GREG PARKER SAID:
David, you have added punctuation where there was none in the original [notes of DPD Captain J. Will Fritz].
Let's see how differently placed punctuation changes things, shall we?
"Claims 2nd floor Coke when Off[icer] came in to first floor [where I] had lunch. [Then] out with Bill Shelley in front. Left w[or]k [as] opinion [was that] nothing would be done that day."
This fits with the account of the interrogation given by Harry Holmes AND with the very earliest newspaper accounts which cited police sources as saying that a cop had questioned Oswald on the first floor before letting him loose...that cop was likely someone other than Baker.
The second floor Baker-Truly-Oswald encounter was a pure fabrication. The Baker encounter happened on the 3rd or 4th floor just as he initially claimed and with a person 20 pounds heavier and about 7 years older than Oswald just as he initially claimed AND never repudiated. This person (unlike Oswald) was a very good match for the suspect seen by Rowland and Brennan.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I didn't "add" a darn thing, Greg. It's a direct copy-&-paste quote from Bugliosi's book.
Bugliosi didn't add any punctuation either, btw. He merely added bracketed text for clarification. The Fritz quotes are verbatim otherwise.
GREG SAID:
Here is your cut and paste from Bugliosi:
“Claims 2nd Floor Coke when Off [Officer] came in, to 1st fl had lunch, out with Bill Shelley in front. Left wk [work] opinion nothing be done that day.”
Do you see those little marks between "in" and "to" and "lunch" and "out"? They are called commas, David.
And they do not appear in Fritz' original note. Adding them gives a certain meaning which may not have originally been intended.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Greg,
The "commas" added by Mr. Bugliosi are necessary (and they are not deceiving in the slightest way). They simply serve as the "breaks" in paragraphing. The commas substitute for the physical paragraphing that we find in Captain Fritz' original handwritten notes.
Without the commas that Bugliosi has inserted in his book, it would look like all of Fritz' words were one continuous thought, which they obviously were not.
I will admit my earlier error, however, when I said that Bugliosi had added NO punctuation at all. He did add the commas. I stand corrected. Thank you.
I suppose Bugliosi COULD have written the Fritz notes in the same "line-by-line" structure that Fritz himself used on 11/22/63 when he wrote those notes (sans the commas), but Vince didn't do that on page 537 of "RH" ["Reclaiming History"] endnotes.
Fritz wrote the notes in such a manner so that each line (or paragraph) of text was representing a SEPARATE OBSERVATION or a separate thought:
But the alternate manner in which VB printed out the Fritz notes on page 537 (with commas inserted) is, IMO, definitely correct, in order to give the proper meaning of the original notes.
Perhaps Bugliosi should have placed brackets [] around each comma. But most people only utilize brackets when they're adding WORDS, not punctuation, like Bugliosi did with [Officer] and [work], for clarity.
Footnote -- You [Greg] were wrong, though, when you accused ME of adding the punctuation. I never added a thing.
GREG SAID:
Commas do not substitute for paragraphing.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yes, they most certainly do. (As anyone can easily see--and determine.)
GREG SAID:
It [Captain Fritz' handwritten notes] makes absolutely no sense. There is no "spacing" or extra line breaks to help make sense of it--let alone punctuation.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Captain J. Will Fritz' handwritten notes make perfect sense, per Vincent Bugliosi's book (and the punctuation that Bugliosi properly and correctly added to those Fritz notes).
Why is this so?
Because Bugliosi KNOWS WHAT THE MEANING OF THE NOTES IS.
And Bugliosi knows this because he's not relying on JUST Fritz' handwritten notes. He's relying also on Fritz' final typewritten report, which was based partly on his notes.
Therefore, when Bugliosi added his two "commas", he did so with the knowledge of WHERE exactly those commas (i.e., breaks) should go, because Bugliosi had also read Fritz' final typed report [Warren Report, Pg. 600].
Why isn't that fact obvious to everyone, even Greg?
GREG SAID:
You weren't even aware that the Bug [Vincent Bugliosi] had changed anything in the notes till I pointed it out, and it has taken several days since for you to formulate this response -- which has taken approximately 5 minutes for me to demolish.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You've demolished nothing. Bugliosi's "commas" are in the proper places to align with Fritz' typed report on WR p.600. And this is true regardless of whether I was initially aware that Bugliosi had inserted any commas or not.
GREG SAID:
Clearly Fritz' report was not based on the interrogations. It was based on what his assistants dredged up from other sources e.g. Truly's false report of 11/23. If it had been based on the interrogations, it would reflect the same information as the Holmes and Hosty/Bookhout reports (as his own notes in fact do when read with the correct punctuation!)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
What a bunch of crap.
Captain Fritz, in his final typewritten report, says these words over and over again: "I asked him...". And then Fritz goes on to say what Oswald's replies were after he was "asked" the various questions by Fritz himself.
Let me guess, you think Captain Fritz merely used the words "I asked him" dozens of times in his final, formal report just to throw people off, right Greg?
GREG SAID:
Oswald says [via Captain Fritz' report] he is having lunch on the first floor when the motorcade passes but Fritz recalls Truly telling him that a cop stopped him "somewhere near the back stairway". This of course, could only be a reference to the first floor.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why does it have to mean ONLY the first floor?
That reference made by Captain Fritz obviously DOES NOT have to indicate only the first floor.
How do we know this?
Because the encounter between Oswald and Baker did not occur on the first floor, it occurred on the second floor. So, quite logically, that reference to "somewhere near the back stairway" MUST be referring to WHERE THE OSWALD/BAKER ENCOUNTER ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE. And it wasn't on Floor #1.
Plus, the place where Marrion Baker stopped Lee Oswald WAS, indeed, "somewhere near the back stairway" on the second floor. It was very close to the "back stairway", in fact, otherwise Officer Baker would NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO SEE OSWALD as Baker was hurriedly climbing those back stairs.
And in the following 1963 Secret Service reconstruction video, we can see just how close the "back stairway" is to the door which leads to the second-floor lunchroom (at the 23:15 mark near the very end of the video):
GREG SAID:
What is more interesting is that, according to Fritz, Oswald disagrees with Truly and insists he was on the 2nd floor DRINKING a coke. Oswald is giving a worse alibi than that initially offered up for him by Truly!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Any additional hairs you wish to split today?
The "Coke" thing has been over-emphasized by conspiracy theorists for 40+ years. Oswald was probably in that lunchroom within sixty seconds of firing his third and last rifle bullet at President Kennedy.
The trip from the sixth-floor Sniper's Nest to the second-floor lunchroom was reconstructed by John Howlett of the Secret Service in only 74 seconds, and that was with Howlett moving at merely a "fast walk" [WR; Pg. 152].
No test was done by the Secret Service or the Warren Commission (as far as I'm aware) that had someone attempting to get from the sixth floor to the second floor while RUNNING or JOGGING. The only tests mentioned on Page 152 of the Warren Report are two "walking" tests. And even there, we've got Howlett getting to the second floor in 78 seconds or less on each of his two "walking" re-creation tests.
BTW, the re-creation of the agent going from the 6th Floor to the 2nd Floor that is shown in the Secret Service video above is not one of the two re-creations that are mentioned on Page 152 of the Warren Report. The two WC/USSS reconstruction tests were performed on March 20, 1964, whereas that Secret Service video was made in late 1963.
Also -- The man representing the gunman in the video is moving at a snail's pace during the time he is on camera. Oswald would have unquestionably been moving much faster than the man is moving in that Secret Service reconstruction video.
And Oswald would have also very likely been moving quite a bit faster than John Howlett's "walking" re-creations that were done in March 1964.
Plus, as has been mentioned by others on these forums in the past, it's quite possible (but not provable, of course) that Oswald could have merely grabbed himself a Coke bottle off of one of the tables just after he entered the lunchroom.
There are photos taken of the lunchroom, in fact, which show Coke bottles on one of the tables, with the picture below being one such photo (and, FWIW, one of the two Coke bottles in this photograph is nearly full). I do not know, however, exactly when this picture was taken, or if it was taken on 11/22/63 or not:
[And here's another photo.]
In any event, even if Oswald bought his Coke out of the soda machine on the second floor, he still would have had enough time, IMO, to travel the distance from his sixth-floor sniper's perch to the second-floor lunchroom and purchase a Coke from the vending machine before he encountered Officer Baker. And that's because it's highly doubtful that Lee Harvey Oswald was merely "walking" from the sixth floor to the lunchroom.
GREG SAID:
All immaterial. I don't care about the Coke. I don't need the Coke to prove Oswald could or could not get down from the 6th floor in time for a Baker encounter since clearly THERE WAS NO BAKER ENCOUNTER ON THE SECOND FLOOR.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh, goodie! A CTer gets to call somebody else a big fat liar (again)--Roy S. Truly this time, since Truly corroborates Baker's SECOND-floor encounter with everybody's favorite patsy for all 11/22 murders.
Pathetic attempts at rewriting the history of this crime. As per usual.
GREG SAID:
Pathetic attempt at rebuttal - ignoring the details while screwing up the most basic point.
Truly did NOT corroborate Baker. Baker made his statement on 11/22. It said he had an encounter on the 3rd or 4th floor with a person whose description did not match Oswald. Truly made his statement 11/23 saying there was an encounter with Oswald in the 2nd floor lunchroom. How is THAT corroboration of Baker's statement? You may live in the Twilight Zone, but from where I am, that is not corroboration of Baker's statement.
You possibly meant to say that Baker later changed his tune and fell into line with the official lie?
"Back stairway" = "2nd floor landing"? LOL
Show me ONE instance where any of the official documents referred to the landing of any floor as anything OTHER than a landing. Show me ONE instance in any of the official documents where the stairway at the back of the building is referred to in any other way than as the "back stairway".
Good luck with that one!
And oh yes I've checked. ;-)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Truly most definitely corroborated Baker...via WC testimony.
Let me guess--BOTH Baker AND Truly lied their respective asses off in front of the evil, strong-arming Warren Commission. Right, Gregory?
In short -- Greg is just creating a make-believe person on the "3rd or 4th floor" that Greg himself knows was never there.
But, like virtually all CTers, Greg likes fantasy and make-believe shooters way more than the facts.
David Von Pein
February 2010
