Oswald jacket identification question

[Paul Brancato]

Here is another slightly off topic comment/question: since we are parsing Marina’s WC testimony, does anyone know if there are transcripts from her sequestration soon after the assassination? 

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

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...

Yep, a heavier weight, warmer blue jacket or coat was found later at the TSBD, shown to Marina by a visit from the FBI and conclusively identified by Marina on that occasion as Lee’s blue jacket. CE 163.

Nobody—nobody—affirmed they saw Oswald wear 163 on the morning of Nov 22. Whaley the cab driver came closest, though he never quite did positively identify it, just said it could be the gray jacket that he said he remembered Oswald wearing. Presented with two false alternatives and in effect pressed to choose, the off-white light tan 162, or the blue 163, Whaley in his WC testimony months later said he thought it was 163 over 162, in terms of which was more likely the jacket of Oswald he saw between those two choices. That’s the closest to a witness’s positive identification as it gets on Nov 22 for Oswald’s blue jacket, 163. 

None of Oswald’s coworkers saw him ever wear his blue CE 163 to the TSBD, let alone on Nov 22. The FBI asked, couldn’t find a single one. Everybody was agreeing with Buell Frazier’s description of Oswald wearing his gray work jacket that wasn’t CE 162, both on Nov 22 and regularly.

Oswald certainly did not wear the blue 163 to work the morning of Nov 22, even though the blue 163 was his, presumably normally kept at his rooming house with the rest of his clothes. Supervisor Roy Truly at TSBD was the only one at TSBD who thought it possible he could have seen Oswald wear that blue 163 jacket once in the past to the TSBD but he wasn’t sure about that. 

CE 163 was Oswald’s jacket and it was reported found weeks later at the TSBD, but how that blue jacket, CE 163, got there without any of Oswalds fellow workers noticing Oswald ever wear that jacket, and why it took so long for someone to notice it lying around in the domino room and turn it in, is a mystery. 

Edited September 29 by Greg Doudna

[Benjamin Cole]

20 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Yep, a heavier weight, warmer blue jacket or coat was found later at the TSBD, shown to Marina by a visit from the FBI and conclusively identified by Marina on that occasion as Lee’s blue jacket. CE 163.

Nobody—nobody—affirmed they saw Oswald wear 163 on the morning of Nov 22. Whaley the cab driver came closest, though he never quite did positively identify it, just said it could be the gray jacket that he said he remembered Oswald wearing. Presented with two false alternatives and in effect pressed to choose, the off-white light tan 162, or the blue 163, Whaley in his WC testimony months later said he thought it was 163 over 162, in terms of which was more likely the jacket of Oswald he saw between those two choices. That’s the closest to a witness’s positive identification as it gets on Nov 22 for Oswald’s blue jacket, 163. 

None of Oswald’s coworkers saw him ever wear his blue CE 163 to the TSBD, let alone on Nov 22. The FBI asked, couldn’t find a single one. Everybody was agreeing with Buell Frazier’s description of Oswald wearing his gray work jacket that wasn’t CE 162, both on Nov 22 and regularly.

Oswald certainly did not wear the blue 163 to work the morning of Nov 22, even though the blue 163 was his, presumably normally kept at his rooming house with the rest of his clothes. Supervisor Roy Truly at TSBD was the only one at TSBD who thought it possible he could have seen Oswald wear that blue 163 jacket once in the past to the TSBD but he wasn’t sure about that. 

CE 163 was Oswald’s jacket and it was reported found weeks later at the TSBD, but how that blue jacket, CE 163, got there without any of Oswalds fellow workers noticing Oswald ever wear that jacket, and why it took so long for someone to notice it lying around in the domino room and turn it in, is a mystery. 

GD--

I always enjoy your viewpoints. 

But given Marina's compromised condition and circumstance in 1963-4, is the sentence "conclusively identified by Marina on that occasion as Lee’s blue jacket. CE 163" meaningful? 

Could Marina been wrong, or browbeaten...she was certainly frightened, and justifiably rattled and imbalanced through that time period....even WC'ers, eager for every scrap of info that could be turned against LHO, began to disregard her testimony....

 

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

GD--

I always enjoy your viewpoints. 

But given Marina's compromised condition and circumstance in 1963-4, is the sentence "conclusively identified by Marina on that occasion as Lee’s blue jacket. CE 163" meaningful? 

Could Marina been wrong, or browbeaten...she was certainly frightened, and justifiably rattled and imbalanced through that time period....even WC'ers, eager for every scrap of info that could be turned against LHO, began to disregard her testimony....

OK, valid question Benjamin. I'll give my reasoning on this. I think it can be ruled out at the start that Marina could have been mistaken. The FBI visited her and showed her that jacket, she could handle it, look at it up close, study it. She had laundered it. She knew her husband's clothes. That isn't going to be an honest error, if it was an error. Then the question becomes whether her identification of that jacket was the truth or not, and if not would it have been a fabrication generated by her on her own, or because she was pressured into it, or something in between--she catches signals of what is wanted and voluntarily shapes her answer in order to agree with what is wanted.

Overt pressure on her to perjure--"we want you to say this. but it wasn't his jacket. You WILL say it... or else... OK" ... that was simply not going on in terms of any evidence for that. If that type of subornation to perjury had been happening it would have come out by now, but that kind of subornation to perjury has not been shown to occur in a single case of the many JFK witnesses. The absence of evidence on that scale, across the board and holding for over sixty years, is a pretty good argument to me for a phenomenon not happening at all. So toss that one.

Then the question is whether there could have been softer persuasions (not rising to legal subornation to perjury), or Marina just on her own making something up.

It is difficult to see a motive why Marina would make it up, or why the FBI would attempt to pressure or influence her answer, in this particular case. There is no obvious bearing on Oswald implicated in anything, no obvious bearing on any particular essential theory of the case hinging on that identification. 

There is some mainstream consensus that Marina after some early prevarications to the FBI and Secret Service basically "turned honest" in her Warren Commission testimony. I buy that as a general statement or template of interpretation while allowing for exceptions, but in my view the exceptions, where known and the possible unknown ones (known only to Marina) would be in every instance generated by Marina for specific self-interested reason, not because they were fed to her and not very promiscuous in number. That is, Marina was mostly telling the truth in her WC testimony except for some unknown small specific number of times when she wasn't, for whatever reasons of her own. 

The question I have in the back of my mind, however, is how secure is the report of its TSBD find spot, as being first knowledge or find of that jacket. That would be my question if there were any funny business going on. Not so much whether Marina was telling the truth that it was Oswald's jacket.

Everything else Marina has said about Lee's personal items, details about Lee and her, in Minsk and in the US, mostly has checked out on the level of mundane facts. I don't think she was making it up in telling of Lee's two jackets in Minsk and continuing to Dallas Oct-Nov 1963, one gray lighter in weight, the other blue heavier in weight and warmer. Or that she was not truthful on the blue CE 163 as being Lee's, and it matches very well as being the blue one of the two that Marina said Lee had in Minsk and USA.

Finally, I think both of the jackets to which Marina referred--the gray and the blue--show up in photographs of Oswald in Minsk. There are quite a number of Oswald Minsk photographs and it only makes sense that those jackets could appear in those photographs. I already have shown what I think was a Minsk photo of Oswald wearing his gray jacket, which Jean Ceulemans helpfully gave a better photo resolution and also a similar wool-like light jacket that is gray in color sold today, similar type to the one in the Minsk photo and described by Buell Frazier as what Lee wore to work all the time at the TSBD including Nov 22.

But what of the blue 163 jacket in a photo in Minsk? I'm not sure--would welcome other opinions--but I think it is in a photo of Oswald with what I think is Ella German (not sure about that, but it is Lee with a woman who isn't Marina), the woman Oswald first wanted to marry who turned him down before he met Marina. I thought that based on earlier studying a better copy of that photo which I cannot find online at this moment, but a poor quality of that photo is here: top left at https://www.jfk.org/collections-archive/black-and-white-photograph-of-personal-photographs-belonging-to-oswald/. The photo quality in this link is so poor no jacket identification can be made out. But I have seen a better copy of that photo in the past and that is where I surmised that the jacket Oswald is wearing in that photo could be CE 163. (Jean-Paul, could you possibly work your magic and come up with a good copy of that photo? 🙂 )

Anyway, that's my take on it.

Edited September 29 by Greg Doudna

[Joseph McBride]

It's quite naive (or perhaps disingenuous) to claim that Marina Oswald wasn't threatened or 

that she was not coerced into perjury by government agents or that no other

witness in this case was. To name just one prominent case and a glaring

example, look at Dr. Perry and what was done to him

by government officials in the immediate wake of his

Nov. 22 press conference and through that night

and the next morning to get him to reverse

the direction of the shot that hit Kennedy in the

throat from the front. This matter of the coercion exerted on Dr. Perry has been thoroughly

discussed on this forum in recent days, so, as Casey

Stengel used to say, "You could look it up."

Edited September 29 by Joseph McBride

[Greg Doudna]

Point taken Joseph M., on Dr. Perry, also add to that the reports of pressure on Humes concerning relocating the rear wound he reported in the autopsy. 

But if Marina was pressured to perjure, where is the evidence for that? Who did the pressuring to perjure, if so, and what was the nature of that perjury? Why is there no record that Marina or anyone close to Marina ever complained or told of that happening? (As happened in the cases of Drs. Perry and Humes.) And its not really the same thing being that proposed with Marina as these high-pressure professional peer expert opinion situations with ballistics and medical where professional consequences are threatened.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

OK, valid question Benjamin. I'll give my reasoning on this. I think it can be ruled out at the start that Marina could have been mistaken. The FBI visited her and showed her that jacket, she could handle it, look at it up close, study it. She had laundered it. She knew her husband's clothes. That isn't going to be an honest error, if it was an error. Then the question becomes whether her identification of that jacket was the truth or not, and if not would it have been a fabrication generated by her on her own, or because she was pressured into it, or something in between--she catches signals of what is wanted and voluntarily shapes her answer in order to agree with what is wanted.

Overt pressure on her to perjure--"we want you to say this. but it wasn't his jacket. You WILL say it... or else... OK" ... that was simply not going on in terms of any evidence for that. If that type of subornation to perjury had been happening it would have come out by now, but that kind of subornation to perjury has not been shown to occur in a single case of the many JFK witnesses. The absence of evidence on that scale, across the board and holding for over sixty years, is a pretty good argument to me for a phenomenon not happening at all. So toss that one.

Then the question is whether there could have been softer persuasions (not rising to legal subornation to perjury), or Marina just on her own making something up.

It is difficult to see a motive why Marina would make it up, or why the FBI would attempt to pressure or influence her answer, in this particular case. There is no obvious bearing on Oswald implicated in anything, no obvious bearing on any particular essential theory of the case hinging on that identification. 

There is some mainstream consensus that Marina after some early prevarications to the FBI and Secret Service basically "turned honest" in her Warren Commission testimony. I buy that as a general statement or template of interpretation while allowing for exceptions, but in my view the exceptions, where known and the possible unknown ones (known only to Marina) would be in every instance generated by Marina for specific self-interested reason, not because they were fed to her and not very promiscuous in number. That is, Marina was mostly telling the truth in her WC testimony except for some unknown small specific number of times when she wasn't, for whatever reasons of her own. 

The question I have in the back of my mind, however, is how secure is the report of its TSBD find spot, as being first knowledge or find of that jacket. That would be my question if there were any funny business going on. Not so much whether Marina was telling the truth that it was Oswald's jacket.

Everything else Marina has said about Lee's personal items, details about Lee and her, in Minsk and in the US, mostly has checked out on the level of mundane facts. I don't think she was making it up in telling of Lee's two jackets in Minsk and continuing to Dallas Oct-Nov 1963, one gray lighter in weight, the other blue heavier in weight and warmer. Or that she was not truthful on the blue CE 163 as being Lee's, and it matches very well as being the blue one of the two that Marina said Lee had in Minsk and USA.

Finally, I think both of the jackets to which Marina referred--the gray and the blue--show up in photographs of Oswald in Minsk. There are quite a number of Oswald Minsk photographs and it only makes sense that those jackets could appear in those photographs. I already have shown what I think was a Minsk photo of Oswald wearing his gray jacket, which Jean Ceulemans helpfully gave a better photo resolution and also a similar wool-like light jacket that is gray in color sold today, similar type to the one in the Minsk photo and described by Buell Frazier as what Lee wore to work all the time at the TSBD including Nov 22.

But what of the blue 163 jacket in a photo in Minsk? I'm not sure--would welcome other opinions--but I think it is in a photo of Oswald with what I think is Ella German (not sure about that, but it is Lee with a woman who isn't Marina), the woman Oswald first wanted to marry who turned him down before he met Marina. I thought that based on earlier studying a better copy of that photo which I cannot find online at this moment, but a poor quality of that photo is here: top left at https://www.jfk.org/collections-archive/black-and-white-photograph-of-personal-photographs-belonging-to-oswald/. The photo quality in this link is so poor no jacket identification can be made out. But I have seen a better copy of that photo in the past and that is where I surmised that the jacket Oswald is wearing in that photo could be CE 163. (Jean-Paul, could you possibly work your magic and come up with a good copy of that photo? 🙂 )

Anyway, that's my take on it.

Thanks for your collegial reply. 

And thanks for your examination of the evidence in the JFKA case. 

We may disagree on an issue or interpretation---but if we don't examine the evidence and trade talk, no one else will. 

[Greg Doudna]

Here's the thing. There is no evidence that, on the morning of Nov 22, Oswald wore any other jacket than his gray jacket (which was not CE 162), and plenty of evidence he wore his gray jacket that morning.

But Earlene, housekeeper at the Beckley rooming house in Oak Cliff, said Oswald came in in shirt sleeves in a light-colored shirt (= CE 151, maroon light reddish dress shirt), not in a jacket. Then went out zipping up a jacket obtained from his room as he went out.

IF Earlene is correct that Oswald did NOT enter the Beckley rooming house with a jacket, that means he did NOT enter with his gray jacket.

THEN the question is: WHAT was the jacket he LEFT with?

Here it gets tricky. 

If he left with CE 162 (the off-white light tan), THEN he killed Tippit, and vice versa.

If he left with his blue CE 163 jacket, THEN he did not kill Tippit, and vice versa.

BUT--

IF he left with CE 162 (i.e. killed Tippit), would not the blue CE 163 still be in his room? But it was not found in his room. It was reported found (weeks later) at the TSBD! (where none of his coworkers ever saw him wear it)

On the other hand, IF he left the Beckley rooming house with CE 163 the blue jacket, and went to the Theatre with it without killing Tippit, THEN after Oswald's arrest the blue jacket would be somewhere in the Theatre where Oswald took it off inside the Theatre. AND Oswald would not be the man who ran by Brewer and Julia Postal and ran into the balcony, because THAT man--the killer of Tippit--was seen NOT wearing a jacket as he ran into the balcony of the theater. 

Earlene described the jacket Oswald went out of the rooming house as "gray" and "dark". Hugh Aynesworth reported a week later that he had interviewed her the afternoon of Nov 22 and claimed Earlene described the jacket to him as "tan". But on the radio in her own voice on Nov 22, and in her statements and testimony otherwise, there was no mention by Earlene of tan, only "gray" and "dark". There is no other occasion known to me when Earlene is alleged to have called the jacket "tan" than the single report of Aynesworth and derivatives from that single report of Aynesworth.

Earlene's "gray" may not be what is seems as color description, i.e. it may not refer to gray in color even though that is what she said. For there is reason to suspect the severely diabetic Earlene may have had color-blindness issues, which affects a significant percentage of diabetics, increasing with the severity of the diabetes, and Earlene's diabetes was very severe. (Was that possibly behind WC counsel never asking Earlene in her WC testimony what color the jacket was that she saw Oswald leaving with?) 

If Earlene had color-blind issues from her diabetes, she might see blue and call it "gray". But she would probably get the lightness-darkness tone right no matter if she saw gray, and Earlene said the jacket was a "dark" jacket.

CE 162, the off-white light tan jacket, is NOT a "dark" jacket. Except for Barbara Davis, all ten other Tippit crime scene witnesses used either the words "light" or "white" in description of the CE 162/Tippit killer's jacket color. (Barbara Davis swore the killer of Tippit was Oswald and that he wore a black coat when she saw him run from killing Tippit, against everyone else who all saw a light or white jacket on the killer, suggesting Barbara Davis may have seen a different running person, not the killer of Tippit, wearing different clothing and confused another person with the killer of Tippit.)

The point being: Earlene signed an affidavit on Dec 5, 1963, of seeing Oswald running out of the rooming house zipping up a jacket. She stated in that affidavit, "I recall the jacket was a dark color" (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=41#relPageId=449). 

A "dark" color of the jacket Oswald was putting on as he went out the rooming house at about 1 pm on Nov 22, is not what witnesses were calling the near-white CE 162 (so near-white that 20% of witnesses of that jacket called it literally "white"), not what any person would call CE 162. But both "dark" and a "gray" of a color-blind person would agree well in description of the blue of CE 163.

However, Aynesworth's very different claim that Earlene told him the jacket Oswald left with was "tan" does sound like CE 162 and not CE 163 the blue jacket.

Of course, one's view on whether Oswald killed Tippit will unavoidably cause back-interpretation on to which jacket one believes Oswald was wearing leaving the rooming house. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

Please save this on your website, you have laid out some very interesting and important points.  The EF can be terrible to find previous posts, I´d hate to see this getting "lost".  

[Greg Doudna]

Thanks Jean. 

Here is a section from the paper which was on my website which I have taken down for rewrite.

~ ~ ~

What color did Earlene Roberts see in Oswald’s jacket?

Earlene Roberts was not asked the color of Oswald’s jacket in her Warren Commission testimony. That is somewhat of an obvious question one might think would be asked of Earlene Roberts in her testimony, but she was not asked. When she was shown CE 162 (the Tippit killer’s near-white jacket), hoping for an identification, Earlene did not give the desired identification and instead objected that she thought Oswald’s jacket had been “darker than that”. 

Going earlier, we have seen Earlene’s Dec 5 signed affidavit explicitly stating a “dark” color of the jacket she saw. Not a slightly less-light shade of the near-white CE 162. But “dark”, unqualified full-stop adjective—an adjective which does not apply to, cannot apply to, and which other witnesses did not apply to, CE 162.

However it may be objected that in early media reporting, starting from the day of the assassination, Earlene Roberts said Oswald’s jacket was gray in color, not blue. 

“[A]nd he [Oswald] come in and got a short gray coat and went right on back out in a hurry” (Earlene Roberts, KLIF-Radio interview, Nov 22, 1963, https://soundcloud.com/beauweaver/the-fateful-hours-klif-dallas)

“He just ran in his room, got a short tan coat and ran back out” (Earlene Roberts quoted in the Dallas Morning News, Nov 28, 1963, based on an interview of Earlene Roberts of Fri Nov 22 by reporter Hugh Aynesworth [Aynesworth, Breaking the News, 2003, 67, photo of the newspaper article at p. 73]. The “short tan coat” from the Aynesworth story is repeated in a Detroit Free Press article of Dec 1963, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60418#relPageId=62).

“He ran to his room, came running back with a gray zipper[ed] jacket and out the door” (UPI wire service story, source Earlene Roberts, Nov 23, 1963 [cited Myers’ blog 11/22/17])

The second of the three items above, the Dallas Morning News quote from a Hugh Aynesworth story, reporting Earlene as saying “tan”, is dissonant. It differs from all other known reportings of Earlene’s words. In light of the hearsay nature of newspaper quotations and lack of other corroboration that Earlene said that, it must be questioned whether that is accurate (that is, accurately from Earlene), as opposed to influenced by early descriptions of the color of the Tippit killer’s jacket contaminating reporting of descriptions of the color of the jacket of Oswald leaving the rooming house. 

(The reporter, Aynesworth, the apparent sole source of a “tan” color attributed to Earlene Roberts for the color of Oswald’s jacket, has a track record of covert assistance to intelligence agencies concerning JFK assassination reporting matters, as brought out in documents on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site. Because of a lack of any known corroboration that Earlene Roberts ever named a “tan” color for the Oswald jacket, and because the “tan” color appears too coincidental with early intent to identify Oswald’s jacket as the CE 162 Tippit killer’s jacket—which is an off-white light tan and was being so reported as that color by witnesses of the Tippit killer—this study concludes this sole claim of a “tan” color description attributed to Earlene Roberts is questionable, at minimum uncertain and at worst a possibly wilful error, in a major in-depth feature article of Aynesworth Nov 28, 1963 picked up by wire services nationwide.)

There has separately been circulated a different erroneous claim that Earlene said that Oswald got “a short white coat and went on back out in a hurry”(http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White Materials/Warren Commission-Subject/Description.doc). That is without any basis whatsoever. It stems from a mishearing or misreporting of Earlene’s words at about 26:38 in the KLIF-Radio interview of “a short gray coat”. I have personally verified Earlene said “short gray coat”, not “short white coat” there. 

But it is verified from the KLIF-Radio interview, in Earlene’s own voice, that Earlene Roberts said “gray” as the color, and said that on the same day she saw Oswald leave her house with the jacket. That is about as early and as basic as it gets with respect to Earlene’s witness, the only witness who saw Oswald’s jacket as he left the rooming house that day.

Furthermore, there is no confirmed evidence Earlene ever said the color was any other than “dark” or “gray”, just those two words. Earlene Roberts has been portrayed as giving conflicting and contradictory color portrayals when that is not true. The effect has been to discredit Earlene as not credible in any claim she made concerning the color. But the notion of Earlene as contradictory and all over the map on the color of Oswald’s jacket is not true. 

In fact Earlene’s color description of Oswald’s jacket was consistent, consisting of only two words: “dark” and “gray”. There is no other color word verifiably said by Earlene in description of the jacket of Oswald she saw on Fri Nov 22. 

Neither of those color descriptions that actually come from Earlene are consistent with CE 162.

But what is the meaning of Earlene’s description for CE 163? How can Oswald’s jacket have been the blue CE 163, when Earlene never said “blue” but only said “dark” and “gray”?

Earlene Roberts and the “gray” color of Oswald’s jacket

The $64,000 question is: on the assumption that the “gray” color of the jacket was an early, honest description of Earlene (as it surely was), is that evidence establishing—does it give weight to—a conclusion that the color of Oswald’s jacket as he went out the door of the rooming house was not blue, and the jacket not CE 163?

And the answer, surprisingly, is “no”, not if Earlene Roberts had yellow-blue colorblindness. 

“People with yellow-blue colorblindness often see shades of blue as gray” (https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorBlind/comments/iztxq8/mistake_blue_for_grey/)

Diabetes Type 2, adult onset diabetes, the most common type of diabetes, is linked to colorblindness: 

“The study [of Tan et al.] ... revealed that colour blindness affects 22.3 percent of people with type 2 diabetes. Those who have had the disease for six years or more have a higher incidence of colour blindness. The risk increases each year that patients suffer from the condition ... It was also found that people with poorer vision are more prone to this eye problem.” (https://www.healthhub.sg/a-z/diseases-and-conditions/how-colour-blindness-is-linked-to-type-2-diabetes)

The study was published in 2017 in BMC Endocrine Disorders (https://bmcendocrdisord.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12902-017-0181-7).

According to the abstract, of the 22% overall percentage of type 2 diabetics with color-blindness, “impaired color vision was associated with older patients”, and “impaired blue-yellow color-vision (Tritanomaly) was the commonest impaired color vision”. 

Earlene Roberts, age 58 at the time, was diabetic. 

“Mrs. Roberts explained she has diabetes and is afraid to leave Dallas and be away from her doctor. She said she has been in a diabetic coma on two occasions.” (FBI interview of Earlene Roberts, June 8, 1964, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=543)

The study cited above says the already-significant incidence of color blindness for diabetes type 2 patients is escalated still further in diabetics with poor vision. From her Warren Commission testimony:

Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, you know, I can’t see too good how to read. I’m completely blind in my right eye.

These facts suggest that on medical grounds Earlene Roberts may have been physiologically incapable of seeing the blue of CE 163.

What others would see as “blue”, Earlene, from color-blindness, may have been unable to see as other than “gray”, in agreement with the only color Earlene Roberts ever claimed for the jacket of Oswald, even though CE 163 in fact is blue (or as Mr. Ball of the Warren Commission called CE 163, “blue-gray”). 

Being color-blind may have caused Earlene to see blue as gray, but it would not affect Earlene being able to see whether something was “light” or “dark” in tone or shade even if color recognition itself was poor. Earlene while afflicted with color-blindness would still be able to see the difference between “light” and “dark”, and Earlene said the jacket was “dark”.

That is, a color-blind person can tell “dark” from “light” in tone, even if the color is not seen as other than a shade of gray. And the early reports of Earlene speaking of a “gray” color for the jacket of Oswald as he went out the door just after 1 pm on Friday are consistent with how Oswald’s blue jacket CE 163 would look to Earlene and how she would tell what she saw to others.

Again, in her own words, when Earlene was shown CE 162, the Tippit killer’s nearly-white light tan jacket, Earlene Roberts told the Warren Commission she thought Oswald’s jacket was “darker than that” (darker than the off-white CE 162). The early reportings of Earlene saying the jacket was “gray” do not have Earlene saying “light gray”.

Earlene never said other than the color was “gray” and “dark”, both consistent with Earlene seeing CE 163 and not consistent with Earlene seeing CE 162.

For these reasons the early reportings of Earlene Roberts referring to the color of Oswald’s jacket as “dark” and “gray” are not only fully compatible with the jacket being CE 163, Oswald’s blue coat, but constitute positive witness testimony—positive evidence—that it was CE 163, and was not CE 162.

Why did Earlene on KLIF-Radio call Oswald’s jacket a “coat”?

There is a further detail which has gone largely unremarked. In the KLIF-Radio interview of Earlene Roberts of Nov 22, 1963 (https://soundcloud.com/beauweaver/the-fateful-hours-klif-dallas), Earlene does not speak of Oswald’s “jacket” but rather of Oswald’s “coat”. Why is that? This occurs twice in that interview. At 25:42, “a short coat”. At 26:38, “a short gray coat”. My transcriptions:

“he rushed in in shirt sleeves and got a short coat and went back out… he acted as if he was in a hurry… and I spoke to him and he just ignored me, but that’s not unusual, sometimes he’d speak to you and sometimes he didn’t…” (25:42f)

“and he come in and got a short gray coat and went right on back out in a hurry. And when I looked out the window he was standing at the bus stop…” (26:38f)

Although there is overlap and interchangeability in uses of “jacket” and “coat” in English, the two words are not exactly synonymous. Generally a “coat” tends to connote a somewhat heavier or warmer outerwear than a “jacket”. 

“Coat vs. Jacket: What is the Difference? ...

“[C]oats often provide more warmth and insulation than jackets ... A coat is a warm outer garment worn over top of other clothing meant to protect the wearer from extreme temperatures. Coats often have a hip-length or longer length, though they can also end at the waist ... coats almost always use heavier, more insulating fabric than jackets. This makes them much warmer... A jacket is a kind of outwear for the upper body that usually ends at the waist or the hips ... provide less warmth than a coat ...” (https://silverbobbin.com/coat-vs-jacket/)

Oswald’s blue jacket or coat, CE 163, was warmer and heavier than his lighter-weight gray jacket (the gray jacket Oswald ditched for good just before entering the rooming house; the jacket of the Minsk photograph noted earlier).

Compare the way William Whaley, the cab driver, in his Warren Commission testimony unconsciously associated—just from looking at the items—CE 162 as a “jacket” whereas he called the blue CE 163 a “coat”:

Mr. WHALEY. That jacket [CE 162] now it might have been clean, but the jacket he had on looked more the color, you know like a uniform set, but he had this coat here [CE 163] on over [more likely than] that other jacket [CE 162], I am sure, sir. 

Therefore, although due to variability in actual usage this point would not be decisive in itself, when combined with other evidence Earlene’s word choice of “coat” in her KLIF-Radio interview supports that Oswald left the rooming house with CE 163. 

Edited September 30 by Greg Doudna

[Kevin Balch]

On 9/27/2024 at 12:00 PM, Greg Doudna said:

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. 

The jacket looks gray to me in the NARA video. However, the room might be illuminated with fluorescent lights which will distort the perception of color. All the witnesses viewed the jacket in sunlight.

It would be interesting if there was any gunpowder residue in the pocket or on the sleeve but I suppose the jacket has been laundered.

https://www.indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/fluorescent-lighting-affects-color.php#:~:text=Like sunlight%2C fluorescent light is also white light%2C,a bit off-color about our clothes and makeup.

Edited September 30 by Kevin Balch

[Jean Ceulemans]

On 9/29/2024 at 5:13 AM, Greg Doudna said:

Finally, I think both of the jackets to which Marina referred--the gray and the blue--show up in photographs of Oswald in Minsk. There are quite a number of Oswald Minsk photographs and it only makes sense that those jackets could appear in those photographs. I already have shown what I think was a Minsk photo of Oswald wearing his gray jacket, which Jean Ceulemans helpfully gave a better photo resolution and also a similar wool-like light jacket that is gray in color sold today, similar type to the one in the Minsk photo and described by Buell Frazier as what Lee wore to work all the time at the TSBD including Nov 22.

But what of the blue 163 jacket in a photo in Minsk? I'm not sure--would welcome other opinions--but I think it is in a photo of Oswald with what I think is Ella German (not sure about that, but it is Lee with a woman who isn't Marina), the woman Oswald first wanted to marry who turned him down before he met Marina. I thought that based on earlier studying a better copy of that photo which I cannot find online at this moment, but a poor quality of that photo is here: top left at https://www.jfk.org/collections-archive/black-and-white-photograph-of-personal-photographs-belonging-to-oswald/. The photo quality in this link is so poor no jacket identification can be made out. But I have seen a better copy of that photo in the past and that is where I surmised that the jacket Oswald is wearing in that photo could be CE 163. (Jean-Paul, could you possibly work your magic and come up with a good copy of that photo? 🙂 )

Anyway, that's my take on it.

There is another picture of CE 163 in Russia that´s somewhat better, see below the one at NARA. Notice the shape of the pockets and their 3-striped edge, also the zipper not going all the way down, shape of the collar. I´m not 100% sure, but it seems close and CE 163 being Oswalds is very plausible given this picture. Note: the Minsk picture shows what seems to be vertical scratches, but these are scratches on the picture surface, they are also visible on his pants.

 

 

Edited October 1 by Jean Ceulemans

[Jean Ceulemans]

I´m not sure what jacket is in the display here? If that is CE 162 they sure cleaned it a lot...

Another thing, the light colored CE 162 just doesn´t seem ok to wear at work in a dusty dirty place.  I´d go for a somewhat darker grey type (like the 1950´s cool wool grey type I posted before).  And more in line with Frazier´s statements, but where did it go.. Did the real grey wool tupe jacket disappear because CE 162 very soon had such a prominent role... It sure is fishy...

 

Edited October 4 by Jean Ceulemans

[Greg Doudna]

9 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

The jacket looks gray to me in the NARA video. However, the room might be illuminated with fluorescent lights which will distort the perception of color. All the witnesses viewed the jacket in sunlight.

It would be interesting if there was any gunpowder residue in the pocket or on the sleeve but I suppose the jacket has been laundered.

https://www.indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/fluorescent-lighting-affects-color.php#:~:text=Like sunlight%2C fluorescent light is also white light%2C,a bit off-color about our clothes and makeup.

That’s a good comment Kevin. I looked into that too—fluorescent lighting indoors would wash out the warm tones in the light tan and cause CE 162 to look gray. Of the 15 witnesses who gave color descriptions that I catalogued, of the 4 who said it was gray or grayish-tan, 2 of those made those identifications indoors (Guinyard and Callaway looked at it from a closet at the police station. The other 2 were Markham and Bill Alexander.) The Dallas Police report of the find, which would have been prepared indoors, has it written as “gray”, even though, oddly, the officer who signed that report of its find, Westbrook, said in Sneed that it was “tan, beige, or rye” in color, no mention of the gray on the original police report he signed.

And Warren Commission counsels when showing CE 162 to witnesses in their testimony, indoor lighting but unknown whether fluorescent, routinely informed witnesses the color was gray. 

My favorite testimony on the color of CE 162 issue is Linnie Mae Randle. Unlike her brother Buell Frazier who rode with Oswald and Oswald’s gray jacket (not CE 162) for hours on multiple trips from Irving to Dallas, Linnie Mae only had a one time look at it on Oswald the morning of Nov 22. In WC questioning she said three times it was “gray” (just like Frazier said). 

WC counsel Ball did not seem too happy with that. He showed Linnie Mae CE 162 and asked if that was the jacket she saw Oswald wearing.

Linnie Mae answered, “No, it was gray”. 

That is, she was saying Oswald’s jacket she saw was not 162—because Oswald’s jacket was gray. Meaning to Linnie Mae, 162 was not.

Then Ball tried another tack, a trick question. He showed her CE 163, Oswald’s blue coat or jacket, and asked her, between 162 and 163, if she had to choose, which would she say was closer to the jacket she saw Oswald wearing.

It was a forced choice between two false alternatives. The true answer was neither was correct, it was Oswald’s gray jacket. However Ball’s question was a relative comparison question, asking her which of the two was closer in appearance. 

Forced to choose, Linnie Mae said 163, the blue, was closer. (Probably because the blue was closer to Oswald’s gray jacket in tone, compared to the near-white 162.)

Ball, like a savvy lawyer, repeated Linnie Mae’s testimony back saying “the witness has just said…” but changed one key word, “more similar to” 163 (than 162, relatively speaking) of the question Linnie Mae had actually answered, to claim Linnie Mae had just testified that 163 “is similar to” the jacket Oswald saw.

If you’re a lawyer or a close reader of texts you can see the subtle change in meaning by that word change.

Linnie Mae just nodded, said “yes” and Ball quit on that note saying “I have no further questions”.

Neither Ball nor the WR themselves actually came out and said Linnie Mae had positively identified the blue 163 as the jacket Linnie Mae had consistently and repeatedly said was gray before Ball put that forced choice of two false alternatives on her.

But I have seen especially from some pro-WR types, that testimony of Linnie Mae quoted as if it is positive testimony that Oswald wore the blue jacket that morning, instead of the jacket Buell and Linnie Mae both said was “gray”. 

Strange to say, the WR and to my knowledge all of its major defenders literally do not acknowledge the existence of Oswald’s actual gray jacket, the flannel-woollike gray work jacket worn all the time to work by Oswald described by Frazier. 

Their position has been that CE 162, the near-white light tan jacket of the Tippit killer, was Oswald’s gray jacket.

Key witnesses were shown the 162 jacket and asked if they recognized it as a jacket of Oswald.

Buell Frazier: no, never saw it before, 162 absolutely was not Oswald’s gray jacket.

Linnie Mae: no, 162 was not Oswald’s gray jacket. 

Marina: yes, 162 was an old shirt of Oswald. Rankin corrects Marina, advises her 162 is a jacket. Marina: well I think I saw Lee wearing it the night of Nov 21 in Irving.

Ruth Paine (who could have settled this matter cold, in terms of her reputation and status as a witness): never asked. Never shown 162. Never asked if she ever saw Oswald wearing a gray jacket that he wore from her house many times according to Frazier, and to describe it.

Wonder why Ruth was never asked. 

I think it was because the last thing the managers of the WR’s case would want would be a truthful answer from Ruth Paine on that question, for fear she would answer similarly in agreement with Buell Frazier.

So like prosecutors’ logic of what helps or damages the case, the WC never showed Ruth CE 162 or asked her about jackets. 

The Warren Commission chose to run with the 1 out of 3 witnesses they did ask to identify the Tippit killers 162 as Oswald’s jacket. who identified 162 as Lee’s, Marina, rejecting the 2 out of 3 who said no, and not ask Ruth at all who could have brought the whole thing down if she had been asked and answered on the record. 

Apart from the Tippit crime scene witnesses, Marina who said she thought Lee had 162 in Irving the night of Nov 21 is the sole, solitary witness claim to connect 162 to Oswald outside of the Tippit crime scene. 

Not Buell Frazier. Not anybody at Oswald’s workplace at the TSBD. Not Ruth Paine. Not any of the emigre Russians who knew the Oswalds. Nobody who knew the Oswalds or Lee. Just Marina. 

Frazier flatly and definitely said 162 simply was not Oswald’s gray jacket.

No photo exists of Oswald wearing 162. 

Buell Frazier’s testimony on Oswald’s gray jacket is the baseline fact.

Oswald did have a gray jacket, it was not 162, said Frazier who described the gray jacket, but Frazier’s clear testimony on this has been disregarded in subsequent history as if it did not exist in the history of research.

Edited October 1 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

Marina Oswald and the identification of CE 162

On Feb 6, 1964, at the end of her final day of four days of testimony to the Warren Commission, in the final minutes at the end of hours of grueling testimony that day, the Warren Commission obtained from Marina Oswald an identification of CE 162 as an item of clothing that had belonged to her husband (which if true would make Oswald the killer of Tippit). There are two distinct issues: what did Marina claim, and was Marina correct in what she claimed.  

On the first question, what did Marina claim, Marina actually made two identification claims with respect to CE 162. The first:

Mr. RANKIN. 162?
Mrs. OSWALD. That is Lee’s—an old shirt.
Mr. RANKIN. Sort of a jacket?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.

The second:

Mrs. OSWALD. It seems he had that jacket [CE 162], also [on the night of Thursday, Nov 21, 1963, in Irving].
Mr. RANKIN. Exhibit 162?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.

The Warren Commission rejects one of Marina’s identifications of CE 162 

The Warren Commission narrative was that CE 162 was retrieved by Oswald Friday afternoon Nov 22 at Lee’s rooming house in Oak Cliff. The Warren Commission narrative therefore rejects Marina’s claim of seeing CE 162 with Lee on Thursday night Nov 21 in Irving, dismissing that as mistaken on Marina's part. The Warren Commission narrative holds that Marina was credible on the first claim but not on the second.

Obtaining critical testimony from a witness when she is tired

During the two and a half months between the assassination and Marina’s testimony to the Warren Commission, the FBI never showed CE 162 to Marina. Marina’s Warren Commission testimony was the first and only time Marina saw CE 162. Let it be considered how that was done. 

At midday during the final of four days of Marina giving testimony under oath, at about 12:30 pm on Feb 6, 1964, Commission Chair Earl Warren wrapping up the morning session spoke considerate words to Marina:

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Oswald, we are going to recess now until 2 o’clock. You must be quite tired by now. And this afternoon we are going to introduce some of the physical objects that are essential to make up our record. When we finish with those, I think your testimony will be completed. And I think we should finish today. You won’t be unhappy about that, will you?
Mrs. OSWALD. No. Thank you.

Comment: There is almost a subtext here which might be paraphrased: “As a last thing, Mrs. Oswald, please help us, if you would, with what we [Warren Commission] need established, some items of Lee’s clothing. It’s mostly a formality really, but we need confirmations from you on some things for our records, and then all of this will be over and you can go home.”

“You must be quite tired by now … you won’t be unhappy about that, will you?” Marina is asked solicitously—perhaps in acknowledgement that Marina, single mother of two small children one of whom she was nursing in breaks between sessions of her testimony, may have shown visible signs of tiredness.

In that final afternoon session, items of clothing all from Oswald’s person and belongings, or which Marina had already previously identified as Lee’s—with one exception—were laid out on a desk surface area of some kind (there is no known photograph of the display). The items were not formally told to Marina to have been from Lee’s belongings and person, but Marina on her own would recognize that. 

Among the otherwise entirely genuine clothing items of Lee arranged on display the Warren Commission had unobtrusively set among them (one is tempted to use the word “planted”) CE 162. Marina was then asked to confirm all of the clothing items were Lee’s, one after another, for the record, with CE 162 slipped in among them. 

Marina—not known for being the most accurate or careful of witnesses under the best of circumstances—was cooperating, identifying those items one after another, “yes… yes… yes…”, then asked for identification of CE 162, which (unknown to Marina) was not found among Lee’s belongings among the other items which were.

It was like having someone fatigued sign many papers at one time, with some landmine document or fine print slipped in, signed unthinkingly by the person as one more among the others.

Mr. RANKIN. Mrs. Oswald, would you step over with the interpreter to this desk and point out the different pieces of clothing as we ask you about it, please? Do you know the shirt that Lee Oswald wore the morning that he left?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don’t remember. What else interests you? What do you want?

Comment: The picture is Marina is standing with her interpreter near some large flat desk surface looking at items but there is no indication that she touches or handles the items. The items are not brought individually one by one close to Marina to examine individually. It is unclear whether CE 162 was lifted up for Marina to see better when that item was asked of Marina; nothing indicates it was. Now comes the runup. 

Mr. RANKIN. Can you tell us whether any of this clothing set out on this desk belonged to Lee Oswald?
Mrs. OSWALD. These are Lee’s shoes.
Mr. RANKIN. When you say the shoes, you pointed to Exhibit 149?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. This is a pair of shoes of which Exhibit 149 is a photograph.
Mrs. OSWALD. These are his bath slippers.
Mr. RANKIN. Exhibit 148 are his bath slippers?
Mrs. OSWALD. Japanese bath slippers. These shoes I have never seen.
Mr. RANKIN. That is Exhibit 147, you say those are shoes you have never seen? How about Exhibit 146? 

Mrs. OSWALD. These are his, yes. These are all Lee’s shirts.
Mr. RANKIN. Exhibits 150, 151—
Mrs. OSWALD. These are his pajamas.
Mr. RANKIN. Exhibits 150, and 151 are Lee Oswald’s shirts, is that right?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And Exhibit 152 is a pair of his pajamas?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And Exhibit 153—you recognize that?
Mr. OSWALD. That is his shirt.
Mr. RANKIN. And Exhibit 154? Is that one of his shirts?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Exhibit 155?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes, also. Why is it all torn?
Mr. RANKIN. We are advised it was when he was hurt, they cut into some of these. Do you recall whether or not he was wearing Exhibit—the shirt that I point to now, the morning of the 22d of November—Exhibit 150?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes, it was a dark shirt.
Mr. RANKIN. You think that was the one?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. I call your attention to Exhibit 156. Is that a pair of his pants?
Mrs. OSWALD. These are his work pants.
Mr. RANKIN. And 157?
Mrs. OSWALD. Also work pants. These are all work pants.
Mr. RANKIN. 158?
Mrs. OSWALD. Why were both of those cut? I don’t understand.
Mr. RANKIN. I have not been informed, but I will try to find out for you.
Mrs. OSWALD. It is not necessary.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall which of the pants he was wearing on the morning of November 22, 1963?
Mrs. OSWALD. I think the gray ones, but I am not sure, because it was dark in the room, and I paid no attention to what pants he put on.
Mr. RANKIN. By the gray ones, you are referring to what I point to as Exhibit 157, is that right?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Can you tell us about Exhibit 159, a sweater?
Mrs. OSWALD. That was my gift to Lee, a sweater.
Mr. RANKIN. 160?
Mrs. OSWALD. That is Lee’s shirt.
Mr. RANKIN. 161?
Mrs. OSWALD. This is a pullover sweater. This is his pullover sweater.
Mr. RANKIN. 162?
Mrs. OSWALD. That is Lee’s—an old shirt.
Mr. RANKIN. Sort of a jacket?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.

In this way came about Marina Oswald’s identification of CE 162. Marina had no idea CE 162 was from the Tippit crime scene. Rankin continues without missing a beat—

Mr. RANKIN. 163?
Mrs. OSWALD. Also.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall which one of the sweaters or jackets he was wearing on the morning of November 22, 1963?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don’t remember.
Mr. RANKIN. When was the last time that you saw this jacket, Exhibit 163 [Oswald’s blue coat]?
Mrs. OSWALD. I don’t remember.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you remember seeing it on the morning of November 22, 1963?
Mrs. OSWALD. The thing is that I saw Lee in the room, and I didn’t see him getting dressed in the room. That is why it is difficult for me to say. But I told him to put on something warm on the way to work.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall whether the jacket, Exhibit 163, is something that he put on in your presence at any time that day?
Mrs. OSWALD. Not in my presence.
Mr. RANKIN. And you didn’t observe it on him at any time, then?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.

Here Marina fails to support a narrative that Oswald wore his blue coat or jacket, CE 163, to work the morning of Nov 22, 1963. As Buell Frazier and Linnie Mae Randle testified, the jacket Lee wore to Irving on Thursday night and back to Dallas Friday morning was his gray jacket.

(…) Mr. RANKIN. Do you recall any of these clothes that your husband was wearing when he came home Thursday night, November 21, 1963?
Mrs. OSWALD. On Thursday I think he wore this shirt.
Mr. RANKIN. Is that Exhibit 150?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you remember anything else he was wearing at that time?
Mrs. OSWALD. It seems he had that jacket, also.
Mr. RANKIN. Exhibit 162?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And the pants, Exhibit 157? [gray work pants]
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. But I am not sure. This is as much as I can remember.
Mr. RANKIN. Thank you.

FBI failure to find an association to Oswald in a dry cleaning tag in CE 162

A dry cleaning tag was found stapled inside CE 162 at the time of its find in Oak Cliff on Fri Nov 22. At the request of the Warren Commission the FBI sought to find the dry cleaning establishment of that tag at which Oswald might have had CE 162 dry cleaned. As told in FBI documents on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site, the FBI comprehensively checked hundreds of dry cleaning establishments first in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, then in the greater New Orleans area, an enormous expenditure of energy, all with negative results, finding nothing (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11264#relPageId=3; Myers, With Malice, 340).  

In the midst of that investigation Marina was reinterviewed by the FBI on April 1, 1964 by agent Wallace Heitman. Heitman’s report:

“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 [lightweight] 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 said she cannot recall that Oswald ever sent either of these jackets to any laundry or cleaners anywhere. She said she can recall washing them herself. She advised to her knowledge Oswald possessed both of these jackets at Dallas on November 22, 1963.” (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95957#relPageId=228)

On April 6, 1964, an FBI Dallas teletype to the Director, FBI, Washington, D.C., stated that Marina had identified CE 162 as the gray jacket of Oswald, but it is not clear how or when Marina did such an identification. There is no known testimony or direct statement or record of the occasion of, or Marina's words, in making an identification of CE 162 as the gray jacket Lee had in Russia of which Marina spoke. 

“Only information developed by Dallas to date to indicate laundry mark appearing in gray jacket [CE 162] is foreign in origin is that Marina Oswald has stated subject had this jacket before going to Russia and while in Russia. She has no knowledge that Oswald ever had jacket laundered or dry cleaned.” (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=58952#relPageId=40)

The Heitman FBI interview of Marina of April 1 was not a second showing of CE 162 to Marina. In that Heitman interview Marina described a gray jacket Lee had in the Soviet Union—that would be the one in the photograph of Lee with his coworkers in Minsk, and in the United States the gray jacket which Buell Frazier and other coworkers at the Texas School Book Depository saw Oswald wear including Friday morning Nov 22—the one Buell Frazier said was “a gray, more or less flannel, wool-looking jacket that I had seen him wear” that was not CE 162. 

There is nothing on the record from Marina that identified CE 162 as the gray jacket she told Heitman Lee had in Minsk. There is no sign that Heitman had CE 162 with him when he talked with Marina on April 1, 1963. How could he know when Marina was telling him of Lee's gray jacket in Russia, that she was talking about CE 162? Instead of the gray work jacket Buell Frazier, as well as other coworkers of Lee at the TSBD, said Lee wore all the time to work? Answer: Heitman could not know that based on any reported information. 

~ ~ ~

Marina appears to have identified CE 162 visually across a short distance of space to where CE 162 was set on its surface, without Marina physically touching or holding or lifting it from the surface where it was displayed, holding it up for closer inspection, etc., according to any known information. 

There is no photograph of how the Commission’s exhibit items of Oswald’s clothing plus CE 162 were laid out, but one might imagine that whatever surface that was, CE 162 would have been positioned far enough out of Marina’s reach that she could not easily grab it or pick it up to bring closer to her eyes, feel it in her hands, look over the thing. If Marina had asked to see CE 162 more closely her request surely would have been accommodated, but the transcript shows Marina made no such request, and there is no reason to suppose that happened. (Which could have been what was intended, in whoever designed the display of the items of Lee’s clothing with CE 162 among them.)

Marina saw CE 162 and thought it was a clothing item of Lee prior to any recognition of it (because it was with all other genuine clothing items of Lee, and there never was a chance for Marina to see CE 162 again for a second look or under different lighting (such as outdoors or under better light), for reconsideration. Marina never saw CE 162 before her final day before the Warren Commission, when the Warren Commission showed it to her in her final minutes of four days’ testimony, got her identification, asked no followup questions, ended her testimony and sent her home. 

When the FBI interviewed Marina further there was no new opportunity for Marina to view CE 162 (there is certainly no report Marina ever saw CE 162 again after her Warren Commission testimony). Instead, it was Marina on this later occasion telling the FBI of a gray jacket of Lee from her memory of the actual gray jacket of Lee’s--the one that Buell Frazier described and that other TSBD employees described that Lee wore to work to the TSBD all the time and in which Lee was photographed in Minsk.

The delay in asking Marina about CE 162

A possible signal of something amiss with the Feb 6, 1964 identification of CE 162 obtained from Marina is the absence of any record that Marina was asked about CE 162 before then, even though the FBI interviewed Marina many times before then including questioning her concerning Lee’s blue jacket, CE 163.

An early identification from Marina that CE 162 was Lee’s would have been significant and newsworthy. Yet that never was sought from Marina by the FBI, why? 

If it was a slam dunk that CE 162 was a jacket of Lee known to Marina, why the failure to obtain a statement from Marina to that effect earlier? Sometimes the way to reduce the risk of unwanted things on the record is to not ask witnesses certain questions. It does not inspire confidence that Marina was shown and asked about CE 162 for a first and only time as late as her Warren Commission testimony.

Comment on manipulative process in obtaining Marina’s identification of CE 162

The process was manipulative in the way Marina was led to assume CE 162 was an item of Lee’s clothing prior to the question of whether she recognized it. Marina would have mistakenly assumed a priori CE 162 must be something of Lee’s that had been found among Lee's belongings (because every other item she was being shown was apart from CE 163 and the FBI had had Marina separately identify that for them). That could contribute to a mistaken identification. 

It was manipulative in the way identification of CE 162 was considered routine and given no special attention among 100% other items of undisputed Lee’s clothing, without further questioning of Marina concerning details. 

It was manipulative in the circumstances of Marina’s viewing of CE 162, in which there is no indication Marina had CE 162 in her hands or that it was lifted up for Marina to see more closely or fully.

It was manipulative in the scheduling of Marina’s identification in the final part of the closing afternoon session of her testimony. Was there a fear that if Marina had opportunity during a break following a session to reconsider, she might upon return to the next session ask to have her testimony corrected (say, from certainty to uncertainty), and to preempt that risk, the question intentionally was not asked until toward the end of her final session, making any second thoughts or reconsideration possibility on Marina's part that much more difficult to communicate if so? 

It was manipulative in that the time chosen to ask her, toward the close of the two-hours-plus final session, would be when it could be anticipated Marina would be at her maximum fatigue. 

The Warren Commission’s obtaining of Marina’s identification of CE 162 as an item of clothing of Lee’s almost has the appearance of an attempt to trick Marina into that identification.

Awareness on the part of Warren Commission counsels that the CE 162 identification obtained from Marina was shaky might also be suggested in the lack of followup questions addressed to Marina related to that critically important identification, other than Rankin making clear that CE 162 was a “jacket” and obtaining Marina's "yes" (Marina had identified CE 162 as a "shirt" of Lee's) before moving on to other matters. Marina was not asked “are you sure this was Lee’s?”, “When do you remember last seeing Lee wear that?” , "how did Lee get this jacket?", "did he have this jacket in Russia?", and so on. Questions designed to bring out Marina’s answer a second or third time to ensure Marina’s answer had not been premature without full awareness or confidence. 

Of course, if the objective was to get a hoped-for identification on the record for the purpose of incriminating Oswald in agreement with the theory of the case of the Commission, as distinct from disinterestedly wanting the truth of Marina’s story, further questioning of Marina concerning CE 162 might not be deemed advantageous. 

Instead of followups on CE 162 the questioning moved smoothly to other things, as if CE 162 had been just one more routine identification among the others. There were a few pro forma questions on other things, then Marina’s testimony came to an end for good as far as the Warren Commission was concerned, in the minutes following Marina’s CE 162 identification. There was no followup concerning CE 162. Marina’s four days were over and Marina was thanked for her testimony.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, Mrs. Oswald, you have been a very cooperative witness. You have helped the Commission. We are grateful to you for doing this. We realize that this has been a hard ordeal for you to go through.
Mrs. OSWALD. It was difficult to speak all the truth.

Conclusion regarding Marina and CE 162

Marina’s identification of CE 162 as an item of Lee’s clothing can be understood as Marina responding to suggestion combined with circumstances conducive to error. 

But it is not as if Marina’s testimony stands on its own for better or worse. In this case there is additional information. In the clearest of terms Buell Wesley Frazier rejected CE 162 as being Oswald’s gray jacket and gave a different physical description of Lee’s gray jacket. Weight must be given to Buell Frazier’s testimony due to the credibility of Frazier as a witness. 

The identification by Marina of CE 162 as belonging to Lee came about under circumstances increasing odds that Marina might make that desired identification whether or not it was actually correct.

The objective appears to have been to get that identification from Marina more than it was to cross-check Marina’s testimony to assess whether it was actually correct.

Edited October 1 by Greg Doudna