Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in
Dallas on November 22, 1963. The evidence that shows Oswald to be
guilty of that murder is massive in quantity and scope.
Many people seem to think that Oswald would have walked away a free
man, in a court of law, if he had not been killed himself by Jack
Ruby's bullet on November 24, 1963.
And some conspiracy theorists also think that if Oswald himself had
taken the witness stand at his trial, he would have somehow exonerated
himself and (per certain CTers) would have revealed himself to be just
what those CTers think Oswald was -- an innocent "patsy", who was set
up and framed for the murder of President Kennedy.
But, in my opinion, it's very unlikely that Lee Oswald would have
taken the witness stand at his own trial (had he lived long enough to
do so). He would have been a fool, in fact, to take that witness stand
and say a single word to the jury who would be ultimately deciding his
fate.
A prosecutor like Vincent T. Bugliosi would probably have been able to
convict Oswald (in the jury's mind) within the first few minutes of
Vincent's cross-examination of LHO.
Let's listen to some of the questions that Mr. Bugliosi would probably
have asked Oswald during LHO's first minutes on that witness stand in
court (and we'll also listen in to Lee's likely answers as well)......
-------------------------------
BUGLIOSI -- "Mr. Oswald, I now show you Commission Exhibit number 139,
which is a bolt-action Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial number C2766.
Police officers who testified at this trial have verified the fact
that this exact rifle was found on the sixth floor of your workplace,
the Texas School Book Depository, just 52 minutes after President
Kennedy was shot and killed from right in front of that building on
November the 22nd, 1963. A palmprint of yours was located on this
exact weapon. .... I ask you now, Mr. Oswald, have you ever seen this
rifle before?"
OSWALD -- "No, sir. I have not."
BUGLIOSI -- "Did you, Mr. Oswald, ever send in a mail-order coupon to
Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago, a coupon for a 6.5-millimeter
carbine rifle, during the first half of the year 1963?"
OSWALD -- "No, sir. I didn't order any rifle through the mail."
BUGLIOSI -- "Have you ever owned a rifle in your lifetime, Mr.
Oswald....a privately-owned rifle, that is, since you got out of the
Marine Corps in late 1959?"
OSWALD -- "No, sir. I have never owned a rifle in my life."
BUGLIOSI -- "Mr. Oswald, I now show you Commission Exhibit number 134,
a photograph of a man who looks exactly like you--Lee Harvey Oswald.
This man in the photo, who looks like you, is holding a rifle, has a
handgun in a holster around his waist, and is also holding up two
Russian newspapers, dated March 11th and March 24th of 1963. .... I
ask you now, Mr. Oswald, are you the man depicted in this photograph?"
OSWALD -- "No, sir. That picture must be a fake or something. I never
posed for any picture like that in my life."
BUGLIOSI -- "Mr. Oswald, I now direct your attention to the date of
President Kennedy's assassination--November the 22nd, 1963--and I ask
you now, Mr. Oswald, if you know a young man by the name of Buell
Wesley Frazier?"
OSWALD -- "Yes, I worked with him at the book store....the Depository,
I mean."
BUGLIOSI -- "And did Mr. Frazier give you a ride to work on the
morning of President Kennedy's visit to Dallas--that is the morning of
Friday, November the 22nd, 1963?"
OSWALD -- "Yes....I believe I did ride to work with him that morning."
BUGLIOSI -- "Okay. And did you bring any type of paper package with
you to work on that particular morning?"
OSWALD -- "I brought my lunch. That's all."
BUGLIOSI -- "You brought ONLY a lunch sack with you to work on
November 22nd, is that correct?"
OSWALD -- "Yes, sir. I had my lunch with me."
BUGLIOSI -- "Did you have any OTHER paper package with you that
morning at all? Anything larger than a small lunch bag?"
OSWALD -- "No, I had nothing else with me that day."
BUGLIOSI -- "Wesley Frazier, just this morning, told this court and
this jury that he observed you carrying a much-larger paper bag on the
morning of November the 22nd. Mr. Frazier said that you told him you
had some curtain rods in that larger paper package. Did you tell
Wesley Frazier anything like that on the morning of November 22nd?"
OSWALD -- "No, sir! Absolutely not! I don't know why he'd say a thing
like that. I never told him anything like that."
BUGLIOSI -- "Mr. Oswald, another witness--Mr. Frazier's sister, Linnie
Mae Randle--also testified during this trial that she also observed
you carrying a bulky-type brown paper bag as you walked toward her
house in Irving, Texas, around 7:10 AM on the morning of November
22nd, 1963. Was she mistaken, Mr. Oswald? Did she ONLY see your small
paper lunch sack?"
OSWALD -- "Well...er...I...uh...I really can't speak for what another
witness might or might not have said. I can only tell you that she's
wrong if she said I had a big bag with me that day. I just carried my
lunch to work, like I usually do on work days."
BUGLIOSI -- "Thank you, Mr. Oswald....no further questions at this
time."
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The above questioning of Oswald would have been, of course, preceded
by a parade of witnesses who would have confirmed (without a shred of
a doubt) that Lee Oswald DID purchase Rifle #C2766 by mail-order in
March 1963, and WAS photographed (by his own wife) while holding that
weapon on 3/31/63, and DID take a bulky paper package into the Book
Depository on 11/22/63.
Who do you think the jury is going to believe? The accused murderer?
Or the succession of several different witnesses who all paint Oswald
as the liar he obviously was when he told Mr. Bugliosi (via my
simulated courtroom proceeding above): "I have never owned a rifle in
my life"?
The jury wouldn't even break a sweat on that decision.
In short, Lee Harvey Oswald's many, many LIES would have done almost
as much to convict the bastard as would the wealth of physical and
circumstantial evidence in the JFK case (which also convicts him ten
times over, of course).
Here's a real quote from Vincent T. Bugliosi this time (from the
1986 TV Mock Trial of LHO), in which VB says pretty much the same
thing I just said above regarding Oswald's non-stop stream of lies
that he told in order to distance himself further and further from
the two murders (JFK's and J.D. Tippit's) he was charged with in '63:
"When he was interrogated, Oswald, from his own lips, he TOLD us he
was guilty....he told us he was guilty....almost the same as if he had
said 'I murdered President Kennedy'....he told us. How did he tell us?
Well, the lies he told, one after another, showed an UNMISTAKABLE
consciousness of guilt. If Oswald were innocent, why did he find it
necessary to deny purchasing that Carcano rifle from the Klein's store
in Chicago? Why did he even deny owning any rifle at all? Why did he
find it necessary to do that if he's innocent?" -- VINCENT BUGLIOSI;
1986
David Von Pein
June 2007
LINK TO ORIGINAL POST (JUNE 30, 2007)
