Evaluating the Photo Evidence in the JFK Assassination

EVALUATING THE STILL PHOTO EVIDENCE

IN THE ASSASSIANTION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

The problem with the photo evidence is that so far it has proved virtually nothing. Most of it is subject to interpretation and argument, even if the scientific method is employed.

In evaluating the still photo evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy the only thing that is clear is that the photo evidence is not decisive of very much, though it has told us a few critical things.

By decisive I mean irrefutable, undeniable and beyond argument, what James Jesus Angleton meant when he said you don’t argue over the evidence that is put into the serials.

While the Zapruder film of the assassination is often described as the most significant evidence in the assassination, it was spliced, edited, printed only in stills and the full version suppressed so it is also very controversial and debatable. Therefore I will save the moving film for separate analysis and the Z film for last.

To begin with the still photo evidence that is decisive and does tell us something significant we only have photos of the Sixth Floor window taken minutes after the shooting, and the photo of Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie in the Civil Air Patrol, both of which offer decisive evidence that is not open to argument.

JFK PHOTO EVIDENCE SERIAL (JFK PES)  # 1 – Two photos of TSBD Sixth Floor Window.

For starters, the two still photos of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) building that depict the Sixth Floor SE corner window from which a sniper was seen shooting at the motorcade indicates that the boxes were moved after the last shot.

When the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) photo committee of specialist reviewed these two photos, taken within minutes of the last shot and within minutes of each other, they concluded that the boxes in the window were moved between the time the first photo was taken and the second photo, that shows the boxes in a different position.

The conclusion that these boxes were moved in the minutes after the shooting indicates the sniper did not immediately leave the area, and as one witness (Brennan) said, he was not in a hurry but took his time.

This conclusion is also supported by the statement of the Court Clerk from across Houston Street who witnessed the assassination from a fifth floor Court House window, and stated that she saw a man in the sixth floor sniper’s window as long as three to four minutes after the last shot, clearly not Oswald.

JFK PES #2 – PHOTO OF DAVID FERRIE AND LEE H. OSWALD AT CAP FIELD EVENT 

Another decisive photo is the picture of New Orleans Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Captain David Ferrie at a barbeque with other CAP cadets including Lee Harvey Oswald, which put to rest the debate over whether Oswald was in Ferrie’s unit or knew him at all. The Civil Air Patrol connection is significant, not only in associating Oswald and Ferrie, but the fact that D. H. Byrd, the owner of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) was an original founder of the CAP in Texas and an early airplane pioneer with Cord Meyer, Sr., the father of CIA officer Cord Meyer, Jr. That the CAP devised a program to have CAP cadets engage in clandestine intelligence operations against communists, including the infiltration of leftist organizations, supports the fact that Oswald’s CAP activities were just a part of a larger covert operational profile (COP) personality.

JFK PES #3 – THE BACKYARD PHOTOS 1 – 2 – 3

While the Backyard Photos are controversial, there are a number of them and each deserves its own analysis. Marina has admitted taking the photo – though she only recalls taking one and there are a number of them, that depict Oswald dressed in black, holding the rifle allegedly used in the assassination, with the pistol allegedly used to kill Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit, and two magazines – the Worker and the Militant, the official publications of the American Communist Party and the American Trotskyite Party.

The magazines are an important clue, as if you actually read those issues, they contain articles about the CIA’s maritime attacks on Cuba that originated at JMWAVE and Castro was complaining about at the time, shortly before the assassination.

It is now a key supposition that one of those anti-Castro Cuban teams, paid and trained by the CIA to kill Castro, redirected their fire to JFK at Dealey Plaza when their mission to kill Castro was “disapproved by higher authority” and they learned about the secret back channel negations JFK was conducting with Castro to renew official diplomatic relations and maintaining Castro in power.

I call the Backyard Photo a “Mission Photo” as it is very similar to the photos airmen take in front of their plane before or after a big mission, or like the Wild Bunch photo of the soldiers of fortune who were sent to Costa Rica to train the Contras to fight the Sandinistas in Nicaragua after the fall of Somoza, one of the Godfathers of the Bay of Pigs.

That this was such a “Mission Photo” is supported by the copy of the photo that Oswald gave to George deMohrenschildt, that Marina inscribed with the notation “Hunter of Fascists – Ha Ha,” the fascist being General Walker, who Oswald is also accused of shooting.

PES # 3 – THE PHOTO OF WALKER’S HOUSE

That bring us to the photo Oswald allegedly took during his stakeout of General Walker’s Turtle Creek home, that includes a 1957 Chevy parked in the driveway. A copy of the photo in possession of Chief Curry shows the picture intact, but by the time the Warren Commission got it the license plate on the Chevy had been cut out, ostensibly so we wouldn’t learn the identity of the owner of the Chevy. While the Warren Commission concluded it was an associate of Walker, others now claim it was a Cuban. 

PES # 4 – TRAMP PHOTOS – LANSDALE

The man purported to be Ed Lansdale is on the far right facing away from the camera. 

The photos of the so called Tramps has been one of the most controversial aspects of the assassination, and while I’m not interested in debating their identity, one of the photos is worthy of special attention because it pictures a man in a suit and tie with short hair walking away along the wall of the TSBD around the same time the Tramps were taken into custody.

According to Colonel Fletcher Prouty USAF, that person looks remarkably like General Lansdale, who ran CIA covert operations in Southeast Asia and Operation Mongoose against Castro. A researcher who was researching the travels of Lansdale said that he was in Fort Worth on the day before the assassination, so he could possibly have been at Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination. Normally I would not take such an identification seriously, but Prouty sent a copy of the photo to his Pentagon associate, General Krulak, and Krulak responded, and agreed that it did look remarkably like Lansdale.

"As to the photo no. 1. That is indeed a picture of Ed Lansdale. The haircut, the stoop, the twisted left hand, the large class ring. It's Lansdale. What in the world was he doing there? Has anyone ever asked him?" - Krulak 

Appendix D: Krulak Letter Re: Dealey Plaza Photos And Lansdale Identity, "Understanding Special Operations"

PES # 5 – CELEBRITIES IN THE DEALEY PLAZA CROWD

Besides Lansdale, others have identified faces in the crowd who appear to be characters with key roles in the assassination drama, each one deserving further analysis, including Joseph Milteer, David Morales, Phil Ochs and others who I will list when I get around to it. 

Milteer at Dealey Plaza 

David Morales at Dealey Plaza 

Phil Ochs at Dealey Plaza 

Not George Bush. This man has been identified though Bush was in Dallas that day. 

PES # 6 – BADGEMAN

Mary Mooreman's photo and the blowup of Badgeman behind the wall firing a weapon. Police patch on shoulder. 

In one photo of the assassination ( Mary Mooreman), there appears to be some interesting things happening behind the picket fence on the Grassy Knoll, and blow ups of the photo reveal what appears to be a policeman with a badge firing a rifle. This photo was made with a Poloroid camera that develops immediately, and fades quickly over time. The earlier copies of this photo show the blood splatter more clearly than other photos or later copies.

PES # 7 – MAN IN MEXICO CITY

Mystery Man in Mexico City Misidentified as Oswald 

One of the most controversial assassination photos originated from the CIA photo post outside the Cuban Embassy where a husky man with a crew cut was photographed leaving the embassy, and while clearly not Oswald, was misidentified as the accused assassin by the CIA. While they also say the man was not associated with Oswald or the assassination, I believe that he is a player in the Great Game, and that he should be positively identified, and can be even at this late date.

PES # 8 - OSWALD’S VISA APPLICATION PHOTO

When Oswald was at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, Sylvia Duran gave him a visa application that he filled out that required a photo, but instead of getting a new photo he applied a picture of him taken in the USSR years earlier. Why?

PES # 9 – MINSK PHOTO OF OSWALD WITH TOURISTS

While Oswald went from Helxinki to Moscow, a female Intourist Guide was assigned to him. He stayed at a hotel where he was interviewed by Priscilla Johnson McMillan, and after denied a permanent visa faked a suicide attempt before he was allowed to stay and sent to Minsk, where he was given an apartment and job at a radio factory. Although he lived in Minsk, Oswald traveled to Moscow on occasion, may have attended Gary Powers’ trial, and visited the US Embassy a few times before he was allowed to leave. Once while visiting Moscow, Oswald met three American women, two young girls, one of whom was Monica Kramer, and an older women, Mrs. Hyde, who the girls said wanted to travel around Russia and tagged along with them, all without an Introuist Guide.

Oswald must have mentioned he lived in Minsk and told them if they visited Minsk to look him up, because awhile later they did show up in Minsk and met Oswald, a rendezvous that I do not consider a coincidence. They must have planned on meeting twice in two different cities.

Their meeting in Minsk is even more suspicious and remarkable because a photo was taken of Oswald and the women standing around their car in the Minsk square, a photo that turned up in CIA files, probably compliments of Mrs. Hyde.

Michael Paine’s wife Ruth Hyde, was from Ohio, while Mrs. (Marie?) Hyde, who met Oswald in Moscow and Minsk, was from the West Coast, and they are probably not related, though someone could do a family tree of Ruth Hyde and see if she is connected to Mrs. Hyde of the West Coast.

PES # ? – LOVELADY OR OSWALD IN DOORWAY?

Lovelady in Doorway 

One controversial photo taken at the moment of the assassination shows TSBD employee Billy Lovelady on the TSBD steps watching the motorcade pass by, wearing a striped shirt similar to Oswald’s brown shirt, and to many people appearing to be Oswald. To make matters worse, Lovelady sold the shirt to someone as a souvenir, which fueled conspiracy theories. Since Lovelady has a very distinguishable bald spot on the top of his head, some speculated that it was Oswald in the doorway photo and Lovelady was the sixth floor assassin, as Amos Eunis said that the sixth floor shooter had a very distinguishing bald spot. To most every logical person however, the man in the doorway is Lovelady, and not Oswald.

PES #? – OSWALD DISTRIBUTING FPFCC LEAFLETS AT NO WTC

While there’s more than one controversial film of Oswald distributing the FPFCC leaflets at the New Orleans World Trade Center, the still photos have created more controversy, mainly because of those pictured with him. Oswald hired two kids to assist him but they must have split when Carlos Bruinguier, Steve Cruz and another Cuban from the DRE confronted Oswald, who they knew as the ex-Marine who offered his services to train the DRE in commando tactics a few days earlier. But before Bruinguier spoiled the party, Oswald  was photographed handing out the leaflets with a number of other men – one of whom has been misidentified as the Cuban father of the Senator from Texas who ran President. Trump falsely accused his father of being the man in the photo and being involved in the assassination.

PES # ? – PRAYER MAN

Prayer Man - on far left - is believed by many to be Oswald 

One of the more recent controversies concerns a man standing back in the shadows of the TSBD steps by the front door, behind where Lovelady was standing, This man seems to be holding something in his hands – and thus dubbed “Prayer Man,” by those who suspect he is Oswald. While one of the TSBD supervisors told a New York newspaper reporter that when he reentered the TSBD shortly after the assassination he saw Oswald standing by the storage cabinet under the steps leading to the second floor. The speculation is that Oswald could have been Prayer Man, reentered the building, was seen by the stairs, went up the stairs, through the secretary’s area and was seen by Officer Baker a minute and a half seconds after the shooting walking pass the 2^nd Floor Lunchroom door, sparking the controversial encounter between Baker, Truly and Oswald.

PES # ? – USMC TARGET PRACTICE PHOTO

NOT OSWALD 

Howard Brennan, who saw the Sixth Floor Sniper clearly, told police he was standing, but since the window sill was only six inches from the floor, the shooter had to be in a kneeling position, which just so happens to be the position a USMC soldier is seen firing during rifle practice in basic training. The soldier in that photo looks remarkably like Oswald, and was misidentified as Oswald for many years, until someone came forward and said that it was them, not Oswald. Another example of how the photo evidence can be easily 
misinterpreted.

PES #     OSWALD ARREST PHOTO



Cigar chomping Paul Bentley takes Oswald under arrest from Texas Theater. San Diego ONI investigator Robert D. Steel was a personal friend of Bentley and wrote to him two days later to say: "Perhaps you are aware that ONI has quite a file on Oswald," a file that has since gone missing. 

PES #    - OSWALD AND JOHN WAYNE IN SAME PHOTO TOGETHER



Oswald walking into the USMC mess hall where John Wayne is seated having a meal.


MORE TO COME - ANY SUGGESTIONS? Billkelly3@gmail.com 

BARNEY FIFE AT DEALEY PLAZA

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2013/09/barney-fife-at-dealey-plaza.html

To show the folly of trying to identify celebrities at Dealey Plaza I point to the same photo that includes the man mis-identified as George Bush - a motorcycle policeman in front of the TSBD who I call “Barney Fife..” I even found a photo of the TV character with a motorcycle helmet. 

CONCLUSION

In any case, most of the photo evidence has failed to produce any evidence that can be definitive of anything, though modern scientific advancements – such as facial recognition computer software, if applied to these photos, could make a difference. There is a new Federal FBI center in West Virginia that is dedicated to facial recognition and photo analysis and CAPA is planning on approaching them to see if they will assist in reviewing all of the photo evidence in the assassination to determine if modern technology can make a difference.

UP NEXT: EVALUATING THE FILM EVIDENCE IN THE ASSASSINATION 

H.L. Hunt - Motive and Opportunity - Book Review

H. L. Hunt – Motive & Opportunity - Book Review

This review was previously posted at the CAPA-US.org web site. 

Citizens Against Political Assassinations

H. L. Hunt – Motive & Opportunity -Book Review

“H. L. Hunt – Motive & Opportunity – the Means by which H.L. Hunt Influenced the assassinations of JFK, King, Bobby & Hoffa” by John Curington, as told to Mitchel Whittington, with a foreword by Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D. (23 House Publishing, SANA 299-8084 www.23house.com)

John Curington, based on his personal knowledge, believes that H. L. Hunt was involved in and should be considered a suspect in the assassinations of President Kennedy, RFK, MLK and Jimmy Hoffa. Dr. Wecht concurs in his foreword.  “This book was interesting for many reasons,” Dr. Wecht writes, “not the least of which is that he doesn’t put forward any particular conspiracy theories, as many books on the subject do. Instead, he merely tells his own story and allows the reader to extrapolate what might have happened. This is an incredibly important story because, as John said to me, he is the last man standing from that era.”

Whether a suspect or witness, Hunt was certainly involved in the circumstances of President Kennedy’s death, and while Curington provides motive and opportunity for Hunt to be involved in the other murders, especially as a bag man financing various aspects of the operations that led to their deaths, I will only deal with Hunt’s connections to the murder of the President.

As Wecht says, “In each case, research reveals more questions than answers. In the case of John F. Kennedy, the strange circumstances start almost with the moment of death.” While Curington has intimate personal knowledge of Hunt and his businesses, and Whitington appears to be a good writer and reporter, they apparently are not aware of the numerous associations Hunt had with the JFK assassination, especially those that have already been half-heartedly reported on. Curington could or should be able to easily fill in the gaps pertaining to these associations.

In his favor is the fact that the best witnesses haven’t read the vast published record on the assassination and aren’t aware of the significance of what they know.  For starters, Joe Rossi said that he was looking for Jack Ruby on the afternoon of November 20, two days before the assassination, and tracked him down at Hunt’s office, while another report had Ruby at Hunt’s Mt. Vernon home on Saturday afternoon, the day after the assassination.

The Warren Report says that on the morning before the assassination Jack Ruby drove a young college graduate, Connie Trammell, to Hunt’s office in the Mercantile Bank building, where she had a job interview with Hunt’s son Lamar while Ruby got a money order to pay his Carousel Club rent at the bank. Trammell, in an anniversary newspaper article, is quoted extensively, and she says that meeting took place on the day of the assassination, not the day before. But her job application clearly says it is the 21st, so dates and times do get a little muddy fifty years after they occur.

On the morning of the assassination, while Jim Braden visited the Dallas Parole Office, and was then taken into custody as a suspicious person at the scene of the assassination in the Dal-Tex building, his two associates, who shared a room with Braden at the Cabana Hotel, visited Hunt to discuss oil business, and were probably with Hunt at the time of the assassination. They then suddenly split town, leaving Braden behind.

Curington says he was with Hunt when the motorcade passed their seventh floor window and John Connally looked up and waved to them.  But he does not discuss how Hunt or one of his sons paid for the full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News calling JFK a Traitor.

After the assassination, Hunt had one of his top aides, Paul Rothermel, investigate the assassination, and he reportedly compiled a large file that is not in the public domain, and he is quoted in a number of books. Rothermel told Dick Russell that Hunt had him buy one of the first copies of the Zapruder film, and he claimed he did.

While Curington mentions Rothermel as one of Hunt’s top guys, there is no mention of Ruby’s girl Connie Trammell, Jim Braden and his pals, the Hunt payment of the full-page ad, or what became of Hunt’s files on the assassination, as compiled by Rothermel. Then Rose Cheramie was found dead in the middle of the road in front of Rothermel’s property near Big Sandy, Texas. None of these important issues are mentioned or dealt with by Curington.

Curington does make some important revelations, including the origin of the “Dear Mr. Hunt” letter and the close association Hunt had with General Walker. Curington says that Hunt furnished Walker with background for his speeches, and he sometimes accompanied Hunt to Walker’s home, where someone took a shot at Walker on April 10, 1963. According to Curington, Walker told him and Hunt that Oswald was a suspect in the shooting BEFORE the assassination. “Clearly, the police and possibly even the FBI had Oswald on the radar, at least for that shooting,” says Curington. And if that’s true, it radically alters the official version of events.

Just as significant is Curington’s allegation that the “Dear Mr. Hunt” letter was found in the Hunt company files and therefore was not a Soviet disinformation ploy to implicate E. Howard Hunt in the assassination, as Soviet KGB archivist Valary Mitrokin told the British MI5.  As Curington puts it: “Let me say again that I’m not interested in addressing all of the conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination that involved – or clear – H. L. Hunt. But there has been a lot of discussion and speculation over the years about a letter that Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly wrote to Mr. Hunt, and because that theoretically involves him directly, I thought that I would mention it.

A letter surfaced during the investigation into the Kennedy assassination that simply read: ‘Nov. 8, 1963 Dear Mr. Hunt, I would like information concerdning [sic] my position. I am asking only for information. I am suggesting that we discuss the matter fully before any steps are taken by me or anyone else. Thank You, Lee Harvey Oswald.’ The letter showed up in our interoffice mail system after the assassination, and that in and of itself wasn’t peculiar….and since it did, in fact, involve Mr. Hunt, and did in fact, suggest a meeting with Oswald, we elected to turn it over to the FBI and never saw it again. In private Mr. Hunt did raise the question as to whether Lee Harvey Oswald could be a Life-Line listener, something that I think might have been a concern for him.”

While the Soviet leaders privately concluded that President Kennedy was killed by a domestic security network, a conspiracy that involved rich American oil men like Hunt, KGB archivist and defector to the British Valary Mitrokin said that the KGB manufactured the “Dear Mr. Hunt” letter to implicate Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt. If Curington is correct, and the letter, as the HSCA handwriting experts agreed, was written by the historic Lee Harvey Oswald, then the Mitrokin allegation is false, as the letter concerns H. L. Hunt the oilman and not the CIA officer.

Curington also says that Hunt sent him to the Dallas jail on Saturday to check out the security surrounding Oswald, and after sharing an elevator ride with Oswald and his captors, Curington reported back to Hunt that security was extremely lax. Curington also thinks Hunt’s association with Dallas mob boss Joe Civello had something to do with Ruby shooting Oswald.

While Curington does give a lot of ink to Hunt’s Life -Line radio program, that was broadcast nationwide

and mercilessly attacked JFK – calling his supporters “the mistaken,” he fails to mention that Warren Carroll was the major producer of Life-Line. And it just so happens that Warren Carroll is a former CIA propaganda specialist who wrote the “On Heroism” program that was printed out in a leaflet found on the front seat of Ruby’s car after he shot Oswald. Did Hunt and Carroll’s propaganda influence Ruby?

Another tidbit Curington provides, not knowing its significance, is that Hunt had a Life-Line booth set up at the Texas State Fairgrounds, a hotbed of conspiracy antics, as that’s where Ruby’s friends ran a tent show film “How Hollywood Makes Movies,” that he got his Chicago friend Larry Meyers to invest in. It’s also where Ruby recruited roustabout and former Army sniper Larry Crafard and stripper Joyce McDonald. The Fairgrounds is also where the Dallas Police Department’s Special Services Unit kept their branch office, so their undercover informants didn’t have to report to City Hall. It’s also the location of Jack Crichton’s underground Emergency Communications center, and home of Crichton’s special US Army Intelligence unit. Was Hunt’s Life-Line booth set up in proximity to any of these other shenanigans going on nearby?

In any case, while Curington is convincing in establishing his role as one of Hunt’s top guys, he doesn’t address all of the key issues of the assassination that involve Hunt, information that he should be able to provide. Perhaps he is unaware of these issues, or he wasn’t asked the right questions, something that can and should be rectified.

In his favor, Curington does establish two important facts that could be further explored. For one, he explains how Hunt gave his two sons two professional football teams – The Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Texans – which he owned (with Clint Murchison). Since both teams couldn’t survive in Dallas, one had to go. Hunt had Curington check it out and tell him what the best location would be for the second team.  Curington says he looked at a map of all of the professional football teams, found that Kansas City was the top media market without a team, and that’s where the Texans became the Chiefs. The deal was sealed by a coin toss, resulting in Lamar’s team going to Kansas.

It turns out that the lawyer for Hunt’s partner with the Cowboys, Clint Murcheson, had an office (Henry Baer-Wynne, McKenzie, Jaffe, Tinsley) in the Southland Building, and that same attorney was chosen by Robert Oswald to represent him and Marina when they appeared before the Warren Commission.

That may have something to do with Curington’s confirmation that a few days after the assassination Marina Oswald was delivered to Hunt’s office in a black limo with US government tags. According to Curington, Hunt had the building entirely cleared of his employees before she arrived, and she only stayed for some twenty minutes, but there was no doubt it was her.

Perhaps it had something to do with their mutual lawyer – whose office just happened to be in the same building where Oswald visited for a job interview with deMohrenshcildt’s friend, Sam Ballen, as well as the lobby where Oswald met with Antonio Veciana and David A. Phillips.

In any case, Curington has established his bona fides as a Hunt Oil insider, and he is one of the few “last witnesses standing,” but he doesn’t address some of the major issues of the JFK case involving Hunt that can and should be answered, even at this late date.  Maybe he can still answer some of them if he is asked the right questions, and can come up with more documentation, perhaps as a witness at CAPA’s event in Dallas in November?

William Kelly / billkelly3@gmail.com

August, 2018

Why All Witnesses are Conspiracy Witnesses

Why All Witnesses Are Conspiracy Witnesses

Some of those who defend the Warren Commission’s conclusion that one man alone was responsible for the murder of President Kennedy, like Professors John McAdams and Ken Rahn, try to divide assassination witnesses into two categories – conspiracy witnesses and non-conspiracy witnesses, when actually all witnesses are conspiracy witnesses.

Because the official version of events can be proven to be wrong, and the assassination actually only happened one way, one of the conspiracy theories must be right, and include all of the known facts.

Roger Craig, Beverly Oliver, and others are always branded “conspiracy” witnesses and their veracity is tarnished, but as examples I will give you a number of so called “non-conspiracy” witnesses, and show how they actually support the conspiracy contention.

Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) superintendent Roy Truly, Dallas motorcycle policeman Marion Baker, Brenner, Eunis and Secret Service agent Clint Hill are often cited as “non-conspiracy” witnesses, when in fact their statements and testimony clearly indicate that one man alone was not responsible for the assassination.

While there are some who dispute the second floor lunchroom encounter, this is based on what those who were there have testified to, what the Warren Commission itself says occurred. 

Immediately after the assassination Truly and Baker ran into the TSBD front door, proceeded to the back of he building and ascended the steps to the second floor. Truly, ahead of Baker, made a sharp left turn at the top of the second floor landing and proceeded to the steps to the third floor while Baker stopped cold in his tracks, drew his pistol and moved towards the second floor lunchroom door where he had seen the head of Lee Harvey Oswald through a two by two foot square window in the door. Opening the door and stopping Oswald from walking away from him, they were joined by Truly, who told Baker Oswald was an employee and gave him a pass, ninety seconds after the last shot was fired.

Baker later testified, at the London Mock Trial, that he saw Oswald  through the window of the closed door, as the door had to be closed for him to see through it.  

If Oswald was the sixth floor sniper he would have had to re-arrange the boxes by the window, dispose of the rifle and descend four flights of stairs in order to be seen by Baker in the second floor lunchroom a minute and a half after the last shots were fired.

But Oswald could not have been the sixth floor sniper if he didn’t descend those steps and go through that door, as the evidence and witnesses testimony clearly indicates.

Oswald didn’t go through that door, but entered the lunchroom through the secretary’s office, the same way he left with a coke in his hand, because if he had Roy Truly, who was a few seconds ahead of Baker, would have seen him, and he didn’t.

While those Warren Commission apologists like the late Gary Mack and Dave Perry often try to “prove” Oswald could have committed the crime, dispose of the rife and descend the steps in less than ninety seconds, they ignore the more pertinent facts, like Truly would have seen him if he had gone through that door just before Baker saw him, and he didn’t, and four people on the steps and landings would have seen him descend the steps, and didn’t.

Baker and Truly, who worked for TSBD owner D. H. Byrd, are often presented as “non-conspiracy” witnesses when their testimony actually exonerate Oswald as being the sixth floor gunman. And after giving Oswald a bye less than two minutes after the shootings, Truly suspiciously called attention to Oswald by placing him on the top of a list of missing employees shortly thereafter, when he gave the list to Police Captain George Lumpkin, who gave only Oswald’s name to homicide Captain Fritz as he was examining the recently found rifle on the sixth floor. As Lumpkin, a US Army Reserve intelligence officer, drove the pilot car in the motorcade, responsible for observing any possible trouble, and pulled to the side of the road at Houston and Elm to tell the traffic policeman there  - and the sixth floor sniper fifty feet above him, that the motorcade was only minutes away.

It is not Oswald who we should be suspicious of, but Roy Truly, his boss D. H. Byrd, and Captain Lumpkin.

Then there’s Howard Brennan, the hard had worker who was one of only two witnesses to actually see the sixth floor sniper fire the rifle, though he said the sniper was standing when he had to be kneeling as he fired. Brennan also told the police that he would recognize the shooter if he ever saw him again, and then failed to notice Oswald as he left the building and passed him as he stood at the bottom of the steps, leaning against a parked police car, when he did notice the black guys who were in the fifth floor window, and pointed them out to the police.

The only other witness who actually saw a man in the window shoot a gun was Amos Euins, whose short but telling Warren Commission testimony revealed the fact that the man Euins saw had a very distinguishing “bald spot” on the top of his head that he saw as the man aimed the rifle and fired. That bald spot, to forensic investigators, is like a tattoo, and one not shared by Oswald.

Both Brennan and Eunis described the shooter as wearing light clothes and a white shirt, when Oswald wore brown.

So the two most prominent “non-conspiracy” witnesses in the TSBD, and the only two actual witnesses to a man shooting a rifle, all provide clear and convincing evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of being the lone assassin, was not the sixth floor sniper, did not descend the steps, did not go through the door that Baker saw him behind, and did not kill the President, alone or otherwise.

Another “non-conspiracy” witness – Secret Service Clint Hill, said that he observed the President being shot in the head, and he observed a large – grapefruit sized wound in the back of the President’s head three times – in the car, as he helped remove the president from the car, and after the autopsy. Such a large, softball sized hole in the back of the head was not an entrance wound but clearly a large, blown out exit wound, a wound that could not have been inflicted by a gunman on the sixth floor of the TSBD.

And one of the most cited "non-conspiracy" witnesses, Oswald's brother Robert, is often said to believe his brother killed the president, as it is noted in the trailer at the end of the movie Parkland, Robert wrote a book "Lee" in which the former USMC marksman clearly states that "If Lee did not practice with that rifle in the days and weeks before the assassination he DID NOT take the shots that killed the president and wounded Governor Connally." And Robert wondered why the Warren Commission concluded the rifle was kept in a blanket in the Paine garage until the day of the murder and did not accept the witnesses who said Oswald practiced with the rifle - (because the real Oswald was elsewhere). 

While these critical witnesses – Truly, Baker, Brennan, Enus, Hill and Robert Oswald have all been described and classified as “non-conspiracy” witnesses, their statements and testimony provides clear and convincing evidence that one man alone was not responsible for the assassination, especially if that person is Lee Harvey Oswald. 

CAPA's Last Living Witnesses - The New Saeculum

LAST LIVING WITNESSES - The New Saeculum 

Old Red Court House - Dallas - 
Site of CAPA Symposium Thursday November 15, 2018 

Shortly after the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) disbanded and locked their records away for fifty years, sometime in the late 1970s, I visited the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in downtown Washington D.C. where I met Mr. Marion Johnson, then responsible for the JFK assassination records that were kept there.

While I was still in my 20s, I had corresponded with Mr. Johnson, requesting records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and he had graciously responded.

But Congress exempted itself from the FOIA, so the HSCA records were out of bounds.

I asked Mr. Johnson why the law stipulated that the Congressional records be kept sealed for 50 years? Why not thirty-five years or seventy-five years?

And he said it was because fifty years was the estimated amount of time it was expected that those mentioned in the documents would be dead.

I said that it was important to talk to those mentioned in the records to verify the truth, and after they were dead, that would be impossible.

How can the law be changed and the records released? I asked.

And Mr. Johnson responded that the only way to do that would be to have Congress pass a new law.

Well that was a tall order, but it inspired me and my friend, college mate and research associate John Judge, to form the Committee for an Open Archives (COA) to lobby Congress to release the HSCA records.

We visited the offices of almost every Congressman and failed to get any response at all, until Oliver Stone made his movie “JFK.”

Stone learned of our efforts and before his movie was complete, invited John and myself to visit him in his DC hotel room one afternoon, and asked us what he could do to help us, other than give us money, as all his money was tied up in the film production.

We had been working closely with other researchers - including Kevin Walsh, Jim Lesar and John Newman at the National Archives and on Capitol Hill and over lunch in the Senate cafeteria one afternoon we had discussed the movie “Executive Action,” also about the assassination of JFK. At the end of that movie in a trailer they mention the mysterious deaths of witnesses, and the London Sunday Times actuary that said the number of deaths exceeded that of probability. 

The HSCA assigned investigator Patricia Orr to review that actuary and she concluded it was wrong, based on bad numbers, but when a Congressman asked her about the unsolved homicides of  Sam Giancana, John Rosselli and the strange deaths of George deMohrenschildt and former FBI official William Sullivan, all of whom died after they were called to testify before the committee, she replied that they were the subjects of a more detailed and intensive investigation. Now that we have the HSCA records, where are the records of those more detailed and intensive investigations? Nowhere to be read, even after Congress was persuaded to release those records. 

Getting a totally disinterested Congress to pass a law to release the assassination records appeared to be an unobtainable task, but we all agreed that if Oliver Stone mentioned the sealed HSCA assassination records at the end of his film it could awake public interest, and Stone agreed. And against all odds, it worked. 

That trailer at the end of his film called attention to the sealed JFK assassination records and stirred up a public reaction that had thousands of citizens ask their representatives in Congress what they were hiding, and forced Congress to react.

But instead of just releasing the HSCA records that we asked for, those lawyers who drafted the JFK Act of 1992 required ALL agencies of government to turn over ALL of their records on the JFK assassination for inclusion in the JFK Records Collection at NARA and to be released in full to the public by October 2017.

Unfortunately that requirement did not include the HSCA records on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., a loophole that had Oliver Stone ask the Congressmen, when he testified at a public hearing, “Do I have to make a movie about the MLK assassination for you to release them too?”

Well, October 2017 has come and gone, and many thousands of JFK assassination records are still being withheld because President George H.W. Bush, when he signed the act into law, added a stipulation that the President – and only the President, could order the continued withholding of records for reasons of national security. And after announcing repeatedly that he was going to release all of the records according to the law, President Trump agreed to delay the full release of the records for three years, at the urging of the FBI, CIA and his chief of staff, former General John Kelly (USMC).

Before the JFK Act of 1992 was unanimously passed by Congress (when have they ever done anything unanimously?), the Committee for an Open Archives joined with Jim Lesar’s Assassinations Archives and Research Center (AARC) and Jim DiEugenio’s CTKA – Citizens for Truth in the Kennedy Assassination, to form COPA – the Coalition On Political Assassinations, which became the principal watchdog over the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), and is mentioned in their final report.

Although COPA, after twenty years of service, was dissolved after the death of John Judge, its last director, former COPA members formed a new group – CAPA – Citizens Against Political Assassinations, which is a national organization of individuals, with the distinguished forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht serving as chairman.

So far we have held a 2017 Sunshine Week Press Conference at the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington D.C. that featured former ARRB chairman Federal Judge John Tunheim, as well as Jim Lesar of the AARC, professor John Newman and journalist Jefferson Morley.

CAPA also co-sponsored a Mock Trial that reviewed the evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald at the South Texas College of Law in Houston in November 2017, a preliminary step in the legal maneuvers being prepared by the CAPA Legal Committee.

Now CAPA is preparing to hold an all day symposium on Thursday, November 15, 2018 at the Old Red Court House at Dealey Plaza that will present the testimony of living witnesses in the assassination, including doctors, nurses and technicians from Parkland Hospital and Bethesda, as well as witnesses to the assassination, the murder of J.D. Tippit, the arrest of Oswald and other significant witnesses to the related events at Mexico City and JMWAVE.

CAPA also has plans to request a Texas Court of Inquiry that could exonerate Oswald for the murder of the President and Tippit, and conduct an investigative federal grand jury into the assassination and related unsolved cold case homicides and crimes related to the assassination, including destruction of evidence and records and obstruction of justice. 

CAPA is also lobbying Congress to hold public hearings on the JFK Act to determine what became of the missing and destroyed records and the legality of continued withholding of records that were required to be released last year by an act of Congress.

We are also continually monitoring the release of JFK assassination records and searching for the missing records that are known to exist but are not part of the JFK Collection at the NARA, including the original unedited Air Force One radio transmission tapes, the HSCA records of the first chairman of the HSCA Richard Sprague, and other similar records that have simply gone missing.

We are also planning on the establishment of a permanent Washington D.C. based research center, a Think Tank focused strictly on the study of political assassinations, an archive of books and records that will be open to the public and include bunk facilities for visiting researchers and a studio apartment for rotating writers in residence, as envisioned by former AARC director Bernard Festerwald, Jim Lesar, John Judge and others.

In working towards these goals, our next project is the Last Living Witness program in Dallas on Thursday, November 15, 2018.

The assassination of President Kennedy is quickly fading from a Current Event, subject to legal proceedings, to an historical event that we can only reflect on. 

                                          THE NEW SAECULUM 1963 - 2018

As CAPA attorney and co-chair of the CAPA Legal Committee Larry Schnapf, Esq. has said: "A saeculum is a length of time first used by the Etruscans. Originally it meant the period of time from the moment that something happened until the point in time that all the people who had lived at the first moment had died. At that point a new saeculum would start."

"With witnesses and others who lived through the assassination starting to pass with advancing age, we are entering the final phase of the JFK Assassination saeculum. When it ends, so too likely will be the passion to find the truth as the assassination will be relegated to a mere historic event subject to interpretation by historians who as members of the establishment will tend not to question the Warren Commission Report.."

"The CAPA Last Witnesses to the JFK Assassination Saeculum program to be held on November 15th in Dallas is vitally important to pass on the torch to the next generation."

Although the statistics that indicate most of those mentioned in the secret and sealed records would be dead in fifty years, and it has been nearly fifty-five years since the murder of President Kennedy, it is remarkable that so many significant witnesses are still alive.

We have compiled a list of many dozens of such witnesses, some of whom have agreed to attend our symposium in Dallas this November, and we are seeking more.

To support CAPA and our work on these projects and programs please join CAPA ($50 a year dues), volunteer to work with us on one of our committees (PR, Legal, Research) or donate what you can as we now have tax-deductible status.

JOIN CAPA - VOLUNTEER TO ASSIST CAPA - DONATE TO CAPA at http://capa-us.org 

Citizens Against Political Assassinations