Carolyn Arnold

Let's start out with 3 common sense assumptions:

• Manual workers were not welcome to sit and eat on the 2nd floor lunchroom which was set aside for the office workers on that floor. That space was in fact sub-let to the book companies who would not want to be paying for the privilege of having their besuited salesmen having to sit next to dirty unkempt laborers.  Indeed, there are no witnesses that I'm aware of, to suggest that any of the laboring crew did more than grab a drink from up there.
  
• That the females who worked together on the 2nd floor left to watch the parade together. This is supported by Arnold stating to the FBI she went down to watch sometime between noon and 12:15, Virginia Rackley, who put the time she left as about 12:15 and Geneva Hine who volunteered to stay and answer phones so all the others could go. I'm sure with that offer, they did not leave in relays.
  
• That even if Arnold became aware at any time later, that the assassination had taken place at 12:30 - that is not evidence that she knew on the day that it was running 5 minutes late. This is a key issue in regard to any claim that she never left her office until 12:25.
  

 

If you believed that the motorcade was due at 12:25, you are not going to leave going down for it until 12:25. If your co-workers left at 12:15 and someone had volunteered to stay and answer any calls, you are not going to leave it until 12:25 to go down. Arnold left her office just as her initial FBI report states.

Her second statement appears in CE 1381 which is a SIGNED statement answering a set series of questions that the WC asked be put to all employees. Among the questions were, "did you see Oswald during the assassination"? "Did you see any strangers that day?" and "What time did you leave work for on that day?"

One question that was NOT asked was "what time did you break for lunch?" We know her "12:25" was not in response to a question NOT asked. We are therefore left with only ONE option: her "12:25" was her answer to the question "what time did you leave work for the day?" When she broke for lunch, she had not finished work for the day. Her day finished as soon as she realized she could not reenter the building. She therefore used the time she thought the assassination took place as her time of "finishing work".

Any belief that she should have known by the time she gave that statement that the assassination happened at 12:30 is understandable. But the belief that she should have known does not in any way over-ride any of the above.

Her story to Goltz that she saw Oswald seated in the 2nd floor lunchroom is defeated by point 1 above. 

I think her memory was confused by reading this: "... saw Oswald sitting..."

 Despite any claims to the contrary, Oswald was in the vestibule on the first floor when spotted by Arnold and the time was closer to 12:15 than 12:25.

When she is caught on film spun around and looking back towards the entrance and later denies she was spun around looking at the entrance means she was pressed to lie.
She still wont come forward and simply say she saw Lee in the Vestibule.
But she already did.
Evidence she saw him there far outweighs her thirsty lunchroom visit sighting.

A thirsty sighting that is a fugezi since other gals stated they left as a group.

Scarf girl might have witnessed Lee in the vestibule too

There is one issue.....
Geneva Hine stated in her affidavit that she was on her own from 12:25-12:35.

12:35
when others came in as a group?
How did Oswald slip past this pack. Take the front stairs while everyone else crammed in that front lift...
Am I off base here?

No,
the first one that came in was a police officer.
She saw the group come in later, 20/25 mins after.

She only mentions policeman and then more police, nothing about Reid or a group in her statement.
She also claims to not have seen Lee at all that day.

Reid claims are fabrication
She claims an isolated encounter equal to Truly's.
Her mention of another besides Campbell saying something about the shots I believe was Roy Truly.
She would avoid naming him which leads me to believe they're in collusion by late afternoon.
Reid would be used to claim a two minute entry time. But when she left the street or vestibule is in question.
Recall that Reid was shown Lee's shirt and admitted such in her testimony. Why? Isnt this odd for a woman whom claimed a white tshirt was Lee's attire to be shown a shirt she claims Lee wasn't wearing.

And what did Carolyn Arnold claim about Lee's clothing for her various sightings....

I can imagine the questioning by FBI:

"Mrs Reid please look carefully, is this the shirt the killer wasn't wearing?"

"Thank you, now we are off to avoid Mrs. Arnold"

Hine claims a policeman came in and:
A) told her not to leave
B) asked for an outside line
C) took over the phone lines (switchboard) she was monitoring.
D) all of the above

The 'group' bit is from her WC testimony.
Reid is as bad a liar as Truly.

Earl Golz Interviews Carolyn Arnold

In an interview with the journalist Earl Golz in 1978, Carolyn Arnold claimed that “she saw Oswald in the 2nd–floor lunchroom as she was on her way out of the depository to watch the presidential motorcade …. She left the building at 12:25pm.” (Earl Golz, ‘Was Oswald in Window?,’ Dallas Morning News, 26 November 1978, p.13A; [url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/B Disk/Bronson Charles/Item 27.pdf]available as PDF[/url]).
Golz quotes her as saying that Oswald “was sitting there … in one of the booth seats on the right–hand side of the room as you go in. He was alone as usual and appeared to be having lunch. I did not speak to him but I recognized him clearly.” She explicitly denied that her sighting of Oswald took place near the front doors: “Why would I be looking back inside the building? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
(Sourced from Doyle at the Foo so consider that)


Reading this it occurred to me she could have just as well have been talking about the Domino Room, 1st floor. She's pregnant so she unexpectedly has to hit the loo on the first floor on her way out to the front steps. Coming out from the toilet room back near the Domino Room, sees Lee in the Domino Room, in  the booth on the right, goes on out. Lee might have his Coke or whatever at that time or not. Several minutes later he heads out to see what the commotion is all about. Times out well.


As for not seeing Oswald while looking back toward the doors, she wasn't stupid and she had a baby to raise.

Jake Sykes wrote:Earl Golz Interviews Carolyn Arnold

In an interview with the journalist Earl Golz in 1978, Carolyn Arnold claimed that “she saw Oswald in the 2nd–floor lunchroom as she was on her way out of the depository to watch the presidential motorcade …. She left the building at 12:25pm.” (Earl Golz, ‘Was Oswald in Window?,’ Dallas Morning News, 26 November 1978, p.13A; [url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/B Disk/Bronson Charles/Item 27.pdf]available as PDF[/url]).
Golz quotes her as saying that Oswald “was sitting there … in one of the booth seats on the right–hand side of the room as you go in. He was alone as usual and appeared to be having lunch. I did not speak to him but I recognized him clearly.” She explicitly denied that her sighting of Oswald took place near the front doors: “Why would I be looking back inside the building? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
(Sourced from Doyle at the Foo so consider that)


Reading this it occurred to me she could have just as well have been talking about the Domino Room, 1st floor. She's pregnant so she unexpectedly has to hit the loo on the first floor on her way out to the front steps. Coming out from the toilet room back near the Domino Room, sees Lee in the Domino Room, in  the booth on the right, goes on out. Lee might have his Coke or whatever at that time or not. Several minutes later he heads out to see what the commotion is all about. Times out well.


As for not seeing Oswald while looking back toward the doors, she wasn't stupid and she had a baby to raise.

Since the 2nd floor lunchroom is in the middle of the building and is beyond 2 sets of doors, how could she notice him there on her way down to the parade? The only way would be if that is where she started her journey - but then her statement would be a different statement.

I think by the 70s, the 2nd floor story was so ingrained that she either convinced herself that's where it happened, or she changed her story knowingly, in order to maintain credibility as a witness. 

On the other hand, the wording in the Goltz story may well indicate she really said or meant 1st floor, because "on her way out" seemingly places the sighting closer to the entrance than a room in the middle of the 2nd floor.

Just some speculative ruminations:

1. LHO has low level involvement in a covert group inside the TSBD.

2. He has an assignment that day for whatever reason and he's been told to watch the elevators from the Domino Room while eating lunch. This is a good spot to place a patsy because they'll be able to put him on the sixth floor later. 

3. The work crew sent the elevator back up as he had called for them to do, he had taken the elevator down, washed up, gone to the second for a Coke, gone back down, and taken up his position in the Domino Room to watch the back of the house. He's not expecting what happened. He's involved in something, but not that.

5. Caroline Arnold happens to walk by. A fly in the ointment.

4. Hearing the shots startles him and he heads for the front, lunch and drink in hands. Another fly in the ointment.

5. Baker (eventually) makes his way into the vestibule. A big fly. No cop was supposed to come rushing in right past Oswald and speak to him no less. Nevertheless, the notion of placing him where they wanted him was already part of the program, so it was a matter of immediately starting the process of debugging that operational plan, or as Stan wrote so well, of "evolving" the story so as to hurdle the impediments that had arisen to its planned retelling. There certainly wasn't anything else to do.

6. LHO understands that something has gone "awry" to his perception and knowledge of the situation, which means he now believes he needs to go somewhere and do something. He's told he needs to grab a ride to the theater and make contact with somebody.

7. So begins the process of moving the whole story, vestibule and all, to the second floor.

.

All of this is compounded by Oliver Stone's portrayal of her getting a drink of water from a water fountain supposedly directly next to the lunch room door... a complete misrepresentation of the building.

The fountain is in the hallway between male and female bathrooms,
this is where I have been able to locate such fountain.

Was a 'glass of water' a figure of speech? She may crave a glass of water but settled for the drinking fountain.
Walking from the office out into the hallway to go toward the fountain she could not see into the lunchroom. To see into the lunchroom from the hall would thereby require one to 'turn around' walk to the entrance to look in and see someone sitting in a booth on the right hand side. She would then need a glass, run the water till cold, perhaps getting some ice from the ice tray... then stand there and drink the glass of icy water. How long would that take??

Would not a machine that chills your drinking water located in the hall be easier for a pregnant woman?

And while she is drinking her glass of water Oswald does nothing but watch her from the booths view of the counter, sink, fridge... Would he mention her as part of his alibi if it was a mere 5 minutes before the shots???
Jake has pointed out a discrepancy
Were the two stories merged, the official 2nd floor and her actual 1st floor sighting?
A walk to the first floor restroom and a lunch room sighting is easily accomplished without poking ones head into the domino room to see Lee in a booth.
Would a pregnant woman need to use a restroom after a long drink from the drinking fountain on her way out...would a pregnant woman re-climb stairs or wait for elevators?



Cheers, Ed

Cheers Ed. Great stuff. Thanks for improving on it so well. When I read what you wrote about maybe it was a figure of speech to say glass of water instead of drinking fountain, which it could well be exactly as you say, it also made me wonder if it might have been a figure of speech for using the rest room, or perhaps a ladylike way of not actually saying out loud that she had used the rest room, when in fact she did. (on the first floor).

Funny thing is no other office employee backs her story since they left 'together'. Virgie Rackley said so.

I also find it quite surprising that during the HSCA she becomes hot stuff and does 3 interviews to refute her earlier statement. For Summers, Golz and the Nat. Enq.

Who else does this?

Thanks Jake n Bart.

Jake her lunchroom sighting is a problem for so many reasons... perhaps those pregnancy hormones but more likely trying to get her story to line up somehow with the Truly Reid stories.

Bart, I believe Virgie Baker. She said shots did not come from the Depository, she saw a 'bullet strike' the pavement behind the limo. Baker, nee Rackley, was quite sure the shots sounds came from the knoll. For a pavement strike behind the limo but not originating from the depository we are left with DT or CR buildings. The group leaving together is far more believable than some solo trip to the well.

Wallace Millam.

What's really missing is the National Enquirer interview. From the same era, while the HSCA was hot stuff/
It's a small piece but I'd like to see what it says.
Again one were to ask why this was done, 3 interviews in a short period of time. She declined to be interviewed for TMWKK docu.

What was the reason she gave those interviews? Did the HSCA make her jittery? Were there news reports that brought her name up with it?

Good questions Bart!

I havent given up.hope on the NE magazine turning up.
Ugh haystack meet needle.