Is there or is there not a Minox camera in this DPD evidence photo?

[Sean Coleman]

Wasn’t an associated minox examined and found to be full of ‘cement?’ also had a serial no. not available to the public at that time? 

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

 

Attached is the only picture of Oswald with a weapon that I could find in Weberman's book "The Oswald Code."

2015 edition, Pg 12.

 

I looked this up in the Weberman book. Hemming claimed to Weberman that he, Hemming, took this photo using Oswald's Minox. Since Hemming has produced so much bull otherwise, I think some caution is called for here. However, if Weberman is correct these are photos Weberman obtained (nothing to do with Hemming) through the FOIA. Weberman:

"Undeveloped rolls of Minox film were also found among Oswald's possessions in the Paine['s] garage. Some of them belonged to Michael Paine. I had all the rolls developed under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act."

I believe those who have studied the Minox photos found in the Paine garage attribute them to Michael Paine taken during his early 1950s military service in Asia, also so identified by Michael. Assuming there is no misidentification of the photo and that the photo above is one among the others, I would say the man in the photo cannot be Oswald. If it is Oswald, then it must be some photo unrelated to the Minox photos from the Paine garage.

[Eddy Bainbridge]

Can you explain why one piece of evidence is definitive (a photograph) and one isn't (Statement of officer as to what he found)?

 

[Greg Doudna]

16 minutes ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

Can you explain why one piece of evidence is definitive (a photograph) and one isn't (Statement of officer as to what he found)?

Because an officer's identification is subject to human fallibility. But the photograph tells the story. The weights given to the conflicting claims of evidence are not equal, provided there is no issue of photo alteration, which in this case there isn't.

Its like why consider a tape recording of a conversation as definitive and a witness's testimony saying something different was said not? Because the weight given the conflict claims of evidence are not equal, provided there is no issue of alteration of the tape recording.

In the present case there is not one anomaly in the DPD police report, but two. One is why did the FBI lab say they could not find a Minox camera in the DPD evidence, when DPD's records said they sent one. But the other, which receives less attention, is: why did the FBI lab say they DID receive a Minox light meter (similar shape and appearance) from DPD, when DPD's records showed no light METER found or conveyed?

Two, not one, anomalies. And the FBI lab has a much stronger record of accuracy, compared to the Dallas Police Department, just in terms of error rates.

And--most of all--the very two items that the FBI lab reported disagreed with the DPD inventory lists--both of them--agree EXACTLY with the DPD's own evidence photo taken before that evidence was sent.

How about that for a coincidence! Some coincidence! The DPD's own evidence photograph, of which the FBI lab had no knowledge, says the FBI lab was right! 

Right there in the photograph: No Minox camera to be found. But a Minox light meter is there. Two out of two, independent of one another, in favor of the FBI and against the DPD.

All the debates over this, the DPD vs. FBI, he-says/she-says kind of argument, all the elaborate theories of Ruth Paine fabricating a camera among her many, many other alleged sins not one of which is proven any more than this one . . . all those debates overlooked the tie-breaker, the decider, the DPD evidence photograph which tells the story. They simply did not address the DPD evidence photograph. Simply did not address the DPD evidence photograph. The gold standard of evidence here.

It is a debate which can be settled, and need not go on for another fifty years.

The photograph says the FBI lab was right, not the DPD identification and evidence list which were mistaken. The photograph decides and settles the issue. All the Minox camera equipment, and the Minox camera itself which the Dallas police did not find that weekend, were Michael Paine's. Nothing Minox was Oswald's. There never was any Oswald Minox camera. 

[Paul Brancato]

I’m unclear on something. Are you saying there is a Minox camera case in the photo belonging to M Paine? 

[Greg Doudna]

There is a Minox camera case in the evidence photo taken by the Dallas Police Crime Lab, in the possession of Dallas Police Crime Lab officer Rusty Livingstone, unknown until published by his nephew Gary Savage in First Day Evidence in 1993. It is not a photograph taken by or ever belonged to Michael Paine. There are items of property of Michael Paine in that evidence photo--wrongly taken by police whose search warrant was for Oswald things not Michael's or Ruth's--but Michael Paine had nothing to do with that photograph.

But yes there is an empty Minox camera case but no Minox camera, in that DPD evidence photo, before those items were sent en masse to the FBI lab in Washington, D.C. 

[Richard Price]

Thanks for the close up picture, it is an empty case.  I did not do extensive reading on the subject, but what little I did look up would appear to confirm that there was a camera in this case on whatever date the DPD (Rose & Stovall) received the items shown in the photo.  I can't and won't vouch for the veracity of any of the people involved.  I will make a number of points however:  1.  Rose stated to the HSCA (I believe), that he and Stovall placed their "marks/initials" on every piece of the evidence and that it took a long time for them to do so.  2.  Rose stated that he examined the camera, even describing the procedure to make a picture using it, and said it had film loaded in it.  3.  A Minox camera was turned over by FBI agent Bardwell Odum on January 31, 1964 and presented as having come from Ruth Paine (supposedly Michael Paines).  His report indicates specifically a Minox III model with serial number 27259 (designated D-80 evidence number).  4.  A Minox III camera is now in the inventory at the national archives, however it is damaged (filled with some substance) and cannot be opened.  5. This camera at the archives cannot be determined to be either the missing Oswald camera or Michael Paines as the serial number is on the inside and cannot be accessed unless the camera is opened.  6.  The serial numbers for the Minox II cameras went from 20379 to 31500 while Model III serial numbers started with 31275 and ended with 58499, so the 27259 number can not be the number on a model III. The question then becomes where did the FBI get this 27259 serial number?

The FBI tried unsuccessfully to get Detective Rose to change the DPD property inventory listing to show a "Minox light meter" instead of camera.  Detective Rose was grilled over whether it was a camera or a light meter by a Mr. Moriarty of the HSCA and refused to be budged on his statements.  While this solves nothing absolutely, I think it shows effectively that there WAS a Minox camera taken originally and at some point it was removed.  Detective Rose admitted in his testimony that he did not know which agent asked him to change the inventory listing as there were many out of town (unknown) agents involved in the transfer, etc.  Since a memo was sent from FBI Director Hoover to the Dallas office asking that the camera listed on the inventory sheet be found, it leaves open many many possibilities of who and from what agency decided it shouldn't be found.  The fact that the FBI was asking for the inventory sheet to be changed and then just moving on to "getting a suitable replacement" in order to make all their paperwork fit is just another annotation of what type of investigation they were doing.  Since they had a serial number for the originally discovered camera, they simply made sure the "replacement" couldn't be easily matched or rejected.  No big deal, the camera was insignificant evidence.  Wonder what was on the film???  Proof of Oswald's work for FBI/CIA?

[Ron Bulman]

7 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

Wasn’t an associated minox examined and found to be full of ‘cement?’ also had a serial no. not available to the public at that time? 

Ha. Yep, I've read this!  But there was still film in it, pictures of him in/of SE Asia.  How so?

Edited April 12, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[Sandy Larsen]

11 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

12 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

The FBI did not want to explain why a poor, common laborer, such as Oswald, possessed a very expensive Minox spy camera.

11 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

A "poor, common laborer" when? Presumably this camera was obtained during Oswald's time in Minsk, when he was making as much if not more money as the highest-paid employees at this workplace.

 

Jonathan,

I know it is your goal to discredit just about everything coming from Jim Hargrove's mouth. But you need to pay attention. Jim wasn't claiming that Oswald was a "poor, common laborer"... he was merely repeating the official story the government was trying to push about Oswald.

 

[Greg Doudna]

That's some digging Richard. To add to what you bring out as Rose's adamance that he found a camera, in Sneed, No More Silence (1998), Bill Alexander, Asst. Deputy Attorney, says, p. 551:

"The FBI denied the existence of a very small pocket Minox camera found among Oswald's belongings. We picked up a Minox camera which had some film in it and turned it over to the FBI. Despite their denials, claiming that it was a light meter, I examined it, and I know a camera when I see one. We had the Minox camera and that was all there was to it!"

My reaction to this is, I think there is a good chance he is making it up 35 years later. How would he have examined it? It was not an issue at the time DPD had the evidence, only became an issue after DPD no longer had the evidence. Maybe he came in and looked at what the police had collected from the Paine garage, saw the same things as in the evidence photo, and just like the author of First Day Evidence who published the evidence photo in 1993 says there is a Minox camera there, even when there isn't. I don't know, except that it is 35 years later.

But all of this witness testimony of Gus Rose early and sticks to it later, and then Bill Alexander chiming in 35 years later backing up Rose, just does not match up with the evidence photo which tells what the DPD actually had.

I admit Gus Rose's testimony of finding film inside the Minox camera (not possible with a light meter) sounds convincing. But--it is not consistent with the evidence photograph, and that photograph is not lying. The choice is either the photograph is right and Gus Rose, for all of his detailed explanation and consistent story, was mistaken, or ... well I don't see any viable "or".

What is the "or"?

I cannot see a viable "or". Its like a witness tells you one description of a scene, and an authentic photo of the scene shows something else. There is no "either or", no matter how convincing the witness sounds, the witness is simply wrong, because the photo shows differently. Human witnesses can be mistaken, but an authentic photo is not going to be mistaken.  

If DPD in the person of officer Rose did pick up a Minox camera, why is it not in the DPD's evidence photo?

On the other matters, I have not gone into those in detail but an interpretation which might account for the major facts is that the two cameras in the National Archives are Michael Paine's inoperable one (that's the one with cement and stuck), and then another modern Minox which had nothing to do with the Paine house but was shown to Marina for comparison so is of no interest here. Read MIchael Paine asked years later what happened to his camera as mistaken in thinking it was returned to him and then lost in a fire later stolen along with other photographic equipment. Chalk that up to a mistake, he got some property back, confused over details, but didn't get that one back, its in the National Archives. On the serial number matching II but the camera is a III, resolve that as Michael's camera which is the cemented one in the Archives was a II and Odum got it misidentified when writing it up. The serial number proves it was a II, and the way the II's were made also is in agreement with it stopping being functional for Michael due to a shutter getting stuck, a known problem with the II's. Incidentally although I can't locate it at the moment, there is an FBI interview document on the Mary Ferrell site that has Michael Paine telling how he got his Minox camera. He says he bought it (around 1950? I don't remember the year exaclty) used in a store. As I recall, the date he bought it agrees with the small number of months that IIs were manufactured and on the market before replaced by IIIs due to the IIs having a shutter-sticking issue, which affected Michael's Minox too. So on the II vs. III just chalk that one up to Odum was mistaken in writing it up as a III with a serial number that can only be a II; it was a II.

There's another point: if you are going to take the officer's, Gus Rose's, testimony to the bank against the decisive counterevidence of the evidence photo, consider that is not the only thing. Taking Gus Rose's testimony to the bank requires ALSO assuming that the FBI literally disappeared evidence sent to it on that occasion. I mean, its not impossible in an ultimate existential sense that FBI could do that, but really, how likely here? Well, people imagine all sorts of motives to account for a coverup etc and etc, and etc, but that's all imagined. From the FBI lab's point of view, they get a list that has 1 Minox camera, 0 light meter. They run down the items of evidence and they see they have received 0 camera and 1 light meter. What are they supposed to do? What if they didn't destroy a camera and create a light meter? What if it really was a mistake on DPD's end? What is FBI supposed to do? The press starts reporting, based on Gus Rose and a lot of DPD backing up their fellow officer, that the FBI destroyed some evidence. All the while, although several copies exist of the DPD evidence photo, none are known publicly, none are known to the FBI, or to the press, none are known to anybody until 1993.

As for Gus Rose's testimony, there is this: nobody starts out getting something wrong like that. But it is very human, and very common, that after one is committed, and one's story is challenged and now its an issue, to just lock in and double down on one's story. 

According to the DPD evidence photo, there was all that Minox camera equipment but no camera. That is not just the FBI saying that. That is the DPD's own evidence photo, though neither FBI nor anyone else could know that before 1993. So if there is all that Minox accessory equipment--light meter, case, lanyard, plus some film ... where is the camera? Hoover writes, "go find the camera". Don't read that as sinister. Hoover is not telling them to fabricate manufactured evidence, go into criminal conspiracy to perjure and fabricate evidence with two witting Paines--absurd! Hoover is saying, with all that accessory equipment there has to be a camera, and no camera came to us--find out where is the camera. Like many, many other Hoover and FBI hq instructions to field offices to resolve certain discrepancies in reports sent in. When there was a problem with the documentation sent to hq, hq would tell the field offices to go reinterview witnesses, resolve the problem. Not forge evidence to solve the problem! That's not what that means!

So the FBI asked Ruth Paine and Ruth Paine gave them Michael's inoperable Minox in the coffee can. It goes with the rest of the Minox equipment which the DPD found the first weekend, all of which was Michael's. It explains why only the Minox camera itself was missing in the evidence photo--because police didn't have it no matter what Gus Rose and their written inventory lists said. The one and only Minox camera in the Paine house, Michael Paine's Minox camera which went with all of Michael Paine's Minox camera accessories and Michael Paine photos taken with a Minox, is all of a piece. The missing camera was elsewhere in the garage, in the coffee canister, and it all belonged to Michael, never had anything to do with Oswald. People say, well the police could not have missed Michael's Minox in the coffee can the first time in their search. But the police had no right to Michael's property in the first place! Nor were the police looking for Michael's property whether cameras or anything else! And of course they could miss it, they did't go over that garage with a toothbrush through all of Michael's and Ruth's belongings too. So that is a non-issue. The simple solution is: all the Minox accessories in the evidence photo are Michael's, and the missing Minox camera that went with the accessories was elsewhere in the garage and produced later by Ruth Paine in January when asked, and it was all Michael Paines, and none of that Minox equipment was Oswalds. 

All that needs to be supposed, and it is a necessary supposition because it is what the evidence photograph shows, is Gus Rose made a mistake. It is easier to suppose that than that the DPD evidence photo is not showing accurately what really was found. With that one thing--Gus Rose was mistaken--the rest of everything else falls into place and all the problems disappear. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Pete Mellor]

19 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Pete I do not believe this is accurate. Could you document this? All information known to me says the photos found and developed collected by the police that weekend were identifiable as taken by Michael Paine, which is in agreement with Michael's identification, with no photo of Oswald in any photo which came from a Minox. 

Unless a Minox camera can be found in the DPD evidence photograph, Lee had no Minox camera. But I think your question is based on the prior premise that there was a photo of Oswald among undeveloped Minox camera photographs, which cannot be accepted without documentation.

Before something gets started, (a) Richard never claimed a Minox camera is visible in the photograph, and (b) it is definitively excluded that a camera could be located where Richard suggested, from the closeup.

Exposures made from one of the cameras were also developed and appear to have been taken in Asia, and, according to researcher A.J. Weberman (who filed the Freedom of Information Act to have the photos released), one of the photos shows Oswald holding an M16 rifle. 

Greg, the above quote I took from https://debunked.wordpress.com/the-possessions-of-lee-harvey-oswald-photographic-equipment/  I assume Weberman is referring to the photograph that Denny has posted above.???  I'm confused! (Again)  If you are correct that Oswald did not have any Minox camera, & the light meter belonged to Michael Paine, then where did Weberman's Oswald pic. originate from, and what to make of Rose & Stovall & Alexander's statements of a film in a Minox?

Before something gets started, (a) Richard never claimed a Minox camera is visible in the photograph.

On 4/11/2022 at 3:18 PM, Richard Price said:

I think the Minox camera is in the case to the right of the pocket watch. 

I agree with your closeup which wasn't available at the time, even with CTRL/mouse wheel I assumed a Minox to be inside the case.

[Pete Mellor]

22 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Interesting. But I'm pretty sure the M-16 was not standard issue when Oswald was in the Marines. Are you sure it was an M-16?

As this thread progresses Pat, I'm not sure of anything!  In my answer to Greg's post above, I got the M-16 from:-https://debunked.wordpress.com/the-possessions-of-lee-harvey-oswald-photographic-equipment/

As I do not have Weberman's book 'The Oswald Code' I do not know if A.J. is referring to the photograph that Denny has posted above. 

[Max Good]

I've spent some time trying to figure this out.  The whole story is so convoluted that I decided not to include it my film.  There doesn't appear to be a Minox camera in this photo, but if you zoom in close you will notice that the Minox camera case could be sitting on top of the camera.  You can see the chain coming out of a hole.  From other photos online, it appears the chain attaches directly to the camera and runs through a hole in the case.

Even if there is no Minox camera in the photo, it doesn't prove one wasn't taken into evidence by Gus Rose.

Attached is a Dallas Morning News article from 1978 about the Minox and photos from it.

Even if the camera was Michael's, isn't it still suspicious?

 

[Sean Coleman]

If the camera was actually a light meter, which item would be the pedometer?

[Richard Price]

12 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

If the camera was actually a light meter, which item would be the pedometer?

The pedometer may be what I originally thought to be a pocket watch (didn't read - too obsessed with the camera).  If that item is the compass instead of a pedometer, then perhaps the pedometer is the item just above and to the left of the first row of film boxes, though I tend to think that is the compass.  The light meter and its BLACK case is the item right below the inscription "Irving, TX 11/22/63