Oswald jacket identification question

[Greg Doudna]

On April 1, 1964, Marina Oswald was interviewed by the FBI about Lee's jackets.

"Marina was questioned further concerning clothing jackets which had been owned by Lee Harvey Oswald. She said to the best of her recollection Lee Harvey Oswald had only two jackets, one a heavy jacket, blue in color, and another light jacket, gray in color. She said she believes Oswald possessed both of these jackets in Russia and had purchased them in the United States prior to his departure for Russia ... She advised to her knowledge Oswald possessed both of these jackets at Dallas on November 22, 1963." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1139#relPageId=553)

OK, that's two long-time jackets Lee had, including on the morning of Nov 22, 1963: BLUE, and GRAY. 

Question: WHICH of those two jackets is THIS jacket Buell Wesley Frazier described Oswald wearing the morning of the assassination, to work at the Texas School Book Depository? This:

Frazier to the FBI, Dec 1, 1963:

“At about 4:45 PM, on November 21, 1963, Frazier and Oswald departed the TSBD Building, walked to Frazier’s car and drove to Irving ... As Frazier recalls, Oswald was wearing a reddish shirt and a grey jacket, waist length.” 

Frazier to the Secret Service, Dec 5, 1963:

“All I recall about Oswald’s clothing on the morning of the assassination was a gray wool jacket.”

Frazier to the FBI, Dec 7, 1963:

“The only thing Frazier can recall about Oswald’s clothing on November 22, 1963, was that Oswald was wearing a gray jacket.” 

Frazier, Warren Commission testimony: 

Mr. BALL. I have here Commission’s 163, a gray blue jacket. Do you recognize this jacket?
Mr. FRAZIER. No, sir; I don’t.
Mr. BALL. Did you ever see Lee Oswald wear this jacket? Mr. FRAZIER. No, sir; I don’t believe I have.
Mr. BALL. Commission Exhibit No. 162 [an off-white light tan jacket found on a parking lot in Oak Cliff], which can be described for the record as a gray jacket with zipper, have you seen Lee Oswald wear this jacket?
Mr. FRAZIER. No, sir; I haven’t. 

(...)

Mr. BALL. On that day [Fri Nov 22] you did notice one article of clothing, that is, he had a jacket?
Mr. FRAZIER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What color was the jacket? Mr. FRAZIER. It was a gray, more or less flannel, wool-looking type of jacket that I had seen him wear and that is the type of jacket he had on that morning [Nov 22].
Mr. BALL. Did it have a zipper on it? Mr. FRAZIER. Yes, sir; it was one of the zipper types.
Mr. BALL. It isn’t one of these two zipper jackets we have shown [CE 162; CE 163]? Mr. FRAZIER. No, sir. 

(...)

Mr. BALL. You are not able to tell us then anything or are you able to tell us, describe any of the clothing he had on that day, except this gray jacket?
Mr. FRAZIER. Right.
Mr. BALL. That is the only thing you can remember? Mr. FRAZIER. Right.
Mr. BALL. … That gray jacket you mentioned, did it have any design in it?
Mr. FRAZIER. No, sir.
Mr. BALL. Was it light or dark gray?
Mr. FRAZIER. It was light gray.
Mr. BALL. You mentioned it was woolen.
Mr. FRAZIER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Long sleeves?
Mr. FRAZIER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Buttoned sleeves at the wrist, or do you remember?
Mr. FRAZIER. To be frank with you, I didn’t notice that much about the jacket, but I had seen him wear that gray woolen jacket before.

(...)

Mr. BALL. On Thursday afternoon [Nov 21] when you went home, drove on home, did he carry any package with him?
Mr. FRAZIER. No, sir; he didn’t.
Mr. BALL. Did he have a jacket or coat on him?
Mr. FRAZIER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What kind of a jacket or coat did he have?
Mr. FRAZIER. That, you know, like I say gray jacket. Mr. BALL. That same gray jacket?
Mr. FRAZIER. Yes, sir. Now, I can be frank with you, I had seen him wear that jacket several times, because it is cool type like when you keep a jacket on all day, if you are working on outside or something like that, you wouldn’t go outside with just a plain shirt on.
Mr. BALL. I have no further questions. 

 

[Greg Doudna]

Someone correct me if I missed something, but I cannot find in the Warren Report where the Warren Commission ever actually commented or took a position on what jacket Buell Wesley Frazier described above. 

And another thing. On CE 162, the off-white light tan jacket dropped by the Tippit killer in flight--most think that was Oswald--was identified by Marina as belonging to Lee, in her Warren Commission testimony, and was said by Marina to have been with Lee (she thought) on Thu night, Nov 21, in Irving, the night before the assassination.

BUT, is it clear Marina ever identified CE 162 as the GRAY JACKET to which she made reference that Lee had in Russia before returning to the US with it?

What is the evidence CE 162 and Oswald's gray jacket were considered the same item by Marina?

Is there even evidence Marina thought CE 162 was gray? Most witnesses--nearly all witnesses--who saw CE 162, both in the parking lot and worn by the killer of Tippit fleeing the Tippit crime scene (whether or not that was Oswald)--did NOT describe the color of CE 162 as gray. Why assume Marina would even consider the off-white light tan CE 162 a gray jacket instead of the more common non-gray color descriptions most other witnesses gave to CE 162? 

What is the evidence Marina thought CE 162 was Oswald's GRAY jacket of which she referred, to the FBI? Especially when there is an obviously very different gray jacket of Oswald according to Buell Frazier that Oswald wore all the time to work at the TSBD, including the morning of Nov 22. 

David von Pein. Bill Brown. Anyone else interested, especially who defend the basic position of the Warren Report. Please speak to this matter.

I am thinking that the jacket Buell Frazier described Oswald wearing to work the morning of Nov 22--"gray, more or less flannel, wool-looking ... woolen ... gray woolen jacket"--is just obviously a different jacket from CE 162, and that that jacket Frazier saw and described--the one Oswald wore to work Nov 22 as other days to TSBD--was the actual gray jacket of Oswald to which Marina referred. Meaning CE 162 was not what Marina referred to as Oswald's GRAY jacket that he had in Russia and on Nov 22. There are plenty of photos of Oswald in Minsk, but none with him wearing CE 162. Maybe CE 162 had nothing to do with what Marina meant by Oswald's "gray jacket". Maybe Oswald's actual gray jacket, the one Buell Frazier described, is in photos of Oswald in Minsk?

But Marina also identified the off-white light tan CE 162 as belonging to Lee, and with Lee (she thought) on Thursday night in Irving, Nov 21. Was Marina talking about a third jacket? Or was Marina confusing CE 162 with some other item of clothing of Lee's? (I believe she was only shown CE 162 to look at for a few seconds, among other items of Lee's clothing, on her final day of her Warren Commission testimony, never before or after, and never was asked whether she remembered CE 162 in Russia, or what color she thought CE 162 was, or whether that was the jacket she meant by Oswald's "gray" jacket, or asked specifically when she last saw Oswald wear it (Marina volunteered that on her own to them: Thu night Nov 21 in Irving).

I know Marina made some mistakes. But if Marina was right that CE 162 belonged to Lee and was in Irving with Lee on Thu night Nov 21, how would CE 162 then get to the parking lot in Oak Cliff where it was found on Friday, exactly? Especially since CE 162 is not the gray jacket Buell Wesley Frazier saw Oswald wearing Friday morning?

And finally, here is what is odd. The simple way to resolve these questions raised by Marina's puzzling testimony would have been to ask Ruth Paine. She was the go-to source for consistently accurate testimony on details. But the Warren Commission never asked her about any gray jacket of Oswald that might match Buell Frazier's description, never asked Ruth Paine whether she had ever seen CE 162, never asked Ruth Paine anything about that. (She was asked one question: did she notice Oswald's clothing when she first saw him in the yard Thu night Nov 21 and Ruth said she did not notice at that one moment, full stop, end of questions on that, the only Oswald clothing question I can find that Ruth was ever asked in the gazillions of pages of testimony they took from her.) Were they afraid she would back up Buell Frazier on his gray flannel wool-like jacket business that Oswald routinely wore to work at the TSBD if they asked Ruth more questions? Where would that leave CE 162 then? (What would that do to the Tippit case then?)

Simple solution: just don't ask Ruth, if a truthful answer from her was not wanted on the record? Is that why Ruth was never asked?

[Greg Doudna]

In other words I am suggesting it was never Marina who identified CE 162 as Oswald’s gray jacket she told the FBI Lee had in Russia and the U.S., even though she identified 162 in her testimony as belonging to Lee and with Lee in Irving Thu night Nov 21. That’s not the same as Marina saying CE 162 was the gray jacket of Lee. I don’t see evidence she ever did say or intend that.

I am suggesting the notion that Marina ID’d CE 162 as Oswald’s gray jacket is not based on any testimony from Marina or evidence. And that equation or identification, so bedrock in Warren Report thinking and all mainstream discussion since, was an artifact or add-on by the Warren Commission. 

How did the Warren Commission make the equation Lee’s CE 162 (Lees according to Marina) = Lee’s gray jacket? And ca 100% of readers (including me until recently) that Marina had made that identification in her FBI interviews and testimony?

Since there is no actual evidence Marina made that equation, and that equation is prima facie severely questionable in light of the plain testimony of Buell Frazier that Oswald had and frequently wore a different gray jacket.

i think three factors caused the success of the CE 162 = Oswald’s gray jacket idea even though Marina never testified to that or said that.

First, the WC from start to finish called CE 162 gray. It wasn’t gray to most people unless one saw it under fluorescent light washing out the light tan warmth color. CE 162 is off-white light tan in color, it’s that color today in the Archives, it’s that color in color photos, it was called light tan, light brown, tannish gray and so on by the Tippit crime scene witnesses. A minority of witnesses used the term gray for CE 162. But the WC never used any color term other than gray for it, which was somewhat misleading, but the “gray” label stuck.

Second, the WC simply ignored, as in never commented upon, the substantial testimony of a different jacket that was the actual gray jacket of Oswald—the jacket Marina MEANT when she said Oswald had a GRAY jacket in Russia and in Dallas up to Nov 22, 1963– the jacket Oswald is seen wearing in the Minsk Oswald coworkers photos—the jacket Buell Frazier described that Oswald wore routinely to work including on Nov 22. And I have tried to find but cannot find Posner, Bugliosi, or von Pein discussing Frazier’s testimony of Oswald’s gray jacket.

And third, for unknown reason Oswald’s gray jacket was never found or it’s fate known, after Oswald was last seen wearing it the morning of Nov 22, 1963. 

For so long I thought Frazier’s gray jacket testimony was in conflict with Marina’s concerning which was Oswald’s gray jacket.

It came as a shock to me to consider there is no evidence of a contradiction, because Marina never claimed CE 162 was Oswald’s gray jacket, and never denied that the gray jacket of which Frazier told, was Oswald’s gray jacket.

Edited September 27 by Greg Doudna

[Gil Jesus]

4 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Someone correct me if I missed something, but I cannot find in the Warren Report where the Warren Commission ever actually commented or took a position on what jacket Buell Wesley Frazier described above. 

And another thing. On CE 162, the off-white light tan jacket dropped by the Tippit killer in flight--most think that was Oswald--was identified by Marina as belonging to Lee, in her Warren Commission testimony, and was said by Marina to have been with Lee (she thought) on Thu night, Nov 21, in Irving, the night before the assassination.

BUT, is it clear Marina ever identified CE 162 as the GRAY JACKET to which she made reference that Lee had in Russia before returning to the US with it?

What is the evidence CE 162 and Oswald's gray jacket were considered the same item by Marina?

Is there even evidence Marina thought CE 162 was gray? Most witnesses--nearly all witnesses--who saw CE 162, both in the parking lot and worn by the killer of Tippit fleeing the Tippit crime scene (whether or not that was Oswald)--did NOT describe the color of CE 162 as gray. Why assume Marina would even consider the off-white light tan CE 162 a gray jacket instead of the more common non-gray color descriptions most other witnesses gave to CE 162? 

What is the evidence Marina thought CE 162 was Oswald's GRAY jacket of which she referred, to the FBI? Especially when there is an obviously very different gray jacket of Oswald according to Buell Frazier that Oswald wore all the time to work at the TSBD, including the morning of Nov 22. 

David von Pein. Bill Brown. Anyone else interested, especially who defend the basic position of the Warren Report. Please speak to this matter.

I am thinking that the jacket Buell Frazier described Oswald wearing to work the morning of Nov 22--"gray, more or less flannel, wool-looking ... woolen ... gray woolen jacket"--is just obviously a different jacket from CE 162, and that that jacket Frazier saw and described--the one Oswald wore to work Nov 22 as other days to TSBD--was the actual gray jacket of Oswald to which Marina referred. Meaning CE 162 was not what Marina referred to as Oswald's GRAY jacket that he had in Russia and on Nov 22. There are plenty of photos of Oswald in Minsk, but none with him wearing CE 162. Maybe CE 162 had nothing to do with what Marina meant by Oswald's "gray jacket". Maybe Oswald's actual gray jacket, the one Buell Frazier described, is in photos of Oswald in Minsk?

But Marina also identified the off-white light tan CE 162 as belonging to Lee, and with Lee (she thought) on Thursday night in Irving, Nov 21. Was Marina talking about a third jacket? Or was Marina confusing CE 162 with some other item of clothing of Lee's? (I believe she was only shown CE 162 to look at for a few seconds, among other items of Lee's clothing, on her final day of her Warren Commission testimony, never before or after, and never was asked whether she remembered CE 162 in Russia, or what color she thought CE 162 was, or whether that was the jacket she meant by Oswald's "gray" jacket, or asked specifically when she last saw Oswald wear it (Marina volunteered that on her own to them: Thu night Nov 21 in Irving).

I know Marina made some mistakes. But if Marina was right that CE 162 belonged to Lee and was in Irving with Lee on Thu night Nov 21, how would CE 162 then get to the parking lot in Oak Cliff where it was found on Friday, exactly? Especially since CE 162 is not the gray jacket Buell Wesley Frazier saw Oswald wearing Friday morning?

And finally, here is what is odd. The simple way to resolve these questions raised by Marina's puzzling testimony would have been to ask Ruth Paine. She was the go-to source for consistently accurate testimony on details. But the Warren Commission never asked her about any gray jacket of Oswald that might match Buell Frazier's description, never asked Ruth Paine whether she had ever seen CE 162, never asked Ruth Paine anything about that. (She was asked one question: did she notice Oswald's clothing when she first saw him in the yard Thu night Nov 21 and Ruth said she did not notice at that one moment, full stop, end of questions on that, the only Oswald clothing question I can find that Ruth was ever asked in the gazillions of pages of testimony they took from her.) Were they afraid she would back up Buell Frazier on his gray flannel wool-like jacket business that Oswald routinely wore to work at the TSBD if they asked Ruth more questions? Where would that leave CE 162 then? (What would that do to the Tippit case then?)

Simple solution: just don't ask Ruth, if a truthful answer from her was not wanted on the record? Is that why Ruth was never asked?

Let's see what the witnesses testified to when they were shown the grayish tan jacket ( CE 162 ) :

 

Wesley Frazier testified that he had never seen CE 162 before. ( 2 H 238 )

Linnie Mae Randle testified that CE 162 was NOT the jacket Oswald wore that morning. ( 2 H 250 )

Helen Markham testified that she had never seen CE 162 before. ( 3 H 312 )

William Scoggins testified that the killer's jacket was "a little darker" than CE 162. ( 3 H 328 )

Barbara Davis testified that CE 162 didn't look anything like the jacket the Tippit killer wore. ( 3 H 347 )

Ted Callaway testified that the Tippit killer's jacket had "a little more tan to it. "  ( 3 H 356 )

Earlene Roberts, Oswald's housekeeper, testified that the jacket he put on when he left the roominghouse, "was darker than that." ( CE 162 ) ( 6 H 439 )

None of these eyewitnesses who were shown CE 162, positively identified it as the jacket Tippit's killer wore.  

Maybe the Warren Commission supporters can address this evidence.

PS: Virginia Davis was never shown the CE 162 jacket and asked tro identify it and Domingo Benavides identified the bluish-grey jacket ( CE 163 ) as the jacket the killer wore. ( 6 H 453 )

Edited September 27 by Gil Jesus

[Greg Doudna]

Gil I know that is a debated issue, whether CE 162 came from the Tippit killer; I think it did but others don’t, but that is a long-debated issue. I hope not to have that become the discussion here (better elsewhere), for I am raising a truly new issue here, so far as I can see, that I am not sure has ever been discussed before.

I hope this discussion can stay focused on the question of what jacket was the gray jacket of Oswald’s to which Marina referred, between the two major choices—the off-white light tan CE 162 of the Warren Report (no evidence that WR identification came from Marina) or the very different-material and description gray jacket described by Frazier. And why, and the foundations of the identification. Thanks!

Edited September 27 by Greg Doudna

[Denise Hazelwood]

Here is a color picture of the ce 162 jacket. You can tell it’s a color picture by the NARA color card in the photo. Hard to tell from the picture whether it is gray and tan. Maybe the more tan looking bits are due to age?

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gray_Zipper_Jacket_Belonging_to_Lee_Harvey_Oswald_-_NARA_-_305140_(page_2).gif

[Greg Doudna]

3 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

Here is a color picture of the ce 162 jacket. You can tell it’s a color picture by the NARA color card in the photo. Hard to tell from the picture whether it is gray and tan. Maybe the more tan looking bits are due to age?

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gray_Zipper_Jacket_Belonging_to_Lee_Harvey_Oswald_-_NARA_-_305140_(page_2).gif

Denise thank you for your comment. Below I quote from earlier research I did on the CE 162 jacket color and discussed the NARA photos on the MFF site in particular such as the one you show (the paper itself which was on my website I have taken down for rewriting). For a long time there were no color photos of CE 162, only black-and-white in the Warren Report and Exhibits, so the Warren Commission's consistent labeling of the jacket as "gray" became solid as granite in the way everyone referred to it. 

First for background. I did a study of the witnesses to the CE 162 jacket color on Nov 22, 1963 in which I included the Tippit crime scene witnesses on the basis of argument that CE 162 was the jacket worn by the Tippit killer and seen by those witnesses on the fleeing killer. I tossed out from the database Barbara Davis's saying the killer's jacket was "black" based on argument that that "black" of Barbara Davis was describing some other jacket, not CE 162. After tossing the Barbara Davis color, I was left with 10 Tippit crime scene witness color descriptions, plus 5 police, Asst District Attorney, and reporters descriptions from the find site of the parking lot where CE 162 was found. My data:

Of the Tippit crime scene witnesses:

• white (Reynolds)
• light colored (Scoggins)
• light colored (Brock)
• light colored (Burt)
• light beige (Benavides)
• light tannish gray (Callaway)
• light brown (Smith)
• light brown tan ... brown (V. Davis) 
• grayish tan ... light gray (Markham)
• light gray ... gray (Guinyard)

Of the CE 162 find spot sightings

• white (Huston)
• white (Griffin)
• tan, beige, or rye (Westbrook)
• gray (Alexander)
• light tan (Ewell)

In sum, quantitatively:

• 3 said "white"
• 3 said "light colored" without naming a color
• 2 said "light beige"or "beige"
• 4 said "light tan" or "tan"
• 2 said "light brown"
• 4 said "light gray" or "gray"

Of the 15, 12 used the words "light" (9) or "white" (3) in their color descriptions. Considering beige, tan, and light brown to be a related cluster of the same "warm" hue or color, 7 out of the 12 who named a color said one of the colors in this cluster, with an additional 3 seeing the color so light as to be called "white".

Of the 15, only 4 (Guinyard, Markham, Callaway, Alexander) said "gray" and of those, 2 (Callaway, Markham) used "gray" to modify a tan color or vice versa ("tannish gray", "grayish tan"). 

Only 2 out of the 15 (Guinyard, Alexander) named the color of the killer's jacket an unqualified "gray" or "light gray" in agreement with the Warren Commission's consistent use of only unqualified "gray" or "light gray" in description and reference to CE 162, which became ubiquitous in news reporting of that jacket.

(On the identification of CE 162 as worn by the Tippit killer, my research at that time found "Of the 6 out of 10 in the database [Tippit crime scene witnesses] who were shown CE 162 and asked if that was the jacket they saw on the killer, 5 of those 6 answered directly or effectively 'yes' [Benavides, Callaway, Guinyard, Scoggins, Smith) and 1 answered negatively [Markham]".)

On the NARA color photos, quoting from my earlier paper:

A possible factor in the persistence of the inaccurate “light gray” description of CE 162 even in careful researchers’ discussions to the present day may be a post-Warren Commission, post-1964 set of color photos of CE 162 provided by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), posted on the Mary Ferrell Foundation (MFF) website (https://www.maryferrell.org/photos.html?set=NARA-OSWCLOTHES).

The two photos of CE 162 there have distorted color hues removing the light tan and giving an artificial gray pall to the jacket bringing it in agreement with a captioned description which tells the viewer that the CE 162 jacket is “gray” (“CE 162, a gray zipper jacket, was found near the scene of the Tippit shooting, but was never definitively tied to Oswald”).

That the color is distorted in these two photographs on the MFF site is not arbitrary assertion but can be verified directly: internal to each NARA photo in that collection is a color spectrum strip. Of the 25 photos at the MFF link, counting from left to right, photos #7 and #8, the two photos of CE 162, have color spectrum strips that show loss of warmth in the colors compared to the other photos and their color strips in that collection. What should be yellow in the color spectrum strips at #7 and #8 instead is orange. The result is that the NARA color photos of CE 162 at #7 and #8 on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site—the premier go-to site for researchers for online access to JFK assassination research archive materials—have been affected by a hue manipulation which has removed the tan and makes the CE 162 jacket look illusorily gray in agreement with the accompanying description repeating the Warren Report’s insistence that CE 162 is “gray” ...

A video inside NARA showing CE 162 being set out on a table can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOdfe-X5ngs. In the background and in the surface upon which the jacket is set can be seen actual grays. It can be seen that CE 162’s off-white does not match those grays but has a light tan hue against those grays. 

Edited September 27 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

So there are two key questions: Above at the opening is Frazier's description of a "gray" jacket he saw Oswald wearing on Nov 22 and other days routinely, And above is description of CE 162.

Marina said Oswald had a "gray" jacket" (one gray jacket).

The first question (#1)  is: was Frazier's gray jacket he saw Oswald wearing all the time to work including the morning of Nov 22, the same as CE 162? (NO, it is not! Reread Frazier's testimony at the OP if any doubt on that!)

And the second question (#2) is: if they are NOT the same jacket, WHICH of those two was the ONE Marina referred to as Oswald's gray jacket?

Two basic questions. My answers:

No they were not the same jacket.

The gray jacket of Oswald that he had in Russia and after his return to the US, referred to by Marina, was the gray jacket described by Frazier. It was not CE 162 and Marina never claimed CE 162 was Oswald's gray jacket.

Please, everyone, give your answers that seem to you on these two questions, maybe with explanation for your reasoning!

 

Edited September 27 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

 

Mr. FRAZIER. Yes, sir. Now, I can be frank with you, I had seen him wear that jacket several times, because it is cool type like when you keep a jacket on all day, if you are working on outside or something like that, you wouldn’t go outside with just a plain shirt on.
Mr. BALL. I have no further questions. 

 

Greg... Just so we're on the same page... A jacket being a "cool type" of jacket suggests that it is lightweight as opposed to being a thicker, heavier and warmer jacket/coat.  right?

[Jean Ceulemans]

CE 162 certainly isn´t a flannel, wool-looking type as Frazier described Oswald´s jacket that morning (and he clearly said it wasn´t CE 162), so... 

 

Edited September 27 by Jean Ceulemans

[Greg Doudna]

31 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

 

Mr. FRAZIER. Yes, sir. Now, I can be frank with you, I had seen him wear that jacket several times, because it is cool type like when you keep a jacket on all day, if you are working on outside or something like that, you wouldn’t go outside with just a plain shirt on.
Mr. BALL. I have no further questions. 

 

Greg... Just so we're on the same page... A jacket being a "cool type" of jacket suggests that it is lightweight as opposed to being a thicker, heavier and warmer jacket/coat.  right?

That’s a good point Bill, yes, Frazier was consistent in describing the gray jacket he saw Oswald wearing as a lighter kind of jacket, light enough to be worn while working inside without discomfort, the way he described it. Glad you’re here and looking forward to analysis you may bring to bear on this. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

B.t.w. "cooler" doesn´t have to be in contradiction with a flanel/woolen type, e.g. a (random) 1950s Wool Work Jacket

 

 

Edited September 27 by Jean Ceulemans

[Greg Doudna]

 

Great photo Jean. Here's what I think could be the real Oswald's gray jacket--the one Marina meant; the one Buell Frazier described Oswald wearing as a work jacket at the TSBD including on the morning of Nov 22. Certainly there is no photo of Oswald wearing CE 162, but here is a jacket that looks like Frazier's ""gray, more or less flannel, wool-looking ... woolen ... gray woolen jacket" Oswald wore all the time at the TSBD. I'm unable to post a better quality of this picture due to kb restrictions from this site, but I am sure this picture is familiar to all and anyone can look up a better quality version of it (just google "oswald minsk"). Bear in mind Oswald by Nov 22, 1963 would have worn his gray jacket (which Marina said he had in Minsk, i.e. at the time this photo was taken) about an additional two years or so from when this photo was taken. The jacket in this photo shows no holes or raggedness particularly. But the jacket could have become much more worn or ragged by Nov 1963 with ca. 2 years more of wear. This Minsk photo being black-and-white is of course impossible to verify the color of the jacket. But CE 162 is not in any Oswald Minsk photo, this jacket is, we know Oswald did have a gray jacket in Minsk (from Marina), this jacket is otherwise unidentified, and I say this may be the gray jacket of Oswald that Frazier described Oswald wearing on the morning of Nov 22, 1963. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

It sure has the wool structure

Edited September 27 by Jean Ceulemans

[Jean Ceulemans]

I don´t want to go off-topic, but what was the color of the jacket that was found later on (in the TSBD lunch room I think)?

Somehow I assumed that was the jacket he had with him on 11/22, left it there during his lunch and whatever happened after that.  But I think it was described as blue? If it was his...