Umbrella Man revisited . . .

[Mervyn Hagger]

29 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Precisely.

So, working with the assumption Rosemary wasn't in on the plot, don't we still need to ask why Witt waited years to come forward?  

The prankster had a good time and fooled a lot of people. That is what pranksters do.

[Mervyn Hagger]

50 minutes ago, Leslie Sharp said:

I don't know how you could know with any certainty that Witt's testimony was meant as a Texas-style joke, but setting the excuse aside for the moment, are you interested in pursuing answers to the following specifics related to Umbrella Man and Radio guy?

 

Witt wasn't Umbrella Man but years later he was persuaded to claim that he was?

By whom? For what purpose?

Umbrella Man and Radio Guy appear to be acting in league in some capacity, in contradiction to Witt's testimony?

Radio Guy has been identified as non-Caucasian by many researchers ... but you speculate he may not have been.

If he wasn't, does that change the dynamic between him and UM?

If he was, does that somehow support a "direct capacity" role of Cubans in Dealey?

Could Radio Guy have been French or Algerian? Does his clothing suggest Cuban or European?

If Witt wasn't Umbrella Man, who was?

 

Leslie, pranksters do their own thing when they want to do them. There is 1963 reality and then years later there is a prankster. They are not one and the same.

[Anthony Thorne]

12 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

And what was UM’s role?  Shooter?  Spotter?

I have no idea but the latter seems marginally more likely than the former.

12 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

 

 Why would a perp sit down at the scene of the crime of instead of getting out of there ASAP?

He's a guy with an umbrella, so I have no idea what anyone would charge him with. But anyway, which is more suspicious? A guy running away from the plaza at top speed, or someone sitting there watching everything?

I don't want to dismiss your questions though as I've yet to read a totally convincing explanation as to what UM was doing, and every explanation seems a halfway possible guess.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Cliff, please read what I have written, not what you think I have written.

I wasn’t responding to you.

1 hour ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

My comments have a lot of questions supported by pictures that I took the time to assemble about the 1963 event.

I have not 'bashed' anyone except a Johnny-come-lately prankster who claimed to be the person who was in the 1963 photograph.

I was responding to Leslie’s comment about Rosemary Willis.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Mervyn Hagger]

9 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

I wasn’t responding to you.

I was responding to Leslie’s comment about Rosemary Willis.

Pardon my intrusion.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Anthony Thorne said:

I have no idea but the latter seems marginally more likely than the former.

A spotter works with a shooter, no? 

1 hour ago, Anthony Thorne said:

He's a guy with an umbrella, so I have no idea what anyone would charge him with. But anyway, which is more suspicious? A guy running away from the plaza at top speed, or someone sitting there watching everything?

Black Dog Man seems to have managed it.  Rosemary Willis pointed out this suspicious behavior, not that anything came of it.

1 hour ago, Anthony Thorne said:

I don't want to dismiss your questions though as I've yet to read a totally convincing explanation as to what UM was doing, and every explanation seems a halfway possible guess.

In 2011 I attended a large Occupy Oakland protest.  On my way back to my car I passed a line of TV news vans.  I stopped and put my head inside an open door of a Fox News rig.  I intoned:  “Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?”  I have no idea if there was anyone in the front of the van; or know if anyone got the Dylan reference.  Didn’t matter — I was mightily pleased with myself.  What may have appeared as an empty gesture was satisfying to me.  I have no reason to conclude Witt didn’t make a similar statement with his umbrella.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Cliff Varnell

[Anthony Thorne]

3 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

A spotter works with a shooter, no? 

I've never suggested that they don't.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Anthony Thorne

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Anthony Thorne said:

I've never suggested that they don't.

I’m curious how that would have worked with UM.  Where’s the shooter he was spotting for in this scenario?

[Leslie Sharp]

4 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

I wasn’t responding to you.

I was responding to Leslie’s comment about Rosemary Willis.

Who's on First, What's on Second  . . .  🙂 

To clarify, Cliff, I was agreeing with you that ignoring testimony that doesn't suit a bias while cherry picking testimony to confirm that same bias is ludicrous at this stage.

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, Leslie Sharp said:

Who's on First, What's on Second  . . .  🙂 

To clarify, Cliff, I was agreeing with you that ignoring testimony that doesn't suit a bias while cherry picking testimony to confirm that same bias is ludicrous at this stage.

 

Excellent clarification, Leslie.  

[Anthony Thorne]

54 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

I’m curious how that would have worked with UM.  Where’s the shooter he was spotting for in this scenario?

Where's a potential shooter UM might be spotting for? Great question. I gather there were some people shooting at Kennedy that morning. Possibly that's where the shooter was.

Before you ask me any further questions about UM though, be aware I have no idea who he was or what he was doing, and I used the word 'marginally' above in the same way you could use the word 'mildly' in a sentence, or even just a shrug. So I don't have a lot more discussion to give you in this thread about what UM was up to.

 

[Joe Bauer]

To me it appears that the item referred to as a radio (with antenna ) in the DCM's back pocket and at one point held up to his ear is the key to deciding whether these two guys deserve solid suspicion in the affair. 

Looks like no one can definitively prove there was or was not a radio.

Unless perhaps current day advancement in digital photo analysis might do so?

Outside of the radio proof to a scientific certainty we are left simply with the odd behavior of these guys during and right after the JFK kill shot.

Imo it is very odd that both these men would do something no one else in Dealy Plaza did that day. They both sat down on the same curb, close enough together they could have held each other's hands.

Yet, according to Witt, they didn't know each other at all.

And Witt claimed the man he described as a "negro" said only these words to him ..."They done shot that man."

That is American raised black lingo. Not Latino or Carribean.

The photo of the tall thin DCM walking along the sidewalk with both his hands reaching "far back" around his waist to his backside is also very suspicious.

If the DCM was actually carrying a radio with antenna, Houston, we have a problem. IMO anyways.

 

That is definitely American negro word usage and slang.

Quote

 

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Bulman]

Was Witt a plant?  Chosen, trained for the part?  Let's remember the CIA brought back out of retirement George Joannides from JMWAVE 1963 New Orleans for the HSCA.  Gave him a medal for his work.  

Think about the others related who died, Roselli, 6-7 top 1963 FBI agents, several others.  Is it beyond the pale to think Witt might have fibbed?

[Leslie Sharp]

On 8/12/2023 at 11:38 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Was Witt a plant?  Chosen, trained for the part?  Let's remember the CIA brought back out of retirement George Joannides from JMWAVE 1963 New Orleans for the HSCA.  Gave him a medal for his work.  

Think about the others related who died, Roselli, 6-7 top 1963 FBI agents, several others.  Is it beyond the pale to think Witt might have fibbed?

Was Witt a plant?  Chosen, trained for the part? 

Great questions, Ron.  Why did Witt — hardly a barrel of Texas laughs  — come out of the woodwork? 
 

[Larry Hancock]

If I remember correctly it was Jack White who surfaced Witt - who did not himself "come forward" per se or even voluntarily.  Jack was teaching a course on the assassination at a local college and one of his students mentioned that a fellow he worked with would tell stories, among other things talking about being on Elm street with an umbrella during the assassination.  Jack, being Jack, got a couple of folks together and confronted Witt at work on the story.  Witt was reticent at first but Jack essentially backed him into a corner and Witt began to repeat the story he had been telling and Jack began to repeat it and things went from there.  Gary Shaw was likely involved with this ...surely some of the real "old timers" her recall this better than I do although most are not longer posting on the Ed Forum.  In any event I don't think it was a matter of Witt suddenly coming out on his own and offering information...