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Spring 2020 update

Spring update.

  Greetings!

Quick update from me. I have been relatively busy until the beginning of Jan. with the work on my papers that yet have to come out. I hope both the T.S.B.D. (at this point just over 200 pages) and Prayer Man (clocking at 140 pages as we speak)  papers will be released later this year. A taste of one of these papers can be read in the up and coming sixth issue of Garrison Magazine. This will be out near July.

As you have seen recently I posted the Hosty notes story and the two T.S.B.D. related stories, one about Victoria Adams’ fellow employees and a page on Steven Wilson. All these articles are part of the papers coming out later this year.

Then an update of the Anatomy of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations paper will be released just before or at the same time as the other two. I have added about ten pages of extremely rare and important information.

Once the papers are out I will start putting scripts together, based on the papers, for a new set of four movies. of which I reckon there will be an Autumn release of the first one. Otherwise early 2021.

For the past month and a bit I have been scanning pages of Malcolm Blunt’s archive. I did about 10,000 pages but not a lot was really good for Prayer Man related matters. A few T.S.B.D. titbits but nothing much. On other fronts plenty of it. Most of it is already accessible at that archive.

Corona virus has kicked in and that has put a stop to me scanning more pages in at this time. So it’s back to my own work again and perhaps a small article or two from my many drafts ;) We’ll see. Until then stay safe and healthy, look out for another.

B.

There were ten women on the fourth floor when it went down

There were ten women on the fourth floor when it went down.

 

From my up and coming paper Anatomy of the T.S.B.D.

 

Updated with a new title, a little text and some pictures on Jan 5th 2020.

Updated with the addition of a gallery of 4th floor drawings on March 12th 2022.

I knew that Victoria Adams’ descent down the back stairs of the T.S.B.D. was one key to the assassination puzzle especially when Oswald was supposedly to go down those same steps “escaping” from the building at about the same time. The ladies had watched among other fourth floor employees the motorcade turn the corner in front of the building on to Elm St. Then they heard the shots fired at the limousine. Adams and Styles almost immediately left the window to go down the back stairs, make their way towards the railroad yard, and upon arrival they were told to go back where they came from, which they did thru the front doors of the T.S.B.D.

The first one who drew my attention to this was Oliver Stone, who brought this segment up during the Garrison trial in the movie JFK.

Actors representing Victoria Adams’ and Sandra Styles’ descent in a re-enactment for the film J.F.K. Click to enlarge.

If there is anyone who researched Victoria Adams’ and Sandra Styles’ descent from the fourth floor to the railroad yard and back into the front of the T.S.B.D. better than anyone else  it is Barry Ernest.

His book The Girl On The Stairs: The Search for a Missing Witness to the JFK Assassination led me to focus more on the T.S.B.D. and its employees.

From his research we know that.

  1. Victoria Adams did go through her W.C. statement and applied corrections even though the document ends with her stating she waivers her signature. The ‘corrected’ statement is being held much longer under lock and key than the first version without any corrections.
  2. She accused the W.C. of inserting the Lovelady & Shelley encounter in her testimony. She described the person she encountered after arriving on the first floor as a tall black man. This was independently corroborated by Sandra Styles who knew Shelley and Lovelady and was sure it wasn’t them who they met. The so called Adams & Styles – Lovelady & Shelley encounter on the first floor is a fugezi to undermine the timing of the ladies’ descent. It shows Jim “I don’t recall” Leavelle of the D.P.D. the maker of this report as a fabricator, who placed the misleading statement inside that report from Feb 1964. Obviously Leavelle is responsible but the decision to do this comes from higher up obviously.
  3. The Martha J. Stroud document Ernest found at the archives in Washington in 1999 confirms Adams’ corrections to her statement, and also states that Dorothy Garner saw the girls leave before the police officer came up to the fourth floor. Garner’s  real statement or anything besides the Stroud letter leading to it has disappeared.
  4. The W.C. discredited Adams’ story. by disbelieving her, nor did it really investigate further. But the W.C. did more to discredit Victoria Adams and it did that by minimising any attention towards the fourth floor.

While reading up about the other T.S.B.D. employees present on the fourth and fifth floors something else becomes apparent. The fourth floor was filled with ladies looking out through the south side windows.

Victoria Adams. Source: Barry Ernest.

Sandra Styles-Baylor Uni, Waco-1962

Elsie Dorman. Source: Life Magazine.

Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.

Judyth Louise McCully.

Avery Davis. Source E-Yearbook.com.

Mary Hollies. Source: E-Yearbook.com. Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.

Ruth Nelson. Source Ancestry Family Tree. Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.

Yola Hopson 1945. Source E-Yearbook.com. Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.

Betty Alice Foster. Source E-Yearbook.com. Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.

Think about it. Ten people on the fourth floor when it all went down. Some of them could have easily confirmed when Adams and Styles left. But that is something the Warren Commission, D.P.D., F.B.I. and the Secret Service, by the looks of it, did not bother much with.

Weaver Polaroid. Click to enlarge.

Even though Avery Davis claimed to be on the front steps, she is not recognised in either the Wiegman and Darnell films nor did any other person name her. Davis named Judyth McCully as the person she was on the steps with. McCully’s initial F.B.I. statement states that she was on the fourth floor while it all went down which then got changed to the front steps. Judyth McCully’s daughter told me that this was done at the behest of the F.B.I.

So if I do not know any better then efforts were made to look the fourth floor as a non event as much as possible with moving some witnesses away so original witness statements could not be corroborated.

Some more food for thought are the diagrams of the fourth floor. There were just three large rooms so people were close on each other.

Think about it, there were 10 people on the fourth floor. Some of them stood a few meters away from each other. Adams’ and Styles descent was the kryptonite to the  Oswald ‘escape’.

Then there are the men from the 5th floor and especially Jarman, Norman and Williams. I have made a spreadsheet with all three workers’ answers from every statement they have given and that are available. Download it from HERE.

From left to right: James Earl Jarman, Bonnie Ray Williams and Harold Norman in the Tom Dillard photo. Click to enlarge.

The fourth floor stop is in some statements not to be found, but in the W.C. testimony from Bonnie Ray Williams he states: They paused for one minute on the 4th floor as there were all these women looking out. Then there is James Jarman who during his W.C. testimony disowns the fourth floor stop even after asked about it by John J McCloy by saying I believe we went all the way.

The fourth floor was a direct threat to Oswald’s so called escape, so they thought. Until of course the Prayer Man surfaced and it has transpired Oswald was nowhere near the 6th floor when the shots were fired…

 

Roger Craig inside Robbery & Homicide on Nov 22

Roger Craig inside Robbery & Homicide on Nov 22.

 

Roger Craig 1969

Roger Craig of the Dallas sheriff department is one of the guys who did not cooperate with everyone else in law enforcement about the happenings of investigating the J.F.K. assassination and ended up becoming an outcast who ultimately paid the highest price for it.

My personal research into Roger Craig has been limited to the assassination weekend, especially his observation of seeing Oswald leaving the T.S.B.D. and after that his visit to room 317 of Robbery & Homicide and pointing Oswald out as the person he saw running down the grass and getting into a Nash Rambler.  Room 317 was Will Fritz’s fiefdom.  I have been writing about this before in my Anatomy Of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations paper (pages 96-102).

During the 56th anniversary of the assassination there were two conferences in Dallas happening, one was CAPA, the other was Judyth Vary Baker’s shindig.

Judyth Vary Baker Conference 2019 program cover. Spellcheck anyone? Photo: Vince Palamara.

I was watching some of the live feed on YouTube, to me about the only positive thing of that conference and I thought the panel talk of Steve Cameron, who had a new book on Craig to push, could be interesting.

Besides Steve Cameron there was Roger Craig Jr., Gary Shaw and Robert Groden (no idea why someone who is economical with the truth is still given access to a platform like this ).

Roger Craig panel talk. From l to r: Gary Shaw, Robert Groden, Steve Cameron and Roger Craig Jr. Photo: Vince Palamara.

Roger Craig Jr. kicked things off claiming his dad was murdered in a rather emotional manner and I wasn’t too sure that this was a wise way of opening the panel talk like that, but it is what it is. Then he claimed that his dad was inside room 317 and that the photograph from Jesse Curry’s book was the proof.

Now I am not disputing his presence at Dallas P.D., but the photograph is not proof of Roger Craig’s visit. Here is the photograph in question.

The issue is that there is a tiny likeness, however after seeing other photos of this very same individual inside Room 317 of Robbery & Homicide of the Dallas Police Department below it is definitely not Roger Craig.

In the centre in front of the set of drawers. Pic. Jim Murray. ROKC scan from the Sprague archives at NARA. Click image to enlarge.

 

Speaking to Det. Richard Sims in front of the file cabinets. In front and on the right are detective Johnny Hicks on the phone and sergeant William ‘Pete’ Barnes with Oswald’s palm print on display and . ROKC scan from the Sprague archives at NARA. Click image to enlarge.

 

Pic.: Ft Worth Star Telegram. Click image to enlarge.

There is a small chance that the person noticed in these photos is Secret Service agent Charles Kunkel. But Vince Palamara said that cannot be since Kunkel was not in Dallas on Nov 22nd and these photos by Jim Murray and the Fort Worth Star Telegram were taken around 6 PM that day. At this point I would say nothing further than this man is a government agent, but it is not Roger Craig.

There is however other great evidence showing that Craig arrived inside Room 317. Like this James Bookhout report from Nov. 23rd.

James Bookhout report Nov 23 1963 on Roger Craig’s presence at Robbery & Homicide. Thanks to Malcolm Blunt. Click picture to view larger version.

Furthermore there is Jesse Curry talking to the press in the corridor of the 3rd floor of City Hall. where the D.P.D. resided. He does not quote Craig by name, but he does relay Craig’s story.

 

Craig was there, but it is not the man seen in the photograph from Jesse Curry’s book. Just wanted to set that record straight once and for all.

The Lone Gunman Podcast Explosive New Evidence and Timeline Tweaks About The Interrogations

I had the pleasure to talk with Rob Clark on his Lone Gunman Podcast for two hours no less on Lee Oswald’s interrogations, it flew by as I had such fun.

Thank you Rob.

Ep. 157 ~ Explosive New Evidence and Timeline Tweaks About The Interrogations. 

In case the audio volume is too low for you I have uploaded the file HERE (150 MB to d/l) which sounds a lot better than the Spreaker upload.

John Abt representing Lee Oswald

John Abt representing Lee Oswald

 

John Abt

In my paper Anatomy Of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations the name John Abt pops up quite a few times. Some people, like Will Fritz, said Oswald wanted Abt to represent him on Friday. This was rubbish as I already shown in that paper that the record stated Oswald made his very first two phone calls in the early afternoon of the 23rd (pages 225 & 226 from the PDF linked to above), almost 24 hours after being dragged in after his arrest in the Texas Theatre. One of those calls was an attempt to call New York. That by itself is a good indicator that Oswald wanted to contact Abt on the 23rd.

In the pages below (thanks to Malcolm Blunt) Abt tells of a CBS reporter contacting him on Saturday morning that Oswald wanted Abt to represent him and unless Oswald himself would make that request not much was going to happen.

Click the images to enlarge them.

 

Then there is a video segment (starting at 5:25, on the third floor of Dallas City Hall, it shows Oswald being escorted through the corridor on his way from Fritz’s office to the jail elevator.

It is shot on Nov 23rd after Oswald’s first interrogation roughly at 11:30, he is in his white t-shirt only and then stops just before entering the door to the jail elevator and being pulled in by the D.P.D. detectives. But Oswald manages to talk to one of the reporters be it for a few seconds. The audio is sadly missing as the microphone was not plugged in. Denis Morissette and I were discussing this segment since this part was ‘new’ to me and he had brought it to my attention.

Later on in the same video segment we can see A.B.C.’s Bob Clark as the man whose microphone Oswald was talking in to and eventually there is a different microphone pushed forward to catch Clark’s voice.

This is the moment where Oswald asked to get in touch with John Abt. Clark talks about this moment in this PBS video (at 46:00) from 2003.  Oswald stated into Clark’s dead microphone “I want to contact Mr. Abt of New York City, to serve as my attorney”.

Saturday Nov 23rd at about 11:30 Oswald made the very first statement that he wanted John Abt to represent him and not any earlier. This by itself is supported by the reports from Saturday morning by Will Fritz himself, James Bookhout and Thomas Kelley made up on the 10:30 interrogation.

Add on Dec 13 2021.

Then there is a document which I found at the Harold Weisberg archive by Peggy Simpson which seems to have been sent before midday on the 23rd and makes mention of Oswald’s request for John Abt during the above mentioned happening in the corridor.

Howard Roffman to Richard Bernabei 1970

Howard Roffman to Richard Bernabei 1970

 

Howard Roffman wrote extensively with Harold Weisberg, but also with Richard Bernabei. I have managed to gotten hold of quite a bit of material myself after contacting his archive in Kingston and I also know that Denis Morissette went there and he sent me quite a few pages as well. I still have to go through all this. While browsing through the folder I came across this letter from 1970 that I gotten hold off in 2016.

It basically discusses the Couch film and Marrion Baker. Roffman did extensive research in the relation between the Couch film and Marrion Baker’s run almost 50 years ago. He also brings Gloria Calvery, Joe Molina and other T.S.B.D. employees’ statements in the fold and uses his common sense as most of his observations still stand today. Cool read.

Nat Pinkston and the snack room encounter

Nat Pinkston and the snack room encounter

 

Nat Pinkston from the F.B.I. took a statement of Roy Truly on Nov 22nd 1963. Pinkston can be seen as the co-creator of the Second Floor Lunch Room Encounter fakery.

In this document it shows that Pinkston is aware of Oswald’s statement that the only rifles he saw in the building were two days prior when Warren Caster popped round and showed the two rifles to Roy Truly and others. This matter was discussed during the first interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald.

What was also discussed is that Oswald got a coke for his lunch, and not after, but that got twisted somehow with the fairy tale below.

In my opinion the first and real attempt on making Oswald look guilty.

Nat Pinkston Nov 22 1963 FBI Report. Click to enlarge.

This and Roy Truly’s statement dictated on the 22nd and typed up on the 23rd are the first official statements attesting to an encounter in the snack room.

Roy Truly FBI Report Nov 22-23 1963. Click to enlarge.

 

There are a few more bits on Nat Pinkston at his page.

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt for the Pinkston document.

Roy Truly document from NARA.

The Second Floor Lunch Room Encounter in a Nutshell.

The Second Floor Lunch Room Encounter in a Nutshell.

 

Marrion Baker sees Lee Oswald on Nov 23rd. Click to enlarge.

 

Click HERE (27.3MB) to see the entire paper and be able to refer to the pages.

A PDF of this summary can be downloaded from here.

By: Bart Kamp.

  • The Darnell film ends with Baker just about to step up to the curb. He is at least 10 ft. away from the bottom steps when the camera swerves back. Page 29.
  • Baker does not appear to head for the stairs but to the south east corner of the TSBD building, his WC testimony at first shows he had no idea where exactly the shots had come from. Page 18.
  • Baker uses pigeons lifting off from the roof as an indicator that the shots came from the T.S.B.D., others have seen the same pigeons lift off and fly in different locations. Pages 24-25.
  • Buell Wesley Frazier, Roy Edward Lewis and Joe Molina who stand on the landing of the steps and in front of the door, see no helmeted officer going past them. Molina sees only Truly go in, and even states in his report by B.L. Senkel that Truly stayed on the first floor. Pages 41-43.
  • In April 1964, while being interviewed by Roy Bode, Truly states that he and Baker talked to Howard Brennan before they went in. That by itself contradicts Truly and Baker’s tale of storming up the T.S.B.D. stairs. Furthermore he states Oswald was sighted while leaving the lunch room. Page 40.
  • Foreman Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady, who have been recorded in film footage and supported with their statements as well, left immediately after the shots had been fired. Their W.C. testimony contradicts this by them claiming that they stayed on those steps for a few minutes, then left the steps and looked back and see Baker and Truly go in the building. In an interview with George and Patricia Nash in 1964 Shelley puts Baker’s and Truly’s entry even at 5-6 minutes. This kills the timing. Pages 33-39.
  • Pauline Sanders is the only person who makes a mention of a helmeted officer going in, but she makes no mention of Truly. She stood on the east side of the steps. Page 44.
  • Baker’s handwritten and typed up statements from the late afternoon of Nov. 22nd mention no lunch room encounter at all. And the only encounter he did have was on the 3rd or 4th Page 74.
  • In that first statement Baker says that when arriving in the vestibule he sees several people standing around and asks where the stairs are (which are to the right once inside the vestibule) and cannot be missed by anyone after which Truly supposedly steps forward (Truly states they had run up the steps together!) and leads him to the back of the building. Roy Truly’s F.B.I. statement from Nov. 22nd states they saw no one there” Page 46.
  • Marvin Johnson, who takes Baker’s affidavit later that afternoon states that Baker pointed out Oswald, while being interrogated by Will Fritz, as the man he apprehended. None of the interrogation reports by either the D.P.D., F.B.I. and S.S. support this part of Johnson’s statement. Page 74.
  • Johnson’s statement also states that Baker searched L.H.O, a physical contact which has not been substantiated by anyone else either. The official story during the confrontation is that Truly vouched for Oswald being a worker after which they continue their ascend to the top. Nor did Baker recognise him in a line-up as is stated. There is no record of this at all and this is something Baker denied happening during his W.C. testimony. Page 78.
  • Eddie Piper states during his W.C. testimony that in a few minutes someone came in the building, “and I looked up and it was the boss man and a policeman or someone.” That contradicts the timing element of Baker and Truly who said they stormed in within seconds after the shooting, also consider that the re-enactments were timed at 75 and 90 seconds. Page 49.
  • Piper gets called in again for a second time during his W.C. testimony, when asked whether Truly was with a white helmeted officer Piper says “I don’t think so.” Pages 50 and 51.
  • Truly makes no mention about any elevators in his statement from the 22nd. Page 52.
  • Marvin Johnson’s statement on taking Baker’s affidavit makes no mention of any elevators either. Page 57.
  • Roy Truly and Marrion Baker contradict each other about who actually said ‘let’s go up the stairs’ after ‘noticing’ the elevators are hung on the 5th Pages 54 and 55.
  • Jack Dougherty’s W.C. testimony states that he took the West elevator down from the fifth to the first floor immediately after hearing a shot. He does not hear Roy Truly yell up the shaft. Page 56.
  • Sandra Styles, many years after the fact, states that Victoria Adams told her offhandedly that she saw the elevator cables move while they made their descent from the fourth floor. Page 57.
  • While Truly and Baker make their alleged ascend up the steps there is more activity being recorded of another employee who use the very same stairs. Otis Williams makes his way from the front stairs to the 4th Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles descended almost immediately after the final shot from the 4th floor. Page 57.
  • Dorothy Ann Garner, in a Martha J. Stroud document had stated that she saw Truly and a police officer come up after the girls, Adams and Styles, had gone down. Page 57.
  • Truly walking ahead of Baker is not recorded until early Dec 1963 by the S.S. That same week and during the months after Roy Truly does 3 interviews, contradicting himself saying that Baker was ahead of him. Pages 61-64.
  • The lunch room encounter can be questioned by Baker’s position upon arriving on the second floor and the viewing angle through the closed door. Roy Truly passed it before Baker and admitted the door was closed as well. Pages 65-70.
  • The door with a self-closing mechanism takes 5 seconds to open and close, there was not a time difference that long after ascending one floor between Baker and Truly. Pages 76-77.
  • During the encounter Oswald is placed at different locations inside the second floor lunch room. Pages 86-88.
  • The second floor lunch room, and the rest of that floor was off limits to manual workers, unless they purchased a coke for their lunch. The manual workers had their lunch ether outside or downstairs on the first floor in the domino room. Page 135.
  • Mrs Robert Reid’s statement and testimony cannot be believed due to the timing aspect, she saw Oswald wearing a white t-shirt contradicting Baker and the presence of Geneva Hine inside the very same office, yet neither noticed each other. Pages 88-91.
  • Geneva Hine was alone in the 2nd floor office from 12:25 to 12:35. Page 90.
  • Oswald’s coke starts as an insertion into Mrs. Reid’s hand written statement. Page 94.
  • Marrion Baker mentions the coke in his hand written Sept. 1964 statement, only for it to be stricken out. In March that very same year, during his W.C. testimony, he said that he saw nothing in his hands. Page 93.
  • The Revill list contradicts Oswald’s departure after 3 minutes. It also shows that certain employees were not recorded on it and some arrived back at the T.S.B.D. much later.  Pages 112-113.
  • Oswald was sighted by Sarah Stanton before the motorcade arrived, near the stairs (which are most likely the front stairs) and asked whether he was going to go out for lunch! She noticed him holding a soda. Page 137.
  • Various law enforcement officers and T.S.B.D. employees make mention of an encounter on the first floor or at the front door in many different newspaper reports on the 22nd and 23rd. Pages 113-121.
  • The first mention of a second floor lunch room encounter in the press on Nov 23rd is at 13:50 hours by Peggy Simpson of the A.P.
  • Carolyn Arnold at first sees Oswald in the vestibule in her Nov. 26th statement, only for her to retract this roughly 15 years later. The retraction can be doubted due to her statement of going back for a glass of water and seeing him in the lunch room instead. Also statements from her co-workers who stated they left the building together. Pages 121-135.
  • Oswald’s alibi is systematically destroyed during his interrogations by D.P.D. Captain Will Fritz and F.B.I. agents James Hosty and James Bookhout. In a new found document, a draft document by James Hosty, states that Oswald had a coke for his lunch and then went outside the watch the P. parade.  Pages 136-146.
  • The re-enactment and its timing aspect of the 2FLRE, have never been confirmed by anyone seeing it actually happening outside and inside the T.S.B.D.. Pages 147-159.

 

COPYRIGHT © Bart Kamp.