Basic facts that seem like conspiracy-killers to me

[David Von Pein]

15 minutes ago, Charles Blackmon said:

It says "Video unavailable".

The video plays just fine for me. It is definitely not "unavailable".

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Charles Blackmon said:

...I will look to someone else to kindly prove to me little Lee could carry a 36" bag [sic] the way the WC describes while not stumbling.

Buell wasn't the only witness. Linnie was as well. No idea why he would say anything that stupid unless pressure got to him (very likely).

Buell didn't say anything that stupid. He said these words, which I quoted previously and which are forever ignored by JFK conspiracy believers:

 

VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "Mr. Frazier, is it true that you paid hardly any attention to this bag?"

BUELL WESLEY FRAZIER -- "That is true."

BUGLIOSI -- "So the bag could have been protruding out in front of his [Oswald's] body, and you wouldn't have been able to see it, is that correct?"

FRAZIER -- "That is true."

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Jake Hammond]

Just a general comment on proving a conspiracy or not. Most people have an idea of what a conspiracy looks like nd that will vary from person to person. There is a lot of talk here of guns and bags... well what if Oswald was told to take a gun in and then sit in the lunch room. Or take a gun up to the 6th floor and fire off a few rounds ? Oswald was not what he was presented to the American people as, but he may well have shot that day, at something. it may be worth outlining your conspiracy before debunking or rebunking. 

[Charles Blackmon]

7 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Buell didn't say anything that stupid. He said these words, which I quoted previously and which are forever ignored by JFK conspiracy believers:

 

VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "Mr. Frazier, is it true that you paid hardly any attention to this bag?"

BUELL WESLEY FRAZIER -- "That is true."

BUGLIOSI -- "So the bag could have been protruding out in front of his [Oswald's] body, and you wouldn't have been able to see it, is that correct?"

FRAZIER -- "That is true."

 

That just shows he is not a good witness to this part of the day's events. His testimony here means nothing.

[David Von Pein]

15 minutes ago, Charles Blackmon said:

That just shows he is not a good witness to this part of the day's events.

I agree. He's not. At the '86 mock trial, Buell admits that the bag could have been "protruding" out in front of LHO's body, but in other interviews he insists that the package HAD to be under Lee's armpit AND cupped in his right hand.

So, you're right, he's not a good (or reliable) witness to that part of the day's events. He has, in effect, admitted that he really has no idea just how Oswald was carrying the package as he walked toward the TSBD on 11/22.

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Jake Hammond]

On 1/18/2023 at 9:57 PM, Lance Payette said:

I find certain basic facts impossible to square with any plausible conspiracy theory. One of these is Oswald’s last-minute trip to Ruth Paine’s home to obtain his rifle.

Conspiracy enthusiasts, of course, thrive on complexity. If you insist Oswald never actually ordered or received the Carcano, or the conspirators somehow obtained it from Ruth’s garage and planted it in the TSBD without Oswald's knowledge, you’re already in the land of extreme implausibility - quite possibly because you intuitively recognize the problem I’m describing here.

No, I’m talking about a conspiracy in which Oswald actually owned the Carcano and was either a knowing participant or a designated patsy. In other words, a conspiracy that is at least within the ballpark of plausibility. For some reason, it was important to this conspiracy for Oswald and/or his rifle to be on the sixth floor of the TSBD at the time of the assassination.

Think about such a conspiracy and ask the question, “Does the following scenario make any sense at all?”

• The morning before the assassination, a Thursday, Oswald uses his unlikely “curtain rods” story as an excuse to visit Ruth’s home in Irving;
• Oswald asks casual acquaintance Frazier, his 19-year-old coworker, for a ride, the first one he’s ever requested on a Thursday;
• The evening before the assassination, Frazier and Oswald undertake the 35-minute drive to Irving in Frazier’s 1954 Chevrolet;
• That night, Oswald retrieves his clunky Carcano with its misaligned scope, an implausible assassination weapon at best, from the garage and wraps it without Ruth or Marina noticing his activities;
• The morning of the assassination, Oswald strolls down the street with his wrapped rifle extending nearly to the ground and tosses it in the back seat of Frazier's car;
• Frazier and Oswald travel the 35 minutes back to Dallas in Frazier’s 1954 Chevy;
• Oswald leaves Frazier’s car and walks toward the TSBD with the wrapped rifle extending from his cupped hand up his arm;
• Oswald somehow conveys the rifle to the sixth floor without being seen or questioned by anyone.

Whether your pet conspiracy involves a small group of anti-Castro radicals, the CIA, the Mafia or any combination of the Usual Suspects, does the above scenario make any sense at all? How many absurd last-minute risks does the above scenario entail ? If Oswald and/or his rifle were important to the conspiracy, what sort of inept conspirators would allow all these risks to be taken when they could so easily have been avoided? How much conspiratorial planning could possibly have resulted in the above scenario?

On the other hand, it seems to me the above scenario makes perfect sense if (1) Oswald never gave a thought to assassinating JFK until he learned the motorcade would pass in front of the TSBD; (2) Oswald retrieved his clunky Carcano the day before the assassination because it was the only rifle he had and the only timeframe in which he had to work; and (3) his plan wasn’t crystallized until Marina rebuffed him and he decided to take his shot at history.

I know it's fun to debate the SBT or Mexico City trip for dozens of threads and hundreds of posts, but here in Lone Nut world I find it useful simply to take some of the very basic facts and ask, "Does a conspiratorial explanation of these facts make any sense at all?" The answer "No, it doesn't" is why, I believe, many CTers are so eager to move away from the basic facts and dive into far-fetched diversions like "Oswald never bought the rifle - everything is fake!" or "Ruth, Frazier and Truly were all part of the conspiracy!"

 I think that the issue here is that you, and possible others, have focused on a given outcome and then created a narrative that fits. When your narrative fits your outcome you then say ' look ... amazing ! how simple ! . Well of course its simple - you created it to fit a pre ordained outcome. Like a soccer coach informing his players at full time that they lost the match, but if they'd just scored more goals than the opposition then they would have won ! How simple ! 

 That said there is massive amounts of total schitzo level ' conspiracy' stuff out there so the real challenge is to focus on what definitely differs to what we were told and why that is. In the example you give of Oswald actions immediately before and the guns movements you leave out the issue of him conveniently having a job there, how he got that job and the other job he almost got at the airport. This issue ties in with the cut outs of Oswald in LA, Miami and Chicago, who also were fair play for Cuba members, loners, small, had jobs in high rise buildings on the parade route, disgruntled communist sympathisers etc..... Not so simple. 

 I would also just highlight the elephant in the room. Oswald vehemently denied any wrong doing and was genuinely surprised in the media conference when he was told he was accused of killing the president. This is a man who apparently wanted to make his mark, to change history. A man who went home, got his rifle, took it to work, loaded it, shot, shot again, then shot again blowing off JFK's head. It seems rather incongruous that that same man would then go to a theatre and then deny completely his involvement, if indeed Oswald is who we're told he was. 

 I believe Oswald at least knew of the plot and may well have fired a weapon that day but that also the truth is much more complex about his history and who exactly was involved . 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Jake Hammond
typo

[Charles Blackmon]

Another thing I have wondered about the bag is when they examined it did they test to see if there were any water splotches on it? Recall there was some light rain that morning, so it surely would have got wet during transport either to the car or to the TSBD.

[Michael Griffith]

Sylvia Meagher made some cogent points about the paper bag that Oswald allegedly used to carry the rifle:

But there is no evidence to back the Commission's assumption that Oswald took wrapping paper and sealing tape from the wrapping bench. On the contrary, Troy West, the wrapping clerk, testified that to his knowledge Oswald had never borrowed or used those materials and that he had never seen Oswald near the roll of wrapping paper or the tape dispenser. Moreover, Harold Weisberg in his book Whitewash has pointed to a significant fact which escaped mention in the Warren Report: when tape is pulled from the Book Depository tape dispenser it is automatically moistened by a mechanism like a water wheel. . . .

According to the Commission's findings, Oswald must have carried the paper bag concealed on his person when he accompanied Frazier to Irving on Thursday. Frazier saw no paper bag or any sign that Oswald had concealed on his person the six-foot length of wrapping paper necessary to construct a bag consisting of two sheets, each about three feet long, sealed at the edges. Neither Marina Oswald (1 H 120) nor Ruth Paine (3 H 49, 77) noticed anything which provided the smallest corroboration for the Commission's assumption. . . .

The Commission has offered no firm physical evidence of a link between the paper bag and the rifle. The Report does not mention the negative examination made by FBI expert James Cadigan. Cadigan said explicitly that he had been unable to find any marks, scratches, abrasions, or other indications that would tie the bag to the rifle. Those negative findings assume greater significance in the light of an FBI report (CE 2974) which states that the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository was in a well-oiled condition. It is difficult to understand why a well-oiled rifle carried in separate parts would not have left distinct traces of oil on the paper bag, easily detected in laboratory tests if not with the naked eye. The expert testimony includes no mention of oil traces, a fact which in itself is cogent evidence against the Commission's conclusions.

Equally significant, there were no oil stains or traces on the blanket in which a well-oiled rifle ostensibly had been stored—not for hours but for months. This serves further to weaken, if not to destroy, the Commission's arbitrary finding that the Carcano rifle had been wrapped in that blanket until the night before the assassination. (Accessories After the Fact, pp. 47-48, 62)

[David Von Pein]

Some Questions For Buell Wesley Frazier....

This one-hour interview with JFK assassination witness Buell Wesley Frazier took place on November 22, 2021, at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. It is one of several interviews and public appearances that Mr. Frazier has done in the last few years. (Others can be found at my Buell Frazier webpage here.)

I've always been very fond of Buell Wesley Frazier. I've enjoyed listening to him tell his story over the years about how he and his 1963 co-worker, Lee Harvey Oswald, would ride to work together to the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.

And despite the fact that Buell has added a few hard-to-believe chapters to his assassination story in the last 20 years or so (such as the episodes talked about here and here and here), I must admit, I am still quite fond of Mr. Buell Wesley Frazier. That doesn't mean that I accept as fact all of the things that Buell has tacked on to his story since about 2002. Not at all. In fact, I think he's done a bit of—shall we say—embellishing of his story during these last twenty years.

Frazier's latest "embellishment", which was added for the first time to his account of the events of 11/22/63 in the pages of Buell's new 2021 book, "Steering Truth: My Eternal Connection To JFK And Lee Harvey Oswald", is a tale about how Buell allegedly encountered a man with a rifle on the Elm Street extension road just outside the Book Depository Building within minutes of the shooting of President Kennedy.

This impeccably-dressed rifleman, wearing clothes and shoes that apparently (per Frazier) only a "professional" could afford, threw his weapon into the trunk of his car and then drove off, never to be seen or heard from again.

I could be wrong, but Buell's new late-arriving tale about a dapper gun-toting assassin (?), who was evidently displaying his rifle out in the open in front of the Depository for everybody to potentially see, is very likely an addendum to Mr. Frazier's story that even most hardened conspiracy theorists will have a hard time swallowing.

The above 2021 interview with Mr. Frazier prompted me to create this post, but not mainly for the purpose of scoffing at the latest addition to his November 22nd story (although scoff I must), but instead I wanted to take the opportunity to ask Buell Wesley Frazier a few questions (on paper only) that I do not think have ever been asked of him during any of the several interviews he has participated in since the assassination occurred in 1963. I'm very curious as to what Buell's reactions and responses might be if he were to ever be confronted with questions put to him in the following manner....

#1. Buell, you do realize, don't you, that the rifle that was found on the sixth floor of the Depository on 11/22/63 was a rifle that was proven by the totality of the evidence in this case to have been owned and possessed by Lee Harvey Oswald?

#1a. And you also realize that that exact rifle was proven to have been the weapon that murdered President Kennedy, don't you?

#2. And you also realize, don't you, that the empty brown paper bag that was found near the Sniper's Nest on the sixth floor had the fingerprints of Lee Oswald on it?

#2a. Plus, that same paper bag had fibers inside of it that generally matched fibers from the blanket in Ruth Paine's garage, which is a blanket that was known to have been the place where Oswald's rifle was kept in storage in the weeks just before the assassination. You know that fact too, don't you Buell?

#3. Don't you ever wonder, Buell, why Lee Oswald told you that big fat lie about the "curtain rods"? And he twice told that lie to you—once on Thursday morning (November 21st) and then again on the morning of November 22nd when you and he got into your car at your sister's house.

We know now that Lee's "curtain rods" story was definitely a lie. We know this because....

....No curtain rods were ever found inside the Book Depository after the assassination.

....No curtain rods were found among Oswald's possessions at his roominghouse at 1026 North Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff.

....No curtain rods were found on the bus or in the taxicab that Oswald rode in on 11/22/63.

....And no curtain rods were found on Oswald himself after the assassination.

#3a. So, why do you think Lee would feel the need to tell such a lie about "curtain rods"? And if the item that was inside Oswald's package on 11/22/63 had really been curtain rods, then where did those rods disappear to? Did Lee ditch them in a trash dumpster on Elm Street after he left the Depository?

Those questions about the "rods" are very important ones, wouldn't you agree Buell?

#4. And what about the murder of policeman J.D. Tippit? Do you think Lee was innocent of killing Officer Tippit too? I don't think any interviewer has ever asked you that question, have they?

The evidence against Oswald in the Tippit shooting couldn't be any more powerful and concrete (as my next question clearly illustrates).

#5. If you are of the opinion that Lee Oswald did not kill J.D. Tippit, then how can you explain the fact that Lee was arrested in the Texas Theater with the Tippit murder weapon in his very own hands just 35 minutes after Officer Tippit was gunned down nearby?

Given this fact concerning the Tippit murder weapon, about the only way for Lee Harvey Oswald to be innocent is to believe silliness like this.

#6. And if Lee Oswald was innocent of shooting both John Kennedy and J.D. Tippit, then why did Lee pull a gun on a police officer in the Texas Theater on 11/22/63?

And why did Lee fight like a wild man with Dallas Patrolman M.N. McDonald in the theater?

Are those the actions of a person who had done nothing wrong on November 22, 1963?

#7. And then there's the attempted murder of General Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963. Do you think Lee Oswald took that shot at General Walker, Buell? If not, then how do you explain what Lee wrote to his wife, Marina, in Warren Commission Exhibit No. 1 (which is in Oswald's own handwriting)?

#7a. And if you do accept the fact that Lee took that shot at Walker (and the evidence clearly indicates that he did), then wouldn't you agree with me that Lee Harvey Oswald definitely had murder running through his veins just seven months before President Kennedy went to Dallas? And wouldn't you agree with me that if a person is willing to take a gun and shoot at another human being in April, then it's quite possible that that same person (namely Lee Oswald) might have a similar desire to aim that same gun at another political figure in November?

#8. With all of the above individual facts piled up against the door (plus these additional pieces of evidence), which are facts that are just dying to be strung together to form a cohesive whole known as "The Totality Of Evidence In The JFK Murder Case", can you, Buell Wesley Frazier, possibly still cling to the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald, merely because he was kind to you and the children who lived near you in Irving, was innocent of killing President John F. Kennedy?

I truly wonder if Mr. Frazier has ever once examined the evidence against Oswald in an objective way in which his friendship with the accused assassin was set aside in order to let the evidence speak for itself. I doubt that he has.

David Von Pein
January 12, 2022

============================

RELATED COMMENTS....

It could be that Buell Frazier has deliberately avoided becoming well-schooled on the evidence so that he can continue to maintain a (false) rosy picture of his friend and co-worker Lee Oswald for as long as he lives.

But I really have no idea as to how much Buell knows about the details of the JFK case. As I asked above, I'm wondering if Frazier even believes Oswald shot and killed J.D. Tippit. I have a feeling he doesn't believe Lee took a shot at anyone in 1963---including Walker.

But for that matter, is Buell even aware of the Walker shooting at all? You'd never know by looking at any of his interviews. That topic never comes up. Nor does the topic of Tippit's murder. It's as if those things never even happened -- which is one of the reasons I wanted to write out the above list of questions for Buell Frazier. If he were ever to study those questions, perhaps he would be inclined to accept the fact that Lee Harvey wasn't always the perfect co-worker after all.

[...]

What I wonder is this: Is Buell Wesley Frazier's opinion a truly informed opinion? Is Buell even fully aware of all the evidence against Oswald? I wonder. And it's evidence which proves for all time that Lee Harvey Oswald was a double-murderer.

The Paper Bag Facts....

1. Lee Oswald carried one large-ish brown paper bag into the TSBD on 11/22/63.

2. One large-ish EMPTY brown paper bag was found on the 6th floor of the TSBD after the assassination (in the precise location where an assassin was located). And that bag has LHO's prints on it.

3. No other large-ish paper bag was located anywhere in the TSBD.

4. So, if Buell Frazier and Linnie Randle were right about the length of Oswald's package, then the question needs to be asked: What happened to the shorter 27-inch bag that Frazier and Randle said Oswald had with him on Nov. 22nd? Did that bag (plus its contents, whatever the contents might have been) just disappear into a puff of smoke?

5. Final conclusion: Linnie Mae Randle and Buell Wesley Frazier were simply mistaken about the length of the package they each saw Lee Harvey Oswald carrying on 11/22/63.

But instead of logically adding up #1 thru #4 above and accepting the obvious truth about the discrepancy concerning the length of Oswald's paper bag, many conspiracy theorists here in the 21st century have decided to abandon their previous "The Bag Was Too Short To Hold The Rifle" argument (which most CTers have embraced to their bosoms for decades) and have decided it would be a good idea to come out and call Frazier and Randle bald-faced XXXXX, with those 21st-century conspiracy fantasists inventing the fantastically idiotic theory that has BOTH Frazier and Randle getting together and just making up a story about Oswald carrying a large-ish paper bag on the morning of the assassination.

These new 21st-century conspiracy innovators couldn't care less, of course, about the fact that they haven't produced a single shred of solid evidence or proof to show that their goofy "There Was No Bag At All" theory is true.

Here's something I said about the paper bag back in 2007:

"I wonder what the odds are of Lee Oswald having carried a DIFFERENT brown bag into work from the one WITH HIS TWO IDENTIFIABLE PRINTS ON IT that was found by the cops in the Sniper's Nest on the 6th Floor?

Care to guess at what those odds might be? They must be close to "O.J. DNA" type numbers (in favor of the empty brown bag that was found by the police on the 6th Floor of the Book Depository being the very same bag that Buell Wesley Frazier and Linnie Mae Randle saw in Lee Harvey Oswald's hands on the morning of November 22, 1963).

I'm eagerly awaiting the logical and believable conspiracy-slanted explanation that will answer the question of why a 38-inch empty paper bag (which could house Oswald's 34.8-inch disassembled rifle), which was an empty bag with Oswald's fingerprints on it, was in the place where it was found after the assassination (the sixth-floor Sniper's Nest) and yet still NOT have Lee Oswald present at that sniper's window on 11/22/63.

I, for one, cannot think of a single "Oswald Is Innocent" explanation for that empty paper sack being where it was found after the assassination of John Kennedy....AND with Oswald's fingerprints on it." -- DVP; October 2007

Most Internet conspiracy theorists seem to have a difficult time with simple math. They can't seem to ever add 2 and 2 together. And I think they are failing to properly "add up" the sum total of the evidence when it comes to the topic of "The Paper Bag".

When a conspiracist tells me I'm not really "following the evidence to where it leads", I have to vigorously disagree. Because I think I'm doing precisely that very thing---following the evidence that exists in this case and applying simple logic and reasonable inferences from that evidence.

And to those conspiracy believers who think Oswald took a shorter (27-inch-long) package into the TSBD on November 22, I ask:

What did Oswald do with that 27-inch paper bag and its contents after entering the Depository on 11/22?

If Commission Exhibit 142 isn't the "Oswald bag", then what did Lee do with that other bag?

One thing's for sure --- whatever answer a conspiracy theorist dreams up to try and answer my above question is not going to be nearly as logical as my October 2007 comment I posted earlier.

More of my comments in this discussion, along with the posts of some conspiracy theorists who are in a fairly large state of denial regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's 38-inch-long paper gun sack, can be found here.

David Von Pein
January 2022



 

Edited January 24, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Steve Roe]

21 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

As per having Lance on ignore, yes I do, along with several others here, like Roe and Von Pein.  But when someone else quotes them, I have to look at their  "stuff"..

Yes DiEugenio, how many times are you going to repeat this? Nobody is buying it, OK? You are reading Lance, DVP and myself, so quit trying to fool everyone here with that nonsense. Yes, you go to your Iphone and read the forum. Everyone knows that trick. 

[Ron Ege]

10 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

I've told this story before and I'm going to tell it again.

When I've been on other online public discussion groups and the topic of the JFK assassination has come up, there are always gun enthusiasts who know nothing about the assassination but never fail to chime in and show off their vast knowledge of all things firearm.

But, whenever I ask them how much ammo they have on hand at that particular moment, and if it wasn't unusual that LHO (a person allegedly owning and regularly practicing with a rifle) had no ammunition at any of his residences, their response is... silence. I've never once had a reply.

Denny, thanks.

I would guess that the sticking point for some - would be the "allegedly".  Perhaps, and just a "perhaps", many remain unconvinced that that Oswald actually "owned" the MC in question.  For me, it is yet hardly definite that if he did own it, let alone how much he. "regularly practiced".

The incidences of him allegedly doing so, are questionable at best.  Imposter?  ?Mistaken identity?  In any case, for Oswald to actually allegedly accomplish what he's been credited as doing, gives many, quite a bit of pause, to say the least - considering all we know about the rifle, it's condition, a scope which would be contraindicated for his task at hand, that day, and so on.

Can't speak for other gun enthusiasts, not a hunter, but as an avid target shooter (once owned some forty pistols/rifles of several different calibers), I was always aware that I had, at the very least,  a minimum of one box of whatever ammo I needed for whatever gun I owned, remaining, as I took inventory, each time that I went out to shoot.  Any caliber of less than "one
box on hand", I replenished at the local gun store, on the way to - or back from the range.

What I will note - is that if I were on the way to assassinate the POTUS, I'd take more than four bullets for my rifle, e.g., extra clips/magazines, and I'd also carry a loaded pistol, along with extra ammunition - just in case I was unable to make my "getaway" unnoticed.  

Oswald, if it was, indeed, him that day, shooting from the sixth floor did not.

It's may be just me - but - curious that. 
 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Ron Ege

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, David Von Pein said:

Some Questions For Buell Wesley Frazier....

This one-hour interview with JFK assassination witness Buell Wesley Frazier took place on November 22, 2021, at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. It is one of several interviews and public appearances that Mr. Frazier has done in the last few years. (Others can be found at my Buell Frazier webpage here.)

I've always been very fond of Buell Wesley Frazier. I've enjoyed listening to him tell his story over the years about how he and his 1963 co-worker, Lee Harvey Oswald, would ride to work together to the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas.

And despite the fact that Buell has added a few hard-to-believe chapters to his assassination story in the last 20 years or so (such as the episodes talked about here and here and here), I must admit, I am still quite fond of Mr. Buell Wesley Frazier. That doesn't mean that I accept as fact all of the things that Buell has tacked on to his story since about 2002. Not at all. In fact, I think he's done a bit of—shall we say—embellishing of his story during these last twenty years.

Frazier's latest "embellishment", which was added for the first time to his account of the events of 11/22/63 in the pages of Buell's new 2021 book, "Steering Truth: My Eternal Connection To JFK And Lee Harvey Oswald", is a tale about how Buell allegedly encountered a man with a rifle on the Elm Street extension road just outside the Book Depository Building within minutes of the shooting of President Kennedy.

This impeccably-dressed rifleman, wearing clothes and shoes that apparently (per Frazier) only a "professional" could afford, threw his weapon into the trunk of his car and then drove off, never to be seen or heard from again.

I could be wrong, but Buell's new late-arriving tale about a dapper gun-toting assassin (?), who was evidently displaying his rifle out in the open in front of the Depository for everybody to potentially see, is very likely an addendum to Mr. Frazier's story that even most hardened conspiracy theorists will have a hard time swallowing.

The above 2021 interview with Mr. Frazier prompted me to create this post, but not mainly for the purpose of scoffing at the latest addition to his November 22nd story (although scoff I must), but instead I wanted to take the opportunity to ask Buell Wesley Frazier a few questions (on paper only) that I do not think have ever been asked of him during any of the several interviews he has participated in since the assassination occurred in 1963. I'm very curious as to what Buell's reactions and responses might be if he were to ever be confronted with questions put to him in the following manner....

#1. Buell, you do realize, don't you, that the rifle that was found on the sixth floor of the Depository on 11/22/63 was a rifle that was proven by the totality of the evidence in this case to have been owned and possessed by Lee Harvey Oswald?

#1a. And you also realize that that exact rifle was proven to have been the weapon that murdered President Kennedy, don't you?

#2. And you also realize, don't you, that the empty brown paper bag that was found near the Sniper's Nest on the sixth floor had the fingerprints of Lee Oswald on it?

#2a. Plus, that same paper bag had fibers inside of it that generally matched fibers from the blanket in Ruth Paine's garage, which is a blanket that was known to have been the place where Oswald's rifle was kept in storage in the weeks just before the assassination. You know that fact too, don't you Buell?

#3. Don't you ever wonder, Buell, why Lee Oswald told you that big fat lie about the "curtain rods"? And he twice told that lie to you—once on Thursday morning (November 21st) and then again on the morning of November 22nd when you and he got into your car at your sister's house.

We know now that Lee's "curtain rods" story was definitely a lie. We know this because....

....No curtain rods were ever found inside the Book Depository after the assassination.

....No curtain rods were found among Oswald's possessions at his roominghouse at 1026 North Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff.

....No curtain rods were found on the bus or in the taxicab that Oswald rode in on 11/22/63.

....And no curtain rods were found on Oswald himself after the assassination.

#3a. So, why do you think Lee would feel the need to tell such a lie about "curtain rods"? And if the item that was inside Oswald's package on 11/22/63 had really been curtain rods, then where did those rods disappear to? Did Lee ditch them in a trash dumpster on Elm Street after he left the Depository?

Those questions about the "rods" are very important ones, wouldn't you agree Buell?

#4. And what about the murder of policeman J.D. Tippit? Do you think Lee was innocent of killing Officer Tippit too? I don't think any interviewer has ever asked you that question, have they?

The evidence against Oswald in the Tippit shooting couldn't be any more powerful and concrete (as my next question clearly illustrates).

#5. If you are of the opinion that Lee Oswald did not kill J.D. Tippit, then how can you explain the fact that Lee was arrested in the Texas Theater with the Tippit murder weapon in his very own hands just 35 minutes after Officer Tippit was gunned down nearby?

Given this fact concerning the Tippit murder weapon, about the only way for Lee Harvey Oswald to be innocent is to believe silliness like this.

#6. And if Lee Oswald was innocent of shooting both John Kennedy and J.D. Tippit, then why did Lee pull a gun on a police officer in the Texas Theater on 11/22/63?

And why did Lee fight like a wild man with Dallas Patrolman M.N. McDonald in the theater?

Are those the actions of a person who had done nothing wrong on November 22, 1963?

#7. And then there's the attempted murder of General Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963. Do you think Lee Oswald took that shot at General Walker, Buell? If not, then how do you explain what Lee wrote to his wife, Marina, in Warren Commission Exhibit No. 1 (which is in Oswald's own handwriting)?

#7a. And if you do accept the fact that Lee took that shot at Walker (and the evidence clearly indicates that he did), then wouldn't you agree with me that Lee Harvey Oswald definitely had murder running through his veins just seven months before President Kennedy went to Dallas? And wouldn't you agree with me that if a person is willing to take a gun and shoot at another human being in April, then it's quite possible that that same person (namely Lee Oswald) might have a similar desire to aim that same gun at another political figure in November?

#8. With all of the above individual facts piled up against the door (plus these additional pieces of evidence), which are facts that are just dying to be strung together to form a cohesive whole known as "The Totality Of Evidence In The JFK Murder Case", can you, Buell Wesley Frazier, possibly still cling to the notion that Lee Harvey Oswald, merely because he was kind to you and the children who lived near you in Irving, was innocent of killing President John F. Kennedy?

I truly wonder if Mr. Frazier has ever once examined the evidence against Oswald in an objective way in which his friendship with the accused assassin was set aside in order to let the evidence speak for itself. I doubt that he has.

David Von Pein
January 12, 2022

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RELATED COMMENTS....

It could be that Buell Frazier has deliberately avoided becoming well-schooled on the evidence so that he can continue to maintain a (false) rosy picture of his friend and co-worker Lee Oswald for as long as he lives.

But I really have no idea as to how much Buell knows about the details of the JFK case. As I asked above, I'm wondering if Frazier even believes Oswald shot and killed J.D. Tippit. I have a feeling he doesn't believe Lee took a shot at anyone in 1963---including Walker.

But for that matter, is Buell even aware of the Walker shooting at all? You'd never know by looking at any of his interviews. That topic never comes up. Nor does the topic of Tippit's murder. It's as if those things never even happened -- which is one of the reasons I wanted to write out the above list of questions for Buell Frazier. If he were ever to study those questions, perhaps he would be inclined to accept the fact that Lee Harvey wasn't always the perfect co-worker after all.

[...]

What I wonder is this: Is Buell Wesley Frazier's opinion a truly informed opinion? Is Buell even fully aware of all the evidence against Oswald? I wonder. And it's evidence which proves for all time that Lee Harvey Oswald was a double-murderer.

The Paper Bag Facts....

1. Lee Oswald carried one large-ish brown paper bag into the TSBD on 11/22/63.

2. One large-ish EMPTY brown paper bag was found on the 6th floor of the TSBD after the assassination (in the precise location where an assassin was located). And that bag has LHO's prints on it.

3. No other large-ish paper bag was located anywhere in the TSBD.

4. So, if Buell Frazier and Linnie Randle were right about the length of Oswald's package, then the question needs to be asked: What happened to the shorter 27-inch bag that Frazier and Randle said Oswald had with him on Nov. 22nd? Did that bag (plus its contents, whatever the contents might have been) just disappear into a puff of smoke?

5. Final conclusion: Linnie Mae Randle and Buell Wesley Frazier were simply mistaken about the length of the package they each saw Lee Harvey Oswald carrying on 11/22/63.

But instead of logically adding up #1 thru #4 above and accepting the obvious truth about the discrepancy concerning the length of Oswald's paper bag, many conspiracy theorists here in the 21st century have decided to abandon their previous "The Bag Was Too Short To Hold The Rifle" argument (which most CTers have embraced to their bosoms for decades) and have decided it would be a good idea to come out and call Frazier and Randle bald-faced XXXXX, with those 21st-century conspiracy fantasists inventing the fantastically idiotic theory that has BOTH Frazier and Randle getting together and just making up a story about Oswald carrying a large-ish paper bag on the morning of the assassination.

These new 21st-century conspiracy innovators couldn't care less, of course, about the fact that they haven't produced a single shred of solid evidence or proof to show that their goofy "There Was No Bag At All" theory is true.

Here's something I said about the paper bag back in 2007:

"I wonder what the odds are of Lee Oswald having carried a DIFFERENT brown bag into work from the one WITH HIS TWO IDENTIFIABLE PRINTS ON IT that was found by the cops in the Sniper's Nest on the 6th Floor?

Care to guess at what those odds might be? They must be close to "O.J. DNA" type numbers (in favor of the empty brown bag that was found by the police on the 6th Floor of the Book Depository being the very same bag that Buell Wesley Frazier and Linnie Mae Randle saw in Lee Harvey Oswald's hands on the morning of November 22, 1963).

I'm eagerly awaiting the logical and believable conspiracy-slanted explanation that will answer the question of why a 38-inch empty paper bag (which could house Oswald's 34.8-inch disassembled rifle), which was an empty bag with Oswald's fingerprints on it, was in the place where it was found after the assassination (the sixth-floor Sniper's Nest) and yet still NOT have Lee Oswald present at that sniper's window on 11/22/63.

I, for one, cannot think of a single "Oswald Is Innocent" explanation for that empty paper sack being where it was found after the assassination of John Kennedy....AND with Oswald's fingerprints on it." -- DVP; October 2007

Most Internet conspiracy theorists seem to have a difficult time with simple math. They can't seem to ever add 2 and 2 together. And I think they are failing to properly "add up" the sum total of the evidence when it comes to the topic of "The Paper Bag".

When a conspiracist tells me I'm not really "following the evidence to where it leads", I have to vigorously disagree. Because I think I'm doing precisely that very thing---following the evidence that exists in this case and applying simple logic and reasonable inferences from that evidence.

And to those conspiracy believers who think Oswald took a shorter (27-inch-long) package into the TSBD on November 22, I ask:

What did Oswald do with that 27-inch paper bag and its contents after entering the Depository on 11/22?

If Commission Exhibit 142 isn't the "Oswald bag", then what did Lee do with that other bag?

One thing's for sure --- whatever answer a conspiracy theorist dreams up to try and answer my above question is not going to be nearly as logical as my October 2007 comment I posted earlier.

More of my comments in this discussion, along with the posts of some conspiracy theorists who are in a fairly large state of denial regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's 38-inch-long paper gun sack, can be found here.

David Von Pein
January 2022



 

Pure smoke. Circular reasoning. "I refuse to believe something, so it mustn't be true." I have talked with Frazier on several occasions. He knows the evidence against Oswald. He also knows what he knows. And what he knows--for a fact, in his mind--is that the Oswald he knew was an unlikely assassin, and that the bag he saw in Oswald's possession was much smaller than the bag later put into evidence. He knows this for a fact. He has no doubt. He has also stated--as a fact--that Oswald did not have the bag in his possession on the 21st. He knows this for a fact. 

So put aside the grandstanding stuff, David. Let's say you ran into Johnny Bench on the street as he came outside a grocery store. Let's say he excused himself to take a pee and went into a local biker bar. And then all hell broke loose. Sirens came roaring down the street right up to the bar. An APB is then put out on Bench. He gets arrested. You're horrified. He killed three people in a bar? Johnny Bench? And then he gets killed in police custody. You're blown away.

Now imagine that over the next few days an "official" story emerges as to what happened. There are no witnesses to the brawl itself. Nevertheless, the authorities claim Bench brought a Louisville Slugger into the bar inside a long paper bag, and just teed off on the bartender. Now, you know this is bs. You saw the bag in his possession and it was a grocery bag. So what do you do? Do you say "Well, the authorities are never wrong, and never lie, so I must be mistaken--Johnny Bench must be a cold-blooded killer?" Or do you say "Yikes! I don't know what happened, but I know what didn't happen, and Johnny Bench did not go into that bar with a Louisville slugger in a bag and just start braining a bartender!" 

I know what I'd do. 

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Charles Blackmon]

7 hours ago, Charles Blackmon said:

I don't know what that is circled in yellow in the commission exhibit photo. It obviously is paper of some kind, but it looks way bigger in length than the bag Frazier and Randall claimed they saw Oswald carrying that morning. 

Still hoping someone can show me how this bag in CE 508 is only 36" long. 

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

I have talked with Frazier on several occasions. He knows the evidence against Oswald.

Does he think Oswald killed Tippit?

And does he think Oswald shot at Walker?

 

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

He also knows what he knows. And what he knows--for a fact, in his mind--...that the bag he saw in Oswald's possession was much smaller than the bag later put into evidence. He knows this for a fact. He has no doubt.

Then why do you think he would say this on 12/1/63?:

"Frazier examined the original [brown paper sack] found by the sixth floor window of the TSBD Building on November 22, 1963, and stated that if that sack was originally the color of the replica sack, it could have been the sack or package which he saw in the possession of Oswald on the morning of November 22, 1963, but that he does not feel he is in a position to definitely state that this original is or is not the sack." [CD 7]

Regardless of the color issue, Frazier should have had NO DOUBT on 12/1/63 that the original bag could not possibly have been the bag he saw in Oswald's hands (based on its length alone). And yet Frazier expressed obvious doubts to the FBI in that Dec. 1 interview. Why do you suppose that was?

 

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

He has also stated--as a fact--that Oswald did not have the bag in his possession on the 21st. He knows this for a fact. 

If only we knew how big those pockets were in Oswald's blue jacket (and how many pockets it contained; were there any on the inside of the coat perhaps?). That might be the answer to this part of the story right there.

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, David Von Pein said:

Does he think Oswald killed Tippit?

And does he think Oswald shot at Walker?

 

Then why do you think he would say this on 12/1/63?:

"Frazier examined the original [brown paper sack] found by the sixth floor window of the TSBD Building on November 22, 1963, and stated that if that sack was originally the color of the replica sack, it could have been the sack or package which he saw in the possession of Oswald on the morning of November 22, 1963, but that he does not feel he is in a position to definitely state that this original is or is not the sack." [CD 7]

Regardless of the color issue, Frazier should have had NO DOUBT on 12/1/63 that the original bag could not possibly have been the bag he saw in Oswald's hands (based on its length alone). And yet Frazier expressed obvious doubts to the FBI in that Dec. 1 interview. Why do you suppose that was?

 

If only we knew how big those pockets were in Oswald's blue jacket (and how many pockets it contained; were there any on the inside of the coat perhaps?). That might be the answer to this part of the story right there.

 

I'm sure the FBI was putting the best spin possible on what Frazier told them.

We know they were fudging, moreover, because that report failed to acknowledge that Frazier had been shown the original sack, in its original color, while attached to a lie detector on the night of the shooting, and not only refused to ID the sack, but convinced the DPD the sack he saw was another sack. 

He was a kid. The fact is the FBI put the replica sack in the back seat and Frazier said the sack he saw was half that size--half that size, not even close. 

As far as your pockets theory, oh my. The paper comprising the paper bag was roughly 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet...of shipping paper, which is thicker than writing paper. It crinkles when you fold it. I have worked in a warehouse where such paper was used. When I spoke to Frazier about this, I prefaced my question by explaining that I'd worked with this paper, and couldn't believe Oswald "smuggled" such a large piece of paper out to Irving on the 21st without his--Frazier's--noticing. I then explained that the FBI and WC had tested the various paper rolls and had concluded that that roll was in use on the 21st, and maybe a few days before, and that the 21st was the only time Oswald could have smuggled the paper out to Irving. I then asked him if it was possible Oswald had the paper stuffed down his shirt or some such thing on the ride out to Irving.

It was as if I'd asked him if his mom could be an alien. He looked me in the eye and said, with the stern voice of a school principal: "THAT... DID... NOT... HAPPEN." 

P.S. We didn't talk about Walker or Tippit, but I suspect he hasn't spent much time thinking about them, because...because...he knows what he knows, and he knows the bag was not large enough to hold that rifle. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Pat Speer