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Challenge for Thomas Graves


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"He could have bought it that morning and that he could have gotten it by airmail that afternoon." -- Harry D. Holmes (WC Testimony)

That's just plain stupid. Even Fedex Overnight service takes longer than that. And that is VERY expensive.

Air mail these days is called First Class Mail. It takes at least a couple days to deliver an envelope to anywhere. Add a day or two for coast-to-coast distances. MAYBE subtract a day if you drop the envelope off at a post office early in the morning. But that would still be 24 hours. The fastest next-day service the USPS offers today is Priority Mail Express, and that costs $17 for a one ounce (or less) envelope. Does anybody think their regular air mail (First Class) is anywhere near as fast? Of course not, that would be stupid.

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Relax, Jim.

I mean. Take some deep breaths.

Look at it this way. If Kleins was out of 36" carbines, it was better business practice, for their own profit and customer-satisfaction wise, for them to send Hidell, or whomever, a 40.2" rifle rather than nothing at all.

Which wouldn't have been the case if the customer had ordered a 40.2 inch rifle and they had sent him a 36 inch carbine, instead. Sending the customer a letter of explanation and an offer to send a carbine would have been the right thing for them to do in that case.

--Tommy :sun

I totally understand DVP giving WC excuses. But Thomas Graves?

Conceding honestly is one thing. Bending over backwards to concede is quite another. Which is why I don't understand what makes Tommy tick.

(But I still like him. DVP too.)

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Sandy:

The delivery of the mail is not the capper.

The capper is this: upon its delivery to Klein's, it had to be sorted out. As Armstrong notes in his book, they divided up the funds into categories. If I recall correctly, it was by the form of the payment: cash, check or money order. And I also think there was one other way they did it.

Now, we do not know how often this was done. If it was every day or not.

But secondly, that was still not it. Because then the disbursements had to be run over to the bank, and also deposited, for the WC to be accurate and for the PMO to be valid. And there of course, an accounting process had to be done and registered into the bank system.

Again, we do not know how often this was done. Did Klein's send someone over every day? Every other day? Did they wait until a certain amount was on hand?

See, in a real investigation--which the WC was not--these questions would all have been inquired about. To my knowledge, they were not.

And as far as I am concerned, this is the main problem with the transaction. And BTW, it was not Armstrong who surfaced this, it was the late Ray Gallagher in an article for Probe.

He pointed it out and commented that Belin did not even bat an eyelash when it came up--picked up, sorted, sent 750 miles, delivered, sorted, route carrier, to Klein's to the bank, all in less than 24 hours. Went down with him just like he was drinking a bottle of Perrier.

So I went ahead and did a little more work on it myself. I just do not find it credible. And IMO, when you add it into everything else that has been shown about the transaction, the wrong rifle, the non cashed PMO, no one ever saw LHO pick up the rifle and he should not have ever been given it anyway etc.

Sorry, its all BS.

As per Tommy, isn't he so smart, he knows shoes are not guns. Who would have caught me besides him, the ole sharpie.

FYI, that is my only frame of reference since that is the only thing I order by mail, because of my flat feet. Everything else I just go to the store and buy.

In all the years I have been doing this, and its about 15 years now--not just shoes, but sandals and sneakers--they have never sent me what I did not order. And whenever they are out of something, they always tell me first.

But as Cornwell said, that is the real world; are taking about the JFK case here.

Its political and its personal. Which is no way to treat a homicide.

Edited by James DiEugenio
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If Kleins was out of 36" carbines,

The rifle purchase has been thoroughly explored. There is no evidence that Kleins was out of 36" carbines.

it was better business practice, for their own profit and customer-satisfaction wise, for them to send Hidell, or whomever, a 40.2" rifle rather than nothing at all.

The above is your personal opinion. Whose to say Kleins would agree with you?

Also, a Carbine was ordered, not a standard length rifle. You are presuming that a longer rifle would be as good or better for the purchaser. Would a business assume this? Perhaps someone who ORDERS a carbine WANTS a carbine, or they would have ordered a standard length. They run the risk of paying return postage if the customer is not satisfied. In what way is this better for Klein's profit and customer satisfaction?

Tom

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If Kleins was out of 36" carbines,

The rifle purchase has been thoroughly explored. There is no evidence that Kleins was out of 36" carbines.

it was better business practice, for their own profit and customer-satisfaction wise, for them to send Hidell, or whomever, a 40.2" rifle rather than nothing at all.

The above is your personal opinion. Whose [sic] to say Kleins would agree with you?

Also, a Carbine was ordered, not a standard length rifle. You are presuming that a longer rifle would be as good or better for the purchaser. Would a business assume this? Perhaps someone who ORDERS a carbine WANTS a carbine, or they would have ordered a standard length. They run the risk of paying return postage if the customer is not satisfied. In what way is this better for Klein's profit and customer satisfaction?

Tom

Dear Tom,

You're absolutely right. A mail order customer would likely have been unhappy to receive a presumably longer-range and more accurate 40.2" rifle instead of a 36" carbine, so Kleins would have been very silly to send him one if they were out of carbines, wouldn't they.

My bad,

--Tommy :sun

Edited by Thomas Graves
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If Kleins was out of 36" carbines,

The rifle purchase has been thoroughly explored. There is no evidence that Kleins was out of 36" carbines.

it was better business practice, for their own profit and customer-satisfaction wise, for them to send Hidell, or whomever, a 40.2" rifle rather than nothing at all.

The above is your personal opinion. Whose to say Kleins would agree with you?

Also, a Carbine was ordered, not a standard length rifle. You are presuming that a longer rifle would be as good or better for the purchaser. Would a business assume this? Perhaps someone who ORDERS a carbine WANTS a carbine, or they would have ordered a standard length. They run the risk of paying return postage if the customer is not satisfied. In what way is this better for Klein's profit and customer satisfaction?

Tom

That's a very good point that I've never seen before.

And if Klein's refused to pay return postage, they run the risk of losing the customer.

Also, I agree with Tom (and now Tommy) that if somebody orders a carbine, that is probably what they wanted. Not a regular rifle. So Klein's wouldn't have even considered substituting a rifle.

EDIT: Added Tommy to whom I am agreeing with.

Edited by Sandy Larsen
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Friendly reminder:

Whether Klein's was advertising the 36-inch weapon or the 40-inch variant of the rifle, Klein's still classified them BOTH as a "CARBINE". The proof is in the ads themselves. It says "Carbine" clear as day in BOTH the 36-inch and 40-inch ads....

Klein%27s-Ads.jpg

Edited by David Von Pein
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Friendly reminder:

Whether Klein's was advertising the 36-inch weapon or the 40-inch variant of the rifle, Klein's still classified them BOTH as a "CARBINE". The proof is in the ads themselves. It says "Carbine" clear as day in BOTH the 36-inch and 40-inch ads....

Klein%27s-Ads.jpg

You're right. So what we have to say is that a person ordering a 36" carbine is expecting a 36" carbine.

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You're right. So what we have to say is that a person ordering a 36" carbine is expecting a 36" carbine.

Sure. But Oswald very likely never noticed the (four-inch) difference after getting his 40-inch rifle in the mail from Klein's.

There is no evidence that Klein's was out of 36" carbines.

Only if you want to totally ignore the fact that we KNOW that Klein's stopped advertising the 36-inch rifle at just about the same time Oswald placed his order with Klein's in March. So it seems quite clear, via the Klein's ads that appeared in American Rifleman and other magazines after February 1963, that Klein's WAS running out of the 36-inchers at approximately the time of the Oswald/Hidell order.

The "evidence" that Tom Neal is looking for is available in the Klein's ads themselves. Here's the list of Klein's ads, supplied by Gary Mack in 2010, that appeared in American Rifleman magazine in the year 1963:

Jan 63 -- p. 61 -- 36-inch “6.5 Italian Carbine” -- $12.88 -- $19.95 (with scope)

Feb 63 -- p. 65 -- Same ad as above

Mar 63 -- No ad

Apr 63 -- p. 55 -- 40-inch “6.5 Italian Carbine” -- $12.88 -- $19.95 (with scope)

May 63 -- Missing pp. 63-66

Jun 63 -- p. 59 -- 40-inch “6.5 Italian Carbine” -- $12.88 -- $19.95 (with scope)

Jul 63 -- p. 67 -- 40-inch “6.5 Italian Carbine” -- $12.78 -- $19.95 (with scope)

Aug 63 -- p. 79 -- Same ad as above

Sep 63 -- p. 89 -- Same ad as above

Oct 63 -- p. 85 -- Same ad as above

Nov 63 -- No ad

Dec 63 -- No ad

Edited by David Von Pein
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I almost hate to bring this up, as you folks are having so much fun but, did you know that the weapon depicted in the 36" ad and the 40" ad is the same rifle, and that it is neither a carbine or a short rifle?

Notice, too, that a "turned down bolt" is advertised in both, yet both rifles show a straight bolt handle.

Edited by Robert Prudhomme
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I almost hate to bring this up, as you folks are having so much fun but, did you know that the weapon depicted in the 36" ad and the 40" ad is the same rifle, and that it is neither a carbine or a short rifle?

Notice, too, that a "turned down bolt" is advertised in both, yet both rifles show a straight bolt handle.

Dear Robert,

Thanks for pointing that out.

So Kleins would have been even more justified, at least in their own minds, in sending a customer the 40.2" model instead of the 36" model, especially if they were out of the 36" ones.

--Tommy :sun

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No, I did not say that at all, and I sincerely wish you would lose this annoying habit you have of reading more into what people say than what is there.

I was merely pointing out that the rifle shown in the ad is neither a carbine nor a short rifle, and that it has a straight bolt handle.

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Do some of you folks perhaps - and I say this with the highest respect - actually have a screw loose? I've been a successful litigator for nearly 35 years. I know what it takes to establish an element of a case to the satisfaction of a judge or jury. My appellate batting average is approximately .900. Sandy's "proof" consists of nothing but an uninformed misreading of a Federal Reserve circular and inferences that will not withstand scrutiny. Not that I really even care about the Klein's money order, but the simple fact is that I have demolished Sandy's "proof" to the satisfaction of anyone whose brain is hitting on all cylinders. The ever-expanding series of threads on this minor topic have become nothing short of bizarre. Alas, I truly no longer have the time for this and thus will leave the ultimate solution to great minds like John Armstrong, but perhaps some of you might enjoy my take on my experiences here. This is a blog post that will appear in March on a Christian blog I write. If it offends you in any way, be comforted: no one actually reads my blog. 'Bye now. Luv ya.

I’ve been a fairly serious student of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy throughout my life. I’ve actually read Dr. Walt Brown’s multi-volume, million-word chronology of the assassination – a feat which, in and of itself, places one in the “fairly serious” category. Suffice it to say, I’m better-informed than 99.9% of my fellow Americans. If your knowledge is derived solely from something like Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Kennedy, we can safely say, without fear of contradiction: You have no idea what you’re talking about.

Why a book like Killing Kennedy would even be published 50 years after the assassination is a puzzle. The entire contents are decades behind the curve of modern research. For some reason, media figures like O’Reilly do not simply want to keep a lid on the truth about the assassination, whatever it may be. No, their goal is to deny the mystery of the assassination. There is nothing to see here, nothing to think about. Move along, please.

Folks, I have spent my life since the age of ten neck-deep in some truly mysterious subjects – UFOs, the Shroud of Turin, Near Death Experiences, reincarnation, mediumship, ghosts and apparitions, yada yada (and, yes, Christianity). I can say without reservation the JFK assassination is the most mysterious event of my lifetime. The deeper you dig, the more mysterious it becomes. Even if Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, there is a mystery of epic proportions that demands an explanation.

This is not really a post about the JFK assassination per se, but I’ll lay my cards on the table: I have strong doubts that Lee Harvey Oswald had anything to do with the assassination; I have a near-conviction that if he was involved, he was a bit player who thought he was involved in something other than an assassination. He was a patsy who fit the bill so perfectly that those who really were responsible for the assassination must have thought he’d been sent by God in answer to their prayers.

Study Oswald’s life from the age of 16 to his death at 24 and you will learn that his short time on earth was nothing like yours, mine or any other average American of that era. Oswald was, by a factor of several light years, no ordinary guy.

Sure, this loser just somehow got away with openly strutting his Marxism in the U.S. Marines, mastered Russian in his spare time (a near-impossible feat, I can tell you from personal experience), found himself in a sensitive position at the U-2 base in Japan (for which he qualified by scoring unusually high on an intelligence test), was allowed to defect to the Soviet Union with nary a question being asked, quickly found himself living like a prince (by Soviet standards) and working at a highly sensitive radar factory in Minsk (my wife’s sister worked there and was not even allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union solely because she worked there), married a mysterious Russian woman six weeks after being introduced to her, was in the Soviet Union when Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 was shot down, had the State Department cheerfully loan him the money when he decided he wanted to return home with his wife in tow, thereafter established his credentials as a pro-Castro crusader while operating out of the office of one of the most virulent anti-Castro fanatics who ever lived ... well, one could go on almost indefinitely, but you get the picture.

Right, that’s what the life of a lone-nut Presidential-assassin-in-the-making looks like. NOT.

My wife lived in Minsk for decades. She assures me Oswald’s entire Soviet saga, from start to finish, was impossible. It cannot be explained in mundane terms. I would say the same is true of his American saga.

On top of this, all the evidence indicates Oswald admired JFK. I can’t tell you exactly who or what Lee Harvey Oswald was, but I can say with confidence he was not a guy who would have, or did, shoot JFK from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. A careful study of Oswald’s life will not necessarily tell you who shot JFK, but it will tell you who did not.

One would think the search for the truth about the JFK assassination would be fundamentally different from the search for the truth about, say, UFOs. The discussion about UFOs begins with a large percentage of people giggling and dismissing the entire subject as nonsense (I have seen a daylight disk at close range, so I’m not in this category). JFK, in contrast, was a historical figure assassinated in broad daylight in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. There were hundreds of witnesses. We have numerous films and photographs. The search for the truth seemingly should be a garden-variety historical investigation.

The investigation has conclusively established JFK was assassinated by Oswald, acting alone? OK, fine. The investigation has conclusively established the assassination was a massive conspiracy involving LBJ, Hoover, the FBI, the CIA, Army Intelligence, the Dallas Police Department, the Mafia, anti-Castro rebels, Texas oilmen and two of the Three Stooges? OK, fine. Why would I care one way or the other, if either of these is where the best evidence leads?

But this is emphatically not how it works. The search for the truth about the JFK assassination is exactly like the search for the truth about UFOs or the Shroud of Turin.

I recently participated for a few months on an Internet discussion forum devoted entirely to the JFK assassination. This is a comparatively high-level forum. You must use your real name, all posters are well-educated, and everyone seemingly lives and breathes the assassination. Posts about the most minute of minutiae will generate hundreds of replies and drag on for months.

After lurking for a while, I weighed in on one piece of evidence (a Postal Money Order) that has been touted for years by a well-known conspiracy researcher and author as being one of the “smoking guns” of the assassination. In pretty short order, little old non-researcher me was able to demonstrate that (1) the researcher had seemingly fabricated a key interview that supposedly supports his theory and that has been cited by umpteen other researchers and authors, (2) he and all of the other researchers had completely overlooked a ten-digit sequence of numbers right on the face of the supposed “smoking gun” that establishes pretty conclusively there is no mystery at all, and (3) his theory reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of what Postal Money Orders are and how they work. Since I am not a researcher at all, apart from ten or so hours spent on Google, I was quite bewildered by my quick success; my faith in the assassination research community was badly shaken.

Edit: Added "seemingly" because I don't know for a fact the Wilmouth statement was willfully fabricated. Our Heroic Researcher may have become confused by his own voluminous notes. I do know to a 99% level of certainty the statement does not exist, to a 100% level of certainty none of Our Heroic Researcher's sycophants has been able to steer me to it despite repeated requests, and to a 100% level of puzzlement no one here appears troubled by the fact that what has served for the past ten years as the primary "evidence" of the need for endorsements does not exist. In most research communities, even a hint of fabricated evidence is regarded as Rather Troubling.

The above was not the truly interesting aspect of my participation. As you may know, the assassination community is broadly divided into Conspiracy Theorists and Lone Nutters. My views concerning Lee Harvey Oswald, as described above, would seemingly place me solidly in the camp of the Conspiracy Theorists. But nooooooo, the Conspiracy Theorists absolutely hated me!

Simply by dispassionately following the evidence where it led in regard to the supposed “smoking gun,” I had committed heresy. I had – gasp! – put a dent in the armor of certain of the Conspiracy Theorists and tossed a bone to the despised Lone Nutters. If I told you the things some fairly prominent Conspiracy Theorists said about me, you’d be amazed. Not only did the attacks become personal, but the arguments in favor of the supposed “smoking gun” became irrational. In order to keep the money order mystery afloat, sub-mysteries were invented to an extent that became comical; anything to avoid the obvious, that the supposed “smoking gun” was in fact not smoking.

I hasten to add, explaining away the money order mystery was no major coup on my part. No conspiracy theory, even that of the researcher who ended up with egg on his face, will collapse merely because the money order is not a smoking gun.

In short, I had precisely the same experience I have had with the UFO community, the Near Death Experience community and every other community like this with which I’ve been associated. These are not research communities at all. They are religions, with their own creeds and denominations, their own Fundamentalists, bigots, wackos and New Atheists. They have no interest whatsoever in finding the truth. They might have been interested at one time, but now they have too much invested in their creed. Be they Conspiracy Theorists or Lone Nutters, they are now True Believers.

If the beliefs of the Jehovah’s Witnesses actually were correct, demonstrably correct, the Catholics and Baptists would have precisely zero interest in learning about it. If Near Death Experiences were conclusively shown to be the mundane productions of a dying brain, the New Agers would go their merry way unfazed. Ditto for the various denominations of Conspiracy Theorists and Lone Nutters: You can damn well accept our creed as written or get the hell out of our church; we have no interest in anything except protecting our turf. If one of the elements of our creed is that JFK’s body was altered during the flight from Dallas to Washington, we will descend upon you like the Furies if you dare to produce credible evidence to the contrary.

As with many of my posts, you may well be asking, “What does this have to do with Christianity, Mr. Christian Iconoclast Guy?” As I described in my first series of posts (“A roadmap to belief,” parts 1-3), I have always been interested in the Truth, or as close to it as I can get in this lifetime. This is true both for the ultimate issues described in those posts and for a comparatively minor issue like who killed JFK. If this makes me unwelcome among the Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and 41,000 other Christian denominations (as it does), well, so be it. If I end up as the pastor, deacon, congregation and janitor of the one-member Church of What the Christian Iconoclast Believes, as I surely will, fine. If the Conspiracy Theorists and Lone Nutters despise me with equal fervor, I can live with it.

In a previous post, I outlined some of the psychological factors that might lead one to cling to an obviously nutty belief like Young Earth Creationism. Some of these apply to Conspiracy Theorists, Lone Nutters, Catholics, Baptists and Mormons as well. Being part of a smug community like this, walking around with the attitude that only you have the Truth and everyone else is delusional and lost (and, indeed, aggressively pointing out they are delusional and lost), is really quite emotionally fulfilling. (Some of this attitude is, of course, attributable to the underlying fear you don’t actually have the Truth.)

I can tell you, however, following the evidence where it leads and admitting you have only a tentative theory that may well turn out not to be the Truth can be quite satisfying as well. I would describe myself as a committed Christian, but my current understanding is always subject to revision – and, if the beliefs I hold on my deathbed ultimately prove to be even 70% correct, I’ll be astonished. If some new evidence conclusively establishes Oswald was the lone triggerman, I’ll perhaps be even more astonished – but I’ll accept it and won’t hunker down in some Conspiracy Theorist fantasyland.

Edited by Guest
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No, I did not say that at all, and I sincerely wish you would lose this annoying habit you have of reading more into what people say than what is there.

I was merely pointing out that the rifle shown in the ad is neither a carbine nor a short rifle, and that it has a straight bolt handle.

Dear Robert,

Where did I say that you had said that?

I wish that you would lose this annoying habit you have of reacting to my statements in a defensive, rather paranoiac way.

--Tommy :sun

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"Robert Prudhomme, on 11 Jan 2016 - 1:23 PM, said:

snapback.png

I almost hate to bring this up, as you folks are having so much fun but, did you know that the weapon depicted in the 36" ad and the 40" ad is the same rifle, and that it is neither a carbine or a short rifle?

Notice, too, that a "turned down bolt" is advertised in both, yet both rifles show a straight bolt handle.

Dear Robert,

Thanks for pointing that out.

So Kleins would have been even more justified, at least in their own minds, in sending a customer the 40.2" model instead of the 36" model, especially if they were out of the 36" ones.

--Tommy :sun

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

Perhaps, then, you would be so good as to explain this response to my post and, if it was not related to my post, just how you arrived at this conclusion.

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