The Cab Ride

[Gil Jesus]

THE CAB RIDE
 

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William Whaley, a taxicab driver, told his employer on Saturday morning, November 23, that he recognized Oswald from a newspaper photograph as a man whom he had driven to the Oak Cliff area the day before. Notified of Whaley's statement, the police brought him to the police station that afternoon. He was taken to the lineup room where, according to Whaley, five young teenagers, all handcuffed together, were displayed with Oswald. He testified that Oswald looked older than the other boys. The police asked him whether he could pick out his passenger from the lineup. Whaley picked Oswald. -- ( Report, Page 161 )

On November 22, 1963, William Whaley worked for the City Transportation Company as a cab driver. He was a veteran driver with 37 years of experience. At 12:30, he was in his 1961 Checker cab parked at the Greyhound Bus Station when he saw a man walking south on Lamar St. headed in his direction. The man was dressed in blue pants, a brown shirt with a silverlike stripe and a blue work jacket. The man asked if he could have the taxi.
( 2 H 253-255 )

Problems with the cab timesheet
An examination of William Whaley's timesheet indicates that the fare the Commission said was Oswald was picked up at the Greyhound Bus station at 12:30 PM, exactly the time that the shots were being fired in Dealey Plaza. How could Oswald be firing his rifle at the motorcade and be in a cab heading home at the same time ?
The Commission explained this away by stating in its report that the 12:30 entry was not precise, that Whaley logged in times in 15-minute intervals.
"Whaley testified that he did not keep an accurate time record of his trips but recorded them by the quarter hour.." ( Report, pg. 161 )
But that was a lie. Looking at the timesheet one can see numerous entries that were NOT in 15-minute intervals. ( red squares )
 

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The Commission never questioned the witness about his entries of 6:20, 7:50, 8:10, 8:20, 9:40, 10:50, or 3:10, even though it had the above copy of his timesheet. Instead, it used Whaley's lack of " an accurate time record" to have Oswald entering Whaley's cab at 12:47 or 12:48 and leaving it at about 12:54. ( Report, pg. 163 )

The Commission never explained why it's timing sequence for Oswald's entry into the cab was BEYOND the 15-minute interval of 12:30-12:45 nor did it explain how it had Oswald entering the cab at a time AFTER the timesheet had him already at his destination and long gone.

Problems with Whaley's Description of His Passenger
One of the more obvious examples that Whaley's passenger was NOT Oswald comes in his description of the clothing of that passenger.
"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. ( 2 H 255 )
But shortly later in his testimony, Whaley changed his mind about the blue faded work pants and identified Commission Exhibit 157, Oswald's light grey pants, as the same color as the pants his passenger wore:

Mr. BALL. Here are two pair of pants, Commission Exhibit No. 157 and Commission Exhibit No. 156. Does it look anything like that?
Mr. WHALEY. I don't think I can identify the pants except they were the same color as that, sir.
Mr. BALL. Which color?
Mr. WHALEY. More like this lighter color, at least they were cleaner or something.
Mr. BALL. That is 157?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir.
( 2 H 259-260 )

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Whaley never did identify any of Oswald's pants as the pants worn by his passenger. His testimony was only to the COLOR of the pants, and as we have seen, that changed considerably as his testimony continued.
Keep in mind that Whaley wavered in describing the color of his passenger's pants in spite of the fact that his passenger sat in the FRONT seat of the cab. ( 2 H 256 )
But if Whaley's credibility was lacking in regard to the color of his passenger's pants, his description of his passenger's jacket leaves no doubt that this witness' credibility ends up in the garbage heap.

Mr. BALL. Here is Commission No. 162 which is a gray jacket with zipper.
Mr. WHALEY. I think that is the jacket he had on when he rode with me in the cab.
Mr. BALL. Look something like it? And here is Commission Exhibit No. 163, does this look like anything he had on?
Mr. WHALEY. He had this one on or the other one.
Mr. BALL. That is right.
Mr. WHALEY. That is what I told you I noticed. I told you about the shirt being open, he had on the two jackets with the open shirt.
Mr. BALL. Wait a minute, we have got the shirt which you have identified as the rust brown shirt with the gold stripe in it.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir.
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.
( 2 H 260 )
 

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After not being able to decide which jacket his passenger had on, Whaley's testimony was that his passenger wore BOTH JACKETS AT ONCE, the blue jacket, Commission Exhibit 163 over the grey jacket, Commission Exhibit 162.
Of course, this is ridiculous because Oswald's blue jacket was found in the Texas School Book Depository after the assassination.

At this point, Commission counsel should have recognized that Whaley's passenger was not Oswald, thanked him for his appearance before the Commission, and excused him from further testimony. There was no need to waste the Commission's time and the taxpayers' money on a witness whose testimony was so in conflict with the evidence.

But that didn't happen.

With regard to the shirt his passenger was wearing, here is where Whaley shined. He identifies Oswald's rust brown shirt, the shirt he was arrested in ( Commission Exhibit 150 ) , as the shirt his passenger wore.

Mr BALL. I have some clothing here. Commission Exhibit No. 150, does that look like the shirt?
Mr. WHALEY. That is the shirt, sir, it has my initials on it.
Mr. BALL. In other words, this is the shirt the man had on?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir; that is the same one the FBI man had me identify.
Mr. BALL. This is the shirt the man had on who took your car at Lamar and Jackson?
Mr. WHALEY. As near as I can recollect as I told him. I said that is the shirt he had on because it had a kind of little stripe in it, light-colored stripe. I noticed that.
( 2 H 259 )
 

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As one can see, Commission Exhibit 150 has no stripe. In addition, Whaley testified that he told the FBI that the shirt had a stripe in it, then during his testimony, he says that he "just noticed" the stripe.

Mr. WHALEY. .... I wouldn't be sure of the shirt if it hadn't had that light stripe in it. I just noticed that. ( 2 H 260 )

Commission counsel never established when exactly Mr. Whaley "noticed" the stripe that wasn't there.
In addition, counsel puts words in the witness' mouth by claiming that the witness identified the rust brown shirt with a gold stripe:

Mr. BALL. Wait a minute, we have got the shirt which you have identified as the rust brown shirt with the gold stripe in it.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir.
( ibid. )

The witness never identified the stripe as being gold. He described the stripe as "silverlike" and "light".
In his affidavit ( below ) , he described the passenger's shirt has being a "dark shirt with white spots of something on it"
What we have in the case of William Whaley is a witness who was caught between what he actually saw and his desire to cooperate with the authorities-- in other words, to tell them what they wanted to hear.
And nowhere was that more evident than in Whaley's selection of Oswald from a police lineup.

Problems with Whaley's Selection of Oswald
On Saturday afternoon 11/23/63, Whaley, along with another cab driver named William Scoggins, viewed a police lineup that included Oswald, two teenagers and a Mexican-American. Whaley testified that he chose the # 2 man in the lineup as his passenger from the Greyhound Bus Station to the 500 block of North Beckley in Oak Cliff. But his affidavit indicated that the man in the lineup he chose was # 3.
The Commission questioned Mr. Whaley on the discrepancy:

Mr. BELIN. All right. Now in here it says, "The No. 3 man who I now know is Lee Harvey Oswald was the man who I carried from the Greyhound Bus Station* * *" Was this the No. 3 or the No. 2 man?
Mr. WHALEY. I signed that statement before they carried me down to see the lineup. I signed this statement, and then they carried me down to the lineup at 2:30 in the afternoon.
( 6 H 430 )

Whaley then changes his testimony by saying that the police wrote out a HANDWRITTEN statement and in the middle of that statement, he was made to go down to view the lineup. When he came back, he signed a TYPEWRITTEN statement.

Mr. WHALEY. Let me tell you how they fixed this up. They had me in the office saying that. They were writing it out on paper, and they wrote it out on paper, and this officer, Leavelle, I think that is his name, before he finished and before I signed he wanted me to go with him to the lineup, so I went to the lineup, and I come back and he asked me which one it was, which number it was, and I identified the man, and we went back up in the office again, and then they had me sign this. That is as near as I can remember.
( ibid. )
But there's only one thing wrong with Whaley's explanation: if he viewed the lineup mid-statement, there should only be one handwritten version of his statement.

Problems with Whaley's affidavit
The problem is the there are TWO handwritten affidavits alleged to have been taken from Whaley.
The first one appears to be the actual affidavit taken by Detective L.D. Montgomery. His initials are at the bottom.
 

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If Whaley's TYPEWRITTEN affidavit was copied from THIS handwritten version, why isn't Whaley's alleged selection of # 3 ( Oswald ) on this version ? Why is this version missing the account of the woman who came up to the cab ?
Montgomery testified that he was the one who took the affidavit from Whaley:

Mr. MONTGOMERY. I didn't take an affidavit from him ( Scoggins ) --no, sir; I took one from Mr. Whaley.
Mr. BALL. Now, did you attend a showup?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. No, sir; I didn't attend any showups.
Mr. BALL. You didn't?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. No.
Mr. BALL. But you took an affidavit from Mr. Whaley?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. From Mr. Whaley--yes, sir.
( 7 H 99 )

But there is a second handwritten version of Whaley's statement and it doesn't take a handwriting expert to see that this one was not written by Montgomery.
I've purposely underlined the phrase "south on Beckley" to show that these handwritten versions are not the same.
 

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In this version, Whaley identifies the # 3 man in the lineup and we have the woman coming up to the cab at the Greyhound station. Notice in this version, the grammar is terrible-- the writer writes that the passenger "walked at and ( sic ) angle" rather than "at an angle" as Montgomery wrote. Also, there's no indication who the author was.

It's obvious that this version was not written by Montgomery.

The procedure for taking affidavits involved city officers or sheriff's deputies handwriting witness statements, then a typist would type it out and the witness would swear that the information in it was correct.
While some may argue that the affidavits were taken incomplete and finished after the witness viewed the lineup, there should still only be one handwritten affidavit.

Why in this case were there two completely different affidavits ?

In addition, an affidavit is a sworn statement. You can't add to it once it has been signed. Adding is altering and altering is illegal. You can swear out another affidavit correcting the first one, but you can't alter the original.
Commission counsel pressed Whaley over what the HANDWRITTEN affidavit said, Whaley confessed that he hadn't read it:

Mr. BELIN. Now, when you signed it--what I want to know is, before you went down, had they already put on there a statement that the man you saw was the No. 3 man in the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. I don't remember that. I don't remember whether it said three or two, or what.
Mr. BELIN. Did they have any statements on there before you went down to the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. I never saw what they had in there. It was all written out by hand. The statement I saw, I think, was this one, and that could be writing. I might not even seen this one yet.

Then he dropped a bomb on the Commission by implying that he was not allowed to read it:
"I signed my name because they said that is what I said." ( 6 H 431 )

The fact is that the Dallas Police never gave the witness an opportunity to proofread the typewritten version of his affidavit before signing it.
In addition, the typed affidavit IN EVIDENCE naming the # 3 man ( Oswald ) as the man he chose was contrary to his testimony before the Commission that he chose # 2.
 

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To cover up this discrepancy, Commission Counsel tried to confuse the witness between Numbers 2 & 3 in the lineup :

Mr. BELIN. Do you remember what number he was in the lineup at all?
Mr. WHALEY. There was four of them, sir, and from the right to the left, he was No. 3.
Mr. BELIN. Starting from the right to the left, from his right or your right.
Mr. WHALEY. From your right, sir, which would have been his left. There were numbers above their heads, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Mr. Whaley, what number did you say the man was in the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. No. 2.
Mr. BELIN. From the right or from your right?
Mr. WHALEY. From my left.
Mr. BELIN. No. 2?
Mr. WHALEY. They brought out four of them and stood them up there, and he was under No. 2. I mentioned he was the third one that come out. There were four and all handcuffed together.
( 6 H 430 )

But in this case, Whaley's memory of how the lineup was conducted was without error. The numbers on the stage were numbered from left to right.

Mr. BROWN. .... numbering, facing the stage from your left to right.
Mr. BELIN. You mean your left, the observers left?
Mr. BROWN. Yes; the observers left to his right.
( 7 H 249 )
 

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When the participants in the lineups entered the stage, they entered from left to right, with # 4 entering first, then # 3, then # 2 and finally # 1 entering last. ( red arrow )
This is reflected in the testimony of Dallas Officer Walter Potts' description of lineup # 4 in which Daniel Lujan, who was # 4 in that lineup, entered the stage first:
Lujan went on first, because he would be No. 4. ( 7 H 200 )

So Whaley could not have mistaken # 2 for # 3.

But instead of investigating this conflict further, the Commission contended that Whaley's memory of the lineup simply was in error:
Whaley's memory of the lineup is inaccurate......Whaley said that Oswald was the man under No. 2. Actually Oswald was under No. 3. ( Report, Chap. 4, pg. 161 )

Whaley never said Oswald was # 2. He said that the man he CHOSE was # 2.

Representative FORD. Did you point him out with your hand?
Mr. WHALEY. No, sir; I did not. They asked me which number he was standing under and he was standing under No. 2. ( 2 H 294 )

Whaley's "inaccurate memory" served to save the Commission the trouble of explaining how William Scoggins, who viewed the same lineup as Whaley did ( 3 H 337 ), testified that Oswald was under # 3.

Mr. BELIN. What number man in the lineup did you identify as having seen on November 22?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Number 3.
( 3 H 335 )

So if Oswald was under # 3 and being identified as # 3 by Scoggins, who was under number 2 ?

18 year old David Edmond Knapp was the # 2 man in that lineup ( 7 H 200 ). Knapp lived at 2922 Alabama Ave ( 7 H 201 ). The interesting thing about Whaley's selection of Knapp is that Knapp's house was almost a straight shot down Beckley from where Whaley claimed he had given the cab ride to.
 

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It is my opinion that Whaley's passenger was someone whose destination was further south on Beckley, someone who thought they could make it to the 500 block on a dollar but had him stop short of it because he was watching the meter and couldn't afford to go any further.
This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Whaley consistently described his passenger's destination as the "500 block", rather than a specific address or name of a business, which one would normally give the cab driver.
More support for my hypothesis comes from Whaley's affidavit that says "the boy got out of the car and walked in front of the cab at an angle SOUTH on Beckley St." ( 21 H 27 ). It becomes obvious from this evidence that the passenger's destination was further south but he may not have had the funds to continue in a taxi.
More importantly, it shows that the passenger was NOT Oswald, whose roominghouse was NORTH of the dropoff point. ( see CE 1119-A, below )
My hypothesis makes a lot more sense than the Commission's version of Oswald taking the cab PAST his roominghouse and walking back to it.
But then again, I'm not trying to prove Oswald guilty, I'm just trying to get to the truth.

If all of this makes sense to you, remember that this is just my opinion based on the evidence.

The Commission dealt with Whaley's selection of Knapp by concluding that Whaley's memory was "inaccurate" as to who he selected in the lineup and its assurance in spite of evidence to the contrary, that "he chose Oswald".
The evidence, however, shows that he never chose Oswald.

Problems with the drop location
Besides the timesheet problem, his failure to describe Oswald's clothing and his selection of the wrong man at the lineup, there's another reason why I believe Whaley's passenger wasn't Oswald.
The main problem with the drop location was the location itself. If Whaley dropped his passenger at the 500 block of North Beckley Ave., it created a timing problem. The passenger could not have walked the five blocks and made it to Oswald's roominghouse before 1pm. The timing would have made it impossible for Oswald to have been that passenger and more importantly, to have been at the Tippit murder scene before 1:15 pm.

His original affidavit indicated that he dropped his passenger off in the 500 block of Beckley. ( 7 H 727, above ) In his March testimony before the Commission, he affirmed that, calling the intersection of Neches and Beckley "the 500 block of Beckley". ( 2 H 258 )

The testified that he dropped his passenger off on the northwest corner of the intersection. ( ibid., pg. 259 )
The timing problem was created during a re-enactment in which Whaley drove from the Greyhound station, where he picked up his passenger, to the 500 block of Beckley.

The trip alone took 9 minutes ( ibid. ).

The FBI knew there was a timing problem so they sent an agent to ride with Whaley over the route.
Lo and Behold, this second re-enactment revealed that Whaley didn't even get to the 500 block of Beckley, that instead he dropped his passenger off at the corner of Neely St. and Beckley, in the 700 block of Beckley. ( 6 H 433 )

This time, the trip took only 5 1/2 minutes. ( ibid., pg. 434 )

The 3 1/2 minute difference made it possible for Whaley's passenger to have walked to Oswald's roominghouse. The walk from the 700 block to the roominghouse took 5 minutes and 45 seconds, ( Report, pg. 650 ) making the whole trip, taxi ride and walk 11 mins. and 15 seconds.

This got Oswald to the roominghouse right at 12:58-1:00 pm range.
But there is another problem, one the Commission never addressed.

During his March 12th testimony, he said that he dropped his passenger on the west side of Beckley and his passenger crossed the street and he didn't see which way he went.
( 2 H 256 )
But if you look at the affidavits listed above, you'll see that in all versions given on the day after the assassination, Whaley swore his passenger crossed over in front of the cab and walked in an angle SOUTH on Beckley.
This is significant because Oswald's rooming house was NORTH of where Whaley let his passenger out.
 

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CONCLUSION
The Commission failed to show why Whaley would have entered a time of 12:30 in his log for a fare that started at 12:47 or 12:48 as it claimed. If Whaley made entries in his log in 15-minute intervals, why was THIS 12:47 fare entered in the log at 12:30-12:45 instead of 12:45-1:00pm ?

Why weren't ALL of the entries in 15 minute intervals ?

And what of Whaley's description of his passenger ?

Even though the man sat in the front seat, Whaley could not identify either of Oswald's work pants as those the passenger wore.
He claimed that the passenger wore BOTH of Oswald's jackets, one over the other.
He went to a live lineup, selected someone other than Oswald, then signed a sworn affidavit that had been altered without reading it first.
And if that wasn't enough, he swore his passenger left the taxi and walked in the OPPOSITE direction of Oswald's rooming house.

How in God's name could any reasonable and prudent person believe that this passenger was Oswald ?

Author/researcher Harold Weisberg summed up Whaley as a witness nicely:
 

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While this "cab ride" continues to be considered historical fact, it's obvious that Oswald was not the passenger Whaley picked up at the Greyhound station. The time was wrong, the clothing was wrong, the destination was wrong and the selection from the lineup was wrong.

The Commission tried to paint Mr. Whaley as some sort of a buffoon who was wrong about the details but ultimately chose Oswald.

Let me say that he was neither a buffoon nor did he choose Oswald. To me, he comes off as a hero in the search for the truth.
He was a veteran cab driver with 37 years of experience shuttling passengers around the streets of Dallas. With that much experience, it's safe to say that he knew the city and its streets. And as any professional would be, he was observant with his passengers.

He wasn't lacking in credibility, he was simply wrong about his passenger being Oswald.

And yet there IS a positive side to his story.
Mr. Whaley's insertion into this case exposed the corruption and dishonesty of the Dallas Police and their framing of Oswald for a crime he did not commit.
From their lies that Oswald didn't want a lawyer to their unfair lineups to their having witnesses sign affidavits before they saw the lineups, his testimony served to reveal the injustice that Oswald suffered after his arrest.
And for that, we can be eternally grateful to him.
 

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Postscript:
On December 18, 1965, Willam Whaley was killed when his taxi was involved in an accident. On Helmer Reenberg's Youtube channel, there is a video of the damage to the taxi as it gets towed away from the scene:
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po0c8uo7Eso

[David Andrews]

More Whaley on film:

 

[Benjamin Cole]

Excellent post from Gil Jesus. We are reminded on just how garbled large portions of witness testimony are regarding the JFKA, and that the Dallas Police Department went into Henry Wade-style prosecution very early on. 

 

 

[Ron Bulman]

I've never read about Oswald getting in the cab at 12:30 or 12:45.  That screws up a lot of stuff.  Time to get on/off the bus.  Even at 12:45 getting to to the rooming house, killing Tippit at 1:05 ish ? Then the Texas Theater, on foot.  Gimmie a break, these horse apples don't work.

[Steve Thomas]

12 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

THE CAB RIDE
 

On November 22, 1963, William Whaley worked for the City Transportation Company as a cab driver. He was a veteran driver with 37 years of experience.

 

i just had a passing thought, apropos of nothing really.

Gary Taylor, who knew Oswald in late, 1962, was also a part-time cab driver on the weekends. I wonder if they knew each other.

Steve Thomas

 

[Chuck Schwartz]

We can add W. Whaley to the list of JFKA witnesses who died an unnatural dealth. As Hale Boggs was reported to have said about the Warren Commission 's conclusions- that dog don't hunt.  Hale Boggs, who was on the Warren Commission, but publicly disagreed with its conclusions died in an airplane accident.

[Gil Jesus]

On 10/23/2021 at 6:24 PM, Gil Jesus said:

 

My Summary:

The Commission's conclusion that Oswald "escaped" the Texas School Book Depository by means of a bus and a taxi was as fake as its evidence.

First of all, a co-worker of Oswald's testified that Oswald's leaving the building at lunchtime was nothing out of the ordinary.

Secondly, the Commission failed to prove that Oswald was definitely on the bus. The bus driver and a teenaged passenger could not identify Oswald as the man who got on and then off the bus. A woman passenger, who the Commission said "positively identified" Oswald, had been a victim of a stroke that obviously affected her memory and perception, making her credibility questionable.

Thirdly, the bus transfer in evidence, that was supposed to have been pre-stamped for 1 o'clock and given to Oswald by the driver, has no such timestamp on it. And it's torn at the bottom to hide whether or not it had a timestamp for another time.

Regardless of who the man was, the bus transfer in evidence is NOT the transfer the driver gave to him.

It's fake.

Fourthly, the Commission failed to prove that Oswald was in the taxi. It claimed that the driver entered times in 15 minute intervals on his log sheet. But the sheet itself proves that was a lie. His time of 12:30-12:45 for this fare means that this passenger could not have been Oswald, who the Commission's timing had assassinating Kennedy and would not have entered the cab until 12:47-48.

In addition, the driver could not describe his passenger's clothing and when he viewed the police lineup, he chose someone other than Oswald.

He testified that although his passenger requested to go to a block that was five blocks south of Oswald's roominghouse, he dropped him off two blocks shy of his destination and swore in his affidavit that his passenger continued walking south when he left the cab. This was the OPPOSITE direction of Oswald's roominghouse.

This is all evidence, in my opinion, that Oswald was NOT the man on the bus or in the taxi.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Gil Jesus

[Pete Mellor]

46 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

My Summary: This is all evidence, in my opinion, that Oswald was NOT the man on the bus or in the taxi.

Great post!  I have had that opinion with Bart Kamp's work too Gil.  Which seems to do away with the need for two Oswalds in the TSBD.

Consequently that leaves us with Roger Craig's i.d. of the man entering the Nash Rambler.

Interested to know if these are your thoughts also.

[Gil Jesus]

3 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Great post!  I have had that opinion with Bart Kamp's work too Gil.  Which seems to do away with the need for two Oswalds in the TSBD.

Consequently that leaves us with Roger Craig's i.d. of the man entering the Nash Rambler.

Interested to know if these are your thoughts also.

Craig wasn't the only one to see a man get into a Nash Rambler wagon.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=73

Edited October 25, 2021 by Gil Jesus

[Greg Doudna]

14 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

My Summary:

The Commission's conclusion that Oswald "escaped" the Texas School Book Depository by means of a bus and a taxi was as fake as its evidence.

First of all, a co-worker of Oswald's testified that Oswald's leaving the building at lunchtime was nothing out of the ordinary.

Secondly, the Commission failed to prove that Oswald was definitely on the bus. The bus driver and a teenaged passenger could not identify Oswald as the man who got on and then off the bus. A woman passenger, who the Commission said "positively identified" Oswald, had been a victim of a stroke that obviously affected her memory and perception, making her credibility questionable.

Thirdly, the bus transfer in evidence, that was supposed to have been pre-stamped for 1 o'clock and given to Oswald by the driver, has no such timestamp on it. And it's torn at the bottom to hide whether or not it had a timestamp for another time.

Regardless of who the man was, the bus transfer in evidence is NOT the transfer the driver gave to him.

It's fake.

Fourthly, the Commission failed to prove that Oswald was in the taxi. It claimed that the driver entered times in 15 minute intervals on his log sheet. But the sheet itself proves that was a lie. His time of 12:30-12:45 for this fare means that this passenger could not have been Oswald, who the Commission's timing had assassinating Kennedy and would not have entered the cab until 12:47-48.

In addition, the driver could not describe his passenger's clothing and when he viewed the police lineup, he chose someone other than Oswald.

He testified that although his passenger requested to go to a block that was five blocks south of Oswald's roominghouse, he dropped him off two blocks shy of his destination and swore in his affidavit that his passenger continued walking south when he left the cab. This was the OPPOSITE direction of Oswald's roominghouse.

This is all evidence, in my opinion, that Oswald was NOT the man on the bus or in the taxi.

I like a lot of your analysis but here is a counterpoint on this particular one, just to give another point of view for consideration.

-- Nothing fake about the bus transfer. He said he pre-prepared them for 1 pm, and that is what that transfer shows. Instead of multiple quarter-hours for which one needs to be punched to identify, he cut off all times below 1 pm itself. The first time at the top of the uncut form, the line for 1 pm, is still remaining. Since that is the only time showing, there was no need to punch it to identify which time that bus transfer was for. Does this reconstruction make sense?

-- The vehicle which Roger Craig and other witnesses saw picking someone up who ran from around behind the TSBD, which Roger Craig said was Oswald, suffers from all of the problems in trusting that identification as you rightly bring out regarding the Tippit killing witnesses. There is a photo of Roger Craig looking at that car and he looks too far away to trust that as a secure identification. There is no question a man ran to the street and got in a car but there is no evidence there was anything sinister or Oswald related about it--lots of people watching the parade that day, somebody may have gotten separated from their ride, ran to the car so as to minimize holding up traffic behind the car, etc. The main problem with the idea of Oswald getting a ride is it makes no sense. To drive him to his rooming house? Then to drive him again to the Texas Theatre so that he could meet a getaway car at the Theatre? Makes no sense. If the car was Oswald's getaway why bother with the rooming house and Texas Theatre at all, since he already is in a getaway car. The car pickup idea also rules out--on no real evidence apart from the questionable Roger Craig distance identification which probably was mistaken--the possibility that Oswald was not part of any conspiracy but realized there had been one and he somehow needed to escape on his own.

-- The planting of the bus ticket by officers on Oswald's person is really a problem and a stretch, not because its absolutely impossible, but because it is so ad hoc and makes little actual sense. First it requires at least one of those officers, plus at least one superior commanding officer, that makes two so far, to be complicit in planting that evidence, and being trusted never to reveal it or talk for the rest of their life. And for what reason or motivation? To remove Oswald having a car ride which would mean he was involved in a conspiracy with others? But a lot of the best researchers think the Oswald-alone idea was not even the original idea, but rather an Oswald-part-of-Cuban-conspiracy was the original idea. But here one has to suppose multiple officers including regular police on the street were involved in planting a bus transfer on Oswald, which is not evidence of guilt, not something that actually matters in incriminating Oswald, but rather far-fetched so as to remove the possibility that he was not on his own. This is just a lot of complexity, and all founded on no substantial evidence.

-- Bledsoe the landlady is admittedly a weak witness but it raises the question, if it wasn't Oswald she saw, how did she get involved in that in the first place. She imagined it on her own? Or was she put up to it? By the same handlers who gave the instructions to plant the bus transfer to the officers searching Oswald? This just gets too complex. Better: he had been her tenant for a week; she recognized him, was not wrong about that. On the torn shirt, that was completely her getting that from the agents showing her that jacket, which she then described in her testimony because she "knew" that was what he had worn. So she was a bit screwed up on her testimony. But her testimony is not necessary to reconstruct Oswald getting the cab that day as his mode of transportation to Oak Cliff.

-- On Whaley and the cab, I am inclined to give a cab driver quite a bit of credibility in identifying a passenger they carried sitting right next to them on the front seat. This is somewhat stronger evidence than eyewitnesses like the Tippit killer eyewitnesses who saw someone a few moments from a distance. As Whaley put it in his testimony and I believe it, as a cab driver it was his habit to quickly look over a new customer carefully, size him up, make a quick judgment before letting him into his cab, as a necessary survival skill. It doesn't matter that there was that business of #2 or #3 in the lineup mixup on the numbers: he never wavered in interviews etc. in saying his passenger was Oswald that he saw on TV. Furthermore his original statement said Oswald was wearing gray pants and I believe he said matching gray jacket but which the original FBI agent mistakenly wrote as "matching (gray) shirt" which was not correct. Later in his Warren Commission testimony Whaley changed the pants color from original gray to "faded blue", then had Oswald wearing his heavy blue jacket over the gray jacket which makes no sense. But that was months later. His original FBI interview had Oswald wearing gray pants and (reconstructed with the FBI report correction) matching gray jacket, pure and simple--which is what Oswald was wearing according to TSBD witnesses and Buell Wesley Frazier. Even in the video of Whaley that David Andrews posted above, right at 0:18 Whaley says "gray work clothes" with no mention of blue--and that video of Whaley was filmed after his WC testimony because elsewhere in that video he refers backward to it as past. I do think he added the "blue" and the "second blue jacket over the first" later, out of some kind of confusion or trying to cooperate or whatever when he was on the spot before the Warren Commission.  

-- On Oswald's movements. Yes Whaley's passenger gets out of the cab away from his rooming house and Whaley sees him walk away in the wrong direction (if it was; in the video he basically has Oswald crossing Beckley to the side of Beckley that the rooming house was up the street, which is not clearly walking away from it). But it is all consistent with Oswald acting evasively consistent with his leaving the TSBD immediately in the first place. That he was acting evasively is clear from how Earlene Roberts saw him standing at the northbound bus stop on Beckley after leaving the rooming house. I interpret that as Oswald knew she could see, knew that she would look and would see, and that was an intentional feint as if he was heading north (which she would report if asked), when actually he headed south when out of her sight, probably taking a bus south to the Texas Theatre.

-- Bottom line: if Oswald had an escape car pick him up, his stops at both the rooming house and then to the Texas Theatre, both alone, make no sense--because he already is in an escape car (if so) which can drive him wherever. Instead Oswald's movements all agree with a lone fugitive, who may or may not have believed he would meet someone in the Theatre. As to who he was running from, and why, those are other questions. 

-- Then there is this, from William Kelly, concerning the Rio Grande Building, 251 N. Field Street. (https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2019/06/view-from-snipers-nest.html )

. . . the Rio Grande building, - which included the Army Intelligence, Secret Service and the Emigration and Naturalization Service, who all shared the same cafeteria where Witt said he learned of the Kennedy’s distaste for umbrellas. Was it someone in cafeteria from Army Intelligence or the Secret Service who told Witt of the meaning of appeasement and symbol of the umbrella? It is a building that Oswald visited a number of times.

Supposedly the bus stop where Oswald walked to get on a bus from the TSBD, was right in front of that Rio Grande building. It has occurred to me--I don't know if to anyone else--that if Oswald had a contact with an agency (as his personal history makes plausible) that contact could well have been located in that Rio Grande building. Maybe he went there not to catch a bus but to try to find someone, then instead got on the bus, then the cab? Who knows. But the evidence that does stand out to me is Earlene seeing him at the rooming house, the Whaley ID outside of the police lineup, the bus transfer, Oswald alone in the theatre, and no evidence of any other travel mechanism to Oak Cliff (long-distance claimed sighting of him getting into a car by a witness who had never seen him before, not good enough). And supposedly he basically confirmed as much to Fritz in questioning, which was likely heard by witnesses in addition to Fritz. 

Anyway this is an alternative point of view on this one from someone who respects your work.

Edited October 26, 2021 by Greg Doudna

[Gil Jesus]

On 10/25/2021 at 9:07 PM, Greg Doudna said:

I like a lot of your analysis but here is a counterpoint on this particular one, just to give another point of view for consideration.

-- Nothing fake about the bus transfer. He said he pre-prepared them for 1 pm, and that is what that transfer shows. Instead of multiple quarter-hours for which one needs to be punched to identify, he cut off all times below 1 pm itself. The first time at the top of the uncut form, the line for 1 pm, is still remaining. Since that is the only time showing, there was no need to punch it to identify which time that bus transfer was for. Does this reconstruction make sense?

 

I'm not aware of testimony that drivers were cutting off sections of the transfer like cutting paper dolls.

I AM aware, however that McWatters said he PUNCHED the transfer for 1 pm.

"I work that run all the time. I PUNCH ( emphasis mine ) at 1 o'clock every day." ( 2 H 285 )

Not cut, not tear, but PUNCH the transfer.

I hope this explains my position a little clearer.

[David Andrews]

The whole point of establishing Oswald's visit at the N. Beckley rooming house would be to make it plausible that he picked up a jacket and a revolver, items needed for fleeing the city.  These points tended to incriminate him for the Tippit shooting, and to suggest he was meeting a contact at Texas Theater.  (The latter suggestion was not followed up by police or the WC.)

So, where do the testimonies and evidence on the visit and the items fit into the plan to frame Oswald?

How much of what we're debating was just police action made up on the fly, like the Bush admin grasping indefensible evidence to support an Iraq invasion?

It's possible that the testimonies and evidence could not be sustained in a legal trial, or even after a discussion between Oswald and a defense attorney - so whatever was made up on the fly may contributed to the need to eliminate Oswald quickly, while he could still be claimed to have been caught red handed, and before any fraud could be detected.

(Edited for clarity)

Edited October 28, 2021 by David Andrews

[Greg Doudna]

4 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

I'm not aware of testimony that drivers were cutting off sections of the transfer like cutting paper dolls.

I AM aware, however that McWatters said he PUNCHED the transfer for 1 pm.

"I work that run all the time. I PUNCH ( emphasis mine ) at 1 o'clock every day." ( 2 H 285 )

Not cut, not tear, but PUNCH the transfer.

I hope this explains my position a little clearer.

I don't follow you here. In reading McWatters' Warren Commission testimony, it is just plain he refers to cutting with a cutter to tell the time, plus two punches, one prepunched on either "AM" or "PM" (punch #1) which with the cutting gives the time, and then at the point the customer gets off and asks for the transfer, a second punch identifying the destination stop (punch #2). That's two punches and one cut for each bus transfer. 

McWatters: "cut your transfers across your cutter ... it is just a little thing that you raise up and down and you can adjust them ... if you wanted at 1:15, 1 'oclock would be across this direction. If you wanted it 1:15 you would cut across this direction ... 10:25, I will just cut it, in other words, cut it across there, and cut it. In other words, it would show at 10:30 ... Yes, sir. In other words, I just reached up on my cutter and just tore off one which is already punched ... It was already punched ..." (pp. 268-269)

You cite McWatters' language of "punching for 1 o'clock" at p. 285 but Mr. Ball of the Warren Commission uses the identical language on the same page you cite, and both McWatters and Mr. Ball are clearly using that language of the bus transfer in evidence-- the very item you are insisting is not "punched at 1 o'clock".

Mr. Ball: "We have a transfer here that you have seen or we will show you in a few minutes as soon as it gets here, which has a punch mark of 1 o'clock" (p. 285).

Mr. Ball: "Now, there are on this transfer two punches, there is one in p.m., and there is marked punch Lakewood. Now, the p.m. refers to the time?" Mr. McWatters: "Yes, sir." (p. 291).

If the bus transfer found on Oswald was different from a normal transfer why does McWatters not seem to notice, and keep identifying it as his transfer he made?

McWatters: "I just punch them p.m. ... so it will be just a straight cut across it ... all I carry are two books of transfers and so I just punch two books p.m., using one going one way at 1 o'clock and the other coming back at 2" (p. 286).

McWatters: "I looked at the transfer and my punch, I said yes, that is the transfer I issued because it had my punch mark on it." Ball: "Did your punch mark have a distinctive mark?" McWatters: "It had a distinctive mark and it is registered, in other words, all the drivers, every driver has a different punch mark" (p. 268).

McWatters: "that punchmark was made by that punch right there." (p. 291) 

Plus, McWatters remembered he only gave one man a bus transfer that afternoon on that line, to a man with physical description given by McWatters in agreement in height and weight with Oswald, a man who got off his bus with that transfer at the same time and location Oswald one or two minutes later got the cab ride from Whaley. The idea of police forging and then planting that bus transfer on Oswald requires Dallas police to have gotten access to McWatters' personal puncher to forge the bus transfer before then going over to plant it on Oswald, and then arrange to have McWatters remember a man matching Oswald's physical description as the one man he gave a transfer to that afternoon at location to the block and time to the minute just before Whaley's cab. No offense intended but this sounds outlandish. What is the point of all this mystification over something that has nothing to do with Oswald's guilt or innocence anyway? 

In other words, you know Oswald ended up in the Texas Theatre. You don't dispute that. And the reason he is in that theatre by himself has to be because he does not have a getaway car driving him. So it is not a matter of if he went to Oak Cliff ending up on his own in that theatre, but how he got there. Why the resistance to the bus and the cab, preferring unbelievable scale of mystification just to get him to the same theatre some other way? What in the end is accomplished by all the mystification? I don't get it.

[Sean Coleman]

 

It’s a beautiful example in near mint condition made of pretty cheap paper that amazingly survived LHO’s ordeal intact…..

[John Butler]

Hmmm?  Let's see.  Two Oswalds at the TSBD.  Two Oswalds leave by different means.  One leaves by get away car and was seen by Roger Craig.  One leaves by bus/taxi at testified by bus and cab driver.

No. No. No.  Roger Craig was not close enough to the vehicle to practically ID Oswald.  No. No. No.  Evidence says that the bus driver and taxi driver testified falsely and other evidence was manipulated.  Two Oswalds leave by unknown means?  One Oswald left by unknown means?  No Oswalds leave the TSBD?

So, the question becomes "How did one or possibly two Oswalds leave the TSBD?"  Did Oswald leap from the 6th floor window and fly away with the pigeons that Officer Baker saw?  

If reasonable people can argue over this. then the cover-up specialists did their job.

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by John Butler