New Essay by Don Thomas on Black TSBD Employees, Oswald, and 6th Floor

[Rex Bradford]

Don Thomas has written a new essay, not on acoustics this time. It discusses the issue of Oswald and the 6th floor "sniper's nest", particularly focused on the testimony of black TSBD employees including Charles Givens and Bonnie Ray Williams.

Entitled "Rewriting History: Bugliosi Parses the Testimony," it dissects Vincent Bugliosi's handling of this matter in addition to that of the Warren Commission. This essay is published on the Mary Ferrell site. Lots of pictures, and many reference links for the obsessive among us.

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/...s_the_Testimony

Rex

[Jack White]

Rex...It is a valuable service to provide links to the Ferrell website.

However, whoever set it up failed to make it user friendly; my old

Macintosh is over ten years old, and the website will not accommodate

it, since it was composed with newer programs that excludes us old

Mac users. Webpage designers always use fancy new software which

is unfriendly to persons with older computers, which in the Mac world

means System X or newer. My OS is 9.2, so I am out of luck; in fact,

everytime I have tried to open the Ferrell website, it freezes up my

computer, forcing a restart.

Too bad.

Jack

[Ron Ecker]

Jack,

Buy a new computer. You can still keep your 10-year-old Mac around as a conversation piece.

Ron

[William Kelly]

Don Thomas has written a new essay, not on acoustics this time. It discusses the issue of Oswald and the 6th floor "sniper's nest", particularly focused on the testimony of black TSBD employees including Charles Givens and Bonnie Ray Williams.

Entitled "Rewriting History: Bugliosi Parses the Testimony," it dissects Vincent Bugliosi's handling of this matter in addition to that of the Warren Commission. This essay is published on the Mary Ferrell site. Lots of pictures, and many reference links for the obsessive among us.

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/...s_the_Testimony

Rex

Thanks for that Rex,

The article is like his acoustics work, detailed, logical and convincing.

Speaking of the acoustics, Jeff Morley, in 2005 article in Readers Digest discusses a new fine-tuning of the acoustic tapes, a process that should be completed soon if it isn't already done.

Does anybody have an update on that?

And Jack, Steve Jobs should give you an updated Apple just for your endurance in promoting it.

Thanks,

BK

Edited July 19, 2007 by William Kelly

[Jack White]

Jack,

Buy a new computer. You can still keep your 10-year-old Mac around as a conversation piece.

Ron

It would cost about $5000 to replicate the Mac setup I have, including all new programs,

scanner, printer, etc.

Not worth it. My present setup does 95% of what I need.

Expensive conversation piece.

Jack

[Rex Bradford]

Jack,

Buy a new computer. You can still keep your 10-year-old Mac around as a conversation piece.

Ron

It would cost about $5000 to replicate the Mac setup I have, including all new programs,

scanner, printer, etc.

Not worth it. My present setup does 95% of what I need.

Expensive conversation piece.

Jack

Jack,

Very sorry to hear you can't access the MFF site - I'll see if we can do a little more testing. Do you have trouble with many websites, or just this one? If your problems are more general, an alternative to a $5000 replacement might be to get a 2nd inexpensive notebook computer just for web use or other things that don't work on your Mac. I got one at Staples for about $600 (PC, from Averatec), Mac laptops cost a little more.

Rex

[Jack White]

Jack,

Buy a new computer. You can still keep your 10-year-old Mac around as a conversation piece.

Ron

It would cost about $5000 to replicate the Mac setup I have, including all new programs,

scanner, printer, etc.

Not worth it. My present setup does 95% of what I need.

Expensive conversation piece.

Jack

Jack,

Very sorry to hear you can't access the MFF site - I'll see if we can do a little more testing. Do you have trouble with many websites, or just this one? If your problems are more general, an alternative to a $5000 replacement might be to get a 2nd inexpensive notebook computer just for web use or other things that don't work on your Mac. I got one at Staples for about $600 (PC, from Averatec), Mac laptops cost a little more.

Rex

Thanks, Rex. Everyone suggests that. But the upgrade is not worth the price.

My old Mac does 95 percent of what I need...without spending big bucks for the

five percent I can no longer do because of "planned obsolescence" to make

users buy new computers with features they don't need. I am told that my

problem has to do with a Javascript code (whatever that is) which provides

greater "security" that I don't need. System ten has it, system nine doesn't.

Yours is one of the FEW websites I have problems with. I also cannot

access videos if they are Flash or RealPlayer...but QuickTime videos

work OK.

Thanks. I have seen many who praise your site. Mary would be proud!

Jack

[Greg Parker]

Don Thomas has written a new essay, not on acoustics this time. It discusses the issue of Oswald and the 6th floor "sniper's nest", particularly focused on the testimony of black TSBD employees including Charles Givens and Bonnie Ray Williams.

Entitled "Rewriting History: Bugliosi Parses the Testimony," it dissects Vincent Bugliosi's handling of this matter in addition to that of the Warren Commission. This essay is published on the Mary Ferrell site. Lots of pictures, and many reference links for the obsessive among us.

http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/...s_the_Testimony

Rex

Rex, this is a well written article which makes a number of valid (if not new) points.

Where Thomas falls down is in not always following his own dictum that "the accounts closest to the event before a witness can compare their memories to others that are the most reliable."

EXAMPLE ONE

Officer Baker had his first opportunity to put on record what happened on the afternoon of the assassination. His affidavit was taken by Marvin Johnson with Oswald in the same room awaiting his first interrogation. In that affidavit, Baker said;

the encounter happened on the 3rd or 4th floor; ("As we reached the 3rd or 4th floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back toward me. The manager said, 'I know that man. He works here. I then turned the man loose and went on up to the top floor...")

and; described the man as "a whit man, approx 30 years old 5' 9" 165 dark hair and wearing a lt brown jacket." No mention is made that the person now in custody was the person he saw.

Compare to Oswald: 24 yo, 145pounds, 5' 9", lt brown hair.

To Rowland's man: slender white male, dark hair, light-coloured shirt, open at neck

To Brennan's man: He was a white man in his early 30's, slender, nice looking, slender and would weigh about 165 to 175 pounds. He had on light colored clothing but definately [sic] not a suit.

TO DP APB description: an unknown white male, about 30, slender build, 5 feet 10 inches, 165 lbs., armed with what is thought to be a 30-30 rifle.

To Tippit scene description: a white male, approximately 30, 5'8", slender build... 165 pounds.

Note that Truly did not give his statement until the next day. It became the official version, and the first version locating any Oswald encounter with a cop on the 2nd floor. Even the earliest newspaper accounts (using Truly and Ochus Campbell as sources), placed Oswald on the FIRST floor when encountered by police.

Using all the available earliest statements, it becomes clear that Baker encountered the real shooter (or decoy) on the 3rd or 4th floor - and it was a completely different cop who encountered Oswald on the first floor. The two separate encounters were merged and relocated to the 2nd floor, probably because Reid placed Oswald on that floor in her statement which was taken sometime between the Baker and Truly statements.

EXAMPLE TWO

Thomas doesn't argue with Williams' testimony that there was an agreement between he and others to meet back on the 6th floor for lunch. Mention of this agreement was not only absent from Williams' earliest statement, so was any mention of going to the 6th floor for lunch at all. His statement says "we went down to the first floor and got our lunches. I went back up on the 5th floor with a fellow called Hank and Junior. I don't know his last name." This of course was Jarman.

Conclusions:

Williams did not go back to the 6th floor. He came down from the 6th floor - got his lunch and went up to the 5th floor with one at least one other - Junior Jarman (Norman may or may not have been with them). Chicken lunch remains were found on the 5th floor and were taken up to the 6th according to Alyea.

Williams was not the "elderly Negro" seen by Rowland. Indeed, he was not elderly, nor did he look elderly.

As for Givens and his jacket -- that was another story made up to help place Oswald on the 6th floor. Givens' coat was not on the 6th floor. It was hanging in the Domino room.

There was no mention of a return to the 6th floor in his earlier statements. To rebut his testimony though, one need look no further than that very testimony:

Mr. BELIN. Did you wear a jacket to work that day?

Mr. GIVENS. I wore a raincoat, I believe. It was misting

that morning.

Mr. BELIN. Did you hang up your coat in that room[the domino

room], too?

Mr. GIVENS. Yes, sir.

Others testified hanging one's coat in the domino room prior to commencing work was the common practice among them.

There is more I wanted to add, but I'm running late for my nightly cussing session over the back fence with the neighbor's dog.