Mark Ulrik

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

I notice that you neglected to add that her FBI statement said that her "fleeting glimpse" was of Oswald "standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse located on the first floor". The detail in that description indicates more than a fleeting glimpse. She had to have seen him for at least a few seconds.

And I notice that you ignored the "she thought" part. You seem to be more certain that it was Oswald than she was. Btw, I've always wondered how long it takes to catch a fleeting glimpse, but the number of words used to describe the experience is hardly a reliable indicator.

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

You also failed to mention that it was in her sworn affidavit that she stated that she left the building at 12:25. The difference is obvious: an FBI report vs. a sworn statement hand-written by the attestee and given under the penalties of perjury. The affidavit is then typed out, read and signed by the attestee. Her affidavit indicates that she both read and signed the typewritten final version.

The ostensible Oswald sighting isn't mentioned in the signed statement. Now what?

2 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

But you Lone Nutters would rather give more weight to an FBI report over a sworn statement because it supports your narrative that Oswald was the assassin.

You can save your sanctimonious BS. You loved the FBI report when it mentioned that (she thought) she caught a glimpse of Oswald. You even used it to pretend that the sighting was a lot more solid than it was.

2 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

So why would she write out by hand, read and attest to leaving the building at 12:25, when the truth was ( according to you people ) that she left "a few minutes before 12:15" ?

Vagaries of memory? The FBI report is dated 4 days after the event and the signed statement almost 4 months after.

The remainder of your post is almost pure speculation and not worth commenting on.

33 minutes ago, Donald Willis said:

Who saw him there then?

I suspect that it comes from Gil Jesus. See the response to him that I posted in the Pat Speer interview thread a moment ago.

On 3/26/2024 at 11:55 AM, Gil Jesus said:

Oswald had his lunch on the first floor as he always did and remained on the first floor where he was seen by Carolyn Arnold, "between the front doors and the double doors on the FIRST floor" ( CD 5, pg. 41 ) when she left the building, "at about 12:25 PM".  ( CD 706, pg. 7 )

If Oswald was on the first floor at 12:25, he could NOT have been the shooter on the sixth floor at 12:30.

Oh my! Arnold told the FBI on 11/26/63 that she thought she saw a fleeting glimpse of Oswald through the front door when she was standing outside to view the motorcade. This was a few minutes before 12:15 per her estimate. She told the FBI a few months later that she left the building about 12:25 (without mentioning a possible Oswald sighting).

That's one heck of a solid 12:25 sighting you've got there!

From Wikipedia:

Quote

In a memorandum written to the House Judiciary Committee in 1988 by Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General William F. Weld, the recommendations of the HSCA report were formally reviewed and a conclusion of active investigations was reported.^[5] In light of investigative reports from the FBI's Technical Services Division and the National Academy of Sciences Committee determining that "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman" in the Kennedy assassination, and that all investigative leads known to the Justice Department for both assassinations had been "exhaustively pursued", the Department concluded "that no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy in either the assassination of President Kennedy or the assassination of Dr. King."^[5]

The memorandum is item 14 below.

Index of /Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/J Disk/Justice Department of/Justice Department of JFK-King Reinvestigation

1 hour ago, Johnny Cairns said:

Mark…

WF/JL to Calloway;

“We want to be sure. We want to try and wrap him up real tight on killing this officer. We think he is the same one that shot the President and if we can warp him up tight on killing this officer, we have got him.”

Do you think that’s a fair and impartial way to make a line-up?

Why? Do you think Callaway picked Oswald because of anything Leavelle said?

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

Nonsense.

There is nothing which proves that Oswald gave his name and place of employment during the lineups.

Exactly. And the only reason to ask participants in a lineup about anything is (when relevant) to allow the witness to hear their speaking voices. There is no obligation to answer truthfully.

I didn't notice at the time that I was being spanked, or even tickled, but they're doing quite the victory dance over at the old newsgroup. I do have a few additional thoughts on the matter, but currently not the time or inclination to express them properly. Maybe in a few days.

3 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

I rest my case.

What case ? You haven't provided one stitch of evidence to prove anything you've said. No testimony, no documents, no exhibits, no photographs. Nothing. You've provided nothing but your own opinions without fact.

And you haven't addressed one point I've made or answered one single question that I've asked you.

Yeah, some case you've got there.

What case? The case that you helped me make, by admitting that Oswald prior to 12:25 had not only plausible access but even legitimate, work-related reasons to make (unsupervised) visits to the sixth floor.

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

Pointing out that we don't know when the rifle was assembled is not speculation.

You didn't say that. You suggested that Oswald reassembled the rifle earlier that morning. Again, you have no evidence to support that. That's called speculation.

You're the one attempting to artificially narrow down the window of opportunity.

Narrowing what window ? You've got him reassembling the rifle sometime between 8am and 12:25 pm. Isn't that YOUR window ? What evidence did you produce to support that ?

** Answer: NONE

Oswald feigning lack of interest?

You're speculating again. You have no evidence to support that either.

I said sixth floor, not building,

So now you have Oswald assembling the rifle on the sixth floor sometime that morning while the crew was present laying down a new floor ?

but thank you for admitting that Oswald had access.

As I pointed out, so did the rest of the world. What's your point ?

Thank you for admitting that Oswald had legitimate, work-related reasons to make unsupervised visits to the sixth floor at various times, including the morning hours of 11/22.

With a crew present laying down a new floor and nobody saw him reassembling the rifle ?

Nobody knew he was even on the floor ?

I rest my case.

What case ? You haven't provided one stitch of evidence to prove anything you've said. No testimony, no documents, no exhibits, no photographs. Nothing. You've provided nothing but your own opinions without fact.

And you haven't addressed one point I've made or answered one single question that I've asked you.

Yeah, some case you've got there.

The whole world had access, you say, while flatly rejecting the notion that Oswald would've had access prior to 12:25, unless I can produce a timestamped photograph of him on the sixth floor with the rifle in his hands. I find that peculiar and not entirely reasonable.

You'll have to forgive me if I failed to answer any of your questions. Would you care to repeat them?

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

It certainly does matter if the shooting was at 12:30 and Oswald is seen on the first floor at 12:25 and it takes six minutes to reassemble the rifle. That makes it impossible for him to have done the shooting at 12:30. Do the math.

Your point is moot if Oswald had access to the sixth floor prior to 12:25. Can you rule that out?

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

And while you can speculate that he somehow assembled the rifle earlier in the day somewhere in the building without being seen, there's no evidence to support that. The lack of evidence  "allows" me to rule that out.

Pointing out that we don't know when the rifle was assembled is not speculation. You're the one attempting to artificially narrow down the window of opportunity.

2 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

In fact, there's evidence that he didn't even know the motorcade was coming by his building until after 9:00 am, when he asked James Jarman why the people were gathering outside and which way the motorcade might come. ( 3 H 201 ) ( see also 24 H 213 )

Oswald feigning lack of interest?

2 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

To your argument that Oswald had access to the building prior to 12:25, the truth is ANYBODY had access to that building prior to 12:25. It was not locked up. There was no security. Access was not controlled. Anybody could have gotten into that building and used the elevators to get to the sixth floor after everyone had gone to lunch and/or were outside waiting for the motorcade.

So your argument that Oswald had access to the building is a moot point. It proves nothing.

I said sixth floor, not building, but thank you for admitting that Oswald had access.

2 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

The "sniper's nest" was nothing more than a row of boxes that had been moved into the southeast corner because they were laying down a new floor.

How convenient.

2 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

According to Oswald’s supervisor, William Shelley, that morning Oswald had been filling orders for Scott-Foresman Publishing, one of the tenants of the Texas School Book Depository building. In fact, Shelley testified that Oswald filled mostly Scott-Foresman orders. ( 6 H 332 )

Superintendent Roy Truly testified that overflow stock of Scott-Foresman books were kept on the sixth floor and that Oswald, “had occasion to go to the sixth floor quite a number of times every day, each day after books.” ( 3 H 215 )

Thank you for admitting that Oswald had legitimate, work-related reasons to make unsupervised visits to the sixth floor at various times, including the morning hours of 11/22.

I rest my case.

2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Upon double-checking it is clear you are correct in that Griggs didn't say the scope had to be removed. He did say, however, that one couldn't remove the scope and barrel without mis-aligning the scope.

"The main metal component consists of the barrel and the firing mechanism. The latter includes the chamber, firing pin, bolt and trigger. For the purposes of this exercise the telescopic sight, permanently screwed to the top of this metal section, can be described as being part of it. It is not necessary to remove the scope when disassembling the rifle. It is inevitable, however, that during disassembly/reassembly, the precise alignment of the scope must be affected. This may be only minimal but nevertheless, it must have an effect." 

It seems you have a later version of the article. The afterthought on scope alignment is absent in my copy; otherwise I would certainly have included it in my quote.

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Ian Griggs bought a rifle like the one found in the building, and wrote an article and gave a number of presentations on the disassembly and re-assembly of the rifle. 

As I recall, Mark, among his findings was that the WC image showing the scope attached to the barrel was deceptive, as the scope would have to be removed from the barrel during disassembly, and added back on during assembly. 

I was actually relying on Griggs. From an article in the Dallas '63 newsletter (V1N3, 8/89) found on hood.edu:

Quote

The main metal component consists of the barrel and the firing mechanism. The latter includes the chamber, firing pin, bolt and trigger. For the purposes of this exercise, the telescopic sight, permanently screwed to the top of this metal section, can be described as being part of it. It is not necessary to remove the scope when disassembling the weapon.

4 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Whether or not the rifle's scope had to be "sighted in" after being reassembled is something that I don't think has been proven one way or the other. And it's largely a moot point when we consider that Oswald might very well have utilized the rifle's iron sights instead of using the scope on November 22nd.

We can never know which method he used, but the iron sights are certainly an option that cannot be ignored.

I myself am of the opinion that Oswald very likely did try to utilize the 4-power telescope on his rifle for the first shot he fired at the President, but when that shot went wild and missed the entire limousine and everyone in it, he then quickly switched to using the gun's iron sights for his second and third (successful) shots.

It's possible, IMO, that Oswald abandoned the scope upon realizing (after his first missed shot) that the cheap four-power telescope did, indeed, require some readjusting after the rifle had been broken down and then reassembled.

But, as I said, we'll never know for sure which method of sighting Oswald used in Dealey Plaza. It will forever remain one of the several "unknowables" in the JFK case.

As an addendum to the "Assembled vs. Disassembled" topic, allow me to offer up these remarks from a few years back (taken from a lengthy discussion I had with David Lifton concerning the rifle and curtain rods and, of all things, fishing poles).

Good post! Btw, Greg's question inspired me to respond to Gil's post without realizing that you had already covered the same ground above, so apologies for that.

On 3/26/2024 at 11:55 AM, Gil Jesus said:

If Oswald was on the first floor at 12:25, he could NOT have been the shooter on the sixth floor at 12:30.

Because when the FBI tried to assemble the rifle using a dime, it took them SIX minutes to do so. ( 2 H 252 )

But it doesn't matter how long it took if Oswald had access to the sixth floor prior to 12:25. What allows you to rule that out? When do you think the "sniper's nest" was constructed?

On 3/26/2024 at 11:55 AM, Gil Jesus said:

In addition, any rifleman will tell you that once a rifle is disassembled, the scope has to be readjusted because you lose "Zero" ( the POI or Point of Impact ). The Commission's own expert on the scope, Sgt. James Zahm, testified that in order to scope the rifle in, Oswald would have had to have fired ten rounds through the weapon.  ( 11 H 308 )

But Zahm was talking about sighting in the rifle for the first time, not about needing to do it after each reassembly. It would probably have been ideal, but don't forget that the scope was directly attached to the receiver/barrel and wasn't among the parts that needed to be removed. It can't even be known if Oswald ever had the opportunity to properly sight in the rifle, or how much it would have helped, but it most certainly wasn't an option on 11/22. It's likely, however, that he switched to the iron sights upon realizing that the first shot was a complete miss. Which would tend to somewhat moot the argument that sighting in the rifle was an absolute requirement for success, don't you think?

PS: I hadn't noticed DVP's reply to Greg where he makes similar observations, so apologies for the redundancy.

Paul Hoch devoted almost an entire issue (8 EOC 1) of his newsletter to Hurt's book. In case you haven't seen it before, you might find value in some of his insights.

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Informative video, fun to watch, but not sure entirely "fair." Ventura uses a Mannlicher Carcano of the same make and model as LHO's (purported weapon), but with WWII wartime surplus there can be variations in quality. 

Also, Ventura tries to use the scope. It may be LHO dispensed with the scope for actual shooting.

I'd be surprised if Oswald didn't switch to the iron sights after the first shot. He probably also didn't struggle as much with the bolt action as Ventura did.

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Well, I learned from you. Despite our disagreements, you are a smart guy. 

Thank you, but I probably learned it from a smarter guy.

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Yep, there are two different subtitles.

Since at least 2012.

What Ben said.

15 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Thanks for deflecting attention away from the crucial details about the Domingo Benavides case with your trivial straw man argument about the conflicting dates of his brother's murder.  Do you have an idiom about "red herrings" in Denmark?  🤥

What year Benavides' brother was killed is hardly trivial. When you're in the business of killing or intimidating witnesses, it usually makes the most sense to do it before they testify. Maybe it works differently in the US. Have you read Benavides' WC testimony? Did you find anything in there that might have irked the conspirators to the extent that hard measures needed to be taken? I didn't think so.

18 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Mark,

Nevertheless, Blakey stated unequivocally: "Edward Benevides – Date of  death : February 1964.”  I said in my post above that there was “evidence that Edward Benavides was killed in 1965….” and I meant it.  But John Simkin posted an excerpt from a Ramparts magazine article from November 1966, which stated that Edward was killed in 1964 (perhaps incorrectly) and went on with the following, which I sincerely doubt is totally bogus:

Domingo's father-in-law, J.W. Jackson, was so unimpressed with the police investigation of Eddy's death that he launched a little inquiry of his own. Two weeks later Jackson was shot at in his home. The assailant secreted himself in the carport, fired once into the house, and when Jackson ran outside, fired one more time, just missing his head. As the gunman clambered into an automobile in a nearby driveway, Jackson saw a police car coming down the block. The officer made no attempt to follow the gunman's speeding car; instead, he stopped at Jackson's home and spent a long time inquiring what had happened. Later a police lieutenant advised Jackson, "You'd better lay off of this business. Don't go around asking question; that's our job." Jackson and Domingo are both convinced that Eddy's murder was a case of mistaken identity and that Domingo, the Tippit witness, was the intended victim.

Jean Davison was a Warren Commission supporter.  I still consider the Benavides killing suspicious.  

Blakey was only asking for information, but an answer might have had evidentiary value. Did he receive any? Where did the 2/64 date come from, if not from Penn Jones, for example via the CRS report?

The father-in-law story is pretty remarkable, but it sounds like the police officer was offering sound advise.

Btw, you're a Two Oswalds theorist. No offense intended, of course.

2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Despite the evidence Edward Benavides was killed in 1965, there is also considerable evidence that he was killed in February 1964, before Domingo testified to the W.C.  Note, for example, Point 1 in the letter below from none other than G. Robert Blakey stating the date of death for Edward was February 1964.

I'm sorry but Blakey was just following the recommendations in a CRS report citing Penn Jones as the source of the claim that Eddy was murdered in February of 1964. The CRS researcher was unable to find any mention of such a murder in the DMN between February 10th and 20th of that year.

ANALYSIS OF REPORTS AND DATA BEARING ON CIRCUMSTANCES OF DEATH OF TWENTY-ONE INDIVIDUALS CONNECTED WITH THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

it has been clear since at least 2010, when the late Jean Davison located the relevant article, that 1965 is the correct year.

Jean Davison, alt.assassination.jfk newsgroup post, 4/3/2010

The Not-So-Mysterious Death of Eddie Benavides
 

13 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Mark,

Of the witnesses to the Tippit killing, Benavides was the closest.  He worked as a barber and told the WC and another interviewer that the killer looked like Oswald but "I remember the back of his head seemed like his hairline was sort of--looked like his hairline sort of went square instead of tapered off and he looked like he needed a haircut for about 2 weeks.”

As we can see, the hair on the back of Oswald’s head was tapered, instead of  being squared off as barber Benavides remembered, suggesting someone who looked like Oswald—but was not Oswald—was involved in the shooting.
 

TSBD employee Roy Lewis said of Oswald, “We would tease him about it because his hair would be growing down the back of his head,” not squared off as Benavides testified.

Benavides also testified that the Tippit killer unloaded spent cartridges from his gun one at a time, although the pistol taken at the Texas Theater had an extractor that ejected all the shells simultaneously.

I also believe, but cannot prove, that Benavides saw two more Dallas cops at the Tippit murder scene at the time of the murder but was too afraid to say so.  If memory serves, Benavides also told someone that he believed his brother’s shooting was meant for him, but I’d have to search for that reference.
 

I don't think I've heard that before. But why wait until almost a year after he testified?

19 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Eddy Benavides was shot in the head (he was the lookalike brother to closest Tippit shooting witness Domingo Benavides)

What is it about his death that you find suspicious?