Paul Jolliffe

On 2/26/2019 at 11:22 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Here it is, if you have not read it.  The magnificent Edwin Black essay on the plot to kill JFK in Chicago.

In my view, it might be the best essay on the JFK case published in the seventies.  It is certainly one of the most important of that decade.

http://thechicagoplot.com/The Chicago Plot.pdf

The other side hates this article.  And its easy to see why. Some apparatus was hunting JFK in the fall of 1963.  And it appears that Oswald may have been the informant on it.

Jim,

Thanks for posting that article.

Is there any evidence, other than the name "Lee", that the unknown informant in the Chicago case was LHO?

On 2/26/2019 at 7:35 PM, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, after Hosty was transferred to Kansas City, he allegedly told Carver Gayton that such was the case.

Oswald was an informant.  

Jim,

I agree that "Oswald's" connections to the FBI were deliberately obscured by the FBI. 

But on whom or what could he have been informing?

"Oswald" never hung around any genuine pro-Castro leftists! "Oswald" never actually had any members of his one-man "Fair Play for Cuba" Committee! "Oswald" didn't socialize with genuine communists or socialists!

(Instead, he knew and socialized with White Russians! And if you believe Perry Russo, Clay Shaw, David Ferry, Guy Banister and violently anti-Castro Cubans! Not a lefty in sight!)

You could argue that "Oswald" was informing on the violent right for the FBI, but that's never seemed very plausible to me - what Shaw, Banister and Ferry were doing was all in plain sight, sanctioned by most of the national security state. What did the FBI need "Oswald" to tell them?

As far as we know, "Oswald" never had any money - doesn't the FBI hook their informants by paying them a monthly stipend? 

Might I suggest instead that "Oswald" was a creature of the CIA, and as the pre-selected patsy for the assassination, he was sheep-dipped by the CIA as an FBI informant to embarrass and implicate the FBI? An operation, that, by the way, would guarantee that the FBI would move heaven and earth to hide any evidence of a conspiracy, for fear that it would point back at them!  No wonder that Orest Pena, the owner of the Habana Bar in New Orleans, and a witness to multiple visits to his bar by FBI agent Warren DeBrueys and someone who looked very much like our "Oswald" was lead-piped in the head before he could meet with Harold Weisberg in 1967! No wonder that the license plate of the car associated with the visits by DeBrueys and the "Oswald" lookalike was never investigated!

(Even though the FBI did not assassinate the president!)

Further, that the sinister implications of the  "dirty rumor" as related by Bill Alexander, Waggoner Carr, and Allen Dulles himself all suggested that if the Warren Commission pulled on the "FBI informant" thread, the ensuing scandal would wreck the FBI, even if they had nothing to do with the assassination! I believe that Earl Warren and the rest of the commissioners (except Allen Dulles) then took that bait.

Whatever the motivations were, the hints that "Oswald" had FBI connections guaranteed that there would be no serious look at "Oswald's" murky contacts with people who were clearly intelligence-related.

And that was precisely what Allen Dulles and the CIA most desired.

53 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

So it's really Tip O'Neill's quote, right? O'Neill quoting O'Donnell?

I'd love to have heard that quote coming straight from O'Donnell's mouth, to see how it might have differed from "The O'Neill Version".

Think there might be a tad of difference?

 

Well David,

More folks than Tip O'Neill claimed to have heard directly from Dave Powers and Kenny O'Donnell that those two men heard and witnessed shots from the Grassy Knoll, but then, for various reasons, were willing to go along with the government-narrative:

29 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

 

Tony,

I think your intention in posting this video was to show that the Oswald filmed passing out the pamphlets here, was in fact, the same man arrested in Dallas for the assassination.

But, I didn't claim that the above image isn't "Oswald". (It probably is, although I have some separate questions.) Instead, my claim was much more specific:

Was the "Oswald" who came to Bringuer's store (a few days before the above event) and who talked to Phillip Geraci III and Vance Blalock, the same man who was confronted on the street corner by Carlos Bringuer and his buddies?

A close reading of the testimonies of both boys makes it an open question, at least to me. Neither boy gave an unqualified identification of our man, and again, for the four reasons I listed earlier, there would seem to be room for doubt.

But, I recognize that reasonable people can disagree. That's why I wanted to throw it out there: does anyone else think the boys' testimonies leave room for doubt as to who actually visited Bringuer's store in early August?

Thanks, Jim.

Yes, I had forgotten that Harvey was there in 1957. But when reading Liebler's deposition of Geraci and Blalock, it is obvious that Liebler was not concerned with 1957 - he was mortified that the boys might state unequivocally that "Oswald" claimed to have been in Florida, working in the company of anti-Castro Cubans. 

And that, as we all know, is something that would never fit "the narrative".

And here is the altered version - the one that erased Burkley's signature and his "verified" - as published by the Warren Commission (and, incredibly, still re-published by the Smithsonian Magazine in their 2013 article on the autopsy!):

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-the-autopsy-room-the-details-doctors-gathered-about-jfks-assassination-180947768/

5 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Denny, this is terrific work, congratulations!

Let's add the consensus witness testimony of the T3 back wound:

1) Dr. Admiral George Burkley, JFK's personal physician observed the body at Parkland and Bethesda, wrote on the Death Certificate that the back wound was "about the level of the third thoracic vertebra."

 

2) The autopsy face sheet diagram prepared under the supervision of Dr. J. Thornton Boswell shows a wound location consistent with the holes in the clothes (4 inches below the bottom of the collars).

 

 

 

The diagram was filled out in pencil and signed off as "verified," also in pencil, also in accordance to proper autopsy protocol. The "14cm from the mastoid" notation was made in pen, which is a violation of proper autopsy protocol.

 

3) Dr. John Ebersole attended the autopsy and told David Mantik in a 1992 interview that the back wound was at T4. (Harrison Livingstone's KILLING THE TRUTH pg 721)

 

4) James Curtis Jenkins was a lab tech at the autopsy and made this statement to David Lifton:

 

 (quote on)

 

I remember looking inside the chest cavity and I could see the probe...through the pleura [the lining of the chest cavity]...You could actually see where it was making an indentation...where it was pushing the skin up...There was no entry into the chest cavity...it would have been no way that that could have exited in the front because it was then low in the chest cavity...somewhere around the junction of the descending aorta [the main artery carrying blood from the heart] or the bronchus in the lungs.

 

(quote off)

 

5) Chester H. Boyers was the chief Petty Officer in charge of the Pathology Department at Bethesda November 1963. This is from Boyers signed affidavit:

 

 (quote on)

 

Another wound was located near the right shoulder blade, more specifically just under the scapula and next to it.

 

(quote off)

 

The location just below the upper margin of the scapula is consistent with T3:

 

 

 

6) SSA Will Greer in his WC testimony (Vol 2 pg 127) placed the back wound “in the soft part of that shoulder,” consistent with the testimony of Boyers.

 

7) SSA Roy Kellerman testified before the WC (Vol. 2 pg 93) that the wound in the back was “the hole that was in his shoulder.” Kellerman expanded on this for the HSCA witha diagram which placed the back wound in the vicinity of T-3.

 

8 )  FBI SA  Francis O'Neill said that the first location for the back wound that Humes gave was "below the shoulder." Here's O'Neill's HSCA wound diagram:

 

http://www.jfklancer.../md/oneill1.gif

 

9) FBI SA James Sibert also diagrammed a lower back wound:

 

http://www.jfklancer.../md/oneill1.gif

 

10) Autopsy photographer Floyd Reibe stated that the back wound was a lower marking on the Fox 5 autopsy photo (Harrison Livingstone's Killing the Truth, pg 721).

 

11) Parkland nurse Diana Bowron stated the same thing to Livingstone: the back wound was lower than the "official" wound in the autopsy photo (KTT, pg 183).

 

12) Bethesda lab assistant Jan Gail Rudnicki told Livingstone that he saw "what appeared to be an entry wound several inches down on the back." (Livingstone's High Treason 2, pg  206). This consistent with T3.

 

13) Bethesda x-ray tech Edward Reed reported seeing a back wound "right between the scapula and the thoracic column," although he thought it was an exit (KTT, pg 720). This location is also consistent with T3.

 

14) Secret Service Agent Glen Bennett wrote in a note the afternoon of 11/22/63:

 

(quote on)

 

I saw a shot hit the Boss about four inches down from the right shoulder.

 

(quote off)

 

4 inches below the right shoulder. Fact: the bullet hole in JFK's shirt is 4" below the bottom of the collar. Glen Bennett nailed the back wound.

 

15) Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, tasked with bearing witness to the location of JFK's wounds, testified before the Warren Commission:

 

(quote on)

 

...I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column.

 

(quote off)

 

6 inches below the neckline. Fact: the bullet hole in JFK's shirt is 5 & 3/4" below the top of the collar. Clint Hill nailed the back wound.

 

16) In his notes mortician Tom Robinson wrote: "And wound 5-6 inches below the shoulder".

 

 

 

 

 

Cliff and Denny, 

It's even a little bit better than that:

On point 2, you wrote "

2) The autopsy face sheet diagram prepared under the supervision of Dr. J. Thornton Boswell shows a wound location consistent with the holes in the clothes (4 inches below the bottom of the collars).

The diagram was filled out in pencil and signed off as "verified," also in pencil, also in accordance to proper autopsy protocol. The "14cm from the mastoid" notation was made in pen, which is a violation of proper autopsy protocol."

All true, but you omitted the fact that Dr. Burkley signed his name beneath the word verified!

And, that the WC version of Boswell's autopsy sketch sheet erased both Burkley's signature and the word "verified"!

The Warren Commission deliberately suppressed the basic primary written evidence that their own version of the wounds was false, and they had the nerve to publish an altered diagram!

It was not until 1967, I believe, that Harold Weisberg found the original sketch (turned over to the Secret Service the night of the autopsy) and "six pink copies" in the National Archives. The difference between the original sketch sheet, completed at the autopsy table by Boswell, "verified" and signed by Burkley,  and the altered copy released by the Warren Commission is egregious, deceitful, immoral, and criminal.

No one can look at the difference between the two versions and claim that what the Warren Commission did was innocent. Here is the unaltered version:

19 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

Even if John is correct, there are other witnesses that say that Phillips used the name of Maurice Bishop.

Phillips was also suspected of being in Banister's office for the Cuban exile telethon in 1961.

He also ran the the anti FPCC campaign along with McCord.

He was also involved in the whole MC  imbroglio. About which he lied his head off.

And he was part of the active cover up about that issue. Which he was smoking 3 cigarettes about when questioned.

Morales was running Oswald in New Orleans, and after?  Where the heck does that come from, Tommy Graves?

Jim,

Can you clear up something for me?

I agree completely that David Atlee Phillips is very, very suspicious. Almost certainly he was deeply involved with MC.

However, I've never seen any evidence that he actually met "Oswald", or John Armstrong's "Harvey", or Jim Hargrove's "Classic Oswald", terms which all refer to the same person. 

We do believe that Phillips met with someone who was impersonating the man arrested in Dallas on 11/22/63, the man married to Marina, the man shot to death by Jack Ruby, though don't we?

I mean, the man that Veciana saw in the company of Phillips could not have been the same man I just described, could he? It was a different "Oswald", wasn't it? Or, do we believe that Phillips did meet with the man later shot by Jack Ruby?

On 2/23/2019 at 4:56 PM, John Butler said:

Here's another speculation.  We usually think of the person in the New Orleans films passing out pamphlets as Harvey Oswald.  Based on the photo it could be Lee.  Would that make the photo shown a 4 Patsy photo?  Could who was to be the real Patsy still up in the air in the summer of 1963.  It could have been decided that one of the two, Harvey or Lee, was definitely going to be the Patsy. 

Could be anybody's guess.

Tony and John Butler,

There is some other evidence to support the speculation that a different "Oswald" was involved in the pamphlet distribution street-theater. Namely, the testimonies of both Philip Geraci III and Vance Blalock leave open the very real possibility that it was not "ClassicOswald" (to borrow Jim Hargrove's phrase) who had the initial discussion with the boys while they were loitering around Carlos Bringuer's store.

Permit me a rather long discussion, but one I think is worth considering:

1. The first thing that struck me was that 16 year old Phillip Geraci III did not recognize the "Oswald" he met as the man arrested in Dallas until after he got an unexplained visit from an FBI agent a few days after 11/22. Geraci said he saw pictures of the Dallas man, but:

Mr. LIEBELER - Do you recognize that individual in the picture as being the man that you saw in the store that day? 
Mr. GERACI - Well, tell you the truth, when I first heard about it in the papers and on the TV, I didn't recognize him. See, I forgot that I met this guy over there, you know, I forgot about it, and I thought I didn't meet him. It wasn't until the FBI man came to my house and he showed me a picture of him when he was first under arrest, and he got arrested in August, the 4th I think. 
Mr. LIEBELER - He showed you a picture that had been taken of Lee when he had been under arrest here in New Orleans? 
Mr. GERACI - Yes; it was one of those things with three things, showing him from the front, the side, and his face. 
Mr. LIEBELER - Did you then recognize the man in the picture, that they showed you as being the man that you met in the store that day? 
Mr. GERACI - Well, you see, I didn't exactly recognize him maybe, but anyway I was pretty sure it was him though. He said--he showed me that and said, "Do you ever remember an ex-marine and then I remembered there was a guy who was dressed something like that who was an ex-marine who came in, and he did have a funny name, you know, like Lee. It's a little unusual, it's kind of rare, and I remembered the last name was a little hard, so it just fits that that was him. "

On 1/28/2019 at 7:42 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

With his trip to Russia, staged FPCC activities, and commie-loving history going all the way back to the Marine Corps, it was easy to paint the Russian-speaking Oswald as a commie with ties to Castro. The main object of the assassination was probably to provoke an invasion of Cuba, which LBJ may have prevented by ordering the cover-up.

Oswald’s ties to both the FBI and the CIA made G-men, especially J. Edgar Hoover, all too happy to enter full scale cover-up mode.

Russian-speaking Oswald had demonstrated that he would follow even difficult orders, critical in the days and hours before and immediately after the assassination. (He absolutely had to be in the right places at the right times to become a successful patsy.  And a patsy was absolutely critical for the plot to succeed.  Without one, the search for the plotters would have been relentless.)

The “Harvey and Lee” project  made it simple to send around a fellow who looked like Russian-speaking Oswald in the weeks prior to the hit to set him up as the assassin-to-be.  For example….

• The Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target;
• Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth on Nov 2.
• The Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership also on Nov. 2 where he test drove a car at wrecklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car.
• The Irving Furniture Mart On Nov. 6 or 7 for a gun part where he was referred to the shop where Dial Ryder worked.
• The Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) on Nov. 15 to apply for a job and oh-so-subtly ask how high the Southland Building was and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas.
• Hitchhiking on Nov. 20 on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4-foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introducing himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald.” He discussed the President's visit, wondered if you could shoot a president, and asked to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” was already at work).
• The 1973 motion picture “Executive Action” with Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan does a great job showing how an “Oswald” look-alike traveled around Dallas in the weeks before the assassination doing many of the things listed above. 

Jim,

Of course the irony of that list is that none of the “incidents” could be attributed to “Oswald” by the Warren Commission even though they really happened!

Furthermore, that list has actually backfired on the conspirators because it has allowed us to prove “Oswald” was impersonated before 11/22/63!

Tony, I think the original plan to frame “Oswald” included killing him almost immediately after the assassination. A dead “Oswald” was much easier to frame than a living, protesting patsy. You are right that the frame was imperfect, but as I noted elsewhere, the most important thing for the conspirators was to have a clean getaway for the two men on the sixth floor of the TSBD.

I believe that the original plan called for a dead “Oswald” and an arrested (or dead) Frazier.

That is why the frame - up was bad: they didn’t think it would matter!

On 1/28/2019 at 3:43 AM, Tony Krome said:

How many of these posters were put up around Dallas, 5,000?

There's a good chance that Oswald, a man of the street and public transport, stopped to read one.

In reading that poster, you'd think the Oswald we've been told about and Kennedy would get along just fine.

Which brings me to the point of this topic : they select a patsy with no motive. This, combined with sketchy evidence, cover ups, untimely deaths and contradictions that ensued post-assassination, leads me to believe that Oswald was not their ideal or prime candidate on the day. 

A perfect operation would have left no room for doubt. Something went so wrong, they seemed to have "eaten one of their own" and were forced to utilise their fallback patsy in double quick time, then tried to fit a square peg in a round hole.

According to a familiar adage, “means, motive, and opportunity” are necessary to prove one's guilt in a criminal trial

Tony wrote: 'they select a patsy with no motive. This, combined with sketchy evidence, cover ups, untimely deaths and contradictions that ensued post-assassination, leads me to believe that Oswald was not their ideal or prime candidate on the day. "

In a 1999 interview with Barry Ernest, the late Harold Weisberg had some interesting things to say along those lines:

(Ernest) So this was well thought out in advance. This was not a last minute let’s-put-the-blame-on-Oswald deal?

(Weisberg)) That’s right. I think the basic understanding is, whether or not it is true, you’ve got to begin with the belief that the assassins were looking only for some lead time to get away. And once they had the rifle in the Depository that pointed to Oswald, that gave them some time. How were they able to do everything else? Who could have known, for example, what the number on Oswald’s rifle or pistol was [since he had ordered them under a false name]. They couldn’t. How did they know the rifle would point to Oswald?

(Ernest)This would have had to be planned out with amazing precision.

(Weisberg) I think that the planning was only for getting away. No body getting caught. After that, it was all improvised by the government.

(Ernest) The gun had to be in the Texas School Book Depository.

(Weisberg) That’s one of the things only a limited number of people would have known. It had to be there the night before.

(Ernest) They had to know Oswald wasn’t standing there talking with someone at the same time the shots were fired.

(Weisberg) Yeah. But they could have pointed to Oswald saying he was involved with somebody else. They could have picked him up as an accessory."

Note that Weisberg hurdled one of the primary objections to the "Prayer Man" theory, namely "Why would the conspirators allow the patsy to be in a position - the front stairs - where he could prove his innocence?"

Weisberg's ingenious answer: They (the conspirators) would "have pointed to Oswald saying he was involved with somebody else. They could (would!) have picked him up as an accessory" !!!

48 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

 

I don't know why my original post disappeared, but Jim, I was commenting on the bizarre "coincidence" that a 22 year old man named Herbert Leon Lee lived at 1026 N. Beckley during October of 1963 - so for the last two weeks of that month, there were not one, but two male residents known as "Mr. Lee". 

Further, this H.L. Lee was employed as a . . . floor installer for the Trinity Floor Company. Now he later told the FBI that he had moved from 1026 N. Beckley on November 1, and maybe he had, but that means for a couple of weeks he and "Oswald" lived in the same small house.

John Armstrong's escape through the floorboards theory is only possible thanks to the (coincidental?) work being done on the sixth floor by the in-house crew, men all hired and directed by Roy Truly.

That floor work provided the perfect cover to loosen the floor boards to allow at least one of the men on the sixth floor to escape that way. Whether any of the crew knew that is doubtful, although Bill Shelley is highly suspect. 

Here is Herbert Lee's statement to the FBI and his later obituary. Herbert Leon Lee was a professional floor installer for more than 30 years in Dallas. And he lived in the same rooming house with "Oswald" right before 11/22/63.

What do we make of this?

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/shreveporttimes/obituary.aspx?n=herbert-quotleonquot-lee&pid=128925162#fbLoggedOut

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/shreveporttimes/obituary.aspx?n=herbert-quotleonquot-lee&pid=128925162#fbLoggedOut

John, 

I agree with you that it is likely that at least one of the sixth floor "team" was confronted by Baker on either the third or fourth floor, only to have Truly vouch for him. According to Baker's description, written as "Oswald" was sitting in Fritz's office and in plain view of Baker, this could not have been our "Oswald". 

So why didn't Dorothy Garner say anything about anyone coming down to the third or fourth floor after Adams and Styles went down?

We don't know, but it is possible that person was known to her, and therefore not a suspect in her eyes. Personally, if Baker's first day affidavit was correct as I believe, then the suspect was on the same floor as Garner - she may have witnessed it, and if she did, then there was no way to claim that the 2nd floor lunchroom encounter actually happened. So she disappeared from any list of people to be interviewed.

I did find a much later interview with her in which she said explicitly that "Oswald" did not come down the stairs, but she did note the confusion and chaos throughout the building. So much so, that her phones were commandeered and she had to call her husband from a nearby diner.

18 hours ago, Andrej Stancak said:

Besides my concerns about Shelley and Lovelady and the presence of power supply in the front of the building, there is also a question of the assassins' exit from the building. John suggests they exited the lift on the first floor. How could they be certain that they would not be seen by people standing close to the lift? They could not know who would stand there, this was beyond their control. No assassin would agree to a venture with uncertain escape. Further, how could they restore the wooden floor from below the floor - there would be certain signs that the wooden floor was tempered with, e.g. missing nails or similar. 

Andrej,

Yes, the actual departure from the passenger elevator did pose a risk for the escaping assassins. However, John has posited that one of them, the brown coat man, in fact was seen leaving the TSBD on the Houston Street side by both James Worrell and Richard Carr. This man did not leave the TSBD via the front door and go down the front steps. After departing the TSBD, this man apparently then drove the Nash Rambler to the spot on Elm Street where he picked up a white-shirted man running down the slope, away from the southwestern side of the TSBD. That man (white shirt) was seen by Roger Craig, and Craig believed he witnessed the flight of (LHO) from the scene, abetted by the brown jacket man from the sixth floor of the depository.

(Now, I disagree with John about the post-assassination 2nd floor lunchroom encounter, but that is not the point here.)

The two men on the sixth floor - seen by at least five and perhaps as many as forty witnesses before the assassination - escaped somehow: they did not run down the back stairs, they did not run down the fire escape, and there is no good evidence that they came down one of the old, noisy, slow freight elevators, elevators whose open gates would have made them easy to spot by anyone as those elevators descended.

None of those are viable options.

John's floorboard escape to the passenger elevator theory is plausible. That's why I wonder if the (unstated) purpose of the floor-laying crew was to loosen the boards near the "sniper's nest" to facilitate the escape. I am not saying all or even any of that crew knew the purpose - merely that their work could well have been the cover needed to loosen the boards for the getaway, and to prevent any later investigators from realizing just what had happened around the southeast corner window, just above the 5th floor elevator shaft.

Andrej, your question about the risk the moment they stepped off the passenger elevator is legitimate, but not insurmountable for John's theory to be correct. I have more to say soon.

Meanwhile:

I'd like to ask the readership about the possibility/probability/certainty that the man with whom Marrion Baker came face-to-face (with the light brown jacket man, a 30 year old white man with dark hair, 5'9, 165 lbs), as described in Baker's first day affidavit, was, in fact the same man seen by Worrell, Carr, and Craig?

On 2/17/2019 at 2:45 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

The TSBD electrical wiring is complicated, and we only know part of it.

John said the building was built in the 1890s and originally wired for electricity in the 1920s.  In 1961 the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors were remodeled as offices and rewired, with the addition of air conditioning and the passenger elevator near the front of the building.  There were thus two different sets of wiring and two different electrical boxes.

From the comments by Geneva Hine, Vickie Adams and others it is clear that at least some of the electric power in the building was cut off, probably twice—once during the hit and again a few minutes later).  Depending on how the power was cut, the floors above the 4th floor may have continued to have power while the electricity to the elevators and offices was cut.  This is just a guess, but clearly power to large parts of the building was turned off during the assassination.

Jim,

I have to say that, after re-reading John's essay, I do think that the passenger elevator shaft escape route is likely. I always assumed that to access the top of the elevator shaft, one needed to be on the fifth floor, but that wasn't so. The shaft went to the fifth floor, and so anyone on the sixth floor could access it, merely by removing floor boards. See the TSBD floorplan below. Note the notation "(No opening to the elevator shaft on the fifth floor")  (Did the sixth floor "flooring crew" do work around the "sniper's nest window"?)

I also agree with John that neither Lovelady nor Shelley claimed on 11/22/63 in their respective affidavits to the DPD to have gone to the railroad yards immediately after the shooting. 

The key point about Victoria Adams' (was that she placed Shelley and Lovelady near the electrical boxes at a time when at least some of the power to the building was out. 

If conspirators used the passenger elevator to descend near the front steps, then is it possible that Truly's decision to take Baker to the back of the TSBD was partly to keep Baker from  bumping into real assassins near the front passenger elevator?  The two men on the sixth floor got out of that building somehow, and the passenger elevator shaft is not a bad  bet.

3 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

The timing is everything here.  From Mrs. Hine’s testimony, it seems that the lights went out just as the escort car in the motorcade turned from Main St. onto Houston.  We think the electricity was off for only a minute or two, just enough time for the 6th floor assassin(s) to escape through the floor boards into the freight elevator shaft and the elevator itself.

Jim,

John's theory about the escape is certainly possible. However, I do think though that one of the assassins was actually confronted by Baker on the 3rd or 4th floor, near the stairs. Baker seemed to think so too, as in his first day affidavit, at the very bottom, almost as an add-on, Baker went out of his way to describe the man he confronted. This was after he had already described the man as cleared by Roy Truly - this is a clear indication that despite Truly's assurance, Baker did not fully believe Truly at that moment and wanted a description in the record. I think at that moment, Baker was trying to be an honest cop.

This is not to say that no one could have escaped via John's way - ultimately down the passenger elevator near the front of the TSBD. Someone may have, and then walked out the front door in the immediate aftermath.

However, John's scenario does raise the big question as to why none of the black employees on the fifth floor ever said anything about someone dropping through the boards from the sixth floor and then pulling up the boards on the fifth floor. Did they not see or hear anything? Were they intimidated into silence? Were they a part of the plot? John must fully address this, as it is a major obstacle to his theory that the escape of the sixth floor conspirators ultimately involved going down the passenger elevator (not the freight elevators.)

We do know that both of the freight elevators were up on the fifth or sixth floor during the assassination, as attested by Truly and Baker. We know that one of the freight elevators came down as the two men were going up. We know that Jack Dougherty told both the DPD and the FBI that he went from the fifth floor to the first floor after hearing a shot. Granted, Dougherty is very unreliable, but I am struck by the fact that neither the DPD nor the FBI mentioned HOW Dougherty claimed to descend from the fifth floor!

Did Dougherty actually take one of the freight elevators down? Or, were the ambiguities and the massive discrepancies in his various statements the result of a mentally retarded man being coerced by the authorities into saying something he neither fully understood nor could remember?

If, as I suspect, one of the assassins came down the freight elevator, then Dougherty's confused accounts were needed to hide that fact. I have found no account of  Dougherty's descent in which he claimed to have taken a freight elevator. 

He may not have. This failure to clear up the ambiguities in his statements was deliberate by the authorities. I think they were hiding something.

One of the conspirators may have descended on a freight elevator. We have proof one of the freight elevators went to the ground floor very soon after the assassination.

One may have been confronted by Baker on the third or fourth floor. We have proof that Baker confronted a suspect - not in the lunchroom, but on the third or fourth floor.

Maybe one (or both of them) descended via John's clever scenario - but there is no evidence for it and the black employees on the fifth floor during the assassination and thereafter are a major obstacle to it.

John needs to address this.

7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

That is true Ron.

But I have to add that Pat Speer has discovered evidence that although the Magic Bullet BS had not been codified yet, people like Ball and Belin realized in late December that they had a drastic shortage of ammo and a surplus of wounds.

I think the actual Magic Bullet was decided upon in either March of April of 1964.

Does anyone know the exact date?

Well, the Eisenberg summary memo of April 21, 1964 and Redlich's memo to Rankin on April 27, 1964 would seem to indicate that, while the WC was headed that way (the SBT), they hadn't quite arrived there, yet. However, in Redlich's immortal phrase, the timing and positioning of the shot sequence didn't really matter that much because:

"Our intention is not to establish the point with complete accuracy, but merely to substantiate the hypothesis which underlies the conclusions that Oswald was the sole assassin."

On 2/2/2019 at 1:27 AM, Tony Krome said:

Rich, the re-enactment photo was taken in March 1967, obviously to coincide with the alleged time frame of the Oswald photo.

There are some who believe that "Neely St" was not an actual residence of the Oswalds. Let's say in order to frame Oswald with incriminating photos, with both murder weapons, they decided to choose a place (preferably vacant) they could safely use with a man holding a rifle, then as Oswald suggested, superimpose his head.

Now, this could have occurred in November, 1963, immediately post assassination. So the shrub in the Oswald photo seems to show foliage whereas the photo known to be taken in March, seems to show the same shrub with no foliage.

This works IF the shrub is deciduous AND the nature of that shrub growing and losing foliage within the months I've mentioned.

If I was in Dallas, I would personally go to Neely St, look for the same type of shrub, and find out the characteristics of that shrub.

The first person who said that "Neely St" was not an actual residence of the Oswalds was . . . "Oswald" himself, according to Will Fritz on page 12 of his report. Fritz earlier wrote on the bottom of page nine that "Oswald was very evasive about this location".

Note that Neely was the cross street on Beckley where cabdriver William Whaley dropped off "Oswald" after leaving the Greyhound Bus Station on 11/22/63. 214 W. Neely and 605 Elsbeth were but a three minute walk from each other, and "Oswald" supposedly lived at both in the first half of 1963. 

I believe he did live at Elsbeth, but there was something going on at Neely. Was it a CIA safehouse?

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=29104#relPageId=12&tab=page

On 1/31/2019 at 5:38 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Wasn't Westbrook the one who a year or so after the assassination took a job with ?AID? (CIA front) in Vietnam training their policemen?  Maybe that was Hill, I can't remember for sure.  Whoever it was, might they have already been a cia asset while still with the DPD.  If so, considering Mayor Cabell had been since the mid 50's, would not Angleton or whoever he delegated  the responsibility to have been pulling the strings right down to street level?

It was Captain William R. Westbrook who was in South Vietnam, reportedly helping to train their police in Saigon. And yes, his actions on 11/22/63 are very suspicious.

On 1/16/2019 at 4:31 PM, Ron Bulman said:

This touches on an aspect of the autopsy that has reeked the most to me for years.  The selection of the autopsy Doctors.  None of them were current practicing Forensic Pathologists.  As I understand it, if I remember right, Finck was a Forensic Pathologist but he had not practiced in quite some time.  He reviewed the paperwork of others.  Humes and Boswell were general Pathologists.  Granted, they were all experienced and familiar with anatomy given the training required in their fields.  But, if your setting up the autopsy of the recently murdered President of the United States wouldn't you want the best available Forensic Pathologists?

I don't think Humes thought or said, I'm the head of this medical school, I'll take this one myself and selected Boswell to join him.  He was ordered  to do this.  Adding Army Doctor Finck was an afterthought to supposedly bring legitimacy to the proceedings given his official title. 

I forget which author in which book I read years ago pointed out that at least a couple of the leading, most respected, experienced Forensic Pathologists in the country were within about an hour of Bethesda by car or helicopter.  New York City comes to mind.

I realize the powers that be did not want the best available public or military.  They wanted someone who would suffice medically that would take orders unquestionably.  Per the AF1 transcripts they planned to take him to Walter Reed Army hospital, about a mile from Bethesda.  I imagine they had a pre approved team ready and waiting there.  But I've read somewhere back there that Jackie was insistent that if an autopsy had to be done at a military facility it should be Bethesda since JFK had been in the Navy.

So JFK's personal physician, Admiral Burkley directed the autopsy from the gallery.

Sorry Jim, wasn't trying to hijack you thread topic, I thought this kind of relates to the bigger picture regarding Finck.

Ron, 

If William Manchester can be trusted ( a big “if”), then Jackie was urged to select Bethesda. Also,  Finck’s New Orleans testimony would seem to indicate that the Surgeon General of the Navy, Admiral Edward C. Kenney, was in charge of the autopsy. It was Kenney who issued the written directive to the autopsy doctors ordering them not to talk, under penalty of court martial.

(The movie “JFK” so depicts him.)

Personally, I doubt Admiral George Burkley,  JFK’s personal physician, was a conspirator, simply because he was NOT called as a witness before Warren Commission, despite being the only man in the world who was:

1. Riding in the motorcade in Dallas

2. Present in Trauma Room One at Parkland Hospital

3. Flew aboard Air Force One with the body and the rest of the president’s party

4. Present throughout the entire autopsy at Bethesda.

5. Completed the Dallas death certificate establishing that Kennedy was struck in the back (NOT THE NECK) at the level of the third thoracic vertebra

6.Wrote “verified” and signed his name to Boswell’s autopsy sketch sheet, completed at the table (it had JFK’s blood on it), that depicted the president’s wound IN THE BACK, not the neck!

Of course, the Warren Commission did not dare publish Boswell’s original sketch sheet. They published an altered copy, one that erased both Burkley’s Signature and his word “verified”! It was not until 1966 that the National Archives released the original, which apparently had been in the possession of the Secret Service.

That was intellectual deceit at the grossest level, and no one, no one can possibly claim it was an “honest mistake.”

As a personal aside, in 1992, I was on the phone with the late Harold Weisberg, discussing the autopsy. As soon as Weisberg mentioned Kenney’s name, our connection was interrupted by an audible, loud blare/whine noise for about two seconds. Startled, Weisberg confirmed that I heard it too. He said he believed his phone was tapped, and that certain names or words triggered a taping system. 

He may well have been right. If so, then my voice and name are on some Deep State file somewhere. 

I hope so.

Screw those bastards.

They can rot in hell forever.

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Who the heck was a good guy on the DPD?

And what the heck was Tippit doing across the viaduct, pulling over the car, at the Tip Top Record Store, and then so far out of position at 10th and Patton?

When all is said and done, Westbrook might have been in on it.

Westbrook’s decision to “walk” to the TSBD, coupled with Croy’ “stuck in traffic” for twenty minutes, means both men could have been the unidentified DPD officers witnessed by Roy Milton Jones who searched McWatters’ bus just after “Oswald” got off it.

Westbrook had a suspect”s wallet at the Tippit scene, and he took the list of patron’s names from the Texas Theater. Predictably, neither item is in evidence today.

Also, Westbrook provided the unsigned statement that Car 207 could not have been seen by Earline Roberts, as it was parked in front of the TSBD that afternoon.

So, yes I’d say that “Westbrook might have been inon it.”

Douglas,

I can’t access A. J. Weberman’s whole document. What was his source for saying that de Torres was the Secret Service agent on the grassy knoll?