5th-Floor Gang (TM) As Tool of Baker/Truly/Oswald Cover-up

don willis 10/25/03 wrote:5th-Floor Gang (TM) As Tool of  Baker/Truly/Oswald Cover-up
What Didn't Happen
It's generally believed that earwitnesses Bonnie Ray Williams, Harold
Norman & James Jarman Jr. changed their stories without rhyme or
reason, that nothing counted except their Commission testimony, that
their earlier statements & interviews could easily be (and were)
dismissed as simply, somehow erroneous--the witnesses were confused,
the FBI was confused, the notary public was confused.  Suddenly, at
the hearings themselves--no confusion.  But there seems to be a reason
for one series of changes, a pattern, a meaningful evolution.  In the
final, official, Honest to Goodness version of Williams' descent from
the 6th floor to the 5th, then (after the         , with Norman &
Jarman) to the 4th--according to Williams--he "took the east elevator
down" from the 6th to the 5th (v3p171), then, a little later, took the
stairs to the 4th floor (p182).  Nicely, this tallies with the Officer
Baker/Roy Truly end of the story, in which the "east elevator was on
the 5th floor when they arrived"--the two then took it up "to the 7th
floor." (WR p153)  (Jack Dougherty testified that, earlier, he took
the *west* freight elevator down from the 5th floor [as Baker & Truly
were making their way up], after he heard a loud noise./v6p381)  Cut! 
Print!

First faint glimmer of trouble in Elevator City:  In order to make
this Brand New Gift-Wrapped version of the
Williams/Norman/Jarman/Baker/Truly story tally perfectly, Williams
must dismiss his 11/23/63 FBI interview, with poor fools Odum &
Griffin, in which he is reported saying that he "descended to the 5th
floor using the stairs."  The Commission Williams (v3p172):  "I didn't
tell them I was using the stairs.  I came back down to the 5th floor
in the same elevator I came up to the 6th floor on."  Well & good.  In
fact, this would at first seem to synch with his 11/22/63 affidavit,
in which he swore to "we [ie, Williams, Norman & Jarman] took the
elevator to the 4th floor":  elevator from 6th to 5th to 4th....

Second glimmer:  Williams' 11/22 affidavit still stands,
unchallenged--even by Williams himself--because the Commission did not
give him the chance to correct it, as it gave him the chance to
correct his hapless FBI interviewers.  He then has only himself to
blame for the absurdities therein, principal among which is the above
statment re the elevator to the 4th floor, which is preceded by "some
officers came up."  In other words, Dougherty took the west elevator
down, Baker & Truly took the east elevator *up*, & Williams...Williams
took exactly *what* elevator?!  Shades of Rod Serling.... True, in his
Commission testimony, Williams tacitly corrects himself, when he tells
counsel that the trio went "by stairs" down to the 4th floor (p182). 
To believe him here, however, one would have to allow that his memory
somehow improved between November 22nd & March 24, 1964, the date of
his testimony.  Either that or somebody improved his memory for him. 
I lean towards the latter.

Remember that the joint Commission version of the elevator/stairs
story is in perfect synch, with Williams, Norman & Jarman on one side,
& Baker & Truly on the other.  As demonstrated above, the
Williams/Norman/Jarman half shows a clear "evolution," while the
Baker/Truly half remained consistent.  Or did it?  It's pretty common
knowledge, for instance, that Baker, in his first (11/22) affidavit,
placed the encounter with Oswald at the "3rd or 4th floor...
stairway,"  not in the 2nd-floor lunchroom.  But there is an even
earlier version of the Baker/Truly half of the elevator story.  In the
11/23/63 edition of the Dallas Morning News, Kent Biffle reported that
Baker & Truly encountered Oswald "in a storage room on the first
floor."  And, yes, Virginia, there is a storage room on the first
floor.... No elevator was necessarily involved in this earliest
version of the Baker/Truly story half--in his 11/22 affidavit Baker
does not mention taking an elevator from the 5th to the 7th floor. 
Yes, then, Williams could indeed have taken the "elevator to the 4th
floor"--the east elevator would still have been there after Baker ran
up the stairs....

What Did Happen
Reconstructing:  Until the full implications of a 1st-floor
Baker/Truly/Oswald encounter were realized, it seems--and the incident
then had to be "relocated" to a floor nearer the "sniper's nest"--the
TSBD freight elevators were a non-issue.  Until then, Williams could
say that he took the stairs down from the 6th to the 5th floor, &
leave a stray elevator on the 6th for any lurking sniper.  You can bet
that, if there had been no 1st-floor incident, there would also have
been no bizarre Williams retractions.  But a stairwell incident with
Oswald--on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th floor--necessitated the elimination of
this elevator option.  ("That Oswald descended by stairway from the
6th floor to the 2nd-floor lunchroom is consistent with the movements
of the two elevators, which would have provided the other possible
means of descent."/WR p153)

Thus did the evolution of the Baker/Truly sequence necessitate a
corresponding evolution of the Williams/Norman/Jarman sequence.  In
fact, the necessary changes in Williams' story--necessary for synching
with Baker & Truly--all but prove that there were changes in
Baker/Truly, that the confusion of floors--1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th--was not
simple confusion.  Why else have Williams absurdly contradict both his
original affidavit & FBI interview, at the hearings?  He was as much
as admitting that his Commission testimony was second-hand, that it
was a product of outside input.  He dictated "we took the elevator to
the 4th floor," then "subscribed & swore" to this statement by signing
the affidavit.  No wonder that, on March 24th, he could not overtly
dismiss his affidavit from November 22nd, which was made a good deal
closer to the event.

What Was Supposed To Have Happened
Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry could never quite explain why he
initially radioed, "Get men on top of that triple underpass & see what
happened up there." (DPD radio log tapes)  Perhaps his fellow occupant
in the motorcade's lead car, SS Agent in charge of Dallas Forrest
Sorrels, was trying to be kind when he testified, falsely, that Curry
had really radioed "Surround the building." (v7p345)  So
solicitous--suggesting that Curry had targeted the Depository from the
get-go.  Poor fellow made a monumental mistake, & allowed the perp(s)
to leave the TSBD unchallenged, &         ally laid the groundwork for
DPD Officer JD Tippit's       .  But it was an understandable mistake,
Sorrels must have thought.... Or perhaps *Curry* was being kind in
pretending to be befuddled, later, about where he had heard the shots
coming from--perhaps it was *Sorrels* who had told everyone in the
car--including Sheriff Bill Decker (whose own Commission testimony did
not touch upon the issue of his "Move all available men into the
railroad yard" [radio log tapes])--that he, Sorrels, thought he saw,
or heard, something suspicious from ahead & above, on the overpass. 
Perhaps Sorrels was covering up his own agenda in eliminating mention
of the underpass from his testimony.  Perhaps it was he
who--intentionally--sent all officers scurrying in the wrong
direction, by telling Curry that he saw something amiss up ahead,
though, in the famous Lovelady photo, other SS agents are looking down
& back.  Curry follows Sorrels' lead, Decker follows Curry's, &
Sorrels blithely rewrites the radio log for them at the hearings....

No officers or deputies, then, should have been inside the TSBD in the
moments after the shots were fired.  But one was, & he caught up with
Lee Oswald on the first floor, & the scripts for Williams, Norman &
Jarman had to be rewritten for a second-floor encounter.  But in the
first two days--before rewrites--Williams swears that he took the
stairs from the 6th floor to the 5th, then took the elevator to the
4th.  His corrected script for the Commission squares with the
corrected script for Baker (1st floor to 3rd or 4th-floor stairwell to
2nd-floor lunchroom), but the damage has been done, because the rough
drafts for the final script still exist.  We can see the changing
strategy.  Williams' extant drafts let Oswald off the         
hook--his was apparently a more menial, 1st-floor traffic assignment,
the means unknown, the end known: patsy.

greg parker 10/27/03 wrote:Don,
As I've mentioned before, this is great work. I differ only on a couple of
points.

Firstly, on Baker. He wrote the original affidavit with Oswald sitting in
front of him, yet still gave a description which did not match very
closely. Nor did he state that the encounter was with the man he now knew
was arrested (and right before his eyes). I conclude that the encounter
did happen (probably on the 4th floor), but that it was not with Oswald. I
think it was later changed to the 2nd floor to come into line with Reid,
who gave her affidavit the following day. In other words, the real Oswald
encounter on the 1st floor was superimposed over a real encounter on the
4th floor.

Secondly, I do not think the Baker/Truly/Oswald 1st floor encounter took
place until AFTER the the pair came back down. This fits better with the
statement that Oswald was there for the "1st roll-call".

The sequence of events as I see it: Baker and Truly (who may or may not
have entered together), go up to make the search. Baker encounters someone
on the 4th floor. They continue up to the 7th and come back down to the
1st floor where Police are taking details of all the people there. Oswald
was about to be questioned by 2 or more cops when Truly and Baker come
along and deliver the line about him being an employee (from the 9:30am
interrogation on 24nov63: "A police officer and my superintendent of the
place stepped up and told officers that I am one of the employees in the
building.").  Some time before this encounter, Oswald did go to the second
floor for a coke/peppers and had his encounter with Reid.

Not saying this doesn't present some problems... not the least of which is
if I'm right, he left many minutes after the official timeline shows.

don willis 10/29/03 wrote:Thanks, Greg.  Commentary on some points follows...
dw

Firstly, on Baker. He wrote the original affidavit with Oswald sitting in
front of him, yet still gave a description which did not match very
closely. Nor did he state that the encounter was with the man he now knew
was arrested (and right before his eyes).
Where is this scene recorded & by whom?

I conclude that the encounter
did happen (probably on the 4th floor), but that it was not with Oswald. I
think it was later changed to the 2nd floor to come into line with Reid,
who gave her affidavit the following day.

I discount Reid entirely.  She was trying to be helpful with her
bosses & the police, but put O in a T shirt, which (as Jarman noted in
an FBI interview) was in fact his usual work wear.  SHe probably saw
him earlier that hour, or was recalling previous days' encounters....
Baker saw O in a sleeved shirt or jacket, as he was apparently leaving
the building, on the 1st floor--again, as per Jarman, who said O left
his overshirt on the 1st floor before he'd set to work....

In other words, the real Oswald
encounter on the 1st floor was superimposed over a real encounter on the
4th floor.
 
I used to dally with the idea of 2 encounters, too, but now I don't
think so.  Like I said, I think Baker got curious because he caught O
about to leave....

Secondly, I do not think the Baker/Truly/Oswald 1st floor encounter took
place until AFTER the the pair came back down. This fits better with the
statement that Oswald was there for the "1st roll-call".
 
Is this as per Truly?  I doubt O was there for any roll call, as none
probably occurred till after 1pm....

The sequence of events as I see it: Baker and Truly (who may or may not
have entered together), go up to make the search. Baker encounters someone
on the 4th floor. They continue up to the 7th

I question whether Baker really was going up to the roof at all.  1)He
makes no mention of pigeons or bats or whatever whooshing away from
the TSBD roof in his 1st affidavit.  2) Truly's testimony re the roof
thing borders on ESP--he somehow intuits that Baker wants to go to the
roof, etc.  3) Two separate bits of evidence point to the *2nd* floor
as some officers'--perhaps Baker's--goal.  a) The Brewer radio
transmission re shots from the 2nd floor, & b) TSBD employee Otis
WIlliams' statement (FBI I believe) that just after the shots were
fired he showed a police "detective" all around the 2nd floor.  Who
else could this be, if it's circa 12:32, & not say 10 minutes
later.... (And, hey! how about those 2 SS agents on the car [Lovelady
photo] looking back toward the TSBD, circa 1st or 2nd floor?)

and come back down to the
1st floor where Police are taking details of all the people there. Oswald
was about to be questioned by 2 or more cops when Truly and Baker come
along and deliver the line about him being an employee (from the 9:30am
interrogation on 24nov63: "A police officer and my superintendent of the
place stepped up and told officers that I am one of the employees in the
building.").  Some time before this encounter, Oswald did go to the second
floor for a coke/peppers and had his encounter with Reid.
 
Not saying this doesn't present some problems... not the least of which is
if I'm right, he left many minutes after the official timeline shows.
 
greg

greg parker 11/02/03 wrote:Where is this scene recorded & by whom?
Don,

Mr. Dulles.
I didn't get clearly in mind, I am trying to check up, as to whether you saw
Oswald maybe in the same costume later in the day. Did you see Oswald later in
the day of November 22d?
Mr. Baker.
Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. Dulles.
Under what circumstances? Don't go into detail, I just want to tie up these
two situations. Mr. Baker.
As I was in the homicide office there writing this, giving this affidavit, I
got hung in one of those little small offices back there, while the Secret
Service took Mr. Oswald in there and questioned him and I couldn't get out by
him while they were questioning him, and I did get to see him at that time.
Mr. Dulles.
You saw him for a moment at that time?
Mr. Baker.
Yes, sir.

In an unsigned and undated memo titled
REPORT ON OFFICER'S DUTIES IN REGARD TO THE PRESIDENT'S
MURDER

MARVIN JOHNSON - #879

Johnson states: "While in the office [Fritz's] from 3:00pm until
2:00am I answered the phone and took an affidavit from Patrolman ML Baker.
Patrolman Baker stated in his affidavit that he was riding escort on his
motorcycle for the President's motorcade; that he heard the shots that killed
the President and wounded Governor Connally; that he decided the shots were
coming from the Texas School Book Depository Building. 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."

He ends: "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.'"

Johnson was not questioned about this by the WC.

I discount Reid entirely.  She was trying to be helpful with her
bosses & the police, but put O in a T shirt, which (as Jarman noted in
an FBI interview) was in fact his usual work wear.  SHe probably saw
him earlier that hour, or was recalling previous days' encounters....
But she mentions telling him about the shooting...?

Baker saw O in a sleeved shirt or jacket, as he was apparently leaving
the building, on the 1st floor--again, as per Jarman, who said O left
his overshirt on the 1st floor before he'd set to work....

My difficulty with the encounter being immediately on Baker's entry is that at
least one other person was on that floor - yet no mention of others. And as
shown, Oswald is alleged to have said he was being questioned by OTHER cops
when Baker/Truly approached. I believe this questioning of everyone on the 1st
floor was what was being euphemistically referred to as the "1st roll call".

I used to dally with the idea of 2 encounters, too, but now I don't
think so.  Like I said, I think Baker got curious because he caught O
about to leave....

Wasn't he supposed to be in or near a store-room? Could he leave from there?

Is this as per Truly?  I doubt O was there for any roll call, as none
probably occurred till after 1pm....

Through Truly to Day, and I believe, reported by Biffle. The wrong term ended
up being used, but I believe what was being referred to was the taking of
names and addresses by the cops who entered after Baker. Another attempt at
what may loosely by described as a "roll-call" probably happened after LHO's
arrest.

Truly is quoted by FBI however, as saying: "We made a quick examination
of the roof area and then I returned to the first floor area and ***started to
account for the location of each employee***. I was not able to locate
Oswald." CE 1382.

I question whether Baker really was going up to the roof at all.  1)He
makes no mention of pigeons or bats or whatever whooshing away from
the TSBD roof in his 1st affidavit.  2) Truly's testimony re the roof
thing borders on ESP--he somehow intuits that Baker wants to go to the
roof, etc.  3) Two separate bits of evidence point to the *2nd* floor
as some officers'--perhaps Baker's--goal.  a) The Brewer radio
transmission re shots from the 2nd floor, & b) TSBD employee Otis
WIlliams' statement (FBI I believe) that just after the shots were
fired he showed a police "detective" all around the 2nd floor.  Who
else could this be, if it's circa 12:32, & not say 10 minutes
later.... (And, hey! how about those 2 SS agents on the car [Lovelady
photo] looking back toward the TSBD, circa 1st or 2nd floor?)

Thanks! I posted about Williams a while back, but had all but forgotten about
him.

don willis 11/06/03 wrote:Greg -- Thanks a bundle!  Much food for thought here re the "4th floor" etc.
dw