Oswald Leaving TSBD?

[Pat Speer]

So let me be clear. I find the possibility Oswald was Prayer Man intriguing. I find the possibility Baker and Truly noticed Oswald as they entered the building, and then lied about it, and then moved this encounter to a place STILL suggesting Oswald's innocence, and then got Mrs. Reid to lie about it in statements not only suggesting Oswald's innocence, but government complicity in framing Oswald (via the shirt fibers) silly.

What's silly, Pat, is the idea that we could have Oswald be Prayer Man without that changing anything else in our understanding of what went down in those first couple of minutes post-shooting in the TSBD.

Silly also is the idea of the 'investigating' authorities not going into cover-up overdrive to deprive Oswald of his 100% ironclad alibi.

And very silly indeed is the idea that Oswald's immediate response to the shooting out front would have been to hurry--yes, hurry--upstairs to buy a coke.

The theory being put forward in this thread, in case you missed it, is not that the second-floor lunchroom story was a well-thought out strategem but that it was hastily and crudely put together on the evening of the assassination as an emergency damage-limitation exercise.

Can you suggest a place other than the second-floor lunchroom where the incident could have been relocated?

They (Baker, Truly, and Reid) wouldn't have lied about the location of the encounter (and Oswald's subsequent passing through the office) for no reason.

The only logical reason for them to lie about the location was to help frame Oswald.

It follows then that

if they were trying to frame Oswald,

1) they wouldn't have picked a location for the encounter that failed to support Oswald's guilt, and actually suggested his innocence.

2) they wouldn't have described Oswald's demeanor as calm.

3) they would have offered support for the fiber evidence by claiming Oswald was wearing the brown shirt whose fibers were found on the rifle.

4) Mrs. Reid would have remembered Oswald's words to her, and they would have been either mysterious or incriminating.

It just doesn't make sense that they would go to such great lengths to fabricate a story with such little payoff...particularly when they had no idea at that time if anyone had seen Oswald outside.

[Richard Hocking]

Fritz's notes say that Lee said he was

"out with Bill Shelley in front,"

As Richard Hocking points out, the only time he could have been out front with Shelley

was prior to and during the actual shooting, because Shelley left the front steps immediately after

and went to explore the grassy knoll.

It is a long time since I seriously studied the interrogation reports, but I propose a theory and invite pot-shots from members:

This answer by Oz does not appear in Hosty or Bookhout, correct?

If not, why not?

I suggest it happened BEFORE Hosty and Bookhout arrived,

and so the FBI reports are foggy because Hosty and Bookhout are relying on what Fritz told them.

I thought I'd run that up the flagpole

and see if anyone salutes!

"out with Bill Shelley in front," when taken in context

What context are you referring to Pat?

, suggests Oswald told Fritz he saw Bill Shelley when leaving the building. Some have tried to twist it into being a claim by Oswald he was out front at the time of the shooting.

Nearly everyone agrees that Fritz's notes are vague. The placement, however, of Oswald being near Shelley is not. And there is a very limited window when Oswald could have been in the company of Shelley.

The possibility does exist that Prayer Man is Oswald. But we've been over this and that doesn't make a lot of sense, seeing as none of those present recalled such a thing.

This issue was discussed earlier in this very thread by Sean, myself and others. We decided there were visible suggestions in the film and photo record that Prayer Man could have made a late entry to the back of the stairs while the attention of the other TSBD employees on the stairs were focused on the Motorcade approaching, passing them, and then the subsequent chaos when the shots were fired.

Of course, one could say they all lied.

We can not rule out the possibility that some individuals may have lied. But another alternative is that many in the group never turned around to see who was behind them during those moments after the Presidential Limo turned onto Elm.

Ha. I watched the Newsroom on HBO last night. It dealt with a producer who'd edited an interview to suit his needs.

Now I see that Richard has added the comment "The possibility does exist that Prayer Man is Oswald." into his post as if it was something I wrote, so that he could comment on this possibility. It's something I might have written. But I didn't write it.

And it changed the context of what I was writing about.

And now I see that Ray has corrected "my typos" and changed the word "Oswald" to the word "Baker" when he responded to another post, when in fact there was no typo and I meant to write Oswald.

It's more than a bit ironic, IMO, that I just wrote a post about words, and how they are imprecise and often misinterpreted, and here I find my imprecise posts misinterpreted.

When I wrote "But we've been over this and that doesn't make a lot of sense, seeing as none of those present recalled such a thing" some assumed I was talking about "Prayer Man" when I was actually referring to Fritz's notes, which I discussed with Fetzer ad nauseum earlier in the year.

So let me be clear. I find the possibility Oswald was Prayer Man intriguing. I find the possibility Baker and Truly noticed Oswald as they entered the building, and then lied about it, and then moved this encounter to a place STILL suggesting Oswald's innocence, and then got Mrs. Reid to lie about it in statements not only suggesting Oswald's innocence, but government complicity in framing Oswald (via the shirt fibers) silly.

Pat, I made a mistake in composing my reply to your post. I incorrectly located one of my statements into a grouping with yours. My apologies. Definitely not intentional. I will edit the post to relocate the statement into my own statements.

[Sean Murphy]

They (Baker, Truly, and Reid) wouldn't have lied about the location of the encounter (and Oswald's subsequent passing through the office) for no reason.

The only logical reason for them to lie about the location was to help frame Oswald.

It follows then that

if they were trying to frame Oswald,

1) they wouldn't have picked a location for the encounter that failed to support Oswald's guilt, and actually suggested his innocence.

2) they wouldn't have described Oswald's demeanor as calm.

3) they would have offered support for the fiber evidence by claiming Oswald was wearing the brown shirt whose fibers were found on the rifle.

4) Mrs. Reid would have remembered Oswald's words to her, and they would have been either mysterious or incriminating.

It just doesn't make sense that they would go to such great lengths to fabricate a story with such little payoff...particularly when they had no idea at that time if anyone had seen Oswald outside.

Pat, I never said Baker, Truly or Reid were trying to or wished to frame Oswald. They probably had no personal desire whatsoever to see Oswald framed.

Baker & Truly would have fallen in with the lunchroom story simply because they were leaned on heavily by the authorities who were desperate to deprive Oswald of his alibi--and Reid in turn would have been leaned on by Truly & Ochus Campbell, who were desperate simply to cover their own asses. Did the improvised story foresee and tie up all loose ends? Of course not. It would be naive--and anachronistic--to expect it would.

Can you suggest a location other than the second-floor lunchroom to which the incident might have been better relocated?

And do you really believe Oswald hurried upstairs to buy a coke immediately after becoming aware that shots had been fired at the President? If so, how do you explain his calm demeanour as described by Baker and Truly?

Edited August 27, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[Richard Hocking]

They (Baker, Truly, and Reid) wouldn't have lied about the location of the encounter (and Oswald's subsequent passing through the office) for no reason.

The only logical reason for them to lie about the location was to help frame Oswald.

It follows then that

if they were trying to frame Oswald,

1) they wouldn't have picked a location for the encounter that failed to support Oswald's guilt, and actually suggested his innocence.

2) they wouldn't have described Oswald's demeanor as calm.

3) they would have offered support for the fiber evidence by claiming Oswald was wearing the brown shirt whose fibers were found on the rifle.

4) Mrs. Reid would have remembered Oswald's words to her, and they would have been either mysterious or incriminating.

It just doesn't make sense that they would go to such great lengths to fabricate a story with such little payoff...particularly when they had no idea at that time if anyone had seen Oswald outside.

Pat, I never said Baker, Truly or Reid were trying to or wished to frame Oswald. They probably had no personal desire whatsoever to see Oswald framed.

Baker & Truly would have fallen in with the lunchroom story simply because they were leaned on heavily by the authorities who were desperate to deprive Oswald of his alibi--and Reid in turn would have been leaned on by Truly & Ochus Campbell, who were desperate simply to cover their own asses. Did the improvised story foresee and tie up all loose ends? Of course not. It would be naive--and anachronistic--to expect it would.

Can you suggest a location other than the second-floor lunchroom to which the incident might have been better relocated?

And do you really believe Oswald hurried upstairs to buy a coke immediately after becoming aware that shots had been fired at the President? If so, how do you explain his calm demeanour as described by Baker and Truly?

Sean,

Regarding the suggestion that the first floor encounter between Baker and Oswald was in fact moved to the second floor:

The motive would have been to get LHO away from a group that had been watching the motorcade at the time of the shots, to a higher floor that could be designated as part of his escape route. The problem was that there were witnesses who had seen Oswald on the 2nd floor during the time frame in question. The second floor was the highest floor the encounter could be moved to that would not blatantly contradict other witness testimony. It would have been a simple adjustment to insert the Baker/Oswald encounter in prior to the encounter with Reid. IOW, Reid does not have to be lying. Truly and Baker were the only witnesses who needed to alter their testimony in this scenario.

[Sean Murphy]

Sean,

Regarding the suggestion that the first floor encounter between Baker and Oswald was in fact moved to the second floor:

The motive would have been to get LHO away from a group that had been watching the motorcade at the time of the shots, to a higher floor that could be designated as part of his escape route. The problem was that there were witnesses who had seen Oswald on the 2nd floor during the time frame in question. The second floor was the highest floor the encounter could be moved to that would not blatantly contradict other witness testimony. It would have been a simple adjustment to insert the Baker/Oswald encounter in prior to the encounter with Reid. IOW, Reid does not have to be lying. Truly and Baker were the only witnesses who needed to alter their testimony in this scenario.

Richard, I think the second-floor lunchroom was in fact the only halfway feasible location for a transplanted Oswald encounter.

**

Your suggestion re. Mrs. Reid is intriguing, and if memory serves Greg Parker has had a similar thought in the past.

Imagine the following:

1. Oswald is Prayer Man and has the brief and innocent Baker-Truly encounter at the front entrance within seconds of the last shot.

2. He does not go up for a coke immediately but hangs around a little bit on the first floor before doing so (rather like Buell Wesley Frazier heading down to the basement for his lunch not long after the shooting). There is no lunchroom incident, just an uneventful lunchroom visit.

3. Mrs. Reid sees him exactly as and where she claimed, only a little later.

4. The second-floor lunchroom is chosen for the phoney Baker-Truly story mainly because Oswald is known (by simple inference from Reid's information) to have been there shortly after the assassination.

Now I don't personally believe this can have happened, not least as Carolyn Arnold puts Oswald up on the second floor several minutes before the shooting--and the notion of two visits there is just odd. I also believe that Oswald would have come through a second-floor office that was far from empty (but for Mrs Reid) by that stage.

**

Must say I keep coming back to the crucial fact that Mrs Reid was not just another person who worked in that building: she was the very person who had stood watching the motorcade with Truly and Campbell. Of all the three TSBD people who could have had an Oswald sighting in the building just after the shooting, it had to be these three. What are the odds?

**

There is one variant scenario whereby Oswald could be Prayer Man and could still have a second-floor lunchroom encounter with Baker & Truly:

-Oswald is at the front entrance at the time of the shooting

-A few minutes after the shooting he goes up to buy a coke

-As Baker and Truly make their way down from the roof, Baker does a quick sweep on each floor

-On the second floor he pops his head into the lunchroom and sees Oswald standing there drinking a coke

-He checks with Truly that Oswald is ok.

Not that I believe this happened, but it is perhaps at least worth throwing out there for members' consideration.

It certainly would give a new spin to the words in Bookhout's solo report where the second-floor lunchroom incident is being covered:

"...at the time of the search of the Texas School Book Depository building by Dallas police officers..."

Edited August 27, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[J. Raymond Carroll]

And do you really believe Oswald hurried upstairs to buy a coke immediately after becoming aware that shots had been fired at the President? If so, how do you explain his calm demeanour as described by Baker and Truly?

Sean, you have no proof that he was aware of the shots,

and his behaviour in going upstairs was no different

than the behaviour of others near his location.

Have you ever stood in the doorway of the TSBD?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Sean, Duncan, Robin, Martin. Can anyone post an image of Oz

taken from a distance

comparable to the distance between the camera and prayer man?

The image of Oz handing out leaflets in New Orleans

page 75 of Groden's Search For Lee Harvey Oswald

which I cannot post, for some reason,

might offer a comparison.

If we could get such an image of Oz

side by side with Prayer Man the comparison might be enlightening.

Sean:

I tried to post the famous imagine of Oz and his white-shirted employees

handing out leaflets in New Orleans, but I am not allowed to post images.

But you know the photo I mean and I chose it because Lee is a good distance from the camera

just as prayer man is.

Can you use your wizardry to draw an oval around Oz in New Orleans

as you did with Prayer Man,

and put them side by side for comparison?

[Sean Murphy]

Sean, you have no proof that he was aware of the shots,

and his behaviour in going upstairs was no different

than the behaviour of others near his location.

Have you ever stood in the doorway of the TSBD?

Ray, have you ever stood in the doorway of the TSBD while a President is being shot on Elm St.? Me neither. I expect it's hard to hear the shots and the screaming and to see the pandemonium break out on the street scene in front of one without being either deaf, blind, moronic--or all three. Thanks to Wiegman and Darnell, we know that Prayer Man was exposed to all these things.

You want to believe that Oswald's immediate reaction to what was happening was to shrug, turn around and hurry upstairs for a nice cool drink? Go right ahead. I'm sure the WC defenders will have a good laugh at that one.

As for Prayer Man's behaviour being no different from that of others near his location, that is true, at least up to a point. But it stops being true up to any point the instant he quits the spot in urgent quest of a coke.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

As for Prayer Man's behaviour being no different from that of others near his location, that is true, at least up to a point. But it stops being true up to any point the instant he quits the spot in urgent quest of a coke.

For all we know, Sean, some or all of the others in the Geneva Hines group

also got cokes.

Can you prove they did not?

[Robert Prudhomme]

As for Prayer Man's behaviour being no different from that of others near his location, that is true, at least up to a point. But it stops being true up to any point the instant he quits the spot in urgent quest of a coke.

For all we know, Sean, some or all of the others in the Geneva Hines group

also got cokes.

Can you prove they did not?

Is it a certainty that Geneva Hines gave Oswald change for the Coke machine that day?

[Richard Hocking]

As for Prayer Man's behaviour being no different from that of others near his location, that is true, at least up to a point. But it stops being true up to any point the instant he quits the spot in urgent quest of a coke.

For all we know, Sean, some or all of the others in the Geneva Hines group

also got cokes.

Can you prove they did not?

An interesting observation. The only sodas I am aware of in the TSBD witness testimonies are the Dr. Pepper on the sixth floor (linked to BRW) and the alleged Coke that LHO was holding. After finding the empty Dr. Pepper near the SE Sixth Floor Window, it seems reasonable that investigators should have been seeking info on all personnel that had purchased soft drinks from the machines that day. This would have included some thorough questioning of Geneva Hine, who regularly made change for those purchases.

[Tom Hume]

Since I’m exploring the possibility that Oswald was actively trying to prevent the assassination, and he probably didn’t know if his efforts were going to be successful, he should also have been establishing an alibi for himself at the critical moment. Since he was a photographer, it seem reasonable to speculate that he might have been standing in the doorway of the TSBD taking photographs of the activity around him, occasionally turning the camera on himself to insure he was in the middle of the film strip. With a piece of evidence like that, there’s only one place he could have been at that time.

That fellow up there sure looks like he’s doing something with his hands. Just a thought.

Tom

[J. Raymond Carroll]

The other scenario that qualifies is:

Baker and Truly run inside and head for the rear elevators.

While they are trying to call an elevator, meanwhile

Prayer Man has gone up the front steps to the second floor

and has reached the lunchroom, about to get his coke

when Baker spots him.

There is one variant scenario whereby Oswald could be Prayer Man and could still have a second-floor lunchroom encounter with Baker & Truly:

-Oswald is at the front entrance at the time of the shooting

-A few minutes after the shooting he goes up to buy a coke

-As Baker and Truly make their way down from the roof, Baker does a quick sweep on each floor

-On the second floor he pops his head into the lunchroom and sees Oswald standing there drinking a coke

[Robert Prudhomme]

The other scenario that qualifies is:

Baker and Truly run inside and head for the rear elevators.

While they are trying to call an elevator, meanwhile

Prayer Man has gone up the front steps to the second floor

and has reached the lunchroom, about to get his coke

when Baker spots him.

There is one variant scenario whereby Oswald could be Prayer Man and could still have a second-floor lunchroom encounter with Baker & Truly:

-Oswald is at the front entrance at the time of the shooting

-A few minutes after the shooting he goes up to buy a coke

-As Baker and Truly make their way down from the roof, Baker does a quick sweep on each floor

-On the second floor he pops his head into the lunchroom and sees Oswald standing there drinking a coke

Mr. Carroll

This is also a definite possibility, one I have put a great deal of thought into. Oswald would have proceeded up the narrow hallway and entered the southern of the three vestibule doors of the 2nd floor lunchroom. This would put Oswald going across Baker's field of view, as he proceeded to the lunchroom door, rather than merely going away from it.

The only problem I see with this scenario is whether or not Oswald had to obtain change from Geneva Hine prior to purchasing his Coke.

[Sean Murphy]

On December 23^rd 1963, Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz wrote a letter to Police Chief Jesse Curry in which he outlined the case against the late Lee Harvey Oswald. Amongst Fritz’s points we find the following statement:

[T]his man [Oswald] had been stopped by Officer M. L. Baker while coming down the stairs. Mr. Baker says that he stopped this man on the third or fourth floor on the stairway, but as Mr. Truly identified him as one of the employees, he was released.

Fritz’s source for this claim is clearly Marrion Baker himself--or else the affidavit statement which Baker gave at City Hall within a couple of hours of the assassination:

As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back toward me. The manager said, “I know that man, he works here.” I then turned the man loose and went up to the top floor. The man I saw was a white man approximately 30 years old, 5’9”, 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket.

**

Jesse Curry must have scratched his head when he read Fritz’s reference to a third or fourth floor rear stairway encounter. Was Fritz not aware that Oswald had actually been stopped in a lunchroom on the second floor of the Depository?

**

If Curry must have been puzzled by this, then we must surely be perplexed. Does Fritz not remember what Oswald himself told him in their very first interrogation session?

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 from 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.

(solo report on Oswald's first interrogation by F.B.I. Special Agent James Bookhout)

**

Has Fritz, for that matter, not even read his own interrogation notes?

claims 2^nd Floor Coke when [/] off came in

**

And how is it that, by the time of his Warren Commission testimony in April ’64, Fritz will be mysteriously (and with symptomatic awkwardness of expression) re-remembering what he has now apparently forgotten?

Mr. BALL. At that time didn't you know that one of your officers, Baker, had seen Oswald on the second floor?
Mr. FRITZ. They told me about that down at the bookstore; I believe Mr. Truly or someone told me about it, told me they had met him--I think he told me, person who told me about, I believe told me that they met him on the stairway, but our investigation shows that he actually saw him in a lunchroom, a little lunchroom where they were eating, and he held his gun on this man and Mr. Truly told him that he worked there, and the officer let him go.
Mr. BALL. Did you question Oswald about that?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I asked him about that and he knew that the officer stopped him all right.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him what he was doing in the lunchroom?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he was having his lunch. He had a cheese sandwich and a Coca-Cola.
Mr. BALL. Did he tell you he was up there to get a Coca-Cola?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he had a Coca-Cola.

**

In sum, how can Fritz possibly believe, as of December 23^rd 1963, that Oswald had been stopped on the third or fourth floor on or near the rear stairway?

**

Fritz’s curious ignorance on this score may be explained by the simple, but disturbing, hypothesis we have been exploring in this thread:

Oswald never said a word in custody about a post-assassination second-floor lunchroom incident. He did however speak of a second-floor lunchroom visit followed by a return downstairs to catch some of the motorcade.

Fritz must have compared Oswald's claim with Baker's story about having stopped a man on or by the stairway several floors up the building, and concluded that Oswald was lying.

**

The lunchroom incident was, I suspect, invented by or for Roy Truly with the FBI on the evening or night of the assassination and Oswald's confirmation of it put in his mouth posthumously by James Bookhout of the F.B.I.

It would not be until 1978, when Carolyn Arnold was contacted by Anthony Summers, that the truth which had been hidden in plain sight in Bookhout's first interrogation report (the one co-written with James Hosty) would be fully exposed: Oswald went to the second-floor lunchroom several minutes before the assassination.

**

One need only give the gentlest of pulls on the tiny strand of Arnold's information to watch unravel the entire weave of lies put together around the question of Oswald's assassination-time whereabouts.

Edited August 27, 2013 by Sean Murphy