Greg Doudna

Gene, Jeff Carter's narrative which you have bought is seriously misleading. This is not a case of the Walthers' first-day report sentence being the primary document which stands until Liebeler of the WC in 1964 incompletely helps it disappear. Not at all. The evidence concerning the metal file boxes taken from Ruth's bedroom and the contents therein is in Dallas police and FBI documents and has nothing to do with Liebeler or the "Rumors and Speculation" thing. That is simply misleading.

1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:

It is also interesting that the metal file cabinets did not make it onto the Dallas Police inventory sheets, nor was it entered into evidence alongside Lee Harvey Oswald's belongings.  Simple logic would conclude that the files belonged to the Paines.

Absolutely the opposite of the facts Gene.

From DPD's Rose-Stovall-Adamcik list of property they took from the Ruth Paine house on Fri Nov 22: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/DPDlist22.htm. 

• 1 Electric bill from New Orleans
• 1 Uneployment insurance stub
• 1 Russian mag. 
• 1 Book from Sears Tower slide projector
• 1 Russian .35 mm camera and brown case
• 1 Plastic bag Russian papers and New Orleans Paper
• 1 Blue notebook with Cuba papers and other papers of Communistic nature 
• 1 Grey metal file box 12" x 6" youth pictures and literature 
• 1 Black and grey metal box 10" x 4" letters, etc. 
• 1 Box brown Keystone projector 
• 3 Brown metal boxes 12" x 4" containing phonograph records 
• 1 Blue check telephone index book (addresses) 
• 1 Bracket (Instruction for mounting)
• 1 Book white paper back (Russian)
• 1 Roll Kodak film

And for you to cite "simple logic" concerning their ownership sounds as if you are unaware that officer Gus Rose testified he found them in Ruth Paine's bedroom, Ruth Paine testified they were entirely hers, FBI documents tells of Ruth Paine's contents found in those file boxes. There is no need to invoke inductive "logic" when there is an abundant documentary record. I believe the reason you are unaware of this is because of uncritically buying Jeff Carter's narrative which skips right over all of the above.

1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:

Walthers later told author Eric Tagg that they "found six or seven metal filing cabinets full of letters, maps, records and index cards with names of pro-Castro sympathizers.”

I think its pretty clear from reading Tagg that he was not citing later information obtained from Walthers, but was reciting what was previously published without adding new Walthers' statements to it. So there is nothing new added from Walthers, and it does not function as adding independent weight or corroboration to the written sources from which it draws. In fact I am not aware of a single documented Walthers' comment or statement about the matter later than the sentence in his first-day report. Bear in mind that the other sheriff's deputies that day, plus Gus Rose of DPD, all wrote and spoke of finding the same metal file boxes and none of them, either then or later, claimed what Walthers did concerning the contents of what they found. It is not as if that Walthers' sentence ever had legs or traction to begin with, including from Walthers subsequently.

That is where the focus of critical reasoning attention should be, not on Liebeler who is not relevant to this evidentiary record which precedes Liebeler and has nothing to do with Liebeler.

I know you are personally decent and sincere but honestly, the misinformation is coming from the side defending this mountain out of a molehill built out of Walthers' first-day sentence which for whatever reason was simply a first-day error, on a continuum with other law enforcement sloppiness and errors that first weekend that turned out not to be accurate. Again, Liebeler is irrelevant. Walthers' statement under oath that he never even saw what it was he said in that first-day sentence and had no personal knowledge of those metal boxes' contents is, however, relevant--and even if one chooses completely arbitrarily to reject and dismiss and refuse to believe Walthers' sworn testimony under oath there, simple basic ethics calls to at least disclose to listening or reading audiences that Walthers said that, if one is going to cite that Walthers' first-day sentence as incrimination of Ruth Paine. But that is not done.

It would be as if documentaries on the JFK assassination would present as fact today that Oswald's paraffin test proved Oswald fired a rifle on Nov 22, 1963--citing original first- or second-day statement of Dallas police--without disclosure that that was later openly retracted and acknowledged to be in error. What kind of words would any reasonable person have for that kind of tactic if a documentary did that in 2022? It is the same in this case.

Metaphor.

20 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The assassination plotters knew very well that some of their assets would be questioned by the FBI after the assassination. But why worry about that? The vast majority of their assets, including Ruth Paine, knew nothing about the assassination plot. They couldn't squeal about it even if they wanted to. (Remember, everything in the CIA is compartmentalized on a need-to-know basis.)

It was only after the assassination that the assassination plotter knew about the Warren Commission. Ruth was an important witness, and the CIA had no say in whether she could be questioned. But why would the CIA care? She had no knowledge of the plot.

But Sandy, didn't you say earlier that you believe Ruth Paine called the Texas School Book Depository's Truly at the behest of CIA handlers, to place Oswald there? Of course there is no evidence anyone put Ruth Paine up to that phone call other than Linnie Mae Randle and Marina. But assume for the moment your scenario: would not Ruth at the point of learning of the assassination realize that she had been "used" by the ones who assassinated President Kennedy? How would her handlers be assured that she would react well to that realization, go along with willingness to forge and fabricate evidence, commit flagrant massive perjury under oath etc and etc and etc and never "tell" or have qualms of conscience?

And when I asked how Linnie Mae Randle telling Ruth Paine of the TSBD job possibility prompting Ruth's call was accounted for, I understood you to say Linnie Mae must have been an asset too, she must have had a handler too. When I asked how could it be assured that Roy Truly at TSBD would hire Oswald simply because some woman in Irving he had never met cold-called and asked, I understood you to answer that Roy Truly also must have been an asset and have a handler too. So now it is up to three assets and three handlers.

Now you say in your scheme none of these assets knew they were part of the assassination before the assassination. But would it not stand to reason (internal to your scheme) that after the assassination they surely would know what had happened, would be able to figure it out? Then what would they do with that knowledge? How would it be ensured that none of those three would reveal the prior machinations of their handlers to have them manipulate Oswald into applying for the TSBD job? How would their willingness to perjure themselves--a crime risking stiff criminal penalties--concerning their knowledge of unusual circumstances of Lee's TSBD hiring--be ensured in advance? 

When difficulties escalate in trying to make sense of a reconstruction for which there is no evidence to begin with, at a certain point that calls the likelihood of the reconstruction into question. In this case the question is: did Ruth Paine have unseen secret handlers instruct her to make a phone call to try to help Lee get a job--or was it the much less exciting but much more humanly realistic version, the version Ruth has always said, in which Ruth learned of the possibility of TSBD employment from Wesley Frazier's sister Linnie Mae Randle, then picked up the telephone on her own (and with Marina's urging) to try to help Lee get a job? 

On 6/17/2022 at 11:37 AM, James DiEugenio said:

If you want to see something really off kilter, take a look at this Sylvia Hyde Hoke issue while reading Ruth's testimony before the New Orleans grand jury.

It is really something to read.  We are to believe that Ruth did not know what her sister did for a living, and in fact, did not even know where she lived.

IMO, it is difficult to explain this exchange benignly.  Worse case scenario is she simply did not want Garrison to locate her.

Case in point of witchhunt mentality which is a blight on the JFK research community. Ruth's only occasion visiting Sylvia at that address no doubt involved following telephoned driving instructions of which interstate exits to take to get there. Proceed now to the following evidence of Ruth's perfidy. 

Q. While you were in Washington did you go to Virginia at all?

A. If I did I was visiting my sister, but I am trying to recall where she might have been at the time [1963, five years earlier]. I do recall she lived in a kind of rented place before John got back, whether that was in '63 I don't remember.

Q. Which town in Virginia would that have been.

A. Its all sort of the fringe of Washington.

Q. Washington suburbs.

A. Yes. Whether it was Virginia, it could have been Maryland. I just don't remember.

Q. Was it Arlington, McLean, one of those towns?

A. Yes, a double name like Falls Church, or something like that. Its pretty vague.

If not remembering driving directions on a vacation stopover from five years earlier isn't enough to prove Ruth Paine’s depravity, nothing will, right?

And not even remembering what state Falls Church was in in the D.C. area from five years earlier? Well that just cinches it doesn’t it. 

This looks like a Rorschach Inkblot method of criminal investigation, where sinister meaning is seen in mundane happenings surrounding the accused, from a long line of proud inquisitors and witch hunters. 

The rest of DiEugenio’s series of accusations of Ruth Paine upon examination are about equally well founded as this one, which is to say: zero evidence that Ruth Paine committed wrongdoing or was other than who she said she was, mixed with Rorschach Inkblot interpretations collected from past articles, stir thirty minutes until done, cooked to order.

It is a travesty, a breakdown in critical reasoning faculties. 

3 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

(she produced

the Walker note, which she may

have written or at least planted, after his death).

Except for (a) the note was written by Oswald according to expert handwriting analysis; (b) the note was in Marina's book where Marina said she hid it; and (c) not the slightest evidence Ruth wrote or planted it.

What a nasty, baseless, reprehensible (because baseless) smear.

But when you already know she's a witch, just anything that can be made up becomes truth doesn't it.

For so long, going all the way back to Garrison, Ruth Paine has been pilloried by members of this community on the allegation that she has family connections to the CIA with the logic that that makes her suspicious and therefore q.e.d. guilty. That core logic is the most central thesis and underpinning in the film of what Max Good calls the conspiratorial persuasion concerning Ruth Paine which he favors in the film. I am not the one who did this whole history and reality internal to this community of McCarthyism-logic allegations against Ruth Paine which in the end have as their one documented fact her older sister's employment choice in D.C., hardly different from anyone with an older sibling with a life of their own enlisting in one of the branches of the armed forces to be employed in the bureaucracy. Ruth had nothing to do with that and it appears did not even know. Sylvia's employment has no obvious importance with respect to Ruth but the problem is some people think so.

14 minutes ago, Cory Santos said:

I have not seen it yet but has anyone asked her why she did not disclose her sister’s status?

Cory I think the answer to that is she did not disclose Sylvia's CIA employment because she says she was not aware of a CIA employment of Sylvia to disclose. Here is Ruth asked about Sylvia in the film.

Good: This is some sort of CIA declassified document about your sister? (hands Ruth paper) (Ruth reading it)

Ruth: Yeah, OK, its possible.

Narrator: Researchers have determined that Ruth’s sister, Sylvia Hoke, worked as a psychologist for the CIA, likely beginning in 1954. The document indicates that she was still working there as of 1961.

Ruth: She had studied psychology I guess, and she was helping to develop tests of intelligence that didn’t involve language. Because they wanted to get bright people working in the oil fields. So that’s all I know about what she did.

There is a misstatement of fact in the above: the claim that Sylvia Hoke worked for the CIA since 1954. In fairness to Max Good this is not an error he invented but is reflected in published sources. But there is no evidence Sylvia Hoke worked for CIA since 1954 and there is also no evidence Sylvia Hoke ever was employed in a covert status with CIA. Statements that appear in books that Sylvia had a "covert CIA" position since 1954 with a "cover" employment in the Placement and Employee Relations Division, US Air Force, are wrong--that employment was simply US Air Force as it stands and had nothing to do with being covert CIA. The reason the 1954 date entered JFK researcher discourse is because of a document, a CIA memo instructing a CIA file to be newly opened on Sylvia Hoke. An NARA typed cover sheet says that CIA memo is dated 6/15/55 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=13103#relPageId=1). However that date is not correct. 

The document itself--the memo--I have studied it and I am certain the handwritten date reads "6/15/59" and was misread by NARA, the final "9' misread as "5" by mistake, by some data entry person who prepared the NARA cover sheet (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=13103#relPageId=2). To my knowledge this date error has gone unnoticed and uncorrected until now. 

From what I have read application for employment with CIA is notoriously a lengthy process, typically involving a year of background checks and investigation before a decision is received on an application for employment. I believe the CIA opening of the file on Sylvia Hoke in 1959 was related to an application for employment. I interpret the timeline as she expressed interest in CIA employment (overt, D.C. area) in 1959, and after the ca. 1-year background checking the employment itself would have begun ca. 1960, in time for reference to that employment to appear in the 1961 Falls Church, Va., city directory.

After opening its file on Sylvia Hoke in 1959, CIA obtained (as part of its background checking for the employment application) FBI documents of an FBI security investigation of 1956-57 that had involved Sylvia Hoke (over allegations that Sylvia's mother-in-law was a communist and was Sylvia too?), which in turn prompted an investigation by the Air Force (OSI) of its employee Sylvia. Those documents from those two investigations are from earlier than 1959, but copies of those documents came into the CIA file on Sylvia after the CIA file was opened in 1959. 

There is no information known to me of duration of that employment for Sylvia. It is not even clear that when Ruth Paine visited Sylvia and John Hoke in the summer of 1963 that Sylvia was employed by CIA at the time Ruth visited her. She may have been, but not known for certain.

The city directory information indicates Sylvia was so employed in 1961 (overt, D.C. area) but is not so listed in the next issue of that directory in 1963. I verified the city directory information. There are only several libraries in the US which have copies of that particular directory, one of which is the Library of Virginia in Richmond. About a month ago I phoned that library and through the kindness of a reference librarian verified this information (I asked her to look up 1961 and the next one published in 1963):

Dear Mr. Doudna, 

Ruth Paine would have known nothing of the 1961 city directory listing. Unless Sylvia or John Hoke volunteered to Ruth or other family members that Sylvia was employed by CIA--as opposed to telling of Sylvia's employment in some form that did not involve the initials "CIA"--Ruth could very well not have known. In the absence of information to the contrary, I take Ruth and Michael at their word that they were unaware of Sylvia's CIA employment, based on this from Alan Weberman:

"Sylvia Hyde Hoke was contacted on November 22, 1993. She was asked if she had ever worked for the CIA: 'No, I'm not going to answer any questions. I refuse to give interviews.' Ruth Paine was questioned about her sister: 'I would doubt it seriously. When I asked her if she worked for the government she said she did statistical work for the Air Force. It's very unlikely and something I never heard from her. It's unknown to me.'

"Michael Paine was asked about Sylvia Hyde Hoke's connection to the CIA. Michael Paine: 'I don't believe it. It is not true. I don't remember what her occupation was. I had no idea this was the case. Ask Ruth, what does she say? If it was true, it had no bearing on the Kennedy assassination.'" (Weberman, The Oswald Code [2014], 245)

12 hours ago, Keyvan Shahrdar said:

Fact: Walthers never saw what he reported. (Walthers under oath, Warren Commission testimony.) Keyvan>> Walthers testimony was on July 23, 1964, eight and a half months after the fact.  You must look at his testimony through a political lens.  During his testimony he never denied not seeing them.

"Mr. Walthers. Well, that could have been one, but I didn't see it." 

17 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

But you have to understand Greg, your response while plausible, will be met with some skepticism, because it is rather weak. Typically, one would know where one's sister is employed. But a point made on the other hand, is that her sister's employment was never a secret. I have no figures on it, but the CIA is a huge organization, that I'd assume a relatively small number work in a covert capacity.

Of course, then you have to ask. Why would CIA asset, RP risk exposure and  lie about something that was public knowledge? Even if you think RP was lying about her family ties to the CIA, whatever side you're on, your arguments are weak.

Sylvia I think was ten years older than Ruth, not close in age. I have always been close to my brother but he does not tell me everything about his life; he's just his own private person and I respect that. I do not know whether Sylvia told Ruth of her CIA employment but is is not implausible to me that she might not. To suppose Sylvia did tell Ruth and Ruth dissembled to Garrison under oath is I suppose possible but Ruth is not known to have testified falsely under oath otherwise, and I do not see exactly why she would in this case if she knew. Michael Paine also seemed not to know of any CIA employment of Sylvia. In any case my point was Sylvia's employment in D.C. is like my sister-in-law is career Air Force (nurse). It does not mean I am connected to the Air Force. Same with Ruth Paine's older sister taking overt CIA employment in D.C. What I find disheartening is a witchhunt mentality when it comes to Ruth Paine, in which unsubstantiated allegations are considered evidence that something must be amiss with her above the level of normal human frailties, instead of maybe the reason none of the allegations have been substantiated is because they never were true to begin with.

19 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

No, absolutely not. I suspect the bullet was undercharged and caused Kennedy's back wound, and that it was then found in the limo during the clean-up outside Parkland. I suspect further that SS agent Sam Kinney discovered it and then placed it on a stretcher he thought was associated with the assassination, but was in fact the stretcher used in the treatment of Ronnie Fuller. (IOW. I think Tink nailed this last part.) 

Pat in this analysis could you explain one point: how could an undercharged bullet sufficiently slow as to not penetrate in JFK's back farther than two inches hit JFK at all? If the rifle that shot it was aimed at JFK the bullet would have fallen far short. The only way to hit JFK with a slow-moving bullet would be to aim way up in the air and hope the arc lands at the right place on the moving target, like lobbing a long football pass. Who does an assassination that way, intentionally fire a non-fatal shot that is very difficult to hit the target in the first place? But if the shot had been fired undercharged by mistake, it would never have made it to JFK's back to begin with. How do you see this working in your thinking? 

9 hours ago, Max Good said:

Thanks, @Denny Zartmanand @Joseph McBride for the kind words.  I saw early on that the issue of the Paines seemed to hit a nerve with certain people.  The fact that Ruth has documented links to the CIA through her immediate family is very inconvenient for people who have an agenda to direct attention away from CIA.

Ruth is a public figure and a figure of historical significance.  She has chosen to continue doing interviews for nearly 60 years.  She is well aware of the suspicions and she is strong enough to handle it all.  Many people have remarked that the film treats Ruth with respect and allows her to respond effectively to the allegations.  I have even received excellent responses from thoughtful and honest people in the lone nut camp.

Some people would like to spread the idea my film is baseless, irresponsible character assassination.  Honest and rational people can tell that is not the case.

Your bolded statement that "Ruth has documented links to the CIA" is simply not true, as you yourself said in the film:

"There are all kinds of claims and rumors about the Paines but no concrete evidence has ever directly linked them to the CIA. Most of the suspicions revolve around their immediate family."

The only documented link of a family member of Ruth to the CIA is her older sister, Sylvia Hoke, living in the Washington, D.C. area, who had some CIA overt employment which she apparently did not disclose to Ruth, and Sylvia's husband who although no evidence he ever was employed by CIA was a liaison to CIA with clearance in his non-CIA job. It is very likely Sylvia's overt CIA employment was in her field of human resources/personnel aptitude testing, nothing remotely related to assassination of a president or any other domestic operation. From what I have read on Quora, CIA employment was considered desirable employment, good on a credit application, etc. for people living in the Washington, D.C. area. That Sylvia's employment was overt, as is the majority of CIA employment from what I have read, and not covert, is indicated from one thing: the way this became known is because Sylvia was listed in 1961 as a CIA employee in the Falls Church, Virginia city directory!

I did some research in how city directories of that era got their information. It was from door-to-door canvassing, and if information could not be obtained that way, then was filled in sometimes from what neighbors reported. It can be safely assumed that if Sylvia's employment had been covert, she would not have told a door-to-door city directory canvasser or next-door neighbor who told the city directory people that, whichever it was. Then the question becomes did Ruth know of her sister's (overt) CIA employment. Ruth indicated she did not know (several times and occasions). I have read that it was common for CIA employees in the D.C. area, including overt ones (with no legal requirement to keep such employment secret) would "disguise" or "hide" such employment to outsiders simply because of reactions. My wife worked for a period of time for TSA as an airport screener. A lot of people did not like TSA security screening such that informally, she and colleagues would not tell people if asked that they worked for TSA. (Because of all the reactions and embarrassment, etc.) They would say some euphemism for government work, I forget exactly what, but it was a truthful but non-informative way of not saying "TSA". That appears to be the best explanation of Ruth not knowing of older sister Sylvia's overt CIA employment in the D.C. area, because Sylvia did not volunteer it to her pacifist Quaker younger sister from a different state. 

That's it for documented connections to CIA in Ruth's family--her sister employed in some overt capacity in the D.C. area, nothing to do with dirty ops. There is no documented link to CIA for Ruth at all, contrary to your wording. And her sister's employment with CIA was in all likelihood innocuous, and not even known to Ruth.

Her father worked for AID setting up insurance cooperatives and there is no evidence he was working for CIA in that, although certainty is not possible on that point, any more than for someone who was a Latter-day Saints missionary or served in the Peace Corps overseas. With thanks to a discussion with Robert Reynolds on this point, I believe simple odds and numbers favor Ruth's father not having been covert CIA contracted. In any case you cannot legitimately claim her father had a documented CIA connection since there is no evidence known or documentation for that.

That Ruth's mother-in-law's best friend was Allen Dulles' lover--Ruth never met Dulles or the lover--is pure coincidence, six-degrees-of-separation genre.   

It is therefore misrepresentation to claim Ruth Paine has documented links to the CIA when there is no evidence of any personal link to CIA work for Ruth, and the older sister employment--the only known immediate family member of Ruth who was employed by CIA is not something Ruth can reasonably be held responsible for as if Ruth is somehow suspicious by her sister taking sought-after employment in the D.C. area that Ruth likely did not even know. 

Instead of error-checking weak allegations against Ruth Paine, you present yourself as neutral but take sides against Ruth Paine. You refuse to answer the most legitimate question a documentary filmmaker could be asked--what is your source for your closing claim of dozens of classified files about the Paines being withheld by President Biden. You smear Ruth with that closing claim, the claim has been questioned, no one has been able to confirm what you are talking about there, and yet you will not say your source, apparently under any circumstances, to anyone.

3 hours ago, Keyvan Shahrdar said:

The only material that I can find are newspaper articles and documentation in the form of webpages.  These articles are written by reporters with content of what someone else said.  You are taking the word of authors instead of actual evidence that exists.  The evidence that I see is the document by Walthers.

As I stated, I tend to believe first sourced material.  Not to eliminate any other form of information, but chances are those are compromised.

Keyvan, forget newspaper articles, no relevance here. Its the DPD inventory of what was found in the search of Ruth Paine's house on Nov 22, and later FBI documentation of the contents of the metal file boxes, as well as the testimony and statements of the officers involved, and Ruth Paine. Documents all available on the Mary Ferrell site not difficult to find.

Yes it is a fact that Walthers wrote that in his initial report. That fact (that he wrote that) is not disputed. But since those metal file boxes are traced in later DPD and FBI documents and their contents described later which are not in agreement with what Walthers originally wrote, the question is: was Walthers correct? That is the issue.

Fact: Walthers never saw what he reported. (Walthers under oath, Warren Commission testimony.)

That means either he was reporting hearsay or making it up out of whole cloth, one or the other. If it was hearsay, who would be his source? Presumably some other officer? But no other officer ever confirmed or claimed or owned the claim. So it is a claim that has no known witness to what is claimed. And no verification or corroboration after the fact. So there are two choices. One, Walthers wrote something inaccurate. Two, a gigantic conspiracy involving multiple law enforcement agencies and Walthers himself, to cover up what Walthers wrote that was not mistaken. Sometimes common sense goes to what is just more likely between two alternatives.

Fact: what was claimed (that there is no known witness who saw) has no verification of existence. No one later claims to see them. You have to ask, what happened to them, if they existed. Well, cue the Twilight Zone music and imagine (that's what is required: imagination) elaborate theories of secret second stashes of metal file boxes secretly shipped to the sheriff's office in addition to the ones delivered to Capt. Fritz at DPD as every officer reported that day. Then imagine they were all secretly disappeared. No evidence that happened, apart from a starting premise of inerrancy in Walthers' original statement (premise: no officer working for Sheriff Bill Decker would ever write a mistake).

Fact: it has never been explained how anti-Castro Cuban names and addresses are recognizeable by eyesight as distinguished from pro-Castro Cuban names, or no-Castro Cuban related names. On obvious possibility is Walthers' statement reflects some assumed association with Oswald's FPCC literature and pamphlets. In which case there is no Ruth Paine connection since Oswald's FPCC was not Ruth's doing.

Fact: never in her entire life, either before, during, or after Nov 1963, is Ruth Paine known to have been involved with Cuban organizations, Cuban activists, Cubans. You have to consider common sense: which is more likely, that Ruth had a whole hidden life of surveilling Castro activists without a speck of evidence surviving of it, or did Walthers err in a sentence in his report. 

Then on the matter of Walther's inerrancy--in his claiming something existed which he never personally saw, and no other officer has been identified as claiming to have seen it, meaning at best completely unknown and unsubstantiated hearsay--one might look at:

• Walthers suspected the Paines of being involved in the assassination that first day (from the way he wrote of them). The officers generally suspected the Paines that day of being communists. Could this be a case of officers' "confirmation bias" of assuming what they suspect?
• According to Roger Craig, fellow deputy sheriff, Walthers was not only #2 to Sheriff Decker, Decker's favorite, but crooked, corrupt. This is in Roger Craig's manuscript.
• There are reports that Craig did not tell the truth about a bullet found near the grassy knoll. That he denied having found a bullet but persons close to the family saying he privately said he actually did have such a bullet. 
• A partner of Walthers, deputy sheriff Bill Courson, is reported in Roger Craig's manuscript as saying Walthers never was inside the Texas Theatre at the time of Oswald's arrest, contrary to Walthers saying he was.
• And Walthers never stuck to his claim that there were metal file boxes filled with "pro-Castro sympathizers names", which nobody has ever been identified as having claimed to see, whose existence is contraindicated by DPD and FBI documents discussing the contents of Ruth Paine's file boxes, and Ruth Paine's testimony as well.

So yes, consider the facts, all these facts, and ask just on common sense, what makes sense. Consider the irony of how other officers' written and oral testimonies are certainly not considered inerrant by most researchers when it concerns matters such as the paper bag supposed to have carried Oswald's rifle, the finds of cartridges, or dozens of other things. But on THIS ONE PARTICULAR DETAIL in a written first-day report which has zero substantiation of any kind and plenty of counterevidence, there is a premise of THIS police officer's INERRANCY, come hell or high water. 

It is as if the bias against Ruth Paine is so strong that it overcomes common sense.

Rather than going for the simple explanation that Walthers wrote something incorrect, i.e. goofed--instead, elaborate and unsubstantiated mountains of conjectures and conspiracy theorizing gone amok are considered preferable explanations. 

No other law enforcement officer ever picked up on Walthers' claim, and Walthers himself abandoned it in 1964. But these mistakes, once started, have more lives than a cat's nine lives. They just live on and on forever, immortally as zombie theories, and here it is, in the year 2022, with people still kicking this dead horse. 

Anything to get at Ruth Paine?

Kafka, The Trial, for an analogy to forensic logic cited to accuse Ruth Paine in this case of the contents of her metal file boxes.

8 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

The photos are taken from slightly different angles. The photo in the Roe article was taken with the bullet tilted slightly away from the camera, so as to accentuate the gouge at the top of the bullet. The  photo in Hunt's article, on the other hand was taken with the bullet flat to the camera. Even so, one can see that the ET in the Roe photo starts beneath the gouge at the top of the bullet and runs towards a nick on its right side. When one looks at this location in the Hunt photo, moreover, one can make out a blurry ET in this exact same location. As shown below...

(And no, it's not remotely surprising to me that no one noticed this before. Keep in mind that I got sucked into this rabbit hole because nobody had acknowledged an obvious bullet hole in the so-called mystery photo, and that I was also able to locate the EOP entry hole in the back of the head photos. People don't see what they don't want to see--and it's usually because they look in the wrong location.)

I see it now. Well done Pat. I missed it before in the NARA photos because this photo (= the one on the right above) which I studied, https://www.maryferrell.org/archive/photos/NARA-CE399/Photo_naraevid_CE399-2.jpg, has the marks so faint and mixed with non-mark darkenings (signal vs. static issue) I did not distinguish, but looking at the location where it is in the NIST photo as you show, I see the initials now. Meaning they were there all along from the time Elmer Todd said he put them there, and the idea that they were a late addition (forged) can be excluded.

Bill Simpich already says no serious JFK researcher known to him thinks Ruth Paine was part of the plot to kill the president. As Bill Simpich says, he doesn't know anybody who thinks that. That's Simpich in the film. 

David Talbot, who wrote the JFK conspiracy book of books on Allen Dulles, concluded complete exoneration of Ruth Paine from suspicions that she was an operative. From David Talbot, The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government (2015):

"Ruth's motives for getting tangled up in Lee and Marina's messy lives had nothing to do with Cold War strategems--her reasons were far more human than that." (p. 535)

"Ruth Paine has always scoffed at the idea that she played an intelligence role in the Oswald story. A visitor asked her point-blank if she had any contact with the CIA. 'Not that I'm aware of,' she laughed. This is true, as far as it goes. Ruth and her husband, Michael, were not the cloak-and-dagger type--they were too starry-eyed and idealistic for that. But they were the sort of people who would come to the attention of security agencies." (p. 536)

"Ruth Paine was not an operative herself, but there was a constellation of dark stars hovering all around her, even if she chose not to pay attention." (p. 537)

"Did [D. H.] Byrd and his associates in the national security field use Ruth Paine to maneuver Oswald into the Texas Book Depository by passing word of the job opening to her through her neighbor? Always looking for ways to help the distressed couple in her care, Ruth quickly tipped off Lee about the job. The earnest Quaker mght have payed a pivotal role in unknowingly sealing his fate." (p. 540)

"Appearing before the Warren Commission, Ruth and Michael Paine seemed confused and tentative when it came to assigning guilt to Oswald. They both agreed that while he was a man of headstrong convictions, he did not impress them as a dangerous sort and, like George de Mohrenschildt, they said Oswald rather liked Kennedy. 'I had never thought of him as a violent man,' Ruth testified. 'He had never said anything against President Kennedy. . . . There was nothing that I had seen about him that indicated a man with that kind of grudge or hostility.' Michael--a lean man with sensitive eyes and a soft, watery demeanor--seemed particularly at sea when he tried to make sense of Oswald. When Dulles asked him if he was convinced that Oswald was the assassin, Michael launched upon a rambling, only somewhat coherent reply winding up with this less-than-decisive conclusion: 'I never did discover--and it didn't quite make sense, but for the most part, I accept it, the common view that he did it.'" (p. 543) 

"In their immaculate innocence, the Paines played right into the hands of those who were manipulating Oswald." (p. 544)

"The Paines seemed to grow more convinced of Oswald's guilt over time but nowadays Michael is not as cocksure as Ruth. As he talked about those ancient, catastrophic days, he seemed bewildered, like someone trying to explain a conclusion he had survived long ago. He still wavered back and forth, just as he did with the Warren Commission. 'Oswald wanted to overthrow something, the enemies, capitalists, the oppressors ... he wanted action, and you had to be tough, brutal.' But then again... he liked Kennedy. 'Oh, he did! He said, "JFK is my favorite president."' Michael Paine still does not know what to think." (p. 545) 

17 hours ago, Stu Wexler said:

The HSCA firearms panel  did a microscopic analysis and reported every nook and cranny they saw on lab reports. They were not specifically looking for initials but they reported everyone but Todd's. David Mantik and Gary Murr looked in person. John Hunt had high resolution photos that are online. And Gregg D. went looking with the same NIST stuff a few months ago only to say he was wrong and did not see them. I am actually hoping he (and Gary M) both comment on this. Did Gregg do a thorough search or only the area he suspected had the initials?

I would normally concede this but all of the above has me a bit suspicious as it came after Stone's film advertised it widely. If Greg and Gary (and Mantik) concede they could have missed it. I am inclined to say it has been missed.

Stu

What I studied was the less-good NARA photos which show all sides of the bullet (CE399) and then a superior-quality NIST image of only one half of the bullet. I have not seen a NIST image of the other side of that bullet until the Roe photo of it. On the NIST image of the one side accessible to me, I could not find Todd's initials anywhere despite looking for it, but that has no bearing on the present claim because the "ET" initials of the image published by Roe are on the opposite side, which like the dark side of the moon was not accessible to me in the sense I could not find it on the internet. The NIST image of the side of the bullet I studied,  the side which does not have the "ET" initials: https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/images/2019/12/04/CE399_Full_Merge_pic5.jpg.

The less-good NARA photos which do show all sides of CE399 show all other initials but do not show any sign of the "ET", at least to me no matter under how much magnification. Here is the NARA photo of the same side of CE399 as the Roe photo: https://www.maryferrell.org/archive/photos/NARA-CE399/Photo_naraevid_CE399-4.jpg.

The inability to see the "ET" in the NARA photos is probably not significant due to (a) the location where the Todd initials are in the superior NIST photo is in the shade in the relevant NARA photo without direct light on it in the NARA photo, and the NARA photos themselves are inferior in quality to the better NIST images; and (b) in the NIST photo the scratching of Elmer Todd's initials is noticeably "fainter" or less deeply engraved and does not show discoloring of the lines as the initials of the FBI lab personnel seem to show. Therefore that the Elmer Todd initials which can now be seen in the NIST image would be missed by examination of photos prior to now does not seem anomalous or unusual.

What would be anomalous or unusual is if there are verified cases of individuals who studied the physical artifact, CE399, in their hands or up close, with a flashlight or other strong light source directly studying every square centimeter of that nose area. I cannot imagine anyone studying the item methodically in that manner who would not see those "ET" initials shown in the NIST photo of Roe's article. If there are credible reports of witnesses having done that and definitively reporting not finding Todd's initials, then there is a problem calling for explanation--if such credible witness reports of close-up examination of the physical object under a light source exist stronger than hearsay or thirdhand rumor.  

000

More on Prayer Man and the second-floor lunchroom encounter

• The reason I believe the second-floor lunchroom encounter occurred is because it is the testimony of Baker, a courageous cop who (unlike in a recent school shooting) charged up to the top of the TSBD to confront what he thought could be a possible live gunman there. Baker never called attention to himself on that but that was a brave response that could easily have been fatal if it had played out differently than it did. Baker DID tell of his encounter with Oswald on the second floor in his initial statement the afternoon of Fri Nov 22, but he simply estimated the wrong floor (and some imprecision in the physical description) of a building in which he had never been in before. The notions that the second-floor encounter was a secondary fabrication involve suppositions of a sustained mini-conspiracy to perjure and fabricate on the part of disparate actors such as Baker himself, Truly, and several others, orchestrated by Capt. Fritz. I don't buy it--because I do not think that scale of coordinated conspiracy to perjure operated that way that day. Much more sensible is these testimonies are imperfectly-told truths with good doses of human error and confusion mixed in in those first-hours and first-weekend reportings, rather than a coordinated multi-person plot to stick for years to each person's bit part in a coordinated intentional and witting fabrication. Ockham's Razor. 
• Buell Wesley Frazier did not report a police officer running by him entering the TSBD. Rather than cite that as evidence that Baker did not go by him into the TSBD, it is evidence of something different. As Frazier himself described in his HSCA testimony, following the shots whereas others were moving Frazier stood stock still, in place, going into emergency thinking, the rule being some form of: sudden movements or reactions look suspicious, just don't move, just stay in place and do nothing. Already it seems there was the flash in his mind that even if he was innocent, until the shooter was identified he among others in the TSBD could be suspect. The point: Frazier was so preoccupied that he did not notice Baker go by him, and that is a striking parallel giving plausibility, by analogy, to him not noticing Oswald as Prayer Man who in the photo is standing to Frazier's right but behind Frazier's line of focus in which Frazier is looking in the direction of the presidential limousine on Elm following the shots. Prayer Man (Oswald) would have been in his peripheral vision if he had noticed, but was not in his central vision which was looking long-distance to Elm where the presidential limousine had last been seen. Frazier's lack of notice of Oswald becomes exactly parallel to Frazier's lack of notice of officer Baker. Baker did go by Frazier from a massive amount of other evidence and the failure of Frazier to notice that which did happen is a powerful argument weakening the strength of the objection that if Prayer Man were Oswald why did not Frazier notice. It goes to Frazier's state of mind in those moments which was anything but normal. 
• The credible testimony of Mrs. Reid--from the same day and the next morning, with no intentional fabrication happening--of seeing Oswald, whom she knew, walk by her--it has been objected that Mrs. Reid's testimony is fabricated because Geneva Hine, who stayed on the second floor when the other women went down to see the parade, testified that she saw no one there--neither Mrs. Reid nor Oswald--on the second floor before the women en masse returned after the assassination. The objection is that Geneva Hine's testimony is incompatible with that of Mrs. Reid and that of the two, Mrs. Reid's is the one that is wrong. I have studied this and it is clear to me there is no contradiction in these two women's testimonies and that neither's is materially wrong, per reconstruction taking both testimonies as from truthful witnesses. Putting their testimonies together, what happened was: Geneva Hine, alone on the second floor, goes to a window on the east side to see the parade, then upon hearing the shots tries futilely to be let into one of the offices facing south so she could see what was happening. But Geneva Hine encounters only locked doors and a woman at the Southwestern Company's office who will not respond because she is on the phone inside the locked door. It is during this period that Mrs. Reid would have returned, separate from the other women below, and taken her seat at her desk. Oswald then walked by as Mrs. Reid said. All of this is before Geneva Hine returns to that room's area. That is why Geneva never saw that. When Geneva Hine returns she remembered a group of the other second-floor employees returning together and she thought but was not sure that Mrs. Reid had been in that group. But Mrs. Reid said that she returned on her own, and that is what actually happened, with Geneva just mistaken on when Mrs. Reid returned which Geneva indicated she was not certain anyway. The slight confusion in Geneva Hine's testimony over memory of who all was in the group that returned as a group is not grounds to draw the far-reaching conclusions that multiple witnesses were intentionally fabricating entire narrative stories within that first 24 hours, under the direction of (always unseen and always unnamed) handlers. That just is not what was going on (disparate civilian witnesses enlisted to fabricate and stick to false narratives at the direction of handlers). Ockham's Razor.

Not recorded, nothing to do with the film, which I did not bring up. Trying to jog her memory to remember me. She was alert and sharp at age 90, and gracious. A couple of memories, non-JFK assassination related. I told her how much I respected her strength and dignity over the years.

The claim of "dozens of files related to the Panes remain classified" after Oct 2021 appeared underneath the statement that President Biden "chose to continue blocking the release of the files".

That is a claim that non-tax files related to the Paines remain classified.

Because tax files are not subject to President's choice to release or continue blocking. Federal law.

Because "classified status" has nothing to do with the federal law prohibiting release of tax records.

Because it is a deeply misleading presentation to viewers who will inevitably suspect the reason those "dozens of files related to the Paines remain classified" is for the purpose of concealing hidden information damaging to Ruth Paine. When the reason tax records are not released is known and that reason is not because of the content of any tax record: the reason for non-release is: it is against federal law.

For these three reasons, the film's closing claim cannot be defended on the grounds that federal income tax returns is all that was meant of Ruth Paine records not released.

If that was what was meant, why cast it at the end as if it is something significant, as something a president could do something about if they wanted?

That claim at the end makes Ruth Paine look suspicious, based on nothing. It functions as a smear of Ruth Paine.

I will be cooperating with and supporting Tracy Parnell in defending Ruth Paine from the damage done to her by the claims against her in this film, in Parnell's series of articles. That does not make me a LN, I am not. I regard exorcising the rhetorical atrocities that have been done on Ruth Paine by the CT community as a necessary step if there is to be a true resolution to the JFK assassination. I gave my thinking on this in "A Five-Point Roadmap to accomplishing a change of consciousness in America concerning the JFK assassination", the third point (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27770-a-five-point-road-map-to-accomplishing-a-change-of-consciousness-in-america-concerning-the-jfk-assassination/).

More conspiracy theorists should have exonerated Ruth Paine publicly like David Talbot did in his Dulles book.

Last night I talked to Ruth Paine for the first time in 19 years. It was just a brief phone call. She is what she is, she is as she appears, and has been all along.

The Sarah Stanton daughter-in-law interview: a new interpretation in which Sarah Stanton's story may be testimony in support of an identification of Prayer Man as Oswald

On June 17, 2018 the daughter-in-law of Sarah Stanton, the former Rosa Daniel, was interviewed by Brian Doyle. She told of a story Sarah Stanton had told family members consistently from the time of the assassination, yet which until the Brian Doyle interview had not gotten to the outside world. A transcript of this interview is published in an article by Richard Gilbride, https://jfkinsidejob.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/FURTHERING-THE-LUNCHROOM-EVIDENCE.pdf (the audio of the interview can be heard at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUM4YlNiuus). I agree that it is important but for a reason which has not yet been set forth until now. For Gilbridge argues that Sarah Stanton's story refers to Oswald on the second floor before the assassination and cites it in corroboration of the second-floor lunchroom encounter. While I do not doubt the post-assassination second-floor lunchroom encounter, it slowly dawned on me that a second-floor presence of Oswald is not what Sarah Stanton's story, as relayed through the hearsay of the family telling and retelling, was about. Sarah Stanton was telling her family members of encountering Oswald at the top of the steps of the front entrance to the Texas School Book Depository. Sarah Stanton was there at that front entrance, and told of having seen Oswald there too, with a coke in hand--in agreement with Prayer Man as Oswald. 

That is how I read the interview. Bear in mind this is a daughter-in-law--who was already a young adult and married to Sarah's son at the time of the assassination--with memories of Sarah's telling going back to the time of the assassination. The account has the disadvantages of any hearsay in that these are not Sarah Stanton's direct words nor does Sarah Stanton have any ability to clarify what she really meant or clear up misconceptions that family members or now outsiders reading the hearsay may assume. Yet the argument that there is real information here is strong, given the early origin of and consistency with which Sarah Stanton told family members this story.

Interested readers will need to work through and think through the transcript themselves for a full analysis; here I quote the key points which stood out to me as suggesting a surprising and different reading than has been assumed. In interpreting the interview, two method points: first, focus solely on what Rosa says and disregard the interviewer's interpretation or wording of questions. The issue is what Rosa says not anyone else. And second, allow for the possibility that Rosa herself--who was not there at the TSBD that day--may have imperfect understanding of what Sarah meant even while telling a basically correct account of what Sarah told her family members through the years.

Wanda (Rosa's daughter, Sarah Stanton's granddaughter): "when we would get together with family members they would discuss what she talked about to them. But it was always the same--which is, what my mom (Rosa) recalled."

Sarah Stanton told of meeting Oswald. We want to know when and where. The first key point is that Sarah Stanton said Oswald had a soda in hand when she saw him.

Rosa: "She (Sarah Stanton) says he was drinking a soda."

The second key point is where the encounter took place: "at the stairs". Doyle wants to interpret this as near the secnd-floor lunchroom but Rosa keeps returning as if by rote to what she said Sarah Stanton had always said, it was "at the stairs". Up to now, the only debate has been whether that meant the second-floor stairwell at the northwest corner (which was near the second-floor lunchroom and coke machine so that is what Gilbride and Doyle conclude) or at the southeast corner.

No one has considered a third possibility: that Sarah Stanton meant the front steps of the entrance of the TSBD. That is what I think Sarah Stanton meant.

Rosa: "In- at the stairs."

Rosa: "That's what she said. At the stairs. And she asked him (Oswald) if he was going to go down to see it? And he said, 'No, I'm going to go upstairs.""

Note here the timing--it is before the motorcade has passed by. That has not happened yet.

Rosa: "And--and he said, 'No, I'm--I'm just going to get this soda--I came down to get this soda and I'm going back'--back to--to the room where he was working."

Note the unusual wording, of returning to a "room". Oswald did not work in a particular room but all over the building, and in the half hour before the motorcade passed he was on his lunch break, not working. I believe that unusual word "room" to which Oswald told Sarah he would be returning was the domino room on the first floor. Oswald was saying he was not going out to eat lunch, nor would he be going upstairs to eat lunch, but would be returning to the domino room.

Rosa: "Yes [Sarah said Oswald had a soda in hand]. Yes. And, uh, she said that he wasn't going to go eat. That he had just come down to get the soda."

From other information Oswald had gone up to the second floor and bought a coke to eat with his lunch. This was before the president passed by in the parade. After buying his coke to eat with his lunch Oswald returned to the first floor and the domino room, which was deserted except for him. Everybody else was with others watching the parade. Workers might go through the domino room to get to bathrooms to wash up. Oswald was in the domino room. He could see out through the open door and saw two of the colored employees whom he named--James Jarman and Harold Norman--who independently verified they had passed by on the first floor in a way that would have been visible to Oswald looking out the open door of the domino room (see the discussion at http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-alibi).

That was where Oswald was eating his lunch and hanging out on his own. He was not with anyone and it was not his practice to speak to anyone, which contributes to explaining why he was so little noticed, though several did notice him, such as Carolyn Arnold who saw Oswald in the domino room on the first floor (per my analysis above). Some employees went outside in small groups to watch the full parade. Other employees held back until the parade or president was practically there and went out at the last minute to watch. Other employees watched through windows on one of the upper floors. Oswald would be among that second category of employees who waited until the last minute when the president had almost arrived, to go out to the front steps and watch, taking his coke with him. That is the reconstruction here. 

Rosa: "'(Sarah Stanton asked Oswald) Are you going up to lunch?' Yeah. And, uh--he said, 'No, I'm going back to--to my room."

I would not put too much emphasis on going "up" to lunch when the original sense may have been going "out" to lunch, as Buell Wesley Frazier described, employees often went "out" front to buy lunches from a lunch truck. But there was more to Sarah Stanton's inquiry to Lee whether he was going to eat lunch--Sarah Stanton was actually trying to be welcoming and get to know Oswald, and seemed on the verge of inviting Oswald to join her or her group of women (for whom neither lunch nor the parade has yet happened).

Rosa: "That--the reason--the reason (Sarah Stanton asked Oswald if he was going to lunch) is she wanted to talk to him. 'Cause he was a very quiet person. And he was not going to--to have conversations with nobody. So, she said that--he never talked. So, she asked--she asked him if he was going out for lunch. If he was going to lunch. And he said, 'No, just the soda.'"

Note three expressions used in parallel senses with the same meaning: "going up to lunch?" (no, he's going back to his room) "going out for lunch?" "going to lunch?" (no, he's just going to have the soda). They all mean the same thing. All are countered by Oswald saying no, he is not going up/out/to lunch. Sarah Stanton and the women with her were likely going up to the second floor after the parade to eat their lunch. Sarah appears to have intended to invite Oswald to join but Oswald was declining. That is the sense of Rosa's repeated tellings of this. 

Here is what I think is one of the most important lines of the Rosa interview of all, indicating what "stairs" Sarah Stanton meant when she said this encounter and exchange with Oswald occurred "at the stairs".

Rosa: "That, uh--she said, 'I went down because they said that, uh, the- that the President was going- they were already coming, but not- not there yet.' So she wanted to prepare herself and be on the stairs- where- where she met Oswald."

Sarah Stanton who worked on the second floor had gone down to the front steps of the front doorway to see the president pass by in the parade. "she wanted to prepare herself and be on the stairs." On the front steps. In which Sarah Stanton's story in the hearsay becomes interchangeable "stairs" and "steps". 

She wanted to be on the front steps--"to prepare herself" to to see the president (find her place with a view). These same "stairs"--front steps of the TSBD entrance where Sarah Stanton was--is where she was telling family members she saw Oswald and had her brief exchange with him. Sarah Stanton, who was not Prayer Man, saw and spoke to Oswald who was in the vicinity of her and Prayer Man, because Oswald was Prayer Man. (Sarah Stanton's position on those steps was to Buell Wesley Frazier's left, opposite side of Frazier as Prayer Man. Stancak gave an argument that she was behind the figure to Frazier's immediate left in the Couch photo.)

There is another point: Sarah Stanton by all accounts was extremely obese. It is very likely from that fact alone that she would be taking one of the elevators rather than go by stairs between the two floors, since either climbing or descending stairs for an extremely obese person can be difficult. This reinforces that what Sarah Stanton was really talking about all those years to her family members in "be[ing] on the stairs" (to prepare to see the pesident; and where she met Oswald) was: on the front steps of the TSBD doorway. Those front doorway steps--that top landing where Sarah Stanton stepped out through the front doors and did not climb down any steps (perhaps physically uncomfortable for her to do so, and why she stayed on the top landing)--that is what she meant when she said consistently to family members that she encountered Oswald that day "at the stairs" (as Sarah's story was filtered through the hearsay telling). 

Sarah Stanton did not want to talk to reporters or interviewers. But she spoke openly to family of this story.

Wanda (Rosa's daughter, Sarah Stanton's granddaughter): "All I had ever heard- and this is Wanda speaking now, is, uh- she didn't wanna speak. And we don't know what her reasons were, but- if she- she was- she didn't want to speak to anybody. And they were harassing her. Or not harassing her, but any calls or- I don't know if they were coming over and trying to get information. But she- she had already given her statement and she didn't want to be bothered."

The coke was Oswald bringing the coke he had bought to eat with his lunch, out with him, in hand, at the last minute just before the presidential parade passed by, so that he, Oswald, could see the president too. And Prayer Man is the photo of Oswald on that same landing as Sarah Stanton, and Prayer Man's right arm in the photos appears to be holding something in the right hand which could be glass and reflective. What else would that object be in Prayer Man's hand than the coke that Sarah Stanton remembered in Oswald's hand! The coke that Oswald already had with him in the domino room on the first floor, which he had bought to have with his lunch in the domino room on the first floor, and which he carried with him from the domino room to outside the front doors when it came time to see the president go by!

This is my reading of the Sarah Stanton story as it was known to her family members. It is a story of a witness to Oswald on the front steps of the TSBD, where Prayer Man was.

What about Sarah Stanton's FBI statement of 3/18/64 claiming she said she never saw Oswald that day (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62312#relPageId=20&search=sarah_stanton)? That FBI statement may not be correct. Sarah Stanton's family story comes across as credible at the point of Sarah's telling of it (distortions in retelling in the hearsay are a concern but a distinct issue). As such, why would Sarah Stanton have any reason not to tell it to the FBI or anyone else who asked? The denial attributed to Sarah Stanton in the FBI report lacks a sensible motive on Sarah's part. Sarah Stanton may not have been aware of the denial attributed to her in that FBI report of her, such that she was unaware that her family story was contradicting it. From an article "Carolyn Arnold's FBI Statements" on the 22 November 1963 site: 

"She [Carolyn Arnold] was not the only witness who questioned the reliability of the FBI’s version of their statements (. . .) The Warren Commission treated Carolyn Arnold as it treated many other awkward witnesses. She was not called to testify before the Commission. Neither of her statements was published in the Warren Commission’s Report or in its 26 volumes of Hearings and Exhibits. The Commission discounted her evidence and that of Eddie Piper, and concluded that “Charles Givens … was the last known employee to see Oswald inside the building prior to the assassination … at 11:45am” (WR, p. 143). Carolyn Arnold’s five colleagues from the Texas School Book Depository who stood with her as the motorcade passed, and who could have commented on the reliability of her account, were also ignored." (http://22november1963.org.uk/carolyn-arnold-witness-oswald)

Reasonable doubt department: veteran FBI agent James Hosty's skepticism that Oswald was guilty of attempted murder of General Walker

Hosty carried out an FBI investigation of Walker and might be argued to be in a better position than anyone to have an informed professional judgment of the Walker case. As reported on the basis of an interview of Hosty by Gus Russo of 22 June 1993:

"Hosty suspects the shooting might have been an inside job. (Some of Walker's own people were angry with him because of his recent arrest in Oxford, Mississippi, for inciting a riot there--Hosty was in charge of that investigation, so he was familiar with the personnel. Bob Schmidt was his driver.) Hosty also suggests the shooting was arranged by Walker himself as a publicity stunt--in fact, the Dallas Police considered these as possibilities and were working on them." (Russo, Live by the Sword [1998], 539 n 45)

Wait a minute Jim Hargrove-- what is the source and provenance of those two photos on the left below? I know the photo on the right published in the 1959 Fort Worth Star-Telegram article is captioned as Lee Harvey Oswald. It probably was taken from the photo of the left two, i.e. the photo of the left two must be the "original" used by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1959. But where did that photo come from, is the $64,000 question. What evidence is there of source, provenance, photographer, or identity of Oswald of that photo prior to the publication of the caption in the Fort Worth newspaper in 1959? 

I am asking how it can be excluded that this was a mistaken identification of a photo by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1959, since the photo does not look like Lee Harvey Oswald. Don't just quote Armstrong saying it was a photo of Oswald in Japan probably taken by a certain photographer name, as if undocumented (if so) quotations from Armstrong alone establish those things as facts. I am asking if there is known actual evidence for anything prior to 1959 on that photograph. I will not believe that is a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald (as claimed by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1959) unless I see evidence for the source or origin of that photo prior to the 1959 Fort Worth Star-Telegram publication. Where did the Fort Worth Star-Telegram get that photo, and who was responsible in the first instance for the claim that that photo was Lee Harvey Oswald?

I realize you cannot help it if you do not know. But if that information is not known, then it is a case of an unprovenanced photo of unknown origin that a newspaper published with a caption, which does not look like Oswald--and if that photo is in fact not Lee Harvey Oswald (despite the newspaper's 1959 photo caption claim), that it is better interpreted as a mistake than as a photo of a doppelganger Oswald.

16 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

A substantial amount of work by unknown persons went into developing what ultimately became the 1959 "defection" photo of "Lee Harvey Oswald" that was published in the Nov. 1, 1959 edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
 

Poor quality image of Lee Oswald in Japan, probably taken by George "Hans" Wilkens	Here, a better verison of the photo has been retouched to eliminate background from head area	Image now has added lines and apparent facial altering

On 6/4/2022 at 8:19 AM, Gary Murr said:

Because Todd never marked the bullet in the first place. The link below leads to a paper containing my thoughts on this subject matter. FWIW [Hint - press ctrl/enter simultaneously to gain access to this Word doc.]

https://www.transferbigfiles.com/6c3fdb43-683a-4538-8817-fe7013ecf129/smo10vxiHkhJ3vk5x2E3kg2 

Gary I just finished reading it. What a piece of research. Your argument that Todd never claimed to have market his initials on the bullet he received from Johnsen, and that that idea originated as a mistake on the part of the Dallas FBI office, would be totally convincing if it were not for that document on your p. 12, Fig. 11, CD 7 p. 288, the FBI report dated 11/26/63 by Elmer Todd: "initials of both SA Todd and Frazier were etched on the nose of the bullet". It is hard to read that as other than Todd saying he marked it. However you make an interesting point that the later teletype of 6/24/64 by Todd's boss, Malley--the source for CE2011--has ambiguous wording: "SA Todd identified bullet by inspection this date from initials marked thereon for ident purposes at FBI laboratory upon receipt". As you note, that does not say whose initials Todd saw or that the initials were his. It could be imprecise wording, or it could mean Todd did not see his initials there on that occasion in June 1964, in agreement with no one is able to find his initials on C399 today. Thanks for the research (the original link worked for me, just so you know). 

Ed weren't there a lot of personally identifiable Oswald belongings found by multiple police at that room on Beckley the afternoon of the assassination? If that was someone else's room not Oswald's wouldn't those officers have realized that?

Where do you think he was living?

1 hour ago, Denny Zartman said:

So it was news to you guys. It was a simple question. You didn't know 14,000 documents were still being kept secret and you didn't even know who holds those documents. Amazing.

We don't know how many documents are regarding Ruth Paine, because the documents haven't been released yet. It's been said multiple times now. What is so hard for you to understand about this?

The issue is not what is unknown but the basis for a claim that something is known. The film claims to know: "dozens of files related to the Paines remain classified" after Oct 2021. (Exact wording at the end.) Definitely, not maybe but definitely, into two digits of number of files related to the Paines, says the film at its close. Not "Nobody has any idea if this is even true but maybe there could be files related to the Paines remain classified..." but asserted as known fact. If your collective you ("we") do not know that any documents refer to the Paines, why do you suppose the filmmaker is asserting knowledge that you say nobody knows?  

Has it occurred to you that maybe he does know? He says he does. Are you sure he does not know what he claims to know? 

Would you consider asking him (or DiEugenio if DiEugenio knows) to disclose?

I have received no answer when I have asked. I would like to know.