Jeremy Bojczuk
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Posts posted by Jeremy Bojczuk
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Again Jim has avoided giving answers to two straightforward questions. He's happy to claim that one or more fake Oswalds was arrested somewhere inside the Texas Theater, but he's not so happy to tell us exactly what he thinks happened.
Jim must have an opinion on the matter, surely?
It isn't too difficult to work out the reason why Jim is so evasive. It's because the evidence for the arrest of a fake Oswald is not only weak but also contradictory: according to one source, the man was arrested in the balcony, but according to the other source, the man was arrested on the ground floor. At least one source must be mistaken, unless there were actually two fake Oswalds in addition to the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald who was arrested on the ground floor.
Jim's problem, of course, is that both sources are equally weak and there are good reasons to conclude that both are mistaken. A perfectly credible alternative explanation exists for what happened inside the Texas Theater, and it doesn't involve one or more fake Oswalds getting arrested, in the balcony or on the ground floor or anywhere else.
If Jim commits to either a balcony arrest or a ground-floor arrest, he's admitting that one source is mistaken. Unfortunately, the surviving source (whichever one he goes with) is just as weak as the one he discards. If he offloads one source, how does he justify retaining the other? One more piece of evidence for the ridiculous 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy bites the dust.
So refusing to answer is probably Jim's best bet. But then people will work out, if they haven't already, why he's afraid to provide straight answers to two very straightforward questions, and he will continue to be a laughing stock, as he admitted he has been for more than 20 years. Perhaps he'd be better off answering, after all.
Come on, Jim! You can do it! Here are those questions again:
Question 1
How many times was the fake Oswald arrested: once or twice?
Question 2
If it was once, where did the arrest take place: in the balcony or on the ground floor?
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Well, there's a surprise. Jim has again refused to answer a couple of simple, straightforward questions about exactly what he thinks happened in the Texas Theater.
He has been using the Texas Theater incident as evidence for his two-Oswald theory, so he really shouldn't have any trouble telling us how many fake Oswalds he thinks were arrested, and on which floor or floors the arrest or arrests took place. Was it one fake Oswald, or two? If, as I suspect, he thinks there was just the one fake Oswald, where exactly was this fake Oswald arrested, and how does Jim avoid admitting that one of his sources was mistaken?
Let's get the George Applin stuff sorted out first, since Jim has stated the same thing twice now. He writes:
QuoteWhat Mr. B. wants us to believe is that the second Oswald, who Burroughs and Haire both thought they saw arrested, was actually George Applin. In fact, he states this as if it were a known fact
All Mr B is claiming is that the Applin explanation is the most plausible explanation that fits the known facts. If you accept that Burroughs and the police reports could be mistaken, as any sane person must, George Applin is the most credible candidate for the person seen by Butch Burroughs and Bernard Haire. If you admit that one of either Burroughs or the police reports actually was mistaken, the case for George Applin becomes even stronger. If you admit that both Burroughs and the police reports are likely to be mistaken, George Applin is your man.
Jim also writes:
QuoteMr. B. continuously tries to tell us that a balcony arrest of a second Oswald is inconsistent with the observations of Butch Burroughs, but it simply isn’t true.
No, Mr B is not claiming that "a balcony arrest of a second Oswald is inconsistent with the observations of Butch Burroughs". Mr B is claiming that "a balcony arrest of a second Oswald" and "the observations of Butch Burroughs" are inconsistent with the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy, unless Jim is claiming that the same fake Oswald was arrested twice, once in the balcony and once on the ground floor.
As Mr B has explained several times, Burroughs saw someone arrested on the ground floor, not in the balcony. The police reports, on the other hand, claimed that someone was arrested in the balcony, not on the ground floor. The only way you can reconcile these accounts is:
(a) if the same person was arrested twice, once in the balcony and once on the ground floor, or
(b) if two people were arrested, one in the balcony and one on the ground floor.
Which of those is Jim going to go with? Or would he prefer to go with either of these options:
(c) Burroughs was mistaken, and no-one was arrested on the ground floor apart from the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, or
(d) the police reports were mistaken, and no-one was arrested in the balcony.
Of course, there's also option (e): both Burroughs and the police reports were mistaken, there were no fake Oswalds, and George Jefferson Applin, Jr, is the man seen by Burroughs and Haire being accompanied out of the building by the police. Which option does Jim prefer?
QuoteAs I’ve noted time and time again, James Douglass, who interviewed Burroughs, wrote: “By the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby, either on his own or already accompanied by police who had been checking the balcony. [JFK and the Unspeakable, p. 461]
And how, pray, does this passage help Jim's cause? Douglass is speculating that two things happened in a particular order: firstly, a fake Oswald came down the stairs from the balcony; secondly, Burroughs saw an incident which he interpreted 30 years later as an arrest ("he saw a second arrest occur in the Texas Theater ... Burroughs saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed": pp.292-3). Does Jim think Douglass's speculation implies a different sequence of events? Is that the point he's trying to make? If so, what does he think Douglass's speculative sequence of events is? If that isn't the point he's trying to make, what is?
In the passage that Jim quoted, Douglass implies that Burroughs did not see an arrest in the balcony. We know that Douglass is correct about this, for three reasons:
1 - Burroughs never stated that he had seen an arrest in the balcony (contrary to what Jim erroneously claimed a few pages ago).
2 - We know from the layout of the Texas Theater that Burroughs cannot have seen an arrest in the balcony from his position on the ground floor.
3 - We know from Burroughs' accounts that he never claimed to have gone up to the balcony during the time the police were in the building.
We can therefore be certain that Burroughs did not see an arrest in the balcony. The incident Burroughs saw ("the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed") must have happened on the ground floor, just as Douglass implies.
Burroughs saw what he thought was an arrest on the ground floor. The police reports claimed that an arrest took place in the balcony. If both Burroughs and the police reports are correct, that means either that two separate fake Oswalds got arrested, or one fake Oswald got arrested twice. Is it really that difficult to understand?
Jim must now be admitting to himself that if both accounts are correct, there must have been two arrests of fake Oswalds in the Texas Theater, in addition to the arrest of the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. But was there one fake Oswald, or were there two fake Oswalds?
We can rule out the notion that the police decided to arrest the same person twice, can't we? Or can we? Perhaps Jim thinks this is a plausible interpretation of the evidence: the police arrested the one fake Oswald in the balcony, then paraded him downstairs without anyone noticing and arrested him again in view of Butch Burroughs. Perhaps that's the scenario Jim wants to go with.
If he thinks this double-arrest scenario is too implausible even for him, he's left with the scenario of two fake Oswalds, each arrested on a different floor of the same building, in addition to the arrest of the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald on the ground floor. But this presents him with a different problem: how does he fit the arrests of two fake Oswalds into the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy?
Let's try again to get a straight answer out of Jim so that we know what it is he actually thinks happened in the Texas Theater. The questions are very straightforward:
Question 1
How many times was the fake Oswald arrested: once or twice?
Question 2
If it was once, where did the arrest take place: in the balcony or on the ground floor?
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Jim Harwood writes:
Quotethe British intelligence front "The British Who killed Kennedy" committee
Yes, that's the assertion you made earlier, which you still haven't provided any evidence to support. What evidence do you have that the committee was a "British intelligence front"?
While you're at it, how about providing some evidence to support your other assertion, that "the only true author of the murder [was] the British Empire"?
QuoteI find it quite amusing how quickly "buffs" turn when ever there are complexities added to your theories
What does that mean? What theories? What complexities?
If you can produce solid evidence that "the British Empire" was indeed behind the JFK assassination, it would be probably the biggest breakthrough the case has ever had. If you can't produce any such evidence, you'll come across as ... well, a bit silly.
So, old chap, where's the evidence that "the British Empire" was behind the JFK assassination? And do you think the Queen is a lizard?
The other Jim Har writes:
QuoteThis from a man who, just minutes ago in this post, praised another forum member “who does at least acknowledge the existence of more than one fake Oswald” and who also said that “there were indeed more than two Oswalds in the Texas Theater:”
This Jim is being disingenuous. Read the post again. I clearly wasn't praising that other member; I was pointing out that his interpretation was at odds with Jim's. That other member thinks there were two imaginary Oswalds in addition to the real one. He also seems to think that pretty much every photo and home movie taken in Dealey Plaza is a fake, so he'd be right at home in 'Harvey and Lee' land.
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As has been obvious for some time, the 'Harvey and Lee' interpretation of the Texas Theater incident is based on flimsy and contradictory evidence. As has also been obvious for some time, it is very difficult to get any straight answers from the theory's evasive chief proponent. So far, Jim Hargrove has been reluctant to acknowledge either the flimsiness of the evidence or the fact that it is contradictory. Let's try a slightly different approach, and see if this allows us to prise a straight answer out of him at last.
Jim writes:
QuoteI have offered at least three times earlier in this very thread the analysis of James Douglass
And I have pointed out each time (see here, for example) that Douglass's "analysis" is pure, 100% speculation, and that there are good reasons to doubt that his speculation is credible.
Douglass speculated that the fake Oswald who, according to the police reports, was arrested in the balcony came down to the ground floor "either on his own or already accompanied by police", where Burroughs saw the man arrested again. Douglass doesn't tell us how someone who had just been arrested in the balcony would be able to come down "on his own" rather than "accompanied by police", so I assume he thinks the second speculative option is the more likely.
Douglass's speculation makes one thing clear: Burroughs' sighting of the fake Oswald's arrest took place on the ground floor. Douglass writes "By the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he [the fake Oswald] had also come down the balcony stairs". This is consistent with a couple of things we know about Burroughs: he never claimed to have gone up to the balcony, and he could not have seen into the balcony from his position on the ground floor. Since Jim has quoted the passage with approval several times now, it seems fair to assume that he agrees with this bit of Douglass's speculation, and that he too believes that the fake Oswald was arrested on the ground floor.
Douglass doesn't state it outright, but he implies that the fake Oswald who, according to the police reports, was arrested in the balcony was identical to the person whom Burroughs claimed to have seen arrested from his position on the ground floor.
The problem with all of this speculation is that Douglass's (and presumably Jim's) interpretation implies that the fake Oswald was arrested twice: first in the balcony and then on the ground floor. But this cannot be! It is contrary to the infallible word of truth: 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine claims that the fake Oswald was only arrested once in the Texas Theater (at least, I assume that's what the holy book says; I really can't be bothered to check). It is also contrary to common sense: why would the police not only arrest the same person twice, once on each floor of the same building, but also fail to notice that the guy they arrested once and the guy they arrested twice had the same name?
Douglass's speculative account is clear on two points: the incident which Burroughs interpreted, 30 years later, as an arrest happened on the ground floor, and this arrest happened after the fake Oswald had descended from the balcony. But the police reports are also clear; they state unambiguously that someone named Oswald was arrested in the balcony. Ergo, two fake Oswalds. And two fake Oswalds plus one real-life, historical Lee Harvey Oswald equals three Oswalds. But this cannot be! It is contrary to the infallible word of truth: 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine claims that there were only two Oswalds (unless the holy book has recently been rewritten and the second edition is called Harvey and Lee and Harlee).
Even Jim must be starting to realise by now that either Burroughs or the police reports must be mistaken, or ... heaven forbid! ... both of them are mistaken. The problem is: there are perfectly good reasons why each could be mistaken. Once he admits that one of them is mistaken and he loses his grip on it and watches it drop into the abyss, how does he stop the other one slipping from his grasp? And if both are mistaken, we can say goodbye to yet another piece of evidence for the 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy.
At least one of Jim's sources for the arrest of a fake Oswald must be wrong. Which option would Jim like to endorse:
1 - The police reports were mistaken, and Burroughs and Douglass were correct. The one fake Oswald was arrested only once, on the ground floor.
2 - The police reports were correct, and Burroughs and Douglass were mistaken. The one fake Oswald was arrested only once, in the balcony.
3 - The police reports and Burroughs were correct, and Douglass was mistaken. Two fake Oswalds were arrested, once each and one on each floor.
4 - The police reports and Burroughs and Douglass were all correct, and no-one was mistaken. One fake Oswald was arrested twice, firstly in the balcony and then on the ground floor.
5 - The police reports and Burroughs and Douglass were all mistaken. No fake Oswalds were arrested. As has been clear to most of us for some time now, George Applin was the man Burroughs mistakenly assumed, three decades after the event, that he saw being arrested on the ground floor.
To make his beliefs clear, perhaps Jim could answer these two simple questions about his fake Oswald, the man Burroughs saw being escorted out of the rear of the building:
1 - How many times was the fake Oswald arrested: once or twice?
2 - If was once, where did the arrest take place: in the balcony or on the ground floor?
I realise that Jim finds it very difficult to give a straight answer on this point, and I'm sure we all understand his reasons, but let's see if he can manage it this time.
You know what, I think we need to change the subject, urgently. Quick, look over there! Did you know about the Bolton Ford incident? And don't forget about those school records ....
P.S. I'm sorry Jim is displeased about people being given the opportunity to follow links to Greg Parker's debunking of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense. Just to please Jim, here instead are a couple of links to Tracy Parnell's debunking of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense:
http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/p/p.html
http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/search/label/Harvey%20%26%20Lee
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John Butler writes:
QuoteIt is my belief that there were more than two Oswalds.
John, it looks like your belief matches the evidence more closely than Jim's, at least as far as the Texas Theater incident is concerned.
The evidence we have suggests that there were three Oswalds there that day:
(a) The real Oswald, who was arrested on the ground floor, according to many sources.
(b) One fake Oswald, who was also arrested on the ground floor, according to Butch Burroughs.
(c) A second fake Oswald, who was arrested in the balcony, according to two police reports.
Were there any other Oswalds in the vicinity at the time? How many are there likely to have been altogether, do you think?
The problem with this three-Oswald interpretation, and with Jim's two-Oswald interpretation, is that both Burroughs and the police reports could easily have been mistaken. There are perfectly rational explanations for their mistakes. Do you believe that both Burroughs and the police reports were accurate? If so, what are your grounds for this belief? If not, which was accurate and which was mistaken?
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Jim Harwood writes:
QuoteThe British have played the key role in establishing the narrative around the Kennedy murder ever since Lord Russell got an advanced copy of the Warren Commission report (how does a foreigner get an advanced copy?) and penned his famous 16 questions which pinned the blame on the nasty US government. It seems Lord Russell's job was to organize the Kennedy murder around right wing and Jacobin lines and away from the only true author of the murder the British Empire.
What?
QuoteEven this website was established by former Hollinger Corporation employee John Simkin. Its all very interesting.
It's all very paranoid. What does Mr Simkin's employment history have to do with the price of fish?
Did Bertrand Russell get an advance copy of the Warren Report? I'd be interested to see the evidence for that, not that it would make the slightest difference to anything even if he had got hold of an advance copy.
Russell's article was published two weeks to the day before the Report was presented to President Johnson. As far as I'm aware, Russell based his article largely on information from Mark Lane and the many newspaper stories, most of them essentially Warren Commission press releases, about what might end up in the Report. Given the facts that were available at the time, he did a pretty good job of pointing out the flaws in the official investigation and in the Warren Commission's activities.
What makes you think his article "pinned the blame on the nasty US government"? Russell's article didn't pin the blame on anyone. You haven't actually read it, have you?
QuoteRussell's job was to organize the Kennedy murder around right wing and Jacobin lines and away from the only true author of the murder the British Empire.
Russell didn't "organize the Kennedy murder" around any lines. You really haven't read the article, have you? Here you go:
http://22november1963.org.uk/bertrand-russell-16-questions-on-the-assassination
Have a look at that domain name. It ends with .uk, doesn't it? If you ask me, that website was put together on the orders of the Queen, the Duke of Westminster and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Quotethis British intelligence operation titled "The British Who Killed Kennedy Committee"
Punctuation matters. It wasn't The British-who-killed-Kennedy Committee but The British 'Who Killed Kennedy?' Committee.
Take a look at the list of committee members at the end of Russell's article. They are mostly writers and other cultural figures. There's also a couple of academics, a politician (who, as it happens, I saw once, walking down the street in London) and a bishop. Yup, it definitely looks like an intelligence operation to me. What evidence do you have for that assertion?
Quotethis old Brit is licking his chops waiting to use the murder as a means of advancing British geopolitical designs ... he's putting this committee of British intelligence figures together in order to obfuscate the British hand in the Kennedy assassination and to blame the very same US Government
Bertrand Russell was just about the last person who would have wanted to advance "British geopolitical designs"! Do you have the faintest idea of who Bertrand Russell was?
What exactly was "the British hand in the Kennedy assassination"? Come on, tell us. Give us all the details. I'm sure we could do with a good laugh!
Jim Hargrove posts crazy stuff about fake Oswalds running around all over Dallas, and Jim Harwood posts crazy stuff about "the British Empire" being behind the JFK assassination. The similarity in names can't be a coincidence, can it? I mean, what are the odds? There has to be something more to it!
Wood, Grove. Grove, Wood. They mean the same sort of thing. It's pretty similar to Bohemian Grove, isn't it? Those Jims are plotting against us, I tell you! And don't forget: the Queen is a lizard!
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Jim has given us one more example of the 'Harvey and Lee' modus operandi, something he has done over and over again: when you're cornered, change the subject.
Someone provides a perfectly rational explanation for the 'two fake Oswalds arrested in the Texas Theater' speculation. Forget about that! What about the school records?
Someone provides a perfectly rational explanation for the school records. Forget about that! What about the Bolton Ford incident?
Someone provides a perfectly rational explanation for the Bolton Ford incident. Forget about that! What about the two fake Oswalds who were arrested in the Texas Theater?
And so the circus show goes on, and Jim still can't understand why people have been making fun of him for the last 20-plus years.
I suspect I'm more likely to get a straight answer from John Butler, who does at least acknowledge the existence of more than one fake Oswald, as he has just pointed out in another thread:
Quotethere was more than two Oswalds. There was a larger Oswald Project. The person in the photo above is neither Lee or Harvey.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26041-the-alek-j-hidell-identity/
John,
The facts of the case do seem to show that your interpretation is correct, and that there were indeed more than two Oswalds in the Texas Theater:
(a) We have several accounts of the real Oswald being arrested on the ground floor.
(b) We have Butch Burroughs' account of someone who looked like Oswald, but who was not Oswald, also being arrested on the ground floor.
(c) We have the police reports of someone called Oswald being arrested in the balcony.
Would you agree that this evidence shows that there were more than two Oswalds in the Texas Theater?
One potential problem with this scenario is that there appear to be good reasons to doubt both the police reports and Burroughs:
- Do you think there's a possibility that the police reports were mistaken? If not, why would the fake Oswald tell the police his name was Oswald, thereby giving the game away? And why did the police (or anyone else, for that matter) not comment on the rather startling fact that two of the men they arrested had the same name?
- Burroughs doesn't seem to have given his account until 30 years after the event. What do you think are the chances that someone's 30-year-old recollections may have been inaccurate in some way?
For the standard 'Harvey and Lee' interpretation to be correct, either the police reports or Burroughs must have been mistaken. Which do you think is more likely to be mistaken, the police or Burroughs?
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P.S. Sorry if Mr Butler's delicate sensibilities have been offended. Let's see whether the terms I used were reasonable:
- I used terms such as 'ridiculous', 'nonsense', 'idiocy', 'crazy stuff', etc to describe the 'Harvey and Lee' theory. Well, the theory was completely debunked, in a respectable peer-reviewed scientific journal, two decades before the Harvey and Lee book was even published. I think that justifies all of those epithets and more, don't you? There are plenty of other terms that would be just as appropriate, but I won't mention them in case Mr Butler faints and doesn't have any smelling salts to hand.
- 'Self-contradictory'. See, for example, the topic of this thread. The theory's insistence that both Burroughs and the police reports were accurate implies that one fake Oswald was arrested in the balcony and one fake Oswald was arrested on the ground floor, making two fake Oswalds. But the theory simultaneously claims that there was only one fake Oswald. If the 'Harvey and Lee' theory has recently been amended to incorporate the extra fake Oswald, and it is now the 'Harvey and Lee and Harlee' theory, I will happily take back the term 'self-contradictory' and replace it with the term 'insane'.
- I used the terms 'disgraceful' and 'shamefully' to describe Jim's desperate attempt to give this ridiculous and self-contradictory theory respectability by implying that someone as rational as Sylvia Meagher would have had anything to do with it. Since Mr Butler has not put forward any arguments against this point, I think Mr Butler must agree with me that Jim's attempt to link Meagher with this nonsense is indeed disgraceful.
- 'Paranoid'. Is that what you really object to? But the theory is undoubtedly paranoid. Its central feature is a long-term doppelganger project involving a fake Oswald and a fake Marguerite. It proposes that pretty much every incident in which the Warren Commission claimed Oswald was involved, also involved a fake Oswald. There were fake Oswalds in the Texas Theater, in the book depository, on the street shooting at Officer Tippit, and who knows where else. It's just a paranoid version of the Warren Commission's story. Almost all of the evidence the theory uses has a perfectly non-paranoid, everyday interpretation, but the theory always goes with the paranoid version. And, of course, the theory was partly dreamed up by some entirely non-paranoid genius who thought the moon landings were faked.
On the subject of paranoia, I pointed out that if the general public starts to associate criticism of the official line with stuff like the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, rational critics are liable to be viewed as paranoid. I'm sure everyone can see what effect that would have on getting the case solved.
Jim writes:
QuotePersonal insults ... used to bother me when I first began supporting John Armstrong's work online more than two decades ago
I didn't realise Jim has been pumping this nonsense for that long. If people have been making fun of him for over 20 years, it really is time he sat down and worked out what it is that everyone is making fun of.
Don't get paranoid; it's nothing personal. I'm sure Jim is a pleasant person, and I'd be happy to have a drink with him if I ever found myself in Doppelgangersville. It's the nonsense he promotes that's the problem.
Quoteall it does is show how close I am getting to the truth
No, it shows that for more than two decades it has been clear to many, many people that you are promoting a self-contradictory pile of nonsense that was debunked two decades before the Harvey and Lee book was even published.
Congratulations to Jim on acquiring a new convert to the cause! If he ever decides to pass the baton to a new generation of 'Harvey and Lee and Harlee' believers, the world's foremost photographic expert will be the ideal person to take over evangelical duties.
Just out of interest, which aspects of the 'Harvey and Lee and Harlee' theory does Mr Butler find the most convincing?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteMr. B. predicates his silly “three Oswald” business on his own parsing of Burroughs’ statements, claiming that even if the second Oswald was brought downstairs from the balcony before Burroughs’ saw him that would preclude a balcony arrest.
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:
QuoteBy the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby, either on his own or already accompanied by police who had been checking the balcony
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.
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Lance Payette writes:
QuoteWhat conceivable assassination conspiracy would have allowed the patsy who was supposed to be on the sixth floor shooting the President to be standing in full view on the front steps? ... What sort of conspiracy goes to all the trouble of framing a patsy, including the planting of a rifle traceable to him on the sixth floor, and then allows Mr. Patsy to be eating a cheese sandwich in the domino room moments before the assassination? ... one thing I think I would have made sure of is that Mr. Patsy was under control and nowhere to be seen at the time of the assassination.
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?
Quoteyou Harvey & Lee-type folks
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.
QuoteOf all the photos and films taken that day – or that might have been taken that day – Prayer Person appears in precisely one.
Objection, Your Honor!
"Prayer Person" appears in the Darnell and Wiegman films. That's two, not one.
QuoteIt is pure happenstance that there aren’t 15 photos in which Prayer Person is clearly identifiable.
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?
QuoteNot one person recalled Oswald standing in full view where Prayer Person is standing.
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?
QuotePrayer Person could be literally anyone
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?
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Ron Bulman writes:
QuoteThree is not supported. Two is.
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:
QuoteUnless Applin bore a strong resemblance to LHO he wasn't the guy Burroughs saw taken out the back.
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.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteMr. B. wants us to believe Davis and Burroughs were wrong about when the first Oswald arrived,
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.
Quoteand/or he wants us to believe that the Postal/Brewer timeline was incorrect about the time the second Oswald arrived.
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.
QuoteHe wants us to believe that if a second Oswald was arrested in the balcony and hustled out of the theater, none of this could be seen clearly enough by Burroughs to enable him to say he saw Oswald arrested, even as the man was hustled down stairs and out the back door.
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.
QuoteAre we seriously to believe this scene necessitates THREE OSWALDS to envision?
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'.
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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:
QuoteMr. B. continues to pretend that James Douglass’s interview with Butch Burroughs provided information precluding an arrest of the Oswald lookalike in the balcony, while Mr. Douglass’s own published analysis of the interview clearly suggests otherwise.
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:
Quote[Douglass's] speculation was based on the information he received from Butch Burroughs, which, clearly in his opinion, did not preclude a balcony arrest.
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.
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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?
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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.
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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:
QuoteIn response to my question, “Now you didn’t see anybody else [besides Oswald] get arrested that day, did you?” he answered, “Yes, there was a lookalike—an Oswald lookalike.” In response to further questions, he described the second arrest, that of the “Oswald lookalike.” Ibid. Because Butch Burroughs saw neither Oswald nor his lookalike enter the Texas Theater, each must have gone directly up the balcony stairs on entering. Oswald crossed the balcony and came down the stairs on the far side of the lobby. There he entered the orchestra seats and began his seat-hopping, in apparent search of a contact. His lookalike sneaked into the theater at 1:45 P.M. and, like Oswald, went immediately up the balcony stairs. By the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby, either on his own or already accompanied by police who had been checking the balcony.
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):
QuoteIn response to my question, “Now you didn’t see anybody else [besides Oswald] get arrested that day, did you?” he answered, “Yes, there was a lookalike—an Oswald lookalike.” In response to further questions, he described the second arrest, that of the “Oswald lookalike.” Ibid.
"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.
QuoteBecause Butch Burroughs saw neither Oswald nor his lookalike enter the Texas Theater, each must have gone directly up the balcony stairs on entering.
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.
QuoteOswald crossed the balcony and came down the stairs on the far side of the lobby.
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.
QuoteThere he entered the orchestra seats and began his seat-hopping, in apparent search of a contact.
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.
QuoteHis lookalike sneaked into the theater at 1:45 P.M. and, like Oswald, went immediately up the balcony stairs.
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!
QuoteBy the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby,
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.
Quoteeither on his own or already accompanied by police who had been checking the balcony.
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:
QuoteDouglass clearly wrote about the possibility that the Oswald “double” was arrested in the balcony and then brought down to the main floor where Burroughs then saw him.
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:
QuoteHis sentence ["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."] is perhaps intentionally unclear, but if Mr. B. is suggesting that Applin “is recorded as being escorted from the rear of the building,” I’d sure like to see his proof on that!
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:
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James Douglass writes:
QuoteHis lookalike sneaked into the theater at 1:45 P.M. and, like Oswald, went immediately up the balcony stairs. By the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby, either on his own or already accompanied by police who had been checking the balcony.
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:
QuoteBy the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby
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.
Quoteeither on his own or already accompanied by police
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.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteMr. B. might take time out from misrepresenting me and busily pointing to banned forum member Greg Parker’s site and at least pretend to be interested in exploring here some element of the Kennedy Assassination that extends beyond ... Harvey and Lee
I have explored other areas of the JFK assassination on this forum. See, for example, my reply to François Carlier, formerly of this parish:
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!
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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:
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.
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On Sunday 1 September, Jim Hargrove wrote:
QuoteI’ll try respond to some of the other issues raised above when I have more time. (We're hosting a Labor Day party tomorrow.)
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.
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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.
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Jim Hargrove writes:
QuoteThere is no evidence that George Applin left the theater through the alley exit
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.
Quote, nor is there evidence that he left the theater in time to be the man seen by Bernard Haire. (He said he left the theater “later” after the police had questioned the customers.)
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):
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.
QuoteFor decades now, Burroughs has said he saw a man who looked like [the one and only historical Oswald] arrested in the balcony soon after [the one and only historical Oswald] was captured.
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.
Two Oswalds in the Texas Theater
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Jim Hargrove writes:
Mr B does not think Jim is horrible. Mr B does, however, think that Jim seems to be getting a little paranoid (a 'Harvey and Lee' believer being paranoid? The very thought!).
Jim also writes:
At last! Jim has stated clearly that he believes that only one fake Oswald was arrested, and that this fake Oswald was arrested in the balcony, not on the ground floor. Hallelujah!
But how does he reconcile this with Butch Burroughs' account of seeing someone who looked like Oswald actually being arrested on the ground floor? And how does he deal with the obvious weakness of the evidence for an arrest in the balcony?
Burroughs never stated that he saw a fake Oswald being taken down the stairs under arrest, although he was well positioned to have seen such an event, and he had noticed a woman going up the stairs earlier, an event which he thought was significant.
What Burroughs did state, according to Douglass, is that a fake Oswald was "placed under arrest and handcuffed". This must have happened on the ground floor, for reasons I've already given several times (Burroughs never went up to the balcony, and could not have seen into the balcony). If Jim thinks my reasons are mistaken, and that the arrest Burroughs saw happened in the balcony, perhaps he could explain how the evidence leads him to that conclusion. If he's unable to do so, we must conclude either that the arrest Burroughs saw was a separate event to the arrest in the balcony that is mentioned in the police reports, or that Burroughs misinterpreted George Applin's ground-floor encounter with the police as an arrest.
The only realistic way to reconcile Jim's single arrest in the balcony and Burroughs' account of an arrest on the ground floor is to claim that Burroughs was mistaken in some way. Unless the police decided to arrest the fake Oswald twice, first in the balcony and then on the ground floor, Burroughs' (or Douglass's) phrase, "placed under arrest and handcuffed", must be mistaken. Does Jim think Burroughs (and presumably Douglass, too) was mistaken, or does he think that the police actually arrested this particular suspect twice?
Perhaps the best way to resolve this confusion is to look at the evidence for a balcony arrest and at Burroughs' accounts, and see how reliable each of them is.
The Arrest in the Balcony
The evidence comprises two Dallas police reports which include an identical phrase (with a marginal difference in spelling):
- According to C.E. Talbert's report into the death of Officer Tippit, typed at 5pm on 22 November, "Suspect was later arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theatre".
- According to an internal memo from L.D. Stringfellow to W.P. Gannaway on 23 November, "Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater".
Problems with the Police Reports
Are there any reasons to doubt the accuracy of these statements? Jim will probably be able to think of three, any one of which would be sufficient to force us to dispose of the "balcony" element of the reports:
1 - The police officers who wrote the reports wouldn't have been concerned about exactly where in the building Oswald was arrested. Not only was the precise location of no significance, but the report writers may not actually have been aware of what the precise location was. Talbert was in the alley at the back of the Texas Theater for some of the time and may well not have been inside the building when Oswald was arrested. Stringfellow probably wasn't at the Texas Theater at all. Evidently, Stringfellow and Talbert remembered the radio alert which told them that the suspect may have gone up to the balcony, and that's what they put in their reports. There's nothing suspicious or conspiratorial about this. It's just a trivial bureaucratic mistake.
2 - If the reports are accurate, the man arrested in the balcony told the police his name was Oswald, thereby giving the game away. Is there any credible reason why he would have done that?
3 - If the reports are accurate, the police arrested two men in the same building at the same time, and each man had the same name. This strange and unlikely coincidence would surely have become common knowledge among most of those officers who participated in the Texas Theater incident. Yet, in the 50-plus years since the assassination, no-one in the Dallas police force seems to have said anything about it.
There's also the notion (whether it's official 'Harvey and Lee' doctrine, I don't know) that the 'Oswald double' was arrested in order to get him out of the Texas Theater without raising suspicion. But arresting him was probably the worst way to do this. It would have been far better for him to keep his head down, watch the film, and leave quietly along with the rest of the audience, never to be seen again.
The Arrest on the Ground Floor
The only source for the arrest of a fake Oswald on the ground floor is Butch Burroughs. The way his story evolved over the years should give us an accurate guide to his credibility.
Burroughs' earliest published account is his testimony to the Warren Commission (Hearings, vol.7, pp.14-17). Burroughs failed to mention that he saw the arrest of anyone other than the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, who was taken out of the front door of the building. There was no mention of any fake Oswald being arrested or being taken out of the rear door.
Burroughs' next account was his interview with Jim Marrs in 1987 (Crossfire, p.353). Burroughs again failed to mention that he saw the arrest of anyone other than the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. According to Marrs, the only thing Burroughs said about anyone who might have been a fake Oswald is that he heard a possible intruder enter the building at around 1.35. Burroughs didn't actually see this intruder enter the building, or go up to the balcony, or descend from the balcony, or get arrested in the balcony, or get arrested on the ground floor, or get taken away by the police via the front door, or get taken away by the police via the rear door. If Burroughs had told Marrs about any of these things, Marrs would surely have reported it, but he didn't.
Burroughs' third account, and his earliest account of seeing a fake Oswald being arrested, dates from 1993, 30 years after the event. Jim Glover wrote in a letter to the Director of the FBI in 1993:
Glover wrote something similar on this forum in 2007:
The fourth and final account is the interview Burroughs gave to James Douglass in 2007. Burroughs repeated what he told Glover, with one further embellishment: "he saw a second arrest occur in the Texas Theater ... Burroughs saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed. The Oswald look-alike, however, was taken by police not out the front but out the back of the theater" (Unspeakable, pp.292-3).
Problems with Burroughs' Accounts
Here is the evolution of Burroughs' story of the arrest of the fake Oswald:
1 - In 1964: no arrest.
2 - In 1987: no arrest.
3 - In 1993: arrest, and taken out of the side door.
4 - In 2007: arrest, handcuffed, and taken out of the rear door.
Obviously, by "side door" Glover meant the rear door; people make mistakes sometimes. The final embellishment, from 2007, has Oswald being placed in handcuffs. Perhaps Burroughs actually remembered this detail but forgot to mention it until 44 years after the event; perhaps he unconsciously invented it at some point during those 44 years, as people often do when recalling past events; or perhaps Douglass unconsciously embellished Burroughs' account.
When recalling past events, people often add imaginary details or forget real details. It is now 2019. Those of you who are old enough, cast your minds back 30 years, to 1989, or 44 years, to 1975. How many events from 1989, let alone 1975, can you remember in detail? Imagine that you have been recounting an event over and over for 30 or 44 years, a world-famous event in which you had a fleeting role. How many details might you have added unwittingly? It isn't difficult to see that Burroughs' accounts from decades after the event may well have been wholly or partly mistaken.
The most striking thing about Burroughs' evolving story is that he neglected to tell Jim Marrs anything at all about an Oswald double being arrested. Marrs was keen to find evidence of strange goings-on in the Texas Theater, and he would surely have asked Burroughs whether he had seen anything unusual. Marrs would surely have reported the extra arrest if Burroughs had recounted it, and Burroughs would surely have recounted it if he had remembered it, as he did with the unseen intruder. So we can be certain that whatever it was Burroughs saw in 1963, he didn't intrepret it as an arrest in 1987. The arrest of an 'Oswald double' sprang into life some time between 1987 (24 years after the assassination) and 1993 (30 years after the assassination).
If Burroughs was mistaken about seeing an Oswald double being arrested, was the episode a complete invention? Did he pluck it out of thin air? Or was there a real event that Burroughs might plausibly have mistaken for an arrest on the ground floor? Why, there was, and it is none other than George Applin's encounter with the police. Applin spoke to the police on the ground floor. He agreed to go with them so that he could give a signed and witnessed statement. He was escorted by them out of the building, most likely by the rear door and into the alley, since that is where the police had parked their cars. Applin was almost certainly the person who was escorted by the police from the rear door, put into a police car, and driven away, as observed by Bernard Haire in the alley.
Conclusions
(a) The police reports were mistaken. No-one was arrested in the balcony.
(b) Burroughs was mistaken. No-one apart from the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on the ground floor.
(c) George Applin was the man whom Burroughs and Haire saw being led by the police out of the rear door and driven away in a police car.