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

[Denny Zartman]

I always appreciate your insight, @Joe Bauer. Great post.

[Greg Doudna]

Joe B., sorry to hear of the description of your father. One of the truly capricious things about this universe, we get dealt a hand of cards starting into this life. Some people are ruined, some break cycles. My father grew up in an impoverished rural, backward environment with a mother's death at an early age and a father who was abusive and mean, and told my brother and me as small children many times how much he loved us and had resolved as a child he was going to do it differently when he had children. (For him, his way out was the Army.) It is obvious to me from reading your posts for some time that you have a compassion for other human beings that I can't help but think was forged out of those early years for you. Also if you do not already have a track record of writing for publication I think you may have missed your calling. Enough of that but just wanted you to know it resonated.

On the lack of tape recording or stenographer during Oswald's many hours and three days of questioning, you are right that is just almost impossible to believe. It is so unbelievable it could be an argument that some recording must have been done although none has ever been produced or confirmed beyond the level of rumor. But none officially was done and perhaps none actually was done, and why? I think of that Warren Commission executive session in which no stenographer was to take down a transcription, to have no record for some reason of choice, perhaps the same with Oswald, and about the only reason that would account for that would be the still-murky areas of Oswald's possible intelligence agency history and relationships.

Your comments raise this question: surely among all the persons involved with the Oswald interrogations at the Dallas Police building, someone must have raised the suggestion or question of would it maybe be a good idea to borrow a tape recorder to run quietly or covertly in the background? Given how utterly historically significant it was, who would say "no" to that idea unless there was instruction from higher authority to say "no"? Sheer common sense says someone must have asked, and someone else must have answered "no", but from how high and from whom would a decision to say "no" to a tape recorder have been decided?

From what I have read Fritz never talked publicly, never gave interviews, never gave a lecture, never wrote, about the JFK assassination or his weekend questioning Oswald, for the rest of his life, apart from his police reports and testimony. Here is author George O'Toole in 1973. Most other members of the Dallas police O'Toole called talked to him. O'Toole had been told (wrongly) by officer Gerald Hill that Fritz never used a polygraph and did not believe in using polygraphs. That did not sound right to O'Toole (it wasn't) and O'Toole wanted to ask Fritz about that.

"Fritz lives in retirement n a downtown Dallas hotel. The switchboard put me through to him. Captain Fritz was polite but firm. He said he had never given an interview on the subject of the assassination, and he didn't want to start now. I considered saying I just wanted to know what he thought of the polygraph, but it sounded crazy, so I decided not to."   

[Denny Zartman]

Greg, that makes no sense. Why would the Dallas police ever want a recording of their interrogation techniques? They were ready to beat a confession out of Wes Frazier.

[Greg Doudna]

25 minutes ago, Denny Zartman said:

Greg, that makes no sense. Why would the Dallas police ever want a recording of their interrogation techniques? They were ready to beat a confession out of Wes Frazier.

Well, they weren't beating Oswald when he was in jail and at the police station, but still, good point. The usual procedure seems to have been for Fritz to work a suspect to the point of getting a confession, at which he was very good at doing, and at that point a stenographer might be activated and a statement prepared for the suspect to sign. Greg Parker's discussions of the "Reid technique" used in police interrogations to get those confessions make sense as the m.o., and some of those manipulative techniques probably were best done without recordings that risked getting into the hands of defense attorneys who could use those recordings against them. In this light the lack of tape recording of Oswald is not complicated to understand, simply usual procedure.  

But note that when the Secret Service sequestered Marina at the Six Flags Inn and questioned her, that was done with a visible tape recorder running from which transcripts were prepared and exist today.  

Part of the "Reid technique" which is so fascinating is purposeful tactics to delay or stall arrival of a lawyer for the suspect (who will advise clients to stop talking and gum up everything), seen in the case of Oswald, and also the way the suspect is both battered psychologically with facts and inconsistencies, then presented with a scenario in which the interrogator offers a sympathetic face-saving explanation as if "understanding why" the suspect had no choice but to do <heinous crime whatever>. The suspect weakens, embraces the lifeline of the empathetic interrogator who seems to be on his side understanding what he was going through until he just snapped and did <heinous crime whatever> . . . and the trap is sprung. It wasn't even beginning to be working on Oswald though.

[Robin Finn]

Harrison Livingstone wrote in one of his books on the assassination about the rumor in Dallas that Fritz had recorded the interrogation. Here is his note on the information:

 

[Greg Doudna]

12 hours ago, Robin Finn said:

Harrison Livingstone wrote in one of his books on the assassination about the rumor in Dallas that Fritz had recorded the interrogation. Here is his note on the information:

 

Very interesting Robert. It sounds believable, and yet--if only there were a way to rule out that this is not some "urban legend" genre of story circulating among assassination conspiracy researchers. To my knowledge the identities of the researchers, the friend, and the wife of the friend, remain unknown. If they were for real, would not one of the researchers have come forth with specifics as to names, date and details of the interview, exact quotes, to the best of their knowledge?

[Greg Doudna]

On 2/3/2022 at 8:42 AM, Pete Mellor said:

Over recent months I have enjoyed many of the threads that Greg has launched on this Forum, this latest one being another.

Not sure how this entry can be reworded and kept brief, but we know that many witnesses in the plaza prior to the motorcade's arrival witnessed more than a single shooter as well as differences in LHO's shirt colour, there were differences in hair and skin colour i.e.:-

Arnold & Barbara Rowland saw a man with a rifle in the far west window of 6th floor TSBD + elderly black man with plaid shirt in eastern most window.

Carolyn Walther saw two men on the 4th or 5th floor. One man wearing white shirt with blond or light brown hair with rifle + other man with brown suit coat.

Richard Carr saw man on 6th floor wearing brown/tan sport coat, heavyset with horn-rimmed glasses.

John Powell + many inmates on the 6th floor of the County jail, directly opposite the TSBD, saw two men, one with rifle, both wearing brownish looking clothes.

I may stand corrected but I believe none of the above were considered by the Warren Commission.

I also agree with Joe's post above that Ruby's snuffing out of Oswald was a tragic security failure by the DPD.  However, I consider THE major failure of the DPD over that weekend to be the failure to record all the interrogations of the accused assassin.  How different would be our considerations of this case, if instead of the scribbled notes of questions and answers that only appeared decades after the event, instead we could fully listen to what was spoken.

The above thought struck me just the other night when U.K. tv aired 'In the heat of the night' following the recent passing of Sidney Poitier.  The movie was released in 1967, set in a small dusty cotton town of Sparta, Mississippi.  A murder mystery with the killing of wealthy Philip Colbert, investigated by Police Chief Gillespie (Rod Steiger) and Virgil Tibbs (Poitier).  A great movie with a great sound track by Quincy Jones!  But what struck me was when the killer was finally exposed by Tibbs and the cops were getting Ralph's confession in Gillespie's office, the confession was taken with a tape recorder.  Yet, the big city of Dallas, Texas, handling the murder of the president did not have access to, or could not provide such a device.  Even I had a small portable reel to reel Japanese tape recorder in '67.

Thanks Pete--on the witnesses' argument, Arnold Rowland is credible to me regarding the man with the rifle at the west end of the 6^th floor but I cannot help but think to the east he saw one of the black employees on the 5th floor, removing that claim that there was a black person or any second person associated with the shooting seen by him. Carolyn Walther saw two men at one window, one with a rifle, but insisted it was lower than the sixth floor, but perhaps she was wrong on the floor level despite her insistence. John Powell of the sixth floor county jail in a position to see directly across to the sixth floor of TSBD would appear as credible as any other single witness if it were not for the slight weakening factors that his story first came to light fifteen years later and some would use his criminal record against him. He said he saw two persons with one rifle in the 6th floor window. A third witness to two persons at the 6th floor east window was Mrs. Ruby Henderson, who thought one of the two was darker in complexion, perhaps Latin, and did not notice the complexion of the other nor did she see a rifle--was that another sighting of 5th-floor employees mistaken for 6th floor? Are those witnesses sufficient to establish that there were two and not one on the 6th floor involved with the shooting that day? I don't know.

Yet two persons does not materially bear on the issue of whether Oswald was one of them. So the argument for two persons at the 6th floor I do not think can be listed as an additional possible item in the "argument for Oswald's innocence" column.

I see one additional point to be added to each of the two columns however. On the "innocence" side, the argument that Oswald described seeing two specific black employees, James Jarman and Harold Norman, pass through the first-floor lunchroom (not a claim to have eaten with them; Oswald was remembered as usually eating alone on all days), corresponding to those employees' testimonies, an argument in support of Oswald's claim to have been on the first floor not shooting on the sixth floor. (http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-alibi)

On the "guilt" side an argument from what is called "statement analysis" which is a claim of a forensic method to detect truth and deception from the way statements are expressed: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=https%3B%2F%2Fstatementanalysis.com%2Fcases%2Flee-harvey-oswald%2F&t=osx&ia=web. The weak point here is the statement analysis is done on the basis of Mae Brussel's compilation of "The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald" based on the Fritz, Hosty, Bookhout, and Holmes hearsay reports. These all heavily involve paraphrasing Oswald's words with no security of exact quotes, yet statement analysis is based on seeing meanings and nuances in fine points in the way wordings are expressed. Underneath the question of validity of the database there is the question of how secure is the validity of the method scientifically. Still it makes some points of interest. 

[Joe Bauer]

9 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

 

Thanks Pete--on the witnesses' argument, Arnold Rowland is credible to me regarding the man with the rifle at the west end of the 6^th floor but I cannot help but think to the east he saw one of the black employees on the 5th floor, removing that claim that there was a black person or any second person associated with the shooting seen by him. Carolyn Walther saw two men at one window, one with a rifle, but insisted it was lower than the sixth floor, but perhaps she was wrong on the floor level despite her insistence. John Powell of the sixth floor county jail in a position to see directly across to the sixth floor of TSBD would appear as credible as any other single witness if it were not for the slight weakening factors that his story first came to light fifteen years later and some would use his criminal record against him. He said he saw two persons with one rifle in the 6th floor window. A third witness to two persons at the 6th floor east window was Mrs. Ruby Henderson, who thought one of the two was darker in complexion, perhaps Latin, and did not notice the complexion of the other nor did she see a rifle--was that another sighting of 5th-floor employees mistaken for 6th floor? Are those witnesses sufficient to establish that there were two and not one on the 6th floor involved with the shooting that day? I don't know.

Yet two persons does not materially bear on the issue of whether Oswald was one of them. So the argument for two persons at the 6th floor I do not think can be listed as an additional possible item in the "argument for Oswald's innocence" column.

I see one additional point to be added to each of the two columns however. On the "innocence" side, the argument that Oswald described seeing two specific black employees, James Jarman and Harold Norman, pass through the first-floor lunchroom (not a claim to have eaten with them; Oswald was remembered as usually eating alone on all days), corresponding to those employees' testimonies, an argument in support of Oswald's claim to have been on the first floor not shooting on the sixth floor. (http://22november1963.org.uk/lee-harvey-oswald-alibi)

On the "guilt" side an argument from what is called "statement analysis" which is a claim of a forensic method to detect truth and deception from the way statements are expressed: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=https%3B%2F%2Fstatementanalysis.com%2Fcases%2Flee-harvey-oswald%2F&t=osx&ia=web. The weak point here is the statement analysis is done on the basis of Mae Brussel's compilation of "The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald" based on the Fritz, Hosty, Bookhout, and Holmes hearsay reports. These all heavily involve paraphrasing Oswald's words with no security of exact quotes, yet statement analysis is based on seeing meanings and nuances in fine points in the way wordings are expressed. Underneath the question of validity of the database there is the question of how secure is the validity of the method scientifically. Still it makes some points of interest. 

Interesting points for sure. Agree with your take on Mae Brussel's "Last Words Of Lee Harvey Oswald" compilation. 

Oswald lied a lot. We know that. But without an official notary record or tape recorded record, we can never be sure that what his interrogators presented for the record was totally honest, and "especially" what they may have left out.

All we know for sure is everybody left in the higher power and control chain after JFK was removed breathed a huge sigh of relief over Oswald's whacking. Fritz, Curry, Mayor Cabell and all the way to LBJ and Hoover for sure as well imo.

Unlike average American's who felt no relief from Oswald's killing.

Instead, they felt sickened with ominous suspicion and doubt...and cheated. Cheated from finding out what Oswald may have shared to the world about what he was about and what he knew.

The average American felt Oswald was all we had and the most important piece of evidence in getting to the truth of the JFK murder. Losing that evidence right inside the DPD building while handcuffed to guards was simply gut wrenching, even nauseating. And the birth of the greatest and longest lasting societal mistrust event in our history.

If Oswald ever stated to Fritz he was in anyway connected to "any" of the intel agencies ( including even part time informant work for the FBI in New Orleans ) Fritz must have just about had a heart attack.

"STOP!"  "Tell us no more!

If Oswald mentioned anything like this in his interrogations, more than anything else he did, he sealed his immediate death sentence by doing so. Even while in DPD custody!

Fritz had more to know about Oswald than anyone else after sitting and interrogating him for hours and days. Yet, he shared the least.

I too feel that Fritz's complete silence was motivated by personal and family safety fear.

Someone much higher up the power and control chain would of course have told Fritz to never reveal what Oswald may have shared in this regard.

Heck, we know now we already had much held back about Oswald by other investigative agencies in the days, weeks and months following Oswald's murder.

James P. Hosty kept from the Warren Commission the fact that under his boss's orders he personally destroyed certain portions of their Oswald file as soon as Ruby whacked him.

Catholic Hosty violated his sworn hand on the bible "The Truth, WHOLE TRUTH and Nothing But The Truth. So Help Me God" oath he took just before he testified to the WC. 

Hosty keeping his and his agency's actions of destroying any part of their Oswald file info hidden was clearly an act of destruction of evidence and dishonored and violated the "Whole Truth" part of his oath to the WC.

Hosty's oath of loyalty to his employer superseded his bible sworn truth telling oath to the WC and to "the American people." 

Since by "selective and purposeful omission" Hosty didn't tell the WC the "whole" truth about what he and his employer knew about and had on Oswald.

And because of that proven and admitted oath dishonoring deception by Hosty it's totally reasonable to believe that Hosty and his employer knew and held back "even more" about Oswald than just the destruction of what ever part or even whole file they had on him.

 

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Joe Bauer]

52 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Thanks Pete--on the witnesses' argument, Arnold Rowland is credible to me regarding the man with the rifle at the west end of the 6^th floor but I cannot help but think to the east he saw one of the black employees on the 5th floor, removing that claim that there was a black person or any second person associated with the shooting seen by him. Carolyn Walther saw two men at one window, one with a rifle, but insisted it was lower than the sixth floor, but perhaps she was wrong on the floor level despite her insistence.

Greg, Arnold Rowland was an excellent witness.

They could not impeach him and his testimony.

Carolyn Walthers shared several very specific details of her "men in the windows" statements. Interesting and important ones imo.

I do think she got the floor number wrong. Even she equivocated on this...saying it was the 3rd or maybe the fourth floor?

Do you know how easy it is to get multi-story building floor numbers wrong.

Some miss the first floor in their count. Others just don't make the count instantly in their minds. A two or three story building maybe so, but 6 to 7 or higher?

Walther's sighting story mentioned two men. Neither of dark complexion. One even had on a brown suit coat!

Have you ever seen the photos of Harold Norman and or Junior Jarman sticking their heads outside of their 5th floor open window?

No mistaking their skin color. And Jarman and Norman and their third buddy sure weren't wearing a brown suit coat that day.

Walther's also mentioned the window abutting her men with guns sighting one as dirty enough to be somewhat obscured. Wasn't the window next to the 6th floor snipers window truly dirty like that? 

I will always not just believe what Rowland and Walthers shared regards their TXSBD building window sightings, but their good and honest integrity as well.

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Greg Doudna]

A credible witness overhears a conspiracy to murder Oswald inside the Dallas police station? "Lee will have to be killed"

Speaking of the death of Oswald while in police custody, there is this story of Mike Robinson, then a ninth-grader in Oak Cliff. Although the story below is from Walt Brown, Treachery in Dallas (1995), I see the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas has recorded an oral history of Michael Robinson as recently as December 2020, only a little over a year ago. I would love to see a transcript of that or be able listen to that recording, as I consider Mike Robinson one of the most important living witnesses there is, for a reason which Walt Brown, and others who have read and studied this story, I do not think have realized (will explain below). Here is part of the 1995 Mike Robinson story as told by Walt Brown.

"Mike Robinson was fourteen years old the day the president was killed. Since I had been sixteen at the time, I felt I could relate to the emotions he told of.

"He had watched the motorcade at Main and Harwood, the corner where Dallas police headquarters was located, with a friend whose father was a higher-up in the police. I have since been able to confirm the existence of both the friend, his father's rank, and his father's perhaps too-deep curiosity as to the events of November 22.

"After the motorcade passed, the boys went to a theater, bought their tickets and popcorn, and then heard the rapidly spreading news that the president had been shot. Figuring that headquarters would be the center of subsequent action, he and his friend hastened back there in time to get to the third floor, check in with the friend's father, and then see Lee Oswald being led out of the elevator. Since this was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure for a young boy, and since the media were mobbing the area anyway, they stayed and observed the goings-on.

"Mike indicated that he overheard in conversation that it was clear to anyone who was talking that the police were convinced beyond all reasonable doubt, even as early as 2:30 P.M., that Oswald was the culprit on both counts. He also learned that J. D. Tippit had been killed. That event, while tragic, was not overly troubling to Mike, as many neighborhood kids knew Tippit from his comings and goings at Austin's Barbeque, and Tippit had arrested Mike's brother for drinking beer in public. The local teenagers, it was noted, had no use for Tippit, whom they viewed as your garden-variety asshole.

"Putting that aside, Mike and his friend saw Oswald moved from the various places he was shunted to, and also saw him inside one of the glass homicide cubicles, until such time as newspaper was taped up to keep out the curious. Mike also saw Bobby Hargis, the motorcycle officer splattered by particulate matter from the president, return to headquarters with blood and brain matter on him and his helmet, and when the realization of events hit Hargis, he violently slammed the helmet into a wall and literally went berserk, requiring a number of other officers to restrain him (an event unknown to--or unreported by -- the Warren Commission).

"As afternoon approached evening, a trip to the rest room became an absolute necessity, but with extra police and media on the third floor, that was impossible. So Mike was taken, by the ranking officer whose son he was with, down to the lowest level of the building, where the officers had their lockers, and told that the rest room was just past the locker room.

While in a toilet/stall, the enormity of events hit Mike hard and he became emotional about them now that he found himself literally alone with the knowledge that the president he had waved to just a few hours earlier was now in a coffin. As this emotional turmoilcame upon him, the rest room serenity was broken by the arrival of three individuals. Not to appear a sissy or be embarrassed, Mike lifted his feet and "hid" in the stall so that anyone observing would think that only the three men who had just entered were present.

Their brief conversation forever changed Mike Robinson's life. Initially there were whispers, but eventually one individual--and these people were police or police-related in the officers' rest room--vented some anger through gritted teeth, with appropriate profanity, to make statements that add great credence to the thesis enunciated herein.

As Mike Robinson reconstructs the statements, their order was:

(angrily) "You knew you were supposed to kill Lee," followed by icy silence, then the same voice in the same nasty tone, "then, you stupid son of a bitch, you go kill a cop .... " At this point, another individual entered the room, and the first three fell silent. The newcomer, whom Mike could identify as wearing blue, "did his business, flushed the urinal, and left." The original three then concluded, "Lee will have to be killed before they take him to Washington."

Naturally uncomfortable with what he had heard, Mike remained in his hideout for a decent span of time after the three men left the room, then left. As he passed through the police locker room, one officer, in the process of changing his clothes, stared at Mike, as if to say, "Were you in there when we were?" 

I have cut off some more that follows, in which Mike Robinson in later years went through photos of officers time after time, trying to remember and identify the officer who looked at him as he came out who may have been one of the three in the restroom that he heard, and with the help of hypnosis did focus on Roscoe White based on an unaccountable fear he felt when seeing Roscoe White's picture. That does not sound to me like a very solid basis for a Roscoe White identification. Roscoe White was not a uniformed officer at that time in any case but office staff, a recent hire in the Crime Lab fingerprint division and had been in north Dallas with others investigating an auto accident that morning (from what I have read). But never mind that--the above is the focus of interest here--that Mike Robinson, fourteen years old and scared out of his mind hearing this, says he heard this conversation of officers with these fateful words: "Lee will have to be killed".

Now here is the stunner and why this Michael Robinson is so important. See the line above, "the boys went to a theater, bought their tickets and popcorn"? 

Although it does not say so in this account, and although nobody has realized this, that was the Texas Theatre. Mike Robinson and his school-age friend, son of an important officer in the Dallas Police department (identity not known), were in the Texas Theatre when Oswald was arrested and witnessed that arrest, were sitting only a few rows away in the theatre at the time. I know this because Mike Robinson's story of that is told in an obscure article which has received little attention, in a defunct journal called "Dateline: Dallas", Spring 1992 vol 1 no. 1, in which one "Dave" "in the ninth grade" (not his true name; publishers in a note say they know his true name) with his school-age friend tells of first going downtown to see the presidential parade, then going to the Texas Theatre where they were when Oswald was arrested. That story can be found here at page 8, "Witness to History": http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/F Disk/Fensterwald Bernard 1990/Item 004.pdf. The stories match. But no one has noticed that earlier story and put those two stories together to identify ninth-grader "Dave" and his friend of the one story with ninth-grader "Mike Robinson" and his friend of the second story. But they are the same. 

(If anyone reading this knows Michael Robinson, is able to contact him, or if perchance Michael Robinson himself at some point happens to see this, I would be most grateful if someone could get a message to him asking him please contact me. Thank you!)

[Joe Bauer]

That Sixth Floor Museum "living history" interview of Robinson?

They really had him sit for this?

Did Robinson retell the story you mentioned in your last post?

The DPD basement bathroom story?

Is there a website for the museum where they list all their interviews and provide access to them?

Is this Museum interview of Robinson on You Tube?

[Kirk Gallaway]

5 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

A credible witness overhears a conspiracy to murder Oswald inside the Dallas police station? "Lee will have to be killed"

Speaking of the death of Oswald while in police custody, there is this story of Mike Robinson, then a ninth-grader in Oak Cliff. Although the story below is from Walt Brown, Treachery in Dallas (1995), I see the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas has recorded an oral history of Michael Robinson as recently as December 2020, only a little over a year ago. I would love to see a transcript of that or be able listen to that recording, as I consider Mike Robinson one of the most important living witnesses there is, for a reason which Walt Brown, and others who have read and studied this story, I do not think have realized (will explain below). Here is part of the 1995 Mike Robinson story as told by Walt Brown.

 

"Mike Robinson was fourteen years old the day the president was killed. Since I had been sixteen at the time, I felt I could relate to the emotions he told of.

"He had watched the motorcade at Main and Harwood, the corner where Dallas police headquarters was located, with a friend whose father was a higher-up in the police. I have since been able to confirm the existence of both the friend, his father's rank, and his father's perhaps too-deep curiosity as to the events of November 22.

"After the motorcade passed, the boys went to a theater, bought their tickets and popcorn, and then heard the rapidly spreading news that the president had been shot. Figuring that headquarters would be the center of subsequent action, he and his friend hastened back there in time to get to the third floor, check in with the friend's father, and then see Lee Oswald being led out of the elevator. Since this was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure for a young boy, and since the media were mobbing the area anyway, they stayed and observed the goings-on.

"Mike indicated that he overheard in conversation that it was clear to anyone who was talking that the police were convinced beyond all reasonable doubt, even as early as 2:30 P.M., that Oswald was the culprit on both counts. He also learned that J. D. Tippit had been killed. That event, while tragic, was not overly troubling to Mike, as many neighborhood kids knew Tippit from his comings and goings at Austin's Barbeque, and Tippit had arrested Mike's brother for drinking beer in public. The local teenagers, it was noted, had no use for Tippit, whom they viewed as your garden-variety asshole.

"Putting that aside, Mike and his friend saw Oswald moved from the various places he was shunted to, and also saw him inside one of the glass homicide cubicles, until such time as newspaper was taped up to keep out the curious. Mike also saw Bobby Hargis, the motorcycle officer splattered by particulate matter from the president, return to headquarters with blood and brain matter on him and his helmet, and when the realization of events hit Hargis, he violently slammed the helmet into a wall and literally went berserk, requiring a number of other officers to restrain him (an event unknown to--or unreported by -- the Warren Commission).

"As afternoon approached evening, a trip to the rest room became an absolute necessity, but with extra police and media on the third floor, that was impossible. So Mike was taken, by the ranking officer whose son he was with, down to the lowest level of the building, where the officers had their lockers, and told that the rest room was just past the locker room.

While in a toilet/stall, the enormity of events hit Mike hard and he became emotional about them now that he found himself literally alone with the knowledge that the president he had waved to just a few hours earlier was now in a coffin. As this emotional turmoilcame upon him, the rest room serenity was broken by the arrival of three individuals. Not to appear a sissy or be embarrassed, Mike lifted his feet and "hid" in the stall so that anyone observing would think that only the three men who had just entered were present.

Their brief conversation forever changed Mike Robinson's life. Initially there were whispers, but eventually one individual--and these people were police or police-related in the officers' rest room--vented some anger through gritted teeth, with appropriate profanity, to make statements that add great credence to the thesis enunciated herein.

As Mike Robinson reconstructs the statements, their order was:

(angrily) "You knew you were supposed to kill Lee," followed by icy silence, then the same voice in the same nasty tone, "then, you stupid son of a bitch, you go kill a cop .... " At this point, another individual entered the room, and the first three fell silent. The newcomer, whom Mike could identify as wearing blue, "did his business, flushed the urinal, and left." The original three then concluded, "Lee will have to be killed before they take him to Washington."

Naturally uncomfortable with what he had heard, Mike remained in his hideout for a decent span of time after the three men left the room, then left. As he passed through the police locker room, one officer, in the process of changing his clothes, stared at Mike, as if to say, "Were you in there when we were?" 

I have cut off some more that follows, in which Mike Robinson in later years went through photos of officers time after time, trying to remember and identify the officer who looked at him as he came out who may have been one of the three in the restroom that he heard, and with the help of hypnosis did focus on Roscoe White based on an unaccountable fear he felt when seeing Roscoe White's picture. That does not sound to me like a very solid basis for a Roscoe White identification. Roscoe White was not a uniformed officer at that time in any case but office staff, a recent hire in the Crime Lab fingerprint division and had been in north Dallas with others investigating an auto accident that morning (from what I have read). But never mind that--the above is the focus of interest here--that Mike Robinson, fourteen years old and scared out of his mind hearing this, says he heard this conversation of officers with these fateful words: "Lee will have to be killed".

Now here is the stunner and why this Michael Robinson is so important. See the line above, "the boys went to a theater, bought their tickets and popcorn"? 

Although it does not say so in this account, and although nobody has realized this, that was the Texas Theatre. Mike Robinson and his school-age friend, son of an important officer in the Dallas Police department (identity not known), were in the Texas Theatre when Oswald was arrested and witnessed that arrest, were sitting only a few rows away in the theatre at the time. I know this because Mike Robinson's story of that is told in an obscure article which has received little attention, in a defunct journal called "Dateline: Dallas", Spring 1992 vol 1 no. 1, in which one "Dave" "in the ninth grade" (not his true name; publishers in a note say they know his true name) with his school-age friend tells of first going downtown to see the presidential parade, then going to the Texas Theatre where they were when Oswald was arrested. That story can be found here at page 8, "Witness to History": http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/F Disk/Fensterwald Bernard 1990/Item 004.pdf. The stories match. But no one has noticed that earlier story and put those two stories together to identify ninth-grader "Dave" and his friend of the one story with ninth-grader "Mike Robinson" and his friend of the second story. But they are the same. 

(If anyone reading this knows Michael Robinson, is able to contact him, or if perchance Michael Robinson himself at some point happens to see this, I would be most grateful if someone could get a message to him asking him please contact me. Thank you!)

Greg, the Michael Robinson story made me jog my memory on where I first read it. I didn't remember a title  but  I went through 100's of JFK articles I've kept and I'm amazed I found it. It is a minute by minute chronology of 11/22/63 involving perhaps 100's of characters and anecdotal stories and  excerpts quoted from books. I remember when I first came upon it, I was up most of the night reading it. I'm sure there are researchers here who can identify it.

Since I'm familiar with   timeline, I found the Micheal Robinson excerpt on page 90. There are   a number of stories and accounts that i found unusual and in some cases fascinating. But its a timeline of key figures that day, and any body who ever had a personal account or story of  some incident involved with the JFKA.

Keep your digging Greg! There can always be disagreement, but  I like how you're shedding light on areas where there's  sort of  standard agreed upon premise, and conclusions made that  are sketchy or not completely  sourced.

http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v2n1/chrono2.pdf

Edited February 7, 2022 by Kirk Gallaway

[Denny Zartman]

Whether or not Oswald was surreptitiously recorded during his interrogation is, in my view, a rabbit hole. What's the practical takeaway? If he was secretly recorded, that recording was going to be kept secret no matter what. No one questioning him was interested in solving the case or finding any accomplices. If a recording existed and we on this forum know about it, then the persons involved in the cover-up knew about it too. They covered up what they said was a spilled cherry soda within a few days. What do you think they would have done about a recording of Oswald's interrogation?

[Greg Doudna]

What Mike Robinson heard in the basement of the Dallas police station on Nov 22 and the Tippit killing

"(angrily) 'You knew you were supposed to kill Lee,' followed by icy silence, then the same voice in the same nasty tone, 'then, you stupid son of a bitch, you go kill a cop .... ' At this point, another individual entered the room, and the first three fell silent. The newcomer, whom Mike could identify as wearing blue, 'did his business, flushed the urinal, and left.' The original three then concluded, 'Lee will have to be killed before they take him to Washington.'"

If Mike Robinson got that right, the bolded words could read as spoken by an officer who was present at the Texas Theatre when Oswald was arrested. The officer is telling the other two what happened. He is telling the other two what he said to the unidentified man in the balcony who was interviewed by officers and let go with no record of that man's name. That man in the balcony was where the killer of Tippit had gone when going past ticket-seller Julia Postal who was looking the other way, according to Julia Postal. She told arriving police that the suspicious person (the reason she and Brewer had called the police) was in the balcony, which is why arriving officers first went up the stairs to the balcony. That man found there by officers in fact was the killer of Tippit, yet was let go by police that day, with no statement taken and no name and address filed in any known police records. It is a certainty that a name and an address was taken and written down for that man as for all patrons that day because it is testified that police were under orders to take down names and addresses. But there is also no record of the identity of the man found by police in the balcony that day. The written documentation of patrons of the theatre that day which certainly existed was destroyed for unknown reasons and through unknown circumstances and does not exist today.

I have presented argument in another thread on this Forum argument for identification of the killer of Tippit as Larry Crafard. If a true solution to the Kennedy assassination remains elusive, it is possible that the Tippit killing can, even at this late date, have a true solution. That solution would consist of two things. First, the various lines of argument--substantial and specific--for why Larry Crafard is the solution to the crime, the gunman who killed Tippit. And second, the Tippit killer's fingerprints exist to this day yet have never been checked for a match with Larry Crafard. The Tippit killer is certainly the single individual who left all of the fingerprint evidence found at the top of the right front door of Tippit's police cruiser and on the car at the right front bumper area. That is where witnesses saw the Tippit killer with respect to the cruiser. Witnesses saw the Tippit killer first lean onto the right front door talking to Tippit through the window before going around the right front bumper to shoot and kill Tippit. The Dallas police crime lab lifted those fingerprints on Nov 22, 1963 but reported they could not be identified, could neither confirm nor exclude Oswald. In the 2013 edition of With Malice--the definitive study of the Tippit killing--Dale Myers reported obtaining those fingerprints from the Dallas Police Department and commissioning a fresh latent fingerprint expert comparison with fingerprints of Oswald. The latent fingerprint expert was Herbert Lutz, senior crime technician, Wayne County, Michigan, 26 years latent fingerprint experience. Lutz's analysis reported two findings of utmost significance to the case.

First, that the fingerprints on the right front door and in the area of the right front fender, which had been lifted on Nov 22, 1963, were from the same individual--only one individual was the source of both the fingerprints at the right front door window and the right front fender area. 

And second, those prints were not those of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Yet those fingerprints are exactly where witnesses saw Tippit's killer's hands.

Therefore: those fingerprints are the fingerprints of the Tippit killer who was not Oswald.

That latent fingerprint expert analysis is powerful, stand-alone evidence exonerating Oswald as the Tippit killer.

(Myers, who believes Oswald was the Tippit killer on the basis of other evidence, argues that those fingerprints did not come from the Tippit killer but from a bystander in the crowd that gathered around the cruiser after the Tippit killing, such that, in Myers' interpretation, Oswald is not exonerated by the exclusion of Oswald as the source of those fingerprints.)

Those fingerprints left by the killer of Tippit on Tippit's cruiser on Nov 22, 1963 still exist. They remain unidentified, apart from the finding that they did not originate from Oswald. No check has been done of those fingerprints for a match with Larry Crafard. 

Those prints are capable of confirming or excluding that Larry Crafard was the killer of Tippit. This can be done. For reasons of logistics I am in no position to undertake that initiative but someone should--a fresh analyses of those prints ideally by three latent fingerprint experts, the best that can be found, checking to confirm or exclude a match with Larry Crafard. The Tippit murder may be amenable to true solution if this is done even at this late date. Those fingerprints provide a possible means to confirm or falsify the Crafard solution to the Tippit murder developed on other grounds.

And so back to the Tippit killer of Nov 22 who Julia Postal knew had run up into the balcony, and told arriving police that. Oswald, who had not killed Tippit, was in the main area on the ground floor watching the movie. Oswald had gone there, bought a ticket and popcorn and taken a seat. He got there through an evasive series of movements consistent with attempting to avoid being followed or found. He was hiding from the killers of Kennedy whom he feared could kill him. He likely took a bus south on N. Beckley from his rooming house in Oak Cliff after feinting in a way visible to housekeeper Earlene Roberts as if he was going north. He pretended to be waiting for a bus to take him north in a position visible to Earlene looking out the window from line of sight, but Oswald did not go north. Instead out of sight he actually took a bus in the opposite direction going south to the Texas Theatre. It was not Oswald's imagination that his life was in jeopardy from people wanting to find him with lethal intent. That is why the killer of Tippit also went to the Texas Theatre, past Brewer's store on Jefferson and into the Theatre, because someone had information that Oswald had gone there. The killer of Tippit went into the Texas Theatre for the purpose of killing Oswald. Officers arriving to the Texas Theatre found a truck with its engine running right outside the back door of the Texas Theatre and no driver in sight. That is documented, with no mundane explanation in the known documentation, no information that the driver or owner of that vehicle was identified, with its engine running sitting there. One possibility is that vehicle was the intended mechanism of escape for the killer, to be driven by an accomplice from that Theatre after the deed was done, but that was interrupted by the arrival of police.

The man in the balcony of the Texas Theatre whom several officers that day remember encountering, with physical description in agreement with that of 22-yr. old Larry Crafard to the extent such information exists, at a scene at which orders were given to officers to take down names and addresses of staff and patrons . . . that young man in the one location in the Theatre at which the Tippit killer was known to have gone . . . was let go, to walk away from dozens of uniformed officers at the scene that day, without any record or knowledge today of even his name, despite names having been written down at the scene. No one has ever come forward self-identifying as that man. 

The conclusion I draw from this: that man was recognized by one or more corrupt police and let go in that manner. That man in the balcony was the Tippit killer, now in the Theatre with intent to kill Oswald but that was thwarted by the police arrival. Jack Ruby (who was not there--the later story of patron Applin to have seen Ruby sitting in the back row of the theatre is clearly a mistaken identification for heavy-set and similar-appearing theatre patron Jack Davis who described sitting in the exact location in the last row where Applin thought he saw Ruby)--Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, as is well-known, was patronized by police. Self-confessed former hitman Larry Crafard of the Carousel Club, the would-be killer of Oswald in the Texas Theatre, was recognized and let go by some corrupt law enforcement and any written record was caused to disappear. This would be similar to the kind of police corruption in the sense of inside assistance to Crafard's employer Ruby in the killing of Oswald two days later on Sunday morning, the day after Crafard fled Dallas after he had failed to kill Oswald (but had killed Tippit).

With that background, return to 14-year old Mike Robinson in the restroom in the Dallas police station on the afternoon of Nov 22, after the killing of Tippit earlier than afternoon in Oak Cliff.

The words Mike Robinson says he heard would make sense as from an officer involved in the attempt to find and kill Oswald that day, an officer who had been at the Texas Theatre and encountered the Tippit killer there, telling two fellow corrupt police colleagues in that restroom what he had said, or would have liked to have said, to the Tippit killer in Oak Cliff:

"(angrily) 'You knew you were supposed to kill Lee,' followed by icy silence, then the same voice in the same nasty tone, 'then, you stupid son of a bitch, you go kill a cop .... '"

The one who was "supposed to kill Lee" may not have been one of the two others to whom the first one was speaking. Instead, what Mike Robinson heard may have been the first one relating to the other two what he had said to the killer of Tippit in Oak Cliff. 

[Kirk Gallaway]

That's  interesting Greg. I have 2 questions, when I read the Mike Robinson story. I thought the dialog he accounted seemed like there was  too much discovery or exposition.

(angrily) 'You knew you were supposed to kill Lee,' followed by icy silence, then the same voice in the same nasty tone, 'then, you stupid son of a bitch, you go kill a cop .... '"

Young Mike learns of an agreed upon intention by the three there to kill "Lee" and about  a person who was to kill Lee, who ended up killing Tippit. That's a lot of incriminating info! One  question comes up. Why would they refer to Oswald as "Lee". unless they knew him. In the context, it's obvious who the person is, so why not refer to Oswald as "' him".

I may have forgotten some details, but I had heard that Oswald initially went up to the balcony and then went below.  I heard he visibly changed seats as if he was looking for someone else in the theater to connect with.

That's interesting that you assume that the officer was talking about a conversation he had with a fourth person, rather than chastising  a second member of the group. I suppose the fact that there wasn't a response, does lend credence to that.

 

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Kirk Gallaway