Lee Harvey Oswald and the Blanket, the Bag and the Rifle
by Judyth Vary Baker
It’s not a big blanket…and it didn’t belong on the floor of a garage.
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The blanket that supposedly lay on a cement floor for two months in a garage where wood chips and debris abounded was clean. |
It seems simple and clean-cut: Marina Oswald, wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was questioned by police the same day Kennedy died, and she said her husband had kept a rifle in a blanket, a rifle that went missing that fateful day.
She was shown a rifle. She said it looked like it belonged to her husband. She indicated that she had seen it two weeks earlier in a garage, a garage attached to the house where she and her baby (Rachel) and toddler (June Lee) were living as the guests of Ruth Paine, the estranged wife of Michael Paine. She implied that the rifle wrapped in the blanket was among the belongings Oswald personally packed into the Paine station wagon that took Marina and their two babies from New Orleans to Irving, a suburban area near Dallas, two months earlier. But when we look at the BLANKET and how it relates to the RIFLE, serious problems with Marina’s testimony emerge, pointing to the framing of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Below is the affidavit Marina signed on the day Kennedy was shot and killed:
The blanket in the affidavit, as we shall soon see, was the same blanket that little June Lee “loved” and “played with.” It may be the blanket Lee Oswald mentioned in a letter to his wife, when she was in the hospital recovering from the birth of June Lee, in Minsk, Belarus, USSR. Lee was not allowed to visit her due to hospital regulations. Thus, on Feb. 21, 1962, he wrote to his wife in the hospital. “Dear Marina,” he wrote, “Today we received a very nice present for June from the factory: I know you will like it. They bought: one summer blanket, 6 light diapers, 4 warm diapers…” Another blanket is mentioned in a subsequent letter to Marina, suggesting that a winter-weight blanket would also be nice, and that perhaps her relatives would respond to that need.
Researcher Bill Kelly correctly notes the following concerning the blanket, its fibers, and the rifle:
“…the blanket the gun was supposedly wrapped in was mentioned by Michael Paine, Ruth Paine and Marina, but for some reason that should catch the attention of homicide investigators, the well oiled and greased gun that was wrapped in the blanket not only didn't have any clear fingerprints, but it didn't have any microscopic fibers from the blanket, a practical impossibility. If you read the Warren Report on the fiber evidence, they found ONE single fiber on the stock of the rifle…[it] DID NOT match the blanket, even in color, but the FBI forensic lab specialist testified it COULD HAVE come from the shirt Oswald had on at the time of his arrest. It's just a shame he changed his shirt after the shooting so that wasn't the shirt that he had on when JFK was shot. To me, that's a plant, as the FBI didn't know Oswald changed his shirt at the time.” [1]
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| A glimpse of the floor of the Paine garage. |
We will study the baby’s blanket carefully, and Marina’s testimony, because by doing so, we will understand how the blanket was used to help frame Oswald.
On November 22, 1963, Marina officially stated, “I knew there was a rifle in Mrs. Paine’s garage. Two weeks ago I was in the garage and saw the same blanket that the Police got. I opened the blanket and saw the rifle in it. Today is the first time I saw the blanket empty. Today at Police station they showed me a rifle. This was like the rifle my husband had. It was a dark gun. But I don’t remember the sight on it. It could be the same rifle but I’m not sure. Lee packed our things in Mrs. Paine’s car in New Orleans. Mrs. Paine and I drove to Dallas.”
What is missing from Marina’s statement are several salient facts:
1) The blanket belonged to June, her toddler
2) Lee H. Oswald did not unpack the car. Somebody else did.
3) The blanket was in full view in the Paine garage for two months and apparently was
never seen empty of contents until the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963.
4) Marina’s statements were translated from Russian into English: the translations, and those who wrote them, must be inspected to check accuracy and possible bias.
The Baby’s Blanket
Marina made additional statements in Russian involving the blanket to the Warren Commission a few months after the assassination. The President's Commission met at 10:35 a.m. on February 3, 1964 to question her: (our emphasis)
Mr. THORNE. Exhibit 140 apparently is a blanket.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you seen that before, Mrs. Oswald?
Mrs. OSWALD. This is…from Russia. June loved to play with that blanket.
Mr. RANKIN. Was that the blanket that your husband used to cover up the rifle?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. We didn't use this blanket as a cover. He used it for the rifle.
Mr. RANKIN. And it was the blanket that you saw and thought was covering the rifle in the garage at the Paine's, is it?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he use it as a cover for the rifle at other places where you lived?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.
Mr. RANKIN. I offer in evidence Exhibit 140.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.
(The article referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 140, and received in evidence.)
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say that June played with this blanket, Exhibit 140?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. I would put that on the floor to make it softer--on a balcony, for example, when June was playing on it.
Mr. RANKIN. Is that in this country or in Russia?
Mrs. OSWALD. She didn't crawl yet in Russia.
Mr. RANKIN. What balcony was that what house?
Mrs. OSWALD. On Neely Street, in Dallas.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you seen that before, Mrs. Oswald?
Mrs. OSWALD. This is…from Russia. June loved to play with that blanket.
Mr. RANKIN. Was that the blanket that your husband used to cover up the rifle?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. We didn't use this blanket as a cover. He used it for the rifle.
Mr. RANKIN. And it was the blanket that you saw and thought was covering the rifle in the garage at the Paine's, is it?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he use it as a cover for the rifle at other places where you lived?
Mrs. OSWALD. No.
Mr. RANKIN. I offer in evidence Exhibit 140.
The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.
(The article referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 140, and received in evidence.)
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say that June played with this blanket, Exhibit 140?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. I would put that on the floor to make it softer--on a balcony, for example, when June was playing on it.
Mr. RANKIN. Is that in this country or in Russia?
Mrs. OSWALD. She didn't crawl yet in Russia.
Mr. RANKIN. What balcony was that what house?
Mrs. OSWALD. On Neely Street, in Dallas.
At that time, Marina mentioned that June “loved to play that blanket.”
Marina’s Lawyer
We are told that Marina Oswald was satisfied with her lawyer, John M. Thorne, though she was given no opportunity to personally interview and select a lawyer.
The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Oswald, do you have an attorney, a lawyer?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. And your lawyer is Mr. Thorne?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. He is the only lawyer you wish to represent you here?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. And your lawyer is Mr. Thorne?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. He is the only lawyer you wish to represent you here?
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Marina was offered the services of only one lawyer, Mr. Thorne, whose name was suggested by Secret Service agent Leon I. Gopadze. Gopadze also served as Marina’s interpreter on various occasions. A puzzling statement, that Thorne would receive “ten percent” for his services, is nagging. Ten percent of what? (see below)
Were Marina’s statements accurately translated by the Secret Service? Let’s look.
Marina’s Interpreters
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| Interpreter with Marina translated her answers. |
Marina’s statements about the blanket and rifle, while she was still at the Paine residence, were translated on the spot by Ruth Paine. Marina’s statements at the police station directly after that were translated by Ilya Aleksandrovich Mamantov. Peter Paul Gregory, who knew Lee Harvey Oswald, translated for Marina when she was held incognito at the Inn of the Six Flags motel by the Secret Service, with further translation services conducted by William D. Krimer and Leon I. Gopadze for the Warren Commission, along with Gregory.
Could the Interpreters Be Trusted?
Marina’s interpreters, her business manager and even Marina’s lawyer were recommended by Secret Service agent Leon Gopadze. That being the case, we should consider the orientation of the Secret Service towards their star witness, Russian-speaking/Russian-born Marina, since Secret Service agents were in charge of her sequestering and, later, her surveillance, for months. The Secret Service had been responsible for Kennedy’s safety in Dallas and had miserably failed that calling.
We must ask: Can we trust the actions of the Secret Service, knowing that on their watch, Kennedy was assassinated? Wouldn’t they wish to avoid as much blame as possible?
Some agents have been willing to shift all focus to Oswald, away from any scrutiny that might suggest dereliction of duty, at Oswald’s expense. For example, Secret Service agent Bill Carter was one of the agents involved with Marina Oswald soon after the assassination and through the time of her testimony to the Warren Commission. His website describes his Secret Service career and his role regarding Marina:
“In 1962, Carter entered the U.S. Secret Service and worked as a special agent during the Kennedy administration…he…accompanied the slain President's body to the Capitol, the funeral and Arlington Cemetery. On Thanksgiving day 1963, he was assigned to Dallas as part of the team of federal agents investigating the assassination, even accompanying Lee Oswald's family to testify before the Warren Commission.”
Carter’s website[2] unequivocally states that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy. His prejudice is so strong, even today, that he dares to incorrectly describe a key photo –right before our eyes –in order to shift the focus on Oswald. He displays a famous photograph showing Secret Service agents standing in the follow-up car behind Kennedy’s death car at Dealey Plaza just as it passes in front of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD). Carter tells us the agents are looking UPWARDS “toward the TSBD’s sixth floor room”:“Secret Service agents on the running board of the follow-up car look upwards towards the sixth floor room of the Texas School Book Depository, indicating the direction from where the shots were fired.”[3] Look closely at the agents in the photograph Carter displays with that comment:
Staring at the TSBD doorway and looking straight ahead
What we actually see are two SS agents staring to their right at the doorway of the TSBD. The other agents are looking straight ahead. A motorcycle policeman is actually looking to his left, away from the TSBD. Former SS agent Clinton is lying, right to our faces.
If former Secret Service agent Bill Carter, in 2011, can make up this kind of damning statement implicating Oswald, while describing a photograph that shows no such thing, right before our eyes on his own website, where he shows this photo, consider the temptation to stretch the truth on November 22, 1963, and on the days and months soon after Kennedy’s death, when these agents were all trying to defend themselves to avoid blame and perhaps dismissal.
Carter’s is not the only recent example we can offer. Here is another: Secret Service agent Mike Howard gave a North Texas History Center lecture on August 21, 2009, about which it was written that he told a rapt, trusting audience that he saw
“…evidence that Oswald had written in a journal that he planned to kill four people. One of those four people took a bullet that day. That man was John Connally…Mike Howard says the Secret Service examined Oswald's journal and in it Oswald threatened to kill four people: John Connally, an unspecified Vice President, an FBI agent whom Oswald felt was harassing Marina and retired General Edwin Walker.”[4]
In actuality, no such threats can be found in anything Lee Harvey Oswald ever wrote in a journal. The statement was created from a variety of sources:
a) Oswald did complain in a letter to John Connally (before Connally became Governor) about his undesirable discharge from the Marines, saying he would try every means to get his discharge status changed.
b) Then there was James Hosty (the Dallas FBI agent), who stated he received a written note containing a threat from Oswald. He was ordered to destroy the note soon after the assassination, and did so. Information about Hosty was found in Oswald’s address book, but no threat.
c) Nor did Oswald ever threaten any Vice President, though Marina Oswald once claimed her husband planned to shoot former Vice President Richard Nixon– a claim even the Warren Commission realized was “of no probative value” and had to be false, since Nixon was not only out of town, but Marina’s description of locking Oswald in the bathroom did not make sense, since bathroom doors lock from the inside. Respected scholar, poet and researcher Peter Dale Scott, while excoriating Gerald Posner for his egregious errors in the book Case Closed, tells us all we need to know about Marina Oswald’s reliability as a witness on crucial matters:
“…Posner (writes P. D. Scott) resuscitates a story from Marina which even the Warren Commission, knowing the story's history, discounted as having "no probative value." (Warren Report, p. 189)
Marina said, "Then he got dressed and put on a good suit. I saw that he took a pistol. I asked him where he was going, and why he was getting dressed. He answered, 'Nixon is coming...' " She did not know who Nixon was, but was determined that Lee should not leave the house with the pistol. She asked him to join her in the bathroom, and when he entered she jumped out and slammed the door shut. Bracing her feet against the nearby wall, she struggled as hard as she could to keep the door closed against his efforts to push out. "I remember that I held him," she said. "We actually struggled for several minutes and then he quieted down... At first he was furious, but as he calmed, Oswald agreed to strip to his underwear, and stayed home reading the remainder of the day.” (18)
We can only repeat here a few of the problems with this story, which at the time engendered a number of supporting statements to the FBI that were later hastily recanted:According to one version of this latest story from Marina, Oswald had "intended to shoot Nixon" in Dallas; and she "had locked Lee Harvey Oswald in the bathroom the entire day... to prevent him from doing so"... Faced with the fact that the Oswald bathroom, like all others, locked from the inside, Marina then told the FBI... that in April 1963 "she forcibly held the bathroom door shut by holding on to the knob and bracing her feet against the wall"... Finally she would tell the Warren Commission... that she and her much stronger husband "struggled for several minutes" inside the bathroom... Faced with other, irreducible difficulties in this Nixon story, the Warren Commission discreetly concluded it was of "no probative value." [5]
Not only the Secret Service, but also the FBI did not hesitate to blacken Lee Oswald’s name, as an FBI report of Dec. 6, 1963 shows:
“On 30 January1961 Oswald wrote a letter to Governor John Connally, then Secretary of the Navy, protesting his dishonorable discharge from the US Marine Corps Reserve.”[6]
In actuality, Oswald’s discharge was the less-serious “undesirable” meaning he was considered unfit for further duty.
Nor are all the stories told by Secret Service agents in their recent book, The Kennedy Detail pleasing to Secret Service expert Vince Palamara. Palamara provides valuable information (especially on YouTube) about “The Kennedy Detail” and other Secret Service agents. He writes:
[In]Commission Exhibit 993 (18H642) ,which is a translation done by Secret Service agent Leon Gopadze of a Marina Oswald letter, it is stated: "I am very, very grateful to the Secret Service agents who treated me so well and took such good care of me. Although some of the letters which I received accused these wonderful people of preventing me from seeing others, I am free to do anything I want..."
Give me a break! The New York Times of December 8, 1963 reported that "Secret Service agents suggested to her [Marina] that it might be safer and easier for her to return to the Soviet Union than to try to live in the United States. This distressed her...She is now secluded from Oswald's relatives as well as from the public."[7]
Give me a break! The New York Times of December 8, 1963 reported that "Secret Service agents suggested to her [Marina] that it might be safer and easier for her to return to the Soviet Union than to try to live in the United States. This distressed her...She is now secluded from Oswald's relatives as well as from the public."[7]
Thus it behooves us to ask if the Secret Service could be trusted to give us a true translation of whatever Marina Oswald told the Warren Commission in Russian. We have a hint: one Secret service agent, Abraham Wendell Bolden, dared to reveal the attitude “the Kennedy Detail” had toward JFK in a 2010 review of the book compiling their stated experiences (The Kennedy Detail). Bolden wrote: (emphasis added)
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| Former Secret Service agent Abraham Bolden was punished through a rigged incident that imposed a prison sentence on him for being a whistle-blower about the Secret Service’s failings to properly protect Kennedy: they tried to blame JFK’s death on Kennedy himself. |
“I just finished reading the 448 page “Cover Your Ass” book by agent Blaine. As a former Secret Service Agent and the first African American to be appointed to the White House Detail, I was dismayed at the continued attempts by former agents to deny culpability in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The attack upon my credibility in the book, “The Kennedy Detail” was expected; but I was hoping that the former Kennedy body guards would show a modicum of contriteness in the book instead of trying to blame Kennedy’s assassination on the President himself. Unlike the general reading public, I was an agent during the critical period on November 22, 1963.
In my book, The Echo from Dealey Plaza, I relate to the public what I saw while serving on the white house detail and the disrespect and hatred towards the President that I heard expressed by some of my fellow agents.
Blaine and other agents can feed the public with the “cya” account of the secret service actions during the Kennedy area but I was there and was a witness to the incompetence, laxity of certain agents surrounding the president, the drinking and cavalier attitude among many of the agents on the detail, the references to President Kennedy as being a Ni—r lover and their disdain for his stand for racial justice and equal opportunity for All Americans. I was present among a few agents who were discussing the protection of President Kennedy in which the statement was made that if an attempt were made on the life of the President, they would take no action.
…As far as agents being forbidden to ride on the special running boards of the presidential vehicle, that rumor was not circulated until “after” the assassination of the president. There was no official memorandum or other notification of such an order advising agents of this change in protective policy. This rumor is no more than a scandalous assertion put forth by agents who failed in their duty to properly protect the President of these United States.”[8] (emphasis added)
When we realize that the Secret Service had reasons to place blame on Oswald, and the fact that a member of the Secret Service provided translation services for Marina Oswald, obtained her business manager, and asked that business manager to obtain a lawyer for her, we must consider the possibility that bias could have entered some of the translations.[9] Therefore, whether the evidence was planted or accidentally misinterpreted, we should look more closely at what we’ve been told.
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| June Lee Oswald, Nov. 24, 1963 with kitten at Paine residence |
We have established that little June Lee “loved” her blanket and that she “played with it.” We should also consider the possibility that translations might be biased, and evidence planted or rigged, as we look closer at the blanket and the rifle.
The following information comes from an internet posting titled “Lost in Translation” written by the seasoned researcher Lee Farley [emphasis, divisions and headers added]:[10]
The Interpreters: “Lost in Translation” (excerpted)
“…about the interpreters used during Marina Oswald’s interviews from the minute the Police turned up in Irving until her last appearance in front of the Warren Commission. On November 22nd, 1963, the Dallas Police arrived at 2515 West Fifth Street in Irving, the residence of Ruth Hyde Paine. They were accompanied by members of Irving County Law Enforcement who legally had jurisdiction over the search of the property…Mrs. Paine greeted them by stating, “Come on in, we’ve been expecting you. Just as soon as we heard what happened we knew you would be out.” About an hour later Ruth Paine’s estranged husband, Michael Paine, turned up at the property. “Just as soon as I heard what building the shots were fired from I knew you would be out. So I came on over to see if I could help in any way,” he said.
…Marina spoke no English so Ruth Paine interpreted for them... She translated the questions from English into Russian and translated the answers from Russian into English. Gus Rose, one of the lead investigators at the Irving property later said in his testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, “I had to assume what Paine told me was true because I couldn’t understand the Russian language.” Paine then, interpreting for Marina, took Rose to the garage and pointed to a blanket as being the place where Oswald apparently kept the rifle. As we all know, the blanket was empty.
Rose also said in his HSCA testimony that when he picked up the empty blanket, “Ruth Paine [then] said something to Marina and Marina had a real shocked look on her face.” The truth of the matter is this; we do not know whether the translating was done accurately by Ruth Paine. We do not know whether the questions posed by Gus Rose were identical to the questions posed by Paine. We do not know whether the answers given by Marina were the answers translated back verbatim by Paine.
We do not know why Marina had a “real shocked” look on her face when Ruth Paine said what she said after Rose picked up the empty blanket. What we do know is that when Marina was taken to the station to complete her first affidavit…in the affidavit, Marina states, in black and white, that when Officers were at the Paine residence she told them that her husband, “…used to have a rifle to hunt with in Russia.” This is not what was translated for Gus Rose by Ruth Paine…
…Marina spoke no English so Ruth Paine interpreted for them... She translated the questions from English into Russian and translated the answers from Russian into English. Gus Rose, one of the lead investigators at the Irving property later said in his testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, “I had to assume what Paine told me was true because I couldn’t understand the Russian language.” Paine then, interpreting for Marina, took Rose to the garage and pointed to a blanket as being the place where Oswald apparently kept the rifle. As we all know, the blanket was empty.
Rose also said in his HSCA testimony that when he picked up the empty blanket, “Ruth Paine [then] said something to Marina and Marina had a real shocked look on her face.” The truth of the matter is this; we do not know whether the translating was done accurately by Ruth Paine. We do not know whether the questions posed by Gus Rose were identical to the questions posed by Paine. We do not know whether the answers given by Marina were the answers translated back verbatim by Paine.
We do not know why Marina had a “real shocked” look on her face when Ruth Paine said what she said after Rose picked up the empty blanket. What we do know is that when Marina was taken to the station to complete her first affidavit…in the affidavit, Marina states, in black and white, that when Officers were at the Paine residence she told them that her husband, “…used to have a rifle to hunt with in Russia.” This is not what was translated for Gus Rose by Ruth Paine…
What credence can we then place upon the accurate translation of Marina Oswald’s words by Ruth Paine? The simple answer is none. We don’t know what was said during the search of that house. There could be many reasons why Marina was “shocked” when Ruth Paine began translating after the rifle blanket was found, especially if Marina’s English was much better than we have been led to believe.
In actual fact, what credence can we place upon the translating being accurate when she was first taken into police custody? When Marina was taken to the station her words were interpreted by a Dallas resident by the name of Ilya Aleksandrovich Mamantov. Mamantov was a member of the White Russian community. This is the group of Russian emigres that had been so accommodating to Marina Oswald when she first arrived in the United States…[11]
How did Mamantov become the translator for Marina immediately after the assassination? Mamantov got the job on the advice of a Mr. Jack Alston Crichton who was an independent oil operator in Dallas. Crichton suggested Mamantov for the job to the Dallas Police even though he had not done any official translating for any company prior to the assassination. What is really interesting about Jack Crichton is that he was a Colonel in the Army Reserve, and was also headed a local Army Intelligence Unit in Dallas. It was on Crichton’s advice, as per the Forrest Sorrels memo (see Appendix),[12] that Mamantov was hired. For this to happen so quickly suggests that Police Intelligence was linking with Army Intelligence immediately after the assassination.
In actual fact, what credence can we place upon the translating being accurate when she was first taken into police custody? When Marina was taken to the station her words were interpreted by a Dallas resident by the name of Ilya Aleksandrovich Mamantov. Mamantov was a member of the White Russian community. This is the group of Russian emigres that had been so accommodating to Marina Oswald when she first arrived in the United States…[11]
How did Mamantov become the translator for Marina immediately after the assassination? Mamantov got the job on the advice of a Mr. Jack Alston Crichton who was an independent oil operator in Dallas. Crichton suggested Mamantov for the job to the Dallas Police even though he had not done any official translating for any company prior to the assassination. What is really interesting about Jack Crichton is that he was a Colonel in the Army Reserve, and was also headed a local Army Intelligence Unit in Dallas. It was on Crichton’s advice, as per the Forrest Sorrels memo (see Appendix),[12] that Mamantov was hired. For this to happen so quickly suggests that Police Intelligence was linking with Army Intelligence immediately after the assassination.
Farley goes on to say:
So, if the White Russian community had something to hide, post-assassination, what better way to leverage pressure upon Marina than to have one of them in the room with her when she was being questioned about matters relating to her relationship with Oswald and matters pertaining to his activities in the lead-in to the assassination? Remember, Mamantov would not be the only person who had ties to Lee and Marina Oswald who would end up being in such close proximity to her whilst in protective custody. Peter Paul Gregory also makes an appearance.”
Farley then brings up a startling bit of information that was “lost in translation”:
One thing that jumps out of Marina’s first day affidavit is this:
“Today at the Police Station they showed me a rifle. This was like the rifle my husband had. It was a dark gun.”
It was a “dark gun.” Why is this important? It seems insignificant but if one goes to the Secret Service interviews that they conducted with Marina at the Six Flags Inn in Dallas you will find this:
Q. Did Lee purchase any type of gun whilst living in the United States?
A. She says that she knew there was a rifle in the house. She says that she saw the gun in the house in New Orleans and in Dallas.
Q. This gun, was it the rifle or a pistol or just what type of gun? Can she answer that?
A. It was a gun.
Mr. Gregory asked: Can you describe it?
NOTE: Subject said: I cannot describe it because a rifle to me like all rifles.
Gregory translation: She said she cannot describe it. It was sort of a dark rifle just like any other common rifle.
Gregory added the word “dark”. Below, you can view two photos of Carcano Italian rifles. The one on the left is described “like oswald’s” but it is ‘light.’ The photo at right is of the “killer rifle”—and it is ‘dark.’
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| a 'light colored' Carcano |
Farley has more to say about this damning addition to Marina’s actual words:
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| the 'dark rifle' 'found' in the TSBD |
“As you can see, Mr. Peter Paul Gregory, who had links to Oswald when Oswald arrived back in Dallas after his departure from the Soviet Union, makes an appearance as Marina’s translator during this interview and the person who transcribed the tape of the interview actually writes that Gregory mistranslates Marina’s words. Not just any old words, but the words, “Dark rifle.” These are the same words that are in Marina’s original first day affidavit that was interpreted by Ilya Mamantov, who was pushed into the case by a member of Army Intelligence from Dallas.”
He offers additional evidence of mistranslation concerning the rifle:
“When the Warren Commission’s Southern contingent got access to Marina away from the likes of Dulles and Ford they, led by Richard Russell, started to turn the thumb screws on Marina concerning her relationship with Oswald, her incredible departure from the Soviet Union, Oswald’s Mexico City trip and the ownership of the rifle and pistol. Unfortunately, they had the White Russian, Peter Paul Gregory, working as a translator again alongside Leon Gopadze from the U.S. Secret Service Office. Similar to the mistranslation that Gregory made in the Six Flags interview concerning the “dark rifle” he also conveniently mistranslates on the same issue during Marina’s Dallas WC testimony (the single asterisk next to Marina’s name denotes that it was Gregory who translated the answer):
Senator RUSSELL. Did you not testify that you thought this was Lee’s rifle that was shown you as the one that shot Connally and the President?*
*Mrs. OSWALD. Yes ; I testified that that was the rifle.
Mr. GOPADZE. No - I’m sorry. As far as she knows about the arms, the rifle which was shown to her looked like the one he had.
Mr. GREGORY. Yes ; that’s right.
Senator RUSSELL. That’s all I asked her. That’s just exactly what I asked her.
Mr. GREGORY. Yes ; that’s correct.
http://www.aarclibra...aOswald_3rd.pdf
The reason the correction is made is because Leon Gopadze jumps in and corrects Gregory’s misleading translation concerning the rifle. So, instead of Marina Oswald being on record saying it “…was the rifle”, she is instead on record more accurately stating that it “looked like the one he had”, as per her original affidavit taken on the 22nd.
Senator RUSSELL. Did you not testify that you thought this was Lee’s rifle that was shown you as the one that shot Connally and the President?*
*Mrs. OSWALD. Yes ; I testified that that was the rifle.
Mr. GOPADZE. No - I’m sorry. As far as she knows about the arms, the rifle which was shown to her looked like the one he had.
Mr. GREGORY. Yes ; that’s right.
Senator RUSSELL. That’s all I asked her. That’s just exactly what I asked her.
Mr. GREGORY. Yes ; that’s correct.
http://www.aarclibra...aOswald_3rd.pdf
The reason the correction is made is because Leon Gopadze jumps in and corrects Gregory’s misleading translation concerning the rifle. So, instead of Marina Oswald being on record saying it “…was the rifle”, she is instead on record more accurately stating that it “looked like the one he had”, as per her original affidavit taken on the 22nd.
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| Marina Oswald at hearings |
Farley wishes to remind us that Mamantov’s selection was not accidental. He continues:
Jack Crichton wasn’t just any old Army reservist. He was responsible for actually creating the 488th Army Intelligence Division in Dallas. He was close friends with many members of the Texas power elite including D.H. Byrd [owner of the TSBD building where the killing shots supposedly came from –jvb] and Clint Murchison [close friends with Dr. Alton Ochsner and many other right-wing extremists who despised Kennedy-jvb]. After the assassination he actually ran for Texas Governor but was beaten by John Connally.
…Jack Crichton was not only connected to the Dallas Power elite and military intelligence, he was actually responsible for getting people into the motorcade and then was influential in getting Ilya Mamantov the job as Marina’s interpreter.[13]
…What we have here is a man connected to the rabidly anti-Communist White Russian community with links to Lee Oswald, Marina Oswald, and Ruth Paine being called to do the translating by a man with links to the Dallas power Elite and military intelligence, who had influence over the occupants of the pilot car, and followed up by a call from a man who was in the motorcade pilot car.
Farley is almost finished making his points, and we need to focus on them:
“After Mamantov had been used as an interpreter on the 22nd and 23rd of November, 1963 he then made an effort to link the assassination to the Soviet Union with the U.S. media. On December 5th he was interviewed by KRLD announcer Warren Fulks, in the KRLD studios. In that interview he not only accused Oswald of being linked to the Soviet Union and killed JFK on their behalf in furtherance of the Communist ideology, but he also implicated Jack Ruby as being part of the communist “underground conspiracy” and he killed Oswald to shut him up...[14]
In August 1977 the Soviet newspaper Nedelya printed a news story. It was entitled “Ktovy, doktor Mamantov?” (Who are you, Doctor Mamantov?) The news story was outing Ilya Mamantov as “working for the CIA…”[15]In the same article a “friend” of Mamantov, US citizen Natalya Aleksandrovna Letter was also “outed” as a CIA agent. It is claimed that she is a daughter of Nazi war criminal and was looking for a variety of information whilst she was in the Soviet Union with Mamantov.”
There are certain researchers out there that ask us to believe specific things that Marina said during her various interrogations and depositions. They pick and choose what they need in supporting their own pet theories. They then ignore the things that are inconvenient to their beliefs. One such researcher places great emphasis on the Six Flags Secret Service interviews but fails to tell his readers that it was Peter Paul Gregory that did the interpreting and that he was found out on many occasions of, what I believe, are purposeful mistranslations. He did this not only in the Secret Service interviews but also in Marina’s Warren Commission testimony numerous times. We then add this to Ilya Mamatov’s suspected CIA background, his relationship with members of Army Intelligence and his vociferous attempts to smear the Soviet Union and implicate them in the assassination and the whole situation takes on a very suspect nature.
Knowing that the White Russian community had Marina surrounded post assassination and their obvious ties to U.S. Intelligence, especially the CIA, and we begin to understand the phrase from Peter Paul Gregory during one of Marina’s Six Flag’s interrogations a whole lot more, when in the SS report of the interview this appears: “…she was told for her own sake and her children’s sake to tell the truth during all of this investigation which would help her in the long run, and particularly with her desire to remain in the United States.”[16] The White Russians had surrounded Marina as soon as she arrived on U.S. soil, and they were still there when she was in protective custody as well as when she was under oath.”
More About the Blanket Used to Frame Oswald
We are asked to believe a lot of what amounts to speculation regarding the blanket and the rifle. We are supposed to believe that Marina Oswald allowed some unusual things to occur in concerning her baby’s blanket. The first unusual thing was that Marina apparently did not know who removed the blanket and its contents from Ruth Paine’s station wagon. The second unusual thing is that after discovering that the blanket held a rifle, she did not try to move the blanket out of sight (for numerous reasons, she should have). The third unusual thing is that she never spoke to Oswald about the rifle—since Ruth Paine was a Quaker who was supposedly against firearms and violence, Marina should have asked Oswald to move the rifle elsewhere.
Recall that the blanket was clean (no smudges, no wood shavings from the cement floor, etc.). The disinfo sites claiming that fibers found on the rifle or in the sack that supposedly held the rifle contained fibers matchable to the blanket rarely show us the FBI’s report, preferring to show just a portion of it.
Fibers and Scratches – A Sack and a Blanket
The blanket was only 2% wool and 20-35% cotton. The remainder –over 60%--was viscose rayon. A few hairs from Lee Harvey Oswald were found on the blanket, to be solemnly described by the Warren Commission as damning evidence. But was it?
The Warren Report declares that the rifle was “stored” in the blanket, saying, (our emphasis)
“Fibers in paper bag matched fibers in blanket.--When Paul M. Stombaugh of the FBI Laboratory examined the paper bag, he found, on the inside, a single brown delustered viscose fiber and several light green cotton fibers.198 'The blanket in which the rifle was stored was composed of brown and green cotton, viscose and woolen fibers.199
The single brown viscose fiber found in the bag matched some of the brown viscose fibers from the blanket in all observable characteristics.200 The green cotton fibers found in the paper bag matched “some of the green cotton fibers in the blanket …”
The single brown viscose fiber found in the bag matched some of the brown viscose fibers from the blanket in all observable characteristics.200 The green cotton fibers found in the paper bag matched “some of the green cotton fibers in the blanket …”
The Commission’s expert had an opinion about the fibers:
“All I would say here is that it is possible that these fibers could have come from this blanket, because this blanket is composed of brown and green woolen fibers, brown and green delustered viscose fibers, and brown and green cotton fibers. * * * We found no brown cotton fibers, no green viscose fibers, and no woolen fibers. So if I found all of these then I would have been able to say these fibers probably had come from this blanket. But since I found so few, then I would say the possibility exists, these fibers could have come from this blanket.202 “[17]
Limb, pubic and head hairs were found on the blanket that belonged to Lee Oswald. In addition, and usually never mentioned, other limb, pubic and head hairs not belonging to Lee Oswald were also found on the blanket. How would other hairs get on the blanket? At the very least, the Oswalds and the Paines shared the same washing machine. Ruth Paine mentions Marina hanging the wash on the line on November 22 at the Paine home, and folding clothes the night before. The washing machine can be seen in the photo just below:
The blanket, made mostly of viscose rayon, attracted hair. Hair acquires a positive electric charge when it is combed with a nylon comb, causing it to cling to the comb.[18] The same thing happens if hair comes into contact with a viscose rayon blanket in a spinning washing machine. The presence of Lee Oswald’s hair on the blanket – plus other hairs—simply meant that any loose hairs in a washing machine or from non-rayon clothing in the machine could be attracted to the blanket. They would continue to cling to the blanket if it happened to be line-dried instead of dried in a machine (where hairs could be filtered off the blanket’s surface). So the presence of Lee Oswald’s hairs—of any kind—on the blanket simply meant it could have attracted those hairs from other clothing due to the charge that nylon exerts on hair. If Marina had not identified the blanket as holding the rifle, it could not have qualified as since other hairs not belonging to Oswald were also on the blanket. When was the blanket last washed? It could have been washed as late as the night before, since ‘folding laundry’ is mentioned.
We are asked to assume that June, an active toddler, would ‘never’ see the blanket in the Paine garage, a garage attached to a small, crowded, busy house and easily accessible, since egress to the back yard was from the dining area, also connected to the garage, where June’s blanket was lying in full view on the garage floor. Why didn’t Marina at least move it from view so Junie wouldn’t start playing with the blanket (and the rifle)?
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The garage would be of interest to young children in a crowded house. The three active young children living there played in the backyard with swing set and toys, getting there from the same room that also had a door opening to the garage. |
No attempt was made to try to match the other hairs on the blanket to the Paines or to Marina. Why? If any of the hairs belonged to the Paines, the possibility that the blanket had been in the Paine washing machine would become an issue. If it had been washed in the Paine’s washing machine, then its contents, had there been any contents, would have had to be removed prior to November 22.
Paper Bag Assumed to Have Hidden the Rifle at the TSBD
The FBI expert testified that the scratches found in the bag meant that the gun had not been moved around inside the bag, if indeed it was a gun that had caused the scratches to begin with: in the testimony below, the Warren Commission has to force a “possible” connection between the rifle and the bag that supposedly held the rifle when it was supposedly transported from the Paine residence via car and then carried by Oswald, into the TSBD, though not a single person observed that action (Frazier only saw Oswald headed that direction with a package he stubbornly described as too small to contain the rifle). Regarding the scratches in the bag, the Oswald-did-it mind-set of Warren Commission apologist John McAdams means he must insist that the bag held the rifle, and thus he presents this (edited) portion of an expert’s testimony: (emphasis added)
Mr. CADIGAN. I was also requested at that time to examine the bag to determine if there were any significant markings or scratches or abrasions or anything by which it could be associated with the rifle . . .
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes?
Mr. CADIGAN. And I couldn't find any such markings.
Mr. EISENBERG. Now, was there an absence of markings which would be inconsistent with the rifle having been carried in the bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. No; . . .if the gun was in the bag, perhaps it wasn't moved too much.
But the reader should observe just how far the rifle was supposedly carried in the sack that the Warren Commission insisted held the rifle, ignoring the testimonies of Frazier and his sister that the sack was so short Oswald could carry it shoved under his armpit while holding onto the bottom of the sack (see diagram, next page). Oswald would have had to have arms the length of a gorilla’s to have carried the 40” rifle in that manner. The Warren Commission unilaterally decided that both Wesley Frazier and his sister, who also saw Oswald carrying a package they said was wrapped in lightweight paper, as being mistaken as to its length. Researcher Don Roberdeau gives us some facts here: (click to read):
The rifle was supposedly removed from the blanket in an unassembled state (or not). But the Commission is telling us that Oswald wasn’t smart enough to move the blanket out of sight after taking the rifle out: that he left the blanket where it could be immediately discovered. He then supposedly placed the rifle in a sack previously made at the TSBD and somehow sneaked to the Paine house the night before, by hiding it under his shirt. Then it was hidden, apparently until morning.
Oswald slept in and had to be wakened by his wife, but apparently he had the rifle already in the sack, ready to go, since he was “running late” to catch his ride with Frazier to work. When he accomplished such a feast is unknown, as a close examination of Marina’s and Ruth’s initial testimonies make clear.
Oswald then supposedly picked up the sack from where he hid it (presumably in the Paine garage), then went through the kitchen, into the living room and out the front door. Frazier lived at 2439 West Fifth Street, Irving: the Paines lived at 2515 West Fifth Street, Irving: it was a one-minute walk of a distance of 289 feet, which included crossing a street—Westbrook Dr. Oswald was seen looking into the window to see if Frazier was coming out. We would assume that he was carrying the ‘sack’ since Frazier described how Oswald later put it on the back seat of Frazier’s vehicle. We could thus add another 20 feet or so of bundle-carrying to the 289 feet.
He then walked to Wesley Frazier’s car, opened the door to the back seat, and placed the sack with its heavy burden on the back seat, after which it was transported over 15 miles over sometimes bumpy roads.
Oswald got the bundle out of the car as Frazier revved his engine to charge the battery and walked on ahead with it approximately another 200 feet, but nobody saw Oswald enter the building with this mysterious package.
Look again at the Warren Commission expert’s words:
Mr. EISENBERG. Now, was there an absence of markings which would be inconsistent with the rifle having been carried in the bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. No; . . .if the gun was in the bag, perhaps it wasn't moved too much.
How “much” is “moved too much”? Remember the diagram by Don Roberdeau, and how the object was being carried, with little regard for creating ‘scratches.’[19]
Back to the expert’s testimony, as truncated by McAdams (this time questions are also being asked by former CIA Director Allen Dulles, a man who could not help but be biased because (1) he had been removed from his position by kennedy, and hence had a conflict of interest, and (2) any evidence making the CIA look bad would likely suffer the same fate as evidence handled by the Secret Service that could have made them look bad. Cadigan, the expert, was being grilled again:
I did observe some scratch marks and abrasions but was unable to associate them with this gun . . . There were no marks on this bag that I could say were caused by that rifle or any other rifle or any other given instrument.
Mr. EISENBERG. Was there any absence of markings or absence of bulges or absence of creases which would cause you to say that the rifle was not carried in the paper bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. No.
. . .
Mr. DULLES. Would the scratches indicate there was a hard object inside the bag . . .?
Mr. CADIGAN. Well, if you were to characterize it that way, yes. I mean there were a few scratches here. What caused them, I can't say. A hard object; yes (4H97-8). [Emphasis added]
---- ---- ---- ----
Let us compare the above with a longer, unedited statement, showing what McAdams removed:
Mr. CADIGAN. I was also requested at that time to examine the bag to determine if there were any significant markings or scratches or abrasions or anything by which it could be associated with the rifle, Commission Exhibit 139, that is, could I find any markings that I could tie to that rifle.
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes.
Mr. CADIGAN. And I couldn't find any such markings.
Mr. EISENBERG. Now, was there an absence of markings which would be inconsistent with the rifle having been carried in the bag?
Mr. EISENBERG. Now, was there an absence of markings which would be inconsistent with the rifle having been carried in the bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. No; I don't see actually, I don't know the condition of the rifle. If it were in fact contained in this bag, it could have been wrapped in cloth or just the metal parts wrapped in a thick layer of cloth, or if the gun was in the bag, perhaps it wasn't moved too much. I did observe some scratch marks and abrasions but was unable to associate them with this gun. The scratch marks in the paper could come from any place. They could have come from many places. There were no marks on this bag that I could say were caused by that rifle or any other rifle or any other given instrument.
Mr. EISENBERG. Was there any absence of markings or absence of bulges or
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absence of creases which would cause you to say that the rifle was not carried in the paper bag?
Mr. EISENBERG. Was there any absence of markings or absence of bulges or
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absence of creases which would cause you to say that the rifle was not carried in the paper bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. No.
Mr. EISENBERG. That is whether it had been wrapped or not wrapped?
Mr. CADIGAN. That is something I can't say.
Mr. DULLES. Would the scratches indicate there was a hard object inside the bag, as distinct from a soft object that would make no abrasions or scratches?
Mr. CADIGAN. Well, if you were to characterize it that way, yes. I mean there were a few scratches here. What caused them, I can't say. A hard object; yes. Whether that hard object was part of a gun----
Mr. DULLES. I understand.
Mr. CADIGAN. And so forth----
Mr. EISENBERG. I am not sure you understood a question I asked one or two questions ago.
I just want to make clear here if the gun was not wrapped in a cloth--let's assume hypothetically that the gun was not wrapped in a cloth and was, also hypothetically, inserted into this is paper bag. Is there any absence of marks which would lead you to believe that this hypothesis I just made couldn't be--that is, that it couldn't be inserted, without a covering, into the paper bag without leaving more markings than were present?
Mr. CADIGAN. No. The absence of markings to me wouldn't mean much. I was looking for markings I could associate. The absence of marks, the significance of them, I don't know.
Mr. EISENBERG. That is whether it had been wrapped or not wrapped?
Mr. CADIGAN. That is something I can't say.
Mr. DULLES. Would the scratches indicate there was a hard object inside the bag, as distinct from a soft object that would make no abrasions or scratches?
Mr. CADIGAN. Well, if you were to characterize it that way, yes. I mean there were a few scratches here. What caused them, I can't say. A hard object; yes. Whether that hard object was part of a gun----
Mr. DULLES. I understand.
Mr. CADIGAN. And so forth----
Mr. EISENBERG. I am not sure you understood a question I asked one or two questions ago.
I just want to make clear here if the gun was not wrapped in a cloth--let's assume hypothetically that the gun was not wrapped in a cloth and was, also hypothetically, inserted into this is paper bag. Is there any absence of marks which would lead you to believe that this hypothesis I just made couldn't be--that is, that it couldn't be inserted, without a covering, into the paper bag without leaving more markings than were present?
Mr. CADIGAN. No. The absence of markings to me wouldn't mean much. I was looking for markings I could associate. The absence of marks, the significance of them, I don't know.
McAdams removed information telling us that Mr. Dulles tried hard to get Cadigan to say that the gun could have been inserted into the bag without making marks, but Cadigan, agreeing with Dulles that it was possible, nevertheless made it clear that the marks simply could not be associated with the rifle in question.
Importantly, McAdams left out: “The scratch marks in the paper could come from any place. They could have come from many places.”
Dulles, who after all was the former head of the CIA, was clever enough to get Cardigan to admit that a hard object such as a rifle could have made the scratches (or not). But anyone working with big rolls of paper knows that when pulling paper through the cutting area, scratches can occur.
There is much more information available about the paper used, the paper bag, etc.
Researcher Gil Jesus has come out with important information about the rifle that we will merely summarize here: (click to read)
Researcher Gil Jesus has also presented the best argument for why the paper sack/bag could not be used as evidence in the case. A large portion of his essay on the subject is reproduced here, from the website at http://www.giljesus.com/the_bag.htm.
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| Rifle handled with disregard for fingerprint |
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Gil Jesus’ Findings
The Discovery
"...the improvised paper bag in which Oswald brought the rifle to the Depository was found close by the window from which the shots were fired." - Warren Report, Chapter 1, page 19. Vital to the prosecution's case against Oswald was the establishment of a "chain of custody" of the evidence, in the case of the paper "gunsack", beginning with who it was who found it on the 6th floor near the sniper's nest. The Commission was unable to do that, because two different detectives, Robert L. Studebaker and Lt. J.C. Day each claimed in FBI reports to be the one who found it. Studebaker's claim is found in Commission Document 5, pg 128:
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| "eagerly taking credit for the find" |
Day adds in his claim that Roy Truly was a witness to his finding it and "no one else viewed it".
But Truly testified that he didn't know "things" were found in the southeast corner and WASN'T present when they were found.
Mr. BELIN. When did you get over to the southeast corner of the sixth floor?
Mr. TRULY. That I can't answer. I don't remember when I went over there. It was sometime before I learned that they had found either the rifle or the spent shell cases. It could have been at the time I went up and told them about Lee Harvey Oswald being missing. I cannot remember. But I didn't know it. I didn't see them find them, and I didn't know at the time I don't know how long they had the things. ( 3 H 231 ) Why would Truly be in the southeast corner BEFORE the spent shells were found ?
Mr. TRULY. That I can't answer. I don't remember when I went over there. It was sometime before I learned that they had found either the rifle or the spent shell cases. It could have been at the time I went up and told them about Lee Harvey Oswald being missing. I cannot remember. But I didn't know it. I didn't see them find them, and I didn't know at the time I don't know how long they had the things. ( 3 H 231 ) Why would Truly be in the southeast corner BEFORE the spent shells were found ?
Remarkably, with this conflict in the evidence, Truly was never asked one single question about the discovery of the "gunsack", the wrapping paper and tape allegedly used to construct it, the sample of the paper and tape the Dallas Police took from the TSBD on November 22, 1963, or the construction of the replica bag by the FBI on December 1st .
Here we have a witness who may or may not have been present at the discovery of the paper "gunsack", was present at the taking of the sample tape and paper, and present at the construction of a replica bag 10 days later, and he was never asked one single question about any of it !!!
That is bizarre to me.
So we really don't know who found it and thus no chain of custody of this evidence can be established.
Not only can we NOT establish the chain of custody, there is no photographic evidence that the "gunsack" was where the police said it was.
Equally remarkable is that although both men who claimed to find the bag were police photographers, none of the sniper's nest photos taken by Lt. Day or Detective Studebaker show the "gunsack" allegedly found beneath the window. You would think that such an important piece of evidence would have been photographed in situ.
The area where it was allegedly discovered was photographed by DPD, but there is no "gunsack" in the photo.
This corresponds to the testimony of the first law enforcement officers on the scene. Sheriff Luke Mooney, who discovered the sniper's nest, testified that he saw the 8-12 inch high brown paper "lunchsack" that had been left behind by Bonnie Ray Williams. Mooney was asked if he saw a paper bag at any other window:
He was also asked if he saw anything in the corner.
Mr. BALL. .....Now, was there anything you saw over in the corner?
Mr. MOONEY. No, sir; I didn't see anything over in the corner.( 3 H 286 )
Mr. MOONEY. No, sir; I didn't see anything over in the corner.( 3 H 286 )
Sgt. Gerald Hill, the first DPD officer to arrive, also only saw the lunchsack:
Mr. HILL. The only specifics we discussed were this. You were asking Officer Hicks if either one recalled seeing a sack, supposedly one that had been made by the suspect, in which he could have possibly carried the weapon into the Depository, and I at that time told you about the small sack that appeared to be a lunchsack, and that that was the only sack that I saw, and that I left the Book Depository prior to the finding of the gun.( 7 H 65 )
Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig:
Mr. BELIN. Was there any long sack laying in the floor there that you remember seeing, or not?
Mr. CRAIG. No; I don't remember seeing any.( 6 H 268 )
Mr. CRAIG. No; I don't remember seeing any.( 6 H 268 )
Detective Boyd, who arrived with Captain Fritz before Day and Studebaker:
Mr. BALL. Did you see any brown wrapping paper near the window where the hulls were found, near the windows alongside which the hulls were found?
Mr. BOYD. I don't believe I did.( 7 H 122 )
Mr. BOYD. I don't believe I did.( 7 H 122 )
Incredibly, lacking an actual photograph of the "gunsack" in the sniper's nest, and with numerous officers who saw the 'sniper's nest" testifying that they never saw the "gunsack", the Warren Commission placed in evidence a photo of the sniper's nest with the outline of the "gunsack" drawn in!!! (Studebaker Exhibit F)
This was based on the observation of Det. Studebaker, who told the Commission that he was asked by the FBI to mark where the "gunsack" was located :
Mr. STUDEBAKER. I drew that box in for somebody over at the FBI that said you wanted it. It is in one of those pictures---one of the shots after the duplicate shot.
Mr. BALL. Let's mark this picture "Exhibit F."
(Instrument marked by the reporter as "Studebaker Exhibit F," for identification.)
Mr. BALL. Do you know who took that picture?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No; I don't.
Mr. BALL. Do you recognize the diagram?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL Did you draw the diagram?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. I drew a diagram in there for the FBI, somebody from the FBI called me down--I can't think of his name, and he wanted an approximate location of where the paper was found.
Mr. BALL. Does that show the approximate location?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Where you have the dotted lines?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Now, there is something that looks like steam pipes or water pipes in the corner there?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Where was that with reference to those pipes--the paper wrapping?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Laying right beside it--right here.
Mr. BALL. Was it folded over?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. It was doubled--it was a piece of paper about this long and it was doubled over. ( 7 H 144 )
The first thing Studebaker did was take photographs of the crime scene before anything was disturbed. Leaving nothing to chance, Lt. Day duplicated Studebaker's photos. Neither man felt that this important evidence warranted a photograph showing it in place??? But it was important enough to dust for prints???
Mr. BALL. How long was it, approximately?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. I don't know--I picked it up and dusted it and they took it down there and sent it to Washington and that's the last I have seen of it, and I don't know.
Mr. BALL. Did you take a picture of it before you picked it up?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No.
Mr. BALL. Does that sack show in any of the pictures you took?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No; it doesn't show in any of the pictures. ( ibid.)
Mr. STUDEBAKER. I don't know--I picked it up and dusted it and they took it down there and sent it to Washington and that's the last I have seen of it, and I don't know.
Mr. BALL. Did you take a picture of it before you picked it up?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No.
Mr. BALL. Does that sack show in any of the pictures you took?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No; it doesn't show in any of the pictures. ( ibid.)
Shouldn't the "gunsack" still be in the photos, even if police initially didn't recognize its importance ?
One of the first things police officers are taught about crime scenes is the preservation of the scene itself, that is, to prevent anything from being disturbed. But apparently, this "gunsack" was touched by detectives at the scene.
Studebaker admitted picking it up in order to dust it for prints. Detective L.D. Montgomery confirmed that in his testimony:
Mr. MONTGOMERY. Wait just a minute no; I didn't pick it up. I believe Mr. Studebaker did. We left it laying right there so they could check it for prints.
( 7 H 98 )
But Montgomery's partner told a different story to the Warren Commission:
Mr. BELIN. Do you know who found it?
Mr. JOHNSON. I know that the first I saw of it, L. D. Montgomery, my partner, picked it up off the floor, and it was folded up, and he unfolded it.
Mr. BELIN. When it was folded up, was it folded once or refolded?
Mr. JOHNSON. It was folded and then refolded. It was a fairly small package.
Mr. JOHNSON. I know that the first I saw of it, L. D. Montgomery, my partner, picked it up off the floor, and it was folded up, and he unfolded it.
Mr. BELIN. When it was folded up, was it folded once or refolded?
Mr. JOHNSON. It was folded and then refolded. It was a fairly small package.
( 7 H 103 )
Even if it had been inadvertently picked up, shouldn't it have been returned to the area where it was found, if for no other reason, than to photograph it in place and to present the scene in its original condition ?
Even though Montgomery claimed to have seen the "gunsack" in position and carried it out of the TSBD, Montgomery didn't recognize it when he saw it, remembered it being "somewhere" and sounded like a man who was covering for his fellow officers:
Mr. MONTGOMERY. Is this the sack right here, now?
Mr. BALL. That's right--do you remember that?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. I don't remember the sack being right there--I remember it was there somewhere, but exactly--I don't.
Mr. BALL. Evidently you don't know?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. No, sir. ( 7 H 98 )
Mr. BALL. That's right--do you remember that?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. I don't remember the sack being right there--I remember it was there somewhere, but exactly--I don't.
Mr. BALL. Evidently you don't know?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. No, sir. ( 7 H 98 )
Although the Commission stated that the "gunsack" had been found on the sixth floor near the sniper's nest, it provided no physical proof that it had and failed to name the person who found it, thus preventing the establishment of a chain of custody. (end of Gil Jesus article excerpt)
Suffice that in the end, documents were discovered showing the paper of the paper sack could not be matched with paper from the TSBD or from Ruth Paine’s garage Once again, Gil Jesus’ article gives us all the salient information we need, from his essay at http://www.giljesus.com/the_bag.htm
Identical Paper & Tape (Gil Jesus, contd)
On March 29, 1963, the Texas School Book Depository received a shipment of 58 rolls of 24" 60-lb. Kraft Wrapping Paper from the Texas Paper Company of Dallas.
The Texas Paper Company got the rolls from the Jacksonville, Florida mill of the St. Regis Paper Company. ( CD 897, pg. 162 )The rolls from that shipment were used from March 1963 thru January, 1964.
On the day of the assassination, the Dallas Police obtained a sample of wrapping paper and tape from the shipping room of the Depository and forwarded it to the FBI Laboratory in Washington. James C. Cadigan, a questioned-documents expert with the Bureau, compared the samples with the paper and tape in the actual "gunsack".
He testified, "In all of the observations and physical tests that I made I found * * * the bag * * * and the paper sample * * * were the same." ( Report, Chap 4, pg 135 )
(click to read)
Mr. Cadigan concluded that the paper and tape from the bag were identical in all respects to the sample paper and tape taken from the Texas School Book Depository shipping room on November 22, 1963. ( ibid., pg. 136 )
I know there are researchers out there who believe that the FBI originally found the papers and tapes to be NOT IDENTICAL and then changed the record to indicate that they were. I do not. I believe that the evidence shows just the opposite: that the original report indicated that the papers and tapes WERE identical and the FBI did everything it could do to downplay that fact.
Apparently, there were contradictions in the Gemberling Report of 11/30/63 when it was originally submitted to FBIHQ. As a result of those contradictions, a list of corrections was compiled by FBIHQ and returned to Dallas as part of a 12/6/63 AIRTEL from Hoover's office to the SAC ( Special Agent in Charge ) of the Dallas FBI office.
In other words, the report was "bounced back" as we used to call it.
One of those contradictions, ( item # 11 ) indicated that on line 10 of page 129, the paper and tape on the paper "gunsack" and the paper and tape sample retrieved from the shipping room of the TSBD on the afternoon of the 22nd were said to be identical. FBIHQ wanted to replace the word "identical" with the phraseology it used on the report's page 165.
FBIHQ then ordered the Dallas FBI office to "handle corrections":
Page 165 was the report of the FBI lab that concluded that the paper and tape from the "gunsack" had the "same observable characteristics" as the sample taken on 11/22.
Thus the word "identical" was replaced by the phrase "same observable characteristics".
The Commission, on the other hand was not so enlightened and had no problem using the word "identical" both during the testimony and in its Report.
The fact is that the rolls and tape were identical and subject to several tests, according to James Cadigan. Cadigan testified that he examined both the paper "gunsack" and the sample paper and tape on November 23rd, the day after the assassination. He examined the papers through natural light, incident light and transmitted light. He then looked at their surfaces through a microscope for paper structure, color and imperfections. ( 4 H 90 )
Then he examined the papers under ultraviolet light.( 4 H 92 )
He measured both with a micrometer at .0057".( 4 H 93 )
Cadigan testified that, "In all of the observations and physical tests, that I made, I found that for Exhibit 142, the bag, and the paper sample, Commission Exhibit 677, the results were the same."
Mr. EISENBERG. In all these cases, did you make the examination both of the tape and the paper in each of the bag and the sample?
Mr. CADIGAN. Oh, yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. And they were all identical?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes. ( ibid. )
Mr. CADIGAN. Oh, yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. And they were all identical?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes. ( ibid. )
And this is why I believe that the original report supported the original findings of the FBI expert--that the papers were identical as were the tapes.
FBIHQ had a reason why it had to downplay the "identical" angle. In fact, the FBI went out of its way to NOT use the word "identical" in its reports when describing the comparison of the paper and tape on the "gunsack" with the paper and tape taken on the afternoon of the 22nd.
In their zeal to "prove" Oswald guilty by connecting the "gunsack" to the wrapping paper in the shipping room of the Texas School Book Depository, the Dallas Police unwittingly provided proof that they had manufactured the evidence on the afternoon of the assassination.
And the FBI did what they could to suppress that.
And the proof centers around something they could not have known about---how long a roll of paper and tape lasted.
==Gil Jesus’ article continued below==
Two rolls from the same batch of paper ?
" The questioned and known items were examined visually by normal, incidental, and transmitted natural and electric light, and under ultraviolet light; examined microscopically for surface, paper structure, color, and imperfections; examined for their felting pattern, which is the pattern of light and dark areas caused by the manner in which the fibers become felted at the beginning stages of paper manufacture; measured for thickness with a micrometer sensitive to one one-thousandth of an inch, subjected to a fiber analysis to determine the type of fibers of which they were composed, and whether the fibers were bleached or unbleached; and examined spectrographically to determine what metallic ions were present. The questioned and known items were identical in all the properties measured by these tests. (The width of the tape on the paper sack was 3 inches, while the width of the sample tape was 2.975, or twenty-five thousandths of an inch smaller; however, this was not a significant difference)". ( WC Report, Appendix X, pg. 579 )
So if the 11/22 sample was identical to the "gunsack" found on the sixth floor, why did the FBI attempt in their reports to downplay the match, electing instead to present the test results as having concluded that the papers had "the same observable characteristics" and thus only similar ?
Because if the 11/22 sample and the "gunsack" were made from identical paper and tape, then the gunsack was made on 11/22/63.
The paper one could argue, because the rolls of paper were changed every three days or so. Chances are that the paper would NOT have matched. The Commission found that two identical rolls could be made from a single batch of paper. ( Report, Chap. 4 pg. 136 )
But the FBI never determined if an identical roll to the November 22 sample roll had been part of the shipment to the TSBD. Likewise, the FBI never tested the unused rolls of paper in the TSBD to determine if the matched roll to the 11/22 sample roll had been used or was still there. If the matched roll had NOT been part of the shipment, or had been part of the shipment and not yet used, then it was certain that the "gunsack" had been made on November 22nd.
But even if two identical rolls of paper had been part of the same shipment, what would the odds be that the matched roll to a roll of paper used to previously make the gunsack would be in the shipping room paper dispenser on November 22, 1963 ? And what are the odds, that out of the four rolls on the wrapping table, it would be the one arbitrarily selected by police for the sample ?
I'd say that's a long shot.
But it was a long shot that the Commission implied, concluding that the "gunsack" could have been made from the matched roll used at an unknown earlier date by Oswald:
"....since two rolls could be made from the same batch of paper, one cannot estimate when, prior to November 22, Oswald made the paper bag." ( ibid. )
First of all, the Commission never PROVED that two rolls of paper could be made from the same batch. The footnote for this statement found on page 136 of the Report ( ibid.) is footnote # 196. On page 824 of the Report, that footnote is a reference to the testimony of James Cadigan in 4 H 96 and Commission Exhibit 1965, neither of which contains any mention of two identical rolls coming from the same batch of paper.
Because the Commission failed to prove that there was an identical roll of paper to the roll on the TSBD paper dispenser on 11/22 and failed to prove that this identical roll had been used prior to the day of the assassination, this damages the Commission's contention that the "gunsack" was made from a roll other than the one that was on the paper dispenser in the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963.
From that, I believe that we CAN estimate WHEN the "gunsack" was made.
Because the motorcade route WITH the turn onto Elm St. was not announced until Monday, November 18th, and because Oswald was known to have read the newspaper a day LATE ( 6 H 352 ) and a roll of paper lasted only 3 days, for Oswald to have constructed the "gunsack" from the identical roll of paper in the shipping room on 11/22, he would have had to have done it between the afternoon of Tuesday, November 19th and the end of the workday on Thursday, the 21st.
There's no evidence that Oswald used wrapping paper or tape from the shipping room during this period or at any other period. In fact, TSBD shipping clerk Troy Eugene West told the Commission that Oswald was never around the shipping department:
Mr. BELIN. Did Lee Harvey Oswald ever help you wrap mail?
Mr. WEST. No, sir; he never did.
Mr. BELIN. Do you know whether or not he ever borrowed or used any wrapping paper for himself?
Mr. WEST. No, sir; I don't.
Mr. BELIN. You don't know?
Mr. WEST. No; I don't.
Mr. BELIN. Did you ever see him around these wrapper rolls or wrapper roll machines, or not?
Mr. WEST. No, sir; I never noticed him being around. ( 6 H 360 )
Mr. WEST. No, sir; he never did.
Mr. BELIN. Do you know whether or not he ever borrowed or used any wrapping paper for himself?
Mr. WEST. No, sir; I don't.
Mr. BELIN. You don't know?
Mr. WEST. No; I don't.
Mr. BELIN. Did you ever see him around these wrapper rolls or wrapper roll machines, or not?
Mr. WEST. No, sir; I never noticed him being around. ( 6 H 360 )
The Replica Bag
In their effort to find latent fingerprints on the "bag", the FBI used a chemical agent that discolored it. ( CE 142 ). Not wanting to show the discolored bag to the witnesses, the Bureau obtained paper from the Texas School Book Depository shipping department and fashioned a replica bag ( CE 364 ) on December 1, 1963. In order to determine if the bags were made with identical tape and paper, the FBI compared the paper in the replica sack with the original.
Mr. CADIGAN. Do you want me to discuss this replica sack yet?
Mr. EISENBERG. You mentioned a replica bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. Could you explain what that is?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes; this is Commission Exhibit 364. It is a paper sack similar to Commission Exhibit 142. It was made at the Texas School Book Depository on December 1, 1963, by special agents of the FBI in Dallas to show to prospective witnesses, because Commission's Exhibit 142 was dark and stained from the latent fingerprint treatment and they thought that this would--it wouldn't be fair to the witness to ask "Did you see a bag like that?" So they went to the Texas School Book Depository and constructed from paper and tape a similar bag.
Mr. EISENBERG. This was made December 1?
Mr. CADIGAN. December 1, of 1963.
Mr. EISENBERG. Or some 9 or 10 days after the assassination?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. Was the paper obtained from the same source?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes; from the same room.
Mr. EISENBERG. The same room.
Did you examine this paper to see how it compared---that is, the paper in the replica bag, which has already been admitted as Commission Exhibit 364---to see how it compared with the paper in the bag found on the sixth floor of the TSBD, which is Commission's Exhibit 142?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. What was your conclusion?
Mr. CADIGAN. That they were different in color, visual color, felting--that is, the pattern that you see through transmitted light, and they were different under ultraviolet light.
Mr. EISENBERG So that these two papers, which were obtained within 9 or 10 days from the same source, could be distinguished by you?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes. ( 4 H 93-94 )
Mr. EISENBERG. You mentioned a replica bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. Could you explain what that is?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes; this is Commission Exhibit 364. It is a paper sack similar to Commission Exhibit 142. It was made at the Texas School Book Depository on December 1, 1963, by special agents of the FBI in Dallas to show to prospective witnesses, because Commission's Exhibit 142 was dark and stained from the latent fingerprint treatment and they thought that this would--it wouldn't be fair to the witness to ask "Did you see a bag like that?" So they went to the Texas School Book Depository and constructed from paper and tape a similar bag.
Mr. EISENBERG. This was made December 1?
Mr. CADIGAN. December 1, of 1963.
Mr. EISENBERG. Or some 9 or 10 days after the assassination?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. Was the paper obtained from the same source?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes; from the same room.
Mr. EISENBERG. The same room.
Did you examine this paper to see how it compared---that is, the paper in the replica bag, which has already been admitted as Commission Exhibit 364---to see how it compared with the paper in the bag found on the sixth floor of the TSBD, which is Commission's Exhibit 142?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. What was your conclusion?
Mr. CADIGAN. That they were different in color, visual color, felting--that is, the pattern that you see through transmitted light, and they were different under ultraviolet light.
Mr. EISENBERG So that these two papers, which were obtained within 9 or 10 days from the same source, could be distinguished by you?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes. ( 4 H 93-94 )
In other words. the paper comprising the "gunsack" allegedly found on the sixth floor didn't match the paper in the replica bag taken from the TSBD 10 days later. Cadigan then set up a UV machine in order to demonstrate the differences to Allen Dulles. Looking under the UV light at the sample of tape and paper obtained on November 22 and comparing it to the tape and paper of the "gunsack", Dulles notes that:
Mr. CADIGAN. The observation I would make there is that the color of the tape on Exhibit 142, the sack, and the color of the paper of the sack 142, under UV, is the same as the color of the tape on 677 and the color of the paper.
Mr. DULLES. I agree on that.
Mr. DULLES. I agree on that.
Next they compare the ""gunsack" and the replica bag obtained 10 days after the assassination. Dulles comments:
Mr. DULLES. Yes. I find there that the sample obtained 10 days later, and the sack which is on the left, that the sample obtained 10 days later shows a lighter shade of purple than the sack, and that the tape shows a darker shade of, I would call it, almost gray as against almost white for the tape which is on the sack.
( 4 H 99-100 )
So not only was the paper different, but the tape was likewise different. The FBI now had evidence that both the rolls of paper and the rolls of tape differed from roll to roll.
 |
| Note "brown paper bag shaped like a gun" fabrication |
Could the paper have been changed ?
Cadigan was asked if he knew if the rolls had been changed between November 22 and December 1, 1963. A fairly simple question, but look how Cadigan responds:
Mr. DULLES. Do you happen to know whether another roll was put in the machine between the 22d and the 1st of December?
Mr. CADIGAN. May we go off the record?
(Discussion off the record.) ( 4 H 95 )
Mr. CADIGAN. May we go off the record?
(Discussion off the record.) ( 4 H 95 )
Now let's see what happens when they go back on the record:
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes; they were unable to determine whether the paper from the replica sack, Exhibit 364, came from the same roll or a different roll as the known sample obtained November 22, Commission Exhibit 677. I understand that in the fall, the Depository is busy, and could very well have changed rolls, but no records are kept along that line. ( 4 H 96 )
When they were at the TSBD to make the replica bag on December 1, why didn't they ask someone if the roll had been changed that week ? Only four working days had passed and surely someone would have remembered.
Mr. DULLES. Changed rolls in that time, 10-day period?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes, sir. Actually there were 4 working days in that period.
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes, sir. Actually there were 4 working days in that period.
( ibid. )
They didn't ask because they KNEW the roll had been changed.
"...the Depository normally used approximately one roll of paper every 3 working days." ( Report, Chapter 4, pg. 136 )
So if 4 working days had passed, the roll HAD to have been changed.
Testing the paper used by Oswald's former employers
As the evidence was mounting that the paper was different from roll to roll and the tape was likewise different from roll to roll, the FBI examined wrapping paper from Oswald's previous employers and compared them to the "gunsack" and "11/22 sample".
Jaggers-Childs-Stovall, a previous employer of Oswald, used the EXACT SAME wrapping paper as the TSBD, 24" 60# Kraft Wrapping Paper manufactured by the St. Regis Paper Company of Jacksonville, Florida.
Commission Document 897, pg. 160 shows this to be true.
The FBI examined the Jaggers paper to determine if it was identical to the paper in the TSBD.
Mr. EISENBERG. Is there any other information you would like to give us or any other testimony you would like to give us on the subject of the origin of the paper in the 142 bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. Well, possibly the comparisons made of paper samples from Jaggars Chiles-Stovall and from the William B. Riley Co.
Mr. EISENBERG. These are, you have mentioned two companies at which Oswald was employed at one time?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes.
Mr. CADIGAN. Well, possibly the comparisons made of paper samples from Jaggars Chiles-Stovall and from the William B. Riley Co.
Mr. EISENBERG. These are, you have mentioned two companies at which Oswald was employed at one time?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. You obtained paper from these companies, did you?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. EISENBERG. And you matched them to see if they matched--you tested them to see if they matched the paper in the bag 142, is that correct?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes; that is correct.
Mr. EISENBERG. And your conclusion was what?
Mr. CADIGAN. That they were different.( 4 H 98 )
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. EISENBERG. And you matched them to see if they matched--you tested them to see if they matched the paper in the bag 142, is that correct?
Mr. CADIGAN. Yes; that is correct.
Mr. EISENBERG. And your conclusion was what?
Mr. CADIGAN. That they were different.( 4 H 98 )
This examination confirmed that there was a difference in paper from roll to roll even though the manufacturer was the same. More importantly, the test PROVED that the ONLY paper that MATCHED the paper used to construct the paper "gunsack" was the paper that was available in the shipping room of the TSBD on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. The Commission never mentioned the FBI's testing of the wrapping paper from Jaggers-Childs-Stovall or the William B. Reily Co. or the results from those tests in their Report.
If the paper evidence indicated that the "gunsack" was constructed sometime on November 22nd, the tape evidence narrowed down the timeframe of the construction of the "gunsack" even further, to within a 3 hour period and point us finally in the direction of who REALLY constructed it.
The Tape
===Note from JVB: Gil Jesus also has a YouTube Channel accessible at http://www.youtube.com/user/JFK63Conspiracy===
“On March 29, 1963, the TSBD received a shipment of 50 cartons of 3" 60 lb. rolls of safety-sealed gummed paper tape from the Weaver Tape & Specialties Co. in Dallas. The tape was originally manufactured by Rexford Paper Co. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Weaver Tape was a supplier, not a manufacturer. ( CD 897, pg. 163 )
Typically, cartons of 3" 60 lb. tape come in lengths of 600 ft. and ten rolls to a carton.
That's 500 rolls of tape for 58 rolls of paper. The FBI found that a roll of wrapping paper lasted only 3 days in the TSBD shipping room. And yet, if one uses simple math to determine how much tape they used per roll, we find that they used 8.6 rolls of tape per roll of paper. ( Dividing 500 by 58 )
That's 8.6 rolls of tape every three days, or 2.87 rolls per day.
On an 8-hour workday, that averages out to one roll of tape used in just under 3 hours.
For the FBI to have concluded that the sample tape and the "gunsack" tape were IDENTICAL would have been tantamount to their saying that the paper "gunsack" had been constructed in a 3 hour period that included the taking of the sample.
And this would have been proof that the Dallas Police had been behind the construction of the bag.
Now you know why the FBI tried to downplay the identical match between the "gunsack" paper and tape and the samples taken on 11/22/63.
And it certainly had to be the reason why the FBI tested the paper and the tape it got from the TSBD 10 days after the assassination when it constructed a "replica bag" and compared it to the paper and tape samples of 11/22 and those of the "gunsack". In addition to comparing the paper and tape from the "replica bag" to the "gunsack" & sample of 11/22, the FBI also compared samples of paper and tape from Jaggers-Childs-Stovall to the 11/22 sample and the "gunsack"..[20]
Gil Jesus goes into detail about the tape similarly. He concludes that:
The FBI HAD to have known that the preponderance of the evidence indicated that the "gunsack" had been constructed from the SAME paper that was in the TSBD shipping room on November 22, 1963, using the same dispenser, the sample was taken by the same officers who claimed to have found the "gunsack" on the sixth floor and that the identical paper and tape TOGETHER was only available for less than a 3 hour period that included the period when the sample was taken.
The Dallas Police made the "gunsack" from rolls of paper and tape that was in the TSBD shipping room on 11/22, then took "samples" of paper and tape from the same rolls they used to construct it.
In their haste to produce a way for the rifle to get into the building undetected, the Dallas Police tried to establish a connection between the TSBD to the rifle by unwittingly using identical paper and tape for both the "gunsack" and the samples.
But the identical paper and tape didn't connect the "gunsack" with being constructed in the TSBD shipping room as much as they connected the "gunsack" with being constructed in the TSBD shipping room on 11/22.
This evidence could not have been lost on Hoover or the FBI.
If the FBI had any doubts that the "gunsack" ever contained a rifle, its examination for the evidence of it would answer the next question.
Was the depository rifle ever in the "gunsack" ?
Having sufficient evidence that the "gunsack" was constructed in the TSBD shipping room on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, the FBI took the next step in examining the "gunsack" by trying to determine if there was evidence that it ever contained the depository rifle.
Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Cadigan, did you notice when you looked at the bag whether there were---that is the bag found on the sixth floor, Exhibit 142--whether it had any bulges or unusual creases?
Mr. CADIGAN. I was also requested at that time to examine the bag to determine if there were any significant markings or scratches or abrasions or anything by which it could be associated with the rifle, Commission Exhibit 139, that is, could I find any markings that I could tie to that rifle.
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes?
Mr. CADIGAN. And I couldn't find any such markings.
Mr. EISENBERG. Now, was there an absence of markings which would be inconsistent with the rifle having been carried in the bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. No; I don't see actually, I don't know the condition of the rifle. If it were in fact contained in this bag, it could have been wrapped in cloth or just the metal parts wrapped in a thick layer of cloth, or if the gun was in the bag, perhaps it wasn't moved too much. I did observe some scratch marks and abrasions but was unable to associate them with this gun. The scratch marks in the paper could come from any place. They could have come from many places. There were no marks on this bag that I could say were caused by that rifle or any other rifle or any other given instrument.( 4 H 97 )
Mr. CADIGAN. I was also requested at that time to examine the bag to determine if there were any significant markings or scratches or abrasions or anything by which it could be associated with the rifle, Commission Exhibit 139, that is, could I find any markings that I could tie to that rifle.
Mr. EISENBERG. Yes?
Mr. CADIGAN. And I couldn't find any such markings.
Mr. EISENBERG. Now, was there an absence of markings which would be inconsistent with the rifle having been carried in the bag?
Mr. CADIGAN. No; I don't see actually, I don't know the condition of the rifle. If it were in fact contained in this bag, it could have been wrapped in cloth or just the metal parts wrapped in a thick layer of cloth, or if the gun was in the bag, perhaps it wasn't moved too much. I did observe some scratch marks and abrasions but was unable to associate them with this gun. The scratch marks in the paper could come from any place. They could have come from many places. There were no marks on this bag that I could say were caused by that rifle or any other rifle or any other given instrument.( 4 H 97 )
Cadigan's conclusions were simple. There was no evidence that the "gunsack" ever contained the depository rifle or any other rifle.
Well-oiled ?
Gil Jesus goes on to tell us something about the rifle in its well-oiled condition that Warren Commission defender John McAdams apparently ignores or does not know. McAdams claims only a small area of the rifle was actually (lightly) oiled and therefore was unlikely to leave any marks in the bag or on the blanket and that it also could not be determined whether the rifle had been oiled at any time. He also implies that “well-oiled” involves only a thin film of oil on inner parts of the rifle. He tells readers that
“…it seems that conspiracists have been conveniently ignoring a key piece of context. Hoover in fact states that "the firing pin and spring of this weapon are well-oiled Later, when he mentions the present well-oiled condition of the rifle, he is referring back to the firing pin and spring. He goes on the state that it could not be determined whether the rifle had been oiled[21] at any time.
Since the firing pin and spring are internal components, there is no reason to expect that any oil would get on a blanket or bag used to carry the rifle.
But just how much oil is necessary for these parts to be “well-oiled”? Some insight into what the military considers “well-oiled” can be found in Operator's Manual for the M16 and M4. It instructs the reader to "lightly lubricate the firing pin" (0016 00-6). Lightly lubricate is defined as "a film of lubricant barely visible to the eye" (0016 00-3). Because the firing pin and spring are internal components, when they are lightly lubed, they do not drip oil. There is no reason to believe that the rifle would have left oil residue on either the blanket or the bag.
The Operator's Manual instructs the reader to "lightly lube inside of upper receiver, bore and chamber, outer surfaces of barrel and front sight, and surfaces under handguard" (0016 00-4). One can reasonably assume that Oswald would have been trained in the military in such a manner and so if he did regularly oil his rifle, it also would not be dripping oil. The light cover of oil would be absorbed into the rifle.
The conspiracy claim that the bag or blanket should have had oil residue is another firearms factoid. One can perhaps understand that conspiracists, who mostly aren't gun buffs, would jump to conclusions about how firearms are maintained. But how does one excuse their concealing the fact that only the firing pin and spring were “well-oiled”? [22]
McAdams labels the idea that the rifle would leave oil marks a “firearms factoid.” Is he correct?
Here’s what Gil Jesus tells us:
Also significant is that Cadigan doesn't mention finding any oil or grease marks on the inside of the bag. One might expect to find some trace of lubricant transferred to the absorbent paper. It's hard to imagine that a disassembled rifle ( which the depository rifle had to be in order to fit into a 38-inch "gunsack" ) that was lubricated to prevent corrosion would not leave traces of that lubricant on paper.
Riva modified Carcanos were immersed in the lubricant (Cosmoline) before being transported across the Atlantic Ocean in order to prevent corrosion.[23]
"Trucked to Genoa, bathed and coated in Cosmoline, it (C2766) had been insulated from any sea air that might seep into the Elettra Fassio's hold." (Bloomgarden, The Gun page 113)
Cosmoline is …similar toVaseline in properties, appearance, and thickness. It is the residue obtained in the distillation of petroleum oils and then purified. Cosmoline is a homogenous mixture of oily and waxy long-chain, non-polar hydrocarbons. It can range in color from white to yellow [to dark brown[25]] and differ from one another in consistency and shear strength.
Furthermore, the FBI's own examination of the depository rifle determined that the rifle was in a "well-oiled condition" ( CE 2974 ):
Please bear in mind that the rifle was alleged to have been disassembled, making it all the more likely that the "residues on the interior surfaces of the bolt and on the firing pin" would have stained the paper.
The rifle left no impression of itself, not a little hole, not even the tiniest little scratch on the bag. This in spite of being disassembled in the bag.
Cadigan's opinion simply stated was that there was no evidence that the "gunsack" ever contained a rifle.
Absent any oil or lubricant stains or identifiable markings to positively connect it with the rifle, there was simply no evidence that the "gunsack" had ever contained the depository rifle.
Returning to the Blanket Problem
Gil Jesus has shown us that we have problems with the paper bag, and we have already found problems with the blanket, hairs on the blanket, no marks of oil, etc. on the blanket, and why it was odd to have been chosen to wrap anything one preferred to hide, since little June would have wanted to play with the blanket. We also have problems with the testimony of Martina Oswald. Because Marina sometimes did not tell the truth, and because translators, including Ruth Paine, might have put words in her mouth with which she dared not disagree, it is possible that (1) the blanket never did hold a rifle (2) had been placed on the cement floor recently, (3) had been emptied once, or possibly had always been empty. In support of such ideas, it is a fact that after November 23, Marina Oswald never directly spoke to Ruth Paine again. In “The Testimony of Marina Oswald Before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury,” PROBE Magazine,[26] Steve Jones writes:
Marina's testimony gives further corroboration to the belief held by serious assassination researchers that Ruth Paine was indeed affiliated with the CIA. Previous Probe articles demonstrate how Ruth's relationship with the Oswalds and her subsequent behavior after the assassination fit the pattern of an intelligence agent or asset. She was most certainly an FBI informant and collaborated with the FBI in manipulation of the evidence of Oswald's possessions after the assassination (see Probe back issues May-June '96, Nov-Dec '96, Jan-Feb '97, Nov-Dec '97, March-April '98). Without being asked, Marina volunteered to one of the jurors, "I was advised by the Secret Service not to be connected with her - (Ruth Paine).... She was sympathizing with the CIA.”[27]
Problems with the Rifle’s Transport to Irving from New Orleans
1) We are told that Lee H. Oswald took the blanket, placed his rifle in the blanket, tied it up with string, and placed it in Ruth Paine’s car (or in the boat that was on top of Ruth Paine’s car) without telling Marina or Ruth.
Problem: Logically, wouldn’t Marina want the blanket back for little June?
Problem: Logically, would Oswald trust that the rifle would stay wrapped?
Problem: Ruth Paine was a Quaker who supposedly rejected firearms and war. She supposedly would have objected to the presence of the rifle.
2) Even the Warren Commission agreed that Oswald could not have transported the rifle himself to Irving, Texas later.
3) We are told that Marina, Ruth Paine or Paine’s estranged husband, Michael Paine, removed the blanket-covered rifle from the vehicle after arrival at the Paine residence in Irving, TX (suburban Dallas area) and, though it was easy to feel hard items through the blanket, without inspecting its contents, Michael Paine placed it in the garage, on the floor, where it remained for two months. During that time, Michal Paine assumed the bundle contained “camping equipment” belonging to the impecunious Oswalds.
The “Full View” Problem
1) That Lee H. Oswald, described by Marina (under duress) as constantly dry-firing his rifle and of polishing and cleaning it almost compulsively in New Orleans (though at first she denied he even owned a rifle), allowed the blanket with the rifle to lie on the cement floor for two months, in full view, without touching it.
2) Where, according to Michael Paine, it was in the way, so he moved it several times, never noticing that the object within was shaped like a rifle. Even so, Paine still managed to leave it in full sight on the floor of the garage, where Marina could easily see it.
3) That two weeks before the assassination, after Marina “discovered” the rifle inside the blanket, she did not move the rifle away from view on the floor, even though Ruth Paine, a Quaker, was supposedly against violence and firearms, and would have been offended. Instead, we are told Marina let it stay where it was, in full view.
Problem: If there had ever been an object inside the blanket, was it the rifle found in the Sniper’s Nest on the 6th floor of the TSBD?
This rifle was supposedly used in New Orleans by Oswald, who Marina said dry-fired it for hours at a time as he sat on their screened porch—a porch at that time easily visible from a busy thoroughfare, Magazine Street, and before that, when they lived in Dallas.
A false legend has grown up around the more lurid features of Marina’s testimony, perpetuated on the Internet[28]. For example, note these irresponsible statements, all of which are untrue:
“It has been said, on some weekends Oswald would borrow a car from the woman that secured his job at the School Book Depository. He would then go off and practice shooting the rifle and handgun in a deserted scrub area. Many people observed Oswald sitting on his front porch dry firing the rifle to practice shooting it.”
However, in Presumed Guilty—How and Why the Warren Commission Framed Lee Harvey Oswald,[29] we learn the truth about what Marina knew about the rifle:
After Oswald purchased the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, he told his wife that he practiced with it. Marina Oswald testified that on one occasion she saw him take the rifle, concealed in a raincoat, from the house on Neely Street. Oswald told her he was going to practice with it.
Marina Oswald is the source of this above-quoted information. The footnote in the Report refers to 1H14-15; CE 1156, p. 442; CE 1404, pp. 446-48.
Marina's progression of statements relevant to Oswald's rifle practice is truly amazing. The Report quotes her incompletely and dishonestly, choosing only those statements which support the belief that Oswald practiced with the Carcano. The following is a chronological listing of Marina's relevant words:
12/3/63, FBI report of interview with Marina: "MARINA said she had never seen OSWALD practice with his rifle or any other firearm and he had never told her that he was going to practice." (22H763)
12/4/63, FBI report of interview with Marina: " She cannot recall ever hearing Oswald state that he was going to fire the rifle in practice or that he had fired it in practice." (22H785)
12/4/63, Secret Service report of interview with Marina: "The reporting agent interviewed Marina Oswald as to whether she knew of any place or of a rifle range where her husband could do some practicing with a rifle, and whether she ever saw her husband taking the rifle out of the house. She said that she never saw Lee going out or coming in to the house with a rifle and that he never mentioned to her doing any practice with a rifle." (23H393)
12/10/63, Secret Service report of interview with Marina: "Marina Oswald was asked if she ever saw her husband doing any dry practice with the rifle either in their apartments or any place else, and she replied in the negative." (23H402)
12/16/63, FBI report of interview with Marina: "She cannot recall that [Oswald] ever practiced firing the rifle either in New Orleans or in Dallas." (22H778)
2/3/64, Marina makes her first appearance before the Commission:
Mr. Rankin: Did you learn at any time that he had been practicing with the rifle?
Mrs. Oswald: I think he went once or twice. I didn't actually see him take the rifle, but I knew he was practicing.
Mr. Rankin: Could you give us a little help on how you knew?
Mrs. Oswald: He told me. And he would mention that in passing . . . he would say, "Well, today I will take the rifle along for practice." (1H14-15)
2/17/64, FBI report of interview with Marina: "MARINA advised OSWALD had told her after the WALKER incident that he had practiced with his rifle in a field near Dallas. She said further that in the beginning of January, 1963, at the Neely Street address, he on one occasion was cleaning his rifle and he said he had been practicing that day. [The rifle was not mailed until the end of March 1963.]
"MARINA was asked if she had ever seen OSWALD take the rifle from the house and she replied that she had not. She was asked if she had ever known the rifle to have been gone from the house at the same time OSWALD was gone from the house. She replied that she could not recall any such incident. She was then asked if it were true then that she had never seen OSWALD take the rifle from the house nor knew any occasion when he might have had the rifle at a place other than at home. She then admitted that she did know of such an occasion. She said this occasion occurred on an evening in March, 1963. On this evening, she and JUNE [their daughter] and OSWALD left the house at about 6:00 PM. OSWALD had his rifle wrapped up in a raincoat. . . . When OSWALD returned about 9:00 PM, he told her he had practiced with his rifle." (22H197)
2/18/64, FBI report of interview with Marina: "She advised she had been mistaken on February 17, 1964, when she said she had recalled OSWALD cleaning his rifle at Neely Street, at which time he made the statement he had been practicing. She said she is now able to place the date . . . as being shortly before the WALKER incident. . . . At one of the four or five times that she observed OSWALD cleaning his rifle at their home on Neely Street . . . he told her he had been practicing with the rifle but he did not say when he had practiced. On the other occasions of his cleaning the rifle . . . he did not say he had been practicing. MARINA deduced that he might have been practicing with the rifle." (22H785)
6/11/64, Marina again testifies before the Commission:
"Lee didn't tell me when he was going out to practice. I only remember one time distinctly that he went out because he took the bus. I don't know if he went to Love Field at that time. I don't -- after all this testimony, after all this testimony, when I was asked did he clean his gun a lot, and I answered yes, I came to the conclusion that he was practicing with his gun because he was cleaning it afterwards." (5H397)
Sen. Cooper: Did he ever tell you that he was practicing with a rifle?
Mrs. Oswald: Only after I saw him take the gun that one time. (5H398)
Thus Marina, until three months after the assassination, denied any knowledge whatsoever of Oswald's rifle practice; he never told her he practiced, and she knew of no practice. When she first appeared before the Commission, her story changed. She suddenly knew of one or two instances when Oswald mentioned he was going to practice, although she never saw him take the rifle from the house. Subsequent to her testimony, she changed her story again. After telling the FBI she saw Oswald clean the rifle before he even ordered it, she "admitted" an incident in which she saw Oswald remove the rifle concealed in a raincoat to practice at night. The following day her memory conveniently improved as she retracted her statement that she had seen Oswald with the rifle as early as January 1963. She added at this time that although Oswald had actually admitted practicing only once, she "deduced" he had practiced other times. This, essentially, was the final version of her story.
Marina was an entirely incredible witness. No honest jury could have believed any of her statements; for everything she said, there almost always existed a contradictory statement that she had made earlier. The Commission merely chose her most "juicy" descriptions of rifle practice and cited them, ignoring completely the other statements. The official use of Marina's testimony could best be described in Aldous Huxley's words, "You pays your money and you takes your choice."
One set of neighbors, the Eames family, lived so close to Oswald that they shared the same small grassy area by Oswald’s porch. Russell Eames (a boy at the time who talked to Oswald on several occasions) and others stated that they never saw Oswald with a rifle. Nobody else observed Oswald with a rifle at that address either, even though they reported short-term events such as a Cuban man coming to visit Oswald carrying a stack of flyers (apartment manager Mrs. Jesse Garner), Oswald hanging the wash for his wife on the line, and Oswald leaving the apartment carrying two suitcases and wearing goggles (tenant Eric Rogers). The neighbors constantly described Oswald as reading long hours on his porch in September, and even using a small lamp after sunset so hcould continue reading. But no rifle is ever mentioned—a rifle Marina said Lee used to shoot at leaves in the park:[30]
The testimonies of George DeMohrenschildt and of his wife, Jeanne, are often included to show that Lee H. Oswald went target practicing. But Howard Roffman shows that Jeanne’s embroidery of her testimony is difficult to believe. He concludes:
:
“The Commission did not see fit to include in the Report the fact that the extent of the De Mohrenschildts' knowledge of Oswald's "rifle practice" was that he fired at leaves while walking his baby daughter through public parks. Had this been included, no one could have believed the De Mohrenschildts.”
In short, we have no periods of time where it can be reliably stated that Oswald even practiced with the rifle, and we must assume that he did not use it at all when it was supposedly wrapped in a blanket and lying for two months in full view on the concrete floor of Ruth and Michael Paine’s garage.
Ruth and Michael Paines’ garage held a power saw and other woodworking tools, stacks of miscellaneous items, and boxes belonging to the Oswalds. The floor was cement, but was quite littered. Into this area on the night before the assassination, only one person is on record as absolutely having entered the Paine’s garage. That person was Ruth Paine.
We get a general picture of the official version of that evening –and what Paine saw that night as per the blanket and the rifle-- from the book Mrs. Paine’s Garage,[31] a book highly sympathetic to Ruth Paine and damning of Oswald. A version was published in The New Yorker, from which this excerpt is taken:
“Once the dishes were done, Ruth settled Lynn and Christopher down for the night in the rear bedroom, which she shared with them. After nine o'clock, she went out to the garage to lacquer some toy blocks she had made for the children. The garage was filled with the Paines' and the Oswalds' belongings, and as she entered, the clutter came into view: someone had left the light on. Ruth immediately got the feeling that Lee had been out there, probably when she had been tending to the children. Marina — who had been brought up frugally, and was mindful of being a guest — always remembered to turn off the light after going in there for her things.”
Note by JVB: the testimonies of Ruth Paine and of Marina show there was no opportunity for Lee Oswald to have entered the garage the night before: he is described as going to bed early; according to the official version biography, Marina and Lee, by Patricia McMillan, Lee and Marina were basically awake all night in bed, not getting along with each other. Marina said lee slept through the alarm and she had to wake him so he wouldn’t miss work. To continue:
“Ruth threaded her way through the jumble. Boxes with Lee and Marina's possessions rested on the ground between a table saw and two chests of drawers; under the table was a blanket roll belonging to the Oswalds, which Michael, during his visits, had had to move a couple of times in order to work with his tools.”
Note by JVB: Below, we will see that Ruth Paine stepped on the blanket before it was picked up, to demonstrate that it was empty. We wonder how she knew it was empty if nobody had looked inside it, as claimed, that day. But how was Ruth Paine able to step on the blanket if it was under the ‘table’? Or had its location changed in this later account? And if Michael Paine moved the blanket, wouldn’t he have felt the rifle inside? He told the Warren Commission he thought the blanket contained camping tools, perhaps a break-down camping shovel, but his testimony gave away the fact that he could actually feel the outline of the rifle barrel inside the blanket:[32]
But to return to Ruth, who had her own story to tell:
“…Lee might be sullen and suspicious (if someone had asked Ruth, she would have admitted that she didn't much like him), but he was also capable of small, occasional sympathies. One recent weekend, the subject of Ruth's divorce had come up, and she'd been surprised to hear him say, with real feeling, that this must be a hard time for her.
Actually, though he did not tell Ruth this, Lee disapproved of Michael Paine's seeming indifference to his own family. Michael took care of them financially, but he left Ruth looking sad whenever he breezed in and out for supper. Lee had told Marina that he didn't consider Michael a good father, and after playing with his own girls Thursday night Lee made a point of playing with Chris Paine. The boy needed some extra attention from a man.
Lee liked to stay up watching television, but that evening he went to bed early, and by the time Ruth stepped back into the house, only Marina was still awake. The two women sat down together on the couch, and as they folded laundry…”
Note by JVB: did a clean blanket obviously belonging to the Oswalds get folded and put away that night with the rest of the laundry?
“…Marina told Ruth that Lee's unexpected presence seemed motivated by a desire to patch up Monday night's quarrel.
Sometime between eleven o'clock and eleven-thirty, the two young mothers said good night to each other.”
Could the blanket have been placed in the garage late that night? Did Ruth Paine go straight to bed?
How do we know that? The book goes on to mention how, when Ruth Paine has come to take Marina, heavily pregnant, and daughter Junie, back to Texas to Paine’s house, while Lee H. Oswald was headed elsewhere. It is implied that Lee Oswald loaded the rifle, wrapped in the blanket, into the station wagon: see author’s emphasis, bold face, below:
“Ruth remembers Lee being unusually helpful two days later, when it came time to load the station wagon. The back of it was soon full of Marina's belongings and his own, which, it was understood, he would come for at some point. Oswald seemed genuinely sad to say goodbye to his devochki ("girls"). Marina let out a cheer when she crossed the border into Texas, telling Ruth, somewhat to her surprise, that she thought of the state as her home. After a night in a motel, the women continued on to Irving, where Michael Paine was on hand to help unload the car. Among the things that were carried into the garage was a securely tied green-and-brown blanket roll, which contained a bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. The only adult there who didn't know that Oswald owned a gun was Ruth — the one person who wouldn't have allowed it in the house…”
Thomas Mallon in essence says Michael Paine and Marina both knew that Lee Oswald owned a ‘gun’ (rifle). Then, on November 22:
“…There were errands to run after the dentist, and she didn't return home until after noon. [Ruth herself told the WC she returned about 11:30 …JVB] The TV cameras had lost sight of the President's motorcade after its departure from Love Field. There would be nothing more to see until Kennedy's speech at the Trade Mart, at twelve-thirty, and so Ruth went into the kitchen to make lunch. When she heard the bulletin of the shooting, her reaction was immediate: That's it for Texas. I'm going back to Philadelphia….Allowing Lynn to help, Ruth began lighting some candles, explaining to Marina, to whom she'd translated the bulletin, that this was her own way of praying. Even as Kennedy lay in Parkland Hospital, work went on. Marina hung laundry in the back yard.”
Note by JVB: Again, Ruth Paine has opportunities to enter the garage unnoticed.
“Ruth soon joined her there with further news: the shots fired at the motorcade were now thought to have come from the Texas School Book Depository. Lee, presumably, would have quite a story to tell when he arrived home.
Without explanation, Marina left Ruth to finish hanging the clothes, while she went back into the house and then the garage. She wanted to make sure that Lee's blanket containing his rifle was where she'd last seen it, a few weeks before. To her relief, the bundle appeared to be in the same place.”
When I asked her, nearly forty years later, to reconstruct what happened in the garage, Ruth groaned, before saying that Marina "showed this blanket roll, which was on the floor. The officer picked it up, folded it over his arm. It was empty. He didn't even have to open it. You could see it was empty. That was when I had this feeling, My God, it could have been Lee — that he came out last night, that the gun had been there. . . . That was probably the worst moment."
p. 128 – 129 (below) Warren Commission Report
“From September 23, 1963, when Marina Oswald arrived from Irving in New Orleans, until the morning of the assassination, the rifle was, according to the evidence, stored in a green and brown blanket in the Paines’ garage among the Oswalds’ other possessions. About one week after the return from New Orleans, Marina Oswald was looking in the garage for parts to the baby’s crib and thought that parts might be in the blanket. When she started to open the blanket, she saw the stock of the rifle. Ruth and Michael Paine both noticed the rolled-up blanket in the garage during the time that Marina Oswald was living in their home. On several occasions, Michael Paine moved the blanket in the garage. He thought it contained tent poles, or possibly other camping equipment, such as a folding shovel. When he appeared before the Commission, Michael Paine lifted the blanket with the rifle wrapped inside and testified that it appeared to be the same approximate weight and shape as the package in his garage.”
“About 3 hours after the assassination, a detective and as deputy sheriff saw the blanket-roll, tied with string, lying on the floor of the Paines’ garage. Each man testified that he thought he could detect the outline of a rifle in the blanket, even though the blanket was empty. Paul M. Stombaugh, of the FBI laboratory, examined the blanket and discovered a bulge approximately 10 inches long midway in the blanket. This bulge was apparently caused by a hard protruding object which had stretched the blanket’s fibers. It could have been caused by the telescopic sight of the rifle, which was approximately 11 inches long.”(emphasis added)
The Warren Commission’s suggestion that a bulge in the blanket might have indicated where a rifle sight had distorted the blanket ignores how the blanket was handled prior to having been admitted as evidence. A distortion of the blanket could have been caused by Ruth Paine’s stepping on the blanket: a woman’s shod foot is about a foot long, and she was not a dainty little woman. We have the surprising account that she is ‘translating’ at the same time that she is standing on the blanket, so she must have stood on it for more than a moment. The blanket is actually being handled by Paine as she speaks here:
With Ruth Paine’s testimony (p. 79, Vol. II, WC Hearings, portion shown above) before us, we must ask a few questions
of Ruth Paine:
1) The rolled-up blanket was in full view on the afternoon of Nov. 22. But you said you did not notice the blanket there the night before. How is that possible? Are you implying that Lee H. Oswald took the rifle out of the blanket but left the blanket openly on the floor?
2) In front of the police, you walked over and stepped on the blanket. Wasn’t that bold of you? How did you know you might not break something still inside the blanket? Did you do that to prove the rifle was gone? And was it you, Ruth Paine, who moved the blanket into full view the night before, or that morning?
3) You said you went into the garage the night before to paint blocks for the children. You said you noticed the light was on and so surmised that Lee H. Oswald had been in the garage. But isn’t it true that you are the only person we KNOW was in the garage the night before?
4) You and Marina Oswald and your estranged husband, Michael, were the only ones who unloaded the station wagon (which had a boat on top) when you took all the Oswald possessions from New Orleans to your home in Irving. Nobody remembered unloading the rolled-up blanket or any other package that could have held a rifle. Lee H. Oswald arrived from Mexico City with very little luggage, and without any such bundle, which in any case he had no opportunity to take with him to Mexico City. So how did the rolled-up blanket come to be on the floor in the garage?
5) You stated that you had suspicions about Lee H. Oswald:
“As Ruth Paine herself briefly suspected, as she testified to the Warren Commission that Oswald didn’t “live” on Neeley Street, but that, like an agent, he was “operating from a base at 214 Neeley Street,” and posed the question herself: “I may say, also, I wondered, as I had already indicated to the Commission, I had wondered, from time to time, whether this (Lee Harvey Oswald) was a man who was working as a spy or in any way (was) a threat to the nation, and this thought,…I am interested to know if this is a real thing or something unreal. And I waited to see if I would learn anymore about it. But this thought crossed my mind.””
Why would you let Lee Harvey Oswald into your home, where his foreing-born Russian wife now had two little ones, while you, too, had young children who were precious and vulnerable—why would you allow a potential “threat to the nation” to live in your home? You never showed any such generosity before or after the Oswald situation.
Of her estranged husband, Michael Paine,[33] who had taken Lee H. Oswald to various places, such as to an ACLU meeting.
1) The rolled-up blanket was in full view. Everyone could see it. But you, Michael Paine, stated to the Warren Commission that you had seen the rolled-up blanket and actually had picked it up and moved it several times. If so, why did you put it where it could be easily stepped on? Or did somebody else move it into full view so that Lee H. Oswald could be blamed for hiding a rifle in the blanket? For surely, had it been in a corner, folded up, nobody would ever have guessed that it had held a rifle. Are we to assume that Lee H. Oswald, fluent in two languages and a former radar operator who read complex spy novels for a hobby, would be that stupid?
2) Are we to believe that an intelligent man such as you, Michael Paine (an aerospace engineer) could have picked up this bundle several times, and each time thought it was camping equipment?
3) Are we to believe that you, Michael Paine, who knew Lee H. Oswald was a returned defector from the USSR, would not have suspicions about such a bundle?
To Marina Oswald:
1) Ruth Paine and you both said that you had looked partially into the blanket at one time, and had seen the butt of a rifle inside, prior to the birth of Rachel, your youngest:
Mr. RANKIN. The way the rifle was wrapped with a blanket, could you tell whether or not the rifle had been removed and the blanket just left there at any time?
Mrs. OSWALD. It always had the appearance of having something inside of it. But I only looked at it really once, and I was always sure the rifle was in it. Therefore, it is very hard to determine when the rifle was taken. I only
assumed that it was on Thursday, because Lee had arrived so unexpectedly for some reason.
Mrs. OSWALD. It always had the appearance of having something inside of it. But I only looked at it really once, and I was always sure the rifle was in it. Therefore, it is very hard to determine when the rifle was taken. I only
assumed that it was on Thursday, because Lee had arrived so unexpectedly for some reason.
2) Researcher Michael Hogan described you thus:
“As a counter defector in a counter intelligence game, MARINA was handled
by individuals in the SOVIET: USA cold war, fascists and white Russians,
marine/military observers and RUTH PAINE, MICHAEL PAINE, GEORGE DEMORENSCHILDT handled this Soviet elite family defector and wife of a program counter defector. HIS DEATH IS THAT OF A FALSE LOST ASSASSIN…(a false lost assassin, according to the 1953 US CIA manual, is a false assassin (patsy) who is then killed, or LOST…)
As the defecting widow of a counter-defecting cold war lost false assassin,
the pressures of existence render MARINA OSWALD testimony nearly useless,
whatever sympathy we have for her as a person, her reliability is utterly compromised, by intrigue, persuasion and intimidation.”
by individuals in the SOVIET: USA cold war, fascists and white Russians,
marine/military observers and RUTH PAINE, MICHAEL PAINE, GEORGE DEMORENSCHILDT handled this Soviet elite family defector and wife of a program counter defector. HIS DEATH IS THAT OF A FALSE LOST ASSASSIN…(a false lost assassin, according to the 1953 US CIA manual, is a false assassin (patsy) who is then killed, or LOST…)
As the defecting widow of a counter-defecting cold war lost false assassin,
the pressures of existence render MARINA OSWALD testimony nearly useless,
whatever sympathy we have for her as a person, her reliability is utterly compromised, by intrigue, persuasion and intimidation.”
Can we forgive you for things you said against your dead husband, when you were alone and isolated in a foreign country with a toddler and a six-week-old infant in your arms? Of course. But Marina, did you ever consider the possibility that Ruth or Michael Paine removed the rifle that was in the blanket before the police arrived? Look at what you stated here:
“Mrs. OSWALD. No, but she only said that "By the way, they fired from the building in which Lee is working."
My heart dropped. I then went to the garage to see whether the rifle was there, and I saw that the blanket was still there, and I said, "Thank God." I thought, "Can there really be such a stupid man in the world that could do something like that?" But I was already rather upset at that time--I don't know why. Perhaps my intuition. I didn't know what I was doing.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you look in the blanket to see if the rifle was there?
Mrs. OSWALD. I didn't unroll the blanket. It was in its usual position, and it appeared to have something inside.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you at any time open the blanket to see if the rifle was there?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, only once.
Mr. RANKIN. You have told us about that.
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And what about Mrs. Paine? Did she look in the blanket to see if the rifle was there?
Mrs. OSWALD. She didn't know about the rifle. Perhaps she did know. But she never told me about it. I don't know.
Mr. RANKIN. When did you learn that the rifle was not in the blanket?
Mrs. OSWALD. When the police arrived and asked whether my husband had a rifle, and I said "Yes."
Mr. RANKIN. Then what happened?
Mrs. OSWALD. They began to search the apartment.(sic) When they came to the garage and took the blanket, I thought, "Well, now, they will find it." They opened the blanket but there was no rifle there.”
My heart dropped. I then went to the garage to see whether the rifle was there, and I saw that the blanket was still there, and I said, "Thank God." I thought, "Can there really be such a stupid man in the world that could do something like that?" But I was already rather upset at that time--I don't know why. Perhaps my intuition. I didn't know what I was doing.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you look in the blanket to see if the rifle was there?
Mrs. OSWALD. I didn't unroll the blanket. It was in its usual position, and it appeared to have something inside.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you at any time open the blanket to see if the rifle was there?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, only once.
Mr. RANKIN. You have told us about that.
Mrs. OSWALD. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And what about Mrs. Paine? Did she look in the blanket to see if the rifle was there?
Mrs. OSWALD. She didn't know about the rifle. Perhaps she did know. But she never told me about it. I don't know.
Mr. RANKIN. When did you learn that the rifle was not in the blanket?
Mrs. OSWALD. When the police arrived and asked whether my husband had a rifle, and I said "Yes."
Mr. RANKIN. Then what happened?
Mrs. OSWALD. They began to search the apartment.(sic) When they came to the garage and took the blanket, I thought, "Well, now, they will find it." They opened the blanket but there was no rifle there.”
The same person who translated Marina Oswald’s word for ‘house’ as ‘apartment’ was entrusted with translating her other words correctly. But just as we cannot use the word “apartment” to describe the Paine house, so we must view the rest of Marina’s testimony—and that of others, as plausibly distorted. ==end==
Appendix
[1] Bill Kelly, post made to Education Forum, 02 May 2007 - 03:57 PM
[3] IBID
[4] FRONT PAGE Former Secret Service agent gives personal account of Kennedy assassination
By Allen Rich, Aug. 25, 2009
http://www.ntxe-news.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=34&num=56336&printer=1
By Allen Rich, Aug. 25, 2009
http://www.ntxe-news.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=34&num=56336&printer=1
[6] Quote from the FBI's preliminary biographical study
on Lee Harvey Oswald, dated December 6, 1963 (NARA Document
#104-10017-10037) declassified February 9th, 1996. The document contasins other errors, as well.
Undesirable discharge refers to an administrative discharge under "conditions other than honorable.” It is generally given to a member of the military who does not qualify for an honorable discharge. An undesirable discharge does not involve punishment. It reflects only that the military has found the particular individual unfit or unsuitable for further service. No criminal charges are brought and no further sanction, such as fine or imprisonment, is imposed for the conduct which forms the basis for the undesirable discharge. A dishonorable discharge is the most serious and involves criminal charges.
[7] “Possible Secret Service Propaganda” by Vince Palamara http://karws.gso.uri.edu/Marsh/Jfk-conspiracy/propaganda.html
[8]Abraham W. Bolden, his review of The Kennedy Detail, http://politicalassassinations.com/2010/11/the-kennedy-detail-review-by-abraham-bolden/
[9] Marina’s business manager and her lawyer were finally dismissed upon the advice of Robert Oswald, Lee H. Oswald’s brother. Ref: Testimony of James Herbert Martin (Marina Oswald’s former business ,manager):
FOOTNOTE #9, CONTINUED…
To The President's Commission, 9:25 a.m, February 27, 1964 (“…” means some unimportant information has been removed)
Mr. RANKIN. When did the idea of your being Marina's business manager first come up.
Mr. MARTIN. It was after the first of December. She had been there about 3 or 4 days, I guess…
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us how it came up?
Mr. MARTIN. One of the Secret Service agents suggested that I get an attorney for Marina.
Mr. RANKIN. Who was that?
Mr. MARTIN. Lee Gopadze…
Mr. RANKIN. Who was there?
Mr. MARTIN. I think Marina was there.
Mr. RANKIN. Anyone else?
Mr. MARTIN. Not to my knowledge…
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Gopadze made this suggestion, he made it to you, did he?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he say that in English?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you know whether Marina understood it?
Mr. MARTIN. It was after the first of December. She had been there about 3 or 4 days, I guess…
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us how it came up?
Mr. MARTIN. One of the Secret Service agents suggested that I get an attorney for Marina.
Mr. RANKIN. Who was that?
Mr. MARTIN. Lee Gopadze…
Mr. RANKIN. Who was there?
Mr. MARTIN. I think Marina was there.
Mr. RANKIN. Anyone else?
Mr. MARTIN. Not to my knowledge…
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Gopadze made this suggestion, he made it to you, did he?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he say that in English?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you know whether Marina understood it?
-475-
Mr. MARTIN. Well, he had discussed it with her.
Mr. RANKIN. How do you know?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, he was talking about it to her about something in Russian.
Mr. RANKIN. And then he turned to you, did he?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he say anything about who you should get as a lawyer for her?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you say about that?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, I told him I would be happy to get one for her.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you do that?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes. John Thorne.
Mr. RANKIN. How did you happen to select John Thorne?
Mr. MARTIN. I had known him from association at the Inn.
Mr. RANKIN. Had he ever acted as your attorney?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. What was the nature of your acquaintance with him?
Mr. MARTIN. Just a passing acquaintance.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you discuss with Marina the qualifications of this attorney?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say anything about it to Mr. Gopadze?
Mr. MARTIN. I, like I probably mentioned, John had handled some movie work and he would probably know something about the area in which we were talking.
Mr. RANKIN. After you had made the suggestion of Mr. Thorne as a lawyer did you do anything about it?
Mr. MARTIN. I called Mr. Thorne…He came over, I believe, the next day and talked to Marina and Lee Gopadze and myself.
Mr. RANKIN. How did he talk to Marina?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, through Lee Gopadze.
Mr. RANKIN. As an interpreter?
Mr. MARTIN. As an interpreter.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Gopadze is fluent in both Russian and English?
Mr. Martin. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Could you tell what Mr. Gopadze said to Marina?
Mr. MARTIN. No…
Mr. RANKIN. Did you discuss what he would be doing if he was employed as her lawyer.
Mr. MARTIN. Handling all her legal work.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you tell him that?
FOOTNOTE #9, CONTINUED Mr. MARTIN. Yes…
Mr. RANKIN. Was anything said about the donations at that time?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you discuss what he would be paid by way of compensation?
Mr. MARTIN. Not at that time. It was later…
Mr. RANKIN. How did he talk to Marina?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, through Lee Gopadze.
Mr. RANKIN. As an interpreter?
Mr. MARTIN. As an interpreter.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Gopadze is fluent in both Russian and English?
Mr. Martin. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Could you tell what Mr. Gopadze said to Marina?
Mr. MARTIN. No…
Mr. RANKIN. Did you discuss what he would be doing if he was employed as her lawyer.
Mr. MARTIN. Handling all her legal work.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you tell him that?
FOOTNOTE #9, CONTINUED Mr. MARTIN. Yes…
Mr. RANKIN. Was anything said about the donations at that time?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you discuss what he would be paid by way of compensation?
Mr. MARTIN. Not at that time. It was later…
-476-
Mr. RANKIN. Was there a formal contract executed between Marina and Mr. Thorne at some time?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. You think that was December 6 to your recollection.
Mr. MARTIN. Either the 5th or the 6th.
Mr. RANKIN. Now, before that contract was executed did you discuss it with Mr. Thorne?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Was Marina present when you did?
Mr. MARTIN. I don't believe so.
Mr. RANKIN. Where did this discussion occur?
Mr. MARTIN. I believe it was at the Inn.
Mr. RANKIN. Your office?
Mr. MARTIN. No, in the coffee shoppe.
Mr. RANKIN. Who else was present.
Mr. MARTIN. No one.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you then go over the terms of the contract with him?
Mr. MARTIN. No. I think I left that up to him.
Mr. RANKIN. Were you then the manager of Marina's affairs?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Who were you acting for in regard to that arrangement?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, acting for Marina although I had no--I had no contract to that effect.
Mr. RANKIN. You were still acting under this suggestion by Mr. Gopadze that some counsel be gotten for her?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes...
Mr. RANKIN. And when did that idea of your acting as manager come up?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, I believe it was the same day that John Thorne came out to talk to Marina and to Gopadze.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know who brought it up?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you suggest that you act as manager?
Mr. MARTIN. I don't believe I suggested it. We were discussing the need for a manager, and I don't know who brought it up as far as my being the one.
Mr. RANKIN. At that time was there any discussion about what compensation you would have?
Mr. MARTIN. No.
Mr. RANKIN. When you were talking to Mr. Thorne in the coffee shoppe was there a discussion about how much compensation he would receive for acting as attorney?
Mr. MARTIN. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. What was said about that?
Mr. MARTIN. Well, just that it would be 10 percent.
Mr. RANKIN. Had you ever discussed that before with him?
Mr. MARTIN. Not that I recall.
(At this point, Senator Cooper entered the hearing room.)
Mr. DULLES. Senator, we welcome you.
Senator COOPER. Thank you.
(END OF FOOTNOTE #9)
Posted 12 May 2011
[11] Farley added here: “The White Russians consisted of people like George Bouhe, Peter Paul Gregory, George DeMohrenschildt, Elena Hall, Anna Meller, Anna Ford and others. Bitterly anti-Communist and in some cases extreme right-wing fascist in their views they were quite closely connected to the Oswald’s, and were heavily involved in their relationship problems during the latter part of 1962 and the early part of 1963. It was this group, post-assassination, that painted the most vivid picture of Oswald as a wife-beating, brooding, psychopathic loser during their interviews and testimony.”
[13] Farley also writes here:
So why would he want Mamantov spinning Marina’s words? Ilya Aleksandrovich Mamantov was born in Russia in 1914. He moved to Latvia when he quite young and during the Second World War he was captured with the retreating German Army and ended up in a displaced persons camp. He arrived in the United States in 1951.
Mamantov became a seismologist for the Donnally Geophysical Company between 1951-1955 and worked in many U.S. States before settling into a job at Sun Oil Company, Dallas in 1955.
He was married to a woman called Dorothy Gravitis and Gravitis’ mother was a close friend of Ruth Paine. Although Mamantov claims to have never met Lee Harvey Oswald or Marina…he did know a great deal about the Oswald’s personal lives, both in Russia and in the United States.
Mamantov, in his Warren Commission testimony, was asked by Albert Jenner how he was contacted after the assassination to conduct the interpreting of Marina Oswald. Mamantov initially claimed it was the Dallas Police that contacted him around 5pm on the 22nd of November:
Mr. JENNER. You were called by some official of the city police department?
Mr. MANANTOV. Yes; I was called by Lt. Lumpkin. I think he’s Lieutenant they call him Chief.
Mr. JENNER. And you repaired then to the Dallas City Police Station?
Mr. MAMANTOV. Excuse me, I was called by somebody else, a couple of minutes ahead of Lumpkin – is it important?
Mr. JENNER. I don’t know-you might state what it is.
Mr. MAMANTOV. All right. I was called by Mr. Jack Chrichton, C-h-r-i-c-h-t-o-n (spelling)- I don’t know how to spell his name right now, but I guess it is that, but I can find out in a day or two.
Mr. JENNER. And who is he?
Mr. MAMANTOV. He is a petroleum independent operator, and if I’m not mistaken, he is connected with the Army Reserve, Intelligence Service. And, he asked me if I would translate for the police department and then immediately Mr. Lumpkin called me.
Mamantov became a seismologist for the Donnally Geophysical Company between 1951-1955 and worked in many U.S. States before settling into a job at Sun Oil Company, Dallas in 1955.
He was married to a woman called Dorothy Gravitis and Gravitis’ mother was a close friend of Ruth Paine. Although Mamantov claims to have never met Lee Harvey Oswald or Marina…he did know a great deal about the Oswald’s personal lives, both in Russia and in the United States.
Mamantov, in his Warren Commission testimony, was asked by Albert Jenner how he was contacted after the assassination to conduct the interpreting of Marina Oswald. Mamantov initially claimed it was the Dallas Police that contacted him around 5pm on the 22nd of November:
Mr. JENNER. You were called by some official of the city police department?
Mr. MANANTOV. Yes; I was called by Lt. Lumpkin. I think he’s Lieutenant they call him Chief.
Mr. JENNER. And you repaired then to the Dallas City Police Station?
Mr. MAMANTOV. Excuse me, I was called by somebody else, a couple of minutes ahead of Lumpkin – is it important?
Mr. JENNER. I don’t know-you might state what it is.
Mr. MAMANTOV. All right. I was called by Mr. Jack Chrichton, C-h-r-i-c-h-t-o-n (spelling)- I don’t know how to spell his name right now, but I guess it is that, but I can find out in a day or two.
Mr. JENNER. And who is he?
Mr. MAMANTOV. He is a petroleum independent operator, and if I’m not mistaken, he is connected with the Army Reserve, Intelligence Service. And, he asked me if I would translate for the police department and then immediately Mr. Lumpkin called me.
[15]Farley continues: “In his capacity as a consultant on the USSR and Eastern Europe for Lake International Travel he was responsible for tours of the Soviet Union with students from the United States. Somebody who came into contact with him in Moscow, Yelena Samuilovna Pyatetskana, blew the whistle on him to the KGB after he tried to tap her up for information “damaging to the USSR. Also see http://www.maryferre...bsPageId=894389
[21] (The actual statement is by the FBI SA gun expert, Robert A Frazier, on August 13, 1964 to Mr. Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission, as reported by Hoover, and in that statement it doesn’t say the rifle was not well-oiled, but that who oiled it and when was unknown: “No oil has been applied to the weapon by the FBI; however, it is not known whether it was poiled by any other person having this rifle in his possession” (such as a member of the Dakllas Police dept. or Oswald—JVB)
[23] For extensive information on the almost universal use of Cosmoline on such rifles, see
Paraffin Compound 45 – 65%
Light Hydrotreated Distillate 45 – 65% 64742-96-7 ACGIH TWA 100 ppm,
OSHA TWA 100 pp
[26] Vol. 7, No. 3, March-April, 2000, pp 3-4 (Author JVB’s emphasis)See it online at:L: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=17690&st=15
[27] IBID. The Probe article by Steve goes on to say: “During the testimony, Marina insists that she was completely in the dark about her husband's day-to-day activities during the summer of 1963 when they lived in New Orleans. Marina related how Lee never told her he had lost his job at the Reilly (sic) Coffee Company on July 19, 1963. She didn't learn about that until after the assassination. For the month and a half following his dismissal, Lee would continue to leave in the morning as if going to work and wouldn't return home until dinner time, or sometimes not until late in the evening. Was Oswald simply too embarrassed to tell his wife that he had lost his job and was spending his days looking for another one? Was he enjoying his newfound freedom and having fun exploring the sights and sounds of the Big Easy? (Note:The author’s book, Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald, explains all).”
[28] An example of poor research and swallowing propaganda can be found here at Gun Game : Lee Harvey Oswalds M91/38 Rifle-Shots-Bullets Part 2 http://www.gunandgame.com/forums/general-military/117844-lee-harvey-oswalds-m91-38-rifle-shots-bullets-part-2-a.html
[29] From the 1976 book by Howard Roffman: read it at http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/PG/PG.html or at
[30] Warren Commission: Testimony of Marina Oswald, commencing 10:35 a.m. on February 3, 1964
[31] Mrs. Paine's Garage: And the Murder of John F. Kennedy by Thomas Mallon (2003) 217 pages
[32] WESLEY LIEBELER -- "I now show you Commission Exhibit 364, which is a
replica of a sack which was prepared by authorities in Dallas; and I
also show you another sack, which is Commission Exhibit 142, and ask
you if you have ever seen in or around your garage in Irving, Texas,
any sacks similar to those?"
replica of a sack which was prepared by authorities in Dallas; and I
also show you another sack, which is Commission Exhibit 142, and ask
you if you have ever seen in or around your garage in Irving, Texas,
any sacks similar to those?"
MICHAEL PAINE -- "No, I haven't."
MR. LIEBELER -- "Have you seen any paper in your garage in Irving
prior to November 22, 1963, or at any other place, at your home in
Irving, Texas, that is similar to the paper of which those sacks are
made?"
MR. PAINE -- "No, I haven't." ....
MR. LIEBELER -- "When you moved the sacks, the blanket, the package
that was wrapped in the blanket in your garage, were you able to
determine whether or not the object inside the sack was also wrapped
in paper?"
MR. PAINE -- "I would have said that it was not. When we practiced
wrapping that rifle yesterday, I would have guessed that any paper
around the barrel in there, which I could feel with some clarity,
would have crinkled."
MR. LIEBELER -- "And to your recollection there was no crinkling in
the package wrapped with the blanket?"
[33] However, they did not divorce until 1970.
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