This article is a work in progress and while I’m no expert I’m going to provide my 2 cents worth here on who shot President Kennedy November 22nd 1963. This is not a scholarly piece of work with any intent at providing new and relevant information. Just my thoughts and impressions of the JFK assassination weekend. A bit of personal history on this event: I was 11 years old when JFK was assassinated. At the time I didn't know nor cared who or what a JFK was. Some President that got shot and I got let out of school early. I was a kid living in Coquitlam BC and I was just glad to be able to go home early. I was 11 years old and all I wanted to do was play with the other kids that Friday afternoon.
All I remember that day was the somber mood by all the adults. Like most days in November in the lower mainland it was overcast but I don’t recall it raining at all that Friday afternoon. I remember mom had the TV on listening to the news about it the events in Dallas. We lived on 944 Regan Avenue Coquitlam BC during this time period. I attended Millar Park elementary school.
The subject of the assassination of JFK had not entered my consciousness until the late 1970’s when one of the major US news networks held a “What if Oswald had survived and went to trial.” broadcast. It was broadcast in 1977 at the time of the House Select Committee on Assassinations some 14 years after that tragic day in Dallas. I recall then how I was captivated by the story. It wasn't until the arrival of the Internet that I became interested in the Assassination of JFK again. There has been much written about that amazing weekend of November 22nd 1963. I wish I was a bit more aware of what was going on that weekend.
My research has led me to believe that the whole assassination weekend was nothing more then a conspiracy of the highest order. In order to do this topic justice I’d have to have an article the size of a book. I wont even begin to talk about the Walker shooting on April 12th earlier that year. Here’s what history knows. Lee Harvey Oswald had rode with co worker Wesley Frazier from a suburb called Irvine just outside of Dallas to their place of work. Confirmed by both Wesley Frazier was a friend of Ruth and Randall Payne and worked with Oswald in the Texas Schoolbook depository building or TSBD on the corner of Elm and Houston in Dealy plaza. Oswald was a 24 year old loner that kept to himself. He was interested in politics. In October of that year he was arrested for handing out pro Castro leaflets in New Orleans. His wife Maria is from the Soviet Union and he brought her over to America. Lee and Maria had 2 daughters and they were separated from Oswald living at the Paynes. He would go over to visit Maria and the girls and stay with the Payne’s on the weekends. Oswald wanted to get back together with Maria. Oswald was trying to set things right with his wife to build a family. Oswald and Frazier went to work that Friday morning November 22nd. Frazier said in his Warren Commission testimony that he noticed Oswald carrying a long package cupped under his armpit. Nobody saw Oswald enter the building that morning. Oswald told Frazier on the way to work that the package contained curtain rods. Oswald lived in a rooming house in Oak Cliff, South Dallas.
So in walks the pair and it was business as usual. Oswald’s duties were an order picker. He had access to all floors. That morning Bonnie Ray Williams, James Jarman, Charles Givens, and Harold Norman among others were laying plywood down over the original flooring because the oiled-based boxes that contained textbooks were leaking onto the floor and ceiling of the 5th floor below. This project would help keep the men employed during the slow period. Oswald was seen in the 6th floor and in the area of the alleged snipers nest working and filling orders. The “snipers nest” was a structure that was built previously by other employees so they could sit down and have a smoke. Dallas Police had brought out an empty package of Viceroy cigarettes. Whether this was from the snipers nest or elsewhere in the 6th floor or in the building is not known.
About 11:55am “the boys” broke for lunch. They played "race the elevator" down to the main floor. Then made their way to the lunchroom on the first floor called The Domino room. Oswald was left alone upstairs. Apparently he had called for the elevator to be closed so he could bring it up. This was on the 5th floor. A few weeks after the assassination TSBD worker Frankie Kaiser found a buried clipboard in a bunch of boxes near the elevator. This was the time when Charles Givens said he went back upstairs to get his jacket and noticed Oswald still working. The motorcade was supposed to be due by the TSBD about 12:25pm but the motorcade got delayed for 5 minutes. Oswald was seen in the Domino room alone having his lunch about noon. Bonnie Raw Williams was eating a chicken lunch on the 6th floor by the stairwell. He left about 12:20pm to join another fellow on the 5th floor to watch the President come by. He didn't see Oswald coming up the stairs at anytime while he was having his lunch. He had a clear view of the stairwell. If Oswald killed Kennedy Oswald should have been in place by about 12:20pm. The official arrival of the limousine was supposed to be 12:25pm. But nobody could foresee the limousine becoming bogged down. This means if Williams timing is correct Oswald would have to have 5 minutes to assemble the Carcano rifle get into position and fire off 3 shots. The shots fired went 1---2-3.
After the shots were fired the sniper ran with the rifle wiping down prints as he/she went along and shoved the rifle scope end up under a ton of boxes. The sniper would have to run down and out to his/her escape. What was Oswald’s escape? He didn’t have an escape. At lest none that we know of. Officer Marion Baker and Roy Truly (Oswald’s supervisor) met Oswald in the 2nd floor lunch room standing there relaxed holding a bottle of Coke. Truly said something like “He’s ok, he works for us,” and Baker and Truly went on to the other floors and to the roof.
Shortly after this, Oswald is seen by a Mrs. Reid smiling as he's holding a bottle of Coke. Mrs Reid said that the president has been shot. But Oswald wants to talk small talk about family as he passes her out the floor. Most likely Oswald thought that there would be no further work that day if the President had been shot. This is very incriminating against Oswald‘s case because wouldn’t he want to know if the President survived the shooting? Hind sight being what it is and all is all fine and well but if you've been cleared by the building Super and a cop why not stick around and be completely cleared? The thing is FBI agent Hosty was monitoring Oswald and most likely Hosty would have taken down Oswald’s statement. Oswald’s statements might have withstood even Dallas Police scrutiny. On one hand this leads me to believe that Oswald’s behavior after leaving the building is what did him in. As he’s leaving the building Oswald directs a newsman to a phone he could use on the first floor of the TSBD building. By this time the building isn’t sealed off. Oswald’s movements after he leaves the building is strange. Oswald apparently walks 4 blocks East on Elm to catch a bus. He rides the bus but it gets bogged down in heavy traffic up Elm street for 2 blocks. Oswald exits the bus then turns South on Lamar for 4 blocks and has a conversation with a cab driver and a woman. Oswald lets the woman have the first cab and Oswald apparently takes another cab by William Whaley to his rooming house 500 North Beckley. Whaley said Oswald asked him to stop 2 blocks North of his residence.
Oswald walks in and his caretaker Earlene Roberts partial blind in one eye and Roberts says something about the President being shot. Oswald is oblivious. He changes cloths and grabs his hand gun and apparently walks towards 10th and Patton a short distance from his room. Allegedly Oswald talks with a cop and is seen by others. Officer JD Tippit gets out of his car and is shot 4 times. The shooter empties his rounds and reloads crossing the corner yard and walks towards Jefferson. Oswald allegedly stops off at a shoe store and then is seen by the manager and follows Oswald to the movie theater. Oswald gets into a scuffle with the Police and is hauled away arrested.
It seems that about 1:20pm the Carcano rifle was found under a pile of schoolbooks at the TSBD. I have to ask with all of the floor laying activity going on by a bunch of workers moving boxes nobody found the rifle? There is even no indication that that rifle was even fired that day.
Also as the weekend was developing and witnesses were being round up Jack Ruby was allegedly stalking Oswald. That Sunday morning as Dallas Police began to transfer Oswald to another cell and in the DPD basement Oswald gets shot by Jack Ruby. This was seen on live TV by millions of people.
Did Oswald do the shooting of both JFK and Officer Tippit? I don’t know. Personally I think he was an accomplice to the fact because the way he left the building. And I don’t think he did the shooting because of the way Jack Ruby killed Oswald that Sunday two days latter. Then again there are the strange incidents surrounding this case. A few months after the shooting in the dead letter office of an Irving postal outlet there was a parcel that contained a paper bag addressed to Lee Harvey Oswald.
Over the course of the next few months I’ll be adding and editing to this essay.
Jim
