Being Enlightened with Knowledge

The president had been warned about going to Dallas, since it was known that he had many influential adversaries in the ultraconservative city. But John F. Kennedy brushed aside the objections. It was important that he mend his political fences in Texas and seek support from such powerful figures as Governor John Connally for his unannounced bid for reelection the next year. Upon their arrival at Dallas's Love Field, the president and his wife, Jacqueline, joined Governor and Mrs. Connally in the rear of an open car, the second vehicle in a motorcade into the city, where he was to deliver a luncheon address.

As people lining the streets cheered, Nellie Connally turned to the president and exclaimed, "You sure can't say Dallas doesn't love you." At 12:30 P.M. the motorcade slowed to make a right and then a left turn before it would pass through a triple underpass to the freeway that led to the destination. An agent in the first car said to the driver, "Five more minutes and we'll have him there." In a rear car the president's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, remarked, "Just think - we've come through all of Dallas and there hasn't been a single demonstration." A local woman laughed; "We're not so bad," she said. A reporter in the press car, misreading the sign on the rust-colored brick building that loomed ahead, asked "What the hell is a Book Repository?" Standing between the book depository and the underpass along the motorcade route, a man named Abraham Zapruder aimed his movie camera at the presidential car. Another bystander, Charles Brend, held his five year old son aloft to wave at the president. Seeing him, Kennedy smiled and waved back.

Suddenly shots rang out. A bullet passed through the president's neck and on through Governor Connally's back, chest, right wrist, and left thigh. Kennedy clutched his throat; Connally, his lap full of blood, slumped onto his wife in their seats to the front. Hearing the governor scream, Mrs. Kennedy turned anxiously toward the president, as a second bullet tore off the top of his head.

Four Days

The assassination of the 35th president of the United States on November 22, 1963, stunned the nation and the world. For much of that Friday and the next three days, millions around the globe sat transfixed before their television sets as the remaining scenes of the unimaginable tragedy were enacted.

Within minutes Lee Harvey Oswald leaves the Texas School Book Depository, where he had fired the two shots from a corner window on the sixth floor. At 1:15 P.M. Oswald shoots Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit, who had stopped him for questioning. Eyewitnesses call the police and direct them to the movie theater where Oswald had sought to hide. Arrested for killing Tippit and then accused of assassinating Kennedy, Oswald proclaims his innocence of the second charge, he is being made to take the blame for the real culprits, Oswald says.

At 12:38 P.M. Case Number 24740, a white male suffering from a gunshot wound, is admitted to Parkland Memorial Hospital, to which the presidential car had sped. A priest is called to the emergency room, but at two o'clock doctors pronounce John F. Kennedy dead. Over the objections of local authorities, Secret Service agents place the body in a coffin and transport it to Love Field. Within an hour, Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as president by Judge Sarah T. Hughes. Standing at his side aboard Air Force One, the presidential airplane, is Jacqueline Kennedy in her blood spattered pink suit. That evening the presidential party arrives back in Washington, D.C., where an autopsy is performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

On Saturday, November 23, Mrs. Kennedy picks out a grave site for her husband at Arlington National Cemetery; the state funeral is scheduled for Monday. In Dallas, Oswald is questioned about the slaying for three hours.

At the request of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, Oswald is to be transferred from Dallas police headquarters to the sheriff's office on Sunday. As the transfer is taking place, shortly before noon, a Dallas nightclub operator named Jack Ruby steps from a crowd of reporters covering the event and shoots Oswald, in full view of a national television audience. He acted spontaneously, Ruby confessed, out of anger over the president's death and the wish to spare Jacqueline Kennedy the agony of an Oswald trial in Dallas.

By 9 A.M. Monday morning, November 25, a quarter million mourners have passed by the catafalque holding Kennedy's body in the U.S. Capitol, Mrs. Kennedy had asked for the building to be kept open all night to accommodate the crowds. Following a funeral service at St. Matthew's Cathedral presided over by Cardinal Cushing of Boston and attended by many of the world's leaders, Kennedy is buried at Arlington. Mrs. Kennedy lights an eternal flame at his grave.

Doubt About the Official Explanation

On the very morning of his death President Kennedy made an uncanny prediction to his adviser Kenneth O'Donnell. "If anyone wants to shoot a president," he said, "it's not a very difficult job. All one has to do is get on a high building with a telescopic rifle, and there is nothing anybody can do." And this is exactly how the assassination came to be described in the report of the Warren Commission, named for its chairman, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Presented to President Johnson on September 24, 1964, the report had 26 volumes of documentation. The conclusion: John F. Kennedy was killed by the fanatic loner, Lee Harvey Oswald.

But even as the Warren Commission was conducting its exhaustive investigation, doubts were being raised. Oswald had not acted alone, sorne were saying, but was merely the "hit man" of an international assassination team. Behind the killer was Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, or possibly the Soviet Union's secret police. Others claimed that it was a matter of an internal power play; agents of the FBI or CIA were responsible. And, perhaps most persistent of all, there was the tale that Kennedy had been targeted by the Mafia.

Missing Evidence

Reexamining the evidence between 1976 and 1978, a House of Representatives committee charged that the autopsy performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital the day following Kennedy's assassination had not been conducted in accordance with professional standards. One of the participating doctors complained at the time that they were not allowed to lay open the track of the two bullets through the president's body because of the objections of "a high-ranking personality," presumably a military figure. Not being able to establish the trajectory of the bullets, the autopsy could not determine the angle of the shots - that is, if they both came from the window in the Texas School Book Depository or if, possibly, one had come from another direction.

The preserved brain and other autopsy materials were given to Kennedy's secretary. When these were deposited with the National Archives in 1966, the brain was found to be missing. Had evidence been suppressed?

How Many Shots?

The Warren Commission had concluded that Kennedy had been hit by two bullets, both coming from above and behind him, which was consistent with the official story of Oswald as lone assassin. The conclusion was based on an analysis of the film taken by Zapruder and on drawings made by criminal pathologists.

Late in the 1970's another piece of evidence was reexamined: the tape recorder of a Dallas policeman providing a motorcycle escort for the presidential motorcade on November 22. Due to a technical defect, the recorder had been left on during the ride from Love Field. For years it had been gathering dust with the other evidence because, apart from some faint rustling, it seemed to contain no identifiable noises.

The House committee asked acoustic experts to study the tape with state of the art computer techniques. Finding noises that sounded like gunshots, the experts went to Dallas and fired guns at the assassination spot on an autumn morning in 1978. Matching new recordings to the 15 year old tape, they were able, with a probability bordering on certainty, to isolate four distinct shots. Moreover, they claimed to be able to determine from which directions the shots had come. Three had indeed been fired from the Texas School Book Depository window where Oswald stood. (Three spent cartridges were found at the window; presumably one of Oswald's shots went astray.) The fourth shot, however, had been fired at close range from in front and to the right of the presidential car. Someone else, standing on a grassy knoll overlooking the parade route, had also been aiming for the president.

The Warren Commission had ignored or chosen to discount the testimony of witnesses who reported hearing a fourth shot. Other witnesses claimed to have seen a puff of gunsmoke coming from the knoll and men with FBI identification on their cars leaving a nearby parking lot, though the FBI said that no men had been stationed there that day. Three people had tried to catch a man running from the parking lot, but he got away.

The Zapruder film shows the president's head sinking forward, presumably after the first bullet from the rear passed through his neck. But then his entire head snaps back in a reaction that would have been consistent with a fatal bullet striking from the front and blowing away half his head as it exited to the rear. Weighing all the evidence, the House committee concluded in 1979 that Kennedy "was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy." Who were the conspirators? The report did not say.

Man Between Two Worlds

Despite all that has been written about him since the assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald remains an enigma, a shadowy figure whose motives for the terrible crime have never been fully explained. "It is possible to believe almost anything about him," one scholar has said, "and damned near impossible to know what's true."

A school dropout at age 16, Oswald joined the U.S. Marine Corps on October 24, 1956, six days after his 17th birthday. Following training as a radar technician, he was assigned to Atsugi Air Base outside Tokyo, Japan, the base from which were launched the U-2 photoreconnaissance flights over the U.S.S.R. Oswald had few friends and spent much of his spare time reading - in particular books about Marxism - and studying Russian. Soon, a fellow Marine later testified, he was saying that "communism was the best system in the world." Before being transferred back to the United States late in 1958, Oswald had been court martialed twice, once for possessing an unauthorized private weapon and later for addressing "provoking words" to a sergeant. According to one of his officers, Oswald was "a little bit nuts on foreign affairs" and became an enthusiastic supporter of Fidel Castro, who seized power in Cuba in January 1959.

On September 11, 1959, Oswald received an early release from the Marine Corps in order to support his dependent mother. However, after giving her $100, he booked passage on a ship bound from New Orleans to Le Havre, France, and subsequently made his way across Europe to Moscow. On October 31 he appeared at the U.S. embassy there to renounce his American citizenship, saying that he was a Marxist, had applied for Soviet citizenship, and was offering the Soviets information he had acquired as a radar technician. Seven months later the Soviets shot down a U-2 aircraft. When pilot Francis Gary Powers admitted that his was a CIA photoreconnaissance mission, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev angrily broke off his summit meeting with President Eisenhower in Paris.

Oswald remained in the Soviet Union for two and a half years, acquiring a Russian wife but gradually becoming disillusioned with life in a Marxist state. On June 1, 1962, Oswald, his wife, Marina, and their infant daughter, June, were allowed to leave the Soviet Union. He had never received Soviet citizenship and denied having given secret information to the Russians. The U.S. Department of State overruled the Immigration and Naturalization Service to readmit Oswald, noting that "it was in the best interests of the United States to have Mr. Oswald depart from the Soviet Union as soon as possible." Was the ex-Marine's initial defection planned by the CIA; had the Soviets failed to rise to the bait of a double agent? Some questions were never asked in the official investigation of the assassination; others remained unanswered.

Fair Play for Cuba

After working at odd jobs in Fort Worth and Dallas, Oswald moved his family to New Orleans in the spring of 1963. But before leaving Texas, he purchased by mail a rifle with a telescopic sight. The rifle was a Carcano Model 91/38 purchased with the alias Alek Hidell. With it, according to the Warren Commission, he attempted to assassinate retired Major General Edwin A. Walker, an ultraconservative spokesman who was urging President Kennedy to send troops to oust Castro.

In New Orleans, Oswald set himself up as what the Warren Commission called "the imaginary president of the nonexistent chapter" of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro organization. The address he listed for the chapter, curiously enough, was a building that housed the offices of a retired FBI agent, Guy Bannister, who was said to be the coordinator of several militant anti Castro groups. Despite the fact that Oswald was twice arrested in August 1963 for run-ins with anti Castro Cuban exiles, he and Bannister appeared to be on friendly terms.

Apparently as disillusioned with his return to the United States as he had been by his attempted defection to the Soviet Union, Oswald went to Mexico City in September. There he unsuccessfully tried to get a transit visa to Cuba en route to the U.S.S.R. Returning to Dallas, Oswald went to work at the Texas School Book Depository in mid October. On Tuesday, November 19, he could have read a newspaper report of a speech in Miami in which President Kennedy "all but invited the Cuban people ...to overthrow Fidel Castro's communist regime and promised prompt U.S. aid if they do." The itinerary for the president's visit to Dallas that Friday was also published; the motorcade would pass directly in front of the building where Oswald worked.

Kennedy Versus the Mafia

If Oswald was acting for either the Soviet secret police or for Fidel Castro, why was an escape route after the assassination denied him? Or was the visitor to Mexico a look alike, sent by the real conspirators to link Oswald falsely to Cuba and the Soviet Union? This is a theory of the most recent advocates of a conspiracy to kill the president. The conspirators? The Mafia.

Both JFK and his brother Robert F. Kennedy were highly visible opponents of organized crime in the United States. In 1957 Senator Kennedy had sat on the Senate Rackets Committee that exposed the mob. As chief counsel to the committee, Robert Kennedy led interrogations that left witnesses squirming in their chairs. When his brother appointed him attorney general in 1961, Robert Kennedy launched a Justice Department war against crime. One of his targets was Carlos Marcello, Mafia boss of New Orleans, who was deported to Guatemala.

Secretly returning to the United States, Marcello plotted revenge. "You know what they say in Sicily," he said to a friend in August 1962; "if you want to kill a dog, you don't cut off the tail, you cut off the head." The way to immobilize Robert Kennedy was to eliminate his brother, the president. "Kennedy's not going to make it to the [1964] election," a Florida mobster told an FBI informer that same month; "he's going to be hit." By the spring of 1963 an associate of Marcello's was saying that there was a price on the president's head.

The Mafia had another reason for opposition to Kennedy: he was not acting quickly enough to rid Cuba of Fidel Castro. Upon seizing power, Castro had thrown out the Mafia, which was making profits estimated at more than $110 million annually from drugs, gambling, and prostitution in Havana. The mobsters desperately wanted that lucrative business back and were dismayed when Kennedy failed to give adequate support to the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961. The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 had ended when the Soviets backed down; yet the American triumph had not weakened Castro. Despite his tough talk in Miami, the president showed little support for anti-Castro exiles in the United States and had discouraged independent raids on Cuba.

Proponents of a Mafia conspiracy have attempted to establish links between the mob and both Oswald and Jack Ruby. They fail to explain why professional gangsters would have turned to such an unlikely assassin as Oswald or such an improbable hit man as Ruby. Oswald had help, the American writer Steve Rivele claimed late in 1988, as the 25th anniversary of the assassination was bringing renewed interest in the tragedy. Rivele named three Corsicans hired by the New Orleans Mafia for the job. Unfortunately for Rivele's credibility, all three had apparently ironclad alibis for November 22, 1963: one was recovering from an eye operation, the second was serving in the French navy, the third was in a Marseilles prison.

Was Kennedy the Target?

Yet another theory was advanced at the time of the 25th anniversary: Oswald had been aiming at Governor John Connally. As a result of his defection to Russia, Oswald's honorable discharge from the Marine Corps was downgraded to "undesirable" only a notch above dishonorable. Realizing that this could block employment when he returned to the United States, Oswald wrote to Connally, then secretary of the Navy, from the Soviet Union asking for a reversal of the action. He was politely brushed off. In her third and final appearance before the Warren Commission, Marina Oswald expressed an opinion that the president was not her husband's target, saying that "he perhaps was shooting at Governor Connally ...on account of his discharge from the Marines."

By the time that Mrs. Oswald volunteered this information the Warren Commission had apparently already reached its own conclusions and did not include her testimony in its report.

In a New York Times/CBS poll taken shortly before the 25th anniversary of the assassination, 66 percent of Americans queried believed in a conspiracy; 61 percent said that there had been "official cover up to keep the public from learning the truth about the assassination." Yet, 46 percent of those polled felt that it was then too late to establish the truth; 59 percent opposed further investigations.

"It does not seem likely that these mysteries will ever be solved," remarked Representative Louis Stokes, who had headed the House committee a decade earlier. "I think it's more likely than not that we'll never know."

About Dealey Plaza

by Mike Regan

Photo (Available on request) by Thomas Dillard shows black men on floor beneath the one from where Oswald supposedly fired. In the procession, Dillard was in camera car number three as he took the picture (left) only three seconds after the shooting, about ten seconds after the first shot. In this one picture one can see which windows were open and which were closed at that time. The photo was then enhanced and severely cropped by the Warren Commission and all that survived is depicted within the right photo. The negative, along with enhancement portions leading to the west side of the building simply vanished.

SOLUTION TO THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY

The enclosed pages of material examines specific facts of which have been overlooked during the course of these past thirty eight years which eliminate, quite clearly, any possibility that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

This material also presents the extreme probability of events that actually did occur that afternoon in Dealey Plaza. Primarily based on Warren Commission testimony, including statements made by the actual assassin, the examination presents a summary of minor events, beginning on the Wednesday afternoon of November 20th, 1963 and concluding with the catastrophic event of the firing of the three shots by James Jarman, Jr. from the assassin's lair of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository at 12:30 P.M. on Friday, November 22nd, 1963.

POINTS OF FACT WITH REGARD TO THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY WHICH INDICATE THAT IT WAS NOT LEE HARVEY OSWALD WHO PULLED THE TRIGGER THAT AFTERNOON IN DEALEY PLAZA

Point #1 - Eye-witness, Amos Euins, put special emphasis on the fact that the assassin had a "white spot" on the back of his head as he sighted down the rifle barrel. Judging a position indicating that the back of the man's head could have been visible to a person on the street below, as the third shot was sighted and fired, strongly suggests that the assassin was left-handed. Eye-witness, Arnold Rowland, testified before the Warren Commission that just prior to the assassination he saw a man standing in the far left window (south-west corner) of the Texas School Book Depository's sixth floor. The man, according to Rowland, held what he thought to be a high-powered rifle in a military port-arms position. The barrel is pointed over the man's right shoulder, as he faced Rowland, toward the nearest wall (west). Further indication that the gunman was left-handed.

Two of the three expended rifle shells were found against the wall, immediately below the south-west window from which the shots were fired, thus indicating that as the hulls were ejected from the rifle they struct the left-handed assassin's chest and dropped to the floor parallel to his body. If the gunman had been right-handed, the hulls would have ejected with a clear path off to the right. The third expended shell, more that likely the last to be fired, was found some distance off to the right. This suggests that the assassin had unshouldered the weapon, stood, and ejected the final round as he left the scene.

Point #2 - Dallas police officer, M.N.McDonald, testified that Lee Harvey Oswald punched him with his left fist during the fracus at the movie theator and grabbed for a pistol in his belt with his right hand. In addition, the published photograph of Oswald taken by his wife, Marina, in the back yard of their New Orlean's home indicates a pistol, holstered, attached to Oswald's right hip. Other photos show that Oswald parted his hair on the left and wore his wristwatch on his left wrist. Lee Harvey Oswald was right-handed.

Point #3 - Though it is a proven fact that five of the Depository's employees moved the boxes into position and which formed a shield in front of the south-east corner window of the building's sixth floor, not a single one of their finger prints was found on these boxes when analyzed by the FBI. The suggestion is strong that special care was taken by at least some of these employees to eliminate detection of the fact that they had handled the boxes.

Point #4 - These five employees, including one named Bonnie Ray Williams, had spent the morning of November 22nd, 1963 placing a new plywood floor on the sixth floor of the TSBD. The "white debris" which became such a point of concern, bordering close to paranoia, for Williams and two other employees, James Jarman, Jr. and Harold Norman (not associated with the floor construction), during testimony before the Commission in which they unanimously stated had fallen on their hair from the fifth floor ceiling and caused by the cartridge shell explosions taking place on the floor above was, in actuality, bits of white plaster which had accumulated in their hair from the ceiling of the sixth floor as the new plywood was being hammered into place.

Though Jarman and Norman were not members of the construction crew, it has been testified by Norman, himself, that he made regular visits to the sixth floor for the purpose of "shooting the breeze". According to Williams testimony, however, Norman did more that simply "shoot the breeze". Norman would "help us move stock around". Based on Warren Commission testimony, it is not possible to place James Jarman, Jr. on the sixth floor during the morning prior to the assassination but the events that would occur, just after the crew would break for lunch will suggest strongly that he was present on the floor. At least for a period of time long enough for "white debris" to accumulate in his hair.

Point #5 - James Jarman Jr., though consistantly mentioned by various reports, including the Warren Commission's, as having been on the fifth floor with Norman and Williams at the time of the assassination, and even referred to when the Dillard photograph is discussed (he is NOT in the picture, though it was snapped by Tom Dillard within seconds of the shooting), in extreme probability, committed the assassination. The added fact that he was employed at the Texas School Book Depository as a wrapper and regularly utilized paper and tape, exact in make-up, as the paper and tape used to package the murder weapon indicates, again quite strongly, that it was he who prepared and provided the make-shift bag for Oswald when Oswald returned home on the evening of November 21st, 1963. Probably under the pretext that Jarman would purchase the weapon on the following day. It being known that Oswald, after being taken into custody had $13.87 on his person and shortly before had spent $1.00 on a cab ride and about .40c in loose change for a bus ticket and a coca-cola, presents the strong possibility that Jarman actually did purchase the assassination weapon from Oswald on the morning of the 22nd far an agreed upon price of $15.00. Oswald's own frame of mind at this point in time was likely to be that he was glad at the opportunity to rid himself of a weapon, and evidence, which easily tied him into his own attempt to take the life of General Walker some months earlier.

Point #6 - The "white spot" seen on the back of the head of the assassin by eye-witness, Amos Euins, was, in reality, the bits of white plaster in the hair of James Jarman, Jr. Jarman's paranoia before the Warren Commission when testifying about the plaster was simply due to the fact that he had forgotten to bruse the powder from his hair before pulling the trigger.

Point #7 - The appearance, two weeks after the assassination, of a hand made paper bag, similar to the one used to package the murder weapon, at the dead-letter office of the Post Office near Dallas suggests that one of the conspirators attempted to guide investigators toward the appropriate direction. Perhaps in fear for his own life. *NOTE* The assassination was most likely the result of circumstances which existed in Dallas on the afternoon Of November 22nd,1963 including the following;

Point #8 - The arrival, of course, of the presidential motorcade to the front of the Texas Schoolbook Depository on Elm Street (Jarman had read the papers and testified to his previous knowledge of this fact). The presence of a high powered rifle in the hands of a minimum of three employees of the TSBD on the morning of the assassination. The existence of a combined group mentality of a six year old child ("I dare ya'!!", "Oh Yeah!?", "Yeah!!", "OK, Watch Me!!")

Point #9 - The presence of a man fully capable (Jarman's eight years military experience, alone, indicates familiarity with weapons. His testified use of the word "action" when describing the metalic sounds he heard from the weapon, in addition, suggests his capability. It is a word commonly used among rifle enthusiasts), of sighting down the barrel of a Mannlicher-Carcano, pulling the trigger three times and ending the life of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

SUMMATION

Sadily, the series of small events that would lead up to the catastrofic event which would take place in Dealey Plaza began on Wednesday afternoon, November 20th, 1963. Warren Caster, an assistant manager for Southwestern Publishing Company, with offices at the Depositroy's 411 Elm Street address had purchased two rifles during the noon break. A Remington, single shot, .22 caliber rifle, to be given his son for Christmas and a .30odd.06 sporterized Mauser, intended for his own use in hunting.

On a counter just outside supervisor Roy Truly's office, Caster proudly displayed the two rifles to fellow employees . According to Caster's testimony, present were, "Mr. Shelly was there ---and Mr. Roy Truly". Additionaly, "There were workers there at the time, but I'm not sure how many. I could'nt even tell you their names. I don't know the TSBD workers there in the shipping department". Also present, however, was Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald mentioned the incident to Dallas Police after his arrest.

As Caster displayed the rifles, Oswald, probably in an attempt to relate to fellow employees (along with ridding himself of incriminating evidence), mentioned to one of the shipping department employees present that he, too, owned a rifle and that it might be for sale. This employee, in extreme likelyhood, was James Jarman, Jr., the shipping department's wrapper. Jarman's probable suggestion to Oswald was that he bring the rifle in the following day.

That he would be interested toward the purchase of the weapon. When Oswald appeared the following day without the rifle, he indicated to Jarman that he lacked the carrying case necessary to transport the rifle. Jarman, quick to oblige because of a sincere interest in the weapon, walked to his wrapping station, un-rolled a long sheet of wrapping paper and, utilizing tape at the same table, constructed the paper bag. He then gave it to Oswald. Oswald folded the hand made sack (FBI analysis would later uncover eight fold indentations on the paper) to a size suitable to either hip pocket or toward placing the bag into his belt and went on his way. Having returned home that evening with fellow worker, Buell Wesley Frazier, Oswald would package the Mannlicher- Carcano and return the following morning, again with Frazier, and complete the sale with Jarman.

Oswald's frame of mind at this point was that he was glad to be rid of the rifle. It is even possible to conclude that he was attempting to pull his life together. Fearful of losing his wife and family because of his eratic and demented behaviour of the previous months (including his attempt to shoot General Walker, of which Marina was aware), he responded to his wife's complaints about hand washing the laundry by leaving all his cash, $170.00, on the dresser before leaving for work on Friday, the 22nd.

As the motorcade approached Dealey Plaza that afternoon, Oswald sat in the first floor lunch room in a semi-state of bliss. After spending some six months living with fear that, at any day, police detectives could show up at his door, handcuffs at the ready, and haul him off for the attempted murder of General Walker, he was now free of the single piece of evidence that would convict him. The Mannlicher- Carcano.

Oswald's state of bliss, however, would soon be shattered. Having just left the first floor lunch room to purchase a cola from a vending machine in a lounge on the second floor, he would be confronted by Dallas Police officer Marrion L Baker. In all reality, Oswald had'nt even known as he was being challenged by Officer Baker that shots had been fired at the motorcade and would not know until a moment later. Mrs. Reid, a secretary for the TSBD, would comment to a confused Oswald as they passed each other and just after Oswald had left the lounge, "Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they did'nt hit him!". Upon learning this, something bordering on phychotic probably snapped within Oswald. Common sense had told him, especially since an armed police officer had rushed into the Depository, that the Mannlicher-Carcano he had sold to Jarman only hours earlier was involved in the shooting. All hope was lost. From this point on, Oswald was running from the furries and would culminate, some forty minutes later, with his fatal shooting of Officer Tippit on a residential street in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas.

Just when and where James Jarman, Jr. acquired the Mannlicher-Carcano from Oswald is difficult to determine, but in light of the surprisingly candid elements of testimony by Jarman, the exchange may have taken place in the morning hours of the 22nd on the first floor. When asked by Warren Commission attorney, Joseph A. Ball, when he had met with Oswald on that day, Jarman replied, "I had him correct an order. I don't know what time it was". When pressed by Ball, Jarman said, "It was around, it was between 8 and 9 I would say". Concerning a second meeting he had with Oswald that morning Jarman replied, "It was between 9:30 and 10:00 o'clock, I believe". Responding to Joseph Ball's question as to where this meeting took place Jarman said, "In between two rows of bins. On the first floor". It is between these same two rows of bins, near the front windows, that Jarman will eat his lunch, alone, just before noon. He will be shortly joined at this same location by Charles Douglas Givens (a member of the floor construction crew) and Harold Norman. What is quite possible is that the rifle had been concealed within this same general area for much of the morning hours. Together, they will leave the building, stand for awhile out in front and begin to walk toward the intersection of Elm and Huston Streets. Here, they separate. According to the Depository's Supervisory, Roy S. Truly, "I noticed them there on the corner and starting across the street, but whether they completed it, I don't know". Given's did, however, complete the trek across the intersection, continue east up Elm to eventually join with James and Edward Shields to observe the motorcade from the intersection of Main and Records streets.

As for Jarman and Norman they will, according to Jarman's own testimony, turn left on Huston, head north along the side of the Book Depository and disappear back into the building through a rear entrance. If the Manlicher-Carcano had not been on the sixth floor at this point, the weapon was most likely retrieved from between the two rows of bins on the first floor by Jarman and Norman and carried, via the west rear frieght elevator, and on up to the sixth floor assassin's lair. Having already surveyed Dealy Plaza and satisfied themselves that most of the Depository's employees, especially the supervisors, were in front of the building anxiously awaiting the arrival of the motorcade, Jarman's and Norman's movements about the building were done quite freely. They would even take a moment to insure that Oswald was out of the way. Oswald, sitting in the first floor lunch room eating a cheese sandwich and a piece of fruit at the time, would later mention the encounter to the Dallas Police.

Now on the sixth floor, Jarman will familiarize himself further with the weapon by dry-loading rounds into the chamber (FBI later concluded that at least one shell had markings indicating that it had been loaded and reloaded within the chamber a number of times) and moving from window to window to determine the clearest shot. Soon, he will be standing, with rifle in a military port arms position, at the south-west corner window. Observing from the street below is Arnold Rowland. About Norman's movements as Jarman peers from the south-west window, Rowland will later testify to Warren Commission counsel member, Representative Gerald R. Ford that, "At the time I saw the man in the other window, I saw the man hanging out the window first. It was a colored man, I think". Questioned further by Ford, who wanted Rowland to be more clear about the man hanging from the window, Rowland responded, "The east, south-east corner". Harold Norman was making a final survey to insure that their activities on the sixth floor went on un-disturbed.

Bonnie Ray Williams, quite possibly an unwilling participant also enters into the conspiracy at this point. Where and when is difficult to determine, but he could very well have stumbled accidently onto the scene when he went up to the sixth floor to meet with Danny Arce and Billy Lovelady, two fellow members of the floor laying crew he had pre-arranged to meet for the purpose of viewing the motorcade. Without informing Williams, however, Arce and Lovelady had joined most of the Depository's employees outside the building and when Williams arrived on the floor, lunch in hand, he found himself alone. The time was about noon. When counsel member Joseph Ball, asked him how long he stayed on the floor, Williams replied, "I was there from 5, 10,maybe 12 minutes".

Upon hearing window movement on the floor immediately below him, Williams will descend to the fifth floor in the east elevator to find Jarman and Norman near the south-east corner. Up to this moment, it is easy to conclude that Williams had no prior knowledge to the events that were about to take place on the sixth floor but, whether he wanted to or not, he now became a part. Otherwise he would not have backed up Jarman's testimony that he (Jarman) had been on the fifth floor with Norman and himself (Williams) at the time of the shooting.

Since the bulk of testified time elements place William's on the sixth floor before Jarman and Norman, it is highly likely that these two prime players in the conspiracy, after becoming aware of William's presence on the sixth floor, created a rouse that would draw William's away from the sixth floor assassin's lair. Both Jarman and Norman testified that before leaving the first floor aboard the west elevator, they had "peered up the elevator shaft" and observed that the east elevator was on the sixth floor.

At the very least, they knew that someone was up there. The rouse they would use simply amounted to making their presence known by sliding windows just below where Williams was sitting. It worked, and William's joined then on the fifth floor.

Events would now escalate to a near frenzy. With adenaline flowing, Jarman and Norman will ascend to the sixth floor assassin's lair. Considering that Williams had been on the same floor from noon to "5, 10, maybe 12 minutes", Jarman and Norman had more than fifteen minutes to complete final preparations for the assassination. As the motorcade made it's turn onto Huston from Main Street, Jarman was probably already in place as Norman descended back down to rejoin William's on the fifth floor. Most likely, if Williams was unaware of the plot, to keep him occupied as Jarman completed his task on the floor above. What would follow next can best be explained in Jarman's own words.

As Warren Commission counsel, Joseph Ball,questioned Jarman about the three shots, Jarman would dismiss the first shot as, "A back-fire or an officer giving a salute to the President".

It is Jarman's referral to the second shot, though which would set a wheel turning in the mind of another counsel member. As Jarman replied, with reference to this shot, "And then the second shot was fired, and that is when the people started falling on the ground and the motorcade car jumped forward ---", Representative Gerald R. Ford would listen, allow that single statement to sink in and sit in silence as a full five pages of testimony would continue to be recorded. About fifteen minutes. In Ford's mind, he knew that something was amiss.

Having been privy to a film of the presidentail limousine taken by Abraham Zapruder as the assassination took place, a film that had not been made public and would not for many years, Ford knew that the car did not "Jump forward", as Jarman had indicated, after the second shot. Agent William Greer would not accelerate the car until after agent Clint Hill, having just leaped from the follow-up car to assist Mrs. Kennedy (who was attempting to retrieve a portion of her husband's skull) back into the rear seat after the third shot, had a secure hand hold on the rear-left portion of the automobile. It was then, and only then, that the car, and to use the words of agent Roy Kellerman, "Just literally jumped out of the god-damned road!!". As Representative Ford continued to sit in silence, a suspician that may have begun to formulate is that a target may give the illusion of "Jumping forward" to an assassin peering through a scope. The car did not jump forward. The rifle and assassin, because of recoil, had jerked backwards. Ford's suspicion was probably confirmed minutes later after hearing Jarman's response to another question by council member, John J. McCloy. McCloy had asked, "Did you see the President actually hit by the bullets?".

Jarman's reply was, "No sir, I could'nt say that I actually saw him hit, but after the second shot, I presumed that he was, because I had my eye on his car from the time it came down Huston until the time it started toward the freeway".

Again, any suspicion that Ford had that Jarman was describing events as viewed through a high-powered scope were confirmed at this point as he heard Jarman use the word "eye", not in the plural sense, but in the singular sense. After hearing Jarman respond to McCloy"s question, "You saw him crumble, you saw him fall, did you?", by saying, "I saw him lean his head", Representative Ford had had enough.

He interrupted with a question concerning the statement Jarman had made much earlier. The following exchange took place between Gerald Ford and James Jarman, Jr.


We can only speculate as to just where Representative Ford's questioning would have eventually led if fellow councel, Joseph Ball, had not interrupted at this point to lead Jarman into a completely different line of questioning that would concern the style of clothes worn by Lee Harvey Oswald on the day of the assassination. Obviously, Ford was quite suspicious of this 34 year old shipping department employee. Speaking in terms of boxing it can be said that Ford had Jarman on the ropes just before Joseph Ball's untimely interruption. Further, it is plausable to conclude, that if Representative Gerald R. Ford had been allowed free reign, he may have ended his questioning, in his own time, with, "Mr. Jarman, did you shoot President John Fitzgerald Kennedy?". James Jarman, Jr., considering the amazing level of candor possessed by this assassin, would have answered simply, "Yes, sir".

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To the reader- I felt it necessary, in order to provide a steady flow while describing escalating major events unfolding within and outside the Depository, to speculate with regard to minor events. For this, I apologize. Hopefully, simple tesimony, time frames and fact will out-weigh all.

Two final notes 1st -Though not mentioned in the above scenario of the events which unfolded that afternoon in Dallas, a journalist and Assistant News Director of Dallas's KRLD Television & Radio, James R. Underwood, was riding with fellow journalists in a limousine which had just turned off Main Street onto Huston Street as the salvo of shots rang out. Jumping from the limo and running to the front of the Depository, he met briefly with Amos Euins, an African American teenager. Amos Euins, who later turned out to be the only viable witness who actually watched the assassin aim and fire the rifle, responded to the journalist's question as to whether the gunman was white or black, Euins responded, "It was a colored man". I said (Underwood), "Are you sure?". Euins responded, "Yes, sir".

2nd - Last, but definately not least, the stenographer, an unnamed and unsung hero of the Warren Commission, is worthy of mention. If someone, whether it be council or witness, paused in speech with the same audible sound we all utter from time to time, she would record the word "Uh". Movements not pertaining to testimony she would record between a pair of parenthisis. Seconds after Representative Gerald R. Ford was interrupted in his questioning of James Jarman, Jr., he was approached by someone, whispered too, and than left the room. Returning shortly (also recorded by our hero), he returned to his seat and sat silently for quite a length of time.

The question no longer is who shot President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report, in reality, was a glamourized version of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI Report to President Johnson and the Commission, simply put, was a collaboration of both men. The burning question now appears to be, "Who, within the upper echelon, knew the actual truth ?".

Warren Commission Testimony 
Roy S. Truly - Depository Superintendant Vol.#7-Pg.380, 591 
Warren Caster - Employee Vol.#7-Pg,386 
Arnold Rowland - Eyewitness Vol.#2-Pg.165 
Amos Lee Euins - Eyewitness Vol.#2-Pg.201
Bonnie Williams - Possible Co-Conspirator Vol.#3-161
Harold Norman - Co-Conspirator Vol.#3-Pg.186
James Jarman, Jr. - Assassin Vol.#3-Pg.198
James R. Underwood - Witness Vol.#6-Pg.167, 170
Stenographer - GOD BLESS HER

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To all:

I've enclosed (below) a copy of Jarman's signed affidavit to the Dallas Police on Nov. 23rd, 1963. Hopefully, you will pick up on his strong insinuation, "before" he was aware of photographic evidence being in play, that he watched the motorcade from curb-side.


Sincere regards,

Mike Regan

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AFFIDAVIT IN ANY FACT THE STATE OF TEXAS

COUNTY OF DALLAS

BEFORE ME, Patsy Collins, a Notary Public in and for said County, State of Texas, on this day personally appeared James Earl Jarman, Jr., c/m 33, 3942 Atlanta Street, Dallas, Texas HA8-1837 who, after being by me duly sworn, on oath deposes and says:

I work for the Texas School Book Depository, 411 Elm Street, as a Checker on the first floor for Mr. Roy S. Truly. On Friday, November 22, 1963, I got to work at 8:05 a.m. The first time I saw Lee Oswald on Friday, November 22, 1963 was about 8:15 a.m. He was filling orders on the first floor. A little after 9:00 a.m. Lee Oswald asked me what all the people were doing standing on the street. I told him that the President was supposed to come this way sometime this morning. He asked me, "Which way do you think he is coming?". I told him that the President would probably come down Main Street and turn on Houston and then go down Elm Street. He said, "Yes, I see". I only talked with him for about three or four minutes. The last time I saw Lee Oswald on Friday, November 22, 1963 was between 11:30 a.m. and 12:00 noon when he was taking the elevator upstairs to go get some boxes. At about 11:45 a.m. all of the employees who were working on the 6th floor came downstairs and we were all out on the street at about 12:00 o'clock noon. These employees were: Bill Shelley, Charles Givens, Billy Lovelady, Bonnie Ray (last name not known) and a Spanish boy (his name I cannot remember). To my knowledge Lee Oswald was not with us while we were watching the parade.

/s/ James Earl Jarman, Jr.

SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN BEFORE ME THIS 23rd DAY OF November A.D. 1963

/s/ Patsy Collins

Notary Public, Dallas County, Texas


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Shots From The West...???

With hope of dispelling, at least within the thoughts of some of you, many of the theories with regard to frontal shots (storm drains, grassy knolls, pickett fences, etc...), I've enclosed an excellant article by Jerry Organ. It's a bit lengthy, so I'll post it in a follow- up.

There also appears to be a major level of research concentration on the autopsy and it's results. In consideration of the simple fact that numerous doctors and nurses were attempting to save a man's life, hopes for any evidence (after their heroic efforts) even remotely viable to the puzzle should be regarded as minimal. With special regard to the throat wound. Insertion of the tracheotomy tube shortly after the arrival of President Kennedy vertually insured the complete obliteration of that evidence and to take serious any of the speculation (which I believe is at about 50/50 concerning "exit" or "entrance") offered by these hospital personel, with extreme limitations in ballistic science, is a mistake.

With the above in mind, my own thought is that research concentration should be guided toward existing "physical" evidence within the TSBD. With a bit of emphasis on the construction of the assassin's lair.

Concerning these boxes, it is already an established "Fact" that they were placed during the course of the morning work hours by members of the floor-laying crew, an obvious "Prep" to assist the intention of an assassin. Not just a few minutes before the shooting.

What's left to debate is who, and how many, within the construction crew were involved in this prep and toward whom was the assist intended. There has been some suggestion that some sort of stranger, perhaps a member of a yet to be identified "Black Ops" performing for yet another unknown group of high level conspirators. Yet, with the exception of Danny Arce's guidance of an elderly man to a first floor toilet as the parade was getting under way (Observed leaving moments later after completing his call to nature.), no employee of the TSBD, and I mean nobody, ever testified about seeing any kind of "stranger" in the building that day.

Trying to keep this as objective as possible, the debate is whether the assassin fired the three shots, swiftly fled down the entire length of the east wall, turned left, and continued the entire length of the north wall (A diagonal run was impossible.), properly placed the rifle in an upright position near the N/W stairwell, not tossed, mind you, in a mad scramble to allude potential captors, and concluded his dash down four flights of stairs to be observed, in a cool, calm and collective manner, some ninety seconds (give or take thirty) later by a Dallas motocycle police officer.

Or as to whether the assassin did all of the above up until after placement of the rifle. And in this scenario, simply boarded an elevator or dashed down a single flight of stairs to join up with buddies (Norman & Williams) at the S/E corner of the fifth floor. But not before Tom Dillard, having just turned onto Huston from Main Street, had snapped the photograph of that same corner. A photographic image which would "EXCLUDE" evidence of his "testified" 5th floor presence at the time of the shooting.

So now you're left with a process of elimination. Dump one of these guys in your mind and you've hit on the culprit. Would any member of the crew risk facing accessory charges to the assassination of a world leader to satisfy the whim of some fellow they had been working with for a grand total of 38 days (Actually, it rings up to about 26 when weekends are omitted.)..?? By prepping up his "lair"..?? And have you ever lifted a box of books..!!?

Other than ridding himself of evidence linking him to his shot at General Walker the previous April, Oswald does'nt fit into the assassination scenario in any way, shape or form. He truly was what he declared to the national media. A "Patsy".

Jarman, on the other hand, had a well established working relationship with two members of the floor-laying crew. Both Harold Norman and Charles (Slim) Givens. These are the fellows who represent the "only" conspiracy which existed that day in Dallas. Bonnie Ray Williams probably represents the most fascinating witness. He, like Oswald, was a young and fairly new employee at the Texas School Book Depository, caught within the same escalation of events that were out of their control. And could, if he's still kicking around, provide the ultimate closure. If relieved of whatever fear may exist, and prodded by appropriate authorities in law enforcement.


Sincere regards,

Mike Regan

freedomhill57@hotmail.com
Submitted on Tuesday, July 17, 2001 at 04:27:07 (CDT)

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