If Oswald didn't do it

[John Dolva]

The question is: If Oswald didn't do it, why did whoever did it need a patsy?

Doesn't it seem odd that Oswald would go out of his way to ADMIT he was a "patsy" (someone easily fooled, swindled...etc) given who we know him to have been? (emphasis added by Thomas Graves)

As opposed to simply saying he had no idea what was going on and that he did not shoot anyone?

–noun, plural -sies. Slang .

1. a person who is easily swindled, deceived, coerced, persuaded, etc.; sucker.

2. a person upon whom the blame for something falls; scapegoat; fall guy.

3. a person who is the object of a joke, ridicule, or the like.

If Oswald DID do it HE'D need the patsy... or he'd be proud of the fact and want the notoriety like other assassins of our time

If Oswald DID do it.. announcing himself a patsy begs the question, "for who?" and deflects some of the blame immediately - reasonable doubt - that at least required investigation.

If OSWALD DID do it... and he had no way of influencing the evidence... all the evidence would ultimately point to him... not to example after example of evidence tampering, destruction, creation, etc...

We absolutely must assume that if Oswald DID NOT DO IT, those who organized and implemented it had to be as close to 100% confident they would not be identified or investigated in any realistic timeframe

Option 1 - Kill Oswald 11/22/63 and tell the story as it needs to be told with supporting evidence.

Option 2 - Kill Oswald ASAP and tell the story as it needs to be told

Option 3 - No option #3... the patsy must die, because HE DID NOT DO IT.

If he actually did it there's no need for a patsy... and the tautology continues round and round.

Duncan, you keep going back to the word NEED.

A scenario in which those that planned it/did it would NOT need a patsy...

"Unknown assailants shoot the president and escape"

if the motivation behind JFK's death had to do with fighting the spread of communism and the perception JFK was losing that fight... how could we hold our heads up as a leading nation if we could not even find out who killed the president? if we would not show the world how we'd uncover every rock and investigate every lead to find the killer(s).

In the initial weeks, finding the killer, arresting him and convicting him was paramount for the charade but not really the plan... Oswald, the patsy had to die. All "official" evidence and documentation supports this conclusion. History is made neat and easy to digest.

Asking why "they" needed a patsy is like asking a magician why he needed to misdirect your sight while making his trick work... because the trick does not work any other way.

I am speculating here - I believe "The Trick" would not have worked without someone to focus the attention upon. Who "They" are, as you've said... will be pure speculation for quite some time imo....

David,

What or who do we know Oswald to have been? Just curious...

--Thomas

[William Kelly]

Jim Root states a few important but often overlooked points, including the idea that the case for conspiracy doesn't necessitate multiple shooters, and that Lee Harvey Oswald can be perceived in the same light regardless of his role as either a lone shooter or a patsy.

Jim Root wrote, "A majority of the reasons that researchers give that would lead us to believe that Oswald was a 'patsy' for the conspirators begins with their belief that Oswald could not have been a shooter and that the fatal bullets could not have been fired from the TSBD or some sort of twist on this idea."

"The primary divide between 'lone nutters' and conspiracy theorist hinges on this single point," Root writes, noting that, "I think it is fair to say that 'lone nutters' continue to believe the official version, that Oswald acted alone, therefore no conspiracy. 'Lone nutters' seem all too willing to accept one shooter proves no conspiracy rather than accepting that a conspiracy could still have existed that would include Oswald."

"On the other hand," continues Root, "it seems the 'holy grail' of conspiracy theorists is that there must have been more than one shooter and that, therefore, even if Oswald was in any way involved he was actually 'set up' as the 'patsy' because the 'magic bullet' is an impossibility."

"I have spent a great deal of time," Jim Root writes, "pondering how a group of conspirators could have executed a plan so exact and precise that, to this day, it has allowed their names to remain a mystery. I at times speculate that if Oswald was the shooter for the conspirators they would want the world to believe that he was nothing more than a patsy and therefore not a shooter. If this speculation is correct then the conspiracy theorist have done more to protect the conspirators than to uncover who they actually were. If on the other hand Oswald was not a shooter and was the pre-determined 'patsy' then they had to be sure that Oswald was in a place that the motorcade would pass at the exact time that the assassination would take place."

In either case, Oswald a shooter, even a lone shooter, or Oswald the "patsy," it is the perception of his role as a pawn in the Great Game, rather than a psychologically deranged loser, that is the dividing line and not whether there was more than one assassin, that is the key to continuing the inquiry further.

As Jim Root concludes, "John J. McCloy's refusal to put Hosty's third note into the record and to investigate exactly who in government had access to the knowledge of where Oswald was working prior to the final decissions on the exact motorcade route, leads me to suggest that McCloy didn't want that information to become public…"

The idea is that whether the assassin or a patsy, it wasn't necessary to "control" him, only to know his whereabouts. That Hosty knew and reported Oswald working at TSBD before the assassination, in an official letter/memo that no one today can account for, indicates that they knew this was an important point, and could not let it be known that their knowledge of Oswald's presence there was in their files before the assassination.

The case for conspiracy doesn't rest with a two shooter scenario.

BK

And the preponderance of evidence indicates that there was a plot and conspiracy to kill the President at Dealey Plaza even if there was only one shooter, and whether or not it was Oswald or someone else.

BK

[Jim Root]

David

Oswald's "patsy" statement was a little longer than just, "I'm a patsy." He actually said that the reason he was being arrested was because he had gone to the Soviet Union, I'm a patsy. For myself it is difficult to just take one part of the statement (I'm a patsy) without examining the total comment and attempting to put it into context with the man.

Oswald had gone to the Soviet Union, Oswald had worked on radar that tracked the U-2 spy plane, a U-2 spy plane was downed over the Soviet Union while Oswald was there and the downing of the U-2 did lead to the failure of the Paris Summit.

Just week prior to the assassintion of JFK Oswald gave a speech at Spring Hill College and spoke of the downing of the U-2 and the failure of the Paris Summit. It seems obvious to me that these two events were, in Oswald's mind, tied together and that they were in fact something that Oswald was thinking a great deal about in the time period leading up to the assassination. Oswald, at Spring Hill College, spoke of powerful people or forces within both the Soviet Union and the United States that did not want there to be a peace between these two countries.

Oswald either by preperation or chance was also well prepared in knowing exactly who he wanted to act as his attorney after being arrested for the assassination of JFK, Jonathon Abt. Abt had been an Smith Act attorney and had argued successfully in front of the Supreme Court of the United States defending people who had been accused of attempting to overthrow the government of the United States.

I guess it woud be possible to argue that Oswald the "patsy" was setting up his defense based upon his belief that he may have been used or even tricked by some very powerful forces to go to the Soviet Union and in so doing may have helped to derail the Paris Summit.

Interestingly, John J. McCloy, did not want the Paris Summit to be successful and it was not. McCloy had also resigned in discust with JFK as Chief Arms negotiator in June of 1963. After the assassination of JFK McCloy would once again become the Chief Arms negotiator. Two seperate events that can be associated with two sepeate people, Oswald and McCloy and I guess I would agree, one may well have been a "patsy" for the other and Oswald, might I suggest, may well have figured out the first time he had been used as a "patsy" was when he went to the Soviet Union(based upon his speech at Spring Hill College).

Jim Root

[Jim Root]

Willam

Thank you for refining my point in your excellent post!

Jim Root

[David Josephs]

The question is: If Oswald didn't do it, why did whoever did it need a patsy?

Doesn't it seem odd that Oswald would go out of his way to ADMIT he was a "patsy" (someone easily fooled, swindled...etc) given who we know him to have been? (emphasis added by Thomas Graves)

As opposed to simply saying he had no idea what was going on and that he did not shoot anyone?

David,

What or who do we know Oswald to have been? Just curious...

--Thomas

Thomas,

I am referring to the general impression of Oswald being much more than the lowly clerk/book order packer compared to the other employees doing virtually the same thing. He gave the impression he was educated, strongly opinionated and involved in activities well beyond the TSBD employee exterior.

I've done my fair share of reading but am definitely NOT an Oswald expert by any means. I guess I am purely trying to understand why Oswald would immediately talk about being a patsy and the Russians (thank you Jim R.) if he actually did it.... Knowing he didn't do it he must have a reason for saying what he does...

maybe protecting himself (starting his defense as mentioned),

maybe doing exactly what he was told to do if he was caught,

Pretty risky to just blurt out you're a patsy on the belief that powerful forces are keeping the US & USSR apart and that he had seen it first hand... if he was that smart he must have know he was signing his death warrant yet at the same time he says virtually nothing in the interviews - or at least what we've read of the interviews - about this... ?

Finally, as I watch the clip of his press conference, he - to me at least - is incredulous about being charged with JFK's murder... it just seems he simply can't believe it had gone that far.

So I will somewhat retract the statement as speaking abit over my head on the subject... it just doesn;t seem in character given what I've learned about Oswald leading up to that moment.

and Jim R... thanks for your post - I was aware of most of that and believe you are on to something with McCloy yet also get the impression that a number of "players" within our government may have also been playing a little game with each other, as spooks do, so that we'd all be doing the "who dunit" shuffle years down the road... and wind up as we are, with multiple people either at or sharing the top of this pyramid and finding it very hard to pinpoint any one without it looking like it was everyone.... and no one at all... {sigh}

DJ

[Michael Hogan]

Finally, as I watch the clip of his press conference, he - to me at least - is incredulous about being charged with JFK's murder... it just seems he simply can't believe it had gone that far.

It's clear from those all too brief appearances by Oswald that he was not the lone deranged nut that he was posthumously portrayed to be.

When it was divulged shortly after his death that Oswald's interrogations were not recorded, it didn't take a genius to figure out that some sort of fix was in the works.

Whatever Oswald's role, there was clearly much more to it than the Warren Commission pretended to conclude. Vince Bugliosi, David Von Pein and a tellingly small

minority of the people can buy it, but the vast majority of others are too smart for that, even if they don't know exactly what happened leading up to and culminating in

President Kennedy's murder.

[Duke Lane]

Why did whoever did it need a patsy?

"Need?" Why would someone who killed a popular American president not need a patsy?

Can we presume or even imagine that the case would be - or could be - left unsolved in the public mind? That it would or could in any way be left without a satisfactory conclusion? That the public - or any public institution,, especially J. Edgar Hoover's vaunted FBI - would not continue the search for the killer(s) if someone hadn't been found (and duly executed) until he or they were finally brought to justice?

Imagine if you can what the FBI would have had to do with the various and sundry leads that were developed if they couldn't have determined them to be "unimportant" because they had nothing to do with Oswald. They could ill afford not to have followed them up, to sniff out every nook and cranny until they'd at last determined who was really at fault ... if they didn't already have someone to lay the blame at the feet of?

Perhaps a blind eye could still have been turned toward these leads, but it would have been infinitely harder to do. If they didn't actually need a patsy, having one was certainly preferable. And that being the case, why would they have not chosen to have one? Pride goeth before the fall, you know.

[Jim Root]

Jim Root states a few important but often overlooked points, including the idea that the case for conspiracy doesn't necessitate multiple shooters, and that Lee Harvey Oswald can be perceived in the same light regardless of his role as either a lone shooter or a patsy.

Jim Root wrote, "A majority of the reasons that researchers give that would lead us to believe that Oswald was a 'patsy' for the conspirators begins with their belief that Oswald could not have been a shooter and that the fatal bullets could not have been fired from the TSBD or some sort of twist on this idea."

"The primary divide between 'lone nutters' and conspiracy theorist hinges on this single point," Root writes, noting that, "I think it is fair to say that 'lone nutters' continue to believe the official version, that Oswald acted alone, therefore no conspiracy. 'Lone nutters' seem all too willing to accept one shooter proves no conspiracy rather than accepting that a conspiracy could still have existed that would include Oswald."

"On the other hand," continues Root, "it seems the 'holy grail' of conspiracy theorists is that there must have been more than one shooter and that, therefore, even if Oswald was in any way involved he was actually 'set up' as the 'patsy' because the 'magic bullet' is an impossibility."

"I have spent a great deal of time," Jim Root writes, "pondering how a group of conspirators could have executed a plan so exact and precise that, to this day, it has allowed their names to remain a mystery. I at times speculate that if Oswald was the shooter for the conspirators they would want the world to believe that he was nothing more than a patsy and therefore not a shooter. If this speculation is correct then the conspiracy theorist have done more to protect the conspirators than to uncover who they actually were. If on the other hand Oswald was not a shooter and was the pre-determined 'patsy' then they had to be sure that Oswald was in a place that the motorcade would pass at the exact time that the assassination would take place."

In either case, Oswald a shooter, even a lone shooter, or Oswald the "patsy," it is the perception of his role as a pawn in the Great Game, rather than a psychologically deranged loser, that is the dividing line and not whether there was more than one assassin, that is the key to continuing the inquiry further.

As Jim Root concludes, "John J. McCloy's refusal to put Hosty's third note into the record and to investigate exactly who in government had access to the knowledge of where Oswald was working prior to the final decissions on the exact motorcade route, leads me to suggest that McCloy didn't want that information to become public…"

The idea is that whether the assassin or a patsy, it wasn't necessary to "control" him, only to know his whereabouts. That Hosty knew and reported Oswald working at TSBD before the assassination, in an official letter/memo that no one today can account for, indicates that they knew this was an important point, and could not let it be known that their knowledge of Oswald's presence there was in their files before the assassination.

The case for conspiracy doesn't rest with a two shooter scenario.

BK

William.....

I put into bold some of words that I too believe are important to consider!

Jim Root

[Steve Brodhay]

I have speculated about Oswald being where he was on 11/22 like the rest of you. I have concluded that it wasn't enough for "the Conspirators" to know where he was on 11/22-they had to know he wouldn't be outside with others at the time of the shooting-otherwise he has an ironclad alibi and the "patsy" plan doesn't work. How they managed this is,for me, the real question. Also,IMHO, I agree with the theory (not my own) that the plan was to make it look like multiple people involved that all led back to Oswald and Cuba. It was Johnson's and Hoover's plan to prevent the facts of a "Communist conspiracy" at all costs,that ,I believe, caused the subsequent cover-up by the authorities. The original plan to assassinate JFK was to blame Cuba, not a lone nut. If Oswald is killed being "arrested", all the evidence points to that Conspiracy. Remember: it took a call from Johnson to Wade to prevent Texas indicting Oswald as part of a Communist conspiracy. I have always found it interesting that the news and Facts on 11/22, out of Texas, indicated JFK was hit from the front in the throat and then apparently from the the side with the head shot "blowing off his ear". The original comments from Humes as reported by the FBI had a bullet in his back: "establishing" at least 2 shooters with the "dead Oswald"(at his arrest) leading right to Cuba. Once this plan was realized by Hoover,Johnson the evidence starting "changing" to prevent evidence of a Communist conspiracy,IMHO.

[Jon G. Tidd]

If Oswald didn't do it, one is forced to consider who did. Many here choose the CIA. Few here choose Castro or the Russians. Some here choose American right-wingers. Some choose the American mafia. The beauty is that all are candidates.

No one here thinks like a plotter. The plotter didn't want to be caught.

[David Josephs]

You conveniently skipped over the Military Jon...

Look at EVERYONE involved. Name a few who were not active or ex Military?

The question that needs answering is who could tell AF 4-star general LeMay and Navy Rear Admirals Galloway and Burkley to make sure the autopsy proved a shot from above and behind?

Who could tell the FBI, Hoover, to bury/discredit all non-Oswald evidence.

Who was so powerful that no one from any walk of life or anywhere on the planet could hide from them - and they were skilled already at killing.

Anyone honestly think that LBJ and the Warren Commissions and lawyers were afraid of the Mafia or the Russians?

It's important to remember that the CIA was at the time an extension of the Military... the covert arm that could do what overtly could not be done.

Their budget, their arms, their training... Military.

The CIA grows out of the OSS, not the FBI's SIS. The OSS was a Military-based entity run by the rich and elite of the US Military Industrial Congressional class.

The SIS was Hoover's. 'nuf said?

Whoever was ultimately used to pull triggers is not who Sponsored the action, they Facilitated it with Mechanics on the ground and were protected from above.

Military operation thru and thru...

This is of course only my opinion based on the evidence and research I've done. I am in the process of researching for a book I'd like to write one day on the Creation of US Intelligence Entities. The reading there also leads me to believe the Military, who originated Intelligence, was not about to give it away to the newly created CIA - who I might add had WHO for their first few directors followed by a world class WWII spy?

1) Rear Adm Souers, 2) Lt. Gen Vandenberg, 3) Rear Ad Hillenkoetter, 4) Gen Smith... Navy, Army, Navy, Army.... hmmmm.

On March 23, 1882, the Department of the Navy issued General Order No. 292, which established an office of intelligence within the Bureau of Navigation.

In 1885 the Division of Military Information was established as part of the Military Reservations Division, Miscellaneous Branch, of the Adjutant General's Office. This step gave the U.S. Army a permanent intelligence organization for the first time in a century

[Greg Parker]

I have speculated about Oswald being where he was on 11/22 like the rest of you. I have concluded that it wasn't enough for "the Conspirators" to know where he was on 11/22-they had to know he wouldn't be outside with others at the time of the shooting-otherwise he has an ironclad alibi and the "patsy" plan doesn't work. How they managed this is,for me, the real question.

Hello Steve.

Oswald WAS outside on the steps at the time of the shots. They didn't have to worry about controlling where he was. Dallas police and DA were old hands at making a case, no matter what. His alibi was not ironclad but not because it didn't work. It was not ironclad because it wasn't recorded, and therefore could be manipulated. His interrogators simply changed his alibi with a few little tweaks, which was enough to "disprove" it.

When the altgens 6 frame was circulated at the time, there were no shortage of people noticing the resemblance of one of the men on the steps to Oswald. As was argued on this board, in the longest living thread in history, there was no need for the FBI to panic and rush off to confirm with Billy Lovelady that the he was the person in question. No need that is, if, as claimed by his interrogators, Oswald was admitting having a tet-a-tet with a cop up on the 2nd floor lunch room.

How do we know what Oswald really said? Many early newspaper reports carried the real story of him being questioned at the first floor entry and cited cops as the source. Jesse Curry was among those sources... and the only non-cop, non-FBI non Secret Service agent at his last interrogation, Harry Holmes, correctly reported what Oswald said - that he was stopped at the front entrance...

On top of all that, there is now visual verification.

That's Oswald and Frazier up the back.

[James DiEugenio]

I would generally have to agree on this.

Although I am not quite as certain about it as Greg is.

One of the worst things that researchers can do is to accept any one version of what Oswald said while in detention.

Just compare the hours he was supposed to be questioned with the tiny amount of notes that exist, and you will see that Oswald had to have said a lot more than we will ever know.

And then he tries to call John Hurt on Saturday?

And then Ruby, who had been monitoring the police station the whole weekend, fabricates that phony excuse from the Carlins, waits for the signal from WU, then hides behind a cop and kills LHO with Fritz breaking the protection cup? He then lies about it all so badly that the FBI had to falsify his polygraph?

Something was happening in those interrogation sessions.

Edited August 21, 2015 by James DiEugenio

[Greg Parker]

I would generally have to agree on this.

Although I am not quite as certain about it as Greg is.

One of the worst things that researchers can do is to accept any one version of what Oswald said while in detention.

Just compare the hours he was supposed to be questioned with the tiny amount of notes that exist, and you will see that Oswald had to have said a lot more than we will ever know.

And then he tries to call John Hurt on Saturday?

And then Ruby, who had been monitoring the police station the whole weekend, fabricates that phony excuse from the Carlins, waits for the signal from WU, then hides behind a cop and kills LHO with Fritz breaking the protection cup? He then lies about it all so badly that the FBI had to falsify his polygraph?

Something was happening in those interrogation sessions.

Jim, I have been reviewing Sean Murphy's work on this. It's is better than even I originally thought - and I say that while harboring differing views on aspects of the peripheral coverage (e.g. the innocence or otherwise of some of the other main actors, and whether or not there was any encounter at all on an upper floor, among them). What is unequivocal in his presentation is the case made that PM is Oswald to the exclusion of anyone else.

Some of us are not prepared to let that work slip away. Work continues on a number of fronts.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Greg Parker

[James DiEugenio]

I have not been in contact with Sean for awhile.

Have you?

I was trying to talk him into writing an essay for CTKA. But I really don't care where it appears.

I jus think it should be out there someplace.

Edited August 22, 2015 by James DiEugenio