DISPENSING
WITH OSWALD THE PATSY
Updated with corrections, alterations, photos and links 14/06/20
By
William E. Kelly, Jr.
billkelly3@gmail.com
Before
you can begin to move on to understand what really happened at Dealey Plaza and in the
assassination of President Kennedy you must first deal with and dispense with
the accused assassin – Lee Harvey Oswald.
While
others argue continuously as to whether he was a deranged lone gunman, the
Patsy he claimed to be, government agent or Mafia goon, Oswald can be dispensed
with by simply putting him into his deserved place as a pawn on the Devil’s
Chessboard.
In the
end, it really doesn’t matter what his role was in the Dealey Plaza Operation - lone shooter or patsy, and that's because he was a minor player in the bigger drama.
Pierre
Salinger - JFK’s press secretary aboard the cabinet plane over the Pacific,
described their reactions to the news of the President’s assassination - “The
messages kept coming off the wire service machine,” Salinger wrote, “and finally
one started grinding out the story of Lee Harvey Oswald and his previous life
in Russia and his membership in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). This
went against all the preconceived theories we had established.”
Secretary
of State Dean Rusk, the senior diplomat on board then said, “If this is true,
this is going to have repercussions around the world for years to come.”
And
indeed it has, up to and including today.
Who was
Lee Harvey Oswald? As his background was quickly released by the media – some
say too quickly, it was apparent who he was.
Lee
Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans, served in the Civil Air Patrol (CAP),
enlisted in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) in the footsteps of his older
brother, was trained in radar, communications and the Russian language, was
given an early discharge and defected to the Soviet Union. There he married a
Russian women, returned home with wife and daughter without any repercussions,
associated with wealthy White Russians in Dallas including George
deMohrenschilt, George Bouhe and Volkmar Schmidt. He obtained jobs Leslie
Welding and at Jaggers/Chiles/Stoval – a graphics arts firm with US Army
contracts. He purchased a rifle through the mail using an alias traceable to
him, is accused of taking a pot shot at General Walker, relocated to his
hometown of New Orleans, where he associated with his uncle Dutz Murrat, Guy
Bannister and his former CAP captain David Ferrie. After trying to infiltrate
the New Orleans anti-Castro Cuban group Student Revolutionary Directorate
(DRE), he got into an altercation with them and was arrested with the DRE
members while handing out FPCC leaflets on Canal Street. Oswald did a radio debate with DRE leader Carlos Bringuier and Ed Butler
– both trained by the CIA in psychological warfare. Oswald reportedly traveled
to Mexico City under an alias, visited the Cuban and Soviet embassies in an
attempt to get a visa to Cuba, and is said to have met with KGB assassination
expert. After returning to Dallas he got a room under an alias while his wife
and two daughters live with Ruth Paine, estranged wife of Bell Helicopter
designer Michael Paine. Oswald obtained a job at the Texas School Book
Depository (TSBD) through Mrs. Paine and Roy Truly and is accused of
assassinating the president all by himself, with no assistance.
And he
did all that at 24 years of age.
When I
was 24 I didn’t know anything. He had a beautiful wife, two young girls, a job
and over a hundred dollars in his pockets, more than I have now. Some guys
would give their right arm for that, and those who say he killed the president
all by himself also describe him as a loser, rather than the world’s greatest
assassin he would be if he had done it.
In
looking at the eyewitness testimony however, Oswald wasn’t even on the sixth
floor let alone in the window with a gun.
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 on the sixth floor and he apparently
took the elevator down to the first floor where he was seen around noon by Bill
Shelley standing by the first floor telephone, as if expecting a phone call.
At some
point early in the morning Oswald asked another employee why people were gathering out front, and
seemed surprised that the President’s motorcade would pass by.
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. If Oswald was
on the first floor at 12:15 – when the motorcade was scheduled to pass, he was
out of position, and wasn’t the man with a rifle on the sixth floor.
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,” a military 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.
Dallas
reporter Earl Golz interviewed some prisoners incarcerated on the sixth floor
of the Court House diagonally across the street, who said they saw two men in
the sixth floor windows of the TSBD, one with a rifle with a scope.
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 by. Although they claimed not to have noticed Oswald, the two men
acknowledged that before going up to the Fifth Floor they did walk by 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 few minutes
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.”
FIRST FLOOR TSBD
Note STORAGE area between the steps
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. The red line
is the entrance Campbell came in.
The Storage Area is at the bottom right next to the
steps to the second floor next to the Storage area.
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 on the steps, none of whom saw or heard Oswald or anybody run past them, as they would have if Oswald descended those
steps.
SECOND
FLOOR LUNCHROOM ENCOUNTER
Then
there’s the official rendition of Marion Baker and Roy Truly encountering
Oswald in the Second Floor lunchroom ninety seconds after the shooting.
I
understand that there are many disputes as to the accuracy of this story, but I
take the official version as it exonerates Oswald.
[For more on other variations see Bart Kemp's Anatomy of the Second Floor Lunch Room Encounter at Prayer Man @ Prayer Man ]
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 window walking
past the door.
Since
Ochus Campbell saw Oswald near the storage area next to the steps to the second
floor, it is apparent that Oswald walked up those stairs, crossed through the
secretary’s office, and walked passed the closed door that Baker
saw him through the window walking past.
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.”
See the
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.”
See
Photo:: The closed door and window as Baker saw Oswald through that window from the top of the
steps that Oswald didn't go through or Truly would have seen him.
TSBD
SECOND FLOOR SCHEMATIC DRAWING
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 steps to see Oswald if the door wasn’t completely
closed.
The door
had to be closed for Baker to see Oswald through that window. Even if open only
a few inches Baker would not be able to see through that square foot window,
so it had to be closed.
Oswald
didn’t go through that door because if he had Truly, just ahead of Baker, would
have seen him and didn’t.
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 Texas School 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 while they can run the fifty yards in less
than ninety seconds, 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.
REGARDING
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 the 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, hyperventilating sweating and nervous, but rather he was cool, calm
and collected.
I
challenge anyone to run fifty yards without hyperventilating and breathing heavy.
It can’t be done.
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
was the hard had construction worker who saw the sixth floor sniper and told
police he would recognize him again if he saw him again. He 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 the words of John
McAdams, let’s Oswald “off the hook.”
Each of
these objections must be explained for Oswald to be the sixth floor sniper, but
if any one of them is true, then Oswald is innocent of killing the President.
And
those who ignore all of the above and are convinced of Oswald’s guilt swallow
the lone nut cover-story, hook, line and sinker as a matter of belief.
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.
In the
end, the bottom line, it doesn’t matter what Oswald’s role was – shooter or
Patsy, once the assassination event is properly viewed and descried for what it
was – an operation – a covert intelligence operation that utilized Oswald as part of their deception to protect the actual snipers and their sponsors.
THE FALL GUY AND PATSY
"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!" - In the photo Cigar Chomping Dallas
Detective Paul Bentley took Oswald into custody.
In "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 who are still chewing away.
BK NOTES: THIS IS A FIRST DRAFT - MORE TO COME. With Additional notes and graphics
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