Prayer Man More Than A Fuzzy Picture

[Greg Doudna]

20 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Greg,

I think your made-up scenario of Oswald going back into the TSBD after the shooting is totally ludicrous. You've got him going up and down stairs and then out the back door for no really good reason (IMO).

Via your scenario, Oswald was ALREADY OUTSIDE THE BUILDING (on the steps, I assume? Or do you have him INSIDE the building, on the 1st floor, at 12:30? You seem to imply that it could have been either). But in either case, why would he possibly want to take a circuitous UP-AND-DOWN route via the two staircases just in order to get outside?! It's incredibly silly.

It's especially ridiculous from the standpoint of Oswald being INVOLVED (in at least SOME peripheral fashion) in a plot to kill JFK, because via such an involvement, Oswald would have no doubt wanted to get away from the scene of the crime as fast as he could....and since he was ALREADY OUTSIDE (if you think he is Prayer Man) or (alternatively) very near the FRONT DOOR on the 1st floor (if you think he took the SE stairs, which are practically right next to the FRONT entrance)....then why the heck wouldn't he just walk out the FRONT DOOR?

Plus, via your scenario, going back INTO the building itself (via the Prayer Man theory) would be mighty risky from LHO's POV too, because he would certainly have to think that the whole building was going to be sealed off very quickly after the shooting by the police (and it was, at about 12:37). So why would he have the slightest desire to go back into the building at all?

And I can't see why he would feel that leaving via the front entrance and being seen by somebody would look any worse (or be any more suspicious) than leaving by the back door. In fact, I can easily argue the opposite---that leaving by the BACK DOOR would look way more "suspicious" to anyone who might catch a glimpse of him than simply walking out the front door and exiting Dealey Plaza.

Sneaking out the back way is always a little more "fishy"-looking to most people, isn't it? In fact, aren't there many CTers who DO believe that one or more of the "real killers" of Kennedy did, indeed, sneak out the back door of the loading dock in order to make their getaway on 11/22?

I'd advise you to try again, Greg. Because your scenario of having Oswald going up and down the various stairs just in order to get out of the building is just laughable.

But, Greg, I do appreciate all the time and effort you have been putting into your very well-written posts in this thread over the last few days. I've enjoyed reading them. But this latest bit about Oswald's totally superfluous post-assassination escapade within the Book Depository is just not the slightest bit believable (IMO) and, frankly, reeks of CTer desperation.

You ask why would Oswald go back in the building to go up one floor, over, and back down at the NW to then exit by the rear. If he already was outside, why not just walk down the front steps and go, if exit was his objective? (under the scenario of if he was Prayer Man, understanding you are not endorsing that, nor for the record am I with certainty)

Nothing wrong with the question David, but before going into mockery mode, consider being a little slower to leap to closure. Per hypothesis (stay with me a moment on this), imagine a frightened, yet at the same time controlled, Oswald hearing the shooting, believing that something was terribly wrong, even suspecting his own life could be in immediate danger, deciding to make an evasive exit and not be tracked in the process. 

Why would such a person possibly want to go back in the building and to the rear of the building rather than leave by the front where he already was? (Those are the only two options for leaving.) 

Just can’t imagine any possible reason above mockery level why someone might go back in first before leaving?

I don’t know why, but I can imagine several non-laughable possibilities.

Maybe he wanted to get his jacket—the gray (that’s the g-r-a-y) jacket described by Buell Frazier as what Oswald wore that morning, which was never found at the TSBD?

Or how about something so mundane as he needed to take a leak or wanted a last pit stop in a restroom.

Or, I don’t know, was there something in a jacket pocket he did not want to leave behind? Or something to do with hiding curtain rods he had brought where they wouldn’t be discovered until he chose to do so in exercise of an alibi? 

Or, perhaps he wanted to step in a restroom just long enough to take off his light-colored, button-down collar maroon shirt, stuff it down the front of his pants, rebuckle his belt, and leave in only a white T-shirt under his jacket. Lest that be considered an outlandish conjecture as to intention, I see no better way to interpret Mrs. Reid’s testimony, which I regard as credible, than that Oswald in fact did exactly that after his encounter with Baker. (Trivia note here, not sure if it means anything, but the Warren Report reconstructed some half minute or so gap in time after Baker left Oswald to the time Oswald walked out past Mrs. Reid.) 

Or, suppose he knew or suspected he was being watched there in the front, perhaps in association with a prearranged getaway vehicle which Oswald’s instincts kicked in to now avoid and evade at all costs. And he wants to go out the back sight unseen to “them”, and chooses his strange means of getting there so as to be less easily tracked inside the building by one of “them” coming in after him specifically. And it is not even necessary that that fear actually have been true, only sufficient uncertainty in Oswald’s mind that he thought there was a risk of that being true.

Any of these factors could prompt Oswald to go back to the domino room where his gray jacket was, and restrooms, at the rear of the building on the first floor, before leaving the TSBD and making an evasive exit. 

And add to that this, going beyond conjecture to arguably probable fact: that Oswald probably did in fact leave by the rear even after he was at the inside front of the building, following the Baker encounter, as witnessed by Pierce Allman near the front doors. The argument for a rear exit in fact of Oswald seems to me strong: no evidence whatever for Oswald leaving at the front despite many cameras and TSBD witnesses out front at least one of which might be expected to have seen him if so. That in itself is a stand-alone argument of some weight in favor of the default only other possibility, exit out the rear. But in this case there is also a witness, Frazier, telling of seeing Oswald’s exit which came from the rear. Frazier did not tell of that originally, true, but I judge it more likely that Frazier was belatedly telling truthful testimony on that than that he later decided to fabricate that for no reason I can think of. 

The point is Oswald did, per good argument, go out the back, taking his gray—as in g-r-a-y—jacket with him, even when he could have gone out more quickly from the front. Therefore it is reasonable that he would intend to go to the domino room and then out the back from there originally in the moments following the shots.

In that light the only remaining question would be, if a domino room and rear exit was intended, why go up the one floor and back down again by the opposite stairwell, as means of getting to the back, instead of walking back on the ground floor. 

Perhaps it was a feint for deflection purposes if anyone was asked “where did he go?” “I saw him go up those SE stairs right there”. Again, Oswald actually did exactly that genre of feint some minutes later, when he purposely stood at a bus stop going north in front of his rooming house on Beckley, the opposite direction of his destination the Texas Theatre to the south—the northbound bus stop where he knew housekeeper Earlene would look and see him and if she were asked which way he left, would point questioners in the opposite direction from the way he really went. 

None of this proves the scenario true as such, but rather goes to the issue of your claim of implausibilities. 

Edited October 7, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

You ask why would Oswald go back in the building to go up one floor, over, and back down at the NW to then exit by the rear. If he already was outside, why not just walk down the front steps and go, if exit was his objective? (under the scenario of if he was Prayer Man, understanding you are not endorsing that, nor for the record am I with certainty)

Nothing wrong with the question David, but before going into mockery mode, consider being a little slower to leap to closure. Per hypothesis (stay with me a moment on this), imagine a frightened, yet at the same time controlled, Oswald hearing the shooting, believing that something was terribly wrong, even suspecting his own life could be in immediate danger, deciding to make an evasive exit and not be tracked in the process. 

Why would such a person possibly want to go back in the building and to the rear of the building rather than leave by the front where he already was? (Those are the only two options for leaving.) 

Just can’t imagine any possible reason above mockery level why someone might go back in first before leaving?

I don’t know why, but I can imagine several non-laughable possibilities.

Maybe he wanted to get his jacket—the gray (that’s the g-r-a-y jacket described by Buell Frazier as what Oswald wore that morning, which was never found at the TSBD)? 

Or how about something so mundane as he needed to take a leak or wanted a last pit stop in a restroom.

Or, I don’t know, was there something in a jacket pocket he did not want to leave behind? Or something to do with hiding curtain rods he had brought where they wouldn’t be discovered until he chose to do so in exercise of an alibi? 

Or, perhaps he wanted to step in a restroom stall just long enough to take off his light-colored, button-down collar maroon shirt, stuff it down the front of his pants, rebuckle his belt, and leave in only a white T-shirt under his jacket. Lest that be considered an outlandish conjecture as to intention, I see no better way to interpret Mrs. Reid’s testimony, which I regard as credible, than that Oswald in fact did exactly that after his encounter with Baker. (Trivia note here, not sure if it means anything, but the Warren Report reconstructed some half minute or so gap in time after Baker left Oswald to the time Oswald walked out past Mrs. Reid.) 

Or, suppose he knew or suspected he was being watched there in the front, perhaps in association with a prearranged getaway vehicle which Oswald’s instincts kicked in to now avoid and evade at all costs. And he wants to go out the back sight unseen to “them”, and chooses his strange means of getting there so as to be less easily tracked inside the building by one of “them” coming in after him specifically. And it is not even necessary that that fear actually have been true, only sufficient uncertainty in Oswald’s mind that he thought there was a risk of that being true.

Any of these factors could prompt Oswald to go back to the domino room where his gray jacket was, and restrooms, at the rear of the building on the first floor, before leaving the TSBD and making an evasive exit. 

And add to that this, going beyond conjecture to arguably probable fact: that Oswald probably did in fact leave by the rear even after he was at the inside front of the building, following the Baker encounter, as witnessed by Pierce Allman near the front doors. The argument for a rear exit in fact of Oswald seems to me strong: no evidence whatever for Oswald leaving at the front despite many cameras and TSBD witnesses out front at least one of which might be expected to have seen him if so. That in itself is a stand-alone argument of some weight in favor of the default only other possibility, exit out the rear. But in this case there is also a credible witness, Frazier, telling of seeing Oswald’s exit which came from the rear. Frazier did not tell of that originally, true, but I judge it more likely that Frazier was belatedly telling truthful testimony on that than that he later decided to fabricate that for no reason I can think of. 

The point is Oswald did, per good argument, go out the back, taking his gray—as in g-r-a-y—jacket with him, even when he could have gone out more quickly from the front. Therefore it is reasonable he would have intended to get to the domino room and then out the back from there originally in the moments following the shots.

In that light the only remaining question would be, if a domino room and rear exit was intended, why go up the one floor and back down again by the opposite stairwell, as means of getting to the back, instead of walking back on the ground floor. 

Perhaps he wanted the use of a bathroom in privacy for the shirt removal and thought a second floor restroom could be better for that with less chance of being seen taking off his shirt. 

Or it could be a feint for deflection purposes if anyone was asked “where did he go?” “I saw him go up those SE stairs right there”. Again, Oswald actually did exactly that genre of feint at this stage, when he purposely stood at a bus stop going north in front of his rooming house on Beckley, the opposite direction of his destination the Texas Theatre to the south—the northbound bus stop where he knew housekeeper Earlene would look and see him and if she were asked which way he left, would point questioners in the opposite direction from the way he really went. 

None of this proves the scenario true as such, but rather goes to the issue of your claim of implausibilities. 

Thanks, Greg, for your detailed explanation of why you think Lee Harvey Oswald just might have had a desire to go back inside the Book Depository Building after the assassination (even though, via the "Prayer Man Is Oswald" theory, he was already outside when the shooting occurred).

You, of course, surely already know all the problems with your scenario which has Oswald possibly going back inside the building in order to get his "gray" jacket. The main problem there, of course, being that Earlene Roberts said that when Oswald came rushing into the Beckley roominghouse shortly after the assassination, he was not wearing any jacket. In her Warren Commission testimony, Mrs. Roberts said:

"He [LHO] went to his room and he was in his shirt sleeves but I couldn't tell you whether it was a long-sleeved shirt or what color it was or nothing, and he got a jacket and put it on---it was kind of a zipper jacket."

And there's also the testimony of Mary Bledsoe, who saw Oswald during the brief time when both she and Lee were on Cecil McWatters' bus on Elm Street on Nov. 22. Bledsoe is clearly a witness who aligns with Earlene Roberts' observations of Oswald not wearing any jacket between the hours of 12:30 PM and 1:00 PM CST on 11/22/63.

You can always resort to using cab driver William Whaley to support a proposed claim that Oswald was, indeed, wearing a jacket of some kind just after he left the TSBD. You can even utilize Whaley to try and support the very weird idea that Oswald was wearing a total of "two jackets" when he was riding next to Whaley in his taxicab on Nov. 22.

But if you choose to use Whaley's testimony, you'll then have to wonder why neither of those other witnesses (Bledsoe and Roberts) saw the jacket(s) that Mr. Whaley said he saw Oswald wearing. ~shrug~

Another one of your "possibilities" (to potentially explain why LHO would want to go back into the TSBD after the shooting) is based on something that is unquestionably a lie that was told by Lee Oswald --- the "curtain rods" story. So Oswald, quite obviously, could not possibly have wanted to go back into the Depository to retrieve any curtain rods, since those "rods" only existed in Oswald's made-up story that he fabricated for Buell Wesley Frazier's benefit.

I, of course, have an advantage over conspiracy theorists like Gregory Doudna, in that I don't need to concoct all kinds of cloak-and-dagger scenarios to explain Lee Oswald's behavior on November 22nd. And that's because I'm confident of the following fact (beyond all reasonable doubt):

 

Edited October 7, 2023 by David Von Pein

[James DiEugenio]

One of the things that Bart gets across is how weak the case was at the end of the day on Friday.

I mean what did the DPD have on the JFK case?

This is why Leavelle said to Calloway he had to come though for them on Tippit.

[Marcus Fuller]

Hey guys, new to the forum and this book is the first one I've read regarding the JFK subject. Not been looking into the subject long either so please excuse my ignorance.

Personally I found the book very helpful and it certainly seemed to clear up a few of the misconceptions I had. From what I understand Oswald went out on the front steps to 'see what all the commotion was about'. He bumped into Baker and Truly between the outside front doors and the inner ones (a foyer?) and then spoke to someone who had come in to see if they could use the phone. He pointed out to them where it was. That was where Baker stopped him and asked who he was and not on the second floor lunchroom.

 

Looking forward to learning from you all  

[James DiEugenio]

Yes Marcus, Bart puts through that scenario in his book.

He is one of the many from ROKC that do not think the second floor soda (or no soda)  incident happened.

When I review the book I will list what I think are the four major theorems he puts forth.

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Marcus Fuller said:

Hey guys, new to the forum and this book is the first one I've read regarding the JFK subject. Not been looking into the subject long either so please excuse my ignorance.

Personally I found the book very helpful and it certainly seemed to clear up a few of the misconceptions I had. From what I understand Oswald went out on the front steps to 'see what all the commotion was about'. He bumped into Baker and Truly between the outside front doors and the inner ones (a foyer?) and then spoke to someone who had come in to see if they could use the phone. He pointed out to them where it was. That was where Baker stopped him and asked who he was and not on the second floor lunchroom.

 

Looking forward to learning from you all  

Each to his own.

Truly and Baker gave same day affidavits they ran into LHO in the second-floor lunchroom. Nether ever changed their story.

Not one witness ever said something like, "As shots rang out, I turned around and saw LHO standing beside me," or something to that effect. 

LHO was invisible during the the JFKA. No one saw him anywhere. 

LHO was obviously not on the sidewalk or anywhere he could have been clearly photographed, nor did he convivially gather with a clutch of other employees to watch the motorcade who subsequently attested to his presence. 

This does not mean LHO was in the Sixth floor window at the moments of the JFKA, although I think he was. 

(My pet theory is LHO was shooting to miss as part of a false flag op to be blamed on Cuba, but others shot for real). 

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

To return to the photographic side of the Prayer Man debate for a moment, I think there are reasons to be optimistic about what we might find in the original Darnell and Wiegman films, if they ever become available.

Back on page 18, Pat Speer writes:

Quote

I feel certain there is a zero chance of clarifying the Prayer man images to the point one can make a convincing positive identification. There just aren't enough pixels.

Firstly, as Jean-Paul has pointed out, pixels aren't essential: projecting the original films may well reveal at least as much information as a digital scan would reveal.

Secondly, although the number of pixels is one factor in determining the amount of useful detail in a digital copy of a film, it isn't the only factor. There's also the tonal range of the original film: the whiteness of the white, the blackness of the black, and the number of distinct shades of grey in between those extremes.

We can safely assume that the 16mm monochrome films used by Darnell and Wiegman were of professional quality. Both films appear to have been correctly exposed and professionally developed. Provided that the 60-year-old films haven't deteriorated too much, they will contain a wider tonal range than can be reproduced on a computer monitor, and a much wider tonal range than is visible on the existing online versions of the Prayer Man frames.

An area that appears white in an existing Prayer Man digital image is likely to be rendered in both the original film and a good-quality scan of that film as white plus shades of very light grey. Likewise, the darkest areas in the existing images may well be black plus shades of very dark grey in the original and the scan. More importantly, blocks of medium grey would be a series of smaller blocks of variably lighter or darker shades of grey. Greater variation in shades of grey equates to greater visible detail.

To illustrate why the number of pixels isn't the only factor, let's assume for the sake of argument that we have two digital versions of the same Darnell frame. In each version, the Prayer Man figure's face is, let's say, 20 pixels wide. One version is a relatively poor-quality copy like the images currently in circulation, and it contains only, say, five distinct shades in total of white, grey and black. The other version is a top-quality scan from the original film, and it contains ten shades of white, grey and black. The second version would therefore be capable of showing more detail than the first version, even though both contain the same number of pixels.

Even if a scan of the original films results in the same number of pixels as the existing images, we can expect to see a greater amount of useful detail in the new images, due to the wider range of light and shade in the original films than in the existing copies. Interestingly, one common object that typically contains a wide range of light and shade is the human face, even one that's in shadow.

--

In fact, I'd be surprised if a scan of the original film can't render the Prayer Man figure in many more pixels than there are in the existing digital images. We can make a rough assessment of how many pixels the Prayer Man figure might occupy, given a good-quality scan.

(By the way, I apologise if the following few paragraphs are boring and technical, and I'm happy to be corrected if I've got any of the technical details wrong. I was into film photography years ago, but wouldn't claim to be an expert on this new-fangled digital stuff.)

A 16mm film frame measures approximately 10.25mm x 7.5mm. Apparently, scanning a film with a light sensitivity rating of 100 ISO can reveal detectable detail at a maximum of about 4,000 pixels per inch or 160 pixels per millimetre, which equates to a total of 1650 pixels across the 10.25mm length of a 16mm frame. You could scan the frame at a higher resolution, producing more pixels, but you wouldn't get any more detail than you'd get from 1650 pixels. (All of that is according to someone who gives the impression of knowing what he's talking about: https://www.photo.net/forums/topic/508264-is-scanning-16mm-at-4k5k-too-much/?do=findComment&comment=5363218.)

A film's sensitivity to light is indicated by its ISO or ASA rating. The higher the number, the more sensitive the film is, but the less detail it will record (assuming that all other factors are equal).

That's because the film's sensitivity to light is determined by the size of its light-sensitive silver grains: the larger the grains, the more light each grain will receive. The size of the grains influences the amount of detail that a given area of film can record: the larger the grains, the fewer of them there will be and the less detail will be recorded. For the photographer, the trade-off is that, all other factors being equal, a more sensitive film allows you to choose a faster shutter speed at the cost of capturing less detail; a less sensitive film will capture more detail but will require a slower shutter speed (or a wider aperture, which may reduce the area that's in acceptable focus).

According to Richard Trask, Pictures of the Pain, p.364, Wiegman was using 250 ISO film. I can't find any record of the type of film used by Darnell, but other professionals are known to have used the type of film that Wiegman used. It's reasonable to assume that Darnell, like Wiegman, used film that was more sensitive than 100 ISO, and which, when scanned, would reveal detectable detail at a maximum of less than 160 pixels per mm.

The width of the Prayer Man figure is (very approximately) 0.4mm in a Darnell film frame, and would in theory occupy something like 70 pixels in a good-quality scan of a 100 ISO film. At a rough guess, the Prayer Man figure might be something like 50 pixels wide in a scan of the type of film Darnell probably used.

Would a 50-pixel-wide image contain enough detail to reveal the facial features of the Prayer Man figure, or the pattern of his shirt? Assuming that the films are still in a reasonable condition, I'd be very surprised if a top-quality scan of a professional-quality film doesn't show noticeably more detail of light and shade, even in a tiny area the size of the Prayer Man figure, than we can see in the existing images. The figure's face might realistically be less than 20 pixels wide, but if those pixels represent a sufficient tonal range, the figure could easily be identifiable.

--

Pat continues:

Quote

A 16 mm film taken from a moving car is not gonna have a clear image of someone a hundred feet away.

Although the car was moving, Darnell's camera was static in relation to the Prayer Man figure for several frames.

Darnell panned from left to right until the TSBD doorway was fully in view, then began to pan from right to left. In between the two movements, the camera was in effect static.

There are at least two frames in which the Prayer Man figure appears not to move in relation to the edges of the image, and a further two or three frames either side of these in which it moves very little. In most of these frames, there should be very little blurring due to motion.

There should also be little, if any, blurring due to focus. I can't find any details of the camera Darnell used, but Wiegman's camera, a type used by other professionals, was equipped with three fixed focal-length lenses, each of which is likely to have been focussed on infinity for convenience and which would have kept everything in acceptable focus beyond a short distance from the camera. A figure 100 feet away would certainly have been in acceptable focus.

Thus, there ought to exist several frames, at least in the Darnell film, in which the Prayer Man figure is static and in focus. A third factor that would affect the quality of an image is its exposure, and it's clear that both films were correctly exposed, which means they are very likely to have a wider tonal range, and hence contain more detail of light and shade, than any of the existing online versions.

I don't think it's unreasonable to claim that a good-quality scan of the clearer frames will probably be capable of revealing definitively whether or not the Prayer Man figure is Oswald, and whether, as a result, the lone-nut theory and a number of conspiracy theories can be permanently discarded.

Some of the other figures on and near the steps might also become clearly identifiable, which might help to rule out certain TSBD employees if there's any remaining ambiguity in the Prayer Man figure.

Of course, even in the unlikely event that the figure turns out not to be Oswald, we should be able to learn something from the scanned frames, perhaps that a TSBD employee's statement about his or her location was inaccurate, or that some random member of the public really did climb the steps, unnoticed, to stand among all those TSBD employees. But there's surely a good chance that a scan will reinforce the documentary and photographic evidence we have at the moment, which indicates that the only plausible candidate is Oswald.

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

To return to the photographic side of the Prayer Man debate for a moment, I think there are reasons to be optimistic about what we might find in the original Darnell and Wiegman films, if they ever become available.

Back on page 18, Pat Speer writes:

Firstly, as Jean-Paul has pointed out, pixels aren't essential: projecting the original films may well reveal at least as much information as a digital scan would reveal.

Secondly, although the number of pixels is one factor in determining the amount of useful detail in a digital copy of a film, it isn't the only factor. There's also the tonal range of the original film: the whiteness of the white, the blackness of the black, and the number of distinct shades of grey in between those extremes.

We can safely assume that the 16mm monochrome films used by Darnell and Wiegman were of professional quality. Both films appear to have been correctly exposed and professionally developed. Provided that the 60-year-old films haven't deteriorated too much, they will contain a wider tonal range than can be reproduced on a computer monitor, and a much wider tonal range than is visible on the existing online versions of the Prayer Man frames.

An area that appears white in an existing Prayer Man digital image is likely to be rendered in both the original film and a good-quality scan of that film as white plus shades of very light grey. Likewise, the darkest areas in the existing images may well be black plus shades of very dark grey in the original and the scan. More importantly, blocks of medium grey would be a series of smaller blocks of variably lighter or darker shades of grey. Greater variation in shades of grey equates to greater visible detail.

To illustrate why the number of pixels isn't the only factor, let's assume for the sake of argument that we have two digital versions of the same Darnell frame. In each version, the Prayer Man figure's face is, let's say, 20 pixels wide. One version is a relatively poor-quality copy like the images currently in circulation, and it contains only, say, five distinct shades in total of white, grey and black. The other version is a top-quality scan from the original film, and it contains ten shades of white, grey and black. The second version would therefore be capable of showing more detail than the first version, even though both contain the same number of pixels.

Even if a scan of the original films results in the same number of pixels as the existing images, we can expect to see a greater amount of useful detail in the new images, due to the wider range of light and shade in the original films than in the existing copies. Interestingly, one common object that typically contains a wide range of light and shade is the human face, even one that's in shadow.

--

In fact, I'd be surprised if a scan of the original film can't render the Prayer Man figure in many more pixels than there are in the existing digital images. We can make a rough assessment of how many pixels the Prayer Man figure might occupy, given a good-quality scan.

(By the way, I apologise if the following few paragraphs are boring and technical, and I'm happy to be corrected if I've got any of the technical details wrong. I was into film photography years ago, but wouldn't claim to be an expert on this new-fangled digital stuff.)

A 16mm film frame measures approximately 10.25mm x 7.5mm. Apparently, scanning a film with a light sensitivity rating of 100 ISO can reveal detectable detail at a maximum of about 4,000 pixels per inch or 160 pixels per millimetre, which equates to a total of 1650 pixels across the 10.25mm length of a 16mm frame. You could scan the frame at a higher resolution, producing more pixels, but you wouldn't get any more detail than you'd get from 1650 pixels. (All of that is according to someone who gives the impression of knowing what he's talking about: https://www.photo.net/forums/topic/508264-is-scanning-16mm-at-4k5k-too-much/?do=findComment&comment=5363218.)

A film's sensitivity to light is indicated by its ISO or ASA rating. The higher the number, the more sensitive the film is, but the less detail it will record (assuming that all other factors are equal).

That's because the film's sensitivity to light is determined by the size of its light-sensitive silver grains: the larger the grains, the more light each grain will receive. The size of the grains influences the amount of detail that a given area of film can record: the larger the grains, the fewer of them there will be and the less detail will be recorded. For the photographer, the trade-off is that, all other factors being equal, a more sensitive film allows you to choose a faster shutter speed at the cost of capturing less detail; a less sensitive film will capture more detail but will require a slower shutter speed (or a wider aperture, which may reduce the area that's in acceptable focus).

According to Richard Trask, Pictures of the Pain, p.364, Wiegman was using 250 ISO film. I can't find any record of the type of film used by Darnell, but other professionals are known to have used the type of film that Wiegman used. It's reasonable to assume that Darnell, like Wiegman, used film that was more sensitive than 100 ISO, and which, when scanned, would reveal detectable detail at a maximum of less than 160 pixels per mm.

The width of the Prayer Man figure is (very approximately) 0.4mm in a Darnell film frame, and would in theory occupy something like 70 pixels in a good-quality scan of a 100 ISO film. At a rough guess, the Prayer Man figure might be something like 50 pixels wide in a scan of the type of film Darnell probably used.

Would a 50-pixel-wide image contain enough detail to reveal the facial features of the Prayer Man figure, or the pattern of his shirt? Assuming that the films are still in a reasonable condition, I'd be very surprised if a top-quality scan of a professional-quality film doesn't show noticeably more detail of light and shade, even in a tiny area the size of the Prayer Man figure, than we can see in the existing images. The figure's face might realistically be less than 20 pixels wide, but if those pixels represent a sufficient tonal range, the figure could easily be identifiable.

--

Pat continues:

Although the car was moving, Darnell's camera was static in relation to the Prayer Man figure for several frames.

Darnell panned from left to right until the TSBD doorway was fully in view, then began to pan from right to left. In between the two movements, the camera was in effect static.

There are at least two frames in which the Prayer Man figure appears not to move in relation to the edges of the image, and a further two or three frames either side of these in which it moves very little. In most of these frames, there should be very little blurring due to motion.

There should also be little, if any, blurring due to focus. I can't find any details of the camera Darnell used, but Wiegman's camera, a type used by other professionals, was equipped with three fixed focal-length lenses, each of which is likely to have been focussed on infinity for convenience and which would have kept everything in acceptable focus beyond a short distance from the camera. A figure 100 feet away would certainly have been in acceptable focus.

Thus, there ought to exist several frames, at least in the Darnell film, in which the Prayer Man figure is static and in focus. A third factor that would affect the quality of an image is its exposure, and it's clear that both films were correctly exposed, which means they are very likely to have a wider tonal range, and hence contain more detail of light and shade, than any of the existing online versions.

I don't think it's unreasonable to claim that a good-quality scan of the clearer frames will probably be capable of revealing definitively whether or not the Prayer Man figure is Oswald, and whether, as a result, the lone-nut theory and a number of conspiracy theories can be permanently discarded.

Some of the other figures on and near the steps might also become clearly identifiable, which might help to rule out certain TSBD employees if there's any remaining ambiguity in the Prayer Man figure.

Of course, even in the unlikely event that the figure turns out not to be Oswald, we should be able to learn something from the scanned frames, perhaps that a TSBD employee's statement about his or her location was inaccurate, or that some random member of the public really did climb the steps, unnoticed, to stand among all those TSBD employees. But there's surely a good chance that a scan will reinforce the documentary and photographic evidence we have at the moment, which indicates that the only plausible candidate is Oswald.

I stand by my assessment. I have seen professionally-improved images from first gen films of Prayer Person and, all claims aside, they are nowhere near what would be necessary to make a convincing case. 

As far as your last line, nope. I'd heard this kinda thing so many times I'd assumed someone had ID'ed every other person on the steps. So I asked if someone could show me where Stanton and Sanders can be seen in the films, and received three different answers. Until there is unanimity on the IDs of those in the films, and everyone is accounted for, the probability it is someone other than Oswald can not be discounted. And will be accepted as fact by historians and journalists etc. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, etc. And the current state of the Prayer Man argument is nowhere near where it needs to be to be convincing to those who would need to be convinced. 

Sorry,  I know this makes me a demon. But I really think people need to take a step back.

There is a possibility Oswald was on the front steps at the time of the shooting.

This is supported by a blurry image that may be Oswald, and may be somebody else.

It is also supported by one interpretation of a long dead person's notes on an interview of Oswald--an interpretation that is at odds with the clear-cut statements of this person over a span of decades, and the reports and statements of others present during the interview.

In the numerous public statements made by Oswald in the days before his death, he never said he was outside at the time of the shooting. 

Nor did he say as much in private conversations with his family. 

There is not one eyewitness who said they saw him on the steps, moreover.

There are, however, several witnesses who probably would have seen him should he have been on the steps, who specified that they did not. 

There are also numerous statements placing Oswald elsewhere In the building shortly after the shooting, that those pushing he was on the steps, assume to be orchestrated lies.

Even though these statements, in sum, suggest Oswald's innocence, and were long-cited by the research community as evidence for Oswald's innocence. 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

12 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

I stand by my assessment. I have seen professionally-improved images from first gen films of Prayer Person and, all claims aside, they are nowhere near what would be necessary to make a convincing case. 

As far as your last line, nope. I'd heard this kinda thing so many times I'd assumed someone had ID'ed every other person on the steps. So I asked if someone could show me where Stanton and Sanders can be seen in the films, and received three different answers. Until there is unanimity on the IDs of those in the films, and everyone is accounted for, the probability it is someone other than Oswald can not be discounted. And will be accepted as fact by historians and journalists etc. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, etc. And the current state of the Prayer Man argument is nowhere near where it needs to be to be convincing to those who would need to be convinced. 

Sorry,  I know this makes me a demon. But I really think people need to take a step back.

There is a possibility Oswald was on the front steps at the time of the shooting.

This is supported by a blurry image that may be Oswald, and may be somebody else.

It is also supported by one interpretation of a long dead person's notes on an interview of Oswald--an interpretation that is at odds with the clear-cut statements of this person over a span of decades, and the reports and statements of others present during the interview.

In the numerous public statements made by Oswald in the days before his death, he never said he was outside at the time of the shooting. 

Nor did he say as much in private conversations with his family. 

There is not one eyewitness who said they saw him on the steps, moreover.

There are, however, several witnesses who probably would have seen him should he have been on the steps, who specified that they did not. 

There are also numerous statements placing Oswald elsewhere In the building shortly after the shooting, that those pushing he was on the steps, assume to be orchestrated lies.

Even though these statements, in sum, suggest Oswald's innocence, and were long-cited by the research community as evidence for Oswald's innocence. 

 

I have to say, Pat Speer makes a lot of solid points here. 

There are very solid reasons to believe that a lone gunman, armed with a single-shot bolt action rifle, could not have fired all the shots on 11/22 in such rapid succession. 

That leads to a lot of valid suspicions that the federal government has been covering something up, since if you look at the Z-film the lone gunman tale does not work. 

I do not need to recount the whole autopsy, Warren Commission follies here. 

Then we have the ongoing snuff job on the JFK Records Act by the Puppet-Dictator-in-Chief, which raises even more suspicions. 

But really, LHO was invisible during the JFKA. Then he went home and got a revolver. And decided to watch a movie in the afternoon that the US President was shot dead? 

IMHO, LHO was a patsy, but he was involved in something that day. LHO was likely a CIA asset. And elements of the CIA likely are involved in the JFKA. 

And there were multiple witnesses of someone pointing a rifle and firing out of the Sixth Floor of the TSBD.

OK, how did that person or persons leave the TSBD without anyone seeing them? 

 

 

 

[Roger Odisio]

On 10/6/2023 at 3:44 PM, Greg Doudna said:

No, not motivated concerning regarding the Baker/Oswald encounter on the 2nd floor as a fact by any reason other than to me it is a fact that it happened as a starting point, because it is a fact.

How to interpret that fact--and how Oswald got there--and why Oswald would be going from inside to outside that door (and not vice versa as in the WR reconstruction) which I regard as a second fact--then needs to be interpreted, and of course interpretations of a fact can be wrong without changing that the fact being interpreted is right. 

The second-floor encounter with Baker is established as fact because of the testimony of three separate credible witnesses: Baker, Truly, and Mrs. Reid--and Mrs. Reid's testimony is highly credible from practically the first hour on that (she was a competent supervisor and professional woman and talked about it to coworkers that same afternoon, not simply the next morning on the phone), and her testimony is not impeached by Geneva Hine who is also credible--neither of those two women were lying and it is simply a matter of reconciling their testimonies which is done by Geneva Hine returning to her working area slightly after Oswald had walked by Mrs. Reid, who returned from the front steps slightly before the rest of her coworker women.

I believe it is a mistake to imagine complex scenarios in which two civilian witnesses and a low-level working police officer were all suborned to perjury in coordination with one another as some grand conspiracy-within-a-conspiracy by unseen never-identified handlers coordinating the thing including three sophisticated subornations to perjury.  All I can say is what I think, which is that isn't plausible to me, not how things worked. 

(I am not sure there is a single verified case of direct subornation to perjury in the classic sense of scripting a civilian witness to say a false story, in the entire WC record, which would be extremely serious with legal jeopardy if that ever were to come out in any proven form. I am not talking about tampering with documents or physical evidence, or indirect forms of manipulation, but classic overt direct subornation of perjury in the form of fabrication of a story to be told by a witness under oath, as must be supposed in not one but three cases in harmony with one another in the notion that the second-floor lunchroom encounter never happened--coordinated and accomplished within the space of hours, with not a word leaking out later from any of the suborned witnesses in the decades after, I don't buy it.)

As a distinct issue from whether the Baker/Oswald second-floor encounter is true, I do not think it is helpful to the argument that Prayer Man might have been Oswald to set up a perceived or claimed linkage of the two things. It is not necessary to the case for Prayer Man as Oswald. And it is counterproductive to the case for Prayer Man as Oswald to link it with something that virtually no professional investigator would find convincing.

It is a theory based on citing some discrepancies, I believe at the outset motivated by a perceived contradiction to the Prayer Man Oswald idea, and so a theory was built up of suborned witnesses and rapid development of a false and fabricated story in place by the second day. But it doesn't make sense on plausibility grounds and the requirement to assume unseen handlers micro-managing multiple created and elaborately scripted suborned perjuries, by three witnesses repeatedly under oath, with no evidence of such subornation coming to light then or since.

I see repeatedly claimed that the encounter does not appear in Baker's initial statement, when he clearly did tell of it--he just mistakenly had it happen on "the third or fourth floor" instead of the second. (There is an overstatement of weight compared to Oswald's by ca. 30 pounds which is a little off, but it is more likely that has some explanation (such as simple mistake) other than that Baker was describing some different person somewhere else in the building.) Based on that easy error of which floor, elaborate theories have been developed of a mysterious fourth-floor suspect other than Oswald, when there never was any fourth-floor Baker encounter at gunpoint with another suspect. That was nothing other than what soon became clear was the encounter with Oswald on the second floor. 

And it is commonly claimed Baker never said anything about seeing Oswald in the same room when he was writing out his statement, but he did according to witnesses (and that he did not write in his statement that Oswald was there in the room is best understood in terms of some mundane explanation). 

And the news reports of Ochus Campbell telling of TSBD people having seen Oswald in a storage room on the first floor, either is an inaccurate hearsay report Campbell passed on of the second-floor encounter, or it could be something else, but it does not mean there was no second-floor encounter told by Baker, Truly, and Mrs. Reid. 

It happens that the first fact, of the second-floor Baker/Oswald encounter, is an argument with some weight toward Oswald's innocence for reasons which have long been noted: Oswald was not out of breath according to Baker and Truly; the timing issues (Barry Ernest's work and others); the lack of anyone seeing or hearing Oswald run down the noisy stairs, and so on. Whether that is or is not decisive, there is a second fact which may be: the pneumatic door and angles of vision of Baker meaning Oswald did not go in the door from the stairway as the WR said, but rather was about to go out but did not go out, seen by Baker who followed Oswald back in and accosted him at gunpoint because it looked suspicious. (For the argument establishing what I regard as the second fact that Oswald was coming out, not in, to the second floor area at that door to the NW stairwell, see pages 66-69 of here: https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/T-Jackets-112.pdf.) 

But that second fact--that Oswald cannot have gone in the door from the NW stairwell--destroys the stairway descent idea of Oswald from the 6th floor. I suppose it does not alone categorically prove Oswald's innocence in that, hypothetically, he might still have gotten down to the second floor from the sixth by one of the freight elevators, but no one has claimed that to my knowledge. Unless some scenario of a freight elevator down to the second floor is invoked and shown plausible in a way that the Warren Commission never considered, Oswald didn't come down from above to the second floor where Baker accosted him at all. He either was already there on the second floor or he came up from below from the first in agreement with his claims under interrogation, and either of those exculpates Oswald as the shooter.

(As also the NAA analysis of the paraffin casts and Oswald's mediocre skill in shooting combined with absolute lack of prior practice shooting, even if the rifle on the sixth floor was the rifle which had been in Oswald's possession until Nov 11.)

(I separately think I have established as another fact that Oswald removed that rifle from the Ruth Paine garage on Nov 11 for the apparent purpose of prepping the rifle for a conveyance, and there is no evidence the rifle was returned to that garage or in Oswald's possession after Nov 11 apart from the curtain rod/bag argument which is insubstantial on that point on other grounds. See my papers on the Furniture Mart and the Irving Sport Shop--the second in particular on the Irving Sport Shop--at https://www.scrollery.com/?page_id=1581.)

Barry Ernest brings out additional indications that the Baker/Oswald second-floor encounter was discussed immediately the afternoon of Nov 22, and not a creation of the next day, at: https://thegirlonthestairs.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/the-lunchroom-encounter/. 

How I look at it anyway, thanks for your comments all along Roger. 

There are many facts in this case. But in order to determine Oswald's guilt or innocence, some are more important than others. 

 

You believe the encounter between Oswald, Truly, and Baker on the 2nd floor is a fact.  Let's accept that.  It's a neutral fact, however, in the sense it can support either Oswald's guilt or innocence.

 

To make sense of it, to attempt to resolve questions of guilt or innocence, it therefore must be asked from which direction Oswald arrived.

 

You offered reasons to conclude that Oswald walked up the steps, not down them, and therefore was not on the 6th floor before the encounter shooting JFK. 

 

Your conclusion was reached without even discussing, in this post, what seems to me the most compelling evidence against the WR version--testimony of Adams, and the information provided by Styles, and particularly Garner, that the WC tried to ignore.  It was Garner who remained on the 4th floor after Adams and Styles took off down the stairs and was still there when Truly and Baker reached her.  No Oswald. 

 

Your conclusion contained a qualifier.  Unless, you said, it can be shown Oswald used the elevator instead of the steps, which you thought the WC did not consider.

 

Actually they did.  Barry Ernest posted on his website a timing study done by the FBI of the different ways Oswald could have reached the second floor.  https://thegirlonthestairs.wordpress.com/scribes/  Scroll down.

 

Two agents mapped out 10 possibilities involving the rear and front stairs, the freight elevators, the passenger elevator, or combinations.

 

All of the scenarios involving elevators took longer than similar ones using the stairs, even when an elevator was already on 6th floor and working.  Since Truly & Baker's arrival on the second floor was strictly time limited, the WC thought, the elevator options were discarded even before looking into other problems of their use

 

Your conclusion exculpates Oswald, which is what matters in all of this.  

[Tom Gram]

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I have seen professionally-improved images from first gen films of Prayer Person and, all claims aside, they are nowhere near what would be necessary to make a convincing case. 

So now you have personally seen scans of bona fide first-gen copies of the films? Films plural? Was it the sixth floor museum or are you now admitting participation in the so-called mystery screening? Aren’t those the only two known sources of alleged first-gen copies of Darnell? 

You did say that you are not under NDA, so where can we all see these “professionally-improved” images of PM from first-gen copies of the films?

Edited October 8, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Chris Davidson]

On 10/3/2023 at 2:59 PM, Chris Davidson said:

Perhaps the picture you saw included one of the two red clothed individuals we see here?

https://vimeo.com/870842433?share=copy

The same as we see in Hughes:

[Jean Ceulemans]

23 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

To return to the photographic side of the Prayer Man debate for a moment, I think there are reasons to be optimistic about what we might find in the original Darnell and Wiegman films, if they ever become available.

Back on page 18, Pat Speer writes:

Firstly, as Jean-Paul has pointed out, pixels aren't essential: projecting the original films may well reveal at least as much information as a digital scan would reveal.

Secondly, although the number of pixels is one factor in determining the amount of useful detail in a digital copy of a film, it isn't the only factor. There's also the tonal range of the original film: the whiteness of the white, the blackness of the black, and the number of distinct shades of grey in between those extremes.

We can safely assume that the 16mm monochrome films used by Darnell and Wiegman were of professional quality. Both films appear to have been correctly exposed and professionally developed. Provided that the 60-year-old films haven't deteriorated too much, they will contain a wider tonal range than can be reproduced on a computer monitor, and a much wider tonal range than is visible on the existing online versions of the Prayer Man frames.

An area that appears white in an existing Prayer Man digital image is likely to be rendered in both the original film and a good-quality scan of that film as white plus shades of very light grey. Likewise, the darkest areas in the existing images may well be black plus shades of very dark grey in the original and the scan. More importantly, blocks of medium grey would be a series of smaller blocks of variably lighter or darker shades of grey. Greater variation in shades of grey equates to greater visible detail.

To illustrate why the number of pixels isn't the only factor, let's assume for the sake of argument that we have two digital versions of the same Darnell frame. In each version, the Prayer Man figure's face is, let's say, 20 pixels wide. One version is a relatively poor-quality copy like the images currently in circulation, and it contains only, say, five distinct shades in total of white, grey and black. The other version is a top-quality scan from the original film, and it contains ten shades of white, grey and black. The second version would therefore be capable of showing more detail than the first version, even though both contain the same number of pixels.

Even if a scan of the original films results in the same number of pixels as the existing images, we can expect to see a greater amount of useful detail in the new images, due to the wider range of light and shade in the original films than in the existing copies. Interestingly, one common object that typically contains a wide range of light and shade is the human face, even one that's in shadow.

--

In fact, I'd be surprised if a scan of the original film can't render the Prayer Man figure in many more pixels than there are in the existing digital images. We can make a rough assessment of how many pixels the Prayer Man figure might occupy, given a good-quality scan.

(By the way, I apologise if the following few paragraphs are boring and technical, and I'm happy to be corrected if I've got any of the technical details wrong. I was into film photography years ago, but wouldn't claim to be an expert on this new-fangled digital stuff.)

A 16mm film frame measures approximately 10.25mm x 7.5mm. Apparently, scanning a film with a light sensitivity rating of 100 ISO can reveal detectable detail at a maximum of about 4,000 pixels per inch or 160 pixels per millimetre, which equates to a total of 1650 pixels across the 10.25mm length of a 16mm frame. You could scan the frame at a higher resolution, producing more pixels, but you wouldn't get any more detail than you'd get from 1650 pixels. (All of that is according to someone who gives the impression of knowing what he's talking about: https://www.photo.net/forums/topic/508264-is-scanning-16mm-at-4k5k-too-much/?do=findComment&comment=5363218.)

A film's sensitivity to light is indicated by its ISO or ASA rating. The higher the number, the more sensitive the film is, but the less detail it will record (assuming that all other factors are equal).

That's because the film's sensitivity to light is determined by the size of its light-sensitive silver grains: the larger the grains, the more light each grain will receive. The size of the grains influences the amount of detail that a given area of film can record: the larger the grains, the fewer of them there will be and the less detail will be recorded. For the photographer, the trade-off is that, all other factors being equal, a more sensitive film allows you to choose a faster shutter speed at the cost of capturing less detail; a less sensitive film will capture more detail but will require a slower shutter speed (or a wider aperture, which may reduce the area that's in acceptable focus).

According to Richard Trask, Pictures of the Pain, p.364, Wiegman was using 250 ISO film. I can't find any record of the type of film used by Darnell, but other professionals are known to have used the type of film that Wiegman used. It's reasonable to assume that Darnell, like Wiegman, used film that was more sensitive than 100 ISO, and which, when scanned, would reveal detectable detail at a maximum of less than 160 pixels per mm.

The width of the Prayer Man figure is (very approximately) 0.4mm in a Darnell film frame, and would in theory occupy something like 70 pixels in a good-quality scan of a 100 ISO film. At a rough guess, the Prayer Man figure might be something like 50 pixels wide in a scan of the type of film Darnell probably used.

Would a 50-pixel-wide image contain enough detail to reveal the facial features of the Prayer Man figure, or the pattern of his shirt? Assuming that the films are still in a reasonable condition, I'd be very surprised if a top-quality scan of a professional-quality film doesn't show noticeably more detail of light and shade, even in a tiny area the size of the Prayer Man figure, than we can see in the existing images. The figure's face might realistically be less than 20 pixels wide, but if those pixels represent a sufficient tonal range, the figure could easily be identifiable.

--

Pat continues:

Although the car was moving, Darnell's camera was static in relation to the Prayer Man figure for several frames.

Darnell panned from left to right until the TSBD doorway was fully in view, then began to pan from right to left. In between the two movements, the camera was in effect static.

There are at least two frames in which the Prayer Man figure appears not to move in relation to the edges of the image, and a further two or three frames either side of these in which it moves very little. In most of these frames, there should be very little blurring due to motion.

There should also be little, if any, blurring due to focus. I can't find any details of the camera Darnell used, but Wiegman's camera, a type used by other professionals, was equipped with three fixed focal-length lenses, each of which is likely to have been focussed on infinity for convenience and which would have kept everything in acceptable focus beyond a short distance from the camera. A figure 100 feet away would certainly have been in acceptable focus.

Thus, there ought to exist several frames, at least in the Darnell film, in which the Prayer Man figure is static and in focus. A third factor that would affect the quality of an image is its exposure, and it's clear that both films were correctly exposed, which means they are very likely to have a wider tonal range, and hence contain more detail of light and shade, than any of the existing online versions.

I don't think it's unreasonable to claim that a good-quality scan of the clearer frames will probably be capable of revealing definitively whether or not the Prayer Man figure is Oswald, and whether, as a result, the lone-nut theory and a number of conspiracy theories can be permanently discarded.

Some of the other figures on and near the steps might also become clearly identifiable, which might help to rule out certain TSBD employees if there's any remaining ambiguity in the Prayer Man figure.

Of course, even in the unlikely event that the figure turns out not to be Oswald, we should be able to learn something from the scanned frames, perhaps that a TSBD employee's statement about his or her location was inaccurate, or that some random member of the public really did climb the steps, unnoticed, to stand among all those TSBD employees. But there's surely a good chance that a scan will reinforce the documentary and photographic evidence we have at the moment, which indicates that the only plausible candidate is Oswald.

Thank you for this, I would have a hard time explaining some of that stuff with my limited English.  Even something as simple as a pixel being relative to the viewing device....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 10/6/2023 at 2:50 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Here is a more direct link to the Hoover document Bart closes the book with.  Its pretty interesting.

 

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32263509.pdf

Jim,

Note that Hoover's remarks are in response to a phone call from Nicholas Katzenbach, the acting head of the Justice Department at that moment: ("The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. . . . ")

What's fascinating to me is that Katzenbach's infamous memo, typed up the next day, Monday, November 25, was actually composed in longhand by Katzenbach himself on Sunday very shortly after "Oswald" was murdered.

How do I know that?

Because Harold Weisberg got ahold of it - the original on yellow legal paper in Katzenbach's own handwriting - and he told me so back in the 1990's.

Further, although I can't find it at the moment, Weisberg gave a video interview back in the 1980's in which he displayed that very memo on camera!

The point being that Katzenbach was shaping the "lone-nut" narrative right as soon as "Oswald" was pronounced dead. 

Of course, at that moment, there was not only good reason to suspect a conspiracy in the president's murder, but now overwhelming reason to suspect something much larger was going on: "Oswald" had just been shot on national television!

How could anyone at that moment write a memo arguing that the entire case was now "solved"?

If we can find out who pressured Katzenbach to write that memo (which started the ball rolling to eventually become the Warren Commission), then we will have made very serious progress about who the ultimate sponsors of the assassination were. 

Katzenbach's 11/25/63 typed memo to Bill Moyers (page 29 of this 181 page FBI file):

FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section 18 (maryferrell.org)

 

[Pat Speer]

27 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Jim,

Note that Hoover's remarks are in response to a phone call from Nicholas Katzenbach, the acting head of the Justice Department at that moment: ("The thing I am concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin. . . . ")

What's fascinating to me is that Katzenbach's infamous memo, typed up the next day, Monday, November 25, was actually composed in longhand by Katzenbach himself on Sunday very shortly after "Oswald" was murdered.

How do I know that?

Because Harold Weisberg got ahold of it - the original on yellow legal paper in Katzenbach's own handwriting - and he told me so back in the 1990's.

Further, although I can't find it at the moment, Weisberg gave a video interview back in the 1980's in which he displayed that very memo on camera!

The point being that Katzenbach was shaping the "lone-nut" narrative right as soon as "Oswald" was pronounced dead. 

Of course, at that moment, there was not only good reason to suspect a conspiracy in the president's murder, but now overwhelming reason to suspect something much larger was going on: "Oswald" had just been shot on national television!

How could anyone at that moment write a memo arguing that the entire case was now "solved"?

If we can find out who pressured Katzenbach to write that memo (which started the ball rolling to eventually become the Warren Commission), then we will have made very serious progress about who the ultimate sponsors of the assassination were. 

Katzenbach's 11/25/63 typed memo to Bill Moyers (page 29 of this 181 page FBI file):

FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ File, Section 18 (maryferrell.org)

 

A timeline on the events following Oswald's death proves helpful. 

From Chapter 1 at patspeer.com

At 2:40 PM, in the Executive Office Building, President Johnson met with some of his top advisers. The schedule of this meeting notes that first to arrive were Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and that CIA Director John McCone, Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, and Undersecretary of State George Ball soon followed. The topic of this meeting: the war in Vietnam. Although this meeting lasted less than an hour, it nevertheless marked a significant event in the history of that war, and of the world, as LBJ made it clear he was no JFK and would be willing to stomach what Kennedy had made clear he would not stomach--an increased American involvement in the war. 

It's clear then that, on 11-24-64, within minutes of his predecessor's assassin being assassinated on television, Johnson was moving on to bigger and better things. And he wasn't alone...

At 4:00 PM EST, LBJ aide Walter Jenkins created a memo for the record in which he quoted FBI Director Hoover on the shooting. It reads, in part: "Last night we received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice saying he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald. We at once notified the Chief of Police and he assured us Oswald would be given sufficient protection...However, this was not done...Ruby says no one was associated with him and denies having made the telephone call to our Dallas office last night...he guessed his grief over the killing of his President made him insane. That was a pretty smart move on his part because it might lay the foundation for a plea of insanity later. I dispatched to Dallas one of my top assistants in hope he might stop the Chief of Police and his staff from doing so damned much talking on television. They really did not have a case against Oswald until we gave them our information... Oswald had been saying he wanted John Abt as his lawyer and Abt, with only that kind of evidence, could have turned the case around, I'm afraid. All the talking down there might have required a change of venue...The thing I am most concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin ...We have no information on Ruby that is firm, although there are some rumors of underworld activity in Chicago."

The Katzenbach mentioned by Hoover is Nicholas Katzenbach. Since Robert Kennedy has stepped aside to take care of his family, Katzenbach has assumed his duties as Attorney General.

And yet Katzenbach has expressed no interest in pursuing Kennedy's enemies--those who might have both a reason to kill Kennedy, and a relationship with Ruby. No, strange as it may seem, Katzenbach's primary concern is with the public's attitude towards Oswald. An 11-24-63 internal memo from Alan Belmont to Clyde Tolson of the FBI reflects that "At 4:15 PM Mr. Deloach advised that Katzenbach wanted to put out a statement, 'We are now persuaded that Oswald killed the President, however, the investigation by the Department of Justice and the FBI is continuing." According to Belmont, Deloach was opposed to the idea. In any event, no such statement was issued.

But that didn't stop Katzenbach from trying to rush something, anything, out before the public that might quiet the murmurs of conspiracy. Another Walter Jenkins memo from this date (this one to President Johnson and found in the Johnson Library) reflects that Katzenbach had begun calling up Johnson's allies (such as Congressman Homer Thornberry) and had begun petitioning them to ask the President that something be done. Jenkins reports: "Homer Thornberry called and said substantially as follows: 'I have talked with Nick Katzenbach and he is very concerned that everyone know that Oswald was guilty of the President's assassination. Oswald is dead and the newspapers are wanting to know if he was really the one that killed the President. Katzenbach recommended that consideration be given to appointing a Presidential Commission such as the ex-Supreme Court Justice Whitaker, former Court of Appeals Judge Prettyman and someone like Dewey, to make it non-partisan. The Presidential Commission would then study the evidence and make a finding. Katzenbach thinks this would be much preferable to a Congressional inquiry and I do too.' Homer called back a little later and said Katzenbach called him again to be sure that his message had been delivered and Homer thinks in the light of what all the commentators are saying now, prompt consideration should be given to some action. Homer says that Howard K. Smith and the others are now saying we don't know if Oswald really committed the crime and perhaps we will never know." 

Let's refresh. At the time of his death, Oswald had never confessed. In fact, he'd declared himself a patsy. No one could identify him as the shooter. The paraffin test of his cheek had come up negative. Several witnesses had stated that either shots were fired from someplace other than the school book depository where he worked or that men had raced out of the back of the depository building after the shots had been fired. The films of the assassination had not been studied. The First Lady, the Connallys, and some of the closest witnesses in the motorcade had not been interviewed. No motive for Oswald's purported act had been established. And there was something odd about his trip to Mexico... 

Even so, some of those tasked with investigating Kennedy's killing thought it time to call it quits. Captain Fritz was quoted as saying that, with Oswald's death "the case is cleared." An AP dispatch from this day found in the archives of assassination researcher Harold Weisberg is even more problematic. It reads: "DIST. ATTY. HENRY WADE SAID TODAY THAT HE WILL NOT DIVULGE ANY MORE OF THE EVIDENCE OFFICERS HAVE AGAINST LEE HARVEY OSWALD. OSWALD WAS ACCUSED OF KILLING PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND WAS HIMSELF SLAIN TODAY. POLICE REFERRED ALL SUCH INQUIRIES FOR RELEASE OF EVIDENCE TO WADE. ASKED IF HE WOULD MAKE THE COMPLETE EVIDENCE PUBLIC, WADE SAID: "NO. WE HAD PLENTY OF EVIDENCE TO CONVICT OSWALD. FINGERPRINTS AND EVERYTHING. BUT I'VE TOLD THE POLICE, AND THE POLICE HAVE COOPERATED VERY WELL, THAT THE OSWALD CASE IS MOOT NOW AND WE HAVE TO GET ON WITH THE RUBY CASE." 

Wade's refusal to go through the evidence, and pile even more dirt on the not-yet buried Oswald's corpse, however, was not appreciated by everyone. An 11-24 article by Anthony Lewis, found in the next day's New York Times, headlined "OFFICIALS DISTURBED," and reported "Federal officials, convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy, were considering tonight appropriate ways to let the public see the evidence."

Apparently, one of the ways deemed "appropriate" was to have the Dallas FBI go through the evidence against Oswald for the press, and misrepresent a fact or two. An 11-25 New York Times article recounting the evidence against Oswald reported that the paraffin tests showed "particles of gunpowder from a weapon, probably a rifle, on Oswald's cheek and hands." This, of course, was untrue. The results were negative for Oswald's cheek. Disturbingly, the Times article said this information came from Gordon Shanklin, Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI.

Meanwhile, at Bethesda Naval Hospital, at 5:00 PM EST, Dr. James J. Humes turned in the final draft of the President's autopsy report. He'd concluded, after conferring with Dr. Perry the day before and discovering that a small throat wound had been obliterated by a tracheotomy incision, that one bullet entered the President's back and exited his throat, and that a second bullet entered low on the back of the President's skull, broke into pieces, and exited from the top of the right side of his skull. 

A short time later, during a 5:55 PM EST phone call with Whitney Young, Director of the National Urban League, President Johnson hatched a plan. After Johnson complained "Well, I've got to get this funeral behind me and I've got all these heads of state coming," Young suggested that in his upcoming statements Johnson should "point out that...with the death of President Kennedy...that hate anywhere that goes unchecked doesn't stop just for the week." This got Johnson thinking on ways he could exploit Kennedy's death. He told Young "Dedicate a whole page on Hate... hate international... hate domestic...and just say that this hate that produces inequality, this hate that produces poverty... that's why we've got to have a tax bill... the hate that produces injustice... that's why we've got to have civil rights... it's a cancer that just eats at our national existence." Apparently, the only conspirator Johnson seemed interested in pursuing was hate. 

Not everyone shared his disinterest. Oswald's brother Robert, who'd been taken into protective custody by the Secret Service, along with Oswald's wife, mother, and children, would later relate that in the immediate aftermath of the assassination: "I began to realize there was some difficulty between the Secret Service and the FBI...Gradually the reports and rumors from various sources seemed to fit together. As early as Friday night, I had heard some speculation about the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of the President...On Saturday and Sunday there were rumors in Dallas that the "conspiracy" might involve some Government agency. By Sunday night, I realized that the agency under greatest suspicion was the FBI." (Lee: a Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald by His Brother, published 1967)

Hmmm... Perhaps this suspicion had something to do with Johnson's decision to use the FBI as his private police department. A note from presidential aide Clifton Carter to Johnson on this evening reflects that he'd just spoken to Texas Attoney General Waggoner Carr, and that Carr had expressed a willingness to create a court of inquiry that "could be used to clear up any question about the Oswald case in Dallas. He said the FBI could conduct this hearing through him in any manner they cared to complete the record on Oswald." To this Johnson added: "Good idea, but purely a state matter. Can't say President asked for it." Well, this reveals both Johnson's desire to personally oversee the investigation of Kennedy's death, through the FBI, and his even greater desire to hide this desire from the public.

And this isn't just conjecture. Within Harold Weisberg's Archives, now housed at Hood University, are a number of Dallas FBI documents not initially sent to the National Archives, and never reviewed by the Warren Commission. These documents were provided Weisberg as a result of one of his many Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. Well, one of the documents provided Weisberg, and little noted by others, is an 11-24-63 memo to file by Inspector James Malley. Malley wrote: "At approximately 8:50 PM, this date, Assistant to the Director Belmont advised that the Director has talked to the President again and the President approved the idea that we make a report showing the evidence conclusively tying Oswald in as the assailant of President Kennedy. In addition, the President wants to make a report on the killing today of Oswald by Ruby...The Director stated that the President feels there will be considerable pressure on both of these matters in the next day or so, and consequently desired that both reports be furnished to the Dept. of Justice this Tuesday. The Director noted that this would be a burden, but that we would have to put as many men as possible on at this time." 

Feel free to get suspicious at this time...

Edited October 11, 2023 by Pat Speer