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.

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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'.  

John Mooney wrote:How about this nice one.. there's a whole film!

Colin, the boxes are clearly not stacked against the wall in this film and are closer to the table.

All I'm saying is just because the Warren Commission has nice neat photos of boxes out the way (and a convenient path from stairs to door) doesn't mean that's the way it was. It clearly wasn't in the above film.

From 24:40 in the reconstruction film.

If you compare the WC stills against this film you will see differences. Some of the boxes are not there in the film - the ones between the stack and the table, and the boxes look closer to the table.

John Mooney wrote:

From 24:40 in the reconstruction film.

If you compare the WC stills against this film you will see differences. Some of the boxes are not there in the film - the ones between the stack and the table, and the boxes look closer to the table.

Agree that there are differences. There are also boxes on the table in the movie. I see nothing that blocks line of sight to the window in any images/film for an adult in standing position. For all we know the boxes could have been stacked to the ceiling on Nov22....I cannot debate unknowns. As the place of buisiness was a clearing house for books I imagine work went on.... The change is not neccessarily sinister. The interesing thing is the open box is in the same position in the WC stills and the SS Movie.

Well I know that Truly helped the lie in his testimony to the WC.

The Warren commission photos contain a cropped version of the "Baker view" photo and Truly said the pillar was the staircase wall after a leading question from Belin:

Mr. BELIN. Now, as you take a look at the picture Exhibit 498, is this a post immediately to the left side of the picture, to the extreme left of the picture?
Mr. TRULY. No.
Mr. BELIN. What is this to the extreme left? Is that the wall for the staircase?
Mr. TRULY. Yes; there is an opening on this side, and the staircase is back over here. This picture is just part of this vestibule out here.
Mr. BELIN. And what direction does the camera appear to be pointing, or what is shown there?

This is obviously contrived to make it look like that is where Baker would have followed Truly.

The whole thing stinks.

John Mooney wrote:Well I know that Truly helped the lie in his testimony to the WC.

The Warren commission photos contain a cropped version of the "Baker view" photo and Truly said the pillar was the staircase wall after a leading question from Belin:

Mr. BELIN. Now, as you take a look at the picture Exhibit 498, is this a post immediately to the left side of the picture, to the extreme left of the picture?
Mr. TRULY. No.
Mr. BELIN. What is this to the extreme left? Is that the wall for the staircase?
Mr. TRULY. Yes; there is an opening on this side, and the staircase is back over here. This picture is just part of this vestibule out here.
Mr. BELIN. And what direction does the camera appear to be pointing, or what is shown there?

This is obviously contrived to make it look like that is where Baker would have followed Truly.

The whole thing stinks.

Well now we seem to agree. Your position seems to have changed somewhat. As you can see from the diagram I posted this is exactly the point I was trying to make. Clearly the position of the camera in that photo is not the view Baker had. Truly making this claim after the event is not the same as implicating him the the plot however. The problem for the WC version is that apart from the timing issue it makes no sense for Baker to even be in that position if following Truly. It also makes no sense for someone coming down the stairs and going through the door to be seen by Baker.

If the lunchroom encounter was a fiction, why not make more believable? In fact, why not have Oswald going through the door and when encountered be breathing heavily and looking nervous?

Colin Crow wrote:If the lunchroom encounter was a fiction, why not make more believable? In fact, why not have Oswald going through the door and when encountered be breathing heavily and looking nervous?

Exactly!

Why does it seem that so much of the evidence in this case is slightly askew. Even after LHO is long dead and gone, they come up with a story that is equivocal. What is the good of planting all this evidence if it leaves doubt?

Why not postmark Oswald's rifle order on a different day? Why not have the money order actually be cashed? Why create all this marvelous evidence that screams "Planted!" rather than something more conclusive?

Some say that perhaps they were rushed and couldn't cover all the bases. But this? Lee's dead, he's not going to raise any objection. As you say, why not make it more believable?

Unless, there is something else really going on... Me? I haven't a clue!

Colin, I was simply trying to say - perhaps clumsily - that the boxes as positioned for the WC isn't necessarily the way they were on the day. In the SS film they look like they would be in the way because they are closer to the pillar.

That added to the Belin/Truly contrivance makes me doubt the photos.

Colin Crow wrote:

John Mooney wrote:Well I know that Truly helped the lie in his testimony to the WC.

The Warren commission photos contain a cropped version of the "Baker view" photo and Truly said the pillar was the staircase wall after a leading question from Belin:

Mr. BELIN. Now, as you take a look at the picture Exhibit 498, is this a post immediately to the left side of the picture, to the extreme left of the picture?
Mr. TRULY. No.
Mr. BELIN. What is this to the extreme left? Is that the wall for the staircase?
Mr. TRULY. Yes; there is an opening on this side, and the staircase is back over here. This picture is just part of this vestibule out here.
Mr. BELIN. And what direction does the camera appear to be pointing, or what is shown there?

This is obviously contrived to make it look like that is where Baker would have followed Truly.

The whole thing stinks.

Well now we seem to agree. Your position seems to have changed somewhat. As you can see from the diagram I posted this is exactly the point I was trying to make. Clearly the position of the camera in that photo is not the view Baker had. Truly making this claim after the event is not the same as implicating him the the plot however. The problem for the WC version is that apart from the timing issue it makes no sense for Baker to even be in that position if following Truly. It also makes no sense for someone coming down the stairs and going through the door to be seen by Baker.

If the lunchroom encounter was a fiction, why not make more believable? In fact, why not have Oswald going through the door and when encountered be breathing heavily and looking nervous?

If Oswald were breathing heavily and appeared to be nervous, then Baker would look like he fucked up by not questioning him further and letting him go. Even if Truly vouched for him.
I don't believe the lunchroom encounter. It was designed to plausibly place Oswald in the building at a particular point and time whereby they could finger him for the shooting.

Another recollection by Baker, thinly disguised by JC Bowles as "Officer E".

"It had been a long escort. We had a lot of people all the way. There were no problems, just a heavy crowd and a lot of yelling and cheering, and the motors were getting hot. When you follow the lead, you do a lot of starting and stopping, trying to hold an interval. I was glad it was almost over.
The crowd was real heavy down on the end of the downtown area, but just past Dealey Plaza it would open up and we would be on the freeway and just a few minutes from the Trade Mart. The front of the motorcade started blocking up in the crowd in those last turns coming off Main and turning onto Elm. Back on Houston, where we were, we were just about stopped and moving real slow when we could move.
A little past half way down Houston (between Main and Elm), I heard the first shot. I could tell it came from somewhere in front of me, and high. As I looked up I noticed all the pigeons flushed off the top of the building on the corner ahead of me. And in the same period I heard the second shot, and then the third one. I couldn't see just where the shots came from but I knew they were from a high-powered rifle. I hunt a lot, and had just got back from hunting. There was no mistaking that; there were three shots, that's for sure. Though I didn't see exactly where the shots came from, I knew in my own mind they probably came from the corner building as the sound was right and because of the pigeons. So I headed there, got off my motor and entered the building (the Texas School Book Depository). It took a while because of the crowd; they had started moving in every direction.
The man who said he was the building superintendent was outside and met me at the door and went in with me. Shortly after I entered the building I confronted Oswald. The man who identified himself as the superintendent said that Oswald was all right, that he was employed there. We left Oswald there, and the supervisor showed me the way upstairs. We couldn't get anyone to send the freight elevator down. In giving the place a quick check, I found nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, so I started back to see what had happened. Not knowing for sure what had happened, I was limited in what I could legally do.
The investigator from Washington contacted me for my recollection of what happened, but I guess they weren't interested in what I said."


So much left open to interpretaion unfortunately.

Colin Crow wrote:I heard the first shot. I could tell it came from somewhere in front of me, and high. As I looked up I noticed all the pigeons flushed off the top of the building on the corner ahead of me. And in the same period I heard the second shot, and then the third one. I couldn't see just where the shots came from but I knew they were from a high-powered rifle. I hunt a lot, and had just got back from hunting. There was no mistaking that; there were three shots, that's for sure. Though I didn't see exactly where the shots came from, I knew in my own mind they probably came from the corner building as the sound was right and because of the pigeons.

So, Baker hears the shots, sees the pigeons and stares at the TSBD after the first shot.

Couldn't see the man hanging out of the sixth floor with a rifle??

Yes, we knew he met Oswald near the entrance but why couldn't Baker see a man shooting, like Rowlands and Euins saw?
Maybe there wasn't anyone there?

I don't know much about "high powered rifles" but is the Carcano considered high powered?

Edit. Just checked out Gil Jesus's page. The Carcano is not considered a high powered rifle. He mentions Bakers testimony amongst others who described the shots as emanating from a high powered rifle.
You learn a new suspicion about this case almost every time you venture.

As for the Bowles contribution, the order if events is interesting but not conclusive obviously. Have been reading a lot of Sean's posts again and the thought that keeps coming back is how important that coke was. If Oswald was holding a bottle he wasn't the shooter, simple as that.

terlin wrote:

Colin Crow wrote:I heard the first shot. I could tell it came from somewhere in front of me, and high. As I looked up I noticed all the pigeons flushed off the top of the building on the corner ahead of me. And in the same period I heard the second shot, and then the third one. I couldn't see just where the shots came from but I knew they were from a high-powered rifle. I hunt a lot, and had just got back from hunting. There was no mistaking that; there were three shots, that's for sure. Though I didn't see exactly where the shots came from, I knew in my own mind they probably came from the corner building as the sound was right and because of the pigeons.

So, Baker hears the shots, sees the pigeons and stares at the TSBD after the first shot.

Couldn't see the man hanging out of the sixth floor with a rifle??

Yes, we knew he met Oswald near the entrance but why couldn't Baker see a man shooting, like Rowlands and Euins saw?
Maybe there wasn't anyone there?

The angle from Baker's position likely only allowed the barrel to be seen. Ewins was a different angle. Rowland's sighting was 15 minutes earlier and of a standing gunman from a different window.

greg parker wrote:

Paul Klein wrote:

Colin Crow wrote:

John Mooney wrote:Well I know that Truly helped the lie in his testimony to the WC.

The Warren commission photos contain a cropped version of the "Baker view" photo and Truly said the pillar was the staircase wall after a leading question from Belin:

Mr. BELIN. Now, as you take a look at the picture Exhibit 498, is this a post immediately to the left side of the picture, to the extreme left of the picture?
Mr. TRULY. No.
Mr. BELIN. What is this to the extreme left? Is that the wall for the staircase?
Mr. TRULY. Yes; there is an opening on this side, and the staircase is back over here. This picture is just part of this vestibule out here.
Mr. BELIN. And what direction does the camera appear to be pointing, or what is shown there?

This is obviously contrived to make it look like that is where Baker would have followed Truly.

The whole thing stinks.

Well now we seem to agree. Your position seems to have changed somewhat. As you can see from the diagram I posted this is exactly the point I was trying to make. Clearly the position of the camera in that photo is not the view Baker had. Truly making this claim after the event is not the same as implicating him the the plot however. The problem for the WC version is that apart from the timing issue it makes no sense for Baker to even be in that position if following Truly. It also makes no sense for someone coming down the stairs and going through the door to be seen by Baker.

If the lunchroom encounter was a fiction, why not make more believable? In fact, why not have Oswald going through the door and when encountered be breathing heavily and looking nervous?

If Oswald were breathing heavily and appeared to be nervous, then Baker would look like he fucked up by not questioning him further and letting him go. Even if Truly vouched for him.
I don't believe the lunchroom encounter. It was designed to plausibly place Oswald in the building at a particular point and time whereby they could finger him for the shooting.

I don't think it will shock anyone that I agree with Paul on this. Oswald is a silent movie actor replete with exaggerated gestures, expressions and appearance as needed for both narrative and witness credibility.

For Baker, he was calm, cool and collected. 

For getaway bus witnesses, he looked like a maniac with disheveled clothes and messed up hair and Jack Nicholson bug-eyed laugh.

For Tippit scene, he was a cool and calculating professional killer.

Outside Hardy's shoe store, he takes on the appearance of a hybrid scared, cowardly maniac

While inside the theater, he morphs quickly on the running sheet from cool and calm to gung-ho, go-out-swinging wild man.  

If it had been 1925, he wins an Oscar.

Sorry to be a nark, Greg, but the inaugural Academy Awards was in 1929 just in time for the talkies. I am a film buff. I will say that I don't think Buster Keaton or Chaplin could have matched Oswald's range of acting. He is the Meryl Streep of patsies.

greg parker wrote:

Sorry to be a nark, Greg, but the inaugural Academy Awards was in 1929 just in time for the talkies. I am a film buff. I will say that I don't think Buster Keaton or Chaplin could have matched Oswald's range of acting. He is the Meryl Streep of patsies.

Paul, anyone should feel free to be a narc with any mistakes I make.

But apart from that - you got my meaning.

And they have him described in all those various ways for the same reason the silent films hammed it up - without words, it was one way to convey emotions, meanings and motives. 

I am pretty stuck on the idea that the whole weekend played like a silent movie cum z grade schlock drama.

Look at Leavelle when Ruby steps out and plugs Oswald. He has the expression and hand gestures of the Man Who is the First to See the Alien Monster with 6 heads. Either that, he was practicing his audition to be a chorus girl in Bottoms Up.

The magic of make believe.

Paul Klein
I will say that I don't think Buster Keaton or Chaplin could have matched Oswald's range of acting. He is the Meryl Streep of patsies

I like the part in front of the reporters where he's told he's been charged with killing the President.

He does a tremendous job at portraying disbelief and pissedoffidness.

Fine acting.. oh wait..

greg parker wrote:pissedoffidness.

I like it.

Me too.

Let's not forget an important point in all of this.

On November 22nd and 23rd when Roy Truly was interviewed by the FBI he does not leave them with the impression that there was any detachment from Marrion Baker on the 2nd Floor.

And more importantly there is no mention of the elevators until the interview of the 23rd.  In the statement from the 22nd he very clearly states that they "immediately" went up the stairs.  No mention of checking any elevators at all.

hey Hello Goodbay
Do you have this document somewhere, as I remember on the 23 in the morning when Hoover is talking to the Precedent he is telling him that they have one suspect and that officer Baker and Truly met him just inside the building, I do not remember just where this quote is but I have put it in another discussion.

Hi F.I.

Here are all of the original Truly (and related) documents in one file.

In the second FBI document -- the Williams and Pinkston interview from November 22nd -- you will see the lines:

"He then noticed a Dallas City Police officer wearing a motorcycle helmet and·boots running toward the entrance of the depository building and be accompanied the officer into the front of the building. They saw no one there and he accompanied the officer immediately up the stairs to the second floor of the building, where the officer noticed a door and stepped through the door, gun in band, and observed OSWALD in a snack bar there, apparently alone."

No mention of stopping by the elevators and seeing them stuck on the fifth floor as the narrative ultimately evolved into.

Sean Murphy also took pains to point out how this document from the 22nd strangely mentions them seeing "no one" in the front of the building when Truly and Baker first went inside.  I completely agree with Sean on this point.

The FBI document that follows the one from the 22nd is from the 23rd (the Kenneth Jackson interview) and is where B&T now no longer "immediately" go up the stairs but instead stop for a while to see if there are any elevators available.

http://media.nara.gov/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/truly_roy/truly_roy.pdf

My suspicion is that Mrs. Reid put the Oswald in the lunchroom story into Truly's head the afternoon of the assassination.