3 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

I see Mr. Johnson with a hammer

You're right Tony, corrected, thanks.

The need to revisit how and when the rifle on the 6th floor of the TSBD got there, in light of accumulating reason to conclude Oswald did not bring a rifle from Irving to the TSBD on Friday morning, Nov 22, 1963.

The timeline of Oswald in three days of Nov 20-22, 1963, make excellent sense interpreted as an immediate response to an urgent priority situation--the curtain rod with curtains in his room had collapsed and and crashed to the floor and it was not simply out of the goodness of Oswald's heart that he wished to remedy or repair that, it may have been an issue of discomfort being in that room without closed curtains, something he wanted fixed now.

Wed eve Nov 20, it is independently known that Oswald was at a nearby laundromat until closing time, Sleight's Speed Wash, 1101 N. Beckley, witnessed reading magazines there, not getting back to his room in the rooming house that night until after midnight (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=570).

Oswald probably was doing laundry, no reason to doubt that, but all night? Well maybe, it would be nice if we knew what needed washing, unknown. Or was he in addition to doing some laundry just hanging out there, caught up in reading something in a magazine, preferring to be there as long as he could until he was told it was closing and he had to go? Could there also be a factor that he did not enjoy being in his room at night without the curtains closed?

The curtain rod crashing issue was so urgent Oswald for the first time did not appear at work at the TSBD on time at 8:00 am on Thu Nov 21. It does not matter that his timesheet at TSBD shows him working the full day that day. (I believe his time sheet also showed he worked a full 8 hours on Fri Nov 22 which also was incorrect.) There was no time-clock and unless someone proactively brought to attention of the TSBD time-records man that someone was missing, their normal times would be written in. And a factor working in Oswald's favor is that he was otherwise extremely reliable and punctual such that that kind of behavior and track record develops trust.

I have heard baseball stories of umpires becoming so familiar with a certain major league hitter who never swung at a pitch thrown that was a "ball" that they would call a close one influenced by whether that hitter had swung or not, because of that track record. The point being, Oswald could well have been late on Thu Nov 21 and not noticed, or even if Shelley or someone remembered they did notice wondering where he was they would assume he was there somewhere because he always was. 

And the evidence Oswald did not go to work on time on Thu Nov 21 is substantial.

• a witness report from his waitress for breakfast at the Dobbs House Restaurant
• credible report that Oswald bought tickets to the Dick Clark Show at the Top Ten Record store on Jefferson in Oak Cliff on what must have been the morning of Thu Nov 21 (since the morning of Fri Nov 22 of the later memory/hearsay report is not possible as to the time, and human errors in memory of which calendar days are common in otherwise truthful witness accounts).
• a driver reported picking up Oswald hitchhiking on the Thornton Expressway from the N. Beckley entrance, driving him to Houston Street across from the TSBD in Dealey Plaza, letting him off carrying a 3-4 foot package that the driver was reported to have said Oswald said was "window shades". There certainly was a hitchhiker because Ralph Yates, the driver, told a coworker, Dempsey Jones, of picking up that hitchhiker before the assassination, as confirmed by that coworker. Ralph Yates identified the hitchhiker unequivocally as Oswald on the basis of photos. Although Yates himself was uncertain from his memory whether the hitchhiker was Wed Nov 20 or Thu Nov 21, in either case at ca. 10:30 AM pickup, the FBI found company records establishing that it was certainly Thursday Nov 21, not Wednesday, as to the date. And the timing and points of pickup and dropoff match Oswald. The "fantastic" elements in Yates' story of what was discussed by the hitchhiker are explicable in terms of Yates' disturbed mental condition and Yates' explicit clarifications retracting most of those elements in a following FBI interview, but the hitchhiker's existence itself and his identity as Oswald stands, without anything incriminating Oswald in the assassination in Oswald's actual conversation with driver Yates properly understood. Furthermore, Yates submitted voluntarily to a polygraph which found no intentional deception (though the polygraph administrator claimed the results showing no lying were useless as opposed to establishing truthfulness).

 From the FBI report of Dempsey Jones, Yates' coworker, whom Yates told about his hitchhiker before the assassination:

"Jones said Yates told him he had picked up a boy in Oak Cliff and took this boy to Houston and Elm in Dallas. Yates said this boy had a package not described at that time, but after the death of the President, Yates described the package as a 'long package' and then on telling the facts over again, Yates said this man told him it was some window shades he was carrying for the company he (the man) had made." (FBI, Nov 27, 1963, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=425)

Then upon getting to and starting work at the TSBD late that morning, estimate somewhere in the 10:30 am to 11:00 am range the morning of Thu Nov 21, Oswald first opportunity finds Buell Frazier and lines up a ride to Irving that evening after work. (Buell Frazier said Oswald asked him that in the morning of that day.)

Oswald goes to Irving Thursday night, returns Fri morning Nov 22 to work at TSBD with Buell Frazier, with curtain rods, and intent to deliver both the fabric material and the curtain rods to the seamstress across the street in the Dal-Tex building that afternoon.

If Oswald's actions to get new curtains began immediately following the time of crashing of the curtain rod in his room to the floor, the following line up to show Oswald was minimizing time spent in his room in evenings until he could get new curtains installed:

• Wednesday night, Nov 20--Oswald spends the entire evening until midnight in a laundromat reading before forced to go home when it closed.
• Thursday night, Nov 21--Oswald is not in his room at N. Beckley at all, is in Irving
• Friday night, Nov 22--if the assassination had not interrupted things, there is every reason to suppose Oswald would have anticipated having his new curtains ready by the end of that day or perhaps a half-hour or hour later, ca. 5-6 pm, ready to be taken back with him by bus to Oak Cliff and he would be in his room with closed curtains again as preferred. 

And although the major objection to this scenario is the overwhelming juggernaut of belief that Oswald carried a rifle in from Irving the morning of Fri Nov 22, and not curtain rods, that belief becomes very equivocal in light of research I separately and newly showed in 2023 which establishes that Lee and Marina removed the rifle from the Ruth Paine garage on Mon Nov 11--eleven days before the assassination--and took it to where Lee repaired a damaged scope base installation in order to prepare that rifle for disposition. That study establishes that the rifle was in Ruth Paine's garage up to Mon Nov 11, but that there is no evidence that rifle was in Ruth Paine's garage, or in Oswald's possession, after Mon Nov 11 (https://www.scrollery.com/?page_id=1581).

Therefore, since there is evidence Oswald did take curtain rods from Irving with him to the location of his workplace on the morning of Fri Nov 22 for reasons discussed, and since there is no evidence of any direct kind that Oswald brought a rifle in from Irving on the morning of Fri Nov 22--the issue of when and how the rifle found on the 6th floor of the TSBD got there, and whether Oswald was involved in putting it there, must be revisited.

That is the modest conclusion here.

Tom G. I continue to think about this and how it might have worked. If Oswald had been quoted a low price at the time he checked to see if a seamstress at McKeel Sportswear could fix some curtains for him, and had left Irving on the morning of Nov 22 with $15.20 in his pocket, and the charge was not much, he could have afforded the charge out of the $7.20 remaining after allowing for paying the Monday room rent. Suppose he normally did cash transference and counting with Marina when he visited, and the usual thing Oswald did was take $15.00. Taking the same amount on Fri Nov 22 would be in keeping with the other indications that he was for some reason keeping the curtains work secret from Ruth and Marina. Ruth, because if Ruth knew it would get back to Marina. Marina, because of another woman in the picture. Lee does not keep it secret from Buell Wesley Frazier because Buell is not in contact with Ruth and Marina. Lee does not keep it secret from a ride picking him up hitchhiking. Marina is the object of the concealment.

What Lee did not tell Marina:

• that he needed and was getting curtains made because the curtains at his room had crashed and fallen down, and he had no curtains
• that he was having the curtains he needed, made up by a seamstress at McKeel Sportswear near his workplace (rather than telling his need to Marina or Ruth)
• that he bought tickets to a Dick Clark show to happen on the upcoming weekend that he had arranged (via going out to Irving Thursday night unexpectedly) to be in Oak Cliff by himself alone, the weekend of Nov 23-24--and those Dick Clark tickets were not for Marina
• that he had taken off his wedding ring, hidden it, and was no longer wearing it
• that he took two of Ruth's curtain rods out of Ruth's garage where Marina was living without permission (that would have been objectionable to Marina if she had known).

Especially since this occurs following turndowns by Marina to an unexpected request by Lee that Marina move in to an apartment with him that very weekend, perhaps interpreted by Lee as refusing to reunite as a family. Some men will provoke an argument or a breakup precipitously with one woman in order to be able to tell the new woman that the first woman is history, so that the second woman may be less reluctant to go out with him. Was something like that occurring here?

If Oswald was anticipating a small charge--and you are right, if the woman at McKeel had the fabric and the curtain rods and the measurements needed (all provided to her by Oswald) it could be done in a few minutes with a sewing machine, say on her own after work that day right there using a McKeel sewing machine if no one was noticing, for the small amount of cash she would earn for the few minutes--not a high charge?--with luck she could have that done by 5:30 pm Fri and Lee would have curtains on his windows by Friday night? Or if she offered to do that for him for free, either way, Oswald might not leave Irving with more than his usual $15.00 in bills to avoid appearing unusual to Marina or needing to come up with some other explanation to Marina of why he was taking more money than normal. Simpler for Lee to just keep it at $15.00 and not raise any question in the first place?

Put these two facts together:

• Lee tells Buell Wesley Frazier Marina is making him some new curtains
• Lee never told Marina anything about curtains

Then these:

• The need of Oswald for curtains was not fictitious but real, from Nov 23 photos showing landlord and landlady Mr. and Mrs. Johnson hammering what had been a crashed super-long curtain rod on the floor of Oswald's room, back up with nails and hammer. A photo showing Mr. Johnson standing on the bed, hammer in hand, nailing that visible bent curtain rod back up.
• 
• 
•  It was not up before that morning of Nov 23! And if Oswald was fixing it himself, which he was, without telling her or housekeeper Earlene what he was doing, no wonder Mrs. Johnson did not know why that bent curtain was inoperable, assumed mistakenly that either police or reporters had wrecked her curtain rod. But it doesn't matter what Mrs. Johnson's speculation was as to responsibility for the curtain rod being wrecked instead of nailed at the top of the windows. What matters is that that was the case, and the timing (that curtain rod had come down some time recently before the morning of Nov 23).
• the unrefuted (and uninvestigated) hearsay in an FBI report that some seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear in the Dal-Tex building knew Oswald, ate at the same lunch place with him and spoke Spanish with him.
• Oswald was separately reported bringing curtain materials to the location of his workplace, not any other destination, at the time that he needed curtain repair at his room on N. Beckley.
• Oswald's unusual spontaneous Thursday night trip to Irving, said to Buell Frazier to be for the purpose of picking up curtains Marina was making him (news to Marina).
• Oswald's unexplained buying of tickets to a Dick Clark rock n' roll show for the weekend of Nov 23-24, a kind of music and a way of spending money Lee never did before, a weekend when he was unusually in Oak Cliff on his own--and those tickets were not for Marina.
• Oswald's secrecy about all this to Marina.
• Oswald secretly taking off and no longer wearing his wedding ring when he went back in to Dallas to his workplace as of Fri morning Nov 22, unknown to Marina.
• Oswald taking 2 (or 3?) curtain rods out of Ruth's garage (leaving 2 remaining in the garage, none in use) without Ruth's knowledge or permission--this by Lee who was not otherwise a thief and over a minor item which in all likelihood Ruth would have freely given him if asked--Lee not saying a word to Marina or Ruth about it.

What does that look like? 

If Marina had known these things, what would any woman think?

Then juxtapose these two:

• no evidence Lee was told or knew that he was suspected of having brought a rifle to work that morning from Irving in the car with Buell Frazier
• Lee denied to Captain Fritz with the FBI et al looking on, when asked, that he had brought a package of curtain rods with him, and denied that he had told Buell Frazier that. Not just one, but both of those denials were untrue--he had brought curtain rods and he had told Buell Frazier that.

He covers it up with Fritz under interrogation not because the curtain rods were untrue but because he has no idea it is an issue in his case and it involves a possible private relationship with another woman (also conceivably: if Oswald knew the seamstress was doing the job for him for cash for herself on work time off the books, if Oswald told the truth he could get that woman in trouble with her employer).

When I was a kid I was riding with my father in a car and my father accidentally rear-ended a car in front of him, my father the driver at fault, the car in front innocent. No one was injured. Immediately the passenger door of the car in front opened and I and my father saw two young women run out of the car and disappear. After a few minutes the police arrived to make a report. We all overheard, I did too, I was standing there, the officer ask the driver of the car in front, a man, if there had been any passengers in the car with him at the time of the collision. The man said no, he had been alone in the car. My father did not contradict him, answered the questions the officer asked him, and the report was resolved otherwise routinely, with my father's insurance covering the claim for the damage.

That man driving the car in front, innocent in the collision, lied to that officer about being alone in his car. He denied and did not tell of the two women passengers who were actually in the car with him, who would have been named and gone into that police report if he had answered truthfully.

Something similar to Lee denying to Captain Fritz that he had taken curtain rods from Irving to his workplace the morning of Nov 22, I suspect. Another way to look at it than the interpretation of the Warren Commission and a majority of researchers.

More on the Dick Clark show possible date

Still thinking ... frugal Oswald did not have a track record of giving gratuities. He did not offer Buell Frazier gas money. Cab driver Whaley was miffed at Oswald's stingy tip of only a nickel on a $0.95 fare. There is no known gift he gave Ruth Paine for her hospitality in hosting him in his visits those weekends. 

Therefore the notion of the seamstress offering to prepare his curtains for free and he on his own giving two tickets as a gift for her and her husband does not quite work in terms of Oswald's track record.

But suppose the seamstress offered to do it for free, which might happen if she hoped to get to know him better. In this narrative what might she have seen in him to want to get to know him better? Was it that he spoke Spanish, which could prompt asking him how many languages he knew, and being impressed that he knew Russian and had been to Russia? Or had been to Japan? Or that he had just taken a trip in Mexico and told a couple sights he had seen? Could be anything.

So that could account for Lee not bringing additional funds from Irving with him to pay for curtains which all of his other activity showed gathering curtain materials in the vicinity of Lee's TSBD workplace for a true curtains need of Lee. 

Then on the Dick Clark Show tickets, because it is not such a common thing (as in, no known example) for Oswald to on his own initiative buy gifts at financial cost to give as gratuities or thank-yous to others ... and yet Oswald did buy tickets to a popular music event happening that weekend not of the kind of music of Oswald's taste ... that returns to the possibility that Oswald did buy those tickets with the possibility of a date in mind with her.

And the cost of the tickets came out of his money Thursday morning Nov 21 before he went to Irving Thursday evening. If on Friday afternoon he suggested she see the Dick Clark show with him on Saturday and perchance she said yes, he would probably be looking at some additional expense for coffee or ice cream afterward but that need not be much.

The FBI reports list the three women of McKeel's of the parking lot sighting with all of their names being "Mrs." Of course whether those were exactly the same Spanish-speaking women from McKeel's that Oswald was said in the unrebutted hearsay to have known at the lunch place is not known. Maybe there was another seamstress of McKeel's at the lunch place who was not married and it was she who offered to fix Lee's curtains, and there was no husband issue of Lee inviting her to see the Dick Clark show. Or alternatively, conceivably one of the married women by name was separated and Lee knew that, whatever. 

There is the fact calling for explanation--Oswald bought either one or two tickets to a music event totally out of character for Oswald, for a weekend on which he was unusually on his own and not in Irving, the weekend following an intended Friday afternoon meeting with a Spanish-speaking seamstress at McKeel's who was going to fix up his curtains. (And on the one or two tickets, one ticket for Oswald to music not of his interest makes no sense; two tickets for a hoped-for date makes better sense.)

The seamstress would know Lee was married, because up to that point Lee had worn his wedding ring. All the Spanish-speaking women who knew Lee at the lunch place would have noticed the wedding ring.

We might imagine Lee anticipating possible resistance from the seamstress of his interest over that issue: "Oh Lee, that's very sweet of you but you're married and I don't go out with married men."

To which we might imagine Lee, anticipating that Friday afternoon encounter which was never to happen, not wearing his wedding ring, telling her that while it was true he was married, his wife had broken up with him (a certain spin of Lee's on Marina's refusing to reunite with him in getting the apartment). And hoping, just hoping, that she might reconsider, what harm in going to see Dick Clark (whose music she loved) ... 

And who knows.

But it was not to be. An assassination of a president got in the way of that narrative.

Gerry Down yes, on your good point of no ejected shell hull expected from a single shot fired from a bolt-action rifle. 

The absence of a hull actually could be an additional weak argument in agreement with Oswald’s rifle being the weapon that fired, in that hull-ejecting firearms might be excluded.

I suggested Surrey, who I am convinced unappreciated evidence shows was at the location from which the shot was fired when it was fired (or very close by at most), could have picked it up. Against that is the common sense of the shooter (and accomplices if any) leaving instantaneously rather than lingering at the location, on the other hand if Surrey was there and took a split second to retrieve it from the ground before leaving, maybe? … but probably simpler there just was no ejected hull. 

23 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

$13.87 in 1963 is like $130 today. Wouldn’t that have been plenty for a pair of curtains? 

Well there’s $8.00 weekly room rent at Beckley due Monday Nov 25, and he has to buy lunch meat and milk for his room, sandwiches and cokes at work … unless we knew the dates he was paid in cash from TSBD, biweekly in cash (at @1.25hr that would be ca $100 cash minus taxes) … but I have searched on MFF and cannot find the pay dates (can you?).

If he knew the charge was going to be nominal like $1.00 or so, maybe, but it would seem he would bring more cash as a cushion if he anticipated paying for anything unusual in the next week or so. One thing to consider is it’s not like us if we run short just go to the cash machine or pull out a credit card. Oswald had no bank account, it was all cash, and their savings (all cash) were in Marina’s room in Irving. If Oswald were to run out of cash he would be stuck until his next TSBD biweekly pay or trip to Irving whichever came first. 

Update

A problem: when Oswald was arrested he only had $13.87 in his pocket, and no money found in his room at N. Beckley. About $180 in cash was with Marina in her room in Irving. That was their bank. As I have previously reconstructed it Oswald would take all the cash from his biweekly cash payments at TSBD (paid in cash: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1139#relPageId=724) to Marina each weekend, leave all but $15.00 of it with her, and return with $15.00 for the days in between until his next visit, which would be $8.00 paid out for his weekly room rent payable on Mondays, and leaving $7.00 for food until he returned the next weekend. The $13.87 found on Oswald's person at the time of his arrest fits this reconstruction (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29963-finish-the-sentence-re-tippit/page/5/).

Would Lee have money to pay the seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear to fix his curtains, if that was his intent?

So ... modify that narrative?

Possible modified narrative: the Dick Clark tickets as gratuity not for a date

Assume Lee knows the women at the lunch place. He knows them well enough to ask about his curtains need.

Suppose he broke or rather bent into unusability the super-long curtain rod in his room on Tuesday night. On Wednesday he asks the women of McKeel if they could fix up some new individual window curtains for him and asked how much it would cost.

Imagine one of the women says they don't really do that work at McKeel Sportswear but she will do it for him for free at home on her own sewing machine or else at McKeel's after hours.

The seamstress explains what she needs from Lee: fabric, curtain rods, and measurements. She tells him she will be glad to do that for him, and he can pick it up from her in the Dal-Tex building after she has it completed and ready for him.

Oswald is touched by that kindness. This is the solution to his curtains problem.  

The Dick Clark Show tickets that he buys early the next morning, Thu Nov 21, then, might not be for a date of Oswald with her.

Instead it might be his payment or gesture of appreciation to her for her kindness in fixing his curtains for free.

Somehow Oswald, who has no interest in Dick Clark music himself, may have learned from her, something that she said, that she likes Dick Clark.

Oswald goes to the Top Ten Records Thu Nov 21, buys first one ticket for her. (Every penny matters to Lee.) Then (per the Jefferson Street retail store hearsay) he was said to have returned back to the store a second time and bought a second ticket. The buying the second ticket could be so she could go with her husband or with a girlfriend, or was it Oswald hoping to attend with her?

The Dick Clark show, early 1960's rock n' roll and popular, was not Oswald's known taste in music, which was Russian opera and classical. 

The wedding ring again

If Oswald met the Spanish-speaking women of McKeel's in a lunch place on previous occasions they would have noticed his wedding ring.

Therefore, Oswald coming in to work to the TSBD on Fri Nov 22 without wearing a wedding ring does not seem it can have been for purpose of concealment to those woman that he was married.

The wedding ring left in Marina's room in this narrative would be not because he was going to kill Kennedy or was saying goodby because he was leaving Dallas, but maybe because Lee had decided he no longer wanted to be seen publicly as married.

We only have Marina's version of her turndown of Oswald Thu night Nov 21 to what she described as his three times earnest appeals that they find an apartment together that weekend.

Marina's objection, "no, maybe after the holidays!" ... could be Marina language for "no", she was happy in Irving for the time being with another woman for support with a small child and baby and had no intention of moving into an apartment with Lee into a situation of isolation and poverty ... even though that was the supposed game-plan and supposed to be the denouement of their temporary living apart for financial reasons. Imagine that is how Lee understand that from Marina.

It was not an explosive argument. Ruth told of seeing nothing really unusual that evening, just an ordinary visit of Lee to see Marina and his kids, like always. Ruth did tell of a visit of Lee into the garage which was interpreted by the Warren Commission as Lee getting the rifle. But Lee had already disposed of the rifle Nov 11 and by Nov 21 there was no rifle any longer in the garage. That was Lee getting the curtain rods.

But back to Lee and Marina. Maybe this time was some internal tipping point.

He decided he was not going to wear the wedding ring. Some men just decide to quit wearing a wedding ring at some point.

In this narrative the assassination that day indeed was coincidence with Oswald leaving his wedding ring in Irving. But his intended visit to the Spanish-speaking woman at McKeel Sportswear who had offered to help him, with his gathered curtain supplies and the curtain rods, Fri afternoon Nov 22, and his no longer wearing his wedding ring, may not have been coincidence.

A narrative

Oswald has a need for new curtains

Let us suppose Oswald by accident busted the long curtain rod over the three windows in his tiny room on N. Beckley. We don't need to suppose this since there are photos of it, though owner Mrs. Johnson was uncertain how it happened, alternatively blaming news people or police on Fri Nov 22 for causing it. Mrs. Johnson was photographed by photographer Gene Daniels on Nov 23 hammering the long curtain rod back in.

Let us assume what happened was Lee realized he had broken it, and Lee is the one who took it down.

Let us imagine Lee has no plans to leave right away and would like that fixed for practical reasons--privacy because his north-facing windows look right into the side of another house and its windows--and because he wants to fix what he broke. Rather than tell the Johnsons he decides to fix it himself. The fix: instead of one super-long curtain rod and one super-wide set of curtains covering all three windows, he will install instead individual curtains and curtain rods on those windows. He will do the fix himself rather than report to the Johnsons that he damaged their property without having solved it first.

We know curtains and curtain rods were on Lee's mind, in addition to the concrete evidence of the photos of Nov 23, 1963 showing the long curtain rod in his room had been busted. 

We know that for two reasons: what he told Ralph Yates when he hitchhiked a ride from him Thu morning Nov 21; and what he told Buell Wesley Frazier when he got his ride from him on Thu Nov 21. 

Oswald as the Yates hitchhiker who said he was carrying curtains

Ralph Yates was a refrigeration mechanic who picked up a hitchhiker at the N. Beckley entrance to the R.L. Thornton Expressway--about a mile north of Oswald's rooming house--at about 10:30 am on the morning of Thu Nov 21.

The case for the Yates hitchhiker being Oswald is: first, Yates positively identified Oswald as his hitchhiker from seeing Oswald on TV. Second, the hitchhiker was dropped off by Yates in Dealey Plaza on Houston just next to Oswald's workplace the TSBD, and Yates last saw the man walk with his package crossing Elm Street in the direction of the TSBD, Oswald's workplace.

And third, the timing of when Yates picked him up at the N. Beckley entrance of the R.L. Thornton Expressway: at about 10:30 am Thu Nov 21. That was about 30 minutes after Oswald was independently witnessed at the Dobbs House Restaurant on N. Beckley near the rooming house eating breakfast at about 10:00 am according to the waitress who served him.

Never mind that Oswald is supposed to be at work at the TSBD at those hours. The evidence just cited says he wasn't that particular morning.

Yates said Oswald was carrying a package, estimated by Yates to be about 3-4 feet long. Yates said Oswald told him the package had curtains in it. That's what he says Oswald told him.

Forget the part about Oswald asking about Jack Ruby on that ride. Yates later told the FBI that did not happen, correcting his earlier FBI report. Forget the part about Oswald showing Yates a backyard photo and asking Yates if someone could shoot the president like that. Yates also told the FBI that didn't happen that way, correcting that part of his report. Forget the part about Oswald doing anything incriminating in that ride with Yates, no matter how spooked Yates was and how tragic the outcome was on Yates in the aftermath of the assassination.

During that ride with Oswald, there was a discussion of the president's arrival, and discussion of the possibility that he could be shot from a window, probably some mention of the Adlai Stevenson reception several weeks earlier. Everybody in Dallas was talking and wondering about that, that was not an unusual conversation. Yates took part in that conversation and Yates was no assassin. It only became unusual retrospectively after the assassination when Oswald was believed to have done it. Similar conversations must have occurred a thousand times among ordinary people in Dallas the same morning of that nature. Yates remembers Oswald asking if he knew if there had been any last-minute change of route of the parade. Again, that is the most innocent of question and only takes on sinister meaning in retrospect post-assassination.

Imagine for purposes of this narrative that Oswald actually is innocent, that the Yates' hitchhiker really was Oswald; and there was nothing sinister about what happened on that ride beyond Oswald wanting to get himself and a package of fabric for curtains from Point A to Point B at a certain time of day and hitchhiking as his means of doing so. 

After the assassination, everyone has considered that either Yates imagined it was Oswald with a package, or if it was a package it either was the rifle or intended to look like it was. Imagine that is all wrong. Imagine the package had in it what Oswald told Yates it did: curtains.

Going to Irving for curtain rods

That morning, Thu Nov 21, Oswald--after his arrival in the vicinity of the TSBD with a package of curtains--entered the TSBD late and got to work. Almost immediately Lee asked Buell Frazier if he could catch a ride to Irving at the end of that day. Frazier said sure, asked why. Oswald said he wanted to get some curtain rods. 

Oswald goes to Irving Thu evening, unexpected because unannounced, has a rather ordinary evening playing with his daughter and the neighborhood kids, tries unsuccessfully to talk Marina into moving to an apartment that weekend, promises to buy her a washing machine, anything she needs--Marina declines, postpones, brushes him off, says maybe after the holidays. Lee goes to bed early, gets up, goes to work the next day. No drama, no secret prolonged goodby. Nothing unusual at all in behavior other than one detail: he leaves his wedding ring there. Everyone thinks that means they broke up, or he was anticipating shooting Kennedy, or anticipating leaving Dallas. This narrative will propose another possible interpretation of that with the wedding ring, none of the preceding, but wait till later for that.

The next morning Lee in the car with Buell Frazier for the return trip to Dallas has a package with him of exact dimensions of curtain rods which Lee tells Buell is curtain rods, just as he told Buell the previous day he intended to get.

There have been three possibilities argued for what Lee was really carrying in that package: the rifle, his lunch, or curtain rods.

Let us imagine here that the correct answer is it was curtain rods, which has in its support the strong lifelong testimony of Buell Frazier on the length issue, ca. 27", too short to carry the rifle, but in exact agreement with the length of curtain rods in Ruth Paine's garage which measure 27".

After parking near the TSBD, Buell sees Lee walk ahead of him with the package under his arm that looks in length and appearance like it is curtain rods, which Lee has told him is curtain rods. Buell sees Lee walk up the steps to the loading dock on the north side of TSBD, goes into a door. There is another door to enter the main floor area of the TSBD itself and Oswald is seen entering that "empty", no package. Therefore, assume Lee left his curtain rods unobtrusively on that loading dock somewhere out of the way for the moment. 

Where did Lee get the curtain rods?

Intrigued by the chapter on the curtain rods issue on Pat Speer's website, I studied the curtain rods issue and determined to my satisfaction that Ruth and Michael Paine started out with four sets of curtain rods at their house, not two as Ruth thought. Michael remembered it was either two or four. The windows and rooms in the house make better sense with four. With four original, Lee takes two, leaving two which is what were found in Ruth's garage when she and Michael and the Secret Service and Warren Commission checked. 

The curtain rods in the garage were not being used, were accessible to Oswald. There is no other place he could have got them than there. Imagine he took two of them, assume two was either all he could find or all he needed. He knows they were there from having seen them before, but only now did he have a need for them. He takes them, doesn't tell either Ruth or Marina that detail.

Now the reader may ask, why wouldn't he tell or ask Marina or Ruth? (The reason we think he didn't is because both of them said he didn't--that's the reason for that.)

Hold on to that, because there will be proposed an unexpected explanation for that, just as for why he left the wedding ring.

Imagine Lee is not taking those curtain rods in order to provide an excuse to Frazier. Imagine also that of course curtain rods was not his only reason for going to Irving--seeing Marina and his kids was the main reason, but imagine the curtain rods were not invented either, it was in the mix of tasks accomplished by going there.

Imagine that the curtain rods from Irving taken to work at TSBD are related to his curtains in the 3-4' package taken to work at TSBD hitchhiking Thursday morning Nov 21, just before he asked Frazier for the ride to Irving to go get curtain rods.

What was Lee up to with curtains and curtain rods in both cases taken to his place of work at the TSBD?

We have now traced witness testimonies attesting that Lee in two separate conveyances brought what he said were curtains and curtain rods--two distinct curtains-related conveyances--to the location of the TSBD, on the same day, Thu Nov 21 and Thu-Fri Nov 21-22. There is no evidence either the fabric or the curtain rods actually ever were taken inside the TSBD by Lee. But they were there somewhere in the vicinity of the building.

And why was Oswald doing all of this?

Well, it is the obvious reason why: he was going to have curtains made for his room so he could have his windows properly covered for privacy, because he had busted the curtain that came with the room. 

Imagine it is not more complicated than that.

But--the astute reader is asking--why does he go about it in this odd way--of bringing these items to his workplace, TSBD (even if not necessarily actually inside the building)? Why does he--apparently--not tell Marina? Why does he deny it to Captain Fritz under questioning, even though he had told Buell Frazier himself that was why? And why did he leave his wedding ring in Irving that morning before going into work at TSBD on Fri Nov 22?

Imagine none of these things have anything to do with the assassination.

Imagine all the assassination related theories and reasons and explanations for these things are all retrospective interpretation of these everyday mundane events in daily life, all mistaken explanations.

Was Lee thinking of another woman?

Imagine the one thing that has never been considered an an explanation for all of this: that a woman had flirted a little with Lee, and Lee was intrigued enough to notice her and be interested.

Remember the incident of the Japanese woman Lee met at a party and was smitten with her, with Marina jealous, and de Mohrenschildt thinking good for Lee, serves Marina right for the way she treated him? That would be the pattern hypothesized here.

Not sought out by Lee, but if a pretty woman showed some attention he would not mind that. Imagine that is what is going on as a subtext here. Nothing came of it. The assassination interrupted. Imagine it never was more than a woman smiling and catching his attention, Lee noticing she was pretty and maybe joking or smiling back, a lift in spirits in a dreary TSBD workday, he thinking about her...

The possible woman who caught Lee's eye

Imagine the woman was ... a seamstress, who sewed for her job, along with other young women fellow employees, working for a company in the Dal-Tex building across the street from the TSBD.

Imagine she was Spanish-speaking, and she and fellow Spanish-speaking seamstresses had by accident noticed Lee by himself eating lunch in some location nearby. Lee knew a little Spanish, enough to say some words in Spanish to them. Imagine their pleasant surprise at that, maybe some giggling, some banter, maybe a couple more times at the same lunch place, who knows, casual conversation, he finds out where they work and vice versa. Maybe there is one in particular that has caught his eye.

Now imagine Lee has an opportunity come up to do business with these women. He has this unplanned but real need for curtains. They are in the seamstress business. He will get his curtains from them, pay them to make them up for him. And he doesn't mind the interactions with the pretty women who are friendly to him as a fringe benefit. 

Lee and the women at McKeel Sportswear in the Dal-Tex building

"Mrs. Evelyn Harris ... stated that on November 30, 1963, she had been visiting an aunt in Van, Texas, and while there met a woman who lives across the street from her aunt. She stated this woman is known as Lucy Lopez, a white woman who is married to a Mexican and had given the following story.

"Mrs. Lopez had just come from Dallas where she had been babysitting for her daughter. She stated her daughter works at a sewing room across from the Texas School Book Depository Building. She stated her daughter and some of the other girls knew Lee Harvey Oswald who apparently spoke Spanish well and ate with them at a nearby restaurant." (https://www.maryferrell.org/archive/docs/095/95674/images/img_95674_70_300.png)

The FBI investigated this for other reasons and I have spent quite a bit of time sorting through this story, the results of which I report here. The part quoted about the Spanish-speaking knowing Oswald was not investigated. What was investigated was a report that three Spanish-speaking women who worked at the McKeel Sportswear company in the Dal-Tex building (misspelled "McKell" in the FBI reports), walking together out to their cars after work on the afternoon of Tue Nov 19, had encountered two cars and two men conveying a rifle. The woman speculated one of the men might have been Ruby and the other possibly Oswald, though they had not gotten a good look at the men enough to identify anyone.

Since there were no identifications of either the persons or cars reported, and since it was just as hunting season had started and rifles were being borrowed or returned from being borrowed, and since sheriff's department deputies used that parking lot who could have been seen with firearms out of their cars, in the end nothing came of it.

The original report quoted above reflects errors in hearsay which direct interviews by the FBI sorted out. Specifically, Lucy Lopez's daughter was a Mrs. Velez, a young woman. Mrs. Velez did not work at McKeel nor was she a seamstress. But she knew a man named Conrad Galvan who had picked up the Nov 19 parking lot story from a friend of his named David Torres, whose sister was one of the seamstresses at McKeel. (Incidentally, the date of the parking lot story is securely Tue Nov 19 as the women remembered, confirmed by the women remembering it was raining that day and Nov 19 it rained in Dallas. This detail on the security of the date ruled out that this incident was related to the Castor rifles in the TSBD which was the next day Wed Nov 20.)

The three women at McKeel of the parking lot sighting were Mrs. Frances Hernandez, Mrs. Henrietta Vargas, and Mrs. Josephine Salinas. It is not clear whether David Torres' sister who worked at McKeel was one of those three or a fourth, and if she was one of those three, it is not known which one.

But long story short, the FBI never investigated and did not establish that those three or four McKeel Sportswear women did not know Oswald. None of those women were asked or denied that directly in the FBI reports. The closest to a statement reported by the FBI that might read as suggesting the women did not know Oswald is a report that David Torres said of the "two or three girls of Spanish descent" who had seen the parking lot men with the rifle, "they do not know Lee Oswald to his knowledge".

That is the only item given by the FBI on whether those women were acquainted with Oswald, and it is not a denial. It is certainly not a denial obtained by the FBI from any of the women themselves. In Torres' case it is simply a statement that he did not know. The FBI must have asked him that question, and that was his spontaneous answer. Yet though the FBI asked him, the FBI reports do not tell of having asked any of the women themselves that question, though they interviewed those women.

And although other mistakes in the original hearsay story of Mrs. Evelyn Harris quoted above can be traced through understandable mechanisms for the mistakes, there is nothing in the actual truth of the stories brought out by the FBI that explain the origin of "some of the other girls knew Lee Harvey Oswald who apparently spoke Spanish well and ate with them at a nearby restaurant." 

That element of originally reported hearsay may well be some independent fragment of what was told and conveyed by hearsay that could well be truthful--there is no evidence contradicting it--even thought it was never followed up by the FBI (which was interested solely in the parking lot gun sighting report).

On the strength of that unrebutted hearsay report, that "some of the other girls knew Lee Harvey Oswald who apparently spoke Spanish well and ate with them at a nearby restaurant", imagine that is true.

Oswald and the Spanish-speaking women of the McKeel Sportswear company.

Putting it together

Imagine that Lee, hardworking family man that he was, living in Oak Cliff apart from his wife and children on weekdays, enjoyed some banter or low-level flirting in a lunch place with these fetching Spanish-speaking lasses working as seamstresses in the building across the street. Yes, they are married, and so is he, but he enjoys the attention.

So, he takes the opportunity of his real emergency need for replacement curtains as an occasion to do business with them and have an excuse for more interaction with their smiles and laughter. 

Back to the curtains need, imagine that actually is urgent. Those windows look out directly into another house. Lee's room with the bed is next to those windows such that he is like a fishbowl. There are still louvres or slats of some kind in the photos of his room from that weekend, but perhaps they do not provide complete privacy with the superlarge single curtain set covering all three windows gone, in a pile maybe in a closet or on the floor out of the way in his room. Let us suppose Oswald may have broken the super-long curtain rod on say maybe Wednesday afternoon or night.

Although Lee normally was punctual with work, he was not above simply showing up late if necessary. Maybe he hoped it wouldn't be noticed, or if it was he would just roll with whatever reprimand may come of it--but he did need curtains. 

He spends Wednesday night Nov 20 until after midnight in a nearby laundromat. And on Thursday morning he does not go to the TSBD as early as normal and on time, for the first time ever.

A fellow roomer at the N. Beckley rooming house, Jack Cody, said that on "Wednesday or Thursday, the week Kennedy was assassinated", at about 7 am while he took a bus to work, Oswald came out of the rooming house and got on the same bus, "carrying a package, a newspaper-wrapped package. It was about six inches thick and a foot wide and about two foot long" (Russo, Live by the Sword, 268).

Lets call that Thursday morning Nov 21 and trace through that morning.

Oswald is leaving with a package. Imagine that package is related to his need for curtains. We don't know exactly what it was--maybe it is something that will give size or length measurements for customizing the curtains. 

There is an Oswald breakfast at the Dobbs House Restaurant near his rooming house in here somewhere this morning at which time Oswald ate a full breakfast but complained about how his eggs were cooked. Witnesses differ as to the time of day that he was there for that breakfast. Oswald's waitress, Mary Dowling, said the hour was around 10 am and she would probably know best, but a cook who remembered the same incident said it was early in agreement with Oswald's normal early time when he would come in for coffee before going to the TSBD. Actually the earlier time for Oswald there might make better sense. Let us imagine a main task of Oswald that morning was to purchase fabric for the curtains. We might imagine he may even have paid for a breakfast at the Dobbs House to "kill time" until stores would open. When the stores open he buys some fabric suitable for his curtains. He intends to ask the women at McKeel Sportswear to cut and sew and fix up curtains from that fabric to the right size for him, for which he will pay them. 

He buys the fabric, and that becomes the 3-4' package that Yates says Oswald carried with him when Yates picked him up hitchhiking that morning at around 10:30 am.

Yates drove Oswald to where he requested, dropped Oswald off at Dealey Plaza right next to the TSBD, with that package.

Oswald does not take the package to the women at McKeel yet. He stashes the package somewhere. (Where? unknown, but let us imagine he found somewhere where it could be safely stored overnight.) 

Then he gets to work at the TSBD with that late arrival, and at the end of that workday goes out to Irving, tries unsuccessfully to invite Marina to get  an apartment with him that weekend.

Unknown to Marina, he is returning to Dallas the next morning with a couple of curtain rods.

Why did Lee leave his wedding ring?

There has been much mystery surrounding why Lee left his wedding ring in Marina's room that morning, Nov 22, 1963. Some think it was a symbol of a marital breakup, or Lee's response to Marina's refusal to move into an apartment with him right then.

But against that is: Ruth Paine said she saw no sign of distress or serious argument or a fight or sobbing or tears, none of that. Nor did Marina tell of any of that kind of drama happening.

Some think he left the wedding ring because he was planning to assassinate JFK, or was going to leave Dallas.

In this narrative we are imagining, Lee was not involved in assassinating JFK, even though unknown to him the rifle he with Marina's assistance had repaired and sold on Nov 11, unknown to him was on that 6th floor of the TSBD ready to be found and to frame him for the assassination being carried out by others.

Here is a more mundane reason for leaving the wedding ring: because Lee was planning to take his fabric material and curtain rods to McKeel Sportswear that afternoon and he preferred not to be wearing a wedding ring then, when he drops in to see one of the women there.

And that is why he did not tell Marina about the curtain rods or the curtains. He told Buell Frazier Marina was helping fix his curtains, but while the curtains and curtain rods part was true, the part about Marina assisting wasn't. That was just what he told Frazier. He did not tell Frazier he intended to have that work done by the seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear. 

Possibly one of those women at McKeel Sportswear had begun to be a little more to Lee than simply light flirting or banter.

Some men take off their wedding rings when they do not want women to know they are married. Imagine that was the reason Lee took off his ring that morning.

As for why he would leave it in Marina's room, that is logical on strictly practical safety grounds. Lee kept the family's money with Marina, all in cash, not with himself or in his room on N. Beckley (where it would be more vulnerable to loss or theft). About the only safe place to have his wedding ring if he was not wearing it was in Marina's room in Irving, just as with their money. 

However Lee hid it on Marina's dresser in a way in which it is not clear he wanted her to see it or to know he had left it. And is it necessarily obvious Marina would have noticed if it had not been for the assassination and police searches? Maybe the reason he hid it that way was for the most mundane reason of all--he was hoping she would not notice.

Did Oswald have in mind a possible date the weekend of Nov 23-24, 1963? 

Suspend disbelief please until hearing this out.

David Wood III, Assassination chronology: 

7:30 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) J.W. "Dub" Stark, owner of the Top Ten Record Shop at 338 W. Jefferson Blvd. in Oak Cliff says that LHO is waiting at his store when Stark arrives at about this time. Stark says that LHO buys a ticket to the Dick Clark Show and leaves by bus. 

That date cannot be correct; at 7:30 am on Nov 22 Oswald was in Irving. Therefore imagine Dub Stark has the date wrong by one day and it really was the morning of Thu Nov 21, the morning Oswald does not go to work at the TSBD on time but takes care of other things that morning in Oak Cliff, before his late arrival to the TSBD that morning.

From the information in this article by Bill Drenas the identification of Oswald as the one who bought that Dick Clark Show ticket looks sound (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/top10.htm). Not only did owner Dub Stark know Lee and Marina from having been in his store some times (when they both lived in Oak Cliff), according to his daughter Wanda, but a note from an Earl Golz interview in 1981 of Dub Stark had Dub telling this of his employee, Louis Cortinas, 

Stark had young employee 11/22/63 “curious story” that employee left store to go to theatre and said same guy earlier that morning purchased ticket to Dick Clark Show, cancelled after assassination.

Louis Cortinas in interviews definitely confirmed he was at the Texas Theatre and witnessed Oswald being brought out under arrest.

And then--get this!-- Oswald was reported to have returned to the Top Ten Record Store again that same morning to buy another ticket 

"On 12/3/63, Mr. John D. Whitten, Telephonically advised that he heard, Lee Harvey Oswald was in the Top Ten Record Shop on Jefferson, on the morning of 11/22/63. Oswald bought a ticket of some kind and left. Then some time later, Oswald returned to the record shop and wanted to buy another ticket ... Oswald then left the record shop for the second time. It is not known whether or not Oswald bought another ticket." (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/lho-top10.gif)

Therefore Oswald bought at least one, and maybe two, tickets to the Dick Clark Show which was playing in Dallas that weekend.

This was highly unlike Oswald to buy even a single ticket to an event like that. When did Oswald do something like that on any other occasion?

And yet the identification, that that was Oswald, is credible.

And returning to buy a second ticket to the same event? When he is going to be in Oak Cliff but alone that weekend?

Oswald was not returning to Irving that weekend. He told Buell Frazier that.

He is by himself that weekend, with two tickets to a music event?

How else is this to be interpreted?

It looks like Oswald was planning on maybe going out, or inviting someone to go out, on a date!

Maybe there is some other reason why Oswald, who had never had a history of patronizing music events in Dallas before, alone in Oak Cliff, would buy two tickets to a Dick Clark Show music event to occur that weekend. 

But it is difficult to come up with some other explanation that makes sense. And it sure does make sense as a possible date.

And the timing--if he bought that Thu morning Nov 21, that would be when he was preparing to have his curtains made at McKeel Sportswear, where he will see the women there, and perhaps one in particular.

And just maybe, just maybe, he hoped to be able to say to her, he had these two tickets to the Dick Clark Show, and there was a sudden cancellation or something, and he doesn't want the ticket to go to waste, and, you know, would you maybe be interested in seeing that show with me? 

He buys two tickets to a Dick Clark show to occur on a weekend when he is not going to Irving to visit Marina. And he is doing a lot of activity around a curtain rod situation in his room at his rooming house that looks centered on the TSBD in location which looks a lot like it may be focused on the seamstresses at the McKeel Sportswear company in the Dal-Tex building, where there is an unrebutted hearsay FBI report that "some of the ... girls knew Lee Harvey Oswald who apparently spoke Spanish well and ate with them..."

And he appears ready to go there that afternoon, Nov 22, in a curtain rods project that he has not told his wife, and on a day when by coincidence he decided extraordinarily not to wear his wedding ring, the day he may be asking a woman there to accompany him to a Dick Clark concert.

There's a lot here that hangs together narratively.

Why did Lee deny the curtain rods to Captain Fritz?

Buell Frazier told the Dallas Police what Lee had said about going to Irving to pick up curtain rods, then returning the next morning with a package that looked like it contained curtain rods, which Lee said was carrying curtain rods.

Nevertheless, almost no one (Pat Speer excepted) has believed Lee actually was carrying what the size of the package he carried indicated he was carrying and which he told Buell Frazier he was carrying. 

Let us imagine that Lee did tell Buell that because that is what it was that morning, curtain rods. 

He was getting those curtain rods suitable for individual window frames because he needed replacement window curtains in individual windows for his room on N. Beckley. And he was going to ask the women at McKeel Sportswear that afternoon, Friday afternoon, if they would do that work for him for pay. 

Imagine Lee with no idea going in to the TSBD that morning of Fri Nov 22 that there would be an assassination, that his (former, as of Nov 11) rifle was on the 6th floor, or that before the day was out he would be arrested and accused of having assassinated President Kennedy.

Imagine he figured out after the shots that something was very wrong, and somehow realized (we don't know exactly how) that this was coming down on him, that he had been screwed, and he goes into high-tension evasive mode, calls for an emergency meeting at the Texas Theatre with someone, movements so as not to be followed, changing clothing appearance, picking up his revolver ... then he is arrested and in custody of the Dallas Police and questioned.

At some point in the questioning Fritz asks him what he brought to work. He says it was his lunch. What about the curtain rods that Frazier said he had said? Oswald denies, denies he brought in curtain rods and denies he told Frazier it was curtain rods.

But that was not true: he did tell Frazier that, and it was curtain rods.

People have not been able to imagine why Lee would lie about that, that actually would exculpate him if it could be proven true. 

Here are some thoughts toward a possible answer to that within this narrative.

He never intended his taking of two curtain rods from Ruth Paine to come out. When unexpectedly he found himself under arrest and in the glare of the spotlight, he tried to cover it up. 

That story, if he were to start telling it, could go to another woman, and perhaps that was why he was not telling that, so as not to bring her into it. Oswald otherwise seems to have sought--with Ruth Paine and Marina--not to draw innocent other people into trouble on his account. Maybe that is why he denied the curtain rods, the tip of an iceberg of a story that he regarded as personal. 

And yet it seems the seriousness of the charges Oswald was facing--of killing a president--should have overridden that, and surely would have in the hands of a good lawyer. But there is also this: did Oswald realize he was being accused of having brought a rifle to work that morning in his curtain rods package? For if no one informed him of that, the very thought might seem ludicrous, and not occur to him that that was what police could be suspecting. It matters whether it can be verified that he was told that that was one of the key points suspected against him. If he did not know that, then there might go any motive to embrace the curtain rods (truthful) story as his alibi. 

The world was being told a lot about Oswald over the news that we assume Oswald must have known too, but did he? Was Oswald ever informed a rifle had been found on the 6th floor, and that they were tracing it to him? 

Is it possible (as unbelievable as this sounds) that Oswald did not know he was being accused of some of these things, even though the whole world did, and not knowing, he would have no calculus in his mind or reasoning that he would have need of the curtain rods as an alibi?

Is it possible Lee actually did suppose as he told a reporter, "they're taking me in because I was in Russia"? (or however his exact wording was) Not because he was being flippant, but because he honestly did not know and was guessing? He had been told he was accused of shooting a police officer but his reaction, according to witnesses to his interrogation, was that was ridiculous and he strenuously denied it--maybe he at first did think it could not be serious and was a mistake?

Is it possible Lee was lying on some things early on because he did not realize there were charges on him that would stick? That he was blowing off his interrogators with in some cases false answers not because he was guilty but because he thought some things were none of their business and he would soon be released?

It may not ever become fully clear why Lee dissembled concerning his taking of curtain rods from Irving that morning. 

But let us consider a different interpretation of these curtain rods, in which no matter what he may have told Fritz, it really was curtain rods and he had told Buell Frazier they were because they were.

And it makes excellent sense that he would be carrying curtain rods in the light of this larger context of getting curtains fixed for his room, as outlined in this narrative.

What became of the fabric and curtain rods that Oswald brought to Dealey Plaza?

It is unlikely Oswald ever was able to take his fabric (the package he carried while hitchhiking with Yates on Nov 21) and curtain rods (that he brought from Irving Nov 22) to the McKeel Sportswear company or the women or woman of his possible acquaintance there. The assassination changed all that.

Let us imagine Lee had the fabric of Nov 21 stored somewhere safe--it could be a paid storage locker, who knows, maybe not, but somewhere external to the TSBD building--and he never got back to it Nov 22. Someone would find it and if it was not traceable it would be disposed of and that would be the end of that.

Imagine Lee set the 27" curtain rods bag upon his arrival to TSBD on Nov 22 somewhere out of the way on that loading dock outside the rear north entrance of the TSBD, thinking he would pick them up on his way to retrieve his fabric and go to McKeel Sportswear in the Dal-Tex building later that day. But with the assassination, he never picked up the curtain rods.

Under this scenario the curtain rods never would have been inside the TSBD. However they would have been immediately outside in some crevice or cranny of the loading dock, and would have been found, the only variable being when, depending on how hidden they were. If they were not hidden were they tossed unthinkingly with other trash on Nov 22 before police learned late that night from Buell Frazier that curtain rods might be of interest? 

Did a Spanish-speaking woman at McKeel Sportswear ever know Oswald was interested in her?

In all likelihood, no. We might imagine she lived out the rest of her days--conceivably could still be alive in her 80s today, maybe somewhere in Dallas now, who knows--never realizing that Lee Harvey Oswald, the man believed to have assassinated the president, had been so struck by her youthful vivaciousness and kindness to him so long ago, that he had, unknown to her, bought a Dick Clark Show ticket for her that weekend, hoping she might go with him there. 

And if the chemistry had been right, and she saw a heart that she liked, she might have listened as he at first hesitantly and haltingly, and then it might come pouring out, his telling her of his frustrating marriage, his hopes and dreams and sorrows ... 

And who knows. 

37 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Greg,

I cannot have an intelligent conversation with you because you are apparently unaware of some of the most fundamental facts... facts that indicate a corrupt HSCA. For example, that the autopsy indicated a small wound near the external occipital protuberance, (EOP) whereas the HSCA said that wound was actually 9 cm higher, up near the president's cowlick!

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.

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The HSCA furthered the coverup that the WC began. Anything that came from it should be viewed with suspicion.

You seem to be unaware of this, which frankly is surprising.

An obvious example is how they took the EOP (external occipital protuberance) entrance wound as seen by Humes and moved it up to the cowlick. Do you think an honest investigation would do that?

And they took the T-3 level wound in the back and moved it up to the base of the neck. So that the SBT would at least look a little bit okay.

Jeez!

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.

On 1/17/2024 at 3:51 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

Why you take at face value anything reported in the second coverup -- namely the HSCA -- is beyond me.

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.

33 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

In chapter 18d, as you know, I present a morph of the two color back of the head photos published by Groden This makes it clear Groden and Mantik were full of hooey. The back of the head does not give the same appearance in the two photos. It is not a matte. And this is a fact. 

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. 

2 hours ago, Keven Hofeling said:

 

Dr. David Mantik subjected the "original" back-of-the-head autopsy photographs to stereoscopic testing at the National Archives and found that there is a soft matte insert covering the occipital-parietal wound in the back of JFK's head, thus we are dealing with photographic forgery in these photographs....

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.     

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

So Greg Doudna -- like Pat -- believes that nearly all (~20) Parkland doctors and nurses mass hallucinated a gaping wound on the back of the head. According to their earliest statements, before being pressured into changing their minds. Not to mention all the other such witnesses.

Let me see now, what again were the odds of that happening? About 1 in a million when assuming factors in Pat Speer's favor.

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. 

9 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

As far as the scalp being sown back together... It's clear to me that the words "The scalp was sutured together" is a reference to the numerous lacerations of the scalp mentioned in the autopsy report, along with any tears to the scalp made by the morticians in their effort to conceal the hole in the photos. The key is "and also onto the rubber sheet", which I take to mean they attached the scalp to the exposed rubber sheet at the back of the head, which they then buried in a pillow. If the scalp had been sutured over the sheet, whereby there was no longer a hole on the back, well, there would have been no need to hide the back of the head in a pillow. 

And besides, the back of the head photo matches up with the right lateral photo and other photos, in that it reveals a large defect above and slightly forward of the right ear. IF the photo was taken during skull reconstruction...well, why would they have left a giant wound exposed where everyone could see it? And covered up a wound no one would ever see? That is the exact opposite of what one is supposed to do in a cosmetic skull reconstruction. 

As far as photos being taken at different times. Yes, absolutely. That is what is shown in the photos, and that is what is described in the various accounts of the autopsy. Upon arrival, establishing shots were taken of the body laying flat on the table, blood and all. X-rays were taken as well. An inspection then occurred, during which additional photos were taken of the back wound and back of the head. If I recall, more x-rays came next--x-rays taken in search of a bullet in the neck and chest. In any event, additional photos were then taken of the empty skull, to demonstrate the appearance of the entrance wound.

Now, are these photos easily understood? No, they were taken away by the Secret Service and kept away from the doctors for years before they were able to look at them and label them. But it's clear none of the photos known to us were taken during the reconstruction. That just isn't done, first of all. Stringer was a professional autopsy photographer...his job was to help the doctors document the President's wounds. It would serve no forensic purpose to take pictures of the remains being re-assembled, except maybe if the photographer were creating a training film. But there's no evidence this was done. 

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". 

12 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

My theories on the medical evidence evolved over a number of years, and the possibility the head wound was restored prior to the taking of the photo undoubtedly went through my mind. But it's not remotely supported by the evidence. The morticians all claimed they made the head acceptable for viewing by reconstructing the skull and scalp. As skull and scalp were missing, of course, they had to hide this from the public. They did so by hiding a patch of missing skull and scalp in a pillow. So...whether you believe the wound was there to begin with, or believe the wound was made to be there by Ed Stroble, the mortician who actually did the reconstruction, doesn't really matter much. In both situations there was a gap of missing scalp at the back of the head. 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:

12 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

This is supported by the other photos, moreover. The skull wounds in the back wound photo match the skull wounds in the back of the head photo. And it's clear this photo was taken early in the autopsy and not during reconstruction. 

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.

12 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

And then of course there's Stringer and Humes et al. No one involved in the autopsy made any mention of photos being taken during the reconstruction, and as I recall they all denied it. It did not occur.

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.)

46 minutes ago, Michael Kalin said:

The first thing is confirmed by Joseph McBride's 1992 interview of Edgar Lee Tippit, who mentioned another officer was also assigned to hunt down Tippit. This is described in Into the Nightmare. If you don't have the book, McBride's essay, "Dale Myers, With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J. D. Tippit" at Kennedys & King, explains everything while trashing Myers' desperate attempt to torpedo the conclusion by attacking the old man's mental condition.

Section II follows. The other officer was Mentzel, disclosed in section III. No mere coincidence that just before 1PM they were located one block from each other when both made phone calls, after which Mentzel was sidelined by an automobile accident and Tippit hastened to his doom.

This is a genuine breakthrough that dispels much unfounded speculation.

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!