Which Howard Brennan Does the WC Supporters Believe ?

[Gil Jesus]

The one who identified Oswald as the man he saw in the window with a rifle, ( 3 H 148 ) or the one who testified that the Oswald he identified from the lineup was wearing different clothing frfom the man with the rifle ( 3 H 161 ) ?

Can't have it both ways, boys.

Either Oswald did the shooting in the shirt he was wearing when arrested, or he changed his shirt after the shooting and the shirt fibers from the arrested shirt were planted on the rifle.

So which Brennan do you believe ?

[Bill Brown]

 

Me personally, I've never relied on Brennan for anything other than being one of the few who saw the rifle barrel in the SE 6th floor window.

 

As for your point above, re: the shirt, you can have it both ways here.  I believe Oswald was in the T-shirt, not wearing the brown arrest shirt, during the shooting, used the brown arrest shirt (CE-150) to wipe down the rifle as he made his way across the sixth floor.  This wiping down of the rifle caused a tuft of microscopic fibers to lodge in the crevice between the metal butt plate and the wooden stock.

 

The fibers removed from this crevice were a match with test fibers removed from the shirt.

 

[Guest]

Bye

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

Me personally, I've never relied on Brennan for anything other than being one of the few who saw the rifle barrel in the SE 6th floor window.

 

As for your point above, re: the shirt, you can have it both ways here.  I believe Oswald was in the T-shirt, not wearing the brown arrest shirt, during the shooting, used the brown arrest shirt (CE-150) to wipe down the rifle as he made his way across the sixth floor.  This wiping down of the rifle caused a tuft of microscopic fibers to lodge in the crevice between the metal butt plate and the wooden stock.

 

The fibers removed from this crevice were a match with test fibers removed from the shirt.

 

Respectfully, Bill, this is just silly. The rifle was not wiped down. If it had been wiped down the trigger guard prints would have been wiped clean. And the fibers on the butt plate? The FBI... The FBI!!...said the fibers were found on top of fingerprint powder, and so offered up the possibility the fibers were just dangling there but then became wrapped around the butt plate when the DPD (namely J.C. Day) dusted the rifle. This is ludicrous, of course. 

It's clear to me that reasonable people can suspect Oswald killed Kennedy, and even that he acted alone. But it is not reasonable, IMO, to believe all was up and up with the evidence presented against Oswald. 

[David Von Pein]

29 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

If it had been wiped down, the trigger guard prints would have been wiped clean.

Not necessarily, Pat.

Oswald was, of course, in a very big hurry right after shooting the President, and as he moved quickly from the Sniper's Nest to the stairway, he simply forgot to wipe off the trigger guard (IMO). He was more concerned with the stock of the weapon (IMO).

A dumb mistake on Oswald's part? Yes, it sure was. No doubt about that. But I think he made that mistake nonetheless.

Can I prove any of this? Nope. I sure can't. It's one of those things that can never be "proved"---by anyone. (Unless we have a seance and are successful at making contact with Lee Oswald from his residence down below. Do you happen to know any good spiritual mediums?)  😁

BTW, the scenario that Bill Brown laid out above regarding Oswald shooting JFK while only wearing his white T-shirt and then wiping off prints with his brown shirt is the exact same scenario that I believe is true as well. I talk about it at my "Oswald Timeline" page, originally written in 2007:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/oswald-timeline-part-1.html

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

What if I didn't believe either Brennan? What if I thought he was a publicity-seeking clown? I don't, but what difference would it make in the context of Oswald's guilt?

Brennan, who came forward within minutes of the assassination, said he saw a slender white man and a rifle in the precise location where Oswald's rifle was found and from where three TSBD employees on the floor below experienced shots being fired. Rather an odd lucky guess if he was just a publicity-seeking clown. No one including Vicki Adams saw a "mystery gunman" fleeing that location or the TSBD. Brennan is at most a piece of confirming testimony.

Bart Kamp at the Prayer Man site discusses the conflicting recollections of Oswald's clothing. They are all over the map, as one would expect. Try it at your own workplace. Unless you wear an electrical Daffy Duck tie and propeller beanie, no one is going to remember what you were wearing. Quick, what was that woman who just checked out ahead of you at Walmart wearing? Quick, what is your wife in the other room wearing right now?

Brennan said the gunman in the window was wearing light-colored clothing in the khaki range. I have always believe Oswald was wearing his white T-shirt. TSBD employees said this is what he commonly wore. It would be the most comfortable in a shooting position. Oswald in a white T-shirt surrounded by a nest of khaki-colored boxes fits nicely with what Brennan said. He may have embellished in a desire to please the police or Warren Commission. It's highly unlikely he could've seen all he described, but his basic testimony adds to the equation.

The shirt? For all we know, Oswald wore it when he fiddled with the rifle at Ruth Paine's house that morning. More plausibly, he may have wrapped the rifle in it after entering the TSBD so as to arouse less suspicion. "Oh, that's just my short on top of those boxes over there." Perhaps he took off the shirt just before the assassination and did use it to wipe down the rifle.

We'll never know, but so what? Your challenge about Brennan is simply much ado about nothing unless one is searching for conspiracy ammunition. The conspiracy spin on Brennan is less plausible than the Lone Nut speculation, and the Lone Nut speculation meshes far better with far stronger evidence.

"Brennan was lying" doesn't dent the Lone Nut case. "Brennan saw someone with a rifle on the sixth floor" adds at least a bit to it. I will also add that there is never the slightest appreciation on the part of CTers that someone like Brennan was just a blue-color guy of modest intelligence suddenly thrust into one of the major events of the century. No, we have to examine him and everything he said with a microscope and show what a lying fiend he was.

C'mon Lance. While Brennan was presented as the "best witness" in Life Magazine, and numerous LN articles, there are heaping problems for the LN scenario within his statements and testimony. Here are a few:

1. He failed to ID Oswald when first shown Oswald, and only ID'ed Oswald after Oswald had been murdered and an FBI agent came to his house to have a talk with him. 

2. The DPD and SS failed to write reports on Brennan's initial refusal to ID Oswald, after signaling he could ID the shooter if he saw him again. One can not say then if there were other eyewitnesses who said they could ID the shooter, who also passed when shown Oswald. We just don't know.

3. Brennan thought the man he viewed was standing up and not crouching down. This draws into question his ability to make out and accurately remember the face of this man.

4. Brennan's ID of Oswald was contingent on his wearing a different shirt than the one whose fibers matched the rifle. The WC ignored this and pretended both his ID of Oswald was accurate, and the shirt was the one Oswald had been wearing at the time of the shooting. (This is something I've discussed for decades now. It's an important point, and I'm glad Gil has dragged it back out.) 

5. The reddish shirt Oswald said he'd been wearing was repeatedly described in the DPD and FBI records as a brown shirt. In light of the FBI and WC's use of the fibers of the other shirt--the one Oswald said he'd put on at the rooming house--as evidence against him, their mis-representation of this shirt can be seen as suspicious.

6. Brennan could only swear to hearing two shots. Well, this suggests he heard one of the shots--almost certainly one of the bangs in the bang-bang scenario described by others--as a single shot. This is at odds with the single-assassin conclusion. 

[Pat Speer]

5 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Not necessarily, Pat.

Oswald, who was in a very big hurry (of course) as he moved quickly from the Sniper's Nest to the stairway after he had just shot JFK, simply forgot to wipe off the trigger guard. He was more concerned with the stock of the weapon (IMO).

A dumb mistake on Oswald's part? Yes, it was. But I think he made that mistake nonetheless.

Can I prove it? Nope. It's one of those things that can never be "proved"---by anyone. (Unless we have a seance and make contact with Lee Oswald from down below. Do you happen to know any good spiritual mediums?)

BTW, the scenario that Bill Brown laid out above regarding Oswald shooting JFK while only wearing his white T-shirt and then wiping off prints with his brown shirt is the exact same scenario that I believe as well. I talk about it at my "Oswald Timeline" page, originally written in 2007:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/oswald-timeline-part-1.html

 

Oh my. Please read some books on fingerprints before making any more guesses of this type. As admitted by Lt. Day, and as discussed in virtually every book and article I've read on the subject, it is extremely rare for prints to be found on a wooden stock. The first and perhaps only part of the rifle one would even think of wiping down, then, would be the trigger guard. That this was not done destroys the whole wipe-down theory. Just as there are CT factoids there are LN factoids.  It is a LN factoid that Oswald--or anyone--wiped down the rifle. 

[David Von Pein]

1 minute ago, Pat Speer said:

As admitted by Lt. Day, and as discussed in virtually every book and article I've read on the subject, it is extremely rare for prints to be found on a wooden stock.

But that doesn't mean that Lee Oswald would have necessarily been aware of this "rare" fact on 11/22/63, does it Pat?

I think he did wipe down most of the gun with his brown shirt....but he missed the trigger guard prints.

 

[Pat Speer]

Just now, David Von Pein said:

But that doesn't mean that Lee Oswald would have necessarily been aware of this "rare" fact on 11/22/63, does it Pat?

I think he did wipe down most of the gun with his brown shirt....but he missed the trigger guard prints.

 

You're not following the facts, David. The fibers were found on top of fingerprint powder--indicating they were added to the rifle after it had been dusted for prints. Do you really believe the fibers were just dangling there, only to be wrapped onto the butt plate by an oblivious Lt. Day--even though he was closely inspecting the rifle at the time--looking for prints? 

That is wackier than just about anything described by CTs  I say "just about" because we both know some CTs are way off in looney land. But this is close. 

[David Von Pein]

38 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

You're not following the facts, David. The fibers were found on top of fingerprint powder--indicating they were added to the rifle after it had been dusted for prints. Do you really believe the fibers were just dangling there, only to be wrapped onto the butt plate by an oblivious Lt. Day--even though he was closely inspecting the rifle at the time--looking for prints? 

Well, Pat, I certainly don't believe for a single solitary second  that any of the authorities planted the shirt fibers on the rifle in order to try and frame Oswald. (Which quite obviously is what you believe happened.)

Therefore, I believe there must be a non-"planting" (i.e., non-conspiratorial) answer to what you just said above about the fingerprint powder and the fibers. Just like there is a non-conspiratorial explanation for all other "conspiracy" claims made by JFK conspiracy believers (to date). (IMHO.)

Maybe Lieutenant Day did miss seeing the fibers initially. Isn't that a much more likely answer than the CTer "The fibers were planted" explanation?

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Pat Speer]

4 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Well, Pat, I certainly don't believe for a single solitary second  that any of the authorities planted the shirt fibers on the rifle in order to try and frame Oswald. (Which quite obviously is what you believe happened.)

Therefore, I believe there must be a non-"planting" (i.e., non-conspiratorial) answer to what you just said above about the fingerprint powder and the fibers. Just like there is a non-conspiratorial explanation for all other "conspiracy" claims made by JFK conspiracy believers. (IMHO.)

Maybe Lieutenant Day did miss seeing the fibers initially. Isn't that a much more likely answer than the CTer "The fibers were planted" explanation?

 

No, not at all. The most likely solution-by far--is that the fibers were planted. At the time of their "discovery_ there was nothing to tie Oswald to that rifle, beyond that he had once owned it. Assuming it was indeed his rifle, no one had seen it in his possession for months. It should be clear, then, that a competent defense attorney would have had no problem drawing the provenance of those fibers into doubt. 

P.S. Is that really how you look at things? "Since I refuse to follow the evidence, I must believe..." I alluded to this earlier. Why are so few LNs willing to consider that some of the evidence against Oswald was faked and/or misrepresented? Is that really so hard to believe? Based upon what we now know about the Dallas Police and GBI Crime Lab? While it's reasonable to believe Oswald was guilty, to believe all the evidence is legit and that the DPD, FBI, and WC would never lie or misrepresent anything, is looney tunes. 

Now, I was about to write, "IMO". But it's beyond that. It's just a fact. That so many seem so determined to pretend all the questions raised about the evidence are delusional, and that the DPD, FBI, and WC were all beyond reproach, is ahistorical and desperate, IMO.

Okay, I did it. I wrote "IMO". But it's more than that. 

 

[David Von Pein]

2 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

The most likely solution--by far--is that the fibers were planted.

Bull!

Always remember Hanlon's Razor, Pat....

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

 

[Pat Speer]

2 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Bull!

Always remember Hanlon's Razor, Pat....

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

 

Oy Vey. Whoever Hanlon is, he was an idiot.

Defendant: "I pointed a gun at my wife, sir, to check the sites, and I accidentally pulled the trigger. Boy, am I dumb. I mean, I didn't even know she'd taken out a life insurance policy giving me everything if she died, no matter the cause." 

Bugliosi: "Well, then, how do you explain the testimony of your friend, who said you told him you were gonna kill your wife?"

Defendant: "I was drunk. It was hyperbole. I meant that I was gonna yell at her, not kill her. Sheesh."

Bugliosi: "Okay, Sounds good to me. Hanlon's razor says one should 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.' The prosecution hereby withdraws its case. With the court's permission, you're free to go." 

[David Von Pein]

Pat,

The key word in Hanlon's rule of thumb which you seem to have sidestepped in your courtroom scenario above is this important word:

"Adequately."

 

[Ron Bulman]

I believe the Howard Brennan his supervisor Sandy Speaker said the Secret Service, FBI, or Government agents (CIA?) took off for 2-3 weeks, that came back a wreck.  I.E., he couldn't identify Oswald on the sixth floor, or in a lineup.  Initially.  Until after he was coerced.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Ron Bulman