Petition to request the Innocence Project to take up exoneration of Oswald

[Sandy Larsen]

Is the Oswald Innocence Project different from the Oswald Innocence Campaign? (If I google the former, I get the latter.)

(My understanding is that Greg Parker isn't one to agree with OIC's contention regarding Doorway Man. But I have to ask because I haven't heard of an Oswald Innocence Project before.)

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by Sandy Larsen

[Michael Clark]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Is the Oswald Innocence Project different from the Oswald Innocence Campaign? (If I google the former, I get the latter.)

(My understanding is that Greg Parker isn't one to agree with OIC's contention regarding Doorway Man. But I have to ask because I haven't heard of an Oswald Innocence Project before.)

 

Sandy,

The Innocence Project seeks to free those falsely accused of capitol offenses, perhaps even Death-row only cases. This is why I hesitate to sign the petition; it Is outside of their purview and not compatible to their mission. LHO was never convicted of anything. With much respect for Greg, I have to say that this is not a good avenue to take. Forcing them to decline this effort can help Von Peinians argue that "Even the Innocence Project would not take the case of LHO". Furthermore it would drain resources that would otherwise go to people that The Innocence Project could help.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Michael Clark

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Michael Clark said:

Sandy,

The Innocence Project seeks to free those falsely accused of capitol offenses, perhaps even Death-row only cases. This is why I hesitate to sign the petition; it Is outside of their purview and not compatible to their mission. LHO was never convicted of anything. With much respect for Greg, I have to say that this is not a good avenue to take. Forcing them to decline this effort can help Von Peinians argue that "Even the Innocence Project would not take the case of LHO". Furthermore it would drain resources that would otherwise go to people that The Innocence Project could help.

 

Thanks for your reply, Michael. I did come across the Innocence Project when I was looking around for the Innocence Project for Oswald. It didn't occur to me that the petition for Oswald was intended to be part of that.

I appreciate your analysis of the petition Greg is asking us to sign. And I agree that that the petition is incompatible with the Innocence Project... also with my respect for Greg and the others involved in the venture.

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Sandy Larsen writes:

Quote

Is the Oswald Innocence Project different from the Oswald Innocence Campaign?

Absolutely. For a start, there's no such thing as the Oswald Innocence Project. The organisation to which this petition relates, the Innocence Project (  https://www.innocenceproject.org/ ) has been campaigning for the last 26 years to rectify cases of mistaken convictions, and has so far exonerated more than 200 people.

The so-called 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' ( http://www.oswald-innocent.com/ ) is something else altogether. It's an attempt to revive the long-refuted claim that the Altgens 6 photograph shows Lee Oswald, rather than Billy Lovelady, in the doorway of the book depository during the assassination. This claim, originally made by Harold Weisberg and repeated by Gerald McKnight and David Wrone, was based on the similarity of the shirt worn by the figure in the photograph to the shirt worn by Oswald after his arrest. Unfortunately for this claim, the evidence contained in two films, a home movie by John Martin and a news film by Charles Buck of WFAA-TV, proves that the shirt was identical to that worn by Lovelady. For a detailed account, see http://22november1963.org.uk/oswald-on-tsbd-front-steps .

Hardly anyone these days would use the shirt-similarity argument to claim that the figure in Altgens 6 is Oswald. Indeed, the 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' relies on a completely different argument, namely that the Altgens 6 photograph has been manipulated. If you need a laugh, check out http://www.oswald-innocent.com/anomalies.html : 

Quote

We assert that his face was blackened out deliberately to hide his identity ... Obfuscated Man is the man whose face is obliterated with that amorphous, unintelligible, cloud-like blotch of white ... they did it using a product called Kodak Opaque ... Look how big her hair is! It's 4x bigger than that of the other African-American women near her. They gave her that large hair in order to hide what they didn't want you to see. ... It is obviously distortion, and that distortion came from the conspirators placing Black Tie Man in there ... they moved the image of Black Tie Man where it is to hide the unique form of Oswald’s shirt on his left side, ... the modifications to Doorman's face and hairline to 'Lovelady-ify' him, as best they could, must be considered an anomaly ... Essentially, Doorman is Oswald from the eyes down, and he is Lovelady from above the eyes to the top ... After installing the Woman and Boy in the Altgens photo, they decided to install a Woman and Baby in the Towner film to confirm the former ... The image of Doorman2 was added to the film. He isn't real. The fact that he doesn't match Doorman1 tells you that he isn't real ... We realize that is a lot of manipulating for one photograph. They must have had a crack team of experts waiting in the wings.

There's plenty more like that. It's utterly, utterly bonkers.

There are a couple of worrying aspects to the so-called 'Oswald Innocence Campaign'. Firstly, it claims on its website's home page to have the support of a number of respected JFK researchers and others, such as McKnight, Wrone, Michael Parenti and the late Mark Lane. I'd be very surprised if any of these people have taken seriously (or have even been aware of) the ludicrous photo-alteration argument that the 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' uses. Admittedly, there are a number of other supporters who probably would be inclined to believe that the Altgens 6 photograph was a fake. The late Jack White, for example, believed that all sorts of things, up to and including the moon landings, had been faked. Another of the Campaign's 'senior members' (it doesn't appear to have any members apart from 'senior members') is described as believing "that the man who shot Oswald was not Jack Ruby, but rather, a Ruby impostor. Of course, the real Jack Ruby was slipped into the scene in due course."

The second problem is the effect that this sort of paranoid drivel might have on the public perception of the JFK assassination debate. If enough people can be persuaded that the only objection to the lone gunman theory is the easily disproved nonsense that the Altgens 6 photograph is a fake, the subject will never be taken seriously. The particular danger here is that people will associate the claim that Oswald was in the doorway with the 'Altgens 6 is a fake' craziness rather than the far stronger evidence in the Wiegman and Darnell films. I just hope that the 'Oswald Innocence Campaign' is genuinely as crazy as it appears to be, and that it isn't a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Jeremy Bojczuk

[Michael Clark]

11 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Thanks for your reply, Michael. I did come across the Innocence Project when I was looking around for the Innocence Project for Oswald. It didn't occur to me that the petition for Oswald was intended to be part of that.

I appreciate your analysis of the petition Greg is asking us to sign. And I agree that that the petition is incompatible with the Innocence Project... also with my respect for Greg and the others involved in the venture.

 

Glad to help

[Douglas Caddy]

I just signed the petition and apologize for the delay in doing so. That Marina Oswald endorses the project played a great role in my decision.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Douglas Caddy