PAT SPEER SAID:
The story Givens told the SS included a reference to the clipboard and sixth floor, but was quite clear in that this happened BEFORE Givens went down for lunch and heard Oswald yelling out from the fifth floor. The bit about going back up for cigarettes and seeing Oswald--which the commission used to claim Oswald never went down for lunch--was introduced during Givens' testimony, and Belin failed to confront him on this.
Here is the SS report.
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
Thanks for finding this Secret Service report, Pat. I noticed that it's a summary of all the TSBD interviews conducted by three SS agents between 12/2 and 12/6. IOW, pretty early.
The document says:
QUOTE:
"Givens, along with other employees working on the sixth floor, was laying the new plywood floor. Givens stated that he saw Oswald on the sixth floor at about 11:45 A.M. on that date [11/22/63], and that Oswald was carrying a clipboard that appeared to have some orders on it. Givens felt that Oswald was looking for some books to fill an order, which is his job, and did not give the matter further thought. Shortly thereafter, Givens and the other employees working on the floor-laying project quit for lunch and they took both elevators. They were racing the elevators to the first floor and Givens heard Oswald call to them to send one of the elevators back up."
UNQUOTE
What is wrong with this picture? Oswald is on the sixth floor and then he's on the fifth?
Givens testified that he and the others went downstairs at about 11:45. Others on the floor-laying crew placed Oswald on the 5th floor calling for the elevator, but NONE of them testified that Oswald had come up to the sixth floor while they were working.
PAT SPEER SAID:
Bonnie Ray Williams said he saw Oswald on the east side of the sixth floor at some point before lunch, but he didn't specify the time.
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
You're right, I forgot about Williams. Sorry. (He did start his answer, though, with "I am not sure.")
[...]
I think that whoever wrote the SS account misunderstood Givens and simply got the sequence of events wrong. If there's another explanation for the discrepancy that makes sense, let me hear it, please.
Belin may've been wrong not to pursue it, but I don't think you can show that he was "trying to deceive." There were two different versions of Givens' story in the record -- the SS version placed Oswald on the 6th floor, while the FBI account didn't mention it.
PAT SPEER SAID:
Here's an explanation. Givens DID see Oswald on the sixth floor before going down for lunch, and was later convinced to say this happened after going down for lunch.
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
I don't think that's the most probable explanation, by any means. First of all, the Secret Service version is second- or third-hand, and the other is a sworn statement in Givens' own words. If you can show that he lied, fine.
PAT SPEER SAID:
Well, I've already shown it. Belin repeatedly claimed that Givens was the last one to see Oswald in the building, even though he knew Piper had consistently and from the beginning claimed to see Oswald at a later time than Givens. That's called "lying."
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
Not if he had some reason to disregard Piper's testimony. Besides, I was talking about Givens. Suspicion aside, can you show that he lied? After that, can you show that anyone put him up to it? That's a tall order, seems to me.
While it's true that witnesses who change their stories appear to be unreliable, it doesn't work the other way around. Witnesses can often be perfectly consistent, repeat something over and over, and still be dead wrong.
JEAN DAVISON ALSO SAID:
The Secret Service report shows that Givens' testimony wasn't an entirely different story. There is also some support for it. The 6th floor crew had seen/heard Oswald on the 5th floor as they rode the elevators downstairs around 11:45. Oswald could've gone up one flight as soon as the flooring crew left in order to be there by the time Givens came back upstairs. And the clipboard Givens said he saw was found there near the stairwell.
[...]
Most if not all of the things CTs typically complain about could easily be thrown out without exonerating Oswald -- Givens, the palm print, the BY [backyard] photos, etc. I regret discussing these things over and over, because they don't really matter very much.
The best evidence against Oswald can't be refuted because it involves events that are set in stone, like his known movements on 11/22. .... How could anyone hope to frame Oswald without controlling his movements? Suppose he went outside and turned up in the Altgens photo. And then he told reporters he was inside the building at the time. Makes no sense.
REPLAY....
PAT SPEER SAID:
Here's an explanation. Givens DID see Oswald on the sixth floor before going down for lunch, and was later convinced to say this happened after going down for lunch.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That's ridiculous, since we're only talking about a very few minutes in real time here (probably less than 3 minutes in actual time).
Plus, as noted previously by other posters, Givens' account of seeing Oswald on the sixth floor at about 11:55 doesn't put LHO on the sixth floor (or inside the Sniper's Nest) when the shooting occurred at 12:30. It only puts him on an upper floor of the building at about 11:55.
And here's a very important point that I think conspiracy theorists overlook:
Charlie Givens is not even needed when it comes to putting Oswald on an upper floor of the TSBD at about lunchtime on 11/22/63. And that's because there were multiple OTHER employees who testified that Oswald yelled down the elevator shaft (from either the fifth or sixth floor) when the other employees raced the elevators downstairs.
So Givens making up a lie about seeing Oswald is not even needed to put Oswald on an upper floor of the Book Depository about 45 minutes before the assassination.
And surely there aren't too many conspiracists who want to call all three of the following TSBD employees liars when it comes to their testimony about hearing Lee Oswald shout down the elevator shaft from an upper floor shortly before noon on November 22 --- Bonnie Ray Williams, Billy Lovelady, and Danny Arce.
All three of the above employees testified they heard Oswald's voice coming from an upper (fifth or sixth) floor. Therefore, why would Charles Givens lie about anything relating to Lee Harvey Oswald's whereabouts around noontime on November 22, 1963?
I suppose the conspiracy theorists will insist that the police and FBI desperately HAD to have a witness say that he physically saw Lee Oswald on the SIXTH floor shortly before the assassination (vs. the inconclusive testimony of Arce, Williams, and Lovelady concerning the exact floor that Oswald was on when he yelled down the elevator shaft).
But that type of speculation regarding the authorities in this case (although it's speculation that has become commonplace and routine among CTers, of course) is something I do not buy at all -- particularly when there are so many other people who could (and did) testify to the fact that Oswald was, indeed, on an upper TSBD floor around lunchtime. (Plus there's Howard Brennan as well, who saw Oswald actually murder JFK.)
David Von Pein
February 10, 2012
