Greg Doudna

On 10/1/2021 at 8:41 PM, Jean Davison said:

Greg, You speak of the "gunman's abandoned jacket." Oswald reportedly left his rooming house zipping up a jacket, yet witnesses at the Texas Theater said he wasn't wearing one when they saw him, so Oswald apparently abandoned a jacket in that same area.  Odd coincidence, or what? Strangely enough, the police tapes report the finding of only one abandoned jacket.

Jean I have a long piece about ready to post which I think will address your question. I would be interested in whether you find that it does.

Steve,  I accept what you show from the Dec. 5 interview report of Joyce McDonald that that may be her correct address as of Dec. 2 (date of the interview): 424 1/2 W. 10th St., Oak Cliff. It also becomes clear to me that Little Lynn's address given for Joyce McDonald (Joy Dale) of 4204 1/2 W. 10th Fort Worth is erroneous and an error for the correct address given by Joyce on Dec. 2. So the Little Lynn address for Joyce McDonald can be dismissed as of no further relevance.

I do not agree however that Jack Ruby's reported address for Joyce, certainly drawn from written records as the other employee addresses he furnished the FBI on Nov 25, can so easily be dismissed as a mistake.

Joyce McDonald's address (provided by Joyce Dec. 2): 424 1/2 W. 10th 

Joyce McDonald's pre-assassination address according to Ruby (provided by Ruby Nov 25): 410 1/2 10th St.

That record of Joyce McDonald's address from Nov. 25 can hardly be written off as a typo or error for the Dec 2 address, for this reason: it is the address of the Tippit killing. If the Nov. 25 were a mistake for 424 1/2 W. 10th St. why wasn't the mistake then random? 

How is it that a mistake, if such is what it was, landed of all possible addresses such a mistake could land, at the very address Tippit was killed, of all places? 

In addition, since the other employees' addresses seem accurate from Nov 25 and Ruby's information surely came from the same written records as the others, it is not likely that that address would be a typo or mistaken in any case. But if it was, it would not land by total accident on the address where Tippit had been killed. That just does not make sense.  

I think now the issue should be reframed differently than was the Tippit killing address the actual residence where lived Joyce McDonald and her 3-year old daughter. From her 2009 story Joyce refers to a boyfriend. The testimony you cite from Andy Armstrong says he saw her dropped off for work at the Carousel Club once by a man driving a car, and she had a 3-year old, which had to involve some childcare arrangements when she worked. 

Based on this information I accept that on Dec. 2 she was living at the address she gave the FBI on Dec. 2, which was not the house of the Tippit killing. At the same time the house of the Tippit killing was on record as her address (even though the "E." is missing in E. 10th). Joyce McDonald had a close relationship to Ruby (Little Lynn told police there was gossip that Joyce McDonald was at that moment pregnant with a child by Ruby). For some reason Ruby's records showed the address of the Tippit killing as the address listed for Joyce, instead of the address given on Dec. 2. For some reason (was it intentional as a favor?) Little Lynn made a mistake in the number of Joyce's address and then made a second mistake putting the entire mistakenly-numbeed address in the wrong city, in Fort Worth instead of Dallas (Oak Cliff). Some mistakes can be done on purpose to maintain privacy or avoid giving out a true home address; is that what was going on? But if so that could explain the Little Lynn wrong address, but it becomes more difficult to explain the Ruby-furnished address for Joyce.

One possibility would be Joyce's true address with her 3-year-old daughter was 424 1/2 W. 10th, but that she had some connection to 410 1/2 (E.) 10th as an address whether or not she lived there. Another possibility could be that following the assassination and the arrest of Ruby that she moved in with a friend elsewhere.

So never mind whether Joyce McDonald and her 3-year old did or did not live at the address Ruby gave for her on Nov 25. She may well not have lived there.

I agree there are three points of similarity between the Ruby-provided address for her and her home address of Nov. 2, namely 10th St; a three-digit street number in the 400s; and the "1/2". But there are two differences, namely the street number is different and the lack of "W." The two addresses do look related from the similarities. Yet to see one as a simple mistake in writing of the other requires two, not one, typo mistakes, in the midst of a list of names and addresses which seem accurate in the other cases.

Yet the fact is--never mind where Joyce McDonald actually lived--the earliest address provided for Joyce McDonald, seemingly the Carousel Club dancer to whom Ruby was closest, and the one Carousel Club dancer with the shared parallel employment at the Texas Fairgrounds as well as at the Carousel Club with Crafard, was the address of the Tippit killing. Were the two later addresses intended to shield that from significance? Or, on Nov. 25 did Ruby furnish that address with an exact match to where Tippit had been shot to death three days earlier, by some random freak accident?

If that was a coincidence, it was one hell of a coincidence. The city directory I understand has no one listed at the 410 E. 10th address in 1963. Who did own that house and was using it? Unknown. How did it come about that that particular address was what Ruby said the Carousel Club records showed for Joyce McDonald? Unknown.

That house, 410 E. 10th where Tippit was killed, was said by Virginia Davis, living two houses away at 400 E. 10th, at one point in her Warren Commission testimony, to have been the house where she thought a police officer lived, from familiarity in seeing a cruiser there.

"[Tippit's cruiser] was parked between the hedge that marks the apartment house where he lives in and the house next door [404 E. 10th]" (6H458)

And in his 2013 edition of With Malice, Myers reported what is presented as a credible, anonymous highly-placed source, among multiple unnamed other sources, who confirmed to Myers that there had been a police officer, identity kept secret by law enforcement officials who knew all these years, who had been present at the scene of crime "in a house that overlooked the Tippit murder scene. At the sound of the shots the officer looked out a window and observed the killer fleeing the scene" (With Malice, p. 374). "[T]he story never crept beyond a handful of lawmen for fear of unintentionally exposing the relationship. The story was confirmed in 1996 by a high ranking Dallas official who stated that the 'information received was sufficient to cause belief'," Myers writes. 

In research of my own elsewhere, I developed argument as to a possible identification of that officer at the scene that day. I gave reasons why I see Deputy Sheriff Bill Courson as the person of interest with respect to the identity of an officer witness at the scene of the crime, if there was one (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27362-tippit-a-second-officer-present-at-the-tippit-killing/?tab=comments#comment-446862). 

As Bill Courson tells it in Sneed's, No More Silence, his job description working for Sheriff Decker was to keep tabs on known criminals. As part of that would go in plain clothes every night to places where criminals hung out, which Courson explained in No More Secrets included frequent visits to the Carousel Club in the several weeks immediately preceding the assassination.

Courson was in Oak Cliff in plain clothes and cruiser immediately following the Tippit killing, without notification or instruction from a dispatcher to be in Oak Cliff and he did not live in Oak Cliff. By his own account Courson was wearing the same clothes on Friday as he had on the day before, Thursday. That is one odd detail, in addition to the circumstances of his presence in Oak Cliff. Of all officers who participated in the hunt for the Tippit killer in Oak Cliff, there is no known written report submitted by Courson of his actions that day, unlike most other officers.

So there it is, a case worthy of the fictional television detective "Colombo".

• the dancer closest to Jack Ruby had a reported address of record at the Carousel Club where she was employed which is the address of the house where Tippit stopped his cruiser and was shot dead. 
• the killer of Tippit, after killing Tippit, reloaded his gun prepared to kill again and went to the Texas Theatre
• Oswald was at the Texas Theatre
• By 2 pm Fri Nov 22 Oswald was arrested and taken away alive from the Texas Theatre
• By 3 pm Fri Jack Ruby began talking in the presence of multiple witnesses of the need for Oswald to be killed before trial, as sympathy for Jackie Kennedy
• On Sunday morning Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald while Oswald was in police custody
• the dancer whose address of record at the Carousel Club was where Tippit was killed, was an associate at work with and said she was a friend of Larry Crafard.
• Larry Crafard, a recent hire by Ruby with little specific job description, was a later self-proclaimed ex-hitman
• Many witnesses who saw the killer of Tippit thought the person they had seen was Oswald
• Many witnesses who saw Crafard under circumstances other than the killing of Tippit thought the person they had seen was Oswald
• Hours after the killing of Tippit and the arrest of Oswald in the Texas Theatre, Crafard with no notice or goodby to anyone left Dallas hitchhiking to Michigan
• Whereas the FBI by policy did not pursue Mob leads in the investigation of the assassination of JFK, the HSCA investigation of the late 1970s found that Jack Ruby had significant Mob associations and contacts in the runup to the assassination. 
• Carroll Jarnagin, a maligned witness, arguably witnessed and overheard an early conversation between Ruby and Crafard in the Carousel Club in which Ruby discussed with Crafard carrying out a contract killing for hire related to the JFK assassination, on behalf of Mob interests.

 

 

Steve Thomas, this is interesting. That interview with Little Lynn (Karen Lynn Bennett) is undated but reads sometime after Ruby killed Oswald. Little Lynn does furnish to police a different address for Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald), a Fort Worth address, 4204 1/2 W. 10th, Fort Worth, than the pre-assassination Oak Cliff address of Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) supplied by Ruby.

Little Lynn refers in the document to Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) having received a letter from Ruby the same day Little Lynn gave this interview ("Joy Dale got a letter today, [from Ruby], he said to tell everyone hello for him", p. 3). The police interview says Little Lynn had cooperated with police on previous occasions in giving information, and receiving favorable treatment from police as a result (not being arrested when others were). It looks like this police interview report came about because she (Little Lynn) contacted police to inform them of the contents of the Ruby letter to McDonald. Little Lynn may or may not have had the actual letter to show police, and that letter would be the source of the exact address in Fort Worth for Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) that Little Lynn was able to provide to the police in this interview.

But this does not mean Joy Dale was not living in Oak Cliff at the time of the assassination. As mentioned by Little Lynn in this same interview, another Carousel Club dancer, Tammy True, had moved to Oklahoma after the assassination. The Tammy True move analogy seems to be the best way to interpret the two addresses of Joyce McDonald--a move.

Records furnished by Jack Ruby the day after he killed Oswald clearly list Joyce McDonald at the time of the assassination as living at 410 1/2 10th St., the very address in Oak Cliff at which the Tippit cruiser stopped when Tippit was killed.

That Joyce McDonald lived in Oak Cliff on Nov 22, 1963--and not Forth Worth--appears confirmed by this article brought to attention by Stu Wexler, https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2009/nov/09/jack-ruby-featured-mural-20091109/. In this article from 2009, Joyce, now 66 years old, spoke of the day of the assassination so long ago. She tells of her then three-year old daughter Cynthia with her that day taking a bus to Parkland Hospital for a medical checkup for Joyce, then taking a bus with her 3-yr-old not back home but to the closed Carousel Club where she met Ruby who was talking about shooting Oswald. She refers to a boyfriend named Tommy with her "at home in Oak Cliff" on Sunday when hearing the news on the radio that Ruby shot Oswald.  

The address of Joy Dale provided by Little Lynn therefore does not mean the Ruby/Carousel Club record of address for Joy Dale was inaccurate. It simply means Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) and her daughter were living elsewhere at the time Ruby wrote her from jail. Either Ruby wrote Joyce McDonald at her new Fort Worth address or Ruby's letter was forwarded there.

A City Directory lack of listing anyone living at 410 E. 10th in Oak Cliff that year would seem to be compatible with, rather than in contradiction to, Ruby's information that Joyce lived there, if it was not of long duration. Also, the "1/2" of the Joyce McDonald address of 410 1/2 10th suggests part of a house, an apartment, or separate structure on the same lot rather than occupancy of the full house.

Ruby's address for Joyce McDonald provided to the FBI is a straightforward documentary record that Joyce McDonald, Joy Dale, who referred to fellow Carousel employee Larry Crafard as a friend in a television interview on Nov 24, lived at the house where Tippit stopped his cruiser.

It has always been a puzzle why Tippit stopped his cruiser where he did. It has been conjectured that the killer flagged Tippit's attention, or that Tippit recognized him, but it is unclear. Witnesses said the killer first talked to Tippit through the car window on the passenger side, then Tippit got out, then the killer shot and killed him. All in front of the home address of a Carousel Club dancer closely associated with both Ruby and Crafard.

This is simply shocking. To show how little known this is: Dale Myers' exhaustive book on the Tippit slaying, With Malice, makes no mention of this. Neither does Joseph McBride's Into the Nightmare. 

Tippit did not stop and meet his killer in front of the home address of a friend of Oswald. 

Tippit met his killer in front of the home address of a close associate of Ruby and Crafard.

Following the killing of Tippit at the address of a close associate of Ruby and Crafard, that killer, with fully reloaded gun ready to kill again, went directly to the Texas Theatre and entered that theatre, where Lee Harvey Oswald was.

Lee Harvey Oswald was in that theatre. The very man Ruby was dead set on seeing killed before trial.

Only the quick arrival of the police and arrest of Oswald saved Oswald from being killed in that theatre at that time.

I found what I think could be a possible reference to the Larry Crafard meeting with Jack Ruby that I think Carroll Jarnagin witnessed on Oct. 4, 1963. It is from a Nov. 24, 1963 WFAA-TV interview of Joy Dale, stage name of Joyce McDonald, a dancer in the Carousel Club.

"Well, I have a friend out here that came to Dallas, unemployed, know--not knowing anyone. He had met Jack once. Jack gave him a place to stay until he found him a job, gave him money to live off of until he went to work, until he could move out." (24H796, https://maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1140#relPageId=814)

In this same interview she says she went to the Carousel Club at a little after 3 pm on Fri, Nov 22, and saw Ruby there where Ruby talked of Oswald needing to be killed. Joy Dale in this interview gave an excellent, perhaps first or same-day, testimonial for what would become Ruby's defense for what he did Sunday morning, that Ruby was distraught over and sympathetic to Jackie.

On Nov 25, 1963, in an FBI interview, Jack Ruby listed names and addresses of employees at the Carousel Club, one of whom was "Joyce McDonald, a dancer whose stage name is Joy Dale, 410 1/2 - 10th Street, Dallas, Texas" (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1137#relPageId=60)

Officer Tippit's police car was stopped between 404 and 410 E. 10th St. when he was killed. 

The argument against Joyce McDonald having lived at 410 E. 10th St. I believe would be the city directory of Dallas for that year showed that address as vacant, no one living there. However, has it been excluded that what Jack Ruby told the FBI was Joyce McDonald's address of 410 1/2 10th Street was the address in front of which Tippit parked and was killed?

Benjamin, interesting. Wonder if Peasner was fronting for someone with that rifle purchase, who knows, and with his possible spy agency contacts and history is "only the piano player" (literally) in Ruby's place just before the assassination. But I have found running into people at bars and lunch counters, strange coincidences are more common than dirt, all sorts of unusual stories from random people. In terms of the JFK assassination, static vs. signal issues.   

Speaking of Korean POWs, when growing up in Akron, Ohio I knew a man who was said to have been the only American POW to have escaped from a North Korean prison camp. His name was Joe Goertzen (sp?). James Michener wrote about him in a book though I do not think by name. He escaped and walked a long distance near a road moving only at nights to the south to safety. He was more a friend of my father, and had his own business as an auto mechanic. I believe he is still alive and in Florida now.  

8 hours ago, David Lifton said:

REVISED, 10/2/21 -4:20 AM):  Hi Greg: Let me relate my own experience(s), based on recollection.  Sometime around 1970 - 1971, I went to Washington, and spent a good month at the National Archives.  (As I recall, I stayed at the home of Bernard ("Bud") Fensterwald.)   As those familiar with my background know my primary education was in math and physics.  After I began attending  Prof. Liebeler's UCLA law School seminar on the Warren Commission, i went to the UCLA Library and checked out several books on evidence (e.g., "McCormack on Evidence," a standard text used at the time.)   Of course, a good course on "evidence" is basic to any legal education.

What i learned was that in any criminal case, the evidence --every item of evidence --could not be  "entered into evidence" -- unless  assessed to be "officially legitimate" -- i.e., until its "chain of possession" was established. The legal jargon for this fell under the purview of "relevance," a legal term which has a specific meaning in the law.  Bottom line:  If there was no "chain of possession," a rifle could not be "admitted into evidence".  Why?  Because it wasn't "relevant."  The same for bullets removed at autopsy;and, going to the macroscopic, the body itself was evidence, and it--too --was required to have a chain of possession. From the "found" body to the autopsy table. 

Much of this is familiar to those who watch the TV program "Law and Order."

Now let's apply these rules (and insights) to the "case against Oswald."

 

As everyone knows, the key "evidence against Oswald" consisted such items as "the rifle", "fingerprints at the sniper' nest", bullet fragments removed from JFK's body. And of course, thee was the body itself.  The President's body was critical evidence in "the case against Oswald.  So it, too, had to have a "chain of possession," (All  of this is discussed in Chapter 16 of Best Evidence.")

Had Oswald lived--and the case against him gone to trial--many of the key items could not have been "admitted into evidence" without a valid "chain of possession."

Oswald was murdered on Sunday 11/24/63, so the case being built against him began with the Dallas Police file, and then the FBI file, and --finally--the Warren Commission investigation.

So... faced with these legal requirements, how did the Warren Commission legal staff behave?

Basically, they accepted all the basic evidence --the "found rifle,"  the "found bullets" (or bullet fragments) etc. --as evidence, without paying sufficient attention to the "chain of possession."

Accepting the validity of these items of evidence, the Warren Commission legal staff then set out to write their "report".   But note: Just as when a high school or college student writes a term paper, the Warren Commission's legal staff first wrote an "outline" -- an "Oswald was guilty" outline as the basic structure for the Warren Report.  These outlines --in the "office files" at the National Archives (and designated the "REP" files) --were dated between January and March, 1964. Once these outlines were approved by Warren Commission General Counsel J. Lee Rankin, the work for the individual chapters was parceled out to individual staff lawyers, who then proceeded  to write their 'preliminary drafts" for the document which, when completed, would emerge as the Warren Commission Report (the WCR). (All of this-- what I have just described here -- is documented in the "Office Files" of the Warren Commission -- abbreviated as the "REP" files in the "office files" of the Warren Commission.  (I examined this material -- the REP files -- back around 1970. (Arlen Specter, for example, wrote the "original drafts" for the section of the Warren Report about the autopsy.  Wesley Liebeler --and Albert Jenner -- were in charge of the chapters on Oswald's biography.)

What I found-- again, back around 1970, when I first examined the Warren Commission's "working paper's" at the National Archives-- was simply this: : The Warren Commission legal staff wrote their "first drafts" of the "Oswald-did-it" Warren Report in mid-January 1964!

Just consider what this means: President Kennedy was murdered on 11/22/63; the Warren Commission was created by 11/29/63; several weeks passed while staff was hired, the nation was told that the Warren Commission was hard work.  Meanwhile,  by January 1964, the earliest "Oswald did it" outlines were already created!  (This same bizarre situation was addressed by author Howard Roffman, whose book -- appropriately titled "Presumed Guilty"  --was published around 1970,

Bottom line: the "Oswald did it" fix was in by January 1964.  

All i can say is: "Wow! What a betrayal of the public trust!" 

Once this bizarre "preliminary outline"  was adopted (i.e., "green lighted") by the WC's General Counsel), what happened next was predictable. 

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT --i.e., starting in January 1964

Between January and June 1964, when the senior  Warren Commission staff lawyers (e.g., Stuart Eisenberg, and Norman Redlich)  were already drafting the document that became known as "the Warren Report-- some of the senior legal staff in effect recognized the emerging legal problem. Indeed, the documents show that senior members had a serious "Oops!" moment. Someone apparently realized "Oops!  We are constructing this "Oswald did it" narrative  based on the "sniper's nest evidence"  (e.g the rifle, the bullet fragments, etc.) --but we (the WC legal staff) have  neglected to establish a "chain of possession" on the key items of evidence!

 In other words, it was as if they (the WC legal staff)  were building a house that had no proper legal foundation!

So now, having conducted their investigation without bothering to establish a chain of possession, senior attorneys Eisenberg and Redlich let out an enormous "OOPS!" exclamation;  consulted with Gen. Counsel Rankin, and that's how (and why) it wasn't until May 1964, that the Warren Commission legal staff set out to repair the situation.  At this rather "late" date, the FBI was requested (by the Warren Commission) to establish a "chain of possession" on a whole array of "sniper's nest" items of evidence: i.e., the rifle, the bullets, the shells, etc.

All I can say is: "Welcome to law school, and the "legal way" of viewing theWarren Commission's view of 11/22/63.  

This --of course--  was akin to putting the cart before the horse, but the legal eagles of the WC staff behaved as if none of this mattered. It was as if their attitude was: "Oswald killed the President. Here's the official narrative; we can worry about the legal details later." 

The country deserved better.

There was a lot of talk -- back in the mid-sixties --about how the Warren Commission was involved in a conspiracy.  From attending Prof. Liebeler's UCLA seminar, I learned otherwise.  Because I watched the law students arrive at the same false conclusions,  

As i wrote in Best Evidence: a major conspiracy on the Warren Commission legal staff wasn't  necessary: just that they went to law school. That was like putting your mind into a straight jacket, when evaluating reality. 

DSL

Thanks very much David Lifton, your account being valuable because you knew Liebeler and were part of his UCLA seminar learning about the workings of the Warren Commission. This sheds light on CE2011. One item I noticed missing altogether from CE2011 was the Tippit killer's abandoned light-gray jacket as the killer fled the scene of the crime. Chain of custody was requested by the Commission to be established on everything else, why not that jacket? I don't think the most basic item of information concerning chain of custody on that jacket, the name of the first officer to come into possession of that jacket at the scene, was ever officially disclosed or confirmed (it was not Westbrook who reported it; when asked under oath Westbrook said he was handed it at the scene by an officer whose name he could not remember and no one else could remember either). While I have no doubt that jacket came from the killer, there was something about the circumstances of its finding that would have destroyed its validity as evidence in court in terms of chain of custody if brought to light. Dale Myers' recent researched story on his blog of the daughters of Dorothea Dean of Dean's Dairy saying that their mother had found and taken that jacket into her store that day and then given it to officers when they arrived, before it was "found again" out back in the parking lot by officers, I think may be a glimpse of the back story on the chain of custody legal issue on that one (Myers reports the Dean daughters' story handed down from their mother but rejects it as being true). For some reason, the Commission did not include that jacket on the list of items for which the FBI was requested to establish chain of custody. I suppose it is too long ago for you to remember anything that would shed background on how a specific, relevant item like that would not be included on such a list submitted by the Commission to the FBI to establish, when the shells ejected from the Tippit killer's gun found at the scene of the crime were on that list, other physical evidence from the same crime.

It also seems to me now that the odd denial of Bardwell Odum to have been involved with the two C399 interviews at Parkland reported in CE2011 may be some sort of dissembling on the part of Odum, rather than Odum's role having been fabricated in the text of CE2011, between those two choices, when Odum later claimed to Aguilar and Thompson that he never carried out those two interviews that CE2011 said he did. The third possibility is Odum forgot but how could that be. As Aguilar and Thompson present it Odum, even though in his 80s was remembering everything else very well. Odum seems not to have wanted to be considered responsible for the reporting in CE2011 on that item, C399, and the author of CE2011 itself appears not to want to be held responsible for writing CE2011, since no author's name of the report is disclosed or reporting agent submitting that report is identified, and so far as I know no one in the FBI ever claimed authorship or identified someone else as author otherwise. Would a good Oswald defense attorney have had a field day with this in court, like shooting ducks in a barrel? Thanks for the background.

Steve Roe, I always respect what you have to say, one of the most experienced and knowledgeable on details and cross-examination. On Crafard at the Carousel Club at the time of the Tippit killing, the basis for your conclusion on that is the testimony of long-term loyal Ruby employee Andy Armstrong who vouched for Crafard being there, full stop. (Apart from Ruby potentially also could have testified as a second witness backing up his employee Crafard's alibi for the purpose of showing Crafard was not in Oak Cliff trying to kill Oswald two days before Ruby did so.) Whether Andy Armstrong's support for a Crafard alibi is the truth is the question. If there were more witnesses or a disinterested witness the alibi would be stronger. But there aren't. Therefore if one already knows or believes Oswald killed Tippit on other grounds, Andy Armstrong's testimony, which reads credibly otherwise, will be accepted here. But if there is a question as to Crafard's whereabouts on other grounds, a single long-time Ruby loyalist and proven and trusted team player providing Crafard's alibi might reasonably be assessed as falling short of being decisive exculpation for Crafard. 

Apart from the slender reed of Andy Armstrong (and Ruby) being the only support for Crafard's alibi, there are a couple of things that might call even that already somewhat-weak alibi further into question. 

Everyone in America of sound mind remembered what they were doing that day in the aftermath of Kennedy being shot. But Crafard, in his Warren Commission testimony, claimed Andy Armstrong had woken him up early that morning, Fri Nov 22, when bringing in beer. According to the Andy Armstrong FBI interview reports in the link you give (Armstrong Exhibit 5310-G), Andy Armstrong took a city bus leaving his home at 11:53 am going to downtown Dallas, then walked to the Carousel arriving about 12:30 pm. He never went to the Carousel Club earlier. Yet Crafard claimed he had. Of the two conflicting stories, I judge Andy Armstrong's as the more credible, which raises the question of whether Crafard was being untruthful or mistaken in that discrepancy. An interpretation of mistaken seems somewhat questionable given the significance of that day, though I suppose that could go either way. If Crafard's discrepancy with Andy Armstrong was from being untruthful (not a mistaken memory), that raises a red flag, because why be untruthful on a trivial matter like that for no reason. 

There are also possible "Oswald" sightings in Oak Cliff on Fri Nov 22 in the hours before the Tippit killing which could be Crafard sightings (given that they cannot have been Oswald sightings).

• James Oliver Clark of the Tenth Street Barber Shop, corner of Ewing and Tenth, saw a man walk by his shop on Friday morning Nov 22 whom he would "bet his life on" was Oswald (an FBI interview report of James Oliver Clark dated 11/29/63, document cited Myers, With Malice, 399 and n. 1207 [I am unable to find on the Mary Ferrell site]).
• An FBI interview report of Dec. 3, 1963 concerning a story that Oswald had been seen in the Top Ten Record shop Friday morning Nov 22 buying a ticket for a Dick Clark concert that evening, later confirmed by the owner of the Top Ten Record store who said he sold Oswald a ticket that morning (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16240#relPageId=7).

In each of these cases these could be mistaken identifications other than Crafard (it is not possible that either of these actually are Oswald). If Crafard was at the Carousel Club and the killer of Tippit was Oswald, then the two cases above would be extraneous mistaken identifications of no relevance. But if the "Oswald" identified by witnesses as the killer of Tippit was not Oswald, then all three "Oswald" sightings could be of the same person, Crafard mistakenly believed to be Oswald in keeping with other known witness confusions of Crafard and Oswald. 

Andy Armstrong was trusted and tested over time as a reliable assistant manager at the Carousel, despite Andy Armstrong's description of Ruby's volatile temper. It is fairly clear from Andy Armstrong's testimony that he knew everybody and everything that went in and out of the Carousel Club, the people there, the contacts, the money going in and out, concerning which he asked no questions, kept his mouth shut and simply did his job. If he was asked by Ruby or someone associated with Ruby as a favor to provide a simple alibi for Crafard's whereabouts on Nov 22, by people who had been good to Andy Armstrong and who he would in any case not wish to cross, after Crafard had left Dallas such that there was little risk of falsification or a perjury prosecution, it may be Andy Armstrong would be about as reliable as anyone to do that small favor.

Again, it is not that Andy Armstrong's alibi for Crafard placing him in the Carousel Club on Nov 22, 1963 could not be true if there are other grounds to know the killer of Tippit was Oswald. It is that, like a number of other elements, this is the kind of thing which falls short of certainty in itself. There is no non-Carousel witness alibi for Crafard, nor additional Carousel witness alibis for Crafard, though you are right, there is Andy Armstrong, otherwise credible. But arguably not disinterested. And no other corroboration. Do you fundamentally assess this witness assessment issue differently in principle?

8 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Greg-

Have you ever looked into Thomas Peasner, Korea war vet who became POW, played piano for Jack Ruby, bought a .22 rifle a few days before the JFKA with a bounced check, and then left town? 

Benjamin, never heard of him before, but looking him up now I cannot see anything substantial to indicate significance. 

8 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

Wow. Never heard this  before, very interesting, well researched!

So did Crafard actually resemble Oswald? Seen only one pic and it’s a very slight resemblance 

Sean, I agree anyone who knew Oswald would not confuse him with Crafard, and vice versa. But the issue is not whether we think the faces look similar, but the actual record that there were exactly these witness confusions at the time, in which witnesses who had seen Crafard reported after the assassination to law enforcement details of where they believed they had seen Oswald. These witness confusions are not a matter of conjecture but a matter of record, from witnesses not intending to lie or be mistaken but who were mistaken. When Ruth Paine, who knew Oswald very well, was shown photos of Crafard, she commented that it was not so much a direct facial resemblance but an overall manner or bearing that she saw as having some similarity. Then there is the similar height, weight, clean-shaven, brown hair of similar length, and associations with Ruby which contributed to retroactive belief that someone had seen Oswald instead of Crafard. There is also the Laura Kittrell Texas Employment Commission case in which, operating entirely from memory, she wrote down after the assassination her memories of pre-assassination office encounters with both Oswald and Crafard which she confused and conflated in memory as if they were the same person, thereby making a story of Oswald that sounded so bizarre and outlandish it could not be believed by anyone, even though once the mechanism of her mistake is understood her story becomes sensible and her interpretation of her memories mistaken but the memories themselves not fabricated out of whole cloth. And finally among the voluminous JFK assassination literature there is the whole massive and when fully examined, baseless claimed Oswald "doubles" and impersonators running around Dallas turning up in every obscure place like Elvis sightings, supposedly micromanaged by sophisticated unseen spy agency handlers whose names to this day have never come to light nor any written documentation of Oswald-impersonation spy-agency activity being run in Dallas. There is no hard evidence Crafard ever pretended or represented himself to be Oswald (there are a couple of witness claims which seem that way but fall short of justified confidence that those claims are accurate), but there is hard evidence that some sincere ordinary, everyday citizens of Dallas after the assassination, upon seeing news and pictures of Oswald on television and in the newspapers, mistakenly believed they had seen Oswald before the assassination --when those stories, when tracked down, showed they had seen Crafard, not Oswald. So it is not a question of would we or anyone then have confused Crafard as Oswald, but making the best sense of the cases of this that did happen.     

Revisiting the Carroll Jarnagin story

Carroll Jarnagin was the Dallas attorney who wrote to J. Edgar Hoover on Dec. 3, 1963 an account of a claim to have overheard a conversation in the Carousel Club on Oct. 4, 1963, between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald discussing a contract killing for hire of the governor of Texas to be carried out by Oswald on a parade route, shooting a rifle from the Carousel Lounge. (The FBI report on Jarnagin requested by FBI headquarters in response which has all the documents and interviews starts here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=56992#relPageId=98&search=jarnagin.)

This story has been practically universally regarded on all sides as discredited, primarily because (a) it sounds so bizarre and there is no other known credible association established between Ruby and Oswald, let alone discussion of an assassination plot between the two; (b) Jarnagin completely bombed a polygraph test administered by the Dallas Police Department, in which deception was found to every question Jarnagin was asked except for being truthful when he said he had been drinking that night and had been drunk that night, in the evening in question; and (c) the date of the evening Jarnagin said it happened, Friday night, Oct. 4, 1963, it cannot have been Oswald because Oswald was in Irving with Marina and Ruth Paine that evening. 

And yet, a story so bizarre and outlandish when claimed as a sighting of Oswald, the story becomes much less bizarre and takes on sinister new light if it is considered that this was in fact, unbeknownst to Jarnagin, one more of the multiple other cases of witnesses of Larry Crafard, who (just as was the case with Jarnagin), upon seeing Oswald on television after the assassination, mistakenly believed the man they had seen had been Oswald. I have elsewhere argued exactly that was the case with the Ralph Yates' hitchhiker story from Nov. 21, 2021 (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27399-did-oswald-sell-the-mannlicher-carcano-the-day-before-the-assassination/)--a witness claim, unquestionably sincere and similarly practically universally rejected, of having picked up Oswald hitchhiking carrying a rifle-compatible package, conversing about the president's visit the next day and the possibility of assassination from a tall window, asking Yates if he had ever been to the Carousel, and then being dropped off at Elm and Houston at Dealey Plaza. What is so outlandish as a story of Oswald takes on new meaning read as a mistaken identification of Crafard.

Similarly with the Jarnagin story, which if it were not for the Dallas Police department polygraph assurance that there is nothing to see there, could be the closest eyewitness account in existence to overhearing a discussion in Dallas of the plot to assassinate President Kennedy that did happen, except it was not Oswald seen by Jarnagin with Ruby, but Crafard.

Here is what I see weighing against the notion that Jarnagin fabricated his story. He was a practicing attorney in Dallas, of socially reputable standing apart from the alcoholism issue. He reported a detailed account timely, directly to the FBI in Washington, D.C., twelve days after the assassination and two months after the event (this was not a story emerging years later). As an attorney he would know the seriousness of knowingly making false claims in a letter such as that to J. Edgar Hoover. He had no prior known criminal record or record of fraud or fabrication and there is no claim he was of unsound mind. He showed zero sign of attempting to monetize or sell his story or financially benefit from it, yet insisted for the rest of his life that he had told the truth without changing or repudiating his story. He claimed there had been an attempt on his life, which he believed was connected to his testimony and caused him so much fear that he disappeared for a period of several years, out of fear for his life. In his final years he became clean of alcohol and yet continued to hold that his story had been true without wavering. One family member (assuming an online claim to be such is credible which it appears to be), a granddaughter, passionately upheld his character and truthfulness against criticism and mockery reported by Myers (to his credit Myers lets the comment stand following his critical discussion of Jarnagin, here: https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2008/02/wading-through-muck.html), and there is no known report of a family member who claims Jarnagin made up the story. There is no known unambiguous evidence of Jarnagin having made up false claims otherwise. This is not on its face the expected pattern of someone who made up a Ruby/Oswald sighting story. All that needs to be explained is reasonable explanation of mistakes in the story itself, and that it was not Oswald (as Jarnagin thought) but rather a mistaken identification of Crafard--and the negative polygraph result. My source for description of the later years of Jarnagin from persons who knew him is here:  https://www.covertbookreport.com/carroll-jarnagin-did-he-actually-witness-ruby-with-oswald/.

Bear in mind at the time Jarnagin wrote his letter to the FBI with this story, he had no knowledge of Crafard. All he knew was Kennedy in the company of the governor of Texas had been assassinated by a shooting in a parade, that it looked like Oswald had done it, and Oswald had been killed by Ruby--and he recognized Oswald on television as looking like the man he had seen discussing an assassination of the governor of Texas with Ruby in the Carousel Club. But though Jarnagin himself may never in his life have considered that the man he saw was other than Oswald, that the man instead was Ruby's newly-hired employee and later self-professed ex-hitman Crafard, who was soon to be living at the Carousel Club, that is what we can consider here.

Jarnagin, in his attachment of narrative to his cover letter to J. Edgar Hoover of Dec. 3, 1963:

"Report of events which took place in The Carousel Club 1312 1/2 Commerce Street Dallas, Texas on Friday Oct. 4, 1963 from about 10 P.M. until about 11:45 P.M. The club is located on the second floor, and is entered by a stairway leading up from the sidewalk on the south side of Commerce Street.

"Witness, who is an attorney, and a client, who is an 'exotic dancer', walk up the stairs to the Carousel Club Oct. 4, 1963 at about 10 PM, on business, the dancer, stage name 'Robin Hood', desires to talk with Jack Ruby, the owner of the club, about securing a booking for employment. The witness and the dancer enter the club, and sit down at the second table on the right from the entrance; the dancer faces the stage, which is against the East wall and to the left, North, of the passage way which leads East from the second floor entrance door; and the witness sits facing the entrance doorway; the ticket booth is at the South en of the landing at the top of the stairs, and the entrance door way on the second floor is to the left coming off the landing, that is East would be the direction a person faces entering the club.

Comment: Date and setting established. Jarnagin at the end states that he has verified this is the correct date from contemporaneous dated phone call notes at the time. The dancer, who had been a legal client of Jarnagin, was interviewed and confirmed to the FBI the existence of her "date" with Jarnagin (as she called it), and both of their presence in the Carousel.

"Several minutes after the witness and dancer are seated, the witness notices a man appear in the lighted entrance area and tell the girl in the ticket booth: 'I want to see Jack Ruby.' In a short period of time the bouncer appears and with a flash light shines a beam of light upon the ceiling on the inside of the club at the entrance area. The man who has asked to see Jack Ruby is dressed in a tan jacket, has brown hair, needs a haircut, is wearing a sport shirt, and is about 5'9 or 10' in height, his general appearance is somewhat unkempt, and he does not appear to be dressed for night-clubbing;

Comment: a physical description. Crafard was 5'8", brown hair. The "unkempt appearance" agrees with other descriptions of Crafard (does not agree with normal descriptions of Oswald who was remembered as neat). 

"he, the new arrival, sits with his back to the wall at the first table to his right from the entrance area; after a few minutes he orders and is served a bottle of beer; he continues to sit alone and appears to be staring at the dancer; the dancer leaves the table and the new arrival stares intently at the witness; the witness notices that the new arrival's eyes are dark, and his face is unsmiling; after some minutes a man dressed in a dark suit, about 45-50 years of age, partially bald, medium height and medium to heavy build, dark hair, and more or less hawk faced in appearance from the side, joins the new arrival at the table; the new arrival appeared to be about 25 years of age; (the older man dressed in the dark suit was later indicated by the dancer to be Jack Ruby); and the following conversation was overheard:

Comment: one detail I noticed in Crafard's Warren Commission testimony is Crafard repeatedly would not hear a question asked the first time and would say, "How's that?" whereupon the question would be repeated, differing from other witnesses in this. Therefore Crafard, though only 22 years old at the time (23 at the time of his Warren Commission testimony) was hard of hearing. I have noticed that men of all ages who are hard of hearing tend to talk more loudly than normal, also it is necessary for people talking to them to speak a little more clearly and distinctly than normal--extremely quiet or whispering will not work. I see this as background to a question which might be wondered, how Jarnagin could overhear what was being said at the next table.

"Jack Ruby: '------------- (some name not clearly heard or not definitely recalled by the witness)--what are you doing here?"

Comment: they have met before.

"Man who had been sitting alone. 'Don't call me by my name, . .'

"Jack Ruby: 'What name are you using?'

"Man who had been sitting alone. 'I'm using the name of H. L. Lee."

Comment: Recall this is Jarnagin writing after the assassination remembering two months earlier. Curtis LaVerne Crafard (Craford after 1964), true name, was known at that time of the assassination by the name "Larry". Although this part of Jarnagin's story at first sight sounds like Oswald or an Oswald impersonator, I do not think it was either of those, but instead a misunderstanding or mishearing on Jarnagin's part. Another detail concerning Crafard, this from Laura Kittrell of the Texas Employment Commission who had dealings with Crafard concerning an unemployment claim, noted that Crafard spoke with a distinctive southern accent, drawn out and almost exaggerated making two syllables out of some single-syllable vowel sounds (unlike Oswald who spoke standard midwest American). Jarnagin is hearing, not necessarily perfectly, from the next table remember. So if Crafard answered Ruby's question something like, "Way-ul--Larry" or "hell, Larry" or "hay-ell, Larry", that could be misunderstood in hearing or memory as "H. L. Lee". Jarnagin hears the name starting with "L" and ending with an "ee" sound and missed the "ar", but it was close, close enough, that he did hear a name that sounded like "Lee" which became an apparent but mistaken association with Oswald.

"Jack Ruby: 'What do you want?'

"Lee: 'I need some money..'

"Jack Ruby: 'Money?'

"Lee: 'I just got in from New Orleans. I need a place to stay, and a job.'

Comment: this was the most puzzling detail to me to explain in terms of a non-impersonation mistaken-identification Crafard reading. For Oswald had just gotten in from New Orleans by way of Mexico City, whereas supposedly nothing is known of Crafard in New Orleans or Louisiana. That detail I think however may become cleared up from analysis of the Laura Kittrell story of her Texas Employment Commission dealings with Crafard in Oct-Nov 1963, in which she dealt with both Oswald and Crafard on different occasions but confused the two in her memory as both being Oswald, making the Laura Kittrell story sound bizarre. But once it is realized Laura Kittrell's story was not a fabrication but instead a mistaken conflation in memory of two persons, as she herself came to see that she had actually dealt with two not one and that the other one was Crafard as soon as she saw a photo of Crafard, the Laura Kittrell story can be cleared up and her story too rehabilitated to credibility and reasonableness. Once the Oswald and Crafard aspects of the Laura Kittrell story are distinguished and separated out from each other, in the Crafard part, Crafard tells Laura Kittrell some story of having worked in a factory with a forklift in New Orleans, shortly before Crafard's application to the Dallas office. That New Orleans forklift job was the basis for Crafard (not Oswald) telling Laura Kittrell that he, Crafard, had just received a membership in the (mob-connected) Dallas Teamster's Union, which Laura Kittrell thought was unbelievable and Crafard thought her reaction so hilarious, since Crafard did not have a driver's license. The point: Crafard, whose movements really are little known, hardly more than what he volunteered in his Warren Commission testimony, does in this way have an independent testimony or indication of New Orleans in his recent history, supporting that the present allusion to New Orleans could be genuine Crafard. (The other alternative would be that Jarnagin's memory mistakenly intruded a few details cross-fertilized from the post-assassination Oswald narrative without meaning he fabricated the whole thing.)

"Jack Ruby: 'I noticed you haven't been around in two or three weeks, what were you doing in New Orleans?'

Comment: The timeline does not agree with Oswald. Here Ruby refers to the man (Crafard) having been in the Carousel or somewhere in Ruby's sphere of awareness two or three weeks earlier. Evidently the New Orleans trip was within the past two or three weeks before Oct. 4, Dallas to New Orleans and back to Dallas, a brief trip, unknown reason why. (The Marcello organization?)

"Lee: 'There was a street fight and I got put in jail.'

"Jack Ruby. 'What charge?'

"Lee. 'Disturbing the peace.'

Comment: The similarity to Oswald's arrest (though that occurred more than two or three weeks earlier) does evoke an Oswald spillover in memory generated from a post-assassination Oswald narrative. Crafard was known to have gotten into a very violent fistfight a couple of weeks later in Dallas after the Jarnagin evening, such that a street fight would not necessarily be out of character. However an FBI background check on Crafard which included a criminal record search did not turn up any arrest for Crafard in New Orleans or for disturbing the peace, which was the case for Oswald. 

"Ruby. 'How did you get back?'

"Lee: 'Hitch-hiked. I just got in.'

Comment: This fits Crafard, who was a hitchhiker, not Oswald who was a bus-rider (I don't think Oswald is known to have hitchhiked more than maybe one time involving a missed bus). Crafard famously hitchhiked (or said he did) all the way from Dallas to Michigan starting out with $7 in his pocket, deciding to do so a few hours after the assassination and the killing of Tippit. Crafard as the hitchhiker of Ralph Yates hitchhiked.

"Ruby: 'Don't you have a family? Can't you stay with them?'

"Lee: 'They are in Irving--they know nothing about this; I want to get a place to myself. They don't know I'm back.'

Comment: The "Irving" detail matches pregnant Marina and their 2-year old in Irving, Oswald's family. Crafard also had a wife with whom he was not living who had two small daughters, one a baby born in the spring of 1963. (I do not recall where in the Dallas area they lived but do not think it was Irving.) Again Jarnagin is remembering from two months later, trying to be accurate (per reconstruction), but could have mistakes in hearing or memory and/or unintended influence from post-assassination Oswald narrative. Apart from the Irving detail, Crafard had a wife with children from whom he spent most of his time apart, such that, Irving aside, the rest of the statement would agree with Crafard as well as Oswald. 

"Ruby: 'You'll get the money after the job is done.'

"Lee: 'What about half now, and half after the job is done?'

"Ruby: 'No, but don't worry, I'll have the money for you, after the job is done.'

"Lee: 'How much?'

"Ruby: 'We've already agreed on that..'

(Ruby leans forward and some of the conversation following is not heard by the witness)

"Ruby: 'How do I know that you can do the job?'

"Lee: 'it's simple. I'm a Marine sharpshooter.'

Comment: The "Marine" word is certainly an influence of post-assassination Oswald narrative. However, Crafard had served in the Army (not Marines), in Germany, and as part of his military training would have had sharpshooting training. Is it possible Jarnagin heard some reference to that and in his memory, alert to the connections with Oswald, "remembered" or filled in in his memory, hearing "Marine"?

"Ruby: 'Are you sure that you can do the job without hitting anybody but the Governor?'

Comment: Throughout the Jarnagin story there is no mention of an assassination of Kennedy, only the Governor. There are a couple of ways that could be interpreted, but the one that seems to make the best sense internal to this narrative is that that is what Ruby thought it was, was told it was at this point, or was telling Crafard at this point, a plot to kill Connally. Practical advantages in this at this stage might be: easier for Ruby to go along with it; and less negative fallout if the plot leaked than if it was said to be a plot against the President. Note that the entire context implies it is relatively soon to come (Crafard asking for half now of the sum promised for doing the killing). 

"Lee: 'I'm sure. I've got the equipment ready.'

"Ruby: 'Have you tested it, will you need to practice any?'

"Lee: 'Don't worry about that. I don't need any practice; when will the Governor be here?'

"Ruby: 'Oh, he'll be here plenty of times during campaigns...'

(distraction)

"Lee: 'Where can I do the job?'

"Ruby: 'From the roof of some building.

"Lee: 'No, thats too risky, too many people around.'

"Ruby: 'But they'll be watching the parade, they won't notice you.'

"Lee: 'But afterwards, they would tear me to pieces before I could get away.'

Comment: Is Crafard being set up to be a patsy? But the dynamics of Ruby being dominant and boss agrees with the Warren Commission testimony of both Crafard and Andy Armstrong that that was the relationship Ruby had with employees, such that this seems in character with a Ruby employer-employee relationship. Crafard when living at the Carousel employed by Ruby was not a business relationship between equals but was an employer-employee (boss-servant) relationship. 

"Ruby: 'Then do it from here (indicating the North end of the Carousel Club) from a window.'

Comment: The JFK/Connally parade on Nov. 22, 1963 went west on Main, parallel one block north of Commerce St, but at this time, early Oct, all of that would be uncertain (even whether there would be a JFK/Connally visit to Dallas that year may not have been certain). If this was for real this would seem to be making provisional plans in place subject to modification later as circumstances developed and called for. But note that the focus on the assassination of the Governor with a rifle is now situated as happening at the Carousel Club, which is where Crafard was soon to be living. 

"Lee: 'How would I get in?'

"Ruby: 'I'll tell the porter to let you in[.]'

Comment: That would be Andy Armstrong (who actually functioned competently with full manager responsibilities at times, more than a "porter", but being African American in a Club where Ruby did not allow blacks admission, it is not surprising that Andy Armstrong would be called a low-status "porter"). Note again this is all Crafard/Carousel now, nothing obvious from a post-assassination Oswald narrative. 

"Lee: 'But won't there be other people in the place?'

"Ruby: 'I can close the place for the parade, and leave word with the porter to let you.'

"Lee: 'But what about the porter?'

"Ruby: 'I can tell him to leave after letting you in, he won't know anything.'

"Lee: 'i don't want any witnesses around when I do the job.'

"Ruby: 'You'll be alone.'

"Lee: 'How do I get away. there won't be much time afterwards.'

"Ruby: 'You can run out the back door.'

"Lee: 'What about the rifle, what do I do if the police run in while I'm running out?'

"Ruby: 'Hide the rifle, you just heard the shot and ran in from the parade to see what was going on; in the confusion you can walk out the front door in the crowd.'

"Lee: 'No, they might shoot me first; there must be time for me to get out the back way before the police come in; can you lock the front door after I come in, and leave the back door open?'

"Ruby: 'That would get me involved, how could I explain you in my club with a rifle and the front door locked?'

"Lee: 'You left the front door open, and it was locked from inside when somebody slipped in while you were outside watching the parade.'

"Ruby: ---(distraction---)

"Lee: 'But what about the money, when do I get the money?'

"Ruby: 'I'll have it here for you.'

"Lee: 'But when? I'm not going to have much time after the shooting to get away.'

"Ruby: 'I'll have the money on me, and I'll run in first and hand it to you, and you can run on out the back way.'

"Lee: 'I can't wait long, why can't you leave the money in here?'

"Ruby: 'How do I know you'll do the job?'

"Lee: 'how do I know you will show up with the money after the job is done?'

"Ruby: 'You can trust me, besides, you'll have the persuader.'

"Lee: 'The rifle, I want to get away from it as soon as its used.'

"Ruby: 'You can trust me.'

"Lee: 'What about giving me half of the money just before the job is done, and then you can send me the other half later?'

"Ruby: 'I can't turn loose of the money until the job is done; if there's a slip up and you don't get him, they'll pick the money up, immediately.

Comment: a first reference to "they" above Ruby. Ruby is simply a middleman, not the instigator or head of the operation. 

"Ruby: 'I couldn't tell them that I gave half of it to you in advance, they'd think I doublecrossed them. I would have to return all of the money. People think I have a lot of money, but I couldn't raise half of that amount even by selling everything I have. You'll just have to trust me to hand you the money as soon as the job is done. There is no other way. Remember, they want the job done just as bad as you want the money; and after this is done, they may want to use you again.'

"Lee: 'Not that it makes any difference, but what have you got against the Governor?'

"Ruby: 'He won't work with us on paroles; with a few of the right boys out we could really open up this State, with a little cooperation from the Governor. The boys in Chicago have no place to go, no place to really operate, they've clamped down the lid in Chicago, Cuba is closed; everything is dead, look at this place, half empty; if we can open up this State we could pack this place every night, those boys will spend, if they have the money; and remember, we're right nest to Mexico; there'd be money for everybody, if we can open up this State.'

"Lee: 'How do you know that the Governor won't work with you?'

"Ruby: 'Its no use, he's been in Washington too long, they're too straight up there; after they've been here awhile they get to thinking like the Attorney General. The Attorney General, now there's a guy the boys would like to get, but its no use, he stays in Washington too much.'

"Lee: 'A rifle shoots as far in Washington as it does here, doesn't it?'

"Ruby: 'Forget it, that would bring the heat on everywhere, and the Feds would get into everything, no, forget about the Attorney General.'

Comment: The ones above Ruby, in this narrative, are Mob. Attorney General Robert Kennedy was the bete noir of Mob figures such as Marcello and Hoffa, in keeping with known plotting of Hoffa to assassinate RFK. 

"Lee: 'Killing the Governor of Texas will put the heat on too, won't it?'

"Ruby: 'Not really, they'll think some crack-pot or communist did it, and it will be written off as an unsolved crime.'

Comment: If this were Oswald, who was considered a communist, it would be odd for Ruby to be speaking to Oswald this way, which would sound like a plan to blame Oswald. However it makes sense with Crafard, who is not Oswald nor is Crafard a communist. Note the indication in this narrative, this early on, that the idea would be to have "some crack-pot or communist" be thought to have done it, instead of the Mob actual killers. In this narrative, Ruby seems somehow confident that this can be how it will work or is the general plan, almost as if law enforcement contacts are in place who may assist in that.

"Lee: 'That is if I get away with it.'

"Ruby: 'You'll get away, all you have to do is run out the back door.'

"Lee: 'What kind of door is there back there, it won't accidentally lock on me will it?'

"Ruby: 'No, you can get out that way without any trouble.'

"Lee: 'It doesn't open onto an open fire escape, does it? I don't want to run out onto an open fire escape with a rifle in my hand right after the shooting.'

Comment: Although humor does not come through well in transcripts, I wonder if the last comment of Crafard above is a joke. 

"Ruby: 'No, its a safe way out, I'll show you, but not now.'

(distraction------)

"Lee: 'There's really only one building to do it from, one that covers Main, Elm, and Commerce.'

"Ruby: 'Which one is that?'

"Lee: 'The School Book Building, close to the triple underpass.'

"Ruby: 'What's wrong with doing it from here?'

"Lee: 'What if he goes down another street?'

(distraction--------)

"Lee: (looking up and staring directly at the witness) 'Who is that? he's from the F.B.I.

"Ruby: (half turning in his chair, looks at witness who tries to appear to be looking at the floor show); Ruby gets the attention of the exotic dancer who says: 'Mr. Ruby, can I see you on business?' Ruby: 'Yes, later, but come here now.' (The dancer moves her chair over to the other table and remains for two or three minutes.. the conversation is too low to hear;

(Comment: the dancer is not hard of hearing like Crafard so Ruby can talk softly to her)

"(Ruby, con'd). when the dancer returns to the witness's table she says: 'What was that about? They asked me if you were with the F.B.I., I told them you were an advertising man from Arizona; you're not with the F.B.I., are you?' Witness: 'No.'

---

"Lee and Ruby huddle closer over the table, and talk in lower tones---

"Lee: 'I know he's from the F.B.I., they talked with me in New Orleans, and they followed me.'

"Ruby: 'He couldn't hear anything over there.'

"Lee: 'He heard everything; we'll have to get rid of him.'

"Ruby: 'No, they work in pairs, ... we'll have to think of something else..'

"-- Ruby and Lee talk in inaudible tones... Ruby leaves and makes some introductions of guests from a microphone close to the stage; later returning to the table and asks Lee to come over and meet a celebrity; a spot light is turned on the table at which Ruby has made some introductions, and at least one flash photo appeared to have been made by the night-club girl photographer, which probably included Lee in the back of the other guests at the spot lighted table, standing;

"---

"Some twenty or thirty minutes later, Lee walks out alone; in a few minutes the witness and the dancer walk out; at the bottom of the stairs partially blocking the doorway Lee is standing; he stares intently at the witness, and appears to have his hand in his jacket; after some delay the witness manages to position a departing customer between himself and Lee. (. . .)"

Overall comment and the polygraph test

Jarnagin claims he called the Texas Department of Public Safety the next morning and delivered an anonymous description of what he had heard to an answering officer with request that it be relayed to the Governor's office. Jarnagin claims he phoned back and was told the message had been relayed. The FBI could find no corroboration from that agency of having received such a call. Jarnagin explained privately that the reason he did not report it to the local police was because he knew Ruby was well-connected with contacts in the Dallas Police Department and thought it safer to keep his mouth shut to them, and for the same reason with District Attorney Wade, these two law enforcement agencies "both of which were well-known to be corrupt and under the influence of mob money, according to Jarnagin" (from link given above). One possibility could be that Jarnagin heard something but reported it to no one (not the Texas Department of Public Safety), but claimed the Texas Dept of Public Safety call to preempt the question of why he had not reported before the assassination what could have saved the President's life. 

Jarnagin had no known track record of publicity-seeking, or profiting from putting himself into the center of high-profile stories or fabrication, and it is fair to say that his reporting of what he said he heard that night in the Carousel, in his letter to the director of the FBI shortly after the assassination, as was the case with other witnesses who came forward thinking they were doing the right thing, unalterably damaged his life for the worse, with no known upside or gain to him from having reported what he had heard that night. 

He is remembered in history with mockery.

As for the polygraph test, if there were other evidence or convincing reason for supposing Jarnagin had made up his story that would be one thing, but I think the total picture comes down on the side of Jarnagin not having lied about this, Dallas Police polygraph notwithstanding. I suspect Jarnagin has been a maligned witness--the only known witness to have overheard in Dallas an early stage of the assassination plot that was carried out and to have told--discredited by means of that polygraph report.

The report of results of that polygraph are in DPD records. But the underlying information by which that polygraph test could be rechecked, reviewed and vetted by other experts in terms of procedure and method, do not exist (so I understand), that is, there is no way to know basics such as what control questions were asked to establish levels and what those control levels were. That polygraph was conducted by a Dallas Police Department under intense pressure to support an official narrative in which, by decision and policy from the top, there could neither be investigated nor found a Mob role in the assassination of JFK (referring to 1963-1964 FBI/Warren Commission, not the later HSCA of the late 1970s which did investigate and find such a role central to the assassination). I do not consider that polygraph as trustworthy in establishing that Jarnagin lied, and do not rule out that that polygraph was corrupt.

Myers cites an interview of Dallas Police James Leavelle in 1983 as saying (Myers' paraphrase or summary): 

"Jarnagin was a bit more forthcoming with the Dallas police when questioned about his flunking the polygraph exam and admitted that he made the whole thing up and said that he felt that the police would connect Ruby and Oswald sooner or later and just wanted to get in on the ground floor and get a little extra publicity." (With Malice, 410)

I think there is better-than-even odds that Jarnagin is simply straight-up being smeared here. Note that Myers is paraphrasing Leavelle's paraphrase of other officers going back an unknown number of hearsays to some officer who paraphrased Jarnagin as allegedly saying that. That is, Leavelle did not claim to have heard Jarnagin say that himself. There is no statement verified from Jarnagin saying what Leavelle alleged, nor am I aware of an on-the-record statement from an officer or witness who heard Jarnagin say that, and it is contradicted by Jarnagin reportedly for the rest of his life claiming his story was true. 

A final point on which Jarnagin's name should be cleared. One of the items used to discredit Jarnagin, unfortunately publicized by the usually-meticulous Myers, is what appears to be a wholly baseless allegation that Jarnagin was the source of Mark Lane's story of an anonymous witness to a meeting in the Carousel of Ruby, Tippit, and Bernard Weissman. Myers states,

"After his initial tale collapsed, Jarnagin approached Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Waldo Thayer with a new claim that he witnessed Bernard Wessman, Jack Ruby, and Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit meeting in the Carousel Club on November 14, 1963, just a few days before the assassination ... the secret source, of course, was Carroll Jarnagin. Suffice it to say, there is no credible evidence that J.D. Tippit knew Jack Ruby or was ever at the Carousel Club. The testimony of friends and colleagues provides considerable evidence that Tippit had never been there." (With Malice, 410-11)

Myers gives no footnote or documentation for this claim that Jarnagin was the source for Waldo Thayer, in With Malice. In an earlier blog post of 2008 Myers did give a source, which was "Aynesworth, Hugh, JFK: Breaking the News, International Focus Press, 2003, p. 231". I obtained that Aynesworth book to check that citation and found that citation fails to provide any evidence or basis either, only unsubstantiated assertion on the part of Aynesworth, who gives no clue as to his basis for that assertion. In terms of published information or documentation that is baseless. Perhaps that is why Myers does not cite that Aynesworth reference in his later 2013 edition of With Malice. But, that leaves Myers citing the unsubstantiated allegation itself used as a finale in the evisceration of Jarnagin's reputation, unmoored to any source of claimed evidence for it.

In the comments following the Dale Myers blog post on Jarnagin of Feb. 18, 2008, there is this comment from a "Jen", dated Aug. 7, 2016. Jen writes:

"Everyone worked so hard to discredit my grandfathers eye witness account but, he did have attempts on his life so that would change any testimony when it's life or death. I think there is much more than anyone in Dallas wanted to admit. Corruption and greed contacted to the underworld and Carroll may have had an alcohol issue but, it is not logical to label him a xxxx. Especially when the lie detector tests are not admissible in court. That was character assignation [sic] on Carroll for stepping up and being the only man to report what he witnessed. Putting his life after truth and justice! That's who Carroll Jarnagin was from those who really knew him."

I do not know who Jen is or if she will ever see this, but if so, I have a message: I believe you, and your grandfather.

There is also this early, excellent book on the Tippit case. Gary Murr, The Murder of Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit (1971), 91 pp., unpublished, available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15957gAzFZ5wYLbefq4F7cm7sm07ACY8N/view. 

It is a solid compilation of primary source documents and evidence with analysis, focusing on the forensic aspects and witnesses of the case. Murr concluded there was a substitution of shells.

"The obvious disappearance of the officers' markings [Poe, Barnes] is something that the Commission should have been highly critical of. It remains to this day, an unanswered question. The possibility of a switch in physical evidence in this instance would appear to be a realistic conclusion. (. . .) CE594 [the four shells Q74 through Q77] were probably fired from CE143 [Oswald revolver], to the exclusion of all other weapons. But, the big question is whether or not CE594 represents the shells actually recovered from the scene of the Tippit murder (. . .) The Dallas police who handled and marked them were unable to find their identifying marks, therefore they too were unable to pick them from CE594. They made a good effort, undoubtedly for the Commission's benefit, but guessed wrongly. There exists not a semblance of a chain of possession for the empty shells after they got to the Dallas Police Crime Lab. What specifically the Crime Lab did to them is unknown. The possibility of a switch in empty shells i[s] the only logical alternative. Give the FBI four empty shells knowingly fired rom CE143. It makes the task of proving that they were fired from CE143 "to the exclusion of all other weapons" light-years easier." (pp. 58, 64)

On the offering of a sympathetic explanation for false incrimination of Oswald in the Tippit case

Here is a belief expressed that shells from bullets fired from Oswalds revolver were substituted to replace the shells found at the scene of the Tippit killing, in the Dallas Police Crime Lab in order to incriminate Oswald--from a Dallas Police officer at the time who makes it almost sound like it was the compassionate thing to do under the circumstances:

"Most Dallas policemen interviewed by the author either do not want to discuss the Tippit case or say that they have no reason to doubt the official version of their comrade's death. However, one officer, now retired, asserted flatly and without prompting that he believed Tippit was killed as a result of a volatile personal situation involving his lover and her estranged husband. He added, 'It would look like hell for Tippit to have been murdered and have it look like he was screwing around with this woman. ... Somebody had to change the tape. Somebody had to change the cartridge hulls. Somebody had to go to the property room and change those hulls and put some of Oswald's hulls in there--hulls that fit Oswald's gun.'" (Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt: Investigation into the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy [1985], 168) (With thanks to Stu Wexler for calling this to attention.)

High-level law enforcement officials in Dallas covered up identity of a highly relevant witness to the Tippit case--reported by Dale Myers.

"According to sources, a Dallas police officer was involved in a tryst with a married woman on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, in a house that overlooked the Tippit murder scene. At the sound of the shots, the officer looked out a window and observed the killer fleeing the scene. Reportedly, the officer positively identified the gunman as Lee Harvey Oswald; however, the story never crept beyond a handful of lawmen for fear of unintentionally exposing the relationship. The story was confirmed in 1996 [to Myers] by a high ranking Dallas official who stated that the 'information received was sufficient to cause belief. This person's credibility level was high,' the official remarked, 'because after all is said and done, you're not going to get yourself any favorable publicity from it. There's no motive for saying it if it weren't true.' Only a handful of people were aware of the story and as far as the official knew it was never made available to officers investigating Tippit's death.'" (Myers, With Malice [2013 ed.], 374)

Never mind the question of whether stories of these affairs as affecting police handling of the Tippit case could themselves be decoy stories. Never mind the question of whether the above two versions of an illicit affair as sympathetic rationale for police coverup ("this is not to condone it, but surely you can now understand and sympathize") could be two versions from the same origin varying in the telling.

None of that matters here so much as the expressions of a normalcy in rationale for police coverup and/or alteration of physical evidence in the Tippit case--held by insiders. And though for all we know the affairs could be wholly true as stated, no affair explains the movements of the killer that day who, gun freshly smoking from having killed Tippit, headed straight to the Texas Theatre where the soon-to-be-accused assassin of President Kennedy was watching a movie.

It is of course frustrating that the anonymous officer quoted by Hurt, or the anonymous source of the high-ranking Dallas official quoted by Myers, are anonymous. But in the case of the Henry Hurt source, I have a hunch who it might be. I wonder if the anonymous officer source of Hurt is identified (not intentionally by Hurt) in Hurt's book.

Officer R. C. Nelson was the other officer besides Tippit in the famous dispatcher transmission at 12:45 pm to those two officers to "move into central Oak Cliff"--famous because seemingly anomalous ("Not only was such an inexplicable instruction believed to be unique in the Dallas Police Department, it also had not been in the first transcript. Moreover, none of the police supervisors who testified earlier [to the Warren Commission] indicated that they knew anything about it. But there it was..." [Hurt, 160]). Hurt contacted Nelson hoping to interview him, explaining that Nelson had never been questioned by the Warren Commission or HSCA and told Hurt he had a story to tell. But Hurt claimed Nelson would not talk to him without being paid, and that negotiations over that "had not materialized as this book went to press". 

'In 1984, the author located R. C. Nelson, who stated that it was surprising to him that no official investigation had ever sought his account of what he knew about the day of the assassination and the murder of Oswald. (. . .) 'I've been waiting a long time to tell my story,' Nelson said. He explained that since his account of events had never become part of the public record, he felt his story had a monetary value. He wanted to come to some agreement before granting a full interview. However, in the initial encounter with Nelson--standing in a parking lot in Corsicana, Texas, where Nelson is in private business [i.e. retired]--the author asked, "Did you get the call to go to central Oak Cliff? Did you hear the dispatcher';s orders telling you to go there?'

"'I'm not sure what you mean,' Nelson said. A little more of the circumstances were explained, and Nelson then said, 'I had rather not talk about that.' He said he considered that to be a part of the story he was willing to negotiate--a willingness that, despite several efforts, had not materialized as this book went to press." (Hurt, 162)

Hurt's representation is (a) Nelson had a story to tell, but (b) Hurt was unable to get Nelson to talk (with a plausible explanation of why). Several pages later Hurt then refers to the anonymous retired officer with the sensational story of the Tippit affair and suggestion that Dallas Police altered physical evidence in the case in order to defend the reputation of their fallen fellow officer and out of respect for the widow. I have noticed that journalists when citing anonymous sources with sometimes-sensational information often will actually name the source elsewhere in the same news article with an attributed less-sensational quote, without identifying to the reader that the named quote and the anonymous source are one and the same. Is that the case with Hurt and R. C. Nelson? In which the story of inability to close a financial deal with Nelson who wants to talk, is a device on Hurt's part by which to protect confidentiality of Nelson who actually did, on promise of confidentiality, talk to Hurt? If so there would be Hurt's source, being protected by Hurt. 

I can find no mention of an interview of Nelson in the book of Myers, who interviews so many other first-hand sources, practically comprehensive in his attempts. The other major Tippit case book--while I do not agree with points of argument it includes valuable interviews of sources--Joseph McBride, Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit [2013]), reported being unable to locate Nelson for an interview (p. 431).

Whereas interviews in both the Myers and McBride books confirm an affair of Tippit with a waitress who may have had a child by Tippit, Greg Lowrey quoted in McBride noted that the whole story of the Tippit affair started with an anonymous letter sent to Garrison in New Orleans in 1968, and argued that the affair had nothing to do with the Tippit killing (the jealous husband theory).

"If you're looking at Tippit, don't believe the jealous husband story. It came from an anonymous letter. Think of the mileage they've gotten on this. I've done my damnedest to expose it. Someone has concocted these little things, by design or not, to obscure the identification of the Tippit killer. Some people definitely have an agenda to keep people from knowing the identification of Tippit's killer. I suspect there may be a hundred people inside the Dallas Police Department who know that Oswald didn't kill Tippit, and so to defuse interest in that case, they plant a damn effective rumor. From 1968 to date, that's the only thing that's been done on the Tippit case." (Lowrey quoted at McBride, 294)

Thanks Paul, my take on Ruby is he was mobbed-up to his ears even though operating business legally himself, and was representing Mob interests such as Marcello, Trafficante, and Hoffa (http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/R Disk/Ruby Jack As Gangster Related/Item 01.pdf; https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1979/02/25/did-the-mob-kill-kennedy/b684d171-36b7-474e-9f7d-40a619aede46/). And Ruby was basically pleading for the then-equivalent of federal witness protection in order to flip, which Earl Warren simply blew off. But it was not Mob figures deciding on their own to declare war on the US government, rather there was a green light with deniability to Mob interests to carry out what Mob interests knew how to do, professionally carried out with a patsy who was killed, in exchange for favors or quid pro quo in the carrying out of a regime change. I am also suspecting that the right-wing haters of JFK, the Milteers, the anti-Castro Cubans, etc. though they talked of assassination were not part of the assassination which did happen. It is like the old TV series "Dallas", in which the first season ended with "Who shot J.R. Ewing?" There were a hundred people with motives, but only one that actually happened. Under normal circumstances a Mob crime would be prosecuted and brought to justice, but not this one. This is my larger picture, which is not necessary to be correct or to resolve to go to the specifics of the Tippit case. 

8 hours ago, Jean Davison said:

Greg,

Concerning the laundry tag, it's not surprising that the FBI failed to trace it since, according to Marina, this was an old jacket that she had always washed for her husband.  Likely then that the laundry (or dry cleaning) tag was old.  The label in the jacket was that of a California maker or store, which suggests he may have purchased the jacket and later had it cleaned in that state when he was stationed there in 1959. (Or possibly had it cleaned in Russia before he met Marina.) The FBI apparently didn't search for records in California.  The fact that the FBI couldn't trace it to Dallas or New Orleans actually fits Oswald quite well and not some random guy who would've had his jacket cleaned locally.  

showDoc.html (maryferrell.org)

 

I think the laundry tag in itself is indecisive though weighing in favor of not-Oswald. The interpretation of it will depend on whether one already believes, on other grounds, that Oswald was the Tippit killer or not. If one comes to the laundry tag already knowing or thinking that the gunman's abandoned jacket was Oswald's, then I think the explanation would more likely be a recent Dallas dry cleaner not identified despite FBI effort and inquiries to so identify. The idea of a stapled laundry tag on the inside lining remaining intact and legible reading 'B 9738" through countless washings since 1959 does not strike me as very likely. But if one does not start with the assumption or conclusion that the gunman's jacket was Oswald's, then the dry cleaning tag with legible inked numbers--more likely recent?--not identified in Dallas or New Orleans despite what seem to have been comprehensive inquiries by the FBI, I assume mostly in the form of letters--seems to me, all else being equal, to weigh in favor of not-Oswald. (Not decisive since the true dry cleaner might not have come forward or been found despite the inquiries.) The person I suspect was the Tippit killer, Crafard, had spent time in California and in his work as a traveling carnie was in cities outside of Dallas including recently before Nov 1963 such that, if the jacket were his, it could easily have been dry cleaned outside of Dallas, less well explained for Oswald. Crafard was reported by the FBI as weighing about 10-13 pounds more than Oswald while being an inch shorter than Oswald (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1136#relPageId=377 ), compatible with the "M" size of that jacket for a slightly fuller or heavier person than Oswald's "S" size on all of his known clothes. According to current information from store websites I see, men's jacket size is based on chest measurement more than anything else, with S being chest 35-37 inches and M being chest 38-39 inches. Ruth Paine, who knew Oswald but not Crafard, when shown a photo of Crafard noted resemblance but that Crafard had broader shoulders, again seeming more consistent with the M rather than S jacket size. 

Thanks Larry. On the rifle, one possibility is the idea could be to obtain Oswald's Carcano (which did happen as wanted on Thu Nov 22)--by someone offering Oswald a large enough sum of money for his unused rifle combined with some convincing narrative--but if that had fallen through, one could have Oswald incriminated by other means with some other rifle inside the TSBD or one could have the assassination anyway without incrimination of Oswald. There was the Warren Caster episode on Wed Nov 20, two days before the assassination, which was a possible mechanism for introduction of an assassination rifle inside the TSBD, notwithstanding that the two rifles Caster bought at lunch that day remained verifiably in his family for years.* As part of that episode there was what could almost look like an invitation to get Oswald's fingerprints on a Mauser in the TSBD on that occasion. In his Warren Commission testimony Roy Truly said that episode, two days before the assassination, was the only time he had ever seen or known a firearm to have been brought into the TSBD.

(* Hypothetical of how that could be a possible mechanism for introducing an assassination rifle into the TSBD: Person Y buys two rifles at lunchtime at a nearby store, recorded, paid for, for personal and family home use, one a Mauser and one a .22, packaged in a single package. Away from the store, another untraceable new Mauser is substituted for the newly-purchased Mauser in the packaging. The newly-purchased Mauser is taken to Y's parked car. Y returns to the TSBD and on the ground floor shows off the two rifles in the package to employees including Oswald gathered around, handing the untraceable Mauser around to hold and admire. Putting the rifles back in the packaging, Y takes the package with the two rifles not out to his car but to his second-story private office in the TSBD for the rest of the day. Y takes the untraceable Mauser out of the package and gives it to <whoever>/does <whatever> with it. There is now a Mauser somewhere inside the TSBD, untraceable, whereabouts unknown. At the end of the workday Y leaves the office with his package containing the .22 to his car. Y drives home with the original two rifles he had purchased. Y and family retain verified ownership for years of the same two rifles bought at lunchtime that day.)

Although the Warren Caster episode in which a rifle capable of assassination entered the TSBD and was carried to an office on a higher floor with windows facing the parade route, not confirmed to have left the building, two days before the assassination in which shots were fired from that building, may have been wholly innocent, one possibility is it was not innocent but made possible a mechanism for an assassination to proceed making use of that building without reliance upon the Carcano purchased from Oswald the day before the assassination.

Although the Warren Caster episode has been presumed to have been innocent and there is no known evidence that it was not, in the end that is a faith-based assessment. It is the equivalent of a security breach but without evidence that anything bad happened as a result of that security breach--faith-based.  

Even if, as you have suggested, Oswald sought to go to Cuba (if so), there is no obvious reason why that would mean he would sell or give away an unused Carcano before doing so. It could just as well be one more thing in storage abandoned, if so. I grew up with my great-grandfather's Civil War musket in our basement until in later years my practical-minded mother sold it to an antiques dealer. I am thinking there is no reason why Oswald would make an overt move to do anything with the Carcano until someone came to him with an offer of an appealing sum of money combined with a narrative that sounded good, and Oswald opportunistically took it. In this scenario, on Thursday Oswald felt rich and the future looked brighter. On Friday he was charged with the assassination of a president with the rifle he had just sold.

[Photo analysis in error and retracted.]

 

 

This is in response to some thoughtful, probing criticisms raised by Larry Hancock in another discussion to the theory that Oswald thought he was involved in a false flag operation. That discussion, "Cognitive Bias in the Formulation of Theories", is here: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27389-cognitive-bias-in-the-formulation-of-theories/. Because of the length of this I am making it a topic of its own rather than in that discussion, but it is Larry Hancock's fault there that this is written. 🙂 (That is a joke; Larry Hancock is of course not responsible for anything written here.)

Could it be Oswald's self-understanding was that he was a low-level informant doing, not a false flag, but a "sting" of some bad people? Suppose Oswald's earlier two firearm mail-order purchases were part of that Dodd subcommittee investigation and Oswald was allowed to keep the firearms for private use or resale as a fringe benefit. 

The idea would be that Oswald is party to a conveyance or sale of that traceable rifle, at the direction of and with the approval of a law enforcement entity, to a "bad person", with Oswald in an undercover role, so that this govt-traceable item (the rifle), like a marked bill, could be used to nail bad people. In this scenario Oswald would not have knowledge that shooting would happen, would not knowingly be involved in making a sniper’s nest on the sixth floor, would not know that his rifle ended up there. He would not anticipate becoming charged or blamed for an assassination, nor have known that it was going to happen. If he ever was picked up by police for some reason he would rely on it being explained to and by authorities that he was one of the "good guys", working for the govt to nail bad guys, and would be released.

The rifle itself, the Mannlicher-Carcano, would have gone from New Orleans to Ruth Paine's garage in the blanket with other of Oswald’s belongings, but (differing from the standard picture here) the rifle would be gone from the blanket and the Ruth Paine garage before Thu night Nov 22. A number of otherwise anomalous items could be pieced together and possibly rendered more sensible along this line:

(a) on “Nov 20 or 21, 1963”--Wed night Nov 20 since Thu night Oswald is in Irving--Oswald was witnessed staying up very late, until after midnight, at Sleight’s Speed Wash, 1101 N. Beckley, a laundromat near his rooming house (FBI interview reports at CE 3001). Since Oswald had missed the previous weekend being in Irving with Marina who would often do his laundry it is plausible he would be doing laundry, yet why so late on a work night. Suppose he was not only doing laundry but used that as opportunity to prepare a package, or take delivery of something from someone, though the janitor there did not see Oswald meeting anyone or doing anything there except reading magazines. Or was he staying up until after midnight reading magazines because he planned to sleep in a little later the next morning?

(b) on Thu morning Nov 21 a fellow roomer at the rooming house on Beckley sees Oswald leave the rooming house early that morning (before 8 am, so the roomer said) carrying a package. (Here I am missing documentation, I cannot find it, but I know I have seen a news account reporting that one of the other roomers at the rooming house said ca. 1 day before the assassination Oswald went out the door from the rooming house on Beckley with a package in his arms.) 

(c) at 10 am Thu morning Nov 21 Oswald is at the Dobbs House restaurant at 12th and N. Beckley near his rooming house where he is a regular for breakfast though on all other days he is there 7-7:30 am (CE 3001). This 10 am is unusual, no known prior precedent. Somewhat amazingly this Thu 10 am Dobbs House breakfast of Oswald has generally been simply rejected, even though the sources are multiple restaurant staff who were familiar with Oswald as a regular there, as waitress Delores Harrison put it, he “did not talk much and was always reading magazines or books”—that was Oswald. This restaurant staff testimony is highly credible testimony. Waitress Mary Dowling said Oswald’s 10 am breakfast was Wed Nov 20 but Delores Harrison said it was Thu Nov 21. The shock of the assassination threw a number of witness memories off by a day when recounting events of the days before the assassination; we will go here with Delores Harrison's date of Thu Nov 21 as the accurate date.

(d) at 10:30 am Thu Nov 21, thirty minutes after Oswald is eating breakfast at the Dobbs House restaurant, a hitchhiker carrying a package is picked up at the Beckley St. entrance ramp to the Thornton Expressway by Ralph Yates, on a refrigerator repair service call, “on either November 20 or 21, 1963” (FBI interview report of Yates, 11/27/63). According to Yates the hitchhiker asked if Yates had heard anything about the President’s parade route being changed, and asked if Yates had ever been to the Carousel Club. The man asked to be dropped off on Houston Street so Yates dropped the hitchhiker off at Dealey Plaza on his (Yates’) way to a service call in Irving. After seeing photographs and television pictures of Oswald after the assassination, Yates told the FBI he thought his hitchhiker had been Oswald. Although Yates soon was to have an incredibly sad mental breakdown, he had no record of prior mental breakdown at the time of the hitchhiker or when he first reported it, and I do not think Yates invented the story. He told a coworker of the hitchhiker before the assassination and he passed a polygraph test. But who was the hitchhiker? I think Greg Parker got it right in identifying Yates' hitchhiker not as Oswald (as Yates thought)—Oswald was a bus-rider, not a hitchhiker—but Larry Crafard (of the Carousel Club), who was a hitchhiker and this becomes one more case to be added to the list of known persons post-assassination, who had never seen or known Oswald, who mistakenly identified Crafard in their memory as Oswald after seeing photos of Oswald on TV. Let what was in the package of Yates' hitchhiker now be identified as Oswald's rifle, the Mannlicher-Carcano, obtained from Oswald within the previous thirty to sixty minutes before Crafard carrying it in a package is picked up hitchhiking about one mile walk on Beckley from the Dobbs House to the nearest freeway entrance ramp. An FBI interview report of 11/28/63 of J. B. Gilpin, Yates’ employer, confirmed from records that the correct date of Yates’ service call in Irving was the morning of Thu Nov 21 (and not Wed Nov 20). 

The unusual juxtaposition of times and locations connects Oswald’s 10 am at the Dobbs House, after leaving with a package that morning, with Yates’ 10:30 am hitchhiker carrying the rifle-compatible package, even though Oswald was not that hitchhiker.

(e) After taking care of business either before or after his 10 am breakfast at the Dobbs House, an exchange of the rifle for money, Oswald takes a bus to work, arriving late to work the only time he had ever done so, unattested on his time sheet filled out by his immediate supervisor Shelley (who filled out his time at work as starting from 8 am that day). Rather than discount Oswald’s highly credibly witnessed 10 am presence at the Dobbs House that morning where he was a regular and they knew him, because of Shelley’s time sheet saying Oswald was at work since 8 am that day, reverse that and instead discount Shelley’s time sheet record for Oswald that day (presumably with Shelley’s knowledge and approval covering for him. The other possibility is that Shelley, even though he did not actually remember seeing Oswald there, knew Oswald was always punctual and at work on time such that when he did see Oswald at work later that morning, assumed he must have been there since 8 am as always—there was no time clock).

(f) Upon arrival to the TSBD late that morning, Oswald asks Wesley Frazier for a ride to Irving that night, Thursday night. (Unusual.)

(g) Oswald, with cash in pocket from the sale of the rifle, goes with Frazier to Irving Thursday night. Oswald, flush with cash, tries to persuade Marina to rent an apartment with him that very weekend, promising her a washing machine and everything. (Marina dissembles, says not yet or so we understand from Marina’s post-assassination explanation of what she answered Oswald.) 

(h) Oswald leaves the cash with Marina, assuming she will make up and get the apartment with him. This becomes the explanation for the somewhat surprising $170 cash it is learned after the assassination that Marina has. That is the equivalent of $1519 in today’s money according to an online inflation calculator I just checked—and Oswald was poor making low wages at the TSBD. Marina has this $170 after the assassination, never fully explained. Marina explains when questioned after the assassination that Oswald gave it to her as savings, which may not be exactly untrue, but leaves out the slight detail (which Marina surely would have asked—what wife would not?--and Oswald may have told her and she may have known) of how Oswald had obtained it (the sale of the rifle believed to have killed the president).   

(i) Back in to Dallas to work at the TSBD with Frazier on Fri morning Nov 22, Oswald goes about his workday normally, unaware anything is up apart from the presidential parade. If he wasn’t shooting, he may have watched JFK go by from a window, as others inside the building watched from windows, until the shots and realization that the president's limousine was hit. At that point he realizes the rifle he handed over could be involved which would implicate him. He leaves the TSBD and gets to the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff where he may already have had a prior 3 pm appointment to meet someone (not necessarily assassination related). 

(j) Arrested in the theatre, narrowly escaping being killed by Crafard who entered the theatre in order to kill Oswald (the arrest saved Oswald’s life). 

(k) As a low-level operative, Oswald stonewalls under questioning waiting for an intervention which will explain that he was working for the govt and one of the good guys, but it does not happen. 

(l) When Oswald says things like "its all over now" and "I have not done violence to any person", he is referring to his undercover status. 

There would need to be some assumptions and gaps in this filled in for this scenario to fly. Since Oswald shows no known signs of meetings or contacts or time unaccounted for at the rooming house on Beckley according to those who saw him there, any informant or operative contacts, if such were happening in this time period (and given Oswald's track record including very recently how would there not have been?), this may have taken place inside the TSBD during work hours, and that could be anyone, whether Shelley or Truly or someone else.

There would need to be explained a mechanism for the rifle carried by hitchhiker Crafard in the package, dropped off by Yates in Dealey Plaza on Thu morning Nov 21 around 10:30 am—that rifle must get to the sixth floor of the TSBD. 

If a sixth floor shooter using that rifle was other than Oswald, there needs to be an explanation of mechanism of entrance and exit of that person from the TSBD to include presence on the sixth floor at the time of the assassination, and how that could be done without witnesses noticing or saying so. 

I have made a case that Crafard was the killer of Tippit and would have killed Oswald at the theatre if the police arrest had not saved Oswald’s life (for two more days). Crafard, with self-professed prior hitman expertise (according to what he told Peter Whitmey later and Crafard's brother seemed to confirm), the recent new hire by Jack Ruby with little in the way of defined job duties and living some of the time at the Carousel Club, perhaps referred to Ruby with Ruby acting as middleman for more senior Mob interests …

There would need to be explained a mechanism for how Oswald's rifle would be removed from Ruth Paine's garage some time before Wed night Nov 20, and then come to be in the possession of Oswald in Oak Cliff by Thu morning Nov 21. That is unexplained. Where would the rifle be stored if it were not in Ruth Paine’s garage? That is unexplained.

The “curtain rods” Oswald told Frazier were in the paper bag carried by Oswald Friday morning still needs explaining. According to Yates, his hitchhiker, Crafard, told Yates “curtain rods” was in his (the hitchhiker’s) package carrying the Mannlicher-Carcano too. Here is an explanation made possible by the present scenario. When Crafard takes the rifle from Oswald in Oak Cliff Thu Nov 21, he tells Oswald or cracks a joke as he is about to walk on the street with his package, “I’ll just tell people its curtain rods”. Oswald’s real reason for going to Irving on Thursday was because he had a windfall huge amount of money and he wanted to see Marina and it also was none of Frazier’s business. Not telling Frazier the real reason for the unexpected Thursday request, Oswald tells him what he had just heard, “I’m going to get some curtain rods”. The paper bag is left over from Oswald’s transaction with Crafard on Thursday in Oak Cliff. Crafard takes the disassembled rifle out of Oswald’s paper bag to inspect before paying, then takes the rifle away in his, Crafard’s, own prepared, perhaps sturdier, packaging. Oswald folds up the paper bag and puts it in his pocket, it goes with him to Irving, and he uses it to carry his lunch the next morning.  

Tippit was at the Dobbs House at the same time, 10 am, as Oswald was on Thu Nov 21, 1963, according to waitress Mary Dowling who knew them both, though Tippit and Oswald showed no signs of knowing each other. But they were there at the same time, that is fact. But it is a fact that at this point goes nowhere, without knowledge of what it may or may not mean.

In this scenario, Oswald would be part of neither an assassination nor a false flag operation in his understanding, but rather a low-level operative involved in a firearm sale on behalf of an agency. As to who, in this case probably not FBI or CIA but there are probably a dozen other less-prominent agency possibilities from federal to local, not excluding the Dallas Police department itself.  

Larry Hancock, do you think something like this could be a possible line of explanation for Oswald's actions? 🙂 

I found this FBI document for comparison, CE 3001, dated July 14, 1964, Dallas: https://maryferrell.org/archive/docs/001/1142/images/img_1142_551_300.png, same letterhead and logo, same "In Reply, Please Refer to File No." with no number after that (so not unusual), same format of description of FBI interviews intended to answer a question responsive to a Warren Commission letter of request for information. But there is this difference: everything else is similar but this document at the bottom of its last page has the familiar fill-in lines: On___at____File #-____by Special Agent____Date dictated_____, and those are filled in. This (this last data) is missing on CE 2011.  

Gordon Shanklin, head of the Dallas FBI, was communicating with headquarters concerning the interviews of CE 2011. Shanklin would seem to be the responsible party in Dallas underlying the content of CE 2011 since the interviews were done by agents of his office and there are memos from him to headquarters about certain findings. However Shanklin's name does not appear on CE 2011 nor is any other Dallas agent identified as author (seems curious). 

 

The larger question of the JFK assassination and why Oswald went to the Texas Theatre 

Here is what puzzles me. Oswald just looks like he's an operative working for the US side, even if it was expected he would be recruited in the Soviet Union and it would make sense that he could have gone along with that in a double agent role (i.e. pretending to be recruited on the Soviet side). When he returns to the U.S. he does all the provocative actions as Larry Hancock and others have brought out like running the one-man FPCC chapter in New Orleans without being told by FPCC to do so, writing the US Communist Party, etc., all at a time when it is known US agencies are trying to infiltrate and subvert the FPCC. If Oswald were a real communist or Marxist it would seem he would seek out or make friends with real communists or Marxists, but that never happens in even a single case in the U.S.--his activity looks like theatre. The real Oswald shows no signs of being a right-winger, but he could be a pro-Kennedy Cold War liberal working as an operative (in keeping with many other Cold War liberals). But here is my puzzle--Oswald seems like he is actually on the side of the U.S. But Marina, for a lot of reasons (not disclosing how well she knew English, other things) looks like a Soviet plant on Oswald to come to the U.S., and there is no realism at all to an idea that Marina ever "flipped" (speaking of pre-assassination) over to working for a US agency.

I have a little difficulty wrapping my mind around how that works in real life: how can a spy (if so) working one way have a marriage and children with a spy (if so) working for the opposing side, in the Cold War? Do people purposely have children with an enemy side, without taking them into their confidence? Well, a woman might if there was a payoff to it, for her and her children. And a man such as Oswald might, if he loved Marina and she convinced him she wanted to leave the USSR and support him in his pro-U.S. work, which he and she would agree to pretend she knew nothing about. (I have this vague idea of the spooks on the Soviet side, ostensibly having a turned Oswald and their person Marina, never actually convinced Oswald was really with them and suspecting or thinking he was a double agent, but playing along with it for a bit for their own reasons...)

Of course the big question is what does any of that activity of Oswald (if so) have to do with him getting mixed up in the JFK assassination? That basically goes one of two ways: one, he turned crazy and just decided on his own to off a president just because he could (toward whom he had no known animosity), which is the conventional narrative; or, two, something Operation Northwoods, agent provocateur, false casus bellus, in continuity with Oswald's former intelligence operative work. Under this second line of possibility, it would only make sense in terms of an operative like Oswald, if he were wittingly part of an Operation Northwoods kind of action, that it would be (so he would understand) a foiled or fake assassination attempt, one that would be blamed on Castro but which did not succeed. Then, like the plot to kill Hitler was run through Operation Valkyrie, somebody ran a real assassination of JFK where Oswald thought it was supposed to be a pretend assassination attempt.

In this scenario, the moment Oswald in the TSBD realized or learned there actually had been shots fired striking targets in the presidential limousine, which would be learned via word of mouth within perhaps thirty seconds if he did not see it personally, Oswald would have realized "this wasn't supposed to happen" and then, "uh oh, this does not look good for me". In this scenario, it may be that Oswald had been tipped off, prior to the event, of a plan in which he was to get to the Texas Theatre to meet a contact at say 3 pm. I am pulling the "3 pm" detail out of the air but it is a hunch explained below.

Oswald's every movement from that moment on is well interpreted as designed to evade pursuit and not be tailed or identified. The bus not on his direct line home with a transfer; having the cab let him off not where he wants to go and Oswald intentionally having himself seen by the cabbie walking in the opposite direction of the rooming house where he is headed; in and out of the rooming house as quickly as possible to change clothes (change physical description), and revolver; standing at the northbound bus stop on N. Beckley where he knows housekeeper Earlene will look out the window and see him headed north, another feint, after which, out of her sight, he actually takes a bus south to the Theatre.

The Theatre appointment, while risky, he decides to keep mainly because of no other good options combined with maybe trust in whoever told him that plan, so he chances it. But alas, his attempts to conceal his movements and direction did not succeed; unknown to him his whereabouts in that Theatre are known. A killer, with knowledge that Oswald is in the Theatre, killed officer Tippit (perhaps the conveyer of the information to the killer that Oswald was confirmed in the Theatre?--not necessarily, but ironic if so), and reloaded going to the Theatre to kill Oswald, knowing Oswald is there. The killer entered the Theatre but cannot kill Oswald because police converged on the Theatre so quickly, saving Oswald's life by arresting him, before the killer in the Theatre could carry out the killing of Oswald.

Under arrest Oswald's prior training perhaps would have told him to "stonewall, and we will get you out of there", but the promised rescue never came, and Oswald was hung out to dry--before he met the same fate as Tippit of being killed, by Ruby on Sunday morning because the attempt at the Theatre on Friday had failed.

So Oswald's actions after the assassination are consistent with foreknowledge, but arguably that foreknowledge did not necessarily include knowledge that anyone was going to actually be killed.

The T. F. White car sighting: who was in Carl Mather's car?

About the "3 p.m." detail in the above, here is where I come up with that. This gets into the whole story of Carl Mather of Collins Electronics, and mechanic T.F. White's writing down of the license plate of a car registered to Carl Mather seen about 2 pm Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, with a man who T. F. White said looked like Oswald at the wheel, in the parking lot of the El Chico restaurant located on N. Beckley about midway between Oswald's rooming house and the Texas Theatre, close to the time of Oswald's movements to the Theatre. (aka "The Wise allegation" discussed in the HSCA report, vol. 12, 37-41: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=84#relPageId=41. The license number was written down by mechanic T. F. White working for Pate's Auto Garage, who after later seeing Oswald on television thought Oswald looked like the man he had seen in that car. In all the discussions of who that person in that car was, I am not aware that the identity of the driver of that car has been proposed to be the registered owner of that car and the individual known to have driven that car from his home in Garland that morning: Carl Mather. Mather was at work at Collins Electronics (far from Oak Cliff) that morning until the time of the assassination but left after news of the assassination. I have checked the timeline and there is time for him to have left following the assassination, gone to Oak Cliff--where he did go, based on the evidence of that license plate--return again to his home in Garland, and then he and his wife and children return again to Oak Cliff in their other car to spend several hours consoling their past acquaintance Mrs. Tippit whose husband had just been killed.

Discussions of this matter have been filled with talk about strange "Oswald doubles" and impersonations (as if there would be any point served by impersonating someone sitting in a car parked out of the way not likely to be noticed). It was no impersonation. It was Carl Mather, pure and simple, mistakenly thought to be Oswald by the mechanic based on an accident of physical appearance. I have looked up Mather's military photo at age 18 (the only photo I could find for Mather) and although it is 18 years before 1963, the face looks strikingly like Oswald's to me--by sheer accident (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/112039484/carl-amos-mather). No impersonation going on with that mechanic thinking he saw Oswald, just a mistaken identification. But the license plate number he wrote down was no mistake.

But what would Carl Mather, an executive from Collins Electronics far from Oak Cliff, be doing sitting parked on N. Beckley in Oak Cliff ca. 2 pm the day of the assassination, doing nothing, just sitting in a parked car? 

I lived and worked in Denmark for four years. One of the cultural differences I quickly became accustomed to was an emphasis upon punctuality with dinner invitations. In America, at least in my midwestern upbringing, one shows up within a half hour or hour or so of a general time on the invitation--informal, laid back--and then after everyone trickles in and socializes, there is the dinner. Not so in Denmark. I am not exaggerating--one shows up no more than five minutes earlier, and no more than five minutes later, max, than the time on the invitation or it is a significant faux pas. One must show up practically to the minute to be a guest in good standing. Well, how does one show up to a place across town on the exact minute? If you're in a car, you drive to near the host's house, then simply park a couple of blocks away and sit waiting in the car until it is time to appear at the host's door. I have experienced this many times. Exactly what Carl Mather looked like he was doing.

Carl Mather worked for Collins Radio, which did a lot of work for the Navy. As noted by others, George DeMohrenschildt wrote in I'm a Patsy that, in late 1962, after Oswald's return from the Soviet Union, DeMohrenschildt introduced Oswald to retired Navy Admiral Chester Bruton, an executive at Collins Radio, with an idea of helping Oswald get a job there.

Fast forward to Oct 7-14, 1963, and Mary Bledsoe, landlord for Oswald during that week, told the FBI that Oswald told her that week that he was attempting to obtain work at Collins Radio (WC Exhibit 1985). 

But the most interesting reference is an item in a notebook kept by Curtis Laverne "Larry Craford" Craford, recent hire by Jack Ruby living in the Carousel Club with later self-professed hit man experience. Craford was questioned by the Warren Commission about a series of phone call notes in a notebook at the Carousel Club. Crafard was asked about this entry (14 WC 32):

Mr. Griffin. And that page 16 is a half sheet of paper and there is noting more on the page, and turning it over on the back part of that half sheet of paper there is an entry. What is that?

Mr. Crafard. "Mr. Miller Friday 15 people Collins Radio Co." It would be somebody called in for reservations for 15 people.

To my knowledge there is no further information known of this alleged party from Collins Radio Co. at the Carousel Club, nor is the date of that Friday in Crafard's notebook identified. Whatever it was, it is represented as an incoming message to the Carousel Club, taken down by Craford answering the phone.

I suggest that "Friday" is Friday, Nov 22, 1963. "15 people" is 1500 hours or 15 o'clock which is 3 pm. "Collins Radio Co." is a man from Collins Radio Company. I am suggesting this is information related to Oswald meeting a contact from Collins Radio at 3 pm on Fri Nov 22 in the Texas Theatre. It is information from an unknown source stovepiped directly to who may have been the killer of Tippit and would-be killer of Oswald in the Texas Theatre that day--whose employer, Ruby, killed Oswald two days later on Sunday morning.

In this scenario, when Oswald realized real shots at the presidential limousine were fired and the ensuing shock and panic, he fled the TSBD in accord with a preexisting plan, told to him in advance by a trusted contact. That was to get to the Texas Theatre and meet a contact there at 3 p.m. and he would be taken to safety.

The breakthrough in information is Carl Mather would appear to be the contact Oswald would have met at 3 pm if Oswald's arrest had not intervened. The reason Mather was parked in the El Chico Restaurant parking lot near the Texas Theatre, just waiting, is for the same reason I spent time in cars in Denmark parked waiting, before showing up for an appointment or dinner engagement. Mather in the car would have been listening to the radio (being in the business of Naval electronic communications with Collins, Mather could have had police radio or other electronic communications in his vehicle--unknown, but a simple car radio alone would suffice). At the point Mather learned that Oswald had been arrested in the Theatre, the planned meeting clearly was off and Mather needed to be gone now. He returned to his home in Garland, then returned again with his family to Mrs. Tippit's home in Oak Cliff later that afternoon. Mather would not wish to speak of or reveal his relationship with Oswald, or why he was in Oak Cliff at ca. 2 pm when spotted by mechanic White. The timing in this scenario agrees with the time mechanic White said he saw the person in Mather's car who he thought looked like Oswald, i.e. Mather, in that parking lot, waiting, before suddenly driving off at high speed.

(moved to different location)

I appreciate your answer Gary Murr. I rechecked and every one of the 37 items, without exception, involve reports of dated interviews conducted after May 20, 1964, of identifications of physical evidence. So CE-2011 was not a compilation of prior documents.

What is that about the file missing because "referred to another agency and is in a pending status"? That was decades ago? Perhaps that other agency has completed its "pending status"? Can you say why you think the unnamed agency is the CIA? 

On Commission Exhibit 2011 (https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pdf/WH24_CE_2011.pdf )--the FBI document which reports a number of identifications of physical evidence in the JFK assassination and Tippit killing cases based on reported interviews for none of which can FBI interview reports be found in FBI records released (according to Aguilar and Thompson here: https://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm )--can anyone help with answers to these questions? 

(1) Who was the author of the document? If not known, is there credible speculation concerning identity of the author?

(2) Is it common or unusual for an FBI report of this nature to have no author identified?

(3) Is there any known signed cover letter from FBI which accompanied delivery of this document to the Warren Commission? If none is known, is that unusual?

(4) Since the President's Commission's (Warren Commission's) inquiry of May 20, 1964 to which this document represents itself as a response, referred to in the document's opening sentence, would have been addressed to FBI headquarters, Washington, D.C. (Hoover), is it unusual that the letterhead, while identifying itself as FBI, does not identify itself as FBI, Washington, D.C. or any other address or location, and typewritten below the letterhead (in the same font as the body of the report) is "Dallas, Texas" followed by the date (July 7, 1964)? 

(5) Is it unusual that an FBI response to an inquiry addressed to FBI headquarters, Washington, D.C., would come from Dallas and not Washington, D.C.? (If CE 2011 was sent to the Warren Commission accompanying a cover letter from FBI headquarters, Washington, D.C., this question would be resolved, but if so, #3, is such a cover letter known?)

(6) To the left of the first page as part of the letterhead and under the logo at left, may be seen printed: "In Reply, Please Refer to File No." followed by no number. Why is a file number missing? Was it common or unusual for no file number to be identified on FBI issued documents, in order to facilitate correspondence or to assist in later inquiries to FBI files?

 

Thanks Pete Mellor. With the refutation of the Nathan Darby fingerprint identification--not because his credential certificate had expired (immaterial to me) but because his fingerprint match itself has been shown mistaken (I am convinced above all on this point by here: http://www.clpex.com/images/Darby-Wallace-Analysis/Erroneous-Match.htm )--that means the whole Mac Wallace is one more rabbit hole of no relevance to the JFK assassination. 

TIPPIT BALLISTICS

In not a single instance in the published record—whether in the Warren Commission report or exhibits or in any other venue—are any of the four evidence shells Q74, Q75, Q76, and Q77 (supposedly the four shell hulls abandoned from the Tippit killer's revolver found at the scene of the crime) identified under oath by an officer who originally marked them, on the basis of identification of his mark, as the shell he marked. 

The observation above (which is from me) is true and startling, but has been so little noticed that, for example, awareness of this lacuna in published evidence is not even mentioned in the usually scrupulous Myers, With Malice (and the same comment is applicable to other published studies). 

The FBI lab found that the evidence shell hulls turned over to the FBI labeled as the shells found at the Tippit crime scene—Q74, Q75, Q76, Q77—had been fired from Oswald’s revolver to the exclusion of any other weapon (3H466). This is the linchpin of the case against Oswald. The problem with this is there is no clear evidence those shell hulls were the ones found at the Tippit crime scene. 

There are officers testifying to the Warren Commission that they marked shell hulls at the scene (without identifying their mark on evidence shell hulls shown to them). There is an unsigned FBI report to the Warren Commission stating that three Dallas Police officers confirmed to an FBI agent identification of their marks on evidence shell hulls to that FBI agent (but there is no signed document or testimony or known report from that FBI agent reporting that). There is an officer testifying under oath that he had been shown the four evidence shell hulls earlier (not while under oath), and on that occasion he had identified two that he had marked (but without stating an identification of his mark on an evidence shell hull in present time in that testimony). (He testified under oath that he had formerly said something, but not that what he had said was accurate.) All of this can be found in the Warren Commission testimony. 

But there is no instance of any of the five Dallas police officers who marked the four shell hulls found at the scene prior to turning them into the Crime Lab for safekeeping, under oath in testimony to the Warren Commission, or in sworn written statement, or in any other setting under oath, having been shown any of the evidence shell hulls, identified their mark on it, and identified that shell hull on the basis of their mark, as the same shell hull they had received and marked at the scene of the crime. 

It is such an odd lacuna, so easily missed—and it is systematic across the board, applying to all five officers and all four of the shell hulls found at the Tippit crime scene. 

But the other claims—thirdhand statements from other than the marking officers themselves—that those officers identified their marks on the evidence shell hulls read so smoothly that the truth of the short statement at the top of this section—almost as if by some sleight of hand—is not "seen". 

To cut to the chase

The theory of the case developed here is that there were three corruptions in the Dallas Police Department handling of the ballistics evidence in the Tippit case.

(1) The Dallas Police Department did not hand over to the FBI but withheld three of four bullets taken from Tippit's body, after being instructed to hand over all physical evidence in their possession and stating that they had done so.

(2) The four abandoned .38 Special shell hulls found at the scene of the crime from the killer's revolver and marked by officers were replaced, sometime between Sat Nov 23 and Tue Nov 26, by person or persons within the Dallas Police Crime Lab, by four substituted shell hulls fired from Oswald's revolver. Marks were scratched on the substitute shell hulls attempting to imitate, not entirely successfully, the officers' marks on the original shell hulls. Following this, the newly-marked shell hulls fired from Oswald’s revolver were handed over to the FBI on Thu Nov 28 to examine whether they were fired from Oswald’s revolver, in order to determine whether Oswald was guilty.

(3) Three live .38 Special cartridges of Winchester-Western manufacture of six taken from Oswald's revolver were replaced by three of the same kind of Remington-Peters manufacture. 

In this reconstruction there were no substitutions in the four body bullets of Tippit, the revolver of Oswald, or the five shell hulls found by officers Boyd and Sims in Oswald's pants pocket. There was no planting of shell hulls at the scene. There was no corruption in the FBI lab with respect to these items. The FBI lab reported accurately on the basis of what they received. There was no intent to be dishonest or willingness to lie under oath with respect to these items on the part of the five officers who originally scratched their marks on those shell hulls.

This is not an argument merely over whether evidence would have held up in court or justified a legal conviction of Oswald. This is an argument that Oswald was actually innocent of the Tippit killing; that whatever else Oswald may or may not have done he did not kill officer Tippit, and on that specific charge should be exonerated.

Method

One way to test theories is to ask: on the assumption that this theory were true, what would one expect to happen, if so?

If, for example, the theory of the case to be developed here is correct, one might expect to see in the known evidence and testimony:

• Officers noticing otherwise-unidentified marks on shell hulls which may resemble their own but which look different from their own, causing some confusion or uncertainty in identifications of their marks.
• Officers when asked prior to their testimony if they were prepared to make a positive identification of their mark on a shell hull expressing reluctance to do so under oath, and responsive to this, if called to testify are not questioned on that point.
• One way of dealing with an inability to obtain direct testimony under oath from officers identifying their marks on shell hulls would be to "conceal" that by workarounds.

On the other hand, if the four shell hulls handed over by the Dallas Police Department to the FBI were the same four shell hulls found at the scene of the crime—a straightforward, clean handling and conveyance—one might expect:

• Officers who marked those shell hulls, in their testimony before the Warren Commission would be shown a shell hull, asked if they could identify their mark on the shell hull, and then asked if they could identify the shell hull as the one they had marked, stated clearly under oath, as part of the vast quantity of other Warren Commission testimony.
• Officers who marked those shell hulls would normally be expected to be able to find and identify their own marks without difficulty, and would so testify under oath.

Following is an examination of the testimonies of the five officers who marked the four shells abandoned from the killer’s revolver at the scene of the Tippit killing, before those shell hulls entered the custody of the Crime Lab at the Dallas Police station. 

Warren Commission testimony of the five officers who marked the four ejected shells from the killer’s revolver found at the scene of the Tippit killing

Patrolman J. M. Poe

Mr. Ball. Did you put any markings on the hulls?

Mr. Poe. I couldn’t swear to it; no, sir. 

(…)

Mr. Ball. What did you do with the hulls?

Mr. Poe. I turned the hulls into the crime lab, which was at the scene.

Mr. Ball. Do you know the name of the man with the crime lab or from the crime lab?

Mr. Poe. I couldn’t swear to it. I believe Pete Barnes, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

(…)

Mr. Ball. Now, I have here a package which has been marked “Q”—FBI lab. Q-74 to Q-77. Would you look those over and see if there is any identification on there by you to indicate that those were the hulls given to you by [citizen] Benavides?

Mr. Poe. I want to say these two are mine, but I couldn’t swear to it.

Mr. Ball. Did you make a mark?

Mr. Poe. I can’t swear to it; no, sir.

Mr. Ball. But there is a mark on two of these?

Mr. Poe. There is a mark. I believe I put on them, but I couldn’t swear to it. I couldn’t make them out any more.

Mr. Ball. Now, the ones you said you made a mark on are you think it is these two? Q-77 and Q-75?

Mr. Poe. Yes, sir; those two there.

Mr. Ball. Both marked Western Special? They both are marked Western Special? How long did you stay there?

Mr. Poe. At the scene?

Mr. Ball. Uh-huh.

Comment: Poe does make a tentative identification though he “wouldn’t swear to it” of two evidence shell hulls that he thought he had marked out of the four, even though—very oddly (assuming he marked)—he cannot identify his marks. But the marks are the basis for identification, so if Poe cannot find his marks, how is he tentatively identifying at all? That is not asked. It appears Poe was guessing concerning which two he thought he marked, or possibly was influenced by marks which most closely resembled his own on two even though he did not think he made those marks. All of this is consistent with an officer encountering forged attempts to imitate his marks on substituted shell hulls.

Under oath, Poe, the first officer to take possession of shell hulls ejected from the killer’s gun at the scene, has testified he is not able to identify marks he remembered making on any of the four shell hulls. The following account from Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt (1985), 152-55, is so jaw-dropping I can do no better than quote it at length.

“In 1984, Poe explained to the author that he was absolutely certain that he marked the shells. Indeed, he could not be certain of a single other instance during his twenty-eight years of police work when he had failed to properly mark evidence. He indicated that he became aware that he could not find his markings prior to his Warren Commission testimony ‘when the FBI came down and interviewed us … We were down in the [FBI] office, and I just could not be absolutely positive that my mark was in there.’ While Poe did not specifically say that he was pressured to ‘find’ his marks in the hulls, he volunteered this comment about his experience: ‘I wasn’t going to lie to the man and say I saw my mark when I didn’t. I still wouldn’t do that.’

“Officer Poe insisted to the author that even though he could not find his identifying marks, he felt certain that the hulls were the ones he had taken into evidence at the scene of the Tippit murder. Poe recalled one explanation that he had not mentioned to the Warren Commission two decades earlier. He stated that the reason he was not able to find his markings might have been that so many other identifying marks had been placed in the cartridge hulls, actually on top of his identifying marks, thus obscuring his markings in the thicket of marks from other officials through whose hand the evidence passed. Stated Poe: ‘When it came to [my] looking at them again, there were so many marks in there that I couldn’t find mine … In a better light, or [with] a magnifying glass, I might be able to pick it out.’

“Soon after Poe made this statement, the author examined the cartridge hulls at the National Archives with a lighted magnifying glass. Only Officer Poe can state whether his identifying mark is on the hulls, and he has stated that he cannot find it because it appears lost among so many other marks. What is readily apparent to anyone who examines the hulls is that while there are several identification marks scratched in them, in no case is a marking obliterating another marking. Moreover, in each hull at least 50 percent of the surface area around the inside rim has no marking at all, leaving ample space for even additional identifying marks. There is no conceivable reason for any marking to be placed over another marking.

“The markings in the hulls are distinctive and clearly seen—even with the naked eye. It seems impossible that if Poe’s marks were actually there, he could not find them. Confronted with this, Officer Poe flatly stated, ‘I [have] talked to you all I’m going to talk to you. You already got your mind made up about what you’re going to say. I know what the truth is.’ He then hung up the telephone, refusing to discuss the matter further.

“Dallas Police Sergeant Gerald Hill, a key figure in the arrest of Oswald, was one of the first policemen to arrive at the scene of the Tippit slaying (. . .) At the scene, Sergeant Hill inspected the cartridge hulls and ordered Officer Poe to mark them as evidence and turn them over to the crime lab.

“In 1984 the author interviewed Hill, who rose to the rank of lieutenant before his retirement from the police force (. . .) When asked if he believed the official version on Tippit’s death, he dismissed the question with bombast, stating that the cartridge hulls from the scene, proved to have been fired in Oswald’s pistol, sealed the case.

“The author referred to the grave inconsistencies concerning Poe’s identification of the hulls, suggesting the possibility that they might have been replaced by hulls not discovered at the scene and marked by Poe. The implication, of course, is that when the hulls marked by Poe were tested in the lab and were found not to have been fired from Oswald’s pistol, they were replaced by hulls that had been fired from Oswald’s pistol—after it came into the custody of the police. (. . .)

“Hill dismissed the suggestion with the following statement: ‘If they did that [replaced the cartridge hulls], they would also have forged Poe’s marks.’

“It was pointed out to Hill that, as the facts prove, it made no difference that Poe’s marks could not be found. The evidence still became the cornerstone of the case against Oswald in the killing of Tippit. Hill acknowledged that the circumstances concerning the apparent disappearance of Poe’s marks made it appear that something like this might have been done. Then, Hill added, ‘If it were any other police department in the United States, I would say that is possible. But this department is so clean that it scares me.’” 

Sergeant W. E. Barnes 

Mr. Belin. Now you mentioned out there that some cartridge cases were found, is that correct?

Mr. Barnes. That is true.

Mr. Belin. Sergeant, I will ask you to examine Commission Exhibits Nos. Q-74, Q-75, Q-76, and Q-77, and ask you to state whether or not there appears to be any identification marks on any of these exhibits that appear to show that they were examined or identified by you?

Mr. Barnes. I placed “B”, the best that I could, inside of the hull of Exhibit 74—I believe it was Q-74 and Q-75, as you have them identified.

Comment: “I believe it was” suggests some hesitation or uncertainty. Does he not know for sure? How strong is his belief? Belin does not follow up but goes to other matters.

(. . .)

Mr. Belin. Now all four of these exhibits appear to be cartridge case hulls, is that correct?

Mr. Barnes. .38 caliber.

Mr. Belin. .38 caliber pistol?

Mr. Barnes. Yes. 

Mr. Belin. They are kind of silver or chrome or grey in color? You can identify it that way?

Mr. Barnes. Yes.

Mr. Belin. How many of these hulls, to the best of your recollection, did you identify out there?

Mr. Barnes. I believe that the patrolman gave me two, and Captain Doughty received the third.

Mr. Belin. The two that the patrolman gave you, were the ones that you put this identification mark on the inside of?

Mr. Barnes. Yes.

Mr. Belin. What instrument did you use to place this mark?

Mr. Barnes. I used a diamond point pen.

Mr. Belin. You put it on Q-74 and Q-75?

Mr. Barnes. It looks like there are others that put their markings in there too.

Comment: Does not answer the question. The question calls for a yes or no answer. Belin accepts the non- or ambiguous answer to the question without followup or clarification and turns to another topic. Barnes does not clearly state that he marked Q74 or Q75. The “too” might be parsed as implying an unspoken affirmative answer to Belin’s question but it is not straightforward and Belin does not seek to have it clarified.

The FBI later reported that Barnes had changed his mind on one of the two identifications that he believed he had marked, from Q75 to Q77 (CE 2011). According to this FBI report, Barnes retracted his belief expressed in sworn testimony that he had marked Q75. An anonymous author of the FBI report, unnamed and not under oath, relays secondhand from FBI Special Agent Bardwell Odum from whom no signed document or testimony is known on this matter—meaning the FBI report is relaying thirdhand (and unsworn) hearsay from Barnes. According to this anonymously-authored FBI report relaying thirdhand from Barnes, Barnes identified Q77, not Q75, as the second of the two he marked, as well as Q74. That is the latest known word reported to be from Barnes concerning shell hull identification.

Going back to the Warren Commission testimony (when Barnes said he believed he had marked Q74 and Q75), Commission Counsel Belin, asking the questions, was very concerned about the issue of marks, referring to them repeatedly in his questioning. The very purpose of the marks is to establish that an item in evidence is the same that was from the scene of the crime. It is therefore extraordinarily odd, with Barnes directly being questioned, and Belin having the four evidence shells physically presented to Barnes to examine, and Belin asking Barnes repeated questions about marks, that Belin does not ask the one question that most matters, the reason marking is done in the first place: could Barnes identify his mark on a shell he was looking at in front of him? In all the verbiage of his questioning of Barnes, Belin never asks that question of Barnes, which is sort of the whole point of the thing.

These oddities are what one might anticipate—they become comprehensible—if Barnes had marked shells at the crime scene and then, like Poe, sees marks on the evidence shells which do not look like he made them. But Barnes reasons those marks must be his because where else could his marks be. The reactions of Poe and Barnes are in agreement with a scenario of honest officers being confronted with forged marks on substituted shells. The reactions are not so easily in agreement with what would be expected if the marks were genuine.

Note finally that the two evidence shell hulls Poe said he thought he had marked (Q75, Q77), the two Barnes under oath testified he believed he had marked (Q74, Q75), and the two Barnes was later reported thirdhand to have identified as marked by him (Q74, Q77), differ from each other, even though Poe and Barnes marked the same two shell hulls at the scene of the crime. There is the impression something is amiss here.

Captain G. M. Doughty

He received and marked the third of the four shell hulls found at the Tippit crime scene. He was not called to testify before the Warren Commission. No known sworn testimony or signed statement from Doughty exists with respect to identification of his mark on an evidence hull. (But see below on CE 2011.) 

Detective C. N. Dhority

He was one of two officers who received and marked the fourth of the four hulls found at the Tippit crime scene.

Mr. Ball. Now, what did you do with the empty hull that was given to you, that Virginia gave you?

Mr. Dhority. I gave it to Lieutenant Day in the crime lab.

Mr. Ball. Do you know whether or not Virginia or Jeanette Davis found an empty shell—did she tell you she found an empty shell—Jeannette Davis?

Mr. Dhority. I don’t recall—it seems like she told me she had found one earlier and gave it to the police out there, as well as I remember.

Mr. Ball. Gave it to the police that day?

Mr. Dhority. Yes; I believe so.

Comment: That is all of the questions asked by Mr. Ball about the hull, as he turned to other matters. Dhority is not asked about marking the hull or identification of his mark or identification of one of the evidence hulls as the one he marked. (Why not?)

There is the appearance that none of these oficers were willing to commit perjury, which means they were not willing to say they recognized marks as theirs which they did not recognize as theirs. The simple reason the Warren Commission did not obtain simple and direct identification-of-evidence-shell-hull testimony from these officers is because these officers were not willing to commit perjury.

Detective C. W. Brown

Mr. Brown. Lieutenant Wells ordered my partner, G. N. Dhority, and I, to go to the Davis residence where Mrs. Barbara Davis handed my partner this spent hull at approximately 7 p.m. that evening. That was brought to the homicide and robbery bureau by myself and Detective Dhority.

Mr. Belin. Was it brought to that bureau at the time you brought the two women?

Mr. Brown. At the same time the Davis women were brought to the office for affidavits and identification.

Mr. Belin. Who did you turn that cartridge shell over to?

Mr. Brown. That went to the crime lab, Dallas Crime Lab.

Mr. Belin. Did you, yourself, turn it over?

Mr. Brown. No; Detective Dhority handled that.

Mr. Belin. Detective Dhority handled that?

Mr. Brown. We were keeping this evidence in a chain there. Mrs. Barbara Jeanette Davis handed him the spent cartridge. He gave it to the crime lab himself which was initialed by both of us.

Mr. Belin. Anything else, sir?

Comment: That is all of the questions asked of Detective Brown concerning identification of evidence hulls, which is to say nothing. Brown testifies that he marked, but never identifies or is asked to identify his marking on one of the evidence hulls. As with the case with Dhority, there is the appearance that the lack of questioning to Brown concerning identification of an evidence hull as the one he marked, is because there was knowledge on the part of the Commission counsel that Brown would not offer the identification wanted. (Otherwise he would have been asked.)

The third-hand anonymously-authored FBI report, CE 2011

“On June 12, 1964, four .38 Special cartridge cases, designated as Exhibits C47-50, were shown to Captain G. M. Doughty of the Dallas Poilce Department by Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Captain Doughty identified his marking on one of these cases which also bears a marking ‘Q76’. Captain Doughty stated this is the same shell which he obtained from Barbara Jeanette Davis at Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. (. . .)

“On June 12, 1964, the same four cartridge cases, designated as Exhibits C47-C50, were shown by Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum to Detective C. N. Dhority, Homicide Division Dallas Police Department. Detective Dhority identified his marking on one of these cartridge cases which also is marked ‘Q75’. He stated this is the same cartridge case which he obtained from Virginia Davis, Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. (. . .)

“On June 12, 1964, four .38 Special cartridge cases, designated as Exhibits C47-C50, were shown to Dallas Police officer J. M. Poe at his home at 1716 Cascade, Mesquite, Texas, by Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum. Officer Poe stated he had received two similar cartridge cases on November 22, 1963, from Domingo Benavides at Dallas, Texas, and had on the same date given them to Pete Barnes, Crime Laboratory, Dallas Police Department. He stated he recalled marking these cases before giving them to Barnes, but he stated after a thorough examination of the four cartridges shown to him on June 12, 1964, he cannot locate his marks: therefore, he cannot positively identify any of these cartridges as being the same ones he received from Benavides. 

“On July 6, 1964, Officer J. M. Poe, Dallas Police Department, advised Special Agent Bardwell Odum that he marked the two cartridge cases on November 22, 1963, ‘J.M.P.’

“On June 15, 1964, the same cartridge cases, designated as Exhibits C47-C50, were shown by Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum to Pete Barnes, an officer of the Dallas Police Department assigned to the Crime Laboratory, and he identified his marking on two of these cases, which also bear the markings “Q74” and “Q77”. He advised these are the same two cartridge cases which he received from officer J. M. Poe of the Dallas Police Department at Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.” (CE 2011)

Comment: CE 2011 is an unusual document. Dated July 7, 1964 and issued from FBI, Dallas, anonymously authored and unsigned, it states its purpose is to respond to the President’s Commission’s request for tracing various items of physical evidence. Its content consists of description of what FBI agents, such as Bardwell Odum in the case of the Tippit physical evidence, learned from various witnesses. If any error or misrepresentation were to come to light, it is difficult to see that there would be accountability, since information from witnesses is presented in the form of thirdhand hearsay authored anonymously and with no known supporting interview-report documentation. There is an issue in that document of witness testimony on another ballistics issue and a denial by Bardwell Odum that he had anything to do with several interviews attributed to him in that document; see Aguilar and Thompson at http://whokilledjfk.net/magic_bullet.htm.

A pattern to what is missing

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story, “Silver Blaze”, Sherlock Holmes studying a case suggested attention be given to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”. But, he was told, the dog did nothing in the night-time. “That was the curious incident,” said Sherlock Holmes. The point is it is noticed that something did not happen which should have happened.

Is it not obvious what was going on? The Warren Commission was functioning like a prosecutor making a case in court. They did not suborn perjury, but presented the best case based on the evidence they had. The Warren Commission hearings and exhibits have no testimony from any of the five officers identifying their marks on hulls Q47-Q50 because no such testimony was obtainable from those officers. CE 2011 was a fallback, a document without name attached and layers of deniability, with specific and shocking corruption already found in one other instance in CE 2011. CE 2011 asserts unsworn thirdhand hearsay identifications of physical evidence from officers none of whom were willing to state such directly in their own name under oath. The missing sworn testimony from an officer concerning identification of his mark on any of those evidence hulls was rather successfully disguised such that the systematic lacuna on this critical point went largely unnoticed. 

Thanks Paul Brancato. I do not know why Tippit was executed. It must be related to the JFK assassination if the scenario is correct that the murder of Tippit preceded an attempt by the same killer to murder Oswald, but I do not know why. 

David B., I did not know Craford died in 2011, thanks. He would have just turned 70. I see his date of death in Lafayette, Oregon is given on ancestry.com but hardly any other information: https://www.ancientfaces.com/person/curtis-laverne-craford-birth-1941-death-2011/85495481.