Jeremy Bojczuk
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Posts posted by Jeremy Bojczuk
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteWith this post, I said, “ Perhaps Mr. B. will tell us, specifically, which times Oswald was impersonated” on Friday, May 6, at 8:16 am.
The next day, after all of that, Mr. B made three lengthy posts a little before 4 am on Saturday, May 6 here, here, and here. As you can see, none of them mentioned Mr. Cohen’s claim.
Since Mr. B chose not to respond, I started this thread a few hours later, on May 7 at 6:47 am.
Either I didn't read the first comment Jim mentions, registering it as a reply to Jonathan, or I did read it and the significance of Jim's question eluded me (asking about impersonations on a thread that had nothing to do with impersonations).
About two hours after I had posted my comments about the bus journey and then departed the forum for the day, Jim made his "We can get back to our usual debates when you answer this question" demand, followed half an hour later by his new thread admonishing me for not replying instantly to that demand.
I didn't discover either of these until I made my daily visit the following morning.* I actually found out about them shortly before that, when I read an email telling me "Just wait until you see Jimbo's new thread!", with warnings about the unfortunate effects of promoting doppelganger-related nonsense unsuccessfully for a quarter of a century.
As is usual with anything to do with 'Harvey and Lee', it's a lot of fuss about nothing.
Anyway, the significance of Jim's question still eludes me. Why was Jim so eager to discover my opinion about when Oswald might have been impersonated? Or was it just an excuse to start another thread of the same old 'Harvey and Lee' spam?
* UK time is 5 to 8 hours ahead of Jim's time zone, depending on where in the US Doppelgangersville is.
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As a general rule, people do not get impersonated. Consequently, each claim of impersonation needs to be demonstrated. Merely asserting that an impersonation occurred, 'Harvey and Lee'-style, is not good enough.
Given that Oswald was an unremarkable-looking young white man, and that he was the subject of the biggest news story in years, and that news stories often generate false sightings of their central characters, we should expect many such sightings to be mistaken.
For each claim of impersonation, several alternative everyday explanations need to be ruled out:
- Could it plausibly have been a case of mistaken identity? The 'Oswald' who was seen with Jack Ruby was surely Larry Crafard, another unremarkable-looking young white man.
- Was the witness reliable? Mary Bledsoe certainly wasn't.
- Was it actually a sighting of the real, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald?
- Was the claim of impersonation based on nothing more than a vague suspicion, as we've seen with Hoover's panic about Oswald's birth certificate?
For each claim, innocent explanations must be shown to be less likely than impersonation. Such is the excitement of imagining a huge, all-encompassing conspiracy that some people forget to take this elementary precaution.
The important point is that in each case, it's necessary to demonstrate that impersonation is the most likely explanation. Good luck!
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Denny Zartman writes:
Quotein my opinion, if Oswald was being impersonated before JFK's presidency as the Hoover memo implies, that is circumstantial evidence supporting the Harvey and Lee theory.
Hoover mentioned "a possibility that an impostor is using Oswald’s birth certificate". The "possibility" was of impersonation by the Soviet authorities, not by any US agencies.
The context is explained in the preceding paragraph of Hoover's memo:
QuoteIn that report [by an FBI agent, John Fain] you will note that subject's mother, Mrs. Marguerite C. Oswald, Fort Worth, Texas, advised that she recently received a letter addressed to her son from the Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland indicating that Lee Oswald was expected at the college on April 20, 1960. She stated subject had taken his birth certificate with him when he left home. She was apprehensive about his safety because three letters she had written him since January 22, 1960, have been returned to her undelivered.
Marguerite Oswald was worried because she hadn't heard from her son, so she got in touch with the FBI. Evidently the combination of Oswald's unconfirmed location and the absence of his birth certificate led to speculation ("a possibility") at FBI HQ.
We know it was no more than speculation because Hoover produced no evidence that anyone was actually using Oswald's birth certificate. As is the way with 'Harvey and Lee' talking points, harmless speculation has been transformed into sinister fact. There's nothing to it.
Tracy Parnell has written a good account of the storm in a teacup about Oswald's birth certificate:
http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-truth-about-oswalds-birth.html
The last time this question cropped up, in July 2020, Jim's friend Greg Parker noticed that Jim Hargrove's website was misrepresenting Hoover's memo, claiming that "FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote a memo stating that someone was using Lee Harvey Oswald's birth certificate". Hoover wasn't "stating" it; he merely noted the "possibility".
I hope Jim has got around to correcting that innocent and accidental misrepresentation! Given Armstrong's apparent dishonesty in misleading his readers about the mastoidectomy operation that debunked his theory two decades before his novel was published, Jim needs to fact-check everything Armstrong tells him to put up on the website.
Greg explained the fuss at FBI HQ:
Quoteif you drill down into the free-flowing memos that Hoover was basing his comments on, you will find they trace back to an interview between Kaack and Marguerite in which she advised Lee had taken his birth certificate with him. After that, it turned into to a game of Chinese Whispers concerning Lee and his birth certificate (and the fact that he was at that time "missing"). It all culminated in Hoover's paranoia producing the possibility that someone else might be using the BC, But there was never any justification or basis for that possibility.
(https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2209p25-dear-jim#33915)
I dealt with all of this back in 2020:
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Jim also writes that I have "declined to comment on this in the topic it was posted in".
I'm sorry to disappoint Jim, but I don't hang around here all day with my metaphorical shovel and bucket, waiting for the next steaming pile of 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense to be deposited on the forum. I check the forum most mornings, scribble whatever I feel like scribbling, then I get on with more interesting and productive (and usually non-JFK-related) activities. I very rarely visit this forum more than once a day.
Why did Jim expect an instant reply? Why was he so worked up about something so trivial as what Jonathan and I think about impersonations? Bearing in mind Jim's recent thread in which he seemed to think that the lizard people had been plotting against him to censor his comments, is he feeling OK?
Or was it just an excuse to start yet another 'Harvey and Lee' thread, re-hashing the same old nonsense that has been discussed ad nauseam on numerous other threads?
If he wants to discuss something, he could start by answering the question he has been avoiding. What was the thinking behind the supposed 'Harvey and Lee' project? Why did the masterminds decide to go with a long-term plan involving two pairs of doppelgangers when they had a far simpler solution available?
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteIs it true, Jeremy, that you and Jonathan Cohen "have always agreed that there is evidence Oswald was impersonated at various points in his life?"
What a bizarre topic to start a thread about!
I can't speak for Jonathan, but I think there's credible evidence that Oswald was impersonated at least once in Mexico City, and perhaps also in Dallas. I'm not convinced that the Mexico City impersonation(s) were done with the assassination in mind, though they may have been. Any impersonations in Dallas would have been ad hoc affairs, done to implicate Oswald as someone who might go on to shoot a president.
None of them, of course, could have been done as part of a long-term project involving two pairs of doppelgangers, because such a project could never have been implemented, as I've explained on several different threads, such as this one:
Jim has so far failed to come up with an explanation of why anyone would have set up a long-term project involving doppelgangers when a far simpler and cheaper alternative existed. Would he care to start a new thread to discuss that topic? Or can we assume that Jim agrees that a 'Harvey and Lee'-style project could never have happened?
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteJones did recall, agreeing with McWatters and Oswald himself, that a blond woman got on the bus at the same time as Oswald.
No, he recalled that a blonde woman got on the bus at the same time as a man. As I've explained to Jim several times, Jones did not identify this man as Oswald. Jones pointed out that he only thought the man might have been Oswald because the driver suggested it to him.
In every important respect, Jones's description of the man did not match Oswald. Jones was a witness against, not for, Oswald having been on the bus.
The fact that Jones agreed on one point with McWatters and the official accounts of what Oswald is supposed to have stated, is meaningless, for reasons I've also given several times.
Jim wants to accept the official accounts of Oswald's interviews, because the lone-gunman narrative is an essential part of the 'Harvey and Lee' narrative. But we know that these official accounts can't be trusted. They misrepresented the most important aspect of Oswald's statements, his alibi.
I don't see any good reason to trust the official accounts of what Oswald is supposed to have said about the bus journey, especially when the only reliable witness we have, Roy Milton Jones, contradicts the lone-gunman narrative.
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Greg, thanks for that interesting account. But it relies on the Warren Report-H & L account of Oswald getting away by bus and taxi, for which no strong evidence exists. If the blue jacket really was planted in the TSBD, your explanation is more plausible than Jim's.
What isn't plausible at all is the idea that the authorities planted the jacket in the TSBD. As I explained, the existence of that jacket in the TSBD undermines the witnesses who claimed that Oswald was wearing it on the bus, which in turn undermines the notion that Oswald was actually on the bus, which implies that he had accomplices, which ... you can fill in the rest. Planting the jacket would have been counter-productive.
Jim writes:
QuoteRoy Truly planted the jacket in the building because ... he didn’t want anyone to have to explain away two "Oswald" jackets.
The discovery of the blue jacket in the TSBD had the opposite effect: it created the necessity to explain away two jackets. If the authorities wanted to support the notion that it was Oswald who discarded the white jacket that was found near the Tippit murder scene, all they needed to do was make the blue jacket disappear.
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The Blue Jacket Cannot Have Been Planted
Quotethe blue jacket had to be accounted for since it wasn’t the white jacket "found" by Westbrook.
But the way the blue jacket was "accounted for" did not support the Warren Commission's case that Oswald was on McWatters' bus. The discovery of the jacket in the book depository contradicts the claim that Oswald was on that bus. It cannot have been planted by anyone who wanted Oswald to have been on that bus.
The authorities needed to show that Oswald got away from the book depository without assistance. The only option they had was to claim that he was on McWatters' bus. All three of the supposed witnesses to this event stated that the man in question was wearing a blue jacket. If Oswald owned a blue jacket, the authorities needed to show that Oswald was wearing that jacket when he got on McWatters' bus.
The discovery in the book depository of a blue jacket, attributed to Oswald, refuted the authorities' claim that Oswald was on McWatters' bus. The jacket simply cannot, as Jim claims, have been planted by the authorities! They had every reason not to plant the jacket.
Incidentally, this doesn't prove that Oswald was the young white man who got into the car as seen by Roger Craig and two motorists. Oswald was a generic-looking young white man, at a glance easily mistaken for any number of other young white men.
What it does prove is that, if the three witnesses were correct that the man they saw was wearing a blue jacket, that man cannot have been Oswald.
The existence of a blue jacket in the book depository demonstrates that the man on McWatters' bus was not Oswald. This leaves a big hole in both the lone-gunman theory and the ridiculous 'Harvey and Lee' theory.
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Roy Milton Jones Did Not See Oswald
Jim also writes:
Quotethe evidence young Mr. Jones gave the FBI clearly shows that the man he saw briefly and sat behind him was the bus and taxi Oswald.
This not true, as I've pointed out already. Milton Jones's description of the man did not match the real-life, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald.
In CE 2641, Jones described the man as:
- aged 30-35 (Oswald was 24 years old),
- 5' 11" tall (Oswald was 5' 9" tall),
- 150 pounds in weight (Oswald was weighed that very day at 131 pounds),
- and wearing a blue jacket (Oswald's blue jacket was in the book depository).
If Jones's description is accurate, the man on the bus was not Oswald.
Interestingly, Jones's description not only shows that the real-life Oswald wasn't on McWatters' bus, but it also shows that the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's imaginary doppelganger Oswald wasn't on the bus either.
As we have seen, the man Jones saw was 5' 11" tall, while the real-life Oswald was 5' 9" tall. But according to Holy Writ, one of Jim's imaginary doppelgangers was supposed to have been 5' 11". That doppelganger must have been the man Jones saw! Unfortunately for Jim, Holy Writ claims that it was the other doppelganger, shorter but equally imaginary, who was supposed to have been on the bus.
Whoops!
Mind you, the heights of these fictional characters were very flexible. The 5' 11" imaginary doppelganger is supposed to have shrunk to 5' 6" when he was buying trucks in New Orleans. It would be no more far-fetched to claim that the short doppelganger magically grew a few inches taller when he got on the bus. But it's all a load of make-it-up-as-you-go-along nonsense, isn't it?
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Why Believe the FBI?
Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteHow is it possible that Oswald's and Whaley's stories match so well, unless the taxi ride actually happened and was remembered by both Oswald and Whaley?
I offered an explanation for this a couple of pages ago. The only evidence we have for what Oswald actually said are the memos written by the FBI agents and other officials who interviewed him. We know that they misrepresented Oswald's alibi. Why should we assume that they reported everything else accurately?
Jim is normally quick to declare anything touched by officialdom to be a fake on no other grounds than that it contradicts Holy Writ. Here, by contrast, we have solid evidence that officialdom actually distorted a statement by Oswald, and we have an obvious, plausible reason why the very same individuals might have distorted another statement by Oswald. There is no good reason to think the FBI and the other agencies must have been reliable on this occasion.
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Jim laments:
QuoteMr. B. goes on and on saying how John A. and I are dishonest and saying we wear "tin foil hats"
I've explained why Armstrong seems to have been dishonest in misleading his readers about the mastoidectomy evidence which disproved his theory, and why his habit of begging the question might also be seen as dishonest.
Begging the question isn't necessarily dishonest, but when someone does it over and over again, as Armstrong does in his novel and in the 'naysayers' article Jim quotes, it's difficult to explain except as a deliberate attempt to mislead his readers (again).
Jim frequently begs the question in the same way Armstrong begs the question. In Jim's defence, he is usually quoting the words of The Master, so he may not actually be dishonest in the way Armstrong appears to be.
Jim's friend Greg Parker offers an alternative opinion in this post:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2204-armstrong-on-the-cab-and-bus-rides#33398
I'd forgotten that Armstrong's 'naysayers' article about the bus journey had been questioned a couple of years ago, twice. Here's the other one:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2286-are-you-a-naysayer
Those threads are worth reading for anyone who is tempted not to laugh at the doppelganger-friendly interpretation of the flimsy bus journey evidence.
A few posts further on, Alex Wilson writes:
QuoteI'm seriously starting to think the whole H andL fantasy is just an attempt to dress up the lone gunman/ Warren Report narrative and make it more palatable for the CT twinkies. No one but Armstrong and the Warrenistas attempt to put Oswald in the 6th floor window.
That's a good point. Important elements of the 'Oswald did it' narrative are identical in both the lone-gunman theory and the 'Harvey and Lee' theory:
- Oswald was on the sixth floor, shooting at JFK;
- he escaped by bus (or one of him did);
- and he shot Officer Tippit.
There really isn't any strong evidence for any of these claims. I get the impression that very few genuine critics of the Warren Report find all of these claims convincing. The 'Harvey and Lee' theory is just the Warren Report with added paranoia.
On the plus side, it's quite entertaining to see Jim Hargrove and John Butler trying to defend important aspects of the Warren Report which few critics take seriously.
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Jim continues:
QuoteThat blue/grey jacket was “discovered” (planted) at the TSBD and put into evidence long after the assassination.
That's an interesting idea:
- The authorities didn't want Oswald to have been driven away by an accomplice, because that would imply a conspiracy.
- They needed Oswald to have escaped by himself.
- Three witnesses claimed to have seen a young white man on a bus, wearing a blue jacket.
- So the authorities made sure that Oswald's blue jacket was found ... not on a bus, but in the book depository.
It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?
If any item of evidence was planted to place Oswald on McWatters' bus, it was the bus transfer in Oswald's pocket, not the blue jacket in the book depository.
If the jacket found in the book depository really was Oswald's, it proves that Oswald cannot have been the man on the bus. Unless he had two such jackets, I suppose, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence for that.
QuoteJones said Oswald was wearing a "light blue" jacket.
No, Jones said that the man he saw was wearing a light blue jacket. Here, Jim is begging the question yet again, just as his venerable Master does.
As I pointed out earlier, Jones did not identify the man as Oswald, and the description he gave did not match Oswald. The important point is that Roy Milton Jones is a witness against Oswald having been on McWatters' bus.
That leaves Mary Bledsoe and Cecil McWatters. There is no good reason to suppose that Bledsoe was on McWatters' bus either, and McWatters himself clearly thought the passenger in question was Jones, not Oswald.
Without these three witnesses, we have no grounds to believe that Oswald was on that bus.
Unfortunately, both the lone-gunman theory and the 'Harvey and Lee' theory require Oswald to have been on that bus. Neither theory is credible.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteBut there are at least three different times that the United States government has admitted the possibility (and once the certainty) of an Oswald impersonator.
The first two examples Jim provides have a plausible, innocent explanation. Hoover and other officials were aware that the Soviet authorities had misused foreigners' passports in the past, and were worried that Oswald's passport might be misused in the same way. There was no suspicion of any long-term project involving doppelgangers.
The third example, of someone impersonating Oswald in a phone call in Mexico City, is much more plausible. But this example does not imply anything more than an ad hoc impersonation.
QuoteSylvia Meagher's outstanding book has page after page about Two Oswalds.
Meagher gives examples of possible impersonations of Oswald, some of which may in fact have been impersonations and some of which probably weren't, for reasons Jonathan has given. Any actual impersonations would have been done ad hoc to implicate Oswald in the forthcoming assassination attempt.
Meagher does not claim that any of these possible impersonations had anything to do with a far-fetched long-term project involving two Oswalds and two Marguerites that could never have happened. She did not, and would never have, believed anything so far-fetched.
As Jonathan points out, Jim really needs to stop conflating possible impersonations of Oswald with all that preposterous long-term double-doppelganger nonsense. The former do not imply the latter.
Not only is the notion of a long-term double-doppelganger project unnecessary to explain any impersonations of Oswald, but such a project could never have been implemented, as I have pointed out here and elsewhere:
Jim needs to explain why those supposed masterminds would have chosen to use doppelgangers when a far simpler solution was available to them. If he can, he should do so on that thread.
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Correction:
It was Oswald's birth certificate, not his passport, as I mentioned in another thread a couple of years ago:
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteHarvey Oswald was NOT an assassin.
Indeed, Harvey Oswald was NOT an assassin, because Harvey Oswald was NOT a real person. He was a character in a work of fiction. If, however, Jim is referring to the uncle of the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, I'd agree with him that the uncle was not an assassin.
Unlike Jim, I'd claim that the nephew wasn't an assassin either. There's very little evidence to support Jim's and the Warren Commission's claim that someone named Oswald was on the sixth floor of the book depository, shooting at President Kennedy.
John Armstrong writes:
QuoteMilton Jones, who remembered Oswald as a passenger
Armstrong does this several times in the article Jim quotes. It's called begging the question: Armstrong is assuming to be true that which he needs to demonstrate to be true.
Armstrong does the same dishonest thing throughout his novel, too, beginning with his invention of two Marguerite Oswalds on pages 6-14, as detailed here:
http://22november1963.org.uk/john-armstrong-harvey-and-lee-theory
As for Milton Jones, he did not remember Oswald as a passenger. Here's what Jones had to say about Oswald being the man he saw:
JONES stated he did not observe this man closely since he sat behind him in the bus, but, on the following Monday when he caught the same bus going home from school with the same driver, the driver told him he thought this man might have been LEE HARVEY OSWALD.
JONES said that after the driver mentioned this, and from his recollection of OSWALD's picture as it appeared on television and in the newspapers, he thought it was possible it could have been OSWALD. He emphasised, however, that he did not have a good view of this man at any time and could not positively identify him as being identical with LEE HARVEY OSWALD. He said he was inclined to think it might have been OSWALD only because the bus driver told him so.
Source: Commission Exhibit 2641 (WC Hearings and Exhibits, vol.25, pp.899-900: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=929)
Armstrong's statement that Jones "remembered Oswald as a passenger" is the opposite of the truth. Jones absolutely did not claim that the man was Oswald. Not only that, but Jones gave a description of the man that does not match Oswald. In CE 2641, Jones describes the man as aged 30-35, 5' 11" in height, weighing 150 pounds, and wearing a blue jacket. None of these distinguishing features match Oswald. As I pointed out earlier, Oswald's blue jacket was in the book depository all the time this man was on McWatters' bus.
I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised at Armstrong's apparent dishonesty in claiming that Jones "remembered Oswald as a passenger", since Armstrong infamously misled his readers on the matter of Oswald's mastoidectomy operation, which debunked his double-doppelganger theory two decades before he published his novel.
More importantly, it's clear that Milton Jones's statement to the FBI seriously undermines the claim by the Warren Commission and the 'Harvey and Lee' believers that Oswald was on McWatters' bus.
QuoteBledsoe and Jones and Whaley all remembered that Oswald wore light colored grey pants ... Oswald instructed Whaley to drive to the 500 block of N. Beckley
Two more examples of begging the question. As for the idea that wearing "light colored grey pants" identifies the man as Oswald, that's probably the strongest proof yet. I mean, who else could it possibly be, if not Oswald? I haven't checked the archives of the Dallas newspapers, but I'm sure there are headlines on the front pages every time "Man Is Spotted in Dallas Wearing Light Colored Grey Pants".
Armstrong asks a couple of rhetorical questions:
QuoteHow could Bledsoe and Jones and Whaley have known Oswald was wearing light grey pants on the bus/taxi unless they had personally seen him?
and
QuoteHow is it possible that Oswald's and Whaley's stories match perfectly, unless the taxi ride acutally happened and was remembered by both Oswald and Whaley?
How, indeed? Since we know (as I explained earlier) that the written records of Oswald's interrogations contain important inaccuracies about Oswald's alibi, an obvious explanation exists for these miraculous coincidences. Can you work out what it is, boys and girls?
QuoteMcWatters issued six transfers prior to picking up Oswald and the blond[e] lady (prior to 12:40 PM). He then issued a transfer to the blond[e] lady and a transfer to Oswald when they got off the bus (circa 12:44 PM).
Alternatively, McWatters issued five transfers, then one to the blonde woman, leaving the next numbered transfer to be "found" in Oswald's shirt pocket at the second attempt, once it became necessary to put Oswald on a bus rather than in the car as witnessed by Roger Craig and two motorists.
The woman was never traced, so we don't know the number of the transfer she received, assuming that she actually received one.
Quotethese naysayers never produce a single document or a single witness by which to prove the taxi and bus ride never happened. Nor can they offer an ounce of PROOF as to what they think COULD HAVE happened—only speculation, fantasies, and daydreams.
Armstrong clearly doesn't understand the concept of the burden of proof. It isn't up to anyone to prove that the bus journey didn't happen; it's up to him (and the Warren Commission) to prove that it did. So far, he and the Warren Commission haven't done so.
Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteMr. B. doesn’t even consider the taxi ride.
That's because the taxi ride is of no relevance if the bus journey didn't happen. The man in Whaley's taxi can only have been Oswald if the man on McWatters' bus was Oswald, and Armstrong and the Warren Commission have failed to demonstrate this.
John Butler writes:
QuoteHow have you refuted these "unreliable witnesses"? I don't want to go to another site to see your proclaimed truth.
Here's the link I gave earlier, which notes some of the many inconsistencies and contradictions in the witnesses' accounts:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1121-oswald-and-bus-1213
All John has to do is click the link. It won't bite. As I pointed out earlier, anyone who has a copy of Sylvia Meagher's Accessories After the Fact can find a good account of the problems with the bus journey on pages 75-83.
Incidentally, someone who isn't a member here has got in touch to suggest that John Butler's habit of rattling off a series of brief, inconsequential comments might be an attempt to hide comments he doesn't want people to see. I'm sure that can't be what John is trying to do, but if it is, it isn't working.
Now, would anyone like to put forward a properly argued case that the bus journey happened, with an explanation of the numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in the witnesses' accounts?
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteThe evidence that one Oswald was picked up by a Nash Rambler station wagon at almost exactly the same time another Oswald boarded McWatters’ bus is strong.
No, it's very weak. The identification of Oswald by Craig is credible (it's corroborated by two other witnesses), but there's no good reason to believe that the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, or anyone using that name, was on Cecil McWatters' bus.
To support his and the Warren Commission's claim that Oswald was on that bus, Jim mentions three pieces of evidence:
- the bus transfer that was supposedly found in Oswald's shirt pocket;
- the claim during his interrogations that Oswald mentioned having taken a bus;
- and the fact that a number of officials were present at his interrogations, with the implication that they reported Oswald's claims accurately.
Plenty of work has been done that casts doubt on Jim's and the Warren Commission's claim. Lee Farley's analysis in particular is very good:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1121-oswald-and-bus-1213
Jim and the Warren Commission rely on the honesty of the FBI, Secret Service and other officials who reported what Oswald is supposed to have said under interrogation. But we know that they did not report everything Oswald said honestly or accurately. The officials misrepresented the most important statement of all, his alibi, in which Oswald appears to have said that he "went outside to watch the p[residential] parade" (yet another piece of evidence that is incompatible with the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense):
http://www.prayer-man.com/then-went-outside-to-watch-p-parade/
For more about the misrepresentation of Oswald's alibi by the officials who attended his interrogations and by the Warren Commission in its report, see:
http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-alibi
The claim that Oswald was on Cecil McWatters' bus relies ultimately on the testimony of Mary Bledsoe, who was perhaps the most unreliable of all the anti-Oswald witnesses (and McWatters wasn't much better).
Anyone who is unfamiliar with the relevant evidence should read Lee Farley's account, which I've linked to above, and Sylvia Meagher's Accessories After the Fact, pp.75-83.
There are numerous well-known problems with the Warren Commission and 'Harvey and Lee' argument that Oswald was on McWatters' bus. For a start, the basic presumption is far-fetched: that an assassin fleeing the scene of the crime would get on a bus that was heading straight back to the scene of the crime (not to mention that the bus wasn't heading close to the rooming house which was the supposed assassin's supposed destination).
The accounts given by the three witnesses (Bledsoe, McWatters and Roy Milton Jones) are mutually contradictory in all sorts of ways, and contradicted several uncontroversial facts. McWatters and Jones claimed that the man they saw was wearing a blue jacket; but the only such jacket associated with Oswald was discovered in the book depository a few days later. The man, supposedly Oswald, whom Bledsoe encountered on the bus had a torn shirt; but Oswald's shirt was not torn until his arrest more than an hour later.
The bus transfer supposedly found in Oswald's shirt pocket was in pristine condition despite his having been severely manhandled during and after his arrest. When the cops first searched Oswald, no bus transfer was found on him, but once it became known that the man on the bus had been given a transfer, one was found on Oswald. The transfer would have been of no use to anyone who immediately took a taxi away from the bus route, as the Warren Commission and 'Harvey and Lee' apologists would have us believe Oswald did. And so on.
All we have is unreliable witnesses making contradictory claims. There is no good reason to believe that either Bledsoe or Oswald were on McWatters' bus. This leaves a significant void in the Warren Commission and 'Harvey and Lee' narrative.
I was rather hoping that Jim would have found a way to reconcile all of this weak evidence into a coherent argument that Oswald was on that bus. Would Jim care to have a go? If he wants us to believe that he and the Warren Commission are correct, it's up to him to demonstrate that Oswald was on that bus.
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John Butler doesn't seem to like the idea of his faith-based beliefs being questioned, does he? He writes:
QuoteThis is an example of Jeremy's outrageous claims that lack any basis in fact or reality.
This is what John finds outrageous:
Quotethe theory required the Russian-speaking boy to forget most of his Russian, the very skill for which he was recruited in the first place
That's what the double-doppelganger theory claims. John is correct: it is outrageous and has no basis in fact or reality.
John continues:
QuoteWhere's the proof of this? Where is the language or psychological authority for saying this? What professional studies point this out?
I'm not sure why John thinks any "professional studies" would go anywhere near the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. I suppose professional psychologists might find it an instructive case study.
If John really wants to debate the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense yet again, he really should do so on one of the dozens of threads dedicated to this incoherent, self-contradictory and laughably far-fetched drivel.
He could start by answering the central question I raised in my comment above, a question that has been raised many times and that no 'Harvey and Lee' believer has yet answered. Here is one of those threads in which I described this fundamental problem with the theory:
Why would anyone have set up a long-term doppelganger project when they would have had a far simpler solution available? Please deal with that question on that thread, not this one.
This thread's question, of whether the bus or the car came first, only matters if the bus story is accurate. The notion that Oswald was on that bus is a central feature of the Warren Commission's theory (and of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory too, naturally), and like every central aspect of those closely related theories, it isn't supported by any strong evidence.
If the 'Harvey and Lee' believers want to convince the rest of us that any of the three or four Oswald doppelgangers were on that bus, they need to demonstrate it and not just parrot the Warren Commission's account. The same goes for the other central claims they share with the Warren Commission: they need to demonstrate that Oswald was on the sixth floor during the assassination, and that Oswald shot Officer Tippit, and not just assume that the Warren Commission was correct. But don't do it on this thread, please!
Lee Farley seems to have been the first person to seriously question the supposed bus journey:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1121-oswald-and-bus-1213
Gil Jesus points out problems with the witnesses here:
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27429-the-bus-ride/
For a more plausible scenario, and links to several other discussions of the supposed bus journey, see:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1639-why-the-bus-escape
The moral of the story is: don't try to squeeze every piece of evidence into some all-encompassing conspiracy theory. Before you know it, you'll have invented a collection of imaginary doppelgangers and you'll look very silly.
Plenty of aspects of the assassination can be plausibly explained in other ways, without having to swallow the lone-nut idea. The supposed bus journey, for example, can be explained as an ex post facto means to get Oswald to the rooming house (in which he may not actually have been staying) to pick up a gun (which he may not actually have owned) and get to Tenth Street in time to shoot Tippit (which may not actually have had anything at all to do with the JFK assassination).
The simpler a conspiracy theory is, the more credible it is.
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As for Steve's original question, Greg Parker has something to say here:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2567-which-came-first
Greg points out that Roy Truly could not have reported Oswald missing until 12.45 at the earliest, when Oswald's lunch break ended. It may be significant that Officer Kaminski was not placed on guard duty at the front door of the book depository until shortly after 12.45.
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I'd like to comment on two points. Firstly, the derailing of this thread to promote a nonsensical, far-fetched theory that almost no-one believes, and secondly the actual topic of the thread.
Armstrong's theory is incoherent. His imaginary double-doppelganger project, which supposedly began in the late 1940s or early 1950s, was set up for one specific reason: to produce, several years in the future, a false defector who had a plausible American background and a sufficient knowledge of Russian to allow him to understand what was going on around him in the Soviet Union.
According to Armstrong's theory, the two requirements were satisfied by recruiting two unrelated people who would share the same name. The need for a genuine American background was satisfied by recruiting a genuine American boy and his mother, and maintaining their household for a decade or so. The need for someone with a reasonable understanding of Russian was satisfied by recruiting a native Russian-speaking boy, along with a woman who would act as his mother, and maintaining that household for a decade or so.
As if all of that isn't improbable enough, the theory required the Russian-speaking boy to forget most of his Russian, the very skill for which he was recruited in the first place, so that he had to teach himself the language again just before his false defection was due. It's nonsense.
The theory is not only incoherent but unnecessary. There was no need to set up such a ridiculously complicated scheme. All that was necessary was to recruit a genuine American with a knack for languages, then get him up to speed in Russian during the several years that were available. There would have been more than enough suitable Americans to fill this role.
The problem is that no-one has been able to explain why the vastly more complicated solution would have been chosen. Armstrong doesn't explain it in his book, as far as I'm aware, though if anyone can supply a page reference I'll be happy to be corrected (but please do so on another thread, not this one).
I've mentioned the problem in several threads on this forum, and none of the diminishing band of 'Harvey and Lee' acolytes have come up with an answer either. See, for example:
Every time I mention it, they run away, which suggests that no good explanation exists. If anyone has any ideas about why such a complicated long-term double-doppelganger project would have been set up, please visit one of the numerous 'Harvey and Lee' threads and do so there, not here.
Bernie Laverick had something to say about the lack of support Armstrong's theory has acquired despite more than 20 years of promotion:
You do know that more people believe that the Queen of England is a lizard than believe in H&L? In fact, I'd go further, more people would probably rather accept that she was one of the shooters than accept this relentless trolling disguised as a risible theory, one that relies on deliberate falsification and mistruths, and whose sole design is to divert, confuse, and slow down the search for the truth.
Again: if anyone wants to promote the double-doppelganger nonsense, please don't do it on this thread.
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Paul Bacon writes:
QuoteI don't have time to say anything more, but you need to open your mind
My mind is open to any strong evidence you care to provide. I'll be perfectly happy to accept that the Zapruder film is a fake, as soon as someone comes up with strong evidence to justify that claim.
So far, two areas of evidence have been put forward.
1 - The Car Stop
I can go over this yet again if you insist. No-one has shown why we should prefer the evidence of a minority of witness statements over (a) the majority of witness statements and (b) no fewer than four home movies which show that the car did not stop.
Chris is the only person to come up with a coherent argument against this, by suggesting that we should interpret the plain "slowing down" witness statements to mean something like "slowing down (almost) to a stop". Because witnesses are often inaccurate when recalling details, Chris's interpretation is plausible.
But so is the opposite interpretation: that the "slowed almost to a stop" witnesses were exaggerating what they saw. Personally, I think it's far more likely that people would exaggerate the extent of the slowing down than fail to mention that the car came (almost) to a stop.
A large proportion of the spectators who could see the car at the time of the head shot didn't report the car slowing down at all, let alone coming to a stop. The slowing down was not significant to them. As we see in the four home movies, the car didn't slow down by a huge amount.
2 - The Film's Chain of Custody
Look at the document I linked to earlier (http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf), which contains a plausible interpretation of the film's chain of custody that is contrary to Horne's. Zavada made a good case that the film Brugioni and McMahon recalled several decades after the event was not the original but two separate copies.
So far, no-one has pointed out any problems with Zavada's account. Until someone can show that Zavada's account is not plausible, why should we not accept it?
Horne's account requires the extra complication of a team of Bad Guys going to a lot of trouble to alter a home movie to support the lone-gunman theory but doing it so incompetently that the film ended up contradicting the lone-gunman theory. Zavada's account does not require this extra (and incoherent) complication. The only rational course is to accept the simplest, least complicated account.
3 - The Turn Onto Elm Street
There's a third claim that needs to be resolved, but for some reason no-one seems able even to state what the claim actually is.
Again, if anyone really thinks there was something incriminating in the car's turn onto Elm Street that necessitated the removal of a chunk of the Zapruder film, could you please fill in the missing details? Since it was Ron who made the original claim, perhaps he could explain what he thinks happened and why it was so incriminating.
Until someone actually explains what the problem is, we can ignore the turn onto Elm Street, don't you think?
The Standard of Proof
I realise that the 'everything is a fake' types might find it puzzling even to think about something like a standard of proof. If it makes you feel all fuzzy inside to believe that the film has been altered, isn't that enough to prove that the film has been altered?
I mentioned earlier that the appropriate standard of proof is: evidence that would convince rational, open-minded people with no preconceived opinions about the assassination. Does everyone agree? If not, could you explain what you think would be a reasonable standard of proof for a claim like 'the Zaprduer film is a fake'?
If you do accept this standard of proof, why you think no-one has come close to reaching it with the evidence that's been put forward so far?
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Ron Bulman writes:
QuoteJeremy can put this in his pipe and smoke it regarding telling me about Mr. Horne's "reliability".
Thank you, Ron, but I don't smoke.
Horne spent a lot of his time with the ARRB trying to push Lifton's body-alteration nonsense, a topic few people take seriously. That should warn you that he's liable to make far-out claims based on minimal evidence.
In a subject as contentious as the JFK assassination, you shouldn't believe any significant claims without checking the relevant evidence and examining alternative interpretations. Did you take these elementary precautions? You appear not to have done so. If not, why not?
If you don't exercise sufficient critical thought, you're liable to end up believing any old nonsense. This is a big problem with the JFK assassination, in which all sorts of wacky, nonsensical ideas are floating around. Only a few hours ago on another thread, someone repeated the claim that the driver shot JFK, as though it was a serious idea.
People who are willing to apply critical thought to the nonsensical lone-gunman theory then switch off their brains and swallow equally weak claims about ridiculously improbable conspiracies. If you want to do more than simply confirm your own biases, you have to question the conspiracy theories too, I'm afraid.
Horne's claims are based on little other than decades-old recollections. You must have been aware that decades-old recollections are liable to be mistaken. What critical thought did you apply to Horne's claims? Any at all?
What other interpretations did you consider before you decided that Horne's far-fetched speculation was the most convincing interpretation around? I'd guess you didn't consider any alternative interpretations. If you didn't take this elementary step, what were the reasons behind your decision not to do so? Was it because Horne told you what you wanted to hear?
I gave you a link to an alternative interpretation of the Zapruder film's history. Were you aware of this document's existence before you went public? Evidently not. Have you read the document yet? If not, why not?
Here's that link again. It's Roland Zavada's open letter responding to chapter 14 of Horne's book. It deals with the technical aspects of altering Kodachrome films, and with the Zapruder film's chain of possession:
http://www.jfk-info.com/RJZ-DH-032010.pdf
Perhaps you could read it and let us know why we should believe Horne's claims instead.
Warning 1: the document is over 30 pages long! It will probably require more effort to read this than to watch a YouTube video.
Warning 2: once you have read the document, you will need to evaluate competing claims about topics such as chains of custody and whether this or that copy of the film was slit or unslit at a particular time. This will certainly require more effort than passively accepting a far-fetched YouTube video.
Here's Zavada's conclusion:
The very interesting twist to your chapter is that it has done more to ensure the Zapruder film at NARA is authentic rather than altered.
Your interviews with Dino Brugioni and Homer McMahon and their handling of what they interpreted [Zavada's emphasis] as "original" films, most likely were the Jamieson copies provided to the Secret Service by Zapruder and flown to Washington on successive days. (With the FBI requesting two copies, returned to Dallas, of their viewed double 8 copy.)
Nonetheless, your analysis of those interviews and the conclusions you draw about the briefing boards have provided a tight focus to establish the time frame and possible venue for the purported 'sanitizing' of the Zapruder original. Both reinforce all of the technology and film reproduction constraints to confirm our conclusion that alteration to the 8mm original and its reconstitution, as a 'sanitized' KODACHROME II equivalent, was impossible.
So much for Horne's claims.
I'm still curious about Ron's original claim that a section of the film was removed to hide the car's turn onto Elm Street. No-one seems willing to explain what this is all about. What is supposed to have happened when the car turned onto Elm Street? How is this supposed to be evidence of conspiracy? What was so incriminating that it required a section of the film to be removed?
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Rather than derail the current Minox camera thread, which has moved back to discussing Minox-related matters, I thought I'd use this Zapruder film-related thread to reply to a couple of Zapruder film-related points.
Sandy Larsen wrote:
QuoteIt's not what is in the Z film that supports the lone gunman theory, it's what is not in the film that supports the theory.
Thank you! At last, someone is brave enough to admit that there is nothing in the Zapruder film that supports the lone-gunman theory.
The film does not contain evidence that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory, but it does contain evidence that contradicts that theory. I hope everyone is now aware of this important fact, and will take it into account.
The second point is that one of the three claims Ron made was that the car's turn onto Elm Street is evidence of conspiracy, and was the reason for chopping out part of the Zapruder film.
Could someone explain what the deal is with the turn onto Elm Street? This is a genuine question. I've heard several times now that something sinister happened, but no-one has explained what it is that's supposed to have happened, or what the evidence is that anything suspicious happened, or why this mysterious event was so incriminating that it would have necessitated altering a home movie.
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Chris Bristow writes:
QuoteAs I have said a limo moving as slow as 1/2 mph with a momentary stop could result in the types of witness stories we have.
Maybe it could, given that the details of witnesses' recollections are often inaccurate and are able to be interpreted in different ways. But there is no justification for supposing that it did, for two reasons. Very few witness statements specifically claimed that the car slowed "almost to a stop" (or words to that effect), and there are four home movies which all show that the car did not slow down to anything like that speed.
Witness statements and photographic evidence are not equally likely to be inaccurate. Witnesses are often wrong about the details of what they saw, but home movies and photographs are almost never maliciously altered (I'm not aware of any uncontroversial examples of such alteration, though I suppose some may exist). When there is a conflict, we have to trust the films and photos unless there is strong independent evidence for alteration.
A plausible explanation for many discrepancies in witnesses' statements is that the witnesses were exaggerating what they saw. It is uncontroversial that people exaggerate things (I could cite trillions of examples of this). Rather than interpret the many plain "the car slowed down" statements to mean that the car slowed down drastically to something that was virtually indistinguishable from a stop, we should instead do the opposite, and interpret the few "almost to a stop" statements as exaggerations.
If you interpret these few anomalous statements as exaggerations, even more of the witness statements support what we see in the four home movies.
Since the four home movies and two photos corroborate the majority of the witness statements, it is perverse to believe the minority, no matter how exciting it might be to imagine all-powerful Bad Guys seizing and altering a bunch of home movies and photos in order to support the lone-gunman theory but doing it so incompetently that none of those home movies or photos actively support the lone-gunman theory and at least one of them positively contradicts that theory.
The car did not stop; it slowed down, but not to anything like half a mile per hour.
QuoteThe basis of the CT is about alteration. Claiming the films as proof requires accepting that they are not altered.
Accepting that a film is not altered is the only rational starting point. Because home movies and photographs do not routinely get maliciously altered, the default position with home movies and photographs is that they are genuine.
If anyone wants to challenge this default position, it is up to them to prove (to whatever degree of certainty is considered appropriate) that the film or photo has been altered. It is not up to anyone else to prove that the film or photo is genuine. This really is a huge barrier, and it's hardly surprising that no-one has succeeded in surmounting it.
The degree of certainty that I would go for is that the proof of alteration should satisfy a rational, open-minded person with no preconceived opinions about the assassination. Does that sound reasonable?
Unfortunately, no-one has got anywhere near this level of proof. All we have is anomaly-spotting and speculation. And that's after three decades of trying, which suggests that such proof is unlikely to be found, and that it's time for the film to be accepted as genuine even by the more speculative and fanciful enthusiasts who still cling to the notion that the Zapruder film might be faked. The more rational critics of the lone-gunman theory have accepted it as genuine for decades, mainly because of the simple fact that the film not only contradicts the lone-gunman theory but is one of the most crucial pieces of evidence against that theory.
The evidence we have is insufficient to prove alteration. Is any new evidence likely to come along? There may be one or two witness statements somewhere in the Dallas police's files or down the back of a drawer in the National Archives, but surely there won't be enough of them to make any difference. There may be a hitherto unknown home movie or photograph (the latter is more probable than the former), but what are the chances that it will contradict the films and photos we already have? It's more likely to corroborate them, isn't it?
Of course, people can keep playing the game if it amuses them. But it's difficult to see how they aren't wasting their time when they could be doing something productive to help get the case reopened.
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Mark Knight writes:
QuoteIt's possible to disagree without resorting to ridicule.
Sorry, Mark! But sometimes humour is appropriate. The JFK assassination is a serious topic, unlike faked moon landings, faked films, faked Oswalds, and faked trees on the grassy knoll. This sort of stuff reinforces the media's line that anyone who questions the lone-nut theory is an irrational 'conspiracy theorist', in the propaganda sense of the term.
It's better to laugh at the far-out stuff than have the assassination itself turned into a subject of ridicule in the minds of any rational outsiders who happen to visit this forum.
If the JFK assassination is ever going to get treated seriously by the authorities, it needs the support of the general public. The 'everything is a fake' sub-culture is liable to alienate the general public.
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John Butler writes:
QuoteNo matter what evidence is presented, raise the bar. Demand the kind of proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by.
But John hasn't presented any evidence! No-one has raised any bars. No-one has demanded impossible proof.
John made a claim:
QuoteI believe the Zap film was altered to support the lone gunman theory.
I've asked him, four times now, to provide evidence to justify his claim. All he needs to do is cite a scene or incident or event in the Zapruder film that unambiguously supports the lone-gunman theory.
If any such evidence exists, John shouldn't have any trouble finding it. Come on, John! Give us the evidence from the Zapruder film that supports the lone-gunman theory! You can do it!
Of course, as I've demonstrated already, the Zapruder film in fact contradicts the lone-gunman theory.
The problem, which I imagine even John has worked out by now, is that if the Zapruder film does not support the lone-gunman theory, how could anyone have altered it to support that theory?
Zapruder Film Alteration Synopsis
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Ronn Bulman writes:
The first part of that sentence should read: "Brugioni seemed emphatic that, three or four decades earlier, he saw multiple frames of a white spray and brain matter".
Not that decades-old memories are necessarily mistaken, of course, but we shouldn't assume that they are correct either.
When we check the Zapruder film, which is something we really ought to do if we're making a claim of this type, we discover that a spray of brain matter is visible in several of the frames immediately after frame 313:
And that's in a copy of the film that isn't particularly detailed. There is even a hint of a spray in frames 317 and 318 of that edition, which might be more clearly visible in a better-quality edition.
The spray of brain matter can't have been removed, because it is still there.
All sorts of things might have happened, but there isn't any good reason to believe that there was a violent forward movement of the head. Very few witnesses described it.
The film does show JFK's head moving forward, after it moved back and to the left. The fact that only a small number of reports described it as 'violent', or words to that effect, suggests that these witnesses were exaggerating. It is especially understandable that people such as DeLoach and Rather would do this once the official dogma was established of a lone gunman firing from behind.
What Horne is doing is irrational. He is inventing a conspiracy to explain something that doesn't need to be explained.
The 'back and to the left' head movement is the most obvious evidence to most people that JFK was shot from the front. No film-altering masterminds would have altered the film, even accidentally, to show JFK being shot from the front. The idea is insane.
Horne was so desperate to believe in all-powerful masterminds who altered the film (and JFK's body) that he was willing to dismiss the strongest prima facie evidence for a shot from the front. This sums up the stupidity of the extreme, everything-is-a-conspriacy thinking that the JFK assassination attracts.
There are plenty of rational grounds to doubt that JFK was assassinated by a lone gunman. There's no need to invent a hugely improbable conspiracy involving teams of film-fakers and body-alterers. The simplest explanation is almost always the most credible explanation.