Oswald Leaving TSBD?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

In that spirit, here is a fine version of another old classic by the Clancy Brothers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Cxw9fMl0M

Thanks Robert.

Tommy Makem sang that song for JFK

at the White House,

And JFK was electrified.

And I have no doubt the bold Tommy

shook JFK's hand!

Edited August 30, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[William Kelly]

To recapitulate:

Oswald comes down from the fifth or sixth floor shortly after noon.

He goes for lunch in the first-floor domino room and picks up his apple and cheese sandwich.

Several minutes before the assassination, he goes upstairs to the second-floor lunchroom and buys a coke.

BK:: Sean, We know he didn't buy the coke until AFTER he encountered Baker and Truly. We know his from and can time it to the half-minute because of what Truly, Baker, Oswald and Reid tell us.

He brings the coke downstairs and, hearing the crescendo of applause and cheering for the motorcade, goes out onto the front steps.

BK: I'm not convinced Oswald is 'Prayer Man" yet, though he's sill in he running. If Oswald is "Prayer Man" he went out front to see what all the commotion was about and then after Baker and Truly ran past, went up to buy his coke and fateful rendezvous with Baker and Truly a minute and half later and with coke meets Reid two minutes later.

If Oswald is "Prayer Man" and has a coke in his hand, then he had to go back for another one, highly unlikely.

Everyone else's attention is naturally riveted on the motorcade and then the loud bangs; Oswald's presence goes unnoticed.

Within seconds of the last shot, Marrion Baker has dismounted and is dashing to the front entrance of the TSBD.

Oswald's hands are down from his mouth as he begins to take in what's going on:

Baker reaches the front door and, needing directions for the stairs, notices Oswald and asks him if he works there.

Before Oswald can answer, Roy Truly arrives at the front lobby and offers to escort Baker upstairs.

Oswald at some point goes into the small storage room located just off the front lobby.

He is noticed in there by Ochus Campbell and Jeraldean Reid as that pair are re-entering the building to take the front stairs to the second-floor office.

BK: Reid went up to the second floor alone, and two minutes after the last shot encounters Oswald walking away from the lunchroom with a full bottle of coke and tells the "cool, calm, stoic and unhurried" Oswald that the President's been shot and he continues on down to the first floor where Campbell sees him near the storage area under the steps and then apparently he went out the door and caught the getaway bus.

BK: Meanwhile Baker went up to the roof with Truly, came down the fourth floor via elevator, reports to Inspector Sawyer, the senior DPD officer at the scene, and the went down to the first floor where the Cooper film shows him and Truly talking to three other men - possibly Shelley, Campbell and another executive. Baker then goes out the front door, and gets on his bike - a TSBD secretary stated she stood by Baker's bike while he wasn't there, listening to his police radio, which he left on. Baker rides to Parkland and then to Love Field and after his shift was over went to DPD HQ where he dictated the following report while Oswald was a few yards away in Capt. Fritz's office, overhearing Fritz ask Oswald if he killed the President and him responding "that's ridiculous." I don't believe Baker eyeballed Oswald in Fritz's office until after he dictated his report, or he would have mentioned it. And I don't think he knew exactly what floor his encounter with Oswald took place until he returned to the scene.

**

How do we get from all that to this?:

The red part is easy:

Baker is covering the time of his fleeting encounter with Oswald.

But he has no reason to remember Oswald--or, even if he does remember him, to single either the man or the encounter out for special mention.

He has, after all, got a much bigger fish to fry:

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.

**

If there is one question as momentous as, Where was Oswald at the time of the assassination?, it is surely:

Did Baker encounter a man other than Oswald, a man fitting the above description, who was evidently coming down the rear stairway on (in the words of Marvin Johnson, who took Baker's affidavit) "about the fourth floor"?

There are strong arguments to be made both ways but on balance--and I'm very much open to persuasion on this--I believe a close textual analysis of Baker's affidavit statement points to the answer: no, he didn't.

Edited August 30, 2013 by William Kelly

[J. Raymond Carroll]

This could be a long night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCIef55zzMM

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I was born on Burns day

January 25th

and love Scottish songs.

MY FAVORITE

and a tymeless classic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w97uEToBzJ4

Edited August 30, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Johnny McEvoy is an old friend

and he wants to sing

at the New Ross symposium

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCWzgzlBLgo

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Johnny says he will sing this song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VyG_n8AKJQ&feature=endscreen

[J. Raymond Carroll]

deleted

Edited August 30, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

THE WIND THAT SHOOK THE BARLEY

When JFK was growing up

his parents told him

about his inheritance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHsmkpWi20I

In this narration he says

some of them were poets.

In fact all the Irish leaders assassinated by the British

were published poets

except the old Fenian

Thomas Clarke.

When I was in Belfast in 1969

a British officer called me a Fenian bastard.

He was an ugly SOB

cut from the same cloth

as the men who killed JFK

Edited August 30, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Sean Murphy]

With all due respect to Ray Carroll, could I ask that this recent and rather bizarre string of music-related posts be deleted by the mods as off-topic and distracting?

[Harry J.Dean]

COLD HOME - BRITISH CANADA

Born in England's forceful scheming infamy

In spirit dampened lock-step debility

On this continent of British mastery

In Canada's three-tier-class society,

Schooled in brute ideals of English monarchy

Where 'we also' could become as Royalty

If we but revere traditions of the propertied

As brain-bent serfs in that oppressive tyranny,

And from low estate admire those of higher birth

Subjects to an Island Kingdom of much lesser worth

With no emancipation seen from that total travesty

I did attempt - to overthrow such 'Crowning' villainy!

© Harry J. Dean

[Sean Murphy]

Gary Mack has been in touch. It turns out the footage of Baker, Truly and others (above left) cannot be KTVT-TV 'Cooper/Cook' footage as no photographers other than Tom Alyea were allowed inside the building until about three hours after the assassination.

So it appears this is Alyea footage.

[Harry J.Dean]

WHY Murph?

[Sean Murphy]

To recapitulate:

Oswald comes down from the fifth or sixth floor shortly after noon.

He goes for lunch in the first-floor domino room and picks up his apple and cheese sandwich.

Several minutes before the assassination, he goes upstairs to the second-floor lunchroom and buys a coke.

BK:: Sean, We know he didn't buy the coke until AFTER he encountered Baker and Truly. We know his from and can time it to the half-minute because of what Truly, Baker, Oswald and Reid tell us.

He brings the coke downstairs and, hearing the crescendo of applause and cheering for the motorcade, goes out onto the front steps.

BK: I'm not convinced Oswald is 'Prayer Man" yet, though he's sill in he running. If Oswald is "Prayer Man" he went out front to see what all the commotion was about and then after Baker and Truly ran past, went up to buy his coke and fateful rendezvous with Baker and Truly a minute and half later and with coke meets Reid two minutes later.

If Oswald is "Prayer Man" and has a coke in his hand, then he had to go back for another one, highly unlikely.

Bill, we don't "know" that Oswald bought a coke after he encountered Baker/Truly.

We do know that Baker, Truly and Truly's clerical supervisor who had watched the assassination outside with him went belatedly on the record with a certain story.

We don't know that this story is reliable and have good grounds for doubting that it is.

**

BK If Oswald is "Prayer Man" and has a coke in his hand, then he had to go back for another one, highly unlikely.

If Oswald is "Prayer Man" and has a coke in his hand, then it is highly unlikely he had to go back for another one.

And if Oswald is "Prayer Man" and doesn't have a coke in his hand, then it is still highly unlikely he will hurry off upstairs immediately after the assassination to buy one.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[Bjørn Gjerde]

It might be worth noting that on March 20, 1964, Mrs. Reid, Mr. Truly and Officer Baker all participated in a re-enactment of their supposed actions immediately after the shooting, allegedly for timing purposes. They even did this re-enactment twice. Thus, if their story about seeing Oswald on the 2^nd floor had been more or less invented, they got a good opportunity to rehearse the new chain of events and coordinate their memories before they testified before the Commission on March 24 and 25. Mr. Belin, who questioned them during their testimonies, also participated in the re-enactment. It is at least somewhat unusual to participate in a re-enactment BEFORE given a testimony. It might be of interest to find out which person in the Commission took the initiative to do this re-enactment, and on which testimonies such a decision was based.

Have anybody looked for the ‘Prayer Man’ in the frames from Tina Turner’s film, or are these frames ‘incidentally’ too dark?

B Gjerde

[Sean Murphy]

Marrion Baker's 11/22/63 affidavit describes the man caught walking away from the rear stairway on third or fourth floor as follows:

a white man approximately 30 years old, 5’9”, 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket

Now compare the description of the suspect which Herbert Sawyer had broadcast a quarter of an hour after the shooting:

About 30, 5'10", 165 pounds.

The similarities are just too good to be true. It stretches credulity to believe that Baker and Howard Brennan (the supposed source of Sawyer's description) should get the man's age and weight wrong in exactly the same way. And for their height estimates to be within a measly inch of one another given that Brennan had no idea that the floor on the sixth floor was a very short distance below the window is improbably impressive also.

**

Here's what I believe happened.

Marrion Baker came back to DPD HQ from Parkland Hospital and told of his movements in the TSBD. He had run into the building and, escorted by the building manager, gone upstairs. En route he had seen--no-one at all.

This sequence of non-events was very bad news indeed for Fritz and co., who urgently needed evidence pointing to Oswald's having come down that escape route immediately after the shooting.

The solution kicked in with Dallas, TX '63 alacrity.

Baker was told to give an affidavit telling of his having encountered a man--an 'employee'--fleeing down the rear stairway.

He was fed the APB suspect description and told to add in "light brown jacket" for extra effect (reports were already coming in from Tippit witnesses that the man seen shooting Tippit and fleeing the scene had been wearing a light brown [or "tan"] jacket--a nice opportunity to seal the deal against this double murderer).

Baker complied, hedging his bets as to location by offering "third or fourth floor" (you never know who else might turn up claiming to have been near the rear of one of those floors at the time in question...).

The man's height was chopped an inch for verisimilitude--so as not to make the copy and paste from the APB description too blatant.

**

And then, just as Baker is giving his affidavit, something dramatic happens: Lee Oswald is brought into the Homicide Office in front of his very eyes.

Baker is stunned, for he recognises Oswald as the man he had seen and briefly spoken with at the front entrance.

Up to this he has genuinely believed he is just helping his boss nail a Presidential assassin and cop-killer. But now he realises that he has just invented a story about man he knows to be innocent--and who knows he knows! If not for Oswald's sake then for his own, Baker is deeply disturbed. He has just risked exposure of having given a false report.

His affidavit reflects this fact, for it makes no mention of the all-important fact that the man Baker has just described is the man currently in custody. If Baker is asked subsequently to identify Oswald in a lineup, then he refuses.

Officer after officer, even those with pretty tangential roles, will in the days and weeks ahead give detailed reports on their post-assassination movements inside the TSBD. But not Baker. He closes up. Not a word from him for months in clear confirmation of any story putting Oswald by the rear stairs. It will not be until he takes part in the WC 'reconstructions' at the TSBD months later, in March 64, that he will jump on board the final draft of the Relocated Oswald Encounter.

**

Speaking of which:

By the evening or night of the assassination, a second alternative venue for the relocated Oswald encounter is being put together by or with the cooperation of Roy Truly: the second-floor lunchroom.

With judicious tweaks, it will become the story people stick to.

Baker's affidavit story is buried as an unworkable first draft.

**

We still haven't got an answer however to a powerful question that has been asked more than once in this thread:

Why was the front entrance encounter relocated to the second-floor lunchroom?

Why not just stick with the far more incriminating rear stairway 3rd or 4th floor story?

The shocking answer is given to us courtesy of three people who worked in the TSBD building:

Vicki Adams.

Sandra Styles.

Bonnie Ray Williams.

Here's what they tell us: Baker and Truly never took the stairs up from the first floor. They took one of the rear elevators.

**

There is an interesting exchange towards the end of Roy Truly's first appearance before the WC:

Mr. McCLOY. From what you know of these young men who testified before you today, are they trustworthy?
Mr. TRULY. Yes, sir; I think they are. They are good men. They have been with me, most of them, for some time. I have no reason to doubt their word. I do know that they have been rather, as the expression goes, shook up about this thing, especially this tall one, Bonnie Williams. He is pretty superstitious, I would say.

Truly has good reason to describe Bonnie Ray Williams, one of his 'niggers' (his word, not mine), as superstitious.

For Bonnie has been going on the record with the silliest little story about having seen a ghost:

The text is hard to make out so here's a transcription:

While we were standing at the west end of the building on the fifth floor, a police officer came up on the elevator and looked all around the fifth floor and left the floor. I did not see anyone come down from the fifth floor via the stairs.

And there we have it, in eight little nuclear words:

...a police officer came up on the elevator...

Note that these are not Bonnie Ray's reported words, they are his own first-person account.

And what they do is expose the lie at the heart of the Baker-Truly story (or should that be: stories).

Baker and Truly will, as we know, tell the WC that they ran upstairs from the first floor via the rear stairway and only found an available elevator on--what a coincidence!--the fifth floor.

Bonnie is telling us that something quite contrary to that happened: the fifth floor was where they, or at least one of them, got off the elevator. (How Baker & Truly continued on up after that is not stated in Williams's interview.)

**

Joseph Ball rather foolishly draws attention to Williams's explosive FBI interview statement when questioning Williams for the WC:

Mr. BALL. Now, when you were questioned by the FBI agents, talking to Mr. Odum and Mr. Griffin, they reported in writing here that while you were standing at the west end of the building on the fifth floor, a police officer came up on the elevator and looked all around the fifth floor and left the floor. Did you see anything like that?

Bonnie Ray, no doubt having had word or two in his ear in recent weeks from his boss Mr. Truly, does the decent thing and 'clarifies':

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, at the time I was up there I saw a motorcycle policeman. He came up. And the only thing I saw of him was his white helmet.
Mr. BALL. What did he
Mr. WILLIAMS. He just came around, and around to the elevator.
Mr. BALL. Which elevator?
Mr. WILLIAMS. I believe it was the east elevator.
Mr. BALL. Did you see anybody with him?
Mr. WILLIAMS. I did not.
Mr. BALL. You were only able to see the top of his helmet?
Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. You could only see the top of his helmet
Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir; that is the only thing I saw about it.

But it's too little too late. The cat is already out of the bag.

**

We must therefore refine our understanding of the circumstances behind Marrion Baker's 11/22 affidavit.

He goes back to DPD HQ on the afternoon of the shooting with a disastrously underachieving and under-dramatic story to tell his bosses: I and the building manager took the rear elevator upstairs and... saw no-one.

Fritz and co. find themselves saddled with a suspect who is not only claiming to have been at the front entrance having lunch at the time of the shooting but in relation to whom it is proving damnably difficult to establish an incriminating sighting anywhere near the assassin's escape route.

So Baker is coaxed into giving an affidavit which invents not merely an encounter with an (in hindsight, anyway) obviously fleeing employee by the rear stairway but an entire climb up four flights of stairs.

**

It's an audacious gambit, and it nearly comes off.

If only Baker had not been both seen (by BRW) and not seen.

**

Enter Vicki Adams.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Sean Murphy