Greg Doudna

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

I second this motion. Greg really did his homework on the Tippit case, and if you have a problem with his theory, and think it’s “illogical”, you’re going to have to explain why. 

Also Greg, wasn’t Oswald seen changing seats throughout the theater? Do you think he could have taken off the blue jacket in his first seat and maybe that’s why it wasn’t found? 

Thanks Tom. Yes, that is what I think on the blue jacket. It was somewhere else in the theatre, not at or near the seat where he was arrested. As you note Oswald moved around to several seats inside the theatre according to witness Jack Davis, patron in the theatre that day. As to how Oswald's blue jacket would get from left behind somewhere in the theatre to over three weeks later reported newly found in the domino room at the TSBD and turned in to the FBI, I discussed that at the end of my jackets piece, https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27754-the-jackets-as-exculpation-of-oswald-as-the-tippit-killer-an-analysis/.

11 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

I stated:

 

"The only other option (to avoid having to address Oswald's ditching of his jacket between the rooming house and the shoe store) is to make up nonsense about Oswald doubles.  THAT is completely illogical."

I don't have anything to do with Oswald doubles or impersonations in the Tippit case. If you are unwilling to read, nothing I can do or say.

I do think there are mistaken witness identifications, not the same thing.

42 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

To dismiss the idea that Oswald left the rooming house in a jacket is to ignore the only witness that we have to rely on, the only person that was there.

Only one person was present when Oswald walked out the door.  This person says that Oswald was zipping up a jacket as he left.  Therefore, if you dismiss this one person, you're doing so out of convenience because you know what it means if Oswald left the rooming house in a jacket and was seen by Johnny Brewer without a jacket.

The only other option (to avoid having to address Oswald's ditching of his jacket between the rooming house and the shoe store) is to make up nonsense about Oswald doubles.  THAT is completely illogical.

Bill I must wonder if you read a word I said. I completely agree with housekeeper Earlene's testimony of seeing Oswald leaving zipping up a jacket, and never said otherwise. What does your objection have to do with anything I wrote?

12 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

But... I was asking for a LOGICAL explanation.  Not just ANY explanation.

Care to elaborate on that? What is illogical?

I am aware that a theory can be internally consistent, i.e. logical, and also wrong. A lot of misbegotten conspiracy theories work that way, boiling down to matters of judgment over plausibility of explanations of facts. But you are saying illogical... what do you mean?

I see the argument I have developed on the Tippit case as in the genre of a modern-day Innocence Project case concerning a wrongful conviction. Explain why you are rejecting out-of-hand the argument--including reasonable explanation of the matter you raised-- on grounds that it is illogical.

 

5 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

So far, not one logical explanation for why Oswald was seen on Jefferson with no jacket yet he left the rooming house with a jacket (other than Oswald ditched the jacket to alter his appearance somewhat shortly after gunning down a police officer).

Conspiracy advocates realize what it means if Oswald left the rooming house in a jacket yet was on Jefferson without a jacket.  So they do the only thing they can, they challenge the claim that Oswald left the rooming house in a jacket, zipping it up as he went out the door.

As one who has argued for Oswald's innocence in the Tippit killing, I gave an answer to that question Bill, here, https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27754-the-jackets-as-exculpation-of-oswald-as-the-tippit-killer-an-analysis/. Oswald left the rooming house after putting on his blue jacket (not his gray jacket), took a bus south on Beckley to the Texas Theatre on Jefferson, bought a ticket, entered the theatre wearing the blue jacket, took off the jacket inside the warm theatre. That explains why he was not wearing a jacket when arrested, because few people wear a warm jacket (as was Oswald's blue jacket) inside a heated theatre.

Meanwhile, the Tippit killer, who resembled Oswald and was mistaken for Oswald by some witnesses just as numerous witnesses mistakenly identified various persons as Oswald post-assassination, abandoned his light-gray, almost-white, jacket in flight, presumably in order to make identification more difficult in a hot pursuit situation from police. The killer went by Brewer's store, entered the Texas Theatre without purchasing a ticket and went up into the balcony, with intent to kill Oswald next. That intent was thwarted by the timely and rapid arrival of police who saved Oswald's life by arresting him. 

That there were two, not one, persons among the ca. 15 or so patrons inside the theatre that day, who witnesses thought resembled or looked like Oswald--Oswald and someone else--is established from two independent testimonies from inside the theatre: usher Burroughs (in interview with James Douglass told in Douglass's book), and deputy sheriff Bill Courson told in Sneed, No More Silence. In the second case, deputy sheriff Courson said he met the man he mistakenly believed was Oswald coming down from the balcony. Of course this was not a "second Oswald", there was only one Oswald, but there was a second person who some witnesses thought looked like Oswald, in that theatre at that time, never identified. That person, who was in the balcony of that theatre, who was not Oswald, who never voluntarily came forth to identify himself in the years since, would be the Tippit killer and would-be Oswald killer of that day. 

The killer's abandoned light-gray jacket was size "M", consistent with a Tippit killer slightly shorter and heavier than Oswald who otherwise consistently wore size "S". Witness Benavides who said he got a very good look at the back of the Tippit killer's head from only ca. 15 feet away as the killer started to flee in the moments after the killing, said the Tippit killer had a block cut hairline at the back of his neck--clear view, close, certain in his testimony. Oswald had a tapered haircut in the back of his neck, as seen in the many photos of Oswald after his arrest. The Tippit killer's fingerprints, a single individual's fingerprints on the right front passenger door and right front fender of the Tippit cruiser, both places where the killer was seen with respect to the Tippit cruiser, were found in the 1990s not to have come from Oswald (Myers, With Malice, pp. 336-340). Neither of these two items--the block haircut in the back of the killer's head; the killer's fingerprints, both in disagreement with Oswald--have been given the weight or attention they merit. They weigh in favor of Oswald not being that killer. 

I believe a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 Special found by a citizen in a paper bag several blocks away from the Carousel Club in downtown Dallas in the early morning hours of Sat Nov 23, at the exact time Curtis Craford aka Larry Crafard was being driven by Ruby away from the Carousel Club in what has the appearance of a fugitive taking flight from Dallas, was the murder weapon of the Tippit killing, not Oswald's revolver, and that that is why that "paper bag revolver", whose existence and find is certain, vanished and disappeared after being in police custody without known investigation or paper trail.

The FBI document relative to the paper bag revolver found near the Carousel Club in downtown Dallas the morning of Nov 23, 1963 was apparently first noticed or discovered in 1995 by Paul Hoch even though the document had been released in 1978. Since Paul Hoch's notice the document has received a little discussion, e.g. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48693#relPageId=10, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=217846#relPageId=81, https://jfkconspiracyforum.freeforums.net/thread/983/gun-bag. I have been the first to suggest that that Nov 23 paper bag revolver was the Tippit murder weapon and related to the departure of Curtis Craford from Dallas. The document reads: 

MEMORANDUM TO SAC, DALLAS (89-43) DATE: 11/25/63
FROM SA RICHARD E. HARRISON
SUBJECT: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY
On 11/23/63, Patrolman J. RAZ brought into the Homicide and Robbery Bureau, Dallas PD, a brown paper sack which contained a snub-nosed .38 caliber Smith & Wesson, SN 893265.
This gun had the word "England" on the cylinder and had been found at approximately 7:30 AM in a brown paper sack, together with an apple and an orange, near the curb at the corner of Ross and Lamar Streets and was turned in by one Willie Flat, white male, 9221 Metz Drive, employed at 4770 Memphis, to the Dallas PD.

Oswald had a reason for carrying his revolver (self-defense) but there is no good reason for a person throwing a revolver in a paper bag out of a car window on the morning of Nov 23, 1963, other than that it was involved in a recent crime, namely the Tippit homicide done with exactly the kind of weapon in that paper bag. Craford was confused in physical identification, identified as being Oswald, by other Dallas citizens, such that the Tippit crime scene witnesses would simply become a few more instances if he were the killer. Craford's alibi is weak for Friday afternoon Nov 22, and his story of sudden no-notice hitchhiking from Dallas to Michigan hours after the Tippit killing, in the same proximity and timing as the abandonment of the paper bag revolver, suggests a candidate for identity of the killer of Tippit and would-be killer of Oswald of Nov 22, namely Ruby recent hire and later self-confessed hitman, Craford. Oswald was killed by Ruby himself on Sunday morning after the Tippit killer's intent to kill Oswald on Friday in the theatre failed.

On the FBI lab finding that the shell casings identified by DPD as found at the Tippit crime scene were fired exclusively from Oswald's revolver, my treatment of that issue is at https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27367-an-argument-for-actual-innocence-of-oswald-in-the-tippit-case/page/2/. 

Obviously the Tippit case involves more than this. But this gives a glimpse of a possible different theory of the case, in which Oswald is innocent in that killing. Some additional previous discussions of mine on various aspects of the Tippit case are:

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27358-tippit-acquila-clemons/

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27362-tippit-a-second-officer-present-at-the-tippit-killing/

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26874-the-wallet-at-the-tippit-scene-a-simpler-solution/

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27770-a-five-point-road-map-to-accomplishing-a-change-of-consciousness-in-america-concerning-the-jfk-assassination/

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

My question is, why didn't any of the people standing next to Prayer Man identify him? Why did they all forget him?

I made an argument that one individual on those front steps of TSBD did tell family members that she saw Oswald there on those front steps. See second up from the bottom, titled "The Sarah Stanton daughter-in-law interview" at https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27770-a-five-point-road-map-to-accomplishing-a-change-of-consciousness-in-america-concerning-the-jfk-assassination/page/2/. 

It conflicts with the reported signed FBI statement of Sarah Stanton that she did not see Oswald at the time of the assassination. Whether that is or is not sufficient to discount Sarah Stanton's private story to family members I do not know. Also, my interpretation of the elevator-using Sarah Stanton's repeated (according to the daughter-in-law's hearsay telling) "steps" where she saw Oswald as she went to those "steps" to "prepare" to see the President coming by, as the front steps of the TSBD, is innovative from me and has not been endorsed or discussed by others involved in the Prayer Man discussions. 

I also offered (in the last comment at the bottom of the page link above) a different take on Wesley Frazier's failure to identify Prayer Man as Oswald (or as anyone else): he did not notice him for the same reason he also did not notice uniformed officer Baker rushing by him through the front doors, i.e. (in the case of Prayer Man's possible identity as Oswald) stress combined with gazing at Elm Street where the presidential limousine was last seen at the time of the shots, and not noticing what was in peripheral vision. If Oswald was unobtrusively standing in the shadow in that western corner of the steps for some ca. 35 seconds, not very long, and if Frazier did not notice him that could account for just about everything since all the others on those steps either would have had their backs to Prayer Man or not be expected to have noticed Prayer Man.  

 

4 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

But I'm wondering still about something I brought up before....

If PM is Oswald (as many CTers believe), then did he roll up his sleeves when he was filmed by James Darnell out on the steps? Because we know Oswald wore that brown/rusty long-sleeved shirt to work on 11/22. And we also know (or at least I am convinced of it) that LHO did not have his sleeves rolled up when Mrs. Bledsoe saw Oswald on the bus just a few minutes after the "PM" image was captured (because Bledsoe saw the hole in the elbow area of Oswald's brown shirt, which means his sleeves were not rolled up at that time).

Anyway, I'm just curious as to what CTers are thinking regarding Oswald and his shirt sleeves in relation to what we see in the Prayer Man image.

Welcome David. On this, "[TSBD employee Sandra] Styles recalled years later: 'The workers [like Oswald] all wore jeans and work shirts with their shirt sleeves rolled up. Some would wear khakis or other kinds of work pants.'" (Peterson and Zachry, The Lone Star Speaks [2020], p. 194).

From separate argument Oswald left the TSBD wearing his medium-gray jacket (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27754-the-jackets-as-exculpation-of-oswald-as-the-tippit-killer-an-analysis/). 

Speaking from my own experience as one who commonly wears long-sleeved shirts with sleeves rolled up, before I put on a jacket I unroll the sleeves before putting on a (long-sleeved) jacket. 

However I believe analysis of others is correct that Mary Bledsoe, while she did see and recognize Oswald, was a hopeless witness, identifying the shirt being shown her with the shirt (with the tear or hole in the elbow) the FBI had shown her in an earlier questioning. In any case the argument is strong that Oswald was wearing a maroon reddish colored shirt that morning until changing into the brown shirt at the rooming house. So Mary Bledsoe's witness testimony was just confused. 

 

5 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Reading back through this, I think that the stuff from Kittrell actually supports the notion that Paine concealed the Trans Texas Airways job. If Paine had mentioned calling the TEC on Oswald’s behalf to anyone it’d be one thing, but Paine only testified that she remembered that an opportunity with the TEC had fallen through. 

It seems reasonable to think that Paine would remember calling the TEC herself a lot clearer than a few random earlier conversations. If Paine told Oswald about a generic job offer and/or phone call received from Adams, and Oswald subsequently told her to call the TEC and inform them that he was already employed, and the conversation went as Kittrel described, it seems to me like that would be pretty memorable.

I’ve been doing a lot of this lately, but to quote Larry Schnapf: “Yes- she may have been confused in her testimony or she could have been prevaricating. If she was confused, it could also mean she did not pass on the phone message from Lee. Her confusion is not proof of anything. And the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”    

Paine’s failure to testify about - or ever mention to anyone - the phone call to Kittrell could be an innocent lapse, or she could have been prevaricating. Like Jim said, Adams said that Paine told him that Oswald was already employed, but Paine failed to remember that conversation too. 

On the other hand, David Von Pein said: “It's possible that Ruth did tell Oswald about the call, and that Oswald himself decided not to bother since he'd already started working somewhere else. Don't people usually stop looking for work after they've found a job?” This seems pretty reasonable, but if this is true Ruth both forwarded the message to Adams, and called Kittrell to inform her that Oswald found a job at the TSBD, and subsequently forgot that any of this ever happened. 

Paine’s selective memory about her own interactions with the TEC is a legitimate ambiguity in the evidence, and I think it’s very hard to argue with Jim’s assessment:

“…This is what a real criminal lawyer would have done.  Because Ruth's story has all the earmarks of being self serving.  If it was true, it would have been easy to show it was.”

Tom, first of all welcome. On this comment, you may be assuming too much. Why assume Ruth Paine failed to remember those things? She may well have remembered the phone calls you name but failed to connect them to what was being asked of her. If you read the questions she was asked in her WC testimony, there is nothing in those questions to connect a job opportunity to Lee from Trans Texas Airways (which she could not place, not having heard that name before, nor was she told when it occurred) to the final phone call from Adams and hers back to TEC on Lee's behalf (per Kittrell) after Lee got the TSBD job. She was likely aware of multiple calls for Lee, messages all of which she would have passed on, how would she know which was which, at the time she was asked.

Does it make sense that Ruth would wilfully prevent Lee from knowing of a message to call TEC back? Really?

Denis, I found it. Its at 54:23 to 56:51 on your tape link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GhPJBfLxy8). I made my own transcription as best I could. Its about the measurement of the package. The "he" in the reference at the end to "he wasn't interested in people, or what people believe" appears to be Oswald, according to a lady (Ruth Paine?) who told that to officer Rose who told it to Frazier, according to Frazier.  

[START WESLEY FRAZIER TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT]

Frazier: I told him it was somewhere around two feet, give or take a--

<Right.>

-- somewhere around two feet, give or take an inch here or there. So I told them that when I only glanced at--I didn't look at the package like I'd be looking at this man's briefcase, like I've been doing here. I could pretty well describe the briefcase probably down to a T, but when you barely glance at something you don't see everything at first--

<Two feet?>

Yes, sir, I would say roughly two feet there, I feel like I'd give or take an inch. Then, um ... they actually had me to make up the same way that ... And I did that.

<Right>

And they told me--when I say "they" ... Mr. Ball ... an attorney ... now, they actually, they had due process, they asked me what I saw ... when I went down into the basement .... I had to do this with the package several times. The guy was really amazed at how close it came to the real package. They found the real package. They told us, you know, they told us ... something this ... they actually told me ... he actually brought it into the building. So they said when he brought it into the building, was it Thursday or Friday evening. I said i don't know. i know the one who told me, {{"xxxxx"? "Fritz"?}}, I told him that's all I know is ... he was ... curtain rods ... pushed back ... measured it somewhere around two inches. I never had measured it.

<Only two feet?>

Two feet. Right. ... Now, Mr. Rose over there ... He said, he said it was really remarkable. He said ... a lady had told him that. He said he wasn't interested in people, or what people believe. He said he actually told himself about that. So that was our conversation ... when they had ... carrying the package. When he carried the package ... under the arm here ...

[END WESLEY FRAZIER TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT] 

10 minutes ago, Denis Morissette said:

I'm sorry, Doug! Now the full interview is public. I've listened to Tape 3, Side 2. Nothing. Let me give a fresh listen to the whole tape. It will give me a chance to add the time stamps on the YouTube video. It will be a process spread over several days. But I'll give you updates once in a while.

Thanks Denis--the full tape of your earlier link is accessible now, have it. Is there some technical wizardry that could extract clearer sound quality from that horrible background noise? I will be very interested in your updates in hope of resolving the mystery of where Gilbride got the "interesting" claimed transcription excerpts quoted in his book, or whatever else you learn of interest.

Did Oswald deny he went to Mexico City in his interrogation?

Oswald was interrogated by Captain Fritz with no stenographic notes or recording of Oswald's answers. In the first interrogation on Fri Nov 22 two FBI agents were present, Hosty and Bookhout. According to those agents' reports, a report of Fritz, Fritz and Hosty in their Warren Commission testimonies of 1964, and Hosty in his 1996 book Assignment: Oswald, Oswald, when asked, denied he had gone to Mexico City. 

This reported answer of Oswald to the Mexico City question, which contradicts information in a letter Oswald wrote to the Soviet embassy in D.C. that had been intercepted and was known to the FBI and Hosty, is commonly cited as one in a series of significant false answers Lee gave. The reported untruths of Oswald's answers in his interrogations have been considered an argument of consciousness of guilt on Oswald's part.

However on one of those claims, I was surprised to discover that Hosty in his Church Committee testimony in 1975 unambiguously and repeatedly testified that Lee Harvey Oswald did not deny he had been to Mexico City when asked in the interrogation of Fri Nov 22--the opposite of what is widely assumed. Hosty's testimony to the Church committee was extensive, the transcript running 153 pages, with the relevant pages with respect to Mexico City being pp. 25-45, available in full here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1406#relPageId=5. Hosty presents the existence of Oswald's Mexico City trip as something Hosty was informed FBI wanted kept secret--secret from even Fritz and the Dallas Police Department--something whose very existence the FBI, on orders from the top, wanted covered up. Of course by the time of the Warren Commission and then the Church Committee, there was no denial or coverup of the existence of Oswald's Mexico City trip. But Hosty presents exactly that as operative at the earliest stage. 

Mr. Epstein. Do you have information about the Mexico City connection that you were not asked about [by the Warren Commission], and therefore didn't answer?

Mr. Hosty. The only thing that would have been pertinent at that time was when I was interviewing him after the assassination and he got highly agitated when I brought up Mexico City. And they didn't press that as much as they probably could have.

(. . .)

Mr. Epstein. And did you have information about his agitation or about that contact with him that went beyond what was in the statement that the Warren Commission had?

Mr. Hosty. No, sir. It would have been in the statement--

Comment: Here inexplicably, where interesting content related to Mexico City in the Church Committee Hosty testimony may have been, a full page, page 26, is . . . missing. One can only hope this was accidental, and that the missing page 26 (of these pages all of which are stamped "Top Secret") might one day come to light. Skipping from page 25 to page 27 . . .

[following one missing page] --Mexico City?

Mr. Epstein. Did you give Captain Fritz any details?

Mr. Hosty. No.

Mr. Epstein. What specifically happened? What did Fritz ask him?

Mr. Hosty. He didn't get a chance to ask him, when he heard me say that to Fritz he blew up, so to speak, and became agitated.

Mr. Epstein. And he said, how did you know about that to you?

Mr. Hosty. Yes.

Mr. Epstein. Did he say anything else?

Mr. Hosty. No.

Mr. Epstein. And what did you say?

Mr. Hosty. I didn't answer him, I didn't tell him how I knew about it.

Mr. Epstein. Did anyone else say anything? 

Mr. Hosty. No. Nobody else had any knowledge of that.

Comment: An Oswald response of "how did you know about that?" does not sound like a denial.

(. . .)

Senator Schweiker. The one [interrogation] that you were at, did they keep notes or a transcript?

Mr. Hosty. I took notes, but there was no transcript.

Senator Schweiker. Where are those notes?

Mr. Hosty. I destroyed them.

Comment: Hosty did not destroy them. Hosty's notes are available on the Mary Ferrell site.

(. . .)

Mr. Wallach. Do you recall what Oswald's answer was when he did calm down to the question of what he had been doing in Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. He never answered it.

Mr. Wallach. He never answered it?

Mr. Hosty. No, sir.

Mr. Wallach. So he did not tell the interrogators whether or not he had been in Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. Right.

Mr. Epstein. After you mentioned Mexico City to the police captain and he challenged you, and you said you didn't respond--

Mr. Hosty. I did not respond.

Mr. Epstein. He did not. And you did not respond?

Mr. Hosty. He asked me how I knew, and I did not respond.

Mr. Epstein. What happened then?

Mr. Hosty. Captain Fritz went on to another question.

Mr. Epstein. Was there a pause?

Mr. Hosty. A light pause. I think probably--here I am speculating--Captain Fritz went on to another question. I don't know why he didn't pursue it.

Mr. Epstein. Was Mexico City ever asked about again at that meeting?

Mr. Hosty. No, sir. This was toward the end of the interview, I might add.

Mr. Epstein. And it had been asked about earlier?

Mr. Hosty. No, sir.

Mr. Epstein. Did you know whether Oswald was ever asked about Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. Not to my knowledge.

Comment: At this point Senator Schweiker perceives a contradiction in past claims that FBI had informed, or did not inform, the Dallas Police Department that it had information Oswald had gone to Mexico City.

Senator Schweiker. Why didn't you mention that you knew that he was in Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. Because it was a highly sensitive technique--mention to whom, now?

Senator Schweiker. At the interrogation.

Mr. Hosty. I did.

Senator Schweiker. You did mention it to him?

Mr. Hosty. Yes, sir.

Senator Schweiker. You didn't mention it to some other component of the Dallas police?

Mr. Hosty. No, I didn't mention it to the police, other than at that interview. I did not tell the Dallas police other than the questioning.

Senator Schweiker. But you did mention it in the interview?

Mr. Hosty. Yes, sir.

Senator Schweiker. And you didn't do it at the other meeting because of the sensitivity of it, is that what you are telling me, or what?

Mr. Hosty. When I went to the police department I went in quite shortly after I got there for the interview. And then when I came out of the interview I received instructions from headquarters not to tell the police about that phase and other phases.

(. . .)

Mr. Epstein. And you were saying--and is this your understanding that the reason that you weren't to disseminate information about Mexico City was because it was sensitive?

Mr. Hosty. Right.

Mr. Epstein. Do you know whether that was the reason?

Mr. Hosty. No. I was told not to tell them anything about that.

Mr. Epstein. Were you told the reason you weren't to tell them anything about that was because it was sensitive?

Mr. Hosty. No.

Mr. Epstein. You were merely told not to tell them about Mexico City? 

Mr. Hosty. That is right.

Mr. Schweiker. I am a little confused here, because I had understood that you had told the Warren Commission when they asked you this same question that you didn't tell the police because Oswald was telling them.

Mr. Hosty. You mean about the Mexico City part, or about his general background?

Senator Schweiker. The Mexico City is what I am asking about.

Mr. Hosty. I don't think it was put quite that way. I think they asked me why I had not furnished them the information from our files to the police?

Senator Schweiker. You are saying it was on the whole thing?

Mr. Hosty. That is the way I understood the question, Senator.

Senator Hart of Colorado. This is a rather minor point, but it also relates to your testimony before Mr. Stern, your interview with Mr. Stern. Mr. McCloy was there, and there was a long discussion before this about Oswald's denial that he shot anybody. And then McCloy came back to the point about Mexico that we are discussing here. And he said: "I didn't hear you repeating your testimony that he denied ever having been in Mexico." You say: "Oh, yes, he was being questioned about his activities outside the US where he had been outside the US. He told Captain Fritz that he had only been in Mexico to visit at Tijuana on the border."

Mr. Hosty. That is correct.

Senator Hart: So he did say he had been to--

Mr. Hosty. Not to Mexico City, he said he had been to Tijuana.

(. . .)

Senator Schweiker. When the Warren Commission asked you why you didn't tell the Dallas police about Oswald's visit to Mexico, you said you didn't have to because Oswald himself was telling them. And the only thing he told them about was Tijuana, he did not in fact tell them about Mexico City.

(. . .)

Senator Schweiker. Mr. Stern asked you: "Did you tell Captain Fritz at this time any of the information you had about Oswald, about his trip to Mexico, for example? Mr. Hosty: No." You just said a moment ago that you in fact that interrogation that we are discussing here did tell Captain Fritz on that occasion.

Mr. Hosty. I told Captain Fritz to ask him that question, to ask him if he had been in Mexico City.

Senator Schweiker. But you did not tell Captain Fritz--are you saying now you did not tell Captain Fritz that you knew he had been to Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. That is correct.

(. . .)

Mr. Epstein. What was sensitive about Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. The sensitive thing would be the American capability of being able to determine who was in contact with the Soviets at the Soviet embassy.

Senator Hart. But somebody could have seen him in Mexico City. You could have admitted having the ability to find out that he was in Mexico City generally without revealing the source or method.

Mr. Hosty. Possibly. But they wanted to be careful just about discussing it in general.

(. . .)

Mr. Epstein. But as I understand it, what you were instructed by agent Shanklin and someone else in Dallas--

Mr. Hosty. Through someone else.

Mr. Epstein. --was not to reveal any information about Mexico City?

Mr. Hosty. Right.

(. . .)

Mr. Hosty. During the recess I had a chance to go over the record here. And I think I could probably straighten out the confusion that we are involved in here if I state something. When I was first sent to the Police Station on November 22, 1963, to interrogate Oswald I received my instructions from Gordon Shanklin, the Agent in Charge. He at that time placed no restrictions on what I could or couldn't tell the Police Department, and in fact told me to give them what we had. Following my interview of Lee Oswald, which was interrupted at approximately 4:04 p.m., I received instructions from one of the other agents at the Police Station who had not participated in the interview stating the office, meaning the Dallas office, had called, and told me certain restrictions were placed on what I could tell the Police, namely, the Mexico City connection. In a conversation at a later date, the exact date I can't recall, with Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kyle Clark, he told me that he was the one who had sent those instructions pursuant to his instruction from FBI Headquarters, from an unnamed FBI official.

This Church committee testimony of Hosty raises the possibility that Oswald did not deny he went to Mexico City, and that the reports of that Oswald denial may be in error, possibly related to an early impetus from FBI at the top level to cover up the existence of that trip of Oswald altogether. In that light, it has always seemed odd to me that the claims that Oswald denied he was in Mexico City were contradicted by Postal Inspector Harry Holmes in his Warren Commission testimony. Holmes testified that Oswald spoke openly of his Mexico City trip in the presence of all of his interrogators Sunday morning Nov 24 before he was shot dead. However none of the written reports of the Sun Nov 24 interrogation including that of Holmes refers to Oswald speaking of Mexico City. For that reason, and the alleged earlier denial of Oswald, Holmes' Warren Commission testimony on that has been widely concluded to be total fabrication.

Instead of Holmes' testimony regarding Oswald telling about his Mexico City trip being fabrication, it could instead be that it is the missing references to Oswald speaking of Mexico City in the written reports of Sunday Nov 24 that are amiss, perhaps reflecting that early impetus to conceal the existence of Oswald's Mexico City trip--no longer an issue at the time Holmes testified to the Warren Commission. Comments? Did Oswald deny to Fritz and co. that he had gone to Mexico City?

Denis thanks for the great outline of the contents of the HSCA Frazier tapes. The link to the audio goes to a page that says "Video unavailable. This video is private." Are you able to make that accessible? What do you suppose Gilbride means by saying "IV-18" on the second side of tape 3, correlated to your numbered system--the location of the excerpt of interest?

On 6/17/2022 at 8:54 AM, Gary Murr said:

 

Hello Pat:

Understandably I have been following this thread with some interest and appreciate not only your even-handed responses but also all comments generated by those who have an opinion on this subject matter. Yes, we all make mistakes/errors and it is only through an understanding and where applicable revelation and correction of errors that the case will ever move forward. Given that you believe the Todd "ET is not a recent addition" I would like your opinion on the comparative black and white photographs I present on the document attached herein. This image is from a previously unprinted FBI lab generated 4 X 5 view camera negative discovered by John Hunt at NARA.

NIST initials comparison.docx 2.02 MB · 24 downloads

Gary what I see in that black-and-white photo of CE 399 before the sample was cut out from the tip (therefore a very early photo) is this: I see the "T", left crossbar plus full downstroke (right part of the crossbar presumably also there but fades into shadow so unverified). I cannot verify any part of the "E" however.

However the "T" is quite clear, and I do not believe John Hunt identified that "T" mark as anything, since it is not part of the three sets of initials which he did identify.

Therefore the "T" at least is verified not a later forgery. The inability to verify the "E" I assume is an accident of deficiency in the photography but that is simply my inference based on the "T" clearly being there. 

On the left part of the "T" crossbar, in the photo there appears to be a "longer" top horizontal line and below it a "shorter" horizontal line; I am seeing only the "shorter" lower horizontal line as corresponding to the "T" in the NIST photo. The longer top horizontal line is puzzling, but again the static vs. signal issue arises in straining to interpret these photographs. However the downstroke of the "T" is unambiguously a human mark; it is not accounted for otherwise; and it agrees exactly with the "T" in the NIST photo.

No claim to infallibility here and others may see more clearly and accurately, but this is my report. 

3 hours ago, Denis Morissette said:

I have the full interview on tape. I’m amazed I don’t remember that. I’ll check.

Here is what Gilbride says concerning the location on the tape: "The following excerpt (IV-18) adds a bombshell detail about what Oswald may have carried (this was mixed among several duplicate recordings on the second side of the Archives' Tape 3; it seemed to fit with the content of Tape 4). . . [transcript excerpt follows in which according to Gilbride Frazier is twice heard referring to the package as a "briefcase"] . . . In the next revelation [the one I say refers to Fritz], also on IV-18 we learn that . . ."

If in the best case you can find it and give your own transcript of what you hear (or say how much of Gilbride's transcription you can verify for accuracy), that would be fantastic. 

On 6/9/2022 at 5:42 AM, Denis Morissette said:

It is curious that two men who never talked to each other come up with the same story. One in 1995, and the other 2 decades later. You can say that Frazier had a book to sell, but Paine did not. Also DPD officer George Butler told a Garrison staff member in 1968 that Fritz would have beaten up Oswald had Hosty not been in the interrogation room. I’m not satisfied! 

I found something more on the Fritz-Frazier interaction that I do not think has previously been recognized. It is a transcription of a clip from the poor audio of the HSCA interview of Frazier. The transcription is by Richard Gilbride and is acknowledged to be poor quality so could have errors. Gilbride interprets the below as a previously-unknown encounter of which Frazier has never spoken since in which, as Gilbride puts it, "Frazier stood next to Oswald in a DPD lineup--an incident never before reported". I say the below is Frazier speaking of his harrowing interrogation by Fritz, of which Frazier has repeatedly spoken. Moriarty is the HSCA questioner. (The reference in Gilbride's transcription below to a "Day" speaking I do not understand.)

Frazier: He was standing next to me. He was pretty close to somewhere around two inches--where they could measure this thing.

Moriarty: Two feet.

Frazier: Two feet?

Day: It was two feet.

Frazier: Right. And--and Mr. Oswald was there and he told me that they made a positive identity down there. And I said--I said, 'Lee.' It was made several times. He insisted. He said, 'You drove the car.' He said he owned Dallas. He believed everything they told him about the package. He said he wasn't interested in other people or anything with people. He believed in no one. He said he actually told myself that. (Richard Gilbride, JFK Inside Job [2021], p. 84)

I believe the "he" in the bolded above in this likely garbled transcription is Fritz--not Oswald--in Frazier's telling. Something about Fritz telling that Oswald had been positively identified as the assassin, maybe something about the package and the rifle, and Fritz boring in on Frazier having driven the car that morning that carried it. Oswald never spoke language of "owning" Dallas, but that might be something Fritz could say in a context of an intimidating interrogation. 

The interrogation by Fritz was the traumatizing event for Frazier. I read Frazier as speaking here of his known experience with Fritz, rather than some event of which there is no other trace of reference.

The kid certainly was not Wesley Frazier. Nothing to do with present argument. I repudiated that conjecture long ago. No relevance to present argument.  

3 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

The barber shop story certainly is mysterious. I don't really know what to make of it other than that it was one of a series of impersonations or schemes to implicate Oswald ahead of time. In some aspects the barber shop story resembles the Odio incident.

The Hootkins identification for the kid only works if it really was Oswald, not an impersonator. If it was an impersonator then the kid was not Hootkins.

I have in preparation and will be writing up shortly (not on this thread) what I believe is a breakthrough in identification of that barber shop "Oswald" of Shasteen. It was not Oswald, and the car that man drove which Shasteen thought was Ruth Paine's was not Mrs. Paine's (and the kid not Hootkins)--Shasteen was mistaken. I think I can propose an identification of the vehicle, its driver, and the kid which will make sense of that episode. 

And there is no reason to suppose impersonation either. At no point is there even a claim that Shasteen's customer represented himself as Oswald. 

Response from Oswald to the Texas Employment Commission following the Robert Adams phone call: "the rest of the story"

This is new. I believe the following tells Oswald's response to the Texas Employment Commission after Ruth Paine passed on to him the message from Robert Adams. This information has not received attention or notice up to now in discussions of the Robert Adams message for Lee.

Another employment counselor, Laura Kittrell, a colleague of Robert Adams, wrote of receiving a phone call at the Texas Employment Commission, said to be at the request of Oswald, after Lee got the TSBD job. This is the denouement, the missing rest of the story. The following is from Laura Kittrell's 90-page typed manuscript starting at page 62, at https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/sightings-of-lho-oct.-1963-laurel-kittral/687524?item=687528. Laura Kittrell wrote this narrative after the assassination and her time-dating memories could be slightly mistaken.

[START KITTRELL]

Section 6. The Other Phone Call, from a Friend of His Wife

Some days went by, and I ceased for a while to be so concerned about Mr. Oswald's welfare as I had been. I had asked him to let me hear from him, and not having heard, I supposed that he had gone to work somewhere. (. . .) I sent, probably late in October, or early in November, a post card to him, with the usual instructions to counselees, to tear off the detachable part and mail it back to me, or else come to the office. I had two answers to this card, and they make up this section of this account... [two lines missing in the photocopy here] ... Let me say here, that in the conversation which follows, I have no memory of the name "Oswald", or "Paine", or "Irving" being mentioned. I do recall the company name, "Texas School Book Depository", and that is suffiicient, coupled with the word, "Russia", to enable my imagination to supply the names "Oswald" and Paine and "Irving". Nevertheless I shall leave blank, in the interest of accuracy, the names I do not truly recall. The telephone at my desk rang. (My thoughts or unspoken words are in parentheses.)

Me: Miss Kittrell.

Voice: This is Mrs. ____ _____, in _____. (I do remember that word "in"; it meant that the caller was not calling from Dallas proper, but from a semi-detached suburb, which used to be on a toll-call line, so that people calling from there were in the habit of saying the name of the town, although it was no longer necessary to announce it, in order to let the caller know that the call was costing the caller money.)

Me. Yes?

She: A Mr. _____, wanted me to call you and say he had found a job. I am a friend of Mr. and Mrs. _____. He said you would be worried about him until he had found a job. Well, you can quit worrying about Mr. _____., he has found himself a job. He works now, and he could hardly get to the phone during the day, to call you, and his wife can't talk either, so I am calling.

Me: Oh. Thank you so much. I'm awfully glad to hear that he has a job. (Actually, I was not as glad as I tried to sound. For just a moment, I could not remember who Mr. _____ was. When I ... [two lines missing in the photocopy] ... was trying hard under the stress of the moment to attach Mr. _____'s name to a face. I couldn't, and meant to stall for a bit before I let it slip out that this Mr. _____, was someone I could not at the moment recall.)

She: He said that you would be. (glad that he had a job, that is).

Me: Where did he go to work?

She: He found a job at the Texas School Book Depository.

Me: The Texas School Book Depository! Well, I declare. (I used to send people to apply for jobs there, years ago, and though I had not thought about that company in years, being on a desk where I no longer sent them applicants, I had many unpleasant memories of the firm, for the management of it used to fuss--they were awfully fussy people--when I sent them someone, if, as the saying goes, "his hair was not parted just right".) A shipping clerk's job! Why, that's just what he wanted! Isn't it. (I was commencing to remember Mr. _____, and to picture his bright face.)

She: Well, it isn't much of a job, really, just a dollar and a quarter an hour, but he seems awfully pleased with it.

Me: Well, I'm just awfully relieved to know that he has found a job (. . .) (Suddenly I felt that same urgent alarm I had felt that day when I was talking to him and chanced to make him angry, and I became momentarily and quite unreasonably terror-stricken once more: Just who was this Mrs. _____ who wasn't his wife? Why was she calling ... [half of line missing in photocopy] ... "his wife can't talk to you". I was unable at that time to think of any reason why she should not be able to, for I was too frightened to think clearly. Was the poor woman dead? Had he gone home after all, that day, and shot her? And taken up with this other woman? I plainly pictured him burying his wife under a rosebush, and acting as nothing had happened. I recall that my hand on the telephone commenced to tremble, and I was just about unable to speak.)

She: I feel that I owe you an explanation, why I am calling, and not his wife. As a matter of fact, she is here with me now.

Me: She is? (I was so relieved I could have wept) Well, say, do you mind putting her on the phone?

She: That is what I want to explain. I could put her on the phone, but it wouldn't do any good. You see, she doesn't speak English.

Me: Oh, that's all right. I speak Spanish.

She: (laughing) Well, I'm afraid that wouldn't do any good either.

Me: Why not?

She: Because she speaks Russian, that's why!

Me: (stupidly, and stammering) B-But why does she speak Russian?

She: Because she was born and reared in Russia, that's why! (I noted that she said "born and reared" and not as is more usual for people in her locality "borned" ... [two lines missing in photocopy] ... Her voice was light and gay, and her laughter was ladylike, too.)

Me: Oh. Well. Thanks for calling, Mrs. ______.

She: (now angrily and coldly) Goodbye!

(. . .)

Just a few days after this conversation, I had a postcard, a detached half of an Employment Service franked card, sent back to me announcing that the sender had gone to work at the "Texas School Book Depository". Again I do not honestly recall the name of the person who sent the card. I only remember tossing it into the wastebasket because I had already received, by a telephone call from a lady, the information it contained, but that recollection is sufficient to convince me that I am right in thinking the name was "Oswald", that plus the fact that I had, as I have said, good reason to remember the "Texas School Book Depository" as a firm to which I used to send applicants years ago. I was impressed to think that they must really have been "scraping the bottom of the barrel" when they hired him [Oswald]. I hasten to add that I would not have thought that about just any company which might hire him. What struck ... [half line missing in photocopy] ... hire anyone with a less-than-honorable discharge. He would not have got by there lying about his discharge. They check. Or at least they used to. If in past years, when I had been sending them applicants, I had sent them anyone who was not a 100% red-blooded, true-blue, American, I would have heard about it, plenty! The people who used to, then, own the depository, the Ross Carleton family (who sold it a year or so before the assassination) were leading lights in the Public Affairs Luncheon Club, one of those Dallas vigilante groups a little to the right of the John Birch Society. I did not recall this at the time. I only knew that they were terribly finicky about the people they hired, and always wanted "the moon with a string tied around it" for a dollar an hour. So this thought, that if I had sent them a person like that, I would never have heard the last of it coupled with the thought that they had turned right around and of their own accord hired a person with a less-than-honorable discharge, rankled in my mind. 

Nevertheless, I was comforted with the thought that if he pleased them, as cranky as they were, perhaps I had judged him far too harshly, and that maybe all he needed was just a job, in order to become like anyone else. (. . .) The Warren Commission could have asked Mrs. Paine if she remembered calling a Miss Kittrell at the Texas Employment Commission to tell her that Oswald had gone to work at the Texas School Book Depository, and then becoming amused, then annoyed with her, after she had offered to talk to Mrs Oswald in Spanish (. . .)

[END KITTRELL]

Allen Lowe--because it makes no sense at all that Ruth would not pass on a phone message to Lee, that is my basis for assuming Ruth did pass on that message. You see it differently, in which to you it is perfectly normal that Ruth would be party to a presidential assassination plot involving an unwitting Oswald manipulated into falling into a job at TSBD, then Ruth deviously derailing a job offer (by not passing on a phone message) which could wreck the carefully-planned plot in which Oswald is clueless, for if Oswald had gotten wind of it, he would have fluttered away for the better job. That sounds reasonable to you, so you interpret ambiguity--lack of full information as to precisely what happened-- in that way. Whereas what is reasonable to you as a conclusion makes extraordinarily little sense and has virtually zero likelihood as a reasonable explanation to me. This is why there are these opposite responses to the same set of facts. I, unlike you, reason there must be some more mundane explanation to account for the facts than the conclusion you think is necessitated.

You conclude as if it is settled fact that Ruth did not pass on the Mr. Adams' phone message ("she clearly didn't"). What is the basis for certainty for that? You do not say directly, but I assume your reasoning is twofold: (a) Lee never returned the call to TSBD (based on Adams' testimony); and (b) Ruth, when questioned, volunteered no memory of passing on the phone message from Adams to Lee (surely she would have remembered and said so if she had). 

Based on those two points you go to the utterly extraordinary conclusion of deliberate malevolence of Ruth as the only possible explanation of the facts.

That leaves out possibilities in which Ruth did what we would expect her to have done-- pass on the message to Lee (without knowing content of the job offer). For example, perhaps Lee, having gotten the message from Ruth, did call back to TEC but reached someone other than Mr. Adams, and said he had already found a job so had no need for further job leads. That would agree with the facts and testimony without supposing unprecedented malevolence on Ruth's part.

This is not special pleading to make Ruth be innocent. It is presuming there is likely some reasonable explanation in preference to an utterly extraordinary one.

On "b", Ruth was not asked in her Warren Commission testimony about phone calls from Robert Adams or from the Texas Employment Commission. She did not respond with telling of passing on Mr. Adams' phone message to Lee (which she would have done) perhaps because neither "phone call", "Texas Employment Commission", nor "Robert Adams" were in the questioning of her. We know those things from Adams' testimony--and we know those things are connected to Trans Texas Airways--but Ruth Paine does not know those things in the questions she is asked. Ruth only knows she is being asked if she knew anything about Lee having some great job offer from Trans Texas Airways. If Ruth had not been told that employer name or details by Mr. Adams she would answer exactly as she did, with blank memory of knowing of such a job offer, then confuse it with something else she did remember in trying to answer the question.

She might have remembered Robert Adams' phone calls if she had been prodded or asked about phone calls from the Texas Employment Commission so as to connect that with what the WC was asking her. But she was not told those points of connection (that we know from Adams' testimony). As for the job interview opportunity from Trans Texas Airways, it is reasonable Ruth did not know anything about that. And it is reasonable--I would say certain-- that she would have passed on Mr. Adams' phone message to Lee, even though Mr. Adams never heard back from Lee.

As opposed to conclusion of an outlandish alternative. On grounds of simple likelihood.

Lawrence Schnapf, you raise two issues that go afield from the issue of this thread but briefly, about the "we both know who is responsible" phone call, Ruth has said that both her and Michael's initial thought was that the radical right wing must be responsible for the assassination and that was the sense meant. I accept that explanation of Ruth as reasonable. On the metal file cabinets to which Buddy Walthers referred see https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27780-the-incredible-allegation-that-ruth-paine-did-surveillance-on-castro-sympathizers/.

Speaking of Jeff Meek, I just today received his book, The Manipulation of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Cover-Up That Followed (2021). Like David Talbot, Meek thinks the CIA was deeply involved with Oswald and the assassination and cover-up but that Ruth Paine was not part of that. Summarizing Meek's interviews with Ruth Paine,

"Although there is little doubt family members had direct CIA or CIA-related associations, I was not able to directly connect Ruth Hyde Paine to any such connection. None of the many allegations directed at Paine, in my opinion, warrant a conclusion of her being a CIA contact." (p. 147)

You see--and you are an attorney with "Innocence Project" expertise--after all this time, Ruth Paine's worst critics have failed to establish a single incriminating allegation as fact to the satisfaction of consensus of CT researchers, let alone mainstream legal analysts. I suspect the reason Ruth Paine has become such a lightning rod for character attack and vicious smearing in CT circles even though to the present day there is no evidence she did anything, is because she believed the Warren Commission's finding that Oswald did it. For holding that particular belief sincerely held by tens of millions of intelligent Americans and by America's accredited institutions--a belief which she certainly did not create--in the view of some that is considered unforgiveable, beyond-the-pale unpardonable--maybe even justification for any manner of rhetorically horrible and untrue things that might be said of her. It is a sad situation.

Rene Girard, scapegoat theory. The theory in anthropology that all cultures scapegoat innocent sacrificial victims as a means of resolving conflict, that that is a cultural universal--and that cultures when they do so are literally incapable of seeing what they are doing when they do it. The application in the CT ecosytem is Ruth Paine. The innocent scapegoat, in response to trauma of which Ruth Paine had nothing to do in creating, but which the weight of that trauma is cast upon her by the traumatized tribe.

 

2 minutes ago, Allen Lowe said:

let'd go to the Adams affadavit - he called TWICE and advised who he was and why he was calling. He was obviously talking to Ruth, whom you would have thought, if she really cared about LHO and his family, would have told LHO and given him a chance at this other (and, as we know, higher paying) job. She never told him. If you had been looking for work, and even if you found work, wouldn't you want to be advised that somebody else was offering you a job? Of course you would. But you wouldn't hear a thing if Ruth Paine was hiding the information. She knew about the offer, she took TWO calls about the other job, but she never said a word to LHO. Come on guys, use your heads and your logic. Why are LN'ers so intellectually dishonest?

How do you know Ruth never told Lee of Adams' call, and Lee never bothered to call Adams to find out what the job was? Only because you are predisposed to view Ruth as nefarious, and then you create a narrative out of ambiguity in keeping with that predisposition.

What you are doing is making a claim that Ruth Paine was part of a JFK assassination plot, as if that is the most plausible explanation for why Oswald never returned the call from Adams. Here there is a disconnect, for according to Bill Simpich, nobody in this community--no researcher known to him--thinks Ruth was part of the assassination plot. But this idea that Ruth would intentionally keep Lee from learning about a phone call from Adams, which of course was likely to be a job lead whether or not Adams said so (as he may have without giving the details) . . . Ruth was helpful to Lee otherwise, no previous record of screwing Lee over by not passing on phone messages, so why does that become regarded not simply as plausible but certain in this case? Because you are meaning what according to Simpich no one in this community supposedly thinks, that she is part of an assassination plot involving keeping a hapless, unwitting Oswald manipulated into being there at the TSBD as part of the plot to kill JFK. Isn't that what this is really about?

I just finished watching today's Jan 6 hearing, and I see parallels between the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election, and the big lie that there are known facts establishing that Ruth Paine committed treason or perjury or criminal wrongdoing or working as an intelligence agency operative. Like the election fraud claims, as Giuliani put it, they had a lot of theories but no evidence. Similarly with Ruth Paine, there are a lot of theories but no evidence. Or rather, there are claims of evidence in the case of Ruth Paine which are as insubstantial as Trump's claims to evidence that he won the election by a landslide, or claims of Obama birtherism believers of evidence that Obama was born in Africa. 

50 minutes ago, Allen Lowe said:

do you guys ever actually read the stuff that you post? From Greg's post:

"Adams called the Ruth Paine home in Irving asking for Lee. Ruth answered the phone and said Lee was not there. Adams left a message for Lee to call, so that he could tell Lee of the Trans Texas Airways job offer. "

Hello? HELLO? ANYBODY HOME? (Besides Ruth, I mean).

The wording was poor. What I meant was that was Adams' purpose in leaving the message, not that he conveyed information about the job in the message to Ruth. That was what I meant.

Marina Oswald writes to the Dallas ACLU who had sent letters inquiring of the Secret Service's treatment of Marina

Note the juxtaposition of Marina . . . ACLU . . . Ruth Paine . . . and the Secret Service, under the spotlight of ACLU scrutiny. No wonder the Secret Service would persuade Marina to steer clear of Ruth Paine who translated the ACLU letter, who was a member of the ACLU, and who had been Marina's closest friend, because Ruth Paine was associated with ACLU (not CIA), and ACLU was "leftist" and that would not be good for Marina's reputation etc and etc.

As Marina said, the Secret Service explained to Marina that Ruth Paine and "CIA" (sic) were "writing letters over there". No, the Secret Service did not at all like Ruth Paine and "CIA" (sic) "writing letters over there"! 

Marina was talking about the ACLU and simply got the acronyms confused in her New Orleans grand jury testimony. 

Also note how early this is, the original context for what Marina was telling Garrison's grand jury in garbled form years later.

Also note Marina states in this earliest version of explanation for why she has cut off from Ruth Paine, that it is for Ruth Paine's good, she does not want to inconvenience Ruth Paine! (No doubt a Secret Service encouraged explanation.)

Those who are convinced Marina was infallible, not on anything else (such as her incrimination of Lee), but at this one moment when she spoke of "CIA" five years later instead of that which was obviously the Secret Service's nemesis and fear with respect to continued Marina/Ruth Paine contact, the ACLU and Ruth "writing letters over there", will continue to repeat forever and ever. But they discredit themselves every time they do so because it is not honest with respect to reconstruction of actual intent and meaning in original context.  

 

 

 

Did Ruth Paine knowingly fail to inform Oswald of a Trans Texas Airways better job? No. The baselessness of the accusation that Ruth Paine wilfully obstructed Oswald from learning of a better job opportunity

There is an allegation, believed and repeated by many as if it is a known fact, that Ruth Paine deliberately failed to pass on a message to Lee Oswald from Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission of a better job opportunity, in order to prevent Lee from learning of that job.

According to the reasoning of this allegation, if Oswald had learned of the better job offer, he would have flown the coop, taken the better job and left the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), and that would have meant the carefully-planned JFK assassination with all the elaborate planning put into setting up Lee's role in it would have been ruined, just like that.

Ruth or her handlers (so the theory goes) were not going to let a planned killing of the president Ruth had voted for and supported be thwarted in that way.

So Ruth deliberately failed to pass on the information of the better job to Lee. Lee, not knowing of the better job, did not leave the TSBD for it.

It was a close call there, but the assassination plot was preserved and went forward. Thanks to Ruth Paine preventing Lee from learning of the higher-paying job.

This or something close to it is what many of this community have believed in their bones to be fact. Because it is repeated and repeated in books and articles as if it is fact.

But there is no evidence it is true, and no plausibility it is true. It is another fabrication by which Ruth Paine has been smeared within this community. 

It is one more in the class of beliefs held and circulated about Ruth Paine founded on imagination, unanchored on any judicious reading of facts or evidence. The allegation has no substance underlying the certainty with which the belief is claimed and expressed.

Robert Adams, a placement interviewer of the Texas Employment Commission (TEC), told of having had three job referrals for Lee, on Oct 7, 9, and 15, in 1963. The first two Lee applied for but was not hired. The third, and the one of interest here, was a cargo handlers' job at Trans Texas Airways, which would have paid better than Lee's pay at the TSBD--a more desirable job. On this third job offer, on Tue Oct 15, 1963 (the day Lee applied at the TSBD), Adams called the Ruth Paine home in Irving asking for Lee. Ruth answered the phone and said Lee was not there. Adams left a message for Lee to call, so that he could tell Lee of the Trans Texas Airways job offer. Adams did not hear back from Lee the rest of that day. Not having heard back from Oswald, Adams tried again the next morning, Wed Oct 16, to reach him, at about 10:30 am, the same day that was Lee's first day of work at the TSBD.

Ruth answered the phone both times. The first time (Tue Oct 15, the day Lee was hired at TSBD) Ruth took a message for Lee. The second time (Wed Oct 16, Lee's first day of work at TSBD) Ruth told Adams that Lee had found a job, which Adams did not know until told by Ruth on Wed Oct 16. Adams then ceased further followup at that point. He had left his message, Lee had not returned the call, and now he learned Lee was employed, the objective of TEC for him; Adams considered his task concluded and wrote up his paperwork accordingly.

The paperwork--the Texas Employment Commission's records--showed Oswald as a "non-report" on the Trans Texas Airways job referral. Although that notation commonly indicated a client who had received a job referral but failed to appear for a job interview, Adams told the Warren Commission that that was not what happened in Oswald's case, that the notation reflected that he, Adams, had not gotten the Trans Texas Airways job referral to Oswald and he did not believe anyone else at the TEC had done so either, such that he did not believe the third job referral had ever been given to Oswald at all. That was Robert Adams' testimony and belief.

In Ruth Paine's testimony, Warren Commission counsel Jenner told Ruth the details of the Trans Texas Airways job including its higher pay level and asked what she knew about it. Ruth Paine responded three times with puzzlement and no knowledge or recognition of any such Trans Texas Airways or cargo handling job referral for Lee. Under continued questioning Ruth then said she did remember something--she remembered a job for which Lee had gone into Dallas to apply. 

Note what is critically important here. Lee's going into Dallas to apply for a job cannot have occurred on or after Wed Oct 16 when Lee started work at the TSBD on Wed Oct 16! But that is the date of the second and final phone call attempt by Robert Adams to reach Lee.

The memory of Ruth of Lee going into Dallas to apply for a job in her reply to Jenner, Ruth said explicitly, she remembered as having occurred before Lee started work at TSBD. 

Therefore the job application to which Ruth referred in her answer to Jenner--in which Ruth recalled Lee had gone into Dallas to apply, before he started at TSBD--was either one of the two earlier job referrals (#1 or #2) of Robert Adams, or some non-Texas Employment Commission job referral or application such as the one of Lee to the Wiener Lumber Company on Mon Oct 14--some job application before Lee started work at TSBD. Adams' #1 of Oct 7 was a high-paying job at Solid State Electronics Company (Lee interviewed for that one but did not get it). Ruth's description could be either the Adams' #1 or #2, or else the Wiener Lumber Company, but what Ruth recalled to Jenner was not the Trans Texas Airways (Adams #3) of Robert Adams' phone calls to Ruth of Oct 15 and 16. This is important because it shows Ruth Paine and Jenner were not talking of exactly the same thing.

The central point is that Robert Adams did not deliver the Trans Texas Airways job information or referral, intended for Lee Oswald, in either of his phone calls to Ruth Paine. Adams would not have told Ruth any details, not the name of the employer, nature of the job, pay level, anything--it was none of Ruth's business, why should he? Adams likely would not have even known who Ruth was answering the phone. The job referral was not to her, it was to Lee. Robert Adams was simply attempting to reach Lee, leaving a message asking to have Lee call him back.

At the time of that first call on Tue Oct 15 Adams does not know of Lee's TSBD job and Ruth does not know of Adams' job offer which he has in mind for Lee or its pay level. Ruth Paine does not know of any Texas Airways cargo handler's job with its good pay, benefits, and opportunity for advancement. Nor is that what she is recalling when she is pressed by Jenner to try to remember--she cannot recall a Texas Airways job opportunity because she never did know of it--not until the Warren Commission questioning of Jenner.

There is no evidence, likelihood, or reason to assume that Adams would have told Ruth any details of job offer #3 at all, not even that there was a job offer. Most likely, only a message for Oswald that Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission wanted him to call him back. 

Ruth therefore would not--could not, unless she had been told which she was not-- have known specifics of the Trans Texas Airways job opening, its better pay level, or anything about it, not even the name "Trans Texas Airways", in agreement with Ruth's first three answers to the Warren Commission's questioning--only a message from Robert Adams of TEC for Lee to call back.

With Lee not living at Ruth Paine's house and gone all day Tue Oct 15 and returning that evening not to Irving but to his rented room in Oak Cliff, Lee would not have gotten any message during business hours that day on Tue Oct 15 (no way for Ruth to have been in communication with him by phone). This gives Tue evening Oct 15 as the earliest window of opportunity for Ruth to have conveyed the message to Lee that Robert Adams had called.

The logical time for that message to have gotten to Lee would have been Tue eve Oct 15. Now set aside the decades of smearing of Ruth Paine concerning what happened and instead focus on facts known from documents and testimony. In terms of facts and testimony, It is neither confirmed nor excluded that Ruth talked to Lee in Oak Cliff by phone that evening.

In light of Ruth's conscientiousness on other matters, as her usual practice, it is likely Ruth would have passed on the message.

If Ruth tried to call Lee, it is unknown whether she got through to Lee. Because this is unknown, we can only reconstruct what is most likely to have happened or which we would expect to have happened.

We would expect Ruth to try to get the message to Lee, and the time that would occur would be Tue evening Oct 15 after Lee was home in Oak Cliff. The most likely way this would have worked is this: Ruth elsewhere testified that Lee would usually call every evening, to speak to Marina and also Ruth, just to keep in touch and fill in the day's news. It is reasonable that Ruth would plan on telling Lee when he called that evening, Tue eve. Although there is no specific confirmation that Lee phoned that evening, the most likely scenario is Lee did call, and in that phone call Ruth would have passed on the Robert Adams phone message.

Therefore I believe Ruth did convey the message to Lee on Tue eve Oct 15 that Robert Adams of TEC had called and wanted Lee to call him back. If Lee asked, "What is it about? Do you know?" Ruth would have said something like, "No I don't know what its about, he just asked you to call." Lee: "OK, thanks." Some form of that is what I think happened, simply because that falls into expected behavior. There is no evidence anything different from that occurred, even if we lack direct information. That Ruth would not remember some of these details when being questioned months later is attributable to imperfect memory, on a matter for which no written notes would have been preserved.  

But the notion that Ruth never passed on that message to Lee, intentionally, because she knew how great of a job offer it was (can't have Lee getting a good job offer after getting him into the TSBD!), that is just a smear inflicted on Ruth Paine from some circles in the JFK assassination research community.

What would have happened next? Lee cannot call Robert Adams that evening (Tue eve Oct 15) because it is after-hours. The first chance Lee would have to call Robert Adams would be the next morning, Wed Oct 16. But Wed morning Lee is at work at the TSBD. In any case Lee did not call Adams back, not Wed morning and not ever. This is established from the testimony of Adams. Not receiving any call from Lee by 10:30 am that morning (Wed AM, Oct 16) Adams made his second try to reach Lee by calling again to Ruth Paine's house in Irving. That is when Adams learned from Ruth that Lee was employed--news to Adams--and Adams thereupon marked his records accordingly and did no further followup.

Those who are intent upon accusing Ruth Paine have assumed that Oswald's failure to return Robert Adams' call could only have been because Lee never learned of it from Ruth, and that Ruth withheld it intentionally. But the more likely scenario is Ruth passed on the message and Oswald for whatever reason did not return the call from his choice.

If Lee was happy with his new job at TSBD, or had some other reason for wishing to remain situated at that location (n.b. many conspiracy theories suppose this), either of those could be reasons why he would not return Adams' call. But what did not happen is either Ruth or Lee ever became aware that what Adams had was a better job opportunity, because neither Ruth nor Lee ever learned any details, not even the name "Trans Texas Airways". And the reason Lee never learned was because Lee never called Robert Adams back.

Here is Ruth's Warren Commission testimony in which it is clear she has confused an earlier actual job application on the part of Oswald (either Adams' #1 or #2 or Wiener Lumber or some other employment agency's referral) before Lee started work at TSBD, whereas the later Trans Texas Airways job (Adams' #3) of the Warren Commission's interest--Ruth knows nothing of it.

JENNER: Did you ever hear anything by way of discussion or otherwise by Marina or Lee of the possibility of his having been tendered or at least suggested to him a job at Trans Texas, as a cargo handler at $310 per month?

PAINE: No, in Dallas?

JENNER: Yes.

PAINE: I do not recall that. $310.00 per month.

JENNER: Yes. This was right at the time that he obtained employment at the TSBD.

PAINE: And he was definitely offered such a job?

JENNER: Well, I won't say it was offered - that he might have been able to secure a job through the Texas Employment Commission as a cargo handler at $310.00 per month.

PAINE: I do recall some reference of that sort, which fell through--that there was not that possibility.

JENNER: Tell us what you know about it. Did you hear of it at any time?

PAINE: Yes.

JENNER: How did it come about?

PAINE: From Lee, as I recall.

JENNER: And was it at that time, or just right –

PAINE: It was at the time, while he was yet unemployed.

JENNER: And about the time he obtained employment at the Texas School Book Depository?

PAINE: It seems he went into town with some hopes raised by the employment agency - whether a public or private agency I don't know - but then reported that the job had been filled and not available to him.

JENNER: But that was –

PAINE: That is my best recollection.

JENNER: Of his report to you and Marina?

PAINE: Yes.

JENNER: But do you recall his discussing it?

PAINE: I recall something of that nature. I do not recall the job itself.

It is obvious there is some confusion here, in this testimony in mid-1964, in Ruth recalling the exact sequence in those days of mid-Oct 1963. The Adams #3 job referral, which Oswald never learned or received, cannot be what Ruth is referring to or recalling in the above, in her answer to Jenner. Because what Ruth is remembering cannot have occurred after Lee started work at TSBD, which was when Robert Adams called trying to reach Lee about the Texas Airways job. Whatever Ruth was remembering was something before Lee started work at TSBD, either the Adams #1 or #2 or some other pre-TSBD job referral--before Lee started at TSBD. 

As noted, for the first two job referrals handled by Robert Adams of Oct 7 and 9, Lee applied but was not hired. As for Adams' #3, the Trans Texas Airways of Adams' phone calls of Tue Oct 15 and Wed Oct 16, Adams stated, 

“Inasmuch as I did not talk with Oswald either by telephone or in person in connection with this job order, I do not know whether he was ever advised of this referral, but under the circumstances I do not see how he could have been.” 

That should be read, not as referring to Ruth Paine not advising Lee as to the specifics, pay level, etc., but to fellow staff at the Texas Employment Commission not advising Lee of that, the only ones who would have been in a position to advise Oswald of that job referral. Robert Adams is saying he did not advise Oswald of the Trans Texas Airways job opening and he did not see how anyone else (at TEC) could have either. 

Ruth Paine, who did so much to help that family--she drove Lee places, spent time teaching him parallel parking so he could pass a driving test, made him a birthday celebration, tried to find Lee job leads from neighbors, made a phone call to try to help Lee get a job from one of those leads learned from the neighbors, assisted Marina in having her baby--Ruth would not have knowingly obstructed Lee from learning of an opportunity for a better job. The notion is really absurd. It would be the opposite of all of her other actions and behavior with Lee prior to the assassination. The charge, the smear--this belief which has been fixated for so long in some circles--that Ruth Paine did so is without evidential basis or grounds. Its only basis for continued perpetuation is an insistence, unanchored to reason, on imagining the worst and projecting it onto Ruth Paine, for reasons that go into the realm of psychology rather than forensic investigation.

Robert Adams’ affidavit to the Warren Commission of Aug 4, 1963, can be seen at https://www.jfk-assassination.eu/warren/wch/vol11/page481.php.   

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

While I frequently disagree with Mantik, he occasionally shows some real class. This is one of those times. 

Completely agree Pat, Mantik's response does show real class. He thanks and honors Roe for the discovery, as Roe well deserves.  

And your identification of the initials on the NARA photographs which followed Roe's on the NIST was also breakthrough creditworthy.

Of course discussion and differences of views will continue over the issue of the single bullet theory and the relationship of CE399 to those theories. But that is distinct from the correction concerning the Todd initials, and the benefits of having a cleaner factual database at the basis of such discussions.