Greg Doudna

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

It was like the DPD was begging for someone to get close to Oswald to do him in with that crazy circus wall to wall press crowd being allowed to take over the halls of their PD building and then actually "parading" Oswald right next to and by them several times. Even their armed police deli sandwich gifting buddy Jack Ruby was allowed into that Friday night crowd just feet from Oswald!  And we know Ruby wanted to whack Oswald even then!

Yes. Incredibly, the Warren Report tried to cast partial responsibility for the death of Oswald while in police custody on the press. Because the press kept crowding, instead of being well-behaved! 

What can a poor police department do, after being warned of a serious threat to Oswald's life the night before directly and from the FBI, and their own officers fearing Oswald walking by that line of reporters unprotected might be shot (there was no "diamond" formation protecting Oswald given that the only one in front, the older Fritz himself of slow reflexes, did not see it as his job to be a human shield of Oswald in front but left his position to get the car door open)? 

Failure to protect a prisoner in custody from news reporters wanting to get close and take photos is not a security failure on the part of the press, as if the security lesson to be learned from the Oswald killing was the press should just voluntarily be better behaved and not crowd so much in the future! 

It is always hard to tell in cases like this whether it was incompetence taken advantage of by motivated gangland killers possibly with the help of some intelligence concerning specifics of police procedure vulnerabilities, or whether the vulnerabilities were influenced by inside witting accomplices, or how the mixture worked exactly if there were elements of both. In the present case, I doubt that Fritz was witting to knowledge of a planned killing of Oswald or I do not think he would have personally escorted him himself, or agreed to the transfer under those circumstances at all in the first place. Leavelle, handcuffed to Oswald on Oswald's right, knew of a risk of Oswald being shot in the next few moments coming out that door if his story told many times is correct that he told Oswald he hoped anyone trying to kill Oswald would not be as good of a shot as Oswald had been with Kennedy. (For all we know the story could be apocryphal but Leavelle always told it as true.) One theory is the reason Leavelle was wearing that bright all-white suit was to give greater visibility to himself in the event there was a shooting thereby reducing by a little bit that he would be hit by mistake. 

Marcello in New Orleans via Ruby had the ability to reach right inside the Dallas police department and hit Oswald. Think of that. Who else would have the ability to accomplish that? Maybe a few others, but not that many. Marcello: means, motive, opportunity, did the Oswald hit, confessed to the JFK hit. 

On 3/4/2022 at 8:23 PM, Ron Bulman said:

The Mafia helped with the cover up unquestionably.  I mean, Ruby Hit Oswald in the jail basement.  They likely were involved peripherally in the set up.  E.G.  Ruby at Roselli's home hotel in Vegas three days before the assassination.    

But the Mafia, Marcello, didn't do The hit.

jmo from many years of reading multiple sources, with a grain of salt in my back pocket for a hopefully objective if at times pessimistic perspective. 

Why do you think Marcello did not do the hit? Why not consider the likely-planned immediate execution of Oswald as part of the hit? Such that who hit Oswald, hit Kennedy before the hit of Oswald? 

You have a Marcello operative directly going from being with Marcello at the time of the assassination to Oswald's former landlady following the assassination asking about a lost "library card", which John Canal in Silencing the Assassin (2000), pp 93-95, brilliantly says was the Marcello operative just saying that to get her (the landlady) to give him (the Marcello operative) access to Oswald's old room in order to sweep it or check for anything left behind incriminating. Consciousness of what there? Then that same Marcello operative makes that strange trip to Houston and Galveston arriving in Galveston the same time as Breck Wall, "president of the 'mob-infiltrated' American Guild of Variety Artists, also arrived in Galveston, having driven south from Dallas. Then, less than an hour after arriving in Galveston, Wall received a phone call from Ruby" (Canal, pp 95-96). And the only reason Marcello via Ruby had Oswald killed Sun Nov 24 was probably because some things had failed from the same Marcello operation to have Oswald killed Nov 22.

So Marcello is just all over the assassination. Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, maybe it is a duck? (Except Oswald looking like a duck was a decoy?)

38 minutes ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

Thank you Greg for part of your initial post. Not knowing Dallas, your explanation of the benefits of a TBSD location is very helpful in explaining the positioning of Oswald prior to confirmation of the parade route. I am also very interested in your attribution of significance to Larry Craford. 

In respect of convincing me that Marcello arranged the hit I am not convinced. Even if one assumes his confession is credible, I don't think it eliminates the possibility of a more powerful guiding hand sanctioning the action.

Thanks Eddy. On your last sentence, I do not see how that is different from what I think and suggested. I do not see a contradiction between Marcello carrying out the hit and the hit being sanctioned. Think mob involvement in the assassination plots on Castro--if successful it would have been a case of a hit arranged by a mob figure but sanctioned. What's the difference? 

On the map, after reading through Gary Murr's much-appreciated links, the FBI analysis of the markings on the map seem convincing in showing nothing unusual with the map markings other than normal markings to find bus stops and locations. The map image itself however I am unable to see a single mark on it and it is not clear to me that the map of that image is even identified or claimed as the one found among Oswald's possessions. In any case, the sole image there is illegible. It remains that one would like to see a verified image of that map used by Oswald (why is a a photograph of that map not in the Warren Commission exhibits, given that it was a prominently cited item of physical evidence found in Oswald's Oak Cliff rooming house, reported in newspapers at the time?). As it stands, we have a report from FBI agent Odum convincingly explaining there is nothing of interest there, without a photograph. (Or is there a legible verified photograph of that map somewhere to be seen? Does anyone know?) 

Update on impersonations: a still simpler solution may be that the impersonations of Dallas area ca. Oct-Nov go no deeper or more sophisticated than a mob operative who knew of the name simply using the name "Lee Harvey Oswald" rather than his own sometimes when he wanted to remain unidentified, sometimes as a joke, and perhaps only once or twice with more serious intent to incriminate Oswald in the event of later investigation. I am struck with the true instances of impersonation in no cases involving documents or more sophisticated than use of the name itself to strangers in certain incidents, like use of an alias, combined with rudimentary knowledge of elements of Oswald biography. 

The identity of the mob operative doing this is simple enough to establish and need be no mystery: the bogus "Oswald" encountered in the Mrs. Johnnie Walker episode in Grand Prairie had the distinctive forearm tattoo that identifies that bogus Oswald-alias user with the forearm-tattoo on the mistaken-ID Oswald accompanying Ruby in an electronics store that was Craford, confirmed from Craford's WC testimony. The only objection to that is the FBI reported no tattoo in physical description of Craford after FBI tracked him down several weeks later, but that can be explained by a tattoo-removal done by Craford done in Chicago as part of his flight from Dallas in the early morning hours of Nov 23.

And what would be the point of Craford with a friend telling Mrs. Walker at a party a whole bogus line of pretense of how he was Lee Harvey Oswald, working at a bookstore, used to live in Russia and now writing a book about life in Russia...? Because he is BS'ing the chick like in a bar! The party was women meeting unsavory men from the gangland and narcotics world in a house on an evening when Johnnie Walker was supposed to be at a church meeting. Craford, backed up by a straight-man another man at the party, tells Johnnie Walker all this pretend stuff just for the fun of it, the way some men tell tall tales to women met in a bar. Craford's friend backs him up as part of the joke, the amiable con on Mrs. Walker who half-gullibly believes it. This is not an outlandish interpretation of that Grand Prairie "Oswald" encounter told later by Mrs. Walker, which was really Craford. The reason is the same thing appears in another account involving Craford, an account of a news reporter who dated Jada, the famous entertainer who briefly worked for Ruby in the Carousel Club. According to that reporter, Jada told him (the reporter) that Ruby had introduced "Oswald" to her by that name "from the CIA". (The same story appears in Beverly Oliver's book in which Beverly Oliver claims to have been present with Jada when that happened, but note key point here that Beverly Oliver did not invent that story, though she may be piggybacking off of it in her book. According to the reporter, the story originates from Jada who told him.) Craford and Ruby introducing Craford to Jada as "Oswald from the CIA" is well interpreted as Ruby making a joke! Just like Craford at the party picking up the woman telling her he was this guy who used to live in Russia! And it is certain in my view that who attorney Jarnagin witnessed at the Carousel on Fri Oct 4 was not Oswald newly arrived meeting Ruby, but Craford newly arrived meeting Ruby (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27404-revisiting-the-carroll-jarnagin-story/), except Jarnagin overheard (in garbled and misunderstood form) Craford telling Ruby about his use of this other name, of Oswald!

However that was only selective since Craford at the Carousel Club was known by employees there as Larry Crafard. All that has to be assumed is Craford, who normally went by Larry Crafard, selectively uses the name Oswald any time he wants to use an alias so as to shield his own identity, and--arguably--once or twice more seriously on purpose such that if or when it was later investigated it would mislead in the direction of Oswald. Nothing more needs to be assumed than Craford's occasional and unsophisticated use of the name to account for all of the true "Oswald impersonation" incidents in Oct-Nov., and with this, explanations for all cases of false use of the name Oswald in Dallas in this time-frame may become sensible. 

Downside of this explanation: all that work to mystify the JFK assassination and hundreds of thousands of hours and labor spent writing books discussing labyrinthian theories of elaborate and sophisticated secret impersonation projects done by unseen agencies for which no document or insider confession of working on such vast esoteric projects has ever come to light! All that work of mystification up in smoke, gone! That is the down side. 🙂 Why go for a simple explanation in things JFK assassination-related when there are far more fascinating complex ones?

1 hour ago, Gary Murr said:

Hey Greg:

Below are some links regarding the "Enco" map found among Oswald's possessions at 1026 North Beckley. The first link is from the CIA's 201 file - I used this one because it is the best quality. It is an 11 page FBI summary of the 17 points found marked on the map - the pertinent pages here are 137 thru and including 145.

The second link is a copy of the DPD property clerks receipt for the map

The third link is to the Texas History Portal site - it is an image of the actual map which you can expand/zoom for detail

The fourth link is to the FBI's original  document of their investigation of the assassination [From the Harold Weisberg archives] The map is mentioned on page 27 of this PDF 

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95672#relPageId=137&search=%22map%22_and%20%22Oswald%22 

 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=217800#relPageId=240&search=Humble_oil

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49580/

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/F%20Disk/FBI/FBI%20CD-1/Item%2022.pdf  

 

Gary 

Thank you Gary!!!!

In the opening comment, areas in which I went beyond existing arguments for the case concerning Marcello, considered by people such as Blakey and Goldfarb among others as not simply the leading suspect in the JFK assassination but as settled fact that he did it (with the only questions being specifics of how and extent of larger involvements), involved these questions:

• the impersonations--just last night I looked up in Summers, Henry Hurt, and Davis, their listings of claimed Oswald impersonations in Oct-Nov. I found 16 such claimed in Oct-Nov not counting the Mexico City issues. Of those 16, for a number of which I have developed detailed individual case-by-case argument elsewhere, I count 9 as instances of mistaken witness identifications of persons who never claimed they were Oswald; 5 cases in which it was Oswald; and only 2 instances of true non-Oswald use of Oswald's name (impersonation). That is 2 more than I used to think, and also I see several additional to be added to those not in the Summers-Hurt-Davis lists, so I see there is a phenomenon, the issue is how to interpret it. Were these all done by a single person or more than one? (not clear to me either way on this question.) Did it involve full-time full-on total-immersion 24/7 identity theft (impersonation) complete with fake ID papers and bureaucratic documentation? (I think no, the impersonations are not sophisticated but limited to specific motivated incidents involving strangers as witnesses and not a case of an identity theft lived out 24/7.) Were they done by a spy agency? That is what everyone assumes who accepts the Oct-Nov Dallas impersonations idea. I am proposing a simpler idea, that these instances to the extent they are real are from mob operative or operatives, stemming from Marcello, and that to the extent the real incidents of this happened it was in the course of accomplishing specific assassination plot objectives. I am also intending to try to make sense of the madness of impersonations rather than the huge amount of mystification that accompanies this topic with a million rabbit holes which go in all directions or no direction and have no obvious point to them. Starting with dispensing with the massive amount of mistakes over claims of cases as impersonations which simply were not, and which confuse the issue no end.
• I wanted to explain how Marcello would "burn" a family member or relative of a member in good standing within his organization, Charles "Dutz" Murrett's nephew, also someone (Oswald) actually working for Marcello himself. A knowledge that Oswald was an informer or snitch would be an obvious mob-morality or mob-logic explanation for this.
• I wanted to explain Oswald's unusual behavior in getting that TSBD job and being so seemingly content and uncomplaining about such a deadend job, and the coincidence that it was about the #1 strategic location for an advance tall building sniper access for the presidential parade if one did not yet know which route the presidential parade would take. Oswald as a Marcello operative part of larger attempts to plant people in possible parade-route buildings in downtown Dallas opening up mechanisms for assassination by sniper would be the explanation there. Note that there already was from the first weekend of the assassination a claim by Dallas police that a map had been found among Oswald's belongings of job application locations which corresponded to the parade route. Perhaps that ought to be revisited. (Does anyone have a link to a photo of that map to look at what was marked on that map directly as distinguished from citing words spoken about it?)
• I wanted to explain how Oswald could be mixed up in the JFK assassination (as opposed to complete hapless non-involvement) when a lot of things say to me Oswald was not about killing JFK and was not a shooter. An informant within the actual plot would be the explanation there.
• I wanted to explain how the assassination did come about from the TSBD (or other locations built around that location), the same building where Oswald got the job prior to the parade route being known. The explanation would be the use of the TSBD building in the real assassination was caused by the fact that the Marcello operative who was (unknown to that operative) to become the patsy got that job in the TSBD.

Some thoughts on Marcello, Oswald, and the assassination

A lot seems to go to Marcello of New Orleans. Oswald family members had ties to the Marcello crime organization, and if FBI informant Van Laningham is to be believed ("has provided reliable information"), Marcello said Oswald himself had worked for him at one point. If the Ferrie and Oswald contacts developed by Garrison have some truth to it, that goes directly to Marcello since Ferrie was working directly for Marcello. What if Marcello learned that Oswald was an informant? That could justify offering Oswald up as the patsy.

I am struck by tracing key person movements from New Orleans with Marcello connections, to Dallas in the runup to the assassination. There is Jack Lawrence's prior employment in New Orleans according to coworkers who saw his job application papers, however denied by Lawrence who said he had never been in New Orleans. He arrives in Dallas in early Oct (from New Orleans according to the version denied by Lawrence) and finds employment at the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury whose anti-JFK owners are involved in helping arrange the logistics and route of the presidential parade in Dallas, and ended up lending vehicles used in the JFK parade. There is Jim Braden, mobbed-up oil man with a lengthy criminal record found in and out of the Dal-Tex building in the moments following the assassination, with an office in the same building in New Orleans in proximity to the office of Marcello attorney Gill where Ferrie spent his time working for Marcello when he was not with Marcello himself. There is Jack Ruby, who via Campisi and Civello of Dallas and contacts and visits to New Orleans has significant connection to Marcello, and Waldron even cites some financial documents to argue that Marcello was the true owner of the Carousel Club managed by Ruby. There are Ruby's extensive contacts inside the Dallas police department and his killing of Oswald while in police custody well interpreted as the long reach of Marcello. There is self-professed hitman and west coast mob asset Curtis Craford (Larry Crafard), whom I believe was the killer of Tippit, the recent arrival and new hire by Ruby at the Carousel Club in early Oct, not normally thought of as having a New Orleans or Marcello connection prior to his beginning to live at the Carousel Club, but I think a case can be argued for that.

And finally there is Oswald himself. His uncle in New Orleans, Lee's surrogate father so to speak, was long-term midlevel career Marcello crime organization employed. His mother Marguerite grew up with and dated Marcello crime organization figures. His lawyer when he joined the Marines at age 17 and probably his first contact for a lawyer in New Orleans in 1963 regarding appeal of his military discharge status case, is childhood-friend-of-Marguerite and Marcello-connected attorney Clem Sehrt, whose office was in the same building with Marcello attorney Gill and oilman Braden. Oswald goes from New Orleans to arrive in Dallas Oct 3.

There may be others unknown from the Marcello organization coming to Dallas in this time period, seeking employment in high buildings downtown positioned to cover possible likely choices of parade route for the JFK visit, with preparation for the assassination preceding final knowledge of the parade route. 

Preparation for the assassination preceding final knowledge of the parade route

There are the highly odd cases of persons other than Oswald claiming to be "Lee Harvey Oswald", prior to the assassination, seeking employment in assassination-sensitive locations: tall hotel buildings on Commerce Street downtown; an applicant "Lee Oswald" who was not Oswald sought employment in a tall building in Houston with excellent line of fire capability on two sides of JFK's parade route in Houston (the woman who did that interview did not hire the applicant; comes across as a credible witness, and "said that somewhere in her mind she recalled that he mentioned New Orleans, Louisiana", https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60405#relPageId=121). There is the south Texas series of "Oswald visits" to Alice Texas and area, which was certainly not Oswald but who may have been Curtis Craford (the physical descriptions and height descriptions of those witnesses match Craford perfectly but not Oswald); Joan Mellen cites a Louisiana police investigation which traced an "Oswald" (who was not Oswald) in Louisiana to south Texas, perhaps the same one who may or may not have been Craford, with those south Texas "Oswald" visits of Thu-Fri Oct 3-4 ending exactly in time giving excellent agreement with what I believe was Craford's arrival to the Carousel Club in Dallas late the evening of Fri Oct 4 witnessed by attorney Jarnagin. 

I am beginning to think that not only was Oswald mixed up with people working for Marcello such as Ferrie, but that Marcello discovered Oswald was a snitch. But Marcello did not let Oswald know he knew. Oswald keeps on as if he is working for Marcello, and Marcello double-crosses the snitch, Oswald, by having Oswald's name used by other operatives seeking the critical tall-building employments in the runup to the JFK visit and setting him up as the patsy in the assassination itself. That Oswald has made his reputation as a communist is all the better for a patsy.

In this scenario Oswald would not be totally clueless, but in his understanding would be doing undercover informant work. This then offers a possible explanation of how it was that Oswald found employment so strategically located before the parade route was known. The answer (I am suggesting): Oswald himself becomes one of the multiple Marcello operatives coming into Dallas and applying for strategic parade-route jobs in the Oct-Nov time period in the runup to the assassination. Oswald does so because he is an informant, not because he was the assassin of Nov 22. But Marcello has him fingered as a snitch and after Oswald gets his job at the TSBD, Oswald is set up by Marcello operatives to be incriminated, then killed before he comes to trial.

In this scenario Oswald establishes a normal job search routine upon his arrival to Dallas Oct 3 but--hypothetically--sees to it that he is not actually hired before going to the TSBD on Oct 14. A lot of discussion has wondered at the incongruity of the hiring of Oswald at the TSBD preceding knowledge of the parade route. But on the assumption--not certain but likely, already in early Oct--that the JFK visit will involve a parade route through the downtown area, the only real uncertainty would be whether it would come into Dealey Plaza via Elm, Main, or Commerce. A sniper in a window in the TSBD with a scope could have unobstructed line of sight fire to a presidential limousine coming out from any of those three main downtown arteries in the open space en route to the Triple Underpass. It is not necessary that the limousine have made that hairpin turn from Houston on to Elm. In fact the TSBD would be one of the few strategically located buildings in which it was possible to have line of fire no matter which of those three downtown arteries was selected for the parade route at the last minute. However other buildings in Dealey Plaza also could serve the purpose. By this scenario, it was not a sure thing that Oswald would be hired at the TSBD but he succeeded in being hired. It could have been an unsuccessful job attempt like other operatives were finding in attempts to find jobs in other tall buildings. Unlike some of the other failed attempts, Oswald's succeeded at the TSBD. If Oswald had been turned down that day by Truly at TSBD, what would be expected is he would try again at some other strategic location. 

Some compartmentalized CIA ops, such as with DRE and the anti-Castro Cubans in New Orleans and Florida--Marcello funded anti-Castro Cuban activity in Louisiana so some of these things overlap--could piggyback on making use of Oswald as the accused assassin to attempt to blame Castro.

FBI and WC investigations: ignoring the elephant in the room

And how better to run the investigation that followed than to have Hoover's FBI control the investigation and the Warren Commission basically rubberstamp FBI work producing a report in which Marcello, the Mob boss whose territory of control included Dallas where the assassination happened, who had the ability to reach right inside the Dallas police department to kill Oswald, his name does not even appear in the Warren Report index, that is how little notice Hoover's FBI and WC took of Marcello.  

Marcello hated JFK and RFK with red-hot passion, so for Marcello killing JFK would be mixing business with pleasure. Marcello would come to Dallas and meet personally with H.L. Hunt who in turn was in close contact with Hoover and LBJ. The fact of Marcello's in-person visits to Dallas and in-person meetings with H.L. Hunt are according to what is told to me by Hunt's aide at the time, John Curington.

Only about three weeks ago Curington (age 94) called me just to keep in touch and had this to say about the assassination. He has no personal knowledge of who did it, nothing smoking-gun, but he thinks his old boss, HL Hunt along with Hoover and LBJ had it done. But never mind that, that doesn't matter, the point of interest is what Curington said about how he thought the assassination was done. This from a voice of experience, loyal bagman and operative for HL Hunt trusted to get jobs done and keep his mouth shut, probably associated with mob circles himself in earlier years even if living honorably in retirement today. He spoke (I did not bring this up, he did) critically of how some assassination conspiracy books have everybody under the sun involved, complex detailed planned-out operations involving casts of thousands, as he put it, "with half of the people of America" involved in the conspiracy. He does not think that is how it worked. He said, people think its complicated. He thinks it was as simple as one or two people asking one or two others for a favor. "You help us and we'll help you down the road". Then it would get done. Nobody would know how or want to know how, just that it got done.

Marcello: "Yeah I had the son of a bitch killed"

"Brief summary of investigation: confidential source (DL 2918-OC) on 12/15/85 was in the company of Carlos Marcello and another inmate at Texarkana FCI. Marcello discussed dislike for JFK on this occasion and stated, 'Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I'm glad I did. I'm sorry I couldn't have done it myself.' File reflects desire to polygraph source. Results not indicated in Dallas file. File number: 175A-109, Volume I (. . .)

"Text continues: Marcello discussed dislike for JFK and stated, 'Yeah I had the son-of-a-bitch killed. I'm glad I did. I'm sorry I couldn't have done it myself'.

"For information of the Bureau, this file was not indexed to John F. Kennedy Assassination file."

(https://www.maryferrell.org/archive/docs/166/166501/images/img_166501_38_300.png) 

The original FBI report dated Mar 4, 1986, credited to "a confidential source who has provided reliable information in the past": https://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/images/c/ce/Pict_legacyofsecrecy_marcelloconfession.jpg.

And a description of the informant interviewed on television in 2009:

"[I]n 2009, a secret FBI informant exploded a verbal bombshell: Carlos Marcello once told him during a prison yard conversation, 'I had the little bastard (JFK) killed. He was a thorn in my shoe.' Jack van Laningham--a former cellmate of the Mafia don--disclosed Marcello's confession in a TV interview on the Discovery Channel's 'Did the Mob Kill JFK?' Van Laningham subsequently passed a polygraph test.

"He said Marcello explained that Oswald visited him in New Orleans and that 'he was my man. He did what the hell I told him to do.' 

"As for Jack Ruby, Marcello told his cellmate that Dallas strip club owner was under his thumb, deeply in debt, and owed the Mob boss 'big.' So Marcello, according to Van Laningham, ordered Ruby to pay off the debt by rubbing out Oswald."

("Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of President Kennedy", http://crimemagazine.com/carlos-marcello-and-assassination-president-kennedy)

Comments? 

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48 minutes ago, Jamey Flanagan said:

@Greg Doudna, I'm just curious as to your overall view of the assassination. Are you an official story, WC report, Oswald did it alone guy? An Oswald did it but with help guy? I was just wondering.

An Oswald-did-not-do-it-at-all guy. Mob did it and framed Oswald, with wink and nod approval of elements inside the LBJ administration. 

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

In fact, we don't even need to consider that it was Ruth who got Oswald the job... perhaps his handler instructed him to go straight to the TSBD. But, you see, there is other evidence that Ruth Paine was a CIA asset, and so it makes sense to accept her testimony that it was she who suggested the job to Oswald.

No there isn't. There is no evidence of that. You mean suspicion based on argument by association, since she had family members that were CIA. She could have been regarded as an asset (unpaid, regarded as a "friendly") for all we know. She grew up in and moved among social circles with family members. But that does not make her an operative or even witting if she was, or willing to do harm to another person, and there is in any case no evidence that that was the case. She has denied, including under oath, that she was knowingly involved with the CIA. I think basic fairness calls for an end to this language of "evidence that Ruth Paine was a CIA asset", expressed in those words, when there simply is none and she has denied it.

I have had a lot of experience with many Friends Meetings (quakers), and everything Ruth Paine did involved with helping Marina I have seen a hundred times--strong women, active in committees and organizational work in the community, taking on as personal projects to help this or that person. In every single case that I have seen of this it was sincere. 

Marina expressing regret over how she handled her relationship with Ruth. This was in 1979 (http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/O Disk/Oswald Marina/File/Item 53.pdf).

"Marina also feels guilty for not telling Ruth Paine about the rifle Oswald kept in the Oswald garage, or about the Walker and 'Nixon' episodes. Had Marina done so, Ruth has said, she would have gone to the police and tried to get psychiatric help for Oswald. She is ashamed of her shabby behavior toward Ruth Paine, who gave her and her children shelter and financial support--and whom she has not seen since the assassination period. Marina also regrets that she never reciprocated the kindness, hospitality and money given her and Lee by the Dallas Russian colony. Like her husband, she frequently turned her back on her American and Dallas Russian colony benefactors when they were no longer useful to her. 'I now realize that I used people because I did not know how to stand on my own two feet', she said." 

8 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

John Armstrong's exhaustive research proved that

Oswald did not own either of the weapons entered

into what he aptly called the "so-called evidence." And

Marina Oswald lied to the Warren Commission under

duress, telling them anything they wanted to hear.

She and Ruth Paine produced or "authenticated" much of the

"so-called evidence" against Lee Oswald. It's odd that

after all these years, we get people trying to claim otherwise,

as if they have not studied the case.

But Joseph, the two weapons--the rifle and the .38 revolver--charged to Oswald, Ruth Paine never produced or authenticated or had anything to do with either of those. Look at the actual prosecutor's case against Oswald--it goes to the weapons (as you note), Marina's testimony, and some Dealey Plaza and 10th Street Oak Cliff witnesses. All of those would have been vigorously contested at trial by a good defense attorney team for Oswald. But here is the point: Ruth Paine had nothing to do with that. She never produced or authenticated those weapons as attached to Oswald or her garage.

As Oswald himself said (to Fritz, Fri pm Nov 22, 1963), "leave Ruth Paine out of this. She had nothing to do with this."

Of course Ruth Paine had much to do with the lives of Marina and Lee before the assassination, did a lot to help that family. But she didn't have anything to do with the assassination of President Kennedy whom she loved, or in incriminating Oswald whom she had only treated well when Marina was living with her and wished him no harm. Ruth never claimed Lee spoke ill of President Kennedy, never claimed Lee talked of assassination, etc.--all so easy to do if she had been intent on framing Oswald.

Please consider Ruth did not frame Oswald and has been abused by the conspiracy theorist community.  

The topic is this Nov 25, 1963 CIA memo from "Thomas B. Casasin", CIA pseudonym for Jacques Richardson: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=7478&relPageId=3. As it stands, it reads as a former CIA officer, in the aftermath of news of the assassination, writing a memo to a former agency contact in France telling of memories of his past curiosity concerning Oswald while in Japan working in the Soviet Russia Division. The memo was then circulated internally within CIA. One interpretation could be this memo was like a CYA memo, putting a spin on certain things and intended to shape the narrative.

HSCA interviewed Casasin (Richardson) on Aug 17, 1978 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=31476#relPageId=2). According to the HSCA report:

"[Casasin] stated that in September, 1960 he was assigned [___] as Branch 6 Chief. He worked for two years in Section 6. (. . .)

"Casasin explained that the function of Section 6 was operations in support of the Soviet Russia Division of the CIA. He said the work consisted of amassing information in support of the SR Division; he characterized that work as classical espionage work against the USSR. (. . .) Casasin worked in Japan from February 1955 to June 1960. He served as Chief of the Soviet Base of the North Asia Command. He said his unit was attached to the Far Eastern Command of the Armed Forces.

Comment: he was senior CIA--Branch 6 Chief--involved in operations not simply intelligence, attached to military units in Japan at the time Oswald was in the Marines in Japan. Casasin says his base did only "extremely limited" work with the military operationally (meaning there was some)."

"Casasin said, however, that the Navy did provide some operational support for his base. It consisted of providing [____] for persons running operations against the Soviets. (. . .)

"Casasin said that he does not know who had the oversight responsibility or authority for the U-2 program. He cited that as an example of how well compartmentalized their work was. He said he never learned who was in charge of the U-2 program out of Japan ...

"Casasin said he does not recall any discussions concerning the possible use of American defectors to penetrate the Soviets. He said one reason for no interest in such use was probably that the First Chief Directorate of the KGB would suspect any such American from the beginning as being CIA connected ... Casasin explained further that American intelligence interests were much more short range than the type of slow, long-range project of working an American defector into some sensitive or intelligence-productive position within the Soviet Union. He said that was simply not the American way of conducting intelligence and that that thinking precluded such programs."

Comment: sounds like a pretty definitive denial of running someone like Oswald into the Soviet Union. But how then can there be this (below) in an internal CIA memo dated June 29, 1978, stating that Casasin himself personally ran one such agent of the exact kind matching Oswald, contrary to the impression he gave according to the HSCA report that that never was happening, and that he could not even recall ever discussing such a thing? (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=49667#relPageId=6). This is from that June 29, 1978 internal CIA memo:

"I said that Casasin was another problem. The man had worked for us abroad under non-official cover. He had left the Agency and now works in a UN organization. He had run an agent into the USSR, that man having met a Russian girl and eventually marrying her. Our assumption is that the interest in the man is that the agent was successful in getting his Russian wife out of the country, as Oswald was in getting Marina out. We have no problem in arranging an interview with Casasin, but the name of the agent we do not wish to reveal, for reasons outlined at the meeting. I noted that Casasin (which is a pseudonym) was also a chief of one of the SR Sections during the time period of interest to them and this might make him additionally interesting to them, as they had requested the people for that period. Goldsmith said they are not interested in the identify or any aspects of Casasin's agent or his Russian wife, which I said resolved that aspect of the matter ..."

Comment: Note the introductory understatement of Casasin's job description. Casasin "had worked for us abroad" and "also" was a chief of "one of" the SR Sections--when he was the chief of the operations ("classical espionage") section of the entire Soviet Russia Division of the CIA at the time Oswald went into the USSR. Now back to the HSCA interview of Casasin. HSCA asks Casasin about his Nov 25, 1963 memo.

"Casasin says he does remember the memo. I asked him to explain the cover memo dated 12 December 1963 by Robert G. Lamprell to Chiefs of SR and WH re: GPFLOOR-Lee Harvey Oswald. Casasin explained that Lamprell (whose real name was [_____] he died of cancer a few years ago) was one of Casasin's contacts in Paris ... Casasin said that Walter Haltigan (whose real name was [_____]) was his normal contact in Paris. He surmised that his memo was sent out by Lamprell because Haltigan might not have been avaialble. He does not know the reason for the delay between the date of his memo, 25 November, and the transmission by Lamprell, 12 December.

"Casasin said he recalls that he wrote the memo spontaneously when he heard a news cast about Oswald after the assassination. He recognized Oswald when he heard the news information that Oswald had lived in Minsk in the Soviet Union and had married a foreigner. He remembered those details from State Department information he had seen. Casasin explained the cryptonym REDWOOD as clandestine operations; the Chief of the SR Division was responsible for that project."

Comment: Chief of the Soviet Russia Division was the superior or boss of the chief of Section 6 which did all of SR Division's operations. Casasin was that chief of Section 6. In other words, Casasin ran REDWOOD.

"Casasin explained the relationship of the Counterintelligence staff to other divisions. He said Counterintelligence had primary responsibility for staff review, but supposedly no command voice. However, they did have their own closely held operations. Counterintelligence gave approval on every operation. (. . .)

"Casasin said the research unit of Branch 6 would get information from defectors about Soviet realities and details about Soviet life which could be used to assist persons working inside the Soviet Union. He said such defectors were normally pumped about personal life in the USSR. However, Casasin said he does not personally know of any defectors being used as a source in his brief time in the SR Division. He said the agency also benefitted from FBI debriefings of such defectors. In part this was due to the CIA's limited charter domestically in the United States. But the Contacts Division (OO) did have a domestic mandate within the U.S. (. . .)

Comment: Was Oswald technically considered internal to CIA a "defector"? Does a defector mean rununciation of citizenship (which did not happen with Oswald)? Or was Oswald technically considered an American citizen on an extended visit to USSR, not a defector strictly defined? Oswald was called informally a defector in news reports all the time, but the question is whether Casasin's denial formally excludes Oswald. 

"Casasin said he believes it is inconceivable that Oswald would have been any type of operative of the CIA."

Comment: That is a clear denial. The question is whether it is truthful. Continuing...

"I asked Casasin what the reference to the 'Harvey Story' in the last line of his memo referred to. He said at first that it must have been some kind of cryptonym he was using at the time. He pondered a while. Then he said he would need some prompting of his memory. He said he doubts that it would have been someone's true name. Casasin said he has never been contacted by anybody, including the Warren Commission, about the memo. He said that his interest in Oswald as expressed in the memo was just a lead. He said the fact of no follow-up on that lead was not unusual. He said Oswald's going to the Soviet Union was unusual, but that left him open to the possibility of KGB contact. He therefore ultimately was of only marginal interest to the agency.

"Casasin said it was normal to not make a check for a 201 file on a person like Oswald, meaning that it was not unusual that he did not check for Oswald's 201. He said this was especially not unusual since they had made the decision not to use Oswald. (. . .)

"Casasin said that the purpose of a 201 is to indicate that a request had been made for provisional operational approval. (. . .)

Comment: as bought out by John Newman, Oswald had a 201 file in CIA's Counterintelligence., q.e.d. Oswald was considered for operational use, contrary to Casasin's "it is inconceivable" that Oswald would have been "any type of operative of the CIA". 

Casasin, chief of the section doing all of CIA's operations inside the USSR carried out by the Soviet Russia Division, has all along been giving the impression that someone like Oswald inside the USSR would be of no interest to the agency. That is questionable, but now Casasin goes over the top in making a claim that just blatantly does not pass the smell test:

"Casasin mentioned that agency people were assigned to the military base at Atsugi. Casasin referred again to the 'Harvey Story' reference in his memo. He stated that 'Whatever I meant by Harvey had nothing to do with him (Oswald).'"

Comment: Say what? "Whatever" he meant--he wrote the memo, he does not know?--he just has no idea what he meant by that, just no idea. But, he assures the U.S. Congress (the HSCA investigators), one thing it had nothing to do with was that sentence's topic of discussion, Lee Harvey Oswald. To show how blatant this is, here is the paragraph of the Nov 25, 1963 memo of Casasin:

"p.s. As an afterthought, I recall also that at the time I was becoming increasingly interested in watching develop a pattern that we had discovered in the course of our bio and research work in 6: the number of Soviet women marrying foreigners, being permitted to leave the USSR, then eventually divorcing their spouses and settling down abroad without returning 'home'. The AEOCEAN 3 case was among the first of these, and we eventually turned up something like two dozen similar cases. We established links between some of these women and the KGB. KUDESK became interested in the developing trend we had come across. It was partly out of curiosity to learn if Oswald's wife would actually accompany him to our country, partly out of interest in Oswald's own experiences in the USSR, that we showed operational intelligence interest in the Harvey story."

Comment: It was "partly out of curiosity" over whether Lee Harvey Oswald would be allowed by the USSR to bring Marina back, offered as rationale for a "operational intelligence interest" in "the Harvey story", which Casasin assures HSCA had nothing to do with a reference to Oswald. It is not that Casasin can explain what else it might mean. He says he just has no clue in his memory at all to what he meant by "the Harvey story" other than he does not think his used "Harvey" as a proper name (!) and he is certain it means something other than Lee Harvey Oswald. The expression is not written all-caps like AEOCEAN 3 in the way used to name a formal agency operation or operative. One wonders if Casasin's desire to say "Harvey" does not mean Oswald is due to that descriptor, "operational intelligence interest", attached to "the Harvey story".

Another possibility--this is conjecture--goes to Casasin's first suggestion before he retracted it, that it does refer to an operation or Oswald as operative, but the small-case letters instead of all-caps is insider jargon or reference to Oswald when speaking of him in a certain operative function perhaps off the books. "Harvey" would come from Oswald's middle name as the least obvious name to use, standing for "Oswald as operative". In that case, far from being of no interest to CIA, Oswald's own middle name was used to name an informal operation involving him and, if that is correct, would testify to his operational interest to CIA

It is a bit much that Casasin could claim that "the Harvey story" in that sentence does not refer to Oswald, at the same time claiming total amnesia as to any other meaning of that expression. For having no memory of what it meant when he wrote it, he seems unusually certain concerning what he wants HSCA to know it does not mean. The question is whether these bizarre answers and explanations of Casasin concerning "operational intelligence interest in the Harvey story" as not meaning Oswald are because if that was admitted to HSCA (even though the document was then classified) it risked opening up the whole area that there was operational interest in and/or use of Oswald on the part of CIA, so much so that some in CIA even had a nickname for the Oswald operation, i.e. "Harvey". Familiarity with someone to the point of having a nickname for them is a little different from barely know the guy, never paid much attention to him, who was he again?...

In pondering this I then began to consider a reading of the Nov 25, 1963 memo as a possible narrative construction and framing, a rewriting of some elements of personal history retroactive to the assassination, in explanation of the author's former associations with the subject of Oswald. In such a reading the objective is not to tell the straight truth but to tell a defensible acceptable truth (sort of like Allen Dulles passing out a book on lone-nut assassins in history to fellow members of the Warren Commission on day one, suggesting an appropriate framework for exploration of the case).

Then I went still further and began to wonder whether, despite the impression given in the Nov 25, 1963 memo that AEOCEAN 3 is a distinct individual from Oswald, AEOCEAN 3 might be Oswald.

According to a cryptonym identification on the Mary Ferrell site (https://www.maryferrell.org/php/cryptdb.php?id=AEOCEAN-3), the agent called AEOCEAN-3 run by Casasin (Richardson) inside the USSR is identified as Philip R. Neilson, an American who traveled to the USSR and married a Russian national. The case of US citizen Neilson and his marriage to a Russian woman is discussed in other documents and is not in question here. Those are true names and the case is real. However, I have not seen any document that identifies AEOCEAN-3 as Philip Neilson. What is the basis for that identification given on the Mary Ferrell site? 

The credits for that cryptonym listing are given as Carmine Savastano and Malcolm Blunt. Both of those are formidable researchers and yet, is there a document that establishes that identification? Not that I know of. Or does that identification derive from a form of logical inference, not direct document statement, based on the wording in the Nov 25, 1963 memo? That is what I think happened. The question is, first, how sound is that identification, and if it is not secure, second, can it be excluded that AEOCEAN-3 was not Philip Neilson but Lee Harvey Oswald?

Here is Carmine Savastano's analysis of the case which does not identify AEOCEAN-3 with Philip Neilson but leaves AEOCEAN-3 unidentified: https://www.tpaak.com/tpaak-blog/2017/9/14/the-cia-man-who-considered-using-oswald. From Savastano:

"[D]espite his protestations Richardson ["Casasin"] did conduct a very similar operation to the one alleged by Commission detractors regarding Oswald. Additionally, Richardson previously noted roughly a dozen similar cases of Russian women marrying foreigners, immigrating with them, and then after the relationship ceased they remained in their adopted nations. Richardson states the CIA was able to connect some of these women to the KGB, thus if the pattern is to be regarded, Marina would be the possible sleeper agent and not her "odd" husband but this does not support the official claims of a Communist plot using Oswald and thus is set aside.

"Similar actions and circumstances are noteworthy; officials claim that despite the verifiable similarities between the unnamed agent and Lee Harvey Oswald's actions, they are unrelated. Agency personnel claiming there was no interest in Oswald clearly ignore the evidence verifying there was interest for some time and could another officer or agent have been using Oswald? Despite the misgivings expressed by the Agency's employees, Oswald is present while the very same proposed operations and programs that could have manipulated him were active and Jacques Richardson desired to approach Oswald for intelligence purposes while prior directing his own unnamed agent. This agent like Oswald improbably married a Russian woman during the Cold War and was able to immigrate with her abroad. Reasonable doubts and questions certainly remain, not least of which is the name of Richardson's agent. While this agent's true name is elusive his cryptonym according to multiple documents is AEOCEAN-3. AEOCEAN is the operational code name for the Legal Travelers Program of which AEOCEAN-3 was a part. Who is the man that was able to prior undertake such improbable actions and fade into history?"

For the wrapup here, there is John Newman's longstanding attention to an accidental apparent documentary discovery that CIA debriefed Oswald contrary to CIA reports of no record of such. Newman found on a CIA released document, an accident bleed through from another page not intended to have been found, a handwritten reference to an Oswald file or interview by CIA's domestic contacts division (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=219300#relPageId=6). That appears to be documentary corroboration for a separate and credible claim of former CIA employee in Domestic Contacts, Donald Deneselya, to have seen a written record of a CIA debrief of Oswald which record does not exist today (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=90661#relPageId=49). As Newman says, that CIA would debrief Oswald is not the issue and would be unremarkable: what Newman would like to see explained is why CIA would cover that up.

For what its worth, it dawned on me at some point in puzzling over the whole Odum vs. FBI discrepancy in Warren Commission exhibit 2011 in which Dallas FBI Special Agent Odum years later, when he was in his 80s, denied he did Parkland Hospital interviews attributed to him in CE 2011 including related to C399... that that may not be a case of a truthful Odum versus a lying FBI ... rather it may have been Odum bullshitting Thompson and Aguilar, and the contradictory FBI report of interviews related to C399 (CE 2011) that say Odum did those interviews ... that unsigned document on a Dallas FBI letterhead that has no name of author on it ... Odum himself was the anonymous author of that document. That is, the "FBI" that Odum said had earlier been untruthful about him was Odum. And when Odum told Thompson and Aguilar I never did those interviews because you won't find a "302" form ... well, Odum knew there were no "302" forms for any of the interviews in that report, because he wrote the report and knew. (But he did not tell Thompson and Aquilar that, who after a lot of effort found that out on their own.) In other words, Odum was the anonymous author of CE 2011 reporting the interview by Odum re C399 which Odum in person years later told Thompson and Aguilar he did not conduct. Odum was jerking their chain. Rather than answer to Thompson and Aquilar addressing their questions re C399, that was how Odum handled it--claimed he never did the interview that the FBI (in a report written by, er, him) said he did. And obviously, if he never did those interviews that the anonymously-authored FBI document (which he wrote) said he did, that neatly avoids him having to answer questions concerning what was attributed to him. This then explains how Odum, otherwise a loyal retired career FBI man, could so cheerfully dispute a written FBI document, leaving out the detail that he himself was the anonymous author of that FBI document. Odum may have laughed himself hoarse after they left that evening. 

I hasten to add this is on the level of a "hunch", not proven, maybe I've got this wrong, but this is how it looks to me.

7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

If Oswald was framed for the assassination, how is it that he just happened to get a job -- at the right place and time -- where the shots would ring out?

Ruth Paine got him the job.

And then after the assassination, during the WC investigation, Ruth Paine kept feeding the FBI incriminating evidence against Oswald that somehow the Dallas police had overlooked when they first investigated.

Ruth Paine was the WC's key witness against the innocent Oswald.

No, the key WC witness against Oswald was testimony from Marina, and the key item of evidence was the rifle, those two things, neither of which were any doing of Ruth.

On the Texas School Book Depository job, while I agree there was a criminal conspiracy to assassinate JFK that involved framing of Oswald, and believe that part of that criminal conspiracy involved mob interests, aware of a planned JFK visit involving a parade through downtown Dallas but exact route not yet known, took an interest in gaining employment access in strategic tall buildings, and that that interest arguably goes back to at least as early as Oct 4 depending on if one accepts the interpretation that attorney Jarnagin on that date overheard newly-arrived mob asset Craford talking to Ruby in the Carousel Club about plans for a shooting involving tall buildings and uncertainty over whether the parade route would pass through downtown using Elm, Main, or Commerce.

It is easy to reason backward from circumstances at the time of the assassination to assume that all of those details were meticulously planned in advance from the outset.  

But look at what was actually going on. After returning to Dallas Oct 3, Oswald applies for several jobs starting the very day of arrival and is turned down. What if he had been hired? Somehow those employers must be in on the plot, all for show to deceive later researchers, or else someone got to all of those employers and swore them to secrecy, or Oswald purposely self-sabotaged and purposely caused them not to hire him. And nobody suggested or helped Oswald get the job at the TSBD until Oct 13 (he applies in person Oct 14 and starts first day Oct 15), nearly two weeks after his return to Dallas hunting for work. If there was advance plotting to frame Oswald by placing him in the TSBD, why wait two weeks to put him there? All the better to mislead future researchers.

Then on Oct 13, Linnie Mae Randle starts it all. She walks down the street to where women are discussing the situation of pregnant Marina, eight months pregnant with a second child, and her husband Lee, wanting to work, has not been able to find work despite trying for nearly two weeks, and they have no money. Linnie Mae suggests the TSBD. Ruth, picking up on this, asks Linnie Mae if she would call TSBD but Linnie Mae declines. Marina urges Ruth to call. Ruth calls and speaks to Mr. Truly inquiring if a job might be available for a young man who needs work. Ruth is condemned for that.

But how is it Ruth is to be blamed for plotting to set Oswald up as an assassination patsy when it was Linnie Mae who walked over and suggested TSBD to Ruth in the first place? Linnie Mae must have been in on the plot too, all this staged for show to make it only "look" accidental. And what if Roy Truly at TSBD had told Ruth when she called, sorry, no job available. What then? Truly must have been in on the plot too, obviously. But if Truly was in on the plot, then Ruth's call really does not matter does it, since it is already a done deal without need for any phone call and all Oswald has to do is show up and he is hired. Yes, but the phone call of Ruth was a pretense necessary to mislead future investigators.

And although it has received less attention, Buell Wesley Frazier, a decent man, has written in his book that after learning from Linnie Mae about pregnant Marina living down the street and her unemployed husband, he himself spoke to supervisor Truly at work on behalf of the still-unknown-to-him Oswald. This would have occurred just before Oswald showed up to talk to Truly Tue morning Oct 14. Wesley's words in person to Truly may have helped Oswald be hired that morning, possibly even more than Ruth Paine's phone call of the day before. Was Wesley Frazier responsible for framing Oswald in the assassination two months later if his words played a role in Oswald being hired? Could be! Could be he was in on it too. Never underestimate the conspirators. How many times do we have to repeat, they leave NOTHING to chance.

Which of these people trying to help Oswald get a job were monsters instead of human beings trying to help out another human being in this case--operatives role-playing in a meticulously choreographed plot (for which there is no evidence). Which of these were unwitting? Do you see how complicated this gets? And reconstruct the dialogue that must be assumed in some form by this line of reasoning:

Ruth's secret spy handler: We want you to get Oswald a job in the TSBD.

Ruth: OK, I'll make a phone call. What if they say no?

Ruth's secret spy handler: You will succeed in persuading superintendent Truly over the phone, if you want your pay bonus.

Ruth: OK I'll try. By the way, why?

Ruth's secret spy handler: Don't tell anyone, but President Kennedy is going to be assassinated from that building and we want to falsely incriminate Oswald in the killing.

Ruth: Oh! I won't tell a soul, promise.

If you helped someone by the side of the road get their car out of a ditch, and they drive to the next town and are charged with murder for hit-and-run in some gangland killing, does that mean you are responsible for that murder? But that is the logic being assuming with Ruth Paine. 

I agree after the assassination one wants to look at how he got that job, why it was that Linnie Mae suggested TSBD to Ruth who called Truly. But whereas you and I know in hindsight that Oswald's TSBD employment was followed by the assassination, is it not a stretch to think all of those four people, or maybe it was only two of those four (Linnie Mae, Ruth, Wesley, Roy Truly) knew the assassination was coming before it happened?

Do you not consider the high chances that someone innocent can be falsely condemned of something horrible by this kind of reasoning--simply because they did the equivalent of stopping by the side of a road to help someone get out of a ditch, not knowing what would happen, what their assistance to that person made possible, two months later? 

For a different perspective of some of these questions, consider an insightful discussion of Larry Hancock on the interest in buildings on the parade route and fluidity in planning for the assassination in the runup to the assassination, in the comments section of https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/jean-souetre/, specifically Hancock of Dec 12, 2018: 

Actually, after much wrestling with all of the items you mentioned, I’ve come to think that matters may have been much simpler and that all our research has made things more convoluted than they may actually were (even if I have researched and written about all of those areas myself…sigh). 

First, anyone interested in Cuban affairs and in or around New Orleans in the summer of 1963 – as well as anyone in touch with the DRE members in the city – would have known of Lee Oswald and that his name was publicly associated with Cuba, Castro, Russia and “communism”. Beyond that we have reason (corroborated by several items) to believe that Cuban exiles were aware that he could be contacted and manipulated (illustrated his planned moved to the Washington area). 

(. . .) associating Oswald a the attack would be easy enough, he doesn’t even have to be there – plant something stolen or purchased from him at the scene of the crime and he’s in a conspiracy, doesn’t have to be the shooter. Given that there were several reports of Oswald (or someone looking like him applying for work at buildings on Main Street there may have been options in play early on, the TSBD was good but we really don’t know what the original plan was – we assume the attack was always planned for Elm street strictly based on where it happened….we don’t know that any more than we know what might have been planned for Washington DC. 

Since I view what happened in the cover up as separate from the plan (which was to kill JFK above all else and point towards Castro if possible) which in no way involved a lone shooter or a lone nut I think we also try to reverse engineer too much of the plan from events when there is every reason to believe that the original plan unraveled in the first fifteen minutes or so after the attack…something not all that uncommon. (. . .)

39 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I predict that...

Anybody who believes most of what Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine have said will never figure out the conspiracy against Kennedy.

In Ruth's case the issue is simply the basic principle of innocent until proven guilty; the fact that no case has convincingly been made of any specific crime committed by her; and that her extensive testimony under oath has stood the test of time and held up as truthful in the judgment of staff counsel of all of the major investigations, and the judgment of nearly all of the top tier of conspiracy theory authors as well. But its so easy to condemn someone on the basis of groupthink and subjective feeling as distinguished from evidence isn't it.

Marina is a different situation, in which her testimony is well-known by investigators to have numerous problems, which is not in any dispute from me. The so-called Walker note starts from it is in Oswald's handwriting. That does not come from Marina's testimony (or Ruth's either), that comes from expert authentication which is solid, a fact, evidence, the starting-point in analysis of it.

Then this note in Lee's handwriting, written for Marina, is found hidden in a book of Marina's, in a context which looks like a motive for Marina to have hidden it. So how did that note handwritten by Lee, intended for Marina, come to be found hidden in pages of a book owned by Marina?

Ruth, honest otherwise in the judgment of staff investigators of the major investigations, says she didn't put it there. Marina says she did, but apparently the logic is that means she didn't. Since Marina did not (because she says she did), who then? One never hears expressed here an opinion that the Irving police or FBI planted it. The reason apparently is because a baseless belief that Ruth did it has so much more peer approval than a baseless belief that the police or FBI planted it.

Do people ever think: how could Ruth possibly prove her innocence. Put yourself in Ruth's shoes and imagine you really did not plant that writing in Marina's book but turned over that book to get it to Marina just as you said happened. How would you go about proving your innocence to people who know, just know, you are a witch, I mean guilty of planting that note. What could you say or do to prove your innocence?

On 2/27/2022 at 5:11 PM, Pat Speer said:

This is the kind of stuff I discuss on my website, Michael. Crenshaw never made a statement until years after the assassination, and then only after he'd been exposed to tons of conspiracy material.

P.S. There is no indication Moore even talked about the head wounds. The Parkland witnesses indicated the head wound was on the back of the head in their early statements and then again in their testimony, and the autopsy doctors created a drawing showing the wound at the top of the back of the head. In the aftermath of the release of this drawing, back in 1964, moreover, none of the Parkland witnesses--not one--came forward to say it was inaccurate. 

Now, that said, yes, there was a cover-up of the medical evidence. First, the WC attorneys and autopsy doctors conspired to move the back wound up to the back of the neck...to better sell that this bullet came from above and exited the throat. And second, the Clark Panel realized that a trajectory connecting the small wound on the back of the head and the large wound on the top of the head made little sense in light of Kennedy's position in the Zapruder film, and "found" an entrance wound 4 inches higher on the back of the head. 

And yet, almost no one beyond myself discusses these two provable cover-ups.. 

Pat, very interesting. After all is said and done, would it be accurate to describe your position re the wounds, the medical, the autopsy--whatever happened after the assassination in these areas including chicanery ... none of any chicanery in these areas requires an assumption of premeditation or planning in those areas prior to the assassination? That in the areas of the medical, body, and autopsy, all can well be understood as post-assassination decisions and responses?

The reason I ask is because a central argument cited in rejection of the conclusion of the HSCA investigation and its chief counsel that the assassination could have been carried out by mob interests, is that the mob could not also control the medical, the body, and the autopsy after the assassination (based on a prior assumption of necessity of pre-assassination planned deception in those areas). Whereas nobody applies that objection to argue that the killing of Oswald after the assassination could not have been carried out by mob interests, that objection (inability to control the autopsy of JFK afterward) is commonly cited as reason why the same interests who ensured Oswald was silenced could not have carried out the killing of JFK before Oswald was silenced.

Would it be fair to say, if your analysis is correct and in your understanding, that that specific argument is rendered insubstantial and irrelevant with respect to excluding the mob (or any other proposed perpetrator) as carrying out the shooting of JFK, because there is no necessary assumption of pre-assassination planning of coverup related to the medical, the body, and the autopsy?

p.s. I truly hope your formidable work on your website can be put into print form. It could be done almost overnight via Lulu from uploaded Word files with no upfront cost. Printed paperback volumes in a thousand hands would ensure your important work is forever, more securely than posted on one website. This would not prevent later revised or edited or rewritten editions if desired. 

On 2/26/2022 at 9:04 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Well Steve, you've stirred up an old hornet's nest here.  I don't think Ruth wrote the "note" (it's quite long and detailed).  It was written for her.  jmo

But Ron, there is not the slightest evidence or reason to suppose Ruth Paine planted a note forged by someone else in that book either, just as there is no evidence or reason to suppose that Ruth Paine has ever been part of any criminal conspiracy. Again, the handwriting of that lengthy note has been authenticated as Oswald's handwriting by experts with no opposing expert opinion, and Marina confirmed that the note was placed in that book by the book's owner and the addressee of that note, namely herself, with nothing indicating differently. Ask yourself, what caused you to form that belief ("it was written for her") not based on anything.

20 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

Ruth Paine says her litmus test for talking with researchers is to ask

about this note and what they think of it.

I have read that too. As bizarre and outlandish as it sounds, some JFK assassination conspiracy theorists, not meaning to refer to anyone here, have thought on the basis of not the slightest shred of evidence that Ruth Paine forged that note herself, despite it having been authenticated as Oswald's handwriting by every handwriting expert who has looked at it, and Marina having told how she hid that note in that book. As if Ruth Paine, with no record of military or law enforcement or spy agency experience or training in covert arts, in her tiny house raising two small children on her own plus guest hosting Marina and her two more plus hosting Lee on weekends, found time and space to run a secret evidence-forgery home lab on the side without anyone noticing, fabricating evidence in such a skilled manner that no law enforcement ever detected her handiwork--that is how good she was at forging evidence to incriminate innocent people, so good as to leave no trace of evidence whatsoever.

Apparently Ruth found asking that question a simple but effective litmus test to find out what kind of QAnon-type thinking she was dealing with when strangers approached her. Hard to blame her.

On 2/18/2022 at 7:19 PM, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Denny Zartmanthe inability of the mob to control the autopsy or the government's response to the assassination is irrelevant to the question of was the mob was behind the assassination. The question is a form of disinformation or misdirection.  

The mob had plenty of experience with public killings that are not traceable back to the actual players. They did not need to rely on the government becoming an accessory to the crime to pull off the assassination. Marcello (or Trafficante) knew how to carry out a murder without it leading back to them. They may have suspected that Hoover would not pursue them for a variety of reasons or the government not wanting to start digging in a direction that could expose its soliciting mafia to to kill Castro.   But they were not relying on the government to go along in their planning to kill the president. 

Lawrence, your first paragraph sounds right, concerning logical non sequitur, understanding "behind" the assassination to mean carrying out the assassination. Going to the second paragraph however, I wonder, is a mob going-it-alone theory plausible? Would one or two or three high-level mob figures do a hit of a sitting president without some form of understanding, an exchange of favors so to speak, with the successor administration? And that very understanding would be the strongest reason why that administration would not go after them for prosecution, because of what could risk coming out if so, even if there were layers of deniability already built in?

A lone-mobster theory sounds almost as questionable as a lone-nut theory. In light of known CIA/mob cooperation in other areas happening at that same time, could you say what factors persuade you for or against a notion that there was approval, a favor agreed to, a quid pro quo, an understanding, in the background of the JFK assassination if it was done by say Marcello, as opposed to a mobster deciding on his own to kill a popular president without a quid pro quo from somewhere inside the government? What is realism in how the Mob operates in such matters? Thanks for your comment.

Southland Hotel Garage, Commerce St., job applicant, early or mid-Nov 1963 (exact date uncertain)

The documents concerning this can be seen starting at https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10108#relPageId=5. A job applicant who gave his name as Oswald turns up at that location approximately 7:30 am but not earlier than 7:30 am, seeking employment and asking about the view from the top of the building.

"[Hubert Anderson Morrow] said he works there from 7:30 AM to 6:00 AM daily. Morrow advised that shortly after Lee Harvey Oswald was allegedly killed by Jack Ruby, he observed a photograph of Oswald in the paper and on television and recalled that a person who strongly resembled Oswald, and whom he believed to be identical, came to the Southland Hotel Garage early one morning about two weeks before the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in answer to an ad for help to work at the garage. He said he wrote the name of this man down on a pad of paper and put it down, "Lee Harvey Osburn", and the individual said, "No, my name is Oswald". He said he did not keep the paper and it had been thrown away with the trash. He said that he recalled ths man asked him how tall the building was and if it had a good view of Dallas and he recalled that this man had a "Dallas Morning News" newspaper under his arm, was dressed in a football-type sweatshirt and blue jeans. He said this man left the name which he recalled to be Oswald, but no address, and waited around about 45 minutes or one hour and departed, about 7:30 or 7:50 AM, but was not interviewed." (FBI interview, 1/25/64)

"Mr. Morrow stated that approximately six or seven days prior to the assassination of the President of the United States John Fitzgerald Kennedy subject came to the parking lot asking for a job (. . .) dressed in a dirty white T shirt and blue jeans" (DPD interview, 1/23/64)

That the individual represented himself as Oswald by name is clear enough from the witness account. A fellow employee informed the DPD as early as Dec 1, 1963, of Morrow's story which was the fellow employee understood to have occurred "two or three weeks" prior to the assassination. Therefore this is not a case of mistaken identification but either it was Oswald or it was the impersonator of the other incidents, in this case following the same pattern of the applicant to the Hilton and Adolphus hotels, all high-rise buildings located on possible parade route streets downtown at a time when the exact parade route through downtown was not know.

Argument that this person was not Oswald:

• It makes little sense that Oswald would be interested in applying for that job. He already was in one low-paying, deadend job not in his desired field of printing or graphics or electronics work. It is not known what the pay was at the Southland Hotel Garage but it is difficult to imagine this job paid much more, or would be any improvement in terms of Oswald's job objectives, to what he had at the Texas School Book Depository. All logic says Oswald took the TSBD job because he needed something immediately but by any rational logic would seek to obtain a better job, one in his desired field, with opportunity for advancement. Therefore it makes no sense.
• The person was dressed in blue jeans. No witness is known to report ever having seen Oswald wear blue jeans, although there is a record of a "pair of blue jeans" found among Oswald's possessions (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=9945#relPageId=140). Fellow employees at the TSBD said Oswald consistently wore grey work pants, not blue jeans, to work.
• The logistics of timing makes it questionable that Oswald could have made this job inquiry, waited 45-60 minutes according to Morrow for a boss to show up, and then gotten to work on time at the TSBD by 8 am (dressed in grey pants). The Southland Hotel was about 0.6 miles from the TSBD. According to Morrow he started work at 7:30 am. (Although it is puzzling that according to the FBI report Morrow would say the man left between 7:30 and 7:50 some 45-60 minutes after Morrow spoke to him--a mistake in the FBI agent writing the report for when Morrow said the man first arrived?)
• The reference in Morrow's DPD interview to the man wearing a "dirty" T-shirt is inconsistent with reports fairly consistently that Oswald was a clean person who wore clean clothes.

Against these factors the attempt to get job placement in a tall downtown building on a possible route the presidential parade could take and the grounds for supposing the identical genre of attempt was made in at least two other cases by an individual falsely representing himself as Oswald, becomes the case for this one as a further possible case of an impersonation of Oswald, in a way that in retrospect looks incriminating of Oswald (the interest in the view from the tall building on the parade route). 

What an absolute lliar Putin was, claiming all along he had no plans to invade Ukraine and would not be doing so. It turns out the continuing announcements of the Biden administration that an invasion was imminent were simply accurate, and Putin was just flat lying in denying that.

Empires want buffer zones is the logic. The US moved in to Latin American countries at will and thought it perfectly acceptable to invade Cuba or Nicaragua because of threat in "our" backyard. 

Who can forget how president Trump wanted so badly to invade Venezuela because they had oil and he just wanted to take it? Wanted to do that. It didn't happen only because 100% of heads of state of neighboring countries he spoke with about it said do not do it, as did the military of the US, over which Trump could not get full control in only a single term. 

Trump was our Putin, but in our case--fortunately--the military acted as a block on Trump in Venezuela and elsewhere, and the voters threw him out in a case where Trump simply did not have the power and means to forcibly stay in power despite the outcome of the election, though he tried. He was our own Putin, having the raw heart of a murderous dictator who would make himself president-for-life in a heartbeat if he were able to do so.

The fact that America has had its own Putin as recently as 2016-2020, has had its own history of invading sovereign peoples and states, does not make what is happening in Ukraine right. I grieve for the human cost to the people in Ukraine, the domestic opponents of Putin inside Russia who will surely experience even more severe repression, and the innocent people of the world under the shadow of nuclear-armed empires at odds with each other which with only a few mistakes or miscalculations could become the unimaginable horror of nuclear missile exchanges. 

I think of Reykjavik 1986, in which Gorbachev, the reformist ruler of the old Soviet Union, made a serious proposal to president Reagan for the major powers of the world to end nuclear weapons in a four-stage plan that was doable. Reagan had campaigned passionately for a negotiated end to nuclear weapons on earth and by all accounts believed his own rhetoric. Reagan, walking with Gorbachev, accepted Gorbachev saying "yes" to what Reagan had publicly proposed and called for on the part of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev and Reagan agreed to have their respective teams get to work on drawing up the paperwork and implementing what could have been one of the most significant and visionary changes in course of direction for the world in history. 

Reagan's staff, horrified, stopped it, walked back Reagan's agreement. The objection was not that the plan was not doable; it was. It turns out the Reagan administration never was serious about wanting the objective that Reagan called for so passionately in his campaigning and State of the Union addresses et al. It turns out, as was made explicit in explanation, that Reagan was out of step on that issue with the policies of the Reagan administration. But what can a poor president do when his staff will not carry out his wishes expressed in his campaign promises? The Pentagon weighed in with a budget or fiscal responsibility objection to Reagan accepting Gorbachev's "yes" to formal US proposals which were never intended to be accepted: the defense of Europe is a lot less financially costly, the Pentagon explained, done by nuclear deterrent than by means of standing armies which must be fed, housed, dependents cared for, medical and pension costs, etc.  

Alexander Haig explained openly following the collapse of the Gorbachev-Reagan Reykjavik agreement, that the US stated formal proposals which Gorbachev had now accepted, had never been meant to be taken seriously. It was not that Reagan flat out lied to the American people and the world when he had spoke with such believability and passion of his pledge to work for an end to nuclear weapons on earth, that I came close to believing him myself. But what is a poor president to do when his own staff insists on going the opposite direction? Well we know the answer: Reagan was a figurehead president, the great communicator, good at learning his lines, believing those lines, and selling them to the American people, and that was about it, while staff did the work of running the country. 

Reykjavik 1986 was a moment the world could have gone a different direction. Toward a world in which ultimately the nukes of the existing major and minor powers would be put in a single stockpile under international command never to be used, and a system set up by which conflicts between nations become arbitrated and settled in courts rather than by war.

And now the world wonders, is this 1914, is this 1930.

Twenty years ago I ate lunch in a restaurant in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and was served by a waitress who told me she had just come to the US recently from Saint Petersburg, Russia. I got to talking with her and asked what people in Russia felt about Gorbachev. To my complete surprise she answered very negatively, said nobody in Russia liked Gorbachev. I asked her to quantify that estimate: what percentage of Russians would she say liked Gorbachev. She answered (seriously) "maybe one percent". But the rest of the world loved Gorbachev. I asked: why? 

She answered: because Russia used to be great. Gorbachev ended that.

She did not use the word "empire" but that is what she meant. 

What a world. 

Downtown Lincoln-Mercury, Sat Nov 2, 1963

The Warren Commission and most references to this incident date it to Nov 9 based on salesman Bogard's memory that that was the date. Very little attention has been given to a correction in that date to Nov 2 given by salesman Eugene Wilson reported in a Dallas Morning News article of 5/8/77 (http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/W Disk/Wilson Eugene/Item 01.pdf). But the account of Eugene Wilson is very convincing and appears independently vindicated according to historic rain precipitation data for the Dallas area. The distortion on this point in the way his comments were reported in his FBI interview report, when he later saw it, makes more plausible that that interview report's claim that he gave the height of the "Oswald" individual as 5'0" (which makes no sense) was not what he said, but supports his later claim that he told the FBI 5'6" (which is plausible as a subjective estimate, compared to the other salesmen's estimates).

Dallas area precipitation data for November 1963

On the weather, it is (surprisingly) difficult to find online data for precipitation in Dallas in days of Nov 1963, but to save others time here is a place to access that data: go to this NOAA site (National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration): https://nowdata.rcc-acis.org/fwd/, and fill in the fields as follows: Location: Dallas area [3rd from top]. Product: Calendar day summaries. Optons: Year range 1963-1963. Variable: precipitation. summary: mean (or anything). View: click "Go" button. That will turn up a table of measured precipitation (unofficial data, from some unnamed source in the Dallas area) for all days in 1963 including November. The letter "T" which occasionally appears instead of a number stands for "Trace", <0.01 inch precipitation measuring threshhold.

A detail in the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury episode is that Bogard told of the customer driving in Bogard's view recklessly, taking curves at high speed which Bogard considered dangerous due to the roads being slick from recent rain. Except for T for Trace on Nov 8 and 12, there is 0 precipitation reported for all days between Nov 3 and Nov 18. This argues that Bogard was indeed mistaken on the Sat Nov 9 date as Wilson said. However for Wilson's Nov 2 date the data is also puzzling in that this is what the data shows:

• Fri Nov 1, 0.23 inches
• Sat Nov 2, 0.00 inches
• Sun Nov 3, 0.04 inches

No precipitation is reported for Sat Nov 2, meaning either Wilson's Sat Nov 2 is also in error, the rain on Fri Nov 1 fell late at night and the highway was still damp on Sat Nov 2 at the time the test drive occurred, or, third possibility and probably the correct explanation: "Dallas Area, TX" is a wide area within which rain can fall in some places and not in others. The location of the source of this "Dallas Area" historic weather data was some place that did not receive rain even though there was rain on the Stemmons Freeway a mile north or south of the triple underpass at Dealey Plaza. That is rendered plausible in that there is rain happening those days on either side of Nov 2 at the location of the source-collector of the data, which is not the case for any other time of the month until Nov 18 and later, too late for the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury episode. The important point being it is raining the Fri-Sun weekend in Dallas picked up by that data-collecting source, in a way that is not the case for any other weekend in agreement with the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury episode.

Eugene Wilson says he knew it was Nov 2 because

"after Oswald [sic] drove the car, Wilson used the same vehicle later than day to drive his wife and friends home after a meeting of the Lone Star Bulldog Club in Fort Worth. Wilson said he has ribbons won by his dogs at a Dallas show the next day to pinpoint the Nov. 2 date (. . .) When the FBI interviewed Wilson only two weeks before the Warren Report was released in September, 1964, he said he tried to tell the agents that the incident occurred Nov. 2, but they were already locked on Nov. 9. The agent's report states Wilson merely said the event occurred 'on some day about the first part of November, 1963, believed to be a Saturday, but exact date not recalled.' (. . .) Wilson said he spoke up again because 'I just want to get the record straight. It kind of bugs you whenever you know something that is historical to a certain extent,' he said. 'And the dates you like to get correct.''

Mistaken claim that the customer took the test drive on the presidential parade route

That appears to be an early urban legend originating in the immediate days following Nov 22. Bogard told in his Warren Commission testimony the route taken: it was north on Stemmons Freeway, then off at an exit and reenter going south, then south for a distance until an exit, then turn around and back north to the triple underpass area and return to the dealership--no report of going into Dealey Plaza or downtown city streets.

Further comments--low-tech impersonation incriminating an innocent patsy in a mob hit?

That the customer represented himself as Lee Harvey Oswald seems clear. Bogard knew the name was "Oswald" and had written it down, and the day of the assassination pulled out the card with that name written on it which other salesmen saw, though the card then was thrown away and did not survive. The wife of a fellow salesman recognized the name "Oswald" from seeing it written on a piece of paper of her husband, which she thought was preceded by two initials--the name had been given to him by Bogard in case the customer returned and Bogard was not there. Bogard said the man gave his first name as "Lee". Polygraph examination found no sign of deception in Bogard's statements. When Eugene Wilson told the customer he could not buy the car unless he could pay $200-$300 down on it, the customer spoke of going back to Russia. This argues against that it was some unrelated person with a last name Oswald by coincidence.

The issue then is was this customer Lee Harvey Oswald or not. If not, then it is looking like an impersonation, which sounds like an extreme conclusion except that it falls into a pattern of several other incidents in the runup to the assassination apparently specifically targeting Oswald for incrimination in an assassination attempt yet to happen, with a case to be made that the individual doing the impersonating was a mob-connected figure associated with Jack Ruby.  

The driving skill of the customer regarded by Bogard as reckless at high speed--the opposite of cautious driving of an inexperienced driver--does not sound like Oswald according to those who knew him. I wondered earlier if Oswald's very inexperience at driving combined with bravado could produce what Bogard experienced as a high-speed reckless passenger experience, but that does not sound right. The way the customer drove the test car that day according to Bogard says that driver simply was an experienced and skilled driver whether or not he was Oswald, and the very skill of that driver may be an argument that it was not Oswald.

Curtis Craford, although he did not have a car and may not have had a driver's license at the time he was in Dallas, did have a motorcycle operator's license and there is no information concerning a lack of ability or experience in driving on his part.

The customer seems to have been shorter than Oswald's 5'9", in agreement with Craford's ca. 5'7"-5'8". 

While it is true that Oswald was talking of wanting to buy a car in this time period and was reported to have checked with an insurance agent across from his rooming house ... what is questionable is the idea that Oswald would be coming into a huge sum of money and thinking of buying a new car. Does buying a new car make sense in terms of what is known of Oswald? Would not everything known of Oswald, poor and frugal, predict that if and when he did shop for a first car it would be used? 

As an impersonation intending to incriminate a future accused assassin of Kennedy, however, none of that would matter. The impersonation would work like this: the objective would be to succeed in making a deal to pay cash and take future delivery of a new car around the time of the assassination. The customer would know the dealership would not let him drive away in a new car that day with $0 down. The objective would be to get the dealership to agree to hold the car for him until he returned to pay for it and take possession at that time--about two or three weeks or so later around the time of the assassination. There would be something in writing of this deal and there would be witnesses at the dealership to the deal. Combine that with a successful assassination three weeks later, a silenced Oswald immediately after, and evidence of the planned pickup of a new car for cash comes to light . . . a simple mechanism in a Mob hit to set up blame on an innocent person?

By this interpretation this would explain why the customer did not come with $200 or $300 for the down payment, because the point was not about taking possession of the car. It was to set up Oswald by making a deal for a car to be held for him to pick up around the time of the assassination after a promise to pay for it with a newfound and unexplained huge amount of anticipated cash. As it turned out the attempt to make this deal was not successful. The customer--the mob-aligned impersonator of Oswald--did not achieve that objective. Yet that too was still incriminating to Oswald if these dealership witnesses talked after the assassination, as happened. But the original idea would have been a deal for future pickup of the car. As it turned out the dealership refused, telling him no deal could be made without a down payment.

If there were impersonations for the purpose of incriminating Oswald in an assassination attempt which had not yet happened, did it involve false documents? There is no evidence of such, and therefore it is probably better understood as low-tech rather than high-tech impersonation--since there is no testimony from witnesses involved that false documents were produced. In none of the instances of apparent impersonation did the impersonator leave behind even handwriting. At the Hilton Hotel the impersonator did fill out an application, but grabbed it back and tore it up and put the pieces of the torn paper in his pocket as he left (apparently), leaving no evidence behind of handwriting. At the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury: "Bogard stated that the individual he believes to have been Lee Harvey Oswald did not show him any identification whatsoever which would have contained the name of Oswald thereon such as a driver's license, Social Security card, et cetera." (FBI interview, 9/7/64, WC Exhibit 3079). 

Downtown Lincoln-Mercury: the customer's hairline 

Below, top first row of two photos are Pizzo Exhibits 453-A and 453-C. Both show Oswald. In 453-A Oswald is the left of two figures with white shirt and tie.

Below those are photos of Curtis Craford, aka Larry Crafard, from WC exhibits.

Below that is Warren Commission testimony of Frank Pizzo, assistant sales manager of Downtown Lincoln-Mercury,  who witnessed the customer who identified himself as Oswald. In his testimony Pizzo refuses to identity the customer he saw as Oswald in the photos at top. Pizzo cites several reasons but above all a distinctive memory of the man's hairline that he saw. Readers can work through the testimony below and judge for themselves if, unknown to Pizzo, he was describing a hairline and other features identical to those of Curtis Craford.  

 

 

 

From the Warren Commission transcript of testimony of Frank Pizzo

(An instrument is marked by the reporter as Pizzo Exhibit 453-A, for identification.)

Mr. Jenner. Showing you that exhibit, do you see any person depicted on that exhibit that resembles or is the prospective customer that was brought to your office door by Mr. Bogard o[n] the day you have testified about?

Mr. Pizzo. One of these two men seems like it. This one--it seems like it because his nose is too big--one of these two here.

Mr. Jenner. Using this green marker, will you put an "X" on the two men?

Mr. Pizzo. I'm not positive.

Mr. Jenner. Of course you are not positive.

Mr. Pizzo. Do you want me to put it right here?

Mr. Jenner. Let's pick out the two that most closely resemble the man of which you speak?

Mr. Pizzo. [Witness at this point marked instrument referred to,]

Mr. Jenner. Now which of those two that you marked with the little green mark most closely resembles the man you saw?

Mr. Pizzo. Right here--but he seems older here--he was a little short guy, the way I figure.

Mr. Jenner. Put an "X" above him. (The witness has put a cross--a horizontal cross line, through the other line as indicating the man who appears most like the person he saw.) Your feeling is that the man you have indicated with an "X" seems somewhat taller than the man you recall as having seen at the door of your offce prior to November 22, 1963; is that correct, sir?

Mr. Pizzo. That's correct--about 5 feet 8 inches, something like that, what I recall--or maybe 5 feet 8-1/2 inches. Bogard is pretty tall and it seemed like the fellow was a lot shorter than he was.

Mr. Jenner. And that's what led you to put the marker over the head of the man on the extreme right shown in that picture, Pizzo Exhibit 453-A? 

Mr. Pizzo. Yes--that's right--it's a downhill photo.

Mr. Jenner. I have one that's taken more at a level. We will mark it Pizzo Exhibit 453-B.

(Instrument referred to marked by the reporter as Pizzo Exhibit No. 453-B, for identification.)

Mr. Jenner. Exhibiting that photograph, does there appear on it anybody who closely resembles the person you recall as having been at the door of your office on the occasion you have described, and if there is, put a mark on it.

Mr. Pizzo. Gosh, the man I saw--I want you to know--didn't have that much hair, nor did he have as much hair as those boys in this picture.

Mr. Jenner. The man you saw did not have as much hair as is shown on Pizzo Commission Exhibit 453-A, which you have marked with a cross?

Mr. Pizzo. That's right, nor as this picture right here--right there.

Mr. Jenner. Or the man on Pizzo Exhibit 453-B--appears to have more hair than the man you saw at the door of your office?

Mr. Pizzo. That's right.

Mr. Jenner. And the man depicted on Commission Exhibits Nos. 453 and 451 also, in each instance, has more hair than the man you saw at the door of your office?

Mr. Pizzo. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. What about the man over whose head you placed a cross on Pizzo Exhibit 453-A, that is, in respect to the amount of hair?

Mr. Pizzo. This is more or less the hairline.

Mr. Jenner. Now, the witness is pointing to the man over where there is a single vertical stripe, over his head--green, and has dark glasses on. It is his hairline to which you have now adverted?

Mr. Pizzo. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. Now, the other man has the cross over his head--you wanted to say something about that?

Mr. Pizzo. You said it exactly--that resembles--the face resembles him more than the hairline--it's sort of a "V" hairline.

Mr. Jenner. So your problem has been that the hairline and the man with the single stripe above his head more resembles him than the man you saw at the door of your office, but the physiognomy or the facial features of the man over whose head you have placed the cross more resembles the man you saw?

Mr. Pizzo. Yes. I had just wondered if the pictures that I have seen of Oswald might have--

Mr. Jenner. Might have colored your judgment now?

Mr. Pizzo. Yes.

Mr. Jenner. It's always possible, you know.

Mr. Pizzo. But that hairline is a thing--that's the thing that hit me first when I saw his picture on television.

Mr. Jenner. When you saw Oswald's picture on television?

Mr. Pizzo. Yes; and in the paper. It was the hairline and the physical features of it--a clean face with the high forehead and the "V" shaped hairline, and it's easy to remember that because of the T-shirt, the bare look he had because of the tight T-shirt.

Mr. Jenner. Mr. Davis has come in and he is representing the attorney general's office of the State of Texas. This is Mr. Robert Davis. They are conducting a court of inquiry on this subject.

Mr. Pizzo. I see, sir.

Mr. Jenner. Mr. Davis, the witness has just emphasized the thing he recalls most about the appearance or physiognomy of the man he saw at the door of his office a week or 10 days prior to November 22 when one of the employees he was supervising, Mr. Bogard, brought a prospective customer who seemed to be interested in a Comet Caliente, Mr. Pizzo was then the general sales manager of McAllister Downtown Lincoln-Mercury.

Mr. Pizzo. I was assistant sales manager.

Mr. Jenner. You are now the sales manager?

Mr. Pizz. I--of Hamilton Chrysler.

Mr. Jenner. I have shown him some photographs. He was impressed, he said that the man he now recalls having seen on the occasion--he was impressed particularly with his hairline.

Mr. Pizzo. That's right.

Mr. Jenner. And that the hairline of the man indicated on Pizzo Exhibit 453-A, over whose head he has put the green vertical stripe, has the hairline, but the man over whose head he has placed the cross has more of the facial likeness. The person or persons depicted on Commission Exhibits Nos. 453 and 451, he says have a resemblance, but it is in his opinion not the man, and in any event the man on those two exhibits has more hair and does not have the particular hairline that impressed you on this occasion?

Mr. Pizzo. That's right. 

Mr. Jenner. Am I fairly stating your testimony?

Mr. Pizzo. That's right.

Mr. Jenner. I am just trying to summarize for Mr. Davis.

Mr. Pizzo. Thank you.

Mr. Jenner. I now show you a document we will mark as Pizzo Exhibit 453-C.

(The instrument referred to was marked by the reporter as Pizzo Exhibit No. 453-C, for identification.)

Mr. Jenner. This is a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald that I'm about to show you and before I show it to you, may I say that the important thing to us--it is necessary for us to have your very best judgment, and if this isn't the person, we want to know it and to carry yourself back as best you can to that particular occasion when you saw this man at the door of your office, and if this isn't the man, tell us, and if it is--tell us, one way or the other.

Mr. Pizzo. All right. That I will do. [Examining instrument referred to.]

Mr. Jenner. The greatest service you can give to us and to the country and to yourself is to just be as fair as you possibly can.

Mr. Pizzo. He certainly don't have the hairline I was describing--it isn't the hairline I was describing.

Mr. Jenner. This was taken the afternoon of November 22 in the Dallas City Police showup.

(Discussion off the record.)

(Discussion between Counsel Jenner and Counsel Davis and the witness, Mr. Pizzo, off the record.)

Mr. Jenner. Back on the record. You recall him as being more in the neighborhood of what--5 feet 8 inches, 5 feet 7 inches, more or less, or more or less?

Mr. Pizzo. Between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 foot 8-1/2 inches with sort of a round forehead and that V shape is the thing that I remember the most.

Mr. Jenner. A widow's peak?

Mr. Pizzo. Yes; but very weak.

Mr. Jenner. Very weak.

Mr. Pizzo. Very weak--not the bushy type that I see in the picture. Well, if I'm not sure--then--I have to say that he is not the one--if you want the absolute statement.

Mr. Jenner. I just want your best judgment--I don't want you to say he isn't because you feel you are compelled to state the ultimate. It is better for me to have your rumination about it, as you have been giving us--as to what you looked for, or didn't find and what you did look for in the photographs--what you did find and what you didn't find. Now you don't find the hairline?

Mr. Pizzo. No; I don't. From that picture I don't. 

Mr. Jenner. Yes; from any of the three pictures, except the one with the man with the stripe over his head?

Mr. Pizzo. That's right--he has the sort of a hairline that I recollect.

Mr. Jenner. That's the man with the one stripe over his head?

Mr. Pizzo. I'll have to take a look again--this is the face--it resembles.

Mr. Jenner. The witness is now pointing to the man that has the cross over it.

Mr. Pizzo. This is the hariline that I remember.

Mr. Jenner. That is the man on the extreme right with the dark glasses, havng a single vertical stripe above his head?

Mr. Pizzo. Right.

Mr. Jenner. And that picture of Mr. Oswald that I showed the witness, Pizzo Exhibit 453-C, in that picture he does not have the hairline; is that correct?

Mr. Pizzo. That's correct.

Mr. Jenner. What about this facial expression--features?

Mr. Pizzo. There's resemblance there. May I say something?

Mr. Jenner. Surely.

Mr. Pizzo. All the time that I have been thinking about it--because the FBI did tell me that they would call me sometime later and would I appear, and I said--yes, I would. I thought about it and the thing that stuck in my mind was always that hairline--the kind of balding right here--the smooth line.

Mr. Jenner. Above each temple?

Mrs. Pizzo. And that face resembles. Now, I'll tell you, if he has--I've never seen the man in person, but if he has a small mouth it would fit about the description that I would give. I couldn't say absolutely sure that this was the man that was standing in front of my door.

Mr. Jenner. And the witness is now referring to Pizzo Exhibit 453-C. I offer Pizzo Exhibits 453-Al 453-B, and 453-C in evidence.

Downtown Lincoln-Mercury customer--height

In 1963 24-year old Lee Harvey Oswald was 5'9". In 1963 22-year old Curtis Craford has only one known record of height at the time and that is in an FBI physical description given as 5'8". The FBI height and weight seems however to be a judgment not obtained from a true measurement. In later years (when persons do tend to lose height with age) Peter Whitmey tells of Craford being definitely shorter than his own 5'8-1/2". From a number of physical descriptions which are argued to be of Craford instead of Oswald (in mistaken identifications or impersonations) the true height of Curtis Craford at the time may have been perhaps actually 5'7" or 5'7-1/2", slightly less than the FBI's 5'8". (If it could be shown likely that Craford's FBI height was measured not a human judgment, this would affect this point; I am assuming it was a human judgment of an experienced agent which can be relied upon to be accurate within a small margin of error, perhaps 3/4" margin of error.

At the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury, three salesmen witnesses gave physical descriptions of the Oswald-identifying customer. Not one estimated a height taller than 5'9" and all three indicated memory that the man seemed shorter than 5'9".

Albert Bogard-- WC testimony

• Bogard: "About medium build, I would say" [only height reference I could find from this witness]

Frank Pizzo-- (looking at a photo of 5'9", 24-yr. old Oswald in New Orleans) (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=44#relPageId=355)

• Pizzo: "he [Oswald in photo] seems older here"
• Pizzo: "he [customer] was a little short guy, the way I figure"
• Jenner: "[Oswald in photo] seems somewhat taller than the man you recall as having seen at the door of your office prior to November 22, 1963; is that correct, sir?" Pizzo: "That's correct--about 5 feet 8 inches, something like that, what I recall--or maybe 5 feet 8-1/2 inches. Bogard is pretty tall and it seemed like the fellow was a lot shorter than he was."
• Pizzo: "Between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 foot 8-1/2 inches with sort of a round forehead and that V shape [small widow's peak] is the thing that I remember the most."

Eugene Wilson-- FBI interview 9/6/64 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=721)

• "Wilson described this customer as a white male, between 26 and 30 years old, weighing about 135 pounds, and was only about five feet tall. Wilson said that he is five feet eight inches tall, and he definitely recalled that the customer was much shorter than he, Wilson, because he looked down, when talking to the customer."

There seems to be a discrepancy between Pizzo's detailed description of the customer whom Pizzo, despite saying the face apart from the hairline did look like that of Oswald's, refused to identify as the same man as Oswald in the photos, in part based on Pizzo remembering the customer as having been between 0.5 to 2 inches shorter than Oswald's height (5'9")--a little, but not a lot, shorter than Oswald--and the FBI report of Eugene Wilson (he was not called to testify by the WC) who was reported as saying the customer was significantly shorter than both Pizzo's memory of the customer and Oswald. Bogard's "about medium build" agrees with Pizzo but does not agree with the estimate attributed to Wilson. But here is a report that, according to Eugene Wilson, the FBI interview report had misrepresented what he told them, that he had told them 5'6" not 5'0".

• Sheldon Inkol: "If you check Appendix VII of my 'Downtown Lincoln-Mercury' paper, you'll see that Wilson was claiming by 1969 that he told the FBI Oswald was 5'6", not five feet tall. Considering that such diverse sources as Mary Ferrell and Jack Lawrence both describe Wilson as being an honest man, it seems possible that the FBI did distort his words." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48700#relPageId=31&search=Inkol_eugene wilson lawrence)

The witness testimonies of both Pizzo and Wilson otherwise (apart from the detail of the 5'0" height estimate attributed in the FBI interview to Wilson) read as highly credible witnesses. Not one of these witness testimonies had the customer as tall as Oswald, 5'9". Great weight must be attached to Wilson specifically remembering looking down at the customer meaning less tall than Wilson's 5'8". Whereas witness height estimates in absolute number of inches can err by a little, this relative height memory that the customer was less tall than the witness's own 5'8" is strong testimony. If the customer were Oswald, Wilson would have looked up at him. Wilson remembered looking down.

Concluson: The height of this customer is not compatible with the customer having been Oswald who was 5'9", even though the customer represented himself as Oswald. The height of this customer is however compatible with Curtis Craford.

The Downtown Lincoln-Mercury 

This was the most difficult case. That a man came to the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury representing himself as Lee Harvey Oswald is clear. The argument that the man was not Oswald and was an impersonation is tough to make (because it is an extraordinary claim) but indicated from the following factors, in approximately ascending degrees of strength:

• While Oswald definitely knew how to drive in terms of basics, and did drive Ruth Paine's car locally in Irving when she was gone one day (Nov 11), according to all reports Oswald was not a skilled or experienced or very good driver. Yet the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury "Oswald" driving a demonstrator car at high speed (up to 85 mph on the Stemmons Freeway if the report of salesman Bogard is to be believed, and Bogard checked out as truthful under polygraph examination) is the behavior of an experienced and skilled driver, not the hesitant and inexperienced driving of Oswald according to all other information and witnesses.
• The behavior of driving very recklessly, and behaving unreasonably in attempting to obtain an expensive new car the same day with $0 down, differs from behavior otherwise known of Oswald
• The customer at the Downtown Lincoln was shorter than Oswald's 5'9". This is not only multiply attested from estimates of the weaker form subject to ca. 1"-2" margin of error in subjective witness memories of height estimates consistently below 5"9", but from a very strong form of witness memory: a witness talking face to face with a person when standing and remembering looking up or down at the face (taller or shorter than their own known height). The shorter height of the customer according to the witnesses does however match the height of Curtis Craford, the mob-connected Carousel Club handyman indicated independently to have been not only mistakenly identified as Oswald but to have impersonated Oswald in a number of other instances.
• A particularly compelling physical description detail from sales manager Pizzo: he testified the customer was not Oswald when shown photos because of a distinctive hairline feature detail--a weak but definite small widow's peak--not in photos of Oswald but in exact agreement with the hairline of photos of Curtis Craford.

What puzzled me however was trying to understand motive: why? The customer appears to have behaved in a way designed to create the appearance of an attempt to purchase a car which would not likely come about in fact. When taken on a test drive he drives recklessly at high speed, antagonizing the salesman. This "Oswald" demands to buy the car that day with $0 down and a promise to pay cash in full in three weeks (from Sat Nov 2). He is angered at the nerve of an auto dealership not to let someone who walks in off the street with no credit rating buy a new car with $0 down. He says in anger that he may need to return to Russia where there is not this kind of nonsense (paraphrased). This is not reasonable behavior. But why? I believe the answer to "why" is (this has been suggested by others):

• A promise of a huge sum of money "in three weeks"--a promise to have enough money to pay for the new car in cash in full, according to Bogard--corresponds to the time of the planned assassination attempt on JFK. This created witnesses who would serve, post-assassination, as incrimination of Oswald in that assassination--witnesses who would testify that prior to the assassination Oswald expected to come into a huge sum of money at the time of the assassination. This would establish as facts post-assassination--according to testimony from truthful witnesses--that there was premeditation and culpability on the part of the patsy (Oswald) and that there was a conspiracy in which Oswald was involved which assassinated JFK--created on the basis of deception not truth.

That the would-be customer claiming to be Oswald was not Lee Harvey Oswald can fairly convincingly be shown. Going beyond that, a striking plausibility in match in physical description can be shown with Curtis Craford, known to have been mistakenly identified as Oswald in a number of instances and suggested to have intentionally impersonated Oswald in several instances. I will develop these points in posts to follow.