Baker's HSCA interview Shows He was Given His Later Story

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"He returned to hdq and put his bike away. He gave a statement and found out from the officer who had also taken a statement from Mr Truly that the man he accosted on the second floor of the TSBD was Oswald."

The officer who took statements from Baker & Truly was Marvin Johnson. However, since Truly's statement is dated 23/11, he could not have informed Baker of what Truly had said until after that date.

In his own UNDATED statement, this is what Johnson had said:

After determining the origin of the shots, he jumped from his motor and ran into the building. He found a man who said he was the building manager. Officer Baker and the building manager then went to a stairway and started up the stairs to search the building. On the 4th floor Officer Baker apprehended a man that was walking away from the stairway on that floor. Officer Baker started to search the man, but the building manager stated that the man was an employee of the company and was known to him. Officer Baker released the man and continued his search of the building. Officer Baker later identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man he had seen on the 4th floor of the Texas School Book Depository."

At the end of his statement, he added,

"When Patrolman ML Baker identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man that he stopped in the Texas School Book Depository Building, Patrolman Baker was in the Homicide Bureau giving an affidavit and Oswald was brought into the room to talk to some Secret Service men. When Baker saw Oswald he stated, 'that is the man I stopped on the 4th floor of the School Book Depository.'"

Which contradicts his own earlier statement that Baker identified Oswald LATER i.e. some time after his statement was taken - not during.

Baker went on to testify that he had recognised Oswald while he was giving statement to Johnson.

It appears to me that Baker let out a little of the truth to the HSCA interviewer when he said that Johnson informed him that it was Oswald he had accosted on the 2nd floor.

They held off any official statement from Truly until it became clear what they could safely say.

The problem was, it was NOT Oswald Truly had vouched for on the 3rd or (probably) 4th floor, and Mrs Reid had said she had seen Oswald on the second floor with a coke. Oswald himself was saying he bought a coke from the second floor to have with his lunch down on the first floor.

That story was then given to Baker, who would never again talk about any 4th floor encounter.

The chronology then, appears to be:

Baker's statement taken on 11/22

Problems for police case identified as a result of above Baker statement

Further investigation uncovers what Reid witnessed

Reid & Truly give statements 23/11. Truly debuts new official story

Johnson gives this version to Baker who has some trouble reconciling events to fit - particularly in regard to whether or not Oswald had a coke.

See also: thread, "Oswald's two cop encounters"

I don't think the gates could be opened unless the elevator was on the floor. Seems logical safety wise.

Hasan Yusuf wrote:FWIW: I believe there is good reason to believe that Luke Mooney entered the TSBD at around 1:00 pm.

http://www.ctka.net/2014/hill.html

Is there any reason to believe that there couldn't have possibly been a power cut out at around 1:00 pm?

Thanks for the link Hasan. It seems the passenger elevator was operational for longer than I thought. I wonder if just the freight elevators were affected.

nonsqtr wrote:Btw, kudos on that piece, it's wonderfully documented! I could practically lift the text and enter it directly into my web site, all the cross references are right there. It's such a breath of fresh air, "most" (and I do mean "most") writers seem to assume we should be accepting certain things as self-evident, while I'm more interested in "which" piece(s) of evidence they've latched onto to corroborate their models.

Thanks, Brian!

Colin Crow wrote:Thanks for the link Hasan. It seems the passenger elevator was operational for longer than I thought. I wonder if just the freight elevators were affected.

Sorry Colin, but I'm not sure.

Hasan Yusuf wrote:

Colin Crow wrote:Thanks for the link Hasan. It seems the passenger elevator was operational for longer than I thought. I wonder if just the freight elevators were affected.

Sorry Colin, but I'm not sure.

Hasan - perhaps you can appreciate my perspective on this (because it seems to dovetail with yours, in some important ways).

First of all, I begin with the assumption that everyone is lying, the only question is how much and where. I treat this the same I look at politicians - "they all lie", 'cause that's just what politicians do, it's the nature of their business and the way they get ahead is to become good at it.

And, this JFK thing here, we're dealing with some good liars - some very good ones! And also then, we have people like Gerald Hill - "not so good liars", as it were. People who aren't "used to" lying, don't do it professionally like the CIA guys do, don't have a whole lot of experience with it, aren't "smooth" in their presentation, that kind of thing.

So now, my take on Hill is "yes the guy seems like he had some other kind of (outside) interest going on", but, based on the evidence, it had to be "Hill AND someone else". And there's no actual linkage to the "someone else", if there was a conspiracy it happened behind closed doors. The question is, "who", and the name that keeps popping out is Capt William R Westbrook.

He's the guy who's ideally positioned, kind of the same way Hill is - he shows up everywhere at just the right time. And, he's from the Personnel Department of the DPD, he doesn't wear a uniform and he has ZERO crime scene experience and he has no business being at a crime scene in the first place, much less one as important as the assassination of the President.

And Hill, he's a Sergeant who hangs out with Westbook in the Personnel section, and he's an ex-reporter, which undoubtedly colors the way he looks at the world. Just as Hill was in an ideal spot to plant the gun on Oswald, so Westbrook was in an ideal spot to hand the Tippit Wallet over to Bob Barrett.

An an aside, the 5'11" description of the Tippit Shooter more matches Bernardo de Torres, doesn't it? "Looks like Oswald but a little bit taller"? Hm. I digress.

Westbrook went to Vietnam after the assassination, as a police advisor to Saigon, funded via AID, and we all know what that means.

And he was apparently "real excited" when he told Gerry Hill around 3:30pm that Oswald was a genuine real-live communist. There would seem to be a natural alignment between people like that, and people like Officer Marvin Wise (he's the guy in the three tramps photo, proudly sporting a Klan patch on his sleeve).

Hasan Yusuf wrote:

Colin Crow wrote:Thanks for the link Hasan. It seems the passenger elevator was operational for longer than I thought. I wonder if just the freight elevators were affected.

Sorry Colin, but I'm not sure.

What's that thing that Greg keeps talking about, "negative template" or some such thing? This case would seem to be an application of that, yes? What we have in evidence is "no one talked about a power outage", except just two people out of nearly a hundred.

No one saw the clock go dim on top of the TSBD, because they would have reported it. No one saw the building lights go out, because they would have reported it. I think it's "very unlikely" there was a building-wide power outage - because you can look at the various films and in some of them you can see lights, and none of those would have been on without power.

However it could be quite reasonable that someone wanted the elevators stopped for a few seconds - say, long enough for someone to race down a short flight of stairs or something. Based on the available evidence it seems likely that the TSBD shooter waited a while before trying to escape (it could have been Brown Coat Man about eight minutes later, maybe) - in which case it probably took a minute or two to get any kind of escape vehicle in place, that kind of thing. And unless the shooter was watching through an open window or something, someone would have to ALERT him as to when the getaway car was actually ready. So then, in addition to the possibility of some corrupt police, we're looking for someone INSIDE the TSBD that was on board, and that had to be one of the employees because most of the cops were in transit and their positioning couldn't be relied upon. It had to be someone "inside" the TSBD whose positioning could be "relied upon".

Brian,

I will try and give you a more thorough response later on in the day when (or if) time permits. But for the time being, regarding your last point, I don't trust Hill when he said that Westbrook told him Oswald was a communist. He might have said this Hill, but for obvious reasons, I just don't trust Hill.

Tidbit on Gerald Hill:

(Fetzer is talking about Buell Wesley Frazier, and George O'Toole's investigation):

For his next interview, he spoke to Detective Gerald Hill at his home. Hill advised O’Toole that Fritz could not have ordered the polygraph: ” ’cause Fritz didn’t believe in polygraphs. He wouldn’t use ‘em ” (near maximum stress).(54) He returned and spoke to Bentley again, who told him that was not true, he had run “many, many” examinations for Captain Fritz.(55)

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/07/jfk-why-buell-wesley-frazier-was-erased-from-altgens6/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jfk-why-buell-wesley-frazier-was-erased-from-altgens6

nonsqtr wrote:Tidbit on Gerald Hill:

(Fetzer is talking about Buell Wesley Frazier, and George O'Toole's investigation):

For his next interview, he spoke to Detective Gerald Hill at his home. Hill advised O’Toole that Fritz could not have ordered the polygraph: ” ’cause Fritz didn’t believe in polygraphs. He wouldn’t use ‘em ” (near maximum stress).(54) He returned and spoke to Bentley again, who told him that was not true, he had run “many, many” examinations for Captain Fritz.(55)

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/07/jfk-why-buell-wesley-frazier-was-erased-from-altgens6/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jfk-why-buell-wesley-frazier-was-erased-from-altgens6

Thanks, Brian. I seem to recall reading about this, but I can't state that with certainty. If Hill told O'Toole that Carroll gave him the gun (WCE 143) while taking a voice stress measurement, the reading would have been off the chart, IMO.

Here's an interesting bit, this is Maj Stavis Ellis, who was on a motorcycle immediately to the front left of JFK's limo. Ellis, apparently, spoke with Marrion Baker.

"The second part of the conversation was about one of Major Ellis' fellow motorcycle officers. This officer (as told by Ellis) stated he was directly under the building when the shots were fired. They locked the main entrance and after the supervisor arrived he started up the stairs. The building was the Book Depository. Upon going up the stairs, he and the supervisor encountered someone on either the third or fourth floor. This person was drinking water from the water cooler -- he did not stop because the supervisor advised the officer that the man was an employee. Major Ellis stated this man later identified the man by the water cooler as Lee Harvey Oswald..."

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=40395&relPageId=21

So, Marrion Baker seems to have told Ellis the same story he originally told everyone else, which is that he found Oswald on the "third or fourth" floor, and specifically not in the second floor lunch room.

Well... so, it would seem to be fairly easy to demonstrate the cover-up "after the fact" (in many different ways), however tying that to activity "before the fact" is more difficult. This willingness of Mr Truly to go along with the second-floor story would seem to make his pre-assassination role a bit more suspicious.

It is interesting that Major Ellis says the officer "locked the front door". I wonder how that happened with a gazillion people standing there, and subsequently officers coming in and out. Did Mr Truly have the only key, or did Ochus or someone else have a key to the front door? Did any officer subsequently mention he encountered the front door locked? Is there any other corroboration to the concept of the front door being locked for some period of time, at the "beginning" of all this?

The conspiracy angle is a bit frightening, it's almost like it's an all-or-nothing thing. Either there was none, or if there was it had to be significant in scope. How does one co-opt a guy like a Roy Truly? A "building supervisor" whose work crew consists mainly of drifters and drug addicts?