Post by Rob Caprio on Jan 21, 2021 22:21:47 GMT -5
All portions ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Lee_Harvey_Oswald_arrest_card_1963.jpg/800px-Lee_Harvey_Oswald_arrest_card_1963.jpg
The Warren Commission (WC) claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) assassinated President John F. Kennedy (JFK), shot at and wounded Texas Governor John B. Connally (JBC), shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit (JDT), and shot at retired General Edwin A . Walker (EAW). Of course, there is no supporting evidence for all of these claims in the twenty-six volumes and Commission Documents (CD).
The purpose of this particular post is not to get into the evidence of those crimes as this series has done that many times already, but rather to examine the makeup of the man who was accused of all those crimes. Keep in mind, the WC never presented a motive for why LHO would have committed these crimes, but instead used each unsupported claim as evidence for why he would have committed the other unsupported claims. In short, they claimed because he did “A” he was violent enough to do “B”, etc…
This post will look at the issue of whether LHO was a violent person or not.
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One would think that if LHO was capable of being involved in three separate incidents that included the use of firearms then he had to be a violent person, but is there evidence of this in the twenty-six volumes of exhibits? Lets check out what witnesses who knew him had to say about this
Let’s start with his wife Marina Oswald. You would think that the WC would have asked this basic question, but they didn’t. Luckily the House Select Committee On Assassinations (HSCA) did ask for us.
Mr. McDONALD. During this time in the Soviet Union, did Lee Harvey Oswald ever demonstrate any violent tendencies, any antisocial tendencies, either to you personally or in general?
Mrs. PORTER. Well, he would lose temper a few times, but he was pretty good at controlling it. You know naturally during the marriage husband and wife do fuss sometimes.
Mr. McDONALD. But it is your testimony that his behavior was not-
Mrs. PORTER. He wasn't really violent, no.
So he “wasn’t really violent” according to his wife. What about his friend George De Mohrenschildt?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. And thirdly, Oswald was known as a violent character, especially in the last time. He was known, as I read from the papers, that he participated in pro-Castro demonstrations in New Orleans. That is what I read in the papers. And so therefore, he should have been kept away from Dallas when the President was there.
Who knew him to be violent? Apparently he was equating domestic issues with violence as his wife, Jeanne, explained to the WC.
Mr. JENNER. He could still speak Russian to her, even though she learned English, couldn't he?
Mrs. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Of course, that is what we told him. We said, "You are crippling her, she has to learn English. She cannot live in this country without the language, she cannot do anything." He was strange in many, many ways.
But he never appeared to be violent or anything. He was a little violent once, when we came to the point that we said we are taking your wife and child away. That is the only time he showed real nastiness.
Clearly he wasn’t a violent person or Marina Oswald and their child would never have gone back to him if she was smart. There is some doubt about Marina not knowing English as well.
Surprisingly LHO’s brother Robert also was not asked this basic question during his WC testimony. Ditto LHO’s half-brother John Pic. Why did the WC not ask them about this?
LHO’s uncle, Charles “Dutz” Murret was also not asked this question by the WC. His aunt, Lillian Murret, did say this during her WC testimony.
Mr. JENNER - During the years that you knew him, did he ever have fits of temper, that you thought were unusual?
Mrs. MURRET - Well, he visited with me often, and he did a lot of things that I wondered about at the time, but there were times when I think he was just like any other person. It was just that he was always so quiet, and he was hard to get close to. He just wouldn't talk unless you would talk to him first, and, like I say, he was kind to Marina. Of course now, I don't know, what went on in their home, but he always treated her like a gentleman at our house.
Mr. JENNER - But you had no impression of him as being a violent person?
Mrs. MURRET – No; not at all.
So his aunt didn’t think that he was violent. The man who rode with LHO numerous times, Wes Frazier, including the morning of November 22, 1963, was not asked this basic question. Ruth Paine would give shelter to Marina Oswald and allow LHO to stay at her house on weekends so she would have spent some time around him and she told the WC the following during her testimony.
Representative BOGGS - How well did you know Lee Oswald?
Mrs. PAINE - Insufficiently well.
Representative BOGGS - What do you mean by that?
Mrs. PAINE - Well, I regret, of course, very deeply that I didn't perceive him as a violent man.
Representative BOGGS – You saw no evidence of violence in him at any time?
Mrs. PAINE – No, I didn't. He argued with his wife but he never struck her. I never heard from her of any violence from him.
Mr. McCLOY - ...You said that Lee had mentioned General Walker and indicated that he didn't like General Walker. Can you elaborate on that a little bit, to what extent, how violent was he in his expression?
Mrs. PAINE – No; it wasn't violent at all. It was more of, oh, well, more not giving him much credit even, but it was done briefly, this was in passing, so my recollection is hazy. But certainly there was no strong expression.
Mr. McCLOY - No vehemence about it?
Mrs. PAINE - Absolutely not, I would have remembered that. And I recall that Marina said nothing.
Mrs. PAINE - ...I of course made no—I didn't know him to be a violent person…
Senator COOPER - Did you have any thought at all that Lee Oswald might have been the man who fired the shot?
Mrs. PAINE – Absolutely none; no.
Mr. JENNER - Why was that, Mrs. Paine?
Mrs. PAINE – I had never thought of him as a violent man. He had never said anything against President Kennedy, nor anything about President Kennedy. I had no idea that he had a gun. There was nothing that I had seen about him that indicated a man with that kind of grudge or hostility.
Ruth Paine said a number of times that she never considered LHO to be a violent person. She also said that she didn’t even know that he had a gun! How could he have taken it to New Orleans in her car, back to Irving in her car, and then store it in her garage without her knowing about its existence? Sounds like another WC fairytale to me.
Here is what her husband, Michael Paine, had to say about this issue.
Mr. LIEBELER – You did not think him to be a violent person or one who would be likely to commit an act such as assassinating the President?
Mr. PAINE – I didn't--I saw he was a bitter person, he was bitter and quite a lot of very negative views of people in the world around him, very little charity in his view toward anybody, but I thought he was harmless.
A coworker of Michael Paine, Raymond Franklin “Frank” Krystinik, was consulted with regarding whether or not LHO should be allowed to move into the Paine residence. He would state the following during his WC testimony.
Mr. LIEBELER. You didn't get the feeling that Oswald had any particular violent thoughts towards General Walker?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. I didn't at this time. I had no idea he was violent until I heard on the radio he had shot the President.
Again we see someone who spent time around LHO who did not feel like he was violent. Let’s now turn our attention to members of law enforcement as they have a much keener sense of personality traits.
After LHO’s arrest in New Orleans he requested to see a member of the FBI. Agent John Quigley would spend three hours with LHO on Saturday August 10, 1963, interviewing him. Here is what he told the WC.
Mr. STERN. Did you get any indication that he was a dangerous individual or that he was, potentially, a violent individual?
Mr. QUIGLEY. Absolutely none at all.
So this trained FBI agent had no feeling that LHO was dangerous and violent. He would not be alone. Agent John Fain interviewed LHO on several occasions and he came to the same conclusion as Quigley.
Mr. STERN. Do you have any indication from your interviews with Lee Harvey Oswald or from anything else you knew about him, from your investigation, that he was dangerous or potentially violent?
Mr. FAIN. No, sir; no, sir; if there had been any indication that he was potentially dangerous or violent or had a potential for violence, we certainly wouldn't have closed it.
Mr. McCLOY. Quite apart from the party, from party membership, was it your conclusion that he was he did not constitute a security risk?
Mr. FAIN. I couldn't see any potential for violence.
Another law enforcement person who was asked about this was Lieutenant Francis Mattello of the New Orleans Police Department. Following LHO’s arrest Lt. Martello interviewed him twice, once before Quigley and once after. Here is what he told the WC.
Mr. LIEBELER - Did you consider whether Oswald was prone to violence or was a violent kind of person?
Mr. MARTELLO – No, sir; I did not, for the simple reason that when he had made the friendship of the people with the anti-Castro groups in the city and offered them assistance, and when they saw him on Canal Street with pro-Castro signs they became insulting and abusive to the point of becoming violent toward him, and he never reacted to the action that was being directed toward him.
Mr. LIEBELER - Is there any other reason that you didn't regard Oswald as a violent kind of person, other than the one that you mentioned concerning his failure to respond to the provocation of the Cubans?
Mr. MARTELLO – He did not impress me at the time I interviewed him as a violent person by any of the responses to questions, by observing his physical make-up. Not in any way, shape, or form did he appear to me as being violent in any way. He displayed very little emotion and was completely unconcerned and aloof.
Mr. LIEBELER - When you subsequently heard that Oswald had been arrested in connection with the assassination, were you surprised?
Mr. MARTELLO - Yes, sir; I was, I was very much surprised.
Mr. LIEBELER - Would you tell us----
Mr. MARTELLO – Because he did not give me the impression of being a violent individual. He was a very passive type of an individual.
We know that the FBI Agent in charge of the LHO file in Dallas was James Hosty and here is what he testified to before the WC about this issue.
Senator COOPER. Considering that he was a defector, you knew he was a defector?
Mr. HOSTY. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. And considering that he had been engaged in this demonstration in New Orleans, and the statement that Mrs. Paine had made to you, did it occur to you at all that he was a potentially dangerous person?
Mr. HOSTY. No, sir.
Senator COOPER. Why?
Mr. HOSTY. There is no indication from something of that type that he would commit a violent act. This is not the form that a person of that type would necessarily take. This would not in any way indicate to me that he was capable of violence.
Mr. McCLOY. Don't you think the combination of the fact that you knew that he was lying and that he was a defector and that he had this record with the Fair Play for Cuba, that he might be involved in some intrigue that would be if not necessarily violent, he was a dangerous security risk?
Mr. HOSTY. He was a security risk of a sort, but not the type of person who would engage in violence. That would be the indication.
This shows that the man most responsible for keeping an eye on LHO did NOT think that he was violent or capable of violence. Even the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, testified to the fact that LHO had no streak of violence in him.
Representative BOGGS. You didn't find any indication of why anyone should even suspect that Oswald would do this, did you?
Mr. HOOVER. We found no indication at all that Oswald was a man addicted to violence. The first indication of an act of violence came after he, Oswald, had been killed, and Mrs. Oswald told us about the attempt on General Walker's life by Oswald. No one had known a thing about that. I think in the Enquirer article there is reference to the fact that the Dallas Police knew or suspected Oswald of possibly being a party to the shooting into the house of General Walker. Chief Curry specifically denies that. There was no connection of that kind and there was no evidence that Oswald had any streak of violence…There was no evidence in the place where he was employed in Dallas of acts of violence or temper or anything of that kind on his part.
Hoover again states that there was no evidence showing that LHO was prone to violence. He also confirms that the Dallas Police Department (DPD) never suspected LHO in regards to the EAW shooting. This was just another false claim by Marina Oswald.
Clearly we see that there is no evidence of LHO being a violent person. The farthest we get is claims by Marina Oswald that LHO hit her and mistreated her. This led to her leaving him for two weeks, but she went back to him. Would you return to an abusive person when others were going to provide you with a place to stay?
The WC failed to provide a motive for LHO’s alleged actions. Then you see that there is no evidence for showing that LHO was violent (or crazy as we have seen in another post in this series), so what would have made LHO commit these crimes as the WC claimed? One logical answer that removes the need for violence or craziness, and a motive against the person, that would explain why he would shoot at people on both ends of the political spectrum is money. Was LHO a gun for hire? I personally doubt it based on his shooting skills, but if was that of course would point to a conspiracy.
The total lack of supporting evidence for showing that LHO committed any of these crimes along with no motive and NO violent tendencies makes the claims of the WC incorrect, thus, their conclusion is sunk.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Lee_Harvey_Oswald_arrest_card_1963.jpg/800px-Lee_Harvey_Oswald_arrest_card_1963.jpg
The Warren Commission (WC) claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) assassinated President John F. Kennedy (JFK), shot at and wounded Texas Governor John B. Connally (JBC), shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit (JDT), and shot at retired General Edwin A . Walker (EAW). Of course, there is no supporting evidence for all of these claims in the twenty-six volumes and Commission Documents (CD).
The purpose of this particular post is not to get into the evidence of those crimes as this series has done that many times already, but rather to examine the makeup of the man who was accused of all those crimes. Keep in mind, the WC never presented a motive for why LHO would have committed these crimes, but instead used each unsupported claim as evidence for why he would have committed the other unsupported claims. In short, they claimed because he did “A” he was violent enough to do “B”, etc…
This post will look at the issue of whether LHO was a violent person or not.
****************************************
One would think that if LHO was capable of being involved in three separate incidents that included the use of firearms then he had to be a violent person, but is there evidence of this in the twenty-six volumes of exhibits? Lets check out what witnesses who knew him had to say about this
Let’s start with his wife Marina Oswald. You would think that the WC would have asked this basic question, but they didn’t. Luckily the House Select Committee On Assassinations (HSCA) did ask for us.
Mr. McDONALD. During this time in the Soviet Union, did Lee Harvey Oswald ever demonstrate any violent tendencies, any antisocial tendencies, either to you personally or in general?
Mrs. PORTER. Well, he would lose temper a few times, but he was pretty good at controlling it. You know naturally during the marriage husband and wife do fuss sometimes.
Mr. McDONALD. But it is your testimony that his behavior was not-
Mrs. PORTER. He wasn't really violent, no.
So he “wasn’t really violent” according to his wife. What about his friend George De Mohrenschildt?
Mr. De MOHRENSCHILDT. And thirdly, Oswald was known as a violent character, especially in the last time. He was known, as I read from the papers, that he participated in pro-Castro demonstrations in New Orleans. That is what I read in the papers. And so therefore, he should have been kept away from Dallas when the President was there.
Who knew him to be violent? Apparently he was equating domestic issues with violence as his wife, Jeanne, explained to the WC.
Mr. JENNER. He could still speak Russian to her, even though she learned English, couldn't he?
Mrs. De MOHRENSCHILDT. Of course, that is what we told him. We said, "You are crippling her, she has to learn English. She cannot live in this country without the language, she cannot do anything." He was strange in many, many ways.
But he never appeared to be violent or anything. He was a little violent once, when we came to the point that we said we are taking your wife and child away. That is the only time he showed real nastiness.
Clearly he wasn’t a violent person or Marina Oswald and their child would never have gone back to him if she was smart. There is some doubt about Marina not knowing English as well.
Surprisingly LHO’s brother Robert also was not asked this basic question during his WC testimony. Ditto LHO’s half-brother John Pic. Why did the WC not ask them about this?
LHO’s uncle, Charles “Dutz” Murret was also not asked this question by the WC. His aunt, Lillian Murret, did say this during her WC testimony.
Mr. JENNER - During the years that you knew him, did he ever have fits of temper, that you thought were unusual?
Mrs. MURRET - Well, he visited with me often, and he did a lot of things that I wondered about at the time, but there were times when I think he was just like any other person. It was just that he was always so quiet, and he was hard to get close to. He just wouldn't talk unless you would talk to him first, and, like I say, he was kind to Marina. Of course now, I don't know, what went on in their home, but he always treated her like a gentleman at our house.
Mr. JENNER - But you had no impression of him as being a violent person?
Mrs. MURRET – No; not at all.
So his aunt didn’t think that he was violent. The man who rode with LHO numerous times, Wes Frazier, including the morning of November 22, 1963, was not asked this basic question. Ruth Paine would give shelter to Marina Oswald and allow LHO to stay at her house on weekends so she would have spent some time around him and she told the WC the following during her testimony.
Representative BOGGS - How well did you know Lee Oswald?
Mrs. PAINE - Insufficiently well.
Representative BOGGS - What do you mean by that?
Mrs. PAINE - Well, I regret, of course, very deeply that I didn't perceive him as a violent man.
Representative BOGGS – You saw no evidence of violence in him at any time?
Mrs. PAINE – No, I didn't. He argued with his wife but he never struck her. I never heard from her of any violence from him.
Mr. McCLOY - ...You said that Lee had mentioned General Walker and indicated that he didn't like General Walker. Can you elaborate on that a little bit, to what extent, how violent was he in his expression?
Mrs. PAINE – No; it wasn't violent at all. It was more of, oh, well, more not giving him much credit even, but it was done briefly, this was in passing, so my recollection is hazy. But certainly there was no strong expression.
Mr. McCLOY - No vehemence about it?
Mrs. PAINE - Absolutely not, I would have remembered that. And I recall that Marina said nothing.
Mrs. PAINE - ...I of course made no—I didn't know him to be a violent person…
Senator COOPER - Did you have any thought at all that Lee Oswald might have been the man who fired the shot?
Mrs. PAINE – Absolutely none; no.
Mr. JENNER - Why was that, Mrs. Paine?
Mrs. PAINE – I had never thought of him as a violent man. He had never said anything against President Kennedy, nor anything about President Kennedy. I had no idea that he had a gun. There was nothing that I had seen about him that indicated a man with that kind of grudge or hostility.
Ruth Paine said a number of times that she never considered LHO to be a violent person. She also said that she didn’t even know that he had a gun! How could he have taken it to New Orleans in her car, back to Irving in her car, and then store it in her garage without her knowing about its existence? Sounds like another WC fairytale to me.
Here is what her husband, Michael Paine, had to say about this issue.
Mr. LIEBELER – You did not think him to be a violent person or one who would be likely to commit an act such as assassinating the President?
Mr. PAINE – I didn't--I saw he was a bitter person, he was bitter and quite a lot of very negative views of people in the world around him, very little charity in his view toward anybody, but I thought he was harmless.
A coworker of Michael Paine, Raymond Franklin “Frank” Krystinik, was consulted with regarding whether or not LHO should be allowed to move into the Paine residence. He would state the following during his WC testimony.
Mr. LIEBELER. You didn't get the feeling that Oswald had any particular violent thoughts towards General Walker?
Mr. KRYSTINIK. I didn't at this time. I had no idea he was violent until I heard on the radio he had shot the President.
Again we see someone who spent time around LHO who did not feel like he was violent. Let’s now turn our attention to members of law enforcement as they have a much keener sense of personality traits.
After LHO’s arrest in New Orleans he requested to see a member of the FBI. Agent John Quigley would spend three hours with LHO on Saturday August 10, 1963, interviewing him. Here is what he told the WC.
Mr. STERN. Did you get any indication that he was a dangerous individual or that he was, potentially, a violent individual?
Mr. QUIGLEY. Absolutely none at all.
So this trained FBI agent had no feeling that LHO was dangerous and violent. He would not be alone. Agent John Fain interviewed LHO on several occasions and he came to the same conclusion as Quigley.
Mr. STERN. Do you have any indication from your interviews with Lee Harvey Oswald or from anything else you knew about him, from your investigation, that he was dangerous or potentially violent?
Mr. FAIN. No, sir; no, sir; if there had been any indication that he was potentially dangerous or violent or had a potential for violence, we certainly wouldn't have closed it.
Mr. McCLOY. Quite apart from the party, from party membership, was it your conclusion that he was he did not constitute a security risk?
Mr. FAIN. I couldn't see any potential for violence.
Another law enforcement person who was asked about this was Lieutenant Francis Mattello of the New Orleans Police Department. Following LHO’s arrest Lt. Martello interviewed him twice, once before Quigley and once after. Here is what he told the WC.
Mr. LIEBELER - Did you consider whether Oswald was prone to violence or was a violent kind of person?
Mr. MARTELLO – No, sir; I did not, for the simple reason that when he had made the friendship of the people with the anti-Castro groups in the city and offered them assistance, and when they saw him on Canal Street with pro-Castro signs they became insulting and abusive to the point of becoming violent toward him, and he never reacted to the action that was being directed toward him.
Mr. LIEBELER - Is there any other reason that you didn't regard Oswald as a violent kind of person, other than the one that you mentioned concerning his failure to respond to the provocation of the Cubans?
Mr. MARTELLO – He did not impress me at the time I interviewed him as a violent person by any of the responses to questions, by observing his physical make-up. Not in any way, shape, or form did he appear to me as being violent in any way. He displayed very little emotion and was completely unconcerned and aloof.
Mr. LIEBELER - When you subsequently heard that Oswald had been arrested in connection with the assassination, were you surprised?
Mr. MARTELLO - Yes, sir; I was, I was very much surprised.
Mr. LIEBELER - Would you tell us----
Mr. MARTELLO – Because he did not give me the impression of being a violent individual. He was a very passive type of an individual.
We know that the FBI Agent in charge of the LHO file in Dallas was James Hosty and here is what he testified to before the WC about this issue.
Senator COOPER. Considering that he was a defector, you knew he was a defector?
Mr. HOSTY. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. And considering that he had been engaged in this demonstration in New Orleans, and the statement that Mrs. Paine had made to you, did it occur to you at all that he was a potentially dangerous person?
Mr. HOSTY. No, sir.
Senator COOPER. Why?
Mr. HOSTY. There is no indication from something of that type that he would commit a violent act. This is not the form that a person of that type would necessarily take. This would not in any way indicate to me that he was capable of violence.
Mr. McCLOY. Don't you think the combination of the fact that you knew that he was lying and that he was a defector and that he had this record with the Fair Play for Cuba, that he might be involved in some intrigue that would be if not necessarily violent, he was a dangerous security risk?
Mr. HOSTY. He was a security risk of a sort, but not the type of person who would engage in violence. That would be the indication.
This shows that the man most responsible for keeping an eye on LHO did NOT think that he was violent or capable of violence. Even the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, testified to the fact that LHO had no streak of violence in him.
Representative BOGGS. You didn't find any indication of why anyone should even suspect that Oswald would do this, did you?
Mr. HOOVER. We found no indication at all that Oswald was a man addicted to violence. The first indication of an act of violence came after he, Oswald, had been killed, and Mrs. Oswald told us about the attempt on General Walker's life by Oswald. No one had known a thing about that. I think in the Enquirer article there is reference to the fact that the Dallas Police knew or suspected Oswald of possibly being a party to the shooting into the house of General Walker. Chief Curry specifically denies that. There was no connection of that kind and there was no evidence that Oswald had any streak of violence…There was no evidence in the place where he was employed in Dallas of acts of violence or temper or anything of that kind on his part.
Hoover again states that there was no evidence showing that LHO was prone to violence. He also confirms that the Dallas Police Department (DPD) never suspected LHO in regards to the EAW shooting. This was just another false claim by Marina Oswald.
Clearly we see that there is no evidence of LHO being a violent person. The farthest we get is claims by Marina Oswald that LHO hit her and mistreated her. This led to her leaving him for two weeks, but she went back to him. Would you return to an abusive person when others were going to provide you with a place to stay?
The WC failed to provide a motive for LHO’s alleged actions. Then you see that there is no evidence for showing that LHO was violent (or crazy as we have seen in another post in this series), so what would have made LHO commit these crimes as the WC claimed? One logical answer that removes the need for violence or craziness, and a motive against the person, that would explain why he would shoot at people on both ends of the political spectrum is money. Was LHO a gun for hire? I personally doubt it based on his shooting skills, but if was that of course would point to a conspiracy.
The total lack of supporting evidence for showing that LHO committed any of these crimes along with no motive and NO violent tendencies makes the claims of the WC incorrect, thus, their conclusion is sunk.