Great New Movie Spells out the Case for Oswald as Prayer Man

[Ray Mitcham]

Ray,

Baker, having been up a bunch of stairs outside to reach what was to him the 2nd floor (for all he knew), soon ascended one flight of a split-level stairway, and did not know whether he was on the 3rd or 4th floor. We have the benefit of diagrams today to see that his description is way off the mark. He was not going to night school studying to be an architect.

The stairs were a big part of his recollection of the TSBD building while filling out his affidavit. After all, he had climbed them from the 1st to the 5th. Once he reached the top of the first set of stairs, which he had described being on the "3rd or 4th floor", he didn't see a man walking toward the stairway, did he?

You're taking a poor description that does give the hunch that perhaps the lunchroom incident was hoaxed, but this claim requires proof, not just a collection of more hunches. Each facet of the hoax hypothesis has a reasonable, mundane alternative explanation readily available. And several facets have to be completely distorted in order to fit a possible hoax scenario. Look at them, please, they are listed in post #120.

You have fallen for this mullarkey, it leads only to imaginary encounters and fruitless speculation. But hey, it's only a homicide case, let's indulge in sophistry as much as possible, right? Life's too short for achievable answers that will sustain.

So a trained cop doesn't know when he has reached the second floor. You think he mistook a turn in the stairs for a floor?

He saw a man walking away from him not that he walked into the lunch room and accosted him.

If you believe his later version, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.

[James DiEugenio]

VL: You cannot have it both ways with Baker. He cannot be an unreliable witness for one version of events and then a reliable witness for a different version of the same events.

This is the problem with Baker.

In retrospect, it is a little bit amazing that Baker's affidavit did not have more of an impact at an earlier date. Why? Because Harold Weisberg talked about it as long ago as in Whitewash 2. Which is where I found out about it and used it in Reclaiming Parkland.

When you add in the fact that Baker was in the witness room with Oswald as he penned his affidavit, and there is no record of him ever recognizing him at that time even though he had allegedly just stuck a gun in his gut, well that is a bit unusual.

Believe me, Allen Dulles was very aware of this dichotomy. He and Belin went off the record five times with Baker and did all they could to minimize the witness room conundrum. (Reclaiming Parkland, p. 194)

[Thomas Graves]

Ray,

Baker, having been up a bunch of stairs outside to reach what was to him the 2nd floor (for all he knew), soon ascended one flight of a split-level stairway, and did not know whether he was on the 3rd or 4th floor. We have the benefit of diagrams today to see that his description is way off the mark. He was not going to night school studying to be an architect.

The stairs were a big part of his recollection of the TSBD building while filling out his affidavit. After all, he had climbed them from the 1st to the 5th. Once he reached the top of the first set of stairs, which he had described being on the "3rd or 4th floor", he didn't see a man walking toward the stairway, did he?

You're taking a poor description that does give the hunch that perhaps the lunchroom incident was hoaxed, but this claim requires proof, not just a collection of more hunches. Each facet of the hoax hypothesis has a reasonable, mundane alternative explanation readily available. And several facets have to be completely distorted in order to fit a possible hoax scenario. Look at them, please, they are listed in post #120.

You have fallen for this mullarkey, it leads only to imaginary encounters and fruitless speculation. But hey, it's only a homicide case, let's indulge in sophistry as much as possible, right? Life's too short for achievable answers that will sustain.

So a trained cop doesn't know when he has reached the second floor. You think he mistook a turn in the stairs for a floor?

He saw a man walking away from him not that he walked into the lunch room and accosted him.

If you believe his later version, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.

It's a confusing building, Ray. Maybe that's one of the reasons it was chosen. It has a passenger elevator that only goes to up to the fourth floor, stairs near the front door that only go up to the second floor, a basement that's half above ground and half under ground, split-level stairways, eccentric freight elevators, etc. Baker was a motorcycle cop, not an architect. He had lots on his mind. No wonder he was confused. If I had been Baker, I, too, probably would have been confused, when I was writing my report, about which floor I had encountered Oswald on in that darn building.

Why?

For the simple reason that I wouldn't have made any special effort to remember the incident. Based on what Truly had told me about him at the time, I would have thought that Oswald was of no consequence.

I don't know about you, but I don't try to remember details of things that I think are of no consequence in my life. I have a hard enough time remembering the things I think are important!

--Tommy

Edited December 10, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Sandy Larsen]

It's a confusing building, Ray. Maybe that's one of the reasons it was chosen. It has a passenger elevator that only goes to up to the fourth floor, stairs near the front door that only go up to the second floor, a basement that's half above ground and half under ground, split-level stairways, eccentric freight elevators, etc. Baker was a motorcycle cop, not an architect. He had lots on his mind. No wonder he was confused. If I had been Baker, I, too, probably would have been confused, when I was writing my report, about which floor I had encountered Oswald on in that darn building.

But Baker didn't take take the passenger elevator, the stairs near the front door, or a freight elevator, did he? (At least not before taking the back stairs.) If not, then he wouldn't have known how confusing the building is.

[Sandy Larsen]

Can somebody tell me what the motivation might have been to fabricate the alleged lunchroom encounter?

[Thomas Graves]

It's a confusing building, Ray. Maybe that's one of the reasons it was chosen. It has a passenger elevator that only goes to up to the fourth floor, stairs near the front door that only go up to the second floor, a basement that's half above ground and half under ground, split-level stairways, eccentric freight elevators, etc. Baker was a motorcycle cop, not an architect. He had lots on his mind. No wonder he was confused. If I had been Baker, I, too, probably would have been confused, when I was writing my report, about which floor I had encountered Oswald on in that darn building.

But Baker didn't take take the passenger elevator, the stairs near the front door, or a freight elevator, did he? (At least not before taking the back stairs.) If not, then he wouldn't have known how confusing the building is.

Sandy,

You're right of course.

But if Baker thought Oswald was of no consequence at the time, he might have had a hard time remembering which floor he had seen him on, later. You know, several hours after walking up and down those stairs and taking those elevators, or whatever it was that he and Truly did in that strange building.

--Tommy

Edited December 10, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Richard Gilbride]

Tommy,

I recall that Sean scoffed at the idea that PrayerMan would go to the lunchroom for a Coke, and rightly so. I still stick with my reason expressed early in the PrayerMan thread at the old ROKC, that Oswald returned to the lunchroom because he had been assigned there- a lookout, as insurance against possible uninvited stair-climbers during the assassination.

And that Truly would have given him a hard look on top of the landing, whilst chasing after Baker, that communicated to Oswald that he was supposed to be in the lunchroom, not on the landing.

And when you look at Geneva Hine's movements, the window of time at SouthWestern Publishing's door that doesn't work for Truly & Baker (because of the strong likelihood that Truly would have voiced something to Baker then, about TSBD directions) does work for the quiet guy Oswald slipping into the central offices to return to the lunchroom.

My take on the vestibule door's window is that if Oswald had stayed put, Baker would have had no cause for alarm. But Oswald flinched the instant he saw Baker, made an effort to walk out of sight into the lunchroom, but Baker alertly spotted Oswald's near-reflex and went right after this suspicious character.

[James DiEugenio]

Can somebody tell me what the motivation might have been to fabricate the alleged lunchroom encounter?

One reason is that if Oswald was on the first floor or outside, it is simple not possible for him to have run from the sixth floor down that far in the necessary time frame.

[Richard Gilbride]

To whom it may concern,

Nobody seems to want to address the points I expressed to Vanessa which are found in post #120: the filmed interview, the Sept. 23rd affidavit, the will-call counter bump, the lack of corroboration for Kent Biffle's story, & the close comparison with Oswald's wedding ring vs. Baker's not mentioning Oswald in his 1st-day affidavit.

This is what I'm referring to as a part of "the totality of evidence". Because at the end of the day, either the lunchroom incident happened, or it did not. And every single item of evidence has to be processed through the lens of the one solution that works, from the set of simultaneous equations we (seemingly) start with.

The results from the hoax solution do not work. They produce frail leads (Tan Jacket Man, Ira Trantham) that should be an indicator that maybe it's the hoax solution that's on shaky ground. The incident solution leads to 4 results, which I outlined previously:

1) LHO too calm

2) arrived from direction of central offices

3) A & S passed while T & B inside

4) west elevator descended approx. 60 seconds after Z-313

We can make two columns for every single item of evidence relating to the lunchroom incident, and separate them into "supports-the-hoax" and "supports-the-incident". In every single instance that a piece of evidence can be added into the "supports-the-hoax" column, it can also be added into the "supports-the-incident" column. There is a reasonable explanation, readily available, that says OK, that is a somewhat ambiguous item, but it doesn't necessarily mean there was a hoax.

So let's look at a couple of things- first, WC 3076, the September 23rd affidavit. Baker crosses out "on the third floor", i.e. 6 months after his testimony, which included 2 re-enactments, he's still confused about the TSBD floor layout. Just like he was during his 1st-day affidavit.

A hoaxer cannot account for this, except by contorting 3076's face-value meaning. By saying something along the lines of "Baker is mis-remembering this detail from his fabricated story. He remembered his fabricated story perfectly when he testified, but on September 23rd he slipped up." i.e. Baker, in a mini-conspiracy with Truly to fabricate the lunchroom story, has a failure of nerve 3 days before the Warren Report comes out, and muffs up the cover story.

That's contorting the face-value meaning of 3076.

Now the film, the 1964 CBS Warren Report, go to 52:35- 56:00 of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VylXqBuhTQ0

Hoaxers have to be able to prove Baker is lying here. I would contend that he is a modest man with integrity. I believe that he is capable of fudging the truth, as when at the end of the interview his lunchroom ETA is 1 1/2- 2 minutes. He doesn't want to rock the boat. But he is psychologically incapable of telling a whopper such as that the lunchroom incident occurred, when it hadn't.

This is a philosophically different order of magnitude, lying about the location of an event. The hoaxers are asking us to imagine about something that transpired between Baker & Oswald on the landing, that got transposed to the lunchroom. But this magnitude of lie is on a similar level to Baker having witnessed, for example, a gunshot by an assailant, and blaming it on someone who was only nearby. Not all lies are equally-weighted. Not all subjective determinations are, either.

We have to imagine, as well, Baker having to refresh his hoax notes in preparation for Bugliosi's 1986 trial. Sorry, I don't buy it, the guy still radiates modesty & integrity.

So, returning to the results produced, the incident hypothesis far outweighs the hoax hypothesis, and I would argue that every item of evidence should be viewed through the incident lens. Some items, at first blush, seem more favorably disposed to the hoax interpretation, but that melts like a snowball in the spring sun.

[Sandy Larsen]

Can somebody tell me what the motivation might have been to fabricate the alleged lunchroom encounter?

One reason is that if Oswald was on the first floor or outside, it is simple not possible for him to have run from the sixth floor down that far in the necessary time frame.

Okay..... But there is just a one-floor difference between first and second floor. If a cover story was to be fabribicated, it seems that the "third or fourth" floor story would have been a better one.

[Thomas Graves]

Tommy,

I recall that Sean scoffed at the idea that PrayerMan would go to the lunchroom for a Coke, and rightly so. I still stick with my reason expressed early in the PrayerMan thread at the old ROKC, that Oswald returned to the lunchroom because he had been assigned there- a lookout, as insurance against possible uninvited stair-climbers during the assassination.

And that Truly would have given him a hard look on top of the landing, whilst chasing after Baker, that communicated to Oswald that he was supposed to be in the lunchroom, not on the landing.

And when you look at Geneva Hine's movements, the window of time at SouthWestern Publishing's door that doesn't work for Truly & Baker (because of the strong likelihood that Truly would have voiced something to Baker then, about TSBD directions) does work for the quiet guy Oswald slipping into the central offices to return to the lunchroom.

My take on the vestibule door's window is that if Oswald had stayed put, Baker would have had no cause for alarm. But Oswald flinched the instant he saw Baker, made an effort to walk out of sight into the lunchroom, but Baker alertly spotted Oswald's near-reflex and went right after this suspicious character.

Richard,

Oswald returned to the second floor lunch room?

From where?

1 ) The restroom?

2 ) The Dr Pepper machine on the first floor?

3 ) The alcove by the front door?

Had he temporarily deserted his post?

If Oswald was a lookout, what was he supposed to do in the eventuality some unwanted "visitors" came up the steps right before or during the assassination?

Tap out a secret code on a plumbing pipe, with a nickel, to warn his co-conspirators four floors above?

--Tommy

Edited December 10, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Ray Mitcham]

Ray,

Baker, having been up a bunch of stairs outside to reach what was to him the 2nd floor (for all he knew), soon ascended one flight of a split-level stairway, and did not know whether he was on the 3rd or 4th floor. We have the benefit of diagrams today to see that his description is way off the mark. He was not going to night school studying to be an architect.

The stairs were a big part of his recollection of the TSBD building while filling out his affidavit. After all, he had climbed them from the 1st to the 5th. Once he reached the top of the first set of stairs, which he had described being on the "3rd or 4th floor", he didn't see a man walking toward the stairway, did he?

You're taking a poor description that does give the hunch that perhaps the lunchroom incident was hoaxed, but this claim requires proof, not just a collection of more hunches. Each facet of the hoax hypothesis has a reasonable, mundane alternative explanation readily available. And several facets have to be completely distorted in order to fit a possible hoax scenario. Look at them, please, they are listed in post #120.

You have fallen for this mullarkey, it leads only to imaginary encounters and fruitless speculation. But hey, it's only a homicide case, let's indulge in sophistry as much as possible, right? Life's too short for achievable answers that will sustain.

So a trained cop doesn't know when he has reached the second floor. You think he mistook a turn in the stairs for a floor?

He saw a man walking away from him not that he walked into the lunch room and accosted him.

If you believe his later version, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.

It's a confusing building, Ray. Maybe that's one of the reasons it was chosen. It has a passenger elevator that only goes to up to the fourth floor, stairs near the front door that only go up to the second floor, a basement that's half above ground and half under ground, split-level stairways, eccentric freight elevators, etc. Baker was a motorcycle cop, not an architect. He had lots on his mind. No wonder he was confused. If I had been Baker, I, too, probably would have been confused, when I was writing my report, about which floor I had encountered Oswald on in that darn building.

Why?

For the simple reason that I wouldn't have made any special effort to remember the incident. Based on what Truly had told me about him at the time, I would have thought that Oswald was of no consequence.

I don't know about you, but I don't try to remember details of things that I think are of no consequence in my life. I have a hard enough time remembering the things I think are important!

--Tommy

A cop trained to be observant described a guy on the third or fourth floor as

"... a white man approximately 30 years old, 5'9", 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket."

Third or fourth floor.....no.... ..second floor (allegedly)

White man................... check

30 years old................ no...... 24 years old.

165 lbs..........................no..... 131 lbs

dark hair..............,,,,,,,,,,check

Light brown jacket.......No ... patterned shirt.

I go with his first affidavit.

[Thomas Graves]

Ray,

Baker, having been up a bunch of stairs outside to reach what was to him the 2nd floor (for all he knew), soon ascended one flight of a split-level stairway, and did not know whether he was on the 3rd or 4th floor. We have the benefit of diagrams today to see that his description is way off the mark. He was not going to night school studying to be an architect.

The stairs were a big part of his recollection of the TSBD building while filling out his affidavit. After all, he had climbed them from the 1st to the 5th. Once he reached the top of the first set of stairs, which he had described being on the "3rd or 4th floor", he didn't see a man walking toward the stairway, did he?

You're taking a poor description that does give the hunch that perhaps the lunchroom incident was hoaxed, but this claim requires proof, not just a collection of more hunches. Each facet of the hoax hypothesis has a reasonable, mundane alternative explanation readily available. And several facets have to be completely distorted in order to fit a possible hoax scenario. Look at them, please, they are listed in post #120.

You have fallen for this mullarkey, it leads only to imaginary encounters and fruitless speculation. But hey, it's only a homicide case, let's indulge in sophistry as much as possible, right? Life's too short for achievable answers that will sustain.

So a trained cop doesn't know when he has reached the second floor. You think he mistook a turn in the stairs for a floor?

He saw a man walking away from him not that he walked into the lunch room and accosted him.

If you believe his later version, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.

It's a confusing building, Ray. Maybe that's one of the reasons it was chosen. It has a passenger elevator that only goes to up to the fourth floor, stairs near the front door that only go up to the second floor, a basement that's half above ground and half under ground, split-level stairways, eccentric freight elevators, etc. Baker was a motorcycle cop, not an architect. He had lots on his mind. No wonder he was confused. If I had been Baker, I, too, probably would have been confused, when I was writing my report, about which floor I had encountered Oswald on in that darn building.

Why?

For the simple reason that I wouldn't have made any special effort to remember the incident. Based on what Truly had told me about him at the time, I would have thought that Oswald was of no consequence.

I don't know about you, but I don't try to remember details of things that I think are of no consequence in my life. I have a hard enough time remembering the things I think are important!

--Tommy

A cop trained to be observant described a guy on the third or fourth floor as

"... a white man approximately 30 years old, 5'9", 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket."

Third or fourth floor.....no.... ..second floor (allegedly)

White man................... check

30 years old................ no...... 24 years old.

165 lbs..........................no..... 131 lbs

dark hair..............,,,,,,,,,,check

Light brown jacket.......No ... patterned shirt.

I go with his first affidavit.

Ray,

Ironically (?) the height and weight match almost perfectly those sneakily given for Oswald by FBI agent John Fain back in 1960 when he interviewed Marguerite (who later said Lee never weighed more than 150 pounds in his life) after Oswald had "defected" to the U.S.S.R. These "vitals" for Oswald were forwarded to CIA which incorporated them into its computerized Biographical Registry, probably as part of an ongoing "mole hunt" involving another "defector," Robert Webster, at the time.

--Tommy

PS Baker wasn't "trained as an observer." Studies have shown that policemen don't remember things any better than the common person.

Edited December 10, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Ray Mitcham]

Ray,

Baker, having been up a bunch of stairs outside to reach what was to him the 2nd floor (for all he knew), soon ascended one flight of a split-level stairway, and did not know whether he was on the 3rd or 4th floor. We have the benefit of diagrams today to see that his description is way off the mark. He was not going to night school studying to be an architect.

The stairs were a big part of his recollection of the TSBD building while filling out his affidavit. After all, he had climbed them from the 1st to the 5th. Once he reached the top of the first set of stairs, which he had described being on the "3rd or 4th floor", he didn't see a man walking toward the stairway, did he?

You're taking a poor description that does give the hunch that perhaps the lunchroom incident was hoaxed, but this claim requires proof, not just a collection of more hunches. Each facet of the hoax hypothesis has a reasonable, mundane alternative explanation readily available. And several facets have to be completely distorted in order to fit a possible hoax scenario. Look at them, please, they are listed in post #120.

You have fallen for this mullarkey, it leads only to imaginary encounters and fruitless speculation. But hey, it's only a homicide case, let's indulge in sophistry as much as possible, right? Life's too short for achievable answers that will sustain.

So a trained cop doesn't know when he has reached the second floor. You think he mistook a turn in the stairs for a floor?

He saw a man walking away from him not that he walked into the lunch room and accosted him.

If you believe his later version, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that you might be interested in.

It's a confusing building, Ray. Maybe that's one of the reasons it was chosen. It has a passenger elevator that only goes to up to the fourth floor, stairs near the front door that only go up to the second floor, a basement that's half above ground and half under ground, split-level stairways, eccentric freight elevators, etc. Baker was a motorcycle cop, not an architect. He had lots on his mind. No wonder he was confused. If I had been Baker, I, too, probably would have been confused, when I was writing my report, about which floor I had encountered Oswald on in that darn building.

Why?

For the simple reason that I wouldn't have made any special effort to remember the incident. Based on what Truly had told me about him at the time, I would have thought that Oswald was of no consequence.

I don't know about you, but I don't try to remember details of things that I think are of no consequence in my life. I have a hard enough time remembering the things I think are important!

--Tommy

A cop trained to be observant described a guy on the third or fourth floor as

"... a white man approximately 30 years old, 5'9", 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket."

Third or fourth floor.....no.... ..second floor (allegedly)

White man................... check

30 years old................ no...... 24 years old.

165 lbs..........................no..... 131 lbs

dark hair..............,,,,,,,,,,check

Light brown jacket.......No ... patterned shirt.

I go with his first affidavit.

Ray,

Ironically (?) the height and weight match almost perfectly those sneakily given for Oswald by FBI agent John Fain back in 1960 when he interviewed Marguerite (who later said Lee never weighed more than 150 pounds in his life) after Oswald had "defected" to the U.S.S.R. These "vitals" for Oswald were forwarded to CIA which incorporated them into its computerized Biographical Registry, probably as part of an ongoing "mole hunt" involving another "defector," Robert Webster, at the time.

--Tommy

PS Baker wasn't "trained as an observer." Studies have shown that policemen don't remember things any better than the common person.

Yes, strange co-incidence that the description almost agrees word for word with the CIA description. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Re cops not being trained observers, I disagree as one of the attributes top being in law enforcement is as follows.

"When an officer has properly developed his power of observation, he automatically responds to noises, sights, and smells that are not part of the everyday tenor of his surroundings. "

From the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

Maybe Baker hadn't developed his powers of observation but most normal cops do.

[Thomas Graves]

So, Ray,

The theory is that the guy in the brown jacket that Baker allegedly saw was a prefabricated, non-existent character, intended to represent Oswald but, fortunately for us, based on old, faulty, mole-hunt-based information that the FBI or CIA had unwittingly furnished to Army Intel or the Dallas Police Department.

--Tommy

Edited December 10, 2015 by Thomas Graves