Dispensing With the Patsy

DISPENSING WITH THE PATSY

LETTING OSWALD OFF THE HOOK]

BK Notes: Before beginning to identify the actual assassin(s) and resolve the murder of the President to a legal and moral certainty, the official story must be dispensed with, as I try to do here. 

"There's another thing that's got to be taken care of first,” Sam Spade says, “We've got to have a fall-guy. The police have got to have a victim - somebody they can stick those murders on. The way to handle them is to toss them a victim, somebody they can hang the works on. I get away with it because I never let myself forget that a day of reckoning is coming. I never forget that when the day of reckoning comes I want to be all set to march into headquarters pushing a victim in front of me, saying 'Here, you chumps, is your criminal!'” – Sam Spade – The Maltise Falcon – by Dashiell Hammett

"Here, you chumps, is your criminal!"  - Cigar Chomping Dallas Detective Paul Bentley 

[BK Notes: Bentley was a close personal friend of the Navy officer Lt. Com. Robert Steel who officially investigated Oswald after his defection and after the assassination and wrote reports that are now missing.
JFKcountercoup: Interview with ONI Investigator Robert Steel ]

By William Kelly 

billkelly3@gmail.com 

 “An absurdly large number of elements renders a theory implausible,” - Professor John McAdams

That an absurdly large number of elements renders a theory implausible is certainly something a logical and reasonable person would agree on, and I do. The problem with Professor McAdams is the extension of that logic to the unreasonable conclusion that one man alone – Lee Harvey Oswald killed the President of the United States.

As McAdams continues, “For example, to let Oswald off the hook, you have to posit that somebody stole the rifle from the Paine garage, that they managed to get into the Depository and shoot Kennedy,  that they produced a bag with Oswald’s palm print and a fingerprint on it and then left it in the Sniper’s Nest, and then got out of the building with nobody seeing them, while Oswald was luckily nowhere in the sight of anybody, and was indeed in the building, the elaborateness of this scenario renders it implausible. Among theories that explain the data, the simplest one – or more properly the one with the fewest ad hoc assumptions – is to be preferred.”

An absurdly large number of elements renders a theory implausible, especially those elements that attempt but fail to place Lee Harvey Oswald in the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) at the time of the assassination, thus rendering it implausible he was the lone assassin of the President.

And it is the very elaborateness of this scenario that permits us to figure it out. 

While Oswald ‘was luckily in nowhere in sight of anybody’ – he was indeed in the building and he was certainly seen by a number of people.

OSWALD’S KNOWN WHEREABOUTS AT THE TIME OF THE ASSASSINATION

Oswald was last seen on the Sixth Floor shortly before noon, walking south with his clipboard after instructing the floor laying crew to send him one of the two elevators they were racing to the first floor. Oswald’s clipboard was later found hanging on a nail against the south wall by the windows and he apparently took the elevator down to the first floor where he was seen shortly before noon by Bill Shelley standing by the first floor telephone, as if expecting a phone call.

Around 12:15 secretary Carolyn Arnold saw Oswald on the first floor – at the same time Arnold Rowland was outside on the curb across the street watching two men in the sixth floor window, one with a rifle who was standing in a port-arms position – a military drill position assumed under orders. 

As Howard Roffman notes: “The Warren Commission stated in its Report that it knew of no Book Depository employee who claimed to have seen Oswald between 11:55 and 12:30 on the day of the assassination. This was false, as this FBI report from the Warren Report never mentions Mrs. Arnold and this FBI document was omitted from the Commission's published evidence.”

[BK:Howard Roffman:  JFKcountercoup: HOWARD ROFFMAN’S “Presumed Guilty” /Book Intro: "Presumed Guilty, How & Why the Warren Commission Framed Lee Harvey Oswald"  ]

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION  Date 11/26/63  Mrs. R. E. ARNOLD, Secretary, Texas School Book Depository, advised she was in her office on the second floor of the building on November 22, 1963, and left that office between 12:00 and 12:15 PM, to go downstairs and stand in front of the building to view the Presidential Motorcade. As she was standing in front of the building, she stated she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of LEE HARVEY OSWALD standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse, located on the first floor. She could not be sure that this was OSWALD, but said she felt it was and believed the time to be a few minutes before 12:15 PM.

Mrs. Arnold later told a number of reporters that she was more positive of seeing Oswald than the FBI report indicates.

At 12:15 p.m Arnold Rowland was standing with his wife diagonally across the street from the TSBD, and timed to the chatter of a police radio that announced the motorcade was “at Cedar Springs Road off Turtle Creek.” At that time he saw a man on Sixth floor windows standing with a rifle at “Port Arms” position.  

If Oswald was on the first floor, who was the man with the rifle on the Sixth Floor at the precise time the motorcade was scheduled to come by? It was fifteen minutes late. This person in the sixth floor window was seen by other spectators on the street, who noticed that he wasn’t looking towards the direction the motorcade would come, but rather was looking west towards the overpass and grassy knoll.

The motorcade was fifteen minutes late, and if Oswald was to be the assassin he was certainly out of position.

Oswald said that at the time of the assassination he was on the first floor in the Domino Room eating lunch, when two of the black guys he worked with walked through. Although they claimed not to have noticed Oswald, the two men acknowledged that before going up to the Fifth Floor they did walk through the Domino Room. So how did Oswald know they were there if he didn’t see him? Further corroboration that Oswald was in the Domino Room came a few weeks after the assassination when his jacket was discovered in the window sill, right where he said he ate lunch.

A minute before the motorcade arrived the Pilot car, driven by DPD Captain Lumpkin, also a U.S. Army Reserve officer, pulled to the curb and stopped at the corner of Houston and Elm where Lumpkin told one of the three traffic policeman standing there that the motorcade was a mile and a few minutes behind him. By doing so he also told the Sixth Floor Sniper, sixty feet above him.

Only two witnesses on the street actually saw the Sixth Floor gunman – construction worker Howard Brennan and young Amos Eunis. Both describe a man in his early thirties with a white shirt (Oswald wore brown). Brennan told the police that he would recognize the man if he saw him again.

Eunis testified to the Warren Commission: “I seen a bald spot on this man's head, trying to look out the window. He had a bald spot on his head. I was looking at the bald spot.  I could see his hand, you know the rifle laying across in his hand. And I could see his hand sticking out on the trigger part. And after he got through, he just pulled it back in the window.”

[BK Notes, Eunis mentions the 'bald spot' about a dozen times during his short testimony, certainly a distinguishing characteristic not shared with Oswald that could help identify the actual sixth floor shooter.]

Both men said that the shooter did not appear to be in any hurry and just stood back from the window as if surveying what he had just done.

 Of those who were outside on the curb watching the murder first hand there was Ochus Campbell.

“Ochus V. (Virgil) Campbell, vice-president of the textbook firm, told a New York Herald Tribune reporter that, …. ‘Shortly after the shooting we raced back into the building . We had been outside watching the parade. We saw him (Oswald) in a small storage room on the ground floor. Then we  noticed he was gone….Of course Oswald and the others were on their lunch hour but he did not have permission to leave the building and we haven’t seen him since.”

So Campbell saw Oswald standing next to the storage room on the first floor by the steps, as can be seen in the schematic drawing of the first floor. [Thanks to Todd Vaughan for providing this drawing]

Storage area, next to steps, where Mr. Campbell saw Oswald standing shortly after the shooting. 

But according to the Warren Report Oswald was on the Sixth Floor ditching his rifle and racing down four flights of steps to get to the Second Floor lunchroom, where he was seen by DPD officer Marion Baker and TSBD Superintendent Roy Truly ninety seconds after the shooting.

But there were four other people on those steps, and none of them saw anyone run down.

Jack Doughterty said he was on the fifth floor landing when heard the shots and then, after about five minutes, descended to the first floor in one of the elevators once the electric was turned back on.

Victoria “Vicki” Elizabeth Adams and Sandra Styles left their fourth floor office within a minute of the last shot and descended the back steps without seeing anyone until they arrived on the first floor where they encountered William Shelley and Billy Lovelady. They didn’t pass Oswald or anybody on the steps.

Their supervisor was on the fourth floor landing and didn’t see Oswald or anyone run past her. 

So there were four people on the steps – Dougherty on the fifth floor landing, the supervisor on the fourth floor landing, and two secretaries, none of whom saw Oswald or anybody run past them, as they would have if Oswald descended those steps.

Then there’s the official rendition of Marion Baker and Roy Truly encountering Oswald in the Second Floor lunchroom ninety seconds after the shooting.

 Dallas police motorcycle policeman Marion Baker immediately pulled his bike aside in front of the TSBD – parked it and ran up the front steps where building superintendent Roy Truly met him and offered to direct Baker to the roof. Baker was an experienced hunter and suspected a shooter was located on the roof because he noticed a flock of pigeons flew away from there at the sound of the shots.

Truly led Baker to the back of the building where the service elevators were not working because the electricity had been shut off.

So they began to ascend the old wooden steps on the west wall of the building.

When Marion Baker got to the top of steps on the Second Floor landing he started to turn the corner a few feet behind Truly but suddenly stopped, later testifying under oath that as he turned the corner on the second floor, he “scanned the room” and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man through the glass walking past the window of a door.

The Warren Report:  “On the second floor landing there is a small open area with a door at the east end. This door leads into a small vestibule, and another door leads from the vestibule into the second-floor lunchroom. The lunchroom door is usually open, but the first door is kept shut by a closing mechanism on the door. This vestibule door is solid except for a small glass window in the upper part of the door. As Baker reached the second floor, he was about 20 feet from the vestibule door. He intended to continue around to his left toward the stairway going up but through the window in the door he caught a fleeting glimpse of a man walking in the vestibule toward the lunchroom.”

Marion Baker: “As I came out to the second floor there, Mr. Truly was ahead of me, and as I come out I was kind of scanning, you know, the room, and I caught a glimpse of this man walking away from this — I happened to see him through this window in this door. I don’t know how come I saw him, but I had a glimpse of him coming down there.”

Howard Roffman was a University of Pennsylvania student when he read the Warren Commission testimony and exhibits and wrote one of the most important early books on the assassination, “Presumed Guilty.” As Roffman indicates, “One of the crucial aspects of Baker's story” (that proves Oswald’s innocence) is his position at the time he caught a ‘fleeting glimpse’ of a man in the vestibule (through the door window). Baker marked this position during his testimony as having been immediately adjacent to the stairs at the northwest corner of the building.”

Second floor schematic drawing - showing the front steps - front elevator - secretary's office, the open lunchroom door - the closed door with window - and lunchroom. 

Roffman: “It should be noted that the Report never mentions Baker's position at the time he (first) saw Oswald in the vestibule. Instead, it prints a floor plan of the second floor and notes Baker's position ‘when he observed Oswald in lunchroom.’ This location, as indicated in the Report, was immediately outside the vestibule door. The reader of the Report is left with the impression that Baker saw Oswald in the vestibule as well from this position. However, Baker testified explicitly that he first caught a glimpse of the man in the vestibule from the stairs and, upon running to the vestibule door, saw Oswald in the lunchroom. The Report's failure to point out Baker's position is significant.” 

The closed door and window Baker saw Oswald from the top of the steps. 

When Baker saw Oswald though the window of the closed lunchroom door Oswald was walking from right to left, as he would have if he walked through the secretary’s office and through the other open door, the same way he left.

Since the door with the window had to be closed when Baker first saw Oswald though the window, Oswald couldn’t have entered through that door, or Truly – steps ahead of Baker, would have seen him.

The lunchroom door had to be closed for Baker to see Oswald through the window because science requires that if the door was open, even if only an inch or two, physics and pure geometry dictate the foot square window decrease in size as the door opens and closes, which makes it impossible for Baker, standing 20 feet away at the top of the stares, to see anything through the window. 

The door had to be closed for Baker to see Oswald through that window. Oswald didn’t go through that door because Truly would have seen him and the door had to be closed.

When the Warren Commission attorneys realized the significance of these facts, they recalled Roy Truly a second time, after he had already testified extensively, just to ask him one question, the clincher. At an office in the Post Office Annex just across Dealey Plaza from the TSBD, they placed Truly under oath again and created a legal affidavit in order to answer one peculiar question: did the door to the second floor lunchroom have an automatic closing device? I kid you not.

And the answer is yes, it does.

The following affidavit was executed by Roy Sansom Truly on August 3, 1964.

PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION
ON THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

AFFIDAVIT

STATE OF TEXAS,
County of Dallas, ss:

I, Roy Sansom Truly, being duly sworn say:

1. I am the Superintendent of the Texas School Book Depository Building Dallas, Texas.
2. The door opening on the vestibule of the lunchroom on the second floor of the TexasSchool Book Depository Building is usually shut because of a closing mechanism on the door.

Signed this 3d day of August 1964, at Dallas Tex.
(S) Roy Sansom Truly,
ROY SANSOM TRULY 

The door was closed shut all right, and Oswald didn’t go through that door a few seconds previous or Truly would have seen him.

In his Warren Commission testimony Truly admits as much.

Mr. BELIN. Okay. And where was this officer at that time?
Mr. TRULY. This officer was right behind me and coming up the stairway.
By the time I reached the second floor, the officer was a little further behind me than he was on the first floor, I assume - I know.
Mr. BELIN. Was he a few feet behind you then?
Mr. TRULY. He was a few feet. It is hard for me to tell. I ran right on around to my left, started to continue on up the stairway to the third floor, and on up.
Mr. BELIN. Now when you say you ran on to your left, did you look straight ahead to see whether there was anyone in that area, or were you intent on just going upstairs?
Mr. TRULY. If there had been anybody in that area, I would have seen him

“If there had been anybody in that area – I would have seen him.”

Those who try to implicate Oswald as the Sixth Floor sniper use stop watches to time themselves running the distance from the SE corner window, ditch the rifle, descend the steps four flights and run across the room and do so in less than the required ninety seconds. And they can't do it without running out of breath. But it isn’t the fact that someone can cover that distance in the required time – what exonerates Oswald is the fact that if he had gone through that closed door, rather than the open one leading to the secretary’s office, Truly would have seen him, and didn’t.

So Oswald wasn’t on the Sixth Floor when the shots were fired, didn’t run down those steps, didn’t go through that door, and didn’t kill the President.

OSWALD’S DEMEANOR

Roy Truly’s role in this affair isn’t over yet. There’s two other items that need to be addressed. For one, as Truly, Baker and a secretary who saw Oswald leaving the Second Floor lunchroom with a coke all testified – Oswald’s demeanor was not that of a person who had just fired a rifle, blew a man’s brains out, ditched the rifle and ran down four flights of steps – out of breath, hyper-venelating, sweating and nervous, but rather he was cool, calm and collected.

MARION BAKER

Commissioner Boggs: “Were you suspicious of this man?”

Baker: “No, sir; I wasn’t.”

Boggs: “When you saw him, was he out of breath, did he appear to have been running, or what?”

Baker: “It didn’t appear that to me. He appeared normal, you know.”

Boggs: “Was he calm and collected?”

Baker: “Yes, sir; He never did say a word or nothing. In fact, he didn’t change his expression one bit.”

Mr. Belin: Did he flinch in anyway when you put the gun up . . .?
Mr. Baker: No, sir.

Sen. Cooper: He did not show any evidence of any emotion?
Mr. Baker: No, sir.

ROY TRULY

Mr. Belin: Did you see any expression on his face? Or weren't you paying attention?

Mr. Truly: He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might have been a little startled, like I might have been if someone confronted me. But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face.

Counsel Belin: All right. How far was the officer’s gun from Lee Harvey Oswald when he asked the question?”

Truly: …it seemed to me like it was almost touching him.

MRS. ROBERT REID – SECRETARY

Mrs. Robert Reid, Clerical Supervisor at the Book Depository was standing on the curb in front of the TSBD and commented to her employers that she believed the shots came from “our building.”  

Mrs. Reid: “The thought that went through my mind, my goodness I must get out of this line of shots, they may fire more. I ran into the building. I do not recall seeing anyone in the lobby. I ran up to our office…up the stairs…the front stairs…I went into the office. I kept walking and I looked up and Oswald was coming in the back door of the office. I met him by the time I passed my desk several feet… I had no thoughts of anything of him having any connection with it at all because he was very calm. He had gotten a coke and was holding it in his hands and I guess the reason it impressed me seeing him in there I thought it was a little strange that one of the warehouse boys would be up in the office at that time, not that he had done anything wrong.”

Counsel Belin: “Was there anything else you noticed about him? Anything about the expression on his face?”

Reid: “No; just calm.”

Commissioner Dulles: “Was he moving fast?”

Reid: “No; because he was moving at a very slow pace. I never did see him moving fast at any time.”

LEAVING THE DEPOSITORY

Brennan, the hard had construction worker who saw the sixth floor sniper and told police he would recognize him again if he saw him, was told to stand by a police car at the curb at the bottom of the TSBD front door steps. As he stood there, he noticed the black workers who were looking out the fifth floor window as they left the building, and pointed them out to the police, who took them in for questioning.

Around the same time, according to the Warren Report, Oswald left the building the same way – through the front door, down the steps and right past Brennan, who didn’t recognize him as the sixth floor sniper, because he wasn’t.

Oswald wasn’t on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting, wasn’t the sixth floor sniper, did not run down those steps, did not go through the lunchroom door, and wasn’t the assassin who killed the president.  These absurd number of exonerating elements make that implausible if not impossible. 

Those who still claim Oswald did it must reasonably account for each and every one of these exonerating elements, while any one of them - in McAdam's words, let's Oswald off the hook.

At least those who still contend that Oswald was the assassin must accept the fact that there are many good reasons why most people believe that Oswald didn’t kill the president - and someone else did.

As Daniel Ellsberg has said, once you come to this realization, what are you going to do about it?

Well, for one thing, once you realize Oswald didn’t kill JFK, you should at least inquirer as to who did.

And that is what we are doing.  

"The Mast of Anarchy" - Edwar Lester Pearson quoting Percy Bysshe Shelley - 

"I met Murder on the way –

He had a mask like Castlereagh:

Very smooth he looked, yet grim;

Seven bloodhounds followed him.

All were fat; and well they might

Be in admirable plight,

For one by one, and two by two,

He tossed them human hearts to chew."

Oswald's heart was only the first thrown to the bloodhounds. 

Now new well fed bloodhounds are going after the real assassins. 

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