Business as usual or meet the lone gunman(UA-66627984-1)

Lee Harvey Oswald

Prayer Man More Than a Fuzzy Picture reviews

Prayer Man More Than a Fuzzy Picture reviews

 Since its early September release the book Prayer Man More Than a Fuzzy Picture has been received very well. It is hovering at an average 4.5 mark on Amazon for which I am very grateful. So thanks to those who purchased it and also left a high rating and a few kind words.

And earlier today Jim DiEugenio posted a comprehensive book review at his Kennedysandking website. It is a ten minute read, but it is well worth the time spent on it as it gets to some of the core matters of my research.

JFK Lancer 2023

JFK Lancer Conference 2023

 

I will be doing a one hour presentation remotely at the 27th Annual JFK Lancer Conference!
This event is being held on November 17th – 19th, 2023 at the Lorenzo Hotel, Dallas, Texas.

I shall be speaking about some of my key findings from my book Prayer Man: More Than a Fuzzy Picture.

June 2022 update

Greetings!

First of all a small discovery in Darnell, finally some better focus on the group in  the James Darnell film that is about to and is ascending the steps on the bottom left stairs. We can see two women who ascending who both look to the left down on Elm St. Click the photo below. This shot, even though at miserable quality, allows me to discern what is actually happening on the bottom left of the steps. In other Darnell copies the frames are way over exposed and blurred.   #payattentionbrian !!!!

The TSBD workers ascending the stairs. Click to enlarge.

At this time my money is on Patricia Ann Donaldson being the woman with the scarf over her head. And the other lady in black (ID still unknown) is the one who stood next together on Elm.

Patricia Ann Donaldson in the Dave Wiegman film on Nov 22 1963. Click to enlarge.

Then the Anatomy papers, I like to think I am done for now. There has been about a two year delay due to my activities with the Malcolm Blunt archives. This delay was needed due to the quality of documentation found at Malcolm’s. And the problem with that was that it was spread all over his filing cabinets inside many unmarked folders. I was not just digitising the archives, but I was discovering at the same time.  So that meant that getting these papers ready took way longer than originally thought. After April 2021 I barely looked at them until I had finished with scanning the first phase of Malcolm’s documents in Nov last year. In Dec I started to research, create two new papers and  and make amendments to earlier released papers.

Yet I also know that there will be some updated content in the form of quotes of interviews of various people being added in the near foreseeable future.  We spoke with Roy Edward Lewis in 2018 and 2022 and this material is being transcribed as we speak. Plus a set of other interviews, so that update will be there by end of Summer. The only other question remains is to condense all work into one file instead of four.

And thanks for the great feedback on my previous article, a newish chapter of the Anatomy of the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter

I reckon in about a week the papers shall be released for y’all to plough through. Until then!

 

The Destruction of Lee Oswald’s Alibi & The Invention of the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter

The Destruction of Lee Oswald’s Alibi & The Invention of the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter.

 

I have been investigating the second floor lunchroom encounter for several years now and have offered plenty of evidence that shows that this particular event was a fugezi from the word go. My first paper Anatomy of the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter which had its first release in 2016 showed a lot of evidence that questioned this so called encounter. Three years later the paper had doubled in size with  a ton more evidence to show this encounter was one of the worst fakes created. This is a new amended chapter which will appear as part of my new Anatomy of the Second Floor Lunchroom Encounter paper. This paper and the other two will be released early June.

In my second paper, I discuss the interrogations of Lee Oswald in depth, but here I will only add the parts in relation to the first floor and the second floor lunch room encounter.

During the first interrogation Will Fritz spoke with Oswald (and have detectives Richard Sims and Elmer Boyd sit in with him). This was a standard tactic for having an extra person or two sit in with the one who did the questioning, this was to support in court what was being said. In the USA there were no tape recorded interrogations until two decades later. Fritz, Boyd and Sims must have been alone with Oswald for 30-45 minutes as FBI agents Hosty and Bookhout did not arrive and joined this interrogation not until 15:15 hrs. No one knows what was said during that period. From this first interrogation with the FBI present are a few notes and reports to look at. The official FBI report that represents the questions and answers of this first interrogation is the joint Bookhout & Hosty report. However this was not made up until the next day Nov 23rd  

James Bookhout and James P Hosty FBI Report Nov 23 1963. Click to enlarge. From Mary Ferrell.

James Bookhout and James P Hosty FBI Report Nov 23 1963. Click to enlarge. From Mary Ferrell.

James Hosty and James Bookhout of the FBI state in their joint November 23 report: “OSWALD stated that he went to lunch at approximately noon and he claimed he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch. OSWALD claimed to’ be on the first floor when President JOHN F. KENNEDY passed by his building.” 

This Nov 23rd report:

  1. Does not mention the specific location of Oswald on the first floor at the time of the assassination, which Oswald did tell them (more about that in a mo).
  2. Nor does it mention any encounter involving Oswald, a police officer and Roy Truly.
  3. He got the coke for his lunch not after the assassination!

This was the only official report from that first interrogation issued the day after it had happened. No one of the Dallas police had issued a report and when they did, it was after Oswald’s death.

By James Hosty’s own admission he did take notes during that first interrogation and he was the only one. First in his own notebook. He scribbled partial phrases in his notebook that I am reproducing below.

Notebook notes from James P Hosty of the FBI. From NARA, thanks to Malcolm Blunt. Click to enlarge.

James Hosty claimed he had destroyed these notes, after the report had been typed up and submitted, as per FBI procedure, yet when his book Assignment Oswald was released according to him these notes had ‘re-appeared’ in his desk drawer. A miracle or was Hosty breaking bureau protocol keeping these notes as a souvenir?

In relation to Oswald’s whereabouts the following sticks out: “First floor outside office” which could relate to where Oswald was when the motorcade passed by. And I tend to lean that way, mainly after comparing the notes above with the ones I post a little further below. And also after comparing these with Fritz’s handwritten notes, more about these later on. Also make yourself aware of the so called ‘sectioning’ on these notes. It seems to group unrelated bits together.

But! Once again there is not a mention of any altercation with Marrion Baker nor a mention of Roy Truly.

But then in Feb. 2019 I found a document amongst a set of so called “Hosty files” in Malcolm Blunt’s archive collection. This particular document, written on the back of a sheet of printed affidavit paper of the Dallas police states something that eventually was deep sixed by Hosty and the others only to re-appear when Malcolm Blunt copied the entire set of Hosty papers twenty years ago at the archives in Washington. Through investigating I have found out that Hosty handed these over to the ARRB in 1996. Malcolm himself did not realise he had this bomb shell in his filing cabinet and only when I went through the whole folder to scan it all in for the new D.P.U.K. website did it appear. I decided to publish this document right away at my website’s diary.

James P Hosty Sept 1975. Click to enlarge.

The text that is key to Hosty’s handwritten report is: “O stated he was present for work at the T.S.B.D. on the morning of the 22nd and at noon went to lunch. He went to 2nd floor to get a coca cola to eat with lunch and returned to 1st floor to eat lunch. Then he went outside to watch P. Parade.”  It is safe to say that P. stands for Presidential.

An important element of this paragraph is that he got his coke for his lunch which was before the shots were fired. This aspect is re-confirmed in the joint Hosty/Bookhout report. Again no mention of a lunchroom encounter, Baker and/or Truly.

And then there is the hammer that states that Oswald was outside to watch the Presidential Parade. This lead was swept under the carpet by all those who were present and never repeated again.

Oswald interrogation notes Nov 22 1963. James P Hosty. Thanks to Malcolm Blunt. Click to enlarge.

In Hosty’s book Assignment Oswald he described how he kept on taking notes even after the interrogation. “I headed back to Fritz’s office, where I knew the police were keeping Oswald’s personal belongings. Nothing there, but in the second inner office, which belonged to Lieutenant Walter Potts, I spotted Oswald’s things, which had been removed from his person and from his apartment at the Oak Cliff rooming house. Among the items on Potts’s desk was Oswald’s black address book. I pulled out my pad of blank police affidavit forms and started transcribing the entries in his book, thinking I might find some interesting leads or even some possible co-conspirators”.

 Then if you compare the notebook pages and the handwritten partial draft statement above, something else becomes apparent. They show near identical sections.

James P Hosty interrogation notes and pre-report. Graphic: BK. Click to enlarge.

James Hosty used his notebook notes to compile this draft on D.P.D. affidavit paper, and this also means that the phrase “1st floor entrance office” in Hosty’s notebook notes directly relates to Oswald’s whereabouts as described in the draft on the D.P.D. affidavit paper (the green highlighted areas on both documents). Before the Feb. 2019 find it was assumed that “first floor entrance office” was related to Warren Caster’s visit when he showed Roy Truly and a few others two rifles he had brought in. But closer study of the sections show that inside there are unrelated matters “grouped” together. “First floor entrance office” means first floor entrance of the office.

He writes in his book Assignment Oswald, about an exchange, from his memory how the questioning went on during that first interrogation.

Okay now, Lee, you work at the Texas School Book Depository, isn’t that right?

Yeah, that’s right.

When did you start working there?

About October fifteenth

What did you do down there?

I was just a common labourer.

Now, did you have access to all floors of the building?

Of course.

Tell me what was on each of those floors.

The first and second floors have offices. The third and fourth floor are storage. So are the fifth and sixth.

And you were working there today, is that right?

Yep.

Were you there when the president’s motorcade went by?

Yeah.

Where were you when the president went by the book depository?

I was eating my lunch in the first floor lunchroom.

What time was that?

About noon.

Were you ever on the second floor around the time the president was shot?

Well, yeah. I went up there to get a bottle of Coca-Cola from the machine for my lunch.

But where were you when the president actually passed your building?

On the first floor in the lunchroom.

And you left the depository, isn’t that right?

Yeah.

When did you leave?

Well, I figured with all the confusion there wouldn’t be any more work to do that day.

Again Oswald, according to Hosty’s recollections, be it almost 40 years later, Oswald got the coke for his lunch and makes no mention of an encounter with Baker. Hosty also makes mention of the reason why Oswald left work. But what is significant is that the 2nd floor lunch room encounter simply does not exist at that time.

Not for long that is, so get ready for a lil’ twist.

Nat Pinkston.

Unbeknown to James Hosty and James Bookhout, their colleague, Nat Pinkston is busy inside the TSBD shortly after the first interrogation to ‘rectify’ matters so Lee Harvey Oswald becomes the guilty party.

In Sept. 2019 I posted an article called Nat Pinkston and the Snack Room Encounter. This article contained the document I had found that year in Malcolm Blunt’s archive and is to me the first documented evidence of a mentioning of an encounter in the second floor lunchroom. The document is dated L1/22/63 and I am not sure what L1 stands for, but let’s assume it stands for November 22nd. The other thing is that Nat Pinkston submitted other reports on Nov 22 using this L1 in the date.

Besides the description of the encounter there is another element that is very interesting and helps with dating this even more precise.

The last two paragraphs relate to the sighting of guns inside the building in front of Roy Truly’s office being observed by Oswald. This particular matter is being recorded during the first interrogation of Oswald by James Hosty in his notes. This of course is being reported to FBI HQ and investigated further, and in this case Pinkston questions Roy Truly about this. So a few hours after this, the second floor lunch room encounter is being ‘created’ as such & written up in this report. This is the closest piece of reporting of creating a 180 and assign blame to Oswald for shooting The President. This document is released before the joint Bookhout-Hosty report. That by itself is a miracle since it was Bookhout & Hosty that were present at the interrogation and Pinkston was not! And he introduces this new accusation that cements Oswald’s guilt of shooting The President. This report runs parallel with the joint Book-Hosty report and it is even released before theirs.

Nat Pinkston’s Nov 22 1963 report. Inserting the second floor lunchroom encounter.
With thanks to Malcolm Blunt.. Click to enlarge.

What follows next is another report from J Doyle Williams and Nat Pinkston on that very same day of Roy Truly. It apparently has been dictated on the 22nd, but is not typed up until the day after. The phrase “they saw no one else in the building at that time” further below in that statement rings hollow, since two black employees (Troy Eugene West and Eddie Piper) were on the first floor, Truly even spoke with Piper! The fourth floor had several women near the staircase within minutes after the shooting looking at the scenes in the railroad yard down below. Also closer inspection of the Darnell film, of the people on the stairs showing that several people made their way up to go inside before Baker & Truly.

FBI Affidavit Roy Truly by J Doyle Williams & Nat A Pinkston. Click to enlarge. From: Mary Ferrell.

FBI agent Kenneth B Jackson interviews Roy Truly again on the 23rd.

FBI Affidavit Roy Truly by Kenneth B Jackson Nov 23 1963. Click to enlarge. Mary Ferrell.

Then you have the joint Hosty and Bookhout report from the 22nd, but not dictated until the 23rd, and it shows that the so called “second floor lunchroom encounter internal communique” has not been passed on to both Hosty & Bookhout as they just create the report that is based on James Hosty’s notes and their collective memory of that interrogation, which once more, does not contain any encounter at all, since Oswald got his coke for his lunch.

So while Hosty and Bookhout create their real report there is already a fake one in play by Nat Pinkston only just after the first interrogation has been finished.

And then Bookhout gets the nod and produces another report on the 24th. Oswald has been shot dead earlier that day and this report contradicts his joint report with James Hosty on a few occasions.

FBI Affidavit James W Bookhout Nov 25 1963. Click to enlarge. From: Mary Ferrell.

In the above solo report by James Bookhout on November 24 things are turned around a bit, but not for the better.

“Oswald stated that on November 22 1963, at the time of the search of the Texas School Book Depository building by Dallas police officers, he was on the second floor of said building, having just purchased a Coca-Cola from the soft-drink machine, at which time a police officer came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there.

Mr. Truly was present and verified that he was an employee and the police officer thereafter left the room and continued through the building. Oswald stated that he took this Coke down to the first floor and stood around and had lunch in the employee’s lunch room. He thereafter went outside and stood around for five or ten minutes with foreman Bill Shelley.”

First, he mentions “at the time of the search of the Texas School Book Depository building by Dallas police officers” while Baker was the only police officer in that building for a fair amount of time (5 mins is reasonable to assume) and that is if Baker went in as fast he said he went; everyone else on the force was busy in the railroad yard. Or this is an indication that Oswald was in the building much later than he has been ‘credited’ for? Like 15 minutes by any chance?

Secondly, Oswald had purchased a coke, which from a timing perspective makes it already ‘interesting’ (getting the correct change out, putting it in the machine and waiting for the bottle to appear and take the cap off). Neither Truly nor Baker saw anything in his hands. Although Baker messed that up with his handwritten report on Sept. 23rd 1964, the day before the W.C. report was issued and it was sent rapido to Washington.

Thirdly, Oswald stood around and had lunch after the shooting, and even stood outside with Bill Shelley for 5/10 minutes after having had his lunch. Shelley who was not seen outside the building after returning from his ‘trip’ with Billy Lovelady and seen much later escorting Garcia and Williams to a police car. So how long was Lee Oswald in that building?  According to this second report, for quite some time, which makes one wonder, how the bus/cab ride transpired, changing his clothes and ‘grabbing his gun’ and walk towards 10th and Patton and blow Tippit away. Nor does this rhyme with the W.C. conclusion that he was gone in 2.5 minutes! This cannot be done at any time from a timing perspective as described by James Bookhout!

This document is used to toe the line with the creation of the second floor lunchroom encounter.

So far we have only seen the reports and notes of Hosty and Bookhout of the FBI. James Hosty mentions in his Church Committee testimony that he was the only person taking notes during that very first interrogation. Hosty was called away from any further interrogations whereas Bookhout stayed on until Sunday morning.

  • Will Fritz only made up an official undated and unsigned report weeks after. This report has been seen in various versions. Fritz was not seen taking any notes during that first or any other interrogations. He himself claimed he took no notes, as this wasn’t his style of interrogating someone. He had ample opportunity to call in a camera and/or audio recording equipment since the corridor was filled to the brim with reporters and cameramen. One of the typists inside the Robbery & Homicide office could have assisted him transcribing the session. None of these options were used by him.

In my Anatomy of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations paper I quote several people regarding the recording of Fritz’s interrogations (pages 9-13). That notes were made by him must have taken everyone by surprise when they came to light thru an anonymous donation to the ARRB in late 1996. These notes were ‘buried’ for more than 33 years! So people had to make do with Fritz’s undated and unsigned statement from Dec. 1963 and his Warren Commission testimony. The handwritten notes are not contemporary, as a matter of fact no one knows when these were made. Some suspect Fritz copied Bookhout’s notes.

Will Fritz outside room 317, Homicide & Robbery Bureau. Click to enlarge.

Fritz’s interrogation notes display a few interesting bits when it comes to Lee Oswald’s location just before, during and just after the assassination. But they have to be considered carefully due to the fact that they were made after the interrogations.

Will Fritz’s Oswald interrogation notes. Page 1. Click to enlarge. From: Mary Ferrell.

On page 1, above, it states:

claims 2nd floor coke when

off came in

Oswald had a coke from the 2nd floor when the officer came in. Came in where? 1st? 2nd? “when off came in” looks inserted at a later time.

More about this in a  minute.

to first floor had lunch

Oswald had lunch on the 1st floor.

out with Bill Shelley in front

Oswald knew Shelley was standing in front of the building. And that is before the shooting, not after! As Shelley had departed almost immediately after the shooting from the TSBD steps. Entering the T.S.B.D. from the west side. And he was not seen again outside until 13:30.

Will Fritz’s Oswald interrogation notes. Page 3. Click to enlarge. From: Mary Ferrell.

On page 3 of the same set of Fritz’s interrogation notes from Nov. 23rd the Domino Room and Oswald’s lunch come into play. Something Fritz never investigated any further, why not?

says two negro came in

one Jr + short negro – ask? for lunch says cheese sandwiches + apple

-Oswald saw Jarman and possibly Norman come in to the Domino room while he had his lunch. Lunch consisted of cheese sandwiches and an apple.

Looking at both these pages one thing becomes evident. That is that a new sentence does not start on a new line, but midway as well, this leaves his notes open to interpretation. A forum post by Sean Murphy explains this with samples.

In his report to Chief Curry from November 23 1963 Fritz says: “We also found that this man had been stopped by Officer M.L. Baker while coming down the stairs. Mr. Baker says that he stopped this man on the third or the fourth floor on the stairway, but as Mr. Truly identified him as one of the employees he was released”. The third or fourth floor refers to Baker’s first statement.

 Fritz’s undated report, in draft mode states: “I asked him what part of the building he was in when the president was shot, and he said that he was having his lunch about that time on the first floor. Mr. Truly had told me that one of the police officers had stopped this man immediately after the shooting near the back stairway, so I asked Oswald where he was when the police officer stopped him. He said he was on the second floor drinking a coca cola when the officer came in.” This just blends it all very nicely together.

Will Fritz‘s typed report from December 23 states: “We also found out that this man had been stopped by officer M.L. Baker while coming down the stairs. Mr. Baker says that he stopped this man on the third or the fourth floor of the stairway, but as Mr. Truly identified the man as one of his employees, he was released. This very same report falsely claims that Oswald’s working area was mostly on the second floor! It would actually be one of the least frequented areas for him actually.

Will Fritz’s typed report from Dec 23rd 1963. From: UNT.

His W.C. testimony:

Mr. BALL. Did you ask him what happened that day; where he had been?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. Well he told me that he was eating lunch with some of the employees when this happened, and that he saw all the excitement and he didn’t think, I also asked him why he left the building. He said there was so much excitement there then that “I didn’t think there would be any work done that afternoon and we don’t punch a clock and they don’t keep very close time on our work and I just left.”
Mr. BALL. At that time didn’t you know that one of your officers, Baker, had seen Oswald on the second floor?
Mr. FRITZ. They told me about that down at the bookstore; I believe Mr. Truly or someone told me about it, told me they had met him, I think he told me, person who told me about, I believe told me that they met him on the stairway (Fritz has trouble composing himself-BK), but our investigation shows that he actually saw him in a lunch room, a little lunch room where they were eating, and he held his gun on this man and Mr. Truly told him that he worked there, and the officer let him go. (so regardless of an encounter on the stairway Fritz declared it happening inside the lunchroom???-BK)
Mr. BALL. Did you question Oswald about that?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I asked him about that and he knew that the officer stopped him all right.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him what he was doing in the lunch room?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he was having his lunch. He had a cheese sandwich and a Coca-Cola.
Mr. BALL. Did he tell you he was up there to get a Coca-Cola?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he had a Coca-Cola.

Martha Joe Stroud corresponded with the Warren Commission that Fritz was not happy with his deposition and would not sign it unless corrections were applied. Nor would have the original archived as such at NARA. And there seem to be two versions of his statement. I would love to see the difference between the two!

Thanks to Robin Unger. Click to enlarge.

Oswald has gone for lunch and stayed in the Domino Room after he had gotten his Coke from the second floor. Many must have seen him getting his coke, since the ladies from the 2nd floor offices started to have their lunch at about 12:00 in the second floor lunch room, some of whom did not leave to watch the parade until 12:20-12:25.

The Domino Room was in the back at the north eastern end of the building, and the infamous back stairs were not far away and had direct access to them. And as stated above In the Hosty & Bookhout notes and statements he got the coke for his lunch.

The Secret Service was present too, Forrest Sorrels and Thomas J Kelley were there during some of Lee Oswald’s interrogations on the 23rd.

  • Thomas J Kelley is the only one who supplies an interrogation report that actually goes so far as to claim that Oswald explicitly admitted to not having watched the motorcade. In his First interview with LHO he states:

“At this time Captain Fritz showed a Selective Service Card that was taken out of his wallet which bore the name of Alex Hidell. Oswald refused to discuss this after being asked for an explanation of it, both by Fritz and by James Bookhout, the FBI Agent. I asked him if he viewed the parade and he said he had not. I then asked him if he had shot the President and he said he had not. I asked him if he has shot governor Connally and he said he had not”.

Now look at the bottom of the page of the Fritz notes and compare and you see that Fritz may have been a bad record keeper, but I doubt he would have left a jewel of the ‘parade’ question and answer like that out in his notes. Kelley’s bit is suspect as a 3 dollar bill.

Not one word about the parade. And that is because he did not give that answer at all.

Will Fritz’s Oswald interrogation notes. Page 4. Click to enlarge. From: Mary Ferrell.

Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald

Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald.

I came across some film footage which shows Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby. It was of half decent quality and once taken a set of stills of these films I came across two elements I had not seen before. Most people know that Jack Ruby did shoot Lee Harvey Oswald and some excellent photographs were made of that particular moment, but the chaos that ensued did prevent people from seeing the gun, although I had seen one close-up of L.C. Graves holding the gun down, but that was it.

Click on the photograph to see a slightly larger version.

The facial expressions of Jim Leavelle’s horror speaks volumes.

Jim Leavelle reacts just after Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald.

Jim Leavelle and others struggle take control of Ruby and the gun he holds in his hand.

In this set we can see Lee Oswald on the ground and Jim Leavelle standing pretty much above him while the others are scrummaging with Jack Ruby  and L.C. Graves trying to pry the gun from Ruby’s hand. To view slightly larger samples, please click on the photograph(s).

Oswald down on the floor in front of Leavele who tries to provide some sort of cover.

 

Leavelle and Oswald on the left in the middle of the scrum of coppers you can see L.C. Graves’ hand holding Ruby’s gun.

 

L.C. Graves holds the gun and has managed to step away from the scrum of policemen who are trying to detain Ruby.

Afterwards Oswald is stretchered into the back of the ambulance.

 

Lee Harvey Oswald being searched

Lee Harvey Oswald being searched

 

This article is derived from my up and coming update to the Anatomy of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations paper, which will be released in Q2 2022.

Since my work with the records of Malcolm Blunt’s archives beginning in Feb. 2019 I have come across many interesting documents which have enabled me to piece a few extraordinary things together. I had no intention of writing about Lee Harvey Oswald being searched until the find of some statements that cause a contradiction too significant to ignore.

Left to right: ? – Richard Sims – Lee Harvey Oswald – Marlin G Hall (partially obscured) – Elmer Boyd. Click pic to enlarge.

The so called official picture is described in a joint report from detectives Richard Sims and Elmer Boyd it states that “Boyd searched Oswald and found five live rounds of .38 caliber revolver pistol shells in his front left pocket. Sims found a bus transfer slip in Oswald’s shirt pocket”  The shirt Oswald allegedly changed into after arriving at his North beckley home. What would be the point of taking that ticket with him?

Joint report Elmer Boyd & Richard Sims. From: UNT. Click pic to enlarge.

 

In the Will Fritz report from Nov 22 1963 (page 7), Boyd and Sims are mentioned as well. As a side note I am amazed at the speed this DPD report apparently has been produced on the very same day of the assassination, as many reports were not produced days if not weeks after the fact.

Case Report on Lee Harvey Oswald by J. W. Fritz. From UNT. Click to enlarge.

The FBI has a statement from Richard Sims as well, on Nov 25th he states:

FBI – Richard Sims Nov 25 h1963. Click to enlarge.

Elmer Boyd’s Warren Commission testimony which contains two passages with regards to the matter at hand. I shall paste in below the relevant text of it. First of all from page 8.

Mr. BILL. Before you went into the showup, did you search Oswald?
Mr. BOYD. Yes; I did.
Mr. BALL. And what did you find?
Mr. BOYD. I found five .38 shells, I believe it was five.
Mr. BALL. Live? Live shells?
Mr. Born. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did you do with them?
Nr. BOYD. Well, I put them in an envelope and put them with the rest of the property up there to be turned in.
Mr. BALL. Did you put any mark on them?
Mr. BOYD. Let me see-1 can look and see.
Mr. BALL. I will show you Commission Exhibit 592 in an envelope, will you take a look at that-at the cartridges?
Mr. BOYD. Yes-1 got my mark on them.
Mr. BALL. You have your mark on all five of them?
Mr. BOYD. I have my mark on the first three-yes, sir-1 have my mark on all of them.
Mr. BALL. On all five of them?
Mr. BOYD. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. You put those marks on there, did you?
Mr. BOYD. Yes, I did.
Mr. BALL. Now, looking those cartridges over, can you tell me whether these five cartridges, which constitute Commission Exhibit 592, are the cartridges which you took from Oswald?
Mr. BOYD. Yes; they are.
Mr. BALL. And where were you when you put the mark on them?
Mr. BOYD. I was back up in my o5ce.
Mr. BAILL. When you first took them from Oswald, where did you put them?
Mr. BOYD. I put them in my pocket.
Mr. BALL. And after you were back in the office, you put a mark on them, did you ?
Mr. BOYD. Yes.
Mr. BALL. And turned them over to whom?
Mr. BOYD. Well, let me see-it seems like we had a drawer there where we had some more property, where we put it all in there-you know, where they had the other stuff-I have forgotten just exactly where it would be.
Mr. BALL. You turned them over to someone in the police department?
Mr. BOYD. Yes, sir.

Elmer Boyd with Lee harvey Oswald after his first interrogation. Oswald raised his cuffed hands by request of the photographers. Click to enlarge.

Then on page 18 of the same PDF document.

Mr. BALL. When you participated in the search of Oswald and found five pistol cartridges in his pants pocket, was there any discussion of these bullets with him; did he say anything, or did you say anything to him about it?
Mr. BOYD. I just asked him, “What were they doing in there,” and he said, “I just had them in my pocket.”
Mr. STERN. The memorandum mentions the cartridges-bus transfer, except that he had a ring on his finger which he took off and he gave it to Mr. Sims, Do you remember any other items that he had that you got from him during this search?
Mr. BOYD. No, sir; I know that Mr. Sims did get the bus transfer and took his ring. He took his ring off and give it to Mr. Sims, and I got those five shells, and that’s all that I recall being taken from him.

Then there is Detective Richard Sims, who during his WC testimony on pages 16 & 17 says:

Mr. BALL. When you participated in the search of Oswald and found five pistol cartridges in his pants pocket, was there any discussion of these bullets with him; did he say anything, or did you say anything to him about it?
Mr. BOYD. I just asked him, “What were they doing in there,” and he said, “I just had them in my pocket.”
Mr. STERN. The memorandum mentions the cartridges-bus transfer, except that he had a ring on his finger which he took off and he gave it to Mr. Sims, Do you remember any other ite,ms that he had that you got from him during this search?
Mr. BOYD. No, sir; I know that Mr. Sims did get the bus transfer and took his ring. He took his ring off and give it to Mr. Sims, and Mr. BALL. R’ow, during this time, or sometime during this period-sometime between these three showups, you searched Oswald, didn’t you?
Mr. SIMS The first one; yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. And that was what time?
Mr. SIMS. It was 4:05, I believe, but I will have to check my record here and see [checking his record referred to].
Mr. BALL. That was after the second showup?
Mr. SIMS. So, sir; the first one.
Mr. BALL. After the first showup?
Mr. SIMS. It was before the first showup.
Mr. BALL. It was before the first showup the 4:05?
Mr. SIMS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. And that was after the first interrogation?
Mr. SIMS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. And where were you when you first searched him?
Mr. SIMS We was in the holdover, in other words, the showup room.
Mr. BALL. When you took Oswald down for the first showup and waited in the room outside, the showup room, you searched him?
Mr. SIMS. Yes; Boyd and I.
Mr. BALL. What did you find?
Mr. SIMS. I found a bus transfer slip in his shirt pocket.
Mr. BALL. And what else?
Mr. SIMS Well, Boyd found some .38 cartridges in his pocket.
Mr. BALL. How many?
Mr. SIMS. I don’t know-1 have it here I believe it’s five rounds of .38 caliber pistol shells in his left front pocket.
Mr. BALL. Left-front shirt pocket?
Mr. SIXS. No, sir ; they were in his pants pocket.
Mr. BALL. Left front?
Mr. SIMS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Where was the transfer?
Mr. SIMS. The transfer was in his shirt pocket.
Mr. BALL. Would that be on the left side, I suppose?
Mr. SIMS. I don’t know if he’s got two pockets or not.
Mr. BALL. Let’s take a look at it.
Mr. SIMS. (Examined Exhibit hereinafter referred to).
Mr. BALL. Commission Exhibit 150 is being exhibited for the witness’ examination.
Mr. SIGHS. Well, he’s got two pockets in here and let’s see if I have it on herewhat pocket it was-1 didn’t say-1 don’t remember what pocket he had that in.
Mr. BALL. What did you do with the transfer?
Mr. SIMS. I went back up to the office and I believe initialed it and placed it in an envelope for identification.
Mr. BALL. Who did you turn it over to?
Mr. SIMS. I don’t remember.
Mr. BALL. You don’t remember?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir ; it was either in the lieutenant’s desk or Captain Fritz’ desk.
Mr. BALL. Lieutenant who?
Mr. SIMS. We have two in there-Lieutenant Wells and Lieutenant Bohart.
Mr. BALL. And what about the five rounds of live ammunition, what did you do with those?
Mr. SIGHS. It was also placed in the envelope.
Mr. BALL. And turned over to whom-Fritz?
Mr. SIMS. I don’t know who that was turned over to.
Mr. BALL. Did you ever talk to a busdriver named McWatters?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir ; I remember a busdriver coming up there but I don’t think I talked with him.
Mr. BALL. Did you ever examine the transfer for the punchmark date?
Mr. SIMS. The busdriver did. He identified that as coming from his punchcard.
Mr. BALL. I know, but I want to know about you–did you look at the transfer?
Mr. SIMS. Yes, sir ; I looked at it.
Mr. BALL. Did you look at the date and the time that it was punched on the transfer?
Mr. SIMS I don’t remember if I did or not. I’m sure I looked at it but I don’t remember.
Mr. BALL. You say it was shown to a busdriver and he made some remarks about it ; were you there when it was shown to the busdriver?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir.
Mr. BALL. So, you are just telling me what some other officer told you?
Mr. SINS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. All right.
Mr. SIMS. I didn’t see actually the busdriver, I don’t believe, identify his transfer.
Mr. BALL. Do you know the officer that showed the transfer to the busdriver?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir; I don’t.
Mr. BALL. Did you see any idI got those five shells, and that’s all that I recall being taken from him.

Richard Sims on the far left and Marlin G Hall (eyes closed) while escorting Lee Harvey Oswald. Click to enlarge.

Then later on page 23.

Mr. STERN. Now, the search in which you participated of Oswald at 4:05 on Friday, just before the first show up you have told us that either you or Mr. Boyd found five live rounds of .38 caliber pistol shells, and a bus transfer slip, and an identification bracelet, according to your memorandumOswald took his ring off and gave it to you?
Mr. SIMS. That’s right.
Mr. STERN. Do you recall that?
Mr. SIMS. Yes, sir.
Mr. STERN. Do you remember anything else that was found on Oswald at that time?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir ; I don’t remember anything else.
Mr. STERN. A wallet or identification card?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir ; that had been taken off of him.
Mr. STERN. That had been taken off of him upon his arrest at the time of his arrest?
Mr. SIMS. Well, I don’t know when, but he didn’t have it on.
Mr. STERN. Did you say anything to him at that time about the ownership of these things, about the ownership of the pistol shells-cartridges-did you comment on that ?
Mr. SIMS. No,sir.
Mr. STERN. Did he say anything about it?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir ; there was no comment at all.
Mr. STERN. Or on the bus transfer slip?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir; he was asked something about it, I don’t remember what I asked or what he said.

Besides Boyd and Sims, M.G. Hall was part of the escort of bringing Oswald down (he is spotted in the first three oictures in this article in the background) for the Helen Markham line-up. Hall makes no mention of this so called search that yielded the bus ticket and the five bullets. You would think that these finds would have been noticed or reported as such by Hall, but no…..

DPD statement by Marlin G Hall. From UNT. Click to enlarge.

During my investigations I became aware of a document from the HSCA where Charles Truman Walker is interviewed. And page five Walker states “Being alone in there with him made me think. He could still have a weapon, so I searched him good, but found nothing.” From the way Walker talks you can derive that the search inside the unmarked patrol car

HSCA interview Charles Truman Walker. Click to enlarge.

Charles Truman Walker can be seen in the Stuart Reed photograph below on the left wearing his white cap.

From left to right: DPD patrolman, Charles Truman Walker, Lee Harvey oswald, Paul Bentley and Gerald Hill. Pic: Stuart Reed. Click to enlarge.

That by itself is pretty interesting, but wait there is more.

Paul Bentley, in the photograph above chomping on a cigar and busy posing to secure himself a place in history without any crutches he himself appears with shortly after…

Paul Bentley (Will Fritz partially seen behind him) on crutches in the 3rd floor corridor of City Hall. Posted on Nov 24th in the Chicago Tribune. From Newspapers.com. Click to enlarge.

The FBI report from Feb 3rd 1964.

FBI statement Paul Bentley Feb 3 1964. Thanks to Malcolm Blunt. Click document to enlarge.

Then there is Lt. T.L. Baker who in his undated report on the period Nov 22nd – 24th makes mention of the search on Oswald again as well. Why “again?”

T.L. Baker undated report. From: UNT Click to enlarge.

It is perfect natural to assume that arresting officer(s) search the person they have placed under arrest since it is part of procedure. What is unnatural is to search him two hours after his arrest and the suspect has been interrogated and questioned by quite a few individuals (Gus Rose, Richard Stovall, Will Fritz, Jim Hosty, James Bookhout and Forrest Sorrels). Other researchers have pointed out years ago about the timing of the find of the bullets and the bus ticket. Rightly so, but not produced anything that would prove their case. The Walker HSCA statement did not surface until many years later and the Bentley statement “must have been kept in a drawer”.

This of course has serious consequences for the so called finds of the bus ticket and the actual truth of the bus ride ever happening! More so for the find of the bullets which were part of the revolver ‘found’ on Oswald, as per Gus Rose claims, that Oswald claimed it was tossed to him.

Summer 2021 Update

Summer 2021 Update

 

Ok so this year I did a lot of scanning of Malcolm Blunt’s materials for a soon to be fully accessible archive in Nov 2021. There is a lot of material to plough through if you are a student of certain facets of the JFK Assassination. Law Enforcement Agencies, Committees and various individuals all connected in this case are all well represented in this archive. If you have read a decent amount of books on this matter then this archive can help you gain more additional knowledge.

The work done and still ahead…. Click pic to enlarge. Photo: Bartolomy

By the time of its primary release I think I have about 150.000 pages over about 17,000 PDFs ready to be shared. The work will continue for at least another year with regular updates.

I am going to slow down on scanning for the next few months so I can tidy some bits up in the archives and also put the focus back on my own work and this website. I will put the finishing touches to my forthcoming releases of the four(!) Anatomy papers for starters. They have been dormant for most of this year and some of 2020 as well. I hope to have all this done before the anniversary or it will be a X-Mas release read instead.

In November there will be an article written and photographed by me and published in Garrison Magazine, the article will have exclusive pictures I have made of Malcolm and his archive these past three years.

Malcolm Blunt – Tetbury Apr 2019. Click pic to enlarge. Photo: Bartolomy

I am also creating a set of videos in which Malcolm and I are having a chat about his materials. So far two have been posted and I hope to do a few more over the next few months.

 

Then there are also some talks scheduled such as JFK Lancer, DPUK and Project JFK in November where I will speak in great depth about the above mentioned project and its vast content.

I have some more articles in the pipeline, such as the Minox  camera and Oswald’s fingerprints and once I get my papers finished then I shall be developing those articles as well.

And last but not least the movies, which I hope to make a begin with early next year.

Plenty to get on with.

Best regards.

Bart.

Lee Harvey Oswald – Alek James Hidell

Lee Harvey Oswald – Alek James Hidell

 

While working on my forthcoming paper Anatomy of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations Vol. 3, which I hope to release in the Autumn of 2021 (more like June 2022!), I came across some documents that made me take a closer look into the find of the Hidell ID and realised something was amiss. This then got me to investigate and trying to figure out how the Alek James Hidell ID came forward during the time that Oswald was incarcerated and interrogated by the DPD until his death. The ‘discovery’ of the Hidell ID on Nov 22 and the significant developments on the 23rd and 24th are this article’s primary focus. And things are not as they are meant to appear at all.

Before I get into the details I suggest you check out Accessories After The Fact by Sylvia Meagher, which to this day, after more than 50 years remains one of the best generic books on the JFK Assassination. In chapter 6 simply titled “Hidell” this matter is already addressed in very good detail. I suggest you read this as it shows how soon after the assassination Sylvia Meagher was close to pointing the many discrepancies on the Hidell matter out. Another good read has been created by Paul Hoch for the Third Decade Magazine who brings in the all important important military intelligence angle, this material was kept far afield from the Warren Commission at that time and only surfaced during the HSCA and also the ARRB investigations. And then there is The Assassination Tapes by George O’Toole. He managed to interview two individuals who were involved with the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre.

Oswald gets arrested at about 13:50 and is searched while inside the car transporting him towards City Call, where they arrive at about 14:00 or just after. During that journey they radio the DPD dispatch starting at 13:51. A full transcript is on pages 107-110 HERE.

 Sergeant Gerald Hill: Suspect of shooting of police officer is apprehended and en route to station.

Dispatch (Hulse and MacDaniel): 10-4. At the Texas Theatre?

Sergeant Gerald Hill: Caught him on the lower floor of the Texas Theatre after a fight.

A little later.

Sergeant Gerald Hill: Patrolman CT walker is in the car with us. Have someone pick up his car at the rear of the Texas Theatre and take it to station. It’s got the keys in it.

Dispatch (Hulse and MacDaniel): 10-4.

And after that another transmission from Gerald Hill to report they were in a special service unit car and giving their location.

Captain C.E. Talbert: You do have the suspect arrested in the Texas Theatre?

Sergeant Gerald Hill: Yes, sir, him and the gun.

This is what is available from the transcript between the car containing Lee Harvey Oswald, a group of 5 DPD officers and detectives and dispatch. I don’t know whether there is anything missing from that transcript but that is all there is. Now then let’s have a closer look at these 5 lawmen and their statements and interviews during that weekend and thereafter.

  • Paul Bentley, the DPD detective who sprains his ankle during the scuffle to arrest Oswald inside the Texas Theater speaks to gathered press on the third floor corridor. There is no mention of any Hidell ID.

On the 23rd Bentley is interviewed on WFAA TV and asked about the identification cards he pulled from Oswald’s wallet while they are on their way to City Hall. At 08:39 Paul Bentley explains all this in good detail. Is there any mention of the Hidell ID? Nope.

On Dec 3rd 1963 Paul Bentley writes up his report, rather late if I may add, but even then there is not one mention of a Hidell ID. And that makes it even stranger since the Hidell ID has already come into play by then.

During the first half of the 1970’s, George O’Toole in his book The Assassination Tapes (chapter 9 page 160), manages to interview Paul Bentley, who by that time has moved on from the DPD to work for the First National Bank in Dallas.

Bentley: We had no information hat he was the man who had actually committed the assassination of the president until we radioed in that we had a prisoner and gave the names. And I say names, this was taken from his wallet. he used several different names, as you know. But we gave the names. This was when they told us that he was a suspect in the assassination of the president. So we were instructed to bring him directly to Captain Fritz, who was in the homicide and robbery bureau.

O’Toole: He had the names of both Oswald and Hidell?

Bentley: Right, right.

O’Toole: Both of those identifications?

Bentley: Seems to me like he was using another name, also I can’t remember. I’ve got all this stuff at home. I’m not sure. There were several names that he was using on various cards and then we gave the names to the dispatcher who was instructed to bring them to Captain Fritz.


In a second interview by phone  he again asks about the Oswald-Hidell identification (page 163).

O’Toole: Now the identification that he had, though, he had both Hidell and Oswald?

Bentley: Yes, and if I am not mistaken, he had some identification by the other names on him, but I can’t remember offhand what the names were. Seems to me like there were three or four different names that he had in there.

In his first HSCA interview (May 4 1978) Bentley only mentions ‘numerous identifications’

But during a second HSCA interview on June 15 1978 he recalls that he had pulled 5-6 ID cards out of Oswald’s wallet with different names. No mention of Hidell or any other details as to what names they were. A first by Bentley to mention this almost 15 years after the fact!

But it gets better during his  Living History talk with the Sixth Floor Museum at 18:08 he even has the nerve to state that Oswald had several aliases. So Mr. Bentley how would you know which name to pick and inform dispatch about this while en route to City hall? There are a few other statements by him during that interview, not context related to this post, that are highly questionable from a truth perspective.

  • Kenneth E. Lyon, another Dallas Police Department detective who was part of the arrest team has his report made up on the 3rd of Dec 1963. Again no mention of any Hidell ID.

Kenneth E. Lyon, on the very right, arriving out of the elevator on the 3rd floor with Oswald just behind him. Still grab of CBS footage. Click image to enlarge. Thanks to Denis Morissette for the ID.

Kenneth E Lyon report Dec 4 1963. From History Matters. Click pic to enlarge.

Mr. BELIN. Was he ever asked his name?
Mr. CARROLL. Yes, sir; he was asked his name.
Mr. BELIN. Did he give his name?
Mr. CARROLL. He gave, the best I recall, I wasn’t able to look closely, but the best I recall, he gave two names, I think. I don’t recall what the other one was.
Mr. BELIN. Did he give two names? Or did someone in the car read from the identification?
Mr. CARROLL. Someone in the car may have read from the identification. I know two names, the best I recall, were mentioned.

  • Another one of the arresting DPD officers is sergeant Gerald Hill. He spoke to the press shortly after as Bentley did and supplied incriminating details, yet not once mentioned the Alek HIdell ID. In a radio interview that same afternoon

Gerald Hill being interviewed inside City Hall. Screen B.K. Click pic to enlarge.

Now Gerald Hill could have forgotten to mention this during that interview, but when he is interviewed for a second time as mentioned In the supplementary volumes of the Warren Report, Hill states to the newsmen, “The only way we found out what his name was, was to remove his billfold and check it ourselves; he wouldn’t even tell us what his name was.” Later in the interview a reporter asks, “What was the name on the billfold?” Hill replies, “Lee H. Oswald, 0-S-W-A-L-D.” No mention at all of the name Hidell.  In another filmed interview (at 02:55) Hill makes no mention of the billfold at all. This video is rather poorly edited and looks incomplete.

And then four months later Gerald Hill is being interviewed by the Warren Commission, and by a miracle the Hidell ID appears.

Mr. BELIN. Now after, from the time you started in motion until the time you called in, do you remember anyone saying anything at all in the car?
Mr. HILL The suspect was asked what his name was.
Mr. BELIN. What did he say?
Mr. HILL. He never did answer. He just sat there.
Mr. BELIN. Was he asked where he lived?
Mr. HILL. That was the second question that was asked the suspect, and he didn’t answer it, either.
About the time I got through with the radio transmission, I asked Paul Bentley, “Why don’t you see if he has any identification.”
Paul was sitting sort of sideways in the seat, and with his right hand he reached down and felt of the suspect’s left hip pocket and said, “Yes, he has a billfold,” and took it out.
I never did have the billfold in my possession, but the name Lee Oswald was called out by Bentley from the back seat, and said this identification, I believe, was on the library card.
And he also made the statement that there was some more identification in this other name which I don’t remember, but it was the same name that later came in the paper that he bought the gun under.
Mr. BELIN. Would the name Hidell mean anything? Alek Hidell?
Mr. HILL. That would be similar. I couldn’t say specifically that is what it was, because this was a conversation and I never did see it written down, but that sounds like the name that I heard.
Mr. BELIN. Was this the first time you learned of the name?
Mr. HILL. Yes; it was.

He repeats this years later in an interview with George O’Toole in his book The Assassination Tapes chapter 9, page 157. “As I say, in the car on the way downtown he was belligerent, he was surly, he wouldn’t tell us who he was. We took his billfold out of his pocket, we found the ID in both names, Oswald and Hidell, that he later was proved to have ordered the gun under. He had library cards and drafty cards in one name, and he had identification  cards from various organizations in the other name.” 

  • Charles Truman Walker was present as well during Oswald’s arrest. His official report, from Dec 2 1963, regarding the Oswald arrest does not mention anything about inside the unmarked squad car during the ride towards City Hall. Then it becomes interesting, during Charles Truman Walker’s HSCA interview (page 5) he takes credit for taking the bill fold out of Oswald’s pants pocket, after dropping him off at City Hall. Something Paul Bentley did in the car already! And he makes mention of the Hidell ID and also mentions that he searched Oswald again.
  • Gus Rose and Richard Stovall ‘deal’ with Oswald next. They arrive at City Hall just before Oswald is brought in and talk with him for about 10-15 minutes after which Will Fritz arrives and sends them to go to Irving. In the joint report by Richard Stovall, Gus Rose and John Adamcik there is only the briefest mention of this ‘interrogation’. Not a word in that statement on an ID carrying the name Hidell. You’d think something like that would be reported no?

Months later on April 8 1964 Richard Stovall’s W.C. testimony mentions the following before he is sent out by Fritz.

Mr. BALL. Do you remember what was said to him and what he said to you?
Mr. STOVALL. I don’t recall exactly–I went in and asked him for his identification, asked him who he was and he said his name was Lee Oswald, as well as I remember. Rose and I were both in there at the time. He had his billfold and in it he had the identification of “A. Hidell,” which was on a selective service card, as well as I remember.

Mr. BALL. That’s [spelling] H-i-d-e-l-l, isn’t it?.
Mr. STOVALL. I’m not positive on that–I believe it was [spelling] H-i-d-e-l-l, I’m not sure. And he also had identification of Lee Harvey Oswald, and I believe that was on a Social Security card and at that time Captain Fritz opened the door to the office there and sent Rose and I to go out to this address in Irving at 2515 West Fifth Street in Irving.

And later during the same testimony.

Mr. BALL. Now, did you do anything else on this investigation?
Mr. STOVALL. No, sir; that’s all I can recall that I did on the investigation. I might add, there was–well, you have that on the list–some property.
Mr. BALL. What is that?
Mr. STOVALL. When we took this identification off of Lee Oswald that had this selective service card, the name Hidell, and he also had his own identification–at the time we were in the garage we found some negatives out there that appeared that he had make a snapshot of a selective service card, and on the back of the negatives it was where the name would have been typed in–there was some stuff on the back of the negatives to block out the name when it was reprinted, and there were some selective service cards that he had printed himself out there from a negative that were blank and which appeared to be the same that he had on him at the time, on the 22nd of November, that had the name of “A. Hidell” typed in on it.

From the handwritten list (made by two individuals) of the evidence taken from Ruth Paine’s house, and unless these negatives were inside the brown box, 13th entry on the first page, then there is no direct link to these so called negatives at all. Again I will apply the benefit of doubt on this one.

A closer look at the University of Texas JFK Collection which stores the DPD evidence on Lee Harvey Oswald has five pictures with negatives on display. It has hard to look at the details, but Negatives, Photographs #2 seems to display a Selective Services card. The issue is that the resolution is too low to actually see anything to be able to ID and conclude what Stovall is attesting to. Nor is there a photograph of the backside of that negative to see the masking of said negative. I tried to enhance and invert the #2 image. But I have not become any the wiser.

Negatives #2 from UNT. Enhancement by B.K. Click pic to enlarge.

Gus Rose behind Buell Wesley Frazier late on Nov 22 1963. Photo: Jim Murray – Blackstar. Scan by Terry Martin at NARA. Click pic to enlarge.

Mr. ROSE. There were some people in the office from the Book Depository and we talked to a few of them and then in just a few minutes they brought in Lee Oswald and I talked to him for a few minutes?
Mr. BALL. What did you say to him or did he say to you?
Mr. ROSE. Well, the first thing I asked him was what his name was and he told me it was Hidell.
Mr. BALL. Did he tell you it was Hidell?
Mr. ROSE. Yes; he did.
Mr. BALL. He didn’t tell you it was Oswald?
Mr. ROSE. No; he didn’t, not right then–he did later. In a minute–I found two cards–I found a card that said “A. Hidell.” And I found another card that said “Lee Oswald” on it, and I asked him which of the two was his correct name. He wouldn’t tell me at the time, he just said, “You find out.” And then in just a few minutes Captain Fritz came in and he told me to get two men and go to Irving and search his house.
Mr. BALL. Now, when he first came in there–you said that he said his name was “Hidell”?
Mr. ROSE. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Was that before you saw the two cards?
Mr. ROSE. Yes; it was.
Mr. BALL. Did he give you his first name?
Mr. ROSE. He just said “Hidell”; I remember he just gave me the last name of “Hidell”.
Mr. BALL. And then you found two or three cards on him?
Mr. ROSE. Yes; we did.
Mr. BALL. Did you search him?
Mr. ROSE. He had already been searched and someone had his billfold. I don’t know whether it was the patrolman who brought him in that had it or not.
Mr. BALL. And the contents of the billfold supposedly were before you?
Mr. ROSE. Yes.

And from this short interview session with Oswald on the 22nd in their Warren Commission testimonies it becomes apparent that Rose and Stovall contradict each other about Lee Harvey Oswald telling them what his name was.. Yet they were inside the same room. They make mention of the Selective Service Car found on Oswald only during their W.C. testimony.

In 1998 in an article from DMagazine Gus Rose mentions the card again. On the table lay the two identification cards. Rose looked down at them. One read “Alec Hiddel.” The other: “Lee Oswald.”

In which case it would be easy to spot for the people involved with interrogating Lee Harvey Oswald shortly after, no?

  • Will Fritz starts to interrogate Oswald, first by himself, backed up by Elmer Boyd and Richard Sims, starting at about 14:30 inside room 317 of Robbery & Homicide. Gus Rose and Richard Stovall could have mentioned the Hidell ID, but they failed telling him. Fritz does not mention anything about the ID during this first interrogation lasting an hour and a half until 16:00..
  • James P Hosty and James W Bookhout join Fritz about 45 minutes later at about 15:15. In those 90 minutes again the Hidell ID is not brought up once by either FBI agent at any time during this first interrogation. It is not found in Fritz’s interrogation notes and his subsequent report, Hosty’s handwritten interrogation notes and the joint Bookhout and Hosty FBI report. And yet they do bring up the O.H. Lee name which is the name accredited to Oswald using it at his North Beckley residence. Which from a timing p.o.v. and compared to the Hidell name is remarkable.

James W Bookhout (in a light colored suit wearing glasses and smoking a pipe) inside Robbery & Homicide. Photo by Jim Murray. Scan by: Terry Martin at NARA. Click pic to enlarge.

During James Bookhout’s W.C. testimony the Hidell name gets brief mentions, but only in the vaguest terms.

Mr. STERN – What sort of question would he refuse to answer? Was there any pattern to his refusing?
Mr. BOOKHOUT – Well, now, I am not certain whether this would apply then to this particular interview, the first interview or not, in answering this, but I recall specifically one of the interviews asking him about the Selective Service card which he had in the name of Hidell, and he admitted that he was carrying the card, but that he would not admit that he wrote the signature of Hidell on the card, and at that point stated that he refused to discuss the matter further. I think generally you might say anytime that you asked a question that would be pertinent to the investigation, that would be the type of question he would refuse to discuss.

And later during the same testimony  when they do discuss the first interrogation of the 23rd.

Mr. STERN – Did you ask any questions in the course of this interview?
Mr. BOOKHOUT – Yes.
Mr. STERN – What were they, and what were the responses, if you recall?
Mr. BOOKHOUT – One specific question was with regard to the selective service card in the possession of Oswald bearing a photograph of Oswald and the name Alek James Hidell. Oswald admitted he carried this selective service card, but declined to state that he wrote the signature of Alek J. Hidell appearing on same. Further declined to state the purpose of carrying same, and—or any use he made of same.

  • Robert E Jones of the 112th INTC contacts the DOJ at 15:15 while Oswald is being interrogated by Will Fritz and in this document Oswald is already marked as the guilty man for the Tippit murder.  Jones provides of plenty information on Lee Harvey Oswald and his previous endeavors in Russia and New Orleans, the majority coming from newspaper clippings. The timing and the sharing of this is most interesting when Oswald is still being interrogated and Hosty and Bookhout have only just walked in. But the hammer of course is that Jones already knows that Oswald was carrying a Selective Service Card bearing the name of A.J. Hidell. This is quite remarkable as well when not one of the arresting officers attested to having found this card that day. Not until months later! Following this report we get a report by the Secret Service on Dec 5 1963 which tries to clarify that the Ana J Hidell is a typo. As much as I want to believe that correction I also know that the Secret Service messed around a lot in their reporting with TSBD workers i/e in early Dec of 1963. But let’s give ’em the benefit of doubt in this instance.

The HSCA investigates and interviews Jones on 3 occasions over the period of a year.

The first time on April 4 1977. The following document is Robert Jones’ HSCA interview from April 20 1978. This session is filled with some good details. In a nutshell Jones got his information from someone inside the D.P.D. at about 13:30-14:00 and that poses quite an issue, since no DPD officer is on record at that time about the Hidell ID or name at that time. Better yet Oswald was arrested at 13:50 after the vaguest description possible was sent through DPD dispatch. Compare that to the one sent out for Charles Douglas Givens just before the DPD entered the Texas Theater.

  • Forrest Sorrells gets about ten minutes to talk to Oswald before he is taken down for his first line-up with Helen Markham. Not a word about Hidell.
  • Then at 16:25 the San Antonio bureau of the FBI sends a report to its director and to the Dallas office. Again Oswald is declared the guilty man for murdering Tippit. Which is remarkable as well since the timing of the cable is ten minutes before Oswald’s first line-up with the hysterical Helen Markham.

 

FBI Report 16:25 Nov 22 1963. Click to enlarge

  • Jim Hosty, later that day and not allowed to be present during the interrogations anymore hangs about Robbery & Homicide Bureau and takes notes of the so called Oswald evidence which is laid out on a table.

James P Hosty (newspaper to his side) speaking to Bill Alexander inside Robbery & Homicide. Photo by Jim Murray. Scan by: Terry Martin at NARA. Click pic to enlarge.

In the photograph above you can see the office with the blinds on the right which is where Oswald was interrogated. The glass window on the left behind Bill Alexander was Walter Potts office where the evidence was laid out.

In Assignment Oswald Hosty states “I decided nonetheless that I would remain at the police station. Just because I couldn’t talk to the police didn’t mean I couldn’t learn things from them. I headed back to Fritz’s office, where I knew the police were keeping Oswald’s personal belongings. Nothing there, but in the second inner office, which belonged to Lieutenant Walter Potts, I spotted Oswald’s things, which had been removed from his person and from his apartment at the Oak Cliff rooming house.” Hosty then starts mentioning Oswald’s address book and the entry of his name in it. Anything about Hidell then? Ehm……no! Keep this in mind when it is Manning Clements’ turn to go through the same evidence not much later.

Then there is the Church Committee testimony that Hosty gave on Dec 13th 1975. On page 138 he mentions the same as above that he goes into the adjoining office and goes through the evidence. And again the direction moves immediately towards the address book. No mention of a Hidell ID. Hosty would have mentioned that if there was one.

  • Manning Clements arrives in the evening of Nov 22nd and sees James Bookhout, and asks him if anyone has, to his knowledge, taken a detailed physical description and background information from Lee Harvey Oswald. Bookhout tells him that such description and background data had not been obtained, and suggests that Clements do it. In his Warren Commission testimony Clements says that he questioned Oswald at about 10 PM, but this is wrong. Thanks to a report by M.G. Hall, who is very precise with his timings. he makes mention of Clements’ arrival at 19:40. Which is very close to the “I’m just a patsy” scene in the corridor. Clements talks with Oswald over a period of just about half an hour, and his questioning the suspect gets interrupted during which time Oswald is taken out for a line-up, which would be the one with the Davis Sisters. While Oswald is gone Clements has a look at the evidence and he, allegedly, sees the Selective Services card with the Alek James Hidell name on it.  In his report made the next day on the 23rd he is the first person that makes an actual mention of seeing the Hidell Selective Services card the day before yet he does not make no mention of any other item from Oswald’s wallet. What boggles the mind even more is that he makes no mention of this ‘fact’ to James Bookhout or Will Fritz who start their third interrogation at 19:55!
  • This FBI report from its director is made up at 10:21 PM on the 22nd of Nov. and it deals predominately about the Hidell link to the FPCC.

FBI report 10:21 PM Nov 22 1963. Click pic to enlarge.

 

  • On Nov 23rd, near the end of the first interrogation just before 11:30 Will Fritz mentions in his notes that FBI agent James Bookhout asks him about the Hidell ID. This handwritten note is the first trace of anyone of the D.P.D. actually asking Oswald about this. James Bookhout and Thomas J Kelley mention this at the end of their reports as well. This is after the mail order for the rifle has been discovered in Chicago earlier that morning. Come on…this is just ‘sheer coincidence’.
  • On the morning of the 24th Harry Dean Holmes has joined Will Fritz, Jim Leavelle, Forrest Sorrels for a last interrogation before Oswald is to be transported to the Dallas jail. Holmes writes in a report in which he stated that Fritz asked Oswald about the Hidell I.D. card, and Oswald “flared up and stated ‘I’ve told you all I’m going to about that card. “You took notes, just read them for yourself, if you want to refresh your memory” Oswald could have been referring to anyone in that room.

In Harry Dean Holmes’ W.C. testimony he states:

Mr. HOLMES. In his billfold the police had found a draft registration card in the name of A. J. Hidell on his person at the time of his arrest, and I had seen it.

And later on during the same testimony session Harry Dean Holmes brings up the ID again..

“Well, who is A. J. Hidell?” I asked him.
And he said, “I don’t know any such person.”
I showed him the box rental application for the post office box in New Orleans and I read from it. I said, “Here this shows as being able to receive, being entitled to receive mail is Marina Oswald.” And he said, “Well, that is my wife, so what?”
And I said also it says “A. J. Hidell.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that.”
That is all he would say about it.
Then Captain Fritz interrupted and said, “Well, what about this card we got out of your billfold? This draft registration card, he called it, where it showed A. J. Hidell.”
“Well, that is the only time that I recall he kind of flared up and he said, “Now, I have told you all I am going to tell you about that card in my billfold.” He said, “You have the card yourself, and you know as much about it as I do.” And he showed a little anger. Really the only time that he flared up.

  • Walter E Potts’ report states that he had gone to the Beckley address on the 22nd and claims that they checked for the Oswald and Hidell names and then find out that Oswald was registered under the name O. H Lee. The issue with this report is that it is made after the 25th.
  • In Will Fritz interrogation report of which there are half a dozen different versions available and which he wanted amended before it was sent of to the Warren Commission, he makes a brief entry about the Hidell ID.

 

Will Fritz – Interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald. From: UNT. Click pic to enlarge.

So let’s recap!

There is no report from the DPD on the 22nd of Nov that points to the Hidell name and ID at all. Anyone from that group interviewed by the press makes no mention of this either.

Robert Jones of the 112th INTC was informed by someone of the DPD, name not remembered during his HSCA testimony, early that afternoon of the 22nd about Oswald and the Hidell ID

The FBI claims that Jones rang them and gave them the news after which they shared this with other bureaus.

The Hidell name is not brought up by anyone at all on Nov 22nd even though some law enforcement officers claim they saw the ID, yet when they had the opportunity to question Oswald about this ID it did not happen. This includes Will Fritz, James Bookhout, James Hosty and Manning Clements.

The first real evidence that Oswald was asked about the Hidell name is at the end of the first interrogation close to 11:30 on Nov 23rd 1963. This is confirmed by reports of Will Fritz, James W Bookhout and Thomas J Kelley.

Shortly before, in Chicago, an order for the alleged murder weapon, a Mannlicher-Carcano in the name of Alek J Hidell is found and reported to the FBI.

On Nov 23 1963 Richard Sims of the DPD submits the wallet contents to the Identification Bureau and requests 4 copies of photographs of each item. The description of them is very generic.

On Nov 29 1963 the FBI creates a report of the wallet contents sent from the DPD to the FBI, is there a mention of the Hidell Selective Service Card? Nope. On top of that according the Feds it appears the DPD had failed to photograph this content and requests the FBI to do so…….

In a document dated Dec 19th 1963 the FBI states that it had received Oswald’s wallet and that it did not contain the US Marines Certificate of Service and the Selective Service Card in the name of  Hidell. And that these were subsequently sent as such at a later date. And that the SSC was a complete forgery.

This FBI document from Nov 23 1963 is also not online anywhere else. I have highlighted the Hidell related matters. This document provides a good insight that the Hidell name and rifle order came not in play until Saturday morning the 23rd.

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With thanks to:

Malcolm Blunt for a lot of documents.

Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College.

UNT.

The Sixth Floor Museum.

Ⓒ Bart Kamp