The case against Lee H. Oswald

Great Debates
141

“Captain, I want to confess to murdering the president.”

“Yeah, well, ya jus’ did. We can do all the writin’ up and cipherin’ later, I guess. Now it’s another beating for you–evabuddy gets four, you’re no one special, Oswald. Whataya think, we got stenographers and writin’ paper up the yin-ying around here or somethin’?–we gonna treat ya like we do everyone, just accusations, a little cussin’ and them four beatings.”

from https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-5.html#interrogation :

As Chief Curry has recognized in his testimony, “we were violating every principle of interrogation … it was just against all principles of good interrogation practice.” 40

142

Fritz didn’t interrogate Oswald alone. Others were present. There was no opportunity for a private conversation.

No clue. It’s been 60 years.

But if you read @Stranger_On_A_Train ’s link to the Warren Commission appendix, you can read the contemporaneous summaries prepared by the interrogators.

This was a reference to all of the people coming in and out, and the fact that reporters kept shouting questions at Oswald whenever they walked him down the hall. It’s sort of the opposite of what you are suggesting- that there was some sort of private meeting where things better left unsaid were discussed.

He told police he was a Marxist, but not a communist (which he said was a Marxist-Leninist). He also was publicly advocating for normalized relations with Cuba.

So, yes, he was ideologically motivated.

But, it’s worth noting that the Soviets promoted conspiracy theories in the US, so as to create distrust in the American government. So if there’s no consensus, it’s by design.

143

From the More Jokes thread, early on.

A time traveler has traveled back in time to the year 1963.

However, he does not know the exact date. He sees a CIA agent nearby and asks him: “Is today before or after the JF-”

“Before”

144

This thread has led me down some rabbit holes. I’ve long thought you could do a very good movie based on Oswald’s actions, and there are some things that would make for very good scenes.

Two that stand out: By the time Captain Fritz returned to headquarters following the shooting, he knew from the Book Depository supervisor, Mr Truly, that an employee named Lee Oswald was missing. Truly had given Fritz the home address he had on file, which was the house that Marina, his wife, was staying at in Irving.

So, he comes in and tells some officers that he wants them to drive out there and pick him up.

“Captain,” they say “We don’t have to. He’s sitting right over there.”

By that point, police had already arrested Oswald in the movie theater. They had converged on the area where Officer Tippet was killed (a civilian - former WWII vet, naturally - had run over, found Tippet dead, and used the radio in Tippett’s car to radio dispatch) then found a discarded jacket a short distance away, then got a call that a nervous looking man (who was trying to hide as police cars with their sirens blaring sped up and down the streets) had ducked into the theater without paying.

There’s another compelling scene. Police had come to the Irving house with a search warrant. Oswald by that point had told them he kept his stuff there, and Marina and Mrs Paine (the owner of the house) had confirmed that it was in the garage.

As they are in the garage, Ms Paine is translating the cop’s questions into Russian for Marina. The cop asks if Oswald owns a rifle. Paine says “no”, but when she translates for Marina, she’s surprised to hear Marina say “da”.

Where, the cop asks? Marina points to a rolled up carpet that Paine is standing on. The cop walks over and picks it up. It goes limp; there’s no rifle inside.

145

Kinda strange that these notes just went missing on their own, innit?

I’m not as comfortable in playing the role of “hard-core conspiracy nutball” as you might suppose, but somebody’s gotta do it. What I do believe is that WC Report should be flushed down the WC, for all the lapses, omissions, suppression of witnesses, and faithful adherence to the party line, but I’m not 100% buying any particular conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker either. I am intrigued, as stated, by Menninger’s thesis, but I don’t know enough about ballistics to test out the accuracy of his thinking along those lines, so I leave that one open as the most plausible set of facts to counteract some of the real, tangible problems with the WC Report.

I think it might be interesting if people like me would concede the strongest non-conspiracy explanations of the JFK murder and if the “one lone nut” nuts would concede the more dubious assertions of that thesis. This way, you just have both sides displaying more unbridled contempt for each other than is warranted on either side.

I freely concede, btw, that the strongest thing the WC Report has going for it is Occam’s Razor. If Oswald was a lone nut, that’s a very neat, complete package all tied up in a bright Red bow. Of course, that would also be very desirable from a cover-up perspective–no need to get the public mixed up with all sorts of messy complications, right?–but Occam’s is a very sharp razor that I usually apply whenever I can, just not this one.

146

The Commission’s report is the most thorough murder investigation of all time. When most people think of the report, they are only referring to the summary, which is 888 pages.

There’s actually 26 volumes of supporting materials. In total, it’s about 16,000 pages.

And, as I noted at the beginning, it’s a pretty straightforward and easily provable case.

So it’s laughable to suggest that this was an incomplete report. Compared to any other crime of this type, it’s hard to imagine more investigation.

Moreover, it is the report that constitutes the very foundation of everything we know about the case. All of those details that people like to quibble about; all of those inconsistencies they like to hang their hat on; they all derive from the Warren commission report. It is precisely because no stone was left unturned that people get to eagerly report things like “there were witnesses who heard more than 3 shots” and “some people ran up the grassy knoll” and “Oswald once was some place where he might have encountered other people who would have been happy to see JFK killed”.

147

There are numerous people present that day in Dealey Plaza who testify on camera that the Warren Commission told them “Go away, son, ya bother me” because their stories contradicted the “facts” the Commission was peddling. These folks appear on screen in the Stone documentary.

If you need something more tangible (the Stone documentary is on HBO all week–watching it wouldn’t kill you. A flesh wound, maybe.) I’ll repeat: where are Captain Fritz’s “notes” (and why would they go missing)? Why aren’t they bundled into the zillion-all-inclusive pages of the WC Report? Ran out of paper or something?

148

So now you’re just making things up.

149

Why would he make a habit of keeping all his rough notes instead of compiling them into a report and/or testimony and them tossing the notes like most people do?

As for the people “present” that day, for any sort of major event, there are generally more people who claim to be present than really were.

Unless there was direct evidence they were there (and it was a minor miracle even limited film evidence was available), any claimants would also have to be properly vetted. You are suggesting that investigators not only simply take the word of people who claim they were there but accept their testimony as factually relevant, without any way of verifying they really were present in the first place.

So, I’m not surprised by that at all. Is it highly likely some people who were there and tried to give testimony rebuffed? Absolutely. Is it also highly likely it was difficult bordering on impossible to filter their testimony from other people who were not there and/or could not be trusted to provide accurate recollections (the same thing you accuse Capt Fritz of doing, I’ll note)? Absolutely.

This veers close to or actually right into “God of the Gaps” territory. Every additional link just provides more (but smaller) little points to question, even though the chain itself is still there.

150

I’m a bit confused. What is the difference between « notes » and « contemporaneous summaries prepared by the interrogators » ?

151

There are some schoolchildren who would like to have a word with you.
Except for that fact they’re dead.

152

Just trying to show what can happen when you don’t record what people are saying, and rely on your own after-the-fact “transcriptions.” Kinda results in self-serving people just making things up.

153

You do realize that this is what I referred to upthread as Conspiracy 101: evidence that a conspiracy isn’t true (that Oswald was a lone nut) becomes evidence that there is a conspiracy going on (of course, that’s exactly what they’d use as a cover story to conceal their conspiracy, so Oswald being a lone nut is now proof that he was part of a conspiracy).

154

No, no somebody doesn’t “gotta do it”, and especially not just making baseless allegations and making incorrect claims that are easily fact-checked.

They’ve been doing that all along. Now it is just made explicit.

Stranger

155

He’s also making up his own investigatory standards (“Why was there no recording of the interviews? Why were there no stenographers present?”), and then critiquing the Dallas police for not complying with those standards.

@Stranger_On_A_Train has already shown that recording was not used at that time.

Personally, I’ve never heard of stenographers being used at a police interrogation. Perhaps @Loach and @pkbites could comment: was that ever common at police interrogations?

156

Moderating:

This thread is inexorably creeping toward yet another gun debate. Cease this hijack immediately. There are many other threads to have this discussion. Keep to the very narrow topic framed by the OP.

Warnings will be issued to those who disregard this mod note.

157

Doodles, I’m guessing.

The summaries that are linked are typed up. Back in that era, it’s possible that a secretary did that job, but it could have been the work of the individual authors.

I don’t know if their notes were exactly the same as these typed reports. I’m thinking they didn’t take notes in full sentences, however.

158

So the rough draft of the notes didn’t survive, but were typed up into legible form, after which the rough notes were destroyed.

Unless there’s something to indicate that wasn’t standard operating procedure, this is just another Stone-ism.

159

Phrased slightly differently, “notes were taken, but some of them contradict what we wanted them to say, so we wrote what they should have said, and tossed the originals into the flames.”

160

Yes, I also believe he did, but I have reservations about the “acting alone” assertion. First of all, he himself was subsequently assassinated. I have no evidence it wasn’t a random act of murder by some ardent Kennedy fan, but it sure worked out conveniently. Secondly, I cannot understand how the Dallas police could transfer him without completely clearing out that entire area. Were it a conspiracy, silencing Oswald before he could testify would be a huge priority. That simple logic should have dictated a very high level of security, but it did not. Were they truly that incompetent?

In any case, since nothing concrete has surfaced over the last 60 years that would change the original ruling, I have to reluctantly side with Stranger_On_A_Train.