Texas Theater: Fill in the blank!

[Guest]

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Chuck Schwartz]

HIs CIA handler told him him to do so.  (after reading " Oswald and the CIA "  by John Newman , I believe LHO was being handled by the CIA)  The Warren Commission was a coverup up of  the murder of JFK.  Dulles and McClone drove this coverup.    Hoover followed their  orders.  I believe in Nantik's interpretation of the autopsy records.

[Chuck Schwartz]

That is Mantik .

[Charles Blackmon]

3 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

showing no interest whatsoever in the assassination,

Did everyone else who left work shortly after 12:30 also "show no interest in the assassination"? Maybe they had something to hide. 😄

[Tom Gram]

4 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

When officers approached Oswald in the Texas Theater, as they had already done with two other patrons without incident, Oswald threw a punch and drew his revolver because

The whole theater incident with Oswald drawing his gun and allegedly pulling the trigger is a massive clusterf&@!, as I’m sure you are aware. The hand stuck between hammer and firing pin story morphed from Paul Bentley - who actually told reporters the next day he got a bruised hand from it - to McDonald who became the official “hero” after he adopted Bentley’s story as his own.

Bentley was never deposed by the WC, and he signed his initials on the bottom of the revolver, which are clearly visible in the NARA catalog photos - actually the only initials visible - even though he was not part of the official chain of custody of the gun. The chain of custody of that revolver is another clusterf&@!, since the DPD reports indicate that other officers besides Hill, McDonald, Carroll, and even Bentley were involved in transferring the gun to Homicide - but only Hill, McDonald and Carroll are acknowledged by the official story. 

Considering the above, all the contradictory witness statements and reports, the dented round that was not actually dented, and all the other questions about the interval between the Tippit shooting and Oswald’s arrest, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Warren Report did not give us the full story on what happened in the theater. That doesn’t mean it was some grand conspiracy with planted revolvers, spies, and lying cops (well, maybe the last one: at the very least it seems like either Bentley or McDonald told some B.S. about the scuffle), but I don’t think it’s wise to accept a story at face value when the supporting evidence so blatantly indicates that we aren’t getting the “whole truth”. 

Edited February 4, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Guest]

On 2/4/2023 at 8:45 AM, Chuck Schwartz said:

HIs CIA handler told him him to do so.  (after reading " Oswald and the CIA "  by John Newman , I believe LHO was being handled by the CIA)  The Warren Commission was a coverup up of  the murder of JFK.  Dulles and McClone drove this coverup.    Hoover followed their  orders.  I believe in Nantik's interpretation of the autopsy records.

Bye

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Guest]

On 2/4/2023 at 9:52 AM, Tom Gram said:

The whole theater incident with Oswald drawing his gun and allegedly pulling the trigger is a massive clusterf&@!, as I’m sure you are aware. The hand stuck between hammer and firing pin story morphed from Paul Bentley - who actually told reporters the next day he got a bruised hand from it - to McDonald who became the official “hero” after he adopted Bentley’s story as his own.

Bentley was never deposed by the WC, and he signed his initials on the bottom of the revolver, which are clearly visible in the NARA catalog photos - actually the only initials visible - even though he was not part of the official chain of custody of the gun. The chain of custody of that revolver is another clusterf&@!, since the DPD reports indicate that other officers besides Hill, McDonald, Carroll, and even Bentley were involved in transferring the gun to Homicide - but only Hill, McDonald and Carroll are acknowledged by the official story. 

Considering the above, all the contradictory witness statements and reports, the dented round that was not actually dented, and all the other questions about the interval between the Tippit shooting and Oswald’s arrest, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Warren Report did not give us the full story on what happened in the theater. That doesn’t mean it was some grand conspiracy with planted revolvers, spies, and lying cops (well, maybe the last one: at the very least it seems like either Bentley or McDonald told some B.S. about the scuffle), but I don’t think it’s wise to accept a story at face value when the supporting evidence so blatantly indicates that we aren’t getting the “whole truth”. 

Bye

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Guest]

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Joe Bauer]

2 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

Since you asked – oh, you didn’t? – my Lone Nut answer would be that (1) the assassination was pretty close to an unplanned act; (2) Oswald was astounded to find himself outside the TSBD and went into a full-tilt “I might actually survive this” scramble; (3) retrieving the gun and changing at least some of his clothes was an obvious first step; (4) with all hell breaking loose around him, the theater was a convenient, dark place to disappear and collect his thoughts for a few hours; and (5) the appearance of a team of officers was a complete surprise, and drawing his pistol was essentially an attempt at “suicide by cop” as it’s called. As he said, “Well, it’s all over now.”

For those who think Oswald was innocent as a dove, placidly eating lunch with no clue a rifle attributable to him would be found on the sixth floor, I flatly don’t believe it’s possible to articulate a plausible explanation for these events. These events, seemingly minor as they are, eliminate for me most of the wackier theories.

Let’s say instead he was an active shooter in a pro-Castro conspiracy. What sort of conspiracy would have been so poorly planned as to leave the participants fending for themselves – hopping buses and taxis, hurrying home to retrieve guns from drawers, and scurrying through the streets to disappear into theaters without buying tickets? Seem plausible?

OK, he was a participant but a patsy in an anti-Castro (or at least anti-JFK) conspiracy. This seems to be the popular theory. He realized he’d been had and ran like a scared rabbit. Here, I must ask: How, two or three minutes after the assassination, would he realize he’d been had?
This is where we encounter wilder theories such as “He just thought he was supposed to shoot and miss. He never dreamed JFK would be hit.”

Again, how would any of this work? It seems to me that I would immediately have gone to the nearest officer and sought protection. Unless the conspirators who made him a patsy were even more inept than himself, and he knew this, why would he be hopping a bus and taxi, running home, and scurrying through the streets with a .38? Does that seem like a plausible way to escape the Mafia, CIA, anti-Castro thugs of whomever your pet conspirators happen to be?

Under any patsy theory, it seems to me the plausible response in the Texas Theater would’ve been to pull his “I’m just a patsy!” act then and there and cooperate with the officers. Is it plausible he would’ve had a reason in the Texas Theater to be deathly afraid of an entire team of police officers and at least a fair number of customers?

It seems to me that thinking in terms of the Big Picture - i.e., a plausible theory that holds together from start to finish - is anathema to most CTers. Every lawyer, criminal or civil, knows Step 1 is to articulate a plausible "theory of the case" you will be presenting to the judge or jury.
 

Lance P.

If I am on the jury I give you credit for articulating a plausible theory of the case that is in many ways reasonable in my thinking.

I agree with many of the points you bring up.

Yet, still, everything about Oswald and the larger picture of his life and actions just throw rational thinking, reasonable doubt assessment of him as the lone gunman for a loop.

One can read everything out there about Oswald. From Mailer and Epstein to Garrison, Bugliosi, Posner, Brussell's "Last Words Of Lee Harvey Oswald", Thornley, Judyth Baker, George De Mohrenschildt, Paul Gregory, you name it...and in the end Lee Harvey Oswald is STILL a confusing mind twist mess to figure.

Since joining the forum and spending so much time reading everything shared here, I often have to take breaks because there is almost too much to contemplate, especially regards Oswald.

More than I used to, I feel myself wondering whether Oswald was simply a raging hate and anger filled, even suicidal psychopath.

A young man so hurtfully traumatized and damaged in his extremely neglected youth that it left him viewing the world extremely angrily and resentfully as no more than an uncaring dog-eat-dog jungle where human kindness and fairness is just a cruel lie and you have to sometimes kill to rectify the injustice of it all?

Oswald had at least some better world view emotional stability for sure however. Even love. He and Marina in Minsk may have been the closest thing he ever knew and experienced in this regards.

Oswald clearly started exhibiting growing anti-social behavior and thoughts after a year back in Texas. It seems that he was becoming more upset and desperate with every frustrating turn of low level jobs, inability to provide for his wife and child, signs of Marina's disaffection, etc.

Coming back to Texas and New Orleans may have been a bad choice for him. Most of his childhood pain and suffering trauma took place there. His awful Freudian nightmare mother was here too.  Too many bad and sad emotional pain triggers? 

Oswald's activities in New Orleans are what confuses me the most about him.

He clearly was in some really nefarious stuff there and dealing with truly nefarious others. There had to be some intrigue going on there that is hard to totally dismiss in it's connection to his Fall activities of his alleged Mexico City trip and in his end of life craziness in Dallas.

When Marina described her husband's growingly crazy violent mind set activities starting with shooting at Walker, wanting to take a gun to a Nixon appearance, proposing hijacking a plane to Cuba and his desperate trip to Mexico City, I think everyone asked the same question.

Marina...your husband was going over the mental stability line here. Shouldn't you have tried to get yourself and your baby away from him at all risk and cost? 

If Lee Oswald did shoot JFK and then later J.D. Tippit and tried to shoot it out with the cops in the Texas Theater all within hours, he was in full psychopathic suicidal rage mode.

The shooting of JFK in the head just inches from his wife's face, the over-kill of Tippit with three body shots and a Mafia Hit Man cold coup de grace head shot suggest a full psychopathic break down, again to a suicidal degree.

Does this assessment explain what happened in Dallas on 11,22,1963?

Is it all that simple?

According to Lance's jury summation take...it is.

And there are times I can't totally disbelieve that scenario.

Sometimes I'm just left cursing out Jack Ruby and the DPD for the destruction of the most important piece of evidence we had in trying to figure out the whole JFK event story. A living breathing Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

Edited February 4, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Guest]

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Joe Bauer]

May I take a short mental break from the Oswald/JFK tragedy and share a warm memory about 1940's 50's and early 1960's SF as you just did LP? My apologies to orthodox stay on JFK point members for doing so.

San Francisco was simply one of the greatest cities in America during that time.

In so many ways. It's fresh air ocean surrounded physical location beauty. It's architectual variety and beauty. It's cultural diversity. It's social warmth. It's cleanliness. It's affordability. It's history. It's glamour. It's safety.

"Bagdad By The Bay" Herb Cain labeled it.

What a mix of cultures ( and food!).

Always a huge Chinese population. But also a wonderful mix of Italian, Russian, Greek, Japanese ( Japan Town?) you name it. Every few blocks you entered a different cultural world. You could smell the cultural foods cooking that defined each neighborhood.

Chinatown was safe and bustling. Great affordable food. You could buy firecrackers in their many packed to the ceiling cheap trinket stores.

Italian town ( the wharf especially) was food heaven.

Fun and interesting places to visit everywhere. Golden Gate Park, The Zoo, The wharf, Playland, Sutro bath house, Coit Tower, Market street, fancy stores, fancy glamor hotels, the Fairmont, 4 Seasons, Mark Hopkins. 

Take a look at 1950's downtown San Francisco in the Alfred Hitchcock film "Vertigo."

Clean streets. Clean affordable apartments. People dressed in suits and dresses. Classy, classy, classy.

Lots of Kim Novack and Jimmy Stewart beautiful people everywhere.

Safe even at night to walk around.

The city always had it's unique ocean fresh air refreshing relaxedness.

I believe it symbolized it's liberalness politically and socially as well.

Hard to be enraged at other ideology folks when you are sitting above a beautiful, soothing ocean view and breathing in that wonderful fresh ocean air.

Kind of a geographical valium?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Bulman]

14 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

I often think some of the little details of November 22nd are the most telling.

Help me out here, CTers. Fill in the blank:

When officers approached Oswald in the Texas Theater, as they had already done with two other patrons without incident, Oswald threw a punch and drew his revolver because __________________________________________.

Hint: "he knew he hadn't bought a ticket" will receive no points.

For bonus points, you may exercise your creative-writing skills on this as well:

Oswald rushed home from the TSBD, showing no interest whatsoever in the assassination, and got his revolver because ________________________________________.

Hint: "You know how boys are when they have a gun; they just carry it" will receive no points. Oswald beat you to that one.

Let's back up beyond bonus points to reality.  Did lee ever have a handgun to pull? Or was one planted on him.  Which begs the question which Oswald.  You do know there were Two Oswald's in the Texas Theater, don't cha?

 

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

Did Lee ever have a handgun to pull? Or was one planted on him?

Oswald, himself, admitted to having the gun in the theater (see WCR Pg. 601 below):

https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0313a.htm

Plus, in order to promote the "Oswald Didn't Really Have Any Gun In The Theater" theory, you'd have to call civilian witness Johnny Brewer a li@r too (see video below). And is that a reasonable thing to do?....

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Plus:

If Lee Oswald had really been innocent of killing BOTH John Kennedy and J.D. Tippit, as so many CTers seem to believe he was, then why did Oswald act like such a guilty person in the Texas Theater?

Do completely innocent people normally do the things we know Oswald did while he was being apprehended in the theater that day? Things such as pulling a gun on police officers and saying things like "It's all over now" and/or "This is it". Those two verbal statements -- all by themselves -- are extremely incriminating circumstantial evidence against Lee Oswald.

What do CTers think Oswald meant by "It's all over now" or "This is it"? (And he most certainly uttered at least one of those phrases, if not both, on Nov. 22 in the theater.) Can any conspiracy theorist explain (in a reasonable and believable way) what the "It" means in each of those statements?

More on Oswald's post-arrest behavior here:

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/07/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-983.html

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Ron Bulman]

Brewer did not see anyone run into the TT.  Physically impossible.