Oswald, Tippit, and Carl Mather: connecting some dots

[Pete Mellor]

6 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

And then Marina marries a guy working for Collins Radio . . .

Yes, within the first year after the assassination, Kenneth Porter quit his job at Collins Radio.  Soon thereafter articles began to appear in the Dallas papers about his dating Marina Oswald.  J.H. 'Bart' Bartholomew, an employee at Collins' Richardson plant since 1955, reported that after Porter had been working there for a while he quit "all of a sudden."  Fellow workers wondered why he quit so suddenly.  According to Bartholomew, Porter got along with everyone at the plant.  No one knew any reason why he would quit.  Then the news media reported that Kenneth and Marina were engaged.  He had divorced his wife just prior to the engagement announcement.  Porter also had children and had not mentioned any domestic problems.  When news of the engagement broke, rumours began at Collins that he was marrying Marina for her money.  Bartholomew said the talk around the plant was that the quitting, divorce and engagement all happened very quickly in that order within a year of the assassination.

Curiouser and curiouser, more through the looking glass!

Edited August 6, 2022 by Pete Mellor
Typo

[Greg Doudna]

18 hours ago, David Boylan said:

If my memory is not failing, I think Martino mentioned that Oswald was supposed to meet his contact the theatre and was to be flown out of the country where he was supposed to be disposed of. 

There were some indications that Oswald was had two torn in half dollar bills when he was arrested. This form of contact identification was currently being used by the SAS/SO (Special Operations Staff/Special Operations) branch headed by Dez Fitzgerald and in use by Henry Hecksher as part of the AMWORLD project. We suspect that LHO was to be flown out of Red Bird airport. Now was he supposed to end up in Houston? Is that why David Ferrie was there on the phone but was called off because, according to Martino "a cop was killed" messing up the whole plan.

David, yes, the article by Larry Hancock and you, "The Red Bird Airfield Leads" (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rODOLtGaAe0cni6N5rBnmgmwC71N2hpN/view ), develops the idea that Oswald might have been driven to that airfield and flown somewhere, if he had not been arrested. The Matthew Smith book, The Second Plot, was influential to me in offering a different way of thinking about some things. Your comments here led me to go to the Anthony and Robyn Summers Dec 1994 Vanity Fair article in which the John Martino story was told, especially with reference to what Martino said had happened with Oswald in the theatre (https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1994/12/the-ghosts-of-november ), which was the footnote in Larry's book on that. Here is Summers and Summers on that:

"That same year [1975], Martino talked with a business partner named Fred Claasen. 'Martino said Oswald wasn't the hit man,' Claasen said. 'He told me, 'The anti-Castro types put Oswald together.... Oswald didn't know who he was working for.... He was to meet his contact at the Texas Theatre... They were to meet Oswald in the theater and get him out of the country, then eliminate him. Oswald made a mistake. There was no way we could get to him. They had Ruby kill him.'"

Comment: at first this seems to clash with the reconstruction I sketched (proposed) in which Carl Mather, not party to wanting to kill Oswald, is waiting for a time to meet Oswald at the Texas Theatre, but it is not actually in total conflict. For in the scheme that emerged to me, covert intelligence person Mather and his operatives Tippit and Oswald are responding to the surprise of an assassination which they did not do, did not see coming, and it was a race who would get to Oswald first: Mather and Tippit (working for Mather) who would have gotten Oswald to safety if Tippit had found him, perhaps in the form of an equivalent (before there was such a formal program) of witness protection somewhere, or the "bad people" related to the killers of Kennedy, who were dead set on killing Oswald that day. 

In a notebook of phone messages for Jack Ruby at the Carousel Club, a message written at an unknown date by Larry Crafard ostensibly for Ruby, there was one that read (p. 32 of WC questioning of Crafard at https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/crafard.htm) :

"Mr. Miller Friday 15 people Collins Radio Co."

Although it is possible I am seeing something that isn't there, three of the four items in that note appear to be specific points of contact in agreement with a Carl Mather-Oswald meeting in the Texas Theatre. Overtly this would be something to do with a dinner reservation at the Carousel Club for a Collins Radio Co. party of 15 people on a Friday, though no calendar date of which Friday is specified and there is no contact phone number for a return call. In all of the investigation and scrutiny given to Ruby and the Carousel Club after the assassination, I am aware of no hint or whiff of a Collins Radio Co. banquet or relationship of Collins Radio Co. to the Carousel Club outside of this note. Therefore I have considered an alternative reading in which there is information there related to the Oswald/Mather Texas Theatre meeting appointment:

"Friday" = Friday Nov 22

"Collins Radio Co." = Oswald meeting a contact from Collins Radio Co.

"15 people" = 1500 hours or 3 pm

(The fourth item, Mr. Miller, no idea what that means, maybe nothing. But that's three out of four that do connect.) Nothing corresponds to naming Oswald or a location (Texas Theatre) so it would have to be assumed that information was already known but a Collins Radio Co. man and 3 pm was what was new. Is this a written note from someone phoning in to the "bad people" a leak of information on the covert Mather-Oswald meeting? The Friday and Collins Radio Co. are specific matches in agreement with this hypothesis, and so would be the "15 people" in light of this: for Oswald on his own either by bus or on foot, if there was a preplanned, or triggered contingency, whichever it was, designated meeting time at the Texas Theatre for Oswald to appear following the presidential parade, the time would logically be 3 pm of any top-of-the-hour time. 2 pm would be cutting it too close for Oswald to be certain to be able to be there, but Oswald could certainly get there by 3 pm even without taking a bus. How far is it from TSBD/Dealey Plaza to the Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff--maybe ca 4 miles? Oswald could get there by walking if necessary by 3 pm.

So 3 pm would be the logical time, and 3 pm or 15 o'clock in military/european time turns up in the note in the form of the number 15, in juxtaposition with Collins Radio Co. and Friday. With a meeting set for 3 pm, all Oswald needed to do was get to the theater some time before then and be inside watching the movies until the appointed time. Mather who lives some distance from Oak Cliff gets to the vicinity early but parks nearby waiting until closer to the time to appear for the meeting. Oswald got to the theater early and was hoping his contact might also already be there early, but after checking a couple of possibilities (men sitting alone) in the theater who turned out not to be the case, resigned himself to watching the movies until 3 pm. Returning to Summer and Summers:

"Martino let drop two things to his wife after the assassination. He told her, 'When they [= police] went to the theater and got Oswald, they [police] blew it... There was a Cuban in there. They [police] let him come out.' He said, 'They [police] let the guy go, the other trigger.'"

Comment: This would correspond to the man who ran into the Texas Theatre at 1:36, the man who killed Tippit. He was one of the "bad people". Would he have shot and killed Oswald right there in the theater? Probably, that would be the simplest way to do that, then run. When police arrived to the back of the Texas Theatre there was a pickup truck with its engine running but no driver or owner of the vehicle in sight (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1140#relPageId=260). Followup information on if the vehicle's driver or owner was found or explained is not known. If the man who ran in to the Texas Theatre at 1:36 was intent on shooting and killing Oswald right inside the theater, all I can say is there is a record of what could be a getaway vehicle awaiting out the back door. It would not really have been unmanned. The way I imagine it the driver had the engine running and was out of the vehicle. Police arrived without time for the driver to return to the vehicle, so the driver fled leaving the vehicle with engine running. Maybe there is an innocent explanation for a vehicle with engine running and no driver, in an alley out the back door of the Texas Theatre just after a killer ran in the front door. I think it looks like a setup of a hit on Oswald which almost came to pass, a hit on Oswald which would be predicted and expected at that time and place, which did not happen due to the accident of the police arrival.

The "Cuban" detail in the Martino account, if accurate, would seem to make the man who fled into the theater at 1:36, the Tippit killer, a Cuban. On the one hand that would be in agreement with Latin-American Benavides from the Tippit crime scene testifying to the WC that the gunman had skin color "a little bit darker than average ... a little bit ruddier than mine", and Julia Postal saying she saw the 1:36 man's complexion as "ruddy". On the other hand it would be inconsistent with the gunman having been Larry Crafard who was not Cuban even though he also was reported by the FBI to be of "medium" complexion not the "light" complexion of Oswald.  

On "They [= police] let him come out ... let the guy go", there may be a firsthand account of that from the officer who did that at the Texas Theater, the possible first police arrival, deputy sheriff Bill Courson at ca. 1:47. Courson gives his explanation of why he let the man go. (Note that Oswald was seated in the lower main seating area and therefore the man Courson encountered at ca. 1:47 was not Oswald.) Courson:

"I started up the stairs of the balcony because that is where the call said that he was hiding. I'm reasonably satisfied in my own mind that I met Oswald coming down. I was looking for a man in a white or light colored jacket because at that time I hadn't been told that he had discarded the jacket and that it had been found. So there were two reasons why I didn't stop him. I'm looking for a man in the balcony, not coming down [from the balcony!] walking casually, and the description didn't fit because he was wearing a kind of plaid or checkered patterned shirt, not the light colored jacket. But I'm reasonably sure it was Oswald." (Sneed, No More Silence, 485) 

On the aircraft which was revved up and flew from Red Bird Airfield the afternoon of the assassination, perhaps that involved some "bad people" but not Oswald.

Edited August 6, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[James DiEugenio]

Collins Radio and the WR:

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

The other thing that is interesting is Wise saying that when he met the couple, the wife was kind of cool and collected but Carl was quite nervous and did not talk much.

Then, apparently the HSCA had to offer him immunity to testify.

The old lawyer saying is, people with nothing to cover up do not cover up things.

Or why would he want immunity from prosecution?

Again, has anyone seen his deposition, or did he not do one for the HSCA?

Edited August 6, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Tom Gram]

33 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

The other thing that is interesting is Wise saying that when he met the couple, the wife was kind of cool and collected but Carl was quite nervous and did not talk much.

Then, apparently the HSCA had to offer him immunity to testify.

The old lawyer saying is, people with nothing to cover up do not cover up things.

Or why would he want immunity from prosecution?

Again, has anyone seen his deposition, or did he not do one for the HSCA?

I dug through the NARA spreadsheets, and unless Mather's deposition was "disappeared" I don't think he testified. Our buddy Dale Myers dismisses the incident based on the car color and dismisses the immunity agreement as a routine procedure to release Mathers from his security clearance, but the actual immunity application doesn't support that:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on or after the 30th day of May 1978 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, United States Courthouse, Third and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington , D.C., Counsel for the Select Committee on Assassinations, acting on behalf of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the United States House of Representatives, will apply to the Court, pursuant to the provisions of Title 18, United States Code, Section 6002, et. seq., for an order conferring immunity upon Carl Amos Mather and compelling him to testify and provide other information in an inquiry being conducted by the Subcommittee on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy of the Select Committee on Assassinations.

There should be internal HSCA correspondence on Mather discussing why he didn't end up testifying - if he really didn't - and the actual reason for his immunity agreement, but I can't find a damn thing. The only document in the NARA spreadsheets I could find that references Mather that might be worth checking out (as in I can't find evidence that anyone has ever looked at it) is:

180-10070-10119 Handwritten Notes on Immunity Request Forms 

Blakey also put in a request for information on Mather with the CIA, which came back negative, but the specific language used in the CIA response was: 

"The Office of Security has located no record or could not identify..."

The CIA then told Blakey to narrow his request for information on Collins Radio since the CIA had so many records:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=104976#relPageId=10

[James DiEugenio]

So it does not look like he testified. Which I think is revealing.

Even Trafficante testified once he was given immunity.

Thanks Tom.

[Greg Doudna]

Mechanism of Oswald communication with Carl Mather: via Tippit at the Dobbs House ?

Thanks Tom Gram for the digging for the "missing" documents re Mather's lack of sworn testimony to HSCA. A question: would HSCA have acceded to a request from CIA to not interview a witness, if HSCA did not have to honor that request? Separate question: would HSCA have needed to negotiate CIA's permission to interview Mather if told Mather was working for CIA? 

Thinking more on Mather, Tippit, and Oswald . . .

Mather and Tippit: a social friendship according to Barbara Mather; Carl and Barbara Mather are at Mrs. Tippit's home ca. 1-1/2 hours the day her husband was killed. Apart from the shock and grief of that day for Mrs. Tippit, it would have been an opportunity for any essential debriefing or advising to Mrs. Tippit concerning what to say about the two couples' relationship, if there was a need for such. 

Mather and Oswald: Carl Mather was planning to meet Oswald in the Texas Theatre, as the explanation for Carl Mather parked in the El Chico Restaurant parking lot before driving off upon news of Oswald's arrest. A glimpse of an intelligence-contact relationship between Oswald and Carl Mather. 

Tippit and Oswald?: There is no known public relationship or interaction. BUT both Oswald and Tippit regularly patronized the same restaurant, the Dobbs House on North Beckley. The Dobbs House was only three blocks from Oswald's rooming house so that is understandable, but it was six miles out of Tippit's patrol area. But a waitress at the Dobbs House, Mary Dowling, knew Tippit for five years and said both Oswald and Tippit were regularly there.

"[Mary Dowling] advised that until recently she was employed with the Dobbs House at 1221 North Beckley working during daytime hours. She said that she did not know who Lee Harvey Oswald was when she formerly waited on him when he ate breakfast in the morning, usually between 7:00 and 7:30 a.m., but that since Oswald has received so much publicity in connection with the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, she became aware that he was the one who had been a customer at the Dobbs House (. . .) She noted that she had known Officer Tippit for approximately five years because he had formerly come into the Continental Bus Station in downtown Dallas in which bus station she worked in the drug store. She said that Tippit was usually in the Dobbs House each morning about 10:00 a.m. or shortly thereafter to drink coffee." (FBI interview 12/6/63, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10672#relPageId=227)

"[Mary Dowling] went on to relate officer J. D. Tippit was in the restaurant as was his habit at about that time [ca. 10 am]." (FBI letter to WC 7/31/64) (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=552)

"Mrs. Dolores Harrison ... advised she has been employed as a waitress at the Dobbs House for approximately six years. She stated that during the latter months of 1963, specific dates unrecalled, Lee Harvey Oswald came into the Dobbs House numerous times. (. . .) Mrs. Harrison stated that when seeing Oswald at the Dobbs House she recalls he 'did not talk much and was always reading magazines or books.' She related that although she saw Oswald at the Dobbs House a number of times she did not know his identity until seeing his pictures in the newspapers as being the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy." (FBI interview 7/29/64, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=572

"On December 5, 1963, Sam Rogers, Manager, Dobbs House, 1221 North Beckley, Dallas, advised Special Agent Kenneth B. Jackson ... that he had, since President Kennedy's assassination, recognized Oswald's picture as being that of an individual who had been a coffee customer in the Dobbs House Restaurant." (FBI report to WC 7/31/64, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11759#relPageId=2

But the Dobbs House is six miles out of Tippit's patrol area. Myers does not believe that Tippit could have been regularly at the Dobbs House, no matter what Mary Dowling who knew Tippit said.

"[I]t seems improbable that the officer involved was J.D. Tippit. Leaving an assigned district on a regular basis to drink coffee was not only a serious breach of duty but was also foreign to Tippit's personality." (With Malice, 405)

Alaric Rosman put it well in 2010:

"There is strong evidence that Tippit was a regular visitor to the Dobbs House Restaurant, which was near Oswald's rooming house in Oak Cliff. (. . .) Mary Ada Dowling, an ex-Dobbs House waitress (she had only very recently quit her job there), and Dolores Harrison, at the time still a serving waitress at the restaurant both asserted that Oswald was a regular customer there, in the very early morning. Confirmation came also from the restaurant manager. Well, nothing to worry the Dallas Police. Nothing unusual in the situation--Oswald's rooming house was just 3 blocks away--clearly he was having a pre-work coffee to rouse him before his daily grind. All right so far--but then suddenly Tippit comes into it. Was there a liaison? 

"The Dallas Police became quickly convinced there wasn't. But something very astonishing emerged. According to Mary Ada Dowling, Tippit was, like Oswald, a regular coffee customer, only his hours were different: Oswald's were from 7/7:30 am, whereas Tippit put in his appearance about 3 hours later, at about 10 am (or a little thereafter). (. . .) It really is astonishing that nobody asked what Tippit was doing having his coffee break in [patrol territory] #108, just over 6 miles from the nearest corner of Tippits territory [#78], a journey which would have taken Tippit 15/19 minutes, or 30/38 minutes there and back. (. . .) Bugliosi and others are correct in one sense. It is impossible to believe that Tippit should drive on a daily basis so far out of his way for a cup of coffee. Only two possibilities--The story is rubbish. Or, Tippit did regularly drive that far--but not for coffee. For something else." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=146528#relPageId=18)

In light of a known Carl Mather-Tippit relationship and an almost certain Carl Mather-Oswald one, did Tippit function as an intermediary in communication between Oswald and Carl Mather, with the mechanism being something to do with the Dobbs House? What specifically? Were written messages passed by some drop mechanism for Tippit to convey to Mather? And possibly it could work in reverse, a written message could come back to Oswald the same way, "destroy after reading"?

This would be baseless speculation if it were not for the oddity and frequency of both Oswald and Tippit regularly at the same restaurant, unusually for Tippit, and the relationships of both with Carl Mather of Collins Radio. That makes this "with-some-basis" speculation.

~ ~ ~

I found this 1964-1965 Collins Radio company catalog of sophisticated High Frequency Communication Equipment systems: http://collinsradio.org/archives/manuals/HF Communciations EQ 1964-65.pdf. At pp. 77-78 is "VC-104 Vehicular HF-UHF Communication System", installed in vehicles. One feature named: "a phone patch circuit extends system versatility for use with wire line facilities. This function is under direct supervision of the operator." 

It sounds as if this is car phone capability? At a time when that was not commonly available? It would be interesting to know if Carl Mather's personal car was equipped with that.

It would have been J.D. Tippit's cruiser #10 which housekeeper Earlene Roberts heard and saw tapping its horn in front of where Oswald lived at about 1 pm Nov 22. As Earlene described it, the patrol car tapped its horn while Oswald was inside, but drove off without making connection to Oswald. Earlene, blind in one eye, saw something close to the number #10 though not exactly, and may have (with one eye lacking depth perception) confused the extra shirt Tippit had hanging in the cruiser as what Earlene thought were two officers in the car. If Tippit was Oswald's intermediary in communication with Mather, via a drop at the Dobbs House, it would make sense that Tippit would know where Oswald lived. Tippit's movements on Nov 22 after the assassination were trying to find Oswald on behalf of Carl Mather. Naturally he might drive by the rooming house and see if he noticed anything, but he missed Oswald inside by chance. 

[Greg Doudna]

More on Oswald entering the Texas Theatre earlier as a paying customer, not the man who snuck past and up into the balcony at 1:36

The argument is that Brewer misidentified the two as the same man, and that Brewer's identification could be mistaken considered in isolation, and is contradicted by all the other witnesses at the theatre such that it was mistaken.

The argument is that Oswald arrived to the theatre as Burroughs later said, perhaps ca. 1:15, depending how long it took him to get from standing at the northbound bus stop next to his rooming house where he was last seen ca. 1:00-1:05, to the Texas Theatre ca. 0.8 (?) miles away, whether by bus or on foot. 

Oswald would have bought a ticket, entered and was always seated only on the main floor, never went to the balcony at all. The balcony is a total red herring as concerns Oswald, for that applies only to the later man who ran in at 1:36.

I noted that general manager Callahan who took the tickets at the door that day never denied he took a ticket from Oswald because he was never asked or interviewed, not by FBI, Dallas Police, or the Warren Commission. Actually it is hardly credible that he was not asked by at least the Dallas Police--he was there talking with police when they arrived, how could they not have asked? Saying there is no record that he was asked or what he answered, is not the same thing as saying he never was asked or answered.

Julia Postal sold the tickets that day. She definitely did not sell a ticket to the man who ducked past her and went into the balcony at 1:36. But the question is whether she sold a ticket earlier to Lee Harvey Oswald arrested in the main seating area? To what I wrote above in this thread, add these further items:

ITEM: Dallas Assistant District Attorney Jim Bowie told this to Leo Sauvage, reported in a book published by Sauvage in 1966, according to a July 1997 article in Fourth Decade (I have not seen the Sauvage book directly):

"Bowie also told Sauvage he [Bowie] didn't know whether Oswald had purchased a ticket, that Postal was 'too upset to remember'. 

Comment: Note the question is concerning Oswald, the man arrested, as distinguished from the man who ran in at 1:36, whom Julia Postal was quite certain she had not sold a ticket to then. She was certain of that point when she called the police to report it. She was certain of that point when she had Brewer and Burroughs search the theatre to find the man who had entered without paying. That was not in any question. The question concerned whether Julia Postal might earlier have sold a ticket to the man arrested, Lee Harvey Oswald. Bowie was part of the office which would have prosecuted the case against Oswald if it had gone to trial if Oswald had lived. A key point in nailing the Oswald identification as the man who ran in at 1:36 was excluding that Oswald (the man arrested on the ground floor) had earlier that day, ever that day, bought a ticket as a paying customer (if Oswald had, that would be exculpatory of Oswald being the 1:36 man). In the only known report from the prosecutor's office on this point it appears Bowie remembered no satisfactory denial from Julia Postal on that point. Continuing re Sauvage:

"Subsequently Sauvage asked Julia Postal several questions, including the one about the ticket purchase. To all questions, Postal's response was 'no comment'. She was smiling widely. Asked whether she had been told to respond this way, she said, 'no com--I mean, it's my own decision.'" (Tom Wallace Lyons, "The Ruddy Link Between the Tippit Murder and the Texas Theater", Fourth Decade 4/5 [July 1997], https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48700#relPageId=3 )

Although Julia Postal would not confirm or deny to book author Sauvage at a time not later than 1966, there is a report from Jones Harris that he later asked Julia Postal and received this reaction (instead of a simple straight answer "no, I never sold that man Oswald, the man arrested, any ticket"). 

"[Jim] Marrs says Burroughs told him Julia Postal knows she sold Oswald a ticket."

That is not in Marrs' book Crossfire. Lyons cites a phone conversation with Marrs of Oct 1996 for that. Continuing,

"Marrs referred me to J. Harris, a long time assassination investigator, who told me he interviewed Julia Postal. This interview took place in the office of the Texas Theater manager. Postal told Harris she thought she had glimpsed a surreptitious entry out of the corner of her eye [the 1:36 man entry]. Eventually Harris turned the discussion to the moment the police brought Oswald out of the Texas Theatre. Harris asked Postal whether, upon seeing Oswald, she had had any sense that she had sold him a ticket. Postal immediately burst into tears. Harris walked out of the office, then reinterviewed Postal in an attempt to calm her with less troubling questions. But she burst into tears again when asked whether she might have sold Oswald a ticket."

Instead of saying "no".

According to this report which is not in print. According to Lyons' footnote this comes from phone conversation with J. Harris which Harris would not permit to be taped nor does he have that from Harris in writing. The date of the conversation is not given but appears to be 1996. Lyons' footnote:

"I talked to 'J. Harris' by phone. He said he did not want to give out his first name but that the first initial would be sufficient for assassination investigators. Harris would not allow me to tape his statements. Nor did he furnish me with tapes or interview notes. Even though I have no written or taped evidence of his work, I use his statements as a supplement to information that Leo Sauvage developed about Julia Postal."

And so, bottom line, although the man who entered 1:36 certainly bought no ticket, neither ticket-seller (Postal) nor ticket-taker at the door that day (Callahan) denied having any memory of Oswald (the arrested Oswald on the main floor) having purchased or given a ticket at the earlier time both Burroughs in 1987, and Jack Davis all along, said Oswald had entered the theatre and was on the main floor.

And that missing denial from those two is unexpected, and unusual. 

Which underscores the question: how is it known that Brewer got his identification right, and that Jack Davis, and the later Burroughs, were wrong?

Another possibility should be considered. Davis, credible witness, is correct in his testimony. Burroughs is correct in his later testimony, in agreement with Davis, and not contradicted by any other theatre patron witness. The reason Callahan was disappeared as having any reported witness statement is because what he had to say may not have been helpful. And the reports above of Julia Postal unable to deny, and bursting into tears, and Burroughs saying Julia Postal actually did know, is because Julia Postal actually did know--that Oswald, the man arrested on the main floor, had bought a ticket and entered the theatre well before 1:36 as a normal paying customer.  

Edited August 9, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Paul Brancato]

Interesting speculations on the possible relationships of Mathers and Tippit to Oswald. 
the official story on the movements and motivations of Oswald from the assassination to his arrest are not clear to me, and never have been. Was he truly trying to meet a contact in the theater? Did he go to his rooming house to change clothes and get a gun? Did he shoot a policeman? Was he in the lunchroom, on the front steps, or on the 6th floor? Was he involved at all? Did he own the rifle and/or the handgun taken into evidence? It’s a rabbit hole with no bottom. Meanwhile, someone killed JFK and altered history. 
Greg - like you and others I suspect a kind of false flag operation, aimed at Castro, not intended to kill JFK, became an actual assassination, and I think that this may have been intentional, designed by the planners. Lone nutters follow the WC and think that Oswald did it himself. Others think he was part of a kill team. Some think he was spying on the conspirators and possibly informing on them to some agency. No one apparently wonders if he was not only innocent, but unaware of the danger he was in. His use of the word ‘patsy’ is often cited as showing he at least knew who was framing him. Maybe not. Isn’t it possible that he left work because there was no point in staying? That he went home to change clothes and walked to the movie theater to catch a matinee? 
The various witnesses, whether in the TSBD, outside the building, on the bus or cab, at the scene of the Tippit murder, inside and outside the theater, don’t paint a consistent picture, and leave it to us to weave a story. This also applies to Oswald’s life, from his childhood on, in the service, in Russia, in Dallas. What I’m getting at is maybe the study of Oswald will never reveal the truth. If he did it, case closed. If he didn’t, who did? 
 

[James DiEugenio]

It is utterly amazing to  me  that we cannot get a clear picture from Tom as to what happened with the immunity request with Mather.

If the HSCA was not going to go all out to depose him, then why make the request?

I mean the proper thing to do would have been to take it to court if he resisted.

We don't even know if they did that.

 

 

[Guest]

Great thread @Greg Doudna and others. 

[Pete Mellor]

14 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Interesting speculations on the possible relationships of Mathers and Tippit to Oswald. 
the official story on the movements and motivations of Oswald from the assassination to his arrest are not clear to me, and never have been. Was he truly trying to meet a contact in the theater? Did he go to his rooming house to change clothes and get a gun? Did he shoot a policeman? Was he in the lunchroom, on the front steps, or on the 6th floor? Was he involved at all? Did he own the rifle and/or the handgun taken into evidence? It’s a rabbit hole with no bottom. Meanwhile, someone killed JFK and altered history. 
Greg - like you and others I suspect a kind of false flag operation, aimed at Castro, not intended to kill JFK, became an actual assassination, and I think that this may have been intentional, designed by the planners. Lone nutters follow the WC and think that Oswald did it himself. Others think he was part of a kill team. Some think he was spying on the conspirators and possibly informing on them to some agency. No one apparently wonders if he was not only innocent, but unaware of the danger he was in. His use of the word ‘patsy’ is often cited as showing he at least knew who was framing him. Maybe not. Isn’t it possible that he left work because there was no point in staying? That he went home to change clothes and walked to the movie theater to catch a matinee? 
The various witnesses, whether in the TSBD, outside the building, on the bus or cab, at the scene of the Tippit murder, inside and outside the theater, don’t paint a consistent picture, and leave it to us to weave a story. This also applies to Oswald’s life, from his childhood on, in the service, in Russia, in Dallas. What I’m getting at is maybe the study of Oswald will never reveal the truth. If he did it, case closed. If he didn’t, who did? 
 

Paul, my thoughts entirely.  There is so much ambiguity and undetermined intrigue in this case surrounding the Oswald figure, and you have summed up succinctly why I often state that I sit on the fence on many aspects of this case.  (Yet, I am sure that is why many of us continue to be captured in this web.)  However, I have never been readily accepting of the lone shooter/three shot/magic bullet verdict of the W.C. and therefore lean towards some kind of conspiracy.  I can slightly paraphrase Katzenbach and state that 'unfortunately the supposed facts on the JFK assassination seem about too pat-too obvious'.

[Greg Doudna]

Response to a claim of an "irrevocable ballistics fact" with respect to Oswald's revolver

David von Pein, you raise this, requoted from Feb 2019:

"Regardless of whether Julia Postal sold Lee Harvey Oswald a movie ticket on November 22nd or not, the fact will remain (for all time) that the gun that Oswald carried into that movie theater that day was proven to be the gun that killed Police Officer J.D. Tippit. And nothing can change that irrevocable ballistics fact."

I would like to address this. You refer to an FBI lab finding that four cartridge hulls received from the Dallas Police crime lab, identified as found at the Tippit crime scene, were fired from Oswald's revolver to the exclusion of all other weapons.

I will agree that that evidence is at least as strong as the fresh, recent palm print of Oswald that the same Dallas Police crime lab reported found on the barrel of the Mannlicher-Carcano (Oswald's rifle) recovered from the sixth floor of the TSBD.

As you know, those well-known CT skeptics, the FBI and Warren Commission, uncharitably suspected the Dallas Police crime lab of having planted that fresh, recent palm print on the rifle. Or rather, the FBI liaison to the Dallas Police, FBI Special Agent Drain, and general counsel of the Warren Commission writing on behalf of the Commission, Rankin, did. 

The FBI lab did subsequently confirm that the lift of the fresh palm print had come from the rifle barrel in question. However that did not address FBI agent Drain's belief that the print had been planted on the rifle barrel before the lift was taken, then the lift taken, in case the DPD needed some spare evidence in reserve in order to get the guilty man, Oswald, properly put away.  

But to return to the four cartridge hulls submitted to the FBI for analysis in the FBI lab several days after four hulls had been found at the Tippit crime scene and marked by officers for the purpose of establishing chain of custody. It came as a surprise to me to realize that of the huge amount of sworn testimony the Warren Commission took, there is no sworn testimony establishing firsthand officer identifications of their marks on the four hulls sent to the FBI lab for testing, if one reads and parses the testimonies of the officers involved carefully--and the question is why would that be?

Five police officers were involved in marking four hulls found at the Tippit crime scene. Not one gave direct sworn testimony to the Warren Commission, in straightforward declarative sentences, stating e.g. "I see my mark on xyz hull. This is the identical hull found at the crime scene that is marked with my mark." Poe could not find any marks of his on the hulls sent to the FBI even thought he thought he had marked two at the crime scene. Barnes testified under oath that he had previously identified his marks on two hulls sent to the FBI, which is not quite the same as testifying under oath that he identified the marks on those hulls as his, i.e. absence of sworn testimony from Barnes that his prior unsworn identifications were accurate. And Barnes later changed his mind on which hulls sent to the FBI for testing he thought had been marked by him, from what he had earlier recounted in his testimony, which defeats the purpose of chain of custody if officers can display that kind of uncertainty. Doughty marked a hull from the crime scene but was not called by the WC to testify and no testimony under oath exists from him identifying his mark on a hull sent to the FBI. Dhority marked a hull from the crime scene but no testimony under oath exists from him identifying his mark on a hull sent to the FBI. Detective Brown marked a hull and testified before the WC under oath but was not asked in that testimony to identify his mark and did not, of any of the hulls sent to the FBI (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27893-tippit-ballistics/).

Therefore there is a lack of establishment of chain of custody of the hulls on the basis of sworn testimony, despite workarounds such as citing unsworn testimony, hearsay, and letters on FBI letterhead without name or signature asserting that such identifications had been made by said officers, declarations which said officers do not themselves declare under oath under penalty of perjury.

These irregularities raise the same kind of question that FBI agent Drain, and general counsel Rankin speaking for the Warren Commission, expressed concerning the authenticity of the fresh rifle-barrel palm print produced by the same Dallas Police crime lab that sent four hulls to the FBI.

And the match to Oswald's revolver of the four hulls sent by the Dallas Police crime lab, claimed by the crime lab to be the four found at the Tippit crime scene, is the sole ballistics evidence incriminating Oswald as the killer of Tippit. 

Therefore the question: on what grounds is it safe to exclude police tampering with that hull evidence prior to submission to the FBI (such as substitution of hulls of the same kind fired from Oswald's revolver for the original hulls from the crime scene), for what some officers might consider the noble purpose of ensuring there was sufficient evidence in court to obtain a conviction of Oswald?

Remember the old saying in arms control negotiations: "trust but verify"? Where is the verification?

And again consider the so-called paper-bag revolver ditched ca. late night Fri Nov 22 or early morning hours of Sat Nov 23, found by a citizen in a street in downtown Dallas in a paper bag about 7:30 am Sat Nov 23, turned in to the Dallas Police, and how it disappeared into thin air in police custody without a trace of what happened to that revolver.

Do you think that paper-bag revolver, of exactly the same kind that killed officer Tippit, might have been abandoned because it had been used in a recent crime? Can you think of any recent crime involving a .38 Special snub-nosed revolver--the same kind Oswald carried except this wasn't Oswald's--which might prompt an untraceable ditching of a murder weapon by means of tossing it in a paper bag in the dead of night a few hours after Tippit was killed?

Do you think the timing of that revolver's ditching, a few hours after Tippit was killed, and the Dallas Police losing it without a trace, might be because it could be the murder weapon in the killing of officer Tippit, which would be problematic in the prosecution of Oswald for that crime?

 

[Paul Cummings]

Has there ever been a picture posted with Carl Mathers? Just curious.

[Greg Doudna]

8 hours ago, Paul Cummings said:

Has there ever been a picture posted with Carl Mathers? Just curious.

I am unable to post this photo due to limits but here is Carl Mather ca. age 18-22. He was 36 in 1963. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/112039484/carl-amos-mather .