Ed Hoffman's Activities and Observations

[Duke Lane]

... So many times there is more to a story than whats written on the cover of a book - get my point.

Sure do ... and this time I agree with you 100% ... tho' probably not for the reasons you might think.

[Jack White]

ACCIDENTALLY POSTED TO THE WRONG THREAD. I THOUGHT I WAS STILL IN

THE GORDON ARNOLD/BLACKDOGMAN THREAD. I HAVE MOVED THE TEXT

TO THE PROPER THREAD.

.......................

Sadly, this has evolved into one of the most ridiculous threads ever witnessed.

Let's start over at the very beginning of the Gordon Arnold story. Now admittedly

Mr. Arnold was not the brightest bulb in the lamp...but neither was he a dishonest dummy.

Just an ordinary guy...not particularly articulate, but not out to deceive anyone. He did

not seek notoriety nor profit.

In the 1960s (remember the 60s, when the assassination happened?) Arnold had

recently returned to Dallas from a stretch in the Army, married his girlfriend and

settled down. Long past was the day he was home on leave in November '63

and witnessed the murder of the president on Elm Street. One day in the mid 1970s

he received a jury summons, which set in motion events he had not foreseen.

Waiting in the jury venire room to be called he joined a group of men in idle talk.

Howard Upchurch, an early day Dallas JFK researcher was in the group, and the

conversation eventually turned to the assassination. After listening a while, Arnold

joined in, saying, "I WAS THERE THAT DAY"...and proceeded to tell his well known

story, which I won't repeat, since what he told the jury members is the same story

that has been repeated often.

Upchurch was incredulous at first. He could not believe that a witness like Arnold

could have gone undiscovered for so long. He sought to confirm Arnold's story.

At that time I was giving slide presentations, and a group of researchers, including

Upchurch, met sometimes on Saturdays to look at photos and discuss the case.

One particular Saturday, Howard told us about Arnold, and wanted to see ALL of

my slides showing the knoll area. For a couple of hours the several of us (4 or 5)

looked in vain to locate any confirmation of a soldier on the knoll. The consensus

was that Arnold must have been confused about his location, since he was not in

in any photos. But we recommended that Howard call Earl Golz with the information

and have him check it out. We all respected the meticulous research Earl did for

all of his JFK stories. Several months later Earl's story appeared in the DMN. Earl

had checked all the information and Arnold's army history, and everything checked

out ok. Except the photos.

Earl's story was met with a big yawn by the research community. There was a

near unanimous HE'S NOT IN THE PHOTOS, SO HE WAS NOT THERE attitude.

So Arnold pretty much faded away. Until...

...in 1982 Gary Mack discovered the Badgeman image in Moorman, and I did the

photo enhancement work on it, including finding apparent images of two other

men on each side of the badgeman. I phoned Gary and said the THE ONE ON

THE LEFT APPEARS TO BE IN ARMY UNIFORM, COULD IT BE GORDON ARNOLD?

Gary agreed, and began a series of interviews with Arnold in which Gordon went

into as much detail as he could remember, without having been informed of the

Moorman research. Gary did not want to lead him into any "false memories", so

asked general questions, like WHAT WERE YOU WEARING?

When Gordon replied that he had on his khaki uniform and CLOTH CAP...Gary

got excited and asked for details...and Gordon explained it had a pointed top

and a gold medallion on the left side. That is what is seen in Moorman most

clearly.

SO, ABOUT FIVE YEARS AFTER ARNOLD FIRST TOLD HIS STORY TO UPCHURCH,

ARNOLD'S STORY SEEMED CONFIRMED!

He retold the story several times over the years, often with MINOR variations.

He told it to Nigel Turner without ever having seen the enhanced Moorman

image. His astonishment, recorded on film, would have been impossible to

fake.

It must be remembered that many of his retellings of his story were 20 or

more years after it happened. He should not be required to tell VERBATIM

the story over and over again IN EXACTLY THE SAME WORDS. He seemed

a man of limited verbal skills and not a public speaker, and his appearance

in TMWKK was TWENTY FIVE YEARS AFTERWARD. His brief notoriety was

unwelcome, and he did not profit (Nigel paid $100 to every interviewee).

But his story was always basically consistent. No ordinary person can

retell the same story in exactly the same words a quarter century later!

I am one who worries that even his death at an early age was perhaps

convenient for someone.

I also worry that parts of his story do not make sense to me: the mound of

dirt; the "not knowing the president was in the parade"; not choosing a better

location to film from; leaving the scene without reporting his film being

taken, etc. But he was a simple and naive man, trying to tell what happened

to him. We may never fully understand what happened.

I was not there. I believe he was...and we should try to understand what

his story means.

Jack

Edited August 14, 2007 by Jack White

[Miles Scull]

... So many times there is more to a story than whats written on the cover of a book - get my point.

Sure do ... and this time I agree with you 100% ... tho' probably not for the reasons you might think.

Duke

You mean that there is more to Ed's storybook than what is on the storybook's front cover? OK

Anyway, Ed's signing is not Ed's PANTOMIMING.

When Ed, while on major documentary video footage telling his story to the camera & to the documentary's director & producer, PANTOMIMES, then Ed is graphically demonstrating to the camera & to the documentary's director & producer what Ed wants the camera & the documentary's director & producer to comprehend as the vital import & significance of Ed's story (such that non-signing people can clearly & exactly grasp Ed's story).

Then, it becomes a point of interest to question as to what exactly prompted Ed to change his story 180 degrees in four years:

Ed pantomimed the sniper shooting over the picket fence with the rifle butt to his... LEFT ...shoulder in The Men Who Killed Kennedy 1988.

Ed pantomimed the sniper shooting over the picket fence with the rifle butt to his... RIGHT ...shoulder in the video tape documentary "Beyond JFK" 1992.

[Miles Scull]

dupe

Edited August 14, 2007 by Miles Scull

[Duke Lane]

oops ...

Edited August 15, 2007 by Duke Lane

[Duke Lane]

... Ed's signing is not Ed's PANTOMIMING.

When Ed, while on major documentary video footage telling his story to the camera & to the documentary's director & producer, PANTOMIMES, then Ed is graphically demonstrating to the camera & to the documentary's director & producer what Ed wants the camera & the documentary's director & producer to comprehend as the vital import & significance of Ed's story (such that non-signing people can clearly & exactly grasp Ed's story).

Then, it becomes a point of interest to question as to what exactly prompted Ed to change his story 180 degrees in four years:

Ed pantomimed the sniper shooting over the picket fence with the rifle butt to his... LEFT ...shoulder in The Men Who Killed Kennedy 1988. Ed pantomimed the sniper shooting over the picket fence with the rifle butt to his... RIGHT ...shoulder in the video tape documentary "Beyond JFK" 1992.

Miles, this is overwhelming. You seem to be actually suggesting that hearing people might have a way to understand signing people without being qualified or certified. You might want to document this, as it is anathema to this whole thread and contradicts Ed's book. That is irresponsible and conjectural, and clearly has no basis in fact.

While you are gathering FACTS, please also try to determine how a SIGNING person would or could possibly attempt to get across the idea of a rifle to an UNsigning person. I'm quite confident that doing a "bang-bang shoot-'em-up" like a little boy would do is considered gauche, so there must be another more swah-vay way of doing it that takes a little more brain power, training and certification.

Lacking that, I don't think that your observations - conjectures! - are baseless, immaterial, and undeserving of the dignity of reply, much less consideration.

Have you actually ever even read a book about this? If you haven't, then you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Please come back with your puissant viewpoints when you think you're a little better educated. In the meanwhile, I suggest that you try NOT to interrupt a good story with what you consider to be facts, ill-founded as they may be.

Bull Muehller

PS — While you're at it, please work on your math: going from one's LEFT shoulder to their RIGHT is not 180 degrees! Sheesh! Try it: put a gun to your left shoulder, then to your right: did it turn 180°? No, of course it didn't! But if it had, maybe we wouldn't have to be reading this juvenile claptrap!

Oops! Forgot to put the bold on!

[Miles Scull]

... Ed's signing is not Ed's PANTOMIMING.

When Ed, while on major documentary video footage telling his story to the camera & to the documentary's director & producer, PANTOMIMES, then Ed is graphically demonstrating to the camera & to the documentary's director & producer what Ed wants the camera & the documentary's director & producer to comprehend as the vital import & significance of Ed's story (such that non-signing people can clearly & exactly grasp Ed's story).

Then, it becomes a point of interest to question as to what exactly prompted Ed to change his story 180 degrees in four years:

Ed pantomimed the sniper shooting over the picket fence with the rifle butt to his... LEFT ...shoulder in The Men Who Killed Kennedy 1988. Ed pantomimed the sniper shooting over the picket fence with the rifle butt to his... RIGHT ...shoulder in the video tape documentary "Beyond JFK" 1992.

Miles, this is overwhelming. You seem to be actually suggesting that hearing people might have a way to understand signing people without being qualified or certified. You might want to document this, as it is anathema to this whole thread and contradicts Ed's book. That is irresponsible and conjectural, and clearly has no basis in fact.

While you are gathering FACTS, please also try to determine how a SIGNING person would or could possibly attempt to get across the idea of a rifle to an UNsigning person. I'm quite confident that doing a "bang-bang shoot-'em-up" like a little boy would do is considered gauche, so there must be another more swah-vay way of doing it that takes a little more brain power, training and certification.

Lacking that, I don't think that your observations - conjectures! - are baseless, immaterial, and undeserving of the dignity of reply, much less consideration.

Have you actually ever even read a book about this? If you haven't, then you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Please come back with your puissant viewpoints when you think you're a little better educated. In the meanwhile, I suggest that you try NOT to interrupt a good story with what you consider to be facts, ill-founded as they may be.

Bull Muehller

PS — While you're at it, please work on your math: going from one's LEFT shoulder to their RIGHT is not 180 degrees! Sheesh! Try it: put a gun to your left shoulder, then to your right: did it turn 180°? No, of course it didn't! But if it had, maybe we wouldn't have to be reading this juvenile claptrap!

Oops! Forgot to put the bold on!

Sorry Duke.

I was out of line. Appreciate your fair rebuke.

In my defence I will only say that my good friend of 10 years, John Cowen, was virtually deaf. John graduated from Gallaudet University, which has an international reputation for graduate programs for deaf & hard-of-hearing students. We were off-campus roommates for a time & good student friends when I was at GWU as an undergraduate.

John taught me some basic signing. One of his exploits was to communicate via signing over distances of 150 yards without speaking or yelling, of course. I have the highest respect for John & his many deaf/signing friends. So, I respect Ed too. It is only with his story that I take issue, just as I would take issue with it were Ed a hearing person.

[Duke Lane]

...the effect is the same...i.e. he saw a man at that location put a gun to his shoulder and point it at JFK!.....

Actually, Ed never made any such claim. He said he saw a puff of smoke, which he initially thought to be from a cigarette, and then saw "suit man" running toward "train man" with a rifle in his hand, etc. He never said that he saw a gun being aimed or fired, so it really doesn't matter which shoulder Ed pantomimes it being fired from anyway, does it?

What is significant is that he can pantomime a rifle being fired, just like any kid playing bang-bang shoot-'em-up. I'd imagine he could have done the same on November 22, 1963 (rifles haven't changed significantly since then, nor have kids' games), and that's really all it would have taken to get a cop's attention that day or to convey to the FBI that a gun was involved. Neither occurred, because he "couldn't communicate" with any of the cops.

[Duke Lane]

I stand corrected - he never meant to say he 'saw' the man shoot, he 'spoke' about them moving a gun-like something away after a shooting. But the lack of credibility loss because of which shoulder he chose remains the same.

Because he never actually saw the rifle being fired - or for that matter, by whom - you're quite correct. As noted, the important thing here is that he was able to convey the idea of a rifle, which on that afternoon would've been enough reason to pay the man some attention. After all, it's not every day cops have Presidents in town shot dead by gunfire. The idea that, because he couldn't speak English aloud, he'd have been dismissed or ignored is ludicrous.

Instead, he decided that he "couldn't communicate" with your ordinary, run-of-the-mill cop and decided to drive around town instead of even trying. "Unable" to find "anyone" (his uncle, incidentally, did not have any assignment associated with the visit), he decided to go home. This is "credible"?!?

Unless he already knew where the FBI office was (doesn't everyone?), he "somehow managed to get directions" there from someone, according to Sloan, but nobody explains - and few people seem to ask - how he managed to communicate "FBI" to people when he couldn't communicate "rifle" to them. Credible?

So he went home. Incredible.

[Miles Scull]

I stand corrected - he never meant to say he 'saw' the man shoot, he 'spoke' about them moving a gun-like something away after a shooting. But the lack of credibility loss because of which shoulder he chose remains the same.

Because he never actually saw the rifle being fired - or for that matter, by whom - you're quite correct. As noted, the important thing here is that he was able to convey the idea of a rifle, which on that afternoon would've been enough reason to pay the man some attention. After all, it's not every day cops have Presidents in town shot dead by gunfire. The idea that, because he couldn't speak English aloud, he'd have been dismissed or ignored is ludicrous.

Instead, he decided that he "couldn't communicate" with your ordinary, run-of-the-mill cop and decided to drive around town instead of even trying. "Unable" to find "anyone" (his uncle, incidentally, did not have any assignment associated with the visit), he decided to go home. This is "credible"?!?

Unless he already knew where the FBI office was (doesn't everyone?), he "somehow managed to get directions" there from someone, according to Sloan, but nobody explains - and few people seem to ask - how he managed to communicate "FBI" to people when he couldn't communicate "rifle" to them. Credible?

So he went home. Incredible.

Duke,

I'll try to walk the line here, but you say incredible, right?

I stand corrected... But the lack of credibility loss because of which shoulder he chose remains the same.

Here's an interesting brain teaser, Duke, which confirms the vital importance of consistency in Ed's story, which is being tested here for validity:

What if Ed had held out his hands in front to hold & fire a firearm, one hand further out than the other, but not put a rifle stock butt to shoulder?

Oh Oh

Remember Ed claims he saw smoke. What smoke? A cigarette like puff of smoke floated up vertically from the sniper's head, so pantomimes Ed.

But the wind was steady from NW to SE. The chamber breach does not emit a puff of smoke of that volume. The sniper does not eject a spent casing because he will not know where the casing will land & he does not have time look for it & even if he had done the very thin chamber smoke wisp would not have been of sufficient volume to have been discerned by anyone standing 265 yards away. Ed mimes a large enveloping puff. The smoke is propelled violently out of the muzzle forward as a jetting stream for several feet, until the smoke loses intense trust out several feet from the barrel extended over the fence (as Ed pantomimes). Then the smoke continues forward several more feet until it slows & begins to ride on the wind where Holland would have seen it drift out from under the trees & so drift away to the SE, dissipating. At no time would there have been any smoke floating up vertically around the sniper's head as though from a cigarette.

[Miles Scull]

I stand corrected - he never meant to say he 'saw' the man shoot, he 'spoke' about them moving a gun-like something away after a shooting. But the lack of credibility loss because of which shoulder he chose remains the same.

Because he never actually saw the rifle being fired - or for that matter, by whom - you're quite correct. As noted, the important thing here is that he was able to convey the idea of a rifle, which on that afternoon would've been enough reason to pay the man some attention. After all, it's not every day cops have Presidents in town shot dead by gunfire. The idea that, because he couldn't speak English aloud, he'd have been dismissed or ignored is ludicrous.

Instead, he decided that he "couldn't communicate" with your ordinary, run-of-the-mill cop and decided to drive around town instead of even trying. "Unable" to find "anyone" (his uncle, incidentally, did not have any assignment associated with the visit), he decided to go home. This is "credible"?!?

Unless he already knew where the FBI office was (doesn't everyone?), he "somehow managed to get directions" there from someone, according to Sloan, but nobody explains - and few people seem to ask - how he managed to communicate "FBI" to people when he couldn't communicate "rifle" to them. Credible?

So he went home. Incredible.

Duke,

You have the WCR's 26 volumes, don't you?

I cannot find any photos published by the WC which show Bowers' view at the time of the shooting.

Can you? Take a look?

This is relevant to this thread, because Bowers has stated that he did not see anyone behind the fence at that time.

This testimony contradicts Hoffman's story. These photos could verify Bowers.

Are you still working on the Murphy aspect?

Thanks

Miles

[Duke Lane]

Duke, You have the WCR's 26 volumes, don't you?

I cannot find any photos published by the WC which show Bowers' view at the time of the shooting.

Can you? Take a look?

This is relevant to this thread, because Bowers has stated that he did not see anyone behind the fence at that time.

This testimony contradicts Hoffman's story. These photos could verify Bowers.

Are you still working on the Murphy aspect?

Yes to all of the above ... but I think you'll find it a lot easier to find if you go thru the volumes on MaryFerrell.org or HistoryMatters.com. Just click on each volume's link and search for "tower" or "Bowers" and you should come up with something. The Commission Documents are also there, and there are LOTS of photos, but unfortunately, not so terribly easy to find.

[Duke Lane]

After a lengthy delay for proofing and fact-checking, the final word on Ed Hoffman's supposed whereabouts on November 22, 1963, is this: anywhere else but where he says he was.

The proof is in the fact that, as and after the motorcade was entering Stemmons Freeway, there was a traffic jam on the highway directly in front of Ed, and between him and Dealey Plaza. It was created by no fewer than a dozen police officers on motorcycles holding traffic at the railroad overpass beyond which Ed had parked his car.

For Ed to have been where he claimed, he would have had to have been not seen by an officer on a three-wheeler almost directly across the highway from him for 40-50 minutes, whose job was specifically to see to it that nobody was doing what Ed claims he was. Additionally, two other motorcycle officers about 200 yards from him on the same side of the highway would also have had to not see Ed.

More to the point, however, is that for Ed to have reached his car, he would have had to run by these dozen officers holding traffic, and they, too, would have had to ignore a man running and waving his arms, then running right past them, jumping into his car, and taking off - from their point of view - after the motorcade at a high rate of speed. This right after a President had been shot just a few hundred yards away, at that!

For the full story, read my article Freeway Man, currently online as a PDF. Unfortunately, while it is heavily annotated, the links to the documents cited do not presently work in the Acrobat file. This will be corrected in a later HTML version.

[Miles Scull]

After a lengthy delay for proofing and fact-checking, the final word on Ed Hoffman's supposed whereabouts on November 22, 1963, is this: anywhere else but where he says he was.

The proof is in the fact that, as and after the motorcade was entering Stemmons Freeway, there was a traffic jam on the highway directly in front of Ed, and between him and Dealey Plaza. It was created by no fewer than a dozen police officers on motorcycles holding traffic at the railroad overpass beyond which Ed had parked his car.

For Ed to have been where he claimed, he would have had to have been not seen by an officer on a three-wheeler almost directly across the highway from him for 40-50 minutes, whose job was specifically to see to it that nobody was doing what Ed claims he was. Additionally, two other motorcycle officers about 200 yards from him on the same side of the highway would also have had to not see Ed.

More to the point, however, is that for Ed to have reached his car, he would have had to run by these dozen officers holding traffic, and they, too, would have had to ignore a man running and waving his arms, then running right past them, jumping into his car, and taking off - from their point of view - after the motorcade at a high rate of speed. This right after a President had been shot just a few hundred yards away, at that!

For the full story, read my article Freeway Man, currently online as a PDF. Unfortunately, while it is heavily annotated, the links to the documents cited do not presently work in the Acrobat file. This will be corrected in a later HTML version.

KAAAA.....BBOOOOOOOMMMMMM

Duke

Can I make a point now about Murphy not seeing something?

Edited September 23, 2007 by Miles Scull

[Duke Lane]

Duke,

Can I make a point now about Murphy not seeing something?

I can't imagine a good reason why not!