Lee Harvey Oswald's two jackets and why the Tippit killer's jacket was not one of them

[Greg Doudna]

From pages 96-97 of the paper, with credit to Pat Speer for developing a correct line of research and obtaining the first color photo of CE 151.

A postscript on the maroon shirt CE 151

"Pat Speer’s 'Threads of Evidence' gives a fuller account of the identification of CE 151 as the shirt Oswald wore the morning of Nov 22. In 2016 Speer obtained a first-ever color photo of CE 151 from the National Archives, now published on his website, showing that CE 151 indeed is maroon or reddish in color, the shirt Oswald wore that morning. Speer summarizes: 

'… I couldn’t get over that Oswald said the shirt was ‘reddish’ [that he wore the morning of Nov 22] and that a ‘red and gray sport shirt’ later disappeared from the records. This felt significant to me … Perhaps CE 151 was the de facto ‘reddish’ shirt … In July 2016, after months of haggling, I was able to obtain color photos of CE 151 from the National Archives, and was able to establish that this shirt, previously described [by Dallas Police and the Warren Commission] as being tan or brown, had a red tint to it, and was undoubtedly the ‘reddish’ shirt Oswald claimed to have worn to work on November 22, 1963.' (https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4b-threads-of-evidence)

"Note how often witnesses speak of a 'light' color of Oswald’s shirt the morning of Nov 22, 1963, which agrees with the maroon of CE 151 but does not agree with the dark brown arrest shirt CE 150 which is never called 'light' in color. 

"(The maroon CE 151 is called both light and dark by witnesses, but the brown CE 150 is only called dark in color, never light, by witnesses. From the color photos of the shirts it can be seen why the brown CE 150 would never be called 'light' by a witness, whereas the lighter-toned maroon or understated soft pale-reddish of CE 151 is naturally and easily called a 'light' or 'lighter' color.)

"Each of these witnesses below is describing Oswald’s shirt the morning of Nov 22, 1963 before Oswald changed clothes at 1 pm:

o   Linnie Mae Randle: 'a solid color and light'. 

o   Texas School Book Depository supervisor Roy Truly: 'a light colored shirt'. 

o   Texas School Book Depository employee James Jarman when asked what kind of shirt Lee wore Nov 22: 'Ivy leagues, I believe' (CE 151 was button-down with a designer label, a dress shirt, compared to CE 150 which was a low-cost dark brown sport shirt, not designer label, not dress or button-down).

o   Officer Marrion Baker: 'light brown' (agrees with the maroon CE 151 as opposed to the dark brown CE 150; and did Marrion Baker have red-green color blindness?).

o   Officer Marrion Baker comparing what he saw Oswald wearing at the police station (CE 150) with Oswald in the second floor lunchroom: 'He looked like he did not have the same on'.

o   Housekeeper Earlene Roberts (FBI, Nov 27), 'a light colored shirt'.

o   FBI agent James Bookhout (5 CE 100): '[Oswald] 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.'

o   Secret Service agent Thomas Kelley (87 CD 375): 'He said he went home, changed his trousers and shirt, put his shirt in a drawer. This was a red shirt, and he put it in his dirty clothes. He described his shirt as having a button down collar and of reddish color. The trousers were grey colored.'

o   Captain J.W. Fritz, Dallas Police Department, from handwritten notes of his interrogations of Oswald acquired by the Assassination Records Review Board in 1997 from an anonymous donor: 'at Apt. changed shirt + tr. put in dirty clothes – longsleeve red sh + gray tr.'

o   Buell Wesley Frazier: 'As [Buell Wesley] Frazier recalls [on Thursday Nov 21, in the ride to Irving], Oswald was wearing a reddish shirt and a gray jacket, waist length' (FBI, Dec 1, 1963 [7 CD 294])." 

 

[Greg Doudna]

From pages 66-71 of the paper.

"Officer Marrion Baker and the second-floor lunchroom encounter

"After the shots were fired and the shock of the news that Kennedy had been hit rapidly spread, Oswald went into what can only be described as evasive flight mode, which marks all of his movements from the Texas School Book Depository to his rooming house in Oak Cliff, where he changed clothes, picked up a pistol and went to the Texas Theatre, where he was arrested.

"There has been much discussion and debate concerning Oswald’s movements inside the Book Depository at the time of and following the shots fired at President Kennedy. Without engaging those debates and arguments I set out a reconstruction I have worked out.

"Less than two minutes after the shots Oswald was encountered in the second-floor lunchroom by officer Marrion Baker and Book Depository supervisor Roy Truly. Officer Baker, following Truly up the northwest stairway, saw Oswald move in retreat behind a glass window of a door opening to the northwest stairwell on the second floor. Finding that suspicious, Baker went through that door and confronted Oswald at gunpoint in the lunchroom. Truly then came in and told Baker that Oswald worked in the building and was OK, whereupon Baker and Truly left and resumed their movement to the top of the building.

"A key question is in which direction Oswald was moving with respect to the door when Baker saw him: had he just gone through that door into the second floor area from the stairs? Or was he just about to come out to the stairwell and reversed direction before exiting through the door? The former was the Warren Commission position (in which Oswald descended by the northwest stairwell from the sixth floor after firing the shots and went through the door into the second floor area). 

"However William Kelly, building on an earlier analysis of Howard Roffman, has convincingly argued that Oswald cannot have gone through the door from the stairway (https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-doors-of-perception-why-oswald-is.html). 

"Seeing the officer through the glass window in the door, Oswald did not open the door but retreated again, and that motion through the glass is what caught Baker’s eye as suspicious. 

Mr. BELIN. What happened?
Mr. BAKER. As I came out to the second floor there, Mr. Truly was ahead of me, and as I come out I was kind of scanning, you know, the rooms, and I caught a glimpse of this man walking away from this—I happened to see him through this window in this door. I don’t know how come I saw him, but I had a glimpse of him coming down there.
Mr. DULLES. Where was he coming from, do you know?
Mr. BAKER. No, sir. All I seen of him was a glimpse of him go away from me.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do then?
Mr. BAKER. I ran on over there
Representative BOGGS. You mean where he was?
Mr. BAKER. Yes, sir. There is a door there with a glass, it seemed to me like about a 2 by 2, something like that, and then there is another door which is 6 foot on over there, and there is a hallway over there and a hallway entering into a lunchroom, and when I got to where I could see him he was walking away from me about 20 feet away from me in the lunchroom.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do?
Mr. BAKER. I hollered at him at that time and said, “Come here.” He turned and walked right straight back to me.

"Quoting Roffman, Presumed Guilty (1976):

'It should be noted that the [Warren] Report never mentions Baker’s position at the time he saw Oswald in the vestibule. Instead, it prints a floor plan of the second floor and notes Baker’s position ‘when he observed Oswald in lunchroom.’ This location, as indicated in the Report, was immediately outside the vestibule door. The reader of the Report is left with the impression that Baker saw Oswald in the vestibule as well from this position. However, Baker testified explicitly that he first caught a glimpse of the man in the vestibule from the stairs and, upon running to the vestibule door, saw Oswald in the lunchroom. The Report’s failure to point out Baker’s position is significant.

'The circumstances surrounding the lunchroom encounter indicate that Oswald entered the lunchroom not by the vestibule door from without, as he would have had he descended from the sixth floor, but through a hallway leading into the vestibule. The outer vestibule door is closed automatically by a closing mechanism on the door. When Truly arrived on the second floor, he did not see Oswald entering the vestibule. For the Commission’s case to be valid, Oswald must have entered the vestibule through the first door before Truly arrived. Baker reached the second floor immediately after Truly and caught a fleeting glimpse of Oswald in the vestibule through a small window in the outer door …  In fact, the door had to be completely closed for Baker to see anything through the door window… 

“Baker’s and Truly’s observations are not at all consistent with Oswald’s having entered the vestibule through the first door. Had Oswald done this, he could have been inside the lunchroom well before the automatic mechanism closed the vestibule door. Truly’s testimony that he saw no one entering the vestibule indicates either that Oswald was already in the vestibule at this time or was approaching it from another source. However, had Oswald already entered the vestibule when Truly arrived on the second floor, it is doubtful that he [Oswald] would have remained there long enough for Baker to see him seconds later. Likewise, the fact that neither man [Truly, Baker] saw the mechanically closed door in motion is cogent evidence that Oswald did not enter the vestibule through that door … 

“Had Oswald descended from the sixth floor, his path through the vestibule into the lunchroom would have been confined to the north wall of the vestibule. Yet the line of sight from Baker’s position at the steps does not include any area near the north wall. From the steps, Baker could have seen only one area in the vestibule—the southeast portion. The only way Oswald could have been in this area on his way to the lunchroom is if he entered the vestibule through the southernmost door … Oswald could not have entered the vestibule in this manner had he just descended from the sixth floor. The only way he could have gotten to the southern door is from the first floor up through either a large office space or an adjacent corridor. As the Report concedes, Oswald told police he had eaten his lunch on the first floor and gone up to the second to purchase a coke when he encountered an officer…'

"(On the automatic closing mechanism of the door opening to the vestibule of the second floor lunchroom: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/truly3.htm.) 

"In agreement with this argument on that, the reconstruction is Oswald got there by coming up from the first floor by the southeast stairwell connecting the first to the second floor, and from there crossed the second floor to the lunchroom area intending to go out to the northwest stairwell and back down the northwest stairs to the first floor, then over to the Domino Room to retrieve his gray jacket and exit the building by a door just outside the Domino Room to the rear. That intention was thwarted when Oswald saw the officer through the glass in the door just as he was about to open the door outward. He retreated into the lunchroom where he was accosted by Baker.

"Truly and Baker both said they saw nothing in Oswald’s hands when Baker confronted him, although Oswald gave the impression (falsely, as reconstructed) that he had gone there to get a Coke. 

"Officer Baker gave this description of what Oswald was wearing:

Mr. BELIN. Did you notice what clothes the man was wearing as he came up to you?
Mr. BAKER. At that particular time I was looking at his face, and it seemed to me like he had a light brown jacket on and maybe some kind of white-looking shirt. Anyway, as I noticed him walking away from me, it was kind of dim in there that particular day, and it was hanging out to his side.

"Comment: This is Oswald with his maroon shirt CE 151 hanging out over his belt that Baker is remembering as 'light brown'. On the confusion of the shirt being called a 'jacket', compare FBI agent Barrett outside the Texas Theatre referring to seeing Oswald brought out wearing a brown jacket which was actually the brown shirt, CE 150. The maroon CE 151 shirt was lighter in tone than the dark brown CE 150, and Baker is calling the maroon CE 151 'light' brown. Oswald was wearing CE 151 over a white T-shirt, remembered by Baker as a 'white-looking shirt' underneath the light brown 'jacket'. 

"Was Officer Marrion Baker red-green colorblind?

"On Baker calling a reddish-maroon color 'light brown', a reported 1 out of 12 white men have red-green color blindness (the most common type of color blindness, genetically caused and which afflicts men rather than women, and whites more than other ethnicities), in which red cannot be seen and reds are seen as brown ('Color blindness: when red looks like brown', https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319115#The-optical-illusion-of-color; 'Color blindness by inheritance', https://www.colour-blindness.com/general/prevalence/). That may well account for Baker’s reporting of the color. 

"Note Baker consistently calls the color he saw Oswald wearing at the second-floor lunchroom encounter “light” brown, which would never be a natural description of the dark brown CE 150, but exactly how the maroon CE 151 would be seen and told by one of the 1 in 12 white men with red-green color blindness.

Mr. BELIN. Handing you what has been marked as Commission Exhibit 150 [brown arrest shirt], would this appear to be anything that you have ever seen before?
Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir; I believe that is the shirt that he had on when he came. I wouldn’t be sure of that. It seemed to me like that other shirt was a little bit darker than that whenever I saw him in the homicide office there.

"Comment: Here Baker is saying that the shirt he saw Oswald wearing when he saw him at the police station the afternoon of Fri Nov 22, the brown arrest shirt, CE 150, was darker than what Baker saw Oswald wearing at the time of the second floor lunchroom encounter, i.e. the lighter-toned reddish-maroon CE 151.

Mr. BELIN. What about when you saw him in the School Book Depository Building, does this look familiar as anything he was wearing, if you know?
Mr. BAKER - I couldn’t say whether that was—it seemed to me it was a light-colored brown but I couldn’t say it was that or not.

"Comment: Belin is trying to have Baker identify Oswald as wearing the dark brown arrest shirt (CE 150) at the time of the second-floor lunchroom encounter. Baker is not willing to make that identification that Belin wants. Baker is saying what Oswald was wearing at the time of that encounter was lighter in color than the brown arrest shirt—lighter in color than CE 150. Again Baker signals with the language of “light-colored brown” that Oswald was wearing the maroon-colored CE 151 at the second-floor encounter, compared to the dark brown CE 150 arrest shirt Baker saw Oswald wearing later at the police station. 

Mr. DULLES. Lighter brown did you say, I am just asking what you said. I couldn’t quite hear.
Mr. BAKER. Yes, sir; all I can remember it was in my recollection of it it was a light brown jacket.
Mr. BELIN. Are you referring to this Exhibit 150 as being similar to the jacket or similar to the shirt that you saw or, if not, similar to either one?
Mr. BAKER. Well, it [CE 150, the brown arrest shirt] would be similar in color to it—I assume it was a jacket, it was hanging out. Now, I was looking at his face and I wasn’t really paying any attention. After Mr. Truly said he knew him, so I didn’t pay any attention to him, so I just turned and went on.
Mr. BELIN. Now, you did see him later at the police station, is that correct?
Mr. BAKER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Was he wearing anything that looked like Exhibit 150 at the police station?
Mr. BAKER. He did have a brown-type shirt [CE 150] on that was out.

"Comment: The shirt on Oswald at the police station was CE 150 (brown arrest shirt) which was darker than the CE 151 maroon shirt ('light brown jacket') Oswald was wearing at the second floor lunchroom encounter.

Mr. BELIN. Did it appear to be similar to any clothing you had seen when you saw him at the School Book Depository Building?
Mr. BAKER. I could have mistaken it for a jacket, but to my recollection it was a little colored jacket, that is all I can say.

"Comment: Yes, that is what happened. Baker mistook Oswald’s CE 151 maroon shirt which fell loose outside Oswald’s belt for a light brown 'jacket'. What Baker remembered and assumed was a white regular shirt underneath the light brown 'jacket' was Oswald’s white T-shirt underneath the maroon CE 151 shirt. 

"This analysis of what Oswald was wearing at the second-floor lunchroom encounter is important because only moments later Oswald was seen by a witness, Mrs. Geraldine Reid, wearing only a white T-shirt and pants, not a 'light brown' or maroon shirt or 'jacket'." 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

From pages 71-73 in the paper.

"Second floor: Geraldine Reid

"With Baker and Truly gone, Oswald then did two things quickly, alone there in the lunchroom. First, he bought a coke to support his explanation of why he had been there (even though that was not his reason). And second, he took off his maroon shirt, CE 151, stuffed it down into the front of his pants in the crotch area (a shirt can be stuffed there without being noticeable or uncomfortable), and hitched up his belt again. Now he was wearing visibly only his white T-shirt and gray pants, which is how he was seen moments later when he walked past Mrs. Reid on the second floor who told of that encounter.

"Mrs. Reid was just returning to the second floor where she worked after seeing the parade below.

Mr. BELIN. And then what did you do? 
Mrs. REID. Well, I kept walking and I looked up and Oswald was coming in the back door of the office. I met him by the time I passed my desk several feet and I told him, I said, 'Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn’t hit him.' He mumbled something to me, I kept walking, he did, too. I didn’t pay any attention to what he said because I had no thoughts of anything of him having any connection with it at all because he was very calm. He had gotten a coke and was holding it in his hands and I guess the reason it impressed me seeing him in there I thought it was a little strange that one of the warehouse boys would be up in the office at the time, not that he had done anything wrong. The only time I had seen him in the office was to come and get change and he already had his coke in his hand so he didn’t come for change and I dismissed him. I didn’t think anything else. 

(. . .)

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, first 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. 

"Mrs. Reid’s statement that Oswald walked by her in a white T-shirt and carrying a coke has baffled researchers no end, because it is so different from Oswald reported seen only moments earlier wearing what officer Baker called a 'light brown' jacket (maroon shirt CE 151). 

"Mrs. Reid’s story was not fabricated or imagined. She told coworkers of her encounter with Oswald that weekend. Another employee, Pauline Sanders, told the FBI on Sun Nov 24 of Mrs. Reid telling her of it (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=64). Otis Campbell, vice president of the Texas School Book Depository, told the FBI on Tue Nov 26 of Mrs. Reid having told him of her encounter with Oswald (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95616#relPageId=89). To the FBI on Dec 5:

'As she entered the office [on the second floor], she observed Lee Harvey Oswald, whose name she did not know at the time, but whom she had previously seen, and whose name she later ascertained from newspaper publicity, coming from the back hallway which is used as an aisleway between the warehouse and the clerical offices. Oswald was carrying a coca cola in his right hand. Mrs. Reid stated that to the best of her recollection, Oswald was wearing a white tee-shirt and a pair of pants, color unknown … Mrs. Reid was shown a rust brown sport shirt with a hole in the right sleeve at the elbow [CE 150] … [she] was certain that Oswald did not have this shirt on at the time she saw him on November 22, 1963' (FBI, Dec 5, 1963, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10408#relPageId=316).

"Mrs. Reid’s testimony indicates Oswald took off his maroon shirt in the manner described immediately after the confrontation with officer Baker.

"The purpose of the change in clothing was Oswald was now in evasive flight mode. All of his movements following the shots are consistent with a belief that his life is in danger and he is seeking to make his exit and take flight without being easily tracked."

Edited June 9, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

So why didn't DPD take a statement from Dodie of Dean's Dairy Way? Myers quotes the survivors:

According to her daughters, Mrs. Dean knew many Dallas policemen because they had come into her store in the past and they knew her. She never gave an affidavit because she felt they knew her and would know where to find her if they needed further information.

Sounds good but DPD did not take statements from any of the purported principal witnesses in the vicinity of the jacket, and none of them shows up in the Tippit murder case papers. Two months later the FBI interviewed Reynolds, Patterson, the Brocks & Roger Ballew. Dodie is conspicuously absent. Why? Surely they knew where she was and at some point decided to consign her to oblivion. Most likely they did not consider her a credible source.

Likewise Myers shows scant confidence in much of the information provided by the daughters, rewriting part & rejecting another part. Why bother at all with them and their story? Here's the payload:

This caused [Mrs. Dean] to look up and out the front window in an easterly direction toward the second-hand store. Just as she did, a young man rounded the corner walking briskly in a westerly direction. As he broke into a run, he was tugging at his jacket, as if to take it off. In those days, the Dairy Way had an overhead door so it made the store fully open rather than windowed, and the cashier’s counter was close to the sidewalk. Mrs. Dean got a good look at the man who passed her at less than ten feet and positively identified him as Lee Harvey Oswald. She stepped outside the store and peered around the corner at the area in-between the store and the Texaco service station next door. She saw Oswald continue behind the service station and into the parking lot.

The goal was to produce a witness who could directly link the throwdown jacket to Oswald, same goal the FBI had when it put words into Patterson's mouth as discussed in a previous post. But this is thin stuff, relying on a juicy element extracted from a stale family memory that is otherwise rejected, cherry picking for the sake of fleshing out a pet theory.

Myers also freely subs in a preferred identity for another that was explicitly reported by a witness, going so far as to claim Kinsley actually saw Reynolds instead of Oswald cross Jefferson in front of the Dudley Hughes ambulance driven by Butler. Nothing if not bold but Reynolds bore about as much resemblance to Oswald as Sergeant Hill, who may have paused at Dean's Dairy Way for a hot fudge sundae, flinging the jacket onto a tire rack and leaving suddenly when sirens sounded nearby, not before giving instructions to Dodie to have someone dump the jacket under an Olds in the back lot. He then rushed across Jefferson to prowl car 207 idling on the opposite side of the street, passing directly in front of the ambulance.

Michael, thanks for your comment. I am not however convinced that the goal of the Mrs. Dean story was to "produce a witness who could directly link the throwdown jacket to Oswald", over 50 years after the fact. Who, exactly, do you have in mind doing the "production" of that witness for that nefarious purpose? 

Myers did not invent the story, nor go about soliciting it; it came to him. The ones who brought it to him, Mrs. Dean's daughters, have nothing to do with anything other than belatedly deciding history needed to be informed of their mother's story which had not until then been told. That Mrs. Dean thought the Tippit killer she saw going by her store was Oswald needs no hidden plotters orchestrating that behind the scenes; that is what people thought, rightly or wrongly, from their brief glimpses at someone who fit a similar physical description if he was not Oswald, especially as it seemed confirmed by all the reporting in the news. Nothing complicated there. 

A half century is indeed a long time for a story to get morphed and remembered in ways that differ from the originating event. That would be the vulnerable point in Mrs. Dean's story. I don't see any issues to it other than that one. 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Michael Kalin]

Greg, if you want to believe the Dean family after 50 years of silence succumbed to a belated compunction to contribute to the historical record I won't argue the point. It hardly matters.

What does matter is the mining of dubious information for malleable material that may be readily modified & reshaped to conform to the requirements of a favored narrative, as if to bring two unsupported tales into a condition of mutual authentication. This self-serving procedure fails in the absence of objective corroboration, degenerating quickly into breezy yarn-spinning.

There is no factual basis for Dodie's involvement in a speculative migratory path taken by the jacket from tire rack to store to parking lot. A much stronger case has been made that Westbrook planted the jacket under the Olds to manufacture evidence against Oswald.
https://harveyandlee.net/WandC/Westbrook_and_Croy.html [part 2]

[Greg Doudna]

56 minutes ago, Michael Kalin said:

Greg, if you want to believe the Dean family after 50 years of silence succumbed to a belated compunction to contribute to the historical record I won't argue the point. It hardly matters.

What does matter is the mining of dubious information for malleable material that may be readily modified & reshaped to conform to the requirements of a favored narrative, as if to bring two unsupported tales into a condition of mutual authentication. This self-serving procedure fails in the absence of objective corroboration, degenerating quickly into breezy yarn-spinning.

There is no factual basis for Dodie's involvement in a speculative migratory path taken by the jacket from tire rack to store to parking lot. A much stronger case has been made that Westbrook planted the jacket under the Olds to manufacture evidence against Oswald.
https://harveyandlee.net/WandC/Westbrook_and_Croy.html [part 2]

I don’t see any reason to suppose an advance plot to frame Oswald for the Tippit killing. Police were filmed looking at a citizens wallet at the Tippit scene but I don’t buy that had anything to do with Oswald, despite the urban legend-genre surrounding that. I see the arrest of Oswald in the theater as a straight up mistake on the part of police advised by Brewer arresting the killer’s next intended victim instead of the killer who was also in the theater at the time of that arrest. Simple accident, chaos theory at work—an accident that Oswald didn’t end up dead on Nov 22. No advance plot to frame him for the killing of Tippit.

You don’t explain how planting a light tan near-white jacket differing in color from what anyone said Oswald had, with a dry cleaning ticket that looks like it was not from anywhere Oswald was after investigation, would frame Oswald. How? And the witnesses saw the killer wearing a jacket looking like that one. Are you supposing the killer was in on the frame-Oswald plot too to coordinate the color of jacket planting? (Had to be for the plotters to get right style and color of planted jacket planted within minutes, right?) Wouldn’t it just be simpler then to have the killer plant his own jacket there? Oh wait…

Edited June 9, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Ron Ege]

On 6/6/2023 at 7:28 PM, Greg Doudna said:

The Warren Commission said CE 162 the light tan near-white jacket, was one of Oswald's two jackets, his gray jacket. Bill defends the Warren Commission interpretation.  

My paper argues CE 162 was a separate, third jacket, was not one of Oswald's two, not Oswald's gray jacket. See pages 42-44 of my paper which summarize the two conflicting interpretations.

Your middle paragraph "Am I understanding..." is an accurate understanding of WC/Bill/David except they don't think Earlene's color "dark" was accurate. It is not accurate for me: I say Oswald did enter the theatre as a ticket-paying customer with the dark jacket Earlene saw him wearing, before the (jacketless) Tippit killer went past Brewer's store and into the balcony. 

Greg,

Thank you; as I surmised - but did not want to assume.  IMO, you've done a masterful job of presenting your case - although others may still believe otherwise.  

Based on your paper and so much other information that I've read over the years, it seems more than reasonable that there are just two logical  reasonable options for the "discovery" of the "third jacket. 

1.  Tippit's actual killer (not Oswald) discarded it so as to be less likely to eventually be identified as such.

or

2.  The jacket was a "plant" to incriminate Oswald.

Of course, one could proffer a third option - totally illogical - that coincidentally, someone just arbitrarily discarded a perfectly serviceable jacket along the route from the Tippit shooting to the TT.  because . . .  Makes no sense.

To me, the most telling issue about the "third jacket" is that no one has ever presented a decent explanation - as to how - relative to the size, manufacturer, cities/stores where sold, and the laundry/dry cleaning marks on it - just how it could've ever belonged to Oswald.

 

 

[Bill Brown]

2 hours ago, Ron Ege said:

Greg,

Thank you; as I surmised - but did not want to assume.  IMO, you've done a masterful job of presenting your case - although others may still believe otherwise.  

Based on your paper and so much other information that I've read over the years, it seems more than reasonable that there are just two logical  reasonable options for the "discovery" of the "third jacket. 

1.  Tippit's actual killer (not Oswald) discarded it so as to be less likely to eventually be identified as such.

or

2.  The jacket was a "plant" to incriminate Oswald.

Of course, one could proffer a third option - totally illogical - that coincidentally, someone just arbitrarily discarded a perfectly serviceable jacket along the route from the Tippit shooting to the TT.  because . . .  Makes no sense.

To me, the most telling issue about the "third jacket" is that no one has ever presented a decent explanation - as to how - relative to the size, manufacturer, cities/stores where sold, and the laundry/dry cleaning marks on it - just how it could've ever belonged to Oswald.

 

 

 

"To me, the most telling issue about the "third jacket" is that no one has ever presented a decent explanation - as to how - relative to the size, manufacturer, cities/stores where sold, and the laundry/dry cleaning marks on it - just how it could've ever belonged to Oswald."

 

By "third jacket", you're referring to CE-162, the jacket found behind the Texaco station.

 

Marina was shown 162 and said it belonged to Lee.

 

[Michael Kalin]

4 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I don’t see any reason to suppose an advance plot to frame Oswald for the Tippit killing. Police were filmed looking at a citizens wallet at the Tippit scene but I don’t buy that had anything to do with Oswald, despite the urban legend-genre surrounding that. I see the arrest of Oswald in the theater as a straight up mistake on the part of police advised by Brewer arresting the killer’s next intended victim instead of the killer who was also in the theater at the time of that arrest. Simple accident, chaos theory at work—an accident that Oswald didn’t end up dead on Nov 22. No advance plot to frame him for the killing of Tippit.

Maybe not entirely an advance plot, more like one that was hastily improvised at least in part, hence the obvious cock-ups. My firm belief is Oswald the patsy was meant to meet his fate at the library but for some reason he chose to go to the theater instead, a plan B rendezvous with a contact. The question is what made things go awry?

I also believe the killer fled via the alley. This does not rule out ditching his jacket under the Olds, a slight detour along the way. I suppose it could have happened but see no reason to believe it did. It does eliminate the Jefferson Blvd option which is strictly a red herring, a transparent device to populate the area with eye-witnesses of Oswald in flight, evidence consisting of a mass of suborned statements and nothing circumstantial to back them up.

I disagree with your dismissal of the wallet. This was also a plant engineered by Westbrook whose imbecile presence looms large over much of the Tippit murder mise-en-scene. He was confronted with a difficult challenge and choked. It was not enough to rub out the patsy, a fairly straightforward task I should think, but events had to fall out in such a way that the public would believe he was solely responsible for the assassination of the president, a topic well beyond the scope of this thread.

[Charles Blackmon]

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

"To me, the most telling issue about the "third jacket" is that no one has ever presented a decent explanation - as to how - relative to the size, manufacturer, cities/stores where sold, and the laundry/dry cleaning marks on it - just how it could've ever belonged to Oswald."

 

By "third jacket", you're referring to CE-162, the jacket found behind the Texaco station.

 

Marina was shown 162 and said it belonged to Lee.

 

Marina's testimony on pretty much anything is not to be believed. She was constantly changing her story. Not a good witness, would have been destroyed if she testified at a trial. No points for bringing up Marina's testimony. 

[Bill Brown]

2 hours ago, Charles Blackmon said:

Marina's testimony on pretty much anything is not to be believed. She was constantly changing her story. Not a good witness, would have been destroyed if she testified at a trial. No points for bringing up Marina's testimony. 

 

You can believe her or dismiss her; up to you.  Nevertheless, she said 162 belonged to Lee.

 

[Greg Doudna]

Pages 50-52 from the paper.

"Marina Oswald

"On Feb 6, 1964, at the end of her final day of several days of testimony to the Warren Commission, in the final minutes at the end of hours of grueling testimony that day, the Warren Commission obtained from Marina Oswald an identification of CE 162 as an item of clothing that had belonged to her husband (which if true would make Oswald the killer of Tippit). There are two distinct issues: what did Marina claim, and was Marina correct in what she claimed.  

"On the first question, what did Marina claim, Marina actually made two identification claims with respect to CE 162. The first:

Mr. RANKIN. 162?
Mrs. OSWALD. That is Lee’s—an old shirt.
Mr. RANKIN. Sort of a jacket?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.

"The second:

Mrs. OSWALD. It seems he had that jacket [CE 162], also [on the night of Thursday, Nov 21, 1963, in Irving].
Mr. RANKIN. Exhibit 162?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.

"The Warren Commission rejects one of Marina’s identifications of CE 162 

"The Warren Commission narrative was that CE 162 was retrieved by Oswald Friday afternoon Nov 22 at Lee’s rooming house in Oak Cliff. The Warren Commission therefore rejected Marina’s claim of seeing CE 162 with Lee on Thursday night Nov 21 in Irving, dismissed that as mistaken. The Warren Commission held that Marina was credible only on the first claim, not on the second.

'The interpretation developed here is that Marina erred in both identifications of CE 162, not just one of the two, because Marina was mistaken in thinking CE 162 was Lee’s gray jacket which Lee wore to Irving Thursday night and Friday morning, Nov 21-22, 1963.

"Obtaining critical testimony from a witness when she is tired

"During the two and a half months between the assassination and Marina’s testimony to the Warren Commission, the FBI never showed CE 162 to Marina. Marina’s Warren Commission testimony was the first and only time Marina saw CE 162. Let it be considered how that was done. 

"At midday during the final of four days of Marina giving testimony under oath, at about 12:30 pm on Feb 6, 1964, Commission Chair Earl Warren wrapping up the morning session spoke considerate words to Marina:

… Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall what he said about what he didn’t like about the United States?
Mrs. OSWALD. The problem of unemployment.
Mr. RANKIN. Anything else?
Mrs. OSWALD. I already said what he didn’t like that it was hard to get an education, that medical care is very expensive. About his political dissatisfaction, he didn’t speak to me.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he ever say anything against the leaders of the government here?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chairman, that is all we have now except the physical exhibits, and I think we could do that at 2 o’clock.
The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Oswald, we are going to recess now until 2 o’clock. You must be quite tired by now. And this afternoon we are going to introduce some of the physical objects that are essential to make up our record. When we finish with those, I think your testimony will be completed. And I think we should finish today. You won’t be unhappy about that, will you?
Mrs. OSWALD. No. Thank you.

"Comment: There is almost a subtext here which might be paraphrased: 'As a last thing, Mrs. Oswald, please help us, if you would, with what we [Warren Commission] need established, some items of Lee’s clothing. It’s mostly a formality really, but we need confirmations from you on some things for our records, and then all of this will be over and you can go home.'

“'You must be quite tired by now … you won’t be unhappy about that, will you?' Marina is asked solicitously—perhaps in acknowledgement that Marina, single mother of two small children one of whom she was nursing in breaks between sessions of her testimony, may have shown visible signs of tiredness.

"In that final afternoon session, items of clothing from Oswald’s person and belongings, or which Marina had already previously identified as Lee’s—with one exception—were laid out on a desk surface area of some kind (there is no known photograph of the display). The items were not formally told to Marina to have been from Lee’s belongings and person, but Marina on her own would recognize that. 

"Among the otherwise entirely genuine clothing items of Lee arranged on display the Warren Commission had unobtrusively set among them (one is tempted to use the word 'planted') CE 162. Marina was then asked to confirm all of the clothing items were Lee’s, one after another, for the record, with CE 162 slipped in among them. 

"Marina—not known for being the most accurate or careful of witnesses under the best of circumstances—was cooperating, identifying those items one after another, 'yes… yes… yes…', then asked for identification of CE 162, which (unknown to Marina) was not from Lee’s belongings among the other items which were.

"It was like having someone fatigued sign many papers at one time, with some landmine document or fine print slipped in, signed unthinkingly by the person as one more among the others.

Mr. RANKIN. Mrs. Oswald, would you step over with the interpreter to this desk and point out the different pieces of clothing as we ask you about it, please? Do you know the shirt that Lee Oswald wore the morning that he left?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don’t remember. What else interests you? What do you want?

"Comment: The picture is Marina is standing with her interpreter near some large flat desk surface looking at items but there is no indication that she touches or handles the items. The items are not brought individually one by one close to Marina to examine individually. It is unclear whether CE 162 was lifted up for Marina to see better when that item was asked of Marina; nothing indicates it was."

[Greg Doudna]

From pages 55-56 of the paper.

Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall whether the jacket, Exhibit 163, is something that he put on in your presence at any time that day?
Mrs. OSWALD. Not in my presence.
Mr. RANKIN. And you didn’t observe it on him at any time, then?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.

"Here Marina fails to support the Warren Commission’s narrative that Oswald wore his blue coat or jacket, CE 163, to work the morning of Nov 22, 1963. As Buell Frazier and Linnie Mae Randle testified, the jacket Lee wore to Irving on Thursday night and back to Dallas Friday morning was his gray jacket.

(…) Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall any of these clothes that your husband was wearing when he came home Thursday night, November 21, 1963?
Mrs. OSWALD. On Thursday I think he wore this shirt.
Mr. RANKIN. Is that Exhibit 150? [brown arrest shirt of Oswald]
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you remember anything else he was wearing at that time?
Mrs. OSWALD. It seems he had that jacket, also.
Mr. RANKIN. Exhibit 162?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And the pants, Exhibit 157? [gray work pants]
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. But I am not sure. This is as much as I can remember.
Mr. RANKIN. Thank you.

"In this testimony Marina erred in saying Lee wore CE 150—the brown arrest shirt—to Irving Thursday night Nov 21. It is a fact of the case (differing from the Warren Commission here) that Oswald wore a different, maroon-colored, long-sleeved button-down shirt, CE 151, to work to the Book Depository Friday morning Nov 22—and according to Buell Frazier to Irving on Thursday—before changing into CE 150 (the brown arrest shirt) at his rooming house at about 1 pm Friday (see Pat Speer, 'Threads of Evidence' for the convincing argument on that: https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4b-threads-of-evidence).    

"Just as Marina was mistaken concerning the CE 150 shirt identification, so Marina was mistaken on the CE 162 jacket identification the same Thursday night. In both cases the items confused have some similarities accounting for the mistake.

"In the case of CE 151 (a maroon, button-down-collar dress shirt) mistakenly identified by Marina as CE 150 (brown, non-button-down-collar shirt), the maroon or reddish color of CE 151—from contemporary descriptions and a first-ever color photo of that shirt obtained by Pat Speer—was also at times called 'brown' by the Dallas Police, the Warren Commission, and some contemporary witnesses. 

"In the case of CE 162, the confusion with Oswald’s gray jacket—the 'gray, more or less flannel, wool-looking jacket that I had seen him wear' of Buell Wesley Frazier’s description, which Frazier said was not CE 162—the similarity was in what Marina may have seen as a similar gray tone of CE 162 depending on lighting conditions, zippered and waist length, similar in those ways to the gray jacket Lee actually had and had worn Thursday night Nov 21. As developed below, factors of lighting and how the item was displayed could have played a role in causing Marina’s identification of CE 162 as Lee’s gray jacket. 

"Although the identification itself was mistaken (Buell Frazier being correct that CE 162 was not Oswald’s gray jacket), the mistake would have its explanation in the similarities just cited, with Marina making the identification from a short distance visually without physical contact with the item or deliberation or careful examination, not helped by 2-1/2 months distance in time before she was first asked.

"That Marina thought Oswald wore CE 162 on Thursday night Nov 21 means Marina was identifying CE 162—rightly or wrongly—with Oswald’s gray jacket, since that is what Oswald did wear Thursday night and Friday morning Nov 21-22.

"The differences between Oswald’s gray jacket and CE 162 described by Buell Frazier mean CE 162 was not actually Lee’s gray jacket (as Buell Frazier directly said it was not). But the claim of Marina of seeing CE 162 with Lee Thursday night, while mistaken, identifies the nature of the error: Marina thought CE 162—as she saw it in color and tone in the way the Warren Commission had it displayed—was Lee’s gray jacket." 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

Pages 63-64 of the paper.

"Ruth Paine

"In all of Ruth Paine’s extensive testimony, nowhere is Ruth asked whether she recognized CE 162 or CE 163.

"That Ruth Paine might actually never have been asked concerning identification of Oswald’s blue coat, CE 163, believed by the Warren Commission to have been worn by Lee to work at the Texas School Book Depository on Friday morning Nov 22, or the Tippit killer’s jacket, CE 162, is difficult to believe. Ruth was asked voluminous questions on everything else. Her testimony is characterized by accuracy and recall for detail. Why would she not be asked about those two items of clothing? 

"Lee certainly wore his gray jacket to Ruth’s place and likely more than once, based on the testimony of Buell Wesley Frazier who said he had seen Oswald wear his gray jacket several times including to Irving the evening and morning of Nov 21-22.

"If CE 162 were a jacket of Lee’s, an identification from Ruth Paine would carry credibility and there would be no reason on earth not to have that on the record. But Ruth was not asked. It is difficult to imagine a better explanation for that than that Ruth had been asked in some preinterview form and Ruth’s answer was not deemed helpful. (Imagine, for example, if Ruth had been asked and had answered the same as Buell Wesley Frazier testified, that she had seen Lee with a gray jacket but CE 162 was not it and she had never seen CE 162 before.)

"Here is the only instance I could find of Ruth Paine asked concerning Lee’s clothing in Ruth Paine’s testimony:

Mr. JENNER. Would you describe Lee’s attire when you first saw him on the lawn when you returned that evening [Thu Nov 21, 1963]?
Mrs. PAINE. I don’t recall it.

"Both the question and the 'I don’t recall it' answer, in a strict reading, apply only to the moment Ruth Paine first saw Oswald that evening. Mr. Jenner does not ask Ruth if she remembered anything of Lee’s attire at some other time during his visit, such as inside the house that evening or whether she had seen Lee wear a gray jacket on any occasion and if so was the off-white light tan CE 162 it. The question Jenner asked Ruth Paine has the appearance of a lawyer asking a question very narrowly and then moving away from it quickly.

"The absence of inquiry to Ruth Paine concerning recognition of CE 162 in her testimony to the Warren Commission is further grounds for skepticism of Marina’s identification of CE 162 as a jacket of Lee’s."

[Charles Blackmon]

9 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

 

"The absence of inquiry to Ruth Paine concerning recognition of CE 162 in her testimony to the Warren Commission is further grounds for skepticism of Marina’s identification of CE 162 as a jacket of Lee’s."

Yep. Marina was always making things up. The testimony about her taking the backyard photos is a real howler.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Charles Blackmon