The Killing Floor

[Matt Allison]

29 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The evidence is what incriminates Ruth! Circumstantial evidence... something that you seem not to understand. Fitting the pieces together.

 

You mean Linnie Mae Randle. Tell us how the CIA got Linnie Mae Randle to tell Ruth Paine about the TSBD.

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

How did the CIA in advance control where the motorcade went?

 

Have an influential person in their pocket.

Which is a lot more believable than the alternatives, either letting the assassination site be chosen randomly, or pulling off the assassination without any planning.

[Sandy Larsen]

Here is an analogy that I think accurately illustrates the dichotomy between Matt's line of thought versus mine:

Matt and I are neighbors. One morning we pass by each other on our respective ways to get the morning newspaper.

Matt: Hey, it looks like Jim is finally working on his new septic tank.

Sandy: (I look over and see a huge, freshly dug hole in Jim's back yard.) Oh yeah. I recall him mentioning he was going to do the work himself. I wonder what he paid to rent a backhoe.

Matt: Oh, he dug it himself. With a shovel.

Sandy: How do you know that?

Matt: He said he was going to do the work himself.

Sandy: That hole was dug in one day. I'm sure he used a backhoe.

Matt: Digging's not that hard. And if he didn't finish in one day, he could have continued on the following day.

Sandy: But we know he finished in one day. Which would require a backhoe.

Matt: All Jim needed was a shovel. Why do you see the need to complicate the  story? Why do you want to involve this backhoe?

Sandy: Because it couldn't have been dug with only a shovel.

Matt: What evidence do you have that he used a backhoe? Do you have a receipt?

Sandy: I don't need to have any documentary evidence or witnesses. All I need to prove my point is the circumstantial evidence I cited and a little common sense, logic, and statistics.

Matt: I want evidence. How did Jim get to the rental store? Did he pay cash? Credit card?

Sandy: I don't need to know all the details to prove that Jim used a backhoe. For all I know, he may have borrowed the backhoe from somebody. But that is irrelevant to my point.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

4 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

You mean Linnie Mae Randle. Tell us how the CIA got Linnie Mae Randle to tell Ruth Paine about the TSBD.

 

I don't need to know all the details to prove that the CIA plotters got Oswald the job.

For all I know, Linnie Mae may have been recruited to lie. But that is irrelevant to my point.

(Did you notice that this exchange is in the last two paragraphs of my analogy? )

 

[Gene Kelly]

Matt

I respect your opinion, but simply disagree. Nor do I think we can ever answer how CIA (alone) controlled the motorcade route. The assassination wasn't necessarily orchestrated by a single group, and CIA would be expected to expertly cover its tracks (as history has proven) using cutouts, 3rd parties and infiltrated organizations such as the DPD. 

I also believe that there was Secret Service complicity at some level, and the slow hairpin turn at Elm and Houston was an integral part of the plot ... similar to the assassination attempts made on Charles de Gaulle a year earlier. In "The Devil's Chessboard", David Talbot wrote that John Kennedy had learned of Allen Dulles’s involvement in plotting to overthrow de Gaulle and assured the French of his support while warning them:

“The CIA is such a vast and poorly controlled machine that the most unlikely maneuvers might be true.” 

The basic decision on the November trip to Texas was made at a meeting of President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and Governor Connally on June 5, 1963, at the Cortez Hotel in El Paso, Tex. In September, the White House decided to permit further visits by the President and extended the trip to run from the afternoon of November 21 through the evening of Friday, November 22 (see JFK Records Collection, Chap. 2, "Planning the Texas Trip").  When Governor Connally called at the White House on October 4th to discuss the details of the visit, it was agreed that the planning of events in Texas would be left largely to the Governor.  (Oswald ''s job inquiry and interview occurred on October 14-15). The motorcade route became the responsibility of Secret Service Special Agent Winston Lawson, a member of the White House detail who acted as the advance agent.  He was informed that 45 minutes had been allotted for a motorcade procession from Love Field to the luncheon site; the last portion of the journey, where the motorcade would pass through the northwest corner of Houston and Elm Streets, was only 5 minutes from the Trade Mart. 

It was Dealey Plaza that was pre-selected for the killing zone, and others have already addressed how the Trade Mart speech location assured that the motorcade would pass through the Plaza. The TSBD location itself wasn't that critical (imho) - the fatal shots actually came from elsewhere (and from several locations) - it is simply where the sniper's nest and patsy were staged. Perhaps a patsy could've been staged in the Dal-Tex and Annex buildings, the Dallas County Records Building, or the County Courthouse. The key to staging Oswald in that particular building was that the Book Depository was owned by D. H. Byrd and inhabited by individuals (Truly, Shelley, et al) associated with the plotters.  I find it no "coincidence" that Byrd co-founded the Civil Air Patrol (which David Ferrie and Oswald belonged to), was a member of the Dallas Petroleum Club, and was close to Jack Crichton. 

The assassination was a team effort.

Gene

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:

Matt

I respect your opinion, but simply disagree. Nor do I think we can ever answer how CIA (alone) controlled the motorcade route. The assassination wasn't necessarily orchestrated by a single group, and CIA would be expected to expertly cover its tracks (as history has proven) using cutouts, 3rd parties and infiltrated organizations such as the DPD. 

I also believe that there was Secret Service complicity at some level, and the slow hairpin turn at Elm and Houston was an integral part of the plot ... similar to the assassination attempts made on Charles de Gaulle a year earlier. In "The Devil's Chessboard", David Talbot wrote that John Kennedy had learned of Allen Dulles’s involvement in plotting to overthrow de Gaulle and assured the French of his support while warning them:

“The CIA is such a vast and poorly controlled machine that the most unlikely maneuvers might be true.” 

The basic decision on the November trip to Texas was made at a meeting of President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson and Governor Connally on June 5, 1963, at the Cortez Hotel in El Paso, Tex. In September, the White House decided to permit further visits by the President and extended the trip to run from the afternoon of November 21 through the evening of Friday, November 22 (see JFK Records Collection, Chap. 2, "Planning the Texas Trip").  When Governor Connally called at the White House on October 4th to discuss the details of the visit, it was agreed that the planning of events in Texas would be left largely to the Governor.  (Oswald ''s job inquiry and interview occurred on October 14-15). The motorcade route became the responsibility of Secret Service Special Agent Winston Lawson, a member of the White House detail who acted as the advance agent.  He was informed that 45 minutes had been allotted for a motorcade procession from Love Field to the luncheon site; the last portion of the journey, where the motorcade would pass through the northwest corner of Houston and Elm Streets, was only 5 minutes from the Trade Mart. 

It was Dealey Plaza that was pre-selected for the killing zone, and others have already addressed how the Trade Mart speech location assured that the motorcade would pass through the Plaza. The TSBD location itself wasn't that critical (imho) - the fatal shots actually came from elsewhere (and from several locations) - it is simply where the sniper's nest and patsy were staged. Perhaps a patsy could've been staged in the Dal-Tex and Annex buildings, the Dallas County Records Building, or the County Courthouse. The key to staging Oswald in that particular building was that the Book Depository was owned by D. H. Byrd and inhabited by individuals (Truly, Shelley, et al) associated with the plotters.  I find it no "coincidence" that Byrd co-founded the Civil Air Patrol (which David Ferrie and Oswald belonged to), was a member of the Dallas Petroleum Club, and was close to Jack Crichton. 

The assassination was a team effort.

Gene

BUMP.

[Matt Allison]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I don't need to know all the details to prove that the CIA plotters got Oswald the job.

For all I know, Linnie Mae may have been recruited to lie. But it is irrelevant to my point.

(Did you notice that this exchange is in the last two paragraphs of my analogy? )

 

Yes, I noticed. Your analogy is not valid at all. It is a classic false dilemma.

Specifically,it fails as an analogy because I've already pointed out how easy it would be to shoot someone from a building along the parade route and plant a rifle.

Throughout this entire discussion, I have used facts, and you have only proffered assumptions and suppositions, while continuously ignoring the facts I posed.

I find techniques like that in a debate to be intellectually dishonest, and I'm done engaging with you.

Have a great day.

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, Gene Kelly said:

He was informed that 45 minutes had been allotted for a motorcade procession from Love Field to the luncheon site;

Thanks for this bit of info, Gene. On what day was that conversation?

The White House rejected a lunch at the Trade Mart all the way until November 14th. How could anyone possibly count on the TSBD so far in advance with that situation in effect?

[Sandy Larsen]

4 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Your analogy is not valid at all. It is a classic false dilemma.

 

My analogy isn't perfect, but it shows that a person can use circumstantial evidence to (almost) prove something. Of course, you need to use tools (like logic, common sense, and statistics) to connect the dots.

Circumstantial evidence is routinely used in law.

 

4 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

... I've already pointed out how easy it would be to shoot someone from a building along the parade route and plant a rifle.

 

Which is analogous to digging a huge hole in one day with a shovel. Very unlikely, probably not gonna work.

 

4 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Throughout this entire discussion, I have used facts, and you have only proffered assumptions and suppositions, while continuously ignoring the facts I posed.

 

The only suppositions I made are that the plotters would not have allowed the assassination site to be chosen randomly, and they would have planned the assassination and getaway.

You also made suppositions. Those being that Linnie Mae Randall told the truth and that CIA plotters had no influence over the motorcade route.

Those two sets of suppositions are mutually exclusive. I happen to believe that mine are more likely to be true.

 

4 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

I find techniques like that in a debate to be intellectually dishonest, and I'm done engaging with you.

 

What? It's intellectually dishonest for me to believe my suppositions are more likely to be true than yours?

I don't think so Matt.

 

4 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Have a great day.

 

You too.

 

[Mart Hall]

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

Thanks for this bit of info, Gene. On what day was that conversation?

The White House rejected a lunch at the Trade Mart all the way until November 14th. How could anyone possibly count on the TSBD so far in advance with that situation in effect?

Isn’t it a relatively simple matter of there being just two sites available for holding the luncheon, the plotters preferred the Trade Mart because of the favourable layout of Dealey Plaza but they could have easily had alternative plans in place along the route had the Women’s Building been chosen. 

Be that a hotel room, high rise car park or another tall building?

As they were controlling Oswald then all they had to do was ensure he had no alibi and have him place himself in the vicinity of the firing zone. 

[Paul Cummings]

49 minutes ago, Mart Hall said:

Isn’t it a relatively simple matter of there being just two sites available for holding the luncheon, the plotters preferred the Trade Mart because of the favourable layout of Dealey Plaza but they could have easily had alternative plans in place along the route had the Women’s Building been chosen. 

Be that a hotel room, high rise car park or another tall building?

As they were controlling Oswald then all they had to do was ensure he had no alibi and have him place himself in the vicinity of the firing zone. 

I think this is a fair assumption and very plausible.

[Michael Griffith]

9 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

On the day Oswald was hired, no one knew JFK would ever be driven past the TSBD. No one. Not plotters. Not the WH. Not LInnie Mae Randle. Not Ruth Paine.

But the plotters did know that the Dallas motorcade would drive down Main Street, which is just one block over from the TSBD and within visual shooting range of the top two floors of the TSBD.

Once we understand this, then we need to look at the evidence on how the motorcade got needlessly routed to go by the TSBD, in violation of standard security procedure. Vince Palamara provides an important examination of this fatal routing in Survivor's Guilt. The HSCA's report on SS protection in Dallas contains much revealing information and concludes that the security arrangements "may have been uniquely insecure." 

As for Ruth Paine, I am intrigued by her phone conversation with her husband on the afternoon of 11/22/63 in which he was overheard by an operator to say "we both know who is responsible." I am agnostic about whether Ruth and Michael realized they were being used to set up Oswald.

Finally, I note the fascinating parallels between how Oswald was given a job that put him at the shooting scene in Dallas and how Thomas Arthur Vallee was given a job that put him at a potential JFK shooting scene in Chicago.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Jonathan Cohen]

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The only suppositions I made are that the plotters would not have allowed the assassination site to be chosen randomly, and they would have planned the assassination and getaway.

You also made suppositions. Those being that Linnie Mae Randall told the truth and that CIA plotters had no influence over the motorcade route.

Only problem: your suppositions are not supported by any EVIDENCE. You have zero evidence that Linnie Mae Randle was lying, and you have zero evidence that "CIA plotters" had "influence over the motorcade route."

[Guest]

On the side, was it ever investigated if the other companies had hired people in the - let's say - last month ?

 

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

Only problem: your suppositions are not supported by any EVIDENCE. You have zero evidence that Linnie Mae Randle was lying, and you have zero evidence that "CIA plotters" had "influence over the motorcade route."

There you go again, pestering someone about evidence. Sandy has submitted cogent arguments about the topic in question based on established evidence.

What have you brought to the discussion other than that kind of disruptive behaviour?

What is your position on the JFKA? Are you a lone nut theorist?

Edited November 1, 2022 by John Cotter