Southwestern Publishing Doors Locked, Someone Inside. With View of Elm Street.

[David Von Pein]

37 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Sheesh, is [it] possible a large fraction of the TSBD was never searched? And that publisher's employees left, even at 1 pm, without being searched?

I don't think any of the TSBD employees were "searched" before being allowed to leave the building.

My guess is that the mindset of the police on Nov. 22 was that it wasn't very likely that any assassins and/or accomplices would still be inside the building an hour or two after they had just murdered the President.

But, you never know, if the (alleged non-Oswald) killers had been really slow at making their escape, perhaps some of them would have still been inside when the building was sealed at about 12:37. They would have been pretty stupid and reckless to have not been able to make it out of the building after a seven-minute escape window, however.

Edited November 1, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Benjamin Cole]

22 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

I don't think any of the TSBD employees were "searched" before being allowed to leave the building.

My guess is that the mindset of the police on Nov. 22 was that it wasn't very likely that any assassins and/or accomplices would still be inside the building an hour or two after they had just murdered the President.

But, you never know, if the (alleged non-Oswald) killers had been really slow at making their escape, perhaps some of them would have still been inside when the building was sealed at about 12:37. They would have been pretty stupid and reckless to have not been able to make it out of the building after a seven-minute escape window, however.

DVP-

Yes unlikely but...

Suppose the true perps planned to camp out in the publisher's offices until things cooled off.  That doesn't seem like a sound plan...but it turns out, it would have worked. They were strangers inside the TSBD and did not want to be seen. 

Not searching people leaving the TSBD was almost certainly bad police procedure too. After all, rifles can be disassembled. Shorter rifles could be hidden under a full length coat, of the type many wore that winter day....

Hughes indicated she left at 1 pm. If true, that means 30 minutes after someone assassinated JFK, and no one knew who, Hughes left one of the primary scenes of the crime, the TSBD, unsearched. That is stupifying. Astonishing really. 

So, to sum up:

1. Hughes said she sat in an office, the second-floor Southwestern Publishers office, with a bird's eye view of the motorcade. If LHO could shoot JFK, then someone in the Hughes office could too. 

2. Three shots as loud as a "cannon" are heard inside the TSBD on the second floor by Geneva Hine. Louder than other people say the shots were, possibly indicating proximity. 

3. A unidentified woman, probably Hughes, is seen in the Southwestern Publisher's office in the moments after the TSBD, but she refuses to open the locked door. She is seen through a curtain, her outline. She appears to be talking on the phone. There may be others in the office unseen, of course. 

4. The woman, likely Hughes as no strangers are seen that day inside the TBSD, then leaves the premises one-half hour after the JFKA, and is not searched. 

5. Hughes office is never dusted for prints. Hughes is never tested for gunshot residue, ala LHO. It may even be possible a credenza or other furniture with a false bottom was inside the publisher's office. 

6. The other oddity is that Hughes' boss, Warren Caster, had been showing off rifles inside the TSBD a few days before the JFKA. 

No, this is hardly dispositive.

But when you ponder people are leaving the TSBD 30 minutes after the JFKA unsearched....and people with locked offices overlooking the kill zone are not substantively questioned....

Well....

 

 

 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Who else worked in Southwest Publishing? Warren Caster, the guy who brought rifles into the TSBD a few days before the JFKA. 

Odd, just odd. 

 

Another one of those things just begging to be investigated to the bone, this one I'd add fairly high on the list 

[Greg Doudna]

No kidding that should have been investigated more than it was. Sure the whole thing is very easily a freak innocent accident, and Caster otherwise has nothing suspicious about him nor is there any evidence otherwise. But still, not to investigate a rifle inside TSBD taken to an office with a line-of-shot window facing the parade route, two days before the President is assassinated by shots fired from that building? Ian Griggs interviewed Caster in later years, gave a capsule biography, was totally convinced Caster was clean. There is no evidence otherwise. 

But there sure are coincidences involved that called for further checking just to verify nothing was there:

• There is an odd discrepancy in that Truly testified under oath to seeing Caster take the rifles out the front door of the TSBD during the lunch hour after Caster showed his new rifles on the first floor inside TSBD to Truly and a few others. Caster testifying under oath said differently however: that he took those rifles to his 2nd-floor office (the one looking out at the parade route), where they were that afternoon until Caster got off work. Then, Caster says he took the rifles from his 2nd-floor office out of the TSBD building with him to his car mid-/late afternoon when he left work. Question: how did Truly get that point wrong in his sworn testimony? 
• Most odd of all: there was an apparent assassination-related conveyance of a rifle-sized package from a N. Beckley freeway entrance ramp in Oak Cliff (the street of Oswald's rooming house) to Dealey Plaza dropped off in front of the TSBD, by a hitchhiker picked up by Ralph Yates, which Yates thought occurred about 10:30 am the same morning as Caster at noon took his package of two rifles into the TSBD, Wed Nov 20. Yates did not make up the existence of that hitchhiker because he told a coworker, before the assassination, about the hitchhiker, and immediately after the assassination told the same coworker he was going to report it to the FBI. It doesn't matter that Yates shortly after had a mental breakdown--Yates' hitchhiker happened. Yates willingly consented to be polygraphed and the polygraph found no deception. Less than two hours apart--these two unprecedented rifle/rifle-sized package (of someone talking in the cab of Yates' vehicle about assassination of JFK from a window of a tall building) arriving to/inside the TSBD. (The Wed Nov 20 date is not certain, Yates said it could have been either Wed or Thu but thought it was Wed Nov 20, though a billing paperwork for Yates' service call was dated Thu Nov 21 [the bill is dated Nov 21 without the bill specifically saying the service call occurred Nov 21 or any other date].) If the Yates hitchhiker occurred Wed Nov 20 as Yates thought, the juxtaposition in timing is one hell of a coincidence.

If there was foul play at work, there could be a mechanism to get a rifle into the TSBD by this means: Person Y buys two rifles retail during lunch hour as told, wrapped in package. Person Y brings both new rifles inside first floor TSBD and shows them off, as told. Person Y exits front door of TSBD with package of rifles (in agreement with testimony of Truly) and takes to his parked car nearby. At his parked car Person Y receives a different rifle and substitutes it for one of the rifles in his package, leaving the original newly-purchased rifle in his car. Person Y goes back to TSBD and up to his 2nd-floor office with the package of rifles (in agreement with Caster's testimony). Person Y takes the rifle of interest (the one not bought by him now introduced into the TSBD building) out of the package and conceals it inside the building. Person Y after that workday leaves the building with his package with one original newly-purchased rifle inside, takes to his car. Person Y drives home with both newly-purchased rifles, sales slip, witnessed purchase, for family use, still has both purchased rifles years later if anyone checks. The perfect mechanism of introduction of an untraceable rifle into the TSBD. (Note that this mechanism would clear up the discrepancy between Truly's and Caster's testimonies of where the rifles went after Caster showed them--both become correct.)

Its not that we shouldn't trust that Caster did not do that. Its that we shouldn't have to. (Trust, that is.) It should have been checked out to establish that something like that did not happen, as the saying goes, "out of an abundance of caution".

Edited November 2, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Gerry Down]

6 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

David is correct on this. The FBI did the minimum amount of work possible on requests from the WC, and Hoover (or maybe it was Belmont) specifically ordered agents not to write up the findings of WC request interviews in report form because it was unofficial business and they were only doing the President a favor, or something like that. This is why there are so many FBI interviews with no accompanying FD-302 report. 

That doesn’t really make it okay, and many of the WC requests were basic investigative tasks that the FBI should’ve done on their own, but in the FBI’s mind they solved the case with the issuance of their initial report so anything else they had to do was just a pain in the ass. That’s how they portrayed it anyway. 

What exactly is an FD-302 report? Do you have a sample of one in the jfk case?

From reading online an FD-302 report is a summary of an fbi interview. But seeing how the interviews of the witnesses in dealey plaza were so short anyway, there would seem to be no need to create a separate report summarizing an already short interview anyway.

[Gerry Down]

6 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

David is correct on this. The FBI did the minimum amount of work possible on requests from the WC, and Hoover (or maybe it was Belmont) specifically ordered agents not to write up the findings of WC request interviews in report form because it was unofficial business and they were only doing the President a favor, or something like that. This is why there are so many FBI interviews with no accompanying FD-302 report. 

That doesn’t really make it okay, and many of the WC requests were basic investigative tasks that the FBI should’ve done on their own, but in the FBI’s mind they solved the case with the issuance of their initial report so anything else they had to do was just a pain in the ass. That’s how they portrayed it anyway. 

What exactly is an FD-302 report? Do you have a sample of one in the jfk case?

From reading online an FD-302 report is a summary of an fbi interview. But seeing how the interviews of the witnesses in dealey plaza were so short anyway, there would seem to be no need to create a separate report summarizing an already short interview anyway.

[Gerry Down]

6 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

David is correct on this. The FBI did the minimum amount of work possible on requests from the WC, and Hoover (or maybe it was Belmont) specifically ordered agents not to write up the findings of WC request interviews in report form because it was unofficial business and they were only doing the President a favor, or something like that. This is why there are so many FBI interviews with no accompanying FD-302 report. 

That doesn’t really make it okay, and many of the WC requests were basic investigative tasks that the FBI should’ve done on their own, but in the FBI’s mind they solved the case with the issuance of their initial report so anything else they had to do was just a pain in the ass. That’s how they portrayed it anyway. 

What exactly is an FD-302 report? Do you have a sample of one in the jfk case?

From reading online an FD-302 report is a summary of an fbi interview. But seeing how the interviews of the witnesses in dealey plaza were so short anyway, there would seem to be no need to create a separate report summarizing an already short interview anyway.

[Gerry Down]

6 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

David is correct on this. The FBI did the minimum amount of work possible on requests from the WC, and Hoover (or maybe it was Belmont) specifically ordered agents not to write up the findings of WC request interviews in report form because it was unofficial business and they were only doing the President a favor, or something like that. This is why there are so many FBI interviews with no accompanying FD-302 report. 

That doesn’t really make it okay, and many of the WC requests were basic investigative tasks that the FBI should’ve done on their own, but in the FBI’s mind they solved the case with the issuance of their initial report so anything else they had to do was just a pain in the ass. That’s how they portrayed it anyway. 

What exactly is an FD-302 report? Do you have a sample of one in the jfk case?

From reading online an FD-302 report is a summary of an fbi interview. But seeing how the interviews of the witnesses in dealey plaza were so short anyway, there would seem to be no need to create a separate report summarizing an already short interview.

[David Von Pein]

11 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Hughes indicated she left at 1 pm.

No, she didn't. She said she left at "about 1:30".

 

[Benjamin Cole]

3 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

No, she didn't. She said she left at "about 1:30".

 

DVP--You are correct. I must have had a senior moment. 

Hughes left the TSBD one full hour after JFK was shot dead from a window in the TSBD, and she was not searched. 

However even at the late hour of 1:30 pm, no one knew who shot JFK, whether it was a group or an individual, and who might be complicit, or even unwittingly complicit. 

Hughes' office, facing Elm Street with an excellent view to the kill zone, was not searched, and she had kept her door locked in the immediate aftermath of the JFK, despite three "cannon" shots being heard on the second floor. 

In the immediate aftermath of the JFKA, an office neighbor could not rouse Hughes to open her door, despite repeated calls and "shaking" her locked door. She (or another woman) appeared to be talking on the phone. 

No one ever did a background check on Hughes, past associations, employers, etc. 

As I say, probably just a dead end. Probably Hughes was just an office worker, although why she did not respond to urgent inquiries in the moments after the JFKA, after three loud "cannon" shots were heard, and kept her office door locked, is puzzling. Inexplicable. 

Seems to me, anyone with an office window fronting Elm Street (such as Hughes), in the wake of the JFKA, should have been detained. 

The Dallas Police Department had the case wrapped up at 1:30 pm? Seems premature to me. 

 

 

[David Von Pein]

6 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

From reading online, an FD-302 report is a summary of an FBI interview. But seeing how the interviews of the witnesses in Dealey Plaza were so short anyway, there would seem to be no need to create a separate report summarizing an already short interview.

FYI / FWIW ----

Among the 73 interviews with the TSBD employees found in CD706, exactly three were done on "FD-302" FBI forms. And 70 of the interviews did not utilize the official "FD-302" form. The three that were done on FD-302 forms were the interviews with these people:

Yola D. Hopson

Judith L. McCully

Steven F. Wilson

-----------------------

Side Note Regarding FD-302 Forms....

In 2011, I went a few rounds with Jim DiEugenio and other CTers on the topic of why no official FD-302 reports have ever turned up in relation to the dozens of individual interviews the FBI conducted in Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2011:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/12/dvp-vs-dieugenio-part-76.html#The-Lack-Of-FD302s

 

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

What exactly is an FD-302 report? Do you have a sample of one in the jfk case?

From reading online an FD-302 report is a summary of an fbi interview. But seeing how the interviews of the witnesses in dealey plaza were so short anyway, there would seem to be no need to create a separate report summarizing an already short interview anyway.

A FD-302 report is just the standard FBI report for any contact with a witness: in person, phone calls, anything. Every single witness contact in an FBI investigation is written up in a FD-302 for record keeping. Here is an example. I’m sure you’ve seen this format: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57688#relPageId=123

Information disseminated to outside agencies would generally be written up in a letterhead memorandum, or LHM, but the information in the LHM was usually copied directly from 302 reports in the relevant investigative file. For many WC requests however, the FBI skipped the 302s and went directly to the LHM, for the excuses mentioned in my previous comment e.g. it wasn’t a part of an official FBI investigation. The problem with this is it eliminates any internal FBI record of the interviews ever happening. A classic example is the Bardwell Odum interviews about CE399. Odum told Tink Thompson and Gary Aguilar that if he had really conducted the interviews, there would be a 302 report, since that’s how the FBI operated. However, since those interviews were conducted on request from the WC, Odum was specifically ordered not to write a 302. He probably just forgot. 

Often the FBI wouldn’t even include the name of the interviewing agent in the LHM summaries, so there was no accountability. 

[Benjamin Cole]

48 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

A FD-302 report is just the standard FBI report for any contact with a witness: in person, phone calls, anything. Every single witness contact in an FBI investigation is written up in a FD-302 for record keeping. Here is an example. I’m sure you’ve seen this format: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57688#relPageId=123

Information disseminated to outside agencies would generally be written up in a letterhead memorandum, or LHM, but the information in the LHM was usually copied directly from 302 reports in the relevant investigative file. For many WC requests however, the FBI skipped the 302s and went directly to the LHM, for the excuses mentioned in my previous comment e.g. it wasn’t a part of an official FBI investigation. The problem with this is it eliminates any internal FBI record of the interviews ever happening. A classic example is the Bardwell Odum interviews about CE399. Odum told Tink Thompson and Gary Aguilar that if he had really conducted the interviews, there would be a 302 report, since that’s how the FBI operated. However, since those interviews were conducted on request from the WC, Odum was specifically ordered not to write a 302. He probably just forgot. 

Often the FBI wouldn’t even include the name of the interviewing agent in the LHM summaries, so there was no accountability. 

Thanks Tom.

You know your stuff. I keep tellin' ya, write something. 

Something sharp, digestible. 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

If anyone is interested...

Judging from diagrams, there were publisher's offices on the second, third and fourth floors of the TSBD. All of these offices had employees who were not a part of the TSBD roll-call, and there is no record of such offices being searched. 

The TSBD fifth, sixth and seventh floors appear to have been storage. 

I searched online, but to no avail: Does anyone have a picture of the TSBD that would show the second floor window of the Southwestern Publishing company during or near the time of the JFKA? 

[David Von Pein]

Here's something odd about the floor plan of the 2nd Floor of the TSBD....

According to this diagram of the second floor [pictured below], there is no wall or divider of any kind separating the Southwestern Publishing office from the Lyons & Carnahan office. That seems very strange (and unlikely).

Plus, this floor chart shows no wall separating the ladies room from the Southwestern office either. And there's no wall between the Men's Room and the Ladies Room either. (That would have made for some interesting bathroom visits, huh?) 🙂

Errors of omission? I would certainly think so.

Plus....these bathrooms look way too big. According to this chart, the 2 restrooms take up almost the entire length of the building on the west end. That's highly doubtful. There must be something else there on the west side besides just the two bathrooms, especially when comparing the size of those two 2nd-floor restrooms to the much smaller bathrooms that were on the first floor [here].

And here's something else....

The way this chart is marked, it leads me to think that there is actually a third separate room (marked "Private" on the diagram), which is situated between Southwestern and Lyons. Which would mean yet another wall is absent from this chart. Kind of curious indeed:

Edited November 2, 2022 by David Von Pein