PROOF THE FBI CHANGED DOCUMENTS TO HELP FRAME THE INNOCENT LEE HARVEY OSWALD

HERE IT IS, FOLKS, RESEARCHER EDGAR TATRO'S INFORMATION AS ASSEMBLED BY A GOOD RESEARCHER, PAT SPEERS.
SEE TATRO'S ARTICLE AT
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=48722&relPageId=10

What's holding up this paper bag? Curtain rods?

Proof the FBI Changed Documents, and Vincent Bugliosi Was Wrong

by Pat Speer
13 Apr 2009

In 2007, the legendary true crime writer Vincent Bugliosi released Reclaiming History, a Bible-sized book designed to answer all the questions regarding a possible conspiracy in the murder of President John F. Kennedy. Unfortunately, his “answers” provoked more questions. This short essay examines both the way Bugliosi dealt with one controversial matter, and the truth about this matter, as recently discovered by the author.

Although it is not mentioned in the text itself, on Reclaiming History's accompanying CD-ROM Bugliosi tackles a particularly troublesome question related to a pair of conflicting FBI reports. Intriguingly, these reports were written on the finding of a paper bag in the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), the workplace of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. The Warren Commission had concluded that Oswald had made this bag from paper materials available in the shipping room of the building, (Warren Report, p. 136) and had then used this bag to carry his rifle into the building. But the Commission had failed to uncover and reveal an important problem with the purported match between the paper used to create this bag, and the paper then in use in the building. Bugliosi compounds this mistake. On page 405 of his endnotes, Bugliosi discusses this problem and offers an explanation:

In a 1980 article in Penn Jones Jr.’s conspiracy newsletter, Continuing Inquiry, critic Jack White claimed that the FBI had “sanitized” a document relating to the FBI’s examination of the paper and tape used to construct the bag found in the Depository, and hence, was part of the “cover-up” to hide the truth about the assassination. White reported that two nearly identically worded FBI documents, found by a researcher at the National Archives, offered two opposite conclusions regarding the source of the paper Oswald allegedly used to construct the bag. One version stated that paper samples obtained from the Depository shipping area on November 22 were found to have the same observable characteristics as the brown paper bag recovered from the sixth-floor sniper’s nest. A second version said that the paper samples were found “not to be identical” with the paper gun sack discovered at the scene of the shooting. (Jack White, “The Case of Q-10 or the FBI Cover-Up Is in the Bag”, Continuing Inquiry, February 22, 1980, pp.1–2)

Paper bag being carried from TSBD.

Although White crowed that the documents “cast doubt on the credibility of the official story,” and his allegations have subsequently been used by a parade of critics in many conspiracy books, magazine articles, and Internet postings as “proof ” of the FBI’s willingness to alter evidence in the Kennedy case, the two documents are no doubt examples of a misunderstanding that was cleared up by the Warren Commission in early 1964. In a March 12, 1964, letter, Warren Commission general counsel J. Lee Rankin asked FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to settle the two ostensibly contradictory FBI reports. Rankin wrote, “We are in doubt. Please submit a report . . . as to the tests made and the conclusions drawn.” (FBI Record 124-10045-10081, Letter from J. Lee Rankin to J. Edgar Hoover, March 12, 1964, p.1; see also FBI Record 124-10022-10200) A week later, on March 19, Hoover responded that both reports were correct. The first report, dated January 7, 1964, referred to samples obtained from the Depository on December 1, 1963 (nine days after the assassination). By then, the shipping department had replaced its roll of wrapping paper with a fresh roll, since the fall period was its “heavy shipping season.” Consequently, the samples obtained by the FBI in December did not match the characteristics of the paper bag found on the day of the shooting. The second report, dated January 13, 1964, related to samples taken from the Depository on November 22, the day of the assassination. These samples were found to be “similar in color to [the bag recovered from the sixth floor]” and were “similar in appearance under ultraviolet fluorescence, as well as in microscopic and all other observable physical characteristics.” However, Hoover noted that while the paper bag found on the sixth floor could have been made from the materials available at the Depository, the paper and tape did not contain any watermarks or other significant, unique, identifying features. Consequently, the paper bag could have been constructed from similar materials “obtained from many paper dealers, or from other users.” (FBI Record 124-10022-10199, Letter from J. EdgarHoover to J. Lee Rankin, March 19, 1964, pp.1–2; see also FBI Record 124-10045-10082; CD 897, pp.157–168; CE 1965, 23 H 816)

Bugliosi's explanation is both incredibly deceptive and incredibly wrong.

11/30/63 FBI report on paper bag, stating that it had the "same
observable characteristics" as TSBD-furnished paper. CD 5 p.129.
Click image to view full document page.

This is easy to see, once you know where to look. The article to which Bugliosi refers is a February 22, 1980 essay on the probable changing of a document provided the Warren Commission as part of an 11-30-63 FBI report (see Commission Document 5, p. 129, shown at right). What Bugliosi either fails to notice or fails to tell his readers, however, is the first thing he should have noticed: the date on the document. As displayed on the cover of the 1980 article dismissed by Bugliosi, and therefore presumably read by Bugliosi, both versions of the document were dictated on 11/29/63. This date is problematic. By Bugliosi's own account, the paper samples that did not match the characteristics of the paper bag were obtained on 12-1-63. So...how can a report refer to the results of a test that has not yet been performed, on an object that has not yet been procured? It can't. One might venture then that Bugliosi's "explanation" is little more than smoke, and that he really has no clue how to refute Jack White's article.

Alternate 11/30/63 FBI report discovered in National Archives by
Gary Shaw, stating that the TSBD-furnished paper was "found
not to be identical with the paper gun case."'
Reprinted in Henry Hurt's "Reasonable Doubt."

But, if so, he's not the first to run from this issue. Although it's widely presumed the document saying the paper and bag were not identical was first discovered in 1980, it was actually found years earlier, and brought to the government's attention at a time when it could easily have been investigated. Courageously, the discoverer of this document, J. Gary Shaw,discussed the document’s existence at a 9-17-77 conference sponsored by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and suggested they interview FBI agent Vincent Drain, the author of the documents.

While the HSCA, sadly, failed to heed Shaw's request, we can still take comfort that Shaw found some outside interest, and that a series of researchers were able to ask and answer many of the questions the HSCA ignored. In 1981, researcher Ed Tatro, inspired by Jack White’s 1980 article on Shaw’s discovery, contacted the FBI seeking an explanation for the two conflicting documents. The Bureau's initial response explained nothing. In 1984, however, Tatro asked again, and this time received what is as close to an “official” explanation as we are likely to receive. As recounted by Tatro in an article in the January 1985 issue of The Third Decade, the FBI’s Assistant Director of the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, William Baker, offered that the document discovered by Shaw was found to be “inaccurate” upon review at FBI headquarters, and that “The Dallas office was instructed to make corrections at that time.” To the question of how Shaw was able to find an uncorrected copy in the files, Baker explained further that the FBI sent two copies of the 11-30-63 master report to the Warren Commission, one on 12-20-63 and one three days later, and that the first copy had the uncorrected copy of page 129 later discovered by Shaw. As Shaw confirmed to this writer that he found the document in the Warren Commission’s files, and not the FBI’s files, this actually makes sense.

But this explanation also raises some questions. In 1980, after the appearance of Jack White’s article in The Continuing Inquiry, journalist Earl Golz asked the supposed author of these reports, FBI agent Vincent Drain, about the two conflicting reports bearing his name. Now, if Drain’s words were consistent with Baker’s subsequent explanation, one might reasonably conclude that the “mystery” surrounding the conflicting documents had mostly been solved. As reported by Jerry Rose in the March 1985 issue of The Third Decade, however, Drain’s answers were at odds with what Baker told Tatro. While Drain, in order to align with Baker’s subsequent explanation, should have admitted something along the lines of “I screwed up, and was asked to rewrite my report” he instead “expressed shock at seeing” the documents and “said he was as ‘puzzled’ as Golz about them.” Even more problematic, in light of what Baker was to reveal, Drain “expressed certainty that the copy saying the materials tested were the same was the original document,” and speculated that the document discovered by Shaw, and subsequently acknowledged by the FBI’s Assistant Director to be the de facto original document, was a “fake.”

If Drain, who had no way of knowing what Baker was to tell Tatro, was deliberately deceiving Golz, he was at least consistent. In 1984, author Henry Hurt asked Drain about the documents a second time, and gave him a second chance to admit he’d mistakenly written an “inaccurate” report, as later claimed by Baker. But Drain once again held firm. According to Hurt, Drain responded "I am certainly as perplexed as you are" and then claimed the report saying the paper bag and paper sample had the same observable characteristics was correct. (p. 98 of Reasonable Doubt, by Henry Hurt, Henry Holt and Co., 1985). (As a conclusion that the bag and sample were not identical would have cast doubt on the "official story" holding that Oswald created the bag at his work, Drain's proposal that the correct document was the one claiming the bag and sample matched was not exactly a surprise.)

The smoking file: 12-18-63 airtel from Shanklin to HQ.
Click image to view full document page.

Buried deep within the FBI’s files, however, there was a surprise. In thefirst part of Rose’s article in the March 1985 issue of The Third Decade he revealed that researcher Paul Hoch had uncovered a document demonstrating once and for all that Drain had indeed originally wrote that the paper sample and bag were "found not to be identical", and that this had later been changed upon orders from headquarters. This "smoking gun" document, so to speak, can be found in FBI File 105-82555, section 39, page 7. It is a 12-18-63 airtel from the Dallas Special-Agent-in-Charge, J. Gordon Shanklin back to FBI Headquarters, reporting that he is replacing page 129 of the FBI's 11-30-63 report with a different page, and is sending out additional copies of this page so that the page can be replaced in every copy of the report.

Should that document have not proved fatal to Drain’s story, however, two documents subsequently uncovered by Jerry Rose helped bury it completely. As revealed in the May 1985 issue of The Third Decade, the first of these documents, a 12-6-63 airtel from FBI Director Hoover’s office to Dallas, makes note that Drain’s report on page 129 of the 11-30-63 Report contains an “inaccurate statement” and orders the Dallas Special-Agent-in-Charge Shanklin to “handle corrections.”

The second document, from 12-11-63, is an airtel from Dallas back to Washington reporting Shanklin’s progress, and notes that the “necessary actions to correct inaccuracy” are “being taken.”

From these documents, then, one can only conclude that Drain, who’d only escorted the first day evidence from Dallas to Washington, and then flown it back, had either inaccurately represented the FBI Laboratory’s findings on an important piece of this evidence, or had accurately represented the Laboratory’s findings after a decision had been made not to do so. The former is suggested by reports and testimony claiming that the paper bag and sample had “the same observable characteristics.” The latter is suggested by the strange fact that Drain, for what would have to have been considered a monumental mistake, apparently received no reprimand, and that Hoover and Shanklin, in their correspondence on the “inaccurate statement” in Drain’s report, expressed no interest whatsoever on how he came to make such a statement.

While one could go on from here to discuss which version of Drain’s report was actually “accurate”, we’ll stop here instead and focus on the simple, unavoidable fact that the three documents just cited prove beyond any doubt that the FBI did, at least on occasion, change reports, even after they had been signed, dated, typed-up, and circulated.

For those studying U.S. history, this creates a problem. Historians, of all stripes and shapes, operate under the assumption the documents they are studying are written on the day they are dated, and are written by those signing the document. If Vincent Drain, when given the chance, had simply admitted he'd screwed up, and that his superiors had forced him to rewrite an inaccurate report, and that this was the only time this happened, perhaps we might still feel confident this holds true of FBI documents. Drain's initials, after all, appear on the revised document. But he did not. He either lied or forgot entirely about what would have to be considered a major mistake on his part.

As a consequence, we are left to wonder...did the paper sample have the "same observable characteristics" as the bag, or were the paper sample and bag "found not to be identical"?

And, more importantly…what other archive documents have been re-written weeks or months after the fact, and re-inserted in the record as if they were the original documents?

We await Bugliosi’s “answer.”

Don't Miss this Lee Harvey Oswald /Jim Garrison YouTube video

This excellent foreign YouTube video has rare footage showing Lee as he was filmed at the WDSU studios, and with Jim Garrison pointing out Reily Coffee Company, David Ferrie's house, Guy Banister's office & 544 Camp Street entrance.

Delphine Riberts, Banister's secretary, told a witness on the film that Lee was in Banister's office, which I can also verify.

Listen to what Garrison says about who was involved to kill Kennedy....Garrison describes Lee as an agent penetrating the right-wing organizations involved. "Oswald had been placed [at Reily's]..." he tells the interviewer. See the buildings as they looked when Lee and I were there.

The death of Eladio deValle on the same day Ferrie died is also shown.



Copy the URL and send to everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!

REMEMBER LEE HARVEY OSWALD -- EVERY NOVEMBER!

THIS NOVEMBER 24, REMEMBER LEE HARVEY OSWALD: PATRIOT, PATSY, AND MY PERSONAL HERO

LEE'S MARINE RING AND ID BRACELET

Note: I have added clarifying information to this blog post, since McAdams' newsgroup has seen fit to criticize this post in a manner that might confuse readers. They are calling this post an example of "Baker's Lying Blog."  

Lee Harvey Oswald, when arrested, was wearing an ID bracelet that said "Lee" -- and a Marine ring. The Marine Motto: Semper Fi -- "Always faithful."  
He left his wedding ring behind.

Police removed the ID bracelet and ring -- and I was told that the ring was not included in the official inventory (see citation, below) by Dr. DeLane Williams.  A photo of the ID bracelet and ring was placed in the DPD archives collection online, at  http://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/JFKDP/browse/?q=ring&t=fulltext  
with the cooperation of the Dallas Municipal Archives collection. 


But look carefully, please: 


While 'something' described as "silver color", was labeled "Marine Corps' in WCE 1148, the Dallas Police inventory record buried in the pages of the 26 volumes, along with other items Lee was said to have possessed at the time of his arrest, the word 'ring' is not there.  
Researchers such as Dr.John DeLane Williams were unaware that the Marine ring existed, and even speculated as to what kind of ring it was when they examined the "salute" photo that Warren Commission apologists tell you was a "communist salute."  They had to hunt up the FBI record and they would have to know that the FBI record was different. Why would they look again for what they did not know was a ring?  The record seems to be an 'exact copy"--unless you happen to have cared a great deal about that ring --as I do---and had a good memory for small detail, which I also have.  
Thus I noticed that the word 'ring' had been added later.
I was unaware that critics would pretend that the item had been identified in the original DPD inventory, to use as an excuse to write "Baker's Lying Blog."


The ring, in fact, had NOT been identified in the DPD inventory.


    Since the official DPD inventory record has the word 'ring' missing, ONLY if you saw the FBI report, buried in the 26 Volumes, would you be aware that the silver-colored item was a ring.  (see Item #8 -- click to enlarge):

   The Dallas Police Department's record omits the word 'ring'--so how would anybody know that Lee was wearing his Marine ring when he was arrested? In addition, Lee Oswald did not make a "Communist salute,"  as extant live film footage reveals.  He quickly lifts his handcuffed hand when asked about them, and BOTH hands are clenched (he's in pain--he was beaten only minutes earlier, when he was arrested, and the pain is setting in).


Lee Oswald told me he would probably die on November 22.  The ring was Lee's last public message as to his true identity and mission.

Watch the YouTube video below --and share it with your friends.

It is a tribute to an innocent man who gave his life trying to save President Kennedy.

Those who read ME & LEE : HOW I CAME TO KNOW, LOVE AND LOSE LEE HARVEY OSWALD-- know this is true.

AFTER YOU VIEW THE VIDEO, please copy the embed code you can find at the URL here, and post it on your blog! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHwbOWLs82M   (GET THE EMBED CODE!)

I know people who have told me they have urinated on Lee's grave, and have spit on it.

George Bailey (has the blog "Oswald's Mother") in his July 11, 2010 post called "Heroes and Villains" describes a series of people who regarded Lee H. Oswald differently.  He has an accurate list of the villains -- he's good at discerning the good guys from the bad guys.  Here,we present Bailey's short list of the good guys:


http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2010/07/heroes-and-villains.html

writes Bailey:

I’ve been wanting to do a Heroes versus Villains list for some time now. My main concern was collecting to many villains. In the end, I decided to let the chips fall where they may. But at least there are some good people there striving for the good fight and fair play. But I guess that is what makes them heroes. Continuing the quest and usually alone.

I wrested with who to leave off the list of villains. There are so many! Ultimately I settled for the best of the best and the worst of the worst. And some are neutral though I think Gerald Ford, the most benign member of the Warren Commission, was the most damaging with his moving of the President’s back wound up 5 inches to the neck to make the single bullet theory work. This is the misrepresentation of evidence in a murder investigation and clearly an obstruction of justice. It makes one wonder why an otherwise good man would do such a thing. Quite often politicians live in a world of denial about everything they do, especially those things they screw up. Never mind how out of touch it makes them look with the public at large.

The are other characters such as the ragged-eared old dog E. Howard Hunt, the veteran of many black-ops who upon his deathbed confession said he was a bench warmer in the whole thing. Maybe there is much more there but that will be hard to suss out. In fact, there is a whole litany of CIA men that could have been added to the list: The ever creepy Counter Intel chief James Angleton, the snooty and prickish Richard Helms, and David Morales, the hit-man, among many others. There isn’t enough evidence to pin them to any plots so they remain distant, though viable conspirators. Then there is Robert Blakey, chief council for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The inside man to assure the “Investigation Theater” of the Warren Commission continued. The man who expressed shock at being lied to by the CIA and years later cast the assassination at the feet of Mob. In the end, he turns out to be a kinder, more gentler and certainly less devious version of Lee Rankin (see below).

And the list goes on and on between numerous individuals and organizations, both corporate (CBS, Newsweek, New York Times, Federal Reserve) to government (CIA, FBI, the Pentagon). There there are the various government investigations, all hung up in one way or the other, contradicting themselves in often cosmical to absurd ways. There are plenty of shills out there from authors (Vince Bugliosi, Gerald Posner) to the various disinformation agents such as John McAdams and Edward Epstein, Gary Mack (real name, Larry Dunkel), Dave Perry, and many others.

I...struggled...who to leave off the Heroes list. There were not that many so the struggle was brief. However, there were two pairs of men that deserve attention and all four were present at President Kennedy’s autopsy and they need to be mentioned as a group. They were FBI agents James Sibert and Francis O’Neill, and autopsy technicians James Jenner and Paul O’Conner. All four men are witnesses to facts that contradict the Warren Commission and every other investigation that followed. All report seeing metal probes (sounding rods) inserted in Kennedy’s back that only went in a few inches and downward--not upward transiting through the neck wound. Hence, Sibert and O’Neil’s FBI report contradicts the autopsy report, so it was not mentioned in the Warren Commission Report or the 26 volumes of collected evidence. Arlen Spector made sure of that (see below). All of these men report seeing a massive blow-out on the back of the President’s head as all of the doctors and staff at Parkland Hospital in Dallas saw. None of them were ever called to give testimony in any of the investigations that followed. None of them ever wavered in their eye witness accounts of what they saw and experienced. These men are the unsung heroes of the investigation. And there are probably many more we’ve never heard about.

James Garrison
The New Orleans DA that almost broke the Kennedy assassination case wide open with his trial of businessman (with long-term, CIA links) Clay Shaw. This one, single state trial scared the hell out of the National Security State so bad they had to pull out everything to quash it and they did. As Big Jim said, for the feds it was like shooting fish in barrel. With the phones tapped, informants all over the place, shills in the media to impugn Garrison’s character, and DOJ attorneys coaching witnesses at tax payer expense, Clay Shaw walked free. Garrison went on to survive two federal indictments and a host of other indignities that continued for years afterward. A hero for just standing up to The Man.


Heroes

John F. Kennedy
A hero because he boldly held firm against the status quo of his day, the military/intelligence nexus, military contractors, the oil depletion allowance of the oil barons, the bankers at the Federal Reserve, among many other fiefdoms. It must be noted that his death was a game changer, for most of his policies were scattered to the wind by his replacement, Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson signed the Executive Order that took the silver backed money out of circulation to be sent to the burn furnaces of the Federal Reserve. He next ordered a major ramping up of military resources to the Vietnam reversing Kennedy’s policy of scaling it down, for the war which in a few years would ruin his Presidency. It seems if only NASA was left alone. Oh, what could have been, should have been, as John Kennedy labored behind the scenes for peace and not the military’s mutually insured destruction. Let it not be forgotten that there is plenty of motive here. For every door John Kennedy locked was unlocked upon his death.

Mary Ferrell
Founder of the Mary Ferrell foundation, the best online resource for researchers featuring hundreds of thousands of declassified government documents, magazine articles, and various reports. Mary was just an ordinary wife and mother that took an interest in the Kennedy assassination while living in Dallas at the time the tragedy took place. Starting out with newspaper clippings, over the intervening years she amassed a huge collection of documents and eventually took steps to set up a foundational archive on the Internet to make this information available for all. A great hero for that work alone. RIP, Mary.

Senator Richard B. Russell
Normally, a white supremacist who repeatedly blocked and defeated civil rights legislation via use of the filibuster and had co-authored the Southern Manifesto in opposition to civil rights would not be on anybody’s hero list. However, he did do the right thing when it came to the Warren Commission. Richard Russell was
the only member of the Warren Commission that sat on the fewest of the commission hearings. Normally, not a badge of honor. But in this case it is, as Russell knew early on what a dog and pony show he had gotten himself snookered into. The senator from Georgia launched his own private, one-man investigation at the same time, through a Cornel Philip Corso who uncovered connections to rouge CIA agents partnered with anti Castro Cubans in a conspiracy to kill the President. Not to mention the shocking finding of Lee Oswald being impersonated through two separate birth certificates and passports. Russell eventually found this a viable explanation of what happened but also knew that he could not convince the others on the Commission of this. He tried and failed to get a dissenting opinion published in the final report but was prevented from doing so by the deceptions of lead counsel Rankin (see below). In this instance, a hero for desiring to know the truth and a willingness to go against the grain to found it.

James Garrison
The New Orleans DA that almost broke the Kennedy assassination case wide open with his trial of businessman (with long-term, CIA links) Clay Shaw. This one, single state trial scared the hell out of the National Security State so bad they had to pull out everything to quash it and they did. As Big Jim said, for the feds it was like shooting fish in barrel. With the phones tapped, informants all over the place, shills in the media to impugn Garrison’s character, and DOJ attorneys coaching witnesses at tax payer expense, Clay Shaw walked free. Garrison went on to survive two federal indictments and a host of other indignities that continued for years afterward. A hero for just standing up to The Man.

Dorothy Kilgallen 
The popular columnist and What’s My Line? TV personality was investigating the assassination and boasted of breaking the case wide open after her interview with Jack Ruby. Then her untimely death occurred and her JFK research file disappeared. Billed a drug overdose, it was later discovered that she had three powerful barbiturates in her system; none of where were found in her townhouse medicine cabinet. That, along with oddities found at the scene, such being found in the wrong bedroom (third floor and not the fifth), not wearing her usual night gown, still wearing her eyelashes and makeup, a book by side that she had finished reading two weeks earlier, no reading glasses nearby, all add up to a highly suspicious vibe to the whole scene. Particularly with her research files gone missing. For years all new CIA agents were given a handbook on assassination and one preferred method was to make it look like an accident. A problem arises in that one can’t ever know enough about a person’s private habits and routines and that leaves too many out of place things in its wake. And if Dorothy was done in, they should have known that no woman goes to bed with make-up on.

Roger Craig
A rising star in the Dallas Police department, Roger Craig’s story of what he witnessed that day of President Kennedy’s murder quickly become a thorn in the side of the status quo. At first, his claims were dismissed, but can no longer, with the release of photographs and film clips that back up his side of things and various locations in Dealey plaza. Craig’s two main accounts were, he saw Oswald leave the scene in a station wagon with another man when he is supposed to be taking public transportation to get away; and two, while in custody, heard Oswald admit to having his “cover” blown. Craig claimed that transcripts of his testimony at the Warren Commission was altered numerous times. He also said there was a second rifle found and in a murky piece of tape one can actually be seen leaning up against a box of books (check out youtube.com). Of course his testimony is at large with the official version of events and sticking up for his version led him to a life of hardship, losing his job, and receiving numerous murder attempts on his life. He died in obscurity allegedly of his own hand. Another hero whose life was ruined by not towing the line.

R. Fletcher Prouty (corrected sp)
A colonel in the army, R. Fletcher Prouty achieved the position of liaison between the Pentagon (JCS) and the CIA. From there he learned how this system of military operators and behind the scenes spooks functions within a symbiotic relationship with often, the lines blurring between the two. His classic book, The Secret Team explores this fully. Prouty is a true patriot for giving us this insider’s look into how the National Security State actually functions.

Harold Weisberg
Legendary JFK researcher Harold Weisberg opened a lot of doors for the rest of us. An early critic he was relentless in his pursuit of the truth which he long felt we were all denied. Once the Freedom of Information Act was passed (ironically with the help of the slain President’s brother) Weisberg used it as a sword to peal back hidden layers of withheld facts. One of his highlights was his FOIA suit that succeeded in getting the transcript of the WC Executive session meeting of January 22, 1964, where the Commissioners decided to forego any research into Lee Oswald’s background as a possible government agent. So explosive was this session that it was ordered no transcript or any record should survive. Incredibly, the stenographer's tape was not destroyed and was actually residing in the National Archives. An amazing find as it showed the depths of which the Warren Commission members went to deceive the public as they stated upfront they were leaving no stone unturned, and behind closed doors doing the opposite. One good thing. All of Harold Weisberg files he collected over the years are now online for easy researching. Link below.


Villains

Edgar Hoover
Just as we’ll probably never know for certain the names of other assassins, we’ll probably never know what the first Director of the FBI had in taste for ladies fashions. Prints or sold colors? Skirts or dresses? Ruffles, maybe? Flats or pumps? And so with Hoover’s help we’ll probably never know what really happened in Dealey Plaza with his bullheaded rush to make sure one man was guilty of the crime within 24 hours of the event. (Actually, more like 2-4 hours. Several roads of the government crossed at the Oswald intersection; a detour was quickly needed.) Hoover alone had the most responsibility in formulating this idea and he saw it through, never changing as events unfolded or as new evidence appeared. Evidence, after all, is like weeds--you can mow them down or ignore them. Usually in a case like, with a murder of an important powerful person, no stone is left unturned. Here, the stones were left to bleach in the sun.

Being a serial hater of the Kennedy's along with Johnson, Bobby always felt that Hoover relished ringing him that afternoon to inform him that his beloved brother was dead. According to Bobby, he delivered it pretty blunt. Hoover was a petty, corrupt, vindictive man and maybe he did enjoy twisting the knife in a little. After all, he had no qualms years later in blackmailing Dr. King, providing the dirt to his wife, and then advising him to commit suicide. At any rate, Hoover’s relentless pressure on the Warren Commission to follow through with the lone gunman scenario (along with LBJ) was successful in the end.

J. Edgar Hoover received his pay-off from his partner-in-crime (see below) by being allowed to by-pass Federal retirement regulations via Executive Order to stay on as FBI Director for life. He died in his sleep in 1972. Lyndon Johnson died a year later. The nation survived them both.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Many have speculated that Johnson was in on the assassination plotting but we’ll never really know for sure. Kennedy’s secretary Evelyn Lincoln when asked in a letter by a school teacher for his class, responded that she thought it was Johnson. Hunt in his deathbed confession lists Johnson as a coconspirator but if he is then he’s got to have a lot of help. And would the Secret Service, CIA, FBI and so on, provide said help? Maybe the FBI. After all, Johnson and Hoover met once a week for a power lunch. You want a conspiracy? Put the alpha ape from Texas and the cross dressing bull dog behind closed doors and see what they cook up. Those two old boys could have paved a section of the highway to Hell and probably did. It was Hoover that did the mad rush to a verdict on Oswald being the lone assassin so early in. Meanwhile, Johnson was firing on all cylinders. He blitzed through a Warren Commission assembly to ward off other investigations percolating, particularly in Texas where the murder was a state crime. He doubled up with his aides calling all Texas law officials to make sure they were all towing the hush-hush no conspiracy line; had the Secret Service whisk off Kennedy’s body to Washington for a military autopsy, violating Texas state law; had the limousine, itself a moving crime scene, and sent off to Detroit for refurbishing losing valuable crime evidence. Lyndon Johnson was a man on fire, feverishly putting it all together one brick at a time. The quick assembly of the Warren Commission was a masterstroke. Have a commission established that is designed to do an evaluation of the evidence rather than a true investigation and have henchman Hoover in the wings to make sure they don’t get all the stuff to look at. The CIA does the same. So do all the other players. Highway to Hell? Ha! Make it a freeway.

Long haired, depressed, and nearly out if his mind in his later days as the chickens came home to roost, Lyndon Johnson never could shake the murmur that he was somehow responsible for the young usurper’s death. The man he hated, that handsome literary yankee of privilege and class, irked the hell out of the rough as a corncob Texan who thought of himself the rightful heir to the throne. The throne he had lusted after all his life, at one time in 1929 telling a classroom full of poor Mexican kids they were looking a future President. The man who groped women in front of his wife, got even with anybody that crossed him, got his start rigging student council elections in college before he does it again in 1948 to steal a Senate seat, gets tagged “Lying Lyndon” and “Bull (bullshit) Johnson” as he rampaged his way to the top just to fall on his own petard, bogged down in an unending war, unloved by the people. That was his reward for serving the lusts of the flesh--unbridled power to dominate and not serve, and playing along with the National Security State and their supplying corporations for war and war profiteering. Karma really does work on some guys. And maybe not just for Camelot’s death if he was involved, but for all the other bad things he had done. They were legion.

Arlen Specter
Probably one of the most dastardly characters of this whole drama. There is not enough space here to document Arlen Specter’s nastiness, his malfeasance and treachery in the case. His main role was playing cover-up for the official story. Here are basics: Early on the Warren Commission had a major problem; too many wounds and not enough bullets. Hired as a staff attorney, Specter gained fame by saving the Commission’s honor by the invention of the SBT--single bullet theory. Also known mockingly as the Magic Bullet Theory and even better as the Magic Bullshit Theory. The Army’s chief ballistics wounds expert, Dr. Joseph Dolce, disproved Spector’s fabrication when he had Oswald’s rifle fired into 10 cadaver wrists, all 10 bullets coming out “markedly deformed” and nowhere near as sweet as CE399’s appearance. Specter was having none of this and made sure Dr. Dolce was blocked from giving testimony to the Commission. As mentioned above, he did the same thing to FBI agents Sibert and O’Neil whose report contradicted the single bullet theory, clearly stating that Kennedy’s back wound was non-transiting. Spector made disparaging comments (i.e., lies) about both men, and there was no love lost between the agents and the lawyer. Such that they were happy to volunteer their testimony under oath, to the Assassination Records and Reviews Board to set the record straight.

So here is the main ballistics theory of the case, being invented out of thin air by a lawyer. Heaven help us all.

But it doesn’t end there. Arlen Specter wasn’t beneath witness intimidation. In the 1990’s when a group of Parkland doctors were giving their testimony to the ARRB they were asked by Jeremy Gunn had anybody tried to get them to alter their accounts of what they saw. Dr. Ronald C. Jones spoke up and said that after being interviewed by Specter and giving his description of the throat wound and his opinion that it was an entry wound, Specter followed him out in the hall and said to him: “I want to tell you something that I don't want you to say anything about. We have people who will testify that they saw the President shot from the front. You can always get people to testify about something. But we are pretty convinced he was shot from the back."

In other words, we can alter this at will and it doesn’t matter what you say. If we say Kennedy was shot from the back, then he was. Specter at his best, or in the case, the worst, at covering up the truth with his despicable behavior.

J. Lee Rankin 
Warren Commission lead council J. Lee Rankin. It’s hard to tell between him, and Arlen Spector who is the worst snake in a tweed suit. Both are fairly cunning and operate in that lawyerly world of situational ethics. His juggling act of covering up the truth and deception would make a good thriller as his actions are a conspiracy in itself. Like his fellow snake, too many incidents to go into here. However, I’ll give you two examples.

Rankin’s first act of deceit was to arrange a secret meeting on January 24, 1964 with Texas law officials and Earl Warren to determine if Lee Oswald was a government agent or informant. An issue Rankin called a “dirty rumor.” No Commission members were informed of the meeting nor were the staff lawyers. There were no records kept but for a memo written by Rankin. The discussion centered on Lee Oswald being either an FBI or CIA informant with code numbers bandied about. Rankin with Earl Warren decided to do a reveal of what they learned on a January 27 to the other Commission members. However, Rankin only revealed a bogus FBI informant number (179) that was not consistent with their numbering system. A CIA number, 110669 which is consistent with the CIA’s system was never revealed. Oddly, Earl Warren went along with this charade and kept his mouth shut. In the end, they all decided to leave this sleeping dog to snooze and dream. No further pursuit of Lee Oswald being a government agent or informant for any branch of the government was going to be pursued. If he was out there, he can stay out there.

Rankin also participated in the deception of Commission members who wished to voice a dissent in the single bullet theory, such as Richard Russell who was shocked years later to be given this information by legendary researcher Harold Weisberg. Rankin had hired out a phony secretary to be the stenographer so no transcripts of the meeting exist as none were recorded. This way, the Commission’s conclusion of the long gunman would look unanimous and no dissension recorded as a footnote in the final report. Needless to say, Sen. Russell was incensed, particularly since Rankin had promised him a dissenting opinion in the final report. A lawyer lies, fancy that.

Allen Dulles
Former World War II OSS spy and the second director of the CIA, Allen Dulles was a duplicitous individual resembling a grandfatherly college professor complete with pipe in hand. But don’t let this dapper image fool you; underneath this exterior lurked the blackest heart ever to serve in government, dishing up coups all over the world from Iran to Guatemala. He transformed the CIA from intelligence gathering to paramilitary black-ops, the ends justifying the means in the fight to contain communism, though keeping American corporate interests viable was a high priority as well, perhaps even higher. Kennedy, smart enough to see Dulles attempting to paint him in a corner over Cuba, fired him and other top officials over the Bay of Pigs fiasco, probably sealing his own fate. Ironic that Dulles would end up on the Warren Commission investigating the death of the man he despised, but none, including the Kennedy family, strangely, found this a conflict of interest. (Certainly not like the 9-11 victim’s families did when Henry Kissinger poked his nose in the tent for that Commission of inquiry and the protest went up.) He was the lone Commissioner to attend the most meetings; probably to protect the interests of the CIA and keep their sins covered up and skeletons in the closet. Dulles, along with cohorts Gerald Ford and John J. McCloy formed a powerful block that controlled the Commission’s agenda, the drive towards the lonesome gunman. Although no longer employed by the Agency, he managed to spend the day of Kennedy’s assassination in one of their top secret installations called the “Farm.” Once a spook, always a spook?

Allen Dulles once said spitefully that John Kennedy considered himself a god. As if Dulles wasn’t a king maker in the shadows, overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them police states that killed and tortured thousands of their own people such as what happen in Guatemala. And for what? So our corporations there would remain profitable. At any rate, his stand on the Commission was his last hurrah to settle a few scores. Nothing quite like rubbing it in the face of one’s enemies, no?

Hugh Aynesworth
Journalist, one-time hopeful CIA agent, and FBI/Dallas Police informant. He’s all over the place in the early moments of the JFK assassination, being the first reporter at the murder scene of Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippet, and later, at the movie theater for Lee Oswald’s arrest. Also the first reporter to interview Marina Oswald. Aynesworth, along with pal James Phelan bedeviled DA Jim Garrison during his trial of Clay Shaw firing off one hit piece after the other. It has since been discovered that he was working directly with Clay Shaw’s defense team. But Aynesworth went farther than that, informing to the FBI and the White House. So much for objectivity! And people decry the state of journalism now with Internet Bloggers typing away! I guess the

It gets worse. In a 1967 Newsweek article Aynesworth coughed up a whopper that Garrison offered a witness a $3,000 bribe to fill in facts for a JFK assassination plot. The witness, Alvin Beaubeouff, told Garrison he never related anything of the sort to Aynesworth. Perhaps the word “journalist” is not the appropriate descriptor here! You can dear reader, can fill in the blank.

The old goat never quits. When Oliver Stone’s JFK was released in 1991 he appeared on a major network show in which he claimed he saw, actually saw, Jim Garrison trying to bribe someone. The show’s host never demanded any facts for this ridiculous allegation. Notice the bribe motif still at work after all these years. Well, hacks don’t offer much in original thought. All these years later, the nearly 80 year old Aynesworth is still plugging away, hawking a script on the trial of Clay Shaw but of course from a more favorable perspective. We know from various document releases that Clay Shaw was no saint, perjuring himself on the witness stand saying he was not associated in anyway with the CIA. He lied again in a 1967 CBC interview. Documents show that Shaw did a lot of work for the Agency.

It appears that character assassination of Jim Garrison has no bounds over space and time by the villains.

Lee H. Oswald
If you believe in the Lone Nut theory of the Warren Commission then Oswald is a villain. If true, that is agreeable. He doesn’t come off as that villainous a character if one examines his whole life. There is the alleged attempt on Gen. Walker’s life but for eight months the Dallas Police did not consider Oswald a suspect, not to mention the caliber of bullet retrieved didn’t match Oswald’s rifle. Even if he is the patsy in this drama then he is no innocent patsy being in deep-cover with government agencies for most of his adult life. After all, what decent person goes to movie theater carrying a loaded gun? The events surrounding the assassination he is acting both innocent and suspicious. One must recall under questioning his repeated denials, denials on everything, including using Alex Hidell as an alias. He most certainly lied about that. He was a mysterious individual and probably the most mysterious element of the whole thing. But his greatest fault is being too trusting of his handlers. In the end, they led him astray and hung him out to dry.

=====This November 24, remember LEE HARVEY OSWALD and how he gave his life.====


Mr.Bailey was so kind as to publish a favorable review of Me & Lee:How I Came to Know,Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald.


FOUR GOOD QUESTIONS MR. BAILEY HAD ABOUT THE BOOK ME & LEE:


1, WHY NO LOVE LETTERS OR PHOTOS?
ANSWER: WE WERE BOTH MARRIED.  AND PLANNED AN ELOPEMENT. THIS WAS IN THE 1960'S WHEN SUCH THINGS WERE CONSIDERED VERY SINFUL AND WRONG--STILL ARE, BY MY FAMILY.


2. HOW COULD I REMEMBER THE CONVERSATIONS SO WELL?
I have published on SCRIBD how I felt a responsibility to my country, to Lee's family, and to the memory of Lee Oswald, who stood his ground, trying to save the President,not to forget his words.  The President's assassination was historic and they were telling lies. It was my duty to remember what Lee said.


3.Concerning some seven pages of the pivotal conversation at Dr.Mary Sherman's apartment: that conversation made me acutely aware that Kennedy could die if the project failed tokill Castro,and that Dr.Ochsner had been corrupted by Kennedy's enemies. It was a terrible thing to discover about a man I almost thought of as a god.  . I think anyone would remember the essence of such a conversation. 
Atop that, I saw that same early afternoon with my own eyes the most dangerous cancer in existence, realizing I was being asked to work with it. Over time, it could possibly be engineered to be able to kill Castro and thereby save Kennedy.  
   That enormous revelation made me able to recall even little bits of that conversation, such as, they had been discussing how Mr. Everest had been conquered when I walked in.  In my mind, conquering cancer was like trying to climb Mr. Everest. 
    In this manner, I set up a long line of associations.   That;s how I remembered when Pope John died,for example.   Over the years, some of those memories deteriorated to a set of mnemonics. But the system worked, and by just speaking it out loud, it would all come rushing back. I am not the only person who recalls long conversations with ease and accuracy.  One of my sons also has this ability, and since my head injury, has superior recall to my own for any recent conversations.However, the old, important conversations have remained intact even after three concussions.
    
4.  And no, I am not a hoarder or a pack rat.  With five children, there were crowded closets at times, and what I used to call "hot spots"--a pile that started accumulating at Christmas, or when we went camping,and so on.  Our house was often crammed with neighborhood kids, and we had a pony, a Samoyed, two cats, a large aquarium, and a big hamster heaven.  But we also had a big house! As a newspaper reporter a large portion of that time, and selling my paintings on the side, raising five active children with a husband who was largely absent was a challenge, but I had plenty of wonderful friends and we would be there for each other in a strong Mormon community. As a Mormon in good standing, our home was orderly, with Family Home Evening every Monday night.


   As for the important records,  I kept everything about my cancer research career in files, and the secret materials I feared my husband might see behind framed photographs, inside diaries, or folded up inside envelopes that said something else.
   I did save everything I could from 1963.
   You would too, knowing how things came down.


5. As for witnesses, there are more than just  Anna Lewis, though she is the one brave lass who did agree to be filmed.


a) There is also William "Mac"McCullough.  Lee and i kept running into him because mac was just getting his singing and piano playing career started.  In the next edition of the book, witness Mac McCullough's photo will be included--somehow it was dropped from the first edition.  He is on several audiotapes describing Lee and me as "companions" whom he had seen at palmer Park, at the restaurant where his mother worked, and so on.  He knew we were having a love affair.  We ran into each other accidentally and I immediately said, "1963!!!!" and he said,"YES!"
   He warns me on the tapes that I was "playing with fire" by speaking out, that the mafia "never forget." He was the only person who described a tripod with a camera taking photos of Lee's Canal St.demonstration -- which was Guy Banister's project, taking photos of who was interested in the brochures, and to see if anybody would join in the prearranged scuffle.


b) Charles Thomas, AKA Arthur Young--this witness entry has the name wrong, some last-minute change hat we don;t know ow it happened--and the granddaughter's handwriting was cut off--I'm told it is to be restored in the next edition.  The Thomas family was able to verify that the Customs officer I met in New Orleans with Lee was indeed Charles Thomas.   


So many witnesses who knew about "Me & Lee" died within the first decade. There are also a few witnesses I located who refused to allow their names to be used because they still  live in the New Orleans area. Anna Lewis herself was threatened and pressured to change her story, and complained about that to researcher Martin Shackelford--I have the emails between her and Shackellford on file.


I kept everything in neat files until the files were all thrown out of the cabinet (a 2-drawer cabinet) and many torn and ripped and even stomped on.  I was also injured shortly after that and so everything ended up in 8 large boxes, when we moved, which also held everything that a mom keeps who has had five children and loves books.  
Much material after that was stolen from me. 


In other words, nope, I'm not a pack rat. Today I own very little, and that's just fine with me. 


I'm glad to have a chance to answer these very reasonable questions.


I'm glad that a responsible person such as Mr.Bailey thought to ask them, and I do hope this reply reaches him at some time.

 RESEARCHER DR.JOHN DELANE WILLIAMS NOTICED THERE WAS NO 'RING'LISTED IN THE DPD INVENTORY WHEN HE WROTE:

"Oswald’s Ornate Ring

Other photographs of Oswald at the Dallas Police Station show that his ring finger is empty. Where did this ring come from? Does it have any special meaning? Why is the ring not on any inventories of Oswald's belongings? [24H, 20; 24H, 21-22] Where did the ring go?" 

QUESTION: CAN THE RING BE FOUND TODAY IN THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES?

Circumstantial Evidence Re: Lee Oswald and Judyth Vary Baker

Circumstantial Evidence Re: Lee Oswald and Judyth Vary Baker
(originally posted at Dean Hartwell's Perspective) 

An article for researchers written by Judyth Vary Baker

(note: this material has not been presented in the first person to make it more useful to researchers, who can apply its directing principles to other matters needing investigation that involve circumstantial evidence)

WHAT IS CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE?

Circumstantial evidence is best explained by saying what it is not - it is not direct evidence from a witness who saw or heard something. Circumstantial evidence is a fact that can be used to infer another fact. 


Indirect evidence that implies something occurred but doesn't directly prove it; proof of one or more facts from which one can find another fact; proof of a chain of facts and circumstances indicating that the person is either guilty or not guilty. However, circumstantial evidence is the most common form of evidence that provides the determinant weight leading to a verdict of guilt or  innocent in a case where direct evidence cannot be found or has been discarded for various reasons in a court of law.


E.g., A man accused of embezzling money from his company had made several big-ticket purchases in cash around the time of the alleged embezzlement.  Such a fact would provide an incentive to investigate the  circumstantial evidence more closely to determine the possibility that the suspect had stolen the money. The law makes no distinction between the weight given to either direct or circumstantial evidence. 


Circumstantial evidence is generally admissible in court unless the connection between the fact and the inference is too weak to be of help in deciding the case. Many convictions for various crimes have rested largely on circumstantial evidence.


These points ought to be carefully examined in order to form a correct opinion. The first question ought to be:  Is the fact possible? If so, are there any circumstances which render it impossible? If the facts are impossible, the witness ought not to be credited.

http://www.lectlaw.com/def/c342.htm


Judyth Vary Baker provides extensive circumstantial evidence regarding her relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy.   Statistical analyses of certain events that occurred to both Oswald and Baker at the same time indicate a less than a million-to-one chance that those events were not deliberately prearranged by those working with Baker and Oswald in New Orleans.  Below, a few of the many pieces of circumstantial evidence presented in her book Me & Lee: How I came to know, love and lose Lee Harvey Oswald (Trine Day) are listed in detail to illustrate the utility and importance of circumstantial evidence in establishing the truth of a controversial matter:

THE ‘CATHOLIC’ DOCUMENT


FACT: Lee H. Oswald wrote “Catholic” for his religion on his application for a tourist visa to Mexico.  


FACT:  Both Mexico and Cuba had anti-Catholic attitudes.  By designating himself a “Catholic” Oswald added a difficulty he did not need to add to the record: mentioning a religious status that was in disfavor with both Mexican and Cuban governments and their authorities.


FACT:  Oswald, baptized and raised Lutheran, had always left ”religion” blank on forms.  The ONLY time he EVER placed “Catholic” on any legal form was for this one:  CLICK HERE 


Baker says Oswald made a copy of this document and carried it with him into Mexico when he entered that country on Sept. 25, 1963.  Had the mission worked as expected, Baker was to have met him in a remote part of Mexico  a few days later. Their expectations were shattered when Alex Rorke and his pilot were shot down in Cuban waters on Sept. 25th as they were en route to Florida.  Oswald called Baker from Houston just prior to boarding a bus in Houston and told her that “Rorke has gone missing.” Rorke was to supply Baker’s ‘ride’ to Mexico.  Soon after, Oswald’s mission was aborted and he was ordered to return to Dallas.


Utility of the document:  It was going to be used to “prove” Oswald’s status as a Catholic in the non-civil marriage they wanted to be performed by a “corrupt priest” (one who would marry them quickly without posting banns in the church for several weeks--after they obtained a “quickie divorces” --for which Mexico was then famed).   Oswald and Baker wanted to keep the marriage quiet and out of the papers.


Assessing the evidence:


The first question ought to be; is the fact possible? If so, are there any circumstances which render it impossible? If the facts are impossible, the witness ought not to be credited.


1) the fact is on the official record


2) Baker offers a logical reason for which is otherwise an illogical entry of “Catholic”


Additional Evidence of the Oswald-Baker relationship:


“THE BOURBON STREET TOUR”


FACT: “ Marina and Mrs. Paine toured Bourbon Street while Oswald stayed home and did some packing for Marina's return to Texas. 1097”  (p. 730) Warren Commission Report, Appendix 13


FACT: “Ruth Paine arrived in New Orleans on September 20” (p. 729)


FACT: “On Sunday, September 22, Oswald and Mrs. Paine finished loading the station wagon with the Oswalds' household belongings.1098…Marina and June departed with Mrs. Ruth Paine for Irving on the morning of September 23.1103.” (p. 730) Packing of a car already loaded with Ruth Paine’s belongings for her summer vacation for herself and her two small children left relatively little room for much in the way of belongings, described as a baby bed, a hamper full of clothing, etc. Oswald stayed behind with plans to go to Mexico: “Marina Oswald testified that sometime in August her husband first told her of his plan to go to Mexico and from there to Cuba, where he planned to stay… Before she left, Oswald told Marina that she should not tell anyone about his impending trip to Mexico.” (p. 730)

FACT: Though Marina Oswald had been present over four months in New Orleans, Oswald never took her to the French Quarter, the most famous part of New Orleans where all tourists go. When she finally went, just prior to leaving New Orleans, Oswald stayed behind.  Though he said he was staying behind to ‘pack,’ the Oswalds owned very little –most of it fitting into the rear compartment of  Paine’s already well-loaded station wagon.


FACT: Oswald took Marina to the grocery store, to Pontchartrain beach, and to the nearby Napoleon St. public library.  Marinas reports that she did not even go to movie theaters with Oswald.

Note: Baker states that there was plenty of time to pack and that Oswald avoided going to the French Quarter with his wife, children and Ruth Paine because she and Oswald had been seen together frequently in the French Quarter.  She states that Oswald was afraid somebody would call out, “Oswald! Where’s Marina?” because Baker had posed as “Marina Oswald” with Oswald in the French Quarter being the same height, with same eye color, hair color, and, moreover, speaking only in Russian when with Oswald in French Quarter restaurants. 

Assessing the evidence:


The first question ought to be; is the fact possible? If so, are there any circumstances which render it impossible? If the facts are impossible, the witness ought not to be credited.


a) it is possible that this is the true reason that Oswald did not go to the French Quarter with his wife and children


b) it is possible that Oswald never took Marina to the French Quarter because this was where he and Baker spent considerable time with Baker posing as his wife, Marina


c) of course, the original reasons offered—that Oswald simply wanted to pack—are reasonable. But they are not exclusive 


FACT:  Mary Morgan saw a woman with Lee H. Oswald.  Mary, the daughter of Reeves Morgan, who was an employee at the East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson, Louisiana, was home during summer vacation from her college classes.   One evening , after sunset, she saw a woman sitting in an old car parked under a tree in their front yard. She was standing on the front porch. The car had been driven up into the yard and parked under the tree.  The only other occupant of the automobile was Lee H. Oswald, who was inside the house and talking to her father at the time.  Their rural home was located outside Jackson, Louisiana.  Mary Morgan and her father stated that the incident occurred at the end of August or the beginning of September, 1963: Lee H. Oswald was inside the house at the time, talking to her father. [note: one researcher says Mary Morgan now asserts she did not see 'a woman'--some 48 years later, and despite the fact that her record of saying she had seen a woman in the car went unchanged in the official record ---and uncontested by Mary Morgan --until the alleged interview reported late in 2010. In such instances, where there has been ample time to correct any misinformation, and where her father testified that his daughter, Mary Morgan, was present at the time mentioned, during the Clay Shaw trial, the earlier statement is to be considered worthy of inclusion in this list].

FACT:  Marina Oswald told Garrison investigators that she was NOT the woman in the car.


FACT: Judyth Vary Baker is the only person who ever stated that she was the woman in the car. She has explained complex circumstances as to why she and Oswald were in Jackson, Louisiana: specifically, they had been required to drive up to the hospital located just outside the city of Jackson.


FACT: Reeves Morgan worked at the same hospital just outside the city of Jackson.


Assessing the evidence:


The first question ought to be: is the fact possible? If so, are there any circumstances which render it impossible? If the facts are impossible, the witness ought not to be credited.


1) The fact is possible.


2) Is there any reason to believe the woman was not Baker?  Yes, because Mary Morgan did not speak to her or see her up close.  However, Baker is the only woman that witnesses have ever described as being seen in Oswald’s company, except for Oswald’s wife, in Louisiana in 1963.


By itself, the incident holds little weight, but a second, similar incident occurred in the same time period (Baker said it happened the same day):


FACT: Lea McGehee, the Jackson town barber, states that “late in the afternoon” at the end of August, 1963, Lee H. Oswald entered his barber shop soon after an “old car” had pulled up and parked.  A woman was “sitting in the front seat” (meaning she was not behind the wheel).  There was a “bassinette” in the back seat of the car.


FACT: McGehee gave Oswald a quick, unneeded haircut, and observed, as a barber, the length of and style of the woman’s hair (he could not see her face).   After Oswald left the barbershop, the old car drove off.  


Later: McGehee’s initial belief was that Oswald had to be driving. This was what he told Garrison investigators.  Under great criticism for this, with HSCA investigators stressing that Oswald could not drive, he later stated that Oswald might have got into a different car and perhaps the woman drove away alone, but his earliest accounts to Garrison investigators did not mention any such details.


FACT: Judyth Vary Baker logically explains the reason for the stop at the barbershop. She is the only person who has ever come forward and identified herself as the woman in the old car.  In tandem with Mary Morgan’s account, the two incidents together constitute a good case of circumstantial evidence that Baker was in the car with Oswald.


NOTE: McGehee agreed to be tape recorded after Baker responded (with witness Kelly Thomas present) , to McGehee’s inquiry as to the kind of haircut Oswald received. Baker answered  that she noticed NO DIFFERENCE in Oswald’s hair after the so-called haircut. McGehee, pleased with her response, then agreed to go on tape, at which time Baker THEN told him that she was the woman in the car, which elicited exclamations of amazement from McGehee.  This has been cited as an example of Baker leading the witness on, except for the fact that Baker had already established herself as someone who knew that Oswald’s hair had not ‘really’ had a significant haircut. 


Note: Baker gives a logical reason for the presence of the “bassinette.”  David Lewis’ wife, Anna, was pregnant and the car, which belonged to Lewis’ friend, carried the wicket basket (not actually a bassinette) for use when the baby, after its birth, would be carried back from the hospital.  Anna Lewis gave birth to six children while David Lewis’ wife, and an additional four children afterwards.


FACT: Lea McGehee, the barber, subsequently picked out, among a number of photos of Baker, one with the length of hair and style that he thought most similar to the hairstyle and length of hair of the woman in the old car.  The photo had been taken one month earlier (late July, 1963) than the sighting of the woman in the old car (end of August,. 1963).


Assessing the evidence:


The first question ought to be: is the fact possible? If so, are there any circumstances which render it impossible? If the facts are impossible, the witness ought not to be credited.


1) The fact is possible


2) Changing the story later does not render the fact impossible


3) Baker gives the most plausible reasons yet offered for Oswald’s, Ferrie’s, and Shaw’s concurrent presence together in Jackson in a Cadillac, as seen for hours parked near the Clinton, Louisiana courthouse, AND for the two sightings of Oswald with a woman in an old car in Jackson , Louisiana within a day or two of the Clinton sightings.  No one has been able, until Baker spoke up, to account for the two different trips, or for why Oswald made a point of making it known that he was trying to “get a job” at the hospital.


NOTE: Oswald never showed up in this area again (it was over one hundred miles from New Orleans), even though he made a job application at the hospital and openly seemed to seek work there.  That this was an excuse for the trips is eminently consistent with Baker’s version of what happened: the two trips, as reported, were the only known trips Oswald made outside of New Orleans to that particular area.


“TWO WITNESSES STATE THAT LEE H. OSWALD AND “MRS. OSWALD” MET GUY BANISTER” 


FACT:  Guy Banister’s secretary, Delphine Roberts, and her daughter, Delphine Jr., asserted that they had seen “Mrs. Oswald” in Banister’s office.  Anthony Summers is the researcher reporting her statement: his work is respected.  (Anthony Summers, Conspiracy, 1989 Paragon ed. p. 314) 


Dave Reitzes' in “LHO in New Orleans, Part 2” noted that:  “Posner mocks Delphine Roberts, Jr., for saying she met Marguerite Oswald at 531 Lafayette Street, and that "she was lovely." Posner points out, correctly, that Marguerite Oswald -- as far as we know -- did not step foot in New Orleans during 1963 [Posner, 141].

CORRECTION:  Baker states that “Mrs. Oswald” was herself, posing as Marina Oswald (Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald).   The statement was not in regard to Oswald MOTHER, Marguerite Oswald.  It was in regard to Baker, who posed as marina Oswald.


FACT:  Marina Oswald denied ever having met Guy Banister. (House Select Committee Hearings Vol. II, p. 253)

FACT: Judyth Vary Baker states that Oswald introduced her to Bannister’s staff as “Mrs. Oswald.”  Baker explains in her book Me & Lee why his introduction to banister was necessary..

FACT: Note that Gerald Posner’s statements about doubts as to the veracity of Delphine Roberts and her daughter’s statements have been discredited by many.(see footnote, below) 

FACT:  Anthony Summers observed that Roberts’ “manager” brandished a gun and in other ways obstructed his ability to question Roberts. But when she was finally alone with Summers, Roberts said she could not longer hold back information and did not want compensation for what she had to say.  Summers, a seasoned investigator, took her new information seriously. Compensation was later arranged for a televised interview.

FACT: Former Banister secretary Mary Brengel corroborates Roberts’ statement of Oswald being in Banister’s office:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kvvIA5_Efw
Assessing the evidence:


The first question ought to be: is the fact possible? If so, are there any circumstances which render it impossible? If the facts are impossible, the witness ought not to be credited.


a) It is possible, because Baker was the same height, eye color, hair color, hairstyle (as photos prove) as Marina Oswald


b)  Marina Oswald was not in New Orleans during the time period Baker says she was introduced to Banister; she thus qualifies as the person who may have been seen by Delphine Roberts and her daughter.  


c) Baker offers good reasons (see book Me & Lee) for why she wanted to meet Banister


d)  it is possible that Baker could be introduced as “Mrs. Oswald” even though Marguerite Oswald was not in town


e)  Marina Oswald denied having ever met Banister


f) Baker is the only person to have come forward claiming to have been introduced to Guy Banister as Oswald’s wife, “Mrs. Oswald.”


g) Baker is known to have been in New Orleans at this time through bus ticket, newspaper advertisement, and letters


FACT:  Oswald began taking long baths or showers at night instead of taking showers in the morning.  In the “official version” book, Marina and Lee, by late summer Oswald was taking long, soaking baths, had an upset stomach, “burped,” and one night, while sleeping, he suffered four episodes where he shook all over and groaned in his sleep without waking. Marina also complained that he was developing a “body odor.”


NOTE:  Baker says Oswald was assisting in the killing and gutting of hundreds of cancerous mice that had a foul odor, and that it made him sick. She, too, was taking nightly baths for the same reason. 


FACT: Baker’s entire family knows that she has “always” taken baths and showers at night rather than in the morning.

FACT:  Oswald lost weight but otherwise remained healthy.

Assessing the evidence:

The first question ought to be: is the fact possible? If so, are there any circumstances which render it impossible? If the facts are impossible, the witness ought not to be credited.

Is the fact possible? Yes, though highly unusual circumstances are involved. However, Baker was a cancer researcher known to have worked extensively with cancerous mice.
 Are there any circumstances which render it impossible?


One would have to prove what Baker was doing at all hours (but her husband was almost always out of town)  and oddly for her, for she is a gregarious person who easily makes friends, Baker made no friends in New Orleans who ever saw her outside the workplace, except for Anna and David Lewis. Anna is on film stating that Oswald and Baker were lovers.


NOTE: Baker says Oswald helped with this “dirty work” because he was in love with Baker and wanted to spare her from this part of her work.


FACT:  Baker “found” $400.00 in an ironing board on September 1, 1963, the day before she was scheduled to leave New Orleans and return with her husband to Florida.  The entire family was aware of this $400 “windfall.”  Bank records back up the “find.”

REPORTED:  Oswald was receiving $200 a month from the FBI


Note: Baker says Oswald received a total of $400 a month from the agencies for which he was doing clandestine and undercover work. 

Assessing the evidence:

The first question ought to be: is the fact possible? If so, are there any circumstances which render it impossible? If the facts are impossible, the witness ought not to be credited.

Is the fact possible?

a) The explanation given by Baker to her family that the $400 was found in a secondhand ironing board that she purchased in a yard sale the day before is difficult to believe: the sum of money was equivalent to $4,000 in today’s funds.

Are there any circumstances which render it impossible?  (What motive did Oswald have for giving Baker that much money?  How did he manage to obtain that much money?)

a) Adrian Alba, a manager of the Crescent City Garage, observed Oswald receiving a large envelope from a government agent.  CIA paymaster Wilcox said Oswald was on the CIA payroll.  An investigation in Texas by the state’s attorney general found Oswald was being paid $200 a month by the FBI as an informant.

b) Baker says the money was provided so Baker and Oswald could meet in Mexico, where they planned to get “quickie” divorces and marry. The “Catholic” document at beginning of this article supplies supporting evidence for this.


Note: When Ruth Paine came to pick up Oswald’s wife, Marina, the book Marina and Lee mentions Oswald weeping as he says goodbye to his toddler daughter, June Lee. Oswald told his wife that he was going “to Cuba” and that she would not see him again.  Oswald told Ruth Paine that he was seeking work in Philadelphia, and Oswald wrote letters implying that he would be in Philadelphia and elsewhere seeking employment.  However, he had purchased a bus ticket to Mexico on August 31, according the WC records.  Baker says she and Oswald had made plans well ahead of time to leave the U.S. and meet in a remote area of Mexico, near Chichen-Itza, Belize, or in the area today known as Cancun (then called Kankun, and undeveloped).

Fact: Quickie divorces were well-known in Mexico. Baker notes that actress Jayne Mansfield obtained a quickie divorce from Mickey Haggerty in early May, 1963 in this manner, which she had seen in the newspapers and shown to Oswald.


Fact: Rumors that Oswald has sought information about divorces at the Mexican border were so widespread that the FBI investigated them.  They could not find any conclusive evidence, but because of poor weather conditions, only investigated a rumor emanating from just one town.


Note: Baker says CIA asset Alex Rorke and his pilot were supposed to fly her from Florida to Mexico soon after Oswald’s arrival in Mexico City.


Fact:  Oswald crossed the border on September 26 on his way to Mexico City.


Fact:  Rorke and his pilot were shot down in Cuban waters after taking off from the Yucatan and crossing over Cuban waters, \while possibly en route to Florida.


Note: Baker states that Oswald called her in Houston before crossing the border to tell her Rorke had gone missing and that she should not prepare for the anticipated flight after all.


Fact: Oswald was using a telephone the night Baker says she was informed that Rorke had gone missing and she should not prepare for the flight to the Yucatan.  It is known that Oswald made at least one telephone call from the Houston area just before crossing the border into Mexico, to Mrs. H. Twiford.


Another kind of evidence is that of the eyewitness who makes a distinct statement of having recognized the person in question regarding activities or sightings that prove the person in question is a truth-teller.


A credible witness is an individual whose statements are reasonable and believable. A witness's statements are generally accepted as true unless his/her testimony is thoroughly discredited. A witness is, in general, presumed to speak the truth.  IN BRIEF: A person who is able to report on something seen. A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about a significant event through their senses (e.g. seeing, hearing, smelling, touching), and can help certify important considerations to the event. A witness who has seen the event firsthand is known as an "eye-witness".


"If Oswald can't be connected to such an office" as the one he mentioned in his letters to FPCC headquarters,(78) the La Fontaines write, "whether as a room he really paid money for, was allowed to use for free, or just visited on occasion -- and if that office can't be solidly placed in a specific Camp Street building" -- the one in which Guy Banister's office was located -- "then the game's over," they declare.(79) "Posner wins."(80)


"Only the Camp Street building can put Oswald in the company of other 'conspirators,'" they conclude. "Without this connection firmly in hand, the proponents of a conspiratorial Oswald" would find their theories all to be "built on sand."(81) "Everything turns on this office, then. On this site, the battle of New Orleans will be decided."(82)


So be it. 


http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ripples.htm

Footnote: re Delphine Roberts’ veracity: This well-written piece by Dave Reitzes, who since has totally abandoned any stance concerning Oswald's innocence, to his shame, for he knows better, neatly summarized the problems with Gerald Posner’s discrediting of Roberts’ statements.  What a shame that soon after this, Reitzes became a Warren Commission supporter whose later articles are slanted to the dark side.


“In Case Closed, author Gerald Posner spends three pages attempting to

discredit Delphine Roberts, first by quoting her views on race and

religion (Posner, 140), then dismissing her story -- given under oath to

the House Select Committee on Assassinations and to journalist Anthony

Summers, among others -- as simply "unreliable" (Ibid., 141). In regard

to Anthony Summers, Posner quotes Roberts as saying, "I didn't tell him

all the truth." The remark, innocuous enough on its face -- she didn't

tell Summers the whole story; big surprise -- happens to lack a source

citation. Ms. Roberts' statement that every Japanese person "should have been

wiped off the face of the earth" receives a citation ("Interview with

Delphine Roberts, March 17, 1992"). Her intriguing claim to "being one of

the very few, since the beginning of the world, who has ever read the

sacred scrolls that God himself wrote and gave to the ancient Hebrews for

placing in the Ark of the Covenant" receives a citation ("Ibid."). But "I

didn't tell him all the truth" does not rate even a footnote, as does,

say, Posner's confirmation that Roberts was indeed Guy Banister's

mistress. Then, without furnishing a direct quotation, Posner writes,

"She claims the only reason she told him the story she did was that

Summers, then shooting a television documentary, paid her money" (Ibid.).

He quotes Roberts as saying, "He did give us $500 eventually, and they

did take us to dinner. We did enjoy the dinner" (Ibid.). Again, no

citation. Then, without a direct quotation, he writes, "John Lanne, a

former Banister friend and attorney, acknowledges that Roberts refused to

speak to Summers unless she was paid" (Ibid.).

Perhaps to avoid a costly libel suit by an internationally respected

journalist, the self-described "Wall Street lawyer" includes -- in a

footnote -- a response from Summers: "Anthony Summers told the author

that he had met with Delphine Roberts at John Lanne's office. There,

Lanne, whom Summers 'thought to be fairly mad, certainly odd," pulled a

pistol from his desk, waved it in the air, and told Summers he could not

interview his client, Delphine. Summers drove Delphine home from that

meeting, and during the ride, 'she suddenly, more or less, broke up, put

her hands to her face, and said, "Mr. Summers, look, why should I bottle

this up?"' She then told him the story he wrote in his book. FOLLOWING

THAT DISCUSSION [emphasis added], Summers told Roberts that he wanted to

do an interview for television. He says that 'several days later, at the

urging of her daughter, Delphine, Jr., a big fat lady [Summers' words,

not Posner's], she agreed to do the interview, not for $500, but if I

rightly recall, for $250 to $300.' Summers says, 'Just so you know, the

general tariff I make is that I DO NOT PAY PEOPLE TO DO INTERVIEWS FOR

THE BOOK, EVER [emphasis added], but I do regard television interviews as

a different thing' (Interview with Anthony Summers, May 31, 1993)"

(Posner, 141fn.). So according to Posner, who cites interviews in *Case Closed* that

several of his subjects say never occurred (two examples being JFK

autopsy pathologist J. Thornton Boswell and key assassination witness

James Tague), Delphine Roberts only talks for money. Yet she told

essentially the same story she told Summers to the Dallas *Morning News*

with no payment whatsoever, just as she testified under oath to the same

facts before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, who were also

not in the habit of paying witnesses. In 1982, Roberts affirmed to author

Henry Hurt not only that Summers' published account of her interview was

accurate (Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, 292), but also that her decision to

talk followed "an upsetting confrontation with her own lawyer" (Ibid.),

supporting Summers' recollection which was unpublished until 1993.
----
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