Paul Jolliffe

David, What do you make of the fact that "Marguerite Oswald" also knew Peter Gregory? (She had enrolled in a Russian language class which he taught in the spring of 1963.) "Marguerite" even contacted Peter Gregory for "help" immediately after the assassination. What was that about?

Alan, I've watched the Tina Towner film (at least the spliced, edited version available online - in other words, the version of it after the FBI was done screwing around with it . . . ) and I just don't see anything odd about Lovelady in it. After all, Towner's film only shows the front steps of the TSBD for a moment or two, and Lovelady is so blurry that he's almost impossible to make out. What do you find suspicious about him at that very moment? (Note that I am NOT asking about the separate issue of Lovelady's precise movements after the shots were fired.)

Alan, Can you summarize what was suspicious about Billy Lovelady's movements at the moment the motorcade went by?

Jim, We know that Air Force One had two channels going throughout the day's flights. That means that there should have been the better part of eight hours of tape from the two channels on AF-1 from 11/22/63 after the assassination. The tapes were rolling while the plane was on the ground for an hour before it took off from Dallas. Also, it is inconceivable to me that radio calls to and from the cockpit of the Cabinet plane would not have been recorded on 11/22/63. Furthermore, no lowly clerical person in his right mind would ever have destroyed that tape. If it was later destroyed, it had to have been on the orders of someone very high up the military chain. According to Ed Primeau, the General Clifton version of the AF-1 tapes were edited at least fifteen (15) times! If RFK, Jr. is ever elected president, then on January 20, 2025, he should issue an executive order that the original, unedited, complete tape of both channels should be made public. New JFK audio tape: what forensic science reveals – JFK Facts

Joe, I agree that the New Orleans images of a man who very strongly resembled Bill Shelley with "Oswald" are extremely suspicious. The "Elzie Glaze" letters referenced earlier are certainly provocative. We need more details about Bill Shelley - he absolutely was "Oswald's" daily supervisor at work. Was Shelley also doubling as some sort of cut-out to "Oswald" for an intelligence agency, one whose exact intentions remained unknown to Shelley? Very possibly, but we need more evidence.

Yes, I heard RFK, Jr. say that in person. While I agree with RFK, Jr. that Bill Harvey's exact whereabouts are of interest, getting the complete tapes of both channels of Air Force One on November 22, 1963, (and any tapes of the communications between the White House Situation Room ("Crown") and the flight to Japan carrying most of President Kennedy's Cabinet Secretaries) is even more important. Those unedited tapes may well tell us exactly who was calling the shots, so to speak. All we have now are two edited, incomplete versions of the Air Force One tapes, and none of the Cabinet flight. Secondly, I, for one, would like to see the original (not a redacted copy) Allen Dulles daybook for November 1963. I suspect Dulles hurriedly scribbled something for the November 22 entry which either he or someone else partially erased. Whether Princeton has the original or only a copy is unknown. Finally (for now) I want the entire set (i.e. more than the partial list we have now) of tapes of phone calls made to and from the White House beginning at the moment of the assassination through the end of November, at least. Of particular interest are the tapes of all of the calls to the White House beginning at the moment of "Oswald's" death until the announcement of the formation of the Warren Commission. If somehow RFK, Jr. does get elected to the presidency next year (and his chances are much, much better than anyone in the Mainstream Media is willing to admit), then one of us needs to present him with a much more comprehensive list of specific pieces of evidence to go after.

All fair enough, Alan, except I know of no evidence that either Shelley or Lovelady had anything to do with a ("security check") false-flag fake shooting of the president. How could they? They weren't pretending to "shoot" at the president.

Obviously, no one can say for certain that these are two photographs of the same woman, but as I look at the jawlines (veer to our left, slightly) and the noses (again, a slight tilt to our left), I agree with Michael - it is not impossible this is the same woman in both. It's a "maybe, maybe not" for me. However, the part in the hair in the color photo is on her left side (our right) and the b/w photo has a part on her right side (our left), which is odd. Women spend lots of time on their hair, but I don't know any who flipped the part line in their hair from one side to the other. Why would anyone do that? What's the point?

According to Noguchi's own autopsy report (page 35), the following "consultants from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology" were present: Pierre A. Finck Colonel, MC, USA Chief, Military Environmental Pathology Division, and Chief, Wound Ballistics Division Charles J. Stahl, III Commander, MC, USN Chief, Forensic Pathology Branch, and Assistant Chief, Military Environmental Pathology Division Kenneth Earle, M.D. Chief Neuropathology Branch Also present: Members of Neurosurgical Team Present as Observers: Henry M. Cunco, M.D. Neurosurgeon in Charge Nat D. Reid, M.D. M. Andler, M.D. James Poppen, M.D. Pathologist from the Hospital of the Good Samaritan Present as Observer: J.A. Kernen, M.D. So, yes Ben, RFK, Jr. is correct: his father's autopsy was performed in front of at least eight other pathologists, including at least three from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. REPORT ON THE MEDICOLEGAL INVESTIGATION OF SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY (maryferrell.org)

You and I agree that "Oswald" was sent to the Texas Theater to meet a contact. Note in the Ron Reiland film (beginning around the 1:20 mark), Reiland was on the scene of the Tippit shooting, actually filming as Helen Markham was being interviewed by the DPD. Reiland then said on the air on Friday afternoon that "about that time another report came in that a man had walked into the Texas Theater further down the block with a shotgun over his arm, of course everybody broke and ran down into the area at that time . . ." So here we have an actual eye and ear witness to the moment when the DPD was informed about the suspect in the Texas Theater, and according to his live, on-air statement on Friday afternoon, the DPD reacted because of a report of a man carrying a shotgun into the theater! Of course, Brewer never made any such statement. Reiland's live broadcast was based on what the DPD believed at that moment, and NOT on Brewer's belated and tenuous statement. The DPD was reacting because of someone else, some caller who was so desperate to get the DPD to rush the Texas Theater that this caller made up a bizarre and false scenario to get the DPD to speed there ASAP. It worked, obviously. Again, the purpose of the whole Brewer bit was to provide an "innocent" cover for the fact that this mysterious, unknown (and lying) caller/handler was frantic to get the DPD dispatcher to send the cops to arrest/shoot "Oswald."

Alan, You and I agree that "Oswald" was at the Texas Theater to meet a contact. However, I think it very likely that the contact was indeed there when our "Oswald" was inside the theater. Someone at the Texas Theater placed "multiple" calls to the DPD alerting them that a suspect had walked in with a .30/.30 rifle! Obviously that was absurd, but the DPD reacted as if it were true - they rushed to the theater. It was NOT Julia Postal who placed those (plural) calls. Johnny Brewer's job (whether he was fully aware of it or not) was to get Julia Postal to call the DPD to provide the alternate pretext for the DPD's arrival. The DPD didn't react because of Julia Postal's extremely tenuous phone call about a man she could not describe. They reacted because someone else alerted them about a suspect description that roughly matched the man and the rifle wanted in the president's assassination. I believe this anonymous, mysterious caller was "Oswald's" handler, alerting the DPD that the patsy was now in place to be arrested (and/or shot while "resisting arrest.") I've always been struck by the fact that Johnny Brewer knew our "Oswald" previously. That's right - our "Oswald" had been such a memorable customer in Hardy's Shoes (a pair of Hardy's Shoes were later accounted for in the DPD inventory of "Oswald's" possessions) that Brewer was able to describe the encounter at length to Ian Griggs in The Continuing Inquiry in the late 1990's. (Brewer even admitted to Griggs that "I didn't know who I was supposed to be looking for". The exact meaning of that cryptic comment has remained unexplored, but the clear implication is that Brewer was sent to "identify" the suspect by someone else.) Brewer told Griggs that he did not like our "Oswald" as a customer. (Our man was picky, obnoxious and irritable.) What's really fascinating though is that the Warren Commission did NOT want to hear anything from Brewer about his previous knowledge of "Oswald." As soon as Brewer began to dance near to that point in his testimony, David Belin abruptly changed the subject. Belin did NOT want anything further about that on the record and was desperate to keep it out: Mr. Belin. Why did you happen to watch this particular man? Mr. Brewer. He just looked funny to me. Well, in the first place, I had seen him some place before. I think he had been in my store before. And when you wait on somebody, you recognize them, and he just seemed funny. His hair was sort of messed up and looked like he had been running, and he looked seared, and he looked funny. Mr. Belin. Did you notice any of his actions when he was standing in your lobby there? . . .

That is an issue. Pat, do you have a cite for that?

Vince, It's been a while, but my impression is that the Warren Commission went to enormous lengths to (pretend) that the stretcher from which Tomlinson retrieved the "magic bullet" could have been Connally's stretcher. Do I have that right? They were never able to show to anyone's satisfaction that the stretcher in question was, in fact, Connally's, right? This National Enquirer story actually hangs together - it presents a coherent narrative: 1. Landis retrieves a bullet from the back seat of the limousine, pockets it, and then places it on Kennedy's stretcher as the president is being wheeled into Trauma Room One at Parkland. 2. Nurse Phyllis Hall sees the same bullet on Kennedy's stretcher, next to his head, lying at an odd angle if it fell out at skull wound, but in reality, exactly where Landis put it moments earlier. 3. Kennedy is lifted off the stretcher and on the operating table. No one in Trauma Room One pays any attention to that stretcher. 4. Kennedy's stretcher (with the Landis bullet still on it) is then placed in the hall where it is later seen by Tomlinson. 5. Tomlinson then turns over this stretcher bullet to O.P. Wright, who then notifies the Secret Service who eventually take it to Washington where it then, while in the hands of the FBI (miraculously) morphs into CE 399, the most infamous piece of ammunition in the history of the world. If this is correct, then Landis' story makes perfect sense. It also explains why the Warren Commission lawyers would NOT have wanted to call Landis as a witness. Even though (allegedly) he wrote no report on 11/22/63, I'll bet Landis verbally told others in the Secret Service about what he had found and what he did. If so, then no wonder that any such scuttlebutt was such a complete "no-go zone" for the Warren Commission.

Good point - the location directly across the street from the Adolphus Hotel would minimize the travel time from the payoff site to the secure location, presumably the hotel. I think it's likely that no bagman could make an official visit to either the governor's mansion nor the governor's office without being noted by either security or clerical personnel. Further, I think it likely that the bribers (or payoff moneymen) would want to see Connally in person take the cash as part of the deal (whatever it was.) He couldn't weasel out of it later and deny knowledge of the transaction if he was the one who physically took possession of the cash. So a clandestine meeting in Ruby's office at the Carousel might have been just the ideal place for such a transaction, as described by Estes. Again, I think it is very plausible (but certainly not proven beyond any doubt.) However, unlike most of the commenters on this topic, I think Estes's claim that he met and repeatedly interacted with someone he knew as "Lee Oswald" in July and August of 1963 at Ruby's club is also credible. Yes, I know that our man "Oswald" really was in New Orleans at the time. But somebody else was calling themselves "Lee Oswald" at Ruby's club that summer for reasons unknown, and the identity of that person remains a mystery.

Leslie, I too think it likely that Odell "James" Estes told an essentially correct story to the FBI in 1977. His account of a Connally/"Nick"/Ruby meeting is credible to me. You've speculated as to "Nick's" possible identity, and you may be on to something. I will not say you are wrong, merely that I think there are other legitimate candidates for "Nick's" identity. Connally was certainly NOT above meeting with a shady character such as Ruby if a considerable payoff or bribe was involved. That's exactly what Estes described (without calling it that), and I believe him.

Greg, I haven't read Frazier's book, so can you help me out here? Where (exactly) was Frazier standing when he saw "Oswald" leave the TSBD? We all know that Frazier was on the front steps during the assassination sequence. Did Frazier go around to the back of the building by walking up Houston, or did Frazier re-enter the TSBD and go to the back? Frazier's testimony to the Warren Commission does not mention seeing "Oswald" in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Yet it does leave the possibility that Frazier might have seen "Oswald" on the street because Frazier claimed he did not re-enter the TSBD for a few minutes. (He then went in, walked to the back, grabbed his lunch and took it downstairs to the basement. So he could have seen "Oswald" either in or out of the TSBD. Thus my question.) How long after the assassination did Frazier see "Oswald"? Within seconds? If minutes, how many (approximately)? Was "Oswald" close enough to Frazier that Frazier could have said something to him? Did Frazier speak with "Oswald"? After all, if Frazier saw "Oswald" crossing Houston and heading to Elm, then "Oswald" must have been walking in a southeast direction if he came from the back of the TSBD. And Frazier had been standing very near the SE corner of the TSBD during the assassination. Did Frazier ever try to tell any authorities what he saw of "Oswald" after the assassination? If so, who and when? What was their reaction? Thanks Greg.

Pat, We should continue this (fascinating) topic on a separate post, and not on one dedicated to the "Prayer Man" book.

Good point. This detailed discussion between Pat and I should go on another thread.

Pat, All true about various media outlets, but it begs the question: why did the FBI and the Secret Service (both of which supposedly had the "official" autopsy report by the 26th) also act for weeks as if they did not know the "true" version of Kennedy's wounds?

I agree that Humes' original draft was at odds with the single-assassin "solution". But a number of bizarre and unexplained events occurred in the subsequent weeks and months about the "official" version of the autopsy. Here are just two: 1. The Secret Service attempted a reconstruction of the assassination on December 5, 1963, to determine how the president was shot in the front from behind. (So said the New York Times on December 6, 1963. That reconstruction was not successful.) Yet the Secret Service supposedly had a copy of the "official" autopsy report in hand (turned over to Robert Bouck of the Secret Service Research Section by the White House physician on November 26) when they made the reconstruction! ("One copy of autopsy report and notes of the examining doctor which is described in a letter of transmittal Nov. 25, 1963 by Dr. Gallaway") Commission Document 371 - SS Work Papers of Doctors Conducting Kennedy Autopsy at Bethesda (maryferrell.org) So, if the Secret Service really had the "official" (final?) version of the autopsy report from November 24th in hand (which claimed that the president had been shot from behind in the neck), then why was the Secret Service still trying to figure out how the president got shot from the front two weeks later on December 5? DVP's POTPOURRI: 1963 SECRET SERVICE FILM, RE-CREATING JFK'S ASSASSINATION (dvp-potpourri.blogspot.com) 2. The FBI leaked their December 9, 1963 report on the assassination to the NYT on December 17, 1963. (Probably Cartha De Loach did it - he was in charge of leaking and propaganda for Hoover.) The 12/17/63 NYT story revealed that one bullet had struck Kennedy where the right shoulder joins the neck and another had struck his right temple. That's NOT what the now-extant version of the autopsy report claims! How could the FBI have leaked that "wrong" information to the NYT on December 9, 1963, if they really had the now "official" version of the autopsy report in hand?

Notes made at the autopsy table on Friday night had blood stains. Not the final typed autopsy report. That was not even typed until days (weeks? months?) later.

Good stuff, Pat. I might add a few caveats: Whatever protocol of "the" autopsy Humes turned in at 5:00 pm on Sunday, may or may not be the autopsy report now in the National Archives. Why? Because the "official" autopsy report on President Kennedy has no date on it - we don't know when it was written. And there is good reason to suggest the version we now have was written months (months!) later, not even in 1963! Nicholas Katzenbach sure was busy on Sunday afternoon, pressuring various Washington officials to put together an "independent commission". By my count, Katzenbach called Bill Moyers in the White House, Cartha De Loach at the FBI, and Homer Throneberry in Congress. We also know that Yale Law School Dean Eugene V. Rostow was pressuring Katzenbach on that Sunday, but we don't (yet) know on whose behalf Rostow was working. Katzenbach was merely the errand boy, sent to deliver the message: create an "independent commission" to report out to the public about the assassination. Hoover and Johnson resisted the idea for a bit, but then, within a couple of days, both men caved. Who held the stick over Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover? On whose authority were both Rostow and Katzenbach calling?

Jim, Note that Hoover's remarks are in response to a phone call from Nicholas Katzenbach, the acting head of the Justice Department at that moment: ("The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. . . . ") What's fascinating to me is that Katzenbach's infamous memo, typed up the next day, Monday, November 25, was actually composed in longhand by Katzenbach himself on Sunday very shortly after "Oswald" was murdered. How do I know that? Because Harold Weisberg got ahold of it - the original on yellow legal paper in Katzenbach's own handwriting - and he told me so back in the 1990's. Further, although I can't find it at the moment, Weisberg gave a video interview back in the 1980's in which he displayed that very memo on camera! The point being that Katzenbach was shaping the "lone-nut" narrative right as soon as "Oswald" was pronounced dead. Of course, at that moment, there was not only good reason to suspect a conspiracy in the president's murder, but now overwhelming reason to suspect something much larger was going on: "Oswald" had just been shot on national television! How could anyone at that moment write a memo arguing that the entire case was now "solved"? If we can find out who pressured Katzenbach to write that memo (which started the ball rolling to eventually become the Warren Commission), then we will have made very serious progress about who the ultimate sponsors of the assassination were. Katzenbach's 11/25/63 typed memo to Bill Moyers (page 29 of this 181 page FBI file): FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section 18 (maryferrell.org)

Hmm. I like your theory that Jim Leavelle himself was responsible for the disappearance of Tippit's clipboard and/or notebook. However, even if (IF) Leavelle initially genuinely believed that Tippit had written an address on Tenth Street because of some affair, surely he would soon have good reason to suspect something else (larger than a mere affair) was going on. After all, correctly or not, there were a number of witnesses who believed there were two shooters/conspirators/accomplices in Tippit's killing. Also, the mystery of the mismatched shells and bullets may not have been immediately apparent on Friday afternoon, but certainly by the end of that weekend, Leavelle had to have known that there was a serious problem, one the Warren Commission itself could only resolve with the most weaselly language possible. Furthermore, while a revolver was taken off of "Oswald" at the Texas Theater, neither Leavelle nor anyone else knew for sure whether that revolver had anything to do with Tippit's murder. My point is that Leavelle, a shrewd man, would have held on to the clipboard/notebook in case there was something there. Especially if he feared that Tippit's murderer had accomplices. If Leavelle destroyed Tippit's notebook and/or clipboard, I doubt it was because of Leavelle's determination to hide Tippit's affair. Greg, you and I agree that something mighty sensitive almost certainly was in/on Tippit's clipboard and/or notebook, and that is why that information had to disappear.

Greg, If the following quote from Roy Lewis to Larry Sneed is accurate (""I was one of the last ones (ONES - plural!) out of the building before the motorcade arrived"), then Lewis knew he was NOT the last one out of the building! How would Lewis have known that? Because he saw someone else come out of the building after him, someone nameless. A TSBD employee not accounted for in any chronology. Could Larry Sneed have misquoted Lewis? Maybe, but consider this quote Lewis gave to Bart Kamp: ""[L]ike I said, I was one of the last ones out of the building ... I think I mean I knew I was the last one out but ..." "I think I mean I knew I was the last one out but . . " What the hell does that mean, Roy? Either you were the last one out or you weren't! "But ..." what Roy? You "think" you mean you "knew" you were the last one, but . . . but what, Roy? Good golly, Roy, just what could have caused you to bite off that sentence in mid-thought? It couldn't have been the realization that if you completed the obvious thought - that you knew you were NOT the last one out, just as you blurted out previously, and that you have been warned/intimidated/coerced into keeping your mouth shut - people might start asking questions about who came out after you, could it? Greg, these two quotes from Lewis, given to two different interviewers years apart, strongly suggest that Lewis knew damn well he was NOT the last person to exit the TSBD just before the assassination. Further, the second quote, given to Kamp, all but confirms that Lewis tried to backtrack to obscure his knowledge of the late-exiting TSBD nameless employee. The identity of that late-exiting TSBD employee was apparently still sensitive to Roy E. Lewis a full five decades after the assassination. There is only one plausible reason for that: Roy E. Lewis knows exactly who walked out of the glass doors and stood outside atop the steps for a few moments during the assassination. Is Roy E. Lewis still alive?