Prayer Man

First topic message reminder :

Original Prayer Man thread at the Education Forum
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/20354-oswald-leaving-tsbd/

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G'day,
I have to say I find it oh so mildly amusing reading some of the comments, thoughts and rants associated on other forums regarding Prayer Man / Oswald on the front steps. It's sad really, watching people who have spent a lifetime married to an idea or a theory, only to witness that idea or theory shattering into a thousand pieces and not accepting the inevitable singular conclusion which is staring them in the face. To Greg Parker, Sean Murphy and all the other amazing researchers following the path of truth in this case I tips me Lid.

Mick

I've been mulling over one of the objections we've heard from some of the shall we say, more principled and intellectual members of the JFKRC (JFK research community) who have expressed a sentiment along the lines of 'We learned our lesson with Badge Man and we don't want to step in that mess again. Fuzzy images just can't be relied on as evidence of anything'. Hopefully that is fair para-phraseology.

First and foremost Badge Man was not even an image. There was zero by way of photographic evidence that indicated there was a human figure there of any kind. It was all random noise or the photographic remnants left by leaves on a tree. If I'm not mistaken it all occurred at a time when there was blind faith that new and wonderful digital enhancements could pull things out of photographs that one could not see otherwise. It was a naive and embarrassing episode. Yes, principled and intelligent members of the JFKRC were shown to be wrong and well, foolish.

As a result these people have reacted by taking the polar opposite approach to photographic evidence, the photographic negative, if you will. Now, given a fuzzy image that clearly IS a human figure resembling Oswald to the extent that a fuzzy image can, the trauma instilled in the minds of these hard bitten intellectuals results in their utter disregard of what clearly is photographic evidence backed up by a substantial log of documented evidence (that includes Oswald's alibi of going "out to watch the P. parade").

It isn't an intellectual approach at all. It is an emotional one born of fear and trepidation for having made mistakes in the past. People need to dust themselves off and get back in the saddle. Don't be frightened of fuzzy images.

Well graded, Ed.

Quite possible, Jake. In addition were also likely fooled by the Doorway man image and bought into it being Oswald. So now they are over cautious.

Vinny wrote:Quite possible, Jake. In addition were also likely fooled by the Doorway man image and bought into it being Oswald. So now they are over cautious.

Good point Vinny.

Door man or whatever it's called is a pain in the butt. I've had issues plugging PM because of that nonsense. It was sorted that Friday evening 22nd but still hangs around like a bad smell thanks to buffoons (AKA RC) peddling their nonsense.

True Mick. Many to this day conflate PM with Doorway Man. Can be quite frustrating. I also think that some might be doing it deliberately.

Suppose Oswald’s role in the assassination was to knowingly be a red herring to distract investigators. If he is PM, it is an inconspicuous enough location such that he would not be generally noticed but if he knew he would be photographed at this location by an accomplice in the crowd, it would provide a time-stamped alibi. Assured of such exonerating evidence, he could be confident of evidence supporting his alibi during interrogation if he was ever taken into custody. Perhaps the plan was to never to produce the exonerating evidence and let Oswald take the rap and be killed. The PM location is about the only location in DP that I can think of where this is possible.

Even several seconds after the assassination, PM displays no curiosity about what has happened and stoically remains in position and appears to be gazing at the corner of Elm and Houston streets.

I notice from the transcripts of the police tapes that Edward Givens was missing from the TSBD headcount. Why wasn’t Oswald also mentioned?

If Oswald was to be a knowing red-herring or patsy so as to shut down investigation into other leads during the critical early hours and days following the assassination, his alibi cannot be confirmed too early. That is why he must be placed in a position where he might escape notice by nearby witnesses and photographers who would be focused on the motorcade yet visible to an accomplice that could confirm his alibi probably by specifically photographing him. The shadowed recesses of the front entrance of the TSBD would be the best location. Oswald knew (or at least thought)  that if such evidence would be forthcoming he could be counted on to confidently endure interrogation. Especially as other evidence piles up such as the rifle and the backyard photos. It may not be important if the camera even has film in it as long as Oswald thinks it does.

My point is that if Oswald was framed, whoever did the framing had to assume Oswald could or would be taken into custody. He needs to hold out for at least a few days before he is silenced or left to twist in the wind.

If I were totally innocent and taken in for the crime, I’m only giving my name and address and shutting my mouth until I have a lawyer. I wouldn’t even say anything about eating lunch or watching the parade. I know this was pre-Miranda but I would think Oswald would have known better. But if Oswald does have a lawyer, he has to confide in that lawyer (and the conversations may be listened in by the cops) and evading questions is more problematic since he now has legal representation.

I am trying to find an explanation that reconciles Oswald as PM and Oswald’s actions while in custody. I hope I am not straying into Harvey and Lee contortions!

You have a good point about Oswald himself possibly having a camera. But I don’t recall him mentioning this during his interrogation.

Lanceman, 

in my view it is uncomplicated when trying to reconcile any explanation regarding Oswald as PM and his actions while in custody.
It took me ages and years of research to get my head around the fact that Fritz, Alexander, Wade and Decker were so corrupt and above the law that they did as they pleased with regards to suspects and their fate.

It has been well documented through the Texas Innocence Project that they constantly railroaded suspects into false confessions. Look no further than the case of Tommy Lee Walker a man charged with 1st degree who had a rock solid alibi - I mean concrete. Fritz and Wade along with the Assistant DA Bill Alexander still managed to get a conviction and have this guy executed for a crime he didn't commit.
It was the norm. It was their business as usual. The fly in the ointment for the 4 of them while Oswald was in custody was the fact they couldn't get a confession from him - He would not confess. That ended badly for his sake.

Those four lawmen ran Dallas - they owned it and everyone who was important to them. They'd been running the town since the late '40's early '50's. In my view that's why Dallas was the chosen location to have the President shot. Of course this is just my opinion. 

If you haven't already, I urge you to get a copy of Stan Danes book Prayer Man - The exoneration of Lee Harvey Oswald. It explains so much about the fix on Oswald and how it's almost certainly Oswald stood atop of those steps in the Darnell frame.

Ed.Ledoux wrote:There is no mystery about PM and LHOs actions in custody.
The notes and circumstances of the day explain it.
He watched the P. PARADE  and was out front with his boss Bill Shelley.
Lee might think Shelley will speak up, if Shelley recalled seeing him, and Lee can go home.
Lee 'names' two negro boys and hopes they too will vouch for him...

What's perhaps the most important question in a murder case?
 
Where was the suspect at the time of the killing?
 
Since Oswald was the ONLY suspect in the murder of JFK, the crucial question is WHERE HE WAS when the motorcade passed by. As Ed points out, there is no mystery here. No mystery if one considers the evidence.
 
To wit:
 
Will Fritz's notes clearly show us what Oswald said while in custody: he was out with his boss Bill Shelley in front.
 
FBI agent James Hosty's notes record Oswald saying he went to lunch at noon, went to the second floor to get a Coca-Cola to have with his lunch, returned to the first floor to eat lunch. Then he went outside to watch the Presidential Parade.
 
The Dallas Morning News (11/23) reported Oswald being spotted on the first floor in a storage room when Truly and an officer ran into the building.
 
The New York Herald Tribune (11/23) reported Campbell seeing Oswald in a small storage room on the ground floor shortly after the shooting.
 
Harry Holmes testified to the Warren Commission about Oswald going out to see what the commotion was about, saying Oswald said he was stopped by a policeman in the vestibule on the first floor, the front entrance to the first floor.
 
Then, in light of the above, we have this photographic evidence in support of Oswald's assertions he was down in front:

 
Recall what Jesse Curry said in 1969: "We don’t have any proof he fired the rifle. No one has been able to positively put him in that building with a gun in his hand."
 
OF COURSE no one has been able to positively do that! Because he DIDN'T have a gun in his hand! HE WAS RIGHT WHERE HE SAID HE WAS: down in front!
 
This is not hard. The only mystery here is why so many people can't see what is so goddamned obvious.

Ed.Ledoux wrote:I find this unproductive speculation to understand a non-existent problem.
Lee was not involved in a murder.
He was being framed by the police for it.
Cheers.

Agree, Ed. I think some actually enjoy unproductive speculation to understand non-existent problems.

If I could play Devil's Advocate here... the prevailing view almost from the outset (and reaching a fever pitch into 1970s through the 90s) was that Oswald was innocent -- but still involved.

The two reasons for this were:

Oswald's life and his proximity to spooks and (possible/probable) involvement in intel projects.

The second is the one that has tripped just about everyone up. It involves accepting the official narrative of Oswald's movements on Nov 22. That narrative, when examined however, is so fucking strange that there is no sensible way to explain it - so people try to explain it through the lens of Oswald being a spook with involvement or inside knowledge of what has happened, as a means of explaining the oddities.

 A classic example. Have seen countless times over the years, Oswald's strange "getaway" by bus and cab and being dropped off many blocks from his residence followed by a change of clothes and a zig-zag race to the theater, killing Tippit on the way, as evidence he was an involved spook with the weird movements all being part of intel training to throw off anyone following him. 

Take all the weirdness and all the anomalies and parse them through a spook filter and that is where you land. Any weirdness or anomaly can be explained by spookery and folded into the giant conspiracy cake mix. 

If you look around the web and inside JFK facebook groups, you'll see that this is still a dominant way of looking at the case. I suspect this is because a lot of people stopped reading anything new after the 1990s, or if they are new to the case, they go to those classic books from those eras. Jump on youtube and search for information, and even the most mainstream non tinfoil hat stuff has people like Wecht pushing the line that Oswald was somehow involved - and had to be because in their minds there is no other way of explaining his actions. It does not seem to occur to them that there are alternatives supported by a huge amount of evidence.

As Mick said upstream "It took me ages and years of research to get my head around the fact that Fritz, Alexander, Wade and Decker were so corrupt and above the law that they did as they pleased with regards to suspects and their fate." 

I knew there was something wrong with the official narrative the minute I read Marion Baker's first day statement about 20 years ago. I just didn't know what. It has taken me 20 years, stumbling onto the Reid Technique and Innocence Project cases and data - and last but definitely not least, a shitload of help to unravel it all. Where I stand now is that this is owned by all of us here - and of course Sean M. People like Bart, Mick, Ed, Hasan, Lee F and Stan have taken this forward in leaps and bounds.

Hopefully the weight of the material eventually sways those who stumble upon it through the sewers of slime on the net! 

I think we are slowly making inroads.

Also note that Oswald's own wife identified him as Prayer Man.

Yep. It's him. And he was dropped of at the TT by BWF. Who has just remembered a guy with a gun , hoping to deflect.. Because it's what "they want to hear".

Credit Hosty notes: B Kamp and M Blunt.

ED,


Then again as Lee is leaving the building and asked to step aside by police (Officer Kaminsky)
His address/info is taken , (top of Revill list) and he is turned loose after being vouched for by Truly.


Yes Ed, and as you've pointed out before  - Oswald's name is atop of the list  and his address is listed as written on his Library card.
We can be reasonably certain that address was shown by Oswald at the door to Kaminski as he departed for a movie.

Before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct.
- Aristotle, Rhetoric

This may be why so many in the JFK research audience push back against "exactest knowledge." They cannot be instructed. (Either that or they refuse to be instructed.)

Recognizing some people are not moved to conviction by facts alone, Aristotle goes on to talk about using persuasion.

A few months after I joined here in 2013 we talked about this in general:

greg_parker wrote:The long and the short of it is that we've been successfully marginalized. islands of discontent in the Salton Sea...

We have two main choices.

Turn to the "alternative" media which is largely populated by the Tinfoil Hat brigade we are lumped in with already, preach to the "converted", never have our ideas challenged or tested or embraced by the masses...  and never have them heard by the people we need to reach.

Or we can take the harder path to find a way to break down the barriers between us and the MSM.

Lee has taken a small, but hopefully significant step in that direction.

The MSM is a tool of propaganda. Anyone who has studied old newspapers like I have may understand that the idea of using "propaganda" was not considered wrong in any way shape or form and at least up to and throughout the '50s, it was not used pejoratively (I've seen headlines such "more propaganda needed"). It's much like the old stories I've read where it is reported in a very mundane fashion that medical experiments performed at an orphanage would benefit a lot of people. Well, not the orphans of course. But who cares? They were repaying their debt to society for keeping their wretched bodies breathing.  

But before I totally sidetrack myself... not all propaganda is "bad", and even only when moderately well done, it is still effective. I see every day of my life how effective it is with people parroting the Murdoch Press and Talk Back radio - regurgitating events/policies/spin and being told who to hate and who to like, even though it is distinctly against their self-interest. We need to use propaganda the same way it used by the "other side". The MSM provides the only effective means. I don't believe it's impossible to break through. I'm a great believer in "tipping points" in history.  

This shunning of the MSM is wrong-headed. Pure and simple.

This discussion got me started making memes. The earliest focused on pointing out logical fallacies/inconsistencies in the official narrative/WC account before I focused almost solely on lampooning the many JFK research goofballs because it was so much fun.

Now here in 2021, eight years later, we're still trying to get the attention of the right people, people who can be instructed with the "exactest knowledge" leading to conviction that results in action.

One of the principles of military strategy is Mass, the ability to concentrate on a single point. Efforts are focused on the high leverage activities that make the most difference.

If we are ever to achieve the breakthrough we desire, the focus must be on Prayer Man and the location of Oswald at the time of the assassination. Fully open that door and the rest will follow, falling like a house of cards.

Now it's time to hop in my golf cart and get some cold beer at Grams Mini Mart.

Efforts haven't stopped, Stan. I mentioned recently that I got as far having a taped interview with a TV producer to get our work on a show about unsolved cases. Unfortunately, it was a small production company and they decided a project like this was beyond their means.

But you never know what is around the corner.  Doors are still being knocked on.

Enjoy your beers!