[NOTE --- IN ADDITION TO JAMES DiEUGENIO
AND DVP, A FEW OTHER PEOPLE TAKE PART
IN THE DISCUSSIONS BELOW AS WELL.]
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
When did the Coke appear? ....
Since [Marrion] Baker was confused about this point all the way to September, and I don't think [Roy] Truly mentioned it in his testimony, when was the first appearance of the Coke Oswald allegedly was drinking on the second floor?
Did it come from the Fritz notes?
JAMES DiEUGENIO LATER SAID:
I got a reply from Greg Parker on this....
He says that the first mention of the coke was in Oswald's FBI interrogation. But the problem with that was he made it pretty clear that he had gotten the coke before the motorcade had come by and was drinking and eating on the first floor.
Therefore, after he was killed, both the FBI and DPD went to work changing that story to vitiate his alibi.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And Oswald would never lie.....right Jim?
http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/The Lies Of Lee Harvey Oswald
http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/Oswald, Baker, Truly, And The Coke
B.A. COPELAND SAID:
For the record, what is your explanation for Baker's lack of a 2nd floor lunchroom encounter in his first affidavit? He wrote it on the very day, according to the record.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Marrion Baker describes the encounter in his original affidavit. He just didn't specifically say the encounter occurred in the "lunchroom".
Given the frantic circumstances just after the assassination, I think it's quite possible that Baker might not have had the slightest idea he had encountered Oswald in a "lunchroom" at all. The brief encounter took just a matter of seconds, and Baker was certainly not concentrating his attention on the TYPE of room he was in at the time he shoved his gun up against Oswald's mid-section. And Baker, of course, wasn't familiar with the layout of the building at all on November 22. So he might have only later learned that the encounter took place in the Depository's lunchroom.
Yes, Baker got the floor number wrong in his November 22 affidavit. But the absolute proof that the "Oswald/Baker Lunchroom Encounter" took place is Roy Truly's presence there in the lunchroom when Baker saw Oswald. Truly confirmed it happened on the SECOND FLOOR and in the LUNCHROOM. And Truly confirmed it was OSWALD who had been stopped by Baker.
Do conspiracy believers really want to drag Roy S. Truly through the mud by labelling him a liar or a "conspirator"? Come on. That's just silly.
Also --- I'm wondering if the skeptics would be more willing to accept the lunchroom encounter if Officer Baker had said "second or third floor" in his original affidavit, instead of "third or fourth floor"? I doubt they would. But it's quite clear to me that Baker wasn't sure at all which floor he was on when he saw Oswald. Hence his writing "third or fourth floor".
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I once said that DVP should do stand up.
The proof of that is above us for all to see.
The guy just rewrote the first day Baker affidavit. Which does not take place in the lunchroom, does not take place on the right floor, and which features no coke, and the guy he accosted does not fit the correct description and is wearing a jacket. Dave says, no problem.
...Oswald's words were transformed, but Davey says, forget it.
At least he did not say this time: Vince Bugliosi said it happened alright!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And the one person DiEugenio completely ignored just now is Roy S. Truly, who is the person who verified the "encounter" took place on the SECOND FLOOR in the LUNCHROOM with OSWALD.
But I guess Roy Truly was just one more lying S.O.B. who wanted to frame poor Lee Harvey, right Jim?
(Jimmy's stand-up gig in Vegas awaits.)
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
If the lunchroom encounter never occurred at all, then can any conspiracy theorist provide an explanation for why both Marrion Baker and Roy Truly would have a desire to go on national TV in September of 1964 and tell lie after lie regarding their encounter with Lee Oswald on 11/22/63?
Those two men weren't being forced to go on television and repeat their alleged lies....so why would either man want to say the things they said in the 1964 video shown below? Did they do it just for kicks---even though, according to many conspiracy believers, they knew they would have to lie their asses off every second they were on camera with CBS News?
And the same question applies to Marrion Baker and his VOLUNTARY appearance at the 1986 Bugliosi/Spence docu-trial [see video below]. Baker wasn't issued a subpoena forcing him to appear at that mock trial. So why did he want to (again) go on national TV and lie his butt off? Who would do a thing like that--over and over again--if he didn't HAVE to?
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
David,
I believe that Roy Truly was a CIA asset and was instructed to do what he did.
Marrion Baker was probably told that his lies were necessary to prevent WW3, or some other national security nonsense. He was doing his patriotic duty.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And that must mean you think that Marrion Baker thought that "prevent[ing] WW3, or some other national security nonsense" was STILL a valid reason for him to voluntarily appear on television and lie his butt off in the year 1986, twenty-three years after the assassination. Correct?
And weren't the conspirators/plotters super-lucky to have a "CIA asset" named Roy Truly employed as the Superintendent of the Book Depository on the day JFK was shot?
Was Truly "planted" in the building as a TSBD employee by his CIA handlers? If so, those plotters sure had great foresight, because Truly had worked for the Depository for 29 years as of 11/22/63:
MR. TRULY -- "I went to work for the Texas School Book Depository in July 1934."
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
We have no way of knowing why Baker went on that show 23 years later. I mean, why would he do that even if he did tell the truth in 1963/64? Do you think he wanted media attention? I don't.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Then you'll admit it would have been a very odd thing for Baker to have done (to go on TV voluntarily 23 years later) if he knew he was going to have to tell one lie after another to the American public....right?
But going on TV in order to tell the TRUTH (and to get a free trip to London, England) doesn't sound very odd at all. Wouldn't you agree, Sandy?
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
I don't know, David. I wouldn't do it myself, even for a free trip. But everybody is different.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Why don't we ask Davey Boy why Marvin Johnson lied when he changed Baker's first day affidavit?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Johnson didn't "change" Baker's affidavit. Why did you word it that way?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Why did Johnson add that Baker identified Oswald on the fourth floor, when in fact, that guy does not resemble Oswald?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Anybody telling the story of the "Baker/Oswald encounter" AFTER THE FACT (such as Marvin Johnson) very likely had to have known that the person Baker saw in the TSBD was definitely Lee Harvey Oswald. Roy Truly VERIFIED that fact for all time, and all reasonable people examining this case know it. But, being a charter member of the popular Anybody But Oswald club, Jim DiEugenio has no capacity for properly assessing and evaluating the evidence in a reasonable manner.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
And why did Johnson also add that Baker identified Oswald in the witness room. When in fact, Baker made his first day affidavit out in that room and never wrote one word out that LHO was sitting opposite him there. (See Reclaiming Parkland, pgs.218-19. Soon to be re-released as JFK: The Evidence Today.)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That particular argument brought forth constantly by Internet conspiracy theorists has always made me laugh. Why CTers think that Officer Baker had a strict obligation to add these words to his affidavit is beyond me....
Oh, btw, the guy I saw in the TSBD is in the same room with me right now as I'm writing this affidavit.
But, IMO, the above information isn't the kind of info that someone would necessarily feel they needed to include in their written statement. I don't think I would have included such information either. Now, maybe some people would have included such information (had they actually seen Lee Oswald in the same room with them when they wrote their statement), but others likely would not include it.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Further, why did Spence not bring this up at that phony as a three dollar bill trial?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
#1. I don't think Gerry Spence knew a whole lot of the minutiae pertaining to the JFK murder case.
#2. Even if he did know every last detail of the case, Spence knew that his opponent at the mock trial—Vincent Bugliosi—would be able to rip to shreds the defense notion that Oswald really wasn't encountered by Officer Baker in the lunchroom. How could Bugliosi do this? Two words: Roy Truly.
So, yes, Spence could have brought up the incredibly stupid "There Was No Lunchroom Encounter At All" theory at the 1986 TV docu-trial, but if he had brought it up, Spence would have ended up looking very silly after Vince came back with the true facts. And at a real trial (instead of just a mock trial where no subpoenas were issued for any of the witnesses), Roy Truly would, of course, have been called to the stand by Bugliosi, versus what happened at the mock trial, when Baker had to tell us what Truly said about OSWALD being the person encountered in the lunchroom (which is testimony that probably wouldn't have been allowed at a real trial in the first place, because it's hearsay).*
* And that part of Bugliosi's questioning of Officer Baker wasn't entirely accurate, and should have elicited an objection from Mr. Spence, but it did not. The inaccuracy occurs when Baker tells Bugliosi that Roy Truly told Baker during the lunchroom encounter that the man Baker had just stopped at gunpoint was named "Lee Oswald". In actuality, of course, Baker didn't learn Oswald's name until much later. But I'm guessing that the questioning was done that way merely to save time at the televised mock trial. Many technically inappropriate questions were put forth to the witnesses at that docu-trial in London. At a real trial, of course, we would have seen many more objections and sidebar conferences, etc. But because of the strict time limitations for the TV trial, many things were overlooked by Judge Bunton at the London mock trial in 1986.
BART KAMP SAID:
That stupid trial and that stupid CBS interview are both a joke. A well rehearsed one at best. Zero evidentiary value. Baker got himself a nice candy arse trip, so did the others.
Watch Harold Norman being interviewed by Spence and see how many times Norman's eyes glance towards Vince B. Too funny.
Baker and Truly contradicted themselves when it came to...
1. How they entered the building.
2. Who said "let's take the stairs".
3. Who walked ahead of whom on those stairs.
4. Oswald's actual position inside the lunch room during the encounter.
5. That damn coke!
And then there are the many reports Oswald was seen on the first floor and encountered........ah yes, those reports.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And all of that subterfuge and lying was done just so they could—what was it now?—oh, yes....just so they could falsely place Oswald on the SECOND FLOOR instead of the FIRST FLOOR (which is where most CTers say he was in the first place).
Hardly seems worth it, does it? Because the SECOND FLOOR isn't the SIXTH FLOOR, is it?
You'd think the crafters of this Baker/Oswald ruse would have had Baker and Truly (both rotten liars, according to CTers) say they saw Oswald dashing down the stairs between the SIXTH and FIFTH floors. Such a fabricated tale would have been infinitely better for the "Let's Frame Oswald" team of plotters. But no! They only wanted to say they saw him on the SECOND floor. As if THAT story somehow nails the resident "patsy" to the cross more efficiently. (Hilarious!)
Please explain for me, Bart, why the plotters and patsy-framers didn't make up a better lie regarding WHERE Baker and Truly saw Oswald. After all, most Internet CTers think BOTH of those men (Marrion Baker and Roy Truly) were evil rotten liars anyway. So why not have them say they saw Oswald either ON the sixth floor or coming down the stairs nearer to the sixth floor?
The fact that the "Lunchroom Encounter" makes ZERO sense if it were, in fact, just made up from whole cloth is one of the reasons to know that it really did happen the way Officer Baker and Roy S. Truly always said it happened.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
It always astounds me the way that DVP contorts, stretches, and distorts both the evidence and the English language in his long failed attempt to prop up the indignities and disgraces that make up the Warren Report.
Any objective person--which DVP does not even come close to qualifying as--would say that when someone who was not at the scene alters the first day affidavit of someone who was at the scene, and does so in a material way, then that is a completely unwarranted and unjustified alteration in the evidence trail. It makes sense that DVP has no problem with this, because in a large way, this is how the WR made its case throughout. Which is why, in a real trial--not the London sideshow--the case against Oswald would very likely be thrown out.
Now, unless DVP thinks that description Baker made of a guy being on the third or fourth floor wearing a brown jacket and about 30-35 pounds heavier than Oswald, actually was Oswald--and I do not see how anyone can say that based on the evidence--then Johnson altered the evidence trail.
The idea that somehow Baker would be sitting opposite Oswald in the witness room--the guy who he almost just killed--and Baker did not walk over to him to say one word, or to ask his name, or the key question: what was he doing there? in order to verify his affidavit, that is so ludicrous, it's something Allen Dulles would say. Which, by the way, Dulles did do. He tried to make an excuse about this saying Oswald was only in the room a brief time. And, let us not forget, Dulles and Belin took the Baker testimony off the record five times. Hmm.
For anyone to call Baker's first day affidavit minutiae, I mean what can one declare about something like that? It's anything but. IMO, it's quite important. Like the early reports about another lying witness Bugliosi used, Mr. Norman. And the exposure of Norman would have been key, since--although Baker appears to have changed his story for the DPD-- Norman changed his story for the infamous Elmer Moore. And man, what any informed person could have done with that--anyone of course except Spence.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Liars, liars, everywhere!! (Per James DiEugenio)....
Johnson, Baker, Truly, Fritz, Paine, Norman, Frazier, Randle, the whole Warren Commission, plus dozens of others.
It's hilarious! There's no other word but "hilarious" to describe the constant "LIAR" refrain. But Jimmy doesn't care. The more liars, the better.
You, Jimmy, are just doing what you always do—quick to label someone as a liar or a conspirator. NO OTHER EXPLANATION is even possible in your world. Isn't that right, James D.?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Davey,
Reading you[r] replies gives me such Xmas hilarity.
Can you give me your address so I can send you a card in thanks?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Baker/Johnson Addendum....
Dallas Police Department Detective Marvin Johnson's undated multi-page statement concerning how he was present at Dallas City Hall when Marrion Baker filled out his affidavit can be found HERE and HERE.
And I don't see any inconsistencies or "alterations" in Baker's statements at all when comparing those two pages from Johnson's statement to this affidavit authored by Marrion Baker.
Johnson's report merely ADDS some additional information that Baker did not choose to include in his 11/22/63 affidavit---that information being the following statement that Johnson said Baker made while both Baker and Johnson were together in the Homicide Bureau of the Dallas Police Department:
"When Patrolman M.L. Baker identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man that he stopped in the Texas School Book Depository Building, Patrolman Baker was in the Homicide Bureau giving an affidavit and Oswald was brought into the room to talk to some Secret Service men. When Baker saw Oswald he stated, "That is the man I stopped on the 4th floor of the School Book Depository"." -- M. Johnson
So, given this portion of the statement made by Marvin Johnson....
"While in the office from 3:00 pm [November 22nd] until 2:00 am [November 23rd] I answered the phone and took an affidavit from Patrolman M.L. Baker."
....it's fairly clear that Detective Johnson himself heard Officer Baker utter the words "That is the man I stopped on the 4th floor of the School Book Depository". And that's why Johnson wrote it down in his own report later on. Johnson heard Baker identify Oswald, but Baker chose not to write down that information in his own affidavit. Simple as that.
But when a dedicated conspiracy theorist like James DiEugenio gets ahold of this very easy-to-figure-out situation regarding Johnson and Baker, it gets turned into a nefarious and devious scenario where Marvin Johnson "lied when he changed Baker's first day affidavit", even though nothing like that occurred at all.
GREG PARKER SAID (VIA JAMES DiEUGENIO'S POST):
Marvin Johnson TOOK Baker's affidavit. I believe that means he wrote it based on Baker responding to questions from Johnson.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I don't think that's the way an affidavit works. (I never thought it was anyway.) The way I have always thought an "affidavit" worked is --- The person giving the affidavit is given a piece of paper and he writes down his own account (statement) of what happened—in his or her own words (without being grilled or interviewed by anybody)—and then that handwritten version is typed up by a DPD or Sheriff's Department clerk to create the final neat typewritten version. And then it gets notarized by a notary public (e.g., Mary Rattan, et al). (It's possible that the handwritten version gets notarized as well, but I'm not positive about that.)
Yes, Marvin Johnson said he "took" Baker's affidavit at City Hall, but I'm not sure that means that Johnson was questioning Baker at all. It could be that Johnson was just THERE when Baker was filling out his written statement, and then Johnson possibly physically took the affidavit into his physical possession and then it made its way into Mary Rattan's hands (the notary public).
I really don't know what the word "took" means in this case. But here are the three HANDWRITTEN pages of Baker's affidavit (below). Can anybody confirm whose handwriting this is? Is it Baker's or Johnson's? The "B" in "M.L. Baker" at the top of page 1 looks somewhat like Baker's own signature that we find on this 9/23/64 statement that Baker initialled and signed, but I'm not 100% sure. Any handwriting experts out there?....
Baker's Affidavit (handwritten version):
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
GREG PARKER SAID:
As for his [DVP's] nonsense about why not say they saw him run down from the 6th floor? Why place him on only the second floor? Let's look at it as much as we can through the eyes of the cops at the time.
1. Oswald was still alive and would refute any such 6th floor flight.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And you actually think that anyone is going to believe the word of the alleged assassin? You must be kidding!
This same kind of "Would Oswald Lie?" argument has cropped up when talking about some of Oswald's other statements that he made while in custody -- such as Oswald claiming he never owned a rifle, and his lie about not knowing anything about the alias "Hidell", and his lie about having never been in Mexico City, and his whopper of a lie when he said "I didn't shoot anybody". Many conspiracy believers seem to think Oswald was being TRUTHFUL in every one of those statements. Naturally, I disagree. Oswald was a Lying Machine on November 22nd and 23rd of 1963. He never stopped lying.
Therefore, WHY on Earth would anyone (a jury or anybody else) start BELIEVING this lying machine named Oswald even if he denied something that WAS, indeed, just made up from whole cloth (like the alternate scenario I proposed earlier about Truly and Baker making up a BETTER lie by saying they had seen Oswald on or near the SIXTH floor, vs. the second floor)?
GREG PARKER SAID:
2. Oswald had mentioned getting a coke.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So what? Once again (like point #1 above), who cares what the ALLEGED ASSASSIN says? Even in the "Let's Pretend" scenarios that I've been talking about in this discussion, who is going to take ANYTHING uttered by the assassin (or the "alleged" assassin) seriously? An assassin is going to LIE a whole lot of the time. And, as all reasonable people know, Oswald (the Real Assassin) DID lie constantly while he was in custody.
GREG PARKER SAID:
3. Oswald had mentioned a cop encounter in or near a vestibule.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Once again --- Who cares what Oswald said?!
If all you're going to do is use OSWALD'S own statements in your arguments, then you've already lost. Because the desperate statements made by the guy charged with the murder aren't going to carry much weight with a jury (or anybody).
GREG PARKER SAID:
4. Baker had told a story of encountering someone on the 3rd or 4th floor who did not match Oswald.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But if Marrion Baker was the rotten evil liar that you think he was, then (via my alternate scenario) he would have NEVER said he saw anybody on the 3rd or 4th floor at all. He would have said ALL ALONG that he saw Oswald nearer to the sixth floor.
But I guess it depends on exactly WHEN you think Marrion Baker decided to start telling lies. You think he was being completely truthful in his 11/22/63 affidavit, right? It was only LATER that he was strong-armed into telling the "lie" about seeing Oswald on the 2nd floor, correct?
And that's always a nice comfy cop-out for conspiracy theorists to use when they're stuck for something better --- just say the person was "coerced" into changing his or her story.
In other words, it couldn't POSSIBLY have been an honest and simple MISTAKE that Marrion L. Baker made in his 11/22/63 affidavit when he said he encountered the man (Oswald) or the "third or fourth floor", instead of saying the correct floor (the second), right? (Even though it couldn't be more obvious that Baker WAS, indeed, unsure as to which floor it was—because he mentioned TWO different floor numbers in his original affidavit. And, quite obviously, he wasn't implying he had an encounter on BOTH of those floors. So at least one of them HAD to be incorrect in the first place.)
Why can't conspiracists accept Marrion Baker's "third or fourth floor" statement for what it so clearly is — a simple and honest mistake made by a police officer who was in a chaotic and frantic situation within minutes of the President having just been shot, and who was not paying close attention at all to what floor he was standing on when he pointed his gun at Lee Harvey Oswald's stomach in the lunchroom on November 22, 1963?
GREG PARKER SAID:
Somehow, the cops had to juggle those elements and come up with a single story to explain it all. Truly did not make his first statement until later that night - and it was to the FBI, not DPD. By that time, they had Oswald's alibi and Baker's statement. It is decided to relocate the 3rd or 4th floor encounter to the second floor lunchroom because that is where the coke machine is. It is also the only location apart from the front entrance, where you have any chance of claiming there is a vestibule.
Truly made his statement and wrote the name of his secretary (Mrs. Reid) at the bottom of the otherwise typed document. She gives her statement the next day and "confirms" that she sees Oswald walking through the office with a coke post-assassination.
Meanwhile, Baker is put on ice and kept well away from the media and only wheeled out again for [his] WC appearance. By then, he has his story straightened out (kind of). Keeping him on ice also helps deep-six his initial statement. After all, it is an internal document and no one is going to leak the contents to the media and sure as hell, Baker is not being let off his leash until he has his mind right!
So that is why they ended up on the second floor. Not ideal, but it was forced upon them as the best compromise that with some fudging on the timing could still make it theoretically possible for Oswald to get down from the 6th.
DVP is in for a rude shock when my stuff on Truly gets posted.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh, brother. What a big load of craptrap that was.
As we can all see, Greg R. Parker has a very active imagination.
MICHAEL WALTON SAID:
If statements from the accused were deemed unimportant, then why is every alleged criminal always allowed to give a statement?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
A statement (or trial testimony) from the accused can be very important, yes. I don't deny that. In many cases, it can exonerate the accused person (if the statement can be corroborated via other evidence).
But in many cases, of course, a statement from a defendant can hang him. And I think Oswald's statements (aka: his lies) in THIS (JFK) case help to do just that—hang him.
That's mainly what I meant when I said earlier — "And you actually think that anyone is going to believe the word of the alleged assassin? You must be kidding!" — i.e., given the evidence that built up against Oswald IN THIS CASE, and given the number of times Oswald PROVABLY LIED to the police about substantive issues connected to the investigation, there's no way a jury is going to suddenly start BELIEVING Oswald if he were to have denied that he came down the stairs from the sixth floor—even via the make-believe scenario I talked about earlier, which had Baker and Truly just inventing a "better" story, with each of them saying they saw LHO on the stairs near the sixth floor.
Even in that kind of "pretend" situation, given all of Oswald's other lies, I kind of doubt a juror would be saying this to himself — Hmmm, maybe I should believe Oswald about THIS particular part of his statement, even though it was proven by various other witnesses and evidence that he lied his butt off many other times during this trial.
RAY MITCHAM SAID:
According to Fritz, Oswald said he was having lunch on the first floor when the president was shot.
Then he went upstairs and got a coke.
So if you want to believe everything that Fritz said was true, then Oswald couldn't have been on the sixth floor when the President was shot.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Only if I choose to believe the word of the alleged assassin. (Duh!)
And given Lee's track record for telling lies (and lots of them), why in the world would anyone believe most of the things Oswald told Fritz?
But in one of the rare instances when he actually told the truth, we can believe him when he told Fritz that the encounter with Baker happened on the SECOND FLOOR. We KNOW that part of Oswald's statement to Fritz was true because we've got Baker AND Truly to corroborate it.
Many CTers here, however, seem to feel that FRITZ was the liar when he said LHO said it was the second floor. Some CTers are desperate to keep that encounter from occurring on the second floor, which is kind of funny and ironic, because I can recall arguing with some conspiracy theorists not that long ago who were using the "Second-Floor Encounter" as absolute PROOF (in their minds) that Oswald was innocent. Because they'd always tell me that there was no way in the world Oswald could have possibly made it down to the lunchroom from the sixth floor in about 90 seconds (despite the fact that a Secret Service agent did it [twice] in less than 80 seconds).
But nowadays, it seems to be in vogue for conspiracists to believe the 2nd-floor encounter never took place AT ALL. Funny, huh? It's similar to the transformation that has occurred with the "paper bag" theory too. In the past, CTers would always say "That bag Oswald took to work is too short to hold the rifle" (and many CTers still do use that argument, of course). But it's now becoming more popular among CTers to just pretend that the bag never existed in the first place. Poof! It's gone! Oswald never had ANY paper bag with him at all on November 22! Wesley Frazier AND Linnie Randle lied their butts off! That's how silly and fantastic some of the conspiracy theories have become.
RAY MITCHAM SAID:
Yeh, go ahead and believe those statements which suit your stance, David.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Everybody does that, Ray. Picking and choosing is human nature and always will be. I've yet to meet a single person who doesn't "pick & choose" to a certain extent. CTers certainly do it too. They love the part about Oswald telling Fritz that he (LHO) was on the "first floor" eating lunch when JFK was shot (Warren Report, Page 600), but many Internet CTers have decided to just ignore the part when Oswald told Fritz he was on the "second floor" when the officer came in.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
David,
Some CTers are angry with me because I claim that the second floor encounter didn't occur. (I guess because the second-floor thing provides an alibi of sorts.) The point is that there is no incentive for trying to make the encounter fake.
The reason I call it fake is because the evidence points in that direction. We have proof that Lovelady lied, and Shelley lied, and we know from Victoria Adams that the WC altered her testimony. The film of Officer Baker crossing the extension show that the TSBD wasn't his intended destination. First day statements changed over time, all related to the second-floor encounter.
I've shown how adding the fabricated second-floor encounter to Bookhout's account, after-the-fact, caused the chronology to become impossible. Removing only the second floor sentences fixes the chronology problem.
Those are the reasons some of us believe the encounter didn't occur. Baker's statement agrees with us.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Sandy,
I think it just goes to show that if someone (such as a conspiracy believer) tries hard enough, they will probably be able to scour the records and statements and find something that they feel verifies the thing they are trying to prove.
Take the "Greer Shot JFK" theory. If you look at a particular frame of the Zapruder Film, the sunlight on Roy Kellerman's head does somewhat resemble a "gun". So, for some CTers, that frame(s) of the Z-Film--alone--is enough for them to advance their ludicrous theory.
And I have no doubt that a good researcher who has access to all the documents and various witness and FBI statements and reports can probably come up with a pretty decent argument for why that researcher believes the second-floor encounter is a fake. There's always SOMETHING that doesn't quite "ADD UP", isn't there? Somebody's statement, for example, will almost always be in conflict with this other person's statement. But I think you, Sandy, said it well in your last post when you said this:
"The point is that there is no incentive for trying to make the encounter fake."
I agree with that sentiment, too.
And I'd like to see your "proof" to back up these three bold declarations (I, of course, don't think any of these things are correct at all):
"We have proof that Lovelady lied, and Shelley lied, and we know from Victoria Adams that the WC altered her testimony." -- S. Larsen
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Sandy,
In your forum post here, I think you're assigning assumed levels of accuracy that are way too high when it comes to your interpretation of all of those various witness statements. Via such statements, given over a period of time (and which vary to some degree in their details, including adding more details [TRUE details, mind you, not made-up details] to subsequent tellings of their story which they had not previously mentioned, which is a very normal thing to have happen when someone tells a story over and over again), there's no way to pinpoint a perfect timeline with spot-on accuracy. It cannot be done.
And the reason it can't be done is mainly because none of those witnesses was specifically TIMING anything that they did on November 22nd. Therefore, when they told their stories later on, they were providing ESTIMATES (i.e., their BEST GUESSES) concerning how long it took them to do this or that. To think we could possibly nail with detailed precision (practically right down to the minute) the type of exact timeline that the conspiracy theorists require would be akin to believing in miracles.
In short, there was absolutely no need for Billy Lovelady or Bill Shelley to "lie" about anything that happened on November 22nd. And I see no "proof" that either one of them did lie.
To think that someone within "Officialdom" somehow got all of these various people (Lovelady, Shelley, Baker, Truly, and probably more) to tell a bunch of lies just so the official "patsy framers" could say the second-floor lunchroom encounter took place is something that I think all reasonable people would consider to be a totally FANTASTIC idea. And it's a fantastic idea that I don't think the conspiracy theorists have nearly enough support for.
Also....
Why is it that so many people who weren't charged with committing two murders (e.g., Billy Lovelady, Bill Shelley, Marrion Baker, et al) are accused of being liars in the JFK case, and the person who was charged with two murders is treated with kid gloves by so many conspiracists? Isn't that also a rather "fantastic" idea? (I think it is.)
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
David,
What makes you believe Oswald told a lot of lies?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh, come now, Sandy. You must be kidding.
The evidence is telling us that Oswald was a Mega Liar....
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Every one of those things that you claim is a lie sounds like the truth to me.
Your problem is that you assume Oswald was guilty. So whenever he says something that makes him innocent, you conclude he was lying.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So, you think Oswald DIDN'T own a rifle?
You think Oswald bought his revolver in Fort Worth?
You think Oswald was telling the TRUTH when he said he had never used the alias "Hidell" in his life?
You think Oswald was telling the truth when he said he had never said anything at all about "curtain rods" to Wes Frazier?
You think Oswald was being truthful when he said he didn't carry any large-ish bag into the TSBD on Nov. 22?
You think Oswald was being truthful when he said "I didn't shoot anybody" (not even J.D. Tippit)?!
And on and on....
Come now, Sandy, you're too smart to fall for such obvious lies....aren't you?
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
He [Lee Harvey Oswald] was obviously a patsy.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
My thoughts on the matter....
http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/The "Patsy Plot" Silliness (Part 1)
BART KAMP SAID:
This thread shows how outgunned you [DVP] are.
You have been overtaken and left far far behind. Your argumentation falls completely flat.
Perhaps you will learn from this some day.
One can only hope.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, thank the Maker I have all these astute Education Forum members to tell me what really went down with respect to all those rotten liars named Truly, Baker, Shelley, and Lovelady. Otherwise, I'd just be totally lost.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Shelley and Lovelady BOTH changed zero seconds to three minutes. The Darnell film shows that their initial assessments were correct, the three minutes wrong. BOTH made that change! How convenient for the two to be wrong in the very same way.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Once again, you're assigning absurd levels of assumed timestamping accuracy to the Lovelady/Shelley statements. But such pinpoint accuracy concerning those statements just cannot be obtained.
Upon reading Shelley's and Lovelady's Day 1 statements that you quoted in this previous post, there is NOTHING in those 11/22/63 statements by either witness that would justify this conclusion by you: "Shelley and Lovelady BOTH changed zero seconds to three minutes."
Here's what Shelley and Lovelady said on Day 1 (Nov. 22) (copied from your own post, Sandy)....
"After [the shooting] was over we went back into the building...." -- Billy Lovelady; 11/22/63
"...immediately after hearing the shots [Lovelady] and Shelley started running towards the presidential car, but it sped away...[They] then returned to the [TSBD]." -- 11/22/63 FBI Report
"I ran across the street to the corner of the park and ran into [Gloria Calvery]...I went back to the building and went inside and called my wife and told her what happened." -- William Shelley; 11/22/63
[End Quotes.]
None of those three statements eliminates the possibility that Lovelady and Shelley could have remained outside the building for three or more minutes before they entered the west entrance.
In fact, it's obvious to me from the last two statements quoted above that at least A LITTLE BIT OF TIME must have elapsed in order for Shelley and Lovelady to do the things they said they did in those statements (e.g., "Lovelady and Shelley started running towards the presidential car" and "I ran across the street to the corner of the park").
Do you think those men accomplished those things in "zero seconds" (which is what you claimed in your last post)?
Just because MORE details emerged in the later statements of both Lovelady and Shelley, you think that is proof that both men "lied" about those additional details. But that's just silly if you ask me. There were no sinister or sneaky alterations done to the later statements given by Lovelady and Shelley. There were merely more details revealed in those later statements. Simple as that.
Plus....
When we look at all of the 1964 statements by Lovelady and Shelley that you, yourself, quoted in an earlier post, we can easily see that those statements themselves are all over the place as far as how many minutes the two men took to get back inside the TSBD. In their '64 statements, we find ALL of these various estimates....
"...approximately five minutes..."
"...about three minutes..."
"...about ten minutes later..."
"...about three or four minutes after the shots..."
"...we...watched them searching for a while..."
[End Quotes.]
So why you think both men changed their statements to an exact figure of "three minutes" is a mystery to me, because they did no such thing. They were all over the map in their estimates, ranging from "about three minutes" all the way up to "about ten minutes".
And as far as the Darnell Film is concerned....
How in the world do you KNOW WITH 100% CERTAINTY that the woman you are so sure is Gloria Calvery in this still photo is, in fact, Gloria Calvery? That frame from the film isn't nearly clear enough to make a positive identification of an unknown individual.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
The reason you think their was no reason for them to lie is that you don't know the whole story. According to Victoria Adams' testimony, she came down the steps shortly after the shots. Oddly, she didn't hear anybody else using the steps. She should have heard Oswald going down to the 2nd floor.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And if she had really been on the stairs as early as she claimed, she most certainly should have heard (or seen) Marrion Baker and Roy Truly coming up the stairs. But she didn't hear them and she didn't see them. Why not?
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
The second floor encounter did not happen.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Sandy,
You don't have nearly enough evidence to definitively conclude that "The second floor encounter did not happen".
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Sandy,
That is some really good work and it shows just how intent the WC was to discredit Victoria Adams.
You've got DVP spinning like a top, so what does he do? He goes to Bugliosi land.
If you read RH ["Reclaiming History"]--no need to, and you will be a worse person if you do--whenever VB [Vincent Bugliosi] admitted a problem in the evidence in [the] text of the book, he usually did one of three things:
1. Went [off] on a vituperative, over-the-top, wild man rant against whoever produced the evidence. (What he did to Doug Horne took the prize.)
2. Said something like, "But this means they were part of the conspiracy." Which was nothing but a rhetorical device since VB did not like to differentiate between the actual crime and the cover up.
3. He would say something like DVP does above, "Well I think you rely too much on people keeping with a consistent story."
DVP had no idea you were going to blast him away on this, so he waded in unprotected. (A common occurrence when I was arguing with him about VB.) Now he is beating a retreat into Bugliosi land.
The extremes the WC went to to neutralize Adams--in this case getting people to change their stories--tells you just how fatal she was to the official fantasy.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Go tell that to your pal Sean Murphy....
"Sandra Styles...claimed she told [Barry] Ernest what she was now telling me: that she and Victoria Adams did *not* go to the rear stairs anything close to as quickly as Victoria had claimed." -- Sean Murphy; January 27, 2011
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
The video Jim DiEugenio posted featuring Sandra Styles does NOTHING to contradict or undermine the quote I posted earlier from Sean Murphy. And Sandy Larsen's post containing additional correspondence between Murphy and Styles only tends to buttress the notion that Sandra thinks she and Adams started down the stairs LATER than what Vickie Adams has claimed, mainly due to this comment from Styles:
"I only go by what seems reasonable. I can only report my personal recollections the best I can. I was easily led back then, lol. If she [Vickie Adams] said we went down immediately, I thought that must be true. If the interviewer said that was not possible due to the amount of time it took the police to get over there, I re-thought it and accepted HIS assessment. The truth may lie somewhere in between. What is logical is that, in all the pandemonium, it is unlikely that we would hear shots and head for the back stairs!" -- Sandra Styles [DVP's emphasis]
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
...the question is not only whether Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles could have heard Oswald coming down the stairs, but also whether they could have heard Truly and Baker going up the stairs! So even if they hesitated for a while before descending the stairs, they still should have seen or heard Truly and Baker go up. Which they didn't.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Right. Which means, of course, that the very likely solution to this is:
Styles and Adams were on the stairs AFTER Oswald, Truly, & Baker. (Unless you want to think that Adams & Styles somehow BEAT Baker & Truly to the stairs, which doesn't seem likely.)
It's a pretty simple solution if you ask me, just as I wrote in 2011....
---Quote On:---
"With respect to Vickie Adams, the ONLY thing a person needs to accept in order to have Oswald on the back stairs within one to two minutes after the President's assassination is to accept the almost certain fact that Victoria Adams was simply inaccurate in her time estimate about when she and Sandra Styles were on the back staircase.
And if she's off by a mere ONE MINUTE, or even less, then her whole story unravels and it then becomes quite easy to accept the fact that Oswald used the back stairs just after shooting President Kennedy from the sixth floor.
The key to pretty much knowing without a doubt that Adams and Styles were on the stairs only AFTER Lee Oswald used the same stairs is not really Oswald himself--but Roy Truly and Marrion Baker.
Because if Adams was really on the stairs as early as she said she was, she would have had virtually no choice but to have seen (or heard) the two men who we know for a fact WERE on those stairs within about 60 to 75 seconds of the assassination -- Truly and Baker.
Since Adams saw nobody and heard nobody, the very likely solution is that she was mistaken about her timing (which couldn't be a more common error with human beings), and she was on the stairs AFTER all three men (Oswald, Baker, and Truly) had already utilized the same stairs." -- DVP; February 14, 2011
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Here we go again, another trip into Indiana's own sci fi land --- by the man who has become almost as skilled as Max Holland at ignoring the evidence.
RON BULMAN SAID:
If Dorothy Garner saw Baker and Truly come out the fourth floor stair door and go into the one heading to the fifth floor, would she not have seen Baker stop and call back the man in the brown jacket? If that happened on the fourth floor. I think Baker said third or fourth floor.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
He specified either the third or fourth floor. And believe me, the DPD had no interest at all in taking him back there to see which one it was. They were too busy altering his statement and then shoving him aside.
But the key point about the Garner testimony is that she did not see Oswald come down the stairs. But she did see Baker and Truly come up. Which means, to most normal people, that Adams and Styles went down very quickly and would have had to have seen LHO or heard him.
That is the reason Belin suppressed the Stroud document. And then he did all he could to suborn BS from Shelley and Lovelady to try and discredit Adams. Which would have been hard to do if the WC had printed the Stroud document. But even at that, Sylvia Meagher did a very nice job discrediting their testimony in Accessories after the Fact. She was the first person to point out the discrepancy in their first-day affidavits about Adams, and their later evolved testimony. (Meagher, pgs. 72-73) This is why VB [Vincent Bugliosi] went a little nutty in RH [Reclaiming History] in discussing this issue. (Jim DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, pgs. 115-120)
But IMO, Sandy L has gone beyond that in his work here. To me, it's pretty obvious now that what Meagher insinuated, what Barry Ernest implied, now has been proven.
It never surprises me as to the lengths the WC would go to in disposing of every ethical code embedded in the law in relation to Oswald. And this was important, since it proved LHO was not on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
Read this and weep, DVP:
So, Dorothy Garner saw Victoria Adams go down the stairs BEFORE she saw Baker and Truly go up!
I don't know the Warren Commission's exact timing, but I do know they have Baker and Truly going up pretty quickly after the shooting.
So yes, I do "want to think that Adams & Styles somehow BEAT Baker & Truly to the stairs," as you put it.
(Thanks, Jim, for the straw that breaks DVP's back. LOL. As I said earlier, I hadn't studied the Victoria Adams material yet. So the Stroud document didn't come to mind. I do believe I saw it before, but at the time I didn't understand its significance.)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I'm very familiar with "The Stroud Letter", Sandy.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
But you're not experiencing it.
Read it again... slowly. Savor the words! :)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
More about Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles and Dorothy Garner and Jack Dougherty and the "Stroud Document" and Barry Ernest can be found at my webpage here.
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID THIS.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
OMG, Jean Davison? DVP is getting really desperate. She wrote one of the most agenda driven pieces of propaganda ever composed in the literature. Please. It was one of the worst researched volumes I have ever read.
Read this to see DVP's heroine, Jean, dismantled piece by piece.
Everything else [DVP] writes above [here and here] is simply, to quote a certain English playwright, "Sound and fury signifying nothing."
None of it ever explains why, as Sylvia Meagher first pointed out, 1.) Shelley and Lovelady changed their stories. or 2.) Why Belin suppressed the Stroud document, or 3.) why Styles, Adams and Garner all corroborate each other.
The truth is that the WC knew Adams was accurate and they knew how deadly her testimony was. That is why they did number one and two. When you have nothing to hide or suppress, you do not hide and suppress it. And that continues with DVP to this day. That was a neat piece of surgery he did with Sean Murphy, was it not? Hoping that no one would find the complete statement, which Sandy did.
The bottom line is that the work by Sandy [Larsen] now confirms with photographic evidence what Meagher and Ernest indicated was the case. Namely that the WC got Lovelady and Shelley to change their testimony. Which is not only unethical prosecutorial behavior, but can get one disbarred. There is no way to deny that now: Sandy has shown it in black and white. But that is the kind of thing that happens when you have a runaway prosecution that is not hindered by any of the rules of evidence or practice that govern the adversary procedure. Those rules have developed over time to prevent this kind of rogue prosecution from occurring.
As the redoubtable Bill Davy pointed out at his talk at VMI, it was not until later that Earl Warren expressed his regret for letting LBJ bamboozle him into such a farce.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Common Sense Reprise #1....
"With respect to Vickie Adams, the ONLY thing a person needs to accept in order to have Oswald on the back stairs within one to two minutes after the President's assassination is to accept the almost certain fact that Victoria Adams was simply inaccurate in her time estimate about when she and Sandra Styles were on the back staircase. And if she's off by a mere ONE MINUTE, or even less, then her whole story unravels and it then becomes quite easy to accept the fact that Oswald used the back stairs just after shooting President Kennedy from the sixth floor." -- David Von Pein; February 2011
Common Sense Reprise #2....
"What is logical is that, in all the pandemonium, it is unlikely that we would hear shots and head for the back stairs!" -- Sandra Styles
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
LOL!
:) :)
You really crack me up sometimes, Davey.
Thanks for the Xmas cheer.
ANOTHER DISCUSSION....
LANCE PAYETTE SAID:
I happen to be re-reading Oswald's Game by Jean Davison (BOO! HISS! see Jim's review in which he DEMOLISHES this piece of trash!!!).
Right at the start, she makes a point that leaped out at me because it is exactly what I have concluded: Because this was the assassination of a President who was despised by any number of highly disparate groups that might have seen themselves as benefitting from his elimination, the Grand Conspiracies all have a superficial plausibility until you carefully examine who LHO actually was, and then they simply go poof.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Good for you, Lance! Keep reading it—all the way to the end of its 343 sterling pages....because it's really an excellent, outstanding, and fabulous book which dives into the character and personality of Lee Harvey Oswald (despite the incessant criticism that "True Believer" James DiEugenio of Los Angeles frequently heaps upon it).
There are many top-notch quotable quotes to be found in Jean's book, such as the ones I've highlighted in my review of the book, here....
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Lance...tries to insinuate that somehow I was wrong to dismantle Jean Davison's book. And who jumps up and says Yay! Parnell and DVP. What a shock.
As far as Davison's piece of obsolete rubbish, can Lance explain to me why Jean did not note that the HSCA had proven the polygraph given to Ruby was flawed and rigged in about 14 different ways? Does he know that? Yet Jean led off her book by scoring Mark Lane for relying on it to show how much Ruby had to hide. After all, the WC said it was fine, right? Now, check out how many years she had to read the HSCA volumes before she wrote her book. But somehow she left that out to take a cheap shot at Lane.
That is a ok with Lance, right? Think you would be impeached on that if you did it in court, buddy? Would you try it anyway?
The obvious question that this raises is, would the FBI do such a thing without approval from Hoover? I kind of doubt it. But by avoiding the evidence, Davison can sidestep that issue. This is very important to her work because she wants us to consider the WC as a credible source, both its info and conclusions. By hiding this, she keeps the true facts from the reader.
[More of DiEugenio's anti-Davison tirade can be found HERE and in the posts right under that one too.]
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Looks like Lance hit a nerve. (Good.)
JIM HARGROVE SAID:
The H&L ["Harvey & Lee"] critics here are unwilling to recognize what is placed right in front of their noses.
W. TRACY PARNELL SAID:
If any of this had been an issue, the WC could have easily dealt with it. They would have asked Head (or the school superintendent or whoever) for an explanation of the school records in light of the overwhelming evidence they would have provided him that shows there were not two boys attending schools at the same time. And Head (or whoever) would have provided an alternate explanation (such as Parker has provided) that would explain the discrepancy. The same thing would have happened with Palmer McBride.
Of course, the WC could not imagine that someone like John Armstrong would come along years later with such a nutty theory. All of this has been explained to the H&L gang numerous times, but they refuse to give up. As Paul [Trejo] says, maybe they are still looking for that big movie deal.
PAUL TREJO SAID:
The following is my opinion:
I think the Hollywood movie deal explanation is the best explanation for the stubborn 20-year support of the Harvey & Lee science fiction, which first appeared in Jim DiEugenio's Probe Magazine (1998), written by John Armstrong.
Every "mistaken identity" case of sighting Lee Harvey Oswald was turned into a CIA plot by Armstrong. The Lincoln-Mercury dealership, the furniture store with Marina and baby, the Sports Drome gun range, the barber shop with a small boy, the grocery store with Marina, baby and a large check, a bus to Mexico City, an employment agency in Houston, Texas, and so on.
Although Jim DiEugenio's own theory (per Destiny Betrayed 2) never descends to the science fiction level of Harvey & Lee (except for his revival of the Probe Magazine treatment of Ruth Paine), perhaps Jim feels some responsibility, since his own magazine first published Armstrong's CIA-did-it flight of fancy, and so Jim defends it.
Or, perhaps Jim owns part of the movie rights -- after all, Probe Magazine was his baby way back in the 1990's.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
What I am trying to show is just how bad this little circle of WC supporters really is, that is DVP, Parnell, and their occasional lawyer friend from Denver, Lance.
This is the kind of work they support and praise. Without one single paragraph of criticism either of what is left out or what is simply wrong.
Davison's book is a flat out cover up book, there is no way around it. And as I have shown, it's by design.
If Lance ever practiced the evidentiary techniques Davison uses in her book, the judge would either sanction him or refer him to be disbarred.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Jim DiEugenio is so full of baloney and hot air, it's a wonder he doesn't bust wide open.
Jean Davison's book, of course, won't ever receive ANY kind of praise from the type of over-the-top "fringe" conspiracy believers who populate forums like this one (aka: the Anybody But Oswald crowd). (Would you really expect such praise—or even a single positive word—from any CTer at this place? Let's get real.)
But, regardless of what any CTer dishes out, Jean's book will forever be a great book, because it deals with REALITY instead of dealing constantly in cloak-and-dagger type FANTASY (which is where James DiEugenio resides most of the time).
And Jean Davison certainly agrees with me when it comes to the following very critical point....
One of the biggest keys to knowing that OSWALD, HIMSELF, HAD MURDER RUNNING THROUGH HIS OWN VEINS (and wasn't merely being used as a puppet by a band of string-pullers) is the fact that Oswald—all by himself—tried to MURDER ANOTHER HUMAN BEING besides John F. Kennedy in the year 1963. That other person being General Edwin Walker, of course.
And even CTers know how important the Walker shooting is to understanding Oswald's murderous character. That's why many (most?) conspiracy theorists ALSO deny the obvious truth when it comes to the Walker shooting. Because if those CTers were to ever admit the truth regarding Walker—i.e., that LHO was, in effect, a POLITICAL (LONE) ASSASSIN, in April of 1963—then those CTers would have a much harder time, it seems to me, reconciling Oswald's innocence when it comes to a SECOND political assassination that Oswald was charged with carrying out in Dealey Plaza in November of that very same year.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Above is more pure gas from the bloviating machine himself.
Oh no, now the Walker shooting. In which the FBI altered the calibre and color of the bullet. Davey likes to leave stuff like that out.
BTW, has he replied to any of my criticisms of Jean's crappy book?
(Sound of crickets)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Pot/Kettle alert!
James DiEugenio, of course, likes to leave stuff out—such as the following items which Jim apparently thinks are totally insignificant (or just flat-out lies)....
There's this testimony provided by the FBI's Robert A. Frazier regarding the color of the Walker bullet:
MELVIN EISENBERG -- "Can you think of any reason why someone might have called this [CE573] a steel-jacketed bullet?"
ROBERT FRAZIER -- "No, sir; except that some individuals commonly refer to rifle bullets as steel-jacketed bullets, when they actually in fact just have a copper-alloy jacket."
----------
There's also Billy Gene Norvell's identification of the Walker bullet:
"On June 12, 1964, Exhibit C148 [aka CE573], a mutilated rifle slug, was shown to Billy Gene Norvell, former Dallas police officer, 1603 Darr Street, Apartment 147, Irving, Texas, by Special Agent Bardwell D. Odum, Federal Bureau of Investigation. He identified this exhibit as the same one which he had found at the residence of Major General Edwin A. Walker, Dallas, Texas, on April 10, 1963, and identified his marking on this slug." -- CE2011
DiEugenio must think either Norvell was a liar, or the mutilated rifle slug known as "FBI Exhibit C148" was a completely different bullet from "CE573" (which it wasn't, of course; and no CTer on Earth can ever prove they were different bullets).
And, of course, James D. will also just ignore all of the other evidence that proves Lee Oswald took that pot-shot at General Walker on April 10, 1963, such as:
...Commission Exhibit No. 1 (the note Lee wrote to Marina). DiEugenio must think that note is yet another "planted" item to help frame Oswald, or maybe Jimmy thinks Lee was merely worried about getting tossed in jail for jaywalking, and that's the reason Lee left that note (plus the key to their post office box) for Marina.
...Marina Oswald's Warren Commission testimony, in which she tells the world that Lee "...told me that he had shot at General Walker". Plus, Marina told us all the details about the note (CE1) as well. But that's nothing but lies being uttered by Marina Oswald, right Jim?
...Marina's HSCA testimony (excerpted below in an audio file):
To throw your words back at you:
You really crack me up sometimes, Jimmy.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
This is why no one should take DVP seriously or get into an argument with him.
First, note how he has shifted gears. After I decimated his heroine's lousy book, he now says that well, it's the Walker shooting that painted Oswald as a killer.
Uh Davy, please explain why this alleged communist--who Jean could not find any other communists he associated with--would take a shot at a rightwing nut who Kennedy had removed from the military and who RFK had placed in an asylum; and then shoot the guy who removed him, and the most liberal president since FDR? Does that not seem a bit puzzling to you? Even Wesley Liebeler gave that some thought.
Second, as to your alleged witnesses, man you take the cake in blindness to evidence, do you not?
Both those witnesses are way after the FBI had switched the verdict in the Walker shooting. I mean months later.
In my book, Reclaiming Parkland, I use evidence from the time period when the DPD had no idea who shot at Walker. It was a period of about 8 months. And at that time, the bullet was not a copper alloy, military jacketed bullet. It was a steel jacketed 30.06. And I use four sources to back that up. (p. 100) All from before the FBI took the case. Only you could misinform the public by using the later references.
BTW, it's rich how the late hero to DVP, Vince Bugliosi, tried to camouflage just how false Frazier's testimony was. Frazier said the general characteristics of the slug were consistent with Oswald's alleged rifle. As Carol Hewett pointed out, this is pure nonsense. Because most files do have four lands and groves and a right hand twist. Which would mean that the Walker slug resembled most all bullets fired in the world. (p. 104)
As per the mutating color and calibre, Vince was wiser on this one. He left it alone. He quotes one of the truly ridiculous statements made in the volumes, I mean even for the FBI it was bad. Frazier said--his nose growing as he spoke--"some individuals commonly refer to rifle bullets as steel jacketed bullets when they actually have a copper alloy jacket." (ibid)
Now anyone who has ever seen the WCC bullets in their original state--which apparently DVP has not-- would realize that the above qualifies as a Mark Laner. Lane once said, quoting Zola, that those who accept too many absurdities, give birth to epic tragedy.
That is what the WC was.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Commission Exhibit Number 1 is still there, Jimmy.
So is Marina's WC and HSCA testimony.
And the note (CE1), btw, is definitely in OSWALD'S handwriting (in Russian). But Jim D. no doubt disputes that fact, just like he will dispute ANYTHING that points to the guilt of his favorite Patsy named Lee. Right, Jim?
Sure, the Walker bullet was described as "steel jacketed" in some of the reports, but those reports DO NOT exonerate Oswald (or his Carcano). Bob Frazier's explanation that I quoted earlier makes perfect sense to me. If you disagree, so be it. (What's new there?)
Also....
Since conspiracy theorists think the Walker bullet was switched to CE573 at some later time in order to paint Lee Harvey Oswald as the guilty party in the Walker attack, then can somebody please tell me why the police decided to "plant" a bullet that was so mutilated that no ballistics expert could (or would) testify that CE573 had come out of the barrel of Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano?
In other words, what good did it do to plant ANY bullet if the best the Patsy Framers were going to be able to say is -- CE573 is possibly a bullet fired from Lee Oswald's rifle, but it's so badly damaged, I cannot say definitely whether it was fired from that exact rifle or not?
The very fact that the Walker bullet in evidence today (CE573) is a bullet that CANNOT be tied definitively to Oswald's rifle is a good solid indication that that particular bullet WAS CERTAINLY NOT PLANTED OR MANUFACTURED by the authorities in an effort to frame Lee Oswald for the crime.
How anyone could possibly argue with the above common-sense observation is beyond me.
PAUL TREJO SAID:
I, for one, welcome David Von Pein to this thread.
For one thing, LNers are a welcome relief from the 50-year nonsense of the CIA-did-it CTers, who can't create a decent argument after a half-century.
For another thing, it is important that the shooting at General Walker on April 10, 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald and one other person must be raised again and again, to show the plausibility of the Walker shooting reports, and to show the weakness of the CIA-did-it CTers on the topic of General Walker. They'd rather just evade the whole topic -- and it shows.
Yet I will disagree this far with David -- just because Lee Harvey Oswald took a pot-shot at General Walker, is not sufficient proof to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK. It's just insufficient evidence, period.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I never said that the Walker shooting proves LHO was guilty of assassinating the President. Never.
But you will have to admit, Paul, that by accepting the truth of Oswald's guilt in the Walker shooting, it makes it much easier (for anyone!) to accept the notion that this same would-be murderer (who pointed his rifle at the head of someone ELSE prior to 11/22/63) could have also pointed that same rifle at the head of another political figure (JFK) in November. Correct? (How could anyone say NO to that question?)
PAUL TREJO SAID:
It is a fact that Oswald was on a team to try to shoot Walker. There were at least two persons on that team (and probably a few others in the conspiracy). We know this from eye-witnesses, and General Walker himself was always on the alert for the second shooter, who got away, he was convinced.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Can you answer this then, Paul?..... [He did --- here.]
If Oswald was part of a "team" of assassins on 4/10/63, then why did Oswald have to TAKE A BUS to get anywhere both before and after the Walker incident? Where were his "team" members (2 or more you say?) when Lee needed some transportation? Were all of his "team" members lacking automobiles and/or driver's licenses? Or do you think Lee did get a ride from a co-conspirator to go to and from the scene of the Walker shooting? And this "ride" that he got was just never revealed or discovered?
The same question, of course, needs to be asked concerning any "team" members (co-conspirators) that Oswald allegedly had on 11/22/63 as well. If he's got some HELP (of any kind), why is Oswald left to wing it on his own just after JFK was shot (via a bus, a cab, and his own two feet)?
BERNIE LAVERICK SAID:
I wondered what relevance this all has to the H&L [Harvey & Lee] topic until I realised that we have a very diverse meeting of minds going on.
It turns out that you are not alone, David. The H&L gang also believe in Bledsoe's testimony and the whole public transport 'escape' scenario.
You'd have to be either an extreme LN or a H&L fantasist to believe any of it. But of course both you and Jim believe ALL of it.
Fair do's David you totally support the WC and so it is at least fully consistent with your flawed belief.
The H&L gang however have total and utter contempt for any official finding and constantly mock those who they think underestimate the extent of this dastardly cover up.
But they believe in Bledsoe because....... it says so in the WC!!!
Ha ha ha!!!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Bernie,
Please give me your opinion as to WHY ON EARTH the cops felt ANY NEED to plant this paper bus transfer on Lee Oswald's person. (Or did they merely just SAY they "found" it in LHO's pocket, but didn't physically "plant" it on his person?)
There was NO logical reason for the police to want to say that LHO rode on a bus for a few blocks on Elm Street. None whatsoever. The cab ride with Whaley could have easily sufficed for the "evil" DPD purposes. So what was the point of that ruse, Bernie? Just to play some games?
Even Oswald admitted he took the bus. But he saw the need to lie about it too, right? Or you probably think LHO never said a word about taking a bus. It was FRITZ who just made that up. Correct?
This kind of "IT NEVER HAPPENED" nonsense that you believe, Bernie, makes you almost as ridiculous as the H&L fantasists.
BERNIE LAVERICK SAID:
Glad you put "almost".
As scintillating as it may be to discuss the perfectly sound narrative of why the DPD behaved the way they did, it would, firstly, be repetitive because it has been adequately discussed numerous times on here and, secondly, it would have nothing to do with the subject of this thread.
I was merely pointing out how [the] H&L gang have no qualms about siding with LNs and will cherry pick at will from the WC when it suits their ends. As you do.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Everybody "cherry picks", Bernie. You (no doubt) do it. I do it. All CTers on the planet do it. All God's children do it. In fact, it SHOULD be done. Otherwise, I'd have no choice but to treat all of the junk presented by conspiracy theorists (including the rabid "H&L gang") as worthy of EQUAL consideration. (Does it count as "cherry picking" if I'm "picking" out the FACTS and the LIKELY TRUTH?)
LANCE PAYETTE SAID:
Exactly. I think Jean Davison hit the nail on the head as to how conspiracy theorists operate. In Conspiracy Logic, there is never a simple human mistake. if three eyewitnesses give the police three slightly different descriptions of the car and driver in an incident of hit-and-run, it's never that two of them (or perhaps all three) are simply mistaken. No, the incident must have been a hit-and-run conspiracy involving three cars and three drivers. If the police merely arrest one person, there are still two conspirators at large. If the person arrested and his vehicle don't exactly match any of the witnesses' description, he is obviously a patsy and the police themselves are now involved in a cover-up conspiracy.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Jean always hits the nail squarely on the head. I've yet to see her miss the nail.
Here are a few of the miscellaneous "Common Sense" quotations (including some from Jean) that I have collected over the last several years relating to the JFK and J.D. Tippit murder cases [hundreds more can be found here]....
"The argument that Oswald was the tool of a high-level conspiracy does seem plausible, until one tries to fit it into the context these theorists always leave out -- the personality and background of Lee Harvey Oswald, the individual."
[...]
"The reader [of pro-conspiracy books] will understand the difficulty these writers have sidestepped if he or she tries to invent a story that explains why an INNOCENT Oswald went to Irving for 'curtain rods', left his wedding ring behind the next morning, brought a package into the Depository, and so on. Because the evidence against Oswald is strong, any detailed reconstruction that argues a frame-up will inevitably sound less plausible than one that argues his guilt."
[...]
"The conspiracists' methods produce a surreal world. Every discrepancy is interpreted as a crack in the official stone wall through which one may glimpse the ugly truth of what happened. Behind the wall are disconnected scenes, each with its own set of conspirators. On close examination, many of these scenes evaporate." -- Jean Davison; Pages 25, 276, and 277 of "Oswald's Game"
~~~~~~~~~~
"We already knew that ["Harvey And Lee" author John] Armstrong threw out logic and reason long ago with respect to his [double Oswald] fairy tale, but at least he had his insanity to fall back on.
The fairy tale loses even its “internal logic” insanity when he asserts that the CIA got someone to impersonate Marguerite who looked nothing like her. How much longer do we have to wait for Armstrong to inform us that it was a Kennedy imposter who was assassinated?
For those conspiracy theorists who feel I haven’t “done justice” to Armstrong by not mentioning every matter, issue, or witness Armstrong cited in his nearly one-thousand-page book--to do so would almost take a book in itself--if justice is giving something its due, the only justice for Armstrong’s book is to put it in a trash can.
Every word I wrote about this freaky book is one more word than Armstrong and his theory deserve. Here’s a book that at worst doesn’t deserve First Amendment protections (I’m being facetious) and at best is merely fun and games.
And yet, Walt Brown, a serious student of the assassination, while noting a few of the book’s absurdities, gives it a positive review in his publication, JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, saying it is “required reading.”
When someone of Brown’s stature in the conspiracy community tells his readers to go out and “get the book and set aside...everything you previously read about what happened in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963” (JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, April 2004, pp.3–10), he is doing nothing more than encouraging other Armstrongs to go off on similar delirious odysseys into the twilight zone." -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 578 of "Reclaiming History" (Endnotes)
~~~~~~~~~~
"Any assassins who would have needed only Oswald fingered for the two murders on 11/22/63 must have all (to a man!) been under the influence of large quantities of hallucinogenic drugs when they decided to place a variety of different shooters throughout Dealey Plaza (and on 10th Street for Tippit's killing), as many CTers advocate. And these powerful drugs they must have been on I guess must have had a crazy type of "Miracles Are Possible" effect on all of the shooters and behind-the-scenes schemers -- because only a "miracle" could have rescued such an inane multi-shooter "Patsy" plan from certain failure on that 22nd day of November back in '63." -- David Von Pein; April 7, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~
"The only possible way for Lee Harvey Oswald to be innocent of shooting J.D. Tippit is if the following idiotic situation occurred (which nobody could possibly even begin to believe happened on November 22, 1963):
Somebody other than Lee Oswald shoots Tippit with Oswald's revolver. This "non-Oswald" shooter (who looks just exactly like Lee Harvey Oswald, but really isn't him) then flees the scene of the Tippit crime, dumping four shells on the ground as he runs away. This non-Oswald shooter then meets up with the real Lee Oswald and hands off the Tippit murder weapon to LHO. Oswald then proceeds to the Texas Theater where he is arrested while in possession of the gun that somebody else used to kill Officer Tippit just 35 minutes earlier."
-- David Von Pein; June 4, 2013
~~~~~~~~~~
"When kooks look at the evidence, anything involving Oswald's culpability is "almost, but not quite". He can almost make this shot, but not quite. He can almost make it downstairs from the 6th floor in time to encounter Baker, but not quite. He can almost make it to 10th & Patton from the boardinghouse in time to shoot Tippit, but not quite. So close, but yet so far, as kooks judge things."
-- Bud; June 18, 2006
~~~~~~~~~~
"Now we've got kooks claiming the unfired bullets in Oswald's pants pocket were "planted". And for what possible purpose again? Oh yes, I forgot---the patsy framers got bored and decided to plant needless and useless unfired bullets in Oswald's trousers. Incredible." -- David Von Pein; August 6, 2015
~~~~~~~~~~
"If there is a suspicious fire, the kooks would investigate the firemen who respond, and ignore the guy with the wicked grin that smells of gasoline."
-- Bud; November 22, 2007
PAUL TREJO SAID:
David,
I'll chime in with Bernie here. The Dallas Police had a very good reason to DELIBERATELY LIE that they found this valid bus ticket in the pocket of Lee Harvey Oswald; namely, to CONCEAL THE FACT that Lee Harvey Oswald had traveled with ACCOMPLICES.
They knew very well who the ACCOMPLICES were, in fact -- because some of them were compromised Dallas Police. I give you author Walt Brown's book, Treachery in Dallas (1995) on this topic.
To protect these Radical Right, Dallas Police conspirators, Lee Harvey Oswald had to be a LONE Shooter -- so he could never be a passenger in a car -- EVER.
That is why they had to forge the fake bus trip, and fake taxi trip of Oswald from Dealey Plaza back to his rooming house in Oak Cliff.
(In exactly the same way, Mexican Immigration records show that Lee Harvey Oswald entered and exited Mexico as a passenger in a car, but the Warren Commission struggled to place Oswald in a bus to and from Mexico. Have you read the testimony of those bus passengers? They fall apart like a house of cards.)
One only needs to read the WC testimony of Dallas Deputy Roger Craig -- that he saw Lee Harvey Oswald escape Dealey Plaza as a passenger in a car. Why believe the neurotic Bledsoe over a Dallas Deputy? IMHO, only because of the LONE SHOOTER bias.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why the need to fake BOTH a bus ride AND a cab ride? It's silly beyond belief (as usual with CTers).
And I suppose cab driver Bill Whaley's positive I.D. of Oswald was a lie too, right? And Whaley's testimony about his passenger wearing a silver bracelet on his left wrist must be a lie too---or an amazing coincidence, huh? (See pic below.)
And Oswald (or Fritz) lied too when Oswald admitted he took a cab to his roominghouse on 11/22, eh?
This case has more liars than the TV game show "To Tell The Truth".
PAUL TREJO SAID:
Earlene Roberts...reported seeing TWO Dallas police in that car.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Which, interestingly, was something that was a COMMON OCCURRENCE in front of 1026 North Beckley EVEN ON DAYS WHEN PRESIDENTS WEREN'T BEING SHOT IN DALLAS, as I discuss here and here. (Shouldn't that fact give conspiracy theorists a moment of pause?)
PAUL TREJO SAID:
According to Mark Lane (1966, Rush to Judgment), Mrs. Acquilla Clemons claimed that she saw TWO men shoot JD Tippit and running away from the scene in two opposite directions.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
http://jfk-archives/Acquilla Clemons & The Murder Of J.D. Tippit
PAUL TREJO SAID:
I think the solution is far more complex than just JD Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald. Jack White said that Roscoe White was the "body-double" of Lee Harvey Oswald in all of the so-called Backyard Photographs. Roscoe's chin, neck, shoulders, lumpy right wrist and back-leaning stance all match.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why do so many conspiracy theorists continue to want to drag other people into the middle of J.D. Tippit's murder? It's a murder that couldn't be any easier to solve, featuring various types of evidence (eyewitnesses plus ballistics) that provide the proof that ONLY Oswald killed Officer Tippit.
IMO, those CTers who refuse to accept LHO's lone guilt in the Tippit murder—despite the evidence that's on the table which unquestionably proves his guilt—are doing a major disservice to the memory of Officer Tippit and to the search for "truth".
PAUL TREJO SAID:
This accomplice [who was driving a green Rambler] drove LHO near to his rooming house as they talked about what might have happened, and what the other Kill-Fidel plotters might be doing -- and how he might connect with them.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Paul,
Do you have any idea WHY "Rambler Man" decided to just ABANDON Lee Oswald after driving him to his roominghouse on Beckley?
And....
Since you think LHO had an accomplice to drive him from point to point after the assassination, then why did Oswald even NEED to stop at his roominghouse and pick up his pistol (and thus run the risk of being captured)? Why didn't Rambler Man prepare things better and have a couple of revolvers at the ready for their "getaway"?
What a bunch of sloppy, unprepared boobs these conspirators were.
PAUL TREJO SAID:
You want me to guess the role of Rambler Man?
My guesswork (based on the Walker-did-it CT) surmises that Rambler Man was recognized by Lee Harvey Oswald as part of the Kill-Fidel plot (yet was secretly part of the Kill-JFK plot) and did not want to risk being seen with Oswald any more than absolutely necessary.
[...]
These weren't sloppy boobs --- they were brilliant in their execution of the JFK Assassination and their manipulation of the Patsy. Brilliant.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So Rambler Man decides to pick up Oswald---IN BROAD DAYLIGHT---right in front of the Depository just after the shooting---with tons of witnesses around who could potentially see LHO get into his car??? But then, after getting safely out of Dealey Plaza, Rambler Man decides to not stick around and wait for his co-plotter named Oswald on Beckley Avenue. The Rambler Man, instead, takes off and leaves Oswald to fend for himself, even though Beckley Avenue isn't anywhere near as crowded with "assassination witnesses" as was Dealey Plaza. In fact, there's NOBODY around on Beckley to scare off Rambler Man. (And all that is supposedly part of this "brilliant" assassination plan??)
Face it, Paul, your theory has virtually NO basis in actual FACT. You've got Roger Craig's Rambler story, sure. But when we couple THAT story with the VERIFIED PROOF that Oswald could not possibly have gotten in that Nash Rambler when Craig said he did, the "Oswald Got Into A Rambler" story falls completely apart.
In other words --- Why do conspiracy theorists so often hang onto the WORST evidence and always discard the BEST?
PAUL TREJO SAID:
David, You make SO MANY ASSUMPTIONS....
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
It's rather humorous to see those words—"You make SO MANY ASSUMPTIONS"—being aimed at me by a conspiracist, especially after being treated to the following array of wholly unsupportable "ASSUMPTIONS" authored by Mr. Trejo in just the span of the last three days....
[Paul Trejo Quotes On:]
"The JFK Assassination caught Lee Harvey Oswald entirely by surprise. LHO knew nothing about it."
"LHO still believed that he was part of a top secret plot to kill Fidel Castro (and patriotically lying to the Soviets)."
"From behind the monument of the Grassy Knoll, LHO watched for any Kill-Fidel accomplices."
"This accomplice [in the green Nash Rambler station wagon] drove LHO near to his rooming house as they talked about what might have happened, and what the other Kill-Fidel plotters might be doing -- and how he might connect with them."
"LHO felt certain that his Kill-Fidel connections would give him proper guidance."
"On his way to the Texas Theater, he was stopped by JD Tippit and Roscoe White."
"Roscoe White was a compromised Dallas cop. So was JD Tippit, allegedly. The story goes even deeper when we count all the Dallas cops who were more or less secretly connected with General Walker and the Radical Right in Dallas in 1963."
"LHO was well-acquainted with Roscoe White, who was the "body double" of his own Backyard Photographs."
"Marina had taken one (and only one) photo of LHO with his weapons and wearing black, while LHO and Roscoe worked after hours at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall to forge four "plausibly deniable" FAKE Backyard Photos with LHO's face pasted onto Roscoe White's body."
"Roscoe White also shot at Tippit."
"LHO and Roscoe White both ran off in different directions."
"LHO watched and waited for his Kill-Fidel accomplices."
"I admit that the bus ticket is real -- however -- I maintain that it was NOT found in Lee Harvey Oswald's pocket. Rather, the Dallas Police got it from some street source and claimed it as a support to the charge that LHO was a Lone Shooter who had NO ACCOMPLICES."
"Captain Will Fritz lied and lied and lied."
"[Lee Bowers] was probably murdered because of his firm position on the JFK Assassination."
"The likely explanation, in my opinion, is that there was a group of renegades from the Radical Right (perhaps including some rogue Dallas Police) who wished to silence anybody who made their detection more likely."
"I would guess that Rambler Man told Oswald to walk over to the Texas Theater...to meet another Kill-Fidel accomplice there."
"The Radical Right (Walker, Surrey, Weissman...) and the whole Dallas Police and Deputy force are PRIME SUSPECTS in both the JFK Assassination and the murder of Oswald in their care."
[End quotes by Paul Trejo, every one of which is filled to the brim with "ASSUMPTIONS"--not to mention make-believe fantasies.]
Can somebody say "POT & KETTLE"?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
A few years ago, I stated on this site that I was very glad that we had some new people joining the critical community. .... One reason I was glad of that was it helped us look anew at some WC shibboleths that the first generation of critics blindly accepted. Among those were the lunchroom encounter, the rifle transaction, the Bledsoe testimony, and Oswald being in Mexico City. (Although I must say that Garrison really questioned the last.)
Finally, through years and years of work and urging people on, this has finally come to fruition. It's not just that they all turned out to be dubious, but that they were always dubious. And there were indications they were from the start. But the first generation of critics, as a group, accepted them. ....
And what do Lance [Payette] and DVP reply with? Oh it was a confusing day, and the guy on the floor landing really was Oswald (what a hoot that one is--when in fact Worrell saw someone running out the back in a brown jacket). If Baker had ever been in a real court of law, he would have been done in by his own affidavit.
I would have loved to have taken the jury to the second floor lunchroom and walked them inside, had them look at the place for a minute, then taken them up to the third floor landing, stayed there for a minute and then asked Baker: "And you could not recall the difference between the two just a couple of hours later?"
My next question, as I passed out copies of the affidavit to the jury, would have been: "Why didn't you mention the coke?"
My last question would have been, "When you made out the affidavit in the witness room, why did you not ask Oswald his name so you could write it down in the affidavit?"
After that, I am pretty sure Baker would have been dissipated with regards to the jury. In fact, one of the brighter ones, unable to contain himself, might have said, "How did they get you to change your story?"
Prayer Man may or may not be Oswald. But IMO, thanks to people like Bart [Kamp], Greg Parker, Sean Murphy, Sandy Larsen, David Josephs, and my short summary in RP [Reclaiming Parkland], this lunchroom incident has been reduced to a myth. Sort of like the other 880 pages of that Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale formally called the Warren Report.
And it further shows what a runway prosecution can get away with when there are no restraints in place or rules to prevent them from violating every single aspect of proper adversary procedure. The WC threw out every line of the legal code of ethics in regards to the rights of the accused, proper legal procedure, and the rules of evidence.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Incredibly, Jim DiEugenio is still under the delusion—here in the year 2018 AD—that the Warren Commission was an "adversary procedure". It wasn't at all, of course. It was a fact-finding investigation. The "accused" was a dead man. The WC was tasked with finding the facts—and the truth—relating to Oswald and the events of 11/22/63. And, in my opinion, they did exactly that during their 10-month (and very detailed) probe — notwithstanding the persistent whining from Internet conspiracy theorists who have a willful desire to tear down Earl Warren's Commission.
The following fact remains perfectly clear (at least to me it's very clear)....
After 50+ years of trying to replace the Warren Commission Report with something better (and something conspiratorial in nature), the thousands upon thousands of JFK conspiracy theorists who have made such an attempt have failed abysmally in their efforts. Because nothing that has ever been put on the table by conspiracists over the years has come even close to matching the Warren Commission's conclusions when it comes to reasonably evaluating the sum total of the raw evidence (both physical and circumstantial) associated with the JFK and J.D. Tippit murders, which includes the Commission's reasonable and logical interpretation of Lee Harvey Oswald's very own actions and movements on November 21 and 22, 1963.
When it comes to evaluating that "sum total of evidence", the Warren Commission and the Warren Report stand alone, IMO. The conspiracy community hasn't even made a dent in those WC conclusions (as far as being able to put on the table an alternative "conspiracy"-based scenario that reasonably and rationally and believably explains every facet of the evidence in the case AND also reasonably explains Lee Oswald's guilty-like actions both on Nov. 21 and Nov. 22). And I don't think they ever will make a dent.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Davey loves to recycle more and more of his own BS. We have been through this several times. As if the WC critics penned or created Baker's first day affidavit.
But there he goes again.
In a fact finding mission, say the Watergate Committee or Iran Contra, there are rules one follows. And anyone can see that if you watch their hearings. Plus, they usually have their own investigators. And they also have minority and majority counsel.
The idea that since Oswald was dead, there could be no adversary procedure, is more Von Peinism. Never heard of trial in absentia, right Davey?
But neither of the above were ever in the cards.
After being harangued and lectured by Joe Alsop, LBJ said, he just needed to appoint some panel to ratify a Hoover report. A report which was done in about nine days. Some inquiry huh? He then scared a couple of the panelists witless, namely Russell and Warren, with visions of atomic holocaust. And Allen Dulles lobbied his way on. (Geez, wonder why?) Between Hoover, McCloy, Dulles and Ford (who later confessed it was pure malarkey), it was all a joke, and they knew it.
Dulles and Belin had Baker's first day affidavit when he testified, did they not? Why did they not take him to the TSBD and ask him why he could not tell the difference between the lunchroom and the the third floor landing?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Because the Warren Commission was capable of doing what most CTers cannot do --- i.e., properly evaluate a witness' first-day affidavit, while realizing that some NON-SINISTER errors of fact might find their way into such a first-day statement.
Ergo, the Warren Commission could easily see that Officer Baker was describing the SAME EVENT in his first-day affidavit that he and Roy Truly described in their respective WC testimony (that is: Baker & Truly encountered Lee Oswald in the lunchroom---not on the "3rd or 4th floor").
David Von Pein
December 15-25, 2017
December 28-31, 2017
January 1-2, 2018
January 4, 2018
