Which came first, the bus or the Rambler?

[John Butler]

35 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

U.S. Army employee Stuart Reed had apparent foreknowledge of several of the events that day, because he took not only pictures of the TSBD facade and “sniper’s nest” window, but also of Oswald’s arrest at the Texas Theater and even front and back pictures of what might well be McWatters’ bus approaching the TSBD.

 

Where can one find more info on Stuart Reed?  It is curious that he was a US Army employee.  At the ARRB there was a witness who spoke of photographers from Fort Hood, perhaps as many as 50, filming the events of Dealey Plaza with the type of cameras that sent TV info to a central source, if I am remembering this correctly.

[John Butler]

On 5/3/2022 at 8:25 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

Yeah, we all have to be conscious of the potential for all kinds of chicanery in this case, unfortunately.  For what it's worth, though, here's how Whaley testified in 1964:

That is far too true.  Fiction and Chicanery were rampant in Dealey Plaza during the assassination and more so after the assassination.  

As far as William Whaley's testimony is concerned it should be considered to be truthful until confounded by other evidence.  I don't see that in the case of Whaley's testimony.  Do we know anything about Whaley's preferences?  One observer says that men just don't pay attention to jewelry such as bracelets.  But, they do. 

So, that notion fails at the starting point.  I owned a jewelry store some years back.  Men are just as vain as women as far as ornamentation goes.

Jim Hargrove has done a note worthy job of speaking to the naysayers on this point and others.

Edited May 4, 2022 by John Butler

[Steve Thomas]

On 5/3/2022 at 7:58 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

According to John A.:

Oswald's bracelet is listed on a DPD property form, found in Box 1, folder 8, item 1 at the Dallas Archives. It is identified as "One I.D. stretch band with 'Lee' inscribed.

Steve Thomas seems to have the most expertise searching the Dallas Archives.  If he sees this, perhaps he can confirm.

Jim,

Pictures of Oswald's I.D, bracelet, and the Property Clerk's Receipt can be found here:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/JFKAM/browse/?q=Oswald+I.D.+bracelet&t=fulltext&sort=

 

The Kamisnky information I have can be found on Page 1 of this thread.

Steve Thomas

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

Harvey Oswald was NOT an assassin.

Indeed, Harvey Oswald was NOT an assassin, because Harvey Oswald was NOT a real person. He was a character in a work of fiction. If, however, Jim is referring to the uncle of the one and only Lee Harvey Oswald, I'd agree with him that the uncle was not an assassin.

Unlike Jim, I'd claim that the nephew wasn't an assassin either. There's very little evidence to support Jim's and the Warren Commission's claim that someone named Oswald was on the sixth floor of the book depository, shooting at President Kennedy.

John Armstrong writes:

Quote

Milton Jones, who remembered Oswald as a passenger

Armstrong does this several times in the article Jim quotes. It's called begging the question: Armstrong is assuming to be true that which he needs to demonstrate to be true. 

Armstrong does the same dishonest thing throughout his novel, too, beginning with his invention of two Marguerite Oswalds on pages 6-14, as detailed here:

http://22november1963.org.uk/john-armstrong-harvey-and-lee-theory

As for Milton Jones, he did not remember Oswald as a passenger. Here's what Jones had to say about Oswald being the man he saw:

JONES stated he did not observe this man closely since he sat behind him in the bus, but, on the following Monday when he caught the same bus going home from school with the same driver, the driver told him he thought this man might have been LEE HARVEY OSWALD.

JONES said that after the driver mentioned this, and from his recollection of OSWALD's picture as it appeared on television and in the newspapers, he thought it was possible it could have been OSWALD. He emphasised, however, that he did not have a good view of this man at any time and could not positively identify him as being identical with LEE HARVEY OSWALD. He said he was inclined to think it might have been  OSWALD only because the bus driver told him so.

Source: Commission Exhibit 2641 (WC Hearings and Exhibits, vol.25, pp.899-900: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1141#relPageId=929)

Armstrong's statement that Jones "remembered Oswald as a passenger" is the opposite of the truth. Jones absolutely did not claim that the man was Oswald. Not only that, but Jones gave a description of the man that does not match Oswald. In CE 2641, Jones describes the man as aged 30-35, 5' 11" in height, weighing 150 pounds, and wearing a blue jacket. None of these distinguishing features match Oswald. As I pointed out earlier, Oswald's blue jacket was in the book depository all the time this man was on McWatters' bus.

I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised at Armstrong's apparent dishonesty in claiming that Jones "remembered Oswald as a passenger", since Armstrong infamously misled his readers on the matter of Oswald's mastoidectomy operation, which debunked his double-doppelganger theory two decades before he published his novel.

More importantly, it's clear that Milton Jones's statement to the FBI seriously undermines the claim by the Warren Commission and the 'Harvey and Lee' believers that Oswald was on McWatters' bus.

Quote

Bledsoe and Jones and Whaley all remembered that Oswald wore light colored grey pants ... Oswald instructed Whaley to drive to the 500 block of N. Beckley

Two more examples of begging the question. As for the idea that wearing "light colored grey pants" identifies the man as Oswald, that's probably the strongest proof yet. I mean, who else could it possibly be, if not Oswald? I haven't checked the archives of the Dallas newspapers, but I'm sure there are headlines on the front pages every time "Man Is Spotted in Dallas Wearing Light Colored Grey Pants".

Armstrong asks a couple of rhetorical questions:

Quote

How could Bledsoe and Jones and Whaley have known Oswald was wearing light grey pants on the bus/taxi unless they had personally seen him?

and

Quote

How is it possible that Oswald's and Whaley's stories match perfectly, unless the taxi ride acutally happened and was remembered by both Oswald and Whaley?

How, indeed? Since we know (as I explained earlier) that the written records of Oswald's interrogations contain important inaccuracies about Oswald's alibi, an obvious explanation exists for these miraculous coincidences. Can you work out what it is, boys and girls?

Quote

McWatters issued six transfers prior to picking up Oswald and the blond[e] lady (prior to 12:40 PM). He then issued a transfer to the blond[e] lady and a transfer to Oswald when they got off the bus (circa 12:44 PM).

Alternatively, McWatters issued five transfers, then one to the blonde woman, leaving the next numbered transfer to be "found" in Oswald's shirt pocket at the second attempt, once it became necessary to put Oswald on a bus rather than in the car as witnessed by Roger Craig and two motorists.

The woman was never traced, so we don't know the number of the transfer she received, assuming that she actually received one.

Quote

these naysayers never produce a single document or a single witness by which to prove the taxi and bus ride never happened. Nor can they offer an ounce of PROOF as to what they think COULD HAVE happened—only speculation, fantasies, and daydreams.

Armstrong clearly doesn't understand the concept of the burden of proof. It isn't up to anyone to prove that the bus journey didn't happen; it's up to him (and the Warren Commission) to prove that it did. So far, he and the Warren Commission haven't done so.

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

Mr. B. doesn’t even consider the taxi ride.

That's because the taxi ride is of no relevance if the bus journey didn't happen. The man in Whaley's taxi can only have been Oswald if the man on McWatters' bus was Oswald, and Armstrong and the Warren Commission have failed to demonstrate this.

John Butler writes:

Quote

How have you refuted these "unreliable witnesses"?  I don't want to go to another site to see your proclaimed truth.

Here's the link I gave earlier, which notes some of the many inconsistencies and contradictions in the witnesses' accounts:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1121-oswald-and-bus-1213

All John has to do is click the link. It won't bite. As I pointed out earlier, anyone who has a copy of Sylvia Meagher's Accessories After the Fact can find a good account of the problems with the bus journey on pages 75-83.

Incidentally, someone who isn't a member here has got in touch to suggest that John Butler's habit of rattling off a series of brief, inconsequential comments might be an attempt to hide comments he doesn't want people to see. I'm sure that can't be what John is trying to do, but if it is, it isn't working.

Now, would anyone like to put forward a properly argued case that the bus journey happened, with an explanation of the numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in the witnesses' accounts?

[Jim Hargrove]

18 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Jim,

Pictures of Oswald's I.D, bracelet, and the Property Clerk's Receipt can be found here:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/JFKAM/browse/?q=Oswald+I.D.+bracelet&t=fulltext&sort=

Steve,

Thank you for the link.  It has a good image of the bracelet.

For some reason, the online Archive description no longer says “stretch” bracelet.  But here is the original DPD list that includes the following:  “I.D. stretch band with ‘Lee’ inscribed,” just as cab driver Whaley described it.

[Jim Hargrove]

Mr. B. perpetually mocks the Two Oswald anaylsis.  But there are at least three different times that the United States government has admitted the possibility (and once the certainty) of an Oswald impersonator. 

Back in 1960, J. Edgar Hoover wrote, “there is a possibility that an imposter is using Oswald’s birth certificate.

Less than a year later, the State Department’s Edward J. Hickey wrote, “it has been stated that there in an imposter using Oswald’s identification data….”

" 

At 10 AM on the morning following the Kennedy assassination, President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover discussed the state of the case over the telephone. Hoover stated, in unequivocal terms, that LHO had been impersonated in Mexico City.

"No, that’s one angle that’s very confusing, for this reason—we have up here the tape and the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet embassy, using Oswald’s name. That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man’s voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet embassy down there."  [Listen to the conversation here.] 

[Jim Hargrove]

3 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

As I pointed out earlier, Oswald's blue jacket was in the book depository all the time this man was on McWatters' bus.

Nonsense. That blue/grey jacket was “discovered” (planted) at the TSBD and put into evidence long after the assassination.

At least three people said that (HARVEY) Oswald had a grey/light blue jacket—bus driver Cecil McWatters, bus passenger Roy Milton Jones, and taxi driver William Whaley.

Mr. Ball. This is the blue-gray jacket, heavy blue-gray jacket? 


Mr. Whaley. Yes, sir.

Jones said Oswald was wearing a "light blue" jacket.

 

Quote

That's because the taxi ride is of no relevance if the bus journey didn't happen. The man in Whaley's taxi can only have been Oswald if the man on McWatters' bus was Oswald, and Armstrong and the Warren Commission have failed to demonstrate this.

Nonsense.  It is quite obvious that a taxi driver would better remember his single passenger than a bus driver would remember dozens of different passengers.  And Whaley remembered him well.

Mr. Ball. Was there anything in particular about him beside his clothing that you could identify such as jewelry, bracelets?

Mr. Whaley. Yes, sir: he had on a bracelet of some type on his left arm. It looked like an identification bracelet....I always notice watchbands, unusual watchbands, and identification bracelets like these, because I make them myself ... It was just a common stretchband identification bracelet. A lot of them are made of chain links and not stretchbands. Stretchbands are unusual because there is very few of them."

 

Quote

 

 As I pointed out earlier, anyone who has a copy of Sylvia Meagher's Accessories After the Fact can find a good account of the problems with the bus journey on pages 75-83.

 

And as I pointed out earlier, Sylvia Meagher's outstanding book has page after page about Two Oswalds.  Let's look at a little more of it.

Mr. B. goes on and on saying how John A. and I are dishonest and saying we wear "tin foil hats" and those sorts of insults, but the truth is, there is a trainload of evidence for Two Oswalds.  To see a whole lot more of it, try reading:

HARVEYANDLEE.NET

[Jim Hargrove]

22 hours ago, John Butler said:

Where can one find more info on Stuart Reed?  It is curious that he was a US Army employee.  At the ARRB there was a witness who spoke of photographers from Fort Hood, perhaps as many as 50, filming the events of Dealey Plaza with the type of cameras that sent TV info to a central source, if I am remembering this correctly.

John,

I believe the first person to publish high quality images of the photos Reed took was Robert Groden in his superb coffee-table book The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald, which also has a very good write-up called "Too Many Oswalds."  There are some discussions of Reed on this forum.  Note the document below:

 

[Jonathan Cohen]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Mr. B. goes on and on saying how John A. and I are dishonest and saying we wear "tin foil hats" and those sorts of insults, but the truth is, there is a trainload of evidence for Two Oswalds.

Dead wrong, as usual. Jeremy and I have always agreed that there is evidence Oswald was impersonated at various points in his life. But that does not mean the impersonations were part of some absolutely preposterous long-term doppelganger project. The implication that Sylvia Meagher's writings somehow support the "Harvey and Lee" theory is profoundly off-base.

[Jim Hargrove]

6 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Dead wrong, as usual. Jeremy and I have always agreed that there is evidence Oswald was impersonated at various points in his life. But that does not mean the impersonations were part of some absolutely preposterous long-term doppelganger project. The implication that Sylvia Meagher's writings somehow support the "Harvey and Lee" theory is profoundly off-base.

I see.  We both agree that LHO has been impersonated multiple times, we just disagree on how many times and for how long, eh?

Let's take a look at the record....

1. Way back in 1948, one LHO was living at 101 San Saba in Benbrook while the other was at 3330 Willig St. (and then 7408 Ewing) in Fort Worth.

2. In 1953 the Russian-speaking LHO (Harvey) was sent to Youth House for truancy, fled to Stanley, North Dakota to avoid further entanglement with the NYC legal system, and started attending Beauregard JHS in New Orleans that fall, all the while the American-born LHO (Lee) had good attendance both semesters at PS 44 in NYC.

3. During the fall semester of 1954, Harvey attended Stripling School in Fort Worth while Lee attended Beauregard School in New Orleans.

4. By the mid-1950s, both Oswalds had various sometimes conflicting jobs, which eventually required the FBI to destroy all the original employment (and school) records for both young men and to create a false employment and education legend. The Social Security Administration refused to corroborate the Official Story® of "Oswald's" pre-1962 income, offering instead "Copies of three pages of the Warren Commission Report regarding employment of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to service in the Marine Corps."

5. The Marine Corps records are a gold mine: My favorite chronicles Harvey Oswald's trip to Formosa (Taiwan) while Lee was being treated for VD in Japan. Other examples from USMC unit diaries and testimony show how the two LHOs associated with completely different groups of Marines both early and late in their enlistment periods.

6. While Russian-speaking HARVEY was in the Soviet Union, American-born LEE was active briefly as an agent provocateur in NYC, working with Marita Lorenz and anti-Castro Cubans in and around Florida, visiting Bolton Ford dealership in New Orleans, and much more.

7. One Oswald never had a driver’s license and could not drive while the other had a valid Texas driver’s license and could drive, including doing work for Jack Ruby in 1963 involving cars.

8. American-born LEE Oswald appeared in Baytown, TX on Labor Day weekend in 1963 attempting to purchase rifles from Fidel Castro’s friend and gun supplier Robert McKeown. At the time, Russian-speaking HARVEY Oswald and his family were on holiday with the Murrets at Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana.

9. In October 1963, two different young men, both claiming to be “Lee Harvey Oswald,” appeared before Texas Employment Commission employee Laura Kittrell, the first on October 3 and again a few days later, the second on October 22. Ms Kittell told the HSCA’s Gaeton Fonzi that the second Oswald “looked the same,” and had “the same general outline and coloring and build, but there was something so different in his bearing.”

10. While the other Oswald was elsewhere, LEE Oswald visited the Sports Drome Rifle Range on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, and again on Nov. 17, several times creating a scene and once shooting at another guy's target.

11. On Nov. 2 one LHO visited Morgan's Gun Shop in Fort Worth.

12. Also on Nov. 2 LEE Oswald visited the Downtown Lincoln Mercury dealership where he test drove a car at recklessly high speeds saying he would soon come into enough money to buy a new car. (Remember that Russian-speaking HARVEY Oswald did not have a driver’s license.)

13. On Nov. 6 or 7 LEE Oswald visited the Irving Furniture Mart for a gun part and was referred by the ladies there to the shop where Dial Ryder worked.

14. On Nov. 15, LEE Oswald went to the Southland Hotel parking garage (Allright Parking Systems) and applied for a job and asked how high the Southland Building was and if it had a good view of downtown Dallas.

15. On Nov. 20 “Oswald” hitch-hiked on the R.L. Thornton Expressway while carrying a 4 foot long package wrapped in brown paper and introduced himself to Ralph Yates as “Lee Harvey Oswald,” discussed the President's visit, and asked to be dropped across the street from the Texas School Book Depository (where Russian-speaking “Lee Harvey Oswald” was already working).

16. On Nov. 22, both LHOs were in Dealey Plaza. One left in a bus and then a taxi; the other got into a Nash Rambler station wagon.

That's a lot of impersonations.  Could there be  a simpler explanation?
 

[Jonathan Cohen]

1 hour ago, Jim Hargrove said:

That's a lot of impersonations.  Could there be a simpler explanation?

Of course there’s a simpler explanation, and it has literally been pointed out to you on this forum over and over again for years: the witnesses were mistaken or confused or making things up, the evidence on which these sightings are based is being interpreted incorrectly after the fact (ie, the school records issue and your needlessly conspiratorial analysis of Robert Oswald’s recall of dates and places vis-a-vis where his brother was and when) and so on.

And as mentioned repeatedly, impersonation of Oswald does not have to mean it was part of a preposterous long-term government program involving doppelgängers.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Jonathan Cohen

[John Butler]

40 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Of course there’s a simpler explanation, and it has literally been pointed out to you on this forum over and over again for years: the witnesses were mistaken or confused or making things up, the evidence on which these sightings are based is being interpreted incorrectly after the fact

Jonathan,

That's just wishful thinking on your part.  There are way to many facts for you to wish away.  The explanation is not simple.  This is reality and complex.

[Jonathan Cohen]

51 minutes ago, John Butler said:

Jonathan,

That's just wishful thinking on your part.  There are way to many facts for you to wish away.  The explanation is not simple.  This is reality and complex.

Your definition of "facts" is different than just about every serious Kennedy assassination researcher's definition, which explains why the "Harvey and Lee" theory is the most derided and laughed it in the entire case.

[Jim Hargrove]

32 minutes ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Your definition of "facts" is different than just about every serious Kennedy assassination researcher's definition, which explains why the "Harvey and Lee" theory is the most derided and laughed it in the entire case.

Whenever Jonathan Cohen hurls the insults like above, I'm posting this:

David Mantik, Joseph McBride, Dr. James Norwood, David Josephs, Robert Groden, among many others, including many others on this forum, have held Harvey and Lee in the highest regard.  If memory serves, Mr. Mantik once said it was his favorite book on the subject.  John Armstrong has been a guest on Len Osanic's Black Op Radio at least a dozen times.

Two YouTube movies by “MrChrillemannen,”presenting John Armstrong interviews with accompanying graphics, have been viewed more than 700,000 times!

Captain Westbrook, officer Tippit and Oswald's double

and

Who impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald?

John’s work has spawned, not counting “The Other Oswald,” which is somewhat different, at least three different books in recent years.

The JFK Assassination and the Uncensored Story of the Two Oswalds

From an Amazon review: “I'd read a good chunk of Armstrong's Harvey and Lee, but Shannan provided clarity for me on the matter of Marguerite Oswald in particular and the whole thesis in general. So much easier to read this digest than the master's unedited tome.”

DOPPELGANGER: The Legend of Lee Harvey OswaldI also believe there were two LHOs.  There's a whole section in Groden's "The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald" entitled "Too Many Oswalds."  In her renowned book "Accessories After the Fact" Sylvia Meagher had pages and pages under the heading "Two Oswalds."

Dr. Schwimmer’s best-seller is already in it’s fifth (or maybe it's sixth now) edition.

From the publisher’s blurb: “More than 300 sources, including many sworn testimonies & affidavits, were consulted, as well as John Armstrong’s massive research project HARVEY AND LEE. One fact led to another, until a coherent picture began to emerge from the immense pile of puzzle pieces…. That picture includes the background of Harvey as a juvenile immigrant fluent in Russian, and the creation of the second ‘Lee Harvey Oswald’ and the second ‘Marguerite Oswald.’ The picture continues with the recruitment of both Lee Oswald and Harvey Oswald by the ONI and the CIA, followed by Harvey’s assumption of Lee’s identity, his ‘defection’ to Russia, and Lee’s involvement with the Cuban revolution and the CIA..…”

Mistaken Identity

From the publisher’s blurb:  "New forensic and evidentiary material not published, proves that two individuals known as "Lee Harvey Oswald" enlisted in the U.S. Marines in 1956 using the same birth certificate. Recent genealogical research identifies them as second cousins through intermarriage of second-generation French families in New Orleans. It created a nightmare of identity for the FBI."

When people here tell you "Harvey and Lee" has all been debunked and that nobody believes it, don't believe them.

[Jonathan Cohen]

17 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Whenever Jonathan Cohen hurls the insults like above, I'm posting this:

David Mantik, Joseph McBride, Dr. James Norwood, David Josephs, Robert Groden, among many others, including many others on this forum, have held Harvey and Lee in the highest regard.  If memory serves, Mr. Mantik once said it was his favorite book on the subject.  John Armstrong has been a guest on Len Osanic's Black Op Radio at least a dozen times..

So what? Just because a book was written on the subject doesn't mean it is credible. Do you believe the theory that William Greer shot President Kennedy from within the presidential limousine is credible? If not, by your logic you should, just because there was a book written about it.

The fact that John Armstrong has appeared on Black Op Radio does nothing to enhance the credibility of his absurd theory. In fact, of the Armstrong episodes I've listened to, he is mostly reading from a prepared script rather than engaging in any meaningful conversation or debate. I'm similarly unimpressed with an endorsement from Robert Groden, especially after he tried to pass off a fake photograph as a "never before seen" autopsy image in his latest book. If this is the best that "Harvey and Lee" adherents can come up with, it's a pretty sad state of affairs.