Greg Doudna

What an impressive achievement this six-part study is. Thank you Johnny Cairns for the labor and heart you put into this. 

This is the counterpoint to Posner's book, capable of going head to head with it and prevailing.

Sobering finding: that one-third of individual jurors say they would have given a different verdict than the jury on which they served found in criminal cases, if it had been up to them. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=lsrp_papers. 

The power of peer pressure in a village. I have often wondered if I were in a jury room and there was overwhelming belief and unanimous pressure on me in that room from the other eleven, including one or two a lot smarter than me whose judgment I respected, but I could see the evidence had been misinterpreted and there was no basis to conclude guilt stronger than inflamed but actually weakly supported suspicion, what would I do? You become an outcast to the village for obstructing the consensus. You want to be liked and approved, belong. You doubt and question yourself. The other jurors are alternatively pleading and impatient with you...

I know the right thing to do. Stand down that majority and don't buckle. But whether one does what is right is not always so easy to predict.

This is what comes to mind with accusations in village circles against Ruth Paine of all sorts of perfidy, forging and planting physical evidence, perjury, et al and et al, considered so primally true that it has been literally asserted no hard evidence is necessary or matters ... 

Three, maybe four, of the seven members of the Warren Commission did not agree with their own unanimous conclusion presented to America, the world, and history, that Oswald acting alone assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Senator Richard Russell, one of those seven, later told of this--said a majority of the Commission had wanted to find that others may have been involved, were not convinced it was Oswald alone. 

When a scapegoat is fixed upon by a leader pointing a finger, whether in a schoolyard or in a village or nation ... how risky and difficult it can be to defend that scapegoat. Fixing on scapegoats is a "cheap" solution when the harder task is to hold on to the reality of what may remain at present still unknown pending real solution.

2 hours ago, Miles Massicotte said:

Hi Greg, hope you are doing well.

From my perspective, it is not Lee's driving ability, nor Lee and Marina's willingness to lie to Ruth. 

As far as Lee's driving ability, I don't put much into that. As you correctly mention, Ruth mentioned that Lee could probably pass a driver's test. I personally don't think that driving is such a difficult task that, even if Lee was completely terrible at it, that he could make to the Furniture Mart for example, even if it was a bumpy ride.

I also have my reasons to suspect that both Lee and Marina would have their own perfectly sufficient reasons to lie to Ruth. Lee, because he was secretive. Because he was certainly hiding something. I have no doubt he lied even to Marina about that (i.e. the Walker shooting). Marina on the other hand, I feel it is a 50/50 scenario: 50% she would be willing to lie because she felt she had to be a good wife to Lee (as she told the press) and 50% because Ruth was physically attracted to her and it made her uncomfortable. That, at least, is the thesis of part of my own Oswald thesis. I don't believe Ruth Paine has lied about anything important, but I do have a feeling that she has kept something away from the public, and it is her inordinate kindness towards Marina which was ultimately born from physical attraction. If I had felt similarly, I probably would have acted the same way Ruth did. I think Ruth was a kind and sincere individual, but he letters to Marina hint at more than kindness and sincerity, in my opinion. 

In any case, no, I don't have any qualms about the Oswalds' ability to lie to Ruth, or about Lee's driving ability. 

Gertrude Hunter was insistent that she saw a Ford. As you know, the Paine's car was an Oldsmobile. If Mrs. Hunter's recollection was "it was some kind of older American car", then I would be with you. But she was quite sure it was a Ford.

Was it blue and white? Yes, but it's not like there was a massive range of colors in those days. A blue and white two tone car is not horribly specific. I tend to think that the positive identification of the car as a Ford outweighs the color.

I also take some issue with the following paragraph:

"It is not necessary to know exactly how Lee or (perhaps more likely) Marina knew where that key was and obtained it without Ruth’s knowledge, only that that is what happened. 
We know that happened, because the car was driven. Lee was seen driving it: the blue and white Olds, that car, the one parked in front of Ruth Paine’s house on the morning of Nov 11 before Lee drove it to the Furniture Mart."

For me, this is a bit circular. As I am not convinced that the same blue and white car is being referenced, I can't accept that it is not necessary to know exactly how the Oswald's got the key. In fact, such knowledge would ultimately aid in convincing me that perhaps Mrs. Hunter was mistaken in her identification of the car as a Ford. 

So, I'm not saying that your thesis is wrong by any means, just that I wasn't convinced by it, and this is why. It is entirely plausible. But I imagine if Ruth Paine herself wasn't convinced, it might be something along these lines. 

Hi Miles, thanks for explaining your thinking. On where they got the key, that would be out of some drawer in Ruth’s room where Ruth had it. The car was not in use, it was just always parked in front of the house, so Ruth had no need to carry the key with her. Ruth leaves the key at home in a drawer somewhere, no particular need to hide (it doesn’t occur to her that Marina and Lee might enter her room and take the key and drive the car without asking). They go into her room, look into her desk or dresser drawers until they find it, which may have taken only seconds to find it. From my point of view this is easy and what happened.

On the car model, in the earliest reports there was less than certainty. Hunter’s earliest she thought it was a Ford or Chevrolet. Mrs Whitworth thought it was a Ford or Plymouth. Both agreed it was blue and white and a sedan and mid-1950s. Michael’s was a blue and white mid-1950s Olds sedan. To me that’s close enough to be what those witnesses actually saw, and it has to be if they were seen driving a car, which they were, because that is the only one to which they had access. 

23 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The second guy Kittrell spoke to could not have been Curtis Craford, for these reasons:

It clearly was Craford, based on three reasons: California employment history match; motorcyclist; and Laura Kittrell positively identified him as Craford from the color photo of Craford published in the WC exhibits.

(I am puzzled though by Crafords denial later to Peter Whitmey that it was he in TEC in the Kittrell story, also that front teeth detail. But Craford fits. Kittrell said there was a Craford file there at her office. And Craford was unemployed at the time. Ruby started paying him cash under the table in there somewhere but no legal employment in Oct. And the person Kittrell dealt with basically tried to scam TEC with a Teamster affiliation claim and that could be a possible mob link which agrees with Craford.) 

45 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

J. Edgar Hoover said the guy wasn't Oswald.

Hoover never said Oswald wasn’t in Mexico City. He said a photo CiA gave FBI wasn’t Oswald. He told LBJ there might be an impersonator of Oswald in Mexico City. But I’m not aware that he ever said or expressed belief that Oswald himself was not in Mexico City.

Oswald wanted to get to Cuba more than anything according to Marina. Larry Hancock has convinced me the best and simplest way to make sense of Oswald’s ridiculous one-man FPCC show in New Orleans was he had learned or been told that was how he could have a credential to get into  Cuba (not that he was secretly anti-Castro and working for a US agency to take down the pro-Castro FPCC). (Then rudely surprised in Mexico City when told no.)

With all of his desire to get to Cuba, and with that objective as the best explanation of his New Orleans FPCC activity, why wouldn’t he go to Mexico City to try to get in, as Marina said he did (after initially denying that among other initial untrue denials of other things)? 

It wouldn’t rule out an imposter also in Mexico City. But more likely to me it seems the blond haired etc is either some different person by mistake confused in memory as Oswald, or witness error or both. Human error of some kind from months later in memory is a lot simpler explanation than massive faking and planting of disparate kinds of physical evidence and suborning perjuries under oath in a gigantic charade in which Oswald who wanted to get to Cuba never tried. Ockham’s Razor—where there is a choice, the simpler explanation is better. 

11 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

According to Laura Kittrell of the Texas Employment Commission, it was an Oswald IMPOSTER who appeared before her on October 17, the day after Oswald took the TSBD job. He didn't tell her that he was working for the TSBD.

(. . .)

He didn't seek employment after he got a job at the TSBD. An Oswald imposter did, as Laura Kittrell stated.

I have studied that Kittrell mss rather thoroughly and it is clear she is conflating separate instances of two persons as if they are the single person Oswald. But I do not think that was any impersonator. Rather that is Kittrell’s mistake in identification in telling her story later from memory. One was Oswald, and the other is not a mystery, it was Curtis Craford. The task is to reconstruct which parts of her narrative reflect Oswald and which Craford, nobody impersonating anyone, she simply confused in storytelling memory. 

I worked that out tentatively in some notes and the business of wanting a job in an office building downtown was Oswald and it was before he got the job at TSBD (not through TEC). 

57 minutes ago, Richard Booth said:

Regarding Ruth Paine I think the truth is self-evident, regardless of what hard evidence exists or doesn't exist. 

That’s a hard one to refute. A first problem with that is that what Ruth is suspected of and accused of, is all over the map with no consensus on definition of what you say is self evident guilt without need for evidence. 

And how self-evident is it? You act like it is a settled question long ago that is astonishing and disruptive to CT truth to question. 

Well, a sinister Ruth Paine is not found that I have ever seen in the extensive published work of John Newman or David Talbot or Larry Hancock.

Or in any of the HSCA investigation, or the Warren Commission or FBI or Secret Service or any other investigation before HSCA, save the sole and lone exception, the evidence-free and demagogic suspicions of Garrison’s Grand Jury in New Orleans.

And even Garrison wasn’t willing to do what Salandria seriously at the time pressed him to do, which was indict and charge Ruth Paine for conspiracy to assassinate JFK, which Garrisons staff regarded as lunatic on Salandria’s part given that there was not a shred of evidence for it.

Weisburg, first generation and to this day one of the strongest and most credible WC critics, didn’t accuse Ruth Paine. Most of the best CT works written, counting both statistically by numbers and by aggregate weight of reputation, have not. Oliver Stone’s recent JFK Revisited doesn’t, and that surely was an overruling over DiEugenio on that point who has long been the leading attack dog pushing unbelievable allegations against Ruth.

The well-presented, comprehensive, and eloquent presentation of the sober and serious Johnny Cairns just put up yesterday or today on Kennedy and Kings doesn’t. 

Jeff Meek, a journalist and serious CT writer, articles which can be found online and a book, interviewed Ruth Paine and reported on those interviews.

Meek robustly concluded she is clean on all counts right down the line.

Meek concluded no different than me on that, and others similarly.

2 hours ago, Marcus Fuller said:

I appreciate this is an older thread, but it seems pointless starting a new one just to comment on this one.

I don't respond to a lot of threads on here as I feel I simply don't have the experience or knowledge as yet to add anything of value, but as I feel as this is down to common sense, I've decided to put my 2 pence in. We cannot compare how a money order or cheque is dealt with now (ie electronically) as it was back then. The overall transactions are the same, the process is not.

 

Money orders (postal orders here) and Cheques are considered ONE USE items. An endorsement is essentially an approval of something. In this case performed with a stamp, giving the details of the 'agent' involved. It appears that some who assert it's genuine seem so caught up in the minutiae that they have overlooked the simplicity of it. The stamp is simply used at a 'checkpoint' and confirms that a stage has been completed during the entire process. Without that stamp, it would have been impossible to know whereabouts in the process the money order was at a specific point in time.

It's just the same as having a ticket punched on a bus, or having a stamp on your hand when you've paid and entered a venue for an event. This shows people that you have already paid your entrance fee and that your entry has been endorsed.

The stamp on the back of the money order is from Klein's and to me suggests it has been noted/recorded/prepared by Klein's, ready to be presented at their bank as a deposit. So it follows that the bank where it has been presented would then have added their stamp to show others in the bank that it has been deposited in Klein's account.

Without an endorsing stamp what is to stop someone presenting the money order again? 

I understand the point that maybe not everyone either remembered or bothered to add an endorsement stamp, and for the most part that might not be an issue, until something like this pops up. Unless there is confirmation of an event, it cannot be claimed that the event happened! 

Marcus, I deposit batches of checks made out to our window cleaning business once or twice a week to a bank machine, not a live person. I was surprised when first starting to use the machine deposit to be told by the bank that no endorsement or signature or stamp of any kind was necessary. As long as it is deposited to the right account at the machine, just shovel in all that paper as is and it’s all good. 

Saves a lot of time, much more convenient. For large businesses imagine how much easier to make batch deposits of hundreds of items without stamping each one.

You ask what’s to stop anyone from reusing the money order again if it wasn’t stamped. Well the name of the payee on the money order would stop anyone who wasn’t that name from doing so, just as in the first place. And yes if I were to be able to break into that bank machine and get one of my unstamped checks back out after it had been credited to my account once, I could indeed reuse that check a second time. 

But that is prevented by the security of the physical paper in a batch deposit now in the custody of the bank. As long as the bank has those batches secure and separate and properly tallied, which banks and automated systems are perfectly capable of doing, it is secure.

Therefore it is simply reasonable that batch deposits without need for individual stamping or signatures would satisfy every practical and security issue and be a lot more efficient for all concerned, and legally recognized as proper. That is how I interpret the Kleins money order, reasoning back from my current experience with unstamped deposited checks today.

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

You guys will never understand the true nature of the assassination till you take into account everything we know about the Mexico City incident. And how it was used to implicate Cuba and Russia in the assassination, with Oswald being their conduit to the assassins.

On 12/1/2023 at 6:54 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

(. . .) after months of preparation, the CIA painting Oswald as a crazy communist out to kill the president, making it look like he'd met with KGB assassination chief Kostikov, and being given a $6500 down payment for killing Kennedy, etc., etc., 

Sandy two things. First, on Oswald in Mexico City. Oswald himself said he was in his own handwriting, wrote it, the Soviet embassy letter draft, Oswald's handwriting. Silvia Duran at the Cuban consulate said she wrote down her address and office phone for Oswald, and Silva Duran's address and office phone is in Oswald's address book.

Marina after initial lying told of Lee going to Mexico City. Postal Inspector Holmes overheard Oswald telling Secret Service agent Kelley about going to Mexico City--Holmes testified under oath to hearing Oswald tell of going to Mexico City in his Warren Commission testimony. Oswald is attested at the door of Silvia Odio's in Dallas early evening Wed Sept 25 in exact agreement with timing and means of getting to Houston in time for the bus believed to have taken Oswald that night on first leg leg to Mexico city, Oswald seen by Silvia Odio driven in a car with a driver. No evidence Oswald was elsewhere during the days of the Mexico City visit.

Anti-Castro Cubans who had been in contact with Oswald in New Orleans who called Mrs. Luce the evening of the assassination told her they knew of Oswald in Mexico City (see in the Boylan and Hancock Redbird Leads article). Paper artifacts from Mexico City such as the bullfight were later identified as among Oswald's belongings. Oswald's Cuba visa application found on file in Mexico City had a photo of Oswald.  

That's a lot of evidence to just handwave away and assert it all was variously faked, forged, and planted, and Mexico City never happened for Oswald.

People keep saying CIA would have produced a photo of Oswald if they wanted to prove he was there. Well, maybe it wasn't wanted to be proved, after LBJ and co. decided it was going to be LN instead of Cuba/USSR involved. I half suspect they would have denied Oswald was in Mexico City altogether if that could have gotten away with it successfully. Oswald in Mexico City had zero upside for the LN interpretation wanted and was 100% downside to having Oswald be LN--obviously there was no incentive for CIA post-LBJ orders to prove he was there, and the only reason it was admitted it at all probably was because too much was out there to successfully deny it. 

(And were there really no photos of Oswald in Mexico City or were there simply no photos produced? not the same question.)

People say two US informants inside the Cuban consulate said they didn't see Oswald there, but they weren't in the office with Duran when he was there so doesn't prove anything. I know there are conflicting witness reports on physical descriptions, but witnesses can vary. Silvia Duran has both said it was Oswald and that the man she said was Oswald was shorter than Oswald is. The three Soviet embassy persons said it was Oswald they saw in their embassy, Azcue at the Cuban consulate denied it was Oswald he saw on TV two months later. There is no verified photo or physical evidence of an Oswald impersonator either, other than the two or three variant witness descriptions. I don't want to say an impersonator of Oswald in Mexico City is impossible, but I think the varying witness descriptions are weak evidence in themselves for the impersonator idea and so far as I can tell, that is all there is in support of the idea (of an in-the-flesh Oswald impersonator in Mexico City).

There definitely was a voice impersonation of Oswald in a phishing phone call to the Soviet embassy, which is what I think that was, CIA phishing. They didn't know about Kostikov until learning the name from that phishing phone call. That's when they learned that name of Oswald's contact inside, the point of the phishing phone call by the voice impersonator in the first place, to try to find out what Oswald had been up to inside that embassy. The Russian on the embassy phone who blabbed Kostikov's name to the phishing caller was probably new at the job and breached tradecraft when he did that. Immediately after that he hung up on the phishing caller. I like to humorously imagine some supervisor standing by and scowling, got the phone hung up and chewed out his inept underling. Kostikov as Oswald's contact inside the Soviet embassy was no advance setup, it was a coincidence of who was there when Oswald walked in.

Second, I am skeptical of your assumption that Oswald was set up for a false flag assassination of Kennedy months in advance. The issue is evidence. You cited Kostikov and I have just explained why I reject that as a planned encounter in the Soviet embassy, though after they learned the name it was available for exploitation opportunistically (though it wasn't exploited probably due to the decision to go LN).

Then you mention the Nicaraguan Alvarado claim to have witnessed a $6500 cash discussion between Castro people and Oswald to kill Kennedy when Oswald was in Mexico City. But that claim of Alvarado only first becomes reported and known after the assassination. It is a claim post-Nov 22 of something involving Oswald earlier in September. But there is no contemporary evidence in September of that payoff allegation (to my knowledge). And we know there were multiple and serious attempts in the hours immediately following the assassination to show evidence that Castro did it, was linked to Oswald who did it (the Pedro Charles letters, the call to Mrs. Luce). We know ca. Nov 22 is when major false-flagging of Castro and Oswald is happening.

Therefore when Alvarado emerges with his single-witness story in Mexico City right after Nov 22 claiming he saw Oswald receiving money from Castro people (or whatever exact specifics) earlier, this is by definition questionable as being true. 

Short answer: there is no satisfactory basis to believe it happened, and I don't believe it happened. 

Apparently Alvarado was Nicaraguan intelligence (probably delivered the Oswald Cuban payoff story as a cutout for a cutout from CIA or something). Alvarado says the story after Nov 22. He gets questioned by Mexican police and tells them he made it up, it wasn't true (in agreement with US desire to go LN now and have no Castro allegations). Alvarado then says the Oswald payoff story really was true after all and the Mexican police coerced his recantation. Then later he says the recantation really was true a second time. He's all over the map. Silvia Duran says it wasn't true. No other witnesses corroborate the story. It fits perfectly into known Nov 22 creations of fabricated connections of Oswald to Castro in Miami and New Orleans. Too dodgy.

The one "early" possible indication of framing Oswald for the assassination of which I'm aware is the ca. Sept 27 phone call from "Leopoldo", one of the Cubans at Silvia Odio's door with Oswald on Sept 25, who told Silvia Odio that Oswald had criticized the Cubans for lacking nerve to kill Kennedy if they were so angry with him over the Bay of Pigs. "Leopoldo" also spoke of Oswald capable of killing Castro. I don't know whether that reflects Oswald acting, or was made up by "Leopoldo" and did not come from Oswald. It could be motivated by an attempt to set Oswald up for a future assassination of JFK, but I can imagine other plausible explanations that do not require that interpretation.  

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

FWIW, I reject the idea those involved in Oswald's hiring were a necessary part of a plot.

I do so for a number of reasons.

Among these is that I had many conversations over the years with a life-long friend who rose to the level of LT. Col of U.S. Special Forces (the Green Berets). He spent years training Green Berets, and, for awhile, while he was in the reserve, SWAT officers. He trained them in tactics--how to create a plan, and how to execute that plan. His expertise--at least the one he would talk about--was in hostage recovery. In any event, he stressed over and over to the extent that it became a recurring joke between us, that the key to the successful execution of a plan was PACE. PACE is an acronym for Primary, Alternative, Contingency, and Emergency. In other words, he shared that the secret to a successful military plan was to have 4 plans, not one. 

So...if the assassination of JFK was a military operation, or one performed by people who had military training, there may very well have been 4 plans in motion at the same time. There may have been 4 potential snipers in 4 different cities, or even 4 different buildings in Dallas along the parade route, with 4 different patsies in place to take the fall. We just don't know. It seems likely we will never know. But the important conclusion to be drawn from this is that it could very well be that Oswald was supposed to be the contingency or emergency plan, but was moved up to the primary plan once other plans fell through, OR he got a job on the motorcade route. 

More on Oswald's TSBD job and the location of the assassination

I agree with your reasoning Pat and there is this further in support. After Oswald was hired at TSBD Oct 15-16, he applied for other jobs elsewhere, all of which were on the likely parade route. These applications included the Adolphus Hotel on Commerce (inquired in person, October sometime before the 20th); the Statler Hilton Hotel on Commerce (wrote out job application and applied, Oct 31); the Allright Parking Garage on Commerce (inquired in person, ca early Nov, ca. 2-4 weeks before assass.) 

(There is something else that the late David Lifton found of great interest expressed to me privately: in the Laura Kittrell Texas Employment Commission story, she says Oswald told her early Oct when he was at the TEC with her that he wanted an office job in a building downtown, and included the word "downtown". Said he did not want a manual labor job. Laura Kittrell's story was not paid much attention with problems cited with it, and she was never called to testify. Laura Kittrell also said Oswald took an aptitude test in Oct 1963 and she discussed his scores with him and told him he would not have the physical aptitude to be a very good shot with a rifle from her experience with men with those scores. Oswald told her that that was true, he was not a very good shot from his testing in the Marines. If that detail held up--Kittrell claimed the paperwork would be at TEC for it, but there is no record of an attempt to find it--that could be standalone reason not to have Kittrell be credible or called to testify.)

Sandy, how do you interpret these at least three job inquiries/applications, all in tall buildings overlooking the likely parade route through downtown, that Oswald pursued after he started work at TSBD?

I'll say what it looks like to me. It could go two ways.

The innocent explanation (Oswald has no idea whether at TSBD or anywhere else that he was being set up and does not know an assassination is coming): Oswald took the TSBD job because he could get it and he was desperate, but it wasn't what he wanted, and he was trying to do better.

The assassination plot explanation: Oswald or someone advising him wants him on the parade route and Oswald tries to find some employment in a tall building directly on the parade route.

Was Oswald or someone interested in getting Oswald to a location with better access and opportunity for a sniper shot?

This would need to be rechecked, but I think those buildings faced Main as well as Commerce, located between those two artery streets. If the parade came down Main (which would be a very good guess or near-certainty?), an upper floor of one of those buildings (all were high-story buildings) could have a direct sniper shot that TSBD had no guarantee of having if the parade route went through Dealey Plaza via Main instead of Elm.

If there was an assassination conspiracy plot involving Oswald in some form--the plans might be fluid, with knowledge of the exact parade route in flux and uncertain at the time Oswald started his TSBD job. There was no certainty at that time that the parade would go past the TSBD on Elm.

Were Oswald's three job inquiries at high buildings overlooking Main Street where the parade was almost certain to go (unlike past Elm) some attempt to "improve upon" TSBD as Oswald's location by the time JFK came through?

Then when Oswald failed to get any of those jobs, a way was found to have the motorcade do the dogleg on to Elm, and the assassination then proceeded with TSBD/Elm Street logistics?

All of these three efforts of Oswald to relocate from TSBD closer to the expected parade route postdate Oswald's start date at TSBD, Oct 16.  

Vince Palamara probably has the information on when the motorcade was fixed or changed to go past the TSBD on Elm, but as I recall it was a lot later than Oct 16. For what it is worth, Bill Sloan with Jean Hill, JFK The Last Dissenting Witness  (1992), 113, speaking of motorcycle cop Billy Joe Martin who was at the left rear of the presidential limousine when JFK was assassinated:

 "He hesitated for a long moment. 'If I tell you about this, Norma Jean, you've got to promise me you'll never breathe a word of it to anybody,' he said softly. 'Not even to Mary or your mother or your kids. Not to anybody, understand?'

"'Okay, sure,' she said, a little taken aback by the gravity of his tone. 'I won't tell a soul, I promise.'

"'Well, when Kennedy was busy shaking hands with all the wellwishers at the airport, Johnson's Secret Service people came over to the motorcycle cops and gave us a bunch of instructions. The damnedest thing was, they told us the parade route through Dealey Plaza was being changed.'

"'Changed? How"?'

"'It was originally supposed to go straight down Main Street,' J.B. said, 'but they said for us to disregard that. Instead, we were told to make the little jog on Houston and cut over to Elm.'

"Jean felt her mouth drop open. 'My God,' she said in amazement, 'if you'd stayed on Main, Kennedy might've been completely out of range of whoever was shooting at him' (. . .)

"J.B. stared at her with a straight face. 'Maybe that's why they changed the route,' he said bluntly, 'but that's not all. They also ordered us into the damnedest escort formation I've ever seen. Ordinarily, you bracket the car with four motorcycles, one on each fender. But this time, they told the four of us assigned to the president's car there'd be no forward escorts. We were to say well to the back and not let ourselves get ahead of the car's rear wheels under any circumstances. I'd never heard of a formation like that, much less ridden in one, but they said they wanted to let the crowds have an unrestricted view of the president. Well, I guess somebody got an "unrestricted view" of him, all right.'"

 @Sandy Larsen, this suggests a different picture than your certainty that the TSBD location was selected by plotters as Oswald's location before Oswald was hired at TSBD and before there was knowledge the motorcade would go by the TSBD.

It suggests a different picture than your certainty that: Ruth Paine, upon instruction of a CIA handler, after learning from Linnie Mae of the TSBD job possibility, was caused by said handler to intervene at TSBD to make Oswald's job happen at TSBD by means of a cold call to building supervisor Roy Truly. Ruth's handler caused Ruth to cause Truly to hire Oswald by means of that cold-call phone call. (It was a good thing thing Truly was in a good mood that morning to listen to a strange woman calling him long-distance by phone from Irving on behalf of another stranger he never met--how could a building superintendent possibly say no to that? what could possibly go wrong with that planned method of CIA plotters to have Oswald placed there?)

Instead of the other possibility, Sandy, that Ruth made that phone call to Truly to, you know, try to be helpful with no guarantee of success, on her own initiative. 

Lee looked for jobs before and after his hiring at TSBD. And whatever the true explanation may be, the three known post-TSBD job inquiries by Oswald all appear to have been to locations with better sniper shot opportunity at JFK on the expected parade route at the time of those job inquiries.

Consideration of these facts should evaporate your certainty that Ruth Paine's phone call to Truly proves Ruth had a CIA handler. It proves no such thing.

On a new accusation leveled against Ruth Paine: that she and Priscilla McMillan are birds of a feather. 

I’ve seen YouTube clips of Priscilla McMillan and I have her book Lee and Marina or whatever the correct title is. 

I haven’t studied her directly but from what I know, she applied to work for CIA and was turned down, but was regarded by CIA as a friendly asset to be utilized but with limits from her moral scruples. It is not clear at least to me whether she knew she was so regarded and used or if so how much, and I prefer to not leap to conclusions where there is uncertainty (not that I always live up to that). 

Now to turn to what she has done, her works and voice and if she is a good or bad person. The main voice I know of her is the Lee and Marina book, which is what I would call the 25%-strength Harlequin-lite version of Marina’s story with Lee. 

And Priscilla herself comes across as a bit naive and believing that Harlequin-lite story version, even though I believe she attempted not to embellish much and stick to facts from what Marina told her as the raw material. 

Yes, her book was funded and got great press and celebrated partly because Marina has always been an interesting figure to the American public and also because it bolstered up the mainstream Warren Commission narrative believed to be some combination of truth and useful myth for Americans to believe (who like children are so prone to believe daft ideas if left to themselves, so good to emphasize useful narratives that have some truth to them, I believe is an approximation of the thinking).

Now with all that, is she a bad person?

I don’t see it.

A bad person is someone who kills or slanders or knowingly falsely or recklessly smears, who is nasty and vindictive, who brutalizes or bullies others physically or verbally, who takes advantage of or exploits others weaker or less intelligent or poorer or disabled because they can, who assists or acts as apologist for horrendous human rights abuses and totalitarianisms either of left or right, who is racist, who mistreats animals, children, or elderly, who delights in the suffering of others, who does not care about a better world … (etc.)

I don’t see what I know of Priscilla McMillan as being a bad person. 

Now for the Ruth comparison. Some similarities, personality maybe, strong women, some idealism and naïveté, belief in the Oswald LN narrative, similar suspicions of being used by the agency, with the difference being some use of Priscilla as asset is verified whereas nothing in terms of verification or evidence of that for Ruth.

Ruth has denied she was ever CIA or dealt with anyone she knew was CIA and I believe her because there is no evidence to the contrary and because she said it, in the absence of evidence otherwise.

But as a thought experiment, what if Ruth was a bird of a feather with Priscilla.

So what? Priscilla wasn’t a bad person. Priscilla didn’t kill Kennedy and I strongly doubt would have wittingly covered up anything material related to its solution or Oswald’s innocence if she was convinced it was true.

Nor did Ruth kill Kennedy, cover up anything material to the case or known to her that would be exculpatory to Oswald, did not knowingly support misdeeds of the US govt or human rights crimes. The deep distaste, the smearing, the suspicion of Ruth of everything under the sun of some, is Rorschach Inkblot projection and not founded upon a foundation stronger than suspicion cited as its own evidence for itself. 

1 hour ago, Richard Booth said:

 

Ruth Paine and Priscilla Johnson-McMillan are birds of a feather

Never thought I would see some write a disclaimer that they're against death squads, that's a first.

You’re the one who associated Ruth Paine and US supported death squads in the same sentence implying a relationship. Now the snark to a serious response to your wholly unfounded insinuation. I’m through talking with you.

7 minutes ago, Richard Booth said:

Well, she was spying on Nicaraguans at the time the CIA was running a death squad there so forgive me if I'm suspicous of the poor innocent Quaker

You mean she was suspected in Nicaragua directly because of the unfounded allegations against her related to the JFK assassination. Ruth suffered from suspicions there but there was never any proof for those suspicions, and Ruth's behavior such as taking down notes from a bulletin board all have innocent explanations for those not predisposed to see the worst. (Also, minor point but I believe her time in Nicaragua postdated the contras civil war and the death squads activity to which you refer, horrors which there is no basis for supposing Ruth had anything to do with. The Friends Meeting at St. Petersburg of which Ruth was a part and I was too as Friends across America opposed US support of the contras and US complicity in death squad activity.) My earlier discussion of that: 

11 minutes ago, Richard Booth said:

Meanwhile we have Ruth Paine's Magical Mystery Garage Evidence Factory ™

Just curious, why are you not labeling that "The Dallas Police Department's Magical Mystery Garage Evidence Factory"? 

Who plants evidence most of the time, if there is evidence planted? 

Why the lightning rod witch accusations zeroing in on Ruth who allowed Oswald to store his belongings there, and for whom there is not any evidence whatsoever that she planted, forged, fabricated, or had training or expertise in doing so, any physical evidence.

"No good deed goes unpunished" is right.

Just now, Richard Booth said:

To me, it certainly is suspicious. Very unusual at the very least. Giving Paine the benefit of the doubt, one could say he was being sneaky and dishonest by showing up at a meeting of the Minutemen or whatever it was. Posing as a supporter to "spy" -- acting out some kind of strange amateur sleuth endeavor. Very odd.

I think Michael Paine probably was keeping the FBI informed on some things, such as Marina moving into his wife's house. To my knowledge Michael never was asked nor denied FBI contacts. Ruth denied she had any FBI contact before meeting Hosty at her front door Nov 1, and was asked whether Michael had been an FBI informant (asked Ruth but not Michael that question). Ruth answered not to her knowledge and she doubted it. 

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

BTW, as far as I know, they all could have shared the same handler. Though I think not because, with multiple handlers, one not knowing what the other is doing, that makes it very difficult for any of them to put the pieces together and suspect a plot.

I know there are mysteries to the JFK assassination, and I don’t know what happened, other than JFK was shot; CE399 didn’t come from Connally’s stretcher; JFK’s head was hit with a frangible not military bullet; LHO’s rifle and fingerprints were found on the 6th floor TSBD on Nov 22; on Nov 11 Oswald had repaired and reinstalled the original crappy scope and its base mount on that rifle for apparent purpose of a conveyance to someone or sale; LHO was a mediocre shot with no practice shooting in the days and weeks prior to the assassination and no ammunition or cleaning equipment found in his belongings which is inconsistent with him shooting on Nov 22; the NAA analysis of the paraffin casts appear to establish that he did not fire the Mannlicher-Carcano that day; LHO showed no advance sign of planning to assassinate JFK or sign of animosity toward JFK, denied he did, was not provided legal counsel, and claimed he was a patsy; whoever was at the 6th floor by choice passed up a perfect and best shot at JFK on Houston before the turn on to Elm for no explicable reason in any lone nut shooter interpretation; there may have been a manipulation of the parade route to Elm and Houston at a late stage; Ruby did not kill Oswald for his reason stated; RFK was probably correct in private belief that JFK was felled by domestic opponents the only question being who and how; there was no international component to the origination and planning of the assassination; there was a false flag against Cuba attempt at exploitation of the assassination which was immediately and decisively suppressed by LBJ; Oswald was at Silvia Odio’s door on the evening of Sept 25 with two Cubans who appear now likely correctly identified for the first time by Boylan and Hancock and tie into New Orleans anti-Castro Cubans and CIA contacts as the likeliest context for a setup of Oswald; there were some witnesses killed and threatened; there cannot have been many who knew what happened; there was a conspiracy in the legal criminal sense; Oswald was an anti-authoritarian leftist who liked Castro and wanted to get to Cuba; Oswald fled evasively following the assassination; there was no large-scale unreported subornation of perjury of witnesses and Marina was not, certainly in any large-scale way, instructed by the FBI or other parties to run a two-track testimony of one false script for the record and one true set of answers kept secret; Oswald’s writings in his hand found in his belongings are authentic, consistent in ideology, and not lunatic; Oswald was intelligent, rational, without formal education and a horrible speller, all at the same time; Garrison freewheeled on to some leads by accident but did not identify or prove any solution to the assassination, was a loose cannon who accused innocent people, and was not admirable; CIA has covered up from the beginning but what and why is not entirely clear; Nixon’s unsuccessful attempt to get Helms to give him what the CIA knew about “Who shot John?” refers to the assassination even if it was an expression which in other uses didn’t; most published JFK conspiracy theories are wrong; JFK in his presidency and RFK despite heavy flaws were lights of a better path of America in the world not taken, and as a Danish photographer who travelled the South and stayed in countless homes of people told, on mantles in homes of poor blacks all across the South he saw pictures of JFK, RFK, and MLK and that can’t be faked, there was something real there lost; Ruth Paine was not a witting part of either the assassination or a coverup, did not have a handler, and has been wrongly accused and maligned. 

Apart from that, I don’t know what happened.

I can’t buy yours because it’s too outlandish. On the shelf with the other unsatisfactory solutions. My opinion.

3 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

So you believe, after months of preparation, the CIA painting Oswald as a crazy communist out to kill the president, making it look like he'd met with KGB assassination chief Kostikov, and being given a $6500 down payment for killing Kennedy, etc., etc., the CIA had no plan for where the shooters would station themselves, or how they would get in our out of the building(s).

No, according to you the plotters just left it up to chance where their designated patsy would find a job.

Only for Oswald to MAGICALLY happen to get a job where the plotters needed him to be!

That's just nuts, Greg.

I'm not sure the assassins picked the building before Oswald was hired there, no. I also am not sure Oswald had a CIA handler. And I think the Kostikov meeting was unplanned and an accident.

Larry Hancock's recent Lancer presentation argued well that Oswald was less easily handleable than often supposed, that Oswald wasn't very good at obeying orders, and questioned the idea that Oswald was being "run" by a handler as distinguished from doing his own thing, surveilled and used.    

But suppose you are right and both were true (assassins picked TSBD in advance of Oswald's hiring; Oswald had a handler who sent him there).

If you think Oswald was told by his handler to turn down all other jobs offered (but why then go interview for them at all?)--but he was told by his handler to apply and accept a job at the TSBD ... and you have Roy Truly told by his handler to make sure he hired Oswald when Oswald came in the front door to apply ... what does that have to do with Ruth?

How does that prove Ruth followed a handler's instructions to perjure under oath to the Warren Commission?

She's not necessary in that picture for anything. Oswald goes to Truly, Truly hires him, done.

Ruth's phone call not needed in this picture.

There's no evidence Ruth perjured about that phone call, and you just invoke out of thin air that it would be necessary for her to have been instructed to do so.

To paraphrase Ockham's Razor, why multiply your CIA handlers and marionette-string-controlled handlees scripted to what they are to say over the next sixty years unnecessarily? 

/ /

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

@Greg Doudna

How do you think the CIA plotters got Oswald into the building they needed him to be?

You think Ruth Paine was a witting CIA asset (not paid employee?) who was asked by CIA to get Oswald into that specific building. If that were the case then after the assassination Ruth would have put two and two together, and the honest and right thing to do would be to have blown the whistle on that, not perjure under oath about it in service of the assassins. I don’t buy your hand wave idea that she was told, it’s necessary to avoid World War III blah blah blah, and she says, OK and does a lifetime of coverup to the present day in 2023 in order to still keep avoiding war in 1963… makes no sense.

Therefore while I realize you do not hold she was a gunman or had foreknowledge, you do suppose she had immediate afterknowledge and committed serious witting crimes (perjury and failure to disclose knowledge, conspiracy to cover up, etc, serious crimes), and never told, on behalf of the assassins who killed a president she loved.

That is outrageous, without any positive evidence, and with massive implausibility arguing negatively.

Yet you (so to speak) reason from your four named starting points to a flawed conclusion, close your eyes and wave your hand and the last sixty years of Ruth becomes, presto, one giant charade in your imaginary world.

Based on: the foundation of your starting four points, which actually are a foundation of logical fallacy reasoning.

To answer your question, I doubt there was an advance plan to place Oswald in TSBD. What do you do with all the prior job applications which by all appearances Lee tried to get? What if one of those employers had hired him? Those kinds of questions. 

I think in terms of it was one of two things: either no plan to have Oswald placed anywhere, but after he landed (wherever that was, TSBD as it happened), he was induced to xyz whatever and logistics planned accordingly. Or alternatively, if he was wittingly participating in something from the getgo, have him get a job anywhere in a building on the parade route or as close as he can, then work with that. 

If there WAS an advance intent or necessity to get him into TSBD with or without his knowledge, it about only could be done by, and would require no one else than, Linnie Mae. She invites her brother up from Huntsville and sets up a TSBD job for him. Buell doesn’t need to be witting but he is in place to know the bosses there and if asked, Buell could put in a good inside word at TSBD to help Lee get hired. Then Linnie Mae tells Buell about Lee’s need for a job learned from down the street. Soft-spoken Buell helpfully makes his polite inquiry, tells Linnie Mae. Linnie Mae then makes a point of getting word to Lee via Ruth Paine at the neighbors morning coffee, of the possible job opening, Ruth will pass it on, Lee will go in, he is hired, success. No Ruth phone call needed in this scenario, it is gratuitous, and Ruth could not have gotten Buell placed in TSBD in advance anyway. I do NOT think this is what happened,. But if it did hypothetically become established that the assassination could ONLY have come about if there was an advance intent to place Lee in that particular building to the exclusion of any others, that is what I would look at (and even then with a lot of tentativeness).  

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The strongest evidence of Ruth having worked for the CIA is as follows:

1. The Mexico City incident (among others) proves that CIA plotters targeted Oswald as a gunman or patsy for the assassination.
2. The CIA plotters had to get Oswald employed at their chosen sniper location, the TSBD.
3. Ruth Paine and Linnie Mae Randle admitted that they suggested Oswald take a job at the TSBD.
4. Therefore Ruth and/or Linnie Mae were CIA assets under the control of the plotters.

(. . .)

Q.E.D. Ruth Paine was definitely a CIA asset. 

This kind of reasoning is how innocent people have gotten railroaded. #1 is plausible though not airtight. #2 is possible but definitely not airtight. #3 is a stipulated fact. #4 in no way follows as established by the first three, as distinguished from suspicion alone. 

It is like the logical fallacy of if you helped a man in a stranded car by the side of the road change a flat tire and he then drives off and does a contract murder, that means you were part of the killing.

You are taking suspicion and calling it proof beyond reasonable doubt.

In this case that suspicion, unproven at best if viewed in isolation, has reasons not in isolation weakening it as being implausible. One is Ruth Paine’s own version is completely believable, another is the need to explain Linnie Mae’s and Truly’s cooperation to have the hypothesis work, escalating exponentially the complications required. A third is Ruth Paine did not die untimely after the assassination indirectly suggesting she had no truly sinister witness knowledge in the case of a true assassination conspiracy.

A fourth is the lack of necessity of a Ruth Paine phone call to get Oswald hired there if there was such an operation, or how her phone call could be supposed to be a reliable mechanism to have ensured the desired outcome. A fifth is the question of whether Oswald was witting in the scenario; if not, then no guarantee he would take the job or remain there, but if he was witting then who needs Ruth Paine to get him there. A sixth is (I hate to mention him because I am certain he is no less innocent) it is not well known but Buell Frazier asked Shelley if there was an opening for Oswald prior to Ruth’s call, and he did that because Linnie Mae had heard the previous week through the neighborhood grapevine of Lee’s need for work, husband of Marina who was expecting, before the known coffee klatch. Linnie Mae certainly and to a lesser extent Buell too downplayed that timeline for understandable reasons, with the effect of leaving Ruth in the limelight when Ruth was (in the analogy) more like the second or third car passing by stopping to assist the stranded man who needed help by the side of the road, not the first who stopped, before the man thanked them and then drove off to do a murder, which none of the ones who stopped to help him had anything to do with.

In a witchhunt mentality, any coincidence or detail is regarded as incriminating, and the gap between unsubstantiated suspicion and conclusion is short-circuited. Fortunately Innocence Project type lawyers work to push back on a few of the convictions of innocent persons that have happened countless times in history with the kind of logic you are setting forth here.

Lynching someone innocent or disliked makes villages feel better and purged in the face of unexplained trauma in cases where real causes are a mystery, a phenomenon wired deep into human tribal behavior going back into prehistory, according to the work of Renee Girard and others. The CT community is the village and the JFK assassination is the unresolved trauma.

I think Ruth Paine’s unforgiveable sin to the witchhunters is that she in good faith believed Oswald did it, believed what a government investigation found, the Warren Commission, and sought from start to finish to assist that investigation by truthfully telling what she knew. 

None of her testimony incriminated Oswald in any crime, or in the assassination, for she never knew of nor ever claimed to know of incriminating  evidence of Oswald personally. But she believed the investigators who concluded that Oswald did it on grounds other than Ruth’s testimony, principally Marina and physical evidence grounds.

A moment’s reflection should bring to the surface the illogic of reasoning that belief in the correctness of the Warren Commission’s conclusion means Ruth Paine therefore was guilty of witting complicity with the ones carrying out of that assassination.

Yet that is what I suspect is the deepest psychological reasoning of what has been going on with the views toward Ruth Paine.

Ruth Paine loved president Kennedy. She voted for him. She supported him on civil rights. She with Marina lit candles and mourned as first reaction to the news of the assassination. She tried in her best lights to assist the authorities in bringing to resolution the facts of what had happened. She surely had human flaws as do any of us if one drills down close enough. But none of the major suspicions and allegations against her stand. 

And making that phone call to Truly to ask if he would possibly consider interviewing a young man with a pregnant wife who needed a job?

You are going to condemn her for that small compassionate act of kindness?

Burt Griffin was right when he told me re Ruth Paine: “no good deed goes unpunished”.

The late Hank Albarelli, who passed away in 2019, wrote that he interviewed June Cobb twice-weekly for a two-year period in the early 2010’s. It is possible that a prominent author such as Albarelli interviewing one of the JFK assassination’s potentially most important witnesses, a celebrated spy who never gave an interview or was heard from for decades prior to that, for hundreds of hours over a two year period might have photos and tapes.

There are plenty of photos of Jerrie Cobb of Tampa, Florida in her later years. All it would take is for Albarelli photos of his June Cobb—if he took any photos, such as himself standing with her—to be disclosed. I have no idea who has Albarellis photos of June Cobb and Leslie Sharp does not seem inclined to respond well to being asked.

It would also be nice if somebody could identify where June Cobb is buried and if she has a tombstone.

So far as I can tell, there was no New York Times notice or obituary, or any other news reporting notice of any kind, at the time of the death of one of America’s most fascinating women spies, New York City’s June Cobb, announcing that fact.

Supposedly Albarelli at the time of his death had a manuscript on June Cobb from those hundreds of hours of late-life first-ever interviews of one of America’s most important Cold War woman spies.

That manuscript is controlled in high secrecy by somebody unknown whose identity Leslie is not disposed to disclose. Leslie has resolutely refused to either confirm or deny she is that person herself.

Lots of secrecy surrounding the celebrated Cold War spy who may have had knowledge of some Mexico City CIA operation involving Oswald in 1963, Ms. Cobb. 

(Or is this some rabbit hole Albarelli was lured into by some agency’s idea of an elaborate practical joke?)

Who knows. But the first step would be to ask the gatekeeper of Albarellis photos of June Cobb, whoever that might be, for permission to post one or two.

Maybe that could be done over the next few days if a gatekeeper might permit it.

4 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Jenner was interviewing Murrett;

Mr. JENNER - Now, this is particularly important to us.

Jenner was trying to establish the colour of a particular bag;

Mr. JENNER - What color was it?

Mrs. MURRET - Possibly it was brown.

Mr. JENNER - Brown? 

Mrs. MURRET - I think so.

Now, according to you Greg, this bag was possibly green, correct?

I believe green is what Jenner had in mind in relation to Oswald's marine bag. I find it stunning that Mrs. Murrett did not disclose that she was colour blind. Thoughts?

I don’t know for sure that Lillian Murrett had a color-blind issue, that was just a guess as to explanation for her calling Ruth Paine’s station wagon tan or light brown, but it was an error of some kind and color blindness is more common than realized.

1 hour ago, Sean Coleman said:

Chevybelairgate…..blue,green,tan, two tone…..?

Sean, I wondered about that too, but Joe Alesi, Ruth's friend in California who is a collector and I think knows the current owner of Ruth Paine's old station wagon, helped fill in some information when I asked him about this a year or so ago.

The blue is purely an artifact of the photography process. The car in the photo is really single-tone light green but with too much blue in the color processing making the light green illusorily look light blue.

The car as it came from the factory and through 1963 and at least the first part of 1964 was two-tone dark green (Neptune Green) over light green (Seamist Green). At some point later than Feb 28, 1964 the top was repainted the same light green to match the lower part, making it a single-tone and this photo reflects that. Here is a classic cars site description of Ruth Paine's station wagon with some history: https://smclassiccars.com/chevrolet/75293-lee-harvey-oswald-1955-chevy-belair-station-wagon-with-jfk-assassination-ties.html#google_vignette.

Confirmation that Ruth Paine's station wagon was still two-tone dark green and light green on Feb 28, 1964: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1140#relPageId=715.

18 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

pp 157

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=40390#relPageId=206

Thanks. That timeline of your link has "brown and tan" but is misquoted from the Secret Service report which says Mrs. Murrett saw "a brown or tan colored station wagon bearing Texas plates". But never mind that, it sounds to me like Lillian Murrett had a form of red-green color-blindness, protanopia, in which greens look brown or tan (https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-health/what-do-colorblind-people-see#visual-differences-in-images).

Mrs. Jesse Garner:

 Mrs. GARNER - In this station wagon, that lady from Texas, that it had a Texas license, blue and tan station wagon or blue and white, something like that, 

This also could be a colorblindness issue. Blues and greens are difficult to distinguish in all forms of color-blindness (which differ in other ways but all have that) according to this article, https://www.color-blindness.com/2007/05/18/mixing-up-blue-and-green/. 

And Mr. Rogers who saw Lee pack belongings in and on top of Ruth Paine's car:

Mr. ROGERS. The station wagon was visible. I called my wife. I said, "Well, he must be leaving." They were packing all the things. (. . .) Kind of a gray station wagon. He was putting the packing, everything in that himself. (. . .) Well, they packed that night

It was dusk or night when vision is impaired. Could the reduced light have affected his seeing the light green of the main body of the station wagon as gray? (With the darker green top maybe largely covered with things packed overhead?) 

For sure Ruth Paine's station wagon was two tones of green, not brown or blue or gray, no matter what these three said they saw.

I suppose these cases illustrate that witness-reported colors are not always decisive in excluding identifications of cars or objects, and forms of color-blindness may be a factor. 

2 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Mrs. Murrett describes the station wagon as brown and tan

Tony I can't find that reference, have tried both Murret women, tell the reference please?