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Oswald Leaving TSBD?


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I would like to offer a simple scenario that I believe may tell the story of what really happened between Lee Oswald, Marrion Baker and Roy Truly.

ONE: Oswald comes downstairs to lunch in the first-floor domino room at some point after noon

TWO: Several minutes before the assassination he visits the second-floor lunchroom where he buys a coke for his lunch

THREE: He brings the coke downstairs and, just as JFK is passing the building, steps out the glass door at the front entrance and takes up the Prayer Man position

FOUR: Within seconds of the last shot, Marrion Baker rushes up the front steps, revolver drawn

FIVE: He notices Oswald, who has perhaps stepped inside the door into the lobby area, and asks him 'Do you work here?'. The reason for Baker's question is not that he suspects Oswald in any way but that he is looking for someone who can point him the way to the stairs (rather as a credentials-waving man will a short time after this ask Oswald where he can find a phone)

SIX: Just as Baker is beginning to engage Oswald in this way, Roy Truly arrives and tells him, 'Yes, Officer, he works here but I am the building manager. I will show you the way upstairs'

SEVEN: Baker and Truly run off to cross the shipping floor for the rear elevators

EIGHT: This innocent incident--with its basic elements still intact (Oswald... coke... asking whether Oswald is an employee...Truly confirming)--will later that evening be transplanted up to the second floor lunchroom in a hastily contrived attempt to deprive Oswald of his clear alibi.

**

Far-fetched? I can only invite you to consider the following detail:

Marrion Baker testified before the WC that he didn't take his revolver out until he was going up the rear stairway from first to second floor.

His claim is exposed as a downright lie by the Darnell film, which shows him reaching with his right arm for his holster, taking out his revolver and pointing it straight ahead:

prayermandesh12fps100c4k1m.gif

Hello Sean

It gets worse. I went to the site you gave me to read Jarman's HSCA interview. When I finished, I also read Harold Norman's HSCA interview.

According to Norman, him, Jarman and Williams had time to sit and ponder on the 5th floor following the last shot, run down to the west end of the building and study the scene at the railroad yard for a bit (we passed there for a couple of minutes or so), go downstairs to the 4th floor and look out the windows and chit chat there (for a bit more than a couple of minutes, by his account), and finally take the back stairs down to the 1st floor and the main entrance, where they saw the police coming into the building.

Here is the good part. He was then asked if he had seen Superintendent Truly on the 1st floor when they arrived and he replied, Yes, he did recall seeing him there.

In other words, if Oswald left the building at 12:33, it seems Truly (and presumably Baker) are still on the 1st floor AFTER Oswald left the building.

It is looking worse for the 2nd floor Oswald/Baker encounter by the day.

Robert,

Not trying to get you all riled up or nothin', but isn't it possible that Superintendent Truly returned to the first floor several minutes after the assassination, and that's when Norman, Jarman, and Williams saw him there?

Also, you say that N, J, and W saw the police come into the building. I think we know that Officer Baker entered the building somewhere around 40 seconds after the last shot. Do we know when other policemen started coming in? Isn't it reasonable to assume that other policemen continued trickling in after after Baker and the initial "wave?"

For timing purposes, it would be nice if we knew which policemen N, J, and W saw come into the building.

--Tommy :sun

These are good questions. The best response I can think of is that Truly and Baker would have had to conduct a whirlwind search of all of the floors. Norman and his friends took their time coming down (and it is quite surprising they never met Truly and Baker either coming up or going down) but they were not THAT long in coming down.

Do you think Officer Baker would have rushed to the top of the TSBD only to spend a couple of minutes up there?

Robert,

Yes, I do, because I can imagine that after a cursory search of the top floors, Baker probably wanted to get back down to the first floor to communicate with the other policemen coming in and to help seal off the building.

--Tommy :sun

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I do not see Baker's affidavit contradicting anyone, it only says he wasn't sure which floor he was on.

And you are trying to make a xxxx of too many people, including Lee Oswald

who said he was in the 2nd floor lunchroom when the policeman came in.

Fritz's notes -- on top of the coke room story -- put the matter beyond much doubt in my mind, and this thread has, for my money (to quote Fritz) "cinched" it.

He was

"Out with BIll Shelley in front."

And I have no doubt he would have so testified at his trial.

And if Sean Murphy, Duncan MacRae, Richard Hocking, Robin Unger, Gerda, and those involved in the Prayer Man inquiry were there to help, he would have proved it.

Ray, we don't know that Oswald "said he was in the 2nd floor lunchroom when the policeman came in" because we weren't there and the interrogations were not recorded.

We do however know what the same-day evidence has to say on that score:

Oswald stated that he went to lunch at approximately noon and he claimed he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch. Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building. (Bookhout-Hosty joint interrogation report 11/22/63)

No mention whatsoever of an incident involving an officer & Mr. Truly.

**

But on to the substantive point.

You evidently believe

1) Oswald was indeed Prayer Man and was at the front entrance at the time of the actual shooting

2) the second-floor lunchroom incident really did happen.

Okay, let's run with that combination.

Here's what I'm interested in: what do you believe happened between our last glimpse of Prayer Man in the Darnell film and Marrion Baker's first glimpse of Oswald through the door window on the second floor?

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For the original handwritten statements of Baker and Reid see City of Dallas Archives JFK Collection

Box 1, Folder 6, Items 13, 14. Others are there too.

City of Dallas Archives: JFK Collection - Box 1

There is also a more detailed report from Baker to the HSCA.

The scenario that I am putting together has the "Prayer Man" - TSBD building employee, possibly Oswald, checking out the commotion on the street, standing back against the glass wall - watching Baker run past him through the door, Truly behind him. They then proceed to the back elevator and take the stairs - while Oswald - whether "Prayer Man" or not - is on the First - Ground Floor - near the door - where Arnold last saw him, takes the FRONT steps to the second floor offices. Oswald walks through the office, and into the Second Floor Lunchroom vestibule - where he passes the window of the closed door that Baker sees him through. Since Truly had been ahead of Baker and didn't see Oswald go through the door as he should have, he continued around the corner and then began ascending the steps to the Third Floor.

Truly later said - testified that he didn't know that Baker had seen Oswald through the window of the door until a few days later, and didn't recognize the significance of that fact at the time.

After confronting Oswald - the cool and calm, not out of breath or hyper assassin, who buys a coke and then walks back the way he entered - through the office where he encounters Mrs. Reid, who sees the full coke bottle in right hand and they exchange garbled words, while Oswald proceeds down the steps to the front door, where he then directs a reporter to the telephone. As Jerry Dealey notes, the recording of this journalist's report - indicates he is excited and out of breath from having seen the president killed and running a hundred yards to the phone, which begs the question of why Oswald wasn't similarly out of breath if he had killed the president and ran across the Sixth Floor and down four flights of steps to meet Baker and Truly with such a cool and calm attitude. Mrs. Reid also described Oswald as cool and calm - and not in a hurry.

If Oswald is the "College Boy" who is seen in the third, yet unidentified or untimed film - he then stands at the top of the steps for a few moments before descending the steps and with hands in pocket - what happened to the coke? - he walks east on Elm.

Leaving Oswald Truly and Baker say they continued up the steps - and take the elevator from fifth floor to seventh and then check out the roof - realizing that a rifleman could not have shot over the high wall that ran along the roof. They then took the elevator to the fourth floor where they stopped and Baker reported to Inspector Sawyer - that they had checked out the roof and there's nothing and nobody there. In his testimony Sawyer said he drove an official car to the TSBD, having heard that was the origin of the shots from his police radio (channel 2). He arrived approximately 12:34, took front passenger elevator to the fourth floor, walked to the rear of the building to check it out, but doesn't mention talking with Baker.

Truly and Baker then went back to the first floor and Baker proceeded to Parkland hospital where he finished out his shift. He then went to DPD HQ where he filed his first report, and sat at a desk near Lovelady and within hearing distance of Fritz asking Oswald if he killed the president and Oswald responding, "That's absurd!"

Rather than try to make Baker, Truly, Reid and Oswald out to be liars, I think their stories mesh rather nicely.

Reid and David Belin retraced her actions three times - on the scene - and it always came out - to be about two minutes - 120 seconds between the last shot and her encountering Oswald in the second floor office.

Baker and Truly also were timed. Gary Mack and others estimate that according to the two C/D films it took Baker 40 seconds to park his bike and arrive at the front door of the TSBD - running past "Prayer Man" in the process.

It then took a minute and twenty seconds for them to run to the back of the building and go up the steps to the second floor, the same amount of time it would have taken Oswald to walk from the front door of the TSBD, go up the steps to the second floor and walk across the offices to the vestibule, where Baker saw him walk past through the door window. It then took another ten to twenty seconds for Baker to stop Oswald, Truly to give him a pass, buy the coke and then walk out into the offices where he meets Reid - now arriving at her desk - two minutes after the shooting.

It seems there were some important interactions at the front door of the TSBD - Baker running past "Prayer Man," Baker hooking up with Truly, Oswald giving the reporter directions and Oswald hearing Shelley say something about there not being any more work that day - or Oswald having some interaction with Shelley before taking off.

What happened to the coke bottle? Was there a trash can next to the cigarette machine or somewhere nearby? Where did Oswald dispose of the coke bottle and why wasn't it found and entered into evidence, as the Dr. Pepper bottle from the Sixth Floor should have as well.

Edited by William Kelly
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Mr. Murphy

You have an incredibly analytical mind, and it is threads such as this one and members such as yourself that make me ever so thankful Mr. Simkin chose to re-open this forum.

"Here's what I'm interested in: what do you believe happened between our last glimpse of Prayer Man in the Darnell film and Marrion Baker's first glimpse of Oswald through the door window on the second floor?"

I must say I have to admire how you have refined the entire post down to one simple question which, in the final analysis, is likely the most important question to be asked on this matter.

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I would like to offer a simple scenario that I believe may tell the story of what really happened between Lee Oswald, Marrion Baker and Roy Truly.

ONE: Oswald comes downstairs to lunch in the first-floor domino room at some point after noon

TWO: Several minutes before the assassination he visits the second-floor lunchroom where he buys a coke for his lunch

THREE: He brings the coke downstairs and, just as JFK is passing the building, steps out the glass door at the front entrance and takes up the Prayer Man position

FOUR: Within seconds of the last shot, Marrion Baker rushes up the front steps, revolver drawn

FIVE: He notices Oswald, who has perhaps stepped inside the door into the lobby area, and asks him 'Do you work here?'. The reason for Baker's question is not that he suspects Oswald in any way but that he is looking for someone who can point him the way to the stairs (rather as a credentials-waving man will a short time after this ask Oswald where he can find a phone)

SIX: Just as Baker is beginning to engage Oswald in this way, Roy Truly arrives and tells him, 'Yes, Officer, he works here but I am the building manager. I will show you the way upstairs'

SEVEN: Baker and Truly run off to cross the shipping floor for the rear elevators

EIGHT: This innocent incident--with its basic elements still intact (Oswald... coke... asking whether Oswald is an employee...Truly confirming)--will later that evening be transplanted up to the second floor lunchroom in a hastily contrived attempt to deprive Oswald of his clear alibi.

**

Far-fetched? I can only invite you to consider the following detail:

Marrion Baker testified before the WC that he didn't take his revolver out until he was going up the rear stairway from first to second floor.

His claim is exposed as a downright lie by the Darnell film, which shows him reaching with his right arm for his holster, taking out his revolver and pointing it straight ahead:

prayermandesh12fps100c4k1m.gif

Hello Sean

It gets worse. I went to the site you gave me to read Jarman's HSCA interview. When I finished, I also read Harold Norman's HSCA interview.

According to Norman, him, Jarman and Williams had time to sit and ponder on the 5th floor following the last shot, run down to the west end of the building and study the scene at the railroad yard for a bit (we passed there for a couple of minutes or so), go downstairs to the 4th floor and look out the windows and chit chat there (for a bit more than a couple of minutes, by his account), and finally take the back stairs down to the 1st floor and the main entrance, where they saw the police coming into the building.

Here is the good part. He was then asked if he had seen Superintendent Truly on the 1st floor when they arrived and he replied, Yes, he did recall seeing him there.

In other words, if Oswald left the building at 12:33, it seems Truly (and presumably Baker) are still on the 1st floor AFTER Oswald left the building.

It is looking worse for the 2nd floor Oswald/Baker encounter by the day.

Robert,

Not trying to get you all riled up or nothin', but isn't it possible that Superintendent Truly returned to the first floor several minutes after the assassination, and that's when Norman, Jarman, and Williams saw him there?

Also, you say that N, J, and W saw the police come into the building. I think we know that Officer Baker entered the building somewhere around 40 seconds after the last shot. Do we know when other policemen started coming in? Isn't it reasonable to assume that other policemen continued trickling in after after Baker and the initial "wave?"

For timing purposes, it would be nice if we knew which policemen N, J, and W saw come into the building.

--Tommy :sun

These are good questions. The best response I can think of is that Truly and Baker would have had to conduct a whirlwind search of all of the floors. Norman and his friends took their time coming down (and it is quite surprising they never met Truly and Baker either coming up or going down) but they were not THAT long in coming down.

Do you think Officer Baker would have rushed to the top of the TSBD only to spend a couple of minutes up there?

Robert,

Yes, I do, because I can imagine that after a cursory search of the top floors, Baker probably wanted to get back down to the first floor to communicate with the other policemen coming in and to help seal off the building.

--Tommy :sun

All of these people going up and down the stairs; strange they never ran into each other.

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Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building. (Bookhout-Hosty joint interrogation report 11/22/63)

And prithee tell Sean, on what floor was Prayer Man?

You say tomato, and I say tomayto.

No mention whatsoever of an incident involving an officer & Mr. Truly.

But somehow Fritz heard it, and wrote it down.

Is it your theory that someone doctored Fritz's notes?

what do you believe happened between our last glimpse of Prayer Man in the Darnell film and Marrion Baker's first glimpse of Oswald through the door window on the second floor?

I assume Lee went up the front steps to get his coke that he had been looking forward to.
It was a fairly hot day, and he had worked hard all morning, according to his bosses.
Edited by J. Raymond Carroll
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Quote:

"I assume Lee went up the front steps to get his coke that he had been looking forward to.

It was a fairly hot day, and he had worked hard all morning, according to his bosses."
Somehow, I have this mental image of Baker and Oswald racing each other up the stairs for the 2nd floor meeting. Awfully tight timing, I should think.
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Marrion Baker approaching the TSBD front entrance with revolver in hand.

On the theory I am advancing, Lee Oswald is indeed about to have an encounter with a revolver-toting police officer, but the

  • location,
  • timing

and

  • meaning

of that encounter will be very different to the location, timing and meaning of the encounter that will be fed to the public in the Warren Report.

It will take place

  • not in the second-floor lunchroom but just inside the front door in the first-floor lobby
  • not within the next minute but within the next ten seconds

and

  • Baker will not challenge Oswald only for Truly to vouch for Oswald, he will ask Oswald for help only to have Truly helpfully cut in and introduce himself as building manager.

prayermandesh12fps100c4k1m.gif

The two Bookhout-authored 11/22 interrogation reports make for interesting comparative reading.

From Interrogation Report #1 (jointly written by Bookhout and Hosty, typed 11/23/63--dated 11/22/63--"dictated" 11/23/63):

Oswald stated that he went to lunch at approximately noon and he claimed he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch. Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building.

This account contains two rather bizarre omissions:

  1. the precise location on the first floor of Oswald's claimed whereabouts at the time JFK passed the building
  2. any mention of an incident involving himself, a police officer and Mr. Truly

Now put the case that the Prayer Man theory I have been outlining is correct.

The reason for the two omissions in Bookhout-Hosty's report becomes instantly intelligible:

there is no way on earth that such a potentially explosive double claim by the suspect in custody (I was at the front entrance during the shooting and interacted with my boss and [horror!] a police officer just seconds later) is going to make it into the official record.

**

What happens next is key. You might even say it's the giveaway.

Bookhout goes solo. He takes the curious step of putting together a second, 'improved' report on the very same interrogation.

From Interrogation Report #2 (written solo by Bookhout, typed 11/25/63--dated 11/22/63--"dictated" 11/24/63):

Oswald stated that on November 22, 1963, at the time of the search of the Texas School Book Depository building by Dallas police officers, he was on the second floor of said building, having just purchased a Coca-cola form the soft-drink machine, at which time a police officer came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there. Mr. Truly was present and verified that he was an employee and the police officer thereafter left the room and continued through the building. Oswald stated that he took this Coke down to the first floor and stood around and had lunch in the employees lunch room. He thereafter went outside and stood around for five or ten minutes with foreman Bill Shelly, and thereafter went home.

See what's happened? The key elements of what Oswald had really claimed (re. coke, standing outside, officer, Truly) have been transposed into a different timeframe.

Why? In order to deprive the now dead Oswald of his absolutely watertight alibi by having him 'confirm' the bogus second-floor lunchroom story.

**

I invite for serious consideration the hypothesis that Bookhout's solo report needs just a small tweak to give us, for the first time, a credible guide as to what Oswald really said to Fritz in that first interrogation session (note: black = original Bookhout text; red = my changes; blue = repositioned Bookhout text):

  • Oswald stated that on November 22, 1963, at the time of the shooting, he was on the first floor of said building, having just purchased a Coca-cola form the soft-drink machine on the second floor.
  • Oswald stated that he took this Coke down to the first floor and stood around at the front door,
  • at which time a police officer came into the vestibule with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there.
  • Mr. Truly was present and verified that he was an employee and the police officer thereafter left the vestibule [with Mr. Truly] and continued through the building.

The most valuable piece of text in Bookhout's entire solo report? Surely it's the phrase in bold below:

at which time a police officer came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there.

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Awfully tight timing, I should think.

Precisely, Robert.

Which is why the coke-room encounter is so important.

For my money, Leo Sauvage's account is the best.

Sauvage proves that Lee could not have been on the

6th floor at the time of shooting.

and he was corroborated by every serious researcher

ever since, from Weisberg down to our own day.

Edited by J. Raymond Carroll
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I assume Lee went up the front steps to get his coke that he had been looking forward to.
It was a fairly hot day, and he had worked hard all morning, according to his bosses.

So, Ray, Oswald's reaction to the shot(s), the pandemonium in the street and the sight of his boss and a police officer rushing past him is to make his way--at speed!--up to the second-floor lunchroom for the "coke that he had been looking forward to" after a hard morning's work?

Have you any idea how ludicrously implausible that sounds?

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Quote:

"I assume Lee went up the front steps to get his coke that he had been looking forward to.

It was a fairly hot day, and he had worked hard all morning, according to his bosses."
Somehow, I have this mental image of Baker and Oswald racing each other up the stairs for the 2nd floor meeting. Awfully tight timing, I should think.

Right you are, Robert.

I can think of only one halfway plausible scenario whereby Oswald/Prayer Man would want to hurry up the front stairs and make his way towards the northwest corner of the second floor in such a fashion: he's following Baker and Truly.

Thanks for the awfully kind words in your earlier post by the way.

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See what's happened? The key elements of what Oswald had really claimed (re. coke, standing outside, officer, Truly) have been transposed into a different timeframe.

Sean, it is eight o'clock in New York and

I, unlike my city

like to get my sleep.

Can I make a suggestion?

GET SOME SLEEP, LADDiE!

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Quote:

"I assume Lee went up the front steps to get his coke that he had been looking forward to.

It was a fairly hot day, and he had worked hard all morning, according to his bosses."
Somehow, I have this mental image of Baker and Oswald racing each other up the stairs for the 2nd floor meeting. Awfully tight timing, I should think.

Robert, Baker and Oswald weren't racing to meet in the Second Floor lunchroom, it was pretty incredible that Baker just managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of the blur of a head moving in the two square foot window of the lunchroom door - stopped and walked over and opened the door and with gun drawn stopped the man - who Truly identifies as Oswald and clears him.

From Baker, Truly and Oswald we know this event takes place and can time it about a minute and a half after the last shot - a moment in time - Oswald's sideways mug in the window of the second floor lunchroom door - approximately 12:31:30, give or take a few seconds.

If you stop it there and back everything up - Baker goes back down the stairs - and Oswald goes back into the offices where he is a few moments later - encountered by Mrs. Reid, who says it took her exactly two minutes - 120 seconds - timed three times with David Belin, to get there after the last shot. One can certainly imagine, backing up Oswald to the Baker-Truly encounter -then setting him in motion - he then casually proceeds to buy his coke, open it, dispose of the cap and thirty seconds after meeting Baker/Truiy, he coolly and calmly (her words) walks into the offices where Mrs. Reid arrives at her desk.

That Baker said in his first report that the encounter with Oswald happened on the fourth floor and that Mrs. Reid recalls Oswald in white t-shirt - are reflective of mistakes all witnesses make - expecially after hearing others talk and media accounts - and they don't alter the other facts that most of what they said has been confirmed by others, including Oswald.

I think something did happen at the front door - both when Baker ran in and when Oswald left, but transposing the entire second floor encounter to the first floor isn't the answer or a piece of the puzzle that fits, in my opinion.

And Sean, are you really in Dublin? Do you ever have a pint with John Geraghty?

BK

Edited by William Kelly
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Have you any idea how ludicrously implausible that sounds?

What is really "ludicrously implausible," Sean

is the idea that he shot JFK, a man he admired,

according to his wife and everyone who knew

him well.

P.S. If you can show me evidence that he was a fan of Lyndon Johnson

then I might believe you.

Edited by J. Raymond Carroll
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