Leading arguments Oswald was innocent/guilty of personally shooting/killing JFK

[Greg Doudna]

Leading arguments Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent/guilty of personally shooting/killing JFK

The following is an attempt to summarize the leading strongest arguments for and against Oswald's culpability as having personally shot/killed JFK, as understood by proponents of each view. The attempt here at the outset is accuracy of description, not assessment. The attempt is to list only arguments for each position considered "strong", not weak arguments or arguments which the best proponents do not or no longer hold because recognized as discredited or abandoned, i.e. this is an attempt to not list straw man issues--only substantial arguments as understood from the point of view of proponents of that point of view--attempts to represent each position in its strongest form. 

The attempt is to clarify thinking and to focus on a paradox. The paradox is this: each list of bullet points, if read by itself, has a number of points which an outsider, if considering only that list in isolation, might reasonably find to be seemingly-strong or compelling arguments. And yet, both lists cannot simultaneously be correct and true. And it is not as if one can profess confusion and assume the truth must be "somewhere in the middle" by combining some of the bullet points of one list with some of the other and come up with a compromise in which Oswald was both wittingly culpable and not wittingly culpable of personally shooting and killing JFK. Like no woman is half-pregnant, It is either one or the other. There is no in-between on this in reality, nor is it an option to say neither is correct (though it is an option to be uncertain or undecided).

The paradox, and the challenge, is: whichever of these two positions is judged correct, the entire list of bullet points (or nearly all of them) on the other list--all of them (or nearly all of them) must be refuted--either contested on the level of fact or have reasonable, simple, plausible alternative explanations offered, across the board, right down the line--for all (or nearly all) of the points in the opposing list.*

(*The reason I qualify "nearly all" instead of necessarily "all" must be refuted in the opposing list is because of acknowledgement that in the real world data is messy and imperfect and sometimes not every data point can be explained, without rising to cause to overthrow a very well-supported opposing conclusion. This is comparable to the phenomenon of rejection of outlier data points in lab data interpretation in cases in which an individual data point is unusual and cannot be replicated or confirmed--even if a cause for error in that data point cannot be discovered.)

Note that the issue is Oswald's guilt or innocence in personally shooting/killing JFK, not whether the assassination was a conspiracy or lone-nut (however much in practice these distinct questions are conflated). As a different project similar lists of bullet points could be constructed for the pro- and con of conspiracy vs. lone-nut interpretation of the case, but that is not the question under consideration and focus here.

Therefore with that preamble here is a "first draft" of two opposing lists of bullet points. Suggestions for additions? Subtractions? Rewordings? 

Leading arguments Oswald was innocent of personally shooting/killing JFK:

• Paraffin cheek test/no gunshot residue--LHO did not fire the assassination rifle, the Mannlicher-Carcano, that day
• Suspected FBI non-disclosure of other exculpatory tests for gunpowder residue on LHO clothing (Pat Speer argument)
• Color of shirt of 6th floor shooter of witnesses differs from color of shirt worn by LHO
• LHO was a known poor shot with a rifle from his military records, consistent with mediocre physical coordination ability test scores of LHO of the Texas Employment Commission of 1962 and 1963
• LHO did not practice with the rifle prior to the assassination. Given that the scope was slightly misaligned practice was essential for accuracy 
• No rifle ammunition or rifle cleaning equipment was found in LHO's belongings, necessary for preparation for assassination
• Any disassembled rifle brought into the TSBD Friday morning could not have been assembled and then fired with accuracy at the JFK limousine without first sighting in the rifle, which is not realistic that LHO was able to have done at the TSBD any time Friday morning
• No prior planning for an assassination of JFK on the part of LHO
• LHO's protestation of innocence after arrest is not in keeping with an ideological killing, yet no motive other than ideological is conceivable for LHO
• LHO's protestation of innocence after arrest was truthful according to voice stress analysis
• LHO was favorable not negative toward JFK according to all who knew him; no hint of animus against JFK on LHO's part
• Almost to a person, those who knew LHO, his friends and coworkers in the Soviet Union and in the US, disbelieved LHO's character was such as to have assassinated JFK. These were not weak defenses but were robust defenses of his personality and character from those who knew him
• LHO was not heard or seen coming down the stairs from the 6th floor after the shots, and according to witnesses could not have
• LHO arrived to the 2nd floor door 90 seconds after the assassination from the opposite side of Truly and officer Baker, not from the stairs side of the door (William Kelly argument), i.e. LHO came to that 2nd floor door up from the 1st floor (not down from the 6th)
• LHO told his interrogators after his arrest that he was "out front with Shelley" at the time of the assassination, and Oswald's presence out front is confirmed by photos, Prayer Man
• [added 2/6/22] LHO told of seeing fellow employees James Jarman and Harold Norman while in the first-floor lunchroom, confirmed from their testimony, supportive of LHO's claim to have been on the first floor 

Leading arguments Oswald was guilty of personally shooting/killing JFK:

• it was LHO's Mannlicher-Carcano which was the assassination rifle from which shots were fired from the TSBD 6th floor
• LHO had access to the 6th floor and was seen on the 6th floor that morning
• a fresh LHO palm print of recent origin (<24 hrs) was found by DPD on a box where the shooter would have sat next to the 6th floor window
• a DPD fingerprint at first unidentified from the trigger guard of the Mannlicher-Carcano, was later identified after more intensive analysis as LHO
• an LHO palmprint and an LHO fingerprint were found by FBI on a box at the 6th floor window used to rest the shooter's rifle above the window ledge
• LHO palm- and fingerprints were found by FBI on a paper bag next to the 6th floor window used to carry the assassination rifle
• a tuft of fibers matching fibers of the shirt worn by LHO at the time of his arrest was found stuck on the butt of the assassination rifle
• LHO's clipboard of work orders that morning was found about a week later on the 6th floor, where it had been last abandoned by LHO
• LHO did not watch the parade like other employees
• LHO's whereabouts unverified at the time of the assassination, despite every TSBD employee being asked
• LHO left the TSBD suddenly following the assassination
• he was evasive in flight from TSBD to the Texas Theatre
• he picked up a revolver in a hurried stop at his rooming house in Oak Cliff for no known reason
• he shot and killed officer Tippit when stopped by that officer on a street in Oak Cliff
• he resisted arrest in the Texas Theatre
• he attempted to shoot an arresting officer
• the evening before, Thursday night, he made an unexpected trip to Irving to see Marina and his children
• LHO left Marina his wedding ring when he left for work Friday morning
• LHO's rifle had been stored in the garage in a blanket, but when Marina showed officers that blanket on Friday the rifle was missing
• LHO carried a long paper bag to work Friday morning of a length he had never carried before
• LHO's explanation of "curtain rods" as the contents of that long paper bag told to Wesley Frazier Friday morning, was bogus
• LHO lied repeatedly to police/FBI after his arrest during interrogation
• LHO carried out a failed assassination attempt on Gen. Walker April 1963, showing capability and mindset of ideological assassination toward a public figure
• According to Marina LHO at other times spoke of killing Nixon and hijacking a plane to Cuba. 
• the Backyard Photos show LHO sympathetic to revolutionary violence for leftist causes
• According to Marina LHO idolized Castro, who was anti-US and had been under attack from the Kennedy administration
• No shooter in the JFK assassination other than LHO has been identified; no other solution to the case has been shown or proven
• [added 2/6/22] argument from statement analysis (a claimed forensic method) that LHO under interrogation showed consciousness of guilt

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Greg Doudna
2/6/22--added one additional item to each column

[Joseph McBride]

Bottom line, which you obfuscate: Oswald did not own

the Mannlicher-Carcano entered into what he aptly called the "so-called evidence."

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Joseph McBride said:

Bottom line, which you obfuscate: Oswald did not own

the Mannlicher-Carcano entered into what he aptly called the "so-called evidence."

How so? What exactly is missing from the "Oswald innocence" list of points that should be there?

As you may know I have elsewhere explained I accept, after reading George Evica, And We Are All Mortal, 252-53, also drawing on Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, 296-302, that Oswald ordered that rifle related to undercover investigation of the Dodd subcommittee on mail-order weapons and right-wing groups. That just makes a lot of sense to me, a satisfying explanation for why he was ordering mail-order in the first place across state lines, and getting mixed up with extremist right-wing groups which Michael Paine has said he understood directly from what Oswald told him was Oswald "spying" (Michael Paine used that word) on such groups. I think Oswald may have had an informant relationship with Dallas ATF of the Treasury Department. (If not mistaken I think ATF's office may have been located practically next door to the TSBD [that would also explain why seven ATF agents were the first law enforcement officers at TSBD so quickly following the assassination].) I have separately argued that Oswald had the original scope reinstalled on that rifle by a gunsmith in Irving on Nov 11; sold or conveyed the rifle in Oak Cliff on Nov 21; the rifle entered the TSBD without Oswald's knowledge the night of Nov 21; and Oswald did not fire the rifle on Nov 22.

I suppose it is theoretically possible to argue that all of the documentary and photographic evidence and witness testimonies that Oswald had a rifle are fabricated in their entirety. But going beyond that, what convinced you Oswald did not or could not have owned or possessed the Mannlicher-Carcano of the 6th floor?

I checked your Into the Nightmare (2013) to find the answer to that question and found the issue addressed on pp. 196-98. There you call into question the documentation associating Oswald with the rifle order and conclude with uncertainty (bolding is my added throughout):

"The question of Oswald's ownership of the Mannlicher-Carcano is seriously in doubt."

Which becomes a conclusion in the negative at pp. 406-407, where you also go through the case for a Dodd subcommittee connection to Oswald mail-ordering the rifle:

"[Peter Dale] Scott and other researchers have suggested that Oswald's work in passing information to the FBI, whether as a designated informant or in another capacity, may have been focused on the gunrunning activities of Alpha 66, which were also of serious concern to the Treasury Department's investigators of illegal firearms traffic, and to U.S. Senator Thomas Dodd (D-Connecticut), a former FBI agent, and his Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The subcommittee was investigating the mail-order trade in weapons and 'so-called "junk" guns that foreign governments have found obsolete.' Newcomb and Adams, in their groundbreaking 1974 Kennedy assassination book Murder from Within, were the first to speculate that Oswald's reported purchases of a mail-order handgun and an Italian-made 'junk' rifle were part of the clandestine investigation of Senator Dodd, who in the fall of 1962 was collecting data for an investigation on such sales that eventually led to the Gun Control Act of 1968.

"Among the mail-order weapons suppliers Dodd's subcommittee and Treasury had under investigation were Klein's Sporting Goods of Chicago and Seaport Traders of Los Angeles. The Warren Commission alleged that Oswald used the alias of 'A. J. Hidell' or 'A. Hidell' to purchase, by mail order, a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (from Klein's) and a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver (from Seaport Traders). The documents involved in these purchases are among the primary items of 'so-called evidence' used to link Oswald with the assassination. But as Armstrong's Harvey & Lee exhaustively demonstrates, the document trail introduced by the commission to demonstrate Oswald's supposed purchases of the handgun allegedly used to kill Tippit and the rifle allegedly used to kill Kennedy is so faulty that it tends to show the opposite, i.e., that Oswald could not have purchased or received those weapons. As has often been pointed out, it would have been unlikely, and foolish in the extreme, for someone seriously planning to assassinate the president to use potentially traceable mail orders rather than simply buying weapons over the counter anonymous, as was easy to do in Dallas gunshops at that time. But the hypothesis that Oswald could have purchased those weapons as part of the Dodd subcommittee's investigation of the mail-order firearms trade, not realizing that he was helping to set himself up as a patsy in the murders of Kennedy and Tippit, is questionable in the light of the flawed paper trail. Since it seems impossible that Oswald actually made the purchases of the rifle and the handgun, if Oswald was actually working for that subcommittee (although that in itself has not been proven), someone who knew of his involvement with the Dodd investigation and the mail-order weapons trade would have had to fabricate his alleged orders to help set him up for the assassination and the killing of Tippit."

While there are anomalies in the paperwork (perhaps intentional probes testing whether regulations were being followed?), and something going on with Post Office surveillance of Oswald's mail and missing documentation related thereto, I do not see that logically means therefore there was no rifle, or that therefore Oswald was not involved with the Dodd subcommittee. I do not see how those conclusions follow from the facts cited. (Also, while I think Oswald was set up as a patsy in the JFK assassination, for reasons discussed elsewhere I do not think Oswald was set up in advance on or otherwise had anything to do with the Tippit killing.) It is not just Klein's reporting of their records. It is also the Backyard Photos; both DeMohrenschildts present in the Oswalds' apartment the evening Jeanne saw the rifle; Michael Paine telling that Oswald showing him a BYP; and all Marina said who was perhaps more involved in the mail-ordering of the rifle than she wished to reveal (for understandable reasons). Marina insists to the present day, swears to the present day that it is really true that she personally took the Backyard Photos. Oswald thumbed through magazines talking about mail-order guns while next door to Reilly's Coffee in New Orleans, perhaps as part of informant work. Oswald mentioned to a young woman in New Orleans that he liked the US because people were free to own rifles unlike in the Soviet Union. Laura Kittrell of the Texas Employment Commission said Oswald talked about guns to her, while admitting to her that he himself was actually a poor shot with a rifle when she told him his mediocre physical coordination scores after a test, which in Kittrell's experience correlated to men being poor shots with firearms.

So I do not see any obvious evidence for what you seem to consider certain and fault me for not also likewise, that "Oswald did not own the Mannlicher-Carcano". If there was an actual argument that Oswald could not have ever possessed or owned that particular rifle--an exculpatory argument of that nature--that would be a different matter, and I would add a bullet point to that point on the "Oswald innocence" side. But I do not see where that exists, or that that has been argued in any serious or substantial way in the existing literature. I also do not see it as necessary to the issue of Oswald's innocence--to the contrary, in my theory of the case Oswald's connection to that rifle is why that rifle was there on the 6th floor so that "communist" Oswald would be blamed for having supplied that rifle in what appears originally to have been an attempt to blame Castro for the assassination as casus bellus for an attack on Cuba.

[Chuck Schwartz]

I do not think that the manlicher carcano was the assassination rifle. And, I do not believe the other points that you believe to show LHO as guilty.

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Chuck Schwartz said:

I do not think that the manlicher carcano was the assassination rifle. And, I do not believe the other points that you believe to show LHO as guilty.

I think there is a misunderstanding. I do not believe those points show Oswald guilty. I am attempting to accurately list the leading reasons that those who believe Oswald is guilty believe show Oswald is guilty. Do you think the list is inaccurate in representing the key arguments from the point of view of those who hold that position? 

On terming the Mannlicher-Carcano the "assassination rifle" I am meaning in the sense of the rifle which either was fired from the sixth floor window or is represented as having been fired from the sixth floor, the evidence rifle, the rifle found on the sixth floor central to the assassination narrative. Do you have a better term for that rifle? Or are you supposing the Mannlicher-Carcano evidence rifle never was on the 6th floor? Care to elaborate?

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Claude Barnabe]

Greg,

  Your topic presents an either/or scenario, there's another option: he was involved but did not shoot.

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Claude Barnabe said:

Greg,

  Your topic presents an either/or scenario, there's another option: he was involved but did not shoot.

You make a good point Claude, but that option would be included in the "innocent of personally shooting/killing JFK", in the binary. I purposely framed the wording that way to focus on the up or down question of whether Oswald fired shots at JFK that day, an up or down factual issue, a true binary with no third option.

You are completely correct that there are any number of scenarios or possibilities in which Oswald could have been involved, including criminally, in the JFK assassination, as an accomplice, an accessory, or whatever, without having been a shooter. Exculpation of Oswald from having been the shooter--if that column of argument is the correct one--does not in principle exculpate Oswald from all other conceivable relations he could have had to the killing of JFK. Those are separate issues. 

Speaking of the question of whether Oswald was "innocent or guilty of personally shooting/killing JFK" being a true binary: in which column would a hypothetical proposal that Oswald fired shots but it could be proven he fired into the air in a different direction with no intent to murder, and was not otherwise party to anyone else attempting to murder JFK? I would call that in the category of "innocent" of personally shooting/killing JFK". "Personally shooting/killing JFK" in my meaning does not require killing JFK or even hitting JFK but it does minimally require shooting at JFK with intent to hit him, and if it could be proven that that intent was actually missing (even though he shot), that would be exculpatory to the specific question asked, and in the innocent column.

So I think the question as framed, so far as I can tell, does fall into a true binary, either-or, no third option. 

[Claude Barnabe]

That said. IMHO all available evidence since the publication of the WC report (that includes a multitude of topics on this forum) points to LHO NOT the shooter.

[Joe Bauer]

Oswald had a propensity for reading.

He was constantly checking out library books and actually reading them. From a young age.

Marina testified that Lee read constantly during their marriage. He read newspapers more than just the sports pages.

Even though his literary interests were less than broad and well rounded, he obviously was still pretty bright. And clear headed as well.

In Oswald's Summer of 1963 New Orleans radio and I think even TV appearance, he was calm and well spoken. 

He even taught himself the Russian language?

My point here is this.

When Oswald yelled out to the press crowd in the DPD hallways the evening of 11,22,1963 "I am just a patsy" as he was being forcibly pulled away my sense tells me that he didn't say this generally weak guilt denying excuse out of some spontaneous unthinking desperation.

I believe intelligent Oswald knew exactly what those words meant.

They meant that Oswald felt he was set up!

Oswald knew that he had been had ... and I believe he knew by whom.

If I was in charge of interrogating Oswald I would have grilled him heavily regards his "I am just a patsy" public pronouncement.

"Why would you say this specific claim?"

Patsies are set up by others. Who set you up Lee?"

Did Captain Will Fritz seriously follow up on Oswald's unusual patsy claim?

When a murder suspect never waivers from his claim of innocence under what must have been extraordinary heavy pressure for hours and even days and you don't have any eyewitness testimony or hard physical evidence, how could Will Fritz loudly boast to the press ..."This case is cinched!" after just two days of investigation?

When the physical evidence sent off to the FBI hadn't even been thoroughly checked out and returned?

A really good defense attorney would have successfully instilled reasonable doubt in the minds of at least some jurors in an Oswald murder trial I'm convinced.

Unless that jury was tainted from the start.

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Greg Doudna]

3 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

When Oswald yelled out to the press crowd in the DPD hallways the evening of 11,22,1963 "I am just a patsy" as he was being forcibly pulled away my sense tells me that he didn't say this generally weak guilt denying excuse out of some spontaneous unthinking desperation.

I believe intelligent Oswald knew exactly what those words meant.

They meant that Oswald felt he was set up!

Oswald knew that he had been had ... and I believe he knew by whom.

If I was in charge of interrogating Oswald I would have grilled him heavily regards his "I am just a patsy" public pronouncement.

"Why would you say this specific claim?"

Patsies are set up by others. Who set you up Lee?"

Did Captain Will Fritz seriously follow up on Oswald's unusual patsy claim?

When a murder suspect never waivers from his claim of innocence under what must have been extraordinary heavy pressure for hours and even days and you don't have any eyewitness testimony or hard physical evidence, how could Will Fritz loudly boast to the press ..."This case is cinched!" after just two days of investigation?

When the physical evidence hasn't even been checked out yet and returned by the FBI?

Well said. The rest of the world saw a very suspicious murder of a president, with what appeared to be a low-level intelligence-operative aura patsy functioning to blame the assassination on the single most prominent target of US policy for regime overthrow (Castro in Cuba), in a context of repeated planning at top levels for US-govt covert planned, aided and designed public atrocities or spectacles to be falsely blamed on the target for regime change, followed immediately by what looked for all the world like a Mob hit on the patsy before he could come to trial, followed by policy from the top directing an outcome of an investigation which was to find the patsy acted alone. The strength of the case for Oswald's innocence as a shooter of JFK is (a) the strength of the exculpatory items combined with (b) demonstration of Oswald exoneration in the Tippit killing and (c) removal of confidence that Oswald intended murder in the Walker shooting in light of credible cause to suppose it was a fake murder attempt for publicity purposes on the part of Walker.

The difficult areas in the case for Oswald's innocence as shooter in the JFK case seem to be in the areas of physical evidence, lack of demonstration of an alternative solution to the crime, and why was Oswald untruthful on some matters when interrogated after arrest.

The physical evidence issues may be less formidable than they seem in the JFK case, if the theory is adopted that the mechanism for making Oswald a patsy was not so complicated--all it took was arrange to obtain Oswald's rifle prior to the assassination and have it conveyed to and used on the 6th floor at the time of the assassination; the actual assassins successfully escape; and Oswald killed immediately afterward. In that theory of the case the physical evidence issues reduce significantly to a few key things which may be resolved in terms of corruption of evidence in the Dallas Police crime lab with focus on the actions of essentially one figure, Lt. Day. (No corruption in the FBI lab's analysis of physical evidence need be supposed.)

[Joe Bauer]

If there were others above and involved with Oswald in the JFK event they must have been having absolute heart pounding panic attacks not just because Oswald survived not being killed right away but even more so when he actually shouted to the world press "I am just a patsy." 

Killing Oswald ( even while he was in police custody ) must have been the highest and most desperate priority action of their own lives.

One of Jack Ruby's early jail visitors after his arrest was who?

Head of the Dallas Mafia? Joe Campisi.

I could see Ruby wanting to see his sister, his Rabbi, maybe George Senator?

Maybe a couple of his stripper girls who actually liked him. Maybe his loyal Carousel Club clean up man? But Joe Campisi?

And you'd think a high profile criminal suspect figure like Campisi wouldn't want to be seen within 10 miles of the now world known killer Jack Ruby. He sure wouldn't want that kind of association publicity. 

Campisi stated to the FBI that Dallas County Sheriff Bill Decker actually contacted him and asked him to visit Ruby in his jail cell! What was that all about?

 

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Greg Doudna writes:

Quote

the mechanism for making Oswald a patsy was not so complicated--all it took was arrange to obtain Oswald's rifle prior to the assassination and have it conveyed to and used on the 6th floor at the time of the assassination; the actual assassins successfully escape; and Oswald killed immediately afterward.

That's a good point, well explained. You could make things even simpler by omitting the final stage: "and Oswald killed immediately afterward".

If we suppose that Oswald didn't know anything about the shooting, there would have been no need to eliminate him for that reason: he would have had no beans to spill.

Since Oswald's actual elimination took place when he was in the custody of the Dallas police, the obvious explanation is that he was eliminated to prevent him contradicting either of the two scenarios that required his involvement: the lone-nut scenario and the Cuban or Soviet communist conspiracy scenario.

Once Oswald was out of the way, it would be easy to suppress his alibi (that he was on the ground floor during the assassination, and "went outside to watch the P. Parade"). We know that his alibi was in fact suppressed, largely by the police and the FBI, and misrepresented by the Warren Commission.

In general, the less evidence that needs to be explained away as faked or falsified, the more credible one's theory of the assassination will be, and the more likely the theory is to be accurate. The rifle purchase can be explained as part of the Dodd subcommittee's work, and the backyard photographs can be explained as Oswald's creation of a legend for himself. Maybe one or both of these items of evidence were in fact faked, and conclusive proof of this will one day emerge, but it isn't necessary for them to have been faked.

The same principle applies, but even more so, to the far-fetched, tin-foil-hat variety of explanations that the JFK assassination seems to attract. You can have Oswald being impersonated in the run-up to the assassination without inventing a bizarre long-term scheme involving doppelgangers. You can have official interference at JFK's autopsy without inventing body-snatchers on Air Force One and a secret team of surgeons manipulating JFK's wounds at Walter Reed. You don't need to invent the widespread alteration of films and photographs, or the murders of dozens of inconvenient witnesses.

The fewer far-fetched elements one proposes, the more credible one's explanation becomes. And, more importantly, the less tin-foil-hatty the whole subject of the assassination becomes for the general public, which in my opinion would be a good thing.

[Claude Barnabe]

Any declaration of LHO's innocence requires an explanation of the following events:

a) he brought a package to work that morning and it was NOT curtain rods

b) he did NOT bring a lunch, which was his routine and part of being frugal

c) he did NO work that morning, his clipboard was empty

d) he left Marina $170 cash along with his wedding ring

e) he wore his Marine Corps ring in lieu of his wedding ring

All of the above events are stated in the Warren report

[Joe Bauer]

4 hours ago, Claude Barnabe said:

Any declaration of LHO's innocence requires an explanation of the following events:

a) he brought a package to work that morning and it was NOT curtain rods

b) he did NOT bring a lunch, which was his routine and part of being frugal

c) he did NO work that morning, his clipboard was empty

d) he left Marina $170 cash along with his wedding ring

e) he wore his Marine Corps ring in lieu of his wedding ring

All of the above events are stated in the Warren report

Tough facts of at least some inferred guilt implication on Oswald's part to get around Claude.

However, isn't the larger question ( assuming Oswald had a part in the shooting ) whether or not there were others involved with Oswald?

Think of the incredible amount of extremely lucky circumstances that allowed Oswald to do what he supposedly did at 12:30 PM on 11, 22, 1963.

He was able to be allowed to visit and spend the night with Marina at Ruth Paine's house in Irving on a day Ruth, Marina and Lee had agreed he wouldn't and without any firm resistance by Ruth. Did Ruth ever share Oswald's stated reason for breaking this agreement? Or why she didn't protest?

On top of this singular agreement breach luckily without Ruth's denying his stay, Lee also got lucky in getting away with sneaking into Ruth's garage without her noticing ( even while she was in the house ) to retrieve and wrap up his rifle? And then walk out with it the next morning to go to Buell Frazier's house.

Luckily, B. Frazier didn't press Oswald too hard on the unusual package. 

Then again, Oswald got lucky in being able to get the wrapped package into the TXSBD and quickly up to the 6th floor to hide it, again without anyone stopping him to ask what he was carrying or why he went straight up to the 6th floor before going back down to the first floor to get his order pad and work order?

The luck continues in that during many minutes before, up to and during the shooting, not one other employee just happened to have sauntered up to sixth floor. Perhaps to get a wide open birds eye view of the JFK motorcade?

And one of the luckiest breaks for Oswald was JFK's motorcade passing right underneath his workplace. A work place perfectly suited for a sniper in it's turkey shoot higher up, left alone location and physical set up.

Then, Oswald get's shooting lucky in hitting a bullseye onto JFK's 10 inch wide head target at 265 feet away and which is moving away from him at 11 mph, down an incline and side to side with JFK moving/turning his head toward Jackie right after he is first shot. A bullseye shot that almost every top marksmen in the world of known experts could not duplicate.

Oswald gets lucky again in being noticed but let go by a gun pointing DPD officer in the 2nd floor lunch room. Lucky again in being able to just walk away unnoticed from the TXSBD and making it back to his room using public bus and private taxi transportation?

Oswald's luck finally ran out when and if he had it out with Officer J.D. Tippit and then had an army of DP forces swoop down on him in the Texas theater.

The luckiness of Oswald having the absolute perfect location to shoot the President is the most suspicious one imo.

Oh, and the luckiness of absolutely no one checking higher up open windows on the parade route, or having anyone on any rooftops next to the parade route for sniper security.

Innocent bystanders on the street below the TXSBD, just by looking around in idle curiosity or boredom spot a rifle holding man or men in a high floor window of the TXSBD building ( Arnold Rowland, Carolyn Walther ) but not one assigned security person spots this?

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Claude Barnabe said:

Any declaration of LHO's innocence requires an explanation of the following events:

a) he brought a package to work that morning and it was NOT curtain rods

b) he did NOT bring a lunch, which was his routine and part of being frugal

c) he did NO work that morning, his clipboard was empty

d) he left Marina $170 cash along with his wedding ring

e) he wore his Marine Corps ring in lieu of his wedding ring

All of the above events are stated in the Warren report

a) See Pat Speer's argument "4g: "Curtain rod story", starting p. 49 to end of p. 174 (if your printout pagination is the same as mine): https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4g-thoughts-on-shots-and-the-curtain-rod-story. Speer argues Oswald did carry curtain rods obtained from Ruth Paine's garage that morning. It is established as an uncontested fact from the Warren Commission exhibits that there did exist curtain rods in Ruth Paine's garage of exactly the length that Wesley Frazier and his sister Linnie said was the size of the package Lee was carrying; it is established from photographs from the day or day after the assassination that the curtain rods in Oswald's room n Oak Cliff were badly bent (Speer suggests Oswald needed curtain rods to replace his own accidental damage to them); and it is signed on a document that in March 1964 two curtain rods had been turned in to Lt. Day of the Dallas Police crime lab for fingerprinting from unknown find-origin a week before two (other?) curtain rods were retrieved from Ruth Paine's garage and (secondarily?) identified as the same two turned in to Lt. Day a week earlier. The Bugliosi et al explanation that the date incongruity was a mistake would be more convincing if it were only that document, but it occurs in a context of other alteration of dates on related documents which have to be seen to be believed. 

b) He also did not eat anything before leaving the house, according to Marina. Marina and Ruth found only the remains of a paper cup of instant coffee he had made before leaving. And as you note he did not take a lunch according to Frazier. One explanation for this could be he had a meeting near to the TSBD that involved food that morning.

c) see "b".

d) The $170 cash may or may not have been left the night before, that is not clear. The amount corresponds well to a check remembered as in the amount of $187 which Hutchison of Hutch's grocery in Irving said Oswald had unsuccessfully tried to cash at his store, which was on Fri Nov 8. If Oswald did find a way to cash that check somewhere else that weekend that could be the source of the $170 cash which Marina still had on Nov 22. Leaving the wedding ring Friday morning is true but it also occurred in a context in which, according to Marina, Oswald had tried hard to convince her to move into an apartment with him in Dallas immediately, that weekend, and Marina had refused. Marina says she told him "not till after Christmas", which could be read as other language for Marina did not intend to return to him at all, or was considering that. One suggestion, as reasonable as any other, is that Oswald, fearing he was losing his wife (though still hoping to turn things around with Marina in time to come) left his wedding ring as some gesture in the context of this frustrating marital discussion.

e) didn't he always wear his Marina Corps ring?