LHO - few things that don't add up, and further speculation about The Militant

Just few points that I've been mulling lately:

1) Why didn't LHO shoot when the motorcade was approaching the Depository along Houston? If he was on the 6th floor, he would surely have had an unrestricted view of the president, windshield notwithstanding. Or was there some practical reason for holding off (other than the obvious crossfire scenario)?

2) I learned recently that LHO did not get out of Wesley Frazier's car at the Dealey Plaza TSBD building, but at the TSBD car park a few blocks away. Apparently, he left Frazier at the car park and walked off by himself, "package" under his arm, according to Frazier, in the direction of Dealey Plaza. I'm guessing the walk would have taken him a couple of minutes, a couple of minutes that as far as I know are completely unaccounted for. Could he have handed the "package" to someone else on the way? The only witness to him arriving at the TSBD that morning, employee Jack Dougherty, said LHO wasn't carrying anything. Or maybe he just had sandwiches and an apple, like he said. Either way, those missing couple of minutes are intriguing.

3) Recently, I've been working my way through The Militant, all editions for 1963 (now available online). I've already posted about the curious letter from "L.H." of Dallas in the 11 March issue (the one LHO is holding in the back yard pix). But I thought it might be interesting to see what LHO would have been reading in the weeks and months running up to the assassination. 

Turns out that over the summer and into autumn there was extensive coverage of a trip by a group of 50-odd "students" to Cuba, aimed at busting the travel ban introduced by the Kennedy administration earlier in 1963. I put the word "students" in inverted commas, because at least two of them, Barry Hoffman and Robert Kaffke, were FBI informants. Hoffman would give evidence against indicted students at the HUAC hearings later that year, while Kaffke would surface in Mexico City in late October, just a couple of weeks after LHO left, staying at a Quaker hostel just around the corner from the hotel where LHO had stayed. He later fed some bizarre stories to the FBI about Oswald showing up on a motorbike with "an American", and having lots of money. But that sounds suspiciously like disinformation to me. As a further point of interest, Kaffke sounds curiously like Oswald in some ways. Ex-military, with a habit of sounding off about Cuba and communism to anyone within earshot.

Either way, there seems to have been nor shortage of informants working to infiltrate left-wing organisations at the behest of the FBI at the time. Was LHO one such, or led to believe he was? And was his trip to Mexico an attempt to see how easy it would be for a US citizen with "solid" left-wing credentials to obtain a Cuban visa in Mexico City, thereby breaking the travel ban? That's leaving aside, of course, the question of whether LHO visited Mexico City at all, but that's a whole other can of worms.

What's certain is that the Mexican capital was a hotbed of Cold War intrigue at the time. Allegedly, a number of the student Cuba trip leaders were briefed ahead of the trip by MI6 Washington station chief Maurice Oldfield (probably under an alias), apparently in Mexico City, according to a recent biography of Oldfield which draws on Oldfield's contemporary jottings. I have tried to get clarification on that from the books' author, Oldfield's nephew Martin Pearce, but after initially saying he would check his uncle's 'day books', I heard nothing more. 

Why would MI6 have got involved anyway? Good question. Just one more murky thread to add to the interminable tangle. 

All comments and observations on the above welcome. Also, if anyone knows of an online archive for The Worker, please let me know.

orangebicycle1) wrote:Why didn't LHO shoot when the motorcade was approaching the Depository along Houston? If he was on the 6th floor, he would surely have had an unrestricted view of the president, windshield notwithstanding. Or was there some practical reason for holding off (other than the obvious crossfire scenario)?

Not my area of expertise but this is something a few have mulled over through the years.

2) I learned recently that LHO did not get out of Wesley Frazier's car at the Dealey Plaza TSBD building, but at the TSBD car park a few blocks away. Apparently, he left Frazier at the car park and walked off by himself, "package" under his arm, according to Frazier, in the direction of Dealey Plaza. I'm guessing the walk would have taken him a couple of minutes, a couple of minutes that as far as I know are completely unaccounted for. Could he have handed the "package" to someone else on the way? The only witness to him arriving at the TSBD that morning, employee Jack Dougherty, said LHO wasn't carrying anything. Or maybe he just had sandwiches and an apple, like he said. Either way, those missing couple of minutes are intriguing.

What you learned recently was the original story. The story about dropping him off at the front entrance came through one of his fellow employees via the HSCA. (refer to the "Where's Your Rider" thread).

The original story is way too convenient. Frazier lagging way behind due to watching trains being shunted, sounds awfully like a lame excuse for not walking with Oswald and therefore not noticing what he did and where he went with the alleged package after entering the building. The story given to the HSCA is more believable, not least because it came from someone who had nothing to hide and no reason to lie. 

3) Recently, I've been working my way through The Militant, all editions for 1963 (now available online). I've already posted about the curious letter from "L.H." of Dallas in the 11 March issue (the one LHO is holding in the back yard pix). But I thought it might be interesting to see what LHO would have been reading in the weeks and months running up to the assassination. 

The letter as published, could not have been written by Oswald. The spelling and grammar demonstrate that. So it was either written by someone else, or was heavily edited at the Militant. 
https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/images/MilitantLHLetter.gif It is also disputable whether Lee would have access to the details given in the letter about what was happening around the country with regard to reform of the Dems. Seems to me, it would be limited to newspapers in the states named. Dallas, it should be noted, was virtually the birthplace of Socialism in the US.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Réunion_(Dallas). Although a short-lived experiment, some of those people stayed on in Dallas and it is more than possible that they still had small pockets of influence within the city. Who knows? Maybe it was this history that influenced the choice of sites for the assassination? I know it is tempting to say it was Oswald given the initials and the paper being held in the BYP,  but where are we with that should the photos eventually be proven as fakes? I cannot prove the letter was not his. Not do I want to. But nor can it be proven it was his, and nor does it make much difference to anything either way, imo.

Turns out that over the summer and into autumn there was extensive coverage of a trip by a group of 50-odd "students" to Cuba, aimed at busting the travel ban introduced by the Kennedy administration earlier in 1963. I put the word "students" in inverted commas, because at least two of them, Barry Hoffman and Robert Kaffke, were FBI informants. Hoffman would give evidence against indicted students at the HUAC hearings later that year, while Kaffke would surface in Mexico City in late October, just a couple of weeks after LHO left, staying at a Quaker hostel just around the corner from the hotel where LHO had stayed. He later fed some bizarre stories to the FBI about Oswald showing up on a motorbike with "an American", and having lots of money. But that sounds suspiciously like disinformation to me. As a further point of interest, Kaffke sounds curiously like Oswald in some ways. Ex-military, with a habit of sounding off about Cuba and communism to anyone within earshot.

I went through some of the more prominent members of that trip a long time ago and could not find any that were not suspicious in some way or another. Hoffman was not even a student!

It is a long time since I have looked at Kaffke and I must admit, I don't recall anything about any money, and my memory is that the talk about a guy on a bike came the American girlfriend of a Mexican Quaker.
I don't have time at the moment to refresh my memory, but the guy on the bike was real and his real identity is known. It is a very long and convoluted story that may or may not have had intelligence angles to it. I could have had much more on this but was unable to convince anyone in the US to interview the guy involved. They had already spoken to his twin in the belief that he had been the right one.

Either way, there seems to have been nor shortage of informants working to infiltrate left-wing organisations at the behest of the FBI at the time. Was LHO one such, or led to believe he was? And was his trip to Mexico an attempt to see how easy it would be for a US citizen with "solid" left-wing credentials to obtain a Cuban visa in Mexico City, thereby breaking the travel ban? That's leaving aside, of course, the question of whether LHO visited Mexico City at all, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Informants and infiltrators were not confined to the Left, though it was likely more tipped that way.

Yes, I think Lee was - or was led to believe he was - an informant.

Lee never went to Mexico - but there was another passenger on the bus of great interest, and all of that will come out down the track somewhere. When it does, it will not be in the form of a theory, but rock solid facts.

What's certain is that the Mexican capital was a hotbed of Cold War intrigue at the time. Allegedly, a number of the student Cuba trip leaders were briefed ahead of the trip by MI6 Washington station chief Maurice Oldfield (probably under an alias), apparently in Mexico City, according to a recent biography of Oldfield which draws on Oldfield's contemporary jottings. I have tried to get clarification on that from the books' author, Oldfield's nephew Martin Pearce, but after initially saying he would check his uncle's 'day books', I heard nothing more.

Apart from MC being a "hotbet" of Cold War intrigue, this is new to me. Maybe send him a gentle reminder?

Thanks, Greg, for your detailed response. 

I did follow up a couple of times with Martin Pearce after a brief to-ing and fro-ing by email. At first he seemed interested and helpful, but then just went silent. I emailed a few 'reminders', but he obviously did not want to engage further. What I was trying to establish was where Oldfield 'briefed' the students, as the passage in the book isn't clear, also who he briefed and who got him involved, and why. It does seem an odd and unexpected connection, given his position was Washington DC station chief. A further question, of course, was did those he 'briefed' know his real identity?

I thought of submitting a FOI request on the subject, but guess what, MI6 (unlike MI5) is excluded from the UK's FOI Act. Outrageous, I know. But that's good old British democracy for you. Another route might be via FOI in the States, but I'm not sure that as a UK citizen I could pursue that, and apparently to get any kind of meaningful result you have to pay.

Rightly or wrongly - and partly because it features so extensively in a paper that LHO would have been reading - I have a gut feeling that the student trip to Cuba had some sort of connection to LHO's Mexico trip (or to whoever was down there impersonating him). The administration was clearly paranoid about the ban being broken, and LHO with his leftist 'credentials' (ready to hand) was attempting to do just that. I'm intrigued that you have dug into other prominent members of the Cuba trip. If you can share any details on that, I would be most interested. 

Re the 'person of interest' on the bus trip, I'm guessing you mean the 'missionary' guy with a bizarre history and CIA connections. Either way, I look forward to those 'rock solid' facts!

As for the LH letter, I thought I was the first one to dig that one up! Obviously, not. I understand what you're saying, there, although I can't agree about its potential relevance. Clearly, it would have had heavy editing, and conceivably might have been 'directed' by others. Also worth remembering, maybe, that LHO was reading at least one other periodical (The Worker), and so was probably better informed on leftist goings-on outside Texas than your average Joe. Anyway, if LH was LHO, it might explain why he was 'showcasing' the paper in the pix. Except of course that it wasn't him. The Militant paper was 11x17 inches in size. A quick Photoshop around that quickly reveals that backyard LHO is just five feet high. For the life of me, I can't understand why this screamingly obvious fact is consistently ignored. But there it is. Maybe people are just too keen to hang on to the 'mystery'. One scenario that has occurred to me is that the letter was written by someone calling himself 'Lee Harvey Oswald', and that the whole thing was part of the wider backyard 'set-up', but that whoever wrote the letter hadn't banked on The Militant's policy of (often) not revealing correspondents' full names. A bit convoluted, I know, but not, I think, implausible.

I should add that when I shared details of the LH letter with Anthony Summers, it turns out he wasn't aware of it. He replied saying he found the letter 'fascinating' and believed it 'plausible' that LH could have been LHO. Sadly, that's as far as it went; he's busy on another project, so there was no further discussion.

Meanwhile, I would certainly love to get hold of back issues of The Worker for 1963. If you, or anyone reading this, knows of a source, please do share.

Thanks, Greg, for your detailed response. 

No worries. Thanks for the update on your efforts.

I did follow up a couple of times with Martin Pearce after a brief to-ing and fro-ing by email. At first he seemed interested and helpful, but then just went silent. I emailed a few 'reminders', but he obviously did not want to engage further. What I was trying to establish was where Oldfield 'briefed' the students, as the passage in the book isn't clear, also who he briefed and who got him involved, and why. It does seem an odd and unexpected connection, given his position was Washington DC station chief. A further question, of course, was did those he 'briefed' know his real identity?

I can empathize. 

I thought of submitting a FOI request on the subject, but guess what, MI6 (unlike MI5) is excluded from the UK's FOI Act. Outrageous, I know. But that's good old British democracy for you. Another route might be via FOI in the States, but I'm not sure that as a UK citizen I could pursue that, and apparently to get any kind of meaningful result you have to pay.

You can certainly pursue it. But yes, there would probably be a cost, prohibitive or otherwise. 

Rightly or wrongly - and partly because it features so extensively in a paper that LHO would have been reading - I have a gut feeling that the student trip to Cuba had some sort of connection to LHO's Mexico trip (or to whoever was down there impersonating him). The administration was clearly paranoid about the ban being broken, and LHO with his leftist 'credentials' (ready to hand) was attempting to do just that. I'm intrigued that you have dug into other prominent members of the Cuba trip. If you can share any details on that, I would be most interested. 

Hadn't dug into as many as I thought - and I also recalled the wrong Hoffman as a businessman.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/1636-student-trips-to-cuba/?tab=comments#comment-9420

Re the 'person of interest' on the bus trip, I'm guessing you mean the 'missionary' guy with a bizarre history and CIA connections. Either way, I look forward to those 'rock solid' facts!

Close. I have the real identity of the person who sat next to Osborne. Ironic that the con-man (I doubt he had CIA connections - pure speculation by conspiracy authors) was the only honest WHITE bus witness. He was also the only WHITE passenger shown a photo of Oswald. 

As for the LH letter, I thought I was the first one to dig that one up! Obviously, not. I understand what you're saying, there, although I can't agree about its potential relevance. Clearly, it would have had heavy editing, and conceivably might have been 'directed' by others. Also worth remembering, maybe, that LHO was reading at least one other periodical (The Worker), and so was probably better informed on leftist goings-on outside Texas than your average Joe. Anyway, if LH was LHO, it might explain why he was 'showcasing' the paper in the pix. Except of course that it wasn't him. The Militant paper was 11x17 inches in size. A quick Photoshop around that quickly reveals that backyard LHO is just five feet high. For the life of me, I can't understand why this screamingly obvious fact is consistently ignored. But there it is. Maybe people are just too keen to hang on to the 'mystery'. One scenario that has occurred to me is that the letter was written by someone calling himself 'Lee Harvey Oswald', and that the whole thing was part of the wider backyard 'set-up', but that whoever wrote the letter hadn't banked on The Militant's policy of (often) not revealing correspondents' full names. A bit convoluted, I know, but not, I think, implausible.

Cart before the horse. It can only "clearly" have had heavy editing by first accepting Oswald wrote it. Oswald only ever signed his full name on official documents. In  letters, he signed as either "Lee Oswald" or as "Lee H Oswald". The "H" however would usually be unrecognizable to anyone who didn't already know what it stood for.

It could just as easily have been written by someone in Dallas whose initials were LH and who needed no editing. I could speculate it was written by Lamar Hunt, or someone who jokingly signed as Lamar Hunt!

What you end up with is speculating Oswald wrote it and then accepting that as fact in order to further speculate what it means. I don't mind speculation, but I'd prefer it not generate further speculation. And even in speculating, there is only so far this line of inquiry can take you. For me anyway, there are just too many other areas that can carry us further.

Good job with photoshop. I believe you are right on this.

I should add that when I shared details of the LH letter with Anthony Summers, it turns out he wasn't aware of it. He replied saying he found the letter 'fascinating' and believed it 'plausible' that LH could have been LHO. Sadly, that's as far as it went; he's busy on another project, so there was no further discussion.

LOL. Yes, I've had my ups and downs with Tony as well. 

Meanwhile, I would certainly love to get hold of back issues of The Worker for 1963. If you, or anyone reading this, knows of a source, please do share.

I think you and I may be in the same boat. If it can't be found on the web we're pretty well stuck.

Again, many thanks, Greg, for your insightful comments.

I am intrigued to know that you have identified another passenger on LHO's magical mystery tour bus. But weren't there other Caucasian passengers, the two Australian women and an elderly couple? Or are we talking about another leg of the journey? Either way, I understand if you don't want to give too much away. But are you able to say whether your discovery makes a quantifiable difference to our understanding of what was going on?

Meanwhile, I've been checking through a list of the students on the Cuba trip. Like you say, they seem to have been a real mixed bag of 'believers' and potentially suspect 'fellow travellers'. And that's only looking at the first dozen or so. I also dug up some more info on Kaffke, including a photo (link below). He certainly looks like a bit of a bruiser. He also went under his (Nicaraguan) mother's maiden name, Rubi, at times, or then Kaffke Rubi. 

https://www.geni.com/photo/view/6000000009693583139?album_type=photos_of_me&photo_id=6000000011258482205

Kaffke is also referenced in one of the HUAC inquiries as being Latin American correspondent for Ramparts magazine, and was in the process of writing an article for Ramparts about his experiences in Mexico City in 'the summer of '63 at the 'same time LHO was there' (I'm slightly paraphrasing, here; the HUAC reference was to an earlier interview with Kaffke published in the Daily Gater). I checked the Ramparts archive, and it's comprehensive except for the whole of 1964, which is when the 'article' (if it ever existed) would have been published. There also is no 'Kaffke' in the list of contributors.

My feeling, increasingly, is that Kaffke was a bit of a fantasist. That said, it's curious that while the passports for all those who went on the Cuba trip were revoked on their return to the US, he was able to high-tail down to Mexico just a few weeks later. On a Nicaraguan passport, perhaps? Or is there some other explanation? He was never called to testify at HUAC, and you have to wonder what prompted the trip to Mexico in the first place.

In 1968, he and a William Dobkins were arrested in Toronto for possessing and unregistered gun, and deported. He seems to disappear from the record after that until his death from hypothermia and insulin shock in Marin County in 1983.


Another on the trip was John Robert Glenn (no relation to the astronaut). His background was in Air Force Intelligence and in 1958 and 1959 he visited the USSR and Eastern Europe as a bespoke 'tour guide'. Questioned at HUAC on 18 Nov 1963, he's very coy about who bankrolled these trips, nominally Tom Maupin Travel of Kansas City, but he was not on their payroll. He refused to answer questions about his intelligence work, and HUAC didn't press him on that. Interestingly, Maupin Travel featured in a Senate hearing in the mid-1950s on the administration of foreign agents.

Glenn later joined the FPCC and both he and Oswald bought almost identical material from Pioneer Publishers at around the same time. 

Funny how all these guys - Kaffke, Glenn, Oswald - seem to fall into a similar pattern, all former military experiencing some kind of 'conversion' to socialism, widely travelled; Kaffke in central America, both Glenn and Oswald in the USSR.

Others seem pretty much on the level. John Henry Coatsworth is now a distinguished Latin American historian with his own Wikipedia page (which doesn't mention the Cuba trip). Robert Wayne Davis is now a musician specialising in 'Cuban Blues'. You can check it out here robertdavis.biz.

orangebicycle wrote:Again, many thanks, Greg, for your insightful comments.

I am intrigued to know that you have identified another passenger on LHO's magical mystery tour bus. But weren't there other Caucasian passengers, the two Australian women and an elderly couple? Or are we talking about another leg of the journey? Either way, I understand if you don't want to give too much away. But are you able to say whether your discovery makes a quantifiable difference to our understanding of what was going on?

Meanwhile, I've been checking through a list of the students on the Cuba trip. Like you say, they seem to have been a real mixed bag of 'believers' and potentially suspect 'fellow travellers'. And that's only looking at the first dozen or so. I also dug up some more info on Kaffke, including a photo (link below). He certainly looks like a bit of a bruiser. He also went under his (Nicaraguan) mother's maiden name, Rubi, at times, or then Kaffke Rubi. 

https://www.geni.com/photo/view/6000000009693583139?album_type=photos_of_me&photo_id=6000000011258482205

Kaffke is also referenced in one of the HUAC inquiries as being Latin American correspondent for Ramparts magazine, and was in the process of writing an article for Ramparts about his experiences in Mexico City in 'the summer of '63 at the 'same time LHO was there' (I'm slightly paraphrasing, here; the HUAC reference was to an earlier interview with Kaffke published in the Daily Gater). I checked the Ramparts archive, and it's comprehensive except for the whole of 1964, which is when the 'article' (if it ever existed) would have been published. There also is no 'Kaffke' in the list of contributors.

My feeling, increasingly, is that Kaffke was a bit of a fantasist. That said, it's curious that while the passports for all those who went on the Cuba trip were revoked on their return to the US, he was able to high-tail down to Mexico just a few weeks later. On a Nicaraguan passport, perhaps? Or is there some other explanation? He was never called to testify at HUAC, and you have to wonder what prompted the trip to Mexico in the first place.

In 1968, he and a William Dobkins were arrested in Toronto for possessing and unregistered gun, and deported. He seems to disappear from the record after that until his death from hypothermia and insulin shock in Marin County in 1983.


Another on the trip was John Robert Glenn (no relation to the astronaut). His background was in Air Force Intelligence and in 1958 and 1959 he visited the USSR and Eastern Europe as a bespoke 'tour guide'. Questioned at HUAC on 18 Nov 1963, he's very coy about who bankrolled these trips, nominally Tom Maupin Travel of Kansas City, but he was not on their payroll. He refused to answer questions about his intelligence work, and HUAC didn't press him on that. Interestingly, Maupin Travel featured in a Senate hearing in the mid-1950s on the administration of foreign agents.

Glenn later joined the FPCC and both he and Oswald bought almost identical material from Pioneer Publishers at around the same time. 

Funny how all these guys - Kaffke, Glenn, Oswald - seem to fall into a similar pattern, all former military experiencing some kind of 'conversion' to socialism, widely travelled; Kaffke in central America, both Glenn and Oswald in the USSR.

Others seem pretty much on the level. John Henry Coatsworth is now a distinguished Latin American historian with his own Wikipedia page (which doesn't mention the Cuba trip). Robert Wayne Davis is now a musician specialising in 'Cuban Blues'. You can check it out here robertdavis.biz.

Great info on some of those other travelers. I may have a little on Kaffke somewhere, though probably not much. I'll do a search of my files.

The man on the bus of interest was the one who actually was sitting next to Osborne. Can't stress enough that his ID is not speculation. His ID is beyond dispute based on the evidence that has been dug up by myself and Ed.

What does this mean?

-Oswald did not travel to Mexico City on that bus. And other evidence suggests not at all.

-The two girls and the McFarland's gave false statements.

Those two things alone blow a huge hole in a lot of theories. The issue for me is that the real passenger and his larger-than-life background will spark even wilder conspiracies than what we already have, so I am determined to try and nail down his actual significance to the Oswald story and to the assassination before it goes public. At the moment, I don't think he is relevant to either - while remaining a person of great interest in his own right.

As for what happened -  the FBI had to get Oswald to MC because someone there was claiming to be him... so this passenger simply had to take that role and they got 4 witnesses to place him there. How? My research on them leads to me conclude they had probable connections and ties to US and/or British intelligence. I don't think Dr McFarland's timing regarding research at ol' Miss was any coincidence - and nor did it have anything to do with his medical expertise, but rather, his experience in the British army.

So where does it stand? The passenger's ID is beyond dispute. Beyond that, I do have to speculate.

One of the issues in MC - possibly concerning both the man on the bike and Kaffke, was the flood of communist propaganda entering the country via ships. The guy on the bike did a disappearing act while down there and later explained he had been watching for a ship... but he is a whole other story involving female tourists, guitar shops, motorbikes, lifts on motorbikes, beatnik beards, twist parties, the Quaker hostel run by devout anti-communists, and various personnel at various foreign offices.

The real story of some of these players is a visualization of Mr Tambourine Man meets Desolation Row Meets Ballad of a Thin Man.

Fascinating. I knew Bob Dylan would have to be involved somewhere!

And talking of Bob Dylan, turns out another 'student' on the Cuba trip was journalist Peter 'Pete' Karman. He wrote the first review of Dylan for the New York Daily Mirror and for a short while was one of the Dylan 'in-crowd', even tagging along on the famous cross-country road trip in 1964. He's still working as a journalist, notably for In These Times.

orangebicycle wrote:Just few points that I've been mulling lately:

1) Why didn't LHO shoot when the motorcade was approaching the Depository along Houston? If he was on the 6th floor, he would surely have had an unrestricted view of the president, windshield notwithstanding. Or was there some practical reason for holding off (other than the obvious crossfire scenario)?

The funniest response to this question I've ever heard was many years ago when I was working at a bookstore that was doing a small reading for Thomas Mallon for his book Mrs. Paine's Garage. My job was to set up chairs, sell people copies at the register, etc.; I was a grunt. I wasn't familiar with the book or Mallon at the time, nor had I dived too deeply into the JFK assassination, but I knew enough to be skeptical of Mallon's lone nutter book.

To paraphrase when Mallon was asked why Oswald didn't just take the easy shot of JFK approaching along Houston, he replied (based on some sort of remarkable omniscience) that Oswald had deliberately not taken that shot because when he looked at JFK straight on, he was instantly humbled and shamed into nonaction. The coward lacked the courage to shoot JFK in that beaming, powerful face. "That's the President!" Only when JFK's back was turned could Oswald regain his nerve and perform that fantastic feat of marksmanship.

I burst out laughing. The bookstore events director and Mallon shot me a glance. I quieted down and the reading went on without incident.

So there you have it. The perpetual loser Oswald was too chickenshit to kill the President (before he then killed the President).

rogerhucek wrote:

orangebicycle wrote:Just few points that I've been mulling lately:

1) Why didn't LHO shoot when the motorcade was approaching the Depository along Houston? If he was on the 6th floor, he would surely have had an unrestricted view of the president, windshield notwithstanding. Or was there some practical reason for holding off (other than the obvious crossfire scenario)?

The funniest response to this question I've ever heard was many years ago when I was working at a bookstore that was doing a small reading for Thomas Mallon for his book Mrs. Paine's Garage. My job was to set up chairs, sell people copies at the register, etc.; I was a grunt. I wasn't familiar with the book or Mallon at the time, nor had I dived too deeply into the JFK assassination, but I knew enough to be skeptical of Mallon's lone nutter book.

To paraphrase when Mallon was asked why Oswald didn't just take the easy shot of JFK approaching along Houston, he replied (based on some sort of remarkable omniscience) that Oswald had deliberately not taken that shot because when he looked at JFK straight on, he was instantly humbled and shamed into nonaction. The coward lacked the courage to shoot JFK in that beaming, powerful face. "That's the President!" Only when JFK's back was turned could Oswald regain his nerve and perform that fantastic feat of marksmanship.

I burst out laughing. The bookstore events director and Mallon shot me a glance. I quieted down and the reading went on without incident.

So there you have it. The perpetual loser Oswald was too chickenshit to kill the President (before he then killed the President).

Agreed, that the insanity of the suggestion that the lone nut waited to take the more difficult, almost impossible shot when the vehicle was moving away, downward to the right somewhat out of sight through the trees is staggeringly unbelievable.

Mick Purdy wrote:

rogerhucek wrote:

orangebicycle wrote:Just few points that I've been mulling lately:

1) Why didn't LHO shoot when the motorcade was approaching the Depository along Houston? If he was on the 6th floor, he would surely have had an unrestricted view of the president, windshield notwithstanding. Or was there some practical reason for holding off (other than the obvious crossfire scenario)?

The funniest response to this question I've ever heard was many years ago when I was working at a bookstore that was doing a small reading for Thomas Mallon for his book Mrs. Paine's Garage. My job was to set up chairs, sell people copies at the register, etc.; I was a grunt. I wasn't familiar with the book or Mallon at the time, nor had I dived too deeply into the JFK assassination, but I knew enough to be skeptical of Mallon's lone nutter book.

To paraphrase when Mallon was asked why Oswald didn't just take the easy shot of JFK approaching along Houston, he replied (based on some sort of remarkable omniscience) that Oswald had deliberately not taken that shot because when he looked at JFK straight on, he was instantly humbled and shamed into nonaction. The coward lacked the courage to shoot JFK in that beaming, powerful face. "That's the President!" Only when JFK's back was turned could Oswald regain his nerve and perform that fantastic feat of marksmanship.

I burst out laughing. The bookstore events director and Mallon shot me a glance. I quieted down and the reading went on without incident.

So there you have it. The perpetual loser Oswald was too chickenshit to kill the President (before he then killed the President).

Agreed, that the insanity of the suggestion that the lone nut waited to take the more difficult, almost impossible shot when the vehicle was moving away, downward to the right somewhat out of sight through the trees is staggeringly unbelievable.

That's just what a showoff Oswald was. I bet he faced backwards and looked in a pocket mirror while aiming too.

That's just what a showoff Oswald was. I bet he faced backwards and looked in a pocket mirror while aiming too.

Incredible! How did you get the inside scoop on Lifton's upcoming book? 

But was he disguised as Eddy Piper or one of the book boxes at the time? I guess we'll just have to wait a bit longer to find out for sure, but I think maybe the latter. That was luxury compared to those poor bastards out in the papier Mâché trees. Not to mention that other poor bastard hidden in the fake bottom of the presidential casket. See the body was never stolen and this book will correct that. The surgery was accomplished in situ by one of the midget surgeons of the Kalahari. It all makes sense at last.

Just a brief follow on to this topic, relating to Robert Kaffke. There's a cable listed on Wikileaks, dated 13 Jan 1978, tagged consular affairs, assistance to citizens, Kaffke, Robert, MX - Mexico, ID 1978MEXICO00687, Markings: Sheryl P. Walter: Not releasable under either Executive Order or other law or regulation US Department of State EO Systematic Review 20 March 2014. 

Not releasable under executive order? Sounds a bit heavy duty for a simple assistance to citizens matter. 

Either way, the above details should provide enough for an FOIA inquiry, should anyone have the inclination and wherewithal to undertake it.

orangebicycle wrote:Just a brief follow on to this topic, relating to Robert Kaffke. There's a cable listed on Wikileaks, dated 13 Jan 1978, tagged consular affairs, assistance to citizens, Kaffke, Robert, MX - Mexico, ID 1978MEXICO00687, Markings: Sheryl P. Walter: Not releasable under either Executive Order or other law or regulation US Department of State EO Systematic Review 20 March 2014. 

Not releasable under executive order? Sounds a bit heavy duty for a simple assistance to citizens matter. 

Either way, the above details should provide enough for an FOIA inquiry, should anyone have the inclination and wherewithal to undertake it.

I search on Sheryl P Walker throws out a lot of interesting stuff.

I checked what I had on Kaffke and it is not a great deal... just a small part of a larger story.

The wikileaks doc may indicate he should be of more interest than currently afforded.

Not sure if of use, but TM is being mentioned in these.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KQr-OUPvqYLYm7z554LeSd0w2tl-bkR6/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e7Unt-45Sv8jEu6l0nQEucpsRuaUx7mM/view?usp=sharing