Two Oswalds in the Texas Theater

[John Butler]

6 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

John,

I remember almost chuckling when Vinson mentioned Roswell.  Is that the same thing as Area 51?  You seem to know a lot about these military bases.  Is there anything more you can tell us about Roswell Air Force Base that would be germane to this discussion?

The hardest part of Vinson's story for me to accept is that a big C-54 cargo plane could land by the Trinity River near Dallas and not attract widespread attention.  

Jim,

It is not particularly germane to the Oswald story.  Roswell Air Force base is the home or UFOs, little grey aliens, space ship wreckage, and that kind of stuff.  Other than that it was the largest of Strategic Air Command bases during the Cold War.  A lot of things with B-52 bombers and missiles there.  As far as the Oswald story goes, if true, it was another top secret military based that Oswald visited.  Not just anyone gets to visit these bases.  Atsugi, Iwakuni, El Toro, Nellis Air Force Base, Vincent Air Force Base (a big Marine Corps radar base), and Roswell.  I really haven't ruled out Keflavik as a stop over for an Oswald coming back from Russia through Iceland.  I believe the Paine photos were mixed with the Oswald photos to confuse the issue of whose who. 

For the Oswald story,  the only mention of Roswell is by Robert Vinson.  Nellis Air Force Base that Lee Oswald visited in 1959 is Area 51.  That was the home of the U2.  The U2 was tested extensively at Nellis.  Nellis was a place where the A-10 was also being tested at that time as a replacement for the U2.  The A-10 later grew up to be the SR-71 Blackbird.   

You said, "The hardest part of Vinson's story for me to accept is that a big C-54 cargo plane could land by the Trinity River near Dallas and not attract widespread attention."  And, that is hard to explain.  There is no mention of anyone talking about planes landing on under construction North Houston Street that I know.  I am not dismissing it out of hand.  Strange things happen.  Would anyone care on the afternoon of the assassination? 

[Jim Hargrove]

Thanks, John.  I also wondered why Paine photos would be mixed with "Oswald" prints.

[Jim Hargrove]

13 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

The reality is the Burrogh's story has greatly changed.   Had it changed in the 70's it could be chalked up to fear but when Postal's testimony is considered it tends to call his credibility into question.  If his accounts were verified by other sources it would help.  

Simply, Jim Marrs would have thoroughly interviewed him.  The "no one asked" argument fails at this point because Marrs would have asked.

 I do not think Burrough's account is critical to the two Oswalds theory because we have the multiple other sightings, testimony, and Hoover memo confirming same 

It just occurred to me that James Douglass answered this critique in endnote 444 of JFK and the Unspeakable.  Here’s what he wrote:

Butch Burroughs is a man of few words. When asked a question, he answers exactly what he is asked. Burroughs told me no one had ever asked him before about a second arrest in the Texas Theater. In response to my question, “Now you didn’t see anybody else [besides Oswald] get arrested that day, did you?” he answered, “Yes, there was a lookalike—an Oswald lookalike.” In response to further questions, he described the second arrest, that of the “Oswald lookalike.” Ibid.

I checked, and Mr. Santos is quite right that there is no mention in Crossfire of Mr. Burroughs saying that he saw the arrest of the Oswald lookalike.  But it most likely didn’t occur to Jim Marrs to ask that specific question.  From Mr. Douglass’s description, it sounds like Burroughs wasn’t going to mention it to him either during the 2007 interview, until Douglass asked specifically about it.  Mr. Burroughs probably wouldn’t make a very good journalist, but the explanation sounds reasonable to me.

Mr. Burroughs' recollections might well have been verified by the "other sources" Mr. Santos refers to but, of course, the Dallas Police "lost" all the names of the theater patrons, even though, at Captain Westbrook's apparent direction, every theater patron was interviewed at the theater and a list of their names and addresses supposedly made by three cops.

As I said before, it is also quite apparent that back in 1993 Mr. Burroughs told Jim Glover that he “also saw Oswald’s double being arrested and taken out the back door of the theatre....” 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Jim Hargrove

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

Because Burroughs said he saw someone arrested does not mean he saw the entire arrest process.

It's good to see that Jim has now acknowledged that it's necessary to interpret Burroughs' statements and make allowances for inaccuracies, rather than just accept every word.

I presume that Jim doesn't take at face value Burroughs' statement that he "saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed". Being placed under arrest and handcuffed isn't the same thing as being escorted by the police down the balcony steps and across the auditorium.

If the police really had arrested anyone in the balcony, the arrestee would have been placed in handcuffs before Burroughs caught sight of him. But Burroughs' statement is quite specific: he saw someone being arrested and placed in handcuffs. Is Jim proposing that the police arrested a suspect in the balcony, put him in handcuffs, then took the handcuffs off and let him wander down the stairs by himself, only to arrest him again on the ground floor? Even by 'Harvey and Lee' standards, that is remarkably silly. Burroughs' statement to Douglass is incompatible with an arrest in the balcony, unless we propose that two people were arrested, one in the balcony and one on the ground floor.

Evidently Burroughs was mistaken, 44 years after the event, when he claimed to have seen someone actually being arrested and placed in handcuffs. Or perhaps Burroughs didn't actually make this claim, and James Douglass embellished Burroughs' account so that it would better fit Douglass's narrative. Either way, it doesn't support Jim's balcony-arrest speculation.

If we conclude that Burroughs (or Douglass) was mistaken about this element of his story, what are we left with?

Firstly, there is the fact that Burroughs did not specifically state to anyone (the Warren Commission, Jim Marrs, Jim Glover or James Douglass) that he had seen someone coming down the stairs from the balcony accompanied by police officers. At least two of those people, Marrs and Douglass, would certainly have reported this observation if Burroughs had made it, but they didn't.

We know that Burroughs would have seen such an event if it had occurred, because we know from his testimony that he was by his concession stand, and we know from a plan of the building that his concession stand was close to the stairs. We know that he had noticed a woman going up those same stairs by herself earlier, before the police arrived, because he told Jim Marrs, and Marrs reported it (Crossfire, p.353). But Burroughs never said a word about seeing anyone coming down the stairs accompanied by police officers. Whatever it was that Burroughs saw, it didn't happen on the stairs.

More importantly, we are left with the fact that Burroughs didn't say a word about anything resembling an arrest of a fake Oswald until after 1987. Again, if Burroughs had seen it, he would have mentioned it to Jim Marrs, and Marrs would then have reported it, but he didn't. For the first 24 years after the assassination (not 24 hours, 24 years!), Burroughs didn't consider that the event he saw had any significance. The reason for that is obvious: the event he saw was an innocent 21-year-old white man on the ground floor being escorted out of the building by the police to give a statement.

So much for Burroughs' non-existent corroboration of an arrest in the balcony. How strong is the actual evidence for an arrest in the balcony? Unfortunately, as I explained in my previous post, it's feeble. Firstly, there is a perfectly understandable explanation for the "arrested in the balcony" statements. Secondly, it's inconceiveable that an Oswald imposter would tell the police that his name was Oswald, thereby giving away the plot. Thirdly, it's also inconceiveable that no-one in the Dallas police department would notice that they had arrested two men with the same name and the same physical features in the same building at the same time. It's clear that the police reports were mistaken in claiming that someone named Oswald was arrested in the balcony. No-one was arrested in the balcony.

Quote

there is no mention in Crossfire of Mr. Burroughs saying that he saw the arrest of the Oswald lookalike.  But it most likely didn’t occur to Jim Marrs to ask that specific question.

Burroughs didn't say anything about an arrest of an Oswald doppelganger because Marrs didn't specifically ask him about it? Seriously? Marrs would have asked Burroughs about his recollections of what happened inside the Texas Theater, and whether he had seen anything unusual that day. Marrs had no reason to ask Burroughs specifically whether he had seen an Oswald doppelganger getting arrested, because Marrs had no reason to suspect that anyone other than the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald had been arrested.

I can't believe that Jim is actually claiming that Burroughs saw an Oswald doppelganger get arrested but didn't think it was worth mentioning because Marrs didn't specifically ask him about it! That is amazingly desperate. There is a good reason why Burroughs' story didn't emerge until 30 years after the assassination, but that isn't it.

Quote

This accounts for one Oswald being seen in the theater by Jack Davis and Warren Burroughs before the official WC time for the murder of Tippit  (1:15)

Ah yes, I forgot that the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is essentially the Warren Commission's theory with added paranoia. According to the Warren Commission and the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, someone named Oswald was up on the sixth floor, shooting Kennedy. According to the Warren Commission and the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, someone named Oswald was on Tenth Street, shooting Tippit. According to someone who helped to dream up the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, Stanley Kubrick was in Arizona, shooting the moon landings.*

Quote

This is probably the reason the list of theater patrons assembled by three cops had to disappear.

The reason for the list's disappearance could well be that the witnesses named in it might have blown apart the Warren Commission's Tippit timeline. As I pointed out earlier, I don't have any reason to doubt that the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald entered the Texas Theater shortly after 1 o'clock, as Burroughs claimed.

There's no need to speculate that the list disappeared because it would have exposed some fantastical decade-long impersonation by a Russian-speaking Hungarian refugee orphan with a fake mother named Marguerite and a fake mastoidectomy scar that he had acquired in a hospital that hadn't been built yet, and all the other overblown and contradictory 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense.

Alternatively, it may just have got lost, as documents sometimes do.

Quote

Mr. B. writes above that Applin was “led by police out the rear door” even though he knows there is no evidence indicating which door Applin used to exit the theater

Mr B has already given his reasons for stating that Applin is very likely to have left by the rear door.

Quote

he has no idea if Applin looked anything at all like Classic Oswald

We know for a fact that Applin did look somewhat like the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald. Applin's affidavit states that he was a 21-year-old white male. Oswald was an unremarkable-looking 24-year-old white male. There's more than enough similarity there to account for a case of mistaken identity, especially in recollections from many years after the event, like those of Burroughs and Haire, who each saw the young white man for no more than a few seconds.

Of course, it's quite possible that George Applin was 7' 3" tall, with only one leg, and was wearing a Groucho Marx glasses-and-moustache kit, a bright orange stovepipe hat, and a dress he'd borrowed from J Edgar Hoover. Until a confirmed photo of Applin turns up, we can't eliminate that possibility. But on the evidence we have, Applin was the man seen by Burroughs and Haire.

---

* Exaggeration for comic effect. The 'Harvey and Lee' guy didn't actually claim that Kubrick was involved, as far as I know, but he did seem to think that the moon landings were faked (here, thanks to Bart Kamp, is a link to his work).

Edited September 22, 2019 by Jeremy Bojczuk
Added a link to Applin's affidavit

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Cory Santos writes:

Quote

 

The reality is the Burrogh's story has greatly changed. ... it tends to call his credibility into question. ... Simply, Jim Marrs would have thoroughly interviewed him.  The "no one asked" argument fails at this point because Marrs would have asked.

 I do not think Burrough's account is critical to the two Oswalds theory

 

Burroughs' account is critical to the Texas Theater element of the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, because without it all we have are the police reports of an arrest in the balcony. As I have pointed out, there is every reason to believe that the "arrested in the balcony" part of those reports was a simple, everyday mistake. There was no arrest in the balcony.

Without Burroughs, there's no seat in the Texas Theater, either in the balcony or on the ground floor, for Jim's long-term Russian-speaking Hungarian refugee Oswald doppelganger with a 13-inch head and a fake mother named Marguerite who appeared from nowhere and vanished from the face of the earth immediately after the assassination. And without a long-term Oswald doppelganger in the Texas Theater, a major element vanishes from the 'Harvey and Lee' fictional narrative.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 9/20/2019 at 4:07 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

To Sandy and Steve,

All the best to both of you.  It's a shame that two such fine researchers in our little group suffer from similar health issues.  Hope you can both keep going strong for decades to come!

 

Thanks Jim. And thanks Steve for sharing that information. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

 

[Michael Clark]

4 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

It just occurred to me that James Douglass answered this critique in endnote 444 of JFK and the Unspeakable.  Here’s what he wrote:

Butch Burroughs is a man of few words. When asked a question, he answers exactly what he is asked. Burroughs told me no one had ever asked him before about a second arrest in the Texas Theater. In response to my question, “Now you didn’t see anybody else [besides Oswald] get arrested that day, did you?” he answered, “Yes, there was a lookalike—an Oswald lookalike.” In response to further questions, he described the second arrest, that of the “Oswald lookalike.” Ibid.

I checked, and Mr. Santos is quite right that there is no mention in Crossfire of Mr. Burroughs saying that he saw the arrest of the Oswald lookalike.  But it most likely didn’t occur to Jim Marrs to ask that specific question.  From Mr. Douglass’s description, it sounds like Burroughs wasn’t going to mention it to him either during the 2007 interview, until Douglass asked specifically about it.  Mr. Burroughs probably wouldn’t make a very good journalist, but the explanation sounds reasonable to me.

Mr. Burroughs' recollections might well have been verified by the "other sources" Mr. Santos refers to but, of course, the Dallas Police "lost" all the names of the theater patrons, even though, at Captain Westbrook's apparent direction, every theater patron was interviewed at the theater and a list of their names and addresses supposedly made by three cops.

As I said before, it is also quite apparent that back in 1993 Mr. Burroughs told Jim Glover that he “also saw Oswald’s double being arrested and taken out the back door of the theatre....” 

@Jim Glover

[Jim Hargrove]

Thanks for that, Michael.  I had no idea Mr. Glover posted here.  I'll try to find the time to read some of your links.

[Jim Hargrove]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

I presume that Jim doesn't take at face value Burroughs' statement that he "saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed". Being placed under arrest and handcuffed isn't the same thing as being escorted by the police down the balcony steps and across the auditorium.

That is NOT a direct quote from Mr. Burroughs.  It is a statement by James Douglass describing what was said.  It could easily mean that the second Oswald had been handcuffed already by the time Mr. Burroughs saw him.  As I have said time and time again, there is simply nothing in JFK and the Unspeakable that precludes a balcony arrest, as the author himself attested.

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

As I pointed out earlier, I don't have any reason to doubt that the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald entered the Texas Theater shortly after 1 o'clock, as Burroughs claimed.

The evidence that two young men for years were sharing the identity of “Lee Harvey Oswald,” despite the efforts of Hoover to make all that evidence disappear, is simply overwhelming.  This evidence exists all the way back to the 1950s (including school, military and Social Security records), extends to the weeks prior to the assassination, and even exists in abundance on assassination day, from the morning hours until the events in the TSBD immediately before and after the shots rang out, to the bus and taxi ride and the Nash Rambler escape from Dealey Plaza, to the Tippit murder (for which the closest witness said the killer looked like “Oswald” but had different hair), to the multiple arrests in the theater, and to events immediately thereafter, including, especially, the Wes Wise allegation.

Mr. B will tell you all this has been debunked somewhere else, on a site run by Greg Parker or a blog by Tracy Parnell, but I predict he will refuse to debate the specifics here, on the JFK Assassination Debate Forum because, I suspect, he knows the evidence really hasn’t been debunked at all.  But hope springs eternal. I’m starting up a new thread called “Evidence for Harvey and Lee” that will start with five pieces of evidence I presented earlier in this thread. 

If Mr. B, or anyone else, does anything other than claim it has been debunked somewhere else and provide a link or two, I’ll be very surprised.

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 8/28/2019 at 4:11 PM, Steve Thomas said:

From JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglas p, 361

https://books.google.com/books?id=KS-6XrdalGkC&pg=PA361&lpg=PA361&dq=%22George+Applin%22&source=bl&ots=1jTd8TtRCF&sig=ACfU3U0A7VQ-QtdiVf2_hEoZYmni3vqVJQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj51oiUrabkAhUnjK0KHSzoAzY4ChDoATAAegQICBAB#v=onepage&q=%22George%20Applin%22&f=false

 

Footnote 823 (pp 486-487) is not included in this online version.

 

Steve Thomas

Steve,

It's actually a little better than that: Ball had actually ended the deposition when Applin volunteered the information about the odd inactions of the mystery man at the back of the Texas Theater!

When re-reading Applin's testimony, it is obvious that Josephy Ball both knew of and desperately wanted to avoid any statement about this mystery man, a man whom Applin later identified as Jack Ruby. How do I know that Ball already knew?

Because Applin told the FBI about this man, and Ball had the FBI reports! Ball knew exactly what to avoid!

Now, was Jack Ruby actually present in the Texas Theater during "Oswald's" arrest?

I don't know. But if we use Peter Dale Scott's "negative template" theory about sensitive names, then I'd guess that yes, Jack Ruby was indeed present in the Texas Theater around 1:50 or so. 

Mr. BALL - Okay, fine, that is all, Mr. Applin.
Mr. APPLIN - But, there is one thing puzzling me.
Mr. BALL - What is that?
Mr. APPLIN - And I don't even know if it has any bearing on the case, but there was one guy sitting in the back row right there where I was standing at, and I said to him, I said, "Buddy, you'd better move. There is a gun." And he says--just sat there. He was just back like this. Just like this. Just watching.
Mr. BALL - Just watching the show?
Mr. APPLIN - No; I don't think he could have seen the show. Just sitting just like this, just looking at me.
Mr. BALL - Did you know the man?
Mr. APPLIN - No; I didn't.
Mr. BALL - Ever seen him since?
Mr. APPLIN - No, sir; didn't. I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Buddy, you'd better move," and----
Mr. BALL - Were you scared?
Mr. APPLIN - Well, when I seen the gun I was.
Mr. BALL - Did you tell the police officer about this man?
Mr. APPLIN - No, sir; at the time, I didn't think about it, but I did tell--I didn't even think about it when I went before the Secret Service man, but I did tell one of the FBI men about it.
Mr. BALL - Okay. I guess that is all, Mr. Applin. Thank you very much.
Mr. APPLIN - All right.

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 8/29/2019 at 10:03 AM, Karl Hilliard said:

If it hasn't been mentioned....Johnny Brewer stated to Vince Bugliosi [the trial film] that he saw Oswald sneak into the theater from his position in front of the shoe store...or at least from some distance. The  shoe store is a bridal shop now [213 W Jefferson] on the same side of the block. I will attempt to link a google map showing that the doors and ticket booth of the theater are so deeply inset that such an observation is ludicrous.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/213+W+Jefferson+Blvd,+Dallas,+TX+75208/@32.7431917,-96.8260671,3a,60.3y,51.8h,84.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1si6u_xuJUITbpvS11vexEbA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x864e998e305a7679:0x3853c98ef9ce45e!8m2!3d32.743286!4d-96.825207?hl=en

Karl,

Thank you for emphasizing this. I tried to make that very point (amoung many others) back in August. Johnny Brewer, from his vantage point on the sidewalk in front of Hardy's Shoes,simply could not have seen whether or not "Oswald" or anyone else actually bought a ticket from Julia Postal. The ticket booth was slightly recessed from the sidewalk. To see such a ticket purchase, Brewer had to walk nearly to the entrance of the Texas Theater. (This is the video with the infamous edit/splice of Brewer's key statement at the 1:32 mark, a splice that omits Brewer's sentence about exactly what happened after he stepped out onto the sidewalk to watch the man head toward the Texas Theater. This edit coincides perfectly with two other filmed edit/slices of Brewer's filmed statements, all at precisely the same moment. Why?

To hide the existence of the strangers still in Hardy's with whom Brewer had a conversation in which he was urged/pressured/ordered to go up and call the police, even though, as he admitted in 1996, he had no reason to do so!)

This video below (inadvertently) shows up that from the 1960's.

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Paul Jolliffe

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 9/8/2019 at 11:54 AM, David Andrews said:

I know it, Paul - but as I said, operationally it would be a big risk to have two Oswalds in one theater with a lot of cops charging around, many unwitting of the plot.  I guess it was a big-risk day, especially if one believes that an Oswald was to be killed in the theater while resisting arrest.

Hell, maybe it was "Kill either one - we don't care."  But would that not have crossed the balcony Oswald's mind?

What if they had a dead-twin-Oswalds back-up story to blame on the Russians, just in case?

Also - if we believe one Oswald went to the theater to give the other the pistol, then we have to believe that the two were aware of each other and had met at least once before.  In that case, why the business of the torn dollar bills and the orchestra-seat Oswald searching for an unknown contact in the dark, if he'd already collected the pistol from his double?

David,

A simple answer:

Lee (American-born LHO) delivered the actual Tippit-killing .38 to his contact up in the balcony of the Texas Theater. That contact then delivered that same .38 to "Oswald" (Harvey) down on the main floor. Harvey had the torn dollar bills because he did not know Lee's contact, nor did he know that the purpose of the meeting was to take possession of (to be framed for) the .38 that could be linked ballistically to the Tippit murder.

(Incidentally, I think it likely that Lee was to make his getaway immediately after his rendezvous with his handler, but that the DPD's Westbrook, Bentley and others "jumped the gun" (sorry!) and arrived too soon, before Lee could escape. If not for Lee's handler (the mysterious, nameless  "assistant manager" who provided an impossible alibi) Lee would have been arrested right then and there!  Thus the whole "Oswald arrested in the balcony, Oswald taken out the back" fiasco.)

"Oswald" (Harvey) may have met Lee before - I suspect they had met. But it is certainly plausible to me that Harvey would have been tipped off that he was being framed for something terrible if he met Lee face-to-face. "Oswald" (Harvey) might have gone off-mission.

Thus an intermediary was used to keep Harvey (literally) in the dark until they could kill him.

 

 

[David Andrews]

2 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

David,

A simple answer:

Lee (American-born LHO) delivered the actual Tippit-killing .38 to his contact up in the balcony of the Texas Theater. That contact then delivered that same .38 to "Oswald" (Harvey) down on the main floor. Harvey had the torn dollar bills because he did not know Lee's contact, nor did he know that the purpose of the meeting was to take possession of (to be framed for) the .38 that could be linked ballistically to the Tippit murder.

(Incidentally, I think it likely that Lee was to make his getaway immediately after his rendezvous with his handler, but that the DPD's Westbrook, Bentley and others "jumped the gun" (sorry!) and arrived too soon, before Lee could escape. If not for Lee's handler (the mysterious, nameless  "assistant manager" who provided an impossible alibi) Lee would have been arrested right then and there!  Thus the whole "Oswald arrested in the balcony, Oswald taken out the back" fiasco.)

"Oswald" (Harvey) may have met Lee before - I suspect they had met. But it is certainly plausible to me that Harvey would have been tipped off that he was being framed for something terrible if he met Lee face-to-face. "Oswald" (Harvey) might have gone off-mission.

Thus an intermediary was used to keep Harvey (literally) in the dark until they could kill him.

 

 

I prefer the John Armstrong scenario where both Lee and Harvey had .38 revolvers, and the Tippit gun was delivered to Westbrook (or another DPD contact) and later switched by Westbrook at the police station.  Harvey receiving the gun at the theater seems to contradict witness Jack Davis's account of Oswald's seat hopping.  Davis doesn't say that the last person Oswald sat by left afterward.  If Harvey got the gun from the last person he sat by and then moved off to sit alone, then that person would have stayed in the theater through the arrest, risking arrest himself (or even risking being ratted out by an enraged Harvey). 

Edited September 22, 2019 by David Andrews

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, David Andrews said:

I prefer the John Armstrong scenario where both Lee and Harvey had .38 revolvers, and the Tippit gun was delivered to Westbrook (or another contact) at the theater and later switched by Westbrook at the police station.  Lee only receiving the gun at the theater seems to contradict witness Jack Davis's account of Oswald's seat hopping.  If he got the gun from the last person he sat by and then moved off to sit alone, then that person would have stayed in the theater through the arrest, risking arrest himself.  Davis doesn't say that the last person Oswald sat by left afterward.

David, 

I didn't say Lee only received the .38 at the Texas Theater. Instead I argued that Lee carried it with him to the Texas Theater from the site of the Tippit murder. 

No, I wrote that "Oswald" (Harvey) got the .38 from the contact, the same person to whom Lee delivered the gun. That unknown person was "Oswald's" mysterious contact and was responsible for framing him with the real .38.

Burroughs said that the pregant woman got up and left after "Oswald" (Harvey) sat next to her. I can't tell what Davis had to say of the last person he saw sitting beside "Oswald."

I agree that both Lee and his handler (the mysterious "assistant manager" who knew nothing about the Texas Theater, the one who provided the impossible alibi for Lee) risked arrest by remaining in the Texas Theater until the DPD arrived. I don't think they planned to do so. However, I speculated that Westbrook, Bentley and others inadvertently arrived "too soon", preventing a clean getaway.

Thus the "Oswald arrested in the balcony, Oswald taken out the back" fiasco. That whole debacle was an improvised fall-back plan to cover the Lee's exit from the TT.

[Jim Hargrove]

1 hour ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

David,

A simple answer:

Lee (American-born LHO) delivered the actual Tippit-killing .38 to his contact up in the balcony of the Texas Theater. That contact then delivered that same .38 to "Oswald" (Harvey) down on the main floor.

Hi, Paul.  Good to see you posting again.

John A. and I were talking a couple of weeks ago about your theory that Lee’s job at the theater might have been to get a .38 ultimately into Harvey’s hand.  My opinion was always that Lee’s job was to enrage the DPD by killing Tippit and then to lead the cops to the theater to grab and hopefully kill Harvey.

John A. is not convinced, though.  For one thing, he points out that assistant D.A. Bowie told Leo Sauvage there was a call from the cashier, but also that there were “Half a dozen calls” talking about someone suspicious entering into the theater.  John also wonders why the plotters would have taken the risk of Lee being arrested on the way to the theater.  That would have blown the whole plan.

I still kind of agree with David Andrew’s take.  My theory is that the plotters could have assumed that Westbrook would have somehow made an unforeseen arrest of Lee go away, but John is still not convinced.  Last word I heard from him on your theory was “I’m thinking about it.”