"Prayer Man" on the Education Forum

[ianlloyd]

First topic message reminder :

As I am not a member of the EF, I cannot post there but there is an interesting discussion going on there at the moment regarding a figure in the TSBD doorway generally referred to as "Prayer Man" due to the apparent position of his hands, seemingly clasped in front of his chest as if in prayer.
 
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=20354
 
I recall this person being discussed somewhere many years ago and was referred to as "Prayer Man" pretty much from the outset but I cannot recall where it originated, maybe on Lancer?
 
Anyway, the reason for this post is that, upon looking closely at the various photographs and movie clips presented as part of the discussion, it struck me that his hands don't seem to move from the "prayer" position for what seems to be quite some time. Was he holding something, I wonder? If so, it seems an odd way to hold whatever it was.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Unless the original plan wasn't about a lone nut and they didn't care if it was thought there were a number of people involved or even multiple shooters - Oswald was supposed to be a helper not a shooter - and the "lone nut" angle came afterwards when LBJ (or whoever) didn't want to go with the implications of that?

Precisely the case.  Just because the powers that be instantly narrowed the focus to a single shooter (for reasons of their own), does not mean that those responsible for the assassination had any such intent.  Too many people have assumed for too long that the assassination went perfectly according to plan, simply because it succeeded in killing Kennedy.  We find, however, two diametrically opposed sets of interest at play.  

It seems demonstrable that more than one weapon was left behind, indicating just the opposite of what has been postulated since.  So long as *a* weapon was found that was traceable back to “Oswald,” whose “leftist” credentials had been burnished via FPCC and his purported trips to enemy consul buildings in Mexico City, the breadcrumb trail of evidence would lead back to Soviet/Cuban sponsorship.  His “involvement” was the only requirement.

Moreover, I posit the retrieval of more than one weapon from the TSBD was a deliberate means to indicate conspiracy, which was the intent.  And the initial charge, as one might predict, was participation in the murder of the President in furtherance of an international Communist conspiracy.  That, I strongly urge, is what the plotters intended, with a retaliatory strike against Cuba as an ancillary benefit.

The fact that Oswald wasn’t prominent in photos served the Commission’s purpose, but was likely irrelevant to the sponsors of the deed.  (One must also recall that the Commission viewed only a small fraction of photos and film footage taken in Dealey Plaza.  The intent of so narrow a focus was, again, to avoid discovering photos of Oswald anywhere but the 6th floor.  One suspects that photos and film that may have "disappeared" in the hands of authorities did so for obvious reasons.  To wit, Beverly Oliver, or whomever Babushka Lady may have been.)

(And a belated welcome to you, John.  I watched your patience and good will taken advantage of elsewhere, and am glad you’ve found a new home.  A hearty welcome to other newcomers as well.)

[Colin_Crow]

A Cuban associated rifle was enough. I have no doubt whoever pulled the trigger would have had a similar profile in case they were discovered. There was no requirement for Oswald to be this person, what better to prove a Castro backed conspiracy the to have more than one commie involved. The "lone nut" outcome was a product of the coverup.

[James DiEugenio]

It's quite possible that elements of the DPD were involved in the original plot, not just the cover up.

Yes I agree.

But my point is that from the plotters point of view it didn't matter if it was deemed to be a conspiracy involving multiple shooters and a helper so long as everyone except Oswald completely disappeared and Oswald either died or disappeared (to Cuba?) as well.

The plotters wanted a finding of conspiracy with the evidence of Cuba/Russian involvement provided by Oswald.

Someone post-assassination put the brakes on that.

I always thought something similar too. The assassination was to get their war against Cuba/Russia (and they hated Kennedy - bonus). Then the cover up was to stop the war they saw coming. LBJ and Hoover convening the Warren Commission and the Lone Nut theory to stop a war that could kill millions.

This is the old, antique pliant of Peter Dale Scott, another of those who set this case in "stone".

Today, I look at this with a skeptical eye.

Clearly, it was the Mexico City stuff that (allegedly) scared Johnson. The Mexico City stuff was a charade which would have been exposed if any real investigation had taken place.  As it was exposed as being phone as a three dollar bill by Lopez and Hardway.

My evolving view of this today is that the intent was not to get to World War III, in which case the plotters themselves may have been incinerated also.  (if you think they lived in NYC and DC, well it was a  near certainty that both were on the first strike list.)

It was meant to do just what it did.  To scare the heck out of the investigators so they would do no real inquiry. Which is what happened.

I am open to one other alternative:  LBJ may have been informed of what had happened and he went along with the script.

Hoover did not realize what happened until later.  But he hated the Kennedys so much--plus Oswald was an FBI informant-- he went headfirst with the cover up from day one.

[GuestGuest]

Suppose Oswald had been picked up by his contact at the movie theatre and whisked away, never to be seen again. Would we have had a WC? How would have things played out then? If the powers that be were so worried about WWIII, why were they content with the idea during the Cuban Missile Crises? Seemed like only he Kennedy's were concerned about annihilation at that time. I think Oswald's being arrested and the possibility of him talking is why the cover up went to the LN phase. and I think Hoover's concern for the FBI, given Oswald's relationship with them, was what initiated it.

[Albert Rossi]

The thread is sort of moving sideways a bit, and I don't want to take it way off track, but since we are on a somewhat more speculative level here, I would introduce another possibility.  The one/two may not just have been a question of plotters vs. coverup.  There may have been different agendas among the planners themselves.  The "invade Cuba" faction may have only been one group of those involved in the plot.  I am led to entertain this idea by such things as the Chicago plot, which, whether real or decoy, was not meant to suggest a Castro connection; and by the message from the White House situation room about the assassination being the work of one person, which occurred while Air Force One was in flight ... pretty early on.  I offer this for what it is: conjecture, not a well-thought-out assassination scenario.  I figure that if one can entertain the idea that the coverup worked at cross purposes and was not of a piece with the original plan, one can also entertain the idea that, even if the assassination was instigated and abetted top-down, not all levels of the operation may have been in perfect harmony.

[Colin_Crow]

The assassination by an apparent Castro backed plot acutally provided insurance against WWIII. It would give an out to Kruschev to back off in the impending retaliation by the US. How could he be seen to support what appeared to be the assassination of Kennedy by Castro in the immediate aftermath? No time to think through what appeared to be damning evidence in the few days before a US resonse that would be quick and decisive. For the killers in the event of no immediate response by Johnson, the fallback was JFK was no more......second prize perhaps.

I suspect that the "Oswald Operation" as planned by a small group of those well versed in Covert Ops (eg Phillips) was not intended to be an true assassination but a Northwoods type operation that could be used to trigger the Cuban invasion. Perhaps this plan leaked to another (eg Morales) who simply hijacked the operation.

[Frankie Vegas]

Suppose Oswald had been picked up by his contact at the movie theatre and whisked away, never to be seen again. Would we have had a WC? How would have things played out then? If the powers that be were so worried about WWIII, why were they content with the idea during the Cuban Missile Crises? Seemed like only he Kennedy's were concerned about annihilation at that time. I think Oswald's being arrested and the possibility of him talking is why the cover up went to the LN phase. and I think Hoover's concern for the FBI, given Oswald's relationship with them, was what initiated it.

I suspect that if Oswald had of been picked up by his contact then we would now be investigating Buell Wesley Frazier, the alleged assassin of President Kennedy.

[beowulf]

I suspect that the "Oswald Operation" as planned by a small group of those well versed in Covert Ops (eg Phillips) was not intended to be an true assassination but a Northwoods type operation that could be used to trigger the Cuban invasion. Perhaps this plan leaked to another (eg Morales) who simply hijacked the operation.

That's interesting, similar to Lamar Waldron's theory the Mafia hijacked the CIA's Castro assassination plan to instead assassinate Kennedy. In both cases, the coverup was necessary because the public would rightly condemn govt officials for doing something shady that led to the JFK's murder.

[John Mooney]

When I said "start WWIII" perhaps that was too far. Certainly a compelling case to invade Cuba that the public could get on board with.

For years something bugged me, I believed Oswald when he said he was a Patsy, but I also couldn't figure out what they told him to "keep out of sight"... in the 2nd floor lunchroom, or store cupboard.

Now things make sense (to me anyway).. he wasn't keeping out of sight and he wasn't in the 2nd floor lunchroom. The plot didn't need a lone nut.

The TPTB with a lot of assistance from DPD/FBI and Lady Luck suppressed evidence and were able to just about convince the public it was a lone nut.

I'm sorry it this is a slight sidetrack, perhaps there needs to be a separate thread about what Prayer Man implies.

[Albert Rossi]

I apologize for contributing to the further drift of this thread, but I didn't want to open another one which IMO would distract from the fascinating, detailed discussion of documents and testimony going on here (and to which I would hope we will eventually return). 

Nonetheless, I did want to raise a question for those who have proposed that LHO was not originally intended to be an assassin (let alone the lone assassin).  What, then, do you make of the rifle range sighting(s)?  I suppose getting a rifle fitted with a scope could be explained as intended to implicate Oswald merely as accessory, but why have him be seen practicing with the rifle (and creating the scenes attributed to him)?  And what of Leopoldo's follow-up call to Silvia Odio, where Leon is said to have accused others as not having the guts to kill Kennedy, and of being a little loco? To me, at least, it seems these are indices that his framing was intended to go beyond his simply being an accomplice.

[Frankie Vegas]

I guess this would mean we would be investigating Buell Wesley Frazier (or someone else). Or ...
Maybe 'they' did tell Lee Oswald to keep out of sight by the phone on the first floor and wait for a call. But Lee, not being able to help himself (being politically minded), slipped out the door to see President Kennedy and thought he would still be able to hear the phone ring when it did, making himself the 'Prayer Man'.

[StanDane]

Hey Sean:

I'm not sure how often you receive positive encouragement, so I just want to chime in here and urge you to keep up the great work and continue to methodically build your case and to ignore all the "Four legs good, two legs bad" noise out there on some other forums. I don't know how you and researchers like Greg, Lee, and others find the strength to keep at this sometimes. I admire your tenacity, perseverance, scientific curiosity, and intellectual honesty.

For all of the characters who would seek to drown out good solid research with their incessant barking, I believe there's a sizable remnant of people who are still influenced by logic and reason. Deranged souls shouting "kook kook ka ju" do not come across very well, to put it mildly. You're really onto something here with Prayer Man. That's why all the mutts are out in force and howling.

Hopefully someday you'll be able to present your research to a large, receptive audience. I think a jury would find it most compelling (my wishful thinking kicking in here).

In the meantime, I appreciate your great work and wish you all of the intestinal fortitude to continue.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

I apologize for contributing to the further drift of this thread, but I didn't want to open another one which IMO would distract from the fascinating, detailed discussion of documents and testimony going on here (and to which I would hope we will eventually return). 

Nonetheless, I did want to raise a question for those who have proposed that LHO was not originally intended to be an assassin (let alone the lone assassin).  What, then, do you make of the rifle range sighting(s)?  I suppose getting a rifle fitted with a scope could be explained as intended to implicate Oswald merely as accessory, but why have him be seen practicing with the rifle (and creating the scenes attributed to him)?  And what of Leopoldo's follow-up call to Silvia Odio, where Leon is said to have accused others as not having the guts to kill Kennedy, and of being a little loco? To me, at least, it seems these are indices that his framing was intended to go beyond his simply being an accomplice.

Hi Albert:

First, I must make clear that I speak only for myself, and that others may well disagree with my personal take on this, which is fine. 

However, I've been at it for the past half century, albeit with some waxing and waning as life either intruded or allowed.  I say this only to note that my hypotheses are not the product of merely having read a few books.  But it requires no secret and highly arcane knowledge of  “Deep Politics,” you may be pleased to know.

It may be that this thread is somewhat adrift, but I think the appearance of Oswald in a photo on the TSBD stoop requires consideration as to how it affects all other elements of the crime.  So I think reevaluation can only be helpful in light of this development. 

It has long been suggested Oswald was deliberately sidelined at the critical juncture, be it awaiting a phone call or some other diversion to keep him out of sight.  But the testimony of his coworkers has indicated from Day One that he was not hiding, and his own responses to DPD and FBI questions have likewise from Day One refuted those notions.  Now we may have proof.

As for the rest of it:

*  Goal One was to dirty up Oswald as a creature of the left. 

A massive head-start was provided by his prior "defection" to the USSR.  Upon his return, subscriptions to Soviet periodicals placed him on a Postal Service watch list.  Correspondence with the FPCC placed him on CIA and FBI radar.  The fracas in New Orleans between he and Bringuier, et al, placed him in military intelligence and local police files, and gave him a media profile as a leftist with his appearances on radio and television.  The charade in Mexico City made him the subject of memoranda - and placed him in the files - of FBI, CIA, INS, ONI.  If Oswald so much as passed gas after this cavalcade of provocations, it would be blamed on the Cubans and Soviets.  That none of it was genuine was secondary; it wasn’t designed to withstand close scrutiny, only to sway public sentiment in an immediate and visceral way.

*Goal Two was to place him in proximity to the assassination, and in the days and weeks prior, to leave a lasting impression with bystanders who would thereafter recall him as a nasty, surly man.  

It might be from shooting at someone else's target at a rifle range, or belittling the US to a car salesman and praising the Soviet Union, etc.  And, as you rightly note, being stitched up by anti-Castro Cubans as a loco gringo gunning for Kennedy, both at the Odios’ doorstep and the Parrot Jungle episode in Miami. 

We only know of instances where those bystanders recalled and came forward to cite what they had seen and heard.  We cannot know how many other such provocations went unreported.  (We do know, however, that other instances were brought to the attention of authorities despite the principals not coming forward.  The Dial Ryder scope-mounting incident is a perfect example.  Who alerted police to this?  It seems that those responsible couldn’t resist having it placed on the record, even if they had to drop a dime themselves, in order to make authorities aware of the poison they’d concocted in advance.  And even if the evidence they had fabricated conflicted with reality.  Ryder hadn’t attached the scope, per his own insistence.  But a pre-fabricated provocation was not allowed to go to waste, even if it made no sense; even if it betrayed the sham that was at play.  An unanticipated change in plans required such improvisations.)

Goal One was accomplished largely with Oswald's quiescence (I contend he played little or no role in the Mexico City pantomime.)  Goal Two was pursued entirely without his knowledge.

My personal hypothesis is that Oswald was not to be killed in the TSBD or the Texas Theatre while resisting arrest.  He was to disappear. 

Somebody (read: CIA) had gone to great lengths to fabricate a story of a late-arriving light plane in Mexico City, from which a single passenger transferred to a Cubana Airlines plane headed for Havana, a plane that had stayed on the tarmac well past its original departure time, as though only awaiting that single passenger. 

Although authorities would not thereafter be able to definitively identify that passenger, such a light plane had left Redbird Airport in Dallas not long before, and the footnotes of Dick Russell’s superb “The Man Who Knew Too Much” disclose that “Oswald” luggage was discovered at the Mexico City airport, no doubt planted to implicate him as that single passenger.

How do the foregoing paragraphs comport with an Oswald either killed or arrested in Dallas?  They don’t.  Which is where I contend the plot went seriously awry and improvisations were required.  Suddenly, other Cuban agents were mooted by CIA to have been the passenger, but only because Oswald demonstrably couldn’t have been him.  Suddenly, “Oswald” luggage had to disappear, instead of Oswald, for had that been “found” and disclosed, it would not have incriminated Oswald, but those who planted it.  

I suggest to you that the Hidell ID was not found upon Oswald, but was found in the throwdown wallet left at the Tippit crime scene.  This is why Captain Fritz first retained and then scuttled the superfluous wallet, for even he smelled a rat.  It is also why it took a full day for the word “Hidell” to pass the lips of anyone connected with Oswald’s detention.  Why reveal that he allegedly used the alias of “O.H. Lee” at a boarding house, while keeping secret the alias “Hidell,” for which he was allegedly found carrying ID?

Had Oswald simply vanished, what would have been thought of a man who left a rifle at the assassination scene, a wallet at the Tippit murder scene, and an only newly-disclosed background of consorting with a Soviet KGB agent in charge of western hemisphere assassinations, before fleeing to Havana?  (CIA revealed that Kostikov was the Department 13 chief, in charge of "wet ops," only on 11/22/63.  Timing is everything, innit?)

Even if photographic evidence - such as Prayer Man - had shown conclusively Oswald wasn’t the 6th floor shooter, would he have been thought any less guilty in light of the above?  Would Castro and Khrushchev have been thought any less responsible?

Had it been a requirement of the plotters that Oswald be an assassin, let alone a lone assassin, would they not have troubled themselves to ensure that the murder weapon at least bore his prints?  What they presumably did not think necessary, the Dallas Police Department demonstrably did.

As I said, two sets of priorities working at cross purposes.  Evidence for the contention abounds.  One need only view it in that context to see how it was intended to work, who intended it to work that way, and what went so terribly wrong.

Prayer Man only helps to prove it.  Which is no small thing, needless to say.

[beowulf]

Sean Murphy just keeps on going, I wasn't familiar with French journalist (who actually interviewed Truly) Leo Sauvage until Sean quoted him.  Just  Just read a piece he wrote in 1964, interesting fellow. Who knew the FBI was big in recycling way back then?

But like Captain Fritz, Curry seemed perfectly convinced that the chicken was Oswald’s, and on Sunday the FBI agent on the scene, Gordon Shanklin, made it final by informing Fred Powledge of the New York Times that a print of Oswald’s left index finger had been found on the paper bag containing the chicken bone.
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/Sauvage/The_Oswald_Affair/Oswald_Affair.html

Oswald's fingerprint and palmprint found on bag.--Using a standard chemical method involving silver nitrates 180 the FBI Laboratory developed a latent palmprint and latent fingerprint on the bag. (See app. X, p. 565.) Sebastian F. Latona, supervisor of the FBI's Latent Fingerprint Section, identified these prints as the left index fingerprint and right palmprint of Lee Harvey Oswald.
http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-4.html

At some point it dawned on the Bureau that planting LHO's left index finger print on a paper bag that had carried a rifle might be slightly more incriminating than on a bag that had carried fried chicken.

[Albert Rossi]

Robert,

Thank you for your very detailed post elucidating your reconstruction of these events.  It is indeed clear you have done more than read a few books. Let me also clarify -- in case clarification is needed, which it may not be -- that my questions were real ones, and weren't meant to sound like I was throwing down the gauntlet or something.  I have been following this case for 46 years, too, but some areas of my thinking are very fluid (how can we really be dead certain about anything in this case?), especially when there is new information to be digested.

Let me also assert that a lot of what you state I also happen to agree with:  that Oswald was being "sheep dipped" as a leftist with only his partially conscious cooperation; that he probably wasn't in Mexico City; that all the impostor stuff going on in Dallas in the lead up to 11/22 he was no doubt unaware of; that the Hidell card probably wasn't found on him but may have been planted at the Tippit crime scene; that certain framing details like the scope were outed because incriminating evidence like that tends to carry weight even when it doesn't jibe with other facts (like Klein's catalogue advertising it with a scope; but then the M-C which became the WC exhibit was 40" rather than the 36" Klein model, too, just to name another incongruity).  I also agree about the timing of the Kostikov info, and with John Newman's view of what was going on inside Langley.  The Redbird story (Larry Hancock recently wrote something interesting on this), as well as the bit from Russell's book, are both intriguing as well.

While I will respectfully reserve judgment on whether or not LHO was meant to vanish, if I do follow your argument, you nevertheless do seem to imply that the trail of evidence (and let's not forget about the abortive mailing of the brown paper bag to Ruth Paine's house two days before the assassination) he would have left in his wake would have tended to implicate him as (a) trigger; it seems, if I understand you correctly, that it was just not all that important for him to have remained totally out of sight.  Perhaps the planners even thought any incidental visibility could be obfuscated or covered up in the usual manner? (Indeed, look how long it has taken for Prayer Man to be discovered.)

What is less than clear is the reason why the original plan went wrong -- if that is indeed what happened. In any case, the "alternative" version seems to have been put in place rather quickly.  As I mentioned, there's that Air Force One communiqué; and of course, by the time of the autopsy it is clear that the single gunman conclusion was the one being sought (coerced is probably the better word).

Thanks again, Robert, for a thought-provoking post.  Perhaps we could take further discussion of this off line somewhere, like a PM or email.

[beowulf]

Thanks again, Robert, for a thought-provoking post.  Perhaps we could take further discussion of this off line somewhere, like a PM or email.

Why take it offline? Everyone reading here is interested in discussing this or they probably wouldn't be reading here.

The big question I think is, one you put your finger on, " why the original plan went wrong -- if that is indeed what happened".

Was Tippit supposed to kill him?  Were the cops at the theater? Or did everything go according to plan and the govt  simply turned a blind eye to the bread crumb trail leading to Cuba?

[GuestGuest]

The two big questions I have were the Tippit shooting and the Limo stop. Had Tippit not been shot then it is doubtful the DPD would have descended on the Texas Theatre and Oswald might well have been disappeared. Had Greer followed SS protocal and hit the gas instead of slowing to a virtual stop, the fatal lhead shot would not likely have occurred. Greer could have been confused, perhaps hungover, and responded with incompetence, or he could have been part of the plot. The same with the Tippit shooting. If it was not supposed to have happened, then this was a main factor in things unraveling. I have always felt Oswald's arrest was the main reason the LN scenario was initiated.

[John Mooney]

Great post by Robert and good questions following.

I think this - what a non-hiding Oswald implies - should have its own thread. I started the thread drift (sorry) and wasn't sure if I should start one being new here.

I think the evidence thread should just discuss the great work by Sean and others (Robin's stella cleaned up picture). The implications discussion could potentially branch off all over the place and drown the evidence.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

Please add your thoughts here...

[greg_parkerAdmin]

In any case, it would be great for those of us who haven't total recall of eyewitness testimony and official reports if someone could expand the timeline posted by Bill Kelly into a comparative one which contrasts the alternate reconstructions offered by Sean, Greg, Lee, Richard, and Colin, accounting for the movements of all these people in and out of the TSBD.  A real task, I realize.

It is a good idea, but a big undertaking for anyone.

Albert,

I started developing this theory back in 2002-3 on McAdam's forum. It was reading Baker's affidavit that got me started. The more I dug, the more corroboration I got that, whatever actually happened, one thing that didn't was the 2nd floor lunch-room encounter. Then I started looking at others like Williams and Piper... and what came sharply into focus was that the workers in that building were being shifted around like pieces in some warped 3-d version of chess.

It now appears that every single facet of this case needs to be stripped bare of 50 years worth of layering, tampering, trampling, altering, misinforming, disinforming and cherry-picking from the DPD through to James Douglass and beyond.

I think that is largely the task Lee and I are setting ourselves. If nothing else, it will result in a book quite different to what has come out any time in the past.

But I digress...

I gave up at some stage, trying to gain any traction regarding my own take on events in that building. Sean has the touch of a surgeon, the eye of an eagle and the patience of Job. He has made it his own; gone way beyond what I did and refined it beyond recognition to what I had originally envisioned as being the most likely flow of events. The discovery of "Prayer Man" would be considered overkill even in some primitive societies. Queensland comes to mind...    

That is not to say I now agree with Sean 100%.

Here is what keeps me believing that it's at least feasible that T & B took the stairs until the 5th AND that they really did encounter someone on the 4th floor.
--------------------
Mr. Belin. At the time you got up there was there any elevator on floor number two that you can remember, if you can remember? Maybe you cannot remember, I don't know.


Mr. Baker.Evidently--now, I didn't look, evidently it wasn't because it seemed to me like the next floor up Mr. Truly said let's take the elevator.
----------------------
Baker is saying one floor up from where the encounter happened is where they jumped on an elevator.

One floor up from 2 is 3. One floor up from 4 is 5.

Baker is inadvertently placing the encounter back where he originally said it was - on the 4th floor. If the 4th floor encounter was also pure BS, I really can't see Baker making this "mistake".

And it was a mistake that Belin quickly recognised and tried to smooth out by changing Baker's very precise "one floor up" to a more ambiguous "some higher floor" and then immediately goes off the record.

Mr. Belin.At some higher floor after that?


Mr. Baker.Yes, sir.


Mr. Belin. All right, if we can go off the record for a moment here. 

Here is my outline as it was "pre-Prayer-Man"

1.Oswald eats lunch. Sees two of Junior and Shorty re-enter the building.

2.Goes up for coke as per his usual habit.

3. Hears commotion outside. Goes to front door. 

4. Baker rushes in and asks if for anyone who works there to give him directions to stairs/elevators. Truly - either already in there, or quickly arriving, steps forward and takes Baker up the stairs (whether or not first checking elevators) 

5. LHO goes back in and is standing by the little store-room when Campbell and Reid re-enter. 

6. Lingers there for unknown amount of time and decides to go outside. Is stopped by Welcome Barnett and asked to stand aside to give his details. He does this (albeit in his usual non-conforming style), and is allowed to leave. Somewhere in there, Truly or Shelley has vouched he is an employee and also somewhere in there, he overheard a discussion suggesting there would be no more work that day - which is when he decided to go to the movies.   

7. LHO's (slightly "off") name and address is placed at the top of Revill's list. That this information came via Jones from MIG files is one of those apocryphal layers that needs peeling and discarding - whether or not my alternative is correct.

[greg_parkerAdmin]

Greg,

I don't think any data for a typical order-filling regime is available. Meaning any typical timeline would be entirely arbitrary.

Truly described orders as varying from $3-4 to $300-400. He detailed (III pp. 215-216) that the 1st floor & basement held bin stock (aka shelf stock) and the 5th, 6th and part of the 7th held overflow stock (aka reserve stock).  "...the boys have to go to those floors all during the day to pick up stock and bring it to the 1st floor ... We have a large quantity of (Scott, Foresman) books on the 6th floor ... (Oswald) had occasion to go to the 6th floor quite a number of times every day ... all of our boys, all of our order fillers have worked at some time or other on (Scott, Foresman) ..."

If I remember correctly, even Wesley Frazier went up to the 6th around 10:00 AM on the 22nd.

***

The problem with Dougherty's contention that he was "getting stock" off the 6th & 5th is that it reeks of an alibi:

VI, p. 377

BALL: And how long were you on the 6th floor?
DOUGHERTY: Well, just long enough to get some stock.
BALL: Where did you go then?
DOUGHERTY: I went to the 5th floor.
BALL: What did you do then?
DOUGHERTY: Well, I went to the 5th floor to get some stock also on the 5th floor...

p. 380

BALL: Where did you take that- to what floor?
DOUGHERTY: I took it up to the 6th floor.
BALL: Then what did you do?
DOUGHERTY: Well, when I got through getting stock off of the 6th floor, I came back down to the 5th floor.
BALL: What did you do on the 5th floor?
DOUGHERTY: Well, I got some stock...

Naturally, Ball never probed as to just what Dougherty may have seen while on the 6th floor.

***

Now, Sean has Dougherty spotting a rifle while up on the 6th. He beats a retreat to the 5th. While about 10 feet from the west elevator (as he'd stated to the FBI March 18) he hears a loud shot/explosion (singular), and immediately runs down the noisy stairwell.

It's not specified, but I'm assuming that Sean has Dougherty taking the west elevator back to the 6th & 5th after his early lunch. The noisy west elevator. And so the snipers, upon hearing his arrival, simply tell him to "Get lost"?? And Dougherty, to make himself scarce, retreats only to the 5th?? And, he closes the elevator gates behind him (a circumstance which Truly & Baker soon utilize to take the west elevator up)??

I'm quite skeptical of this scenario.

Dougherty's proximity to the 6th-floor hit team- immediately before the hit- and his obfuscation as regards his true activities/movements on the 6th- speak to me of complicity. Of an in-house conspirator assisting the hit team with their vital escape method. How else would strangers on the 6th floor know- and be depended upon, in the heat of the moment- that both gates must be closed for the elevators to move? The inner 3/4 gate (4-foot high) and the outer full-size gate, that rolled down from its overhead holder. Providing the hit team with an escort would ease the mechanics of their escape.

Thanks Richard,

what i was trying to get at was the usual process.

1. collect books (from downstairs unless book/s not there - then get it/them upstairs)
2. Go to wrapping table.
3. Weigh items.
4. ?

I'm trying to see if Dougherty's movements are consistent with filling an order - which entails at least the steps above.

He is a pretty lousy order filler if he is going back and forth on floors 5 and 6 - and pretty unlucky he needed to look up there at all considering Cason's statements that order-fillers only needed to go up there on average every 3 or 4 days.

[Vinny]

Now the lone nutters have started bashing this theory.



http://facts-carlier-jfk-assassination.blogspot.com/2013/09/proof-of-conspiracy-at-last.html

[greg_parkerAdmin]

Now the lone nutters have started bashing this theory.



http://facts-carlier-jfk-assassination.blogspot.com/2013/09/proof-of-conspiracy-at-last.html

Amid strong competiton, Frankie remains the most self-delusional nutter out there.

[John Mooney]

That is the most outrageous treatment of Sean's work.

But that's what they do.

[Albert Rossi]

Please add your thoughts here...

OK, Greg (and beowulf).  My suggestion was not in order to deprive others of the exchange, but simply in the interest of keeping the thread coherent.

When I first started reading this forum, what impressed me most was its practice of close reading (to use a lit crit term).  The kind of exchanges going on here distinguish this site from many other fora and blogs (with perhaps the exception of Sean's EF contributions).  While there is obviously nothing wrong with discussing implications and "the bigger picture" (and in the end our entire effort makes no sense without such attempts at synthesis), it is nevertheless true that that kind of thing already goes on in many other venues, whereas the careful picking apart of testimony does not, and is a real strength of this place.

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