"Oswald, Tippit, and Carl Mather in Oak Cliff"

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I don’t know man. Wes Wise’s original notes from the El Chico on the information he received from “Pate and the mechanic” supposedly just had the Mather license number and “1957 Plymouth 4-Door”. No further description. That’s a heck of a coincidence on the car for it to have been a different car. Someone would’ve had to take the plates off of Mather’s ‘57 Plymouth and put them on another ‘57 Plymouth.

White noticed the make and model of the car - an exact match for Mather’s car - and he got the license plate correct. The “red” detail first pops up in the FBI interviews. If Wise’s notes are authentic, it seems to imply that White and possibly Pate noticed the car model and license number but were paying less attention to the color at the time. 

Wise sure seems to have suspected it was Mather driving the car. His story about Mather basically having a panic attack at dinner seems credible; and Mather’s excuse for his “nervousness” seems like total bs. Wise definitely had the impression that Mather was lying…

Tom I know that is one line of interpretation that has been argued, by William Kelly a long time (but see the 2008 update from Kelly noted below), that the "red" was falsely introduced by the FBI secondarily into the FBI's reporting, not from mechanic White. But a number of reasons argue that does not work. First, the "red" is in the original FBI interview writeups of both Wes Wise and mechanic White. Wes Wise must have known of those FBI interview reports because he followed the case for decades after but never claimed that had been added or wrongly attributed to him, and there are multiple reports of Wise in later interviews confirming "red" was what he had been told originally. Wise's position always was that mechanic White had gotten the red color wrong of the car he saw and Wise even speculated maybe mechanic White had been colorblind as the explanation (in a 1992 interview of Wes Wise by William Kelly, https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2019/04/case-study-no-wes-wise.html).

And second, Wes Wise's program brochure has handwritten on one side the license plate, which he recopied from mechanic White's written note. The "1957 Plymouth" and Carl Mather's address below it are handwritten together by Wise on the other side, and the best interpretation, based on where it is written on that program brochure, is that that was from Wes Wise's notes from his phone call to find the registered owner.

That is, the "1957 Plymouth" written on Wes Wise's brochure was from the phone call Wise made to the Texas public records agency to identify the registration information of the license plate number, the same source of Carl Mather's name and home address written with "1957 Plymouth". The "1957 Plymouth" did not originate from mechanic White or Mack Pate of the garage. It entered the story from the license plate being checked by Wise. 

Mechanic White in his FBI interview was not inconsistent but continued to tell the FBI, just as he had told his boss Mack Pate and reporter Wise, that the car was red, elaborating to the FBI that he thought it may have been a red 1961 Ford Falcon. There has never been a report of Wes Wise or anyone else protesting that mechanic White never told the FBI that or never claimed it was red. Wes Wise confirmed the sequence was: he gave his talk at the El Chico Restaurant; Mack Pate in the audience told after his talk about his mechanic's sighting of a suspicious red car; Pate introduced reporter Wise to mechanic White; mechanic White told of the suspicious car and showed the written license plate number which Wes Wise hand recopied onto his program brochure; Wes Wise made a phone call (auto license registrations were public records according to Wes Wise, anyone could call and get that information) and found out both the car to which that license number was registered (1957 Plymouth) and the name and address of the owner (Carl Mather, street address in Garland), both of which Wes Wise wrote together on his program brochure separately from where he had written the license plate number; Wes Wise notified the FBI, all the same day.

At James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (2008), p. 461 n. 464 appears this footnote: "Mack Pate identified the vehicle T.F. White had spotted in the El Chico parking lot as a 1961 red Falcon in his October 10, 1989, interview with Gary Shaw and Bill Pulte."

All primary and interview accounts have Mack Pate also, not just mechanic White, having said and believing it was a red car and it seems Mack Pate saw the car himself. The language in James Douglass's own 2005 interview of Wes Wise (pp. 294-95), of Pate returning to his garage after lunch, White telling him about the suspicious red car across the street, Pate telling White to keep an eye on it, then White walking across to get the license plate, sounds like Mack Pate also saw the car, which Mack Pate told reporter Wes Wise had been a red car.

In 2012 William Kelly changed from his former interpretation that the "red" originated with an FBi alteration of the story. Kelly replaced it with a reconstruction that the red 1961 Falcon idea was still mistaken but had originated from the garage after all, from owner Mack Pate--because Mack Pate told that when he was told of the suspicious car by his mechanic when he returned from lunch, he, Mack Pate, had immediately thought of a news report he had heard within the previous day of a suspicious red Falcon sighted in Houston in connection with JFK's stop in Houston the previous day (here: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/03/red-1961-ford-falcon.html).

Kelly continued to believe the red was in error and that the car was really the blue 1957 Plymouth of Mather. Kelly does not explain in his update how he interprets the mechanic White FBI interview in which White said the car was red and he thought it was a Ford Falcon, not a blue Plymouth. 

Also, Kelly states or assumes that Mack Pate never saw the car himself (he has to assume that to have the car be a blue Plymouth), but that does not agree with the sequence related by Wes Wise from Mack Pate in which the car was across the street when Mack Pate returned from lunch and mechanic White told him of it. Owner Pate would have looked himself and there is nothing that says he did not.

Finally by Mack Pate's own account it makes sense that the reason he thought of a suspicious red Falcon in Houston is because the suspicious car across the street was red, not a blue Plymouth. If it was a blue Plymouth, why would Pate mentally associate it with a red Falcon in Houston?

Kelly relies on Wes Wise's story, as told to the FBI that day according to his interview report (and by Wes Wise thereafter), that Mack Pate told him of his employee having seen a red 1957 Plymouth. I interpret that as Wes Wise had his story slightly mixed up on that, mixing the two things, the red color of the car told to him by Mack Pate (and probably by mechanic White), and the "1957 Plymouth" he obtained not from them but from the phone call to trace the license plate.

There never was any "red 1957 Plymouth" claim from Mack Pate's garage. There was no "1957 Plymouth" claim from Mack Pate's garage.

When reporter Wise was told the license plates went to Carl Mather's 1957 Plymouth, he did not learn the car color because that was not part of the information he received. Since Wise had been told by Pate and White of the garage that the suspicious car with those plates had been "red", Wise concluded (mistakenly) that the suspicious car he had been told by Mack Pate and mechanic White had been a red 1957 Plymouth. 

But that was erroneous. It was red but not a Plymouth of which mechanic White and Mack Pate of the garage spoke. Mechanic White said so in his FBI interview; it is a fact that the 1957 Plymouth was blue not red; and all parties were consistent from day one through all the decades to follow that the claim at the Mack Pate garage was of a red car, which because of that color was not Carl Mather's car, even though it bore Carl Mather's license plates.

The car was either the red 1961 Ford Falcon mechanic White thought it was or some red car similar in appearance to that model and make, but it was red because both Pate and White said it was unwaveringly, never said otherwise. I do not think the FBI materially fabricated elements in their interviews of Wes Wise or mechanic White. The "red" is established independent of those FBI interviews and it does not make sense that the FBI was doing other than reporting on the "red" and make and model from mechanic White. 

Suppose the red car was a "hot" (stolen) "mob" car and was slated for some use in either the Tippit killing or an intended Oswald killing in the Texas Theatre that day, on a day when Tippit's (and Oswald's) killers had learned Mather was scheduled to meet Oswald in the Theatre at say 3 pm. Suppose a killing of Oswald in that theater had gone forward and a red getaway car was seen and its license plate reported. Mather would have become a false suspect in the Oswald killing (which did not succeed that day). 

Switching license plates, then switching them back after Nov 22, is not so hard to do, even if illegal: just follow the car until it parks and the driver is gone from the car for some errand. All it takes is a few minutes, switch the plates, the driver returns to the car and drives away, never notices. 

Its either mechanic White and his boss Pate wrongly thought a blue 1957 Plymouth was a red 1961 Ford Falcon; there was a mistake in the copying of the license plate number; or the plates were switched. 

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Tom I know that is one line of interpretation that has been argued, by William Kelly a long time (but see the 2008 update from Kelly noted below), that the "red" was falsely introduced by the FBI secondarily into the FBI's reporting, not from mechanic White. But a number of reasons argue that does not work. First, the "red" is in the original FBI interview writeups of both Wes Wise and mechanic White. Wes Wise must have known of those FBI interview reports because he followed the case for decades after but never claimed that had been added or wrongly attributed to him, and there are multiple reports of Wise in later interviews confirming "red" was what he had been told originally. Wise's position always was that mechanic White had gotten the red color wrong of the car he saw and Wise even speculated maybe mechanic White had been colorblind as the explanation (in a 1992 interview of Wes Wise by William Kelly, https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2019/04/case-study-no-wes-wise.html).

And second, Wes Wise's program brochure has handwritten on one side the license plate, which he recopied from mechanic White's written note. The "1957 Plymouth" and Carl Mather's address below it are handwritten together by Wise on the other side, and the best interpretation, based on where it is written on that program brochure, is that that was from Wes Wise's notes from his phone call to find the registered owner.

That is, the "1957 Plymouth" written on Wes Wise's brochure was from the phone call Wise made to the Texas public records agency to identify the registration information of the license plate number, the same source of Carl Mather's name and home address written with "1957 Plymouth". The "1957 Plymouth" did not originate from mechanic White or Mack Pate of the garage. It entered the story from the license plate being checked by Wise. 

Mechanic White in his FBI interview was not inconsistent but continued to tell the FBI, just as he had told his boss Mack Pate and reporter Wise, that the car was red, elaborating to the FBI that he thought it may have been a red 1961 Ford Falcon. There has never been a report of Wes Wise or anyone else protesting that mechanic White never told the FBI that or never claimed it was red. Wes Wise confirmed the sequence was: he gave his talk at the El Chico Restaurant; Mack Pate in the audience told after his talk about his mechanic's sighting of a suspicious red car; Pate introduced reporter Wise to mechanic White; mechanic White told of the suspicious car and showed the written license plate number which Wes Wise hand recopied onto his program brochure; Wes Wise made a phone call (auto license registrations were public records according to Wes Wise, anyone could call and get that information) and found out both the car to which that license number was registered (1957 Plymouth) and the name and address of the owner (Carl Mather, street address in Garland), both of which Wes Wise wrote together on his program brochure separately from where he had written the license plate number; Wes Wise notified the FBI, all the same day.

At James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable (2008), p. 461 n. 464 appears this footnote: "Mack Pate identified the vehicle T.F. White had spotted in the El Chico parking lot as a 1961 red Falcon in his October 10, 1989, interview with Gary Shaw and Bill Pulte."

All primary and interview accounts have Mack Pate also, not just mechanic White, having said and believing it was a red car and it seems Mack Pate saw the car himself. The language in James Douglass's own 2005 interview of Wes Wise (pp. 294-95), of Pate returning to his garage after lunch, White telling him about the suspicious red car across the street, Pate telling White to keep an eye on it, then White walking across to get the license plate, sounds like Mack Pate also saw the car, which Mack Pate told reporter Wes Wise had been a red car.

In 2012 William Kelly changed from his former interpretation that the "red" originated with an FBi alteration of the story. Kelly replaced it with a reconstruction that the red 1961 Falcon idea was still mistaken but had originated from the garage after all, from owner Mack Pate--because Mack Pate told that when he was told of the suspicious car by his mechanic when he returned from lunch, he, Mack Pate, had immediately thought of a news report he had heard within the previous day of a suspicious red Falcon sighted in Houston in connection with JFK's stop in Houston the previous day (here: https://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2012/03/red-1961-ford-falcon.html).

Kelly continued to believe the red was in error and that the car was really the blue 1957 Plymouth of Mather. Kelly does not explain in his update how he interprets the mechanic White FBI interview in which White said the car was red and he thought it was a Ford Falcon, not a blue Plymouth. 

Also, Kelly states or assumes that Mack Pate never saw the car himself (he has to assume that to have the car be a blue Plymouth), but that does not agree with the sequence related by Wes Wise from Mack Pate in which the car was across the street when Mack Pate returned from lunch and mechanic White told him of it. Owner Pate would have looked himself and there is nothing that says he did not.

Finally by Mack Pate's own account it makes sense that the reason he thought of a suspicious red Falcon in Houston is because the suspicious car across the street was red, not a blue Plymouth. If it was a blue Plymouth, why would Pate mentally associate it with a red Falcon in Houston?

Kelly relies on Wes Wise's story, as told to the FBI that day according to his interview report (and by Wes Wise thereafter), that Mack Pate told him of his employee having seen a red 1957 Plymouth. I interpret that as Wes Wise had his story slightly mixed up on that, mixing the two things, the red color of the car told to him by Mack Pate (and probably by mechanic White), and the "1957 Plymouth" he obtained not from them but from the phone call to trace the license plate.

There never was any "red 1957 Plymouth" claim from Mack Pate's garage. There was no "1957 Plymouth" claim from Mack Pate's garage.

When reporter Wise was told the license plates went to Carl Mather's 1957 Plymouth, he did not learn the car color because that was not part of the information he received. Since Wise had been told by Pate and White of the garage that the suspicious car with those plates had been "red", Wise concluded (mistakenly) that the suspicious car he had been told by Mack Pate and mechanic White had been a red 1957 Plymouth. 

But that was erroneous. It was red but not a Plymouth of which mechanic White and Mack Pate of the garage spoke. Mechanic White said so in his FBI interview; it is a fact that the 1957 Plymouth was blue not red; and all parties were consistent from day one through all the decades to follow that the claim at the Mack Pate garage was of a red car, which because of that color was not Carl Mather's car, even though it bore Carl Mather's license plates.

The car was either the red 1961 Ford Falcon mechanic White thought it was or some red car similar in appearance to that model and make, but it was red because both Pate and White said it was unwaveringly, never said otherwise. I do not think the FBI materially fabricated elements in their interviews of Wes Wise or mechanic White. The "red" is established independent of those FBI interviews and it does not make sense that the FBI was doing other than reporting on the "red" and make and model from mechanic White. 

Suppose the red car was a "hot" (stolen) "mob" car and was slated for some use in either the Tippit killing or an intended Oswald killing in the Texas Theatre that day, on a day when Tippit's (and Oswald's) killers had learned Mather was scheduled to meet Oswald in the Theatre at say 3 pm. Suppose a killing of Oswald in that theater had gone forward and a red getaway car was seen and its license plate reported. Mather would have become a false suspect in the Oswald killing (which did not succeed that day). 

Switching license plates, then switching them back after Nov 22, is not so hard to do, even if illegal: just follow the car until it parks and the driver is gone from the car for some errand. All it takes is a few minutes, switch the plates, the driver returns to the car and drives away, never notices. 

Its either mechanic White and his boss Pate wrongly thought a blue 1957 Plymouth was a red 1961 Ford Falcon; there was a mistake in the copying of the license plate number; or the plates were switched. 

Is the brochure the same “piece of paper” that Wise turned over the the HSCA with the Mather plate number and “1957 Plymouth 4-Door” with “no further description”. 

HSCA Report:

https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/lho-arrested-at-texas-theater-nov.-22-24-1963-wes-wise/688777?item=688818

Brochure?:

https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/lho-arrested-at-texas-theater-nov.-22-24-1963-wes-wise/688777?item=688782

Wise supposedly turned over that slip in his 5/11/78 HSCA interview, which isn’t online as far as I can tell. Is the “4-door” detail in the brochure? 

Wise told the committee that he jotted those details down after Pate came up to him and said that his mechanic White, not Pate, had seen the suspicious car. This was 15 years after the fact so not exactly proof, but I think Pate would’ve mentioned if he’d actually seen the car. 

Wise also reported to the FBI specifically that White told him he had seen a red 1957 Plymouth:

https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/lho-arrested-at-texas-theater-nov.-22-24-1963-wes-wise/688777?item=688792

Also, on White’s 12/14 FBI interview concerning a red 1957 Plymouth, White said “he now believes” the car was a ‘61 Falcon, which implies that he did initially believe it was a ‘57 Plymouth, though it could just be an FBI hearsay transcription error. Still though, you’d think that the FBI would’ve reported if White disputed that he’d told Wise about a ‘57 Plymouth. 

Your theory that Wise got the Plymouth info from the license bureau call and not White makes sense, but I’m not totally convinced. White reported the red color to Wise, and it seems logical that he would’ve mentioned what he believed was the make of the car at the same time. 

It also seems odd that Wise would not report accurately what he heard to the FBI. He mentioned the call to the license bureau separately from the information received from White. It’s definitely possible he made a mistake though. 

[Greg Doudna]

Tom G. -- taking the license plate number as the unmistaken hard fact, either it was Mather's blue 1957 Plymouth and Mather there, or someone else in a red car with surreptitiously borrowed license plates from Mather's car singled out for that purpose. Either way cries out for explanation and calls into question the conventional narrative of Tippit and the Texas Theatre. 

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/lho-arrested-at-texas-theater-nov.-22-24-1963-wes-wise/688777?item=688782

Wise supposedly turned over that slip in his 5/11/78 HSCA interview, which isn’t online as far as I can tell. Is the “4-door” detail in the brochure? 

Its right there in that link you gave Tom. Look at the top right corner. There you see " '57 Plymouth " followed by some difficult to decipher lettering. Here is a possibly just slightly better image of the same, page 25 here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Gig-Pi9TEQZWh8obarl2tM8s8mOuLjc/view. The lettering in question may read "Four doors" though the quality is so bad it is difficult to be certain. Take a look and see what you think. The line below is the name Carl Amos Mather and the line below that is Mather's street home address. 

Possibly in favor of the argument that you favor, that it was Mather's blue 1957 Plymouth check this, pp 33-34 at the same link, Moriarty 1978 HSCA interview of Wes Wise: "At this time, his best recollection is that [he] wrote down the tag number + the description of the car at the same time on the same piece of paper (his invitation to speak at the El Chico), but he can't be certain now. This is significant inasmuch as Wise's notes describe a '57 Plymouth---not a red Falcon as previously reported. A 1957 Plymouth is the type of car listed to the tags + was owned by Carl Amos Mather, a friend of J.D. Tippit's + employee of Collins Radio in Richardson, Texas ..."

Against that however, apart from Wes Wise's uncertainty on the point, is that if it were written by Wes Wise from mechanic White's description there should have been a color. But you can look at the sheet of Wes Wise's handwriting (either link above) and there is no color of car there. We know Wes Wise was told verbally that it was a red car. But the lack of written color of car indicates--to me--that the "'57 Plymouth Four door" followed by name and address of the registered owner was Wise copying registration information told him over the phone which did not include color of the car. 

But was "four door" part of what would be included in registration information and not color? I don't know. If not, then that would argue in favor of your 1957 Plymouth coming from mechanic White to Wise that day, notwithstanding that that goes against Wise saying they told him the car was red, and mechanic White himself told the FBI it was a red Ford Falcon.

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

It also seems odd that Wise would not report accurately what he heard to the FBI. He mentioned the call to the license bureau separately from the information received from White. It’s definitely possible he made a mistake though. 

Wise's information came from owner Mack Pate and that seems basically a story of a suspicious red car with a driver his mechanic said looked like Oswald. The mechanic is reluctant to talk but shows Wise the written license plate number. Wise then leaves, makes a phone call and checks the license plate number and learns what car is registered to that license plate and its owner, combines that with the "red" he has been told, reports to the FBI that mechanic White's suspicious car was a red 1957 Plymouth. It was a completely natural and even unconscious conclusion since it probably did not even occur to Wise (as it sounds outlandish to most people) that there could be switching of license plates involved.

It does seem puzzling that neither Mack Pate nor mechanic White would mention to Wise the car was a Ford Falcon in addition to being red, or that Wise would not have asked and tried to find out. And yet Wise reports no memory of being told by them that the car was a Ford Falcon or any particular make of car, but does have memory that he was told by at least Mack Pate that the car was "red". 

Either way--it was either Mather himself with his blue 1957 Plymouth, or a different, non-Mather driver with a red car bearing Mather's license plates--it is just bizarre, and yet if there was no mistake with the license plate number, which there was not, one of those two oddities is correct (and the other incorrect). If the license plate number is correct, what cannot be done is reject both of those alternatives on the grounds that both sound odd. It was one of the two. 

[Greg Doudna]

Thoughts on Vaganov

One hypothetical possibility for identification of the red 1961 Falcon mechanic White said he saw could be Igor Vaganov's 1962 red Thunderbird mistaken by White for a red 1961 Ford Falcon. As has been noted by others, those two makes of cars are similar in appearance and one could imagine one being mistaken for the other.

Vaganov came to Dallas arriving about November 11, 1963 from Philadelphia for reasons not well explained. He and his new 18-year old bride whom he married en route on this trip found an apartment only several blocks from the Texas Theatre and the El Chico Restaurant; and on Nov 22, 1963 he left the apartment and was gone with the car from about 12:45 pm until about 2:20 pm, according to his wife who was there when he left and returned. Vaganov was a bit of a strange character, claimed he had mob connections, used aliases, had a criminal record (fraudulent checks). 

For those not up to speed on Vaganov, here, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16237#relPageId=13, and before that an Esquire article here: https://classic.esquire.com/article/1967/8/1/if-theyve-found-another-assassin-let-them-name-names-and-produce-their-evidence.

But there is nothing substantial, except for three possible things, to connect him to Ruby and/or Craford or the death of Tippit or anything else with the events of Nov 22. The first item that looks suspicious is that his longest time of employment while in Dallas was for two days on Nov 20 and Nov 21 when he said he worked at the Consumer Finance Company on Commerce Street. That happens, by coincidence, to have been located on the second floor of the same building where the Carousel Club was located on the third floor. The same building! His employment there is what he told his wife. Apparently the Consumer Finance Company later failed to confirm that he had worked there from records although that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen. And all his other days from Nov 11 to Nov 22 were unaccounted for apart from he would leave in suit and tie at 7:30 am every morning and his wife did not know where he was during those days. Meaning, hypothetically, he could have spent more time in the building where suspected Tippit gunman Curtis Craford lived, than just two days. 

And the second item is that, just like Curtis Craford, Vaganov too left Dallas on the same morning of Sat Nov 23 to go to a different end of the country. Drove that red Thunderbird by himself straight through to Philadelphia where he parked and garaged it off the street, then bought another car in Philadelphia and drove that other car all the way back to Texas, after spending only ca. 24 hours in Philadelphia to accomplish that. A little odd? Well, he had his reasons when asked. He had a story. It basically hangs together. Jack Ruby had a story too as to why he accidentally without premeditation happened to be in the basement of the Dallas Police station with a gun in his pocket at the right moment to whack Oswald on Sun Nov 24. A lot of people think Jack Ruby's story hung together.

And the third item is a report that six months later (after Vaganov was gone from Dallas shortly after Nov 22), clothing of Vaganov was found by law enforcement in a phone booth in Dallas, no further information. 

Nobody's clothing is abandoned in a phone booth that doesn't call for questioning what that was about. And this is a guy who used aliases and claimed he had mob connections in Pennsylvania; arrived to Oak Cliff from Philadelphia eleven days before the assassination under unusual circumstances; found a place to live within a short walk of the scene of the Tippit killing and the Texas Theatre; hung out in the very building Craford lived in the days immediately prior; has no confirmed alibi between 12:45 and 2:20 pm for him and his red Thunderbird in Oak Cliff on the day in question; and left Dallas after the day of the assassination, after a grand total of eleven days of married life in the greater Dallas area (in Oak Cliff). And he had a red car that could be a candidate for the red car at the El Chico, and some people think he could easily look like Oswald if one had a brief look at him sitting at the driver's wheel of a car.  

Looks like enough to make him a person of interest. But it is well short of proof of anything.

And he did claim an alibi for that hour and a half he was gone from his apartment in Oak Cliff that day. He said he was getting two tires put on his Thunderbird at a gas station around the corner from his apartment, preparatory to what he had told his wife was his intention to drive to Philadelphia on Sat Nov 23. Vaganov claimed he paid for that tire repair with a Texaco credit card, gave his credit card number. The guy who worked at that gas station said he did remember working on some young man's tires that day but could not confirm who it was. Texaco said they were not willing to hunt through their records to check that credit card purchase claim. If he was having tires put on his car, it is a little difficult to connect him to involvement in Tippit or Oswald because how would he know how long it would take to have that work done, pay for it and leave? And would Vaganov have claimed a Texaco credit card purchase, and provided his Texaco credit card number, if there was no such charge on that credit card as claimed?

Another detail: author Berendt of the Esquire article said that Vaganov's Thunderbird was white over red, a two-tone. Berendt said this in passing when focusing on whether it could be the red Ford that Benavides said he saw at the Tippit crime scene. According to Berendt, Benavides said the Ford he saw was white over red, and Berendt said that those colors agreed with Vaganov's Thunderbird. Does that exclude Vaganov's Thunderbird from being the "red" car (no white mentioned) seen by mechanic White at the El Chico Restaurant? 

Probably not, in itself: first, Benavides also just said "red" as the color of the car he saw, in his Warren Commission testimony, indicating calling a white over red two-tone, "red", happened in that case, so could happen in another. And second, I found several errors of simple fact in Berendt's article on other matters, and there is no other claim or corroboration that Vaganov's car had a white top, so it is not entirely clear the Berendt story claim is certainly true. 

An exculpatory argument for Vaganov that has occurred to me is that nobody whacked Vaganov, which if Vaganov had really been involved in something to do with violence to Tippit or Oswald, almost would be half expected. This might be rendered equivocal however if, say, Vaganov was just sent to Dallas by some mobster in Pennsylvania as a favor to another mobster, without telling Vaganov much about what he would be doing but just to be available or something. When the planned hit of Oswald in the Texas Theatre was foiled (for the moment) by the police arrival and arrest of Oswald, whoever was the driver of the red car seen at the El Chico perhaps was not needed or used that day, and let go. If that red car at the El Chico was, say, Vaganov, not being knowledgeable of anything, there would be little necessity to whack him. And Vaganov agreed to accept money to accompany Berendt to Dallas and be the subject of the feature story in Esquire on the question of whether he was involved in the assassination of JFK or death of Tippit, which all else being equal, sounds more like the response of an innocent man rather than one actually guilty.

I don't know what to make of this. I'd say my gut sense at this moment is maybe 55% that he was the driver of the red car at the El Chico following a brief tire installation, and that although he had made contact with Ruby and Craford upon arrival, he, the driver of the red car at the El Chico, was not otherwise involved in the events in Oak Cliff on Nov 22, due to the hit on Oswald intended for that day did not happen. Some mobster back in Philadelphia probably paid him for his troubles anyway, but Vaganov didn't know anything material and nothing further came of it for Vaganov, until people like Fonzi and Salandria and Josiah Thompson in Philadelphia started suspecting he had been involved in the assassination and he became a story.

Which fizzled, from lack of evidence that he had done anything. And the part I love is where people who knew him told how he would tell people over to his apartment that he was the Grassy Knoll shooter and show the Esquire article about him as proof! 

[Ron Ege]

Just curious; assuming at least a young teenager in age, how many males in 1963 do you think would mistake a '61 Ford Falcon for a '62 Ford Thunderbird?

 

1961 Red Ford Falcons 

             

 

 

1962 Red Ford Thunderbird

 

How about mistaking a red '57 Plymouth for either the Thunderbird or the Falcon?

1957 Red (mostly) Plymouths

Or a '57 Blue and White Plymouth for any of 'em?

1957 Blue and White Plymouths

 

 

 

[Greg Doudna]

Ron E., see that stripe on the 1962 Thunderbird? If (if) the car seen by mechanic White was, say, the 1962 Thunderbird of Vaganov, that stripe would have been seen. The 1961 Ford Falcons have a similar stripe, as your photos show. 

But from a check on Google Images--the 1960 Ford Falcons, and the 1962 Ford Falcons, do not have that stripe (although 1963 Ford Falcons do).

Is it possible that stripe on a red 1962 Thunderbird could cause mechanic White to pick 1961 (and not 1960 or 1962) as the year of what he retrospectively thought may have been a red Ford Falcon?

(Or, maybe it was a red 1961 Ford Falcon.)

[Marcus Fuller]

I've just been listening to a talk about the Tippit case by Dr. Donald B. Thomas, from about 2014 I think. He mentioned Carl Mather and as I was unsure of the relevance I googled his name and found this thread.

He said that Carl 'declined' questioning by the HSCA and that the car in question was a 1957 Plymouth Station wagon that was 'Blue over white'. I know next to zero about American vehicles and just as much about this part of the case but figured I'd mention it in case it helps in someway.