Two Oswalds in the Texas Theater

[Paul Jolliffe]

6 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Bill.

 

Had Burroughs ever seen Oswald in the movies before?

Or anywhere else for that matter?

I don't think the WC asked him.

 

Steve Thomas

Those are good questions, Steve. "Dr. No" had been a hit movie since 1962 and "Oswald" had checked out at least four Ian Fleming novels in New Orleans in 1963, all of which would later be made into Hollywood blockbusters in the James Bond series. "Oswald" was clearly a fan of spy stories, science fiction and stories about Russian Communism.

I'd be very surprised if he hadn't seen "Dr. No" in a movie theater somewhere at some point. 

Maybe a couple of other questions for Burroughs might be "Did the Texas Theater ever show "Dr. No" or any other spy movies? What about science fiction movies?" Also, perhaps Burroughs might remember what other movies had been showing earlier that fall at the Texas Theater (before the Audie Murphy double-header).

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh25/pdf/WH25_CE_2650.pdf

[Rob Clark]

On 11/8/2019 at 9:09 PM, Bill Simpich said:

I reached Burroughs a couple weeks ago and I am working out an interview.  Any questions you want me to ask?  

Any updates? Much appreciated!

[Ron Bulman]

On 11/8/2019 at 8:09 PM, Bill Simpich said:

I reached Burroughs a couple weeks ago and I am working out an interview.  Any questions you want me to ask?  

Any progress?

[Bill Simpich]

A bump in the road.  I'll let you know when things are back in shape!

[Ron Bulman]

19 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

A bump in the road.  I'll let you know when things are back in shape!

Thanks for the response!

[Jim Hargrove]

Mr. Burroughs now lives in New England.  Late last year, a month or so after Mr. Simpich announced here that he was communicating with the former Texas Theater concessionaire, researcher Richard Gilbride talked on the phone with Mr. Burroughs and requested an interview to be video recorded by Brian Doyle.  Mr. Burroughs apparently replied that he wasn’t interested in more interviews and that someone else was now handling his affairs.

We all hope, no doubt, that Mr. Simpich will have more success.

[Alan Ford]

On 10/27/2019 at 3:43 PM, Paul Jolliffe said:

My contention has been all along that Brewer was directed to the Texas Theater by someone (maybe Tommy Rowe, maybe the "IBM men", maybe Tommy Rowe was an "IBM man", maybe someone else) to report the person who had briefly been in Hardy's Shoes. 

I believe that Brewer did not head to the theater on his own accord - he admitted in 1996 that he didn't know who or why he was at the theater. 

How do I know that our "Oswald" did not step into Hardy's Shoes on 11/22/63?

Because Johnny Brewer did not recognize the man who stepped in, and "Oswald" was known to and remembered by Brewer! "Oswald" had been a memorably obnoxious customer a few weeks before, and Johnny Brewer not only remembered him, he could still describe exactly which pair of shoes "Oswald" bought decades later!

The obvious question - avoided like hell by the Warren Commission - was since Brewer knew "Oswald", why didn't he recognize him if "Oswald" actually entered Hardy's Shoes on 11/22/63?

Simple - "Oswald" didn't actually go to Hardy's Shoes on 11/22/63! It was a stranger, someone unknown to Brewer, not "Oswald."

Let's see what happens if we were to give Mr. Brewer the benefit of the doubt on this. Let's suppose that his story is in its core elements true: He saw a man in a brown shirt, later identified as Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald, ducking into the lobby of the shoe store to avoid being seen by the cops. Once the cops had passed, the man went down to the Texas Theatre, which he entered without buying a ticket from Ms. Postal at the box office.

There is only one way I can make the above scenario fit what we know of Mr. Oswald's movements before this time:

Mr. Oswald goes to the Texas Theatre to meet a promised contact. He buys a ticket on his way in. Inside, no contact materializes. An increasingly anxious Mr. Oswald nips out of the Theatre to try to find a telephone to call someone. But the cop activity out on the street spooks him--------------he assumes it must be related to himself and to events back in Dealey Plaza. (He knows nothing of the murder of a police officer.) So he ducks into Hardy's lobby to avoid being spotted by the cops. Then, when the coast is clear again, he gives up on his search for a phone and returns to the Theatre, hoping against hope that his contact will belatedly show. Next thing he knows, he's being arrested.

The above would explain why Ms. Postal became very distressed when researcher Mr. Jones Harris asked her if she had sold Mr. Oswald a ticket: the fact is, when she saw Mr. Oswald being brought out by police, she recognized him as a man who had bought a ticket many minutes before Mr. Brewer had come along asking about him.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 11/14/2023 at 2:09 PM, Alan Ford said:

Let's see what happens if we were to give Mr. Brewer the benefit of the doubt on this. Let's suppose that his story is in its core elements true: He saw a man in a brown shirt, later identified as Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald, ducking into the lobby of the shoe store to avoid being seen by the cops. Once the cops had passed, the man went down to the Texas Theatre, which he entered without buying a ticket from Ms. Postal at the box office.

There is only one way I can make the above scenario fit what we know of Mr. Oswald's movements before this time:

Mr. Oswald goes to the Texas Theatre to meet a promised contact. He buys a ticket on his way in. Inside, no contact materializes. An increasingly anxious Mr. Oswald nips out of the Theatre to try to find a telephone to call someone. But the cop activity out on the street spooks him--------------he assumes it must be related to himself and to events back in Dealey Plaza. (He knows nothing of the murder of a police officer.) So he ducks into Hardy's lobby to avoid being spotted by the cops. Then, when the coast is clear again, he gives up on his search for a phone and returns to the Theatre, hoping against hope that his contact will belatedly show. Next thing he knows, he's being arrested.

The above would explain why Ms. Postal became very distressed when researcher Mr. Jones Harris asked her if she had sold Mr. Oswald a ticket: the fact is, when she saw Mr. Oswald being brought out by police, she recognized him as a man who had bought a ticket many minutes before Mr. Brewer had come along asking about him.

Alan,

You and I agree that "Oswald" was at the Texas Theater to meet a contact. However, I think it very likely that the contact was indeed there when our "Oswald" was inside the theater.

Someone at the Texas Theater placed "multiple" calls to the DPD alerting them that a suspect had walked in with a .30/.30 rifle!

Obviously that was absurd, but the DPD reacted as if it were true - they rushed to the theater. 

It was NOT Julia Postal who placed those (plural) calls.

Johnny Brewer's job (whether he was fully aware of it or not) was to get Julia Postal to call the DPD to provide the alternate pretext for the DPD's arrival. The DPD didn't react because of Julia Postal's extremely tenuous phone call about a man she could not describe. 

They reacted because someone else alerted them about a suspect description that roughly matched the man and the rifle wanted in the president's assassination.

I believe this anonymous, mysterious caller was "Oswald's" handler, alerting the DPD that the patsy was now in place to be arrested (and/or shot while "resisting arrest.")

I've always been struck by the fact that Johnny Brewer knew our "Oswald" previously.

That's right - our "Oswald" had been such a memorable customer in Hardy's Shoes (a pair of Hardy's Shoes were later accounted for in the DPD inventory of "Oswald's" possessions) that Brewer was able to describe the encounter at length to Ian Griggs in The Continuing Inquiry in the late 1990's.

(Brewer even admitted to Griggs that "I didn't know who I was supposed to be looking for". The exact meaning of that cryptic comment has remained unexplored, but the clear implication is that Brewer was sent to "identify" the suspect by someone else.) 

Brewer told Griggs that he did not like our "Oswald" as a customer. (Our man was picky, obnoxious and irritable.)

What's really fascinating though is that the Warren Commission did NOT want to hear anything from Brewer about his previous knowledge of "Oswald."

As soon as Brewer began to dance near to that point in his testimony, David Belin abruptly changed the subject. Belin did NOT want anything further about that on the record and was desperate to keep it out:

 

Mr. Belin.

Why did you happen to watch this particular man?

Mr. Brewer.

He just looked funny to me. Well, in the first place, I had seen him some place before. I think he had been in my store before. And when you wait on somebody, you recognize them, and he just seemed funny. His hair was sort of messed up and looked like he had been running, and he looked seared, and he looked funny.

Mr. Belin.

Did you notice any of his actions when he was standing in your lobby there? . . .

 

 

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

And I think LHO's handler was DAP.

[Alan Ford]

19 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Alan,

You and I agree that "Oswald" was at the Texas Theater to meet a contact. However, I think it very likely that the contact was indeed there when our "Oswald" was inside the theater.

Someone at the Texas Theater placed "multiple" calls to the DPD alerting them that a suspect had walked in with a .30/.30 rifle!

Obviously that was absurd, but the DPD reacted as if it were true - they rushed to the theater. 

It was NOT Julia Postal who placed those (plural) calls.

Johnny Brewer's job (whether he was fully aware of it or not) was to get Julia Postal to call the DPD to provide the alternate pretext for the DPD's arrival. The DPD didn't react because of Julia Postal's extremely tenuous phone call about a man she could not describe. 

They reacted because someone else alerted them about a suspect description that roughly matched the man and the rifle wanted in the president's assassination.

I believe this anonymous, mysterious caller was "Oswald's" handler, alerting the DPD that the patsy was now in place to be arrested (and/or shot while "resisting arrest.")

At the heart of Mr. Brewer's story is his claim that his suspicions about this man, and his sense of urgency about how serious this situation might be, are centered on a radio broadcast he has heard giving a description of the man who had shot an officer in Oak Cliff.

OK, let's take a huge leap of faith and pretend he can have actually heard such a broadcast by ~1:30pm.

So he goes down to the Texas Theatre and speaks with Mrs. Postal and Mr. Burroughs. He refuses to let up. He prevails upon Mrs. Postal to call the police, impressing upon her the potential importance of this man he believes is in the cinema: 'There's been an officer shot in Oak Cliff. That's what all the police activity must be about. I think this guy might be the one they're looking for. He fits the description.'

Except........... I made that last bit up. Mr. Brewer doesn't say anything like that. At all. In fact, in all his time down at the Texas Theatre, right up to the arrival of the police, he never even mentions the shooting of the policeman he's heard about. Mrs. Postal doesn't learn about that shooting until the police arrive--------and is greatly shocked when a police officer informs her.

Bizarre!

Bizarre too is the idea that Mr. Brewer got Mrs. Postal to ring police and tell them about a brown-shirted man, and that this led police to believe that the white-shirted suspect they were on the hunt for was in the Texas Theatre!

Could Mr. Brewer simply have seen a white-shirted man ducking into the lobby of Hardy's shoe store? If so, did he think this man might be the Dealey Plaza shooter he'd been hearing about on the radio? And did he go along with the white-to-brown-shirt switcheroo afterwards because of Mr. Oswald's guilty-as-hell reaction to being approached by a cop in the cinema? ('Gee, the wrong guy led me to lead police to the right guy...............')

And poor Mrs. Postal was stuck having to play along with the false brown-shirt story of how this Oswald was captured------------when in fact she knew darn well that the man led out by police was a man she had sold a ticket to well before Mr. Brewer had appeared on the scene. Her distress when asked about this by Mr. Jones Harris speaks volumes.

I hasten to add, Mr. Jolliffe, that the above scenario need in no way negate your "Someone at the Texas Theater placed "multiple" calls to the DPD". It would simply establish that Mr. Brewer took all the credit for something that was going to happen anyway: Mr. Oswald was told to go to the Texas Theatre to meet a contact; DPD were then led to Mr. Oswald.

Edited November 18, 2023 by Alan Ford

[Paul Jolliffe]

13 hours ago, Alan Ford said:

At the heart of Mr. Brewer's story is his claim that his suspicions about this man, and his sense of urgency about how serious this situation might be, are centered on a radio broadcast he has heard giving a description of the man who had shot an officer in Oak Cliff.

OK, let's take a huge leap of faith and pretend he can have actually heard such a broadcast by ~1:30pm.

So he goes down to the Texas Theatre and speaks with Mrs. Postal and Mr. Burroughs. He refuses to let up. He prevails upon Mrs. Postal to call the police, impressing upon her the potential importance of this man he believes is in the cinema: 'There's been an officer shot in Oak Cliff. That's what all the police activity must be about. I think this guy might be the one they're looking for. He fits the description.'

Except........... I made that last bit up. Mr. Brewer doesn't say anything like that. At all. In fact, in all his time down at the Texas Theatre, right up to the arrival of the police, he never even mentions the shooting of the policeman he's heard about. Mrs. Postal doesn't learn about that shooting until the police arrive--------and is greatly shocked when a police officer informs her.

Bizarre!

Bizarre too is the idea that Mr. Brewer got Mrs. Postal to ring police and tell them about a brown-shirted man, and that this led police to believe that the white-shirted suspect they were on the hunt for was in the Texas Theatre!

Could Mr. Brewer simply have seen a white-shirted man ducking into the lobby of Hardy's shoe store? If so, did he think this man might be the Dealey Plaza shooter he'd been hearing about on the radio? And did he go along with the white-to-brown-shirt switcheroo afterwards because of Mr. Oswald's guilty-as-hell reaction to being approached by a cop in the cinema? ('Gee, the wrong guy led me to lead police to the right guy...............')

And poor Mrs. Postal was stuck having to play along with the false brown-shirt story of how this Oswald was captured------------when in fact she knew darn well that the man led out by police was a man she had sold a ticket to well before Mr. Brewer had appeared on the scene. Her distress when asked about this by Mr. Jones Harris speaks volumes.

I hasten to add, Mr. Jolliffe, that the above scenario need in no way negate your "Someone at the Texas Theater placed "multiple" calls to the DPD". It would simply establish that Mr. Brewer took all the credit for something that was going to happen anyway: Mr. Oswald was told to go to the Texas Theatre to meet a contact; DPD were then led to Mr. Oswald.

You and I agree that "Oswald" was sent to the Texas Theater to meet a contact.  Note in the Ron Reiland film (beginning around the 1:20 mark), Reiland was on the scene of the Tippit shooting, actually filming as Helen Markham was being interviewed by the DPD. Reiland then said on the air on Friday afternoon that "about that time another report came in that a man had walked into the Texas Theater further down the block with a shotgun over his arm, of course everybody broke and ran down into the area at that time . . ."

So here we have an actual eye and ear witness to the moment when the DPD was informed about the suspect in the Texas Theater, and according to his live, on-air statement on Friday afternoon, the DPD reacted because of a report of a man carrying a shotgun into the theater!

Of course, Brewer never made any such statement. Reiland's live broadcast was based on what the DPD believed at that moment, and NOT on Brewer's belated and tenuous statement. The DPD was reacting because of someone else, some caller who was so desperate to get the DPD to rush the Texas Theater that this caller made up a bizarre and false scenario to get the DPD to speed there ASAP.

It worked, obviously.

Again, the purpose of the whole Brewer bit was to provide an "innocent" cover for the fact that this mysterious, unknown (and lying) caller/handler was frantic to get the DPD dispatcher to send the cops to arrest/shoot "Oswald."

 

[Marcus Fuller]

Is there any truth to the claims/rumours that someone else went into the theatre, was also arrested and taken out of the back? Pretty sure that a witness said he saw the police bringing someone out of the back and thought it was Oswald. Then he saw the police come out of the front with actual Oswald.

[Sean Coleman]

On 11/19/2023 at 10:14 AM, Marcus Fuller said:

Is there any truth to the claims/rumours that someone else went into the theatre, was also arrested and taken out of the back? Pretty sure that a witness said he saw the police bringing someone out of the back and thought it was Oswald. Then he saw the police come out of the front with actual Oswald.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Sean Coleman

[Sandy Larsen]

11 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Again, the purpose of the whole Brewer bit was to provide an "innocent" cover for the fact that this mysterious, unknown (and lying) caller/handler was frantic to get the DPD dispatcher to send the cops to arrest/shoot "Oswald."

 

Brilliant hypothesis, Paul. I'm making it a part of my working conspiracy theory.

 

[Alan Ford]

8 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Brilliant hypothesis, Paul. I'm making it a part of my working conspiracy theory.

 

I fully agree, Mr. Larsen---------------Mr. Jolliffe's hypothesis is indeed brilliant. The Reiland clip is such an eye-opener.

I would still maintain that pointing up the incongruities in the Brewer story has its place here. Mr. Reiland gets a couple of things wrong in his report, which will give wiggle room to the nothing-to-see-here crew ('He got some details confused', etc.........). The illogicality of DPD's descending in a swarm upon the Texas Theatre in response to a call about a man in a brown shirt (i.e. NOT matching the Tippit suspect description [white shirt]) only strengthens Mr. Jolliffe's claim that Mr. Brewer's heroic actions were not what really led to Mr. Oswald's capture.