Ralph Leon Yates

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Alan Ford said:

Mr. Oswald was perfect for the role. A man who had worked very hard to build up a 'pro-Castro' profile. He was (by his lights) a patriot. Anti-Communist to the core. He detested Pres. Castro as much as the Kennedy brothers did.

So he willingly signs up for involvement in a plan to generate anti-Castro outrage by a non-lethal shots-fired incident in Dealey Plaza. He knows that there will be evidence pointing to his involvement (though NOT as a shooter). That's the whole point.

In all likelihood the planned official story was to be that he was flown out of Dallas from Red Bird Airport, bound for Cuba. As for his actual planned destination, we can only speculate.

His primary motivation? Ideology. It makes people do things that no calculus of narrow self-interest can account for.

If he indeed left his wedding ring with his wife that morning, then he was taking his leave from her and the children.

Whoah Alan. On Oswald being anti-Castro. Defend that. What evidence? Did Marina know? She said he loved Castro, it was all about getting to castro’s cuba for Oswald. De Mohrenschildt also said Lee was pro-Castro.

If you are saying he was anti-Castro and ideological, do you mean right-wing anti-Castro (DRE, Artime) or left anti-Castro (JURE, Ray), or something else?

Do you think his left ideology in his writings was fake and he was really a super-patriot on the US side (which is not found at all in his writings)?

Edited December 10, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Alan Ford]

7 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Whoah Alan. On Oswald being anti-Castro. Defend that. What evidence? Did Marina know? She said he loved Castro, it was all about getting to castro’s cuba for Oswald. De Mohrenschildt also said Lee was pro-Castro.

If you are saying he was anti-Castro and ideological, do you mean right-wing anti-Castro (DRE, Artime) or left anti-Castro (JURE, Ray), or something else?

Do you think his left ideology in his writings was fake and he was really a super-patriot on the US side (which is not found at all in his writings)?

Mr. Doudna, I have come to share the widely held belief amongst researchers that Mr. Oswald was a sheep-dipped asset. All evidence one might adduce for his being a genuine pro-Castro Leftist can equally cut the other way: right-wing anti-Castroite engaged in an extended pro-Castro cosplay-----------the perfect profile for someone involved in an off-books false-flag operation of the sort I am proposing.

[Greg Doudna]

On 12/10/2023 at 2:02 AM, Alan Ford said:

Mr. Doudna, I have come to share the widely held belief amongst researchers that Mr. Oswald was a sheep-dipped asset. All evidence one might adduce for his being a genuine pro-Castro Leftist can equally cut the other way: right-wing anti-Castroite engaged in an extended pro-Castro cosplay-----------the perfect profile for someone involved in an off-books false-flag operation of the sort I am proposing.

OK, I realize there are different possible interpretations on some of these things. I think his political writings are the real Oswald--I've read them, they're all consistent, all in his handwriting over different times of writing--and that means he was no right-winger but also was anti-authoritarian, almost libertarian socialist. However the anti-authoritarian views in his political writings as they stand could be consistent with anti-Castro along JURE lines, opposition to Castro from the left, in whose company Oswald was seen at Silvia Odio's door (Silvia Odio herself being closely and her father important JURE). And JURE leader Ray was I think friendly with RFK personally. In his Alabama Jesuit address summer 1963 Oswald spoke of building a best of both systems on "an American foundation", and from all who knew him he was pro-JFK start to finish. So the notion of him being a Cold War liberal or Cold War left working (if he thought so) for JFK and against Castro is not unthinkable, from that point of view. But the real Oswald as a closeted right-winger, closeted believer in segregation etc? No way. Was his one-man FPCC show in New Orleans an anti-FPCC operation? Larry Hancock suggests it could be Oswald creating a credential to enable him to get into Cuba, somebody told him if he did that that would work. So even though CIA and FBI were targeting FPCC at the very time Oswald does his FPCC thing in New Orleans, its not quite obvious what that means in terms of Oswald's view toward Castro (and FPCC). But enough of that, hard to solve that here.

If the idea is that Oswald was personally and wittingly complicit in falsely setting himself up as involved in an attempt to assassinate JFK (fake attempt actually), Oswald wittingly participating in himself being used as a means to implicate Castro in a false flag failed-assassination attempt scenario, I suppose one thing that could be said is, if that was Oswald's game, then his answers under interrogation (including talking at all instead of going silent until he got a lawyer), in terms of making denials easily shown false, could be consistent with making himself look guilty. But his claims he had not shot anyone, was a patsy, was being denied counsel, sure sound impassioned and real. 

There is a whole literature in criminal justice studies on the phenomenon of "false confession". I suppose in principle an idea of an innocent Oswald intentionally falsely incriminating himself in an assassination attempt on JFK, if so, could fall in the wide tent of that phenomenon (even though he never confessed in words). 

I'm struggling to find a way to see it as plausible (let alone whether there is evidence in support). How about this?--he is told or promised he would be blamed for being part of a Castro conspiracy to attempt to kill JFK, but that would be the end of his identity as Lee Harvey Oswald. Relocation, new name, new identity, new life somewhere else. But that would mean Oswald giving up Marina and even more importantly his children permanently. It’s hard to see that one either. 

Edited December 24, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Alan Ford]

On 12/10/2023 at 6:34 PM, Greg Doudna said:

If the idea is that Oswald was personally and wittingly complicit in falsely setting himself up as involved in an attempt to assassinate JFK (fake attempt actually), Oswald wittingly participating in himself being used as a means to implicate Castro in a false flag failed-assassination attempt scenario, I suppose one thing that could be said is, if that was Oswald's game, then his answers under interrogation (including talking at all instead of going silent until he got a lawyer), in terms of making denials easily shown false, could be consistent with making himself look guilty. But his claims he had not shot anyone, was a patsy, was being denied counsel, sure sound impassioned and real. 

There is a whole literature in criminal justice studies on the phenomenon of "false confession". I suppose in principle an idea of an innocent Oswald intentionally falsely incriminating himself in an assassination attempt on JFK, if so, could fall in the wide tent of that phenomenon (even though he never confessed in words). 

Mr. Doudna, let's break it down this way:

What Mr. Oswald Signed Up For

• Participation (as non-rifleman) in a false-flag non-lethal missed-shots incident
• He would be driven away from the scene immediately afterwards and (under whichever arrangement) disappear
• The world would come to know his name as a member of the 'pro-Castro' team behind the incident

What Mr. Oswald Got

• Pres. Kennedy is actually shot
• His ride out of Dealey Plaza scarpers
• He is hung out to dry

In custody, he believes himself on the hook for something he never signed up for: participation (as non-rifleman) in an actual assassination.

He finds himself with the impossible task of explaining away evidence of involvement-------evidence which he himself helped generate. And now for the kicker: he must try to defend himself without breaking his cover as a member of a false-flag operation. All he can do is hold out in the hope that those who commissioned him in the first place will come to his rescue.

This is a dramatically different scenario to someone finding themselves on the hook for for something they knowingly put themselves on the hook for.

This is why the Mr. Oswald in custody is both a man whose protestations of innocence and unfair treatment are impassioned and sincere and a man who tells lies.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Greg Doudna]

On 12/23/2023 at 3:44 PM, Alan Ford said:

Mr. Doudna, let's break it down this way:

What Mr. Oswald Signed Up For

• Participation (as non-rifleman) in a false-flag non-lethal missed-shots incident
• He would be driven away from the scene immediately afterwards and (under whichever arrangement) disappear
• The world would come to know his name as a member of the 'pro-Castro' team behind the incident

What Mr. Oswald Got

• Pres. Kennedy is actually shot
• His ride out of Dealey Plaza scarpers
• He is hung out to dry

In custody, he believes himself on the hook for something he never signed up for: participation (as non-rifleman) in an actual assassination.

He finds himself with the impossible task of explaining away evidence of involvement-------evidence which he himself helped generate. And now for the kicker: he must try to defend himself without breaking his cover as a member of a false-flag operation. All he can do is hold out in the hope that those who commissioned him in the first place will come to his rescue.

This is a dramatically different scenario to someone finding themselves on the hook for for something they knowingly put themselves on the hook for.

This is why the Mr. Oswald in custody is both a man whose protestations of innocence and unfair treatment are impassioned and sincere and a man who tells lies.

I have been tempted by that line of conjecture too so am not unsympathetic to your efforts, but here is my problem with that, actually four problems: the first is skepticism that anyone rational would agree to be falsely blamed for an extended period of life if not forever for an assassination attempt on a popular president one supports. The second is skepticism that anyone in their right mind would believe anyone who tried to recruit one into that kind of operation, without suspecting they would become a dead patsy or double-crossed. The third is skepticism that Oswald would willingly give up seeing his children again, probably the most precious things in his life. And the fourth is lack of positive evidence.

The massive number of Dealey Plaza earwitnesses who heard the final two shots close together, and the number of witnesses who both saw and even more importantly smelled gunsmoke at street level in the Grassy Knoll area, with wind direction gusting northeast, are standalone evidences that the JFK assassination was not done entirely from the 6th floor of the TSBD, i.e. something other than or more than Oswald's rifle alone accounting for the shots.

But if it was a multiple-shooter situation then it is a professional shooting situation and professionals won't be relying on a Mannlicher-Carcano with only four bullets in a clip that holds six, and a crappy scope meant for use with a .22.

But the rifle is easily traceable to the "communist", Oswald, is a setup.

And yet Oswald was involved in something, was stalling and lying under interrogation as if maintaining a cover just long enough until intervention could spring him free, but killed before it could be learned what that was about.

Oswald, with no rifle ammunition, no cleaning supplies, and no practice shooting in the runup to the assassination, had a gunsmith fix the damaged screw holes of the scope mount, the scope reinstalled and the rifle sighted-in on Nov 11, with apparently no indication that was for his own use to shoot. I think my work has established that date and event as a fact, only the interpretation or what to make of it is at issue (https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Irving-Sport-Shop-109-pdf.pdf). It looks like he was preparing the rifle for a sale to someone else rather than for his own use. The logistics of his lack of a car and not returning to Irving again until Nov 21 suggest such a sale or conveyance of the repaired rifle could have either occurred that same day, Nov 11, or he could have stashed the repaired and newly-sighted-in rifle in a storage locker at the bus station for someone else to pick up later.

If Oswald is not the lone shooter (established from the two points cited above alone), that suggests Oswald may not have been any shooter, even though the rifle on the 6th floor is traced to him, as a setup--the setup not requiring framing Oswald as the shooter but Oswald as the owner of the rifle involved in what would be presented as a communist conspiracy. The logistics would be worked out in a fluid situation leading up to Nov 22. Not too hard to get people in and out of the TSBD as far as that detail goes.

What did Oswald know? What and who was he involved with? I believe Oswald was intending to meet someone in the Texas Theatre which is why he went there, but others knew he was there and sought to kill him there. 

Edited January 28 by Greg Doudna

[Alan Ford]

On 12/24/2023 at 5:23 AM, Greg Doudna said:

Oswald, with no rifle ammunition, no cleaning supplies, and no practice shooting in the runup to the assassination, had a gunsmith fix the damaged screw holes of the scope mount, the scope reinstalled and the rifle sighted-in on Nov 11, with apparently no indication that was for his own use to shoot. I think my work has established that date and event as a fact, only the interpretation or what to make of it is at issue (https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Irving-Sport-Shop-109-pdf.pdf). It looks like he was preparing the rifle for a sale to someone else rather than for his own use. The logistics of his lack of a car and not returning to Irving again until Nov 21 suggest such a sale or conveyance of the repaired rifle could have either occurred that same day, Nov 11, or he could have stashed the repaired and newly-sighted-in rifle in a storage locker at the bus station for someone else to pick up later.

If Oswald is not the lone shooter (established from the two points cited above alone), that suggests Oswald may not have been any shooter, even though the rifle on the 6th floor is traced to him, as a setup--the setup not requiring framing Oswald as the shooter but Oswald as the owner of the rifle involved in what would be presented as a communist conspiracy. The logistics would be worked out in a fluid situation leading up to Nov 22. Not too hard to get people in and out of the TSBD as far as that detail goes.

What did Oswald know? What and who was he involved with? I believe Oswald was intending to meet someone in the Texas Theatre which is why he went there, but others knew he was there and sought to kill him there. 

I guess what I'm struggling with here, Mr. Doudna, is the question: how would Mr. Oswald's mere selling of his rifle account for his behavior post-assassination? It just doesn't have anything like the explanatory power I think we need.

Apologies for late reply btw!

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Alan Ford said:

I guess what I'm struggling with here, Mr. Doudna, is the question: how would Mr. Oswald's mere selling of his rifle account for his behavior post-assassination? It just doesn't have anything like the explanatory power I think we need.

Apologies for late reply btw!

This is conjecture but what if Ruby was part of the assassination; Oswald sold his rifle to Ruby circles and knew it but did not realize it was for an assassination of the president; upon learning like everyone else that President Kennedy was shot by hearing the shots, Oswald had some idea of what had gone down and believed his life was in immediate jeopardy from those circles to whom he had conveyed the rifle.

That would account for his evasive departure from the TSBD to Oak Cliff and the Theatre, evasive all the way, so as not to be followed or tailed or found by people he believed could intend to kill him (a rational fear in light of an unsuccessful attempt at the Texas Theatre on Friday and a successful attempt Sunday morning). 

The other thing that calls for explanation is his denials of some things in interrogation instead of coming clean on those things. Commonly lying is considered consciousness of guilt of what is accused but that reasoning has convicted many innocent people who may lie for reasons other than guilt of what is accused. Unless there is conclusive proof of Oswald's guilt on independent grounds--meaning conclusive proof not that the rifle found on the sixth floor had been ordered by, possessed by, and had been Oswald's up until Nov. 11, but that he was the one who had fired it from the sixth floor on Nov 22 (or had knowingly assisted those who did)--Oswald's false answers on certain things in interrogation, while it looks bad for him, falls short of proof of guilt, unless all other possible reasonable explanation is excluded.

One possibility is that non-denial denials in Oswald's actual replies were misunderstood by those who reported paraphrasing of his answers in their reports as denials. Either there was no taping of Oswald's replies or if there was it has never come to light, but if Oswald had come to trial, Oswald and his lawyer might have explanations for his answers, perhaps surprising ones, that might even be plausible to a reasonable observer. 

(For example, did Oswald say he never owned a rifle? Or did he deny he owned a rifle on Nov 22? Or did he have a reasoning under which he did not consider himself the owner of the rifle even when he did have it? Did Oswald say he never mail-ordered a rifle? Or did he consider the rifle not his at the time he ordered it? Did Oswald claim the backyard photos were faked? Or did he say, "you could have faked those!", which is not quite the same thing, in the second case not a denial even though interrogators writing up reports later would assume it was, etc.) 

Another possibility, a reason why many persons have lied even when innocent of the crime accused, not wanting to get other people in trouble, in Lee's case perhaps Marina. 

A third possibility is Oswald had been mixed up in some intelligence activity, not to his knowledge having to do with an assassination of the president, which he had been told was sensitive and he must under no circumstances break cover if arrested, for anything. In this scenario, he would understand he would be expected to stonewall and lie if necessary until intervention would get him released, and he would be cleared and that would be that, except it did not turn out that way. 

[Greg Doudna]

The case for Yates' hitchhiker having actually been Oswald--and Oswald innocent of the assassination

I have become convinced that there are no substantive grounds or compelling reason to suppose there was any instance of impersonation of Oswald in Oct-Nov 1963 in Dallas; all the cases either were Oswald or mistaken identifications but in no case is there sound reason to conclude someone intentionally presented as Oswald who wasn't. The following is excerpted and developed from what I wrote on another thread.

In the case of the Yates' hitchhiker, consider that that hitchhiker really was Oswald. The case for the Yates hitchhiker having been Oswald is: first, Yates positively identified Oswald as his hitchhiker from seeing photos of Oswald after the assassination. Second, the hitchhiker was dropped off by Yates in Dealey Plaza on Houston just next to Oswald's workplace at the Texas School Book Depository, and Yates last saw the man walking with his package crossing Elm Street in the direction of the TSBD.

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, 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 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=572, and Mary Dowling, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95673#relPageId=18). 

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

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

Forget the part about Oswald showing Yates a backyard photo and asking Yates if someone like that could shoot the president. In a followup interview Yates told the FBI that did not happen that way, correcting that part of his first 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, in a discussion Yates says he initiated with 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 considered unusual retrospectively after the assassination when Oswald was believed to have done it. Similar conversations must have occurred a thousand times in Dallas that 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 that Oswald actually is innocent, that the Yates' hitchhiker really was Oswald; and that 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. 

Everyone has considered that either Yates imagined it was Oswald, or it was an impersonator with a package intended to look like it was a rifle and incriminate Oswald. Imagine that is all wrong, has all been misunderstood. 

Imagine the story is more mundane than has previously been considered: that it was Oswald and the package Oswald was carrying had in it what Oswald told Yates it did: curtains (or fabric for curtains).

• The need of Oswald for curtains was not fictitious but real, from a reporter's Nov 23, 1963 photos showing landlord and landlady Mr. and Mrs. Johnson hammering what had been a crashed super-long curtain rod in Oswald's room on N. Beckley, back up with nails and hammer. Here are both Johnsons standing on the bed, Mr. Johnson hammer in hand, nailing that visible bent curtain rod back up, Sat Nov. 23, 1963.
• 
• 
• Those curtains therefore had become inoperable at some point before Nov 23, 1963. Oswald's room faced north into the side of another house, wide open with three sets of windows. If Oswald was used to closed curtains for privacy at night, this was something which needed to be solved immediately, not something optional or which could be postponed, and it had nothing to do with Oswald moving out or into a new apartment; it had entirely to do with his privacy in the evenings when he would spend time in that room with curtains closed for privacy. And if the crashing of that super-long curtain rod had happened only 2-3 days earlier and Oswald had decided to fix it himself, without telling Mrs. Johnson or housekeeper Earlene what he was doing, no wonder Mrs. Johnson would not know why that bent curtain was inoperable, would have assumed mistakenly that police or reporters the previous day had wrecked it. But it does not matter what Mrs. Johnson's speculation was as to the cause. What matters is that that was the case, and its timing (recently before the morning of Nov 23).
• Oswald was separately reported bringing other curtain materials to the location of his workplace at this very same time, referring of course to Oswald's unusual Thursday night trip to Irving, which Oswald told Buell Frazier was for the purpose of picking up curtain rods. 
• Oswald may have taken 2 out of an original 4 unused individual-window curtain rods out of Ruth Paine's garage (leaving 2 remaining in the garage, none in use) the morning of Nov 22.
• Buell Frazier has maintained from day one to the present day, his entire life, that the length of what Oswald carried that morning of Nov 22 definitely was ca. 27 inches, and not the length needed to carry a 34-inch broken-down Mannlicher-Carcano. That length told credibly and clearly by Buell Frazier, ca. 27 inches, unknown to Buell was the exact length of Ruth Paine's curtain rods in her garage, and Buell Frazier has said that that is what Oswald told him they were.
• Oswald denied to Captain Fritz that he brought curtain rods or that he had told Frazier that is what he was carrying, but he did tell Frazier that, and there may have been other reason for Oswald's untrue answer to Fritz about that (and his taking those curtain rods without permission from Ruth Paine's garage) having nothing to do with the assassination.
• The reasoning that if it were true Oswald had carried curtain rods he would have said so to Fritz because that would be his alibi, so commonly raised, assumes as its premise a point which hardly anyone has questioned: that Oswald was aware that he was suspected of having carried the rifle to work the morning of Nov 22. The world knew Oswald was suspected of that because it was in the news, but I have seen no evidence that Oswald had been informed or had any awareness or idea that that suspected of him. Can anyone cite evidence showing that? Oswald did not have a clue he needed an alibi (which in this case would be, the truth) for what Frazier saw him carry to work, which everyone unknown to Oswald was suspecting was something different! 
• There is an unrefuted and uninvestigated hearsay claim in an FBI report that some seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear (not "McKell" as misspelled in FBI interview reports), located on the second floor of the Dal-Tex building across from the TSBD, knew Oswald (link is below). That element of that hearsay claim could be more easily dismissed if it were not for the fact that the FBI questioned three seamstresses of McKeel on the basis of that hearsay report and did not ask any of them whether they knew Oswald, in an investigation in which the question was relevant since it was a report of a possible Oswald sighting in relation to a weapon conveyance on Tue Nov 19 in a parking area behind the TSBD. Putting that to one side, a logical place for Oswald to go for a curtains-seamstress need would be the nearest seamstresses to his place of work, McKeel Sportswear across the street. Actually there was probably more than one company with seamstresses in the Dal-Tex Building, but McKeel Sportswear is a known one and the first such one would encounter going up the Dal-Tex building. And Oswald needed curtains for his windows and he may have decided to accomplish that by making individual-window curtains requiring the need of a seamstress. Perhaps Oswald made inquiry at McKeel Sportswear concerning his curtains/seamstress need, learned what it would cost and what he needed to do (what he needed to bring) so that they could accomplish what was needed. Suppose he made that inquiry on Wednesday. Thursday morning in accord with what he was told, he buys and brings in fabric for the new curtains to the location of his workplace (this would be the package he carried hitchhiking with Yates, as he told Yates, "curtains"); Thursday night he goes to Irving, obtains curtain rods there, returns to the TSBD Friday morning with curtain rods, and either gave or intended to give them to a seamstress in the Dal-Tex building ... but an assassination of a president interrupted.

Timeline

The timeline of Oswald in the three days of Nov 20-22, 1963, makes good sense interpreted as a response to an urgent situation--the collapse of the superlong curtain rod with curtains over three individual windows in his room. It was not simply out of the goodness of Oswald's heart that he wished to remedy or repair that. It would be an issue of discomfort being in that lighted room at night without closed curtains. Rather than asking housekeeper Earlene or the landlady to fix it Oswald decided to fix it himself. 

Wednesday evening Nov 20, it is independently known that Oswald was at a nearby laundromat until closing time, Sleight's Speed Wash, 1101 N. Beckley. He was 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).

There is no need to doubt that Oswald probably was doing laundry, but all night? Or was he in addition to doing laundry hanging out there, preferring to be there as long as he could until at midnight he was told it was closing and he had to go? Could there be a factor that he did not enjoy being in his room at night without curtains closed and private?

The curtains 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. 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 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
• A report that Oswald bought tickets to a 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 report is not possible as to the time, and human errors in time memory are common in otherwise truthful witness accounts). Although that sounds like odd behavior for Oswald, according to the family of Dub Stark, owner of Top Ten Records, he knew Lee and Marina. And an employee who personally witnessed Oswald's arrest on Fri Nov 22 at the Texas Theatre a few stores away said it was the same arrested Oswald who had bought the Dick Clark show tickets. Oswald was unusually planning to be in Oak Cliff that weekend, the weekend of that show, instead of in Irving. Was Oswald planning a date? But if he bought the tickets Thu morning Nov 21 he could not have been at work at 8:00 a.m. at the TSBD that morning.
• The Yates report of 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 Yates said Oswald told him was "window shades". Yates identified the hitchhiker unequivocally as Oswald on the basis of photos. Yates said the day of the hitchhiker was either Wed Nov 20 or Thu Nov 21, that he could not remember for sure which of those two days it was, in either case at ca. 10:30 a.m. 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' mental condition and Yates' explicit clarifications retracting some 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.

 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 immediately 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 the fabric material and curtain rods to a seamstress across the street in the Dal-Tex building.

If Oswald's actions to resolve his curtains issue in his room began immediately following the crashing of the curtains in his room, the following timeline shows Oswald minimizing time spent in his room in evenings while taking action to 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 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 by that night.

Although the major objection to this scenario is the overwhelming juggernaut of belief that Oswald carried a rifle 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 cited, and since there is no evidence that Oswald brought a rifle from Irving 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, may need revisitation. 

What became of Oswald's curtain fabric and curtain rods?

A possibility is Oswald on Friday morning Nov 22 after arriving to the TSBD with curtain rods obtained from Ruth Paine’s garage, momentarily set them inside the door Buell Frazier saw him enter at the rear loading dock, but outside the second door that was the rear entrance of the first floor area proper. He doesn’t hide the curtain rods package, just sets them down leaning against a wall outside that second door, because he is only going to be inside for a couple of minutes.

He enters to use the restroom. (Which could be why he didn’t wait for Buell but walked on ahead, as Buell described. Remember Lee started out with coffee in Irving that morning, which has a diuretic effect—easy to imagine Lee having a need to visit a bathroom upon arrival.) 

That mission accomplished and washing up, he returns out the back, retrieves the curtain rods and walks them over to the the Dal-Tex building, gives them to one of the seamstresses there who had already agreed to cut and sew the curtains, and Lee either already had given her the fabric he had brought in the day before, or retrieved it to give to her with the curtain rods now. It would be logical to do this at the start of the workday, in order for the seamstress to have the maximum amount of time to have them done by the end of that day, which may have been the understanding. Lee then returns to work at the TSBD. 

This could be a possible answer to the question always asked: what became of the curtain rods? Maybe they were somewhere in the Dal-Tex Building.

Of course this scenario requires some seamstress, whether at McKeel Sportswear or otherwise, not to later have told of it.

The hearsay report the FBI received that seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear knew Oswald followed those women telling the hearsay source that they had been questioned by the FBI.

The original FBI questioning of those women happened as a result of a visit to the FBI on Mon Nov 25, 1963, by one of the seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear, Henrietta Vargas. She had something to tell the FBI, and was accompanied by an attorney (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57694#relPageId=54). Was the attorney normal? As it stands in the FBI reporting, what Henrietta Vargas told could have had no possible criminal suspicion on herself, yet she brought an attorney.

The later hearsay report deriving from these same women said that these women said they knew Oswald, although the source of the hearsay who knew those women says he did not say that and he did not think they knew Oswald (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95674#relPageId=70). The hearsay story that the seamstresses knew Oswald from eating lunch with him in a nearby restaurant and conversed in Spanish with him may be a garbled mistaken confusion of the hearsay source, David Torres', own meeting and conversations with these women, where he learned of what he told. Still, the FBI followup reports again did not report any inquiry or statement concerning whether Henrietta Vargas or any other of the seamstresses interviewed knew Oswald, an odd question not to ask responsive to a hearsay report which claimed some seamstresses at the Dal-Tex building did know Oswald.  

If the FBI had come upon something to do with curtains for Oswald in the Dal-Tex building in that investigation, would we know of it? Or might it be analogous to the citizen who turned in the find of the paper-bag revolver--a snub-nosed .38 Smith & Wesson with an apple and an orange in a paper bag--found on a downtown Dallas street early the morning of Sat Nov 23, which could have been the Tippit murder weapon tossed by Jack Ruby employee and self-confessed hitman Curtis Craford, out of a car driven by Ruby in which Craford was a passenger, in the early morning hours of Sat Nov 23 when Ruby had woken up Craford at the Carousel Club at 5 a.m. to go for a drive, before Craford said he decided spontaneously later that morning to hitchhike to Michigan. That paper-bag revolver was found by a citizen of Dallas who turned it in to the Dallas Police which informed the FBI. But both the Dallas Police and FBI withheld telling the press or the Warren Commission or the public of that find, and that revolver and its associated paperwork was lost and disappeared while in police custody. The Dallas resident who found it and turned it in, who is named in an FBI document that later came to light, never talked publicly about it.

Edited January 28 by Greg Doudna

[Alan Ford]

On 1/28/2024 at 2:35 AM, Greg Doudna said:

This is conjecture but what if Ruby was part of the assassination; Oswald sold his rifle to Ruby circles and knew it but did not realize it was for an assassination of the president; upon learning like everyone else that President Kennedy was shot by hearing the shots, Oswald had some idea of what had gone down and believed his life was in immediate jeopardy from those circles to whom he had conveyed the rifle.

That would account for his evasive departure from the TSBD to Oak Cliff and the Theatre, evasive all the way, so as not to be followed or tailed or found by people he believed could intend to kill him (a rational fear in light of an unsuccessful attempt at the Texas Theatre on Friday and a successful attempt Sunday morning). 

Hmmm........ would Mr. Oswald's having sold the rifle really be enough to make him leap to that particular conclusion once the shooting in Dealey Plaza happened? Seems doubtful to me on the face of it.

And how would this scenario explain his going to the Texas Theatre and (to all appearances) seeking out a contact? To me that behavior is suggestive of a different kind of embroilment.

[Alan Ford]

On 1/28/2024 at 7:27 AM, Greg Doudna said:

The case for Yates' hitchhiker having actually been Oswald--and Oswald innocent of the assassination

I have become convinced that there are no substantive grounds or compelling reason to suppose there was any instance of impersonation of Oswald in Oct-Nov 1963 in Dallas; all the cases either were Oswald or mistaken identifications but in no case is there sound reason to conclude someone intentionally presented as Oswald who wasn't. The following is excerpted and developed from what I wrote on another thread.

In the case of the Yates' hitchhiker, consider that that hitchhiker really was Oswald. The case for the Yates hitchhiker having been Oswald is: first, Yates positively identified Oswald as his hitchhiker from seeing photos of Oswald after the assassination. Second, the hitchhiker was dropped off by Yates in Dealey Plaza on Houston just next to Oswald's workplace at the Texas School Book Depository, and Yates last saw the man walking with his package crossing Elm Street in the direction of the TSBD.

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, 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 (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=572, and Mary Dowling, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95673#relPageId=18). 

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

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

Forget the part about Oswald showing Yates a backyard photo and asking Yates if someone like that could shoot the president. In a followup interview Yates told the FBI that did not happen that way, correcting that part of his first 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, in a discussion Yates says he initiated with 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 considered unusual retrospectively after the assassination when Oswald was believed to have done it. Similar conversations must have occurred a thousand times in Dallas that 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 that Oswald actually is innocent, that the Yates' hitchhiker really was Oswald; and that 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. 

Everyone has considered that either Yates imagined it was Oswald, or it was an impersonator with a package intended to look like it was a rifle and incriminate Oswald. Imagine that is all wrong, has all been misunderstood. 

Imagine the story is more mundane than has previously been considered: that it was Oswald and the package Oswald was carrying had in it what Oswald told Yates it did: curtains (or fabric for curtains).

• The need of Oswald for curtains was not fictitious but real, from a reporter's Nov 23, 1963 photos showing landlord and landlady Mr. and Mrs. Johnson hammering what had been a crashed super-long curtain rod in Oswald's room on N. Beckley, back up with nails and hammer. Here are both Johnsons standing on the bed, Mr. Johnson hammer in hand, nailing that visible bent curtain rod back up, Sat Nov. 23, 1963.
• 
• 
• Those curtains therefore had become inoperable at some point before Nov 23, 1963. Oswald's room faced north into the side of another house, wide open with three sets of windows. If Oswald was used to closed curtains for privacy at night, this was something which needed to be solved immediately, not something optional or which could be postponed, and it had nothing to do with Oswald moving out or into a new apartment; it had entirely to do with his privacy in the evenings when he would spend time in that room with curtains closed for privacy. And if the crashing of that super-long curtain rod had happened only 2-3 days earlier and Oswald had decided to fix it himself, without telling Mrs. Johnson or housekeeper Earlene what he was doing, no wonder Mrs. Johnson would not know why that bent curtain was inoperable, would have assumed mistakenly that police or reporters the previous day had wrecked it. But it does not matter what Mrs. Johnson's speculation was as to the cause. What matters is that that was the case, and its timing (recently before the morning of Nov 23).
• Oswald was separately reported bringing other curtain materials to the location of his workplace at this very same time, referring of course to Oswald's unusual Thursday night trip to Irving, which Oswald told Buell Frazier was for the purpose of picking up curtain rods. 
• Oswald may have taken 2 out of an original 4 unused individual-window curtain rods out of Ruth Paine's garage (leaving 2 remaining in the garage, none in use) the morning of Nov 22.
• Buell Frazier has maintained from day one to the present day, his entire life, that the length of what Oswald carried that morning of Nov 22 definitely was ca. 27 inches, and not the length needed to carry a 34-inch broken-down Mannlicher-Carcano. That length told credibly and clearly by Buell Frazier, ca. 27 inches, unknown to Buell was the exact length of Ruth Paine's curtain rods in her garage, and Buell Frazier has said that that is what Oswald told him they were.
• Oswald denied to Captain Fritz that he brought curtain rods or that he had told Frazier that is what he was carrying, but he did tell Frazier that, and there may have been other reason for Oswald's untrue answer to Fritz about that (and his taking those curtain rods without permission from Ruth Paine's garage) having nothing to do with the assassination.
• The reasoning that if it were true Oswald had carried curtain rods he would have said so to Fritz because that would be his alibi, so commonly raised, assumes as its premise a point which hardly anyone has questioned: that Oswald was aware that he was suspected of having carried the rifle to work the morning of Nov 22. The world knew Oswald was suspected of that because it was in the news, but I have seen no evidence that Oswald had been informed or had any awareness or idea that that suspected of him. Can anyone cite evidence showing that? Oswald did not have a clue he needed an alibi (which in this case would be, the truth) for what Frazier saw him carry to work, which everyone unknown to Oswald was suspecting was something different! 
• There is an unrefuted and uninvestigated hearsay claim in an FBI report that some seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear (not "McKell" as misspelled in FBI interview reports), located on the second floor of the Dal-Tex building across from the TSBD, knew Oswald (link is below). That element of that hearsay claim could be more easily dismissed if it were not for the fact that the FBI questioned three seamstresses of McKeel on the basis of that hearsay report and did not ask any of them whether they knew Oswald, in an investigation in which the question was relevant since it was a report of a possible Oswald sighting in relation to a weapon conveyance on Tue Nov 19 in a parking area behind the TSBD. Putting that to one side, a logical place for Oswald to go for a curtains-seamstress need would be the nearest seamstresses to his place of work, McKeel Sportswear across the street. Actually there was probably more than one company with seamstresses in the Dal-Tex Building, but McKeel Sportswear is a known one and the first such one would encounter going up the Dal-Tex building. And Oswald needed curtains for his windows and he may have decided to accomplish that by making individual-window curtains requiring the need of a seamstress. Perhaps Oswald made inquiry at McKeel Sportswear concerning his curtains/seamstress need, learned what it would cost and what he needed to do (what he needed to bring) so that they could accomplish what was needed. Suppose he made that inquiry on Wednesday. Thursday morning in accord with what he was told, he buys and brings in fabric for the new curtains to the location of his workplace (this would be the package he carried hitchhiking with Yates, as he told Yates, "curtains"); Thursday night he goes to Irving, obtains curtain rods there, returns to the TSBD Friday morning with curtain rods, and either gave or intended to give them to a seamstress in the Dal-Tex building ... but an assassination of a president interrupted.

Timeline

The timeline of Oswald in the three days of Nov 20-22, 1963, makes good sense interpreted as a response to an urgent situation--the collapse of the superlong curtain rod with curtains over three individual windows in his room. It was not simply out of the goodness of Oswald's heart that he wished to remedy or repair that. It would be an issue of discomfort being in that lighted room at night without closed curtains. Rather than asking housekeeper Earlene or the landlady to fix it Oswald decided to fix it himself. 

Wednesday evening Nov 20, it is independently known that Oswald was at a nearby laundromat until closing time, Sleight's Speed Wash, 1101 N. Beckley. He was 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).

There is no need to doubt that Oswald probably was doing laundry, but all night? Or was he in addition to doing laundry hanging out there, preferring to be there as long as he could until at midnight he was told it was closing and he had to go? Could there be a factor that he did not enjoy being in his room at night without curtains closed and private?

The curtains 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. 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 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
• A report that Oswald bought tickets to a 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 report is not possible as to the time, and human errors in time memory are common in otherwise truthful witness accounts). Although that sounds like odd behavior for Oswald, according to the family of Dub Stark, owner of Top Ten Records, he knew Lee and Marina. And an employee who personally witnessed Oswald's arrest on Fri Nov 22 at the Texas Theatre a few stores away said it was the same arrested Oswald who had bought the Dick Clark show tickets. Oswald was unusually planning to be in Oak Cliff that weekend, the weekend of that show, instead of in Irving. Was Oswald planning a date? But if he bought the tickets Thu morning Nov 21 he could not have been at work at 8:00 a.m. at the TSBD that morning.
• The Yates report of 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 Yates said Oswald told him was "window shades". Yates identified the hitchhiker unequivocally as Oswald on the basis of photos. Yates said the day of the hitchhiker was either Wed Nov 20 or Thu Nov 21, that he could not remember for sure which of those two days it was, in either case at ca. 10:30 a.m. 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' mental condition and Yates' explicit clarifications retracting some 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.

 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 immediately 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 the fabric material and curtain rods to a seamstress across the street in the Dal-Tex building.

If Oswald's actions to resolve his curtains issue in his room began immediately following the crashing of the curtains in his room, the following timeline shows Oswald minimizing time spent in his room in evenings while taking action to 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 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 by that night.

Although the major objection to this scenario is the overwhelming juggernaut of belief that Oswald carried a rifle 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 cited, and since there is no evidence that Oswald brought a rifle from Irving 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, may need revisitation. 

What became of Oswald's curtain fabric and curtain rods?

A possibility is Oswald on Friday morning Nov 22 after arriving to the TSBD with curtain rods obtained from Ruth Paine’s garage, momentarily set them inside the door Buell Frazier saw him enter at the rear loading dock, but outside the second door that was the rear entrance of the first floor area proper. He doesn’t hide the curtain rods package, just sets them down leaning against a wall outside that second door, because he is only going to be inside for a couple of minutes.

He enters to use the restroom. (Which could be why he didn’t wait for Buell but walked on ahead, as Buell described. Remember Lee started out with coffee in Irving that morning, which has a diuretic effect—easy to imagine Lee having a need to visit a bathroom upon arrival.) 

That mission accomplished and washing up, he returns out the back, retrieves the curtain rods and walks them over to the the Dal-Tex building, gives them to one of the seamstresses there who had already agreed to cut and sew the curtains, and Lee either already had given her the fabric he had brought in the day before, or retrieved it to give to her with the curtain rods now. It would be logical to do this at the start of the workday, in order for the seamstress to have the maximum amount of time to have them done by the end of that day, which may have been the understanding. Lee then returns to work at the TSBD. 

This could be a possible answer to the question always asked: what became of the curtain rods? Maybe they were somewhere in the Dal-Tex Building.

Of course this scenario requires some seamstress, whether at McKeel Sportswear or otherwise, not to later have told of it.

The hearsay report the FBI received that seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear knew Oswald followed those women telling the hearsay source that they had been questioned by the FBI.

The original FBI questioning of those women happened as a result of a visit to the FBI on Mon Nov 25, 1963, by one of the seamstresses at McKeel Sportswear, Henrietta Vargas. She had something to tell the FBI, and was accompanied by an attorney (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57694#relPageId=54). Was the attorney normal? As it stands in the FBI reporting, what Henrietta Vargas told could have had no possible criminal suspicion on herself, yet she brought an attorney.

The later hearsay report deriving from these same women said that these women said they knew Oswald, although the source of the hearsay who knew those women says he did not say that and he did not think they knew Oswald (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95674#relPageId=70). The hearsay story that the seamstresses knew Oswald from eating lunch with him in a nearby restaurant and conversed in Spanish with him may be a garbled mistaken confusion of the hearsay source, David Torres', own meeting and conversations with these women, where he learned of what he told. Still, the FBI followup reports again did not report any inquiry or statement concerning whether Henrietta Vargas or any other of the seamstresses interviewed knew Oswald, an odd question not to ask responsive to a hearsay report which claimed some seamstresses at the Dal-Tex building did know Oswald.  

If the FBI had come upon something to do with curtains for Oswald in the Dal-Tex building in that investigation, would we know of it?

Some very interesting fresh thinking here, Mr. Doudna. Bravo!

N.B. Don't forget the officially documented fact of 2 curtain rods submitted for testing for Mr. Oswald's fingerprints 8 days before 2 curtain rods were 'discovered' on the record in Mrs. Paine's garage at Irving. Could they have emanated (per your scenario) from the McKeel seamstresses in the Dal-Tex building?

[Greg Doudna]

On 1/29/2024 at 1:52 PM, Alan Ford said:

Hmmm........ would Mr. Oswald's having sold the rifle really be enough to make him leap to that particular conclusion once the shooting in Dealey Plaza happened? Seems doubtful to me on the face of it.

And how would this scenario explain his going to the Texas Theatre and (to all appearances) seeking out a contact? To me that behavior is suggestive of a different kind of embroilment.

I understand the problem and, though this is unsatisfactory, I have no good solution to propose to it. I am independently convinced as a fact that Lee (and Marina) removed the rifle from the garage on Nov 11 to prepare it for some kind of sale or disposition, but what happened after that point on that date is a black hole of information. It hardly makes sense that it would be broken down again and returned to the blanket in the garage after spending all that money repairing it. It also makes no sense that Lee would take it to his room in Oak Cliff sight unseen to hide under his bed. But what did happen with the rifle after the scope base installation was repaired and the sighting-in on Nov 11? (Took it to a pawn shop and sold it? Met someone in Irving and conveyed it for cash that day? Stashed it in a storage locker at the Irving bus station? Returned again to the blanket in the garage? Don't know.) 

I suppose there are three hypothetical lines of possibility: (a) he was clueless to and had nothing to do with shots fired at the president but somehow realized he had been set up by means of the rifle sale; (b) he was witting to something other than an assassination and when the assassination occurred realized he had been set up; or (c) he was witting to being party to an assassination attempt that he thought was for the benefit of Castro (not necessarily as shooter).

The fact that he had not much money on him, that he either had no getaway car or refused to get in one if one was there for him, that he had to make a risky rapid stop at his rooming house to pick up his revolver (scared and for self-defense), weigh in favor of "a" or "b" and against "c". 

Somehow he was set up--the Boylan and Hancock Redbird Airport leads article for possible background on that (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rODOLtGaAe0cni6N5rBnmgmwC71N2hpN/view)--and his rifle was used and that implicated him overwhelmingly in the eyes of law enforcement and the public, and he never got a trial to explain anything differently. 

At the very week of the assassination there was separate "sting" activity on gunrunning involving circles seemingly associated with Jack Ruby. This "sting" activity involved persons pretending to be involved in criminal activity with real criminals, as sort of entrapment activity by law enforcement. The hunch would be that Oswald could have been involved in something similar, but we may never know for sure. 

[Greg Doudna]

On 1/29/2024 at 1:58 PM, Alan Ford said:

Some very interesting fresh thinking here, Mr. Doudna. Bravo!

N.B. Don't forget the officially documented fact of 2 curtain rods submitted for testing for Mr. Oswald's fingerprints 8 days before 2 curtain rods were 'discovered' on the record in Mrs. Paine's garage at Irving. Could they have emanated (per your scenario) from the McKeel seamstresses in the Dal-Tex building?

Yes Alan--your work on that curtain rods fingerprint document, and I see Pat Speer credits you in his chapter on the curtain rods on that (https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4h-the-curtain-rod-story)--is compelling and correct. And not only does the March 15 date the curtain rods were submitted call for explanation (which precedes two curtain rods obtained from Ruth Paine's garage by the Warren Commission on March 21), but the two versions with differences that independently came to light from the Warren Commission published in exhibits (showing a return by Day of DPD to Secret Service Howlett on March 24, not signed by Howlett, carbon copy) and from the Dallas Police Department (showing a return by Day of DPD to Secret Service Howlett on March 22, signed by Howlett, top original), with -- this is the tough one to explain -- two different signatures of Day as the officer disbursing those curtain rods to Howlett, on the original and the carbon of the same form.

Neither form with its dates makes sense as being the curtain rods picked up from Ruth Paine's garage on March 21, but the problem is compounded by two versions of the same disbursement form!

The best I can figure is these indeed were the two curtain rods that Lee had brought in on Nov 22, which may have been found or turned over by a McKeel Sportswear seamstress as early as Dec 6 to Howlett when Howlett was at the TSBD doing the Secret Service reenactment, as Pat S. suggests. That same day, Dec 6, was when the FBI investigated the TSBD 2nd floor Warren Castor rifles of Nov 20, as a part of the investigation of the parking-lot rifle conveyance sighting reported by Henrietta Vargas, the seamstress, the one who showed up to make this report with an attorney.

Did Henrietta Vargas (with her attorney) turn over two curtain rods at that time, part of what she was working for Oswald's curtains? (Speculation.)

The role of the Secret Service, Howlett, instead of the FBI, in the curtain rods forms and in the Warren Commission testimony taken in Ruth Paine's garage on Marh 21, instead of the FBI, also seems odd. Maybe Pat S. is right that it was a way of handing off from the FBI, it was received by the Secret Service (Howlett) on Dec 6, and was simply delayed until a later time when it was checked for fingerprints (by Howlett).

By this reconstruction those curtain rods fingerprinted by Howlett were not the two found in Ruth Paine's garage, but two brought in by Oswald on Nov 22 and given to the seamstress, perhaps Henrietta Vargas, who turned them in at the time she appeared with her attorney at FBI offices on Nov 25. 

If that had happened, it would be expected that the FBI would have asked Henrietta not to talk about it, since that is what the FBI seems to have asked practically all the witnesses it interviewed. 

Two days ago I talked to a seamstress I know who worked in a sweatshop decades ago (which may be what McKeel Sportswear on the 2nd floor of the Dal-Tex was). She told of how it was assembly line, jobs would have a week or so turnaround, and it was tightly controlled in a wide-open workspace such that there would be no opportunity for personal work easily done by any of the seamstresses.

She suggested though that a seamstress might agree to take the work home, do it at home, then return or meet the person to hand it over. As she said, "money is money". From what this seamstress told me it is not likely that Oswald's curtains need would be taken care of by McKeel Sportswear which seems to have been industrial, supplying retail stores. But Oswald could have walked across the street and asked, and one of the seamstresses offered to do the job herself for cash, told him what to bring to her and she would take it home and meet him to deliver it to him. In that case Oswald bringing the fabric and curtain rods to her on Fri morning Nov 22 would not have expected to have his curtains by Friday night.

But it would not necessarily have meant a wait until Monday for Oswald to have curtains in his room for privacy. The seamstress I talked to said a seamstress doing that work might agree to meet to hand over the finished work on Saturday morning. That is when Oswald can be reconstructed to have anticipated having his finished curtains ready, by a seamstress across the street from his workplace doing the job on her own for cash.

Then, after the assassination the possible seamstress of this, Henrietta Vargas, got an attorney forthwith and reported it to the FBI on Nov 25, including the curtain rods, following which in accord with a request of the FBI she did not talk of that. 

Would that mean that seamstress never told?

Consider this, from Sara Peterson and K.W. Zachry, The Lone Star Speaks (2020), chapter drawing from interviews of Buell Wesley Frazier of 2015 and 2019, at pp. 186-7. Maybe the seamstress did talk in one instance come to light, in this phone call to Frazier described below? Never mind the editorial assumption of Peterson and Zachry of a TSBD location--assume that is editorial. Note that the caller was a woman. 

"For his own peace of mind, Frazier located a rifle with a serial number only a few digits off from the serial number of the rifle Oswald was accused of using to kill the President. He dismantled it and wrapped it in brown paper so he and his sister could compare the size with the way they remembered Oswald's package looking on that Friday.

"'It was obviously still too long,' he said. 'Lee could not have carried even a dismantled rifle like that one under his arm.' Frazier's sister agreed.

"If Oswald had really been carrying curtain rods that day, they should have been found somewhere in the Depository. Supposedly, they were never found. However, a few years after the assassination, Frazier received an intriguing phone call. Once the caller established that she was speaking to the man who had driven Oswald to work on November 22, 1963, she quietly confided to Frazier that some curtain rods had indeed been found in the Depository after the assassination.

"She then hung up without revealing her identity. Apparently, this woman wanted Frazier to know that someone knew his story was true."

[Alan Ford]

7 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I understand the problem and, though this is unsatisfactory, I have no good solution to propose to it. I am independently convinced as a fact that Lee (and Marina) removed the rifle from the garage on Nov 11 to prepare it for some kind of sale or disposition, but what happened after that point on that date is a black hole of information. It hardly makes sense that it would be broken down again and returned to the blanket in the garage after spending all that money repairing it. It also makes no sense that Lee would take it to his room in Oak Cliff sight unseen to hide under his bed. But what did happen with the rifle after the scope base installation was repaired and the sighting-in on Nov 11? (Took it to a pawn shop and sold it? Met someone in Irving and conveyed it for cash that day? Stashed it in a storage locker at the Irving bus station? Returned again to the blanket in the garage? Don't know.) 

He could have brought it into the Depository and stored it in a hiding place-------ready for (someone else's) use on 11/22.

Again-------------the scenario I am positing has Mr. Oswald deliberately self-incriminate as a member of the 'pro-Castro' team behind the missed-shots provocation he understood was going to happen.

Edited February 1 by Alan Ford

[Alan Ford]

7 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I suppose there are three hypothetical lines of possibility: (a) he was clueless to and had nothing to do with shots fired at the president but somehow realized he had been set up by means of the rifle sale; (b) he was witting to something other than an assassination and when the assassination occurred realized he had been set up; or (c) he was witting to being party to an assassination attempt that he thought was for the benefit of Castro (not necessarily as shooter).

The fact that he had not much money on him, that he either had no getaway car or refused to get in one if one was there for him, that he had to make a risky rapid stop at his rooming house to pick up his revolver (scared and for self-defense), weigh in favor of "a" or "b" and against "c". 

Somehow he was set up--the Boylan and Hancock Redbird Airport leads article for possible background on that (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rODOLtGaAe0cni6N5rBnmgmwC71N2hpN/view)--and his rifle was used and that implicated him overwhelmingly in the eyes of law enforcement and the public, and he never got a trial to explain anything differently. 

Mr. Doudna, neither (a), (b) nor (c) above quite covers what I'm proposing, though (b) comes closest.

Not just Mr. Oswald being set up, but everyone involved in the false-flag missed-shots operation. This operation piggybacked by elements who wish Pres. Kennedy dead.

As soon as it is realized that Pres. Kennedy has actually been hit, there is utter panic and confusion on the part of those (incl. Mr. Oswald) involved in what they had thought was to be a non-lethal event------------i.e. not an actual attempt on Pres. Kennedy's life.

I believe Mr. Oswald was to get in a waiting getaway car (perhaps the one noticed just before the assassination by Mr. Howard Brennan) and be taken to Redbird Airport. But the car's occupant(s) left him stranded---------they were in panic over what had just happened.

Everything that happened after that came down to two processes:

1. Those involved in, and behind, the false-flag op must cover their tracks.

2. Those involved in the 'investigation' must quell any notion that this was a conspiracy.

Result of 1 and of 2 = Mr. Oswald is, absurdly, made the scapegoat for the entire event.

He was not, however, uniquely set up in advance of the assassination. By anybody. He was just the person left most vulnerable to post hoc scapegoating.

Edited February 1 by Alan Ford

[Alan Ford]

6 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

The best I can figure is these indeed were the two curtain rods that Lee had brought in on Nov 22, which may have been found or turned over by a McKeel Sportswear seamstress as early as Dec 6 to Howlett when Howlett was at the TSBD doing the Secret Service reenactment, as Pat S. suggests.

[...]

Would that mean that seamstress never told?

Consider this, from Sara Peterson and K.W. Zachry, The Lone Star Speaks (2020), chapter drawing from interviews of Buell Wesley Frazier of 2015 and 2019, at pp. 186-7. Maybe the seamstress did talk in one instance come to light, in this phone call to Frazier described below? Never mind the editorial assumption of Peterson and Zachry of a TSBD location--assume that is editorial. Note that the caller was a woman. 

"For his own peace of mind, Frazier located a rifle with a serial number only a few digits off from the serial number of the rifle Oswald was accused of using to kill the President. He dismantled it and wrapped it in brown paper so he and his sister could compare the size with the way they remembered Oswald's package looking on that Friday.

"'It was obviously still too long,' he said. 'Lee could not have carried even a dismantled rifle like that one under his arm.' Frazier's sister agreed.

"If Oswald had really been carrying curtain rods that day, they should have been found somewhere in the Depository. Supposedly, they were never found. However, a few years after the assassination, Frazier received an intriguing phone call. Once the caller established that she was speaking to the man who had driven Oswald to work on November 22, 1963, she quietly confided to Frazier that some curtain rods had indeed been found in the Depository after the assassination.

"She then hung up without revealing her identity. Apparently, this woman wanted Frazier to know that someone knew his story was true."

Exactly, Mr. Doudna------------you are offering an innocent scenario that could conceivably account for the Howlett/Day curtain rods shenanigans.