The Lunchroom Incident Revisited

First topic message reminder :

I want to begin by focusing on the notorious vestibule door, with the plate-glass window, that Baker first glimpsed Oswald looking through. It's WC Exhibit 498, at XVII p. 213, and even in the Warren volumes you can easily discern the fresh grain pattern in the wood. First Day Evidence, on p. 286, is even clearer.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0120a.htm

Very probably this was a new door, installed during the late 1962 overhaul, when the Sexton Grocery warehouse was remodeled to accommodate the TSBD company and several other publishers. By the way, Sexton had its offices on the 1st & 2nd floors and very likely used the same lunchroom that we all know so well. The vestibule door had an automatic closing device, and Truly had to come in and make a special affidavit about that on August 3rd (WCH VII p. 591). It took several seconds to close. This device was probably pneumatic.

This vestibule door had some weight to it. It was sturdy. It could be described as heavy-duty. Installing it was a 2-man job. In comparison, the doors to the up & down flights of stairs were downright flimsy. (Same link as above, but page 217). These stairwell doors were normally open during the course of the day, as was the lunchroom door (WCD 496, p. 32). The vestibule door closed by itself and was always in the closed position, if not in use.

The vestibule door helped muffle the sounds from the landing and stairwell, so that people in the lunchroom could eat in relative peace & quiet. The stairs were old and quite noisy and the landing floors were wood. Warehouse workers habitually came up to use the lunchroom Coke machine. And office workers also came down from the 3rd  & 4th floors, human nature being what it is, rather than wait impatiently at lunchtime for the passenger elevator. For example, Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles' run down the stairs on November 22nd wasn't their first experience on them. They instinctively knew they could head for the corner stairwell when they discovered the passenger elevator wasn't operating.

Considering the potential for irritable human traffic, the vestibule door kept disturbing sounds to a reasonable minimum. It was installed with that purpose in mind.

****************************************************************

Adams & Styles watched the motorcade from their 4th-floor office window overlooking Elm Street. Adams estimated the time it took them to reach the 1st floor, after the shots, was "no longer than a minute at the most." She confirmed to author Barry Ernest that she left the window just before the limousine reached the Triple Underpass (The Girl on the Stairs p. 329).

The first point that needs to be appreciated is that Adams & Styles could not have beaten Truly & Baker to the freight elevators. Even if these women made it to the 1st floor in 60 seconds, Truly & Baker had 60 seconds to make it only as far as the will-call counter, or just a bit further into the warehouse, to see the women across the floor. And Adams & Styles continued running in front of the freight elevators for the rear door. Even the most sluggard time estimate for Truly & Baker brings them onto the warehouse floor well before Adams & Styles. And in one re-enactment they made it to the 2nd-floor lunchroom in 75 seconds.

The second point is that Adams' & Styles' supervisor, Dorothy Garner, stated for the record that after they went downstairs, she saw Truly & Baker come up. The purpose of Garner's statement was to refute the WC argument that Adams must have gone downstairs several minutes after the shots, because otherwise she should have encountered Lee Harvey Oswald fleeing down the steps. Garner's statement was given in the U.S. Attorney's office in Dallas, and they sent it to WC Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin. But he never brought it to light, since it helped refute the Commission's contention that Oswald was the 6th-floor assassin. And the statement lay buried in the National Archives in the papers of the Dallas U.S. Attorney until Barry Ernest discovered it.

We can boil the stairs down to a mathematical problem, where A & S are descending from the 4th while T & B are ascending to the 4th (and then the 5th). Yet they never interact with each other. Why is this the case? Because T & B removed themselves from the stairs for a time, and went into the lunchroom. And it is a mathematical certainty that A & S passed T & B while they were in the lunchroom.

Why didn't T & B hear them? Truly said that he, Baker & Oswald were only 2 or 3 feet inside the lunchroom. The answer is that the vestibule door muffled a lot of sound, coming from Adams' & Styles' high heels clomping down the wooden stair treads and across the wooden landing. And T & B were in an intense, gun-in-the-belly situation with Oswald. Even if a little bit of noise from those high heels filtered into their eardrums, it was only high heels and they quickly brushed it off and forgot about it.

Baker estimated the lunchroom encounter took 30 seconds. The stairs were roughly L-shaped, split-level. I think it's fair to say that for someone in the lunchroom, floor "2 1/2" to floor "1 1/2" constitutes their hearing range. Half a flight of steps gets descended in about 5 seconds, with another 5 seconds for crossing the 10-foot landing. That's 15 seconds total for A & S to be in hearing range. They probably were on the 3rd-floor landing just as B & T entered the lunchroom.

Skeptics of the lunchroom incident not only have to construe Baker & Truly as liars. Since 2010, when Garner's information came out, they have to construe her as misbegotten as well- yet her statement was made with Oswald's escape in mind, not the lunchroom incident.

What the simple mathematics of this problem means is that the totality of evidence cited by the skeptics, as supporting the lunchroom episode as a non-event, is nothing more than a red herring. The disparate news stories are just that- disparate news stories, and they tell us little more than that reporters will write anything.

And etc. Bring your best arguments to the table, in favor of the non-event. Prepare for a whuppin'.  

Colin Crow wrote:Greg, I am having trouble with a 4th floor encounter of B&T with anyone. If we look at Baker's first day statement he says 3rd or 4th. He is clearly unsure of what floor it was. Factors that tend to rule out the 4th floor would be the Garner observation from the Stroud document. She observed B&T come up the stairs after the girls departed. This would be the moment of confrontation. It does not rule out a 3rd floor confrontation. Also remember there were 5 other women still present on that floor and the attraction was the west windows after the shots.
 
I know Sean has threorized that B&T used the west elevator. Surely the Garner revelation and the observation of Baker by BRW on the 5th are not supportive of this.
 
I would conclude by saying that whoever was on the 6th floor at the time of the shots did not descend via the NW stairs in the first few minutes.

Colin,

During his testimony, Baker inadvertently put it on the fourth floor when he said they caught the elevator one floor above where the encounter took place - and the man who took Baker's affidavit only mentioned fourth floor in his statement.

As for Garner... she stated only that she saw them coming up... which indicates to me she was no longer there when they actually landed on that floor. In that circumstance, I believe the encounter was possible without her witnessing it. Any noise Mr Brown coat made coming down would be masked by Truly and Baker coming up. 

Styles and Adams likewise could have missed seeing anyone because they got down quicker than it took Baker and Truly to get in and make their way to the elevators.

The timing I am postulating is tight - but no tighter than the timing needed to make any other scenario work.

Stan Dane wrote:

greg parker wrote:Oswald having survived long enough to give his alibi, it is decided to ditch Oswald on 3rd/4th floor (recalling that this wasn't Oswald anyway - just presented to Fritz that way). Because of the mention of lunch by Oswald himself, and since he also mentioned getting a coke off the second floor (a practice he was known to for per others) - the whole thing is switched to the 2nd floor lunch room. We all know that while that solved one problem, it created several more.

Confusion about this not only reigned over the DPD, but also has ever since in the research community. The bulk of that confusion can be attributed directly to Fritz and others using Oswald's voice to conflate the cop encounter he did have (on trying to leave the building which did not involve Baker) with the one Baker had on the 4th floor (which did not involve Oswald) and using Oswald's talk of having lunch just prior to the assassination as a key out of the mess. Simply bump everything up to/down to - 2nd floor lunch room.

SM's work on PM was - to state the bleeding obvious - superlative. But I remain convinced that Truly was the "inside man" - not the innocent Sean believes him to be - and that a 4th floor encounter did happen.

And on PM -- we have a new member who is very keen to kick start the whole debate again and try and move it forward still more. Stay tuned.

I thought I understood this but now I finally get it. It centers on Truly. You have said with confidence for some time that you don't have "a scintilla of doubt" that Truly was an "inside man." I'm thinking there's more to come here. A hell of a lot more.
 
Staying tuned.

Truly is the end of a row of dots that are connected by indisputable and triple blind tested hard-arsed evidence. 

Back on the 4th floor for a second. If I recall Sean's theory correctly, he believes that Baker was "got at" prior to making his affidavit to put the encounter higher up in the building - and that there was no such encounter on any higher up floor - with LHO or anyone else.

I think Richard may have got this part right. There was simply no time for concocting the story and little if any opportunity to sell it to Baker as the one he should give. Sean was initially in favor of a fourth floor encounter and I haven't been able to pin down when and why he changed his mind. His argument against it, imo, lacks the punch that most of his arguments have.

Colin Crow wrote:

https://2img.net/h/i863.photobucket.com/albums/ab192/col_crow/9b0f08c9382eb042679c905142d7249a_zpsf46d5c85.jpgHello Goodbye wrote:

Colin Crow wrote:Re the pneumatic door. Check out the secret service footage of the reenactment. As the guy goes through the door it appears to have a pneumatic device at the top inside the door. It also seems to close automatically.

As for the time of the lunchroom meeting, 30 seconds would seem too long. Likely less than 10.

Thanks, Colin.  I hear you but their existence in the reenactments is not proof of their existence on 11/22.  Should the location of the device in the reenactments appear in the photographs as published in the Warren Commission document

I cannot access any videos online from my laptop right now to compare reenactment to photos…

Suspicions concerning this arise for me once you realise that it was left until August of 1964 to get Roy Truly on record concerning this issue, yet no one had bothered to ask anybody about it in any testimony, and was never mentioned by anybody during testimony.  If this was going to come up it would have naturally come up in Truly's original WC hearing when discussion of an open or closed vestibule door was extensively covered.  It didn't.  Yet in August 1964 all of a sudden, Truly the number one TSBD suspect IMO, goes on record.  I just don't buy it.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f55/18/51/39/20/wc_vol10.gif

Do you know offhand when the SS reenactment was completed?

It is in the SS video. You can see it at the top of the door.
 
 
 
Also it appears in the WC photo on the previous page in this thread.
 
From the video it is clear that the door is not "pulled shut" by the agent and closes automatically in maybe 2 seconds.
 
Let's work one aspect at a time so we can progress this important topic.

Cool.  Thanks for the visual.  I am having deja-vu for some reason and am convinced I have been through this before a long time ago.

The SS reenactments contained in the 30/11/63 report of Special Agents Harrison and Griffin are pertaining to Oswald's descent from the sixth floor.  These reenactments having taken place on 27/11/63.

Do we know exactly when the Secret Service filmed reenactments of the Baker-Truly ascent of the building, that you have posted a still from, took place?

I now completely agree that the door contained a self-closing hinge when the photographs and films were made.  However, I still have one or two reservations that it was insitu on 11/22 due to it not being referred to in the testimony of Roy Truly during the umming and ahhing over whether the door was open or closed when he descended the 2 or 3 stairs leading to the third floor when he went to find out where Baker had gone.  And the Johnny-come-lately affidavit in August on '64 bearing Truly's name swearing to a self-closing hinge being on the vestibule door but not swearing to it being in place on November 22, 1963 also has me somewhat curious. Why the need for it if such thorough SS and FBI reenactments were performed?  Although I will admit that I'm probably being overly suspicious here.

The idea that this vestibule door (and window) were completey sound proof to the noise of two women in heels running down wooden stairs not 9 feet away is still nonsense though and given the testimony of Baker & Truly there is no way, as per RG's silliness, that Baker and Truly were both locked inside this alleged sound proof cabin for thirty seconds.  Baker and Truly's stories are ridiculous, as is Gilbride's support of them.  I'm not so much shocked by RG's propping up of this fantasy but he has actually added fictitious narrative in an effort to make it work. 

P.S.  I am having some really frustrating problems with the forum at the minute whilst posting.  I've switched editor mode and tried all kinds of different edits but most of my posts are looking totally crap formatting-wise.  Now, when I try editing I'm getting hit by flood control and have to wait 60 seconds before being able to send it back which has never happened before during the editing process.

P.S.  I am having some really frustrating problems with the forum at the minute whilst posting.  I've switched editor mode and tried all kinds of different edits but most of my posts are looking totally crap formatting-wise.  Now, when I try editing I'm getting hit by flood control and have to wait 60 seconds before being able to send it back which has never happened before during the editing process.

Lee, nothing has been done to your account other than to take away mod status that you and several others had (in error but left as an in joke until deleted). No one else has reported any problems. I've been fixing your posts as I come across them by changing editor mode - but you have changed the editor mode yourself and not touched it again, the problem should have been resolved. If you're saying it's not resolved, you can send me your log in details because the only way I can really see what's going on is to log in as you.

greg parker wrote:

Colin Crow wrote:Greg, I am having trouble with a 4th floor encounter of B&T with anyone. If we look at Baker's first day statement he says 3rd or 4th. He is clearly unsure of what floor it was. Factors that tend to rule out the 4th floor would be the Garner observation from the Stroud document. She observed B&T come up the stairs after the girls departed. This would be the moment of confrontation. It does not rule out a 3rd floor confrontation. Also remember there were 5 other women still present on that floor and the attraction was the west windows after the shots.
 
I know Sean has threorized that B&T used the west elevator. Surely the Garner revelation and the observation of Baker by BRW on the 5th are not supportive of this.
 
I would conclude by saying that whoever was on the 6th floor at the time of the shots did not descend via the NW stairs in the first few minutes.

Colin,

During his testimony, Baker inadvertently put it on the fourth floor when he said they caught the elevator one floor above where the encounter took place - and the man who took Baker's affidavit only mentioned fourth floor in his statement.

As for Garner... she stated only that she saw them coming up... which indicates to me she was no longer there when they actually landed on that floor. In that circumstance, I believe the encounter was possible without her witnessing it. Any noise Mr Brown coat made coming down would be masked by Truly and Baker coming up. 

Styles and Adams likewise could have missed seeing anyone because they got down quicker than it took Baker and Truly to get in and make their way to the elevators.

The timing I am postulating is tight - but no tighter than the timing needed to make any other scenario work.

Greg,

Baker was confused re the floors from day one. This is obvious from his statement. I know it's hard to believe he could make the mistake but others involved that day missed events one would have assumed they should have. We have inherited a crappy investigation and are working with incomplete testimonies that have been "sculpted" to the LN narrative.

The Stroud document states "that after Miss Adams went downstairs she (Miss Garner) saw Mr Truly and the policeman come up". Not coming up. Clearly inferring that although she did not see Adams descend she saw Truly and Baker arrive on the floor via the stairs.

I am still at a loss, with respect to the timing, how Adams and Styles were not seen by Baker and Truly (and vice versa) given their paths and the times required to get there. The realistic recreation for Baker and Truly was about 67 seconds to get to the lunchroom (if an 8 second 3 shot senario). We subtract the time waiting at the west elevator (let's say 10-15 seconds) and B&T are at the base of the stairs around the 50 second mark post last shot. I believe the girls left quickly but find it difficult to get them out the back door by this time.

As I said previously, I don't believe anyone other than Adams and Styles ran down the steps inside 2 minutes. Baker and Truly were the only ones to run up in that time. If there was a 6th floor shooter he did not use the stairs to immediately escape. As evidenced by the combined efforts of Adams, Styles, Garner, Dougherty, Baker and Truly.

If Oswald was encountered in the lunchroom it was only because he was moving from another position on the lower floors.

Greg,

Baker was confused re the floors from day one. This is obvious from his statement. I know it's hard to believe he could make the mistake but others involved that day missed events one would have assumed they should have. We have inherited a crappy investigation and are working with incomplete testimonies that have been "sculpted" to the LN narrative.

The Stroud document states "that after Miss Adams went downstairs she (Miss Garner) saw Mr Truly and the policeman come up". Not coming up. Clearly inferring that although she did not see Adams descend she saw Truly and Baker arrive on the floor via the stairs.

I am still at a loss, with respect to the timing, how Adams and Styles were not seen by Baker and Truly (and vice versa) given their paths and the times required to get there. The realitic recreation for Baker and Truly was about 67 seconds to get to the lunchroom (if an 8 second 3 shot senario). We subtract the time waiting at the west elevator (let's say 10-15 seconds) and B&T are at the base of the stairs around the 50 second mark post last shot. I believe the girls left quickly but find it difficult to get them out the back door by this time.

As I said previously, I don't believe anyone other than Adams and Styles ran down the steps inside 2 minutes. Baker and Truly were the only ones to run up in that time. If there was a 6th floor shooter he did not use the stairs to immediately escape. As evidenced by the combined efforts of Adams, Styles, Garner, Dougherty, Baker and Truly.

If Oswald was encountered in the lunchroom it was only because he was moving from another position on the lower floors.

Colin, 

it doesn't seem likely we're going to get past any impasse on this, so this is only fwiw

I don't think specifying it was one floor or the one above is a sign of confusion to the degree you need it to be. It is confusion ONLY between the floors specified. Your attempt to extend that confusion to inherently mean any old floor on the basis that some other people got things wrong is not a strong argument imho. 

You also need him to have mistaken going up three floors for just one floor because again - he stated in testimony that he only went up one floor after the encounter to get the elevator. I don't believe such a mistake is plausible for a trained police officer to make.
 
I also don't agree that the statement "saw Mr Truly and the policeman come up" could only mean she saw them arrive on that floor. Granted, it could mean that, but I also believe it could refer to just seeing them as they made there way up. I just think if the meaning you derive is correct, it was a poor way to impart that meaning.  Moreover, neither Truly nor Baker mentioned seeing anyone else on the way up. Had they seen her, I believe it would have been logical to ask her if she had seen or heard anything suspicious.

As for the timing - I would not rely on any of it because everyone contorts events and times to fit their own needs. I think it's reasonable to to suggest it could have been a bit slower for Truly and Baker and a bit quicker for Styles and Adams - especially if we are talking mere seconds  - where those seconds make all the difference.

There is no evidence apart from T & B's say so that there ever was a 2nd floor lunchroom encounter and the fact that it was never on the table as a possibility until after Oswald's interrogation where he talked about having lunch on the first floor, is telling. 

Finally, IIRC, Sean also put forward the notion that Baker was given the police description for his allegedly made-up 3rd or 4th floor encounter. The reasoning here was that the description was so similar - and therefore somehow suspicious. That argument puzzled me as much then as it does now. The description was also similar to that given by Rowland and others. Might not all those descriptions be similar for the very straight forward reason that they were all a description the same person - a real suspect?

Greg,
Not meaning to be argumentative over this. Perhaps the big picture for me is not so clear in this debate. It is abundantly clear that the WC version is not supported even by their own evidence. I am convinced by Sean re PM. I think Oswald moved out very late onto the steps, taking a position that reflects this. I also think he moved inside quickly before Baker got to the exterior door. Baker claimed people were already entering as he got to the steps. PM is in prime position to do this. Maybe the "encounter" occurred here. There is a store room near the front staircase.

I am trying to work out whether Oswald may have then gone to the second floor to be spotted by Baker. Not impossible. The second floor encounter never made any real sense to me given Baker's description of events. The timing doesn't work or the movement of a fleeing assassin trying to avoid detection.

We do have to consider Mrs Reid and her claimed observation at 2 minutes in the 2nd floor office. Also one of the other women mentions Reid told her of this in an early statement (maybe Sanders). To be sure, if the lunchroom story was totally fabricated it had to include Truly and Reid. in a short time frame. Unless the dates of their recorded statements have been altered.

The description of the suspect has always intrigued me. Particularly the weight, consistently 165 pounds. Anyone who saw Oswald at that time would never describe him as being so heavy. He looked like a 10 stone weakling. Invariably the description is for 165. Clearly someone different is being talked about here.

Colin,

I can't do any better than SM regarding Reid

There is an uncomfortable moment in Hine's WC testimony where she is asked about Jeraldean Reid, who was claiming to have gone up to the second floor office area very shortly after the assassination and to have encountered Lee Oswald there:

 

Mr. BALL. When you came back in did you see Mrs. Reid? 

Miss HINE. No, sir; I don't believe there was a soul in the office when I came back in right then.

...

Mr. BALL. Did you see Mrs. Reid come back in? 

Miss HINE. Yes, sir; I think I felt sure that I did. I thought that there were five or six that came in together. I thought she was one of those. 

Mr. BALL. Mrs. Reid told us she came in alone and when she came in she didn't see anybody there. 

Miss HINE. Well, it could be that she did, sir. I was talking on the phones and then came the policemen and then came the press. Everybody was wanting an outside line and then our vice president came in and he said "The next one that was clear, I have to have it and so I was busy with the phone. 

Mr. BALL. From the time you walked into the room you became immediately busy with the phone? 

Miss HINE. Yes, sir; sure was. 

 

(I believe "policemen" here is a stenographer's error and should read "policeman"--i.e. James Powell.)

 

Hine in the above exchange is clearly trying to be helpful, offering as an explanation for her having missed Reid the circumstance that she (Hine) was so busy with the phones.

 

But it just doesn't work.

 

For one thing, how could Reid have missed her and the "policeman" with her?

 

For another, and even more calamitously for Ball's line of questioning, how could Hine have missed both Reid and Oswald when the desk she was manning the phones at was in the front row of desks facing right where Reid is supposed to have come in and Oswald to have gone out?

Mr. BALL. Did you have to change your desk over to another desk [in order to watch the phones that day]? 

Miss HINE. Yes, sir; to the middle desk on the front row.

...

Mr. BALL. Did you see Oswald come in? 

Miss HINE. My back would have been to the door he was supposed to have come in at. 

Mr. BALL. Were you facing the door he is supposed to have left by? 

Miss HINE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BALL. Do you recall seeing him? 

Miss HINE. No, sir. 

 

**

 

How in heaven's name can Hine--desperate for information as to what has happened outside--possibly have missed Reid and Oswald?

And how can Reid possibly have seen Oswald but missed Hine (and the policeman)?

 

Might it be that the Reid-Oswald encounter happened before Hine reentered the office space?

 

For anyone wishing to preserve the second-floor lunchroom story, it's a tempting idea.

But it causes a whole new set of problems.

I have seen people debate the testimonies and attempt to sort out this mess for many years now. The best that anyone has been able to come up with is a jumbled mess. You have to pick and choose between which testimonies you are going to trust... which removes the entire construct out of the objective and into the subjective realm. All together, the testimonies do not match, corroborate, or tell any sort of cohesive story.

Greg's point about the timing is paramount. What seems like ten seconds to one may seem like minutes to another, especially during times of stress. Some days at work there will be one person who says the day dragged on forever while I thought it sailed by. Perspectives on time are influenced by a buttload of factors and cannot be used to empirically confirm anything in this case. Most of these estimates can be used as approximates only.

You can play around with the combinations of testimonies and the configurations produced to evolve differing scenarios but none of them will be provable by the testimonies themselves. After compiling variations, if one finds corroboration elsewhere then you might be onto something. It would involve a lot of heavy lifting, regardless.

Years ago I realized that there was no chance Oswald was the sixth floor shooter so the comings and goings claimed about him were non-essential to the case. Then I figured there was no shooter on the sixth floor at all and so the comings and goings in the TSBD became even more meaningless to the case.

I think they may still be of some importance in determining what was really going on in that building and why Oswald had to be set up but that was a crime with no true connection to the assassination except by nefarious design.

When Richard claimed he was going to prove the 2nd floor encounter, I could only chuckle. First, the proof is impossible, second, the event was unlikely to begin with IMHO. Oswald was outside with a coke already - why would he need to rush in and get another?

This is an intriguing aspect of the WC case - for sure - but the debate does not advance the investigation along materially, does it?

I realize a newbie might wonder about it but people that have dredged the case long enough should really know better, I should think.

Or am I being too much a cynic?

This is an intriguing aspect of the WC case - for sure - but the debate does not advance the investigation along materially, does it?

Because the 2nd floor lunch room encounter is something that LNers and CTers have long agreed on and it appears they're both wrong.  I find that hilarious.

My own view is regardless if Truly was an inside man, I'm dubious he'd vouch for an accomplice on the 4th floor to Baker as an employee (unless of course the accomplice really was an employee, in which case Truly wouldn't have to be the inside man). It'd be going way out on a limb since the cops would quickly discover if he was lying or not.
If there was a 4th floor encounter, more likely it happened exactly as Baker wrote EXCEPT the Dallas Police brass gave him the All Points Bulletin description to use instead of an accurate  description of the bona fide employee he ran into on 4th floor (who could have been one of the black employees for all we know).

terlin wrote:I have seen people debate the testimonies and attempt to sort out this mess for many years now. The best that anyone has been able to come up with is a jumbled mess. You have to pick and choose between which testimonies you are going to trust... which removes the entire construct out of the objective and into the subjective realm. All together, the testimonies do not match, corroborate, or tell any sort of cohesive story.

Greg's point about the timing is paramount. What seems like ten seconds to one may seem like minutes to another, especially during times of stress. Some days at work there will be one person who says the day dragged on forever while I thought it sailed by. Perspectives on time are influenced by a buttload of factors and cannot be used to empirically confirm anything in this case. Most of these estimates can be used as approximates only.

You can play around with the combinations of testimonies and the configurations produced to evolve differing scenarios but none of them will be provable by the testimonies themselves. After compiling variations, if one finds corroboration elsewhere then you might be onto something. It would involve a lot of heavy lifting, regardless.

Years ago I realized that there was no chance Oswald was the sixth floor shooter so the comings and goings claimed about him were non-essential to the case. Then I figured there was no shooter on the sixth floor at all and so the comings and goings in the TSBD became even more meaningless to the case.

I think they may still be of some importance in determining what was really going on in that building and why Oswald had to be set up but that was a crime with no true connection to the assassination except by nefarious design.

When Richard claimed he was going to prove the 2nd floor encounter, I could only chuckle. First, the proof is impossible, second, the event was unlikely to begin with IMHO. Oswald was outside with a coke already - why would he need to rush in and get another?

This is an intriguing aspect of the WC case - for sure - but the debate does not advance the investigation along materially, does it?

I realize a newbie might wonder about it but people that have dredged the case long enough should really know better, I should think.

Or am I being too much a cynic?

Terry,

I think most researchers are attracted to this part of the case - - the comings and goings of specific individuals - - their locations - - who saw who doing what, when and where - - and their backgrounds - - is because we know it stinks to high heaven. The real nuts and bolts of the setting up of Lee Oswald exists in the mechanics of the toing and froing inside this building - - not just on the day of the assassination but in the weeks leading up to 11/22.


Both Greg and I know that Truly was the inside man of the TSBD and we know why he was the inside man. His involvement in guiding Baker, his ability to rapidly change the narrative, his incredibly quick fingering of the "missing" Oswald, and his stonewalling of the FBI when it came to things like fingerprinting his employees is the reason certain parts of the cover up were created the way they were.


A number of years ago myself, Greg, Duke Lane, and Robert Charles-Dunne dismantled the fictional story of Oswald's alleged "escape" from Dealey Plaza by bus and taxi cab.


The keystone to the bus journey for the DPD and ultimately the Warren Commission was Mary Esther Bledsoe. After much wearisome and painstaking research, that funnily enough resulted in some individuals attempting to disrupt proceedings, we discovered that Bledsoe was most definitely on the bus that the official story claimed Oswald boarded shortly after the assassination.


The problem was she was on the bus long after Oswald was supposed to have departed it and the person she claimed was Oswald was a young kid named Roy Milton Jones.


Well, what did the Dallas Police Department and the FBI do to alleviate this awkward situation?  Simple.  They moved her.  They created two separate elderly bus passengers out of one.  This is a cast iron fact and the icing on the cake for me was that it was none other than Lone Nut aficionado and Dallas Morning News stalwart Hugh Aynesworth who sealed the deal.


So we know the investigating agencies most certainly were capable of moving witnesses from one point in time and space to another.


I think it is a slam dunk that they did the same with Oswald - - and they did the same with Truly and Baker.


They didn't like what they had to face with the evidence that they had so they just changed it and if that involved moving people then that is what they did.


There are many way to construct the evidence, the timings, the testimonies, and the affidavits and come up with slightly different scenarios.  It only happened one way and any one of us could be right or alternatively we could all be wrong.  The truth could be stranger than any of us have ever contemplated.  Who knows?


I think of it as an exotic part of the case.  So many variables to get your head around.  An abundance of testimony to read.  So many contradictions.  Many before us have tried to make sense of it.  I think all of them failed.  They placed too much faith in a reality that consisted of a 2nd floor lunchroom encounter.  IMO that reality no longer exists.


I actually enjoy delving into all of this, just as long as like-minded people are collaborating and a synergy develops in testing things and digging.  Unfortunately, we always end up with a Gilbride or a Lifton tagging along who just end up sapping you of energy.


I also enjoy the speculating part even though I'm a realist who knows that its difficult to prove even 1% of the speculation that goes on.  Could the soda bottles (one empty and one three quarters full), and the brown paper bag in the photos below be Lee Oswald's?  Is that a sandwich in the second photo?










We'll never know -- but its fascinating to think about...

Lee,

You're right about that: it IS fascinating.

And I am dying to find out what you and Greg have learned about Truly... but I suppose I will have to wait for the book, right?

LOL
Cheers!

terlin wrote:Lee,

You're right about that: it IS fascinating.

And I am dying to find out what you and Greg have learned about Truly... but I suppose I will have to wait for the book, right?

LOL
Cheers!

Terry,

having spent many years putting what I have learned on the table for all in these forums, I've had to conclude it hasn't moved the case any closer to being opened. If it has served any purpose, it has been in the collaboration aspect and in building some sort of profile. 

I actually wanted to go down the path of a documentary as I saw that as perhaps the way to make the biggest impact - but lack of money, expertise, time and everything else ruled that out. The book path HAS helped moved things a bit. PM got exposure in MSM. The next two volumes (if I have it in me to finish), I hope will build greatly on that. If I don't have it in me to finish those books, then at least the first one has given me some media contacts and I will find a journalist to just dump it all on and do the story.

greg parker wrote:PM got exposure in MSM.

Speaking of which, Greg, what kind of follow-up has there been on the original story, do you know?

Albert Rossi wrote:

greg parker wrote:PM got exposure in MSM.

Speaking of which, Greg, what kind of follow-up has there been on the original story, do you know?

The journalist has contacted me a couple of times - once ask that her keep her updated on any developments and later to let me know how popular (i.e. the number of hits) the story had been getting. It was picked up by another paper, but it was only another regional - apart from that, it was copied and posted to a US author's blog site. 

A member here has also given me contact details for a number of high profile journalists in this country who he believes would be sympathetic to the cause. 

Apart from that, I've had a lot of local interest - people seeking me out wanting to talk about it.

Just to add to the Truly thing - he is not the only person I have new info on. I also have some devastating new info on members of the Hyde and Paine clans - and the identity of a person discussed in testimony, but whose name was never discovered. He helped paint LHO as a raving commie just prior to the assassination and his identity is going to bemuse the bejesus out of some.

greg parker wrote:A member here has also given me contact details for a number of high profile journalists in this country who he believes would be sympathetic to the cause. 

Apart from that, I've had a lot of local interest - people seeking me out wanting to talk about it.

Just to add to the Truly thing - he is not the only person I have new info on. I also have some devastating new info on members of the Hyde and Paine clans - and the identity of a person discussed in testimony, but whose name was never discovered. He helped paint LHO as a raving commie just prior to the assassination and his identity is going to bemuse the bejesus out of some.

I hope the interest continues.

As for the other part, please bemuse the bejesus out of us. It will be in a new thread, I assume?

And as far as getting the other two books done, if you need any assistance - editing, compiling, gophering - I am still available.
 

That's great Greg.  Hope it continues to spread.

So this member of the Hyde/Paine clans ... is that the official connected to the Administration
which you said you would reveal in volume 3?  (that lead I always suspected went in
the direction of the Paines, but I am unable to guess who it might be ... I imagine that's
the idea   ).

terlin wrote:I hope the interest continues.

So do I.

terlin wrote:

greg parker wrote:A member here has also given me contact details for a number of high profile journalists in this country who he believes would be sympathetic to the cause. 

Apart from that, I've had a lot of local interest - people seeking me out wanting to talk about it.

Just to add to the Truly thing - he is not the only person I have new info on. I also have some devastating new info on members of the Hyde and Paine clans - and the identity of a person discussed in testimony, but whose name was never discovered. He helped paint LHO as a raving commie just prior to the assassination and his identity is going to bemuse the bejesus out of some.

I hope the interest continues.

As for the other part, please bemuse the bejesus out of us. It will be in a new thread, I assume?

And as far as getting the other two books done, if you need any assistance - editing, compiling, gophering - I am still available.
 

Thanks terry, the offer of help is extremely kind.

No new thread though... it's part of what is pegged for volume three - or failing that - a part of the data dump on a friendly journalist.

I knocked this up today from the photos of the second floor landing to get a better feel for the layout geometry. Not to scale but best guess from what I could determine.

The cental pillar is in yellow.

The photo taken below appears to be taken from about the position indicated by the red zone.


Baker's position and view close to the blue zone. The open box that can be seen through the door window from the lunchroom is in pale blue. From the SS video it is 8 steps from the base of the stairs going up to the door (ie the path Truly took to join Baker and Oswald. He claimed to be only 2 or 3 steps up the stairs. If Baker was directly behind Truly as they reached the second floor, Truly musy have neen higher than that. If Baker was further behind Truly would be even closer to the 3rd floor.

The WC version clearly indicates Oswald was coming from the corridor or offices and not merely ducking inside the lunchroom to avoid detection.

It's uncertain where the boxes were stacked that day.

There are other photos on other days with the boxes in line of sight of the door.

John Mooney wrote:It's uncertain where the boxes were stacked that day.

There are other photos on other days with the boxes in line of sight of the door.

Any links to those photos?

How about this nice one.. there's a whole film!

Seems the open box is still in the same position. Anything to back up the line of sight comment?