Which Howard Brennan Does the WC Supporters Believe ?

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

As far as the shirt Oswald was wearing. It does not have a hole in the elbow...but neither did the dark brown shirt prior to Bledsoe's saying she thought the shirt Oswald was wearing had a hole in the elbow. 

Oh Good Lord! More alleged fakery?

It just never ends, does it? So silly.

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

Stombaugh said the fibers were clean...

Yes, but he also said there WAS some fingerprint powder on them, which he then cleaned off:

"These were fairly good long fibers. They were not dirty, with the exception of a little bit of fingerprint powder on them which I cleaned off, and the color was good." -- Stombaugh

Nothing about this "Fibers In The Butt Plate" issue seems the slightest bit suspicious or strange or "cover-uppish" to me. It's the CTers who are creating the "strangeness" and the "suspicion" (IMO).

Repeating an earlier comment of mine (just for good measure)....

"Once again, like most CTers in the world, you're putting some kind of conspiratorial/sinister spin on something that doesn't require it at all."

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Also see the following excerpt from Vincent Bugliosi's book concerning the topic of Oswald's brown shirt (click to enlarge):

Edited February 3, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Gerry Down]

39 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Yes, but he also said there WAS some fingerprint powder on them, which he then cleaned off:

"These were fairly good long fibers. They were not dirty, with the exception of a little bit of fingerprint powder on them which I cleaned off, and the color was good." -- Stombaugh

This line seems to settle the issue. I think Pat Speer was working on the assumption the fibres were spotlessly clean. So Day just wiped his fingerprint brush across the fibers stuck in the butt plate and that is how they got folded over.

[Greg Doudna]

18 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

But there are statements from multiple witnesses who saw Oswald on Nov. 22 BEFORE he ever went home to his Beckley room, with those witnesses saying that they saw Oswald wearing a BROWN shirt. Marrion Baker being one such witness (and I think it's reasonable to think that when Baker said "brown jacket", he was talking about LHO's brown untucked shirt, because we know that Oswald didn't even own a brown "jacket").

Another "brown shirt" witness is Mary Bledsoe, who saw Oswald on Cecil McWatters' bus, which was also before Oswald ever had any chance to get to his roominghouse to change any clothes on 11/22:

Mr. BALL - Now, what color shirt did he have on?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - He had a brown shirt.

And another "brown shirt" witness is cab driver William Whaley:

Mr. WHALEY -- He had on a brown shirt with a little silverlike stripe on it.

David, on Marion Baker, both his weight and jacket color are a puzzle for Oswald though I accept it is Oswald he met. What strikes me is Baker said Oswald's jacket was not "brown" but "light brown". I direct your attention to that modifier "light brown". Would Oswald's dark brown arrest shirt be described as a "light brown" jacket? I wonder if Baker was describing Oswald's gray jacket which every witness who saw Oswald and spoke to color of his jacket said was the color of the jacket he had that morning. Could a "gray" jacket be "seen" as "light brown"? Well, the off-white jacket of the killer of Tippit often described as "gray" was described as "tan" by witnesses (e.g. Callaway, other Tenth and Patton witnesses). "Tan" and Baker's "light brown" seem pretty close in color, was Baker's description other language for "tan"? And, Baker said it was a jacket, not a shirt. So on the twin grounds of the "light brown" (= tan, a possible description of some witnesses of a jacket others see as gray) and "jacket" itself, this could argue that Baker was speaking of Oswald's gray jacket he wore that morning, not his brown (or dark brown) shirt. I do not mean your explanation of what Baker saw is completely impossible, just that there is another way the interpretation could go on Baker to consider. 

On Mary Bledsoe, I accept she recognized her former tenant Oswald on the bus and that was no mistaken identification (since she knew him), but at the same time she was a mess on accuracy in description of his clothing, not what would be called an ideal witness. It is just obvious the police had showed her a shirt with a torn sleeve, told her it was Oswald's shirt, and since when she later testified she knew it was Oswald on the bus, she said when shown the shirt with the torn sleeve that that was Oswald's shirt, because she had seen it (that shirt) when the police interviewed her, and it was Oswald's shirt that the police had shown her, so she knew that was what he had worn on the bus (in her logic)! 

On Whaley, going to his earliest interview report (to be preferred), FBI of Nov 23, 1963 (below), there is no mention of the shirt being brown. The color is not named but it "nearly matched the pants" which were gray except he says the shirt was a little darker than the gray pants, and also he does not seem to exactly mean the shirt was gray since he does say it was "dark colored". Since CE 151 was a sort of off-red or reddish or maroonish but understated color, that could be roughly in agreement with Whaley's earliest description here. Arguably CE 151 is less dissimilar to ("nearly matched") the color of the gray pants than Oswald's more emphatically dark brown arrest shirt.  

"[Oswald] was dressed in gray khaki pants which looked as if they had been slept in. He had on a dark colored shirt with some light color in it. The shirt had long sleeves and the top two or three buttons were unbuttoned. The color of the shirt nearly matched the pants, but was somewhat darker."

As for the positive argument that Oswald's shirt was CE 151. Buell Wesley Frazier, FBI, Dec 2, 1963 reporting interview of Dec 1, 1963:

"At about 4:45 PM, on November 21, 1963, FRAZIER and OSWALD departed the TSBD Building, walked to FRAZIER's car and drove to Irving. OSWALD did not have a package and was not carrying anything with him at the time. As FRAZIER recalls, OSWALD was wearing a reddish shirt and a gray jacket, waist length." (24H408)

Fritz interview of Oswald report, 

"He stated that after arriving at his apartment, he changed his shirt and trousers because they were dirty. He described his dirty clothes as being a reddish colored, long sleeved, shirt with a button-down collar and gray colored trousers. He indicated that he had placed these articles of clothing in the lower drawer of his dresser." (24H19)

Fritz's handwritten notes underlying that report:

"at Apt. changed shirt + tr. put in dirty clothes - longsleeved red shirt + gray tr." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=29103#relPageId=7)

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

This line seems to settle the issue. I think Pat Speer was working on the assumption the fibres were spotlessly clean. So Day just wiped his fingerprint brush across the fibers stuck in the butt plate and that is how they got folded over.

In this scenario, the fingerprint powder in the crevice would be to either side of the threads as Day brushed the area. There should be no powder directly underneath the threads.

And the testimony does not say the powder was directly underneath the threads.

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Also see the following excerpt from Vincent Bugliosi's book concerning the topic of Oswald's brown shirt (click to enlarge):

My web page on the shirt is like 20 times more detailed and a heckuva lot more honest. You really should read it. I was actually hoping you would respond to my point about the shirt having no hole in the elbow when first photographed by presenting a photograph showing the hole. I would be glad to update my website should you find one.  

 

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

My web page on the shirt is like 20 times more detailed and a heckuva lot more honest. You really should read it. I was actually hoping you would respond to my point about the shirt having no hole in the elbow when first photographed by presenting a photograph showing the hole. I would be glad to update my website should you find one.  

Well, I have, indeed, been looking for just such a picture in my photo archive, but I haven't been able to find one that shows the proper place on the shirt where the hole was located. But the hole IS definitely there, of course. It just can't be seen in the famous photograph of LHO raising his handcuffs (even though you seem to think the area in question on the sleeve is in that photo; but, of course, it's really not, because if it were---we'd see the hole).

And your inserts showing the hole are certainly not proof that the hole was created by the cops as part of yet another in a seemingly non-stop stream of fraudulent evidence manufactured by the police to frame poor sap Oswald. (Photogrammetry anyone?)

I'll keep looking for more 11/22 pictures of Oswald wearing his brown arrest shirt though. Maybe I'll get lucky and find the hole.

 

Edited February 3, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Guest]

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Greg Doudna]

44 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

This encounter was clearly after the assassination, and her recollection was very specific:

Mr. BELIN. Do you remember what clothes he had on when you saw him?
Mrs. REID. What he was wearing, he had on a white T-shirt and some kind
of wash trousers. What color I couldn’t tell you.
Mr. BELIN. I am going to hand you what has been marked Commission Exhibit,
flrst 157 and then 158, and I will ask you if either or both look like they might
have been the trousers that you saw him wear or can you tell?
Mrs. REID. I just couldn’t be positive about that. I would rather not say,
because I just cannot.
Mr. BELIN. Do you remember whether he had any shirt or jacket on over
his T-shirt?
Mrs. REID. He did not. He did not have any jacket on.

This was on the second floor, and I doubt he went back up, so possibly the mystery shirt was downstairs. The clothing issue will forever remain a mystery. I just don't think it goes anywhere. Like so much of the JFKA, it's a Rorschach test for what one wants to believe.

Even Brennan was equivocal, saying something to the effect that if the shirt he saw was white it was a dingy white.

I don't know how many times - lots - I've spent all morning with my wife and lost track of her in some big store. I'll wrack my brain for "What the heck was she wearing?" The many discrepancies with Oswald don't strike me as any big deal unless one wants them to be a big deal. 

The encounter with Mrs. Reid happened just after the encounter with Baker. Either Mrs. Reid was mistaken, for reasons you suggest, perhaps influenced by she had seen and always associated Oswald wearing a white T-shirt on previous occasions, or else Oswald, who had come up from the first floor SE stairwell intending to cross over and down the NW stairway in an intended evasive exit of the building but saw Baker through the NW door window and backed up but not quickly enough to avoid catching Baker's eye ... after that encounter as part of evasiveness he takes off his gray jacket (that Baker remembered as a "light brown" or tan jacket), took off his maroon shirt, stuffed them both under his white T-shirt and in his pants, and walked by Mrs. Reid and went back down the SE stairwell the way he had come up. Mrs. Reid also says she saw Oswald with a coke. Although Oswald had been up there earlier before the parade getting a coke for his lunch, this time he was not there for a coke, but when confronted by Baker that's what he said he was there for. So after that confrontation to make his claim consistent he did buy a coke and carried it past Mrs. Reid, with or without his Superman phone booth change of upper shirtwear. Or Mrs. Reid was wrong.

p.s. I'm not totally serious here. The far-fetched attempt is prompted by a serious puzzle over the white T-shirt witness claim though. She said that within a day or so of the assassination? Seems clear and specific? Just puzzling.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Gerry Down]

7 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I was actually hoping you would respond to my point about the shirt having no hole in the elbow when first photographed by presenting a photograph showing the hole. I would be glad to update my website should you find one.  

 

It's an interesting point. But it seems a bit far fetched the DPD would rip a hole in the elbow. When do you think they did it?

[Guest]

On 2/3/2023 at 6:23 AM, Greg Doudna said:

The encounter with Mrs. Reid happened just after the encounter with Baker. Either Mrs. Reid was mistaken, for reasons you suggest, perhaps influenced by she had seen and always associated Oswald wearing a white T-shirt on previous occasions, or else Oswald, who had come up from the first floor SE stairwell intending to cross over and down the NW stairway in an intended evasive exit of the building but saw Baker through the NW door window and backed up but not quickly enough to avoid catching Baker's eye ... after that encounter as part of evasiveness he takes off his gray jacket (that Baker remembered as a "light brown" or tan jacket), took off his maroon shirt, stuffed them both under his white T-shirt and in his pants, and walked by Mrs. Reid and went back down the SE stairwell the way he had come up. Mrs. Reid also says she saw Oswald with a coke. Although Oswald had been up there earlier before the parade getting a coke for his lunch, this time he was not there for a coke, but when confronted by Baker that's what he said he was there for. So after that confrontation to make his claim consistent he did buy a coke and carried it past Mrs. Reid, with or without his Superman phone booth change of upper shirtwear. Or Mrs. Reid was wrong.

p.s. I'm not totally serious here. The far-fetched attempt is prompted by a serious puzzle over the white T-shirt witness claim though. She said that within a day or so of the assassination? Seems clear and specific? Just puzzling.

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

It's an interesting point. But it seems a bit far fetched the DPD would rip a hole in the elbow. When do you think they did it?

I have the whole story on my website. I'll rake my memory and give you a synopsis. Oswald was wearing his dark brown shirt at the midnight press conference, and then again when he was booked around 1:00. Lt. Day of the DPD and FBI agent Vince Drain, however, claimed numerous times that the DPD transferred all the evidence to the FBI at 11:15, if I recall.  So it seems that they were hiding something about the shirt. There were also many statements about packing up the evidence and racing it over to the airport, but the plane didn't leave for 3 or 4 hours. Bottom line. The DPD and FBI both hid that the shirt had not been packed up with the other evidence and that Drain and the FBI had hours with all this evidence before it was flown back to Washington. 

At this time, of course, they had nothing to tie Oswald to the rifle. So I suspect it was at tis time that the fibers were pulled from the shirt and added to the rifle. 

The FBI crime lab found these fibers the next day, and voila! they had their man.

But Oswald wouldn't cooperate. He clarified for the DPD later on that day that he'd changed shirts at the rooming house. And a reddish shirt like the one he'd described had been recovered from his room just where he said he'd left it. (The color of this shirt is thereafter obfuscated and the captions to the black and white photos of this shirt always call it a brown shirt...It seems possible, then, that this was done to make it appear there was no basis for Oswald's story about a reddish shirt.) 

But it gets worse. Within hours of the DPD's finding out the fibers on the rifle were possibly from the wrong shirt, Oswald gets murdered in their custody, under their protection. The case then gets transferred to the FBI, and the FBI attempts to prove that Oswald really was wearing the dark brown shirt whose fibers were found on the rifle.

They have a witness, Mary Bledsoe, who has said she got a good look at Oswald's shirt after the shooting and it was filthy. The shirt found at the rooming house is indeed filthy, but the shirt Oswald was wearing when arrested was not. Big problem. But she also said she thought the shirt could have a had a hole in the elbow. So they fly the shirt out to show her, and she has problems IDing, but does so because it has a hole in the elbow. She thinks it may be the wrong elbow. But IDs it anyway.

Only...photos of the shirt when Oswald was first arrested show no such hole in the elbow. And the nature of the hole in the elbow of that shirt reflects that it was torn, and not worn through. (And yes, I actually read articles and studied photos on the expected wear on clothing.) 

Bottom line: it appears the DPD and FBI (or at least agent Drain) collaborated on the addition of the fibers onto the rifle, and that the FBI later tore a hole in Oswald's dark brown shirt to help sell that that was the shirt he'd actually been wearing. 

 

 

 

 

[Pat Speer]

57 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

Coworkers said Oswald typically arrived in a shirt or jacket, stripped to his T-shirt for the workday, and put on his shirt or jacket when he left. Truly said this was the typical pattern for employees and that they hung their shirts in a room on the first floor. My guess would be that on the morning of the assassination and at the time of the assassination Oswald was in his usual white T-shirt.

I tend to believe Reid. She was certainly more familiar with Oswald than was Baker, the encounter was clearly after the assassination, the circumstances of the encounter were casual, and her recollection was very specific.

Baker? Well, the encounter was in the midst of a frantic search for the assassin. Truly recalled Oswald wearing a white T-shirt or light-colored sport shirt. My guess would be that Baker's "recollection" may have been influenced by subsequent events in which Oswald was wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

My humble surmise would be that Oswald fired the rifle in his T-shirt, encountered Baker and Truly in his T-shirt, bought a coke in furtherance of the alibi that had been handed to him on a golden platter by the encounter with Baker and Truly, encountered Mrs. Reid in his T-shirt, retrieved his long-sleeve shirt where he had hung it in the first-floor room that morning, and left the TSBD. This doesn't explain the shirt fibers on the rifle, which could have been anything from past fibers from a different shirt, from wrapping the rifle the night before as Mark suggested, or wrapping the rifle to transport it upstairs as I suggested. As I recall, the conclusion was only that the fibers were "consistent with" the shirt.

This all smacks to me a bit of what I call the Conspiracy Game. CT position A is that Brennan was a lying fool. Position B is that he couldn't possibly have seen what he claimed. But by God, he saw a khaki shirt and therefore the person he saw was wasn't Oswald. CT position A is that the lunchroom encounter never happened. Position B is that Baker and Truly were either part of the conspiracy or would say whatever they were told to say. But by God, Baker saw Oswald in a light-brown jacket and that's a huge problem for the Lone Nut position.

A couple of problems with your timeline. We have footage of a lot of Oswald's co-workers in the aftermath of the shooting. It appears they all put their shirts back on at lunch. Oswald undoubtedly came down for lunch. So he would have put his shirt back on at that time. He couldn't have put it on later because he never returned to the domino room after encountering Baker and Truly. He did leave his jacket there, after all. So he must have put it on when he first came down at lunch...when he spoke with Piper. 

He could have taken it off while firing the shots, of course. That may have even been the smart thing to do. But the witnesses do not suggest that the shooter was wearing a white t-shirt. A number of them said he was wearing s sport shirt. "Sport shirts" are long-sleeved shirts. Oswald's t-shirt was not. 

https://www.menswearhouse.com/c/shirts/sport-shirts

[Guest]

On 2/3/2023 at 10:28 AM, Pat Speer said:

Oswald undoubtedly came down for lunch.

On 2/3/2023 at 10:28 AM, Pat Speer said:

He couldn't have put it on later because he never returned to the domino room after encountering Baker and Truly.

On 2/3/2023 at 10:28 AM, Pat Speer said:

number of them said he was wearing s sport shirt. "Sport shirts" are long-sleeved shirts.

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette