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

Carolyn Arnold

 

Carolyn Arnold (now known as Carolyn Johnston) was the secretary of Ochus V. Campbell, she was familiar with Oswald because he would come to her for change for the vending machines. She was pregnant at the time of the assassination.

The first sighting of her is in the Wiegman film. Se is part of a group of ladies, most of them from the TSBD and she is seen looking towards the Dal-Tex building when the shots rang out. See below in an enlargement of the Wiegman film.

Carolyn Arnold looking towards the DalTex building in the Wiegman film. Click to enlarge.

I am not 100% certain but I suspect that after the shooting she went to the bottom of steps and is captured in the Darnell film standing on the easterly side of those steps. The film is not clear enough to confirm this.

 

The Warren Commission treated Carolyn Arnold as it treated many other witnesses who stated matters contradicting the ‘official’ story. She was not called to testify before the Commission. Nor were her statements published in the Warren Commission Report or in its 26 volumes of Hearings and Exhibits! This is nothing short of outrageous as she was a very important witness with regards to Oswald’s whereabouts prior the shooting.

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Carolyn Arnold 2nd from left in front of the TSBD in the Cook/Cooper film.

In the shots above and below, from the Cooper film Carolyn Arnold is seen 2nd from the left, the shot below clearly shows she was pregnant.

 

Carolyn Arnold-Johnston

Carolyn Arnold-Johnston pregnant. Thanks to Denis Morissette for the screen grab.

Harold Weisberg was the first to address this as he found her statements and wrote about this in his book Photographic Whitewash.

Carolyn Arnold’s first FBI statement, dated Nov 26 1963 was not recorded as a verbatim statement of her, nor was she not be able to review her recorded statement as she was not asked to sign it. In this particular affidavit she stated: that she had left the office between 12:00 and 12:15 and was standing in front of the TSBD, while there she thought she had caught a fleeting glimpse of Lee Harvey Oswald standing in the hallway in between  the front door and the double doors located on the first floor. She could not be sure that this was Oswald, and believed the time to be a few minutes before 12:15.

The fact that the FBI did not follow-up this lead is negligent at least. Criminal would be a better description actually. Be that as it may I also find it hard to swallow that the entire document is a full-on forgery, why would the FBI put themselves into this position. So they did what they had to do, they buried the statement only for Harold Weisberg to dig it out at the National Archives. Carolyn Arnold and her explosive observation was not called up by the Warren Commission.

In the Wiegman frame below Arnold is seen turning her head towards the direction of the Dal Tex Building, shortly after the second shot, the Wiegman film had Dave Wiegman himself get out of the car and feel the pressure of the final shot while running down, which means that the frame is taken before the final head shot. Was she reacting to shots coming from the Dal-Tex building and did she see the fleeting glimpse of Oswald then? This photo also contradicts her statement “why would I look back” to an extend.

 

Carolyn Arnold has turned her view towards the Dal Tex building in the Wiegman film.

Then on March 18 1964 first there is a statement that states the time as 12:25 AM, and then there is a version  that states it as 12:25 PM.  She stated that she did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at the time The President was shot. The previous mention that she might have caught a glimpse of Oswald on the first floor had evaporated. And also the time of departure from the TSBD was changed from 12:00-12:15 to  12:25 PM. This document, part of CE 1381 only required answers to a specific set of 6 questions as compiled by J. Edgar Hoover.

As shown in the Dave Wiegman photo above when she has turned her view towards the Dal-Tex building, it is more than possible that she turned left and made her way towards the steps and could have had a glimpse of him then. Pure speculation of course, but it is possible. My issue with this is that there has to be some ring of truth to this observation.

Furthermore she is, most likely, the lady on the steps in the Darnell still shown below.

Carolyn Arnold in Darnell

A FOIA request by Howard Roffman  to get to see the original from the FBI never materialised. 

Harold Weisberg initiated a civil action  in the late 70’s to get the original document as well.

Harold Weisberg highlighted the phrase At the time of the assassination which  allows the Warren Commission to circumvent the issue of her seeing Lee Harvey Oswald just prior her departure.

This statement and all the others are part of CE 1381, this document shows that the FBI put a specific set of questions in front of every TSBD employee, and therefore disregarding pertinent questions and its answers which the W.C. never saw.

What also needs to be taken into consideration is that none of her co-workers refuted anything she had said nor did the FBI double check her most important testimony.

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In 1971 Carolyn Nearn Arnold married Norman (Bud) Scott Johnston and he became dad to her two children – Genie Arnold Thurman and Jeffrey Arnold. During their marriage Scott and Carolyn became the proud parents of two sons, Wesley Scott Johnston and Robert Joseph Johnston.

Then in 1978 Earl Golz, of the Dallas Morning News, who at that time had a series of articles published on the JFK Assassination interviewed Carolyn Arnold for the Nov 26 issue. In this interview Carolyn Arnold refuted that she had seen Lee Harvey Oswald in the doorway as noted in her very first statement, and said she left at 12:25 or 5 minutes before the assassination. She had never read neither of the two FBI statements until Earl Golz showed them to her and was surprised there was no mention of her seeing Lee Harvey Oswald sitting down in the second floor lunch room before she was on her way out and getting a drink of water as he was pregnant. Virgie Rachley and Betty Dragoo stated they left the lunch room with her and that they did not see Oswald in that lunch room at all.

This is strange, why would the FBI come up with a statement that would exonerate Lee Oswald from shooting Kennedy? Furthermore the motorcade was delayed by about 5 minutes so could she have known it was and therefore made the decision to leave just 5 minutes prior its arrival on Houston and Elm? The lunch room at 12:00 was filled with female employees (as per Mrs Reid W.C. Testimony) and they all left around 12:15 to go downstairs and watch the motorcade.

She repeats this the same year as well when she is interviewed by Anthony Summers in ‘Not In Your Lifetime’ , and that even when the timing may be different, the fact remains that if Carolyn Arnold was seeing Oswald at 12:15, it would then create the following dilemma: what to do with Arnold Rowland who notices two people (one of which is holding a rifle) standing at the 6th floor window at the very same time. His timing was verified due to the radio traffic he heard at the same time, which could be tracked back to 12:15. Seeing Oswald in the 2nd floor lunchroom sitting down also poses the question as to the fact that this lunchroom was more for the office workers than the labourers (something James Jarman made a mention of during his HSCA testimony). The workers had their lunchroom on the first floor called the Domino room. Oswald himself told Will Fritz about  the Domino Room where he had some of his lunch, and Harold Norman and James Jarman are mentioned as well, since Oswald remembered them picking up their lunches after they made their way back in the TSBD.  Knowing all this one wonders whether Carolyn Arnold was just scared to divulge anything that could rock the boat, whereas she had already done so by changing Oswald’s sighting from 12:25 to 12:15, no matter how you twist and turn this, she confirmed Oswald his alibi of being on the fiorst floor just prior, during and after the shooting.

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She also does an interview with the National Enquirer, this piece I still have to source, I found a small digital reproduction, but not good enough to include here.

In 1979 Wallace Milam writes a report to be sent to every HSCA staff member, he also has sent a copy to Harold Weisberg. In it he mentions that it is very likely that Carolyn Arnold went out of the TSBD at about 12:25 since she did not observe the ambulance that picked up the epileptic man, which happened between 12:22 and 12:24.

In 1988 Carolyn Arnold is being asked to do an on camera interview for the documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy and the current affairs TV program Frontline , but she refuses to do so.

Carolyn Arnold Johnston

Carolyn Arnold provided Lee Harvey Oswald an alibi, whether it was the unsigned FBI statement or her statements to Earl Golz,  Anthony Summers, the National Enquirer and the FBI and the Warren Commission did their best to circumvent that at first and even now nobody has jumped on to this and pointing out what ‘damage’ she does towards the official findings of the Warren Commission.

The interviews she did were during the HSCA period and this from a timing perspective is interesting, that while the HSCA hearings are going on she disowns her first statement and tells a  different story, would this be due to threats to her and her family? It wouldn’t be the first time……….

Carolyn Arnold has not responded to any form of communication from me and others at ROKC. I would love to have a chat with her to clear a few things up.