The Assassination / Bag photographed--but not in place
The contrived lineup identification to the contrary notwithstanding and the revised Givens 2.0 testimony, Oswald was firing nothing more lethal than a glass bottle of classic Coca Cola.
The Dallas Police paraffin test of his cheek was confirmed by the NAA testing of the Atomic Energy Commission Oak Ridge Lab as negative. A test sensitive to a few parts in a billion was exculpatory of the defendant and destructive of the a priori LBJ-Hoover-Commission frame-up.
The witnesses saw at least one man running from the back door of the building, while the elevators and stairways provided a means of escape for anyone who wished.
http://www.reopenkennedycase.net/gilbride.htmlIn addition to the Mauser and the Mannlicher-Carcano, an Enfield .303 was mentioned in contemporary accounts.
Speaking of the fire escape, an officer with a long gun may or may not be carrying a shotgun.
Many pigeons scattered; the only one caught was prey made of clay.
And who discovered one of the various bags without indentation or oil stain whose materials could be tested to match a batch in use at a time after the assassination. Where is that photograph in situ.
And that bag, that amazing shape-shifting invisible bag. It warrants the thorough examination by Jim DiEugenio referencing the work of Pat Speer and others to determine its provenance:
From Part Six Section II of Jim DiEugenio's review of Bugliosi
http://www.ctka.net/2008/bugliosi_6_review.html So there follows in the Warren Report a sentence that has become enshrined in assassination literature since 1964, by both critics and Commission defenders alike—neither side questioning it. It goes like this: "Oswald told Frazier that he would like to drive to Irving to pick up some curtain rods for an apartment in Dallas." (ibid)
As written, this statement is not accurate. Oswald did not admit to saying this. It originates with Frazier. And the other detail that goes with it, namely that he said he carried those curtain rods in a long paper bag to work on Friday, is also not accurate. Oswald did not say that either. Will Fritz wrote a report after Oswald was killed in which he said that when he confronted Oswald with Frazier's story about the curtain rods, the suspect denied it. (WR p. 604) Oswald maintained that he carried a lunch bag to work on Friday. (Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact, p. 225) Yet this long paper bag story was injected into the press so quickly and forcefully that even as able a critic as Sylvia Meagher accepted it. Her and Mark Lane did not argue about who was telling the truth, Frazier or Oswald. Instead they argued over how long the bag was. This story about the long paper bag had to wait for decades to be seriously challenged. But challenged it is.
The first problem with it is this: Jack Dougherty saw Oswald as he entered the building that morning after he left Frazier's car. He was specifically asked about the long bag, he didn't recall it. (WC Vol. VI, p. 377) No one else saw it either. (Meagher, p. 58) This is a package that the Commission says was three feet long. (Harold Weisberg, Whitewash, p. 58) One way to have tested Oswald's lunch bag story was to have interviewed the driver of the catering truck that visited the work site each morning. There is no evidence that this was done.(Meagher, p. 225) This is an important point because Frazier said that Oswald always carried his lunch except for that day. (WR p. 133) So if Oswald did not buy his lunch that day, then what was he eating on the first floor? Also, there is no affirmative evidence from the Paine household that Oswald picked up any curtain rods. Ruth Paine, who helped incriminate Oswald every way she could, said he took no rods from their household. ( Vol. IX, p. 424) Marina Oswald said the same. (WC Vol. 22 p. 751) No witness saw Oswald transport the paper bag to the Paine household, or is on record as seeing the long paper bag at the Paines. (Weisberg, pgs. 51, 52, 59)
Depository witness Troy West is interesting in this regard. As Harold Weisberg notes, the Commission states that this long paper bag was made from paper and tape secured from the Depository. (Weisberg, p. 58) West had worked at the place for 16 years. He said he never left his station, even for lunch. He was the man in charge of dispensing the paper and tape for packaging. When asked if Oswald ever approached his desk for paper or tape he said he did not. (Vol. VI p. 360) Further, West established that the tape would automatically be dispensed from the machine while wet. To take it out dry, you would literally have to take the tape out of the machine first. (ibid p. 361) Which neither West, nor anybody else, saw Oswald do.
Further, the FBI reported that the rifle in evidence was well-oiled. Yet the bag had no oil stains on it. (Ian Griggs, No Case to Answer, p. 203) British Det. Griggs has also done experiments in disassembling the Mannlicher Carcano. It turns out that the Commission and the FBI were deceptive in this. When actually disassembled, the rifle has to be broken down into 12 parts to isolate the wooden stock. Unless the smaller parts are placed in an envelope, they will bounce around in the package and make noise. Which Frazier did not report hearing. Finally, when this is done, and Griggs did it, the stock is inevitably scratched by the metal parts. Yet this scratching is not seen on the rifle in evidence today. (Griggs, p. 200)
Let's add this up. Oswald never approached Troy West to secure the paper or tape the Commission says he used to prepare the package. If he had, he would have needed to tape the package in front of West. Which West would have surely remembered. Yet, in spite of that fact, no one saw Oswald carry the package with him to the Paines. (Meagher, pgs. 48-49)Not even Frazier. (Think about all that for a few seconds.) Further, no one at the Paines' residence recalls the package, or Oswald asking for curtain rods. Once Oswald left Frazier's car, no one saw him carrying a long bulky package inside the building. So besides Frazier—I will get to Linnie Mae Randle's testimony later—how did the Commission link Oswald to the bag?
Through a right palmprint and the left fingerprint of his index finger. (WR p. 135) Think how absurd this is. In all the necessary handiwork of securing the paper, preparing this three foot package, taping it together, putting the rifle inside, carrying it into the building, and finally taking it out of the package—Oswald got one single fingerprint on it. Further, there were no other prints on the bag. How could that be if, as we shall see, the police told the Commission that two of them—possibly three of them—picked it up and delivered it to HQ?
What makes this print evidence even more questionable is that there are two differing documents on the FBI analysis of the paper. Way back in 1977 Gary Shaw discovered two FBI documents. They said two nearly opposite things about the same exhibit. One document said that paper samples from the Depository were "not identical" with the bag in evidence. The other said the samples had the same observable characteristics as the bag in evidence. This indicated that the Bureau realized that the bag created a problem for them and that the Dallas Police were wrong about where the paper came from. They therefore changed the first document with precise language to the second one with the vague language to give themselves legal leeway. Because if they admitted the paper did not come from the Depository, then where did it come from? Shaw, and researchers Jack White and Ed Tatro, believed the Bureau altered a document in order to frame Oswald.
As Pat Speer notes, Bugliosi deals with this issue in his End Notes. Bugliosi says that since the reports were from different days, it is obvious that further investigation by Hoover of later paper samples straightened it all out. Speer comments that there is a big problem with Bugliosi's solution: Both reports were created on the same day, 11/30/63. And since the further paper samples Hoover tested did not arrive until 12/1, how could they have been tested for these 11/30 documents? Further, Bugliosi leaves out the fact that the FBI later offered two differing explanations for the differing documents. One by Public Affairs Officer William Baker, the other by the actual author of the documents Vincent Drain. They both offered differing but benign explanations. It turns out they were both wrong. It now appears that the bag in evidence did not match the Depository paper samples and that the document was later altered to say it did. (See Speer's article, "Proof the FBI Changed Documents and Vincent Bugliosi was Wrong," at the Mary Ferrell Foundation.)
This would indicate that the bag in evidence today was manufactured after the fact. Speer makes a cogent argument on his web site that this happened. He shows that the paper bag allegedly found in the Depository, carried outside and photographed by the press that day does not appear to be the same paper bag returned by the FBI to the Dallas Police four days later. The fascinating thing about his study is that it appears that not only did the Dallas Police not photograph the bag where they say they found it, but they do not appear to have photographed it at all until November 26th! This, of course, brings even further doubt on the aforementioned fingerprint evidence. The DPD did not lift or photograph any such evidence while they had the bag. And according to FBI agent Gordon Shanklin's inventory, the bag was not sent to Washington on the evening of the assassination. (The Third Decade, Vol. 1 No. 2, p. 12) Once it got there, the FBI had to do three different tests in order to pull off one index finger fingerprint and one palmprint. (WC Vol. IV pgs. 3-4) The bag then returned to Dallas, appears to be a different bag than the one sent. If so, how did the palmprint and index fingerprint get on it? In other words, which bag was the print evidence on?
As Speer notes, the Dallas Police could not tell a consistent story on what was discovered first, the bag or the rifle. They could not tell a consistent story on who dusted the bag. Lt. Day says he did this on the scene, but no one on the scene backs him on this, maybe because he came up with no prints. Others say it was Det. Studebaker who dusted the bag.
But it's even worse than that. The DPD can't even tell a coherent story as to who found the bag. Day said the bag was found near the shells. Yet when Luke Mooney described the discovery of the shells, he mentioned no bag. But, as Griggs points out, if Day was telling the truth, Mooney had to have been standing on the bag as he stood over the shells! (Ian Griggs, No Case to Answer, pgs. 176-77) When David Belin asked Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig if he saw any long sack laying in the floor, Craig replied that he did not. (ibid p. 178) Sgt. Gerald Hill said he didn't see the long sack even though he wasn't really asked the question. (ibid) In his obtuse answer, Hill referred to Det. Hicks. Yet when Hicks was asked if he saw a long paper sack he replied "No sir; I don't believe I did." (ibid p. 179) The police now relied on Detectives Johnson, Montgomery, and Studebaker to save the day. Listen to Montgomery: "Let's see—the paper sack—I don't recall for sure if it was on the floor or on the box, but I know it was just there—one of the pictures might show exactly where it was." (Meagher, p. 59) Of course, there was no picture. And we are to believe Montgomery didn't know that.
A further problem with Montgomery and Johnson was that although they allegedly saw such a bag, they couldn't decide who picked it up and unfolded it. Johnson said Montgomery picked it up and unfolded it. But Montgomery said nothing about unfolding it and firmly denied picking it up. (Griggs, pgs. 181-182) Montgomery passed that buck onto Studebaker. Studebaker is the man who photographed much of the evidence. But somehow, he did not photograph the bag in situ. Or even on the floor it was found. For he admitted the bag did not even show up incidentally in any related photos he took on the sixth floor. He also said he put a piece of tape on the bag where he thought he saw a possible print. There was no such visible print, or tape, on the bag when received by the FBI. (Meagher, p. 61) But here is the capper with Studebaker. When asked how long the bag was, he said it was between three and four feet long. (Griggs, p. 185) This is almost twice as long as the bag Frazier testified to. In other words, the man who should have seen the bag first did not, even though he was standing on it. And the man who did see it, and should have photographed it, did not take the picture. What makes it even worse is that it appears that it is this bag that was photographed outside the Depository by the press. Speer has some fun showing the difficulty in matching this package to the bag in evidence today.
In light of all the above, even Police Chief Jesse Curry had doubts about the paper bag. As Speer notes, in describing the bag in a picture, Curry wrote: "A paper bag probably constructed from wrapping paper and tape at the Texas School Book Depository.. .This is probably the same bag which was found on the sixth floor by investigators." (italics added) Here, the Police Chief—the man ultimately responsible for the case against Oswald—actually used the qualifier "probably" not once, but twice. Finally, Speer shows that the second bag, the one in evidence today, was very likely cut down in size from the Commission's larger bag, the one described by Studebaker. It had to be in order to fit the allegations of Wesley Frazier about a different bag. Which indicates just how important Frazier was to the official story in this regard.
