Two Oswalds in the Texas Theater

[David Josephs]

As much as I respect JA and JH and the H&L conclusion, I'm with Bart on this one.

 

Bledsoe is given the ARREST shirt description to use in her testimony...  we all know now that the shirt and pants he wore to work were in his room...
A button-down Briarloom... not missing 3 buttons or with a torn elbow as he hadn't gotten ganged up upon at the theater yet...

Yep, Bledsoe here is real believable, especially since McWatters recants....  and Milton's statement is below that...  the entire bus charade was created - I think - to avoid dealing with those who saw Oswald leave in a station wagon... and for what Fritz tried so hard to distance himself....   

Craig:  And the suspect interrupted him and said, "That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine"---I believe is what he said. "Don't try to tie her into this. She had nothing to do with it."

Fritz:

 

Mr. BALL - Now, what color shirt did he have on?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - He had a brown shirt.
Mr. BALL - And unraveled?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Hole in his sleeve right here [indicating].
Mr. BALL - Which is the elbow of the sleeve? That is, you pointed to the elbow?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Well, it is.
Mr. BALL - And that would be which elbow, right or left elbow?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Right.
Mr. BALL - Did he have anything on. Was the shirt open or was it buttoned?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Yes; all the buttons torn off.
Mr. BALL - What did he have on underneath that?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - I don't know.
Mr. BALL - Do you know the color of any undershirt he had on?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - No.

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=930&tab=page

Edited September 19, 2019 by David Josephs

[Guest]

I do  not make light of this at all,actually it is the opposite.

And one more time: I give up on you.

The ridiculous speculation from you on Reed 'expecting' Oswald being on that bus is mind boggling.

Utter nutcase scenarios I stay well clear from.

All the best.

[B. A. Copeland]

Campbell's show concerning the many LHO sightings in late '63:

Dallas Action #158~September 13, 2019: "Too Many Oswalds: Mid-September Through Late October, 1963."

Fascinating information for sure.

[Guest Rich Pope]

On 7/19/2019 at 9:39 PM, Ron Bulman said:

I know this is old news to some on the forum, if 10/11 years can be considered "old" in the case.  But to me it's been kind of a linchpin in the reality of two Oswald's.  I know its free on line now but I've never made the time to read Harvey and Lee, but until I do it's hard for me to wrap my head around the concept of the CIA developing, and controlling, two Oswald's since elementary school.  However, it seems to be a fact that there were two in Dallas in the weeks before the assassination and immediately after it.  The idea that the CIA might have found a look alike for LHO and developed such the last year or two of his life seems a reasonable possibility to me at least.  Especially in Dallas the last month or so.

Lee at the firing range being rude.  The lone nutters say the witnesses must have been mistaken.  The test drive at Down Town Lincoln Mercury.  Oswald couldn't drive.  Couldn't be him.  He was at work or otherwise accounted for.  More.

Then after the assassination Craig sees Oswald running down the embankment by the rail road  track and getting in the Rambler heading South on Elm.  He must be mistaken.  The Dallas County Sheriff's Office man of the year in 1961.  Fired by Decker because he wouldn't stop answering questions about it.  Harassed to the point of suicide?

So one Oswald probably didn't try to get on McWatters bus but did take Whaley's cab to 500 N Beckley, 5 blocks past his rooming house, then kept heading South on foot.  But Earline Roberts said he did come by, apparently to change clothes while two cops stopped briefly and tooted their horn, left, then Oswald went out front to the bus stop and stood around long enough for her to observe him.  At 3-4 minutes after 1:00.  Burroughs said Oswald entered the Texas Theater between 1:00-1:07, went to the balcony then came down and bought popcorn at 1:15, or 1:10 (1987).  One or the other is impossible without two Ozzie's.  

Then there's the linchpin.  Oswald arrested on the ground floor taken out the front, witnessed by Burroughs and many others, captured on camera.  Oswald, reported by the DPD as arrested in the balcony.  Then witnessed by Burroughs 3-4 minutes after one Oswald being taken out the front, another being taken out the back in handcuffs.  Supported by Haire's statement of standing outside the back door observing Oswald being brought out of it, being put in a police car and taken away.  Sound's like two Oswald's to me.

Then there's mechanic Whites story of seeing Oswald "hiding" in a red ford falcon in the El Chico parking lot, taking off when he approached closely, curious, writing the license plate number down,  20 minutes or so after he was arrested.  The same El Chico parking lot that Whaley let Oswald out next to, at 500 North Becky before Tippitt was shot.  Vaganov had a red Thunderbird.

There's also the DPD dispatch at 1:46 hiding in the balcony (Marrs). 

Maybe tomorrow we can get to Eddie.

The CIA "developing and controlling" two Oswalds since elementary school is completely absurd and pure fantasy.  In fact, I can't even believe anyone with half a brain would entertain such a thought.

Edited September 19, 2019 by Rich Pope

[Karl Hilliard]

On 7/19/2019 at 9:39 PM, Ron Bulman said:

  I've never made the time to read Harvey and Lee

I have. There is a whole lot of unsupported speculation. However there was also a lot of CIA chicanery [LSD experiments and mind control stuff] that has been exposed. I can accept that there must have been a Lee Harvey Oswald imposter who participated in framing him and I believe that Kennedy's enemies in the CIA and Kennedy haters in the Dallas police were involved. Johnson and Hoover were pleased that Kennedy was gone and gladly supervised the cover up.

[Jim Hargrove]

On 9/12/2019 at 10:34 PM, Karl Hilliard said:

Back to the 'Two Oswalds'... I thought I had asked about this earlier..but if Oswald did not go in the direction of the Tippit shooting but rather walked or got a ride to the Texas Theater---What might have happened to this supposed jacket that the housekeeper said he wore? I realize that no one would know, but it is still a consideration.

Karl,

John A. and I were just talking about this.

I don't think Classic Oswald wore the light, Eisenhower jacket that afternoon.  I think he wore the bluish jacket that was later "found" in the domino room of the TSBD, though how it got back there is another story.  Note the following testimony from cab driver Whaley and Earline Roberts (emphasis added):

Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. I didn't pay much attention to it right then. But it all came back when I really found out who I had. He was dressed in just ordinary work clothes. It wasn't khaki pants but they were khaki material, blue faded blue color, like a blue uniform made in khaki. Then he had on a brown shirt with a little silverlike stripe on it and he had on some kind of jacket, I didn't notice very close but I think it was a work jacket that almost matched the pants.

.....

Mr. BALL. You said that a jacket--
Mr. WHALEY. That jacket now it might have been clean, but the jacket he had on looked more the color, you know like a uniform set, but he had this coat here on over that other jacket, I am sure, sir.
Mr. BALL. This is the blue-gray jacket, heavy blue-gray jacket.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir.

......

Mr. BALL. I'll show you this jacket which is Commission Exhibit 162---have you ever seen this jacket before?
Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, maybe I have, but I don't remember it. It seems like the one he put on was darker than that. Now, I won't be sure, because I really don't know, but is that a zipper jacket?
Mr. BALL. Yes---it has a zipper down the front.
Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, maybe it was.
Mr. BALL. It was a zippered jacket, was it?
Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes; it was a zipper jacket. How come me to remember it, he was zipping it up as he went out the door.

[Jim Hargrove]

3 hours ago, Bart Kamp said:

I do  not make light of this at all,actually it is the opposite.

And one more time: I give up on you.

The ridiculous speculation from you on Reed 'expecting' Oswald being on that bus is mind boggling.

Utter nutcase scenarios I stay well clear from.

All the best.

I understand.  Stuart Reed "accidentally" took two pictures of the Marsalis bus, front and back, as it was stuck in traffic headed toward Dealey Plaza.  And he "accidentally took pictures of the TSBD and the Texas Theater just as Oswald was being dragged out.  That fellow sure was accident prone!

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Hi, Sandy,

Haven’t seen you posting here in ages.  Have you been OK?

 

Hi Jim,

Thanks for asking. My energy level has been slowly creeping lower for years and last summer I was diagnosed with chronic respiratory failure. I've actually started several posts over the months, only to run out of energy before completing them LOL. But I've felt particularly good today and have posted a few. The key for me is to keep them short!

 

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Karl Hilliard said:

I have. There is a whole lot of unsupported speculation. However there was also a lot of CIA chicanery [LSD experiments and mind control stuff] that has been exposed. I can accept that there must have been a Lee Harvey Oswald imposter who participated in framing him and I believe that Kennedy's enemies in the CIA and Kennedy haters in the Dallas police were involved. Johnson and Hoover were pleased that Kennedy was gone and gladly supervised the cover up.

I have to wonder still if the name LHO might have been used prior to the fall of 1963.  The 1950's school records and the attempted Louisiana trucks or jeeps purchase make me wonder.  But was he/his name a peripheral figure used as needed until the summer/fall of 1963 then by different persons in different places, from New Orleans,  Mexico City, to Dallas shooting ranges and car dealerships?

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Again Jim has avoided giving answers to two straightforward questions. He's happy to claim that one or more fake Oswalds was arrested somewhere inside the Texas Theater, but he's not so happy to tell us exactly what he thinks happened.

Jim must have an opinion on the matter, surely?

It isn't too difficult to work out the reason why Jim is so evasive. It's because the evidence for the arrest of a fake Oswald is not only weak but also contradictory: according to one source, the man was arrested in the balcony, but according to the other source, the man was arrested on the ground floor. At least one source must be mistaken, unless there were actually two fake Oswalds in addition to the real-life, historical, one and only Lee Harvey Oswald who was arrested on the ground floor.

Jim's problem, of course, is that both sources are equally weak and there are good reasons to conclude that both are mistaken. A perfectly credible alternative explanation exists for what happened inside the Texas Theater, and it doesn't involve one or more fake Oswalds getting arrested, in the balcony or on the ground floor or anywhere else.

If Jim commits to either a balcony arrest or a ground-floor arrest, he's admitting that one source is mistaken. Unfortunately, the surviving source (whichever one he goes with) is just as weak as the one he discards. If he offloads one source, how does he justify retaining the other? One more piece of evidence for the ridiculous 'Harvey and Lee' fantasy bites the dust.

So refusing to answer is probably Jim's best bet. But then people will work out, if they haven't already, why he's afraid to provide straight answers to two very straightforward questions, and he will continue to be a laughing stock, as he admitted he has been for more than 20 years. Perhaps he'd be better off answering, after all.

Come on, Jim! You can do it! Here are those questions again:

Question 1 

How many times was the fake Oswald arrested: once or twice?

Question 2

If it was once, where did the arrest take place: in the balcony or on the ground floor?

[Steve Thomas]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Hi Jim,

Thanks for asking. My energy level has been slowly creeping lower for years and last summer I was diagnosed with chronic respiratory failure. I've actually started several posts over the months, only to run out of energy before completing them LOL. But I've felt particularly good today and have posted a few. The key for me is to keep them short!

 

Sandy,

 

I have the same problem.

I can relate.

 

Steve Thomas

 

[Jim Hargrove]

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!

[Jim Hargrove]

For Jeremy Bojczuk:

As Mr. B surely knows, it doesn’t matter what he or I think.  What matters is what the evidence shows.  And the evidence we have is that Classic Oswald® was arrested on the main floor of the theater and brought out the front door and someone who looked like him was arrested in the balcony and brought out the back door.

Mr. B writes endless essays about how this cannot be and about how horrible I am, but nothing he writes can twist the evidence we have into his story of three Oswalds or whatever it is he is selling.  Again, James Douglass described it best.

From his book JFK and the Unspeakable:

Butch Burroughs, who witnessed Oswald’s arrest, startled me in his interview by saying he saw a second arrest occur in the Texas Theater only “three or four minutes later.”[444] He said the Dallas Police then arrested “an Oswald lookalike.” Burroughs said the second man “looked almost like Oswald, like he was his brother or something.”[445] When I questioned the comparison by asking, “Could you see the second man as well as you could see Oswald?” he said, “Yes, I could see both of them. They looked alike.”[446] After the officers half-carried and half-dragged Oswald to the police car in front of the theater, within a space of three or four minutes, Burroughs saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed. The Oswald look-alike, however, was taken by police not out the front but out the back of the theater.[447]

What happened next we can learn from another neglected witness, Bernard Haire.[448]

Bernard J. Haire was the owner of Bernie’s Hobby House, just two doors east of the Texas Theater. Haire went outside his store when he saw police cars congregating in front of the theater.[449] When he couldn’t see what was happening because of the crowd, he went back through his store into the alley out back. It, too, was full of police cars, but there were fewer spectators. Haire walked up the alley. When he stopped opposite the rear door of the theater, he witnessed what he would think for decades was the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald.

“Police brought a young white man out,” Haire told an interviewer. “The man was dressed in a pullover shirt and slacks. He seemed to be flushed, as if he’d been in a struggle. Police put the man in a police car and drove off.”[450]

When Haire was told in 1987 that Lee Harvey Oswald had been brought out the front of the theater by police, he was shocked.

“I don’t know who I saw arrested,” he said in bewilderment.[451]

Butch Burroughs and Bernard Haire are complementary witnesses. From their perspectives both inside and outside the Texas Theater, they saw an Oswald double arrested and taken to a police car in the back alley only minutes after the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald. Burroughs’s and Haire’s independent, converging testimonies provide critical insight into the mechanics of the plot. In a comprehensive intelligence scenario for Kennedy’s and Tippit’s murders, the plan culminated in Oswald’s Friday arrest and Sunday murder (probably a fallback from his being set up to be killed in the Texas Theater by the police).

There is a hint of the second Oswald’s arrest in the Dallas police records. According to the Dallas Police Department’s official Homicide Report on J. D. Tippit, “Suspect was later arrested in the balcony of the Texas theatre at 231 W. Jefferson.”[452]

Dallas Police detective L. D. Stringfellow also reported to Captain W. P. Gannaway, “Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater.”[453]

NOTES:

444. Author’s interview of Burroughs, July 16, 2007. 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. Because Butch Burroughs saw neither Oswald nor his lookalike enter the Texas Theater, each must have gone directly up the balcony stairs on entering. Oswald crossed the balcony and came down the stairs on the far side of the lobby. There he entered the orchestra seats and began his seat-hopping, in apparent search of a contact. His lookalike sneaked into the theater at 1:45 P.M. and, like Oswald, went immediately up the balcony stairs. By the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby, either on his own or already accompanied by police who had been checking the balcony. 

445. §
Ibid. 

446. §
Ibid. 

447. §
Ibid. 

448. §
In the data base of the JFK Records Act at the National Archives, there is no record of Bernard Haire. Archivist Martin F. McGann to James Douglass, July 20, 2007. 

449. §
In a photo taken about 1:50 P.M., November 22, 1963, that shows people gathering around the police cars in front of the Texas Theater, Bernard Haire can be seen at the edge of the crowd, leaning on a parking meter and trying to see. Photo by Stuart L. Reed; on p. 68, Myers, With Malice. 

450. §
Bernard J. Haire interview by Jim Marrs, summer 1987. Crossfire, p. 354. 

451. §
Ibid. 

452. §
Dallas Police Department Homicide Report on J. D. Tippit, November 22, 1963. Reproduced in With Malice, p. 447 (emphasis added). 

453. §
Letter from Detective L. D. Stringfellow to Captain W. P. Gannaway, November 23, 1963, Dallas City Archives. Cited in Harvey & Lee, p. 871 (emphasis added). 

[John Butler]

I want to correct a mistake I made on Harvey Oswalds teeth.  If you look at this photo it looks like Harvey is missing a 3rd molar in the right quadrant of his mandible.   

In Harvey's teeth, the 2nd and 3rd molar has shifted forward and partially closes a gap between his second pre-molar and his second molar.  He is actually missing a first molar.

This slight gap of the missing first molar is easy to miss, particularly if one is looking down at the top of his teeth as shown in the first photos.

He has 31 teeth and is not missing about 5 teeth as shown for Lee Oswald.

I understand Sandy Larsen's reasoning on his Marine Corps dental chart being a limited chart.

So, Sandy if you can please publish the instructions for the chart for a better understanding of the Lee Harvey Oswald Marine Corps dental chart you published.

Thanks.

Edited September 20, 2019 by John Butler

[John Butler]

3 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

For Jeremy Bojczuk:

As Mr. B surely knows, it doesn’t matter what he or I think.  What matters is what the evidence shows.  And the evidence we have is that Classic Oswald® was arrested on the main floor of the theater and brought out the front door and someone who looked like him was arrested in the balcony and brought out the back door.

Mr. B writes endless essays about how this cannot be and about how horrible I am, but nothing he writes can twist the evidence we have into his story of three Oswalds or whatever it is he is selling.  Again, James Douglass described it best.

From his book JFK and the Unspeakable:

Butch Burroughs, who witnessed Oswald’s arrest, startled me in his interview by saying he saw a second arrest occur in the Texas Theater only “three or four minutes later.”[444] He said the Dallas Police then arrested “an Oswald lookalike.” Burroughs said the second man “looked almost like Oswald, like he was his brother or something.”[445] When I questioned the comparison by asking, “Could you see the second man as well as you could see Oswald?” he said, “Yes, I could see both of them. They looked alike.”[446] After the officers half-carried and half-dragged Oswald to the police car in front of the theater, within a space of three or four minutes, Burroughs saw the second Oswald placed under arrest and handcuffed. The Oswald look-alike, however, was taken by police not out the front but out the back of the theater.[447]

What happened next we can learn from another neglected witness, Bernard Haire.[448]

Bernard J. Haire was the owner of Bernie’s Hobby House, just two doors east of the Texas Theater. Haire went outside his store when he saw police cars congregating in front of the theater.[449] When he couldn’t see what was happening because of the crowd, he went back through his store into the alley out back. It, too, was full of police cars, but there were fewer spectators. Haire walked up the alley. When he stopped opposite the rear door of the theater, he witnessed what he would think for decades was the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald.

“Police brought a young white man out,” Haire told an interviewer. “The man was dressed in a pullover shirt and slacks. He seemed to be flushed, as if he’d been in a struggle. Police put the man in a police car and drove off.”[450]

When Haire was told in 1987 that Lee Harvey Oswald had been brought out the front of the theater by police, he was shocked.

“I don’t know who I saw arrested,” he said in bewilderment.[451]

Butch Burroughs and Bernard Haire are complementary witnesses. From their perspectives both inside and outside the Texas Theater, they saw an Oswald double arrested and taken to a police car in the back alley only minutes after the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald. Burroughs’s and Haire’s independent, converging testimonies provide critical insight into the mechanics of the plot. In a comprehensive intelligence scenario for Kennedy’s and Tippit’s murders, the plan culminated in Oswald’s Friday arrest and Sunday murder (probably a fallback from his being set up to be killed in the Texas Theater by the police).

There is a hint of the second Oswald’s arrest in the Dallas police records. According to the Dallas Police Department’s official Homicide Report on J. D. Tippit, “Suspect was later arrested in the balcony of the Texas theatre at 231 W. Jefferson.”[452]

Dallas Police detective L. D. Stringfellow also reported to Captain W. P. Gannaway, “Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater.”[453]

NOTES:

444. Author’s interview of Burroughs, July 16, 2007. 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. Because Butch Burroughs saw neither Oswald nor his lookalike enter the Texas Theater, each must have gone directly up the balcony stairs on entering. Oswald crossed the balcony and came down the stairs on the far side of the lobby. There he entered the orchestra seats and began his seat-hopping, in apparent search of a contact. His lookalike sneaked into the theater at 1:45 P.M. and, like Oswald, went immediately up the balcony stairs. By the time Burroughs witnessed the Oswald double’s arrest, he had also come down the balcony stairs on the far side of the lobby, either on his own or already accompanied by police who had been checking the balcony. 

445. §
Ibid. 

446. §
Ibid. 

447. §
Ibid. 

448. §
In the data base of the JFK Records Act at the National Archives, there is no record of Bernard Haire. Archivist Martin F. McGann to James Douglass, July 20, 2007. 

449. §
In a photo taken about 1:50 P.M., November 22, 1963, that shows people gathering around the police cars in front of the Texas Theater, Bernard Haire can be seen at the edge of the crowd, leaning on a parking meter and trying to see. Photo by Stuart L. Reed; on p. 68, Myers, With Malice. 

450. §
Bernard J. Haire interview by Jim Marrs, summer 1987. Crossfire, p. 354. 

451. §
Ibid. 

452. §
Dallas Police Department Homicide Report on J. D. Tippit, November 22, 1963. Reproduced in With Malice, p. 447 (emphasis added). 

453. §
Letter from Detective L. D. Stringfellow to Captain W. P. Gannaway, November 23, 1963, Dallas City Archives. Cited in Harvey & Lee, p. 871 (emphasis added). 

Sorry, for sidetracking this main point of Jim Hargrove about teeth.  I've simply found the analysis of teeth interesting, particularly in the study of pre-human evolution.  Did you know that anthropologists have roughly 150 descriptive terms to describe the surface features of teeth.

Jim's main point was posted on the first page and is here posted again.  I fail to see the argument about what he is saying.

These records clearly state there was an Oswald arrested in the theater balcony.  There was a main floor Oswald arrested, Harvey.  There was a balcony Oswald arrested.  This is clearly indicated by these records.  The balcony Oswald as described is more than likely Lee Oswald or some double that looks pretty much like Harvey Oswald.

Although the Dallas Police can be held accountable as part of the assassination cover-up, I fail to see why they would fake these records.  What's the point?  These reports were made on the day of the assassination or a day after.  The cover-up story had not been completely formulated and disseminated at this time and known by most or everyone. 

Contrary to others, I believe there was an assassination planner/cover-up team in Dealey Plaza located in the Court House on Main and Houston.  The afternoon of the assassination many records were taken with the Sheriff's Office from what the witnesses said in a fairly accurate manner.  These records had to be adjusted later by the FBI for the correct story as adjusted by this team on the afternoon of the assassination.  For some, this is why first day reports are considered to be more accurate than adjusted testimony taken later.