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

[David Von Pein]

12 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

...do you (or anyone else) know if there are any other floors where the FBI didn’t take any photos that show the south side of the building? 

The FBI booklet in Commission Document 496 doesn't have any photos at all of the 3rd, 4th, or 5th floors. The photos in that FBI booklet are concentrated mostly on the first, second, and sixth floors. They did include one picture of the southeast corner of the 7th floor -- HERE.

It does make sense, however, that they would want to concentrate mostly on the 1st, 2nd, and 6th floors of the TSBD, seeing as how the alleged assassin (a certain Mr. Oswald, in case anyone here has forgotten his name ) utilized all three of those floors as he made his (alleged) escape from the building on 11/22/63 (as alluded to below by Tom Gram).

 

12 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

From the second floor diagram it looks like they were just trying to document Oswald’s alleged escape route - which isn’t really surprising - and I’m curious about the specific goals the FBI had for taking photos throughout the TSBD. Did the FBI commission the photos on their own, was it a WC request, etc.? 

I think you're probably correct about the FBI wanting to document (via photographs) the alleged "escape route" of Lee Oswald in the photos of the Depository we find in CD496. But there are also several pictures in that FBI booklet that show non-"escape route" photographs---such as this photo showing what is referred to as a "dressing room" in the basement of the building.

And there are also several pictures of the first floor, including this one depicting the Dr. Pepper machine near the stairs in the northwest corner.

The FBI did much the same thing (i.e., document Oswald's escape route after one of the murders he [allegedly] committed on November 22nd) in Commission Document No. 630, which is a booklet of photographs focusing on the J.D. Tippit murder site and Oswald's escape route from the scene of that murder.

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Benjamin Cole]

12 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

"Counter" is misleading, it looked like a bench cfr. pic. 29 (and the indication on the diagram makes it somewhat clear).  'll attach the "counter" picture.  The counter is not visible on the East picture (and the floordiagram is very misleading in that way !!).  

 

Thanks for your explanations. Yes, the "counter" looks like a bench!

[Benjamin Cole]

OK, I can't stop. There is even more. 

JFKA researchers of course are familiar with Victoria Elizabeth Adams, star of the book "The Girl on the Stairs," by Barry Ernest. 

To sum up Ernest's book, Adams worked on the fourth floor of the TSBD, and says she went down the TSBD stairs quickly after the JFKA, with an associate, and they saw no one on the stairs.

But more importantly (in this context) is this section of her testimony to the WC:

Mr. BELIN. Where was their (Kennedy's) car as you got this good view, had it come directly opposite your window? Had it come to that point on Elm, or not, if you can remember?

Miss ADAMS. I believe it was prior, just a second or so prior to that.

Mr. BELIN. All right.

Miss ADAMS. And from our vantage point we were able to see what the President’s wife was wearing, the roses in the car, and things that would attract women’s attention. Then we heard--then we were obstructed from the view.

Mr. BELIN. By what?

Miss ADAMS. A tree. And we heard a shot, and it was a pause, and then a second shot, and then a third shot. It sounded like a firecracker or a cannon at a football game, it seemed as if it came from the right below rather from the left above. Possibly because of the report. And after the third shot, following that, the third shot, I went to the back of the building down the back stairs, and encountered Bill Shelley and Bill Lovelady on the first floor on the way out to the Houston Street dock.

Mr. BELIN. When you say on the way out to the Houston Street dock, you mean now you were on the way out?

Miss ADAMS. While I was on the way out.

Mr. BELIN. Was anyone going along with you

Miss ADAMS. Yes, sir; Sandra Styles.

---30---

Egads...this is another witness, inside the TSBD, this time on the fourth floor, who said the shots had come from inside the TSBD but from below, and were as loud as a cannon. 

Adams' commentary echos that of James Jarman (eight-year US Army veteran), who was on the fifth floor during the JFKA, and also thought shots had come from below him. 

Ok, so multiple witness think the shots came from below them inside the TSBD...and the second-floor  Southwestern Publishing office are locked with someone inside...well, read some of my comments above....

Interesting. 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

Update pending....

[Gil Jesus]

On 11/1/2022 at 4:07 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

OK, here is just a speculative post--but puzzling. 

Geneva Hine worked accounts and phones at the TSBD.

Testimony to WC---

After the shots 11/22 Hines--- 

"went down it to Southwestern Publishing Co. door and I tried their door and the reason this was because those windows face out.

Mr. BALL. On to Elm?

Miss HINE. Yes ; and on to the triple underpass.

Mr. BALL. I see.

Miss HINE. And there was a girl in there talking on the telephone and I could hear her but she didn’t answer the door.

Mr. BALL. Was the door locked?

Miss HINE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. That was which company?

Miss HINE. Southwestern Publishing Co.

Mr. BALL. Did you call to her?

Miss HINE. I called and called and shook the door and she didn’t answer me because she was talking on the telephone; I could hear her. They have a little curtain up and I could see her form through the curtains. I could see her talking and I knew that’s what she was doing and then I turned and went through the back hall and came through the back door.

Mr. BALL. Of your office, the second floor office?

Miss HINE. Yes; and I went straight up to the desk because the telephones were beginning to wink; outside calls were beginning to come in.

---30---

So, after the JFKA there is someone in the Southwestern Publishing office who will not answer the door despite repeated calls to her through the door, and the door being "shook."  That publisher's office has windows facing Elm Street and with a view to the triple underpass. 

There is no indication that the multiple publisher's offices within the TSBD were ever searched, nor a roll call done of their employees. 

If the shots on 11/22 were so loud they shook the TSBD, and sounded like cannons---what would a girl in the publisher's office be doing talking on the phone and ignoring people imploring her to open her door? Sheesh, the publisher girl could naturally assume people at her door are warning her of a building emergency. 

Loud explosions, people shaking your door and calling to you. 

And with a window onto Elm, did not the girl stick her head out of the window and witness the motorcade and this the JFKA? 

Well, human nature is inexplicable. Maybe nothing there. But sure is odd.  

 

FWIW, I believe that Southwest Publishing played a prominent role in the murder of JFK. 

Compare this woman being "on the phone" with the man in the black '57 Ford that Lee Bowers believed, "was a police officer as he observed him talking on a radio telephone or a radio transmitter." ( CD 5, pg. 43 )

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=46

Of course, the Warren Commission never tried to find out who she was talking to or why this phone call was more important than watching the motorcade ride by.

That phone call must have been pretty important for her not to put the receiver down for a minute and answer the door.

[Benjamin Cole]

45 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

FWIW, I believe that Southwest Publishing played a prominent role in the murder of JFK. 

Compare this woman being "on the phone" with the man in the black '57 Ford that Lee Bowers believed, "was a police officer as he observed him talking on a radio telephone or a radio transmitter." ( CD 5, pg. 43 )

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=46

Of course, the Warren Commission never tried to find out who she was talking to or why this phone call was more important than watching the motorcade ride by.

That phone call must have been pretty important for her not to put the receiver down for a minute and answer the door.

GJ--

As always, great to get a response from you.

Yes there was a direct eyewitness, recorded by WC testimony, that a woman in the SW Publishing office would not answer her door, even to urgent knocking and shaking of the door, in the immediate aftermath of the JFKA. 

The SW room had an open window onto the motorcade route. Carol Hughes was reportedly in the office, and she left the TSBD one hour later (you can't make this up) unsearched. 

Yes-siree, the JFKA had been all wrapped up in one hour. 

At his late date we do not know what Hughes was wearing as she left. However, it had been a cool fall day, and she could wear a long coat without suspicion. 

Of course, we do not know if there were others in the SW Publishing office during the JFKA. 

Three "cannon blasts" had been heard on the second floor. Keep in mind several witnesses in floors above the second floor thought the shots had come from below them. 

This was the same office into which Warren Caster had brought a pair of rifles on Nov. 20, seen by multiple witnesses. No one saw the rifles leave, only rifle cartons--empty or otherwise? 

In truth, this may be a dead end. Doing an investigation today would likely be fruitless. 

What it does show indisputably, again, is the utter apathy of the WC to all leads that did not follow the script. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2023 by Benjamin Cole