Prayer Man More Than A Fuzzy Picture

[Pat Speer]

7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me.

Earlier in this thread I took an excerpt from the official Oswald interrogation report and removed from it the part about the supposed Baker/Oswald second-floor encounter. After which it made sense. Well that is something I came up with several years ago, and I posted it here on this forum a couple times hoping to get some believers. But I never got a response.

Then a few years ago, Bart Kamp and Malcolm Blunt discovered the Hosty handwritten note where he wrote that Oswald went outside to watch the P. Parade! It says pretty much the same thing as what I proposed were Oswalds original words.

This proved that what I had claimed to be the original content of the autopsy report was indeed the original content, or close to it. The only difference being that what I rewrote said that Oswald went outside with Bill Shelley. Hosty's note doesn't give that detail.

 

Pat, you really shouldn't comment on things you haven't studied and don't understand. I suspect that Bart Kamp spent years working on his second-floor encounter analysis. I did my own independent research over a span of a year or so and came up with nearly the same conclusions. I can't speak for Bart, but for me it is now second nature to ponder how the coverup artists used the fabricated second-floor encounter to achieve their goals.

 

Oh my. I did a detailed study of the statements regarding the comings and goings of the TSBD that is light years ahead of the nonsense cooked up by anyone else. Period. 

Your scenario necessitates that multiple TSBD employees lied from almost the beginning..to frame Oswald.

But it's hard to believe you studied the evidence with an open mind. 

If you had, you'd know that the bulk of the testimony--including that of Shelley and Truly, etc--suggests a scenario at odds with the Oswald-did-it scenario, one not to the Warren Commission's liking.

1. Oswald did not remain on the sixth floor after his co-workers went down for lunch. 

2. He went down to the ground floor, where he was seen by multiple witnesses. 

3. He had an alibi (and not some pretend alibi). Vickie Adams raced down the stairs just after the shots and did not see him, and her boss saw Baker and Truly run up afterwards. This precludes his racing down the stairs just before the lunchroom encounter. And it gets better. Baker and Truly--two men your theory claims are XXXXX out to get Oswald--said an elevator came down from the upper floors as they ran up after the lunchroom encounter. This puts Oswald in the clear--he was not inside that elevator. NOW, the WC got around this by pretending Jack Dougherty was in that elevator. But an honest examination of the record--a thorough examination--strongly suggests he was not. So who was it? Almost certainly a better suspect than Oswald.

In short, then, the proposal there was no lunch encounter is not only incorrect, it is counter-productive. That some believe this encounter--one of the linchpins suggesting Oswald's innocence--was a fake because...because..oh yeah, there's a blurry image of someone outside the building that doesn't really look like Oswald but gosh darn I, it could be Oswald, and that possibility means we have to rip to shreds anything and anyone that suggests he wasn't outside--is an embarrassment to the research community, and a GIANT step backwards. Period. 

 

 

 

[Greg Doudna]

10 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Oh my. I did a detailed study of the statements regarding the comings and goings of the TSBD that is light years ahead of the nonsense cooked up by anyone else. Period. 

Your scenario necessitates that multiple TSBD employees lied from almost the beginning..to frame Oswald.

But it's hard to believe you studied the evidence with an open mind. 

If you had, you'd know that the bulk of the testimony--including that of Shelley and Truly, etc--suggests a scenario at odds with the Oswald-did-it scenario, one not to the Warren Commission's liking.

1. Oswald did not remain on the sixth floor after his co-workers went down for lunch. 

2. He went down to the ground floor, where he was seen by multiple witnesses. 

3. He had an alibi (and not some pretend alibi). Vickie Adams raced down the stairs just after the shots and did not see him, and her boss saw Baker and Truly run up afterwards. This precludes his racing down the stairs just before the lunchroom encounter. And it gets better. Baker and Truly--two men your theory claims are XXXXX out to get Oswald--said an elevator came down from the upper floors as they ran up after the lunchroom encounter. This puts Oswald in the clear--he was not inside that elevator. NOW, the WC got around this by pretending Jack Dougherty was in that elevator. But an honest examination of the record--a thorough examination--strongly suggests he was not. So who was it? Almost certainly a better suspect than Oswald.

In short, then, the proposal there was no lunch encounter is not only incorrect, it is counter-productive. That some believe this encounter--one of the linchpins suggesting Oswald's innocence--was a fake because...because..oh yeah, there's a blurry image of someone outside the building that doesn't really look like Oswald but gosh darn I, it could be Oswald, and that possibility means we have to rip to shreds anything and anyone that suggests he wasn't outside--is an embarrassment to the research community, and a GIANT step backwards. Period. 

Pat there is not any doubt to me at all that there was a second-floor lunchroom encounter. But as William Kelly and others long ago developed, Oswald was seen walking away from an unopened pneumatic door a moment after he was about to go out to the second floor stairwell, by officer Baker. Oswald was coming from the second-floor area out to the stairwell when he saw (and was seen by) Baker and reversed direction. That means he did not get to the 2nd floor lunchroom area by the rear stairwell at all, and it argues against his purpose there that time being to get a coke, no matter that is what he may have told Fritz in interrogation.

I regard the second-floor lunchroom encounter as certain, and Prayer Man as Oswald as a "maybe". (And I hate "maybes" and wish there was an up-or-down way of getting a yes or no answer on that. The apparent argument for a "no" answer on "Prayer Man" of course is that Frazier did not notice him there then and he rules out today that it was Oswald. I think Frazier is truthful on both of those according to his knowledge but I do not see that it can be ruled out that Oswald could have been there and unnoticed, especially since Frazier is unable today to come up with any other idea of who that might have been.)

Are the "certainty" of Oswald at the second-floor lunchroom encounter, and the "maybe" of Prayer Man as Oswald, mutually exclusive? I mean on timing and logistics issues. I don't see that is necessarily so. Suppose Oswald was Prayer Man, and about the time Baker comes charging through the front door, Oswald decides to make his exit from TSBD. But he decides not to walk out the front steps, but instead to go up the SE stairwell to the 2nd floor, then cross the 2nd floor, with intent to go out the NW door to the stairwell, back down to the 1st floor and out the rear of the TSBD building. He would arrive to the NW door to the stairwell at about the time Baker would.

The encounter happens with a jacket-less Oswald and a red-brown color-vision-challenged Baker (reconstructed explanation; affects a large number of white men statistically, something like 10% as I recall, seeing reds as brown) sees Oswald's light maroon shirt hanging out [the maroon shirt you established Pat!] as a "light brown" jacket.

Reconstructing it was actually the shirt (the maroon shirt) Baker saw and not Oswald's gray jacket, also makes possible what sounds outlandish but is the only good way to account for Mrs. Reid's seeing Oswald walk by her moments later wearing a white T-shirt: before walking in view of Mrs. Reid, out of sight, Oswald took off his maroon shirt and stuffed it down the front of his pants, then walked out in only his white T-shirt. He went back down to the first floor by the SE stairwell again, picked up his gray jacket from the domino room putting that on over his white T-shirt, and exited the TSBD, with all three of his items of clothing above the belt on him but wearing only two. 

I am not claiming there is positive evidence for the hypothesized Prayer Man to second-floor-lunchroom movement, apart from the detail that I am convinced Oswald was attempting to go out to the 2nd floor rear stairwell through that door and reversed, rather than entered the lunchroom from the stairwell.

I realize some advocates of the Prayer Man Oswald strongly hold to the no-second floor lunchroom encounter idea. I agree with you, I don't buy that, all that supposed coordinated suborning of perjury of multiple witnesses, not reasonable. (How easy is it to suborn perjury in even one witness, without a high risk of that coming to light with very serious consequences for the suborner? Let alone coordinate multiple ones? Doesn't make sense.)

But is there a necessary contradiction between the certainty of the second-floor lunchroom encounter, and the "maybe" of Prayer Man, in principle? I don't see that it is obvious that one necessarily falsifies the other. 

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Pat there is not any doubt to me at all that there was a second-floor lunchroom encounter. But as William Kelly and others long ago developed, Oswald was seen walking away from an unopened pneumatic door a moment after he was about to go out to the second floor stairwell, by officer Baker. Oswald was coming from the second-floor area out to the stairwell when he saw (and was seen by) Baker and reversed direction. That means he did not get to the 2nd floor lunchroom area by the rear stairwell at all, and it argues against his purpose there that time being to get a coke, no matter that is what he may have told Fritz in interrogation.

I regard the second-floor lunchroom encounter as certain, and Prayer Man as Oswald as a "maybe". (And I hate "maybes" and wish there was an up-or-down way of getting a yes or no answer on that. The apparent argument for a "no" answer on "Prayer Man" of course is that Frazier did not notice him there then and he rules out today that it was Oswald. I think Frazier is truthful on both of those according to his knowledge but I do not see that it can be ruled out that Oswald could have been there and unnoticed, especially since Frazier is unable today to come up with any other idea of who that might have been.)

Are the "certainty" of Oswald at the second-floor lunchroom encounter, and the "maybe" of Prayer Man as Oswald, mutually exclusive? I mean on timing and logistics issues. I don't see that is necessarily so. Suppose Oswald was Prayer Man, and about the time Baker comes charging through the front door, Oswald decides to make his exit from TSBD. But he decides not to walk out the front steps, but instead to go up the SE stairwell to the 2nd floor, then cross the 2nd floor, with intent to go out the NW door to the stairwell, back down to the 1st floor and out the rear of the TSBD building. He would arrive to the NW door to the stairwell at about the time Baker would.

The encounter happens with a jacket-less Oswald and a red-brown color-vision-challenged Baker (reconstructed explanation; affects a large number of white men statistically, something like 10% as I recall, seeing reds as brown) sees Oswald's light maroon shirt hanging out [the maroon shirt you established Pat!] as a "light brown" jacket.

Reconstructing it was actually the shirt (the maroon shirt) Baker saw and not Oswald's gray jacket, also makes possible what sounds outlandish but is the only good way to account for Mrs. Reid's seeing Oswald walk by her moments later wearing a white T-shirt: before walking in view of Mrs. Reid, out of sight, Oswald took off his maroon shirt and stuffed it down the front of his pants, then walked out in only his white T-shirt. He went back down to the first floor by the SE stairwell again, picked up his gray jacket from the domino room putting that on over his white T-shirt, and exited the TSBD, with all three of his items of clothing above the belt on him but wearing only two. 

I am not claiming there is positive evidence for the hypothesized Prayer Man to second-floor-lunchroom movement, apart from the detail that I am convinced Oswald was attempting to go out to the 2nd floor rear stairwell through that door and reversed, rather than entered the lunchroom from the stairwell.

I realize some advocates of the Prayer Man Oswald strongly hold to the no-second floor lunchroom encounter idea. I agree with you, I don't buy that, all that supposed coordinated suborning of perjury of multiple witnesses, not reasonable. (How easy is it to suborn perjury in even one witness, without a high risk of that coming to light with very serious consequences for the suborner? Let alone coordinate multiple ones? Doesn't make sense.)

But is there a necessary contradiction between the certainty of the second-floor lunchroom encounter, and the "maybe" of Prayer Man, in principle? I don't see that it is obvious that one necessarily falsifies the other. 

You are correct in that the timing works out--that Oswald could have departed the front of the building after the shooting and arrive at the lunch room before Baker and Truly. It's possible. 

[François Carlier]

60 years after the event, and some people are debating whether the second-floor encounter between Baker and Oswald really took place ?

I guess at the 70th anniversary those "researchers" will debate whether the assassination really took place in Dallas...

I have been studying the case for more than thirty-five years and have been a close witness to the whole "critics against the Warren Commission" decades-long story, reading every book and personally meting every known researcher along the way. I believe that one of the most tragic failings of the critics community has been that there precisely never was any type of "community" that would have cleaned up the ideas and set a high standard of quality of ideas !
Nobody has done more harm to the "critics community" than the "new-generation", extreme conspiracy theorists themselves !

Edited September 23, 2023 by François Carlier

[Roger Odisio]

12 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Pat there is not any doubt to me at all that there was a second-floor lunchroom encounter. But as William Kelly and others long ago developed, Oswald was seen walking away from an unopened pneumatic door a moment after he was about to go out to the second floor stairwell, by officer Baker. Oswald was coming from the second-floor area out to the stairwell when he saw (and was seen by) Baker and reversed direction. That means he did not get to the 2nd floor lunchroom area by the rear stairwell at all, and it argues against his purpose there that time being to get a coke, no matter that is what he may have told Fritz in interrogation.

I regard the second-floor lunchroom encounter as certain, and Prayer Man as Oswald as a "maybe". (And I hate "maybes" and wish there was an up-or-down way of getting a yes or no answer on that. The apparent argument for a "no" answer on "Prayer Man" of course is that Frazier did not notice him there then and he rules out today that it was Oswald. I think Frazier is truthful on both of those according to his knowledge but I do not see that it can be ruled out that Oswald could have been there and unnoticed, especially since Frazier is unable today to come up with any other idea of who that might have been.)

Are the "certainty" of Oswald at the second-floor lunchroom encounter, and the "maybe" of Prayer Man as Oswald, mutually exclusive? I mean on timing and logistics issues. I don't see that is necessarily so. Suppose Oswald was Prayer Man, and about the time Baker comes charging through the front door, Oswald decides to make his exit from TSBD. But he decides not to walk out the front steps, but instead to go up the SE stairwell to the 2nd floor, then cross the 2nd floor, with intent to go out the NW door to the stairwell, back down to the 1st floor and out the rear of the TSBD building. He would arrive to the NW door to the stairwell at about the time Baker would.

The encounter happens with a jacket-less Oswald and a red-brown color-vision-challenged Baker (reconstructed explanation; affects a large number of white men statistically, something like 10% as I recall, seeing reds as brown) sees Oswald's light maroon shirt hanging out [the maroon shirt you established Pat!] as a "light brown" jacket.

Reconstructing it was actually the shirt (the maroon shirt) Baker saw and not Oswald's gray jacket, also makes possible what sounds outlandish but is the only good way to account for Mrs. Reid's seeing Oswald walk by her moments later wearing a white T-shirt: before walking in view of Mrs. Reid, out of sight, Oswald took off his maroon shirt and stuffed it down the front of his pants, then walked out in only his white T-shirt. He went back down to the first floor by the SE stairwell again, picked up his gray jacket from the domino room putting that on over his white T-shirt, and exited the TSBD, with all three of his items of clothing above the belt on him but wearing only two. 

I am not claiming there is positive evidence for the hypothesized Prayer Man to second-floor-lunchroom movement, apart from the detail that I am convinced Oswald was attempting to go out to the 2nd floor rear stairwell through that door and reversed, rather than entered the lunchroom from the stairwell.

I realize some advocates of the Prayer Man Oswald strongly hold to the no-second floor lunchroom encounter idea. I agree with you, I don't buy that, all that supposed coordinated suborning of perjury of multiple witnesses, not reasonable. (How easy is it to suborn perjury in even one witness, without a high risk of that coming to light with very serious consequences for the suborner? Let alone coordinate multiple ones? Doesn't make sense.)

But is there a necessary contradiction between the certainty of the second-floor lunchroom encounter, and the "maybe" of Prayer Man, in principle? I don't see that it is obvious that one necessarily falsifies the other. 

Greg,

 

When Bart Kamp writes that the second floor lunch room encounter never happened he is referring to the story as claimed in the WR.  That is, Oswald encountered Truly and Baker after murdering JFK and descending the steps from the 6th floor.

 

What you write here does not contradict Bart.  Instead you offer a *different version* of *the encounter* than claimed in the WR. Oswald ran into Truly and Baker after he went *up* the stairs on his way to leave the building by the back door.  Sometime after the murder.  Oswald was not after a coke.  He already had one earlier with his lunch.  You're not sure where Oswald was during the murder, but the encounter you describe is evidence he was not on the 6th floor shooting Kennedy..

 

It would clarify things if instead of simply claiming "the encounter" did happen (you are certain it did), you would also explain that your version is different than the WR version.  In fact you, along with Bart, are saying the WR version is false.  A fabrication. You and he have different versions of what did happen, but both exonerate Oswald.

 

Which raises the question, why is what you say important?  If you, Bart, Pat, and I agree that Oswald did not shoot JFK from the 6th floor and did not descend the steps afterward, why does it matter if Oswald at some later point encountered Truly and Baker under different circumstances than the WR claimed?

 

It does not matter as much as the fact that Oswald didn't shoot anyone from the 6th floor, but it is not without consequence.  If true, your version of the encounter is another nail in the WR coffin. Besides Prayerman, the testimony of Dorothy Garner and Vicki Adams about what they saw and heard, and didn't see and hear, on the steps immediately after the murder, and other bits and pieces.  As you say your version of an encounter is consistent with that other evidence. Which is a point Pat is making.

 

[David Josephs]

Mr. COUCH - Well, I picked up my camera. As I recall, I had it in my hand, but it was down leaning against my legs. And I picked it up and made a quick glance at a setting and raised it to my eye. And - uh - you can see from my film that we were just turning the corner. We start the turn and we turn the corner, and you can see people running. As I recall, there's a quick glance at the front entrance of the Texas Depository Book Building. You can see people running and you can see about the first three cars, maybe four, in front of me as we complete the turn.
And then I took pictures of - uh -a few people on my left and a group, or a sweeping, of the crowd on my right standing on the corner.
Mr. BELIN - Did you take any pictures of the School Book Depository Building itself?
Mr. COUCH - Not of the south side at the moment.
<snip>
Mr. BELIN - Did you take any pictures of the Depository Building entrance?
Mr. COUCH - No - Uh -

Truly writes in his affidavit that he a Baker run to the upper floors to "see if we could see who had fired the shots."  Just think about that for a second people...  What would TRULY be doing, unarmed, chasing after a person with a rifle after shooting the president... with a motocop... really?

"No, Sir.  I had it - -"   This motocop had what? enough information to disregard a direct order from the chief of police?

Mr. BAKER - I heard Chief Curry, the chief of the police over there, say, "Get some men over on the railroad track." I think everyone at that time thought these shots came from the railroad track.
Mr. BELIN - By "everyone" do you include you, too?
Mr. BAKER - No, Sir. I had it--I was in a better position due to the wind and you know under it, that I knew it was directly ahead, and up, and it either had to be this building here or this one over here.

He also writes how he's able to see Baker and Oswald talking, in the lunchroom, from his position coming down the stairs which is impossible of course.

Worse yet, for Baker to see 20 feet into the lunchroom thru the window, he'd need to be in a place where boxes blocked his path and view, as shown.

BAKER places himself at "B-1" - taking a wide turn and basically running into the boxes and then completely negating his testimony was his same day affidavit

 

We all should know by now what BAKER writes on the 22nd about the encounter: 
No window, no door, no lunchroom, no Oswald.

As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back toward me. The manager said, "I know that man, he works here." I then turned the man loose and went up to the top floor. The man I saw was a white man approximately 30 years old, 5'9", 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket.

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.

You've read about the door's closing mechanism, the fact that Vicki's supervisor claims Truly and Baker come up after she goes down forgets to include that Oswald would also have to be on those stairs to have gotten down to the 2nd floor, thru the slow, self-closing door and 20 feet away from the entrance to be seen by BAKER who is ascending these stairs AFTER Vicki is already down and before Baker comes up.

How does Miss GARNER see Vicki descend, Baker/Truly ascend - yet no Oswald in between?

He was never there.

Mr. BALL. Did you see Mr. Truly go into the building?
Mr. MOLINA. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Where were you when you saw him go into the building?
Mr. MOLINA. I was right in the entrance.
Mr. BALL. Did you see a police officer with him?
Mr. MOLINA. I didn't see a police officer. I don't recall seeing a police officer but I did see him go inside.
Mr. BALL. Did you see a white-helmeted police officer any time there in the entrance?
Mr. MOLINA. Well, of course, there might have been one after they secured the building, you know.
Mr. BALL. No, I mean when Truly went in; did you see Truly actually go into the building?
Mr. MOLINA. I saw him go in.
Mr. BALL. Where were you standing?
Mr. MOLINA. Right at the front door; right at the front door.
Mr. BALL. Outside the front door?
Mr. MOLINA. Yes, outside the front door I was standing; the door was right behind me.
Mr. BALL. Were you standing on the steps?
Mr. MOLINA. Yes, on the uppermost step.
Mr. BALL. You actually saw Truly go
Mr. MOLINA. Yeah.
Mr. BALL. You were still standing there?
Mr. MOLINA. Yes.
Mr. BALL. How long was it after you heard the shots?
Mr. MOLINA. Oh, I would venture to say maybe 20 or 30 seconds afterwards.

Frazier was also standing on that landing in the minute or so after the shooting when Truly/Baker are said to have arrived.  He surely would have seen BAKER running and Truly come join him... but

Mr. BALL - And before you went back into the Building no police officer came up the steps and into the building?
Mr. FRAZIER - Not that I know. They could walk by the way and I was standing there talking to somebody else and didn't see it.
Mr. BALL - Did anybody say anything about what had happened, did you hear anybody say anything about the President had been shot?.
FRAZIER - Yes, sir; right before I went back, some girl who had walked down a little bit further where I was standing on the steps, and somebody come back and said somebody had shot President Kennedy.
Mr. BALL - Do you know who it was who told you that?
Mr. FRAZIER - Sir?
Mr. BALL - Do you know who the girl was who told you that?
Mr. FRAZIER - She didn't tell me right directly but she just came back and more or less in a low kind of hollering she just told several people.
Mr. BALL - Then you went back into the Building, did you?
Mr. FRAZIER - Right.

 

Mr. SHELLEY - We ran out on the island while some of the people that were out watching it from our building were walking back and we turned around and we saw an officer and Truly.
Mr. BALL - And Truly?
Mr. SHELLEY - Yes.
Mr. BALL - Did you see them go into the building?
Mr. SHELLEY - No; we didn't watch that long but they were at the first step like they were fixin' to go in.

The films cut off as BAKER reaches the Stairs and can appear as if he is moving across the stairs rather than up... but the available images don't provide conclusive evidence imo.  The red covers BAKER's helmet

 

 

[Pat Speer]

FWIW, it's not surprising at all that people looking out onto a busy street while trying to figure out what happened to the president would fail to notice the people running past them. In fact it's to be expected. We don't see everything in front of us. Oh sure, our eyes see it. But our minds do not. I think by now we've all seen that experiment where some students pass a basketball around, rapidly, while others attempt to count how many passes are made, and where those counting have little or no recollection of a man running onto the scene wearing a gorilla costume, and begging for attention. Well, an officer running by in the chaos after the shooting would be like that gorilla-man. Few would notice. 

P.S. This cuts both ways, for that matter. While much has been made of no one's remembering a stranger in the building, people were so focused on what was happening down the street that Al Capone could have strolled in or out, without anyone's noticing. We know, for example, that at least three members of the media rushed into the building within a minute or two of the shooting. How many TSBD employees noticed their comings and goings? I don't recall any, outside Oswald, who said he led one to a phone. 

Edited September 23, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Sandy Larsen]

16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Oh my. I did a detailed study of the statements regarding the comings and goings of the TSBD that is light years ahead of the nonsense cooked up by anyone else. Period.

 

If in addition you had studied the first-day statements, and the stabilized Wiegman/Darnell film frame-by-frame, and identified Gloria Calvery in that film, you'd know that the stories of Baker, Shelley. and Lovelady changed over time.

BTW, I doubt very much that you've studied this incident anywhere near as much as Bart Kamp has.

 

16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Your scenario necessitates that multiple TSBD employees lied from almost the beginning..to frame Oswald.

 

It's hard to believe that you don't realize that things like that happen in cover-ups. Evidence is altered, testimony is changed, and people are convinced to change their story.

Except that the lies did not occur near the beginning. They changed over time.... something you should know if you studied the statements as much as you say you did.

 

16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

But it's hard to believe you studied the evidence with an open mind.

 

Well you are wrong about that. Yesterday I went back over the numerous related threads I engaged in and created myself, and I see now that I studied this topic intensely for a couple years, and periodically for another couple years. So why did I keep going? Because I was still on the fence. I had an opened mind all right.

I ultimately came down off the fence on the side of the encounter being faked. A couple years later Bart found Hosty's note which said that Oswald's alibi was that he went outside to watch the Presidential Parade. And this proved I was right.

 

16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

If you had [had an opened mind], you'd know that the bulk of the testimony--including that of Shelley and Truly, etc--suggests a scenario at odds with the Oswald-did-it scenario, one not to the Warren Commission's liking.

o
o
o

In short, then, the proposal there was no lunch encounter is .... counter-productive.

 

So what?

What you say here again makes my original point, that all you care about is whether or not any given incident supports conspiracy. Not whether it is true or not. (Shame on you, IMO.)

While what you say here may be true, it's completely irrelevant as to whether or not the second-floor encounter took place.

 

16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

That some believe this encounter .... was a fake because -- because, oh yeah -- there's a blurry image of someone outside the building that .... could be Oswald, .... is an embarrassment to the research community, and a GIANT step backwards. Period.

 

What you say here  epitomizes your ignorance of the second-floor encounter question. The second-floor encounter being fake (part of the cover-up) is proven by numerous anomalies, and not by the Prayer Man frames.

Nobody but you says anything about Prayer Man proving anything.

 

[Pat Speer]

11 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

If in addition you had studied the first-day statements, and the stabilized Wiegman/Darnell film frame-by-frame, and identified Gloria Calvery in that film, you'd know that the stories of Baker, Shelley. and Lovelady changed over time.

BTW, I doubt very much that you've studied this incident anywhere near as much as Bart Kamp has.

 

 

It's hard to believe that you don't realize that things like that happen in cover-ups. Evidence is altered, testimony is changed, and people are convinced to change their story.

Except that the lies did not occur near the beginning. They changed over time.... something you should know if you studied the statements as much as you say you did.

 

 

Well you are wrong about that. Yesterday I went back over the numerous related threads I engaged in and created myself, and I see now that I studied this topic intensely for a couple years, and periodically for another couple years. So why did I keep going? Because I was still on the fence. I had an opened mind all right.

I ultimately came down off the fence on the side of the encounter being faked. A couple years later Bart found Hosty's note which said that Oswald's alibi was that he went outside to watch the Presidential Parade. And this proved I was right.

 

 

So what?

What you say here again makes my original point, that all you care about is whether or not any given incident supports conspiracy. Not whether it is true or not. (Shame on you, IMO.)

While what you say here may be true, it's completely irrelevant as to whether or not the second-floor encounter took place.

 

 

What you say here  epitomizes your ignorance of the second-floor encounter question. The second-floor encounter being fake (part of the cover-up) is proven by numerous anomalies, and not by the Prayer Man frames.

Nobody but you says anything about Prayer Man proving anything.

 

Yikes. 

1. You expect people to believe that a conspiracy was launched to change testimony and fake evidence...to show that a single-shooter was likely...but that these brilliant masterminds somehow screwed up and changed the testimony and faked the evidence to suggest Oswald's innocence. That's ludicrous. Now, if you wanna join with the LNers and claim the official testimony and official evidence all point to Oswald's guilt, that's fine, go at it. But trying to have it both ways (the evidence is fake even when it points to Oswald's innocence) is silly in the extreme. 

2. You forget that I was there at the beginning of the Prayer Man religion. I encouraged it at first but soon became alarmed when I saw how desperate some were to believe--so desperate they would say the blurry figure is Oswald and couldn't possibly be anyone else and so on. I then saw this religion expand to embrace a whole new understanding of what happened in the TSBD--one where witnesses whose statements were largely helpful to Oswald's innocence were transformed into parts of the conspiracy or knowing XXXXX. It was to me a train wreck in slow motion. After watching this develop I was able to relate to some of the early researchers and their disgust when JFK research turned to Greer did it  or Hickey did it or Files did it or there were two Oswalds or the Z-film is fake, etc. The outlandish theories suck all the air out of the room. While he undoubtedly views me as part of the problem, I must acknowledge Cliff Varnell has a point--the case for Oswald's innocence will go nowhere but down in the polling and get a thumbs down by future generations unless the research community focuses on a few facts, and the "fact" that "Well, we think maybe Oswald was outside at the time of the shooing even though no one saw him and he had plenty of opportunity to tell the press he was outside before he was killed" isn't one of those facts. In fact, it's a needless distraction. 

[Roger Odisio]

11 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Yikes. 

1. You expect people to believe that a conspiracy was launched to change testimony and fake evidence...to show that a single-shooter was likely...but that these brilliant masterminds somehow screwed up and changed the testimony and faked the evidence to suggest Oswald's innocence. That's ludicrous. Now, if you wanna join with the LNers and claim the official testimony and official evidence all point to Oswald's guilt, that's fine, go at it. But trying to have it both ways (the evidence is fake even when it points to Oswald's innocence) is silly in the extreme. 

2. You forget that I was there at the beginning of the Prayer Man religion. I encouraged it at first but soon became alarmed when I saw how desperate some were to believe--so desperate they would say the blurry figure is Oswald and couldn't possibly be anyone else and so on. I then saw this religion expand to embrace a whole new understanding of what happened in the TSBD--one where witnesses whose statements were largely helpful to Oswald's innocence were transformed into parts of the conspiracy or knowing XXXXX. It was to me a train wreck in slow motion. After watching this develop I was able to relate to some of the early researchers and their disgust when JFK research turned to Greer did it  or Hickey did it or Files did it or there were two Oswalds or the Z-film is fake, etc. The outlandish theories suck all the air out of the room. While he undoubtedly views me as part of the problem, I must acknowledge Cliff Varnell has a point--the case for Oswald's innocence will go nowhere but down in the polling and get a thumbs down by future generations unless the research community focuses on a few facts, and the "fact" that "Well, we think maybe Oswald was outside at the time of the shooing even though no one saw him and he had plenty of opportunity to tell the press he was outside before he was killed" isn't one of those facts. In fact, it's a needless distraction. 

 

PS:  You expect people to believe that a conspiracy was launched to change testimony and fake evidence...to show that a single-shooter was likely...but that these brilliant masterminds somehow screwed up and changed the testimony and faked the evidence to suggest Oswald's innocence. That's ludicrous. Now, if you wanna join with the LNers and claim the official testimony and official evidence all point to Oswald's guilt, that's fine, go at it. But trying to have it both ways (the evidence is fake even when it points to Oswald's innocence) is silly in the extreme.

 

RO:  The WR version of the 2nd floor encounter does *not* suggest Oswald's innocence. It was concocted for precisely the opposite reason--to buttress the false claim they he came down those stairs after the murder.  A claim that elsewhere you have acknowledged as likely false. Why would you now claim the encounter was done to "suggest Oswald's innocence"?  You know better.

 

On the other hand Greg's version that Oswald ran into Truly and Baker *after* he came back inside after the murder, and was on his way out the back door of the building *is* consistent with Oswald being on the steps at the time of the murder. The two versions should not be conflated.  

 

PS:  While he undoubtedly views me as part of the problem, I must acknowledge Cliff Varnell has a point--the case for Oswald's innocence will go nowhere but down in the polling and get a thumbs down by future generations unless the research community focuses on a few facts, and the "fact" that "Well, we think maybe Oswald was outside at the time of the shooing even though no one saw him and he had plenty of opportunity to tell the press he was outside before he was killed" isn't one of those facts. In fact, it's a needless distraction.

 

RO:  That someone is standing there on the steps in Darnell and Wiegman is a fact. That Oswald in his first interrogation said he was out there is a fact.  How could trying to find out if that figure is Oswald be a "needless distraction"? If it is Oswald it destroys the WR.  Calling it a distraction is a distraction.

[François Carlier]

11 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Yikes. 

[...] so desperate [...] blurry figure [...] It was to me a train wreck in slow motion. [...] The outlandish theories suck all the air out of the room. [...] "Well, we think maybe Oswald was outside at the time of the shooing even though no one saw him and he had plenty of opportunity to tell the press he was outside before he was killed" ... is a needless distraction. 

With his own words, Pat Speer says exactly what I said.
I contend that it is the "conspiracy community" or "the group of researchers who believe that there was a conspiracy to assassinate JFK" that suffers the most from those extreme, outlandish theories that are nonsensical at best. I contend that it's a huge waste of time. First-generation critics (some of whom I personally highly respected), and even second-generation critics would never have sunk so low.
It really makes me sad.

Edited September 24, 2023 by François Carlier

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Roger Odisio said:

 

PS:  You expect people to believe that a conspiracy was launched to change testimony and fake evidence...to show that a single-shooter was likely...but that these brilliant masterminds somehow screwed up and changed the testimony and faked the evidence to suggest Oswald's innocence. That's ludicrous. Now, if you wanna join with the LNers and claim the official testimony and official evidence all point to Oswald's guilt, that's fine, go at it. But trying to have it both ways (the evidence is fake even when it points to Oswald's innocence) is silly in the extreme.

 

RO:  The WR version of the 2nd floor encounter does *not* suggest Oswald's innocence. It was concocted for precisely the opposite reason--to buttress the false claim they he came down those stairs after the murder.  A claim that elsewhere you have acknowledged as likely false. Why would you now claim the encounter was done to "suggest Oswald's innocence"?  You know better.

 

On the other hand Greg's version that Oswald ran into Truly and Baker *after* he came back inside after the murder, and was on his way out the back door of the building *is* consistent with Oswald being on the steps at the time of the murder. The two versions should not be conflated.  

 

PS:  While he undoubtedly views me as part of the problem, I must acknowledge Cliff Varnell has a point--the case for Oswald's innocence will go nowhere but down in the polling and get a thumbs down by future generations unless the research community focuses on a few facts, and the "fact" that "Well, we think maybe Oswald was outside at the time of the shooing even though no one saw him and he had plenty of opportunity to tell the press he was outside before he was killed" isn't one of those facts. In fact, it's a needless distraction.

 

RO:  That someone is standing there on the steps in Darnell and Wiegman is a fact. That Oswald in his first interrogation said he was out there is a fact.  How could trying to find out if that figure is Oswald be a "needless distraction"? If it is Oswald it destroys the WR.  Calling it a distraction is a distraction.

Greetings, Roger. I've been a bit peevish lately, so I hope I don't come across as arrogant as I fear I am. 

1. You say the second-floor encounter was "concocted". This seems ridiculous to anyone outside the Prayer Man bubble. The second-floor encounter has been a cornerstone of CT argument since the beginning. For a number of reasons. First, both Truly and Baker said Oswald did not appear to be sweaty or nervous, which argues against his having just raced down the stairs. And second, his presence in the lunch room, after Adams and Styles ran down the stairs, and before Baker and Truly ran up the stairs, with no one running down the stairs in between (according to Garner), cuts the likelihood he ran down the stairs to almost zero. The lunch room encounter is strong evidence for his innocence. And this in  opposition to the Prayer Man scenario, where his alibi is switched out for his being on the front stairs--which can never be proved, as clear versions of the Prayer Man images have been located that remain too blurry--and where he was observed by no one. It doesn't make sense. it's like setting two birds free to reach for one in the bush. 

2. Your assertion the encounter was concocted to show that Oswald ran down the stairs is also quite silly. The encounter happened on the second floor, and Oswald was not visibly winded or sweaty. From the earliest days, it raised doubts about Oswald's presence on the sixth floor. If "they" had taken the time to concoct a false story proving Oswald ran down the stairs, wouldn't they have put him on a higher floor--say the fourth--and have him running down the stairs past Baker and Truly while saying he heard something happened outside and wanted to see what happened, or some such? I mean, even a child knows how to lie--the dog ate my homework--and doesn't present a scenario at odds with the desired goal--I misplaced my homework and couldn't find it and maybe the dog ate it. 

3. It is not a fact that Oswald said he was on the steps during his first interrogation. It is a slight possibility. That's it. The reports are riddled with errors. Hosty's notes are undoubtedly notes written in preparation of a report a day or so after the shooting. They are not his original notes, according to him, and Hosty himself and common sense dictates that notes are not taken in full sentences. So there's a possibility the notes are accurate, and everyone else lied. And there's a possibility he realized his notes were inaccurate, and that he opted to keep his incorrect recollection out of his report. And there's a third possibility his notes have been misunderstood, and weren't meant to say what so many think they say. In any event, it is sloppy, at best, to say the first of these possibilities is a fact. Here's an analogy. Say a member of the FBI scratched some notes saying George DeMohrenschildt said Oswald said he was going to kill Kennedy, that were discovered years later. Say that the final published report of this FBI agent said that Oswald NEVER said he was going to kill Kennedy. Say, moreover, that this agent wrote a book, and did numerous presentations in which he discussed the case, and always said that DeMohrenschildt said Oswald NEVER discussed killing Kennedy. Which would you believe? What the agent, and many other agents, said--that DeMohrenschildt said Oswald NEVER discussed killing Kennedy. Or would you crawl down a rabbit  hole and assume the agent's unpublished notes were telling the truth and try to figure out WHY everyone has been lying about this? Because, you know, unpublished notes scratched onto a pad are never in error, and are to be trusted beyond everything said and written both before and after...

 

Edited September 24, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Bill Brown]

On 9/22/2023 at 8:44 PM, Pat Speer said:

Oh my. I did a detailed study of the statements regarding the comings and goings of the TSBD that is light years ahead of the nonsense cooked up by anyone else. Period. 

Your scenario necessitates that multiple TSBD employees lied from almost the beginning..to frame Oswald.

But it's hard to believe you studied the evidence with an open mind. 

If you had, you'd know that the bulk of the testimony--including that of Shelley and Truly, etc--suggests a scenario at odds with the Oswald-did-it scenario, one not to the Warren Commission's liking.

1. Oswald did not remain on the sixth floor after his co-workers went down for lunch. 

2. He went down to the ground floor, where he was seen by multiple witnesses. 

3. He had an alibi (and not some pretend alibi). Vickie Adams raced down the stairs just after the shots and did not see him, and her boss saw Baker and Truly run up afterwards. This precludes his racing down the stairs just before the lunchroom encounter. And it gets better. Baker and Truly--two men your theory claims are XXXXX out to get Oswald--said an elevator came down from the upper floors as they ran up after the lunchroom encounter. This puts Oswald in the clear--he was not inside that elevator. NOW, the WC got around this by pretending Jack Dougherty was in that elevator. But an honest examination of the record--a thorough examination--strongly suggests he was not. So who was it? Almost certainly a better suspect than Oswald.

In short, then, the proposal there was no lunch encounter is not only incorrect, it is counter-productive. That some believe this encounter--one of the linchpins suggesting Oswald's innocence--was a fake because...because..oh yeah, there's a blurry image of someone outside the building that doesn't really look like Oswald but gosh darn I, it could be Oswald, and that possibility means we have to rip to shreds anything and anyone that suggests he wasn't outside--is an embarrassment to the research community, and a GIANT step backwards. Period. 

 

 

 

 

Nice post, Pat.

 

But, you claimed Oswald had an alibi.  I say he had no such thing.  What exactly is Oswald's alibi?

 

[Tom Gram]

On 9/23/2023 at 11:31 AM, Pat Speer said:

FWIW, it's not surprising at all that people looking out onto a busy street while trying to figure out what happened to the president would fail to notice the people running past them. In fact it's to be expected. We don't see everything in front of us. Oh sure, our eyes see it. But our minds do not. I think by now we've all seen that experiment where some students pass a basketball around, rapidly, while others attempt to count how many passes are made, and where those counting have little or no recollection of a man running onto the scene wearing a gorilla costume, and begging for attention. Well, an officer running by in the chaos after the shooting would be like that gorilla-man. Few would notice. 

P.S. This cuts both ways, for that matter. While much has been made of no one's remembering a stranger in the building, people were so focused on what was happening down the street that Al Capone could have strolled in or out, without anyone's noticing. We know, for example, that at least three members of the media rushed into the building within a minute or two of the shooting. How many TSBD employees noticed their comings and goings? I don't recall any, outside Oswald, who said he led one to a phone. 

So it’s unthinkable that a group of people standing on the steps could’ve missed a coworker standing behind them in the shadows for a few seconds, but totally normal for them to have all missed a white-helmeted portly cop barreling past them through the doorway with their boss? Am I missing something here? 

[Pat Speer]

4 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

So it’s unthinkable that a group of people standing on the steps could’ve missed a coworker standing behind them in the shadows for a few seconds, but totally normal for them to have all missed a white-helmeted portly cop barreling past them through the doorway with their boss? Am I missing something here? 

That's a valid point, Tom. But I think it's probably apples and oranges. 

A bunch of people in shock looking around trying to figure out what happened down the street would probably not remember the people running around on the street in front of them, and even running past them into the building. 

But this same group of people would probably remember a co-worker's standing with them, especially if they were subsequently told he was somewhere else.

Now, there is the possibility, however remote, that Oswald snuck out on the steps for a few seconds behind the others, and that no one noticed him. But my recollection is that the Prayer Man scenario has him out there for minutes, not seconds. Is that correct?