Greg Doudna

57 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

What Turner says is that he found Irving Sports, then Belin asks "What did you do?", Turner replies,"Found a man that owned it, Woody Greener"

That statement is consistant with directing his phone call to Greener's personal home phone number. Turner stated he called Greener that day (Sunday) or the next day (Monday), He didn't say two days later.

It doesn’t matter to me when the phone call was. Turner says the tip was of a sport shop in Irving and “I checked the crisscross and phone book and found there was an Irving Sports Shop at 221 East Irving Boulevard” and “Found a man that run it, Woody Greener…” I don’t know whether the “crisscross” gave business owners’ names. If it did then he could have gotten Greener’s name and looked up his home number and called him Sun Nov 24, OK. 

1 hour ago, Tony Krome said:

pp224 https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/pdf/WH7_Turner.pdf

OK thanks I see it. He found the phone number of the Irving Sport Shop and called it and talked to Greener. That sounds to me like that call happened Tue Nov 26, since that is when Greener was in the shop. He asks Greener if the Oswald rifle could have been sighted-in at that shop. Greener says he and Dial had discussed the Oswald rifle in the news and they didn’t think it had been in their shop. OK. Greener knows nothing of the job ticket or an FBI visit of Mon Nov 25 at the time of this call. Dial has not told him, consistent with Greener’s later testimony that Thu Nov 28 reading a newspaper article was the first he learned of an Oswald job ticket in his shop.

Dial had not told Greener (even though working with him in the shop Tue and Wed), and it seems never did tell Greener, that FBI Horton had visited Dial Ryder Mon Nov 25 and Dial had shown the Oswald job ticket to Horton then—a job ticket cash payment which Dial had incidentally not run through the cash register, skimming the cash from that and probably other job tickets too since he did that one, when Greener had been away on vacation ca Nov 2-15.

I suspect that low-level cash skimming in the background was partly why Dial was not more forthcoming about telling Greener. 

1 hour ago, Tony Krome said:

Not only surprising, but unbelievable. Let me run this past you;

F. M. Turner, on Sunday 24th Nov is handed information at the Police Station regarding a tip that Oswald had his rifle sighted over at Irving. He checks the phone book, finds Irving Sports, discovers Greener runs the show, and calls him, either the same day or the next. Greener answers, Turner explains the tip, and Greener says yeah, "they" have seen the photos of Oswald in the papers, and "neither" of them recall doing any work for the man in the shop. Greener said he would check the records.

We are talking Sunday 24th or Monday 25th for the Turner call. Of course Turner would be prompt about such a tip, it was fairly big case this JFK hit.

So what does Greener do on Monday the 25th Nov? He leaves town of course and ends up over in East Texas.

What you think so far?

Tony I do not immediately recall a doc or reference to Greener being informed by DPD that early, on Nov 24 or 25, of a report of the rifle having been sighted in his shop. What is your reference or link on that? 

4 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

I can see your point, except I'd imagine Greener, after reading the Nov 28th newspaper report, that the first thing he would have done is contacted his employee, Ryder, for all the juice. That would have been the evening of Nov 28th, the same time when CBS was interviewing Ryder.

Yes Greener did contact Ryder on Nov 28, to ask what was going on, and there is no mystery over Ryder’s basic response: he falsely told Greener, his boss, that he had never spoken to reporter Schmidt. We know this because that is what Greener told Schmidt the next morning that Ryder had told him. And from all testimony of Greener, Ryder did not tell him of the FBI visit Mon Nov 25. 
 

4 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

The Hunter Schmidt call was the next day, 29th Nov. It does stretch the imagination that Ryder did not disclose to Greener about an interview with the FBI at Greener's own shop on the Monday 25th Nov. A closed shop that Ryder had to open up on his day off. 

I agree that’s surprising but that’s what happened, according to Greener’s testimony. 

Back to basics: the Mon Nov 25 FBI visit to the Sport Shop (closed) and then to Dial Ryder at his front door where he lived is a fact. It was reported by agent Horton, and it makes sense given the anonymous but highly specific tip phoned in to the Dallas FBI office on Sun Nov 24; the Monday Nov 25 visit of Horton was FBI follow-up running down that tip. 

Therefore whether Greener knew or did not know of it is irrelevant to the prior foundation that it occurred. Then the only issue is whether Dial told Greener of it. Greener’s testimony says no. 

4 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

And you suggest that Greener forgot? cmon

No you misunderstand, I don’t think that. I think Dial never told him. 

4 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

@Greg Doudna Your purported keen interest in Hank's other work is confusing and dare I say suspect, Greg. Considering the unprofessionalism you exhibited on this forum and on Amazon when the book based on his last active investigation first hit the stands, surely you understand why I recoil at faux interest.

I am not the issue here. The issue is you have personal possession and exclusive control over that June Cobb manuscript, unpublished years of work of one of the major JFK assassination researchers, Albarelli, on one of the most important persons and sources in the whole JFK/Oswald/CIA saga, June Cobb--two years of twice-weekly meetings with her according to Albarelli--and you sit on it like a dog in the manger not allowing any open access to researchers (leave me out of it), as if you have the rights of God over that information which you did not produce, to dribble out in soundbites years from now down the road as you deign to see fit, instead of finding a university archive or other means of genuine public access or access to legitimate researchers, for that manuscript on this utterly important topic in your custody and control.  

This in the midst of all the efforts by this community to pry free the remaining withheld JFK assassination records from the agencies which seek to obstruct and prevent disclosure and access.

28 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Here's something more related to the "credible" Hunter Schmidt;

Greener stated that he was contacted by a reporter that he suspected was the same reporter that spoke to Ryder and published the Nov 28th story.

Hunter Schmidt confirms he phoned Greener on Nov 29th.

Now this is where it gets interesting, Greener said that the reporter told him that he spoke to Ryder BEFORE Ryder spoke with the FBI.

So I got to thinking. Horton (FBI) has his interview with Ryder showing as Nov 25th. Now, for some reason, Horton states he does not take the "Oswald" repair tag into evidence. He basically says to Ryder, you keep it. If Horton had of received the tag on that Monday, he would have had to officially date the receivership of that evidence.

What do you make of that?

 

See pp. 3-6 of my Sport Shop paper for what I make of that: https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Irving-Sport-Shop-109-pdf.pdf.

What you cite has nothing to do with reporter Schmidt saying anything untrue to Greener, or anything amiss with FBI agent Horton's reporting either. It is Greener's own lack of knowledge that Greener is expressing--Greener's lack of knowledge that FBI Horton had talked to Ryder on Mon Nov 25, before the newspaper article of Nov 28 and the Schmidt to Greener phone call on the morning of Nov 29. Ryder apparently never told his boss, Greener, of that Mon Nov 25 FBI visit (unless he did and Greener forgot). 

2 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

Greg, while you were snoozing, I found that Dial Ryder graduated in 1957, and married Peggie Jones in 1959. Does that change your above assessment?

Yes. It excludes the idea of a non-updated drivers’ license as an explanation for why Peggie’s address in that December news article is given as her parents’ address, and not Dial’s address.

In the absence of better information, it looks like either (a) some time between Nov 23 or Nov 28 and mid-December, Peggie left living with Dial and moved to her parents home, or (b) some mistake in the newspapers end of unknown mechanism.

I doubt it means Dial was living there too in December. But if his wife was there it would not be surprising if he was there a lot even if not living there.

18 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

It could also be a case of whereby Oswald knew the rifle could not be sighted in without shims and so asked dial to charge for a sighting in fee in the hope that dial would be forced to include the price of the shims once he realised shims were needed. In other words LHO might have been hoping to effectively get the price of the shims for free. In other words to be included in the cost of a general sighting in fee.

That sounds like something a frugal Lee might do.

And if the scope could not be sighted-in properly in the form it was shipped from Klein's, could that be the reason Lee had taken the scope off in the first place?

34 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I wonder if the $1.50 bore sighting charge could refer to the installation of shims. This would explain why LHO might have been willing to pay such a fee even though afterwards he intended on breaking the rifle back down.

Dial may have spotted that the scope needed shims and so he may have convinced LHO to add on this charge as the rifle could not be sighted in by LHO afterwards without those shims.

Well that's an interesting angle. It would not be impossible by my interpretation, since in my reconstruction the job ticket was written up at intake at the counter before Dial Ryder may have even seen the full rifle yet--I imagine Lee coming in, asking if Dial could do it, confirming how much it would cost, Dial writing up a hurried intake job ticket of what he quoted Lee as Lee was there or going out to the car getting the rifle to bring back in. The point being that technically that job ticket is not evidence of what work was actually done, only what work was planned and quoted to be done at intake. If other work after that was found to be needed, or the price changed up or down notified to the customer, that would probably not show up on that job ticket. It would instead normally be reflected in the cash register ticket or something equivalent, but in this case no such cash register record happened since the cash went into Dial's pocket that day as windfall in addition to his pay rather than run through the cash register of the business as was supposed to be done. 

The main objection I see to the shims idea is that the rifle when it was found eleven days later on the 6th floor of the TSBD is not reported to have any shims in it, or did not have shims at the point the FBI was looking at the rifle or later at the test-firing when it was found shims were needed? 

But maybe you could be right after all--wasn't there something about someone saying the rifle could not be sighted-in at all without those shims? 

I have assumed Lee paid whatever was quoted because he wanted the scope installed on the spot and if he was told something was a required charge he would accept that in order to get it accomplished. And if the rifle in fact was not broken down again (unknown), Lee would be able to proudly tell a hypothetical buyer or conveyee (if so) "it's all sighted in and ready to go!" But your explanation could be possible--thanks.

On 11/24/2023 at 10:27 PM, Miles Massicotte said:

Greg having read your paper I find this fascinating, because for what it is worth my own initial gut response was: I was convinced by your argument that the Irving Sports Shop encounter was not fabricated, but I wasn't personally convinced about Oswald borrowing Michael Paine's car. So Ruth Paine's own response somewhat corroborates this. I am wondering if perhaps they were brought there by a third party, but that is pure speculation. I know that Greg Parker thinks Dial Ryder fabricated the whole encounter, but I'm not as convinced about that. 

In any case, if Marina was hiding something post-assassination, as I think she was, it doesn't actually hinge on whether or not she concealed borrowing the Paine automobile. If she concealed anything at all from Ruth, for example knowing or being complicit in Lee's activities in some way (like accompanying him to a sports shop to have his scope fitted), it would be cause enough for her to feel guilty, considering how generously she was treated by the Paines, who really had nothing to gain by helping her. Unless of course you believe that Ruth was a CIA handler of some kind and was compelled to help her. Which I don't (although I know many above do)....for reasons I will outline in my Oswald paper which may or may not debut in the next fifty years...

My point for now is simply that Marina had ample reason not to want to reconnect with Ruth even if she didn't conceal the borrowing of their car.

Miles thanks for this. But could I ask a question, not as disagreement or argument but as simple curiosity: when you say even though you thought Oswald in the Sport Shop rang true and was not fabricated, "I wasn't personally convinced  about Oswald borrowing Michael Paine's car ... I am wondering if perhaps they were brought there by a third party, but that is pure speculation."

Could you elaborate on what caused you caution, or reluctance, or however you want to term it, for the borrowing of Michael Paine's car detail?

It was a white over blue two-tone sedan older American car, and at the Furniture Mart Lee was seen pulling in and parking, then leaving again, driving a white over blue two-tone sedan older American car. Lee was seen driving in a car matching the description of Michael Paine's car which was parked at Ruth's house and, provided Lee and Marina found where Ruth kept her key to that car in a drawer somewhere, was means and opportunity.

Is it skepticism that Lee had sufficient driving skill or ability to drive local city blocks? But Lee was capable of doing that, even Ruth herself I believe said at one point that she believed Lee was capable of passing a driving test if he had taken it, he could drive well enough to that level. And to get to the Furniture Mart and nearby Sport Shop at all that morning of Nov 11, plus with a rifle, during the hours Ruth was gone definitely required a car, and Lee was seen driving with no other driver and no one else in the car (which looked like Michael Paine's car) other than Lee, Marina, 2-year old June, and the baby. 

Is it because you think Lee and Marina would not collude in lying to Ruth in that way, to borrow a car without telling her, had not done that kind of thing before, would not do that? Is it the driving ability of Lee issue? Is it the minor mismatches of make and model of the blue-over-white car remembered by the two women witnesses who saw Lee driving that car even though they got the colors right?

From my point of view it is a perfect explanation that explains everything, the borrowing of Michael Paine's car, then returning and parking it where it was before, locking it back up, returning the key to whatever drawer of Ruth's in the house they had obtained it, Ruth returns home later in the afternoon none the wiser, they don't tell her ... what about that, if you are willing to say, still nagged at you as not sold on the idea? (Not seeking to change your mind, but curious simply to know.) Thanks--

Also, I don't think it was the borrowing of Michael's car without telling Ruth, in itself, which would explain why Marina never reconnected with Ruth. That in itself would be an easy one to later confess and patch up, not a major big deal. My thinking has been that it was the purpose of the trip, not the mechanism of getting there, which was the real issue: the rifle. For Marina to reconnect with Ruth would necessarily require either actually confessing in full and being truthful about that (and that could not help but become public, with repercussions), or continuing living a lie to Ruth after reconnection about that rather major thing, and I can imagine someone like Marina preferring to stay disconnected without explanation rather than the psychological discomfort of either of those alternatives. That was my line of thinking on that.

5 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

You might be on to something. The package described at the furniture mart was short, like 18 inches or something. Is it possible Oswald just carried the gun barrel to have a scope fitted to it and this is why Ryder does not remember the assassination rifle? Because he only saw the barrel of it?

Would a gun store fit a scope to a gun barrel if you just brought in the barrel itself?

From Mrs. Whitworth's (owner of the Furniture Mart) description of the size of the package in hand brought in by Oswald when he asked her for the gunsmith, I believe it was the scope that Oswald was wanting installed, the original scope that came with the rifle from Klein's, and original base mount with three screw holes.

Based on the analogy of how Oswald walked into the Furniture Mart thinking he was going to talk to a gunsmith, I assume that is how he next walked in to the Irving Sport Shop down the street where Mrs. Whitworth referred him. Dial Ryder was working alone and behind the counter that day, Veterans Day--the other employee, a woman who was a secretary and may have often assisted at the front counter, being off that day due to the holiday, and owner Greener on vacation. That is (reconstructed), Oswald parked, left Marina and June and the baby in the car, walked in the Sport Shop, scope and base mount in hand just as before, Dial is inside behind the counter. I assume the rifle remained inside the blanket, broken down, out in the car, perhaps on the back seat or in the trunk, waiting until Lee arranged inside to have the scope installed on the spot, told how much it would cost from description in answer to his question and Dial's answer on that, then brought it in. Dial might have received it over the counter in its broken-down form inside the blanket, taken it back to his workbench to work on it, and at the end returned both completed rifle sighted-in and the separate blanket. (I suppose an alternative is, Lee back to the car to obtain the rifle, after receiving confirmation from Dial at the counter that he would do the job, conceivably could have put the rifle together himself in the back seat, except for the base mount and scope, with a screwdriver while Marina and June and the baby waited in the front seat--and then took the rifle now in one piece and outside the blanket left behind in the car, into the store to give Dial?)

The job ticket at Dial's writeup at the counter showed Lee was quoted a price for a bore sighting in addition to three drill and taps (based on Dial looking at the counter at the original Klein's base mount with three screw holes and mistakenly assuming this was going to be a first-time scope installation like most other rifle scope installations were). Ryder's testimony suggests however that bore sighting, charged $1.50 if that was the only service done, may normally have routinely been done for free as a courtesy after new scope drill-and-tap installations, but Ryder, at the counter alone doing a cash job that was going into his pocket not through the cash register, may have opportunistically added a $1.50 charge for the bore sighting to the price at writeup or quotation of the price to Lee, tacked on since Lee would not know any better.

In any case Ryder repaired existing damaged screw holes (did not drill new holes as Dial had first supposed and reflected at writeup), installed the scope, and did bore sight it. Lee paid $6.00 total charge, the cash went into Dial's pocket. (As Dial told the FBI agent on Mon Mov 25, there would be no store record of the purchase other than the job ticket, which is why owner Greener later looking through his cash register tapes was unable to find or produce one for that job to the FBI despite looking.) I cannot imagine only a barrel being sighted-in as opposed to the rifle complete, therefore it had to be the complete rifle, my reasoning in answer to your question.

As for what Lee did with the rifle that day after walking out of the store with scope installed and the rifle sighted-in, I can think of about only three hypothetical possibilities: either he broke the rifle down again and put it back into the blanket, with scope now on, returned back into the garage (wasting the money paid for the bore sighting); took it to someone nearby in Irving or was met by someone to whom he conveyed the rifle from the car before returning to Ruth's house; or drove to the bus station and stored it complete in a storage locker before driving back to Ruth's house. Although each of these can be speculated and/or advocated, I don't know which was the case. 

Lee drove Marina, June and the baby, back to Ruth's house, reparked and locked Michael Paine's car where it had been before (parked on the street in front of Ruth's house, from Ruth's description), returned the blanket to the garage, put Ruth's key to Michael's car back in whatever drawer or place Ruth had kept it where they had obtained it, and were at home when Ruth returned that afternoon never realizing Lee and Marina had left the house.

39 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

I see you have used the word "credible" in relation to Schmidt. I gather then, that you have doubts that Ryder told the truth at the WC. Is that a form of perjury? People that tell untruths have something to hide.

Yes I do believe Ryder was not telling the truth in his denial of talking to Schmidt. Since he said that under oath to the Warren Commission, yes I believe that was perjury. I believe Schmidt was truthful and reported what Ryder told him.

Owner Greener read the Schmidt story in the newspaper on Thanksgiving day, that was when he first learned of it, asked Ryder what was going on, Ryder lied, denied to Greener he was the reporter's source, because he was in trouble with his boss. That's how I reconstruct it.

Publicly Greener backed up Ryder. I saw a newspaper photo of Ryder and Greener at that shop several years later when Greener was selling the business. I think this was a case of Ryder being a valuable "key employee" due to his experience at the shop and knowhow and longtime relationship with Greener, even if he was not a "perfect" employee.

14 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

You have Peggie at the scene of the accident, or at the medical centre, stating to police, or ambulance crew, that her address is 2434 West 5th St, and that was translated to the Police report that the Newspaper reporter read, is that correct? In other words, if she was living at 2028 Harvard at the time of the accident, she stated she lived at a different address.

No, I see my syntax isn't clear but I meant the newspaper reported, not Peggy reported, Peggy's address. Here are the same words as I bold them to bring out the syntax I meant. I don't assume Peggy stated a wrong address other than handing over her driver's license with her parents' address still there (or even possibly, if she was unconscious from the accident, her driver's license consulted by the officer for that information without her knowledge). I assume any address information she gave when conscious to the medical centre or staff would be truthful but also irrelevant to the newspaper story as the newspaper got its information from the police report.  

18 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I interpret the Dec 1963 newspaper account of the accident of Peggy as reporting her address as it appeared on her driver's license written up in the police report. I assume the marriage to Dial must have been recent and Peggy had not yet updated her driver's license which still had her parents' address as hers.

[Edit 11/26/63: the above is mistaken and retracted: Tony Krome has subsequently informed that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959, meaning a non-updated drivers' license of Peggie as the source of a police report/newspaper's address information cannot be correct.]

34 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

FYI, Hank's primary works-in-progress were under contract.  I'm curious why you think that you of all people might be entitled to access any of his unpublished work or research? Do you think his estate is oblivious to your veiled attacks on Hank's professionalism and discernment and your unfounded attacks on "Coup"?

In case there is any doubt, and for the public record, the joint-work copyright of "Coup" covers all material meant for the paperback or sequel including certain Cobb records. I'm sure you can appreciate that you are not on the list to.preview those files.

I did not say I feel entitled, I said I wanted to request, in light of four years since Albarelli's death and no sign of any prospect of publication or archiving of that manuscript.

You say you control certain Cobb records which you may publish in the future.

Who controls his June Cobb manuscript in full itself?

Is it a secret? 

When you say his works-in-progress "were" under contract, are they under a publishing contract now? 

I believe his June Cobb work and manuscript could be extremely important, and that it would be a loss if it were to be deep-sixed or suppressed, if not brought to publication then archived at a university with access to legitimate researchers.

Are there plans to publish or archive that manuscript, now that four years have passed?

Is the estate interested in having Hank's full June Cobb manuscript brought to daylight?

Does your copyright assert exclusive control over portions of the June Cobb manuscript which you deem selected for the paperback or sequel to Coup? That sounds like nothing can happen in terms of publication or archive-access arrangements of the full manuscript without your sayso or approval, as that would violate your assertion of copyright over whatever portions you decide are intended for your Coup sequel. Is that correct?

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

I wonder if it's possible it was Robert Oswald. Did Robert have a rifle with a scope on it that, post assassination, he did not want to draw too much attention to?

Supposedly the FBI exhaustively checked all named Oswalds in the area trying to find an Oswald of that job ticket other than Lee Harvey Oswald, but came up empty. I don't recall Robert Oswald being considered in that, maybe because he was not in Dallas. But you have a man looking like Lee going into the Furniture Mart store in Irving seen driving a car of the same two-tone colors as the Michael Paine car parked unused at the house where Lee was the morning of Nov 11, 1963, with a non-speaking woman exactly looking like Marina, with a 2-year old girl and a baby which the man says is only 2-3 weeks old matching exactly to Lee and Marina's two children, and the man comes in asking for a gunsmith advertised on a sign outside.

That happens just a block and a half away from Dial Ryder's and Greener's Irving Sport Shop offering gunsmithing services, and the man of that family of four is referred at the furniture store to the Irving Sport Shop and they are last seen headed that way. That is followed by the customer at the Sport Shop of the Oswald job ticket.

In Irving, 2.3 miles from the Ruth Paine house where Lee and Marina are on Nov 11, a day when Ruth and her children were gone for ca 5 hours,

Robert isn't he in Fort Worth, long ways away? The Oswald of the job ticket sure sounds like Lee not Robert. 

Only reason to doubt it was Lee and Marina is Marina says it wasn't her. Says that to this day. If she tells the truth on that (big "if") is the stand-alone cause for dismissal of all else that says it was her with Lee and their two children on Nov 11. Marina had motive to distance from the rifle, just as did Dial Ryder and Greener. The reason Marina was on that trip may be because she wanted Lee to get rid of the rifle; to get rid of it by gift or sale required repairing the scope base mount holes to enable the scope to be reinstalled; Marina had seen the gunsmith sign in one of her rides in Irving with Ruth; and Marina knew where to direct Lee to drive to get there which Lee did not know. Something like that. 

41 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Thanks. Your position is that Ruth may not have been aware that Dial Ryder was at all connected with the occupants of 2434 West 5th. If Ruth was personally asked tomorrow, you would expect her to say that she was unaware.

Do you think that the occupants of 2434 West 5th, may have been asked by their immediate neighbours about the breaking news? Linnie? Wesley? Ruth's baby sitters, the Ashby's? Or do you think the occupants remain silent, and were never asked?

On Ruth, I don't know but that is what I think is most likely.

On the Dial Ryder in-laws (I assume Dial and Peggy were not living there but also that it is likely they would have been around at times and Peggy certainly and Dial maybe would be known to some neighbors), if they knew of the Peggy-Dial Ryder connection they likely would ask about the Oswald job ticket case out of curiosity, natural question to ask. 

What would the in-laws say? What would Dial say to people who asked him wherever they asked Dial (whether people on 5th St. or anywhere)? 

Just guessing--but, speaking of after Thanksgiving Nov 28, probably what Dial was saying publicly and to law enforcement after owner Greener talked to him and they both were certain that although the Oswald job ticket was real it definitely was not the rifle that killed Kennedy. Dial said he could not remember the customer or the rifle but he and Greener were certain that, as Dial put it, it was either Oswald with a different rifle, or it was not Oswald, but it certainly was not the rifle which shot President Kennedy. Peggy's family I imagine would simply relay, "Dial says xyz... strange case", etc. etc.

Unless Dial or someone asked them not to talk about it. But I have not seen any sign that Dial was asked by law enforcement not to talk about it. Dial probably was closely advised by and deferential to his boss, Greener, who did not want his shop linked to the assassination weapon for obvious reasons. 

So my guess is those neighbors who knew Peggy's husband was Dial Ryder would be curious and would ask, and the family, and Peggy and Dial if there (say, visiting) and asked in person, would answer with some version of what Dial and Greener were saying publicly and to authorities.

The Warren Commission implied that Ryder had invented or could have forged the job ticket himself. That was the mainline Warren Commission view, that the job ticket was suspected not authentic. Dial and Greener were a minority opinion in saying the job ticket was real, but it had nothing to do with the assassination rifle. The Warren Commission and FBI sought hard to find a non-Oswald explanation (e.g. a different Oswald not Lee, who had come into the shop).

But ALL were AGREED that no matter the job ticket, it had nothing to do with the assassination rifle. And agreement on that story by Dial Ryder and Greener was fixed in place by Thanksgiving, and there is no reason why anyone in the neighborhood would have asked before Thanksgiving since Thanksgiving was the first day the story hit the newspapers, and by that evening, CBS News nationwide with Walter Cronkite. 

With the narrative, both publicly and likely privately, being Ryder's and Greener's insistence that they were certain it was not the assassination rifle, it would become perceived as a curiosity, but in the end nothing more than a curiosity. Not proven related to the assassination.

Obviously I differ on key points with that narrative, but I'm giving what I think was probably roughly going on at the time as best guess. 

29 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Did Dial Ryder say that his wife answered the (Schmidt dialled) phone?

Dial's account in his Warren Commission testimony is he answered the phone, said "no comment" and hung up, no mention of Peggy. The reporter, Hunter Schmidt, who had a witness to the phone call and comes across as credible, said Dial's wife answered the phone, handed it to Dial and Dial talked to him for maybe fifteen minutes. Dial's first claim was there was no phone call, then he told the Secret Service the reporter had misrepresented what he told the reporter, and then to the Warren Commission he said there was a call but he had said nothing more than "no comment" to the reporter.

40 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Are you suggesting that law enforcement did not bother enquiring at 2434 West 5th, a house that had direct connections to the Gunsmith with an "Oswald" scope mount tag, and that it was a house with direct views to the corner of West 5th and Westbrook, where Oswald was allegedly carrying a scoped rifle in a bag, because there was a possibility that he wasn't there?

I have no special knowledge but it looks to me like law enforcement did not bother inquiring, though not for the reason you suggest.

I think your point you are wanting to make is law enforcement should have made inquiries at the house there. I agree (to ask if they knew the Randles and if they knew of any rifle activity, had they seen anything related to Oswald, how often Dial was there, did he interact with Buell, etc.). I don't know why it wasn't done other than the default explanation that it never came onto their radar.

45 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

And finally, why has it taken 60 years to find the Ryder/Jones family opposite the Randles? Why wasn't the WC informed of this while they were doggedly pursuing lines of enquiry regarding the "Oswald" tag? Why would the whole street remain silent about this?

I'm not the person to ask, I don't know.

Maybe ask Buell Frazier. 

Is it possible people like Buell living across the street either did not know or if they did know that was the house of Dial's in-laws did not think it was a matter of importance warranting a call to the police or FBI?

I doubt there was a neighborhood conspiracy not to make such a call to the FBI, yet it seems no such call was made. My best guess: an accident that no one who knew thought it important enough to call the FBI about it. 

16 hours ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Do you have a copy of “A Secret Order”? Surely no one is suggesting Hank didn’t know who he was talking to all that time or was oblivious to the true identity of his grandson’s godmother?

That's a good question Leslie--what do you think?

Do you know who has Hank's June Cobb manuscript? I would like to ask for access to it to find out if Hank knew.

A whole lot of people in the JFK research community who knew you for the past ten years didn't know your true identity. Not so hard to imagine, if you never tell them.

So it can happen, even to the best of us, to believe someone is one name and they are really secretly some other name. I agree it is unusual and doesn't happen often, but in the world June Cobb operated that kind of thing did happen. I wouldn't hold it against Hank if he didn't know June Cobb's true identity. But maybe his June Cobb manuscript would tell whether he did? Maybe you have knowledge and can speak for what Hank had in his June Cobb manuscript on this?

I think Ruth's position on the Furniture Mart and Sport Shop Oswald sighting stories as they were reported was dismissal that they were true, because in her mind she knew Lee and Marina had not gone anywhere without her knowledge. So in her mind she knew they weren't true. That was what she said then to a reporter asking her (about the Furniture Mart sighting), and that is what she has said ever since to the present day, which was also the conclusion of the Warren Report which also dismissed that Oswald was ever in either of those places.

I see no reason to assume Ruth would know Dial Ryder's in-laws living several houses away, or if she did know who they were or had met them, might not necessarily know of the daughter's marriage to Dial, and unless she learned from some neighborhood gossip that Dial Ryder in the news about the Sport Shop was the husband of the daughter of the family down the street, she easily could never have known that either. And if she did, it wouldn't matter. Because Ruth from all accounts never considered either of those stories (Furniture Mart or Irving Sport Shop) as being true, based on what she thought she knew firsthand. 

And I do not think Dial Ryder himself was living in his wife's parents house. Instead he was living at 2028 Harvard St. (as reported by FBI 11/25 and Secret Service 12/1) and Peggy with him based on the Hunter Schmidt reporter's account of his phone call to Dial being answered sleepily early in the morning by his wife; Dial's reference to what he may have told or not told his wife the weekend of the assassination; and usually young married people live together.

[Edit 11/26/63: I have removed a closing sentence proposing a recent marriage and non-updated drivers' license of Peggie after learning from Tony Krome that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959.] 

Steve's right Tony. In addition to the Nov 25, 1963 FBI interview Steve cites, a Secret Service interview of Dial Ryder on Dec 1, 1963, also has Dial's address as 2028 Harvard (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10490#relPageId=522). We know Dial was married to Peggy in Nov-Dec 1963 and spoke of saying or not saying something to his wife the weekend of the assassination, implying she was living with him as would be expected barring marital difficulties. The December newspaper report giving Peggy's address as her parents' address across the street from the Randles must be from the police report and the question there is whether the police officer who made out the report obtained Peggy's address from asking Peggy or from copying it from Peggy's driver's license. Whenever I have been stopped by an officer and asked for my driver's license, the officer usually asks, "is this your current address?" but did that happen in that case in Dec 1963?

Here is another indication Peggy was living with Dial in Nov 1963. It is the reporter Hunter Schmidt phone call to Dial Ryder which resulted in the Thanksgiving Day newspaper story written by Hunter Schmidt. Dial Ryder first denied to his boss (who learned from reading in the newspaper on Thanksgiving that his shop installed the scope on the rifle that shot the president!) and to the FBI that any such call had occurred, then to the Secret Service protested the reporter had misquoted what he told him in that phone call.

Mr. LIEBELER. I want to advise you of the fact that we have located the newspaper reporter who supposedly talked to you that morning and his name is Hunter Schmidt, Jr., and that he has testified that he came to work at The Dallas Times Herald that morning and had a lead on this story that he had gotten from an anonymous telephone call that some woman made to the FBI and one was made to a television station here in Dallas telling them that Oswald had had some work done in your sports shop and I think I previously asked you about this and you said you didn't have anything to do with those anonymous telephone calls; is that right?
Mr. RYDER. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Schmidt says that he started looking for your name which he got from somewhere, apparently in connection with the Dallas Police Department and tracked you down at your home and called you between 7:30 and 8 o'clock on the morning of November 28, 1963, and that apparently your wife answered the telephone as you were still asleep and you came to the telephone and you appeared to be sleepy and that he talked to you for an extended period of time, and that you gave him the information that subsequently appeared in the newspaper article on November 28, 1963, in The Dallas Times Herald. Mr. Schmidt was advised when he testified that you had denied giving him this story, although you had admitted that some reporter had called you on the telephone that morning. Is the name Hunter Schmidt familiar to you at all?
Mr. RYDER. No; it's not.

Who knows, maybe Dial told Peggy about the Oswald job ticket the same day he found it and when Dial did not immediately inform his boss and police, an upset Peggy told her father and her father phoned it anonymously to the FBI, the source of the leak. Then Peggy became angry with Dial over it and related issues in the coming days, there was an argument and Peggy moves back in with her parents and was there at the time of the auto accident, if she really was there at the time of the December accident.

[Edit 11/26/63: I have removed a closing sentence proposing a recent marriage and non-updated drivers' license of Peggie because Krome has informed that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959.] 

54 minutes ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Marina at times was like shooting a riot gun...   she'd hit anything within reach... One really needed to be carefull in asking her the right questions, or you would have some serious backfire.  Smart girl she was.

That’s an interesting interpretation Jean. I remember wondering if something like that could be going on with Marina’s identification of CE 162, the light tan tippit killer’s abandoned jacket, as the gray jacket she and others see spoke of belonging to Oswald. In my study of the jackets I was certain that identification of Marina’s could not be correct—among other things Buell Frazier was categorical it wasn’t correct. I went to some work in my paper to show fluorescent lighting in indoor lighting can wash out warm colors making light tan look gray, and the leading questions in the runup of known Oswald clothing items, Marina saying yes, yes, yes… then without missing a beat asking her about the only item on the table not found by police among Lee’s belongings, that jacket, and Marina not handling it, not touching it, not hesitating, just says another yes (did her antennae pick up a yes was wanted of her on that?) … I noted the WC asked her at the close of a fourth consecutive day of grueling testimony when she was acknowledged tired and was told as soon as she got those last clothing IDs done she could go home… but she calls it a “shirt” not a jacket before agreeing, and then (wickedly?) drops a bomb, saying she thought Lee was wearing that Thursday night in Irving 11/21/63. Which completely contradicts the desired and concluded Warren Commission narrative. So that little (!) bomb in Marina’s testimony is disregarded and assumed mistaken while the jacket ID by her in the same breath is considered solid. Was Marina doing what you suggest… smart girl as you put it, wily ingenue, a hint of passive-aggressive toward her interlocutors? I don’t know. 

8 hours ago, Mike Aitken said:

Any firearm capable of inflicting a life-threatening or lethal injury from the distance of the Babushka Lady to JFK would have had enough recoil to cause her to move noticeably.  This includes pistol rounds, e.g. 9mm, 40S&W, etc.  I recommend that anyone who believes that the limousine driver, the Babushka Lady, etc. fired at the President from close range and in full view of the spectators, go to a range and try shooting some firearms.  Firearms are extremely loud and have lots of recoil.  Silenced/suppressed firearms reduce the speed of the bullet, thereby negatively effecting the damage inflicted by the bullet.

Additionally, for nearly anyone but the most advanced shooters, shooting a firearm from below eye level, the result is going to be a potshot. Also, firearms are extremely loud, and even “silenced” (suppressed) shots are very loud.  To me it’s inconceivable that the Babushka Lady fired off any rounds during the event.

Also, I’ve dealt with homicide scenes, including multiple incidents where an individual was shot in the head from close distance with a handgun.  None of the shots caused anything close to the damage that was inflicted to Kennedy’s head.  In my opinion, again, this eliminates the possibility of anyone firing the headshot with a pistol round, including the Babushka Lady or any of the Secret Service agents in the Presidential limousine.  The only time I’ve seen a victim with a head injury that even came close to the injury suffered by Kennedy, the individual was shot in the head with a high velocity rifle round.

Thanks for this Mike A., good comments, appreciated.

But take a look at this: the PSS silent pistol developed by the Soviet Union around 1980 "to give Soviet special forces and secret police an almost completely silent option for covert options such as reconnaissance and assassinations". Its size is 6-1/2 inches length. Range 25 meters (82 feet). It may be right that Babushka's camera was after all only a camera, but is it excluded that there could have been an assassination weapon like the PSS silent pistol there? Granting your point that it would not produce the major gaping head wound of Z313, could it have produced a different JFK wound (or missed)? There does remain the issue you note of the sound it would make. A figure of 122 decibels is cited in the second article below for the PSS, "on a par with simple airguns and suppressed .22 LR rifles", which does not seem silent enough to me not to have been heard by those standing nearby. Either it must be supposed some technology on the US side could do better (the argument against that would be if there was, it would be known by now), or that the sound was disguised by accident or intent by some other simultaneous sound from somewhere else so as to have been unnoticed by the three or four persons within several feet of Babushka. This is not intended to be a positive argument or claim that that happened, but a question of whether that was and is rightly excluded as a possibility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSS_silent_pistol 

Technical discussion on how the PSS pistol worked:

https://sadefensejournal.com/functioning-of-the-soviet-pss-pistol-with-sp4-captive-piston-aummunition/

On 11/24/2023 at 4:09 PM, Tony Krome said:

Up to at least Friday, the 13th of December, 1963, Peggie Jo Ryder was living at 2434 West 5th. You have suggested above that Peggie was living with her husband Dial, and I agree. The excerpt below was published on Sunday the 15th of December 1963.

 

It looks like you’re right Tony. But when did Peggy and Dial marry? Could that W. 5th address be from her driver’s license (reporter getting that from the police report), not updated? But I agree it looks like they both were there.

[Update 11/26/63: Krome has subsequently informed that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959.] 

Author has a wild but apparently true section from documents on the CIA’s June Cobb (Jerrie Cobb acc to author) installed in a bugged hotel room in NYC (with her knowledge), with adjoining room filled to the gills with CIA and eavesdropping, around the time of the debates at the height of the Nixon and JFK presidential campaign.

Author says CIA badly wanted both presidential candidates to support US proactive regime change in Cuba so that that would happen, and although JFK had been briefed and was hawkish there was still uncertainty about him. June Cobb, major Cold War operative, at the same time she was supposedly a leftist working for Castro, was in that hotel room wheeling and dealing with highly placed campaign operatives in both the Nixon and Kennedy campaigns, in one case sending over to her contact Richard Goodwin, JFK’s speechwriter, a hawkish prepared speech for JFK written in JFK’s voice hoping Goodwin would use it and have JFK speak that.

According to author Haverstick, Jerrie Cobb was very knowledgeable on Cold War politics and history. The CIA June Cobb (Jerrie Cobb per author) was no low-level flaky honey-trap as made out by CIA legend-making (says author), but was an important operative of the agency for whom the leftism of June Cobb was pure fiction. And the CIA was directly trying to influence policy of presidential candidates in an election toward specific desired ends. 

Author compares the pay documents in CIA files for June Cobb and QJWINN, dates and amounts, and on its face June Cobb the CIA operative was very poorly paid. Author says after QJWINN was shut down Jerrie Cobb may have received a huge payout into the millions in value in the form of rare and valuable “pre-Colombian gold” and related Inca artifacts and antiquities. Jerrie Cobb would sell them anonymously for huge amounts through Sotheby’s in NYC with proceeds to her charitable foundation, the Jerrie Cobb Foundation (ostensibly assisting indigenous tribes of South America), but which ended up as Jerrie Cobb’s personal wealth. Author suggests that is how Jerrie may have actually been paid by CIA (through whatever cutouts) for highly valuable Cold War work.