Was the assassination rifle posted to the Neely Street address?

[Gerry Down]

28 minutes ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

It seems Oswald had used it with the Empl.Comm.

I presume Oswald had to give them a real address in order to claim unemployment benefits. They would have been unlikely to have accepted a PO box. 

[Guest]

He claimed benefits regularly, so in order to find some of his "real" addresses the place 2B would be the Empl.Comm.( "follow the money" 😃 ). LHO and all his real and fake addresses...   

 

[Gerry Down]

32 minutes ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

He claimed benefits regularly, so in order to find some of his "real" addresses the place 2B would be the Empl.Comm.( "follow the money" 😃 ). LHO and all his real and fake addresses...   

 

That's true. You would think Hosty would have looked there. But he had something like 40 cases at any given time, and not all of them would have been unemployed, and there are only so many hours in the day. Due to resources, it was probably not standard procedure for the FBI to use this avenue (the employment commission records) to try and track someone down especially as there was nothing apparently urgent about tracking Lee and Marina down in this time frame. 

[Guest]

This one I found rather strange seen the mentioning of the ACLU*, was he planning another ACLU chapter ?!?    Strange men do strange things I suppose... He went to 1 meeting, became a member even when he didn't like'm, and off he goes....   

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans
Pictures removed to save space

[Guest]

This one got me a little confused re change of address form dated 5-12-1963, mixed up the appl.date, process date,.. They sure knew how to make  things look complicated sometimes. Some are blancs I suppose.

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

This one got me a little confused re change of address form dated 5-12-1963, mixed up the appl.date, process date,.. They sure knew how to make  things look complicated sometimes. Some are blancs I suppose.

I believe that refers to the May 9th mail forwarding order Oswald sent from New Orleans to Dallas to forward his mail from PO box 2915 to 4907 magazine street. I think he posted it on May 9th and put on the card for it to be effective from May 12th. For some reason the post was slow and it did not arrive in Dallas until May 14th. This is the card that triggered the Dallas Post office to close PO box 2915 (though Tom Gram believes Marina closed the post office box on May 10th as he lays out in his essay "Rethinking Oswalds Mail").

Here is the Commission exhibit:

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0353b.htm

[Steve Thomas]

On 8/20/2022 at 8:27 PM, Tom Gram said:

James Hosty wrote a report on 3/25/63 that said a Dallas Postal Inspector named Dorothea Myers informed him on 3/11/63 that the Oswalds had moved to Neely St. The problem with this is that there is absolutely zero evidence that either Marina or Lee ever changed their mailing address with the Post Office to Neely St. No change of address forms, nothing. The mailing address for the Oswalds throughout  that entire period was always P.O. Box 2915.

Tom.

From James Hosty's WC testimony"

"On the 14th of March, I verified that Oswalds were residing at this address when I found the mailbox with the name of Lee and Marina Oswald at this address, 214 Neely Street."

Why would you need your name on a mailbox, if you weren't getting mail?

Both Lee's and Marina's names were on the mailbox.

Steve Thomas

 

[Richard Price]

1 hour ago, Steve Thomas said:

Both Lee's and Marina's names were on the mailbox.

Two quick notes on this testimony.

1.  Finding the names on a mailbox does not confirm that someone by that name is living there, only actually seeing them there physically would do that.

1a.  I would note that some people who wanted to ensure their mail was delivered correctly do either mark their names inside their mailboxes or even on the outside.  Those who mark the outside of the box generally do so only when planning to be at the address for an extended period of time.

2.  From my time in the post office - some meticulous mail carriers would put note cards inside of boxes in areas where there was a lot of turnover such as transient/rental properties.  They would do this in order that they and especially their substitute carriers would know which mail to deliver.  Carriers, in general always hated coming back the day after their sub had run the route to find large amounts of mail awaiting their disposal because it was misdelivered or not delivered the day before.  These names would not have been on the outside of the box however.  I would also note that some carriers actually kept a log of customer names/orders (forwards/Moved Left No Address, etc.) for transient/rental properties.

One last note:  A person can have mail delivered to both a street address and a PO Box by simply not doing a forward order and telling the specific people they are corresponding with to send mail to whichever address they (the recipient) want it to arrive.

[Tom Gram]

9 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

I believe that refers to the May 9th mail forwarding order Oswald sent from New Orleans to Dallas to forward his mail from PO box 2915 to 4907 magazine street. I think he posted it on May 9th and put on the card for it to be effective from May 12th. For some reason the post was slow and it did not arrive in Dallas until May 14th. This is the card that triggered the Dallas Post office to close PO box 2915 (though Tom Gram believes Marina closed the post office box on May 10th as he lays out in his essay "Rethinking Oswalds Mail").

Here is the Commission exhibit:

https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0353b.htm

I think the only way Oswald’s May 14th (mailed May 9th) forwarding order could have closed the box is if Marina did not select the option for “All Mail” on her May 10th form to Ruth Paine’s house.

However, the May 14th form has no postal clerk endorsement - which on its own is very compelling evidence that the change of address was invalid because Oswald was no longer receiving mail in the box - and Oswald just happened to mail a forwarding order from New Orleans to Irving on May 14th (the same day the first form was received in Dallas), changing his address this time from Paine’s house to 4907 Magazine St., which strongly suggests that Marina closed the box with her May 10th form, selected the option for “entire family or firm”, and changed Oswald’s address along with her own from Box 2915 to Paine’s. I go over other supporting evidence in my essay. 

The only, and I mean only, evidence supporting that the box was closed on May 14th is that the box application for P.O. Box 2915 in evidence is stamped with that date, and the box application itself is hardly immune from scrutiny, as I discuss in Part 3 of the essay. 

The truth however may be somewhere in between. It is possible that Marina effectively closed the box with her May 10th form, but the box wasn’t officially closed until Oswald sent in his own forwarding order, even though the actual change of address was invalid.

It would be very interesting to know how COAs were recorded in internal postal records in those days, specifically the “entire family or firm” option when a P.O. Box was involved. It seems plausible that the primary mailing address for the Oswalds could have been logged as 2515 West Fifth St. after Marina’s May 10th form, but someone forgot to close out the box since Marina wasn’t the primary renter. 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Tom Gram

[Gerry Down]

9 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

I think the only way Oswald’s May 14th (mailed May 9th) forwarding order could have closed the box is if Marina did not select the option for “All Mail” on her May 10th form to Ruth Paine’s house.

However, the May 14th form has no postal clerk endorsement - which on its own is very compelling evidence that the change of address was invalid because Oswald was no longer receiving mail in the box - and Oswald just happened to mail a forwarding order from New Orleans to Irving on May 14th (the same day the first form was received in Dallas), changing his address this time from Paine’s house to 4907 Magazine St., which strongly suggests that Marina closed the box with her May 10th form, selected the option for “entire family or firm”, and changed Oswald’s address along with her own from Box 2915 to Paine’s. I go over other supporting evidence in my essay. 

The only, and I mean only, evidence supporting that the box was closed on May 14th is that the box application for P.O. Box 2915 in evidence is stamped with that date, and the box application itself is hardly immune from scrutiny, as I discuss in Part 3 of the essay. 

The truth however may be somewhere in between. It is possible that Marina effectively closed the box with her May 10th form, but the box wasn’t officially closed until Oswald sent in his own forwarding order, even though the actual change of address was invalid.

It would be very interesting to know how COAs were recorded in internal postal records in those days, specifically the “entire family or firm” option when a P.O. Box was involved. It seems plausible that the primary mailing address for the Oswalds could have been logged as 2515 West Fifth St. after Marina’s May 10th form, but someone forgot to close out the box since Marina wasn’t the primary renter. 

Personally I think Marina forwarded only her mail to Ruth Paine's house and so the box was not closed on May 9th. When Oswald found out what she did, he sent a forwarding order on May 14th to Irving post office to make sure Marinas mail did not go to Ruth Paine's house but was sent on to 4907 magazine street. Lee did not like Marina coming to rely on Ruth like this.

[Tom Gram]

8 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Personally I think Marina forwarded only her mail to Ruth Paine's house and so the box was not closed on May 9th. When Oswald found out what she did, he sent a forwarding order on May 14th to Irving post office to make sure Marinas mail did not go to Ruth Paine's house but was sent on to 4907 magazine street. Lee did not like Marina coming to rely on Ruth like this.

I totally agree that that’s part of why he sent the forwarding order, but the May 15th form Oswald sent forwarding mail from Paine’s house to 4907 Magazine St. was in his own name, not Marina’s. I think he checked the box for “entire family or firm” for sure, but the Postal Inspection Service reported unequivocally that the May 15th form was how Oswald forwarded his mail to New Orleans. It’s actually the first document that led investigators to New Orleans after the assassination, which makes it even more ridiculous that it was deep-sixed. 

The best evidence the May 14th form was never processed is still the lack of clerk endorsement. It is the only forwarding order in the entire evidentiary record that doesn’t have an endorsement or date entered on the front of the form, and every former postal worker I spoke to who worked before computers confirmed that no clerk endorsement almost certainly indicates that person was no longer receiving mail at that address. 
 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Tom Gram

[Gerry Down]

6 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I totally agree that that’s part of why he sent the forwarding order, but the May 15th form Oswald sent forwarding mail from Paine’s house to 4907 Magazine St. was in his own name, not Marina’s. I think he checked the box for “entire family or firm” for sure, but the Postal Inspection Service reported unequivocally that the May 15th form was how Oswald forwarded his mail to New Orleans. It’s actually the first document that led investigators to New Orleans after the assassination, which makes it even more ridiculous that it was deep-sixed. 

The best evidence the May 14th form was never processed is still the lack of clerk endorsement. It is the only forwarding order in the entire evidentiary record that doesn’t have an endorsement or date entered on the front of the form, and every former postal worker I spoke to who worked before computers confirmed that no clerk endorsement almost certainly indicates that person was no longer receiving mail at that address. 
 

I think what happened is when Lee found out Marina had forwarded her mail to Ruth Paine's house, Lee wanted to make sure no mail went to Ruths house and so he sent the forwarding order in his name and possibly Marinas as a safeguard so that it would be clear none of the Oswald's mail should go to Ruth Paine's house. Lee moved around a lot as a youth and would have been familiar with mail forwarding orders getting mixed up and mail going missing. So I think the May 15th mail forwarding order to Irving was an over engineered way to make sure no mail went to Ruths house.

That's what I think anyway.

[Guest]

@Tom Gram This relates to another case, but in the same period (March 1963).

Interesting to see how the CIA set up PO boxes in support of a cover story... they had a nice fill-in-form (we don't want to know how often they would do this....).  The anology is very much there i.m.o. 

http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/NARA-Oct2017/NARA-Nov9-2017/104-10114-10015.pdf

Edited September 9, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans

[Tom Gram]

17 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

I think what happened is when Lee found out Marina had forwarded her mail to Ruth Paine's house, Lee wanted to make sure no mail went to Ruths house and so he sent the forwarding order in his name and possibly Marinas as a safeguard so that it would be clear none of the Oswald's mail should go to Ruth Paine's house. Lee moved around a lot as a youth and would have been familiar with mail forwarding orders getting mixed up and mail going missing. So I think the May 15th mail forwarding order to Irving was an over engineered way to make sure no mail went to Ruths house.

That's what I think anyway.

If the May 14th form had been endorsed by a postal clerk, authenticated and discussed under oath by Harry Holmes (like all of Oswald’s other postal records that made it into evidence from ‘63), and acknowledged as legitimate instead of avoided by the plague by the Postal Inspection Service (they wouldn’t even acknowledge it existed - unlike the May 15th form from Irving) I’d be more inclined to believe that’s what really happened. The Irving postal clerk J.G. Davis telling inspectors unambiguously that he never saw the May 15th form when he took over the delivery route in late July so he started delivering Oswald’s mail to Ruth Paine’s house is another big one. 

Unfortunately, the May 10th and May 15th forms were buried, so we don’t know what options were selected - but the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Marina selected “entire family or firm” on her May 10th form. Your scenario of Oswald’s May 15th form being an over-engineered way to forward Marina’s mail to New Orleans may be correct, but it really doesn’t have any evidentiary support.

If the Dallas Post Office could make the clerical error of forgetting to endorse the May 14th form, which is the only way your scenario makes any sense, they could just as easily have made the more subtle error of forgetting to officially close out P.O. Box 2915 based on a family forwarding order from a secondary renter. They also just might not have processed the May 10th form until the 14th - the May 14th date is simply stamped on the back of the form Oswald mailed May 9th, effective May 12th, which may reflect the reason the form wasn’t endorsed: the Oswalds were no longer receiving mail in Box 2915. May 10th was a Friday, so it’s definitely possible something like this happened. 

I think it’s important to point out though that even if even if Marina did select “individual signer only” on the May 10th form, it doesn’t make it any better. The government went through a hell of a lot of trouble to cover up that change of address, and the motive for all the disappearing evidence and unconscionable non-questioning of Marina on this topic would be exactly the same: concealment of Marina’s access to P.O. Box 2915. 

[Guest]

Seems the Russians always knew things a few days earlier... dated May 5, 1963. 

Prob. a typo as I thought he got the Magazine St appt on May 9th and

mentions 4907 Magazine St i.s.o. 4905...

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans