Greg Doudna

I know that Sandy. I was talking about the photography panel experts, which had nothing to do with relocating that wound which was done by pathologists.

Walker aide Robert Surrey was seen walking out from the alley and fence area behind the house, where the shooter fired, within seconds of the shot, seen by witness Kirk Coleman (what the FBI called his Man No. 2). We can know that was Robert Surrey because that man was seen by Kirk Coleman walking to and getting into a car which can be identified with certainty as Robert Surrey’s car. That locates Robert Surrey, at the time of the shot, at the approximate exact location of from where the shot was fired, from the timing of how soon after the shot 14-year old Kirk Coleman ran to his back fence, climbed up on a bicycle and looked over. Surrey then drove home to where his family was, about two miles away, and Walker, after waiting long enough to allow Surrey time to get home, phoned to Surrey at home and told him of the shot (which Surrey already knew about), and to come over, which Surrey did and assisted Walker in meeting arriving police. The identification of Robert Surrey coming out of that alley after the shot in turn raises two questions: was he alone in the vicinity of where the shot was fired when the shot was fired (did he fire the shot?), and was the shot intended to kill Walker or was it staged. I believe Surrey would not have and did not seek to kill Walker, therefore it was a staged shot (not an attempted murder by anyone that night). I do not believe Walker aide and publicist Surrey was party to an actual attempt to assassinate his wife’s employer and his friend, Walker. One scenario is Surrey was with the shooter and that shooter was Oswald when that shot was fired. There is a strong argument someone else was with Surrey at the location from which the shot was fired, at the time the shot was fired. That argument is: the behavior of what the FBI called Kirk Coleman’s Man No. 1 (seen by Coleman in the seconds after the shot). Coleman saw him (no. 1) standing outside of his running car, in a position from which he would have had line of sight from where he was, in the church parking lot, into the rear alley where the shooter was. The behavior of Man No. 1 and the running engine with headlights on of the car of No. 1 looks like a running getaway car and a driver attempting to help direct the shooter to that car ready to go, though Coleman saw man no. 1 return to his engine-running car and drive away alone, meaning the shooter fled in a different direction on foot (for whatever reason). To go to the question you ask, what became of the missing shell hull which should have been found on the ground in that alley nearby, here is my answer: It was picked up by Robert Surrey after the shooter had fired. Both of Robert Surrey’s sons directly said in later years that they remembered the distinctive practice of their father to always pick up shell hulls when recreationally shooting in the woods. Surrey taught his kids to do that and they said they had fun doing that for the adults who were shooting. Therefore that is exactly the thing Surrey did. And he was there, and the shell hull was never found in the ground, q.e.d. When Kirk Coleman saw his man no. 2, Surrey, return to his car, Coleman saw him leaning into the back seat as if putting something on the floorboards in the rear, though Coleman could not see what it might have been. Yet Coleman also said he did not see man no. 2, Surrey, carrying anything in his hands as he walked from the alley area to his car, before he got to his car. What Surrey was doing may or may not have been concealing that shell hull under a floor mat or elsewhere in that rear floor area of his car—or he kept it in his pocket. Either way, Surrey had it and that’s why it was never found by police looking for it in that alley, and it was never seen again. Most of this—except for the shell hull solution—was the content of my Lancer presentation two months ago in November. So there you have it—an answer to the question! 🙂 Update: as noted by Gerry Down below, a single shot from a bolt-action rifle, such as Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano, would not eject a shell hull.

Sandy where are you getting the idea that the HSCA photo panel experts moved the wounds in the autopsy interpretation? That’s not right. You’re not being reasonable. And stop imputing to me things I haven’t said. That derails discussion. The issue is in a case of conflicting expert testimony what is the best method for a truth-seeker to resolve that, and you fly off at me without addressing that question. The gif that Pat Speer showed on the area of the photo at issue he says, and looks to my admittedly uninformed eye, to establish reasonable question whether Mantik’s no-stereo is correct. Pat is saying there’s no stereo there. And it’s not as if this isn’t an answerable question. Suppose Mantik is possibly right on that—that those HSCA photo panel experts were right on most of their stereo viewing authentication reporting (that’s what Mantik says) but missed it or erred on that one particular area of the one photo or maybe a couple or three photos (let us suppose). Are you actually opposed—really—to wanting to see independent or mainstream expert eyes judge and agree with that observational description or finding of fact before leaping to PERSONAL BELIEF? If the no-stereo claim (in that photo area) of Mantik is true, surely it and Mantik’s interpretation thereof can be seen also by independent and non-CT mainstream expert honest eyes, and verified, if it’s really so, would you not expect? Or do you think the whole outside world is in on the conspiracy, or verification is for sissies? The issue here isn’t even whether Mantik is right or wrong on this specific claim. It’s an issue of how a reasonable person should know that, an issue of epistemology. You’re acting as if I’m not open to learning Dr Mantik is right on this claim if that is the case. Well you’re wrong. If that claim were to be established beyond reasonable question in mainstream expert opinion, that would be significant, go for it, I am as interested as anyone.

I prefer to think of it as judgements of “weight”, not (in all cases) “face value”. Please don’t put words into mouths. I give weight to mainstream authorities who have reputation and experience in areas outside of my own expertise, yes.

Actually Pat looking at your chapter online I see that for the first time—I read your chapters in paper printouts which do not show gifs! And very interesting about the rearmost part of the gaping wound being a moveable flap at the top of the back of the head, shown by your gif.

Dr. Mantik says the eyes of he, Horne, and Grodon agree that there is no stereo effect on a certain area in the BOH area, indicative of photo tampering. But the HSCA expert panel say they checked that and their eyes saw the opposite. (512) Because pairs of stereo pictures may be seen in three dimensions, such photographs add depth to the perception of the photographed scene in much the same way as a pair of human eyes, separated from one another in space, can perceive depth. In viewing stereo pairs of photographs through a stereoscope, one eye views one picture and the other eye views the second picture. As a result, the eyes, coupled with the visual image processes of the brain, are able very readily to perceive any differences between the two pictures. Such differences in the scene between the two pictures tend literally to "pop out at you." No differences of this kind were [seen?] by the panel in stereo pairs of Kennedy's head, top of his head, the large skull defect, the [back?] of the head, back wound or the anterior neck wound. In this way, photographs of each of Kennedy's wounds were effectively authenticated. (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/infojfk/jfk6/authaut.htm) Here is a direct contradiction on a matter of observational fact: who is to be believed? Have any mainstream high-reputation forensic experts in photography stated on the record that their eyes see the same thing as claimed by these CT luminaries? I'm not opposed to a rigorous argument for photo tampering if there is actual forensic evidence for it vetted by mainstream authorities, but I see a bright yellow flag of caution when the only ones who are reported to see these things in photos are those heavily invested in theories supported by that seeing. Of course that can cut both ways. But without impugning Dr. Mantik's sincerity, his word alone on this is not good enough, nor are Horne and Grodon endorsements sufficient. To make this argument effective, there needs to be viewings by top-tier established-reputation experts, with perhaps some "blindness" built into a testing design (if possible), and transparency as to full reporting of findings and expert responses. That kind of study would get somewhere. Otherwise this is hard for an outside observer to distinguish from Rorschach Inkblot genre argument.

On was Aynesworth where he said he was on Nov 22, that's interesting. Its hard for me to believe he made it all up, but why is there no corroboration? He says he was on the north side of Elm midway watching the presidential parade when JFK was shot, wouldn't he show up somewhere in photos or film of Dealey Plaza? And I found this. Aynesworth in Sneed, No More Silence (1998), 25: "When I arrived at the Texas Theater, I ran into Jim Ewell again. We decided that he'd go upstairs into the balcony since somebody had said that he'd gone there. So Jim went up while I decided to go down and under ... I just got in there when I saw officers coming off the stage on both sides..." Fellow reporter Jim Ewell from the Dallas Morning News, in Sneed (1998), 10: "It turned out that I was probably the only reporter that I remember who was at the Texas Theater. However, Hugh Aynesworth, who was a member of our staff, said he arrived at the Texas Theater also. I didn't see Hugh..." Also in Sneed Aynesworth accuses Earlene Roberts of telling her police patrol car horn-honking story "three months" later because she was making money! I never heard of Earlene Roberts making any money off of the assassination, only grief to that poor lady, and her horn-honking police story was not "three months" later but told within the next few days, though evidently not to Aynesworth on Nov 22 who cites that against her. It sounds like Aynesworth maybe had owner Mrs. Johnson in mind on the money angle criticism, while accusing the innocent Earlene Roberts. Maybe by 1998 the two women had run together in his mind. I encountered an oddity in Aynesworth's reporting in my study on the jackets. It is commonly supposed that Earlene was all over the map on the color she reported of Oswald's jacket at 1 pm Nov 22. I concluded it was misreporting of Earlene which was all over the map, not Earlene herself, on the jacket description issue. I found that as a severe diabetic it is realistic that Earlene Roberts suffered from color-blindness which commonly afflicts severe diabetics, in which she could well have seen blue as gray for medical reasons. With the exception of a report of Hugh Aynesworth, all the Oswald jacket color reportings of Earlene Roberts were either "dark" or "gray". And the "gray" from Earlene if she was color-blind does not necessarily mean the jacket was actually gray, even less so the off-white, nearly white, light-tan color of CE 162 (the Tippit killer's jacket). CE 162 was not "gray" and was not "dark" (it was off-white light tan). A color-blind Earlene Roberts' "gray" would be consistent with Oswald's medium/dark blue coat, in agreement with her color description of it as "dark" or (if diabetes-caused color-blind) "gray". But there is one exception: Aynesworth, alone, reported Earlene said the jacket color was "tan", inconsistent with her other tellings of "dark" or "gray". Although Aynesworth's interview of Earlene occurred Nov 22, his writeup and reporting of that appeared Nov 28 in a story that went nationwide telling a narrative of Oswald's guilty flight from start to finish as the killer of Tippit. I questioned the accuracy of Aynesworth's report. There is probably no way to ever know for sure, but the suspicion is Aynesworth wrote that that way because it agreed with the narrative in which Earlene was necessarily believed to be describing CE 162, which at the time Aynesworth wrote that was being widely and most commonly reported as "light tan" in color. (My full argument on the jacket color seen by Earlene Roberts is at pp. 95-106, https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/T-Jackets-112.pdf.) I noted that in a KLIF-Radio interview from Nov 22, recorded words of Earlene from the same afternoon of Aynesworth's interview, Earlene called the jacket "a short gray coat". So Earlene's "gray" is verified; Aynesworth's "tan" is more questionable from the same witness the same day who otherwise showed no inconsistency in naming the color of the jacket she saw.

Sandy, you have been one of the publicly harshest critics of Pat Speer's argument, sustained and relentless, dripping with scorn. I note you have not read Pat Speer's research: "I have never claimed to have read your chapters on the head wounds. I've argued only with what you post on the forum." (1/7/24, https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30045-why-pat-speer-owes-the-family-of-dr-robert-mcclelland-an-apology/page/8/) I read Pat Speer's chapters recently, 18c and 18d, https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-18c-reason-to-doubt and https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-18d-reason-to-believe. I thought going into it, how is Pat Speer going to reconcile all those witness "back of the head" statements with the BOH photograph? I found out. It takes work to read. Pat Speer's chapters are typically in the ca. 80-100 pages apiece printed out. But agree or disagree, it is worth reading. Now I have brought something which I think may be new to the table. Or maybe not?--I don't know, but I at least don't remember this brought to attention or discussed by you or anyone before. I refer to the top of the particular back-wound autopsy photo of the link I found and gave, from the original publication of the autopsy photos. Here it is again: https://archive.org/details/jfk-autopsy-photos-hd_202204/Back wound (B%26W 11 %26 12) (uncropped) (JFK Absolute Proof).jpg Would you take a look at the very top of that autopsy photo and say how you interpret it? It's not the BOH photo but it is exactly parallel to the BOH photo and shows where the gaping wound was, and that it was there, on the head of JFK at the moment the BOH photo was taken. It wasn't missing from JFK's head when either of those photos were taken, nor is it necessary to suppose that those photos were altered or forged to remove it. That back-wound photo (of the link just given) was my tipping point in convincing me on this. I am no expert in this area and probably will stay out of this fray for the most part going forward. Just saying how it looks to me. Pat's discussion of studies--not conjecture or speculation but published studies, data, scientific publications--on human perception and findings thereof, were eye-opening.

Pat’s replies plus the particular autopsy photo of the link I gave above have convinced me: the BOH photo, just like the back-wound photo, is before not after reconstruction and embalming, the time when autopsy photos are taken, during the autopsy. The John Canal argument on that I no longer see as viable. The gaping wound of JFK’s head of all the witnesses actually WAS on the head of JFK at the time the BOH photo was taken and they aren’t faked photos. The gaping wound is right behind the hair at the top of the back of JFK’s head in the BOH photo—not just at that flap at the right but at the whole right half of the top of the head just behind the hair at the top—and this is not simply inference or conjecture but VISIBLE—VISIBLE—(one can see this! take a look for yourself anyone!)—at the very top of the comparable back-wound photo of the link I gave (which is the photo of the original publication of the autopsy photos). To me that comparable back-wound photo proves it. And this is in agreement with many of the witnesses as to the location of the wound, and as for the rest of the witnesses who claim it was a little lower on the rear of the head, Pat Speer’s 18c and 18d is must-read and convincing—and in agreement with that back wound photo showing the actual location of the gaping head wound of JFK.

Pat, in light of your last paragraph I see you are right. This is the original autopsy back wound photo published by Lifton: https://archive.org/details/jfk-autopsy-photos-hd_202204/Back wound (B%26W 11 %26 12) (uncropped) (JFK Absolute Proof).jpg. At the very top, does that show blown out head--the gaping head wound? Just behind the hair and not visible in the BOH photo but there? That would be before reconstruction. I had not noticed that top of the back-wound photo (the one just linked), before today. The Ida Dox drawing does not have that and I wonder if some photos have cropped out that top part showing blown-out-head in that back-wound photo. Would that specific photo be smoking-gun evidence of where the "orange-sized" hole was that so many saw, actually toward the rear of the top of the head, maybe a little farther over into the top of the back of the head which is covered over by hair and not seen, in the back-wound and BOH photos?

Pat I have trepidation contesting you on your ground, but I wonder if you have dealt adequately with the Canal argument. You say there was missing scalp where the wound was and "as no such gap is in the photo, well, it's clear: the photo was not taken after reconstruction". But according to Canal, morticians have a workaround for situations of missing scalp (bold and underlining is added): "When there is a traumatic head wound, such as the one Kennedy suffered, it is standard procedure among morticians to hide the injury by 'undermining' the scalp and then stretching it over the affected area. Undermining the scalp is as unpleasant as it sounds, and morticians don't ordinarily talk about it freely, as it is something of a trade secret. The process involves separating the much more pliable top layers of the scalp (which include the hair follicles) from the bottom layers, which include the muscles that attach the scalp to the skull and other tough tissue. After the procedure is finished though, the 'stretchability' of the scalp is dramatically increased. And that is precisely the procedure that was performed on President Kennedy... "A number of experienced morticians were interviewed in addition to Karnei. All of them confirmed that the rear scalp indeed could have been stretched that much after undermining. Indeed, during his 1996 ARRB deposition, Dr. Humes testified that 'we were able to close it [the scalp] by undermining and stretching and so forth.'" You say the no pre-restoration gaping wound visible in the back of the head is supported by other photos such as the one showing the entrance wound in the upper back: Could this photo of the back wound photo be a clue (notice the very top)? https://archive.org/details/jfk-autopsy-photos-hd_202204/Back wound (B%26W 11 %26 12) (uncropped) (JFK Absolute Proof).jpg You quote Stringer and Humes as saying no photos were taken after partial reconstruction had begun. But Canal has quotations saying differently. Stringer did say that to the ARRB, but Canal says he interviewed Stringer in 2011 in which Stringer wrote him, "I may have taken some pictures after midnight, but I just can't remember, it's been too long." Dr. Kernei, 1977 HSCA, "they took a lot of photographs at different times." Stover: "It seems to me that the photographer, and I guess it was Mr. Stringer at the time, came back in. I think he wasn't satisfied with some of the shots and decided he wanted some more ... the pictures weren't taken all at one time..." Van Hoesen: "periodically, more pictures were being taken..." The descriptions are of harrowing pressure, din of voices and lights and movements of people at that autopsy and then the cleanup and reconstruction, with Stringer finally getting to sleep at 4 am that night. How hardline do you want to be on the sayso of witnesses ruling out timing of photos taken in the same venue the same night--photos that are agreed to have been repeatedly taken at different times with no one keeping exact track? Hagen: told ARRB 6/18/96 that when he arrived the autopsy was almost over, he waited ca. 20 minutes in the gallery until the autopsy was concluded. The body was being "cleaned up" and photos "were being taken". Rudnicki, HSCA 1978, personnel took photos throughout the autopsy. Lifton said he had interviews with Godfrey McHugh in Nov 1967 in which, according to LIfton, "he gave vivid descriptions of what seemed to be reconstruction, carried on in his presence while photographs were being taken" (Best Evidence, 658). Custer, ARRB, 10/28/97, "Photographs were being taken all the time". Jenkins quoted in Law, In the Eye of History (2004, 94), "This photo [BOH] must have been taken later." Would it be possible for you to reread the Canal article--its only 17 pages printed out--and comment after reading if you still remain unchanged in holding that it cannot have happened, or that it can be said with confidence that it did not happen? (https://www.washingtondecoded.com/files/canal.pdf). I know you have taken heat from people, much unfairly in my opinion, but the heart of the problem seems to be both the photo alterationists on this site, and you, BOTH for different reasons reject the BOH being a genuine photo after partial reconstruction. They reason from a bedrock premise that it is a pre-reconstruction photo, that therefore the BOH photo was tampered with or there had been covert body alteration. You reason from the bedrock premise that it is a pre-reconstruction photo, that therefore there never was any part of a gaping wound visible from someone looking at the back of Kennedy's head (nothing gaping other than that one forward flap at the right side in the BOH photo). Many people think your argument flies in the face of massive testimony from multiple doctors. You make an argument for harmonizing the testimonies with the BOH photo arguing that a number of doctor witnesses' perceptions were in error (because the head was upside down distorting perception and other phenomena in the studies you cite). Wouldn't it be simpler to apply your same criticism of witness fallibility to the memory statements that no photographs were taken after the morticians started to work, especially since Stringer himself is reported to have said otherwise at another time? This is from the summary of the interview with mortician Thomas Robinson to the ARRB: "Robinson said that Ed Stroble ... had cut out a piece of rubber to cover the open wound in the back of the head, so that the embalming fluid would not leak; the piece of rubber was slightly larger than the hole in the back of the head, and Robinson estimated that the rubber sheet was a circular patch about the size of a large orange (demonstrating this with a circular motion joining the index finger and thumbs of his two hands). He said the cranium was packed with material during reconstruction, but that he did not believe it was plaster-of-Paris; he said it was either cotton or kapok material used in conjunction with a hardening compound. The rubber sheet was used outside of this material to close the wound in the area of missing bone. The scalp was sutured together, and also onto the rubber sheet to the maximum extent possible, and the damage in the back of the head was obscured by the pillow in the casket..." (https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arrb/master_med_set/md180/html/md180_0004a.htm) Isn't it "obvious" the BOH photo is probably from that later time of that night, whether not anyone directly said so in these memories from decades later? Unless one is going to go photo alterationist or discount too many witness testimonies? (My reasoning; please enlighten if I'm being naive?)

Thank you Tom Gram, document hunter-finder extraordinaire! And thank you Gary Murr for the chapter! A trivia note: I noticed in one of Tom's links that there was some skepticism discussed whether Nathan Pool was there, but as Murr's chapter brought out, there were at least two early witness statements within 1-2 weeks of the assassination to an Otis Elevator repairman present (Landregan; Holcomb), and a third witness, Elizabeth Wright, refers to "Mr. Poll" (sic) running the elevator, i.e. Nathan Pool. Elizabeth Wright's statement was Dec 11, 1963: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1138#relPageId=218. Also, Nathan Pool later described his vehicle to Gary Murr in a distinctive manner, a pickup truck with wooden slats, and Gary Murr found photos of that vehicle at Parkland on Nov 22, 1963, where Pool said he had parked it. So that detail (of whether Nathan Pool was there) can be put to rest. On the question at issue, re what Nathan Pool said he saw of JFK, at one point he said he saw JFK rolled out of Trauma Rm 1 into a hallway covered with a purple covering. He did not say that was on a stretcher, or not on a stretcher. He says he did not see Jackie in that hallway when he saw that. At another point he says he saw Jackie accompany JFK on a stretcher out of Parkland. Since all other testimony of persons from that day and the days immediately after have Jackie leaving Parkland with JFK in the ornate casket, I read that as pretty clearly Nathan Pool, fifteen years later speaking for the first time, simply in error on the casket/stretcher issue, not evidence for a body-substitution at Parkland.

Pat, in the past several days I have studied your chapters 18c and 18d. Good stuff, but . . . The central problem is that back of the head photo. You go to a lot of work to show (a) the back-of-the-head testimonies at Parkland are not as strong as they seem; and (b) to the extent there is such testimony, it is equivocal based on their viewing the head upside down distorting perception, and studies on memory and perception (very interesting I add) that you bring out, along with the phenomenon that mistaken perceptions can happen in clusters of witnesses influencing each other (to which could be added in support of that, UFO sightings similar in genre often appear in clusters). Like I imagine many, I have not gotten involved much in the medical issues because frankly am baffled. But to get to the point: I wonder if you would comment on John Canal's argument that the back-of-the-head (BOH) photo which shows no major wound in the back of the head is simply explained, not as a fake photo, and not as evidence (as you argue) that there was no rear-of-the-head wound, but because it was after partial restoration of the back of the head by morticians had occurred, preparing the body and particularly the head for viewing for an open-casket funeral (even though ultimately there was no open-casket showing of JFK). Namely, John Canal's article here: https://www.washingtondecoded.com/files/canal.pdf. There is a rebuttal to that article by Milicent Cranor here: https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-magic-scalp. But I have just read those two articles back to back (the Canal argument and the Milicent rebuttal of Canal), and I am interested in your opinion, but mine is that Canal's argument makes excellent sense and is the obvious solution--other than going the faked or forged photographs route--and that Milicent Cranor's rebuttal is no rebuttal, it is insubstantial as a rebuttal, when read carefully. In fact at the end of Milicent's she seem to show how plausible Canal's case is, ending on that note. Obviously the "wing flap" to the right on the BOH photograph means the JFK head in the BOH photo was not a finished mortician product. But since many witnesses say that photographs were being taken periodically at various times up to the point of embalming, and the BOH photo was before embalming, it just seems completely plausible that the BOH photo reflects morticians' partial preparation of the back of the head to make the head of JFK look normal in anticipation of a public viewing. And that that morticians' partial preparation in the BOH photo would have covered up the smaller wound near the EOP too, such that it would not be expected to show on the BOH photograph either. With this in place, all the work you went to to argue there was not necessarily a wound extending into the area visible in the BOH photograph, if John Canal is right (and what's not to like about his explanation?), may be unnecessary? Is there a better published rebuttal to the Canal argument (other than Cranor's which I do not think is substantial)? Why has the Canal argument not been generally accepted already? (I assume a non-altered Zapruder interpretation compatible with this would be in keeping with your tangential shot argument causing fracturing in the occipital as well as parietal, and the part in the rear of JFK's head is not visible in Zapruder due to being in shadow from the angle of the sun.) Please comment? Thanks.

I am reading Sean Fetter's two-volume argument for a solution to the JFK assassination. I am at this moment only two-thirds through volume 1 of 2, so will withhold comment until I complete both volumes. But one major "uh oh" moment (meaning, not good): he claims there was another person in Dealey Plaza shot in the head, apparently in the same fusillade which hit JFK and Connally, this other person also like JFK killed with a shot to the head with rear exit wound, and just like JFK, also brought to Parkland and entered Parkland about the same time JFK did. Fetter then claims that man's dead body rather than JFK's was deceptively put in the ornate casket at Parkland that was supposed to be carrying the dead JFK, and that the actual JFK body left Parkland earlier, was secretly loaded on to the press plane at Love Field which was then flown to arrive in Maryland before the ornate casket on Air Force One arrived. That is Fetter's argument for an improvement over Lifton's argument, as to mechanism of conveyance of JFK's body to arrive earlier than what Fetter says was the decoy body of the other man in the ornate casket that everyone thought was JFK. Fetter claims that when Jacqueline went in to Trauma Room No. 1 at Parkland to put her wedding ring on the finger of JFK, that when the sheet was pulled down so she could see the face of JFK she saw it was not JFK (but instead the face of the other man who had been shot and substituted for JFK there), and Jacqueline knew it was not her husband. However, Fetter explains, Jacqueline realizing she was surrounded by armed persons who had killed her husband and in fear for her life knew she dare not say what she knew, so pretended she did not notice (and left her wedding ring with the man she knew was not her husband) and apparently did not reveal that secret ("hey, that wasn't Jack!") into the public realm throughout the rest of her life. But that's not the "uh oh" reaction I mean. The "uh oh" reaction is the natural question, who is this second person shot and killed at Dealey Plaza distinct from JFK, arrived to and wheeled into Parkland distinct from JFK at close to the same time, then substituted for JFK's body? Well ... drumroll ... after one pays $90 for the two volumes that are promised to deliver the full solution to the JFK assassination, author Fetter says he isn't going to say! But trust him, he has devastating evidence and will reveal that identity in his NEXT book! For THIS book, he asks you to "trust him" that he will prove that in his next book, and then proceeds with the argument in THIS book as if that point is established (because he assures the reader it is proven beyond any shadow of doubt in his NEXT book). I have no idea who Fetter has in mind for the identity of his second fatal shooting victim in Dealey Plaza at the time JFK was shot and killed (he does not mean Connally who was not killed). But he cites one particular claim of evidence for what he says was a switch in bodies coming out of Trauma Room No. 1 at Parkland, and that is what he says is a correct reading of the HSCA testimony of Otis Elevator employee Nathan Pool. Fetter claims Nathan Pool, who was operating the elevator at Parkland, told HSCA that he had a good view of the hallway outside Trauma Room No. 1 through an open door, and saw JFK's body being wheeled on a stretcher with a "purple" covering on top, and that Nathan Pool did not see Jacqueline there when he saw this. Fetter argues that Jacqueline was not there because she was in another room having a cigarette, and that Pool was actually a witness to the switch in bodies, since by that time JFK was supposed to be in the ornate casket, not on a stretcher with a purple covering. The conventional story is that JFK, after last rites and being declared dead, was put into the ornate casket and then that was loaded on to Air Force One, etc. OK, this is a critical claim of an on-the-record (documented HSCA interview) testimony from a witness (Nathan Pool) of something contradicting the official story. But, problem: I cannot find a transcript of that HSCA interview of Nathan Pool anywhere on the internet. Can anyone find a transcript of that HSCA interview? I wonder if Nathan Pool's testimony is being misinterpreted by Fetter. But I am unable to fact-check because I cannot locate the HSCA testimony of Nathan Pool on this point. Thanks if anyone can assist in locating a transcript of Nathan Pool's HSCA interview!

Ron E., see that stripe on the 1962 Thunderbird? If (if) the car seen by mechanic White was, say, the 1962 Thunderbird of Vaganov, that stripe would have been seen. The 1961 Ford Falcons have a similar stripe, as your photos show. But from a check on Google Images--the 1960 Ford Falcons, and the 1962 Ford Falcons, do not have that stripe (although 1963 Ford Falcons do). Is it possible that stripe on a red 1962 Thunderbird could cause mechanic White to pick 1961 (and not 1960 or 1962) as the year of what he retrospectively thought may have been a red Ford Falcon? (Or, maybe it was a red 1961 Ford Falcon.)

Just to be clear, although I think Tippit was looking for Oswald, it is not because of the Edgar Lee Tippit statement, nor do I think the Dallas Police Department ordered Tippit to look for Oswald, nor do I believe the Dallas Police Department was engaged in an attempt to track down and murder Oswald, nor do I believe Mentzel was ordered to look for Oswald or was looking for Oswald different from the known general police response to the assassination. The Edgar Lee Tippit statement I believe was a simple misunderstanding in hearsay transmission. We were looking for the president's killer ... we were looking for Oswald ... easy to substitute one for the other when later describing what happened in retrospect, retelling that description, retransmitted hearsay twice. A secret covert Dallas Police Department plot to kill Oswald in advance of knowing he was the publicly accused assassin? No. And Mentzel covertly part of a secret Dallas Police order to track down Oswald and kill him, covered up--but he told it openly to Marie Tippit who told it openly to Edgar Lee who told it openly to McBride? No, I don't buy that. Its not that anybody was lying. Its not that Edgar Lee Tippit was senile. Its just normal hearsay transmission error, not more complicated than that. Then erroneously interpreted and wrong conclusions drawn from it by McBride. Mentzel, due to freak accident, thinking it could have been him instead of Tippit shot, like anyone wondering if he could have done something differently, wracked with grief, guilt conscience of the survivor, expressing remorse to Marie Tippit... and then those words of grief get all twisted out of its meaning in a conspiracy book. My reason for thinking Tippit was seeking out Oswald--not as certainty but looks like it--is Tippit acting on his own not Dallas Police orders in that search, the search itself based on the behavior reported of Tippit: of the gas station watching; the Top Ten Records stop hurried rush to make a phone call; the sighting of a patrol car honking in front of Oswald's rooming house by Earlene Roberts, blind in one eye and poor vision in the other, seeing the number of the patrol car as "107" as mistake for Tippit's patrol car's actual number, "10" and Tippit's patrol car being about the only patrol car that could be. I put that together with a hunch that Tippit and Oswald knew each other prior to the assassination, but not via any Dallas Police Department conspiracy. That from the witness of waitress Mary Dowling at the Dobbs House Restaurant near Oswald's rooming house saying not only that Oswald drank coffee there mornings but also that Tippit, whom she knew from before, was a regular for early morning coffee too, even though that location was way out of Tippit's way and makes little sense--was there some relationship to Oswald in that coincidence of location and timing? And I believe it was not simply Tippit who was premeditated slated for execution on Nov 22 but Oswald as well in the Texas Theatre--neither of those planned slayings planned or ordered by the Dallas Police Department (then successfully covered up all this time ever since), but both executions intended by killers who, if there were individual police officers involved that was rogue not Department sanctioned. I think the Dallas Police by arresting Oswald on Nov 22 saved Oswald's life from those who were intent on killing him that day, from the same killers of Tippit ("killers" plural even though only one gunman, because the gunman as a contract killer was not acting on his own). And if there was advance intent to kill both Tippit and Oswald the same day by the same killers, the question as always is what was the motive to kill Tippit. And although I know of no evidence for an answer to that question, my default hypothesis is he must have had deadly knowledge of some kind, the same reason key witnesses are often killed, and one possible explanation could be prior interaction with Oswald which he had wittingly or unwittingly leaked or informed to the killers of JFK. It doesn't matter whether this particular tentative take of mine is convincing ... that's not the point. The point is I do not buy into the interpretation McBride presents that you echo above. Just wanted to make that clear, that's all.

Thoughts on Vaganov One hypothetical possibility for identification of the red 1961 Falcon mechanic White said he saw could be Igor Vaganov's 1962 red Thunderbird mistaken by White for a red 1961 Ford Falcon. As has been noted by others, those two makes of cars are similar in appearance and one could imagine one being mistaken for the other. Vaganov came to Dallas arriving about November 11, 1963 from Philadelphia for reasons not well explained. He and his new 18-year old bride whom he married en route on this trip found an apartment only several blocks from the Texas Theatre and the El Chico Restaurant; and on Nov 22, 1963 he left the apartment and was gone with the car from about 12:45 pm until about 2:20 pm, according to his wife who was there when he left and returned. Vaganov was a bit of a strange character, claimed he had mob connections, used aliases, had a criminal record (fraudulent checks). For those not up to speed on Vaganov, here, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16237#relPageId=13, and before that an Esquire article here: https://classic.esquire.com/article/1967/8/1/if-theyve-found-another-assassin-let-them-name-names-and-produce-their-evidence. But there is nothing substantial, except for three possible things, to connect him to Ruby and/or Craford or the death of Tippit or anything else with the events of Nov 22. The first item that looks suspicious is that his longest time of employment while in Dallas was for two days on Nov 20 and Nov 21 when he said he worked at the Consumer Finance Company on Commerce Street. That happens, by coincidence, to have been located on the second floor of the same building where the Carousel Club was located on the third floor. The same building! His employment there is what he told his wife. Apparently the Consumer Finance Company later failed to confirm that he had worked there from records although that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen. And all his other days from Nov 11 to Nov 22 were unaccounted for apart from he would leave in suit and tie at 7:30 am every morning and his wife did not know where he was during those days. Meaning, hypothetically, he could have spent more time in the building where suspected Tippit gunman Curtis Craford lived, than just two days. And the second item is that, just like Curtis Craford, Vaganov too left Dallas on the same morning of Sat Nov 23 to go to a different end of the country. Drove that red Thunderbird by himself straight through to Philadelphia where he parked and garaged it off the street, then bought another car in Philadelphia and drove that other car all the way back to Texas, after spending only ca. 24 hours in Philadelphia to accomplish that. A little odd? Well, he had his reasons when asked. He had a story. It basically hangs together. Jack Ruby had a story too as to why he accidentally without premeditation happened to be in the basement of the Dallas Police station with a gun in his pocket at the right moment to whack Oswald on Sun Nov 24. A lot of people think Jack Ruby's story hung together. And the third item is a report that six months later (after Vaganov was gone from Dallas shortly after Nov 22), clothing of Vaganov was found by law enforcement in a phone booth in Dallas, no further information. Nobody's clothing is abandoned in a phone booth that doesn't call for questioning what that was about. And this is a guy who used aliases and claimed he had mob connections in Pennsylvania; arrived to Oak Cliff from Philadelphia eleven days before the assassination under unusual circumstances; found a place to live within a short walk of the scene of the Tippit killing and the Texas Theatre; hung out in the very building Craford lived in the days immediately prior; has no confirmed alibi between 12:45 and 2:20 pm for him and his red Thunderbird in Oak Cliff on the day in question; and left Dallas after the day of the assassination, after a grand total of eleven days of married life in the greater Dallas area (in Oak Cliff). And he had a red car that could be a candidate for the red car at the El Chico, and some people think he could easily look like Oswald if one had a brief look at him sitting at the driver's wheel of a car. Looks like enough to make him a person of interest. But it is well short of proof of anything. And he did claim an alibi for that hour and a half he was gone from his apartment in Oak Cliff that day. He said he was getting two tires put on his Thunderbird at a gas station around the corner from his apartment, preparatory to what he had told his wife was his intention to drive to Philadelphia on Sat Nov 23. Vaganov claimed he paid for that tire repair with a Texaco credit card, gave his credit card number. The guy who worked at that gas station said he did remember working on some young man's tires that day but could not confirm who it was. Texaco said they were not willing to hunt through their records to check that credit card purchase claim. If he was having tires put on his car, it is a little difficult to connect him to involvement in Tippit or Oswald because how would he know how long it would take to have that work done, pay for it and leave? And would Vaganov have claimed a Texaco credit card purchase, and provided his Texaco credit card number, if there was no such charge on that credit card as claimed? Another detail: author Berendt of the Esquire article said that Vaganov's Thunderbird was white over red, a two-tone. Berendt said this in passing when focusing on whether it could be the red Ford that Benavides said he saw at the Tippit crime scene. According to Berendt, Benavides said the Ford he saw was white over red, and Berendt said that those colors agreed with Vaganov's Thunderbird. Does that exclude Vaganov's Thunderbird from being the "red" car (no white mentioned) seen by mechanic White at the El Chico Restaurant? Probably not, in itself: first, Benavides also just said "red" as the color of the car he saw, in his Warren Commission testimony, indicating calling a white over red two-tone, "red", happened in that case, so could happen in another. And second, I found several errors of simple fact in Berendt's article on other matters, and there is no other claim or corroboration that Vaganov's car had a white top, so it is not entirely clear the Berendt story claim is certainly true. An exculpatory argument for Vaganov that has occurred to me is that nobody whacked Vaganov, which if Vaganov had really been involved in something to do with violence to Tippit or Oswald, almost would be half expected. This might be rendered equivocal however if, say, Vaganov was just sent to Dallas by some mobster in Pennsylvania as a favor to another mobster, without telling Vaganov much about what he would be doing but just to be available or something. When the planned hit of Oswald in the Texas Theatre was foiled (for the moment) by the police arrival and arrest of Oswald, whoever was the driver of the red car seen at the El Chico perhaps was not needed or used that day, and let go. If that red car at the El Chico was, say, Vaganov, not being knowledgeable of anything, there would be little necessity to whack him. And Vaganov agreed to accept money to accompany Berendt to Dallas and be the subject of the feature story in Esquire on the question of whether he was involved in the assassination of JFK or death of Tippit, which all else being equal, sounds more like the response of an innocent man rather than one actually guilty. I don't know what to make of this. I'd say my gut sense at this moment is maybe 55% that he was the driver of the red car at the El Chico following a brief tire installation, and that although he had made contact with Ruby and Craford upon arrival, he, the driver of the red car at the El Chico, was not otherwise involved in the events in Oak Cliff on Nov 22, due to the hit on Oswald intended for that day did not happen. Some mobster back in Philadelphia probably paid him for his troubles anyway, but Vaganov didn't know anything material and nothing further came of it for Vaganov, until people like Fonzi and Salandria and Josiah Thompson in Philadelphia started suspecting he had been involved in the assassination and he became a story. Which fizzled, from lack of evidence that he had done anything. And the part I love is where people who knew him told how he would tell people over to his apartment that he was the Grassy Knoll shooter and show the Esquire article about him as proof!

Tom G. -- taking the license plate number as the unmistaken hard fact, either it was Mather's blue 1957 Plymouth and Mather there, or someone else in a red car with surreptitiously borrowed license plates from Mather's car singled out for that purpose. Either way cries out for explanation and calls into question the conventional narrative of Tippit and the Texas Theatre. Its right there in that link you gave Tom. Look at the top right corner. There you see " '57 Plymouth " followed by some difficult to decipher lettering. Here is a possibly just slightly better image of the same, page 25 here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Gig-Pi9TEQZWh8obarl2tM8s8mOuLjc/view. The lettering in question may read "Four doors" though the quality is so bad it is difficult to be certain. Take a look and see what you think. The line below is the name Carl Amos Mather and the line below that is Mather's street home address. Possibly in favor of the argument that you favor, that it was Mather's blue 1957 Plymouth check this, pp 33-34 at the same link, Moriarty 1978 HSCA interview of Wes Wise: "At this time, his best recollection is that [he] wrote down the tag number + the description of the car at the same time on the same piece of paper (his invitation to speak at the El Chico), but he can't be certain now. This is significant inasmuch as Wise's notes describe a '57 Plymouth---not a red Falcon as previously reported. A 1957 Plymouth is the type of car listed to the tags + was owned by Carl Amos Mather, a friend of J.D. Tippit's + employee of Collins Radio in Richardson, Texas ..." Against that however, apart from Wes Wise's uncertainty on the point, is that if it were written by Wes Wise from mechanic White's description there should have been a color. But you can look at the sheet of Wes Wise's handwriting (either link above) and there is no color of car there. We know Wes Wise was told verbally that it was a red car. But the lack of written color of car indicates--to me--that the "'57 Plymouth Four door" followed by name and address of the registered owner was Wise copying registration information told him over the phone which did not include color of the car. But was "four door" part of what would be included in registration information and not color? I don't know. If not, then that would argue in favor of your 1957 Plymouth coming from mechanic White to Wise that day, notwithstanding that that goes against Wise saying they told him the car was red, and mechanic White himself told the FBI it was a red Ford Falcon. Wise's information came from owner Mack Pate and that seems basically a story of a suspicious red car with a driver his mechanic said looked like Oswald. The mechanic is reluctant to talk but shows Wise the written license plate number. Wise then leaves, makes a phone call and checks the license plate number and learns what car is registered to that license plate and its owner, combines that with the "red" he has been told, reports to the FBI that mechanic White's suspicious car was a red 1957 Plymouth. It was a completely natural and even unconscious conclusion since it probably did not even occur to Wise (as it sounds outlandish to most people) that there could be switching of license plates involved. It does seem puzzling that neither Mack Pate nor mechanic White would mention to Wise the car was a Ford Falcon in addition to being red, or that Wise would not have asked and tried to find out. And yet Wise reports no memory of being told by them that the car was a Ford Falcon or any particular make of car, but does have memory that he was told by at least Mack Pate that the car was "red". Either way--it was either Mather himself with his blue 1957 Plymouth, or a different, non-Mather driver with a red car bearing Mather's license plates--it is just bizarre, and yet if there was no mistake with the license plate number, which there was not, one of those two oddities is correct (and the other incorrect). If the license plate number is correct, what cannot be done is reject both of those alternatives on the grounds that both sound odd. It was one of the two.

I don't know if the conjecture is right, but the point you name here would not oppose it, because suppose Tippit did ask his friend Murray Jackson the dispatcher to assign him to Oak Cliff as a favor, for whatever personal reason. Dispatcher Jackson might combine the instruction to Tippit with some other officer. He would include Tippit in otherwise routine dispatching movements. Your point about the 12:46 being left out of the early Sawyer exhibits because it had a bad look sounds plausible--if Jackson had done so as a personal favor that might not have been wanted to look into too closely if Tippit's reason for the request had not been job-related or was otherwise considered personal or sensitive. Is it possible the 12:46 was missed in the Sawyer transcription for some mundane reason such as the sound quality wasn't clear to the transcriber or something? The two things that look to me like "apparent facts" (meaning looks to be that way) are that Tippit was looking for Oswald in Oak Cliff before it was otherwise known Oswald was in Oak Cliff, and I believe when Tippit went to Tenth and Patton where he was killed it was to meet someone at a certain time in front of a certain address, and he was flagged down upon arrival, lured out of his car and killed, having gone into a trap. Both of those almost necessarily assume it was not random accident that Tippit was assigned to Oak Cliff in the 12:46 assuming the 12:46 is legitimate. Then the question becomes what mechanism accounts for that non-random assignment of Tippit, and the simplest and most economical, that is least complicated, mechanism I see is Tippit asked Murray Jackson to do that. We know Murray Jackson and Tippit went back with history and friendship (Murray Jackson said he became an officer because of Tippit personally) so it is easy to imagine Jackson would do that favor if asked, done in such a way folded into routine police activity (hence naming two officers not just Tippit in that 12:46). Is it technically easily feasible for that 12:46 to have been secondarily dubbed in, an after-the-fact forgery of the dispatcher's instruction, retroactively legitimizing Tippit's presence in Oak Cliff? But whose voice would be used (Jackson's himself witting to the forgery?), and how would it be done in a way that would escape detection?

Tom I know that is one line of interpretation that has been argued, by William Kelly a long time (but see the 2008 update from Kelly noted below), that the "red" was falsely introduced by the FBI secondarily into the FBI's reporting, not from mechanic White. But a number of reasons argue that does not work. First, the "red" is in the original FBI interview writeups of both Wes Wise and mechanic White. Wes Wise must have known of those FBI interview reports because he followed the case for decades after but never claimed that had been added or wrongly attributed to him, and there are multiple reports of Wise in later interviews confirming "red" was what he had been told originally. Wise's position always was that mechanic White had gotten the red color wrong of the car he saw and Wise even speculated maybe mechanic White had been colorblind as the explanation (in a 1992 interview of Wes Wise by William Kelly, https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2019/04/case-study-no-wes-wise.html). And second, Wes Wise's program brochure has handwritten on one side the license plate, which he recopied from mechanic White's written note. The "1957 Plymouth" and Carl Mather's address below it are handwritten together by Wise on the other side, and the best interpretation, based on where it is written on that program brochure, is that that was from Wes Wise's notes from his phone call to find the registered owner. That is, the "1957 Plymouth" written on Wes Wise's brochure was from the phone call Wise made to the Texas public records agency to identify the registration information of the license plate number, the same source of Carl Mather's name and home address written with "1957 Plymouth". The "1957 Plymouth" did not originate from mechanic White or Mack Pate of the garage. It entered the story from the license plate being checked by Wise. Mechanic White in his FBI interview was not inconsistent but continued to tell the FBI, just as he had told his boss Mack Pate and reporter Wise, that the car was red, elaborating to the FBI that he thought it may have been a red 1961 Ford Falcon. There has never been a report of Wes Wise or anyone else protesting that mechanic White never told the FBI that or never claimed it was red. Wes Wise confirmed the sequence was: he gave his talk at the El Chico Restaurant; Mack Pate in the audience told after his talk about his mechanic's sighting of a suspicious red car; Pate introduced reporter Wise to mechanic White; mechanic White told of the suspicious car and showed the written license plate number which Wes Wise hand recopied onto his program brochure; Wes Wise made a phone call (auto license registrations were public records according to Wes Wise, anyone could call and get that information) and found out both the car to which that license number was registered (1957 Plymouth) and the name and address of the owner (Carl Mather, street address in Garland), both of which Wes Wise wrote together on his program brochure separately from where he had written the license plate number; Wes Wise notified the FBI, all the same day. At James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (2008), p. 461 n. 464 appears this footnote: "Mack Pate identified the vehicle T.F. White had spotted in the El Chico parking lot as a 1961 red Falcon in his October 10, 1989, interview with Gary Shaw and Bill Pulte." All primary and interview accounts have Mack Pate also, not just mechanic White, having said and believing it was a red car and it seems Mack Pate saw the car himself. The language in James Douglass's own 2005 interview of Wes Wise (pp. 294-95), of Pate returning to his garage after lunch, White telling him about the suspicious red car across the street, Pate telling White to keep an eye on it, then White walking across to get the license plate, sounds like Mack Pate also saw the car, which Mack Pate told reporter Wes Wise had been a red car. In 2012 William Kelly changed from his former interpretation that the "red" originated with an FBi alteration of the story. Kelly replaced it with a reconstruction that the red 1961 Falcon idea was still mistaken but had originated from the garage after all, from owner Mack Pate--because Mack Pate told that when he was told of the suspicious car by his mechanic when he returned from lunch, he, Mack Pate, had immediately thought of a news report he had heard within the previous day of a suspicious red Falcon sighted in Houston in connection with JFK's stop in Houston the previous day (here: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/03/red-1961-ford-falcon.html). Kelly continued to believe the red was in error and that the car was really the blue 1957 Plymouth of Mather. Kelly does not explain in his update how he interprets the mechanic White FBI interview in which White said the car was red and he thought it was a Ford Falcon, not a blue Plymouth. Also, Kelly states or assumes that Mack Pate never saw the car himself (he has to assume that to have the car be a blue Plymouth), but that does not agree with the sequence related by Wes Wise from Mack Pate in which the car was across the street when Mack Pate returned from lunch and mechanic White told him of it. Owner Pate would have looked himself and there is nothing that says he did not. Finally by Mack Pate's own account it makes sense that the reason he thought of a suspicious red Falcon in Houston is because the suspicious car across the street was red, not a blue Plymouth. If it was a blue Plymouth, why would Pate mentally associate it with a red Falcon in Houston? Kelly relies on Wes Wise's story, as told to the FBI that day according to his interview report (and by Wes Wise thereafter), that Mack Pate told him of his employee having seen a red 1957 Plymouth. I interpret that as Wes Wise had his story slightly mixed up on that, mixing the two things, the red color of the car told to him by Mack Pate (and probably by mechanic White), and the "1957 Plymouth" he obtained not from them but from the phone call to trace the license plate. There never was any "red 1957 Plymouth" claim from Mack Pate's garage. There was no "1957 Plymouth" claim from Mack Pate's garage. When reporter Wise was told the license plates went to Carl Mather's 1957 Plymouth, he did not learn the car color because that was not part of the information he received. Since Wise had been told by Pate and White of the garage that the suspicious car with those plates had been "red", Wise concluded (mistakenly) that the suspicious car he had been told by Mack Pate and mechanic White had been a red 1957 Plymouth. But that was erroneous. It was red but not a Plymouth of which mechanic White and Mack Pate of the garage spoke. Mechanic White said so in his FBI interview; it is a fact that the 1957 Plymouth was blue not red; and all parties were consistent from day one through all the decades to follow that the claim at the Mack Pate garage was of a red car, which because of that color was not Carl Mather's car, even though it bore Carl Mather's license plates. The car was either the red 1961 Ford Falcon mechanic White thought it was or some red car similar in appearance to that model and make, but it was red because both Pate and White said it was unwaveringly, never said otherwise. I do not think the FBI materially fabricated elements in their interviews of Wes Wise or mechanic White. The "red" is established independent of those FBI interviews and it does not make sense that the FBI was doing other than reporting on the "red" and make and model from mechanic White. Suppose the red car was a "hot" (stolen) "mob" car and was slated for some use in either the Tippit killing or an intended Oswald killing in the Texas Theatre that day, on a day when Tippit's (and Oswald's) killers had learned Mather was scheduled to meet Oswald in the Theatre at say 3 pm. Suppose a killing of Oswald in that theater had gone forward and a red getaway car was seen and its license plate reported. Mather would have become a false suspect in the Oswald killing (which did not succeed that day). Switching license plates, then switching them back after Nov 22, is not so hard to do, even if illegal: just follow the car until it parks and the driver is gone from the car for some errand. All it takes is a few minutes, switch the plates, the driver returns to the car and drives away, never notices. Its either mechanic White and his boss Pate wrongly thought a blue 1957 Plymouth was a red 1961 Ford Falcon; there was a mistake in the copying of the license plate number; or the plates were switched.

Well i agree Bowley was on the radio, am not disputing that.

The basic possibilities I see for that 12:46 transmission ordering Tippit into the Oak Cliff area are (less likely) it was retroactively fabricated and dubbed in, for motive of justifying Tippit's presence there so as to preserve the good name of both the DPD and Tippit (and possibly preserve Mrs. Tippit's right to a pension). Or (more likely), Tippit has asked his friend, the dispatcher, to assign him to Oak Cliff that day for some personal reason of Tippit's own, and the dispatcher complies, favor to a friend (doesn't need to know why and doesn't ask why). Of course there is a third possibility, that the dispatcher gave that 12:46 transmission for routine reasons of having Oak Cliff covered. Is it possible the witnessed visit of Tippit to the Top Ten Records store from where he made phone calls, said to be around 1 pm, occurred just before 12:46 and the 12:46 transmission was responsive to Tippit's request in that phone call?

UPDATE How the article was wrong I have removed the article from my website. Although there was no mistake on the license plate number, and there is no mistake that that license plate was registered to Carl Mather of Collins Radio Co., friend of Tippit murdered that day, I believe I got wrong other key points in that paper. Specifically: Got the car wrong. The paper argued the car was the blue 1957 Plymouth of Carl Mather's to which the license plate was registered, and argued that that overrode mechanic White's reporting that the car was a red car of a different make (1961 Ford Falcon). In fact the car was a red car, had to be. Mechanic White said it was and would hardly have gotten that wrong. Furthermore, reporter and later Dallas mayor Wes Wise confirmed he was told from the outset that the car was red by Mack Pate, the owner of the garage and mechanic White's employer, and it is implied that Mack Pate also had personally seen and confirmed the car was red. Therefore, there was no mistake on either the license plate number or the difference in color and make of the car. Both are facts. The car was not the car legally attached to that license plate. The license plate went to Carl Mather, but the car was not Carl Mather's. Got the timing wrong. In the paper I accepted 2:00 pm based on that time estimate from mechanic White plus linkage to the time of arrest of Oswald causing a missed meeting with Oswald in the Texas Theatre. But a criticism from a commentator named "NoTrueFlags" hit home to me. He said the timing of my article was wrong because of the linkage of the suspicious car's activity to police sirens, which were active in the ca. 1:20 to 1:40 pm range, whereas there is no reason there would be sirens at 2:00. I believe that criticism is correct. Both mechanic White and Mack Pate told of police sirens, and the suspicious car's actions as in response to those sirens. Also, I noticed from later interviews of Wes Wise by William Kelly and James Douglass that mechanic White told his boss, Mack Pate, about the suspicious car when Pate returned from lunch, which was before mechanic White crossed the street and got the license plate number. The detail of Mack Pate's return from lunch is not time-stamped, but 2:00 sounds a little later than most people have lunch, 1:30 not so much. Probably got the purpose of the car being there wrong. In the paper I linked Oswald inside the theater looking to meet someone, with Mather in the car waiting or "killing time" in a nearby parking lot for a scheduled time of a meeting in the theater with Oswald. That Oswald inside the theater was there to meet someone is not changed (the witness of Jack Davis), but the suspicious car at the El Chico Restaurant as the other half of that expected meeting no longer makes good sense. The accounts of Wise, Pate, and White are of police sirens and a red car at high speed which went past the El Chico Restaurant on Davis, then returned and pulled in to the El Chico, but did not park normally but unusually behind a billboard or sign looking like the driver and car were hiding. A leisurely waiting for a scheduled meeting still an hour or so away would not involve driving at high speed or parking suddenly and abnormally. And finally, may have gotten the driver of the car wrong. With the first point establishing that the car was not Carl Mather's (even though the license plate was), the timing being earlier than Oswald's arrest, and the behavior of the car being strange--these severely call into question that the driver was Carl Mather. The one detail about the driver is mechanic White thought it was Oswald from a look at his face, which since it was not Oswald means it was someone who looked enough like Oswald to be mistaken for Oswald. I thought the photo of Carl Mather qualified as satisfying that description, but the weak point is there are other possibilities for mistaken identifications of Oswald, so the driver's identity is indecisive, and is not assuredly Mather. It is difficult to imagine why, if it was Carl Mather, he would intentionally switch a license plate from his own car to someone else's borrowed car, then drive that borrowed car with his license plate on it which would trace back to him if it were seen (not to mention it being illegal to do so). The conclusion is the driver was probably someone other than Mather and that the bewilderment of Carl and Barbara Mather may be genuine. It does remain however to explain why their license plate was on a different car in Oak Cliff on the day their friend Tippit was murdered. REVISED ARGUMENT The sighting of Carl Mather's license plate in Oak Cliff on Nov 22, 1963 as evidence of a criminal conspiracy in the murder of Officer Tippit The license plate number seen by mechanic White was no mistake and is overlooked evidence of the existence of a criminal conspiracy in the death of officer Tippit and likely intent to kill of Oswald the same day in the Texas Theatre. The logic is this. The license plate number is no mistake. The plates go to a blue 1957 Plymouth belonging to Carl Mather of Collins Radio. Yet the red car seen by mechanic White was not Carl Mather’s car. Someone surreptitiously took the license plates from Carl Mather’s blue 1957 Plymouth, replaced them with some other plates on that 1957 Plymouth such that the Mathers did not notice, and put Mather’s plates on a different red car, the car that was seen in Oak Cliff by mechanic White. There is no rational reason why Mather would do that himself, if he were the driver of the red car. Therefore Mather was not the driver and was unwitting to the use of his license plates in that manner. The red car with Mather’s license plates then was used for some purpose in Oak Cliff on Nov 22, 1963. At some point between Nov 22 and Dec 4, 1963, the license plates registered to Carl Mather's car were surreptitiously replaced back on Mather’s blue 1957 Plymouth, to be seen correctly on that car by the FBI on Dec 4. Whatever the purpose of having those plates on the red car on Nov 22 was no longer operable after Nov 22 or soon after Nov 22. The choice to surreptitiously appropriate use of license plates from a car of Carl Mather was made in advance of Nov 22. From this it may be concluded that the ones who appropriated those license plates knew of the Mather connection with Tippit, knew that Tippit was slated to be killed, and were party to the killing of Tippit. That is why the Mather connection to Tippit revealed by that license plate number on the day Tippit was killed is not coincidence. Oswald went to the Texas Theatre to meet someone there. The identity of the person he was to meet is not known. There is no reason to suppose Carl Mather was in Oak Cliff that day until he and Barbara and their children drove to the home of Mrs. Tippit late that afternoon to console her following her husband’s murder. It is possible to conjecture a three-way nexus between Carl Mather of Collins Radio, officer Tippit, and Oswald. The Mather-Tippit connection is clear. Oswald may be speculated to have a possible Collins Radio connection as a possible outgrowth of his earlier contact with retired Navy admiral and Collins vice-president Bruton, and more recently Oswald’s anticipation of possible employment at Collins Radio. Three things may suggest a relationship of Tippit and Oswald: first, they both patronized the same restaurant for coffee on workday mornings, the Dobbs House near Oswald’s rooming house but abnormally out of the way for Tippit; second, it may have been Tippit's patrol car which honked its horn in front of Oswald's rooming house at 1:00 pm Nov 22 looking for him; and third, both Tippit and Oswald were arguably slated to be killed by the same people on Nov 22. A notebook carried on the person of Ruby employee Craford—the suspected gunman in the Tippit killing--had written on one page two items. The first was: “Mr. Miller Friday 15 people Collins Radio Co.” That may be speculated to be a cryptic reference to Oswald’s planned meeting in the Texas Theatre on Nov 22: Mr. Mather, Fri Nov 22, 15 o’clock/3 pm, Collins Radio. The second item on that page reads in full: “Cody—City Hall”. That reference would be to Dallas Police officer Joe Cody, who according to his account in Sneed’s No More Silence was up to his ears with Ruby. The very gun that Ruby used to kill Oswald on Sunday morning Nov 24 did not belong to Ruby but was registered to Joe Cody who had bought it and given it to Ruby. (What are police friends for?) Cody was scheduled to be a character witness for Ruby in Ruby’s trial for the murder of Oswald. It is tempting to speculate that both of those references in Craford’s personal notepad, carried on his person wherever he went, could be information relevant to the killers in Oak Cliff of Nov 22. The killing of Tippit may have been carried out by Craford. The killing of Oswald may have been intended to be carried out also by Craford if that intention had not been interrupted by Oswald’s arrest. Craford fled Dallas the next day, and the day after that Craford’s boss, Ruby, killed Oswald. The killers of Tippit who also intended to kill Oswald had the use of a red car of unknown origin and unidentified purpose, and there was an unidentified driver of it, seen in the El Chico Restaurant parking lot by mechanic White perhaps in the ca. 1:30 to 1:45 pm time range on Nov 22. The identity of the driver of that red car is not known. Mechanic White thought he looked like Oswald but that could be true of a number of men. Although identifications of the red car and its driver—and knowledge of its intended purpose that day—are unknown, the non-innocent and non-mistaken presence on that red car of the license plates of Carl Mather, friend of officer Tippit killed the same hour that red car was seen, is evidence of the existence of a criminal conspiracy underlying the killing of Tippit and likely intended of Oswald that day, and that that car and its driver were involved.

Thanks David for this fuller form of the CBS interview, appreciated. I have listened to that radio call with Bowley at the mike after Benavides' attempt, and I remember hearing a couple of voices in the background, who must have been standing right next to Bowley, including what sounded to me like a woman's voice. I have wondered if that was Helen Markham. In which case that would be true, "they heard me".

Just to be accurate, it is not clear that Helen Markham claimed or thought she had actually SEEN Tippit roll down the window. She claimed that Tippit had done so but said she thought Tippit must have done so on the basis of reasoning—he must have because she saw the killer talking to Tippit through that window. In fact the killer was speaking through the open vent window with the main window rolled up. By contrast, she did claim to have SEEN the killer with his arms up and hands clasped and on the patrol car as he leaned in to talk there. She claimed to have seen that within minutes to officers who responded to the scene, and never wavered on that claim. She was filmed on WFAA-TV at 1:35 pm telling and gesturing to officers what she had seen of that. I am amazed at your claim, not simply phrased as a conjectured possibility, but of possession of actual knowledge as if you know, that Helen Markham did not see what she said she saw, even though fingerprints were found in agreement with what Helen Markham said she saw: Such certainty in expressing your claim to knowledge of the opposite of what Helen Markham said she saw on that point, Bill! What is your reason for certainty of that negative? Isn’t it true your reason is because you believe on other grounds that Oswald was the killer, and therefore (by reasoning) you have concluded it is certain he did not leave the fingerprints which since 1998 are known not to have been left by Oswald? It’s no crime to say so if that is your reason. Or is it something else? Would you say your basis for your certainty?