Jeremy Bojczuk

Jim has illustrated the 'Harvey and Lee' modus operandi: (a) Assemble a list of every available sighting of a possible fake Oswald. (b) Don't apply any critical thought to these sightings. However flimsy the account, if it fits it goes on the list. (c) Use this list as proof of the most far-fetched 'Oswald double' theory you can think of, involving a long-term doppelganger project, fake mastoidectomy operations, fake Oswalds and Marguerites who vanished from the face of the earth immediately after the assassination, and multilingual Hungarian refugees with 13-inch heads. (d) Finally, look around for a respected researcher, one who has been dead for some time so that there is absolutely no chance that she could answer back, and rope her in to give the far-fetched theory some credibility, despite all the evidence that she would never have had anything to do with something so deranged. Is Jim aware that news stories involving a murder suspect invariably generate large numbers of false sightings of the suspect? Can Jim imagine what the proportion of false to real sightings might be in a story as big as the JFK assassination? You'd expect to find many, many more false sightings than real sightings, wouldn't you? Could Jim provide us with a list of all the sightings of 'Oswald doubles' that his guru (blessed be his name) has declined to use? It's a very short list, isn't it? While he's at it, perhaps Jim could also provide us with anything at all in Sylvia Meagher's writings that explicitly mentions long-term doppelganger projects, fake Marguerites, fake operations in hospitals that hadn't been built yet, or any of the other crazy things that make up the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. Certainly the two pages he reproduced show no such thing. * Meanwhile, back in the Texas Theater, we have one arrest taking place in the balcony (according to the police reports), and one arrest taking place on the ground floor (according to Burroughs). Unfortunately, this isn't in accordance with 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, which proclaims that only one fake Oswald was arrested. Up to now, Jim has been understandably vague and evasive about exactly what happened in the Texas Theater. Perhaps Jim could give us his precise, step by step, version of how he thinks the arrest of just one fake Oswald happened, and how the arrest of one fake Oswald came to be reported as two arrests. Perhaps he thinks it happened like this: 1 - The police go up to the balcony, encounter someone who gives his name as Oswald, and arrest him. 2 - The police escort this fake Oswald down the stairs from the balcony but are not spotted by any of the people on the ground floor, including Butch Burroughs, despite the fact that Burroughs' concession stand is close to the stairs and that he had previously noticed a woman going up those stairs. 3 - Once they reach the ground floor, the police decide to arrest the fake Oswald again. This arrest is spotted by Burroughs, although he waits 30 years before telling anyone. 4 - The fake Oswald keeps muttering to himself, "Oh no! I told them I was Oswald! I gave the game away! Drat! Now the dastardly plot has been revealed!" 5 - While they are on the ground floor, the police find the real Oswald, and arrest him too. The police do not notice that both of the men they arrested are called Oswald. 6 - George Applin is spoken to by the police on the ground floor, and is escorted by them out of the building, but no-one inside or outside the building notices this. Sounds plausible, doesn't it? How about this version: 1 - The police search the ground floor and arrest the real Oswald. 2 - While they are on the ground floor, they arrest someone else who gives his name as Oswald, an incident witnessed by Burroughs, who waits 30 years before telling anyone. The police don't notice that both of the men they have arrested are called Oswald. 3 - The police take the fake Oswald up the stairs to the balcony, and arrest him again. 4 - Having arrested him for the second time, they bring the fake Oswald down the stairs from the balcony but are not spotted by any of the people on the ground floor, including Burroughs. 5 - While the fake 'Oswald' is being paraded up and down the stairs without being spotted, he keeps muttering to himself, "Oh no! I told them I was Oswald! I gave the game away! Drat! Now the dastardly plot has been revealed!" 6 - George Applin is spoken to by the police on the ground floor, and is escorted by them out of the building, but no-one notices this. Alternatively, Jim might want to put forward this version of events: 1 - The police arrest the real Oswald on the ground floor and take him out of the front entrance. 2 - George Applin speaks to the police on the ground floor. After some discussion, he agrees to go with them to give a signed and witnessed statement. The police escort him out of the rear of the building and drive him away, an event witnessed by Butch Burroughs from inside the building and Bernard Haire outside in the alley. 3 - Police officers later recall that, according to their radio alert, the suspect was supposed to have gone up to the balcony, and mistakenly write in their reports that that was where Oswald was arrested. 4 - Burroughs, 30 years after the event, misinterpreted Applin's encounter with the police as an arrest. No extra Oswalds, no extra arrests, and one extra reason to doubt the 'Harvey and Lee' theory.

There's something else, something less light-hearted, that I should have included in my last-but-one reply to Jim. It is truly disgraceful for Jim to make use of the late Sylvia Meagher to lend his nonsense the credibility it lacks. She would never have endorsed the ridiculous notion that any of the incidents she mentioned were the result of a long-term, top-secret, multi-Oswald, multi-Marguerite doppelganger plot involving Russian-speaking Hungarian refugees and world war two orphans who had undergone operations in hospitals that hadn't been built yet, and all the other crazy stuff the 'Harvey and Lee' theory proposes. Meagher was one of the most rational early critics of the Warren Commission. She wouldn't have had anything to do with a steaming pile of self-contradictory idiocy that was partly invented by a guy who thought the moon landings were faked. Jim isn't alone, unfortunately, in shamefully co-opting deceased, can't-answer-back researchers to provide support for far-fetched paranoid nonsense. There's a crazy guy out there who thinks that the Altgens 6 photograph is full of pasted-in people; Jim may have heard of him. He co-opted the late Mark Lane, not to mention Gerald McKnight and David Wrone, to support his brand of brain-dead drivel. If widely respected researchers such as Meagher, Lane, McKnight and Wrone can get tarred with the tin-foil-hat brush, every rational critic of the Warren Commission is in danger of getting tarred with the tin-foil-hat brush. Not only is this the sort of thing that gives the JFK assassination a bad name with the general public, but it means that the topic gets to attract more and more lunatics while repulsing those who have better things to do than swim against an increasingly unpleasant tide of paranoid sewage. I don't suppose either Jim or the crazy Altgens 6 guy care too much about any of that, though. In the general scheme of things, it doesn't matter at all if a handful of gullible people still think that the 'Harvey and Lee' theory has any merit and that a bus-load of fake Oswalds really was running around inside the Texas Theater and blurting out "I'm Oswald, officer!", "I'm Oswald too, officer!", "And me, officer, I'm Oswald!". But it does matter if a large part of the general public can be persuaded that it's only paranoid crazies who question the official line on the JFK assassination. That's the real danger of stuff like the 'Harvey and Lee' and 'Altgens 6 photo was faked' conspiracy theories.

Jim Hargrove writes: No, that isn't what Mr B is claiming. The points Mr B was actually making are: - Burroughs was on the ground floor the whole time and cannot have seen anyone being arrested in the balcony. - There is no evidence that anyone, fake Oswald or real Oswald or anyone else, was brought downstairs by the police. No witnesses mentioned that anyone was brought downstairs, by the police or by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or by anyone else. Burroughs did not state to Marrs or Douglass that he had seen anyone being brought downstairs. If Burroughs had told Marrs or Douglass that he had seen an Oswald lookalike being brought downstairs by the police, Marrs and Douglass would surely have reported it. But they didn't. We know that Burroughs was in a position to see such an event, if it had occurred, because he mentioned that he had seen a woman go up the stairs. We can therefore be certain that he did not see anyone coming down the stairs after that person had been arrested by the police in the balcony. - Burroughs specifically stated that he had witnessed the arrest of someone who was not Oswald. - Since Burroughs was on the ground floor the whole time, and since Burroughs did not see anyone being brought downstairs by the police, and since Burroughs cannot have seen any arrest in the balcony, the "arrest" that he saw must have happened on the ground floor. This cannot therefore have been the "arrest" that, according to police reports, happened in the balcony. If, like Jim, we need to believe both Burroughs and the police, we must conclude that two separate arrests of fake Oswalds took place in the Texas Theater. - One fake Oswald arrested in the balcony plus one fake Oswald arrested on the ground floor equals two fake Oswalds. Add one real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald who was indisputably arrested on the ground floor, and we have three Oswalds, which is one Oswald too many for the 'Harvey and Lee' believers and two Oswalds too many for sane people. Jim again quotes this passage from Douglass's book: As I've explained already, the "he had also come down the balcony stairs" part is 100% speculation. There is no witness evidence or documentary evidence that anyone had "come down the balcony stairs" after having been arrested in the balcony. Not only is it 100% speculation, but it is a particularly desperate type of speculation: no-one who had been arrested would have "come down the balcony stairs ... on his own" and no-one who had "come down the balcony stairs ... accompanied by police" would have needed to be arrested again once he got downstairs. If you still believe that Burroughs and the police weren't mistaken, you must believe that there were two separate arrests of fake Oswalds that day, one in the balcony and one on the ground floor. Unlike Jim, I find that rather difficult to believe. There's a good reason why there is no evidence that anyone came down the stairs under arrest. It's because no-one was arrested in the balcony, least of all some idiot who stupidly told the police his name was Oswald. Nor was anyone other than Oswald arrested on the ground floor. The person who was seen by Burroughs and Haire was George Applin.

Lance Payette writes: Objection, Your Honor! As counsel points out, the rifle by itself links Oswald to the assassination. What else, in counsel's opinion, would be necessary to frame Oswald as a patsy? Why, exactly, does counsel think that if Oswald was eating his lunch in the domino room, or watching the parade from the front steps, or ogling the strippers in Jack Ruby's club, this might cause problems to anyone who was framing Oswald as a patsy? Objection, Your Honor! We are not all "Harvey & Lee-type folks". It is not necessary to sign up for the full tin-foil-hat deal in order to identify the many, many holes in the lone-nut account. Objection, Your Honor! "Prayer Person" appears in the Darnell and Wiegman films. That's two, not one. Objection, Your Honor! Objection overruled! OK, Your Honor. But one might ask: so what if there aren't 15 such photos? How many photos would counsel expect there to be of a bunch of people watching the motorcade from an office doorway some distance back from the road? Those who were taking photos and home movies and news films (such as the Darnell and Wiegman films, in which "Prayer Person" appears) weren't concentrating on the spectators, but on the motorcade. Is counsel surprised that there aren't 15 such photos? If he is, why does he find this fact surprising? If not, why mention it? Would it be that counsel thinks that if Oswald had been framed, he must have been framed as a lone nut before the assassination? If that is indeed what counsel thinks, would he be so kind as to tell the court the reasons which led him to that conclusion? Objection, Your Honor! "Prayer Person" appears to be standing in a shadowy corner, close to the doors. If "Prayer Person" worked in that building, he is very likely to have been one of the last, and quite possibly the very last, person to come out of those doors. How many of the other people in the doorway does counsel think are likely to have been looking back toward "Prayer Person" rather than forward toward the motorcade? In the kerfuffle after the shooting, how many people does counsel think would pay any attention to some nondescript person standing in the corner of the doorway? Perhaps Your Honor could ask counsel to take the trouble to examine Exhibit A, the Darnell film, and Exhibit B, the Wiegman film. You got it. Hey, counsel, look at the films! How many people, in counsel's opinion, are in fact looking away from "Prayer Person", and toward the motorcade? And how many people are looking in the general direction of "Prayer Person"? I can count one. Would counsel like to tell the court who that person is, and describe to the court that person's interrogation later that day by the police, and then tell the court how likely it is that that person would have publicly identified "Prayer Person" as Lee Oswald, if that is who "Prayer Person" was? Objection, Your Honor! There are plenty of people who cannot have been "Prayer Person". Winston Churchill, for example, cannot have been "Prayer Person". The Dalai Lama cannot have been "Prayer Person". The people who were cooking the food and laying out the tables and chairs at the event to which President Kennedy was travelling cannot have been "Prayer Person". Counsel may well be able to think of others. There were literally quite a lot of people alive in 1963 who cannot have been "Prayer Person". Only a very small number of people, all of whom worked in the Texas School Book Depository building, could realistically have been "Prayer Person". One of those people is Lee Oswald. There is only very weak evidence placing him anywhere other than on the ground floor (and briefly on the second floor, during the time it took him to purchase a drink) during the half hour or so before the assassination. I'm sure the court would be interested to discover how deeply counsel has looked into the matter of the possible candidates for the role of "Prayer Man". The most fundamental aspect of the Warren Commission's case is that Oswald was on the sixth floor when the assassination happened. Unfortunately, there is essentially no solid evidence to support this assertion. The evidence amounts to a handful of vague and sometimes contradictory identifications from witnesses in the street below. Other evidence leaves open the possibility that Oswald was elsewhere when the assassination happened. The lone-nut case falls at the first hurdle, a fact that is often overlooked by lone-nutters and tin-foil hatters, though obvious to anyone who can think straight. Could counsel tell the court how, if he were prosecuting Oswald, he might get around this problem?

Ron Bulman writes: On the contrary, if you accept that Burroughs and the police reports were not mistaken, three Oswalds is exactly what you've got. To whittle that uncomfortable total down to two Oswalds, you have to discard either Burroughs or the police reports as being mistaken. But the problem is: if you discard one, why not the other? Ron, which would you prefer to keep: Burroughs' account of a fake Oswald being arrested on the ground floor, or the police account of a fake Oswald being arrested in the balcony? I'd guess you would prefer to keep Burroughs: Not necessarily. The earliest record we have of Butch Burroughs' claim dates from 1993. One might think that police reports are more likely to be reliable than a recollection 30 years after the event. Although it's easy to see how the police reports might have been mistaken, it's even easier to see how Burroughs might have been mistaken. Not to mention that there is an obvious and credible candidate for the person Burroughs saw. George Applin was, like Oswald, a young white man who encountered the police on the ground floor, who left the building with the police, and who was driven away in a police car. Applin is very likely to have left the building by the rear entrance, for several reasons: at least one of the police officers he spoke to had used the rear entrance; that is where several police cars were parked; and the police officers who drove Applin away would surely have used the same cars they had arrived in. George Applin's movements exactly fit the movements of the person whom Burroughs and Bernard Haire saw. Only one person is recorded as having been escorted by the police from the front of the building, and that is Lee Harvey Oswald. Only one person is recorded as having been escorted by the police from the rear of the building, and that person must be George Applin. If I had to choose between them, I'd say the police reports are less likely to be mistaken than Burroughs' 30-year-old recollection of an incident which has a perfectly understandable explanation. Obviously, the most likely option is that both sources were mistaken. Ron, what makes you think the police reports were unreliable? Or, if you don't think they or Burroughs were unreliable, why were three Oswalds arrested in the Texas Theater? I used to enjoy reading your posts over at Jeff Morley's site, by the way.

Jim Hargrove writes: False. Mr B does not want you to believe that. Mr B is not aware of any good reason to doubt that the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald arrived at the Texas Theater shortly after one o'clock. That wasn't the point Mr B was making. False. Mr B has no reason to doubt that Postal and Brewer (and Burroughs) detected an intruder at around the time Burroughs gave: 1.35 (1987 version) or 1.45 (2007 version). That wasn't the point Mr B was making, either. Mr B does indeed want you to believe that Burroughs wouldn't have been able to see an arrest in the balcony, because the evidence tells us that Burroughs wouldn't have been able to see an arrest in the balcony. Burroughs was working on the ground floor, at his concession stand at the back of the auditorium. Burroughs never made any suggestion that he went up to the balcony during the time the police were inside the building. He certainly doesn't appear to have told Jim Marrs in 1987 or James Douglass in 2007 that he had gone anywhere near the balcony, or that he had seen anything resembling an arrest in the vicinity of the balcony. Marrs and Douglass would surely have reported this if Burroughs had mentioned it, but they didn't. Mr B thinks it is certain that Butch Burroughs stayed on the ground floor, and therefore that whatever Burroughs saw, happened on the ground floor. As for Jim's claim that "a second Oswald was ... hustled out of the theater ... hustled down stairs", Mr B would say that there is a perfectly credible explanation (which he has given several times already in this thread) for the "hustled out of the theater" part and that there is no reason to believe that the "hustled down stairs" part happened. Mr B is not aware of any witnesses who claimed that anyone was "hustled down stairs". Butch Burroughs doesn't seem to have told Marrs or Douglass that he had seen anyone come down the stairs, let alone that he had seen anyone "hustled down" the stairs. Again, Marrs and Douglass would surely have reported this if Burroughs had mentioned it. Mr B thinks that Jim is making that bit up, unless Jim has located a witness that Mr B has overlooked. If Mr B has overlooked such a witness, Mr B apologises. If Jim is unable to supply a witness who claimed that anyone was "hustled down stairs", Mr B hopes that Jim will acknowledge his error, just as Jim (eventually, after some prompting) acknowledged a few pages ago that he was entirely wrong in stating that Burroughs had claimed to have witnessed an arrest in the balcony. No, we are not. The reason why Jim's three-Oswald scenario needs to be conjured into existence is to do with the point Mr B was actually making, the point which Jim has been trying very hard to avoid answering. This is it: Butch Burroughs claimed, thirty years after the assassination, that he saw, from his position on the ground floor, someone who looked like the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald being arrested and escorted by police out of the rear of the Texas Theater. Two police reports claimed that someone named Oswald was arrested in the balcony. If both sources are correct, there must have been two fake Oswalds, in addition to the real-life Oswald who was arrested and taken out of the front of the building. Here, for the benefit of anyone who is having trouble following the argument, is the calculation that forces us to arrive at that conclusion: A - One Oswald, real, arrested on ground floor, left via front door. B - One Oswald, fake, arrested on ground floor, left via rear door. C - One Oswald, fake, arrested in balcony, left by undisclosed means, probably via the 'Harvey and Lee' invisible spaceship, after telling the police his name was Oswald and thereby giving the game away. A + B + C = three Oswalds. Now, if we are to propose that only two Oswalds were arrested in the Texas Theater, we need to dispose of one set of evidence. The one set of evidence that we can't really dispose of is the evidence that the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald was taken out of the front entrance. If we did that, we would become objects of ridicule, and even small children would point at us in the street and laugh at us. So we have to dispose of either Burroughs' 30-year-old recollection or the police reports. Either Burroughs was mistaken or the police reports were mistaken. Either the fake Oswald was arrested on the ground floor, or the fake Oswald was arrested in the balcony. Which is it to be? Or should we dispose of both? Mr B would be inclined to dispose of both, because it is forehead-slappingly obvious that George Applin was the young white man whom Burroughs and Haire saw. The eagerness to seize on every possible source that suggests the existence of a fake Oswald has blinded the 'Harvey and Lee' theory's handful of faithful believers to the contradiction between the sources. Burroughs contradicts the police reports. Which one of those sources was mistaken? Or were both of them mistaken? P.S. Mr B recalls that excellent Seinfeld episode, 'The Jimmy'.

I'm glad Jim agrees with me that Douglass's account of the Texas Theater incident is high on speculation and low on demonstrable facts. Jim writes: I haven't been saying what Jim seems to think I've been saying. I haven't been saying that Burroughs' account negates the possibility of an arrest in the balcony. The point I've been making, which Jim (and, as we now see, Armstrong) still doesn't appear to grasp, is that an arrest in the balcony (if it happened at all) was an entirely separate incident from Burroughs' recollection, 30 years after the event, of seeing someone who was not Oswald arrested on the ground floor. If there was an arrest in the balcony, it cannot have involved the man Burroughs saw on the ground floor. If there was an arrest on the ground floor of someone who wasn't Oswald, it cannot have involved the man supposedly arrested in the balcony. If you believe that there was an arrest in the balcony, and if you believe Burroughs' recollection (and Jim and his guru appear to believe both of these things), you must conclude that two Oswald imposters were arrested in the Texas Theater, one in the balcony and one on the ground floor. That makes three Oswalds arrested in the Texas Theater. This isn't difficult to understand, surely. And if there were three Oswalds arrested in the Texas Theater, bang goes Jim's beloved theory. Jim writes: Jim is correct: Burroughs' interview with Douglass, insofar as it is reported in Douglass's book, did not preclude an arrest in the balcony. But that's not the point at issue. The point is ... here we go again ... if there was an arrest in the balcony, it must have been a separate event to the arrest of an Oswald imposter on the ground floor. Again, that makes two fake Oswalds. 1 real Oswald + 1 fake Oswald + 1 fake Oswald = bang goes Jim's theory. Douglass's excessive speculation was due to his desire to create a grand narrative of the assassination, fitting together as many different threads as possible. Jim's excessive speculation is due to his desire to promote a nonsensical theory that almost no-one takes seriously, a theory that is liable to make the general public think that everyone who questions the lone-nut account is a tin-foil-hat-wearing, moon-landings-denying lunatic. The real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald was the only person arrested in the Texas Theater that day. George Applin was the young white man who was escorted by police officers from the rear of the building and driven away in a police car.

This is the sane interpretation of the Texas Theater episode: - A generic young white man, the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested on the ground floor and escorted out of the front of the building. - Another generic young white man, George Applin, was spoken to by the police on the ground floor and escorted out of the rear of the building, as witnessed by Butch Burroughs and Bernard Haire. - Burroughs was mistaken in recalling, several decades later, that George Applin was arrested. - The police reports were mistaken in claiming that someone named Oswald was arrested in the balcony. If, like Jim, we insist that neither Burroughs nor the police reports can possibly be mistaken, we are left with this insane interpretation of the Texas Theater episode: - One long-term top-secret Oswald Project doppelganger was the one person recorded as being escorted by the police out of the front of the building. - A second long-term top-secret Oswald Project doppelganger was the one person recorded as being escorted by the police out of the rear of the building. - A third long-term top-secret Oswald Project doppelganger was the one person recorded as being arrested in the balcony of the building. This third doppelganger left the building by mysterious means, possibly hitching a ride on the 'Harvey and Lee' spaceship. If, like Jim, we want to support the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, we must show that either Burroughs or the police, but not both, were mistaken. Otherwise we are left with three Oswalds in the Texas Theater. So, which one is mistaken: Burroughs or the police reports? And why?

Now that we've cleared all of that up, here are three questions for Jim: 1 - Which of the four options do you now want to go with: Burroughs was mistaken; the police were mistaken; both Burroughs and the police were mistaken; or no-one was mistaken and there were therefore three Oswalds arrested in front of the public in the same building at the same time, generating reports which blew the whole dastardly plot wide open? 2 - Why did the Bad Guys recruit a balcony-based doppelganger who was so stupid as to give his name as Oswald, thereby again blowing the whole dastardly plot wide open? 3 - Where did the 'Harvey and Lee' spaceship go in between hovering over the Texas Theater in 1963 and hovering over the cemetery in Forth Worth during Oswald's exhumation in 1981? 4 - We've got three Oswalds: ground-floor front-door Oswald, ground-floor rear-door Oswald, and balcony Oswald. We've also got three doppelgänger: Harvey, Lee and Harlee. Which was which? OK, that's four questions. Obviously, one of them must have been a doppelganger.

As Jim's reading comprehension skills seem to be somewhat limited, I'll try to explain things in a bit more detail. This is the passage from Douglass's book which Jim quoted earlier: Since Jim is having trouble distinguishing between fact and speculation, let's look at the relevant parts in detail, and see how much of this passage is speculation on Douglass's part and how much is information given by Burroughs (and how much of Douglass's speculation is justified): "Ibid." refers to "Author's interview with Burroughs, July 16, 2007". Douglass is reporting Burroughs' claim to have seen someone who looked something like Oswald being arrested somewhere in the Texas Theater, 44 years earlier. This is speculation by Douglass, who seems to be mistaken (yes, it's true; people make mistakes sometimes). Burroughs told Jim Marrs in 1987 that he had in fact seen Oswald enter the auditorium, which implies that Oswald did not go up to the balcony. According to Marrs, "Burroughs claims that ... Oswald entered the theater shortly after 1 P.M. (Crossfire, p.353)." Burroughs does not mention anything about Oswald going up to the balcony. Burroughs must have seen Oswald enter the auditorium on the ground floor. It makes no difference whether Oswald actually entered the ground floor auditorium directly or via the balcony, but it is clear that Douglass's account is just speculation. The story of an imposter going up to the balcony is based on Burroughs' hearing the front doors opening at around 1.35pm but not seeing anyone enter the ground-floor auditorium, implying that the person had gone directly up to the balcony via the stairs in the lobby. Not only did Burroughs not see anyone going up to the balcony, but as far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong) no-one else saw the alleged imposter going up the stairs either. Speculation by Douglass, and misinformed speculation at that. Cannot have happened if Burroughs' original story is accurate, and there's no reason to doubt this element of Burroughs' story. There is indeed evidence, from Burroughs and Jack Davis (Marrs, Crossfire, p.353), that Oswald did a bit of seat-hopping on the ground floor. Speculation by Douglass, and partly mistaken. As has just been explained, Oswald did not in fact go up to the balcony, and it doesn't look as though anyone saw the imposter going up to the balcony either. Certainly, Burroughs didn't see this. In the 20 years between his interviews with Marrs and Douglass, Burroughs seems to have moved the time of the alleged imposter's entrance forward by 10 minutes. Who knows, perhaps his memory was not 100% perfect after all! Speculation by Douglass. "He" in this case is the mysterious "Oswald double" whom Douglass speculates was in the balcony. Burroughs witnessed an incident which he interpreted several decades later as an arrest, but Burroughs did not tell Douglass that the person he saw "arrested" had come down from the balcony; that is pure speculation by Douglass. More importantly, what Burroughs interpreted as an arrest must have taken place on the ground floor, since Burroughs was working on the ground floor and never gave any indication that he visited the balcony while the police were in the building. Douglass's speculative account is in agreement with this; he implies that the "arrest" which Burroughs saw must have happened on the ground floor, since the speculative arrestee had speculatively descended from the balcony before the speculative "arrest" took place. Speculation by Douglass. Because Douglass doesn't know whether or not the mysterious "Oswald double" was accompanied by the police when (or if) he came down the stairs, we can be certain that Burroughs cannot have told Douglass that he saw the mysterious "Oswald double" coming down the stairs. Douglass doesn't cite any sources to support his claim, so we also be certain that no other witnesses saw the mysterious "Oswald double" coming down the stairs either. I hope I've made it clear even to Jim that: (a) Butch Burroughs saw a man who looked something like Oswald apparently being arrested on the ground floor, and (b) the notion that the alleged "Oswald double" who may or may not have been arrested in the balcony had descended to the ground floor is simply speculation by Douglass. Burroughs did not tell Marrs or Douglass that he had seen an "Oswald double" brought down from the balcony (or if he did, both Marrs and Douglass failed to mention it, for no obvious reason). Douglass's interview with Burroughs provides no evidence at all that the man Burroughs saw on the ground floor apparently getting arrested was the same man as the mysterious "Oswald double" from the balcony. Douglass cites no eye-witnesses, least of all Butch Burroughs, to support his speculation that any "Oswald double" came down the stairs from the balcony at any time, let alone before the incident which Burroughs interpreted, several decades later, as an arrest. In other words, there is absolutely no evidence that anyone was arrested in the balcony and then arrested again on the ground floor. The police reports did not mention it. Burroughs did not mention it. Jack Davis did not mention it. No other witnesses mentioned it. If, like Jim, we believe that neither Burroughs nor the police reports were mistaken, we're left with two separate events: two arrests of fake Oswalds, one on the ground floor and one in the balcony. Plus, of course, the indisputable arrest on the ground floor of the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. That makes three Oswalds: Harvey, Lee and Harlee. I'm not sure which was which, though. Perhaps Jim could consult his guru and tell us the answer. Let's look at this statement by Jim: Yes, Douglass did indeed write "about the possibility", but, as I pointed out earlier, that's all it was: speculation. I'm glad Jim agrees with me. As I have already explained, Douglass cites no evidence at all that any mysterious imposter was "brought down to the main floor", let alone that the mysterious imposter was then seen by Burroughs. It's just speculation. Let's now look at this statement by Jim: Jim has conflated two separate things. I hope he didn't do it deliberately, and that it was just one of those mistakes that people make sometimes: 1 - The notion that Burroughs may have been mistaken is consistent with what we know abut Applin, i.e. that Applin spoke to the police on the ground floor and was escorted by them out of the building: an episode that Burroughs could easily have confused, decades after the event, as an arrest. 2 - Only one person is recorded as being escorted from the rear of the building. That one person is the person whom Bernard Haire saw being escorted from the rear of the building by the police and driven away in a police car. For reasons already given several times over, George Applin, who we know was driven away by the police, probably left the Texas Theater via the rear door into the alley, where several police cars were parked. If he did, he is the only candidate for the one person who was recorded as being escorted from the rear of the building, and the person whom Bernard Haire saw. And if he was the person Bernard Haire saw, he must also have been the person whom Butch Burroughs saw. While we're on the subject, we mustn't forget that only one person is recorded as being arrested and escorted by the police from the front door: the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. There we have it: George Applin was escorted by the police from the rear of the building, and Lee Harvey Oswald was escorted by the police from the front of the building. If there actually was someone in the balcony stupidly telling the police that his name was Oswald and giving the game away, he must have left the building by being beamed up into that old 'Harvey and Lee' standby, the invisible spaceship. Since we're disposing of Jim's belief that no witnesses ever make mistakes if it helps to prop up the feeble 'Harvey and Lee' theory, his lists of amazing, I-believe-every-one-of-them sightings were dealt with some time ago by Jim's friend from down under, Greg Parker. In case Jim hasn't yet got around to reading Greg's explanation and finding out why he has been left looking rather gullible, he can find it here and catch up with the latest developments in the field of Texas Theater studies: http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater#30276

James Douglass writes: I'm not sure why Jim has quoted this passage in Douglass's book, since it supports what I've been saying. According to this passage, Burroughs cannot have seen the "Oswald double" descend from the balcony, because he didn't know whether the man descended "either on his own or already accompanied by police". When Douglass writes that the "Oswald double ... had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby", he is speculating about the movements of the "Oswald double" who had sneaked up to the balcony. He is not describing what Burroughs saw. In case that isn't clear enough for Jim, let's take it in stages: Douglass's use of the pronoun "he" refers to the "Oswald double" whom Douglass had previously placed in the balcony. Douglass is speculating that this "Oswald double" had already come down the stairs by the time Burroughs saw someone being arrested on the ground floor. Douglass is not claiming that Burroughs saw this "Oswald double" come down from the balcony. Furthermore, Douglass is emphasising that the arrest Burroughs saw happened on the ground floor, not in the balcony. Douglass is again speculating, this time about how the "Oswald double" came down from the balcony. The use of "either ... or" shows that Douglass does not know whether or not the "Oswald double" was accompanied by the police during the "Oswald double's" speculative descent from the balcony. This implies that Burroughs had not told Douglass anything about the "Oswald double's" descent from the balcony, and confirms what we already knew: that Burroughs had not seen any "Oswald double" come down the stairs. Conclusion: the man Burroughs saw being arrested on the ground floor cannot have been the man who was reported to have been arrested in the balcony. All Burroughs saw was what he interpreted thirty years later as an arrest on the ground floor, with the man being escorted out of the rear of the building. That's Oswald number one. The police reports claimed that someone named Oswald was arrested in the balcony. That's Oswald number two. And the real-life, one-and-only, historical Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested separately on the ground floor and taken out of the front of the building. That's Oswald number three. As I wrote earlier, if we take all the statements at face value we have "three Oswald lookalikes being arrested in front of the public and generating witness statements and police reports which blatantly give away the plot". Not only that, but the stupid Oswald lookalike who was arrested in the balcony actually gave his name as Oswald, again giving away the dastardly plot. Stupid, stupid Oswald lookalike! The three-Oswald conundrum doesn't seem to have any easy way out, does it? The only way to preserve the Texas Theater element of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is to admit that one, and only one, of the sources made an honest, understandable mistake. Jim has four options: Option A Jim admits that the police reports contained an honest, understandable mistake and that no-one named Oswald was actually arrested in the balcony. That way, Jim gets to keep Butch Burroughs' claim that two Oswald lookalikes were arrested on the ground floor and taken out of separate doors, one via the main entrance and one via the rear entrance, where he was seen by Bernard Haire. Advantage: The 'Harvey and Lee' theory survives! Disadvantage: What makes Burroughs more believable than the police reports? Doesn't look good for Jim, who appears to be picking and choosing which bits of evidence to believe based solely upon whether or not they can be made to support the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. Option B Jim admits that Burroughs had made an honest, understandable mistake and that the person Burrroughs and Haire saw being taken out of the rear of the building was actually George Applin. That way, Jim gets to keep the police reports that someone named Oswald was arrested in the balcony. Advantage: Consistent with what we know about Applin, and with the fact that only one person is recorded as being escorted from the rear of the building. More importantly, the 'Harvey and Lee' theory survives! Disadvantage: What makes the police reports more believable than Burroughs? Doesn't look good for Jim, who appears to be picking and choosing which bits of evidence to believe based solely upon whether or not they can be made to support the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. Option C Jim admits that both Burroughs and the police made honest, understandable mistakes. That way, Jim claims that only one person, the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested in the Texas Theater, and that George Applin was the man innocently escorted out of the rear of the building. Advantage: Jim appears to be consistent and rational. Well done, Jim! Disadvantage: One more piece of evidence for the 'Harvey and Lee' theory bites the dust. Option D Jim refuses to admit that either the police reports or Burroughs' 30-year-old recollection could possibly be mistaken. That way, Jim claims that there were three Oswalds arrested in the Texas Theater, two on the ground floor and one in the balcony. Advantage: Nothing, really. Disadvantage: Jim appears to be consistent but deranged, not to mention blasphemous, since the existence of three Oswalds is contrary to 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine. Also, it makes the 'Harvey and Lee' theory look like the sort of imbecilic nonsense that might be partly dreamed up by some guy who thought the moon landings were faked, which indeed it was.

Jim Hargrove writes: I have explored other areas of the JFK assassination on this forum. See, for example, my reply to François Carlier, formerly of this parish: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25532-then-went-outside-to-watch-the-p-parade/page/24/?tab=comments#comment-394813 He, like Jim, was promoting poorly supported speculation. The difference is that M. Carlier's type of poorly supported speculation doesn't create an unpleasant stink that is liable to deter the general public from exploring rational criticism of the lone-nut theory. Sadly, poor François had something of a tantrum and left the forum shortly afterwards. I'm not sure that I've been misrepresenting Jim. If I have, perhaps he could explain how. From his previous comments, he seems to believe that Butch Burroughs gave an accurate account of seeing someone who looked like Oswald being arrested on the ground floor of the Texas Theater and escorted by police officers from the rear of the building. He also seems to believe that two police officers accurately reported that someone named Oswald was arrested in the balcony. That's two Oswald imposters: one arrested on each floor of the Texas Theater. Neither of these fake Oswalds can have been confused with the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, since one of them was arrested on the same floor as the real-life Oswald but was taken out through the wrong door, while the other was arrested on a different floor from the real-life Oswald and was taken out who-knows-where (personally, I suspect he was beamed up into an invisible spaceship). If Burroughs' account and the police reports are accurate, as Jim appears to believe, we have three Oswald lookalikes in the same place at the same time. Not only that, but we also have three Oswald lookalikes being arrested in front of the public and generating witness statements and police reports which blatantly give away the plot. I personally wouldn't rule out the possibility that a decoy, who needn't have been the spitting image of the real-life Oswald, did indeed lead the police to the Texas Theater, but if that happened the decoy would surely have kept his head down, watched the rest of the film, and left the building with everyone else, never to be seen again. One might imagine that any plotters who were going to send one, let alone two, fake Oswalds into the Texas Theater would at least have had a quiet word with the police chief beforehand so that their fake Oswalds were not arrested and paraded out of the building in full view of however many pesky onlookers happened to turn up that day. Obviously, we can't entertain the idea that the witnesses may have made perfectly understandable, honest, everyday mistakes, because that would remove one of the few remaining pieces of evidence for Jim's beloved 'Harvey and Lee' theory. In true 'Harvey and Lee' style, we must hammer the evidence into shape until it fits the theory. We must propose the existence of a third member of the top-secret doppelganger project: Harlee Oswald. I would be interested to learn Jim's thoughts on Harlee Oswald. I'm particularly keen to find out where Harlee's mastoidectomy operation took place. Was it in a hospital that hadn't been built yet, like 'Harvey' (or was it 'Lee'; I can never remember). You see, if Harlee had undergone a mastoidectomy operation (real or fake, it doesn't really matter), he becomes the ideal candidate for the Oswald who was exhumed in 1981. That would overcome the biggest of the many problems with the traditional 'Harvey and Lee' theory: the fact that the theory requires that the Oswald who was buried had not undergone a mastoidectomy, whereas the record shows that the Oswald who was exhumed had in fact undergone a mastoidectomy. Without Harlee, the theory is a self-contradictory piece of ill-thought-out nonsense that was debunked two decades before the book was published. But with Harlee as the corpse, the theory rises from the dead. I think it was Bernie Laverick, another persecutor of Jim Hargrove, who remarked here some time ago that although the 'Harvey and Lee' theory has been around for two decades or more, it has acquired fewer believers than the theory that the Queen of England is a lizard. Who knows, the new and improved and far more credible 'Harvey and Lee and Harlee' theory might well push the number of converts into double figures! Jim, join me in promoting this exciting new theory! Do you believe? I said, do you believe? Yes, Harlee, I believe!

I'm sorry for getting Jim all worked up by pointing out that the most obvious explanation for Burroughs' and Haire's statements is that the incident they saw was George Applin's encounter with the police. I'm grateful that Jim has admitted, at last, that he was wrong to state that Burroughs had claimed to have seen an arrest in the balcony. Burroughs did not claim to have seen an arrest in the balcony, but merely an encounter (which must have happened on the ground floor, since Burroughs does not appear to have gone up to the balcony) that he misinterpreted, many years later, as an arrest. For most of us, Burroughs' mistake is easy to understand, just as Jim's mistake is easy to understand. People make mistakes sometimes. The police reports from the day after the arrest of Oswald also have a non-sinister explanation. Jeff Stanton pointed it out in this thread: http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater It's important to note that the police reports and Butch Burroughs' account from three decades after the event cannot all be accurate, though they can all be inaccurate: - According to any number of reliable sources, the real, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on the ground floor. - According to Burroughs, someone else, who resembled Oswald, was also arrested on the ground floor. - According to the police reports, someone named Oswald was arrested in the balcony. If, like Jim, we believe that no witnesses to supernumerary Oswalds can ever make mistakes and that all of these accounts are therefore 100% accurate and truthful, that makes three Oswalds. Yup, three identical Oswalds, all arrested in the same building at the same time. It's true, I tell you! Why did the authorities have all three Oswalds arrested and escorted out of the Texas Theater, thereby generating a trail of police reports and witness statements which gave away their dastardly imposter plan? Why didn't they let two of the three Oswalds sneak out quietly or stay and watch the film, so that the dastardly plan wouldn't be discovered? Were they insane or just really, really stupid? What do we know about the third Oswald arrested in the Texas Theater? Can Jim tell us the man's name? I suspect that the man was in fact Harlee Oswald, an Arabic-speaking Bolivian refugee motorcyclist with sloping shoulders and a fake mastoidectomy defect. But where exactly was Harlee arrested? Was he the fake Oswald who was arrested on the ground floor, as the 100% accurate Burroughs claimed? Or was he the fake Oswald who was arrested in the balcony, as the 100% accurate police reports claimed? More importantly, did Harlee have a mother named Marguerite, just like the other two Oswalds? Was she slim or dumpy, or something in between? Are the rumours true that Harlee had a fake brother named Robert and a fake wife named Marina? How did Harlee, who was born and brought up in Bolivia, manage to learn Arabic? Why did both of the fake Oswalds and both of the fake Marguerites and the fake Robert and the fake Marina all vanish from the face of the earth immediately after the assassination? Were they all beamed up into the same spaceship that was later used for the exhumation, and taken to Roswell? And did Jim ever find out who made the mess in the spare bedroom? I suggest that Jim goes down on his knees and humbly beseeches his guru (praise be unto him!) to bless his followers with a gracious official edict on these important points of doctrine, so that the few remaining devotees of the 'Harvey and Lee and Harlee' cult can be certain that their beliefs are sound and they don't end up being excommunicated for swallowing a load of feeble, self-contradictory nonsense and turning their guru's theory into a laughing stock.

On Sunday 1 September, Jim Hargrove wrote: Here we are, almost a week later. The excitement of Jim's party is now but a fading memory. The DJ and his crew have loaded their sound system and disco ball onto a truck and moved on to their next gig. The last of the guests has staggered home. Jim has fished most of the empty beer cans and discarded bikini-tops from the pool, and he has mopped up that disgusting mess that someone left in the spare bedroom. He has found the time to comment on several other threads, and has even started a new one himself, but he hasn't yet found the time to provide his eager audience with the details of Butch Burroughs' tale of seeing an Oswald doppelganger, possibly a Cherokee-speaking Egyptian refugee with sloping shoulders and an extra-large head, being arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater. Could it be that Mr Burroughs never actually said anything about seeing an arrest in the balcony? Certainly, Jim Marrs and James Douglass failed to report that Burroughs had mentioned this important fact to them. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's beginning to suspect that Mr Burroughs never said anything to anyone about seeing an Oswald doppelganger being arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater. I may be wrong, though, and would be interested to see Burroughs' statement to that effect, if it exists. In the absence of such a statement, we must assume that Jim's claim is untrue, and that Butch Burroughs never said that he had seen an arrest in the balcony. What are we left with? Well, we have several known facts and reasonable inferences: that George Applin, a 21-year-old white man, spoke to one or more police officers on the ground floor of the Texas Theater, close to the alley; that he was escorted out of the building by those police officers, very likely via the rear entrance and into the alley, since that is where those officers had parked their cars; and that he was driven away in a police car, very likely in one of the police cars that were parked in the alley. Burroughs, standing inside the auditorium on the ground floor, claimed to have seen something resembling an arrest, with the supposed suspect being escorted out of the rear of the building by police officers, just as George Applin almost certainly was. Bernard Haire, standing in the alley at the rear of the building, saw a young white man being escorted into the alley from the rear of the building by police officers and being driven away in a police car, just as George Applin almost certainly was. There is no evidence that any other person was escorted from the rear of the building that day. It is blindingly obvious that what Burroughs and Haire saw from their respective viewpoints inside and outside the Texas Theater was the same event: George Applin being taken away by the police so that he could give a signed and witnessed statement. Yet another piece of evidence for the 'Harvey and Lee' theory turns out to have a perfectly ordinary explanation.

Karl, Yes, I'm sure that Applin was referring to the fact that he had been sitting in one of the rows furthest away from the screen. But the auditorium was toward the rear of the building, i.e. the side furthest away from the main entrance, and the side closest to the alley. The doors to the alley were closer than the door to Jefferson Boulevard (Robert Groden's The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald includes a photo of the interior, showing a door very close to the seats). At least one of the police officers who spoke to Applin entered from the alley, where several police cars were parked. The officers who escorted Applin would surely have taken him away in one of the cars they had arrived in. There was no reason for Ball to ask Applin which exit he used when he was escorted out by the police, because there was no reason then (and even less now) to suspect that anyone other than Oswald and Applin was taken away by the police.

Jim Hargrove writes: There is indeed no direct evidence (a photo or a written statement, for example) to show that Applin was escorted out by the police via one of the two rear doors, and then driven away in a police car. But, as I pointed out earlier, there is no good reason to doubt that this is what happened: - Applin was spoken to by police officers in the auditorium, which was located at the end of the Texas Theater furthest away from the main entrance, and adjacent to the alley. - At least one of the police officers who spoke to Applin had entered the auditorium via one of the doors which linked the rear of the building to the alley. - The alley contained several police cars. Those cars were surely the ones which had conveyed to the Texas Theater the police officers who spoke to Applin in the auditorium at the rear of the building. - Applin left the Texas Theater in the company of those police officers. - Applin was driven away from the Texas Theater in a police car. - The police officers who escorted Applin from the Texas Theater and drove him away are very likely to have used the same cars in which they arrived. - Applin was a 21-year-old white man. - Bernard Haire saw one, and only one, young white man being escorted from the rear of the Texas Theater by the police and driven away in a police car that had been parked in the alley. - There is no evidence that more than one person was escorted by police officers out of the Texas Theater via one of the doors leading to the alley, and then driven away in a police car. No witnesses mentioned such an occurrence. There are no known photographs or home movies or news films of such an occurrence. - If, as the evidence overwhelmingly suggests, only one person was escorted by police officers from the rear of the Texas Theater and driven away in a police car, the sole candidate is George Jefferson Applin, Jr. - Applin was (and, for all I know, still is) a real-life human being, as opposed to Jim's candidate, who is a made-up character in a work of fiction. Jim's friend Greg Parker replied to this point several days ago, after Jim first brought it up. I'm surprised Jim hasn't read that reply. He can find it here (along with Jeff Stanton's explanation of the 'balcony arrest' mix-up): http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater To paraphrase, it was Joseph Ball, not George Applin, who used the word 'later'. We know that Applin left soon after giving his details to the police because after he'd been driven to City Hall and had his affidavit taken, the police thought there was still a chance that he could be driven back to the cinema in time catch the rest of the double-bill. In his Warren Commission testimony (Hearings, vol.7, pp.14-17: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=41#relPageId=24), Burroughs mentions seeing the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald being escorted out of the front of the building in handcuffs, but he doesn't mention anything about seeing an arrest, or even any innocent event that could be misinterpreted as an arrest, in the balcony. Burroughs' account of his movements implies that he stayed on the ground floor and never went up to the balcony. The only secondary source I can find which comes close to supporting Jim's claim is James Douglass's Unspeakable, which mentions an interview from 2007 in which Burroughs claimed to have seen someone who looked like Oswald arrested and taken out of the rear of the building (pp.292-3, and pp.460-1 n.449). Burroughs' recollection was prompted by Douglass's question, "Now you didn't see anybody else get arrested that day, did you?" Burroughs does not appear to have told Douglass that the incident he saw, which he interpreted 44 years after the event as an arrest, took place in the balcony. The only other secondary source I can find which mentions an interview with Burroughs is Jim Marrs' Crossfire. Marrs claimed that Burroughs told Marrs in 1987 that he sold popcorn to the real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald at around 1.15, but Burroughs doesn't appear to have told Marrs anything about seeing an arrest in the balcony (Pocket Books edition, 1993, p.353). In fact, Burroughs implies, again, that he never went up to the balcony. Given Marrs' treatment of the Texas Theater episode, he would surely have reported that Burroughs had witnessed something resembling an arrest in the balcony, if Burroughs had mentioned it. We can conclude that Burroughs didn't tell Marrs anything about seeing an incident that could be interpreted as an arrest in the balcony. All we have, then, is George Applin encountering the police in the auditorium on the ground floor, being escorted out of the rear of the Texas Theater a few minutes after the arrest of Oswald, and being driven away in a police car so that he could give a statement. Bernard Haire put two and two together and assumed that Applin was that Oswald guy who was reported to have been arrested and taken away by the police. More than four decades later, Butch Burroughs also put two and two together and assumed that his 44-year-old recollection of George Applin being led out of the rear of the Texas Theater by the police, which he had neglected to mention to Jim Marrs 20 years earlier, was actually of someone being arrested. Conclusion: witnesses make mistakes sometimes.

I'm not aware of a physical description of George Applin, but his affidavit (see my post on page 18) describes him as "w/m, 21": white male, 21 years old. A picture of Applin with a police officer may well exist. See this page and scroll down: http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater The photograph was identified as possibly being of Applin by Ed Ledoux, who I believe is a member of this forum. I'd forgotten about Applin's claim to have seen and spoken to Jack Ruby in the Texas Theater. In my copy of Douglass's book (hardback, "Fourth Printing: August 2009" according to the copyright page), that text appears on page 362, not 361, and the footnote numbers are also increased by one, so "Applin got up from his seat.819" in the Google Books version reads "Applin got up from his seat.820" in my copy. The relevant footnotes appear on page 479, not 486-7. Anyway, the notes give Douglass's source as Earl Golz's article, 'Man Believes He Saw Ruby at Scene of Oswald's Arrest,' in the Dallas Morning News, 11 March 1979, p.32A. I haven't been able to track down a copy of that article online. Applin's claim that he went to Butch Burroughs' concession stand before having his details taken by the police does not, as Jim suggested, imply that Applin left by the front of the building. A plan of the Texas Theatre reveals that the concession stand was at the back of the auditorium, and was separated from the lobby by a set of doors. The concession stand was in fact closer to one of the rear doors than to the front entrance. We know that the police officers who spoke to Applin had entered the auditorium by one of two doors which gave access to the auditorium from the alley behind the building. According to Bernard Haire, the alley was full of police cars, and a young white man was taken away in one of those cars. We know that Applin was taken away in a police car so that he could give a statement. We know that Haire did not see Oswald being escorted out of the front of the building. There's no reason to doubt that Applin left by the rear entrance that the police had used, and that Applin was the man whom Haire saw. Here is the plan: http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/utils/getfile/collection/po-arm/id/10936/filename/10935.pdfpage/page/2 George Jefferson Applin, Jr, a 21-year-old white man, was escorted by police officers from the rear of the building and then driven away in a police car. It really isn't difficult to see how this incident might have been mistaken for the apprehension of a different young white man in the same building at the same time. One more piece of sinister evidence for the ridiculous 'Harvey and Lee' theory is shown to be a simple, everyday misunderstanding.

Jim Hargrove writes: Greg has replied to these points here: http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater As for why the names vanished, isn't it obvious? It would have given away the plot involving George Applin, the Portuguese-speaking Icelandic orphan who entered the US without leaving a trace in the immigration records, and Jefferson Applin, the Swahili-speaking Japanese world war two refugee with sloping shoulders, who also entered the US without leaving a trace in the immigration records. It was George who was driven away in a police car, and Jefferson who was beamed up into an invisible spaceship that had been hovering above the Texas Theater; the same spaceship, incidentally, that would be used several years later during the exhumation of one of the many Oswald doppelgänger so that a sneaky mastoidectomy operation could be performed on the corpse without any of the witnesses noticing. What do you mean, this all sounds so far-fetched that only the paranoid and the gullible would take it seriously? But I have it on good authority that the 'Jefferson and George' theory, just like the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, was partly dreamed up by some guy who believed that the moon landings were faked! How could it possibly be wrong?

Steve Thomas writes: Greg Parker makes a strong case that the person escorted by police officers from the rear of the Texas Theater was George Jefferson Applin, Jr: http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater The fact that Mr Applin was white, male and 21 years old makes it easy to understand how bystanders might have confused the event they saw with accounts they later heard or read to do with the arrest of a different early-twenties white man at the same location at the same time. Applin's interview with Joseph Ball of the Warren Commission (Hearings, vol.7, p.90: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=41#relPageId=100) includes this exchange: Mr Ball: Later did you go down to the police station and make a statement? Mr Applin: Yes, sir; I did. Mr Ball: When? Mr Applin: Well, it was after - I guess after they got everybody's name. I rode down with three officers. Mr Ball: That same day, did you? Mr Applin: Yes, sir. Here's Applin's affidavit, which he gave on 22 November 1963 after being taken away from the Texas Theater by the police: http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/04/0454-001.gif.

Tracy Parnell writes: I'm not sure about that. Since 1963, almost everyone has got their information about the subject almost entirely from sources such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Only a small proportion of the population takes the effort to delve further, and even then much of what they are now able to find on the web is the online equivalent of the old media, promoting the official line. For obvious institutional reasons, the established media has for more than half a century overwhelmingly promoted the official line, beginning even before the New York Times published and promoted a paperback edition of that well-known pro-conspiracy tome, the Warren Report. Of course, the occasional piece of critical information does make it through the ideological barrier. Probably the main factors which have created popular doubt about the official line were the broadcast of the Zapruder film in 1975, with its prima facie evidence of a shot from the front, and Oliver Stone's JFK, which alerted people to many of the flaws in the official account. Even though some of the early critical books sold well, they didn't get a lot of positive coverage in the established media, and they only reached a relatively tiny proportion of the population. Of the books that have been actively promoted by the established media, almost all have defended the lone-nut theory, Bugliosi's and Posner's books being two of the prime examples. There is one notable exception: Lifton's Best Evidence, which was presumably chosen because its thesis is so outrageous that it would serve to discredit sensible criticism of the official line. In keeping with the subject of this thread, we can thank [insert name of preferred deity] that they didn't choose Harvey and Lee! Think of the damage it would cause if people started thinking that the only alternative to the lone-nut fantasy is a theory that was debunked two decades before the book was published and that was partly invented by someone who believed the moon landings were faked. Paul Baker writes: I'll see your dictabelt and raise you a neutron activation analysis. Vincent Guinn's interpretation of his NAA tests of the bullet fragments appears to have been debunked at least as thoroughly as the dictabelt evidence. See, for example: - Gary Aguilar, 'Is Vincent Bugliosi Right that Neutron Activation Analysis Proves Oswald's Guilt?' at http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Is_Vincent_Bugliosi_Right_that_Neutron_Activation_Analysis_Proves_Oswalds_Guilt . - James DiEugenio, 'Death of NAA' at https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/death-of-the-naa-verdict . - Erik Randich and Patrick M. Grant, 'Proper Assessment of the JFK Assassination Bullet Lead Evidence from Metallurgical and Statistical Perspectives,' Journal of Forensic Sciences, vol.51 no.4 (July 2006), pp.717-28 at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00165.x (abstract) and http://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/337848.pdf (full text). - Cliff Spiegelman, William A. Tobin, William D. James, Simon J. Sheather, Stuart Wexler and D. Max Roundhill, 'Chemical and Forensic Analysis of JFK Assassination Bullet Lots: Is a Second Shooter Possible?', The Annals of Applied Statistics, vol.1 no.2 (2007), pp.287-301 at http://arxiv.org/pdf/0712.2150 . Guinn's NAA of the bullet fragments was the main reason the HSCA concluded that no more than two bullets hit JFK and Connally. Without that evidence, the main foundation of the single-bullet theory collapses. If the scientists' facts or analyses are wrong, I'd (genuinely) like to know why. One aspect of Vincent Guinn's NAA tests does seem to stand up, however: his NAA of paraffin casts produced by volunteers who fired a rifle similar to the sixth-floor weapon. Guinn's work helped to demonstrate that Oswald had almost certainly not fired a rifle, as I explain here: http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2049-oswald-s-paraffin-casts. Incidentally, the NAA of the bullet fragments may not be the only piece of debunked scientific support for the lone-nut fantasy. I recall reading somewhere that Luis Alvarez's melon-shooting experiment was, to use the proper scientific term, a deliberately misleading piece of junk, as he had fired various types of bullets at various objects but only melons produced the desired jet effect. He had (to continue the fruit-based theme) cherry-picked his evidence. Is my recollection correct? Does anyone have a source for this?

Michael Cross writes: Good point. Paranoid speculations have never made a serious contribution to research. To the extent that they oblige genuine researchers to spend time debunking them, these speculations actively harm research. Who knows how many genuine researchers have walked away because of the contamination of the subject by people claiming that every piece of evidence is a fake and similar nonsense? The paranoid stuff is certainly liable to harm the public image of those who question the lone-nut theory. Is this parade of apparent stupidity purposeful misinformation, or a humourous wind-up, or simple craziness? It's tempting to think that some of these paranoid speculations are so far out that Mr Butler and those like him can't possibly be sincere, and that they are calmly sitting at home in front of their computers, chuckling to themselves and wondering how many suckers are taking the latest piece of nonsense seriously. But perhaps these people are sincere, after all. Who knows? The root of the problem is that because the slightest breeze of critical analysis causes the lone-nut theory to topple over, and because there's no widely agreed alternative explanation, there's nothing to stop the JFK assassination attracting cranks, idiots, charlatans, frauds, jokers, and the downright insane. You see that poor-quality reproduction of a photograph? It's got a strange blob in it that I can't explain because I don't know the first thing about photography. That means it's a fake! In fact, every photograph and film is a fake! Especially that photograph that shows someone who looks like Oswald peering out from the book depository steps! The Bad Guys wanted to prevent people thinking that it was Oswald in the photograph, so they pasted in a picture of someone who looked so much like Oswald that it caused people to think it was Oswald in the photograph! It's true, I tell you! And there were teenage mafia hitmen hiding in fake papier-mâché trees on the grassy knoll! And there were two Lee Harvey Oswalds! And the real one and the fake one looked identical, except when they didn't! And the lizard people kidnapped JFK's corpse from Air Force One without anyone noticing! And for many years afterwards, top-secret Bilderberg Group hit squads under the command of George Bush of the CIA went around bumping off dozens of witnesses, especially the elderly ones and those in bad health! And I was involved - please send me lots of money - in a top-secret cancer research project - please send me lots of money - in 1963 with Lee Oswald in - please send me lots of money - New Orleans! And there were two Marguerite Oswalds, one of whom vanished into thin air immediately after the assassination! And unknown surgeons at an unknown hospital faked JFK's wounds to disguise the fact that all the shots came from the front, even the shot that hit Connally in the back! And the driver shot JFK in the right side of his head despite sitting to his left! Oh, and don't forget the little green men. They must have had a hand in it too. The majority of this tin-foil-hat stuff is surely the result of delusions and irrationality. But does that account for all of it? How much, do you think, is the result of what Mr Cross calls purposeful misinformation? Are there so many genuinely deluded people around that it isn't necessary for rational criticism of the lone-nut theory to be deliberately undermined? There's a superb dissection of the paranoid wing of JFK assassination 'research' here: http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2012-what-are-we-doing-that-s-wrong

Chris Bristow writes: Chris gives a good account of some of the very serious practical problems that would have had to be overcome to fake the Zapruder film. I'm not so sure about his final remark, however: "too many witnesses saw the limo stop for me to think the Z film is unaltered". I presume he's referring to Vincent Palamara's article, 'Fifty–nine Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street': https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16241#relPageId=5 . In fact, only about 13 of Palamara's 59 witnesses claimed consistently and unambiguously that the car stopped, and only 5 of those 13 actually had a clear view of the car. To put it another way, of the 31 quoted witnesses who had a clear view of the car or who were passengers in the car, fewer than one in six stated consistently and unambiguously that the car stopped. And of course there were many other witnesses in Dealey Plaza with a clear view of the car who mentioned nothing about the car slowing down or stopping, and who for that reason were not included in Palamara's list. A large majority of the 59 quoted witnesses either claimed that the car slowed down rather than stopped, or claimed only that cars further back in the motorcade, rather than the presidential car itself, slowed down or stopped. There's a full account at http://22november1963.org.uk/did-jfk-limo-stop-on-elm-street, which concludes:

In the latest episode of this comedy series, John Butler has taken a crop of the Altgens 5 photograph which shows a policeman and some spectators somewhere in Dealey Plaza, and compared it to a crop of the Altgens 6 photograph which also shows a policeman and some spectators somewhere in Dealey Plaza. Mr Butler notices that the spectators are very different in each image. He can't find a common-sense explanation for this strange anomaly. He writes that "Altgens 5 and Altgens 6 or [sic] just seconds apart and not even enough time for one crowd to vanish and another take its place." Clearly, one or both photographs were faked! Mr Butler has cracked the case! Ray Mitcham, assisted by Tony Krome, pointed out something that's blindingly obvious to anyone who has any familiarity with the Altgens photographs: the reason the spectators look different is that the two images show different spectators and different policemen at two different locations in Dealey Plaza. Oh dear. Back to the drawing board for Mr Butler in his effort to show that "almost all of the visual record in Dealey Plaza was seized and changed." Here is a summary of the previous hilarious episodes: 1 - A half-open car window is a slightly different shade of grey in one reproduction of the Altgens 5 photograph than in other reproductions of other photographs. There is a perfectly innocent, common-sense explanation for this apparent anomaly, an explanation which is obvious to anyone with even a basic acquaintance with black-and-white photography. Mr Butler does not have even a basic acquaintance with black-and-white photography. Therefore the Altgens 5 photograph is a fake. 2 - The Altgens 5 photograph shows a shadow on the road surface next to the car. Because Mr Butler does not appear to know the first thing about black-and-white photography, he does not believe this shadow is a shadow. Therefore the photograph is a fake. 3 - The reflection in the side of the car in the Altgens 5 photograph shows some spectators, just as one would expect. The voices in Mr Butler's head tell him that these particular spectators are actually standing elsewhere on Houston Street, although the voices in his head have neglected to provide him with any evidence to support this fantasy. Therefore the photograph is a fake. 4 - The Altgens 5 photograph's depiction of the court house and spectators do not look right to Mr Butler. Unfortunately, Mr Butler's acquaintance with the English language is not much stronger than his acquaintance with black-and-white photography, and he is unable to explain exactly what is wrong about the depiction of the court house and the spectators. Therefore the photograph is a fake. 5 - The voices in Mr Butler's head tell him that the shooting started as the presidential car was turning from Houston Street onto Elm Street. On the other hand, the Altgens 5 photograph, the Croft 3 photograph, and any number of other photographs and films fail to show the presidential party reacting to gunshots until their car had travelled for several seconds down Elm Street. Not a single photograph or film contains any evidence that the shooting started when the voices in his head tell him it started. Therefore all of these photographs and films are fakes. 6 - Mr Butler cites many witnesses who recalled that the shooting began as the presidential car was turning from Houston Street onto Elm Street. This witness evidence contradicts the photographic evidence. Therefore the photographs and films are fakes. In fact, however, most of the witnesses recalled specifically that the shooting began after, not before, the car had joined Elm Street. For some reason, Mr Butler had managed to cite evidence which completely contradicted his own argument. The voices in Mr Butler's head tell him that when the witnesses used the word 'after' they actually meant 'before'. 7 - Dozens of people took photographs and home movies in Dealey Plaza, but the authorities paid little attention to them, and in some cases did not even contact them until months or years after the assassination. The voices in Mr Butler's head tell him that, despite all of this, unknown conspirators were able to seize almost all of the resulting photographs and home movies. Unfortunately, the voices in Mr Butler's head have not yet told him exactly how the conspirators managed to achieve this near-impossible feat. 8 - The history of several of the photographs and home movies is well known, and makes it virtually impossible that these items were seized and altered. At least one of James Altgens' photographs, for example, was broadcast all over the world only half an hour after the assassination. The voices in Mr Butler's head have not yet told him exactly how or when James Altgens' photographs could have been seized and altered. 9 - Anyone who points out that Mr Butler has zero ability to analyse photographs, that he is spectacularly wrong about almost everything, that there are perfectly reasonable explanations for all of Mr Butler's supposed anomalies, and that his witness statements actually show the precise opposite of what he claimed, is a Lone Nutter. To Mr Butler, the only alternative to the Lone Nut theory is Mr Butler's notion of an absolutely enormous conspiracy, involving hundreds or even thousands of people tracking down all of the hundreds of widely dispersed spectators who had been in Dealey Plaza, seizing their films and photographs, and carefully altering the images so that each faked image matched every other faked image. 10 - The few remaining genuine lone nutters are rubbing their hands, chuckling, and agreeing with Mr Butler that the only alternative to the ridiculous Oswald-did-it-all-by-himself theory is an even more ridiculous fantasy involving some sort of vast and outrageously impractical conspiracy, the details of which Mr Butler has not yet got round to describing. Look, there aren't any reasonable objections to the lone nut theory! All of those conspiracy theorists are crazy, paranoid fantasists!

John Butler writes: Ray Mitcham writes: How embarrassing! It's difficult to believe that anyone could be so stupid or deluded. No, he must be doing this deliberately. It's all a big wind-up, surely? John Butler writes: I think you've given us the answer to that one.

John Butler writes: No-one altered the image, certainly not by pasting in an image of the car "from another circumstance". You've been shown that two of the anomalies you pointed out have perfectly reasonable explanations (the half-open window that you laughably think is the wrong shade of grey, and the shadow on the road next to the tyre), and the other two exist only in your imagination (the fake reflection on the side of the car, and the court house and spectators that somehow don't look right). Have another look at what your 50 witnesses actually claimed. How many of them claimed that the shooting occurred "in the intersection of Elm and Houston Street"? You've been shown already that five of your witnesses' actual statements are perfectly consistent with what the photographic record shows: the shooting began several seconds after the car had turned from Houston Street onto Elm Street. Even without checking the original sources, and just relying on your versions of what the witnesses said, it's clear that plenty of them fail to support your argument. For example, look at number 5 on your list: Betty Alice Foster "heard something like fireworks after the President's car turned down Elm St." That's after the car turned down Elm Street, exactly as the photographic record shows. Look at numbers 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, all of whom were watching the parade from the book depository, and all of whom heard shooting while the car was obscured by trees, which would be after the car turned down Elm Street, exactly as the photographic record shows. Then look at number 12, Geneva Hine: "after he turned the corner ... I heard the shots." You write that "This means the shooting occurred in the intersection." No, it doesn't. It means that the shooting started after the car had turned onto Elm Street. That's what the word 'after' signifies: one thing (in this case, the shooting) happened later in time than one other thing (in this case, the car turning the corner). Here's number 15, Carl Jones, who was right in front of the book depository.:"After the president passed by he heard 3 shots." It's that word 'after' again! Carl Jones stated that the shooting happened after the car had turned onto Elm Street. Not "while the president was turning onto Elm Street" but "after the president passed by." And so on. Even your very own selection of witness statements contradicts your claim that "when the presidential party entered the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets they came under fire from assassins." It's tempting to think that this whole thing is a wind-up. Ray Mitcham sums it up well: "Are you completely mad or just pretending?"