Oswald Leaving TSBD?

[Thomas Graves]

What are the sources of the images we have been using to identify PM?

In other forums, it's been suggested that a series of stills made available by Robin Unger were best but I examined theses and they are 640 x 480. Far from HD quality, I have seen a still from the same film with what appears to be a "VH1" watermark that appeared to be of HD quality but the still was not the portion that showed the TSBD entrance.

Chris,

Wiegman?

Couch / Darnell?

--Tommy

[Chris Newton]

Tommy,

I believe the Unger set is Couch with the Officer running toward the entrance, if that's what you are asking.

150+ forum pages into this issue we should know what our best resources are.

[Chris Newton]

I noticed this document in the Mary Ferrell database:

http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62434

It's a letter sent from Richard Sprague to RFK in Dec. 1967. Mae Brussel furnished it to JEH who forwarded it to the Dallas FBI SAC (!).

In the letter Sprague lists many photographers and their photographs and notes that many of the photos had not been examined by any agency. Thus the concern and the request to Dallas SAC to take a look at it from JEH.

On the last page of the list of photographers Sprague has an unidentified photographer in the doorway of the TSBD.

What are the chances this is the first ID of PM?

Keep in mind Sprague may have a better copy of the video than we do today. I note that my DVD version of Executive Action has some very high quality excerpts taken from several films that are better than the versions I see on the 'net now.

[Chris Davidson]

Some Murray photos.

http://www.jfkassassinationgallery.com/thumbnails.php?album=125&page=1

[Robert Prudhomme]

From Bill Shelley's statement of 22/11/63:

"I ran across the street to the corner of the park and ran into a girl crying and she said the President had been shot. This girl's name is Gloria Calvery who is an employee of this same building."

Do you see the problem here, Thomas?

If Shelley crosses the street to talk to Gloria Calvery at the concrete island, when does this meeting take place? The two men seen in Darnell do not appear to have stopped any time after crossing the street, and the woman some identify as Gloria Calvery is running on the other side of the street, and cannot be the person they had the meeting with.

Remember, too, that Shelley makes no mention of crossing the street with Lovelady, who claimed, in his first day statement, to go back into the TSBD after the shooting. It is only in their WC testimony, months later, that the story grows into the two of them walking down to the rail yard.

[James DiEugenio]

I fought that James Gordon said this was now going to be halted?

Instead its just shifted to a thread not called Prayer Man. But its the same topic.

I was really looking forward to Greg's work and then debating the paper up above.

If you announce a policy, don't let the combatants get round it by shifting ground.

Sort of reminds me of LBJ and Vietnam.

Edited January 7, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Chris Scally]

I agree wholeheartedly, Jim.

Enough is Enough - let's call a halt to this stuff, NOW, please. It is achieving nothing, and is just turning people away from this and other Forums.

[James R Gordon]

Please take note.

I was asked to leave this thread open by a member. Already I have had a number of concerns about the way this thread is being monopolised.

This thread was not devised for PrayerMan. As a fellow member observed by turning it into a PrayerMan thread an excellent thread has now been spoilt.

If members continue to use this thread for a PrayerMan discussion I will take immediate action against the offending member(s) - and it will be immediate.

The decision was that the forum would await Greg's summary document. That may mean that it will take some time to complete - so be it. PrayerMan is off topic until that report is complete.

The members of the admin team take the reputation of this forum as off the utmost importance. And this present discussion does nothing to enhance this forum.

As I said: Please take Note!

James

[James R Gordon]

I will be locking this thread for a short time today while I restore this thread to its initial intent.

I agree with James DiEugenio that this was indeed a very thoughtful thread.

Once the thread is edited and I have restored the thread to its original purpose I will reopen it.

Thereafter I request all posts focus on the thread's intent.

I have now hidden the more recent conversations. In going through this thread, I am amazed at

the quality of the early pages. there is so much quality research and conversations there that

- in a sense - reflect on the quality of the more recent conversations. These early pages are

worthy of a revisit by members.

I am now unlocking this thread.

[Thomas Graves]

Sean, thanks for responding in kind, as I'm not trying to be contrary.

I'm looking at FBI and DPD and wondering who in those orgs could have influence over this but can't put a finger on a name.

I don't see much difference in Baker's statement and testimony, other than the mention of the fourth floor encounter with someone, which he later said was a reference to the second floor lunchroom encounter.

Baker pretty much sticks to his story of seeing Oswald through the door window, and Truly did not see him,

therefore Oswald must have been on the other side of the closed door and did not go through it, as he would have had to if he was the Sixth Floor sniper.

As for the Second Floor encounter ruling out Oswald as Sixth Floor shooter:

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-doors-of-perception-why-oswald-is.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-doors-of-perception-why-oswald-is_14.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-perception-part.html

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/07/howard-roffmans-presumed-guilty.html

Now none of this eleminates Oswald as Prayer Man, as that is a distinct possibility.

BK

No problem, Bill.

There's no mention of a "door window" in Baker's 11/22 affidavit story.

There's no mention of a door,

There's no mention of a room.

Instead we hear about a man Baker catches "walking away from the stairway" several floors up the building.

According to Marvin Johnson, who took the affidavit, Baker even talked about searching the man.

This is not the lunchroom story that Baker will tell the WC.

**

As for Baker & Truly's WC story exonerating Oswald, all a WC defender has to do is argue the following:

Oswald shoots JFK

Oswald comes down the stairs

Oswald on the second floor, hearing the noise of someone on the way up, hurries over to the second-floor landing door and goes through it

Oswald looks through the door window as Truly crosses the landing

Oswald is about to go back out onto the landing when he is surprised to see an officer hit the landing

Oswald spins around to head for the lunchroom

But the officer notices the movement.

The scenario I've just outlined is pure crap. But that doesn't matter. The lunchroom story makes it possible.

Just tweak the timeline here and there, invent extra seconds for Truly and Baker en route to the incident, and hey presto you have all the make-believe ambiguity you need to keep the fable of Oswald's guilt alive.

That's what the second-floor lunchroom fiction achieves: it gets Oswald away from the front entrance.

**

The lunchroom incident doesn't eliminate Prayer Man?

Quite the reverse:

Prayer Man eliminates the lunchroom incident.

For it tells us where the real Baker-Oswald-Truly encounter happened:

front entrance.

This is what Darnell is telling us:

Look! Here's Baker, Truly and Oswald--in the frame together!

No need to bustle Oswald upstairs for a phoney second encounter.

bumped just for the heck of it

EDIT: Decided to move this here from another thread.

Tommy,

Since you insist on believing that the second floor encounter really occurred, why don't you do so in a way that is actually plausible.

Holmes's last statement quoted in Bart's post makes it absolutely clear that he is talking about the vestibule on the first floor, right there at the front entrance of the TSBD. There should be no question about that. I mean, had he merely said "on the first floor," then you could say that he just misspoke, or that he got confused and thought the lunchroom was on the first floor. But not only does Holmes specify the first floor (twice!), he also connects the vestibule to the front door. Not to a lunchroom!

So let me help you out. What about suggesting that perhaps Oswald, in his interrogation, reported that he had had encounters with TWO policemen. One in the lunchroom, the other on the first floor. And that Holmes accidentally conflated the two stories in his testimony.

Doesn't that sound like it actually could have happened? With a little creative thought, I'll bet you can come up with an even better denial than mine!

Or why not just surrender to the truth that the second floor encounter never occurred? That way you'll be ahead of the curve, not left in the dust!

Sandy,

From Holmes' Informal Memorandum / Statement given to "Special Agent" Charles T. Brown on 11/24/63:

“When asked about his whereabouts at the time of the shooting, he stated that when lunch time came, and he didn’t say which floor he was on, he said one of the negro employees invited him to eat lunch with him and stated ‘You go on down and send the elevator back up and I will join you in a few minutes.’ Before he could finish whatever he was doing, he stated, the commotion surrounding the assassination took place and when he went down stairs, a policeman questioned him as to his identification and his boss stated that ‘he is one of our employees’ whereupon the policeman had him step aside momentarily. Following this, he simply walked out the front door of the building. I don’t recall that anyone asked him why he left or where or how he went. I just presumed that this had been covered in an earlier questioning.

From Holmes' WC deposition on April 2, 1964:

Mr. BELIN. Did he say where he was at the time of the shooting?

Mr. HOLMES. He just said he was still up in the building when the commotion-- he kind of----

Mr. BELIN. Did he gesture with his hands, do you remember?

Mr. HOLMES. He talked with his hands all the time. He was handcuffed, but he was quiet--well, he was not what you call a stoic phlegmatic person. He is very definite with his talk and his eyes and his head, and he goes like that, you see.

Mr. BELIN. Did Oswald say anything about seeing a man with a crew cut in front of the building as he was about to leave it? Do you remember anything about that?

Mr. HOLMES. No.

Mr. BELIN. You don't remember anything about that. Did he say anything about telling a man about going to a pay phone in the building?

Mr. HOLMES. Policeman rushed--I take it back---I don't know whether he said a policeman or not--a man came rushing by and said, "Where's your telephone?" And the man showed him some kind of credential and I don't know that he identified the credential, so he might not have been a police officer, and said I am so and so, and shoved something at me which I didn't look at and said, "Where is the telephone?"

And I said, "Right there," and just pointed in to the phone, and I [Oswald] went on out.

Mr. BELIN. Did Oswald say why he left the building?

Mr. HOLMES. No; other than just said he talked about this commotion and went out to see what it was about.

[...]

Mr. BELIN. By the way, where did this policeman stop him when he was coming down the stairs at the Book Depository on the day of the shooting?

Mr. HOLMES. He said it was in the vestibule.

Mr. BELIN. He said he was in the vestibule?

Mr. HOLMES. Or approaching the door to the vestibule. He was just coming, apparently, and I have never been in there myself. Apparently there is two sets of doors, and he had come out to this front part.

Mr. BELIN. Did he state it was on what floor?

Mr. HOLMES. First floor. The front entrance to the first floor.

Mr. BELIN. Did he say anything about a Coca Cola or anything like that, if you remember?

Mr. HOLMES. Seems like he said he was drinking a Coca Cola, standing there by the Coca Cola machine drinking a Coca Cola.

Mr. BELIN. Anything else?

Mr. HOLMES. Nothing more than what I have already told you on it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The Coca Cola is a different question, about a different time." -- LeDoux

[...]

Ed,

A different question about a different time?

Which time would that be, Edward?

Do you mean the time Truly bought Oswald a Coca-Cola from the Coca-Cola (brand name) machine in the 2nd floor lunchroom, way back when he hired him in September?

(For all you naive students and newbie "researchers" out there, I'm just kidding. I think Truly bought him a Dr. Pepper from the machine on the 1st floor, instead. LOL)

It does seem Holmes got his stories mixed up and may have "let the cat out of the bag" regarding Oswald's claiming that he was on the first floor earlier than the official story says he was (but too late to be Prayer Man, unfortunately, unless by "the commotion" Holmes meant the increasing crowd noise in anticipation of the approaching motorcade).

--Tommy

I incorporated part of Ed LeDoux's post into mine, and bumped the whole enchilada for all the world to see.

--Tommy

PS Here's a serious idea -- Did Baker and Truly encounter Oswald by the Dr. Pepper machine at the back of the first floor?

Edited February 7, 2016 by Thomas Graves

[Paul Brancato]

Oswald had not yet purchased the coke when he was confronted by Baker.

The statement Baker wrote in which he crossed out the coke was written days later and is not the first day statement,

I think Baker must have heard of the coke story from others and after mentioning it in his statement realized that he did not see Oswald with the coke in hand and crossed it out.

I think you are dead right on this one, Bill.

David Lifton once told me that he believed Baker was sent to Kill Oz

but was prevented by the presence of Roy Truly.

I do not know whether David still holds that view, (it was many years ago) but as I told David then,

I have never harbored any suspicions about officer Marion Baker.

[Paul Brancato]

David Lifton - did you tell Ron Ecker that you thought Bakwr was sent to kill Oz?

It's very interesting in any case. It would make sense that, if the plan was to set Oswald up, the perpetrators would plan to eliminate Oz as quickly as possible, Baker was in a hurry somewhere...

[Michael Walton]

Paul - thanks so much for getting this thread to appear on the EF home page. This is the thread I meant in another thread about Baker's testimony. I plan to copy the link of this thread over there so others can easily find it.

[Vanessa Loney]

This thread is now approaching 350,000 views. Isn't it time for it to be pinned on the front page?

I'd argue it is far more fact-based than the so-called "Prayer Person" thread that is already there.

How about it, James?

[Ray Mitcham]

Seconde, Vanessa