Croy were parked in the narrow driveway blocked by Tippit’s car but were seen by Mrs. Holan, who was able to look over the top of Tippit’s car from her second story window directly across Tenth St. Lee Oswald probably met up with Westbrook in an area behind the Texaco station and gave Westbrook his wallet, the .38 revolver used to kill Tippit, and his light color jacket. Westbrook probably then drove Lee to the theater. (John found the original plat map for Oak Cliff, and it shows alleyways in every single block—perfect for approaching the theater without attracting attention). Lee Oswald absolutely HAD to get to the theater without being stopped by police. Lee, I think, entered the Texas Theater right around 1:20 and went directly up to the balcony, where he stayed until the police arrive. My bet is he was instructed to keep an eye on Harvey Oswald to make sure he didn’t leave the building, or to follow him if he did. Julia Postal called the police at 1:44 pm.

Thanks, Steve, as always, for bringing these reports together so efficiently. Toney’s report is the most interesting here. It’s up in full on my website at this address: https://harveyandlee.net/November/Harvey_Arrest.html The bulk of the evidence seems to show that the only employees inside the theater by 1:55 or so were Postal, Burroughs and the projectionist. Manager Callahan had left the building. And so one big question, as you suggest, is: Who was the “manager on duty” who apparently provided Toney with an inaccurate alibi for the balcony Oswald? Assuming what Toney reported was reasonably true, this apparently phony manager may have been part of the plot. Which begs the question, What happened to the list of names and addresses of the occupants of the theater that Westbrook apparently ordered Taylor, Cunningham, and Toney to compile? Isn’t it remarkable that the WC chose not to question any of those three men? Especially after Westbrook could only suggest that they ask Cunningham what happened to the list. Fabulous investigation there!

This thread appears to be wrapping up, and I wanted to end it with a few paragraphs JA and I have been writing and re-writing for the end of the Tippit Murder page on HarveyandLee.net. Comments, praise, criticisms would be appreciated. It may seem hard to imagine why anyone would plan to murder a uniformed Dallas policeman in broad daylight in front of numerous eyewitnesses, but it was simply the final act in the long drama in which LEE framed HARVEY for the murder of JFK. After LEE Oswald shot and killed Officer Tippit he began walking toward the Texas Theater. He likely meet-up with Capt. Westbrook near the parking lot behind the Texaco station, and may have been driven to the theater in order to avoid possible arrest while walking to the theater. En route LEE Oswald removed his jacket and then left his jacket, wallet, and pistol with Westbrook. In less than an hour these items would be used by Westbrook to identify Lee HARVEY Oswald as the man who murdered Tippit (wallet), the suspect who left the scene (jacket), and link Oswald to the assassination of President Kennedy (Hidell identification found in the wallet). LEE Oswald's orders were surely to go to the balcony in the Texas Theater, where he could observe HARVEY in the lower section, and remain in the theater until the police arrived and either shot or arrested HARVEY. If HARVEY did leave the theater, LEE was probably instructed to follow HARVEY outside. But HARVEY did not leave the theater, and over a dozen Dallas cops DID arrive while HARVEY was still on the main floor. Police were looking for a suspect wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants (LEE Oswald), but HARVEY was sitting in the lower section wearing a long sleeve dark brown shirt. It was Tommy Rowe (not Johnny Brewer), who was a close friend of Jack Ruby, that told police the man in the brown shirt was their suspect. From the balcony, LEE was insulated a bit from HARVEY’s arrest, but after hearing the commotion below began to leave the balcony area and walk down the stairway. As Deputy Sheriff Bill Courson was running up the stairs he passed by a young man and later said "he was reasonably satisfied in his own mind" the man he saw was Lee Harvey Oswald. Seconds later LEE Oswald was stopped by police Lt. Cunningham and Detective J.B. Toney, who began to question him, perhaps because his clothing matched the most recent police description of the suspect wearing a white t-shirt and dark pants. As Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers rushed up the stairs, he saw these officers as they were questioning the young man. Capt. Westbrook, in charge of personnel, was the highest ranking police officer at the Texas Theater. Seconds after HARVEY Oswald was arrested Capt. Westbrook, who surely knew that LEE Oswald was upstairs in the balcony, told police officers to "cover his (HARVEY Oswald's) face and get him out of here." After HARVEY Oswald was taken out the front of the theater, LEE Oswald was arrested in the balcony. Theater concessionaire Butch Burroughs saw a man who "looked almost like Oswald, like he was his brother or something" taken out the back of the theater in handcuffs "three or four minutes" after HARVEY Oswald was taken out the front of the theater. Bernard Haire, the owner of Bernie's Hobby House, two doors east of the theater, saw police take this man out the back of the theater and place him in a police car. Mr. Haire thought he had witnessed the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald in the alley behind the Texas Theater. But the man seen by Mr. Haire was LEE Oswald, and not HARVEY Oswald who had been taken out the front of the theater and driven directly to police headquarters. The identity of the police officer(s) who left the alley behind the Texas Theater with LEE Oswald in custody remain unknown. But within minutes a high ranking police officer, certainly not a patrolman, released LEE Oswald. Who was this high ranking police officer? Likely Capt. Westbrook. The framing and arrest of HARVEY Oswald, the "patsy," for the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of Officer Tippit was now complete.

Laura Kittrell decided the second Oswald might be Larry Crafard only after she studied the Warren Volumes and located two photographs of Crafard. In her ninety page manuscript, she wrote, “I wish I could settle this question in my mind, but I can’t.” In Harvey and Lee, John Armstrong considered whether it might have been Crafard posing as LHO when he met Kittrell, and he concluded as follows: Jack Ruby met Larry Crafard when he (Crafard) was working at the Texas State Fair (October 5-20). Crafard did not begin working for Ruby and living at the Carousel club until November 1, two weeks after Laura Kittrell interviewed the "Teamster.” Photographs of Crafard published in the 26 Volumes are very misleading as they show him with a closed mouth and wearing a long sleeved jacket. When these photographs were taken Larry Crafard's front teeth were missing en- tirely and he had tattoos on both arms. If Laura Kittrell had known that Crafard was missing his front teeth she would have realized that the "Teamster," who laughed loud enough to be heard throughout the room, was not Crafard. [H&L, p. 729] From my website: Following the assassination Laura Kittrell telephoned and wrote to the FBI about her meeting with Oswald. The FBI finally got around to interviewing Mrs. Kittrell on June 4, 1965, nearly a year after the Warren Report was published. And then, 30 years later in 1994, the U.S. government finally got around to allowing the American people access to her statement. Shown below is the bottom of page 8 and the top of page 9 of a ten-page July 18, 1978 memo from the HSCA's Gaeton Fonzi to Blakey.

A very nice interview in which Bill Simpich discusses some of the unlikeliest aspects of the Official Story® of the Tippit murder. Fascinating to me is how often the subject of an Oswald lookalike comes up in this discussion. Mathias, I don’t know if there is any significance to the second uniform hanging in the back of Tippit’s car. One possibility is there is some evidence Tippit may have had a girlfriend living near 10th and Patton and he simply wanted a new set of clothes ready for an overnight stay. That’s just a guess. I hope others will read the interview with Bill Simpich. There are a couple of areas I’d debate with him…. Bill indicates that Ken Croy was the first cop to arrive on the scene after Tippit’s murder. I think Croy was already there, as 16-year-old Virginia Davis hinted to the Warren Commission. She heard the shots and saw Tippit’s killer cutting across the front yard of her house and saw him throw empty shell casings on the ground. Mr. Belin. All right, after this, did police come out there? Mrs. Davis. Yes; they was already there. Mr. Belin. By the time you got out there? Mrs. Davis. Yes, sir. I’d also like to suggest that anyone discussing Johnny Brewer needs to take a close look at his story and his credibility. John Armstrong discusses reasons to suspect Brewer’s role in setting up “LHO” on the November 22 page of my website. https://harveyandlee.net/November/November_22.htm Look for the heading “LEE OSWALD ARRIVES AT THE TEXAS THEATER” a little more than a third of the way down the page. The Brewer discussion is in that section. Thank you for this link. It leads to a significant and fresh overview of the Tippit slaying.

With a few glaring exceptions, the apparent arrest of the Balcony Oswald went unrecorded in official Dallas city and county documents. Here are several of the exceptions I’ve gathered so far… there may be a few others. In a supplementary report Dep. Sheriff Buddy Walthers indicated that “Some unknown officer was holding a white man at the steps of the balcony and I proceeded on into the balcony.” Of course, C.E. Talbert’s Homicide Report on Tippit indicates that “Suspect was later arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theatre….” Talbert was the same officer who noted the young man standing next to the running pickup truck near the back of the theater. A day or two ago, I went through the Dallas archives looking for a better copy of J.D. Tippit’s Homicide Report. The two copies I found were totally illegible. Odd. As shown above, L.D. Stringfellow’s report also indicated “Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater….” In an unofficial document, Deputy Sheriff Bill Courson also indicated that he was reasonably certain he met Oswald coming down the front stairs of the theater, the stairs that led directly to the balcony. I believe there are a few other remaining hints about what happened in the balcony, but I haven't found them for this post. It strikes me as odd that, for an apparent event that was otherwise almost totally suppressed, these documents survived. Was it a mistake? An indication that Dallas city and county authorities were less willing to alter and destroy documents than the FBI and the WC? An action by some Dallas authorities to preserve a bit of the evidence about the murderer of J.D. Tippit? Regardless, it seems reasonable to me to consider the possibility that the fellow who looked like “LHO” in balcony of the Texas Theater could have been the same fellow who looked like “LHO” to the two closest witnesses of the Tippit shooting, and could have been the same fellow who looked like “LHO” and several times identified himself as “LHO” when he appeared all around Dallas in the six weeks or so prior to the assassination setting up the patsy. How else do we explain these coincidences? Why would anyone murder a uniformed cop in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses and start running directly toward the Texas Theater? It’s almost as if he wanted to enrage the local police and lead them straight to the theater... where a poor schmuck who had traveled to Russia and pretended to be a Castro supporter was waiting with two half dollar bills hoping to find a contact who was never there.

Sure he does. He's got to make sure the Oswald arrested in the balcony and led out the back door disappears. Otherwise, the entire operation would be jeopardized.

Thanks, Steve. Is "H.H. Stringer" or, for that matter, "R.D. Stringer" different from Det. "L.D. Stringfellow" who wrote on 11/23/63 that LHO was "arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater...."?

Since we don’t even have a cursory description of the pickup near the back of the theater, I suppose we’ll never know. It is pretty obvious, though, that the chaos in and around Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination makes it easy to understand why not every vehicle present was searched or studied. The same cannot be said of the alleyway near the back of the theater at the time of Oswald’s arrest. It makes little sense that there was enough interest in a nearby vehicle with the engine running to search it for weapons, and then to totally ignore it. At most a few of the Dallas cops were involved in this conspiracy. What reason might the others have to lose interest in the pickup so quickly and thoroughly?