Greg Doudna

Interesting that the NZ wire story reads, "Oswald had been chased into the cinema by two policemen. The officers, J. Tippit and M. McDonald, had received a tip that the President's assassin might have gone into the cinema. Tippit was shot dead as he ran into the cinema."

The first two sentences are contradictory, as if the writer had two different reports--perhaps a first report followed quickly by a correction?--and, in the rush wrote both--both the original version and its correction, as if both were correct. Its as if story A was corrected and a reporter is told by the source, "no, correct that, what happened was not A it was B" and the reporter wrote "it was A and B", treating the correction as if it was additional information to A instead of a replacement of A.

Is "the Secret Service agent had also been shot from the same distance as the President but no details of this shooting were immediately available" a mistaken hearsay report, perhaps from someone at Parkland, re Connally? (Note no mention of Connally yet in this early story.)

On 9/12/2020 at 6:13 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

The most convincing witnesses were Dr. Homer Wood and his 13-year-old son Sterling.  In describing who they saw at the Sports Drome rifle range, both father and son independently right after the assassination recognized the man each had seen at the range just six days before the assassination. Both Dr. Wood and his son testified and were convincing witnesses. 

The Woods were so believable Sylvia Meagher considered the possibility that LHO was indeed at the range that day.  

Disagree. The problem is twofold: (a) neither of these witnesses knew Oswald before the Sports Drome sightings, and (b) nothing about the individual they saw at the Sports Drome identified that person as Oswald other than a claim of physical resemblance based on these witnesses seeing Oswald on TV after the assassination. There was the gun/gun association, but that is too general. The person at the Sports Drome never was remembered to have called himself "Oswald" or "Lee" or to have spoken of being in the Marines or of having gone to Russia, or having a wife named Marina. Those are the kinds of things I am talking about. 

You will not disagree that in high-profile crime cases there will be sincere, but mistaken, witness identifications and claimed sightings based on physical resemblance alone. e.g. Marguerite Oswald thought a photo of a visitor to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City was Ruby!--based on her seeing Ruby on TV and a physical resemblance. Nothing more complicated going on there than Marguerite simply was mistaken.

Because the positive case for this individual at the Sports Drome being Oswald is weak--based on resemblance alone to Oswald as seen on television--which could or could not be correct--other information must be considered. Is the individual seen at the Sports Drome consistent with what is known of Oswald? Well, that is questionable. He was a crack shot--fired rapidly and with accuracy at the target, according to those who saw him. There is no independent confirmation Oswald was a crack shot able to fire rapidly with accuracy. This individual is seen driving a vehicle. Whereas Oswald (per argument) visited the Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership for a test drive of a car, he was not simply driving around town with a vehicle in Oct-Nov 1963, according to all other reliable testimony. And the sightings at the Sports Drome are incompatible with the detailed and calendar-supported testimony of Ruth Paine regarding timeline. Of course there are judgment calls here. If you want to throw out Ruth Paine's testimony as filled with fabrications and say she was just wilfully lying on nearly everything and has never been charged with perjury, that is a theoretical possibility with any witness, but it is not my judgment concerning Ruth Paine's testimony.

There is a story that Sterling Wood later told of him and his father having given this person a ride home from the Sports Drome, speaking of Minsk, and then later post-assassination his father corresponding with Marina Oswald. What I make of that is that as a totally separate matter the Woods did have Minsk in their family history so wrote Marina after the assassination and received some note of reply from Marina, but that the guy Sterling said they encountered at the Sports Drome was not Oswald, though Sterling Wood conflated these two things years later as connected. 

Since the positive grounds for supposing the person at the Sports Drome is the weakest form of physical identification-- retroactive identification based on resemblance to someone seen on TV--and nothing substantial stronger than that--at best this is a "maybe". It certainly falls far short of stand-alone ironclad rock-solid stand-alone establishment of a fact. The "maybe" means it could be, or it could not be--like a lot of other tips and leads that pour into police departments in the wake of high-profile crime cases.

Because the timeline objection is substantial and specific, and because the positive case for an Oswald identify is weak and not strong (in terms of assessment of genre of the nature of the evidence), it must be considered that the individual seen was someone who resembled Oswald but was not Oswald. Not an impersonator! There is no evidence that individual was impersonating anyone, pretending to be anyone other than himself. He just was thought to look like the same guy several people later saw on TV. That is not impersonation. That is an issue of correct or indirect physical identification of witnesses. 

Frank Ellsworth, the BATF agent, told of seeing crack-shot German and Italian gun expert and dealer Thomas Masen, in the Dallas Police department being questioned about a gun-running charge and Ellsworth doing a double-take, for his first thought was it was Oswald! Similar height, physical build, facial appearance... But as he quickly saw moments later it was not Oswald, it was Thomas Masen, for whom there is no known or established connection to Oswald other than--in the case of Ellsworth at least that time--what some might see as physical resemblance. 

Frank Ellsworth suggested that Thomas Masen would fit very well with the individual seen at the Sports Drome firing range, and in light of the firearms expertise parallel, that suggestion, although not certain, makes excellent sense to me.

I don't understand--why the leap from a weak form of positive evidence in this case (witnesses claiming recognition of someone based on later seeing someone on TV)--to far-fetched theories of intentional impersonations or doppelgangers or that Ruth Paine fabricated her entire testimony. There is not the slightest witness testimony to suppose that the nameless Sports Drome target shooter ever claimed to be anyone other than himself.

I don't think the Sports Drome target shooter had anything to do with Oswald. I admit few things are 100% certain and in many cases the best one can do is make judgment calls. Here is my judgment call: it was not Oswald, and it was not anyone claiming to be Oswald, even though it was someone who a few persons thought looked like Oswald based on what they saw on TV. I think this has been a red herring all this time in assessment of Oswald. 

56 minutes ago, Dan Troyer said:

Denny, very nice write up. 

Makes you also wonder who the 14-year-old boy was?

Mr. JENNER. Was there ever an occasion when you saw him driving up that he had the 14-year-old boy-with him?
Mr. SHASTEEN. Yes; the night he got the haircut.

The "14-year-old boy" would be 19-year old Buell Wesley Frazier. Shasteen simply got the age wrong. The only explanation that makes sense. I am sure Shasteen the barber was mistaken on seeing Oswald drive, probably some confusion from seeing Oswald and the "14-year-old boy" arrive together from a car driven by Frazier, such as Frazier and Oswald arriving in Irving after work ca. 6 pm on a Friday evening, and that is when Frazier accomodates Oswald in Oswald getting a haircut on the way home. Oswald had to get his hair cut somewhere. Another time Shasteen remembered an Oswald haircult was very early on a Saturday morning, again consistent with Oswald as early riser taking a walk from the Paine house when he was there on a weekend. Shasteen's barbership was about 1/2 mile from the Paine house (I checked on a map) and therefore would have been an easy early morning walk. Again, the most economical interpretation of the Shasteen testimony is no Oswald impersonator (nor in this case a mistaken identity) but simply and trivially, Oswald.

6 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

<disregard, duplicate post by mistake>

3 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

Pardon me, but where is your source for the Bogard quote characterizing Oswald driving "like a maniac"? I am unable to find any quote from Bogard where he characterizes Oswald as driving "like a maniac."

If someone can drive high speeds on the highway, then they can drive. Someone who cannot drive cannot drive 60-70 miles an hour on the expressway.

You are correct that that quote does not appear in Bogard's testimony, who only himself testified that Oswald drove at high speed. However two other fellow employees at the dealership said Bogard told them that Oswald had driven "like a wild man", "drove so fast, he scared the daylights out of [Bogard]", "drove like a madman", "drove like he was crazy".

As a technical correction, I was writing from memory when I said "driving like a maniac"--the word "maniac" does not appear in these hearsay testimonies of what Bogard's colleagues say Bogard told them of his test drive with Oswald, but I think "maniac" is reasonably synonymous as to sense of the descriptions that the two others did say Bogard had described to them.

Frank Pizzo, sales manager, from WC testimony:

Mr. Pizzo.

We looked for the card too--we went right back again and did the same thing, and he [Bogard] helped look for it and we had the colored boy there helping us looking for it and then when some FBI men came there they went in there and looked for it.

Mr. Jenner.

We became very interested in that.

Mr. Pizzo.

Me too. So, I kind of said, "Are you kidding us or what? You [Bogard] either have his name or you don't." He said, "Well, Frank, don't you remember?" I said, "I don't remember." He said "I brought him to your office and you said he needed $200 or $300 down, and I said, "Yes, I guess I remember." He said, "Well, you should remember because when I took that man for a ride he drove like a wild man, and besides we had Gene Wilson's car and Gene got mad because we used up all his gas." He said, "He drove so fast, he scared the daylights out of me. Don't you remember me coming back and saying how mad I was?"
I said, "I just don't remember that particular moment." That's how he was trying to get me to remember that particular time when he took him for a ride. I said, "I just really don't remember that night--that much of it."
Now, I'll tell you how I think I recognized the man--this was after they had him on television and they showed him on television which was Monday or" Tuesday or something like that--it was a few days after.

 From an FBI report of an interview of Eugene Wilson, fellow salesman to Bogard, dated 9/9/64 (from the Mary Ferrell site):

"WILSON is now of the opinion that this event occurred sometime during the morning, before noon, on a Saturday, sometime during the first part of November, 1963, but cannot be more specific as to the date of the month, day of the week, or hour of the day. After this customer left, BOGARD mentioned to WILSON that he had used the red demonstrator car, that WILSON had been using, and the car did not have much gasoline in it when he let the customer drive it. BOGARD also said that the customer drove like a madman, driving much too fast, as it had been raining and the pavement was slick. BOGARD seemed unhappy with the way this customer drove, commenting that he drove 'like he was crazy'."

Sales manager Pizzo in his WC testimony said the normal procedure in that dealership in test drives was for the salesman to drive the car, with the prospective purchaser in the passenger seat, while the salesman demonstrated the car's features. Then, the salesman would turn the car over to the customer to drive back to the dealership. 

The Warren Commission claimed that there was such an inconsistency between Oswald driving like a madman at the dealership, and Ruth Paine's negative descriptions of Oswald's ability to navigate turns or parallel park when driving, that all of the very extremely compelling and credible testimony from the persons at the Downtown Lincoln Mercury concerning Oswald's presence here just could not be possible, as referring to Oswald. That, and a timeline objection. But neither objection is substantial. I think it is now reasonably shown that Oswald's driving behavior is not dissimilar between Ruth Paine's testimony and the Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership. On the other matter, the alleged conflict between Ruth Paine's testimony that Oswald on Saturday, Nov. 9, could not have visited the Lincoln Mercury dealership, salesman Eugene Wilson, as reported in a Dallas newspaper article, corrects the date of Oswald's visit to the Lincoln Mercury dealership to Saturday, Nov. 2, when there is not a conflict with Oswald's whereabouts (http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/W Disk/Wilson Eugene/Item 01.pdf). The Lincoln Mercury dealership salesmen provide multiple corroborated testimony as to Oswald's presence at the dealership, use of the name "Oswald", and the FBI reported that Bogard had been polygraph examined and was judged truthful. There is no reason to suppose an "Oswald impersonator" in this Lincoln Mercury dealership Oswald visit as opposed to, simply and trivially, Oswald.

On 9/11/2020 at 12:09 PM, Richard Booth said:

The only thing about that revolver which I am absolutely certain about is that it didn't kill Tippit, and here is why I say that: Shell casings were recovered from the crime scene. This means that had the so-called Oswald revolver killed Tippit, then the person who used it would have had to open the revolver, pull out empty shell casings, them throw them at the crime scene. I know that the odds that Oswald, or anyone else, would do that are non-existant. Who removes spent rounds from a revolver and drops the casings at the scene? No one, no one does that. It's absurd: "I need to make sure I leave evidence at the crime scene, let me open this revolver and drop my shell casings here..." 

Not disagreeing with you here, only asking a question: in explanation for why the killer of Tippit would pull out empty shell casings and throw them down while running away, could that not be for the purpose of rapidly reloading--while running--in order to be able to have ability to use the pistol lethally again quickly if necessary?  

13 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

If this is so, then why did Ruth Paine say that Oswald could not drive?

Because that was what she observed based on his not having a drivers license and when she gave him parking lessons? But Ruth directly told the Warren Commission that Oswald had driven the two of them--Oswald and Ruth--in Ruth's car for three or more blocks (see below)--to Ruth's irritation (Oswald had gotten in the drivers seat of her car, turned the ignition, and started driving with Ruth in the car). It seems when Ruth said Oswald did not know how to drive she meant safely and legally at an acceptable standard of skill. She herself had witnessed that Oswald demonstrably was capable of driving a car on city streets from point A to point B. Analogous to Bogard the salesman saying that prospective auto purchaser Oswald had driven "like a maniac" in the test drive at the dealership. Both Ruth Paine and Bogard telling what they observed, pretty similar to each other in their respective reports. Ruth Paine said she would not consider lending Oswald her personal car in light of what she saw of his driving, and from Bogard's testimony it sounds like Bogard would have agreed 100% with Ruth on that point.  

Mr. JENNER - Mr. Dulles, would you be good enough to let me have it? This translation which appears as Commission Exhibit 424, the fourth paragraph reads "Lee told me that he learned a little from his Uncle how to drive a car. It would be very useful for him to know how to drive but it is hard to find time for this when he works every day." 
Mrs. PAINE - I might make a comment about that. 
Mr. JENNER - This is your comment, is it not? 
Mrs. PAINE - I might make a comment about that. 
Mr. JENNER - This is your comment, is it not? 
Mrs. PAINE - I wrote that. 
Mr. JENNER - Now, the Commission is very interested in the subject matter of Mr. Oswald, of Lee Oswald being able to drive a car and I think it might be well if we covered the whole subject from the beginning to the end.
Would you give the Commission your full, most accurate recollection of this whole subject? Start at the very beginning. 
Mrs. PAINE - I think I learned either in March or April that Lee 
Mr. JENNER - Of 1963? 
Mrs. PAINE - 1963. 
Mr. JENNER - This would be early in your acquaintance with him? 
Mrs. PAINE - Very early. I leaned Lee was not able to drive and didn't have a license. 
Mr. JENNER - How did you learn he was not able to drive? 
Mrs. PAINE - I think it was related to his looking for work the first time in the middle of April, and I had learned he had looked in the Dallas area for work. 
Mr. JENNER - How did you learn it? 
Mrs. PAINE - We were talking about it. 
Mr. JENNER - You were talking with Lee? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. 
Mr. JENNER - Did he tell you that he was not able to drive a car? 
Mrs. PAINE - That he had never learned how. 
Mr. JENNER - That he had difficulty in getting around? 
Mrs. PAINE - Simply he had never learned how. 
Mr. JENNER - He said this to you? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. And I felt immediately that his job opportunities, the jobs to which he could have applied, and the jobs to which he could get himself would be greatly broadened if he were able to drive and said so.
Mr. JENNER - You said that to him? 
Mrs. PAINE - And said that to him. Then when we arrived in New Orleans he said to me by way of almost pride that he had been allowed by his uncle to drive his uncle's car. 
Mr. JENNER - That is Mr. Murret? 
Mrs. PAINE - I don't know whether there was more than one. 
Mr. JENNER - But he volunteered the statement to you? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. 
Mr. JENNER - And it was something that had occurred after he had gotten to New Orleans? 
Mrs. PAINE - And he was in a sense pleased to report to me that he was getting some experience driving. That his uncle had permitted him to drive the car on the street. 
Mr. JENNER - On the street? 
Mrs. PAINE - On the street. 
Mr. JENNER - Did you have occasion while you were in New Orleans to verify that in any respect whatsoever? 
Mrs. PAINE - No. 
Mr. JENNER - Or have it verified to you? 
Mrs. PAINE - No. 
Mr. JENNER - This was confined to a remark that he made to you? 
Mrs. PAINE - That is right. Then when I learned in Marina's letter of August 11 that Lee was out of work, I immediately thought it would be well for him to make use of those free weekdays, not only for job hunting but for learning the skill of driving and, therefore, that paragraph--shall we read it? 
Mr. JENNER - Haven't I already read it? 
Mrs. PAINE - No; I don't think so. 
Mr. JENNER - You mean from your letter? 
Mrs. PAINE - Did you read that? 
Mr. JENNER - The paragraph "Lee told me that he learned a little from his uncle how to drive a car." 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. 
Mr. JENNER - Did you read that "It would be very useful for him to know how to drive but it is hard to find time for this when he works every day-"
Just to be certain of this, Mrs. Paine, this was a remark made to you by Lee Harvey Oswald when you brought Marina from Irving, Tex., to New Orleans, and-- 
Mrs. PAINE - The second week in May. 
Mr. JENNER - The second week in May of 1963. And then, according to the remark made to you by Lee Harvey Oswald that his uncle had permitted him to drive his uncle's car on the street in New Orleans? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes; and he was proud of this. 
Mr. JENNER - Did he ask at that time or any time while you were in New Orleans in the spring to drive your car? 
Mrs. PAINE - No. 
Mr. JENNER - Was there any discussion at all during--did you have the feeling that he would like to drive the car? 
Mrs. PAINE - There was no discussion of it. 
Mr. JENNER - Did he demonstrate to you that he could drive? 
Mrs. PAINE - There was no discussion of it. 
Mr. JENNER - You have given us all that occurred in New Orleans by way of conversation or otherwise on the subject of Lee Harvey Oswald driving an automobile or his ability to drive? 
Mrs. PAINE - That is right. 
Mr. JENNER - Now, you are telling us the whole story on this subject. So when next 
Senator COOPER - May I ask this one question? 
Mr. JENNER - Excuse me. 
Senator COOPER - Did Lee Oswald identify the uncle who permitted him to drive his car? 
Mrs. PAINE - Senator Cooper, he did not. He just said his uncle. He did not identify his uncle by name. 
Senator COOPER - Do you know of your own knowledge who the uncle was? 
Mrs. PAINE - I can only assume. 
Senator COOPER - What? 
Mrs. PAINE - I can only assume it was the uncle he had been staying with. He had been staying at his home. 
Mr. JENNER - You had met the uncle at this time? 
Mrs. PAINE - Just met him. 
Mr. JENNER - So it was the uncle with whom he had been staying just before he obtained the apartment at Magazine? 
Mr. McCLOY - What is the uncle's name? 
Mr. JENNER - Dutz Murret. This was the relative who had the nice home that Marina first saw when she arrived there and thought maybe that is where she was going to live, is that correct? 
Mrs. PAINE - That is correct. 
Mr. JENNER - Go ahead, Mrs. Paine. 
Mrs. PAINE - You want all other references to driving? 
Mr. JENNER - Confining yourself to his ability to drive automobiles, when next, and take it in chronological order as to when you next recall it? 
Mrs. PAINE - It came up next after he returned to the Dallas area in October. 
Mr. JENNER - When was that? 
Mrs. PAINE - After he returned on the 4th, to my knowledge. 
Mr. JENNER - The 4th of October? 
Mrs. PAINE - That was the first I know. 
Mr. JENNER - We will get into the reasons and the circumstances but you stick with the automobile incidents. 
Mrs. PAINE - He was looking for work. 
Mr. JENNER - In Dallas? 
Mrs. PAINE - In the Dallas area and again, of course, I felt that he could find more jobs, be eligible for more if he could drive. 
Mr. JENNER - What did you do about it? 
Mrs. PAINE - I recalled that I had a copy of the regulations for driving, what you need to know to pass the written test. 
Mr. JENNER - In what State? 
Mrs. PAINE - In the State of Texas, and I gave him that booklet. 
Mr. JENNER - Did you have a discussion with him about your desire, your recommendation, that he qualify to drive an automobile in Texas so it would assist him in connection with his job hunting. 
Mrs. PAINE - Probably. We certainly had conversation about it. 
Mr. JENNER - Give us the subject of the conversation in terms of recommendations by you, or what did you say? 
Mrs. PAINE - I again recommended, as I had in the spring, that he learn to drive. 
Mr. JENNER - What did he say? 
Mrs. PAINE - He was interested in learning to drive. 
Mr. JENNER - Did he say anything to you? 
Mrs. PAINE - I would like to offer to the Commission something we didn't get to last night. 
Mr. JENNER - I see. 
Mrs. PAINE - Which is a letter I wrote to my mother, which she just showed me recently, she just found it recently, which makes reference to the date I first gave him a lesson in driving. 
Mr. JENNER - That would be helpful to us. May I have the letter, please? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. Now only a portion of it is applicable. 
Mr. JENNER - Why don't we give it a number? 
Mrs. PAINE - Another portion is applicable in another connection, which I would like especially to bring up. 
Mr. JENNER - Having that in mind, we will give that document for identification at the moment only, the number Commission Exhibit No. 425.
I won't identify it beyond that for the moment because the witness will be using it to refresh her recollection. 
Mrs. PAINE - I will read what applies here. 
Mr. JENNER - You are now reading from Commission Exhibit No. 425. 
Mrs. PAINE - Which is a letter dated October 14, in my hand, from me to my mother. 
Mr. DULLES - Would you give your mother's name? 
Mrs. PAINE - Her name is Mrs. Carol Hyde. 
Representative BOGGS - Where does she live? 
Mrs. PAINE - In Columbus, Ohio. It was likely written to Oberlin, where she was a student at that time.
"If Lee can just find work that will help so much. Meantime I started giving him driving lessons last Sunday (yesterday). If he can drive this will open up more job possibilities and more locations." 
Mr. JENNER - Yes. 
Mrs. PAINE - I want to comment too on the nature of this lesson. 
Mr. JENNER - The Commission will be interested in that but you go ahead. 
Mrs. PAINE - Now? 
Mr. JENNER - Go right ahead. 
Mrs. PAINE - I knew that he had not even a learner's permit to drive. I wasn't interested in his driving on the street with my car until he had such. But on Sunday the parking lot of a neighboring shopping center was empty, and I am quite certain that is where the driving lesson took place. 
Mr. JENNER - That is your best present recollection? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. Now I recall this also, and it is significant. I offered him a lesson and intended to drive him to this area for him to practice. He, however, started the car. 
Mr. JENNER - He got in and started the car? 
Mrs. PAINE - He got in and started the car so that I know he was able to do that and wanted to drive on the street to the parking lot. 
Mr. JENNER - He wanted to? 
Mrs. PAINE - He wanted to. I said, "My father is an insurance man and he would never forgive me." 
Mr. JENNER - Your father? 
Mrs. PAINE - My father. And insisted that he get a learner's permit before he would drive on the street. 
Mr. JENNER - At that moment and at that time he acted, in any event in your presence, as though he himself thought-- 
Mrs. PAINE - That is right. 
Mr. JENNER - He would be capable of driving an automobile from your home to the parking area in which you were about to give him a lesson. That was your full impression, was it not? 
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. I should add that, as I am recalling, he did drive a portion of the way, he drove in fact, it is about three blocks, to the parking lot. I was embarrassed to just tell him "No, don't." But I did, in. effect, on the way there, when he was on the street, driving on the street in my car, when we got there I said, "Now, I am going to drive back." I didn't want him to. 
Mr. JENNER - From your home to the parking lot? 
Mrs. PAINE - The first time before we had any lesson at all. And at that time I made it clear I didn't want him to drive in the street. Also, it became clear to me in that lesson that he was very unskilled in driving. We practiced a number of the things you need to know, to back up, to turn, right angle turn to come to a stop. 
Mr. JENNER - Was this on the parking lot? 
Mrs. PAINE - This was all on a parking lot. 
Mr. DULLES - Did I understand you to say he drove three blocks, was that all the way to the parking lot? So he drove all the way to the parking lot? 
Mrs. PAINE - Perhaps a little longer. But a short distance, whatever it was, to the parking lot, yes. Rather than stopping in midstreet and changing drivers. Going to turn a right angle---- 
Mr. DULLES - How well did he do on that? 
Mr. McCLOY - That is what she is telling. 
Mrs. PAINE - No; that is a separate answer. 
Mr. JENNER - She is talking about the parking lot. 
Mrs. PAINE - I was very nervous while he was doing it and was not at all happy about his doing it. I would say he did modestly well; but no means skilled in coming to a stop and turning a square right angle at a corner.
Mr. JENNER - Was there much traffic? 
Mrs. PAINE - No. But then too, I noticed when we got to the parking lot when he attempted to turn in a right angle he made the usual mistake of a beginner of turning too much and then having to correct it. He was not familiar with the delay of the steering wheel in relation to the wheels, actual wheels of the power-- 
Mr. JENNER - Was it power-- 
Mrs. PAINE - It was not power steering. But it has no clutch so that makes it a lot easier to drive. 
Mr. JENNER - It is an automatic transmission? 
Mrs. PAINE - It is an automatic transmission. 

4 hours ago, Rob Clark said:

The only slight problem I see with your theory is this package fitting inside the package Frazier said he saw....

That would be a point if the mailer envelope were hard case or hard shell. But the mailer envelope is pliable and could be rolled inside the paper bag Frazier said he saw Oswald carrying, especially if the mailer envelope contained currency which would be of relatively little bulk or stiffness. As a guess the mailer looks maybe 20" x 14" for its outside dimensions, allowing for the wrapping paper inside said to have measured 18" in length. A 5" or 6" inch width paper bag would seem adequate to hold the mailer envelope if it were folded or rolled in thirds lengthwise.

On 9/10/2020 at 7:14 PM, Jim Hargrove said:

Of course doppelgangers were required.  Who else showed up at the Sports Drome range all those times?

“Oswald” visits the Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target;

On Nov. 2 “Oswald” visits Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth.

Also on Nov. 2 “Oswald” visits the Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership where he test drives a car at wrecklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car.

On Nov. 6 or 7 “Oswald” visits the Irving Furniture Mart for a gun part and is referred to the shop where Dial Ryder works.

On Nov. 15, “Oswald” goes to the Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) and applies for a job and asks how high the Southland Building is and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas.

On Nov. 20 “Oswald” hitch-hikes on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4 foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introduces himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald,” discusses the President's visit, and asks to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” is already working).

For that matter, who showed up at Robert McKeown's on Labor Day weekend trying to buy rifles from Castro's gun dealer?

You're kidding, right?  Which Oswald killed Tippit while the other was already seated inside the Texas Theater?

Jim Hargrove, the Sports Drome shooter was never claimed by any witness there as having identified himself as Oswald. The only reason to suppose he had anything to do with Oswald was because people after the assassination thought the shooter looked like the Oswald they saw on television. Since there is nothing other than similar appearance as the basis for identifying this figure with Oswald, and since mistaken identifications based on similar appearance, in cases of people who have encountered someone only briefly, are a common phenomenon, why assume anyone was intentionally impersonating Oswald in these Sports Drome episodes, simply because they looked like him, which is an accident of birth and not of intention? As BATF agent Frank Ellsworth suggested, the similar-appearing accidental Oswald-lookalike Masen, who was involved with and had expertise in firearms including Mannlicher-Carcanos, is a more likely identity of the shooter at the Sports Dome, than Oswald, or an "Oswald double".

On the Downtown Lincoln Mercury, see my post of an hour ago under the topic "Wesley Frazier--there was no gun". In short, the person who took a test drive of a car at that dealership and who identified himself as Oswald trivially and simply was Oswald, not a mistaken identification, not an imposter, not a doppelganger.

The Southland Parking Garage person reads to me probably as Oswald, with no need to posit impersonator or doppelganger.

On. the Nov 20 Ralph Yates hitchhiker, I think you err in saying the hitch-hiker "introduce[d] himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald,”". I checked Yates' statements in his FBI interviews, and I can find nowhere that Ralph Yates claimed the hitchhiker identified himself as Oswald. Yates, after Nov 22 and seeing Oswald on TV, identified his Nov 20 hitchhiker as Oswald, but nothing in Yates' FBI statements says the hitchhiker himself did so. I agree that story is strange, but most likely Yates' statements to the FBI of Jan 4, 1964, which to some extent correct some of his earlier statements, of https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=96528&search=ralph_yates#relPageId=33&tab=page, puts this in better context. It seems that Yates, who very sadly, and in no way do I mean this as a criticism of Yates personally, had a family and personal history of severe mental illness and his own writings to the FBI found on the Mary Ferrell site show severe hallucinatory interpretations of mundane events, had picked up a hitchhiker who he connected with Oswald from some things in conversation, but that does not mean he encountered a real Oswald or a real doppelganger. If there was a case for an intentional impersonation of Oswald, the Yates hitchhiker might be it--conceivably an accidental witness to the gun of the sniper perch entering the TSBD two days before the assassination--but Yates is such an uncertain witness. But if it was an intentional impersonation of Oswald, some pre-assassination framing of Oswald in advance, this would not be a lifelong doppelganger but some targeted operation at that time. However a mental-disturbance explanation of Yates' testimony seems at least equally likely to me. In all of these various witness testimonies it is necessary to make judgment calls. Do you honestly judge a lifelong doppelganger is the most likely explanation of the Yates' witness testimony?

On Tippit, it seems just obvious to me that the two logical alternatives are either (a) Oswald did it, or (b) someone else did it other than Oswald and Oswald was framed by Dallas police as the killer, but there is no reason to suppose, if "b", that (c) the killer also was a lifelong doppelganger or intentional impersonator of Oswald. That does not at all logically follow. 

The other items you name (Morgan's Gun Shop, Irving Furniture Mart, and Robert McKeown) I have nothing productive to offer and no comment because have not studied those. But except for the unrelated and distinct case of the CIA voice impersonation of Oswald in Mexico City which I believe is clear, as a basic operating principle I suspect all of the US cases of alleged Oswald sightings are to be explained in terms of it was either Oswald or mistaken witness identification (e.g. Crafard as alleged sightings of Oswald with Ruby), without substantial evidence for any actual intentional impersonation, or doppelganger, of Oswald in the year 1963 in even a single case. (I assume that statement would be true for all years of Oswald's life, but I have not studied pre-1963 and you have, and I do not wish to engage those issues, only 1963.)

Just now, Ron Bulman said:

Lee received a large sum of cash just before Nov 22?  News to me, sources?

No verification whatsoever, its entirely a reconstructed, argued, speculation on my part, for reasons given in my comments above. A proposal proffered in an attempt to resolve some longstanding incongruities.

There is this indirectly though: he offered to rent an apartment and buy a washing machine the very next day for Marina, the day after a package had arrived addressed to Lee. He left $170 in cash with Marina the day after that package was received, a sum more than 3 weeks' gross pay from his job. He also was reported to have told a car salesman at a car dealership, Albert Guy Bogard at the Downtown Lincoln Mercury, in early November that he expected to be coming into some money soon. That is usually supposed to have been an impersonator of Oswald since the date the salesman thought that happened, Nov. 9, conflicts with testimony of Ruth Paine that Oswald could not have been there that day. That objection was however removed by another salesman in that dealership, Eugene Wilson, who clearly and convincingly corrected that, as reported in a Dallas newspaper article, that his colleague salesman and the Warren Commission report had been mistaken on the date by one week, and that in fact Oswald's visit to that dealership had occurred Nov. 2, one week earlier than the Warren Commission reported for what the WC said could not have been Oswald (http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/W Disk/Wilson Eugene/Item 01.pdf). The correction on the date removes the objection and it becomes clear that that was no impersonator test-driving the car at the Downtown Lincoln Mercury; it was Oswald. The objection that Oswald could not drive is no objection--on the basis of much testimony he could drive, just could not drive very well and had no driver's license, but he could drive poorly. Although it is possible Oswald could have just been bragging, the fact is the salesman who took Oswald for a test drive in a car, Bogard, said Oswald spoke of coming into some major money soon. For what its worth. 

11 hours ago, Rob Clark said:

The double mailing of the package though doesn't jive because the package only has one postmark. The envelope does appear to have been reused though...you can faintly see other writing under the bottom part of the label. The postmark date is unreadable unfortunately.

Rob your comments have caused me to do some further thinking on this. The Wed Nov 20 postage-due notice says the package of that notice--the one received by Marina when she paid the postage due--was addressed to the Irving 5th Street address, correctly addressed. According to a Dallas post office investigator, the package was delivered to Marina either Nov 21 or 22 (not Nov 20). Therefore, assumption: Marina, gone with Ruth on Wednesday, returned home to find the notice on the door, the 20th. The next day, Thu 21st, Marina is home when the mail carrier delivers the mail and Marina pays the postage due in person and receives the package (or else Marina picks it up from the Irving post office if it was within walking distance). But Lee, having learned from Marina Wed eve of the package, arranges with Buell Wesley Frazier to go out to Irving Thursday night. 

What if ... this whole package business was a mechanism of getting money--cash--to LHO? 

Imagine... the plain package envelope, the one with the sticker on it addressed to Lee Oswald at "601 West Nassaus,  Street", is inside the package that was received by Marina, and it contained cash, perhaps a large sum of cash.

That evening, Lee left $170 cash on the dresser for Marina. What was he earning per week at TSBD--$60 per week or something like that? Where did the $170 come from? From the package that Lee had just received?

Assume that was only a fraction of the actual cash in the package, perhaps a large sum. In LHO's position, if for some reason he wanted no records of this cash, and for some reason did not want to hide it in the Paine garage, but wanted safe storage and access to it, how could he accomplish that? Could mailing the inner envelope to himself at a non-existent address, with no postage and no return address, thereby prompting it to end up in the dead-letter section of the post office for a short time, have been a way of storing cash safely for a few days until he picked it up?

So (to speculate) he cuts open with a knife just enough at one end of the envelope to verify the contents, and removes a small portion of it--$170--to leave with Marina, closes the mailing envelope back up--it has no writing on it at this point--and attaches the label to it addressed to himself at the bogus 601 West Nassaus Street address, puts the envelope inside his (necessarily slightly larger size) lunch paper bag, and catches his ride with Frazier back into Dallas Friday morning where he drops it in a mailbox. No way does LHO tell Frazier what is really in the package--a sturdy 18" mailing envelope with a huge sum of US currency. Nor is LHO going to tell Captain Fritz about the package with the money either. This explains what Frazier says he saw and heard--a bag which no way was large enough to hold a rifle, but was holding something more than a lunch, and Lee told him Marina was making him curtains.

The marks that you note look like possible writing just below the label, in checking photos of the full mailer is it sure that is writing at all? It looks like other speckled black or dark spots from the poor photo quality. So the reconstruction I suggest is this brown mailer arrived unmarked and sealed inside the package that was correctly addressed to LHO and which arrived to the Paine house and was received by Marina. (The owed-postage may have been an accident or oversight on the part of the mailer.) If it was a large sum of money, no wonder LHO does not delay by even a day to get out to Irving to take possession of it.

The assumption that Lee was breaking up with Marina might be legend rather than reality. Marina herself, though saying she had quarreled with Lee over the phone a few days earlier, also told the Warren Commission that Lee was not particularly upset more than normal with her even though Marina was (she said) not speaking to him--she told the Warren Commission she was not actually overwhelmingly angry inside at Lee, but was "smiling inside". Lee had asked her that Thursday night to leave the Paine house immediately and live with him--offered to rent an apartment for the two of them Friday the next day, also a washing machine (!--sudden access to money that perhaps had just by coincidence arrived in a package of cash?). The leaving of the ring with Marina Fri. morning--Marina said Lee had left his ring at home one other time one day for practical reasons, not because they were breaking up. Some men leave rings off if working with unknown kinds of machinery, for safety reasons. 

This scenario perfectly matches what Frazier saw. Frazier so insistently without budging always said that Lee's paper bag was too small to hold a rifle, and could not have held a rifle. The scenario explains Lee's otherwise-unexplained access to the $170, as well as rendering credible his offer to rent an apartment for Marina and himself complete with purchase of a washing machine for Marina, the very next day. The scenario explains what WAS in the package that Frazier, his sister Linnie, another woman in the neighborhood, and Marina--four witnesses--each said they saw, Lee carrying a paper bag that held something larger than his lunch (but not large enough to be even a broken-down Mannlicher-Carcano rifle). The scenario makes Oswald's answer truthful to Fritz in denying he took curtain rods to work (though Oswald did not volunteer to Fritz that he carried a bundle of cash in a package in his lunch bag). The scenario gives at least one plausible reason why Oswald--or anyone--might intentionally mail a package with no postage and a non-existent address on it to himself. 

It also offers an interesting possible explanation for one other thing--why whatever was in the package addressed to Oswald at the non-existent "601 West Nassaus" with no postage--why whatever its contents were (it was empty when found in the Irving post office dead-letter room) were never reported. No, after the assassination and Oswald's arrest someone recognized the name Oswald and opened the package, was pleasantly surprised at its contents, helped themself to it and never reported the windfall. Instead, someone in the post office put the rubber-stamped message which I see to the left of the postmark: "Received in bad condition", i.e. a claim that the mailer had been received by the post office already opened with its contents missing. Then whoever did this left the mailer with the Oswald address on it for someone else to discover and deal with. 

To the right of the envelope mailer, in the area of Holmes', or some FBI agent's, initials, there is a line maybe 3 or 4 inches long drawn parallel to the edge with "X"'s drawn at each end. Is the meaning of that a notation by an investigator of where the mailer had originally been opened and resealed by Oswald?

This theory leaves unexplained why Lee would receive a large sum of cash just before Nov 22, and who would have sent it. But apart from those unanswered questions, would this scenario account for key facts which otherwise have been so baffling up to now? 

How about this possible solution to the package Wesley Frazier said Oswald was carrying Fri morning Nov 22?--it was neither curtain rods nor was it a firearm, but instead was the package with the strange "601 West Nassaus Street" nonexistent address that turned up in the Irving Post Office the week after the assassination (carried by LHO Friday morning from Irving to Dallas inside a paper bag which may have also had his lunch). Has this previously been considered?

On Wednesday Nov 20 Marina and Ruth were gone to a medical appointment that day, and a mail carrier left a postage due notice for a package. But the package, addressed to Lee, was reported delivered, and Marina herself said she paid the 12 cents postage due and got the package. Assume that all happened Wed Nov 20. Assume--though there is no verification, it is plausible--that Marina contacted Lee and told him of the package Wed eve. It is not known what was in the package, and it may be that Marina did not know either if she did not open it, since it was addressed to Lee. But Lee knew, and something about that package perhaps was the reason Lee unexpectedly asked Wesley Frazier on Thursday for a ride out to Irving Thursday evening.

On Thursday evening Marina conveys the package to Lee, who puts it in a paper bag large enough to hold it as well as his lunch, and Lee takes it with his ride with Frazier into Dallas. Lee then drops it in a mailbox in Dallas--perhaps for a second time of the same unopened package--where it again ends up the next week forwarded to the Irving post office where it remained, this time not delivered.

The mystery is why does anyone mail a package to a non-existent address with no postage? The content of the package is unknown--there was an 18" heavy-paper liner or bag inside the package, open at both ends, in the already-opened package at the Irving post office. The speculation that the package had contained a magazine is just that, and does not explain why it would lack postage or bear the nonexistent address in what appears to be Oswald's handwriting. Certainly there is no verification by anyone who saw that it contained a magazine. The placement of a package in a mailbox such that it would end up in a post office dead drop (able to be reclaimed later) has been proposed by Gary Murr citing Newcomb and Adams to be a way to have something able to be produced a few days later.

That the address does not exist and the package was dropped into a mailbox with no postage is very odd, and it is only a small further step to identify the two packages addressed to Oswald, each having postage due, around the time of the assassination as the same one mailed twice by Oswald to himself, and that package as not only the explanation of the package Frazier saw Oswald carrying Friday morning but itself perhaps the cause of the unplanned trip of Oswald out to Irving on Thursday, after the package's first delivery to Marina on Wednesday.

In other words, perhaps the package delivered to Marina on Wednesday caused Lee to come out on Thursday where he retrieved it, took it back in to Dallas Friday morning and again dropped it in a mailbox to mail it to himself--again with no postage, again with the same intentionally undeliverable address (but which had nevertheless gotten forwarded to the Irving Marina and Lee address the first time--my grandfather was a small-town postmaster and used to tell stories of postal employees' skill at getting mail through to people even in different cities with name only and no street address at all). In this reconstruction Lee did have a package Friday morning but it was too small for a rifle just as Frazier has insisted all these years. Perhaps LHO told Frazier it was "curtain rods" because the true purpose or contents were private. 

Marina testified that she thought Lee did take a "small" package with him that morning, with his lunch, while denying that it was either a rifle or curtain rods.

Mr. Rankin. Do you know whether your husband carried any package with him when he left the house on November 22nd?

Mrs. Oswald. I think that he had a package with his lunch. But a small package.

Mr. Rankin. Do you know whether he had any package like a rifle in some container?

Mrs. Oswald. No.

All that needs to be supposed is (a) the package which owed postage addressed to LHO, delivered on Wed Nov 22 to Marina, had something to do with LHO's decision to come out to Irving the very next evening; (b) that was the package LHO took to work Fri morning according to Frazier; and (c) that package was dropped into a mailbox again in Dallas without postage by LHO (possibly pulled out of a larger-than normal paper bag with his lunch and dropped in a mailbox prior to walking in the TSBD that Friday morning?), and is the very package addressed in LHO's handwriting to "601 West Nassaus Street" which turned up the next week in the dead letter section of the Irving post office.

I do not know whether this is correct but it is an effort at making sense of some things. If this reconstruction does hold up, establishing what the package Frazier saw Oswald carry that morning WAS, it in turn would further establish what it WAS NOT--a rifle in the TSBD.

Yes thanks very much Andrej for your work on this. I am willing to work on producing a transcription if you get usable recording, if there are not others to do this. 

Joe, the bullet "pointed at its tip and showed no signs of damage" that Nurse Phyllis Hall says she saw "lodged between [JFK's] ear and his shoulder" is from here: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/jfk-mystery-bullet-lodged-body-nurse-article-1.1512283 or https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/nurse-phyllis-hall-tells-efforts-2713685.

19 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

 

Pretty obvious she was there.

She does relate a few recollections that are not based on facts. I think a failing memory might be the issue.

...[snip]...

Nurse Hall doesn't seem emotionally or mentally off base

 in this interview above. Or exaggerating or overly dramatic

attention seeking.  

 

Maybe you could be right after all. As I recall my skepticism was influenced by certain details recounted by Phyllis Hall, according to reports, that did not seem to add up to me as being consistent with someone who was there. (i) She had Jacqueline present in the trauma room throughout, and says Jacqueline declined an offer to wait outside, but other accounts say Jacqueline was sitting outside the door during much or most of the time. (ii) She also described the throat wound of JFK upon arrival as a gaping exit wound, which seems to describe post-tracheotomy or autopsy description rather than the way others described the throat wound prior to the tracheotomy.

But as you suggest could it be that the decades have garbled details in the memory of a witness who, as you say and I agree, "doesn't seem emotionally or mentally off base...or exaggerating or overly dramatic attention seeking". The problem is at this distance if she has these other details wrong, is her testimony reliable concerning the bullet? If she was there and did see a bullet, it is of interest that she says the bullet was not misshapen; that she says she never saw that bullet reported (apparently unaware that in the brief first hours that first night, the bullet which was found on a stretcher in a different location in the emergency area indeed was initially considered to have come from JFK, from the back shot, exactly in agreement with what Phyllis Hall describes); and that she says the bullet was pointed, not rounded at its tip. On that last detail both Wright and Tomlinson, the ones who found and turned in the bullet, also said the stretcher bullet was pointed not rounded. But C399 matched to the Mannlicher Carcano found in the TSBD has a rounded tip, not pointed, and it has other irregularities in its chain of custody. Is Phyllis Hall a further witness supporting that C399 was a substitution for an originally different stretcher bullet, in fixing up the case against Oswald? 

On lack of testimony or corroboration that she was in the trauma room with JFK, there is this (Dr. Jenkins testimony WC):

Mr. SPECTER - At about what time did you arrive at the emergency room? 
Dr. JENKINS - Oh, this was around 12:30-12:35 to 12:40. I shouldn't be 
indefinite about this--in our own specialty practice, we watch the clock 
closely and there are many things we have to keep up with, but I didn't 
get that time exactly, I'll admit. 
Mr. SPECTER - Who was present at the time of your arrival in the 
emergency room, if anyone? 
Dr. JENKINS - The hallway was loaded with people. 
Mr. SPECTER - What medical personnel were in attendance? 
Dr. JENKINS - Including Mrs. Kennedy, I recognized, and Secret Service 
men, I didn't know whether to block the way or get out of it, as it 
turned out. Dr. James Carrico and Dr. Dulany-Dick Dulany, I guess you 
have his name, and several nurses were in the room. 
Mr. SPECTER - Could you identify the nurses? 
Dr. JENKINS - Well, not really. I could identify them only having later 
looked around and identified from my own record that I have, the names 
of all who were there later. Now, whether they are the same ones when I 
first went there, I don't know. I have all the names in my report, it 
seemed to me 
Mr. SPECTER - Could you now identify all of the nurses from your later 
observations of them? 
Dr. JENKINS - Well, I can identify who was in there at the close of the 
procedure, that is, the doctors, as well as those who were helping. 
Mr. SPECTER - Fine, would you do that for us, please? 
Dr. JENKINS - These included a Mrs. or Miss Patricia Hutton and Miss 
Diana Bowron, B-o-w-r-o-n (spelling), and a Miss Henchliffe--I don't 
know her first name, but I do know it is Henchliffe. 
Mr. SPECTER - Margaret? 
Dr. JENKINS - Margaret---certainly. Those three--there were probably 
some student nurses too, whom I didn't recognize. Shall I continue? 
Mr. SPECTER - Yes, please. Have you now covered all the people you 
recollect as being in the room? 
Dr. JENKINS - Well, as I came into the room, I saw only the, 
actually--you know, in the haste of the coming of the President, two 
doctors whom I recognized, and there were other people and I have 
identified all I remember 
Mr. SPECTER - What did you observe as to the President's condition when 
you arrived in the emergency room? 
Dr. JENKINS - Well, I was aware of what he was in an agonal state. This 
is not a too unfamiliar state that we see in the Service, as much trauma 
as we see, that is, he had the agonal respiratory gasp made up of 
jerking movements of the mylohyoid group of muscles. These are referred 
to sometimes as chin jerk, tracheal tug or agonal muscles of 
respiration. He had this characteristic of respiration. His eyes were 
opened and somewhat exophthalmic and color was greatly suffused, 
cyanotic---a purplish cyanosis.   

Should the lack of witness testimony corroborating her presence in the trauma room be better characterized as ambiguous, not decisive?

And finally, on her keeping the bullet sighting to herself and not speaking of it publicly for decades, you correctly point out the factor of a tremendous  climate of fear in Dallas toward coming forward with information. That is seen in so many other witness reactions (the family of Ed Hoffmann and the Odio sisters, to name just two examples of fear and silence; not to mention the unknown undoubted hundreds of witnesses who remained so silent that no one ever knew of their existence). Point taken there.

21 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Greg:

You can probably find it at MFF. I know they have examined it at ROKC.

Thanks James--as great as the Mary Ferrell site is I could not find any transcript of the HSCA interview of Buell Wesley Frazier there and I wonder if one was even made by HSCA (seems odd). I did find the complete four hour audio tape of the HSCA interview with Frazier at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GhPJBfLxy8&feature=youtu.be. Unfortunately the majority of that four hours is unintelligible due to bad recording quality, some kind of loud humming or buzzing sound drowning out faint voices heard in the background (as if the recorder was set next to a noisy air conditioner or something). ROKC that you mention and some other sites have discussions and I see occasional references to a transcript of the poor-quality HSCA recording done free-lance by a Denis Morissette, but I have been unable to find a full form of such a Morissette transcription online--only soundbite quotes from it here and there, some of which are quite interesting. If such has not already been done, someone with mixing expertise and equipment could do a real service by attempting to get better-quality audio, better signal-to-static ratio from the existing recording, then produce from that a professional-quality written transcription. Apart from that I am curious how it is that HSCA could have a four-hour recorded interview with a witness as important as Buell Wesley Frazier and have its sound quality be so bad that the majority is unintelligible, and the part that is intelligible apparently never transcribed by HSCA in written form (or if HSCA did produce a transcription or written report of that interview, where is it?)? 

Does anyone have a link to Wesley Buell Frazier's HSCA testimony? Thanks--

Even though I think the original report out of Parkland that the bullet found on the stretcher came from JFK was likely correct and the best explanation for what happened to the bullet that hit JFK in the back, I do not think the story of Nurse Hall contributes information to this. First, there is a lack of verification or corroboration that she was in that room with JFK. No other witness named her as being present in that room. Second, none of the witnesses who were in the room with JFK reported seeing what she says she saw--a bullet visible from outside JFK’s body near JFK's ear in plain sight. And third, she claims she kept her sighting of that bullet secret, never told anyone including even her own husband for years, before finally coming forth with the story. If she had seen such a bullet for real in the emergency room near JFK's head, one would think she would have told a supervisor at work or contacted the FBI or the Warren Commission, let alone confide in her own husband--what was the big secret? Therefore this testimony does not strike me as credible. 

David this is a very interesting document find you bring out, and certainly adds weight to the plausibility that the Mexico City Soviet "Oswald" embassy phone calls could have been voice impersonated, adding to the point already noted of the language issue. Do you have a link or reference to this document? Any idea what the context was of it, or if the "fabricat[ion] on tape phoney conversation of Cuban ambassador for insertion Lienvoy mechanism" was carried out?

On 8/26/2020 at 7:45 AM, David Josephs said:

Another great find is this CIA memo outlining how phone conversations would be FAKED - specifically a call from Cuban Ambassador 

...and this is in January 1962.....

 

I see Bernie Sanders has welcomed Kamala Harris, and that former Gov. Kasich from my home state of Ohio will be speaking on the first night of the Democratic convention. This election is it, for whether America goes hard fascist. Pre-Third Reich days. Biden has his faults but does not breathe cruelty and lust for totalitarian power combined with charismatic appeal to the worst instincts of demagoguery to achieve it. That 40% of Americans support this nightmare president, who is just as open as can be concerning what he intends to do with political opponents and unleashed authoritarianism, is appalling beyond words.

I would like to see a Bernie party (though Bernie is not going that direction) or some social-democratic equivalent follow a policy building from the ground up of "contesting only winnable elections" and then winning them. Standing down if an election does not have a reasonable prospect of outright victory, and coalition with the larger Democratic Party strategically in caucusing and votes (and trade-off standing down in election districts as part of coalition negotiation). But since nothing like that is taking traction, its the Democratic big tent for me, since that is where the Bernie people are, at least here in Washington state.  

40 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

With the back wound inches below the throat wound the trajectory is inconsistent with a SBT shot from any position.

Why unnecessarily muddy the issue?

I see your point, you are right. "The HSCA's ballistics experts concluded that, between the back and the throat, the bullet carved an 11-degree upward track" (Aguilar and Cunningham 2003). Even with a shooter at street level does not remove the trajectory problem.

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Factually incorrect. Early critics like Vincent Salandria and Gaeton Fonzi correctly pointed out that the back wound was too low to have been associated with the throat wound.

If one doesn’t start with this root fact all analyses are garbage-in garbage-out.

<snip garbage>

Don't see how this is different from what I said ("The main argument against the single-bullet theory has always been the trajectory as inconsistent with the 6th floor TSBD").

The main argument against the single-bullet theory has always been the trajectory as inconsistent with the 6th floor TSBD. One suggestion (credit to Mark Tyler from another thread) is to start with the traditional single-bullet interpretation (back-->throat--Connally) and determine the trajectory/elevation of the shooter from that (do not assume 6th floor TSBD). If that is done the argument from trajectory against the single-bullet is basically gone. A second common argument against the single-bullet, the questions raised concerning the pristine condition of C399--really becomes irrelevant once the original stretcher bullet (whether or not it was C399) is disconnected from Connally. As is well-argued on other grounds, the original stretcher bullet would be either from the JFK back shot as originally thought, or else unrelated to the assassination, but in either case unrelated to Connally. 

The question then becomes: is the traditional single-bullet interpretation a valid argument, if objections of vertical trajectory and C399 were non-existent? The reason for the appeal of the single-bullet is not hard to understand: it neatly would explain where the shot of the upper back entrance exited, would explain the throat shot wound, and then where that bullet went (through JFK into Connally causing his wounds). All that would remain, it might seem, would be to assume and identify a different, lower-elevation shooter than 6th floor TSBD. BUT--it does not seem that simple. 

Two arguments still remain against the single-bullet (back entrance-->throat-->Connally) even if trajectory and C399 were removed as issues: (a) at the autopsy the testimonies that no through-path was found for a bullet from the upper back entrance to the throat despite intense efforts to find such. If there was such a through-path what is the explanation for those testimonies? And (b) Connally's testimony combined with support from Zapruder that Connally was hit after JFK was hit and before JFK was hit again (1-2-3 distinct hits). It just looks extremely questionable to interpret Zapruder as Connally hit with the same bullet that causes JFK's elbows-rising reaction, instead of the JFK hit being caused by an earlier shot, Connally turning and then starting to turn back again and hit with a second bullet (followed by the JFK head shot), in keeping with Connally's and Nellie's testimony and what seems to be visually in Zapruder. 

Still, those who favor a single-bullet interpretation may have another reason: "no other good explanation for the wounds". In other words, some interpretations even if they do have a few problems are considered correct if there seems no other good way to account for the evidence.

But the original interpretation, before there was the single-bullet idea, seems to have been: (a) the back shot did not go in to JFK's back very far, and fell out and was the original stretcher bullet found at Parkland; and (b) a rear EOP entrance wound bullet, deflected downward by the angle of the skull bone, went downward through the neck and exited at the throat (and ended up in the limousine but not in Connally). Pat Speer's website has developed the early Parkland/autopsy argument for EOP-->throat. 

But if "a" and "b" just named are considered viable--and therefore the single-bullet is not a necessary interpretation on the grounds that there is no other reasonable alternative--this raises its own new problem, which has caused me more grief than about any other single question: how can the wound to JFK's upper back have not gone in more than ca. an inch, so little penetration that it came back out again, if that is what happened, as was the earliest conclusion outcome from the autopsy (and the arguably best explanation for the origin of the original stretcher bullet found at Parkland)? A jacketed bullet from the Carcano or any other rifle at ca. 2000 fps would blast right through JFK, not barely break the skin. A bullet with such low velocity to cause only a ca. 2" penetration in JFK's back ... what would be the point of an assassin firing such a low-powered shot in the first place? Was it a frangible bullet that failed to expand as intended? But still, that does not explain the extremely weak penetration. What is going on there? I read some of the past discussions on this site of this question, studied firearms websites, and wracked my brain trying to come up with a viable explanation. 

Yet it did not seem correct to reject a ca. 2" penetration of an upper back shot in favor of the back-->throat(-->Connally) default standard interpretation, for reasons cited. As I thought about this, a possible solution emerged, which takes into account two other phenomena which require explanation.

The first is the overwhelming testimony of the numbers of witnesses who heard not three evenly-spaced shots, but rather a single shot, then a few seconds, then a final flurry of two or three final shots in quick succession: "bang...bang-bang(-bang)". That the first one shot, the one which preceded by a few seconds the final flurry, was separated by that space of time--the few seconds--unlike the other shots, seemed to call for explanation; why?

And second, the overwhelming number of witness reports that that first shot sounded different--like a "firecracker" is the repeated witness report of the sound of that first shot. Why were witnesses calling it "like a firecracker"? How does a firecracker sound different from a regular rifle shot? Well, a firecracker sound seems like a muzzle blast without the sound of a bullet echoing through air, without the "echo". Maybe a shot fired that is subsonic. But subsonic--from a high-powered rifle? And if so, why were the later shots not remembered as distinctively "firecracker-like" by the witnesses? It is only the first shot which gets this aggregate witnesses description. The first shot--the different "firecracker" sound; separated in time from the others; and causing a very weak wound of little penetration in JFK's back. What can possibly account for all three of these phenomena, and make any rational sense in a professional assassination or sniper context? For it seemed to me that each of these phenomena, individually seeming so odd, might be related such that a single solution would explain all three. 

The objections to the back-->throat interpretation, combined with a struggle on my part to understand the mechanics of how an assassin or assassins could escape undetected from a building such as the TSBD, have led me to consider the possibility that that first "firecracker" shot was fired from a pistol from the sixth floor TSBD, subsonic, but with a loud sound, with the primary purpose being to attract focus of attention and eyeballs to the sixth floor TSBD, where another person was then seen shooting the Carcano pointed out that window. In this hypothesis, the purpose of the pistol shot would be precisely to get public attention to the sixth floor TSBD, just as the limousine moves into the killing zone where actual deadly shots happened from perhaps two snipers in other locations, each firing a single lethal shot, in addition to the shooter of the Carcano.  

The pistol shot was not designed to kill but to divert attention toward the Carcano linked to Oswald, and away from the two other shooters. Oswald per this hypothesis is being totally framed and is not party to the shooting, does not realize the Carcano is in the building. That there were two, not one, involved in the shooting of the Carcano at the 6th floor TSBD, is from several witness testimonies, and also from the witness testimonies concerning what I believe was the method of successful escape. The two involved in the shooting at the 6th floor have come down from the 7th or roof having entered earlier that morning. They made their escape following the shooting by simply walking down the stairs where they are encountered and thought to be unidentified plain-clothes "Secret Service" in the stairway and at the rear entrance before the first real Secret Service agent, Sorrels, arrived. The three shell casings, the paper bag the size of the rifle at the 6th floor, and the Carcano itself traced to Oswald via the backyard photographs and paper trail will pin it on Oswald, as the real assassins escape. This relies on a separate argument that the Carcano may never have been in the Paines' garage, never went to Irving from New Orleans, Marina's surprise that the rifle was not in the blanket notwithstanding. When all is said and done, an original misunderstanding of Marina concerning the disposition of the rifle and then desire to please interrogators by "confirming" that she had personally seen it once in the blanket after arrival to Irving, is the totality of the actual evidence that that rifle ever was in the Paines' garage--not very substantial, given Marina's mercurial and self-interest-motivated testimony under duress for herself and her children. 

Oswald's movements before and after the assassination then can become interpreted differently than the usual narrative. On Thursday night he attempted to reconcile with Marina, was rebuffed, and left practically all of his money, $170 (equivalent to $2000-3000 cash in today's money!), and his wedding ring for her. The visit to the garage of Lee that Ruth Paine remembered based on the light having been left on, becomes Oswald retrieving something but not a rifle. The wedding ring and the huge sum of cash--he was saying goodby for a while. Something was up, but it need not have been an intent to shoot anyone that day. The smaller paper bag that Wesley Buell Frazier saw with Oswald that morning may have been something unrelated to a firearm, or it may have been nothing more than Oswald's lunch, with the "curtain rods" explanation of Oswald of the evening before being Oswald's nonsense explanation to Frazier as to why he was going out to see Marina a day early. By this interpretation, Oswald was simply framed, did not realize he was being framed, was on the first floor of the TSBD at the time of the assassination, and his actions following the assassination are no less consistent with an innocent person framed as the more common interpretation that he was guilty. 

But back to the pistol at the 6th floor TSBD: the pistol makes the noise, and the pistol then leaves TSBD concealed on the person of one of the two involved in the shooting from the 6th floor TSBD. The purpose of the pistol shot is to draw attention. The reason it is heard like a "firecracker" different from the rifle shots which follow is because it is muzzle blast only, subsonic, and not a rifle. The shooter of the pistol aimed at JFK and happened to hit JFK in the back, at about 60 yards or so, within the range of some pistols to hit a body. The shot was so weak that it did not penetrate very far--but the purpose of that shot was to make a loud noise and draw attention. That bullet then became the original stretcher bullet, which then as a separate and later event had a bullet from the Carcano (C399) substituted for it, as part of a fixing of evidence to support the lone-nut shooter narrative once that was quickly decided, replacing an apparent original intent to have a Castro conspiracy blamed. The Carcano framing Oswald is left to be found in the 6th floor TSBD, the two walked down the stairs and out the door perceived as law enforcement, and two other snipers in locations other than the TSBD successfully escaped as well, their weapons not found. Oswald is hunted down, arrested, and killed in police custody. Oswald who had no Carcano ammunition in his belongings and no verified practice target shooting. (I think the alleged Sports Drome sightings, of a person who witnesses recalled looked like Oswald from what they saw on TV but who never claimed to be Oswald, did nothing distinctive that identified himself as Oswald, and could not have been Oswald at the times seen per the accurate calendar-documented timeline testimony of Ruth Paine, are best understood as neither Oswald nor an impersonator but as simple mistaken identification on par with other mistaken witness identifications.) 

This is a roundabout background to the only explanation I can think of that explains these three things of that first shot--its separation in time from the others; its "firecracker" sound different from the others; and its weak penetration of JFK's back-- . . . a pistol shot from the 6th floor TSBD, for the purpose of drawing public attention to the 6th floor TSBD, setting up the actual kill shots.

Yes, in reading Pat Speer's compilation of witness testimonies it seems so clear there was a first "bang" like a firecracker, then a pause, then a final flurry of two or three shots very close together. The idea of three evenly-spaced shots seems to have been driven by a need to have timings of shots compatible with a single shooter, rather than the weight of the witness testimonies. From the blur analyses the second strongest indication next to Z313 and Z330 seems to be around Z290, but that was not considered a shot, including by Alvarez who wrote the original blur analysis and recognized a major blur there, due to impossibility of a single shooter, as brought out in work of Robert Harris. 

But this raises the question of the Connally hit, which everyone places ca. Z220-230 (including Harris, who interprets Z290 as a missed shot which Nellie Connally mistakenly thought hit Connally even though Connally had actually been hit earlier). But the witness testimonies do not generally seem to support a shot heard at ca. Z220-230. Nor does a Connally hit at that point agree with his own testimony that he turned right, then turned back and was facing about forward when he was hit and Nellie then pulled him down, whereupon he heard JFK hit with the head shot immediately. This sounds and looks in Zapruder like Connally hit at Z290. Compare Connally telling of it himself here starting at 4:22: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqpfHEkRpIw. But that leaves the Connally grimace, the lapel bulge, and the hat flip at Z220s, usually interpreted as reactions to being hit--but can those be interpreted otherwise (Connally shouting "no, no, no" = the "grimace"?)? 

There is a major blur at Z313 matching the head shot and then another major blur at Z330 but then there are actually three major blurs after that, perhaps reflecting Zapruder's own trembling and shock at seeing what happened in the JFK head shot at that point (didn't Zapruder say he was weeping at that point?). If the major post-Z330 blurs can be from other causes perhaps the Z330 blur could be too. Some witnesses said they heard a shot after the head shot, but if there were two or three rapid shots between Z290 and Z313 could there be confusion to witnesses as to which sound was associated with the head shot that they saw with their eyes?

In reading the strength of the witness testimonies of the "bang" ... then 4-5 seconds ... "bang-bang-(bang)" ... Pat Speer brings out another phenomenon which is striking: a majority of the witnesses located at the corner of Elm and Houston heard four, whereas those at the Grassy Knoll and in the motorcade heard only three, not four. It occurs to me there could be a simple explanation for this unequal distribution corresponding to physical location of who heard four shots. How far apart in time do two shots need to be for the average human to hear them as two, rather than one, shots? A guess: maybe one-quarter second. Less would be heard as one shot, more heard as two. If, say, a shot was fired from a building near Elm and Houston 0.3 seconds earlier in absolute time than a shot fired at the Grassy Knoll, and if it takes 0.15 seconds for the sound of a muzzle blast at Elm and Houston to reach people at the Grassy Knoll, then those two muzzle blasts would be heard at the Grassy Knoll only 0.15 second apart = as one shot. But witnesses standing at Elm and Houston would hear those two muzzle blasts 0.45 seconds apart = as two shots. In this scenario there would actually be four shots--one plus a final flurry of three close together--but two of that final flurry were so very close together that they were not distinguished by many witnesses depending on their physical location and the amount of time it takes sound to travel.

And the cumulative weight of the witnesses hearing a single "bang" followed by several seconds and then a flurry of either two or three more shots very close together ... is inconsistent with a single shooter with a bolt-operated rifle. Is the interpretation of the witness testimonies of the hearing of these shots a case of the weight of the sheer aggregate numbers for a final two or three very close together have been there all along but have not been "seen" so clearly in the history of expert analyses due to a filtering effect on interpretation from the single-shooter presupposition? 

Johnny Carson was to me a "zero" in that he had all that audience, all that media presence, the most-watched late-night program in America, and he used it for nothing but cotton-candy laughs. He never took up a just cause, never made a social statement, never took a stand of conscience, never sought to get people to think about something that required a little thought below the level of surface humor, never sought to use his celebrity the way some celebrities do, in which they use their "celebrity capital" in the service of some worthy cause of their choice that they believe in, to try to make a difference in the world in some better way to the best of their ability. He was good at getting laughs, end of story. He was not nasty or damaging in his public persona (most of the time; Garrison excepted according to reports here, I did not see). But Carson was just a net zero, a waste of potential. My opinion.  

On the John Barbour film on Garrison, mixed feelings. The fundamental cognitive dissonance to me is Garrison took down the Warren Commission report, made the connection of the JFK assassination and foreign policy direction, brought the Zapruder film to public access and attention, and developed a number of leads. He also showed considerable courage, basically declaring war on the CIA. Those are the positives. But then the negatives: it came at the cost of a prosecution and attempted ruination of the life of a man innocent of the assassination of JFK, Clay Shaw. Is it necessary to defend a prosecution which should never have happened of a man innocent of anything to do with the assassination of JFK, in order to have the Warren Commission questioned? That is the ethical dilemma. It is also what those out for Garrison's blood used largely successfully to discredit Garrison. Some specific comments:

-- the basic contradiction: "Lee Harvey Oswald ... had nothing to do with the assassination" (at 41:08-40, with emphasis, and repeated several times by Garrison in the documentary). But Clay Shaw was charged by Garrison: "did willfully and unlawfully conspire with ... Lee Harvey Oswald ... and others ... to murder John F. Kennedy". 

-- the witness, Perry Russo, is credible to the extent of establishing David Ferrie ranting about Kennedy should be killed, but that's about it. Russo's identification of Oswald as present was clearly mistaken, and the mistake on the Oswald identification calls into question Russo's identification of Clay Shaw as present as well. Even on Ferrie was there a criminal case on the basis of Russo's testimony beyond establishing that Ferrie hated Kennedy and advocated killing him? Russo said there were plans discussed--at a party, with non-insider, non-conspirator Russo able to move freely and overhear? ... plausibility issues, lack-of-corroboration issues. Talk of hating and wanting to kill Kennedy probably happened at many parties in the South. That is not enough to take into court and get a criminal conviction for doing the assassination.

-- That Clay Shaw lied under oath re CIA history is true, but irrelevant to the charge for which he was under trial: of being in a criminal conspiracy with Oswald and others to assassinate JFK.

-- It can be established with confidence that Dean Andrews was not contacted by Clay Shaw with a request to provide legal counsel for Oswald (that was almost certainly Clem Sehrt, which is also why Dean Andrews refused to violate a confidence and say who it really was: Clem Sehrt, Mob/Marcello, old friend and legal help to Marguerite Oswald; Clem Sehrt who later told a friend he had been called by Marguerite seeking legal counsel for her son Lee after the assassination; Marguerite who also later said that she had called Clem Sehrt seeking a lawyer for Lee after the assassination); also the Airport VIP Lounge signature of "Clay Bertrand" at a time when Clay Shaw was present collapses. 

-- No other leads, of the anti-Castro Cubans, or JM/Wave in Florida, or organized crime elements, or the known compartments in CIA involved with Oswald and the disinformation attempting to tie Oswald to Castro, and so forth--none of these leads go to Clay Shaw. Clay Shaw just had nothing to do with anything (related to the JFK assassination). And there is the strong impression that many of Garrison's own staff, including the honest ones, knew it.

-- the film shows a photo at 1:26:20f and says, without caveat or qualification, that it shows David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, and Lee Harvey Oswald in the same living room at a social gathering. But the face said to be Oswald is too dark to see clearly in the film. So I looked up that photo, and the face is not that of Oswald at all! But a viewer of the film who does not do their own fact-checking (and how many do?) will be left with that lodged in their memory as if Oswald in that photo with Clay Shaw is a fact.

-- Unlike Clay Shaw, David Ferrie was a person of interest in the JFK assassination in Garrison's sights but of course Ferrie died untimely. I remember as a 13-year old newspaper carrier in Ohio reading first of the Garrison sensational charges in the news, then of Ferrie's suspicious death, and thinking "whoah!" But Garrison never pursued the Ferrie lead in the most obvious direction--toward Marcello, crime boss of New Orleans and Dallas. That was one thing Garrison had in common with the FBI and the Warren Commission. I was surprised when I first discovered Marcello does not even appear in the Warren Commission report index, as if he did not exist. Garrison apparently did not think Marcello was much involved in significant organized crime--similar to J. Edgar Hoover on that issue. Maybe as a public official in the heart of Marcello's turf that may have been a healthy policy for Garrison, I don't know.   

So in the end Garrison seems to merit a mixed report. I think if I were on the Clay Shaw jury I would have agreed with what apparently was the sentiment of most of the jurors polled after the trial: they were convinced by the part about there was a conspiracy beyond what the Warren Commission said, but they were not convinced by the evidence shown that Clay Shaw should be convicted of having been involved in it. There is a systems criticism of the legal system in which prosecutors feel pressure, if a crime is unsolved, to get a conviction, any conviction, and close the case. That is good for prosecutors' statistics but it also results in some wrongful convictions. I wonder if that prosecutors' mentality may have been a contributing factor in Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw.