Hit List-- The Systematic Murders of JFK Witnesses

[Richard Bertolino]

On 4/20/2024 at 5:20 AM, Richard Bertolino said:

Truly told the FBI that Eddie Piper was the only negro janitor at the TSBD.

 

 

Edited April 25 by Richard Bertolino
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[Richard Bertolino]

On 4/20/2024 at 5:30 AM, Richard Bertolino said:

 

 

Perhaps I should say that I do think Piper is the intended target of the Howard story, but getting into that would be off topic here. Even Thayer Waldo seems to be off topic here, as he was not murdered.

Edited April 25 by Richard Bertolino
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[Bill Simpich]

Richard, Yes, but the focus was on a particular "Negro" who had been picked up previously for gambling - Charles Givens, the only man alleged to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor during lunch hour.  

Let Don Thomas set the stage, and a long look at Roy Truly, Charles Givens and Mike Howard in particular.   I have highlighted in bold below the most important phrases for the busy reader:

To place this incident in proper perspective it is necessary to understand that there were two lunchrooms in the Book Depository. Texas was a part of the deep south and even the Mayor of Dallas acknowledged that the city had a reputation as the “Hate capitol of Dixie.” (WR41) The building superintendent, Roy Truly, told writer William Manchester (Manchester, pp. 132-133),

"Except for my niggers the boys are conservative, like me -- like most Texans."

The domino room.
(Click to enlarge)

Truly further stated that he disliked John F. Kennedy because he was a “race-mixer” (Manchester, pp. 49, 132-133). The main lunch room on the second floor had soft drink and snack machines. The first floor lunch room was used by the minority employees: blacks, Mexican-Americans, a mentally handicapped man, and the depository’s one Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald. Along with unionization, the civil rights movement was a major issue for the American Communist Party in the 1960’s. Because he ate there regularly and because there were only a handful of minority employees in the Book Depository, it would have been easy for Oswald to guess who had eaten lunch there. But on the other hand it would also have been easy for the Warren Commission to determine who actually had or had not eaten their lunch in the Domino room that day and by the process of elimination test Oswald’s alibi. But the Warren Commission knew that such a test was problematic for the official version. That is because another black employee, Charles L. Givens, had seen Oswald eating his lunch there. In a statement given to the FBI a few hours after the assassination, Givens recounted that he had seen Oswald eating his lunch by himself, reading a newspaper, in the first floor lunchroom (CD 5, p. 329 - see also Meagher [1971] for discussion).

Among the false claims made by Bugliosi in his effort to convince us that Oswald shot Kennedy is that he was the only employee to “flee” the Texas School Book Depository following the shooting. The truth is that several employees left the building (affidavits in CE 1381), including the aforementioned Charles Givens. In fact, the Dallas police put out an APB to have Givens picked up for questioning about the shooting.

Givens was the Warren Commission’s star witness. He alone, among all of the witnesses, is supposed to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor of the Book Depository during the lunch hour. But the truth is, contrary to Bugliosi’s account, Givens never testified to the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission flew ninety-four Dallas witnesses to Washington D.C. to testify before them. Yet, Givens, the only witness who could positively identify Oswald and place him at the scene of the crime at or near the time of the shooting, was not among them. Givens was deposed in private in Dallas by a single Warren Commission lawyer.

The problem with Givens’ deposition was spelled out in an article published in the Texas Observer by researcher Sylvia Meagher (Meagher in Texas Observer, 13 August 1971. The issue also contains a rebuttal of sorts by David Belin). Givens did indeed state in April 1964 that he had seen Oswald on the sixth floor at lunchtime on the day of the assassination. Hence, Givens gave two accounts of Oswald’s whereabouts, one in November that tended to corroborate Oswald’s alibi, and a second in April that tended to incriminate him. Yet his statement in November contained no mention of Oswald on the sixth floor, while the statement in April contains a denial that he had seen Oswald elsewhere. It is in that light that the special handling of Givens by the Warren Commission staff is seen as manipulative; that and the fact that the Warren Report contains no mention of Givens’ statement to the FBI. Meagher thus concluded that Givens’ April deposition was false, to which Bugliosi retorts,

“But why would Givens make up such a story? What would be in it for him? The conspiracy theorists don’t expressly say.”

But of course they do expressly say. Meagher pointed out that because of his troubles with the law, reportedly charges of gambling and drug use, Givens, an ex-convict, a black man in a southern town, was vulnerable to pressure from the authorities to support, or at least not contradict, the official line. Moreover, police Lieutenant Jack Revill told the FBI that Givens would change his story for money (CD 735, pp. 296-297).   (Note:  See Mike Howard's story about the unknown African American man, who had been picked up for gambling.)

Bugliosi (Reclaiming History, pp. 822-823) dismisses the account in the FBI report as one that Givens “supposedly” told, implying that the FBI agents report was false. But why would the FBI make up such a story? What could be in it for them? Bugliosi doesn’t expressly say, only arguing that their account must have been “garbled.” But it is Bugliosi’s account of events that is garbled. To contradict the FBI report Bugliosi states,

“Indeed, we can virtually be certain that he [Givens] did not tell the FBI that he saw Oswald around 11:50 a.m. in the domino room on the first floor, or if he did he was incorrect. His testimony to the Warren Commission that he saw Oswald on the fifth floor around that very time is supported by three other witnesses, -- Arce, Lovelady and Williams.”

Aside from the fact that Givens never gave any testimony to the Warren Commission is the fact that Givens stated in his deposition that the encounter with Oswald on the fifth floor took place around 11:30 (CD 5 p. 329), not 11:50. Thus, there is no time contradiction among the accounts, only to Bugliosi’s version of events. Bugliosi exploits the differing time estimates to garble the accounts when it is the sequence of events that is important. In Givens’ accounts, he saw Oswald three separate times over a span of about 25 minutes.

Junior Jarman, Oswald’s direct supervisor, told the FBI that he saw Oswald leave the first floor, boarding one of the freight elevators with his order pad in hand, presumably to fill an order for books, at approximately 11:30 (CD 5, p. 334). Charles Givens was part of a four (not six) man work crew that was laying plywood flooring on the sixth floor that morning. The crew broke for lunch early because the President’s motorcade was expected to pass the building during the noon hour. Although the four varied widely in their guesstimates as to the actual time that they broke for lunch, all four men recounted seeing Oswald on the fifth floor on their way down in the freight elevators, some recalling that Oswald had shouted to them to send one of the elevators back up. This was the last undisputed sighting of Oswald prior to the assassination. The estimated time of this event differed among the work crew from close to 11:30 to close to 12:00, but all agreed that it was before noon. Junior Jarman recalled that the four man crew arrived on the first floor for lunch at 11:45 (police report reprinted in Bonner, p. 286). Bugliosi estimates 11:50.

The front entrance of the Book Depository where Carolyn Arnold reported seeing Oswald minutes before the assassination.
(Click for larger view)

The obvious question is, did Oswald then go up to the sixth floor in accordance with the official mythology, or did he go down to the first floor to eat lunch in accordance with his alibi. Givens was only one of four witnesses who stated that they saw Oswald on the first floor during lunchtime. William Shelley, the supervisor of the floor laying crew testified "I do remember seeing him when I came down to eat lunch about 10 to 12." (6WH328), as did the building's janitor Eddie Piper who said he saw Oswald "just at 12 o'clock." Bugliosi dismisses their accounts by saying that they may have seen Oswald on the first floor but it was probably earlier in the day, ignoring Piper’s statement that he had actually spoken to Oswald about eating lunch (6WH383)! Another important witness was Carolyn Arnold who told the FBI on November 26 that she left the building around 12:15 to go out to lunch with some of the other secretaries. Arriving on the sidewalk in front of the building they found a crowd gathering to await the President. The secretaries decided to join the crowd. While awaiting the President’s passage, Arnold recounted that she looked back through the glass door of the building and saw Oswald. This would have been around five or ten minutes before the assassination. When asked if she was absolutely certain that it was Oswald, she could only respond that she felt it was (CD 5, p. 41) [2]. Subsequently however, Arnold would claim that the FBI had misquoted her and that she had actually seen Oswald on the second floor, not the first (Summers, p.60). It seems more likely that time had eroded her memory and it was she not the FBI agents who had mis-remembered. Psychological studies on eyewitness accounts demonstrate that they become less reliable over time and that witnesses will often revise their accounts to bring them in accord with the accounts of others as if it were their own memories [3]. Hence, the accounts closest to the event before a witness can compare their memories to others that are the most reliable....

...

The Warren Commission could not allow Williams to admit that he was in the snipers nest and still use Givens' deposition to place Oswald at the scene of the crime, and there is a further problem. How did Williams and Givens fail to run into one another, and to the assassin whoever he was, during their time on the sixth floor if the Warren Commission’s version is true - and when exactly was Givens on the sixth floor?

Central to this issue is Givens' concept of time. In the interview with FBI agents Griffen and Odum on the late afternoon of the assassination Givens maintained that the work crew left the sixth floor at about 11:30 to go to lunch (CD 5, p. 329). The other work crew members estimated the time as much later: Lovelady said 11:50; (CD 5, p. 332) Arce thought "5 to twelve;" (6WH364). Williams testified that the crew normally knocked off for lunch about five minutes before noon but on this day because of the motorcade they left about 5 to 10 minutes earlier than usual (3WH167). What is at issue is the time of Givens' return to the sixth floor. Givens' testified,

"Well, I would say it was about 5 minutes to 12, then because it was --" (6WH351)

Commission counsel David Belin cut Given's off before he could explain why he thought it was 5 minutes to 12. Givens claimed that he ate his lunch on the sidewalk out in front of the Book Depository along with Junior Jarman and the other work crew members. Givens said,

"When did I eat lunch? I ate lunch after. Let's see, no; I ate lunch before I went up there, because I stood outside and ate my sandwich standing out there...standing in front of the building." (6WH351)

Furthermore, Givens also testified that before lunch he visited the restroom. If Givens ate his lunch out front before he went up to the sixth floor, then it would seem to have been much later than 11:55 when he went back up into the building. This reconstruction receives corroboration in the statements made to the police by Junior Jarman.

"At about 11:45 a.m. all of the employees who were working on the 6th floor came downstairs and we were all out on the street at about 12:00 o'clock noon. These employees were: Bill Shelley, Charles Givens, Billy Lovelady, Bonnie Ray (last name not known) and a Spanish boy (his name I cannot remember)." (Jarman police report reprinted in Bonner, p. 286)

The Spanish boy was Danny Arce and he also testified that Givens was with them on the sidewalk out front at noontime. (6WH365)

It is further significant that the other black employees, Jarman and Norman, on finishing their lunches decided that they would have a better view of the motorcade from the upper floors of the building and went up to the fifth floor. Was this when Givens also went upstairs, going to the sixth floor to retrieve his cigarettes? In any event, the weight of the evidence is that it was some time after noon that Givens went up to the sixth floor. It is in this context that one must consider the APB for Givens and the resulting questioning by the police and FBI.

The Dallas Police had learned within about an hour of the shooting that Charles Givens had seen the assassin. Inspector Herbert Sawyer put out the APB and is heard to say over the police radio at 1:46 PM,

"We have a man that we would like to have you pass this on to CID to see if we can pick this man up. Charles Douglas Givens, G-I-V-E-N-S. He is a colored male, 37, 6'3", 165 pounds, I.D. # Sheriff Department 37954. He is a porter that worked on this floor up here. He has a police record and he left." (CE 1974, pp. 83-84)

In his testimony, Inspector Sawyer explained the reason for the APB thusly,

"He is the one that had a previous record in the narcotics, and he was supposed to have been a witness to the man being on that floor. He was supposed to have been a witness to Oswald being there...somebody told me that. Somebody came to me with the information. And, again, that particular party, whoever it was, I don't know. I remember that a deputy sheriff came up to me who had been over taking affidavits, that I sent them over there, and he came over from the sheriff's office with a picture and a description of this colored boy and he said that he was supposed to have worked at the Texas Book Depository, and he was the one employee who was missing, or that he was missing from the building. He wasn't accounted for, and that he was suppose to have some information about the man that did the shooting." (6WH321-322)

The "sniper's nest" in the southeast corner of the sixth floor.
(Click to enlarge)

Sawyer’s testimony contains a glaring contradiction. Did the mystery witness really tell Sawyer that Givens had seen Oswald on the floor, or did the witness only say that Givens had seen the assassin? Sawyer's testimony that someone had told him that Givens had seen "Oswald" on the floor is an anachronism if it is supposed to refer to Givens seeing Oswald puttering around on the sixth floor at noon or any other time. Oswald’s job required him to fetch books from the storage on the sixth floor and thus his presence there around noon would not be a cause for suspicion – certainly not justification for Givens to infer that Oswald was the shooter. At the time of Sawyer's broadcast Oswald was not yet connected to the shooting and therefore the fact that someone had seen him on the sixth floor was not yet of significance, as far as anyone knew. Sawyer's inclusion of Oswald's name in his statement renders his testimony as totally inconsistent with the time frame of the radio call. Because of this inconsistency, respected researcher Sylvia Meagher concluded that Sawyer was just plain lying. Oswald became a suspect in the assassination when he was captured at the Texas Movie Theatre at 1:50 p.m. and subsequently identified as an employee of the Book Depository. None of this was established until considerably after Sawyer's radio call, and of course, Sawyer must have been told about Givens some time considerably before he made the APB. But the contradiction disappears if one simply assumes that by the time Sawyer gave his testimony in 1964 he undoubtedly believed that Oswald and the assassin were one and the same, and therefore was speaking the truth as he knew it. But the question remains – did Givens see the assassin, as the mystery witness reported, and if so was it Oswald?

When Givens was subsequently questioned by the police he apparently told them that he did see the assassin. According to the testimony of Lt. Jack Revill,

"I asked him if he had been on the sixth floor...he said, yes, that he had observed Mr. Lee, over by this window...so I turned this Givens individual over to one of our Negro detectives and told him to take him to Captain Fritz for interrogation." (5WH35-36)

Did Givens actually say it was "Mr. Lee" at the window, or like Sawyer, did Revill confound Givens' statement? What exactly did Givens say to the police? A witness to Given’s statement was a secret service agent named Mike Howard. Howard related his account to Fort Worth Star Telegram reporter, Thayer Waldo, on 9 February 1964, apparently unaware that Waldo was a newsman. According to Waldo,

"Mike Howard then explained that the negro witness had been arrested in the past by the Special Services office of the Dallas Police for gambling; and, since he was familiar with that branch of the Dallas Police, he immediately gave himself up to that branch. Mr. Howard alleged that he had visited the negro witness while he was in custody of the Special Services in the Dallas Jail."

Waldo quotes Agent Howard as saying,

"Wait till that old black boy gets up in front of the Warren Commission and tells his story. That will settle everything. Yes, sir. He was right there on the same floor, looking out the next window; and, after the first shot, he looked and saw Oswald, and then he ran. I saw him in the Dallas Police station. He was still the scaredest n I ever seen. I heard him tell the officer, "Man you don't know how fast fast is, because you didn't see me run that day." He said he ran and hid behind the boxes because he was afraid that Oswald would shoot him." (CE 2516)

None of this may be a problem for Mr. Bugliosi, but for those of us who insist on a reliable account of the events that day, the implications are horrendous. If Charles Givens saw Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the president, then why on earth would he not tell the FBI and the Warren Commission? Or if he did not see Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the President why did he claim that he did? Was Givens a pathological liar? If so, then none of his statements should be used as evidence. Alternatively, were Inspector Sawyer, Lt. Revill and Agent Howard lying? In May 1964 the FBI interviewed Agent Howard (CE 2578) who adamantly denied that he had ever told Waldo that Givens had seen the assassin. The FBI then interviewed Waldo (CE 2579) who was equally adamant that Howard had said exactly that. Mark Lane, on retainer with the Oswald family, complained in a letter to the Secret Service that Howard had made up the story and planted it with the press in order to falsely incriminate his client’s son. The larger concern is not that any of these officers were lying – but that they might have been telling the truth. The problem is that Waldo’s version of Howard’s story meshes with the accounts by Revill and Sawyer.

Givens’ deposition is full of holes. He states that after retrieving his jacket he left the building and walked to a parking lot at the corner of Main and Record and was there when the President went by. He further states that he was walking in front of the Record Building when he heard gunfire [6 WCH 351]. At some point he decided to return to work and tried to reenter the book depository but was refused entry by the DPD who by this time had locked down the building. Meanwhile, inside the building the occupants were lined up and questioned by police until, according to Junior Jarman,

"somewhere between two and two-thirty when they turned us loose and told us to go home," (3WH208)

If Givens’ account as given in the deposition is true, then who among the buildings occupants knew that Givens had witnessed anything - and informed Inspector Sawyer of such before 1:46 p.m., the time of the APB?

Inspector Sawyer’s testimony that he was told that Givens had seen the assassin is supported by the physical evidence – the radio tapes. The account by Police Lt. Revill further strongly suggests that Givens did claim to have seen the assassin. One does not have to assume, as did Sylvia Meagher, that Sawyer, Howard and Revill were outright lying. In their minds Oswald and the assassin were one and the same. Thus, when Givens told the FBI that he had seen Oswald in the first floor lunch room and not on the sixth floor, there was no contradiction. Did Givens also tell the FBI that he saw the assassin shooting at the President, but that it wasn’t Oswald – and did the FBI then leave the latter assertion out of their report – just as they left Rowland’s assertion about the black man in the window out of those reports? Or if it was in their report, it would not have been the only instance where the Warren Commission redacted an FBI report before publishing it in their exhibits. The manner in which the Warren Commission’s staff handled the issue is troubling. Givens was deposed in private in an apparent effort to control the record. No effort was made to identify the mystery witness who reported to Sawyer even though it was almost certainly one of the book depository employees and most probably one of Givens’ friends (Bonnie Ray ?). Secret Service Agent Mike Howard was never called to testify. Thayer Waldo did testify to the commission but was not asked about his conversation with Howard.

Police detective Marvin Johnson leaving the TSBD carrying the cigarette package, Dr. Pepper bottle and sack with remains of Bonnie Ray Williams' lunch.
(Click to enlarge)

One further important evidentiary detail is noteworthy. Charles Givens testified that his reason for returning to the sixth floor was to retrieve his cigarettes. Reporters recall that Captain Fritz announced to the press on the night of the assassination that along with the chicken bones and soda bottle, there was a cigarette package next to the sniper's nest window (Sauvage, p. 35; Meagher, p. 39). The report is corroborated by photographs of police Detective Marvin Johnson leaving the Book Depository carrying the lunch bag, the Dr. Pepper Bottle and, a cigarette package [5]. Lee Harvey Oswald did not smoke (9WH244) [6].

 

[Richard Bertolino]

2 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

Richard, Yes, but the focus was on a particular "Negro" who had been picked up previously for gambling - Charles Givens, the only man alleged to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor during lunch hour.  

Let Don Thomas set the stage, and a long look at Roy Truly, Charles Givens and Mike Howard in particular.   I have highlighted in bold below the most important phrases for the busy reader:

To place this incident in proper perspective it is necessary to understand that there were two lunchrooms in the Book Depository. Texas was a part of the deep south and even the Mayor of Dallas acknowledged that the city had a reputation as the “Hate capitol of Dixie.” (WR41) The building superintendent, Roy Truly, told writer William Manchester (Manchester, pp. 132-133),

"Except for my niggers the boys are conservative, like me -- like most Texans."

The domino room.
(Click to enlarge)

Truly further stated that he disliked John F. Kennedy because he was a “race-mixer” (Manchester, pp. 49, 132-133). The main lunch room on the second floor had soft drink and snack machines. The first floor lunch room was used by the minority employees: blacks, Mexican-Americans, a mentally handicapped man, and the depository’s one Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald. Along with unionization, the civil rights movement was a major issue for the American Communist Party in the 1960’s. Because he ate there regularly and because there were only a handful of minority employees in the Book Depository, it would have been easy for Oswald to guess who had eaten lunch there. But on the other hand it would also have been easy for the Warren Commission to determine who actually had or had not eaten their lunch in the Domino room that day and by the process of elimination test Oswald’s alibi. But the Warren Commission knew that such a test was problematic for the official version. That is because another black employee, Charles L. Givens, had seen Oswald eating his lunch there. In a statement given to the FBI a few hours after the assassination, Givens recounted that he had seen Oswald eating his lunch by himself, reading a newspaper, in the first floor lunchroom (CD 5, p. 329 - see also Meagher [1971] for discussion).

Among the false claims made by Bugliosi in his effort to convince us that Oswald shot Kennedy is that he was the only employee to “flee” the Texas School Book Depository following the shooting. The truth is that several employees left the building (affidavits in CE 1381), including the aforementioned Charles Givens. In fact, the Dallas police put out an APB to have Givens picked up for questioning about the shooting.

Givens was the Warren Commission’s star witness. He alone, among all of the witnesses, is supposed to have seen Oswald on the sixth floor of the Book Depository during the lunch hour. But the truth is, contrary to Bugliosi’s account, Givens never testified to the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission flew ninety-four Dallas witnesses to Washington D.C. to testify before them. Yet, Givens, the only witness who could positively identify Oswald and place him at the scene of the crime at or near the time of the shooting, was not among them. Givens was deposed in private in Dallas by a single Warren Commission lawyer.

The problem with Givens’ deposition was spelled out in an article published in the Texas Observer by researcher Sylvia Meagher (Meagher in Texas Observer, 13 August 1971. The issue also contains a rebuttal of sorts by David Belin). Givens did indeed state in April 1964 that he had seen Oswald on the sixth floor at lunchtime on the day of the assassination. Hence, Givens gave two accounts of Oswald’s whereabouts, one in November that tended to corroborate Oswald’s alibi, and a second in April that tended to incriminate him. Yet his statement in November contained no mention of Oswald on the sixth floor, while the statement in April contains a denial that he had seen Oswald elsewhere. It is in that light that the special handling of Givens by the Warren Commission staff is seen as manipulative; that and the fact that the Warren Report contains no mention of Givens’ statement to the FBI. Meagher thus concluded that Givens’ April deposition was false, to which Bugliosi retorts,

“But why would Givens make up such a story? What would be in it for him? The conspiracy theorists don’t expressly say.”

But of course they do expressly say. Meagher pointed out that because of his troubles with the law, reportedly charges of gambling and drug use, Givens, an ex-convict, a black man in a southern town, was vulnerable to pressure from the authorities to support, or at least not contradict, the official line. Moreover, police Lieutenant Jack Revill told the FBI that Givens would change his story for money (CD 735, pp. 296-297).   (Note:  See Mike Howard's story about the unknown African American man, who had been picked up for gambling.)

Bugliosi (Reclaiming History, pp. 822-823) dismisses the account in the FBI report as one that Givens “supposedly” told, implying that the FBI agents report was false. But why would the FBI make up such a story? What could be in it for them? Bugliosi doesn’t expressly say, only arguing that their account must have been “garbled.” But it is Bugliosi’s account of events that is garbled. To contradict the FBI report Bugliosi states,

“Indeed, we can virtually be certain that he [Givens] did not tell the FBI that he saw Oswald around 11:50 a.m. in the domino room on the first floor, or if he did he was incorrect. His testimony to the Warren Commission that he saw Oswald on the fifth floor around that very time is supported by three other witnesses, -- Arce, Lovelady and Williams.”

Aside from the fact that Givens never gave any testimony to the Warren Commission is the fact that Givens stated in his deposition that the encounter with Oswald on the fifth floor took place around 11:30 (CD 5 p. 329), not 11:50. Thus, there is no time contradiction among the accounts, only to Bugliosi’s version of events. Bugliosi exploits the differing time estimates to garble the accounts when it is the sequence of events that is important. In Givens’ accounts, he saw Oswald three separate times over a span of about 25 minutes.

Junior Jarman, Oswald’s direct supervisor, told the FBI that he saw Oswald leave the first floor, boarding one of the freight elevators with his order pad in hand, presumably to fill an order for books, at approximately 11:30 (CD 5, p. 334). Charles Givens was part of a four (not six) man work crew that was laying plywood flooring on the sixth floor that morning. The crew broke for lunch early because the President’s motorcade was expected to pass the building during the noon hour. Although the four varied widely in their guesstimates as to the actual time that they broke for lunch, all four men recounted seeing Oswald on the fifth floor on their way down in the freight elevators, some recalling that Oswald had shouted to them to send one of the elevators back up. This was the last undisputed sighting of Oswald prior to the assassination. The estimated time of this event differed among the work crew from close to 11:30 to close to 12:00, but all agreed that it was before noon. Junior Jarman recalled that the four man crew arrived on the first floor for lunch at 11:45 (police report reprinted in Bonner, p. 286). Bugliosi estimates 11:50.

The front entrance of the Book Depository where Carolyn Arnold reported seeing Oswald minutes before the assassination.
(Click for larger view)

The obvious question is, did Oswald then go up to the sixth floor in accordance with the official mythology, or did he go down to the first floor to eat lunch in accordance with his alibi. Givens was only one of four witnesses who stated that they saw Oswald on the first floor during lunchtime. William Shelley, the supervisor of the floor laying crew testified "I do remember seeing him when I came down to eat lunch about 10 to 12." (6WH328), as did the building's janitor Eddie Piper who said he saw Oswald "just at 12 o'clock." Bugliosi dismisses their accounts by saying that they may have seen Oswald on the first floor but it was probably earlier in the day, ignoring Piper’s statement that he had actually spoken to Oswald about eating lunch (6WH383)! Another important witness was Carolyn Arnold who told the FBI on November 26 that she left the building around 12:15 to go out to lunch with some of the other secretaries. Arriving on the sidewalk in front of the building they found a crowd gathering to await the President. The secretaries decided to join the crowd. While awaiting the President’s passage, Arnold recounted that she looked back through the glass door of the building and saw Oswald. This would have been around five or ten minutes before the assassination. When asked if she was absolutely certain that it was Oswald, she could only respond that she felt it was (CD 5, p. 41) [2]. Subsequently however, Arnold would claim that the FBI had misquoted her and that she had actually seen Oswald on the second floor, not the first (Summers, p.60). It seems more likely that time had eroded her memory and it was she not the FBI agents who had mis-remembered. Psychological studies on eyewitness accounts demonstrate that they become less reliable over time and that witnesses will often revise their accounts to bring them in accord with the accounts of others as if it were their own memories [3]. Hence, the accounts closest to the event before a witness can compare their memories to others that are the most reliable....

...

The Warren Commission could not allow Williams to admit that he was in the snipers nest and still use Givens' deposition to place Oswald at the scene of the crime, and there is a further problem. How did Williams and Givens fail to run into one another, and to the assassin whoever he was, during their time on the sixth floor if the Warren Commission’s version is true - and when exactly was Givens on the sixth floor?

Central to this issue is Givens' concept of time. In the interview with FBI agents Griffen and Odum on the late afternoon of the assassination Givens maintained that the work crew left the sixth floor at about 11:30 to go to lunch (CD 5, p. 329). The other work crew members estimated the time as much later: Lovelady said 11:50; (CD 5, p. 332) Arce thought "5 to twelve;" (6WH364). Williams testified that the crew normally knocked off for lunch about five minutes before noon but on this day because of the motorcade they left about 5 to 10 minutes earlier than usual (3WH167). What is at issue is the time of Givens' return to the sixth floor. Givens' testified,

"Well, I would say it was about 5 minutes to 12, then because it was --" (6WH351)

Commission counsel David Belin cut Given's off before he could explain why he thought it was 5 minutes to 12. Givens claimed that he ate his lunch on the sidewalk out in front of the Book Depository along with Junior Jarman and the other work crew members. Givens said,

"When did I eat lunch? I ate lunch after. Let's see, no; I ate lunch before I went up there, because I stood outside and ate my sandwich standing out there...standing in front of the building." (6WH351)

Furthermore, Givens also testified that before lunch he visited the restroom. If Givens ate his lunch out front before he went up to the sixth floor, then it would seem to have been much later than 11:55 when he went back up into the building. This reconstruction receives corroboration in the statements made to the police by Junior Jarman.

"At about 11:45 a.m. all of the employees who were working on the 6th floor came downstairs and we were all out on the street at about 12:00 o'clock noon. These employees were: Bill Shelley, Charles Givens, Billy Lovelady, Bonnie Ray (last name not known) and a Spanish boy (his name I cannot remember)." (Jarman police report reprinted in Bonner, p. 286)

The Spanish boy was Danny Arce and he also testified that Givens was with them on the sidewalk out front at noontime. (6WH365)

It is further significant that the other black employees, Jarman and Norman, on finishing their lunches decided that they would have a better view of the motorcade from the upper floors of the building and went up to the fifth floor. Was this when Givens also went upstairs, going to the sixth floor to retrieve his cigarettes? In any event, the weight of the evidence is that it was some time after noon that Givens went up to the sixth floor. It is in this context that one must consider the APB for Givens and the resulting questioning by the police and FBI.

The Dallas Police had learned within about an hour of the shooting that Charles Givens had seen the assassin. Inspector Herbert Sawyer put out the APB and is heard to say over the police radio at 1:46 PM,

"We have a man that we would like to have you pass this on to CID to see if we can pick this man up. Charles Douglas Givens, G-I-V-E-N-S. He is a colored male, 37, 6'3", 165 pounds, I.D. # Sheriff Department 37954. He is a porter that worked on this floor up here. He has a police record and he left." (CE 1974, pp. 83-84)

In his testimony, Inspector Sawyer explained the reason for the APB thusly,

"He is the one that had a previous record in the narcotics, and he was supposed to have been a witness to the man being on that floor. He was supposed to have been a witness to Oswald being there...somebody told me that. Somebody came to me with the information. And, again, that particular party, whoever it was, I don't know. I remember that a deputy sheriff came up to me who had been over taking affidavits, that I sent them over there, and he came over from the sheriff's office with a picture and a description of this colored boy and he said that he was supposed to have worked at the Texas Book Depository, and he was the one employee who was missing, or that he was missing from the building. He wasn't accounted for, and that he was suppose to have some information about the man that did the shooting." (6WH321-322)

The "sniper's nest" in the southeast corner of the sixth floor.
(Click to enlarge)

Sawyer’s testimony contains a glaring contradiction. Did the mystery witness really tell Sawyer that Givens had seen Oswald on the floor, or did the witness only say that Givens had seen the assassin? Sawyer's testimony that someone had told him that Givens had seen "Oswald" on the floor is an anachronism if it is supposed to refer to Givens seeing Oswald puttering around on the sixth floor at noon or any other time. Oswald’s job required him to fetch books from the storage on the sixth floor and thus his presence there around noon would not be a cause for suspicion – certainly not justification for Givens to infer that Oswald was the shooter. At the time of Sawyer's broadcast Oswald was not yet connected to the shooting and therefore the fact that someone had seen him on the sixth floor was not yet of significance, as far as anyone knew. Sawyer's inclusion of Oswald's name in his statement renders his testimony as totally inconsistent with the time frame of the radio call. Because of this inconsistency, respected researcher Sylvia Meagher concluded that Sawyer was just plain lying. Oswald became a suspect in the assassination when he was captured at the Texas Movie Theatre at 1:50 p.m. and subsequently identified as an employee of the Book Depository. None of this was established until considerably after Sawyer's radio call, and of course, Sawyer must have been told about Givens some time considerably before he made the APB. But the contradiction disappears if one simply assumes that by the time Sawyer gave his testimony in 1964 he undoubtedly believed that Oswald and the assassin were one and the same, and therefore was speaking the truth as he knew it. But the question remains – did Givens see the assassin, as the mystery witness reported, and if so was it Oswald?

When Givens was subsequently questioned by the police he apparently told them that he did see the assassin. According to the testimony of Lt. Jack Revill,

"I asked him if he had been on the sixth floor...he said, yes, that he had observed Mr. Lee, over by this window...so I turned this Givens individual over to one of our Negro detectives and told him to take him to Captain Fritz for interrogation." (5WH35-36)

Did Givens actually say it was "Mr. Lee" at the window, or like Sawyer, did Revill confound Givens' statement? What exactly did Givens say to the police? A witness to Given’s statement was a secret service agent named Mike Howard. Howard related his account to Fort Worth Star Telegram reporter, Thayer Waldo, on 9 February 1964, apparently unaware that Waldo was a newsman. According to Waldo,

"Mike Howard then explained that the negro witness had been arrested in the past by the Special Services office of the Dallas Police for gambling; and, since he was familiar with that branch of the Dallas Police, he immediately gave himself up to that branch. Mr. Howard alleged that he had visited the negro witness while he was in custody of the Special Services in the Dallas Jail."

Waldo quotes Agent Howard as saying,

"Wait till that old black boy gets up in front of the Warren Commission and tells his story. That will settle everything. Yes, sir. He was right there on the same floor, looking out the next window; and, after the first shot, he looked and saw Oswald, and then he ran. I saw him in the Dallas Police station. He was still the scaredest n I ever seen. I heard him tell the officer, "Man you don't know how fast fast is, because you didn't see me run that day." He said he ran and hid behind the boxes because he was afraid that Oswald would shoot him." (CE 2516)

None of this may be a problem for Mr. Bugliosi, but for those of us who insist on a reliable account of the events that day, the implications are horrendous. If Charles Givens saw Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the president, then why on earth would he not tell the FBI and the Warren Commission? Or if he did not see Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the President why did he claim that he did? Was Givens a pathological liar? If so, then none of his statements should be used as evidence. Alternatively, were Inspector Sawyer, Lt. Revill and Agent Howard lying? In May 1964 the FBI interviewed Agent Howard (CE 2578) who adamantly denied that he had ever told Waldo that Givens had seen the assassin. The FBI then interviewed Waldo (CE 2579) who was equally adamant that Howard had said exactly that. Mark Lane, on retainer with the Oswald family, complained in a letter to the Secret Service that Howard had made up the story and planted it with the press in order to falsely incriminate his client’s son. The larger concern is not that any of these officers were lying – but that they might have been telling the truth. The problem is that Waldo’s version of Howard’s story meshes with the accounts by Revill and Sawyer.

Givens’ deposition is full of holes. He states that after retrieving his jacket he left the building and walked to a parking lot at the corner of Main and Record and was there when the President went by. He further states that he was walking in front of the Record Building when he heard gunfire [6 WCH 351]. At some point he decided to return to work and tried to reenter the book depository but was refused entry by the DPD who by this time had locked down the building. Meanwhile, inside the building the occupants were lined up and questioned by police until, according to Junior Jarman,

"somewhere between two and two-thirty when they turned us loose and told us to go home," (3WH208)

If Givens’ account as given in the deposition is true, then who among the buildings occupants knew that Givens had witnessed anything - and informed Inspector Sawyer of such before 1:46 p.m., the time of the APB?

Inspector Sawyer’s testimony that he was told that Givens had seen the assassin is supported by the physical evidence – the radio tapes. The account by Police Lt. Revill further strongly suggests that Givens did claim to have seen the assassin. One does not have to assume, as did Sylvia Meagher, that Sawyer, Howard and Revill were outright lying. In their minds Oswald and the assassin were one and the same. Thus, when Givens told the FBI that he had seen Oswald in the first floor lunch room and not on the sixth floor, there was no contradiction. Did Givens also tell the FBI that he saw the assassin shooting at the President, but that it wasn’t Oswald – and did the FBI then leave the latter assertion out of their report – just as they left Rowland’s assertion about the black man in the window out of those reports? Or if it was in their report, it would not have been the only instance where the Warren Commission redacted an FBI report before publishing it in their exhibits. The manner in which the Warren Commission’s staff handled the issue is troubling. Givens was deposed in private in an apparent effort to control the record. No effort was made to identify the mystery witness who reported to Sawyer even though it was almost certainly one of the book depository employees and most probably one of Givens’ friends (Bonnie Ray ?). Secret Service Agent Mike Howard was never called to testify. Thayer Waldo did testify to the commission but was not asked about his conversation with Howard.

Police detective Marvin Johnson leaving the TSBD carrying the cigarette package, Dr. Pepper bottle and sack with remains of Bonnie Ray Williams' lunch.
(Click to enlarge)

One further important evidentiary detail is noteworthy. Charles Givens testified that his reason for returning to the sixth floor was to retrieve his cigarettes. Reporters recall that Captain Fritz announced to the press on the night of the assassination that along with the chicken bones and soda bottle, there was a cigarette package next to the sniper's nest window (Sauvage, p. 35; Meagher, p. 39). The report is corroborated by photographs of police Detective Marvin Johnson leaving the Book Depository carrying the lunch bag, the Dr. Pepper Bottle and, a cigarette package [5]. Lee Harvey Oswald did not smoke (9WH244) [6].

 

I think "Negro janitor" is good enough to make it Eddie Piper, who was the only Negro janitor. Perhaps the story has poison pills inserted. Piper also is the best match for Arnold Rowland's "elderly negro." I don't mean to say that Piper really was on the 6th floor. I mean to say that Piper was being pressured to deny that Vickie Adams had come down the stairs before Baker and Truly went up, which he did deny, even though it is not true. Sorrels is connected to Rowland and the Howard story, and I think he was managing the Eddie Piper problem. Piper could have backed up Adams and that would have exposed Billy Lovelady as being on the first floor inside the building at a time when Lovelady claims to have been outside.

[Bill Simpich]

Richard - all the African American witnesses such as Charles Givens and Eddie Piper were treated brutally by the authorities and leaned on to change their stories. 

And, yes, Waldo's story does refer to a "Negro janitor", a minor nit in a sea of disinformation thrust upon him by Mike and Pat Howard.

But there's no question that the story told to Thayer Waldo was designed to incriminate Givens, who had a history of gambling and problems with the law - so much os that there was an APB out for Givens an hour after the assassination.

Other than the words "Negro janitor", what did Piper have to do with the story?  Nothing.

Piper never claimed that Oswald was on the sixth floor during the lunch hour.  Only Givens did.

Go back and read the history.  The entire saga of Thayer Waldo and the Howard brothers revolved around Charles Givens. Not Piper.   Givens' November aiibi for Oswald had to be reversed.  After the February story broke, Givens buckled and changed his story.  And the Warren Commission adopted it as key evidence incriminating Oswald.   Givens wasn't even allowed to testify before the Warren Commission. 

And rest assured that the Howard brothers never did, even though the Warren Commission knew all about their story and knew that Waldo was furious at them.

Don't rely on a tiny item like "Negro janitor" in a made-up story that ruined Waldo's career.   Look at the rich detail provided by Don Thomas in the previous post.

 

 

[Richard Bertolino]

20 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

Richard - all the African American witnesses such as Charles Givens and Eddie Piper were treated brutally by the authorities and leaned on to change their stories. 

And, yes, Waldo's story does refer to a "Negro janitor", a minor nit in a sea of disinformation thrust upon him by Mike and Pat Howard.

But there's no question that the story told to Thayer Waldo was designed to incriminate Givens, who had a history of gambling and problems with the law - so much os that there was an APB out for Givens an hour after the assassination.

Other than the words "Negro janitor", what did Piper have to do with the story?  Nothing.

Piper never claimed that Oswald was on the sixth floor during the lunch hour.  Only Givens did.

Go back and read the history.  The entire saga of Thayer Waldo and the Howard brothers revolved around Charles Givens. Not Piper.   Givens' November aiibi for Oswald had to be reversed.  After the February story broke, Givens buckled and changed his story.  And the Warren Commission adopted it as key evidence incriminating Oswald.   Givens wasn't even allowed to testify before the Warren Commission. 

And rest assured that the Howard brothers never did, even though the Warren Commission knew all about their story and knew that Waldo was furious at them.

Don't rely on a tiny item like "Negro janitor" in a made-up story that ruined Waldo's career.   Look at the rich detail provided by Don Thomas in the previous post.

 

 

A "minor nit?" The story identifies the witness as a Negro janitor, and that's Eddie Piper.  Givens is a minor nit in this story. You go back and read the evidence, as I have done, Bill. Sorrels is behind the Howard story and he is Rowland's handler. Only Piper can be the elderly Negro. This is all about Piper and Vickie Adams and Billy Lovelady. Perhaps we disagree.

[Bill Simpich]

I think the journalists like Koethe, Hunter, Waldo, Kilgallen and Smith who were effectively "taken out" of this case deserve the highest level of scrutiny.   

Disagreeing about the importance of witnesses is inevitable, and this is where Belzer's book "Hit LIst" encounters the greatest difficulty - in achieving even a rough consensus about the important witnesses that were taken out of the JFK case.

Besides the focus on journalists, Belzer's list offers a second valuable thread when it focuses on witnesses who were violently killed when they were about to testify - as Pat Speer pointed out at the beginning of this thread, people like Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli.   I would add Gary Underhill and Bill Sullivan to this list - I don't think anyone ever looked at the killing of Sullivan hard enough - it would be interesting to interview the young boy who shot Sullivan at this late date if he is still alive.

Pat mentioned that he heard Senator Gary Hart "speak on the assassination.... he stressed the point that the members of the Church Committee were on the fence as to whether JFK's death was a conspiracy until their witnesses started dying. And then they knew.  So, in short, a mysterious deaths list is interesting, and potentially valuable, but only to the extent it's been edited."

These two threads - journalists that have been "taken out" of the JFK case, and witnesses who die violent deaths at the verge of providing testimony - appear to be the most valuable paths to make a major priority.

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

I think the journalists like Koethe, Hunter, Waldo, Kilgallen and Smith who were effectively "taken out" of this case deserve the highest level of scrutiny.   

Disagreeing about the importance of witnesses is inevitable, and this is where Belzer's book "Hit LIst" encounters the greatest difficulty - in achieving even a rough consensus about the important witnesses that were taken out of the JFK case.

Besides the focus on journalists, Belzer's list offers a second valuable thread when it focuses on witnesses who were violently killed when they were about to testify - as Pat Speer pointed out at the beginning of this thread, people like Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli.   I would add Gary Underhill and Bill Sullivan to this list - I don't think anyone ever looked at the killing of Sullivan hard enough - it would be interesting to interview the young boy who shot Sullivan at this late date if he is still alive.

Pat mentioned that he heard Senator Gary Hart "speak on the assassination.... he stressed the point that the members of the Church Committee were on the fence as to whether JFK's death was a conspiracy until their witnesses started dying. And then they knew.  So, in short, a mysterious deaths list is interesting, and potentially valuable, but only to the extent it's been edited."

These two threads - journalists that have been "taken out" of the JFK case, and witnesses who die violent deaths at the verge of providing testimony - appear to be the most valuable paths to make a major priority.

Bill,

    Thanks for confirming the points I made (above) from the very beginning of this thread-- about Koethe, Hunter, Underhill, Sullivan, Killgallen, Florence Pritchard Smith, Giancana, De Mohrenschildt, et.al.-- without even realizing that you were doing so.

     But you incorrectly attributed many of my observations about Hit List to Pat Speer, while simultaneously repeating Speer's vague, inaccurate disparagement of Hit List, at the top of the thread.  Odd.

     My point in starting this thread was to draw attention to an historical/forensic reference book that has never really been reviewed or discussed in any detail on the Education Forum, perhaps because Belzer was dismissed as a non-historian-- a mere television actor.

     You also confirmed my observations (from Belzer) about the temporal clustering of murders of JFK witnesses who were about to testify in investigations, inaccurately attributing them, again, to Pat Speer.

    At the same time, you must have missed my comments on the thread in which I disagreed with Pat Speer's comments dismissing the significance of Hit List, including his misleading comments about the book's actuarial data.  In point of fact, Speer also dismissed the significance of the murders of Koethe, Hunter, and Lee Bowers.

     As for your sagacious editorial advice, do let us little people know which of Belzer's 50 witness murder cases you would have "edited" from Hit List.

Addendum:  Here's my March 6th response to Pat Speer and James DiEugenio.

Jim,

Belzer's hit list of murdered JFKA witnesses is substantial, and the forensic evidence and actuarial probabilities are extremely suspicious-- the diametric opposite of what Pat Speer claimed (above.)  

All of the identified cases in the book were people who had knowledge about people and events relating to JFK's murder, and many died when they were threatening or scheduled to spill the beans-- e.g., Gary Underhill, the journalist from L.A. (Hunter?) who had been in Ruby's apartment,  Mary Pinchot Meyer, Dorothy Killgallen, David Ferrie, William Sullivan,  (and a few FBI lab technicians) the officer who filmed the Bethesda autopsy, Giancana, De Mohrenschildt, and dozens more.  (I'm naming a few off of the top of my head.)

In Lee Bowers case, he was driven off the road by a mystery vehicle into a concrete wall, and he told the EMTs prior to his death that he thought his coffee had been drugged at a local diner, before returning to his car.  Bowers had also, reportedly, told family members that he had not reported everything that he witnessed on 11/22/63-- in the parking lot behind the picket fence-- because he was afraid.

Curiously, this is the precise opposite of what Pat Speer just claimed (above.)  Pat's 0-2 here.

My impression from studying the Hit List data is that someone was carefully monitoring these witnesses over time -- tapping phones, etc.-- and ordering hits when they had evidence of impending testimony refuting the Warren Commission narrative.

Incidentally, William Sullivan told friends that he thought he was going to be murdered, prior to his Congressional testimony.

My hypothesis is that these systematic murders of witnesses were implementations of the 1964 CIA Executive Order instructing Agency personnel to do "whatever is necessary" to promote public acceptance of the Warren Commission Report.

 

     

    

     

Edited April 20 by W. Niederhut

[Bill Simpich]

William,

My apologies if I came across the wrong way, let alone giving Pat the plaudits instead of you.  No one has ever accused me of being sagacious, and I don't like anyone who acts like a big shot.

I didn't want to hijack your thread, and almost started my own. I am a big fan of Belzer, and I was avoiding being critical of his book or your thread.

My thinking is that it is best to lead with 5-10 strong and illustrative cases.   Most of us cannot track more than 10 stories. 

I agree with what Pat said at the beginning of this thread - citing a few strong cases is far better than stringing together a lot of uncertain ones.   I would put George deM's "suicide" in the uncertain category as well as many of the cases in Belzer's book even though most of them appeal to me emotionally.

I think the manner of the journalist deaths between 1963-1965 offers strong evidence.  Similarly, I think the Giancana and Rosselli deaths are strong evidence because of the manner of their deaths and the events surrounding it.

My two cents:  If we analyzed the other 40 cases in Belzer's book on this thread, we would sink into a sea of uncertainty simply because of the weight of the details. 

Each of these cases has to be analyzed on its own merits, and that takes a long time.    Reasonable people disagree on the weight of evidence.   I suggest a path that reduces the number of ambiguities.  If you want to convince someone, lead with your strongest approach.

 

Edited April 21 by Bill Simpich

[Richard Bertolino]

2 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

William,

My apologies if I came across the wrong way, let alone giving Pat the plaudits instead of you.  No one has ever accused me of being sagacious, and I don't like anyone who acts like a big shot.

I didn't want to hijack your thread, and almost started my own. I am a big fan of Belzer, and I was avoiding being critical of his book or your thread.

My thinking is that it is best to lead with 5-10 strong and illustrative cases.   Most of us cannot track more than 10 stories. 

I agree with what Pat said at the beginning of this thread - citing a few strong cases is far better than stringing together a lot of uncertain ones.   I would put George deM's "suicide" in the uncertain category as well as many of the cases in Belzer's book even though most of them appeal to me emotionally.

I think the manner of the journalist deaths between 1963-1965 offers strong evidence.  Similarly, I think the Giancana and Rosselli deaths are strong evidence because of the manner of their deaths and the events surrounding it.

My two cents:  If we analyzed the other 40 cases in Belzer's book on this thread, we would sink into a sea of uncertainty simply because of the weight of the details. 

Each of these cases has to be analyzed on its own merits, and that takes a long time.    Reasonable people disagree on the weight of evidence.   I suggest a path that reduces the number of ambiguities.  If you want to convince someone, lead with your strongest approach.

 

That's weird. You think it is best to lead with 5-10 strong and illustrative cases, yet in this thread you lead with Thayer Waldo, a journalist who was not even a case of a murdered witness, and  with an extremely weak argument. "Put your lamest foot forward?"

[Bill Simpich]

Richard, 

Thayer Waldo is an extremely strong case about a journalist who was driven out of the USA - you ignored his case because you wanted to tout your case about Eddie Piper and the girl on the stairs, an important story that belongs on another thread.  Even though you wrote that you agreed with me about Charles Givens, you used this thread to make your case about Eddie Piper.  I was reluctant to join this thread because I wanted to avoid hijacking this thread.  William is protective of his thread and I understand that.  I suggest that we treat each other with respect and agree to disagree.

[Richard Bertolino]

6 minutes ago, Bill Simpich said:

Richard, 

Thayer Waldo is an extremely strong case about a journalist who was driven out of the USA - you ignored his case because you wanted to tout your case about Eddie Piper and the girl on the stairs, an important story that belongs on another thread.  Even though you wrote that you agreed with me about Charles Givens, you used this thread to make your case about Eddie Piper.  I was reluctant to join this thread because I wanted to avoid hijacking this thread.  William is protective of his thread and I understand that.  I suggest that we treat each other with respect and agree to disagree.

When did I agree with you about Charles Givens?

[Bill Fite]

5 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

My two cents:  If we analyzed the other 40 cases in Belzer's book on this thread, we would sink into a sea of uncertainty simply because of the weight of the details. 

my 2¢:  The way to deal with uncertainty is to use probability and statistics to quantify it by looking at all the data available and not by picking a few examples (you might be accused of cherry-picking coincidental data).

In Reclaiming Science - the JFK Conspiracy - Charnin uses a Poisson probability distribution to model the probabilities of unexpected deaths of witnesses / interviewees of the investigations.  If the 1960-1970 era age-corrected population death rates by suicide / heart attack / murder / cancer / etc.  are correct then the probabilities of getting n unexpected deaths from the sample population are a way to determine if the deaths were part of the natural life and death process or not.

The book is available on Kindle.

Otherwise, you are left with an argument similar to - well one person duplicated 2 hits in 3 shots in < 9 seconds so that's proof LHO (or whoever shot from the TSBD) did it.   Just because something is possible, doesn't mean it happened.

Edited April 21 by Bill Fite
added suicide to death list

[Greg Doudna]

Bill Simpich, the analysis you cited (from Thomas) on the interpretation of Givens is intriguing and would almost have me convinced except for one detail; maybe you could answer? In that interpretation that Givens was a real witness to a 6th floor shooter at the time of the shots, at 12:30 pm, how and when in that interpretation does Givens make his exit from the TSBD without anyone seeing him? At the point the building was sealed by officers minutes later Givens is not in the building. Thanks. 

Edited April 21 by Greg Doudna

[Paul Brancato]

On 4/16/2024 at 7:40 PM, Chuck Schwartz said:

This is a relevant article on this subject...https://archive.politicalassassinations.net/2013/04/executive-action-jfk-witness-deaths-and-the-london-times-actuary/

Did the folks arguing here twice ignore your posted link to an interesting article? 
Sure, we can argue about this death or that death, about how to calculate probabilities. But the notion that people weren’t being killed as part of the ongoing conspiracy is just absolutely ludicrous, and I can’t believe that some of you would even approach that level. The main point, and I think Bill got to this quite well, is that a carefully curated list of deaths of journalists following the case early on, and as others have pointed out witnesses dying around the time of both the Garrison trial and the HSCA hearings, is the most convincing evidence of not just the conspiracy on the day of, but of the depth of the conspiracy going forward. Busting the single bullet theory was good, and few would argue that it has been shone to be fallacy at best, but it doesn’t show the venality of the perpetrators going forward in time. One can find excuses for the Warren Commission, not that I believe them btw, but suspicious deaths in such large numbers going forward in time for 15 years puts things in its proper context. And let’s include RFK, MLK, Malcom X here too, because the context is the continued overthrow of anything or anyone that stands in the way of the power elite.