Sandy Larsen

James, do you know if this 1961 uncashed postal money order is posted somewhere? I couldn't find it.

That is amazing.

Proof that postal money orders were processed by Federal Reserve Banks can be seen right on the Hidell MO itself. Right below the MO's serial number (2,202,130,462) is the following symbol: 15-119 ------ 000 This is the old-style Federal Reserve Routing Number that was used back when manual sorting was still being done. This form of the number is referred to as the "fractional form" for obvious reasons. It has been superseded by a non-fractional form, but the fractional form is still required by law to be printed on all bank checks, including money orders. (Note that the horizontal line may be replaced with a "/" slash, so the number will fit on a single line of text.) Fractional Form of Federal Reserve Routing Number XX-YYY -------- ZZZ XX = City Prefix YYYY = ABA Institution Identifier (a.k.a. ABA Routing Number) ZZZ = Federal Reserve Routing Symbol The City Prefix indicates the location of the issuing bank. It is 15 on the Hidell MO, signifying Washington, DC.* The ABA Routing Number 119 is used for postal money orders.** The Federal Reserve Routing Symbol 0000 is used for postal money orders and Treasury checks.*** (The leftmost 0 is removed for the fractional form.) The following document http://tfm.fiscal.treasury.gov/v2/p4/c700.html outlines the procedure Federal Reserve Banks are to use when processing postal money orders. Quoting from this document: "There are a number of outstanding 'punch card' postal money orders that were issued prior to the introduction of paper style postal money orders in the spring of 1973, which bear the ABA routing number 0000-01 19. These money orders have a commercial life of 20 years. Processing instructions for the 'punch card' postal money orders are in II TFM 4-7070 of these instructions." [emphasis mine] We can see that this refers to the form of MO supposedly used by Oswald.The document refers to these MO's as "Old Style Money Order: A card style money order bearing ABA routing number 0000-0119." They are to be processed as follows: " 'Punch card' money orders that have the ABA routing number 0000-0119 will be handled as mutilated items. They should be identified as old style 'punch card' money orders on the PS Form 1901 for code 004." "Mutilated items" are those that cannot be processed in the normal fashion. In conclusion, we see that the Hidell money order was indeed intended to be processed by a Federal Reserve Bank. And so it would have had FRB marks stamped on it had it been processed. It was never processed. *Source for 15 City Prefix code used for Washington ,DC http://www.eccho.org/uploads/Supplemental-1_2-1_City%20State%20prefixes.pdf **Sources for 119 ABA Routing Number used for Postal Money Orders https://www.frbservices.org/files/servicesetup/check/pdf/check21_special_sort_options_guide.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2009-title12-vol3/xml/CFR-2009-title12-vol3-part229-appA.xml ***Source for 0000 Federal Reserve Routing Symbol used for Postal Money Orders http://www.eccho.org/uploads/Supplemental-1_2-1_City%20State%20prefixes.pdf Other Sources: http://www.eccho.org/uploads/Supplemental-1_2-1_City%20State%20prefixes.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing_transit_number#Federal_Reserve EDIT: Changed "FRB numbers" to "FRB marks."

Thanks James. Thanks also to Robert, Chris, and Jon. Appreciation like this makes it worth the effort it takes to contribute. Of course, desire to know the truth is the real motivator. Special thanks to DVP, who says my work is "amazing." Post #22 in http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=22418&page=2

When I was searching for information on money orders using punch codes, I came across the same news article pointed out by David Von Pein: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1964&dat=19620623&id=2PQiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Nc0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=5330,4714873&hl=en This 1962 article reports on a new money that uses punched holes on "IBM-like" cards which could be read by machines. At the time, I dismissed the relevancy of the article because IBM cards were made of a thick/stiff stock of paper, whereas the Hidell MO was clearly made of a thin paper. Given that the Hidell money order similarly used punched holes, I figured that it must be some kind of predecessor to the IBM-like card MOs being tested at select locations, as mentioned in the article. At that point I wondered how it was possible for a machine to read MOs like the Hidell one. Such thin sheets of paper could not have been kept in correct alignment for a machine to read the holes. Some form of "registration" was needed. ("Registration," in technical parlance, is a term used to mean "means for maintaining correct alignment.") At the time, I figured that the round holes in the MO must have been what was used for registration purposes. The MOs would have been placed on a plate with pins perfectly matched to the size and location of the MO's round holes, and these would hold the MOs securely in place while the machine read the rectangular holes. I later rejected that idea when I looked more closely and noticed that the holes seemed to be spaced perfectly for holding numerical information. After that I simply forgot about the registration problem, as I went on to decode the round holes. Well, today I remembered the registration problem when I again saw that 1962 news report about the IBM-like card MOs. And I thought, since the round holes were not used for registration, how was it possible for a machine to have reliably read the holes in MOs like the Hidell one? Well, now I realize that the Hidell MO is almost certainly the same MO reported on in the news article. That explains how the holes in the card could have been read by a machine. It makes perfect sense that the Dallas post office began using the new card around the same time as the post offices noted in the news article. (Actually, the post offices noted were in "... nine states, ... Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina, all in the Atlanta postal region, and five states in the Denver region." Texas was likely one of the five states in the Denver region, with Dallas being among the post offices using the new money order) Having concluded that, I now have a full appreciation for John Armstrong's criticism regarding bleed-thru of stamps on the Hidell MO. In my opinion, the bleed-thru of the "Mar 12 1963" postal stamp is PROOF POSITIVE that the Hidell MO is made of regular (thin) paper, not the card stock that it should have been made of. THIS IS YET ANOTHER SMOKING GUN OF A FAKED MONEY ORDER. This money order is fake, fake, fake! It is strong evidence Oswald was being framed as the shooter of JFK.

Once again I am amazed by the depth of research done by John Armstrong.

Wow.

According to the two x-rays techs, ONLY the portable machine was used. The non-portable x-ray equipment was on the 4th floor. IMO the body would have been seen at sometime during the required round trip, and we would have at least heard stories that this had happened. ALL of the removed internal organs could have been transported to the high-res x-ray machine and x-rayed en masse by one or both techs while Humes and the others continued with their work. With this option readily available, what possible reason could they have for breaking out the meat cleaver? Hmmm...the topic of a frangible as well as an 'exotic' type of bullet was brought up by the FBI, who immediately called the FBI Lab to ask about these alternatives to an FMJ. The FBI concluded these were possibilities. Of course, If you are not allowed to produce evidence of a frangible bullet then you would NOT use the equipment that would have revealed one if it was present.The cut-up organs were 'put back into the body'. Is this normal procedure, or was it a quick and easy way to get rid of incriminating evidence? Tom All good points, Tom. Maybe I'm working too hard to make an honest man out of Humes. It's just that Robert's latest theory, if on track, seems to make Humes's testimony more honest. And David Lifton's new book apparently will do the same. Other than for the latest change he made that required burning the first autopsy report, Humes seemed to have been a more honest broker than I thought.

And after receiving your Masters Degree in "Keypunch Hole Evaluation" just a few hours ago after your one-day crash course at Keypunch School, you actually feel confident enough to make the statement you just made about the Hidell money order having "no such holes punched" in it? Amazing. Thank you, David. Take a look at the following page, where I explain the holes in more detail: Rectangular and round punch codes on the Hidell money order explained.http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=22434 All the holes are explained. There are no holes left for punched bank stamps.

It has been brought it to my attention that I haven't really explained how the holes punched in the Hidell money order are to be decoded. Yes, I see that I am guilty of that. So I will explain it here. It's not difficult. But first, for the record, the topic was first brought up on this forum when David Von Pein proclaimed that the "money order wasn't cashed" theory had been debunked. He and other LNers came to that conclusion when they notice that one Brian Castle had theorized that the holes were punched during the processing of the money order. They assumed that the holes were being used as a substitute for traditional bank stamps, and that this explained the absence of those stamps on the reverse side of the money order. As I will show, they are wrong. Following are the front and rear sides of the money order: You can see the tiny rectangular holes near the left end of the front of the money order. I drew straight lines through the holes, both vertical and horizontal, so it would be easy to keep them in order. And also so I could label the meaning of each row, as you will see in a moment. Here is the reverse side of the money order with my lines added: You can see that I have numbered some of the horizontal lines 0 through 9. A popular punch code used at the time was the Hollerith code, widely used for computer punch cards. Because the Hollerith code uses twelve rows, not ten, I had to add two extra lines, which labeled X and Y. It's easy to read the code once that the rows are labeled. The first number is marked by the right-most vertical line. What you do is see where that line crosses over a hole. Unfortunately it's difficult to see that particular hole. It's also difficult to see the hole crossed over by the second vertical line from the right. For now, just trust me that these first two lines cross their respective holes at horizontal line 2. So the first two numbers are decoded as 22. The next hole is easy to see. Look at the third vertical line from the right and see where it crosses its hole. It crosses at horizontal line 0. So that digit is 0, and so far we have 220. Repeat this procedure for the other seven vertical lines to get the seven remaining digits. The fourth hole is also difficult to see. It is at horizontal line 2. With that we have 2202. The remaining holes are all easy to see. The fifth line from the right crosses its hole at horizontal line 1, so we have 22021. Continuing on, we end up with the following ten digits: 2202130462 or 2,202,130,462 This is precisely the same number that is printed on the front of the the money order. It is the money order number, the equivalent to a check number. LNers may want people to believe that these holes are punched when the check is being processed, and that this somehow signifies that the money order was actually cashed. But that is simply not true. The holes merely duplicate what is printed on the front of the money order and has nothing to do with clearing of the check. The holes are punched at the same time the money order number is printed, before the money orders are even issued to post offices. You may have noticed two more vertical lines located further to the left. The first crosses two holes and this pair represents the letter P. The last (leftmost) line crosses the horizontal line labeled "Y" and this represents the "-" (dash) mark. (You need to have access to a Hollerith code table to see these.) I haven't spent any time trying to figure out the meaning of these. Finally, there are five round holes on the opposite half of the money order. At first I ignored them since five digits isn't sufficient to represent a number on a bank stamp. I thought perhaps they represented a post office routing number. But I have since spent more time on them and discovered that they actually represent the number 02145, which obviously refers to the $21.45 value of the of the money order. So in summary, the ten rectangular holes represent the money order number and are punched when the money order is manufactured. The round holes represent the price/value of the money order and are punched when the money order is purchased. I like to use the Hidell money order against LNers because it is extremely reliable evidence that Oswald was being framed as the shooter of the assassin's rifle. It's impossible for LNers to explain away how bank stamps can be missing from a canceled money order. But of course they will try.

Obviously, in 1963 and thenabouts, money orders had their issue numbers both printed and punched on them before they were issued to post offices. My guess is that the Hidell money order is real, was stamped on the front at a post office, but was either filled out by an impostor or Oswald was told to fill it out under false pretenses. It obviously was never cashed. Even if banks did use punch holes for endorsements at the time, so what? The Hidell money order has no such holes punched. Ive looked at several canceled checks from that era and they all have multiple endorsement and other stamps on them. Some of the checks also have holes punched in them. The ones with holes were all issued by the U.S. Government. So the U.S. Government apparently used punch codes for internal bookkeeping purposes. I wouldn't be surprised if other large institutions used such codes as well.

Hi all, Check this out if you're interested: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=22418 Post #10 debunks the debunking.

David, Well I hate to be the one to burst your bubble... but... here is what I found. The rectangular holes turns out indeed to be a Hollerith code, which consists of 12 rows of holes. The hard part in decoding the holes was determining which row was X and which was 9 (the two extremes). It turns out that one row at the top has no holes, and two rows at the bottom have no holes. Once I figured that out the rest was easy. The encoded "message" begins with the rightmost hole in the above image. (Its hard to see the holes for the first two and the fourth characters, but they can easily be seen on the front side of the money order.) Here is the decoded message: 2202130462 P - So what is this? It's the issue number of the money order, as printed on its front side! As for the round holes, they represent a five digit number. One of the following four, I believe: 13256 65231 86743 34768 This could be a routing number for the post office that issued the MO. It doesn't have enough digits to represent a particular account at a particular bank (account number + routing number). And it certainly doesn't have enough digits to represent a check reference number that a federal reserve bank might stamp on a check. So the problem still stands that a Carcano rifle wasn't paid for with this money order. Nor was anything else.

Ray, To me it looks like the guy is standing behind the truck. But I think you're posting this in the wrong thread. Hi Sandy, If you enlarge the photo, you will see that he appears to be in the back of the truck. I posted it here because you were talking about shots from the South Knoll. Ohhh, okay! Thanks. Yeah, that gives me a better idea as to what the south terrain looks like.

Ray, To me it looks like the guy is standing behind the truck. But I think you're posting this in the wrong thread.

Roy, I'd like to see a diagram showing how that could be done. A cross sectional view of the plaza showing how a trajectory from the south knoll could possibly hit JFK's neck without hitting the windshield or the bar the runs across and above the passenger/driver partition.

Robert and Sandy, In my post #317-806 on 11-04-2015 I pointed out that the radiology techs stated that the portable x-ray machine was low resolution and only good enough to find bullets or large fragments. I stated the same conclusion that you did. i.e. Why chop up the lungs looking for bullets/fragments when you could send the right lung with one of the techs to use the available high-res x-ray machine? Unless of course your goal was to destroy the evidence of a perforated lung with dust-like "particles that look like metal but are actually dirt" to quote Ebersole and the HSCA. And of course the sole x-ray of the lungs has disappeared from the archives. Tom Tom, Thanks for bringing up again the info on the portable x-ray machine. I couldn't remember who had posted it and I'd forgotten the details (low resolution, etc.) Do you know if the portable unit was used for all the x-rays? It seems likely, as I don't recall any mention of JFK's body being moved, for example to be x-rayed with a regular machine. However, we need to keep in mind that there was a period of time (about an hour?) when Humes had the body before the gallery was filled and the official autopsy began. The so-call pre-autopsy autopsy period that most people are unaware of. A regular x-ray machine might have been used then. A regular x-ray machine would have definitely produce better images than a portable. Though, as I understand it, a portable would work fine for areas with less mass, like the limbs. Maybe even so for the lungs, given that much of that area is air. Tom said: Why chop up the lungs looking for bullets/fragments when you could send the right lung with one of the techs to use the available high-res x-ray machine? Unless of course your goal was to destroy the evidence of a perforated lung with dust-like "particles that look like metal but are actually dirt" to quote Ebersole and the HSCA. Because of Lt. Lipsey's testimony that the surgeons spent a large portion of the autopsy looking for the back wound bullet, I'm not ready to (preliminarily) conclude that the purpose of slicing up the organs wasn't to find bullet fragments from the back wound. But the part about dust-like particles looking like metal to a radiologist, Dr. Ebersole, certainly grabs my attention, particularly in light of this frangible/exotic bullet discussion. Unexposed film in hospitals doesn't get dirty. There had to have been something in the body capable of blocking x-rays enough to make a noticeable image on the film, IMO. Robert said: Call me stupid but, why not just take the organs to the stationary x-ray unit and get a better look? Impatience? X-rays had already been taken... some people don't like to do things twice. Or maybe they figured the first x-ray of the lungs was good enough, if it's the case that a portable x-ray machine give a reasonably good image of the less-massive lung area. I'm just throwing these ideas out.

I agree with David on this one. Not that I know for sure that what he described is what happened... only that what he described could have happened. And so there is no reason to suspect foul play in this regard. Now, if somebody were to show that all post offices across the country could not have used 118,000 money orders over the given time period, then a cloud of doubt could again be cast on this. Rather than point to other other problems found with Oswald's purchase of the gun, I think we should stick with the topic given here. Does the code punched on the money order represent the processing of the money order at a federal reserve bank.

Robert, I like your theory for a number of reasons. I can't think of any testimony that contradicts it, and it does seem possible to me that the bullet did as you describe. But I'd like a little more info about the following: Isn't the angle from the EOP, through the skull, and down to C3/C4 too steep to have come from the TSBD? After fragmenting, could the particles have deflected to this steeper angle? One of your concerns is how the skull got broken up into so many pieces, including some in the face. This doesn't concern me because I believe pre-autopsy surgery was done in order to obfuscate any wounds from the front. There was a gaping wound in the back at Parkland and it was obfuscated elsewhere by enlarging the blowout to cover the whole top of the head. (Right side only, that is.) How would one do that? With a saw? How about a chisel and hammer? The latter would look more convincing as a wound. I studied this topic (two caskets, three entrances, pre-autopsy surgery) in great detail and came away convinced of it. (Not in full agreement with DSL, but close.) How the various witnesses to the autopsy were brought in at various times helps explain why some people saw a blowout in the back and others saw the top of the head missing. Different witnesses saw different wounds in Bethesda. But they all included the missing occiput area. Anyway, if you're open to that idea, the great damage to the head isn't hard to explain. After reading Best Evidence I came away not trusting what Humes said. But as time has passed and I've read the testimony of others, like Lt. Lipsey, things have gradually started to fit together and I have come to believe that Humes was more honest than what I had originally imagined. (Though I never thought he was all that bad... just that his every step was being controlled.) This is how I have come to accept the EOP entrance wound as being real. The fact that Humes held his ground for so long before giving into the HSCA regarding the BOH wound being at the EOP and not the cowlick area. Why would he do that if it was one of the lies being told?? (If you haven't read that testimony it's pretty interesting. One congressman was saying they were all "nuts" for letting the tape recorder run during Humes's objections.) Now that I'm being exposed to the complexities of the shots not having exits, the frangible bullets make sense. Though I don't know what to make of the jackets not being found. Maybe they were jacket-less? There actually were reports of a few fragments being removed from the body (NOT official reports). Could these have been jacket fragments? I don't anything about that stuff, but it sounds ridiculous, mistaking copper for lead. As for the back wound, I've wrestled with the fact that they cut the organs up when they could have simply x-rayed them. But recently it occurred to me that maybe they x-rayed the organs *before* the dissection looking for the fragments. They couldn't find any because (in their way of thinking) they were using a low-powered portable machine. I've fixed many of my radiologist friend's x-ray machines over the years (I'm an electrical engineer) and I know they always want me to get the repair done quickly because the images from the portable machine aren't very good. So anyway, they take poor x-rays, don't see anything, and assume they didn't find bullet fragments because of the poor images. So the decide to dissect and cut up the organs. They don't x-ray the organs *after* the dissection simply because they already did, and they think they can find fragments by slicing the organs. It doesn't pan out and they scratch their heads wondering where the bullet went. One thing I like about your theory is that it actually agrees with what Humes really did and what Lipsey actually saw. According to Lipsey, the surgeons were certain the EOP bullet exited the throat. and it did (in a way, according to your theory). The surgeons couldn't find the back wound, as they shouldn't (according to your theory). The top of Kennedy's head was blown off with "surgery to head," and Humes has to make up a pretend bullet entrance and exit, both in the hole area. This according to Lipsey. But of course this is because of the pre-autopsy surgery. The bullet really entered one of the temples and fragmented, blowing out the back of the head. Why didn't they (including Jenkins) not see a hole in the pleura? Because... I don't know. If somehow the bullet could have disintegrated before entering the pleural cavity, the tiny particles could have penetrated the pleural cavity and lung, and the tiny holes in the pleura go undetected. But from your lessons on frangible bullets, it seems that could not have happened. So this remains unsolved. And the copper jacket problem remains unsolved, though maybe they were necessary for some reason. I'm running these peripheral thoughts by you and the others, hoping they might trigger ideas to go along with your new theory.

Well Jean Davison must be a "somebody" in the LN crowd. I found her post in alt.assassination.jfk and she got a reply from our pal John McAdams: John McAdams, On 6 Nov. 2015: Another Armstrong thing shot to hell. David Von Pein destroyed the "mailed at a distant mailbox" thing. David, if you are lucking, you might post the link (I'm too lazy to go find it). .John David, I'd like to take a look at your "mailed at a distant mailbox" destruction page. Can you give me a link?

Great jumpin' Jehosaphat, David! When I suggested you bring this new find up in the forum, I had no idea you were gonna declare outright victory -- that the Oswald money order not-being-cashed thing had been debunked! What I meant was that you should present the new evidence and let the members study it. I mean... you guys haven't even deciphered the code yet! Well, never mind. I just think you're jumping the gun. Don't you? Anyway, now that you've brought it up, I'll give it a go myself. P.S. Who's Jean Davison?

Perhaps you should take the time to re-read my post. I was proposing that part of the bullet entering at a downward angle at the EOP (external occipital protuberance) might have impacted at C3/C4 (cervical vertebrae or neck), not T3/T4 (thoracic or upper back vertebrae). Oops! Yeah, that's where I got messed up. You wrote "C3/C4" and my mind read "T3/T4."

I saw a nice, color, profile-view of the presidential limo today and was going to post it. Unfortunately it got lost between then and when I finished a chore my wife had gotten after me to do. (That's what happens when you're not looking and you have a curious five-year-old around.) I was surprised to see how high JFK's back rose above the back cushion. I mean, it was really high, seeming not to match other images, like those from the Z-film. I wanted to get Robert's opinion on how far above the cushion the back wound would have been, based on that photo. To my untrained eye it looked way too high for a bullet to have entered the top of the cushion. To me it looked like a bullet would have hit the trunk lid. FWIW. From looking at that photo I realized I'd never really taken a good look at the limo before. Because I'd never noticed that bar running across the top of the car (it appears to be part of the passenger/driver partition thing). My reason for mentioning this (other than revealing my ignorance, ha!) is that it reveals yet one more obstacle to a potential shot from the front. Including Roy's shot from the left-front. Not looking good for Roy's Theory. Sorry Roy. Good thing Robert has a theory.