Kaiser's Clipboard

[William Kelly]

Hey, I can't go back and find the line about why Kaiser wasn't at the TSBD on November 22, 1963, but it has something to do with him taking the day off in order to keep an appointement at the Baylor Dental Lab.

Now I never heard of the Baylor Dental Lab until Marina had her teeth done, at the request of the White Russian community she was associated with at the time, which could come into play if Phil Agee's dictum is true - CIA use CIA psychs, CIA lawyers, CIA doctors and especially CIA dentists, so you don't spill the beans while under sedation.

Then there's the HSCA witness Jack Tatum, who worked at the Baylor clinic as a photographer but took the day off in order to photograph the motorcade, but doesn't get any photos of the motorcade but ends up at 10th and Paton and eyewitnesses the shooting of Tippit through his rear view mirror, and they use his testimony that the killer's last shot was an execution through the head of the already down and out cop, signaling a mob hit. Nobody asked Tatum about where he worked.

The same place they took Oswald's remains to be positively identified.

So what's with Kaiser at Baylor that day anyway?

BK

[Greg Parker]

Hey, I can't go back and find the line about why Kaiser wasn't at the TSBD on November 22, 1963, but it has something to do with him taking the day off in order to keep an appointement at the Baylor Dental Lab.

Now I never heard of the Baylor Dental Lab until Marina had her teeth done, at the request of the White Russian community she was associated with at the time, which could come into play if Phil Agee's dictum is true - CIA use CIA psychs, CIA lawyers, CIA doctors and especially CIA dentists, so you don't spill the beans while under sedation.

Then there's the HSCA witness Jack Tatum, who worked at the Baylor clinic as a photographer but took the day off in order to photograph the motorcade, but doesn't get any photos of the motorcade but ends up at 10th and Paton and eyewitnesses the shooting of Tippit through his rear view mirror, and they use his testimony that the killer's last shot was an execution through the head of the already down and out cop, signaling a mob hit. Nobody asked Tatum about where he worked.

The same place they took Oswald's remains to be positively identified.

So what's with Kaiser at Baylor that day anyway?

BK

Bill,

I'll start another thread on the Baylor Dental Clinic.

I'm about done with the clipboard issue... (unless someone suddenly finds Kaiser's day off was in order to plant one of his home-brand jobs in Tippit's car )

[Duke Lane]

... I'm about done with the clipboard issue...

Without explaining the why's and wherefores?!?

As close as we've come to a rational explanation as to why someone went through the bother of:

... digging up old, unfilled(?) orders, attaching them to a clipboard (presumably Oswald's, but not claimed or missed by anyone else), putting the clipboard "in plain sight," and co-opting a couple of young guys - one white, one black - to "find" the clipboard and then "remember" Oswald having been on the sixth floor with it just prior to lunch ...

... has been to suggest that it was needed to "strengthen" a case to survive a court that the case wasn't ever going to see, just in case the just-announced Warren Commission turned out not to be so very pliable.

Given these various things, especially regarding the orders and knowing which clipboard was Oswald's (or at least wasn't someone else's still in use) required "inside knowledge" of the TSBD, who then are we suggesting was behind all of these shenanigans?

[Greg Parker]

... I'm about done with the clipboard issue...

Without explaining the why's and wherefores?!?

As close as we've come to a rational explanation as to why someone went through the bother of:

... digging up old, unfilled(?) orders, attaching them to a clipboard (presumably Oswald's, but not claimed or missed by anyone else), putting the clipboard "in plain sight," and co-opting a couple of young guys - one white, one black - to "find" the clipboard and then "remember" Oswald having been on the sixth floor with it just prior to lunch ...

... has been to suggest that it was needed to "strengthen" a case to survive a court that the case wasn't ever going to see, just in case the just-announced Warren Commission turned out not to be so very pliable.

Given these various things, especially regarding the orders and knowing which clipboard was Oswald's (or at least wasn't someone else's still in use) required "inside knowledge" of the TSBD, who then are we suggesting was behind all of these shenanigans?

Duke, you're such a mischievous imp. It was never suggested by me that the clipboard was needed to "strengthen" a case to survive a court that the case wasn't ever going to see, just in case the just-announced Warren Commission turned out not to be so very pliable. That is entirely your construction.

What I said was it strengthened it [Given's alleged 6th floor sighting] enough for a one-sided commission (it would never have been anywhere near sufficient to survive a proper flailing in court)....

Do you honestly think, had Oswald lived and gone to trial, Givens would have testified to the same thing he did before the Commission? Do you think in such a trial, the clipboard would survive as evidence?

There is more than one scenario which could explain the sequence of events.

I have mapped out those events here Clipboard Timeline

Those interested can make up their own minds as to what it may or may not mean.

As for your suggestion that no one knew at the time how pliable the Warren Commission would be (compared to a court of law)... poppycock. At that time, the WC was only charged with evaluating the FBI investigative report.

Edited June 1, 2008 by Greg Parker

[Duke Lane]

Do you honestly think, had Oswald lived and gone to trial, Givens would have testified to the same thing he did before the Commission? Do you think in such a trial, the clipboard would survive as evidence?

I don't think much of the case at all could have survived an adversarial proceeding. With a few exceptions - most notably an ill-prepared prosecution - I think it might well have transpired in much the same way as Walt Brown depicts it in The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald.

Personally, I don't find Givens' testimony all that terribly damaging to Oswald's case, and it is even remotely possible that he would have been a defense witness, given his story. Half a dozen guys put Oswald on either the fifth or sixth floor at ten minutes before noon; Givens merely put him certainly on the sixth floor, and only five minutes later, headed toward the elevator, at the normal time he'd have broken for lunch.

Givens merely couldn't say that Oswald had taken an elevator down for lunch ... but he did say that Oswald asked him to make sure the gate was closed on the freight elevator when he got downstairs (using the passenger elevator), and that when he got down to the first floor and went to check on the other elevator, it wasn't there. Did Oswald call it up and find, before Givens got downstairs, that the gate was already closed and the elevator responding to his call?

Kaiser's finding the clipboard where he did underscores that possibility inasmuch as:

• Oswald had been walking in the direction of the elevators;
  
• the only elevator he'd have been able to use after Givens went down was the west, freight elevator (which was not at the first floor when Givens got there, and we have no evidence of anyone else using it);
  
• Oswald had been carrying a clipboard;
  
• he had not been carrying any books completing any orders (he'd only been upstairs five minutes or so, and may not have been able to find them, given that they'd been moved around willy-nilly by the flooring crew); and
  
• since he hadn't completed the orders, a perfectly reasonable thing for him to have done would have been to lay the clipboard down near the elevator door so he could retrieve it - and the book orders - after lunch.
  

If Oswald - if he testified - had said that's what he did, the evidence would have supported his position.

As for your suggestion that no one knew at the time how pliable the Warren Commission would be (compared to a court of law)... poppycock. At that time, the WC was only charged with evaluating the FBI investigative report.

We know that now, but did the general public know that then? Hell, for that matter, does the general public even know that now?!? I don't think that the general public - anyone outside of the federal government, that is, including even the Texas AG - had any idea of what to expect from the WC the Monday after its formation had been announced on Friday, and probably expected the grandest of all inquisitions.

If the conspirators who planted the clipboard knew anything different, then they were both federally "connected," and had inside connections to the TSBD company.

All of that said, now I'll go read what you linked to.

[Duke Lane]

Here's an interesting if inaccurate piece of information that might shed some light on the December 2, 1963, undisclosed investigation at the TSBD by SA Nat Pinkston. This particular bit of information, obtained on December 5, is certainly not what spurred the December 2 visit to TSBD, but it's at least possible that Pinkston's visit at that time had to do with making background checks on TSBD employees, a subject that the WC might liked to have tip-toed around to ensure their continued cooperation.

This FBI report states:

On December 5, 1963, at Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. CLEMENT COTTER ... telephonically advised SA CYRIL F. BUSH that he knew of one ROY TRULY of Dallas, Texas, possibly identical with the employer of LEE HARVEY OSWALD at the Texas School Book Depository. Dr. COTTER furnished the following information ...:

From 1953 to 1955, TRULY worked as a chauffeur and general handyman ... [in] Victoria, Texas [between San Antonio and Houston, about 325 miles from Dallas] ....

TRULY was reputed to be an experienced sniper ... experience in Europe during World War II sniping at Germans ....

[

FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 55, Page 80

]

This report got Pinkston involved (again?); he filed a new report on December 7, in which he stated that:

[He] has interviewed Mr. ROY S. TRULY ... on numerous occasions since November 22, 1963. The description of ROY TRULY furnished [by the above]... could not be a description of Mr. ROY S. TRULY of the Texas School Book Depository.

A check of the Dallas City Directories from 1963 back to, and including, 1951, each year shows Mr. ROY S. TRULY employed by the Texas School Book Depository, in Dallas, Texas. [ibid., Page 81]

That little tidbit aside, a search through FBI files on MaryFerrell.org returns a LOT of results. It seems as if Pinkston spent an awful lot of time around the TSBD, including going through the Plaza with a metal detector. He seems to have played a fairly significant, if low-profile, part in the investigation.

There is nothing, however, from November 30 through December 5, 1963, other than the December 2 "Kaiser report," giving any suggestion of exactly what he was doing in TSBD that one particular day. In light of the time that he spent there on other days, however, is there really anything "suspicious" about his being there when the clipboard was found?

[Pat Speer]

Greg, I just took a look at your timeline. Nice work. Possibly dumb question. Is the Feb. 25 64 Ball-Belin report online? I don't believe I've ever seen it.

[Greg Parker]

Do you honestly think, had Oswald lived and gone to trial, Givens would have testified to the same thing he did before the Commission? Do you think in such a trial, the clipboard would survive as evidence?

I don't think much of the case at all could have survived an adversarial proceeding. With a few exceptions - most notably an ill-prepared prosecution - I think it might well have transpired in much the same way as Walt Brown depicts it in The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald.

That's not answering the question asked, Duke. Again - in your opinion, would Givens have delivered the same testimony to a judge and jury that he delivered to the WC?

Personally, I don't find Givens' testimony all that terribly damaging to Oswald's case, and it is even remotely possible that he would have been a defense witness, given his story.

Which story? His first one? Yes. He'd have been a defense witness.

Half a dozen guys put Oswald on either the fifth or sixth floor at ten minutes before noon; Givens merely put him certainly on the sixth floor, and only five minutes later, headed toward the elevator, at the normal time he'd have broken for lunch.

At the risk of repetition, it started as a 25 minute gap. This was compressed incrementally up to and including the hearings. And the floor shifted from being unequivocally 5, to 5 or 6 among the crew at the time of the hearings. Thus, I put it to you that your "5 minutes later" and "certainly on the sixth floor", while looking like very minor points of contention, are misleading. Being on the 6th floor at 11:55am, while not sufficient in and of itself, to cause great concern, it is a hell of a lot more damaging, given the totality of the evidence, than being on the 5th at 11:30am.

Givens merely couldn't say that Oswald had taken an elevator down for lunch ... but he did say that Oswald asked him to make sure the gate was closed on the freight elevator when he got downstairs (using the passenger elevator), and that when he got down to the first floor and went to check on the other elevator, it wasn't there. Did Oswald call it up and find, before Givens got downstairs, that the gate was already closed and the elevator responding to his call?

It's nowhere near certain that conversation was even with Givens.

Kaiser's finding the clipboard where he did underscores that possibility inasmuch as:

• Oswald had been walking in the direction of the elevators;
  
  So, Givens lie supports the location of the clipboard? How unusual they'd be in sync!
  
• the only elevator he'd have been able to use after Givens went down was the west, freight elevator (which was not at the first floor when Givens got there, and we have no evidence of anyone else using it);
  
  No evidence means no one did, or could have?
  
• Oswald had been carrying a clipboard;
  Indubitably. And a lunch sack that morning. He obviously is as guilty as all get-out. No one else used clipboards or brought a packed lunch. Case closed (again!)
  
  
• he had not been carrying any books completing any orders (he'd only been upstairs five minutes or so, and may not have been able to find them, given that they'd been moved around willy-nilly by the flooring crew); and
  
• since he hadn't completed the orders, a perfectly reasonable thing for him to have done would have been to lay the clipboard down near the elevator door so he could retrieve it - and the book orders - after lunch.
  

If Oswald - if he testified - had said that's what he did, the evidence would have supported his position.

Yep. Except you can't get him up there without relying on Givens and that clipboard.

As for your suggestion that no one knew at the time how pliable the Warren Commission would be (compared to a court of law)... poppycock. At that time, the WC was only charged with evaluating the FBI investigative report.

We know that now, but did the general public know that then? Hell, for that matter, does the general public even know that now?!? I don't think that the general public - anyone outside of the federal government, that is, including even the Texas AG - had any idea of what to expect from the WC the Monday after its formation had been announced on Friday, and probably expected the grandest of all inquisitions.

I'm sure the announcement got plenty of media coverage - especially in Dallas. How specific those reports were as to the limits of the Commission, I don't know.

If the conspirators who planted the clipboard knew anything different, then they were both federally "connected," and had inside connections to the TSBD company.

Now you're getting it!

All of that said, now I'll go read what you linked to.

[Greg Parker]

Here's an interesting if inaccurate piece of information that might shed some light on the December 2, 1963, undisclosed investigation at the TSBD by SA Nat Pinkston. This particular bit of information, obtained on December 5, is certainly not what spurred the December 2 visit to TSBD, but it's at least possible that Pinkston's visit at that time had to do with making background checks on TSBD employees, a subject that the WC might liked to have tip-toed around to ensure their continued cooperation.

This FBI report states:

On December 5, 1963, at Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. CLEMENT COTTER ... telephonically advised SA CYRIL F. BUSH that he knew of one ROY TRULY of Dallas, Texas, possibly identical with the employer of LEE HARVEY OSWALD at the Texas School Book Depository. Dr. COTTER furnished the following information ...:

From 1953 to 1955, TRULY worked as a chauffeur and general handyman ... [in] Victoria, Texas [between San Antonio and Houston, about 325 miles from Dallas] ....

TRULY was reputed to be an experienced sniper ... experience in Europe during World War II sniping at Germans ....

[

FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 55, Page 80

]

This report got Pinkston involved (again?); he filed a new report on December 7, in which he stated that:

[He] has interviewed Mr. ROY S. TRULY ... on numerous occasions since November 22, 1963. The description of ROY TRULY furnished [by the above]... could not be a description of Mr. ROY S. TRULY of the Texas School Book Depository.

A check of the Dallas City Directories from 1963 back to, and including, 1951, each year shows Mr. ROY S. TRULY employed by the Texas School Book Depository, in Dallas, Texas. [ibid., Page 81]

That little tidbit aside, a search through FBI files on MaryFerrell.org returns a LOT of results. It seems as if Pinkston spent an awful lot of time around the TSBD, including going through the Plaza with a metal detector. He seems to have played a fairly significant, if low-profile, part in the investigation.

There is nothing, however, from November 30 through December 5, 1963, other than the December 2 "Kaiser report," giving any suggestion of exactly what he was doing in TSBD that one particular day. In light of the time that he spent there on other days, however, is there really anything "suspicious" about his being there when the clipboard was found?

I thought this exchange was a bit odd:

Mr. BALL. In the course of your investigation, were you called to the Texas School Book Depository sometimes around the 2d of December 1963?

Mr. PINKSTON. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. And who asked you to come down there?

Mr. PINKSTON. I was instructed by one of my supervisors to conduct an investigation there on that date.

Mr. BALL. On that date?

Mr. PINKSTON. Yes, sir.

So he was specifically sent there by an unnamed supervisor to conduct an unspecified investigation.

If you think he was called there because of Kaiser finding the clipboard, fine... but there is no evidence I've found for that. All the evidence suggests rather strongly that Pinkston was already there at the time. Certainly, so one, including Pinkston, suggests he was sent as a result of any phone call from the TSBD.

[Greg Parker]

Greg, I just took a look at your timeline. Nice work. Possibly dumb question. Is the Feb. 25 64 Ball-Belin report online? I don't believe I've ever seen it.

Pat,

I wasn't able to locate it at the time I was doing the timeline. Wasn't too concerned about it really, as it is discussed in various other documents/news clippings.

If it is available online, maybe someone else can link to it?

[Duke Lane]

Do you honestly think, had Oswald lived and gone to trial, Givens would have testified to the same thing he did before the Commission? Do you think in such a trial, the clipboard would survive as evidence?

I don't think much of the case at all could have survived an adversarial proceeding. With a few exceptions - most notably an ill-prepared prosecution - I think it might well have transpired in much the same way as Walt Brown depicts it in The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald.

That's not answering the question asked, Duke. Again - in your opinion, would Givens have delivered the same testimony to a judge and jury that he delivered to the WC?

The answer is, yes, as a guess only, Givens would have given the same testimony. He did, after all, give it in front of as-close-to-a-court as anyone ever got without, necessarily, any expectation of how his testimony would be taken, if it would be challenged, etc. We can look back with 20/20 hindsight and know that whatever was said that could possibly indict Oswald was welcomed - and the exculpatory evidence ignored - but nobody (or, at least, few people) had that luxury back then.

Half a dozen guys put Oswald on either the fifth or sixth floor at ten minutes before noon; Givens merely put him certainly on the sixth floor, and only five minutes later, headed toward the elevator, at the normal time he'd have broken for lunch.

At the risk of repetition, it started as a 25 minute gap. This was compressed incrementally up to and including the hearings. And the floor shifted from being unequivocally 5, to 5 or 6 among the crew at the time of the hearings. Thus, I put it to you that your "5 minutes later" and "certainly on the sixth floor", while looking like very minor points of contention, are misleading. Being on the 6th floor at 11:55am, while not sufficient in and of itself, to cause great concern, it is a hell of a lot more damaging, given the totality of the evidence, than being on the 5th at 11:30am.

Givens originally said that he'd taken lunch as something close to 11:30 and that he'd seen Oswald downstairs in the domino room reading a newspaper. I think it's quite clear that nobody had broken for lunch at any 11:30, so no matter what time his testimony gave, it was clearly in error: just because he thought it was 11:30 didn't make it 11:30.

Givens merely couldn't say that Oswald had taken an elevator down for lunch ... but he did say that Oswald asked him to make sure the gate was closed on the freight elevator when he got downstairs (using the passenger elevator), and that when he got down to the first floor and went to check on the other elevator, it wasn't there. Did Oswald call it up and find, before Givens got downstairs, that the gate was already closed and the elevator responding to his call?

It's nowhere near certain that conversation was even with Givens.

Absolutely nothing is "certain." There's no evidence that any conversation took place with anybody, or that Oswald was even upstairs at all, other than that people said he was.

As for your suggestion that no one knew at the time how pliable the Warren Commission would be (compared to a court of law)... poppycock. At that time, the WC was only charged with evaluating the FBI investigative report.

We know that now, but did the general public know that then? Hell, for that matter, does the general public even know that now?!? I don't think that the general public - anyone outside of the federal government, that is, including even the Texas AG - had any idea of what to expect from the WC the Monday after its formation had been announced on Friday, and probably expected the grandest of all inquisitions.

I'm sure the announcement got plenty of media coverage - especially in Dallas. How specific those reports were as to the limits of the Commission, I don't know.

'Tis true, you don't ... and I don't know either. I'm fairly confident, tho', that there was no announcement to the effect that "if you've got something to hide, don't worry: the Commission is limiting its focus to J. Edgar Hoover's 'Oswald-did-it-alone' theory and will simply rubber-stamp what Hoover said (and we don't know what that was, specifically)." Given the shock of the nation, however, my guess would be that they would want the general public to know that this was serious business, and that they were going to get to the bottom of whatever happened because, y'know, nobody kills our President and gets away with it.

What really happened after that is not germane to that period. Anyone going back and planting additional incriminating evidence was taking one helluva chance, a bit more than anyone who has successfully kept the truth hidden for 45 years would have been likely to take.

[Duke Lane]

If the conspirators who planted the clipboard knew anything different, then they were both federally "connected," and had inside connections to the TSBD company.

Now you're getting it!

But you've got to prove it. "It sure seems like it; how else could anyone explain it?" doesn't pass muster.

[William Kelly]

I recently came across a photo of Kaiser's Clipboard in the location where it was found and wanted to add that to this thread.

BK

[Bernice Moore]

Here you go Bill.....one clipboard........

B....

[William Kelly]

Here you go Bill.....one clipboard........

B....

Thnaks Bernice,

And for Greg for his analysis.

BK