The Walker Note

[Greg Doudna]

7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

If Oswald was framed for the assassination, how is it that he just happened to get a job -- at the right place and time -- where the shots would ring out?

Ruth Paine got him the job.

And then after the assassination, during the WC investigation, Ruth Paine kept feeding the FBI incriminating evidence against Oswald that somehow the Dallas police had overlooked when they first investigated.

Ruth Paine was the WC's key witness against the innocent Oswald.

No, the key WC witness against Oswald was testimony from Marina, and the key item of evidence was the rifle, those two things, neither of which were any doing of Ruth.

On the Texas School Book Depository job, while I agree there was a criminal conspiracy to assassinate JFK that involved framing of Oswald, and believe that part of that criminal conspiracy involved mob interests, aware of a planned JFK visit involving a parade through downtown Dallas but exact route not yet known, took an interest in gaining employment access in strategic tall buildings, and that that interest arguably goes back to at least as early as Oct 4 depending on if one accepts the interpretation that attorney Jarnagin on that date overheard newly-arrived mob asset Craford talking to Ruby in the Carousel Club about plans for a shooting involving tall buildings and uncertainty over whether the parade route would pass through downtown using Elm, Main, or Commerce.

It is easy to reason backward from circumstances at the time of the assassination to assume that all of those details were meticulously planned in advance from the outset.  

But look at what was actually going on. After returning to Dallas Oct 3, Oswald applies for several jobs starting the very day of arrival and is turned down. What if he had been hired? Somehow those employers must be in on the plot, all for show to deceive later researchers, or else someone got to all of those employers and swore them to secrecy, or Oswald purposely self-sabotaged and purposely caused them not to hire him. And nobody suggested or helped Oswald get the job at the TSBD until Oct 13 (he applies in person Oct 14 and starts first day Oct 15), nearly two weeks after his return to Dallas hunting for work. If there was advance plotting to frame Oswald by placing him in the TSBD, why wait two weeks to put him there? All the better to mislead future researchers.

Then on Oct 13, Linnie Mae Randle starts it all. She walks down the street to where women are discussing the situation of pregnant Marina, eight months pregnant with a second child, and her husband Lee, wanting to work, has not been able to find work despite trying for nearly two weeks, and they have no money. Linnie Mae suggests the TSBD. Ruth, picking up on this, asks Linnie Mae if she would call TSBD but Linnie Mae declines. Marina urges Ruth to call. Ruth calls and speaks to Mr. Truly inquiring if a job might be available for a young man who needs work. Ruth is condemned for that.

But how is it Ruth is to be blamed for plotting to set Oswald up as an assassination patsy when it was Linnie Mae who walked over and suggested TSBD to Ruth in the first place? Linnie Mae must have been in on the plot too, all this staged for show to make it only "look" accidental. And what if Roy Truly at TSBD had told Ruth when she called, sorry, no job available. What then? Truly must have been in on the plot too, obviously. But if Truly was in on the plot, then Ruth's call really does not matter does it, since it is already a done deal without need for any phone call and all Oswald has to do is show up and he is hired. Yes, but the phone call of Ruth was a pretense necessary to mislead future investigators.

And although it has received less attention, Buell Wesley Frazier, a decent man, has written in his book that after learning from Linnie Mae about pregnant Marina living down the street and her unemployed husband, he himself spoke to supervisor Truly at work on behalf of the still-unknown-to-him Oswald. This would have occurred just before Oswald showed up to talk to Truly Tue morning Oct 14. Wesley's words in person to Truly may have helped Oswald be hired that morning, possibly even more than Ruth Paine's phone call of the day before. Was Wesley Frazier responsible for framing Oswald in the assassination two months later if his words played a role in Oswald being hired? Could be! Could be he was in on it too. Never underestimate the conspirators. How many times do we have to repeat, they leave NOTHING to chance.

Which of these people trying to help Oswald get a job were monsters instead of human beings trying to help out another human being in this case--operatives role-playing in a meticulously choreographed plot (for which there is no evidence). Which of these were unwitting? Do you see how complicated this gets? And reconstruct the dialogue that must be assumed in some form by this line of reasoning:

Ruth's secret spy handler: We want you to get Oswald a job in the TSBD.

Ruth: OK, I'll make a phone call. What if they say no?

Ruth's secret spy handler: You will succeed in persuading superintendent Truly over the phone, if you want your pay bonus.

Ruth: OK I'll try. By the way, why?

Ruth's secret spy handler: Don't tell anyone, but President Kennedy is going to be assassinated from that building and we want to falsely incriminate Oswald in the killing.

Ruth: Oh! I won't tell a soul, promise.

If you helped someone by the side of the road get their car out of a ditch, and they drive to the next town and are charged with murder for hit-and-run in some gangland killing, does that mean you are responsible for that murder? But that is the logic being assuming with Ruth Paine. 

I agree after the assassination one wants to look at how he got that job, why it was that Linnie Mae suggested TSBD to Ruth who called Truly. But whereas you and I know in hindsight that Oswald's TSBD employment was followed by the assassination, is it not a stretch to think all of those four people, or maybe it was only two of those four (Linnie Mae, Ruth, Wesley, Roy Truly) knew the assassination was coming before it happened?

Do you not consider the high chances that someone innocent can be falsely condemned of something horrible by this kind of reasoning--simply because they did the equivalent of stopping by the side of a road to help someone get out of a ditch, not knowing what would happen, what their assistance to that person made possible, two months later? 

For a different perspective of some of these questions, consider an insightful discussion of Larry Hancock on the interest in buildings on the parade route and fluidity in planning for the assassination in the runup to the assassination, in the comments section of https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/jean-souetre/, specifically Hancock of Dec 12, 2018: 

Actually, after much wrestling with all of the items you mentioned, I’ve come to think that matters may have been much simpler and that all our research has made things more convoluted than they may actually were (even if I have researched and written about all of those areas myself…sigh). 

First, anyone interested in Cuban affairs and in or around New Orleans in the summer of 1963 – as well as anyone in touch with the DRE members in the city – would have known of Lee Oswald and that his name was publicly associated with Cuba, Castro, Russia and “communism”. Beyond that we have reason (corroborated by several items) to believe that Cuban exiles were aware that he could be contacted and manipulated (illustrated his planned moved to the Washington area). 

(. . .) associating Oswald a the attack would be easy enough, he doesn’t even have to be there – plant something stolen or purchased from him at the scene of the crime and he’s in a conspiracy, doesn’t have to be the shooter. Given that there were several reports of Oswald (or someone looking like him applying for work at buildings on Main Street there may have been options in play early on, the TSBD was good but we really don’t know what the original plan was – we assume the attack was always planned for Elm street strictly based on where it happened….we don’t know that any more than we know what might have been planned for Washington DC. 

Since I view what happened in the cover up as separate from the plan (which was to kill JFK above all else and point towards Castro if possible) which in no way involved a lone shooter or a lone nut I think we also try to reverse engineer too much of the plan from events when there is every reason to believe that the original plan unraveled in the first fifteen minutes or so after the attack…something not all that uncommon. (. . .)

From all accounts Ruth Paine voted for JFK, supported JFK, supported JFK on civil rights and other issues, grieved like all over America at the assassination, did a lot to help that family of Lee and Marina. No evidence has ever come forth that Ruth was an informant for an agency, but even if that was happening on analogy with Oswald's friend in Russia Ernst Titovets, that in itself would certainly be no legal crime and only debatably morally a crime. It certainly would not mean she was planting evidence, setting up Oswald to be blamed for the assassination, or party to assassinating the president she loved. Why have conspiracy theorists done this?

 

You condemn Ruth for giving testimony, for answering questions under oath, for cooperating with investigators in telling what she knew. You bypass the issue of is what she said the truth. You condemn her for testifying even if truthful, if it is used by a prosecution. In other words, she is to be condemned because she did not cover up what she knew. In court, witnesses called by a prosecution do not get to choose whether to testify, decide which questions they choose to answer, nor do we normally blame a truthful witness for the use a prosecution makes of that compelled truthful testimony under oath. Yet that is what is happening here. You put Ruth into a no-win situation, in which you are essentially castigating her for either not lying or not testifying. If she had done either of those would that prove her innocence to you? No, lying would be a crime, and refusal to testify of what she knew would be an epic disservice to history as well as in some cases a crime. You put her into a no-win situation with this witchhunt logic in which she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. 

 

The same applies to your criticism that she informed law enforcement of items found in her home relevant to the case that police had missed. You bypass the issue of were those things truthful, but condemn her purely because she did come forth with them. Damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. 

 

Please consider that Ruth Paine's obligation was to tell the truth, the full truth, and nothing but the truth to the best of her ability, responsive to questions asked. Her obligation was not to be responsible for how her testimony became used in the case against Oswald, over which she was not in control in any case.

 

My first encounter with a JFK assassination conspiracy researcher was Perry Adams, the former editor of Probe magazine. I was living and working in Santa Barbara in 1978 and saw a local newspaper article about an unpublished JFK assassination book by him and coauthor Fred Newcomb. I called up Perry Adams and he invited me to his apartment to read the unpublished manuscript in his living room, and then he generously talked with me afterward. I was a total neophyte. One of the questions I asked him was what he thought of Garrison in Louisiana. He said, that was unfortunate, that some innocent people had been damaged there. He did not elaborate, and I had no other followup on that and the conversation went on to other things, but that is what he said.

 

Perry Adams struck me very favorably in person, as an honest man that day. I moved away from Santa Barbara a few months later and never had contact with Perry Adams after that one time. Fast forward to today. It still continues, innocent people damaged unjustly. 

[Jonathan Cohen]

17 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I predict that...

Anybody who believes most of what Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine have said will never figure out the conspiracy against Kennedy.

 

As usual, Sandy Larsen does not have a shred of actual evidence to support Ruth Paine having been involved in any kind of conspiracy against Lee Harvey Oswald.

[Joseph McBride]

John Armstrong's exhaustive research proved that

Oswald did not own either of the weapons entered

into what he aptly called the "so-called evidence." And

Marina Oswald lied to the Warren Commission under

duress, telling them anything they wanted to hear.

She and Ruth Paine produced or "authenticated" much of the

"so-called evidence" against Lee Oswald. It's odd that

after all these years, we get people trying to claim otherwise,

as if they have not studied the case.

[Greg Doudna]

8 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

John Armstrong's exhaustive research proved that

Oswald did not own either of the weapons entered

into what he aptly called the "so-called evidence." And

Marina Oswald lied to the Warren Commission under

duress, telling them anything they wanted to hear.

She and Ruth Paine produced or "authenticated" much of the

"so-called evidence" against Lee Oswald. It's odd that

after all these years, we get people trying to claim otherwise,

as if they have not studied the case.

But Joseph, the two weapons--the rifle and the .38 revolver--charged to Oswald, Ruth Paine never produced or authenticated or had anything to do with either of those. Look at the actual prosecutor's case against Oswald--it goes to the weapons (as you note), Marina's testimony, and some Dealey Plaza and 10th Street Oak Cliff witnesses. All of those would have been vigorously contested at trial by a good defense attorney team for Oswald. But here is the point: Ruth Paine had nothing to do with that. She never produced or authenticated those weapons as attached to Oswald or her garage.

As Oswald himself said (to Fritz, Fri pm Nov 22, 1963), "leave Ruth Paine out of this. She had nothing to do with this."

Of course Ruth Paine had much to do with the lives of Marina and Lee before the assassination, did a lot to help that family. But she didn't have anything to do with the assassination of President Kennedy whom she loved, or in incriminating Oswald whom she had only treated well when Marina was living with her and wished him no harm. Ruth never claimed Lee spoke ill of President Kennedy, never claimed Lee talked of assassination, etc.--all so easy to do if she had been intent on framing Oswald.

Please consider Ruth did not frame Oswald and has been abused by the conspiracy theorist community.  

[Joseph McBride]

While it is true that Ruth Paine claimed she never saw

the rifle in her garage, photos of Oswald holding the

alleged assassination rifle were found by the authorities

in her home. These photos clearly are fakes. Mrs. Paine's

garage and the other parts of his home also kept producing

bounteous "so-called evidence" whenever it was needed. The so-called Walker

note is a conspicuous example.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Joseph McBride

[Sandy Larsen]

On 3/1/2022 at 5:58 PM, Greg Doudna said:

But look at what was actually going on. After returning to Dallas Oct 3, Oswald applies for several jobs starting the very day of arrival and is turned down. What if he had been hired? Somehow those employers must be in on the plot, all for show to deceive later researchers, or else someone got to all of those employers and swore them to secrecy, or Oswald purposely self-sabotaged and purposely caused them not to hire him. And nobody suggested or helped Oswald get the job at the TSBD until Oct 13 (he applies in person Oct 14 and starts first day Oct 15), nearly two weeks after his return to Dallas hunting for work. If there was advance plotting to frame Oswald by placing him in the TSBD, why wait two weeks to put him there? All the better to mislead future researchers.

Then on Oct 13, Linnie Mae Randle starts it all. She walks down the street to where women are discussing the situation of pregnant Marina, eight months pregnant with a second child, and her husband Lee, wanting to work, has not been able to find work despite trying for nearly two weeks, and they have no money. Linnie Mae suggests the TSBD. Ruth, picking up on this, asks Linnie Mae if she would call TSBD but Linnie Mae declines. Marina urges Ruth to call. Ruth calls and speaks to Mr. Truly inquiring if a job might be available for a young man who needs work. Ruth is condemned for that.

But how is it Ruth is to be blamed for plotting to set Oswald up as an assassination patsy when it was Linnie Mae who walked over and suggested TSBD to Ruth in the first place? Linnie Mae must have been in on the plot too, all this staged for show to make it only "look" accidental. And what if Roy Truly at TSBD had told Ruth when she called, sorry, no job available. What then? Truly must have been in on the plot too, obviously. But if Truly was in on the plot, then Ruth's call really does not matter does it, since it is already a done deal without need for any phone call and all Oswald has to do is show up and he is hired. Yes, but the phone call of Ruth was a pretense necessary to mislead future investigators.

And although it has received less attention, Buell Wesley Frazier, a decent man, has written in his book that after learning from Linnie Mae about pregnant Marina living down the street and her unemployed husband, he himself spoke to supervisor Truly at work on behalf of the still-unknown-to-him Oswald. This would have occurred just before Oswald showed up to talk to Truly Tue morning Oct 14. Wesley's words in person to Truly may have helped Oswald be hired that morning, possibly even more than Ruth Paine's phone call of the day before. Was Wesley Frazier responsible for framing Oswald in the assassination two months later if his words played a role in Oswald being hired? Could be! Could be he was in on it too. Never underestimate the conspirators. How many times do we have to repeat, they leave NOTHING to chance.

Which of these people trying to help Oswald get a job were monsters instead of human beings trying to help out another human being in this case--operatives role-playing in a meticulously choreographed plot (for which there is no evidence). Which of these were unwitting? Do you see how complicated this gets? And reconstruct the dialogue that must be assumed in some form by this line of reasoning:

Ruth's secret spy handler: We want you to get Oswald a job in the TSBD.

Ruth: OK, I'll make a phone call. What if they say no?

Ruth's secret spy handler: You will succeed in persuading superintendent Truly over the phone, if you want your pay bonus.

Ruth: OK I'll try. By the way, why?

Ruth's secret spy handler: Don't tell anyone, but President Kennedy is going to be assassinated from that building and we want to falsely incriminate Oswald in the killing.

Ruth: Oh! I won't tell a soul, promise.

If you helped someone by the side of the road get their car out of a ditch, and they drive to the next town and are charged with murder for hit-and-run in some gangland killing, does that mean you are responsible for that murder? But that is the logic being assuming with Ruth Paine. 

I agree after the assassination one wants to look at how he got that job, why it was that Linnie Mae suggested TSBD to Ruth who called Truly. But whereas you and I know in hindsight that Oswald's TSBD employment was followed by the assassination, is it not a stretch to think all of those four people, or maybe it was only two of those four (Linnie Mae, Ruth, Wesley, Roy Truly) knew the assassination was coming before it happened?

Do you not consider the high chances that someone innocent can be falsely condemned of something horrible by this kind of reasoning--simply because they did the equivalent of stopping by the side of a road to help someone get out of a ditch, not knowing what would happen, what their assistance to that person made possible, two months later? 

 

Greg,

First, I never condemned Ruth Paine or anyone else. What I said is that she got Oswald the job. She apparently was told to do so by her handler.

You may not believe this, but a ton of circumstantial evidence proves that Oswald was a CIA agent, and he was set up by the CIA to be the fall guy for their assassination of the president. In order to accomplish that, Oswald had to be placed in a cooperative business that was tall and somewhere along the parade route. From that, we can already conclude that Truly was likely a CIA asset. From the fact that Oswald took the job there based on Ruth Paine's recommendation, we can conclude she is a likely CIA asset. From the fact that Oswald was turning down other jobs at the time, we can conclude that he was likely instructed to do so by one of his handlers.

That story you gave about Linnie Mae's and Buell's involvement in the matter is a mixture of the true story and elements of the cover-up. Maybe Linnie Mae was a CIA asset as well, or maybe not. It's certainly not an unheard of thing for an CIA asset to recruit a family member. Thank goodness we don't have to sort the whole thing out. In fact, we don't even need to consider that it was Ruth who got Oswald the job... perhaps his handler instructed him to go straight to the TSBD. But, you see, there is other evidence for Ruth Paine being a CIA asset, and so it makes sense to accept her testimony that it was she who suggested the TSBD job to Oswald. She, of course, had no idea why she was instructed to do so.

After witnessing the killing of Kennedy and Oswald by her employer, you can bet that she did everything she was instructed to do after that.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

On 3/1/2022 at 7:23 PM, Jonathan Cohen said:

On 3/1/2022 at 1:49 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

Sandy said:

I predict that...

Anybody who believes most of what Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine have said will never figure out the conspiracy against Kennedy.

On 3/1/2022 at 7:23 PM, Jonathan Cohen said:

Jonathan replied:

As usual, Sandy Larsen does not have a shred of actual evidence to support Ruth Paine having been involved in any kind of conspiracy against Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

As usual, Jonathan Cohen has no idea what circumstantial evidence is or how to use it.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

In fact, we don't even need to consider that it was Ruth who got Oswald the job... perhaps his handler instructed him to go straight to the TSBD. But, you see, there is other evidence that Ruth Paine was a CIA asset, and so it makes sense to accept her testimony that it was she who suggested the job to Oswald.

No there isn't. There is no evidence of that. You mean suspicion based on argument by association, since she had family members that were CIA. She could have been regarded as an asset (unpaid, regarded as a "friendly") for all we know. She grew up in and moved among social circles with family members. But that does not make her an operative or even witting if she was, or willing to do harm to another person, and there is in any case no evidence that that was the case. She has denied, including under oath, that she was knowingly involved with the CIA. I think basic fairness calls for an end to this language of "evidence that Ruth Paine was a CIA asset", expressed in those words, when there simply is none and she has denied it.

I have had a lot of experience with many Friends Meetings (quakers), and everything Ruth Paine did involved with helping Marina I have seen a hundred times--strong women, active in committees and organizational work in the community, taking on as personal projects to help this or that person. In every single case that I have seen of this it was sincere. 

Marina expressing regret over how she handled her relationship with Ruth. This was in 1979 (http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/O Disk/Oswald Marina/File/Item 53.pdf).

"Marina also feels guilty for not telling Ruth Paine about the rifle Oswald kept in the Oswald garage, or about the Walker and 'Nixon' episodes. Had Marina done so, Ruth has said, she would have gone to the police and tried to get psychiatric help for Oswald. She is ashamed of her shabby behavior toward Ruth Paine, who gave her and her children shelter and financial support--and whom she has not seen since the assassination period. Marina also regrets that she never reciprocated the kindness, hospitality and money given her and Lee by the Dallas Russian colony. Like her husband, she frequently turned her back on her American and Dallas Russian colony benefactors when they were no longer useful to her. 'I now realize that I used people because I did not know how to stand on my own two feet', she said." 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Sandy said:

But, you see, there is other evidence that Ruth Paine was a CIA asset...

 

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Greg replied:

No there isn't. There is no evidence of that.

 

Yes, there is evidence that Ruth Paine was a CIA asset.

It's called circumstantial evidence.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Jamey Flanagan]

@Greg Doudna, I'm just curious as to your overall view of the assassination. Are you an official story, WC report, Oswald did it alone guy? An Oswald did it but with help guy? I was just wondering.

[Greg Doudna]

48 minutes ago, Jamey Flanagan said:

@Greg Doudna, I'm just curious as to your overall view of the assassination. Are you an official story, WC report, Oswald did it alone guy? An Oswald did it but with help guy? I was just wondering.

An Oswald-did-not-do-it-at-all guy. Mob did it and framed Oswald, with wink and nod approval of elements inside the LBJ administration. 

Edited March 3, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Jamey Flanagan]

@Greg Doudna that surprises me! A pleasant surprise to be sure though. Just from seeing a few posts I assumed you were probably an Oswald did it guy. But you know what they say about how when you assume something you make an A$$ out of U and Me. So I guess I shouldn't assume anything. Lol! I agree with you on the Oswald did not do it at all part, although I always include the caveat these days that THE Oswald shot by Jack Ruby did not shoot anyone. I am very open-minded about the John Armstrong Harvey And Lee angle so I can possibly see the real Lee Oswald (Lee Oswald from birth) being involved in the assassination as either an active shooter or plotter and possibly one of the men at the Tippit shooting scene. I think the mob was most definitely involved, but I lean more towards CIA men being the actual architects of the plan and enlisting the mob for help. Many anti-Castro Cubans were involved. I'm positive LBJ himself knew that it was going down, I just don't think he was the driving force behind it. He was definitely involved in the cover-up after the fact as was Hoover (who most likely had advanced knowledge as well).

[Jonathan Cohen]

4 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Yes, there is evidence that Ruth Paine was a CIA asset.

It's called circumstantial evidence.

What you call "circumstantial evidence" is nothing but a bunch of groundless speculation strung together to fit your pre-conceived conspiracy scenario -- much like your similarly paper-thin theories about widespread Dealey Plaza film and photo alteration and Oswald doppelgangers, Why on god's green earth would Ruth and Michael Paine become part of a conspiracy to frame Oswald and then spend the rest of their lives giving detailed interviews about it? Did they go to media training with the "fake" Marguerite Oswald too? 

[Ron Bulman]

6 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

An Oswald-did-not-do-it-at-all guy. Mob did it and framed Oswald, with wink and nod approval of elements inside the LBJ administration. 

The mob did it.  I thought so too in the late eighties between Contract On America, Kingfish and more.  Even Robert Blakey now knows the CIA lied to the HSCA, I.E. his mafia speculation and book are junk.

Then I came across High Treason and Crossfire for starters.  After the ARRB and work of many researchers before and after it, new info has just kept popping up.  The mob didn't do it.  But they were used.

[Ken Davies]

The mob controlled the parade route selection, the parade route security, the crime scene, the retrieval of the body from Dallas, the autopsy, the transfer of Oswald,  the rebuilding of the death limo, the official investigations, the MSM, the change in Vietnam policy, the official observances in Dallas, and the stonewalling of evidence and document production for 58 plus years.

 Even Mario Puzzo's mob wasn't that powerful 😢

So ask yourself, who was?