Post by Gil Jesus on Oct 20, 2021 18:47:00 GMT -5
The Bus Ride
by Gil Jesus (2021)
"During police interrogation after his arrest, Oswald admitted to riding both bus and taxi in returning to his roominghouse after the assassination of the President." (Report, pg. 648)
Not surprisingly, this statement in the Report offers no reference or footnote to support its claim. It's conclusion is based on the testimony of Dallas Homicide Captain Will Fritz.
From the police lineups to Oswald's refusing legal counsel to what Oswald said during his interrogation, Fritz lied repeatedly under oath.
In this instance, Fritz claimed that Oswald first told him that he took busses and walked to get home. (4 H 223)
Then he claimed that Oswald changed his story and admitted taking a cab when Fritz asked him about it. (ibid.)
Finally, Fritz got the cost of the taxi ride wrong. (ibid.) A mistake Oswald could not have made.
Not having a stenographer or a tape recorder present during questioning gave the Dallas Police an enormous advantage in claiming that Oswald said things which he did not say.
All they had to do is get everybody present to agree.
It also gave them an opportunity to "rough" Oswald up with no evidence that they did so.
The Commission inferred that Oswald used the bus and then a taxi to facilitate his "escape" from the Texas School Book Depository in order to avoid apprehension for assassinating President Kennedy.
But perhaps Oswald's "escape" was anything but.
Escape?
James Jarman worked at the Texas School Book Depository as a "checker", a person who checked the orders for accuracy. Oswald was a "filler", one who filled the orders and then they went to Jarman to be checked to make sure they were right.
As a co-worker of Oswald, Jarman was called to give testimony. During that testimony, Jarman said that at lunch time Oswald would "sometimes go out of the building. One time in particular I know he went out, but he didn't buy any lunch." (3 H 200)
Jarman's testimony reveals that Oswald's leaving the building at lunchtime was nothing out of the ordinary. And his leaving the building at lunchtime is consistent with his past habit of leaving the building when he worked at the William B. Reilly Company in New Orleans (11 H 474).
Although leaving the building may prove that he was looking for an excuse to get out of work, it isn't proof that he was fleeing a murder scene.
On November 25, 1963, a memo form then Assistant Attorney Nicholas Katzenbach outlined the Commission's mandate:
"The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the sole assassin, that he did not have confederates who are still at large, and the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial." (FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ file, Sec. 18 pg. 29)
In spite of solid evidence that said that Oswald had been picked up by someone in a car, the Commission adopted this scenario of Oswald fleeing by bus and taxi because its agenda called for a scenario of Oswald and Oswald alone.
He could not have "confederates who are still at large".
In fact, as we get into the Commission's scenario, it becomes more evident that this was not only not an escape, but it wasn't Oswald in either the bus or the taxi.
The Bus Ride
The Commission claimed that Oswald left the Texas School Book Depository walked seven blocks and boarded a bus.
According to the Commission, there were two busses that serviced Oak Cliff. The Marsalis bus and the Beckley bus.(Report, pg. 161)
The Commission noted that the Beckley bus would have dropped him right across the street from his roominghouse. But instead of waiting for that bus, it concluded that he chose the first bus to Oak Cliff, the Marsalis Bus, which would have dropped him off seven blocks from his destination. (ibid.)
The Commission never explained why he did this.
That Marsalis bus was driven by Cecil McWatters, a bus driver with the Dallas Transit Company who had nearly 19 years in the company. On November 22, 1963 his route was from the Lakewood section of Dallas to Oak Cliff. (2 H 262)
McWatters' bus was stuck in traffic when a man knocked on the door and entered it. The man stayed on the bus for approximately two blocks and then asked for a transfer and got off.
That man, the Commission said, was Lee Harvey Oswald.
At about 6:30 pm on the day of the assassination, McWatters viewed four men in a police lineup. He picked Oswald from the lineup as the man who had boarded the bus at the "lower end of town around Elm and Houston" and who, on the ride south on Marsalis, had an argument with a woman passenger. (Report, pg. 159)
Of course this is not true, McWatters never identified Oswald, he only said that Oswald was about the same height and weight as the man who boarded the bus.
McWatters viewed the same lineup ( Lineup # 2 ) as Ted Callaway and Sam Guinyard, Oswald with 3 police employees:
Mr. BALL. You didn't--as I understand it, when you were at the police lineup, you told us that you didn't--weren't able to identify this man in the lineup as the man who got off, that you gave the transfer to.
Mr. McWATTERS. I told them to the best of my knowledge, I said the man that I picked out was the same height, about the same height, weight and description. But as far as actually saying that is the man I couldn't--
Mr. BALL. You couldn't do it?
Mr. McWATTERS. I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't do it now.
(2 H 279)
The absurdity of this man being Oswald can't be emphasized enough. Even in the ridiculous official version, Oswald was not on the bus while it travelled south on Marsalis.
In the end, the man McWatters described was identified as teenager Milton Jones, who admitted having an argument with a female passenger. (CE 2641, 25 H 899)
When Jones was interviewed, he could not identify Oswald as the man who got on the bus. But his description of the man's clothing indicates either the man was not Oswald or Oswald changed his clothes when he got to his room. (25 H 900)
But the Commission was never deterred by witnesses who could not or would not tell them what they wanted to hear. They wanted Oswald on that bus and they needed only one witness to put him there.
The scripted witness
Mary Bledsoe was a divorcee who rented rooms on North Marsalis. She rented a room to Oswald in October, 1963. Oswald paid her $7 for a full week, but she refused to rent to him for a second week because she didn't like him. She threw him out after only five days and he asked for two dollars back for the last two days. She told him that she "didn't have it" and never refunded his money.
This was one of the Commission's star witnesses.
"Mrs. Bledsoe identified the shirt as the one Oswald was wearing and she stated that she was certain it was Oswald who boarded the bus." (Report, pg. 159)
Seeing as she had a past connection to Oswald it seems unlikely that she could have been mistaken in her identification. However, her prior experience with Oswald consisted if his living with her for less than a week, during which time he was hardly ever around.
Besides her inclination to become dishonest at times, Mrs. Bledsoe had suffered a stroke ( 6 H 404 ) that apparently affected her memory much to the extent that she had to read from notes she had taken. (ibid. pg. 407-408)
She described Oswald getting on the bus: "He looks like a maniac". I didn't look at him. I didn't even want to know I seen him and I just looked off. He looked so bad in his face and his face was so distorted." (ibid., pg. 409)
Had Oswald been behaving so erratically it is unlikely that she would have been the only one to notice it.
One might ask how she could describe his face when she admitted she didn't look at him. She also admitted that from her side-facing seat on the passenger's side, she never faced him and repeated that she never looked at him. (ibid.)
From her position, anyone entering the bus would have been visible from the rear and the left side as they passed in front of her from right to left and walked towards the rear of the bus.
During her testimony, she made bizarre claims that Oswald's wife was Spanish (ibid., pg. 408) and when he got on the bus, all the buttons on his shirt were torn off ( ibid., pg. 410 ).
I counted a conservative 22 times during her testimony where she was asked a question and could not remember.
But she remembered that shirt. Torn buttons and all.
This was another example of a witness whose memory was not good but gave the Commission what it needed -- Oswald on the bus.
The bus transfer
Another piece of phony "evidence" is the bus transfer reportedly recovered on Oswald.
The transfer was supposedly found on Oswald as he was searched waiting for the first lineup to begin at 4:05 pm.
So the police arrested Oswald and didn't search him for almost an hour and a half after his arrest?
It was found by Detective Richard Sims, who took it back up to the office, initialed it and put it in an envelope and left it in a desk of a superior officer whom he could not remember. ( 7 H 173 )
This is chain-of-custody?
It appears more than likely that this item was planted by police to defend the idea that Oswald fled on his own and not with an accomplice.
Why do I call this transfer phony?
Upon examination, we can see that the Commission's transfer has had its bottom half torn off. A comparison with a complete transfer from the same book shows that the bottom half contained the times for the driver to punch.
As you can see, these times were printed in 15 minute intervals, where the driver would punch the hour on the left column and the minutes on the right.
McWatters testified that the only two transfers he gave out that day on that run were pre-punched for 1 pm.
But the Commission's transfer while showing the time of 1 o'clock has no punch on it.
Why not?
Because the transfer currently in evidence is NOT one of the transfers that McWatters gave out.
Just because he identified the two punches on the transfer as coming from his punch, that doesn't mean that he punched them.
McWatters testified that he was stopped by police downtown:
"Well, they told me that they had a transfer that I had issued that was cut for Lamar St at 1 o'clock and wanted to know if I knew anything about it." (2 H 268)
The Dallas Police could not have gotten the time and place the transfer was punched from the transfer itself. That information is not on the transfer.
The Commission found that out when they questioned McWatters:
MR BALL. If this transfer was issued around the Lamar area or St.Paul--Elm area, is there any place where you could punch and show that particular location?
MR. McWATTERS. No, sir.(2 H 291)
So how could the Dallas Police know where and when the transfer was punched?
They couldn't. Unless there was previous contact between McWatters and police and McWatters told them about it.
On March 30, 1964, the FBI interviewed the teenager on the bus, Roy Milton Jones, to see if he could identify Oswald as the man on the bus. He could not.
But during that interview, Jones told the FBI that "a policeman notified the driver that the President had been shot and he told the driver no one was to leave the bus until police officers had talked to each passenger."
He went on to say that, "he estimated there were about fifteen people on the bus at this time and two police officers boarded the bus and checked each passenger to see if they were carrying any firearms."
And finally, that "the bus was held up by the police officers for about one hour."
Not surprizingly, neither McWatters, Mrs. Bledsoe, nor young Jones were ever asked any questions regarding the events that transpired during the hour that the Dallas Police were on the bus.
For example, what were the names of the two police officers who boarded the bus?
If police were looking for a weapon, normal procedure would have been to force all the passengers to evacuate the bus while the police conducted a search of it.
Was this done?
Was McWatters on board while the search was going on or was he outside the bus?
During this search, did the police have access to the transfer book and the punch?
Did McWatters tell them that he had just dropped off a man and given him a transfer?
McWatters testified that he only gave out two transfers to passengers on that run. But did he give police a "sample" of one of his transfers with his punch mark for comparison in case they encountered the man who left the bus?
I know if I were that cop and I was searching busses, I'd want a sample of that transfer in case I ran into that guy.
If he did give them a sample, what time did he punch it for?
Did they search each individual passenger and who searched the women?
These are questions the Commission didn't ask.
On March 10, 1964 the FBI went looking for Cecil McWatters' transfer book. Mr. F.F. Yates, Superintendent of the Dallas Transit System reported that "after checking his records, he was unable to find any record of the transfer books that were issued to driver Cecil McWatters on November 22, 1963." (CD 897, pg. 175)
What a surprise.
Conclusion
This is the Commission's evidence that Oswald boarded a bus after leaving the Texas School Book Depository.
A bus driver who couldn't identify him.
A teenager who couldn't identify him.
A woman who whose memory was damaged so badly from a previous stroke that she had to read from a script. She couldn't remember what she had for breakfast.
She claimed Oswald's wife was Spanish.
She claimed all the buttons on his shirt were torn off.
She claimed his face was distorted.
Poor thing, the only thing distorted was her memory.
This was a witness who obviously had suffered brain damage.
And there's the bus transfer that is not stamped at 1 o'clock and has the bottom half torn off, taken from a book that vanished into thin air.
This is the foundation of the Commission's conclusion that Oswald boarded a bus to escape the scene of the assassination.
It's nonsense.
I believe that this bus transfer (CE 381-A) was most certainly planted by police to bolster the idea that Oswald rode the bus in order to dissuade the idea that he left the Texas School Book Depository by other means.
by Gil Jesus (2021)
"During police interrogation after his arrest, Oswald admitted to riding both bus and taxi in returning to his roominghouse after the assassination of the President." (Report, pg. 648)
Not surprisingly, this statement in the Report offers no reference or footnote to support its claim. It's conclusion is based on the testimony of Dallas Homicide Captain Will Fritz.
From the police lineups to Oswald's refusing legal counsel to what Oswald said during his interrogation, Fritz lied repeatedly under oath.
In this instance, Fritz claimed that Oswald first told him that he took busses and walked to get home. (4 H 223)
Then he claimed that Oswald changed his story and admitted taking a cab when Fritz asked him about it. (ibid.)
Finally, Fritz got the cost of the taxi ride wrong. (ibid.) A mistake Oswald could not have made.
Not having a stenographer or a tape recorder present during questioning gave the Dallas Police an enormous advantage in claiming that Oswald said things which he did not say.
All they had to do is get everybody present to agree.
It also gave them an opportunity to "rough" Oswald up with no evidence that they did so.
The Commission inferred that Oswald used the bus and then a taxi to facilitate his "escape" from the Texas School Book Depository in order to avoid apprehension for assassinating President Kennedy.
But perhaps Oswald's "escape" was anything but.
Escape?
James Jarman worked at the Texas School Book Depository as a "checker", a person who checked the orders for accuracy. Oswald was a "filler", one who filled the orders and then they went to Jarman to be checked to make sure they were right.
As a co-worker of Oswald, Jarman was called to give testimony. During that testimony, Jarman said that at lunch time Oswald would "sometimes go out of the building. One time in particular I know he went out, but he didn't buy any lunch." (3 H 200)
Jarman's testimony reveals that Oswald's leaving the building at lunchtime was nothing out of the ordinary. And his leaving the building at lunchtime is consistent with his past habit of leaving the building when he worked at the William B. Reilly Company in New Orleans (11 H 474).
Although leaving the building may prove that he was looking for an excuse to get out of work, it isn't proof that he was fleeing a murder scene.
On November 25, 1963, a memo form then Assistant Attorney Nicholas Katzenbach outlined the Commission's mandate:
"The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the sole assassin, that he did not have confederates who are still at large, and the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial." (FBI 62-109060 JFK HQ file, Sec. 18 pg. 29)
In spite of solid evidence that said that Oswald had been picked up by someone in a car, the Commission adopted this scenario of Oswald fleeing by bus and taxi because its agenda called for a scenario of Oswald and Oswald alone.
He could not have "confederates who are still at large".
In fact, as we get into the Commission's scenario, it becomes more evident that this was not only not an escape, but it wasn't Oswald in either the bus or the taxi.
The Bus Ride
According to the Commission, there were two busses that serviced Oak Cliff. The Marsalis bus and the Beckley bus.(Report, pg. 161)
The Commission noted that the Beckley bus would have dropped him right across the street from his roominghouse. But instead of waiting for that bus, it concluded that he chose the first bus to Oak Cliff, the Marsalis Bus, which would have dropped him off seven blocks from his destination. (ibid.)
The Commission never explained why he did this.
That Marsalis bus was driven by Cecil McWatters, a bus driver with the Dallas Transit Company who had nearly 19 years in the company. On November 22, 1963 his route was from the Lakewood section of Dallas to Oak Cliff. (2 H 262)
McWatters' bus was stuck in traffic when a man knocked on the door and entered it. The man stayed on the bus for approximately two blocks and then asked for a transfer and got off.
That man, the Commission said, was Lee Harvey Oswald.
At about 6:30 pm on the day of the assassination, McWatters viewed four men in a police lineup. He picked Oswald from the lineup as the man who had boarded the bus at the "lower end of town around Elm and Houston" and who, on the ride south on Marsalis, had an argument with a woman passenger. (Report, pg. 159)
Of course this is not true, McWatters never identified Oswald, he only said that Oswald was about the same height and weight as the man who boarded the bus.
McWatters viewed the same lineup ( Lineup # 2 ) as Ted Callaway and Sam Guinyard, Oswald with 3 police employees:
Mr. BALL. You didn't--as I understand it, when you were at the police lineup, you told us that you didn't--weren't able to identify this man in the lineup as the man who got off, that you gave the transfer to.
Mr. McWATTERS. I told them to the best of my knowledge, I said the man that I picked out was the same height, about the same height, weight and description. But as far as actually saying that is the man I couldn't--
Mr. BALL. You couldn't do it?
Mr. McWATTERS. I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't do it now.
(2 H 279)
The absurdity of this man being Oswald can't be emphasized enough. Even in the ridiculous official version, Oswald was not on the bus while it travelled south on Marsalis.
In the end, the man McWatters described was identified as teenager Milton Jones, who admitted having an argument with a female passenger. (CE 2641, 25 H 899)
When Jones was interviewed, he could not identify Oswald as the man who got on the bus. But his description of the man's clothing indicates either the man was not Oswald or Oswald changed his clothes when he got to his room. (25 H 900)
But the Commission was never deterred by witnesses who could not or would not tell them what they wanted to hear. They wanted Oswald on that bus and they needed only one witness to put him there.
The scripted witness
Mary Bledsoe was a divorcee who rented rooms on North Marsalis. She rented a room to Oswald in October, 1963. Oswald paid her $7 for a full week, but she refused to rent to him for a second week because she didn't like him. She threw him out after only five days and he asked for two dollars back for the last two days. She told him that she "didn't have it" and never refunded his money.
This was one of the Commission's star witnesses.
"Mrs. Bledsoe identified the shirt as the one Oswald was wearing and she stated that she was certain it was Oswald who boarded the bus." (Report, pg. 159)
Seeing as she had a past connection to Oswald it seems unlikely that she could have been mistaken in her identification. However, her prior experience with Oswald consisted if his living with her for less than a week, during which time he was hardly ever around.
Besides her inclination to become dishonest at times, Mrs. Bledsoe had suffered a stroke ( 6 H 404 ) that apparently affected her memory much to the extent that she had to read from notes she had taken. (ibid. pg. 407-408)
She described Oswald getting on the bus: "He looks like a maniac". I didn't look at him. I didn't even want to know I seen him and I just looked off. He looked so bad in his face and his face was so distorted." (ibid., pg. 409)
Had Oswald been behaving so erratically it is unlikely that she would have been the only one to notice it.
One might ask how she could describe his face when she admitted she didn't look at him. She also admitted that from her side-facing seat on the passenger's side, she never faced him and repeated that she never looked at him. (ibid.)
From her position, anyone entering the bus would have been visible from the rear and the left side as they passed in front of her from right to left and walked towards the rear of the bus.
During her testimony, she made bizarre claims that Oswald's wife was Spanish (ibid., pg. 408) and when he got on the bus, all the buttons on his shirt were torn off ( ibid., pg. 410 ).
I counted a conservative 22 times during her testimony where she was asked a question and could not remember.
But she remembered that shirt. Torn buttons and all.
This was another example of a witness whose memory was not good but gave the Commission what it needed -- Oswald on the bus.
The bus transfer
Another piece of phony "evidence" is the bus transfer reportedly recovered on Oswald.
The transfer was supposedly found on Oswald as he was searched waiting for the first lineup to begin at 4:05 pm.
So the police arrested Oswald and didn't search him for almost an hour and a half after his arrest?
It was found by Detective Richard Sims, who took it back up to the office, initialed it and put it in an envelope and left it in a desk of a superior officer whom he could not remember. ( 7 H 173 )
This is chain-of-custody?
It appears more than likely that this item was planted by police to defend the idea that Oswald fled on his own and not with an accomplice.
Why do I call this transfer phony?
Upon examination, we can see that the Commission's transfer has had its bottom half torn off. A comparison with a complete transfer from the same book shows that the bottom half contained the times for the driver to punch.
As you can see, these times were printed in 15 minute intervals, where the driver would punch the hour on the left column and the minutes on the right.
McWatters testified that the only two transfers he gave out that day on that run were pre-punched for 1 pm.
But the Commission's transfer while showing the time of 1 o'clock has no punch on it.
Why not?
Because the transfer currently in evidence is NOT one of the transfers that McWatters gave out.
Just because he identified the two punches on the transfer as coming from his punch, that doesn't mean that he punched them.
McWatters testified that he was stopped by police downtown:
"Well, they told me that they had a transfer that I had issued that was cut for Lamar St at 1 o'clock and wanted to know if I knew anything about it." (2 H 268)
The Dallas Police could not have gotten the time and place the transfer was punched from the transfer itself. That information is not on the transfer.
The Commission found that out when they questioned McWatters:
MR BALL. If this transfer was issued around the Lamar area or St.Paul--Elm area, is there any place where you could punch and show that particular location?
MR. McWATTERS. No, sir.(2 H 291)
So how could the Dallas Police know where and when the transfer was punched?
They couldn't. Unless there was previous contact between McWatters and police and McWatters told them about it.
On March 30, 1964, the FBI interviewed the teenager on the bus, Roy Milton Jones, to see if he could identify Oswald as the man on the bus. He could not.
But during that interview, Jones told the FBI that "a policeman notified the driver that the President had been shot and he told the driver no one was to leave the bus until police officers had talked to each passenger."
He went on to say that, "he estimated there were about fifteen people on the bus at this time and two police officers boarded the bus and checked each passenger to see if they were carrying any firearms."
And finally, that "the bus was held up by the police officers for about one hour."
Not surprizingly, neither McWatters, Mrs. Bledsoe, nor young Jones were ever asked any questions regarding the events that transpired during the hour that the Dallas Police were on the bus.
For example, what were the names of the two police officers who boarded the bus?
If police were looking for a weapon, normal procedure would have been to force all the passengers to evacuate the bus while the police conducted a search of it.
Was this done?
Was McWatters on board while the search was going on or was he outside the bus?
During this search, did the police have access to the transfer book and the punch?
Did McWatters tell them that he had just dropped off a man and given him a transfer?
McWatters testified that he only gave out two transfers to passengers on that run. But did he give police a "sample" of one of his transfers with his punch mark for comparison in case they encountered the man who left the bus?
I know if I were that cop and I was searching busses, I'd want a sample of that transfer in case I ran into that guy.
If he did give them a sample, what time did he punch it for?
Did they search each individual passenger and who searched the women?
These are questions the Commission didn't ask.
On March 10, 1964 the FBI went looking for Cecil McWatters' transfer book. Mr. F.F. Yates, Superintendent of the Dallas Transit System reported that "after checking his records, he was unable to find any record of the transfer books that were issued to driver Cecil McWatters on November 22, 1963." (CD 897, pg. 175)
What a surprise.
Conclusion
This is the Commission's evidence that Oswald boarded a bus after leaving the Texas School Book Depository.
A bus driver who couldn't identify him.
A teenager who couldn't identify him.
A woman who whose memory was damaged so badly from a previous stroke that she had to read from a script. She couldn't remember what she had for breakfast.
She claimed Oswald's wife was Spanish.
She claimed all the buttons on his shirt were torn off.
She claimed his face was distorted.
Poor thing, the only thing distorted was her memory.
This was a witness who obviously had suffered brain damage.
And there's the bus transfer that is not stamped at 1 o'clock and has the bottom half torn off, taken from a book that vanished into thin air.
This is the foundation of the Commission's conclusion that Oswald boarded a bus to escape the scene of the assassination.
It's nonsense.
I believe that this bus transfer (CE 381-A) was most certainly planted by police to bolster the idea that Oswald rode the bus in order to dissuade the idea that he left the Texas School Book Depository by other means.