Lack Of Damage To CE-399

[Andrew Mason]

Mr. BALL. I have a jacket, I would like to show you, which is Commission Exhibit No. 162. Does this look anything like the jacket that the man had on that was going across your lawn?
Mrs. [Barbara] DAVIS. No, sir.
Mr. BALL. How is it different?
Mrs. DAVIS. Well, it was dark and to me it looked like it was maybe a wool fabric, it looked sort of rough. Like more of a sporting jacket.

Were there any other witnesses who said he had a dark jacket?  I notice that her sister, Virginia Davis, who was standing with her said that the man who had the gun had a "light brown tan jacket" (6 H 457).  Others gave similar descriptions.   You can have outliers in any group but they are rarely corroborated.  Minds can play tricks but they rarely play the same tricks on more than one person.

Frank Wright interview:

"I looked around to see what had happened. I knew there had been a shooting. I saw a man standing right in front of the car. He was looking toward the man on the ground. He stood there for a while and looked at the man. The man who was standing in front of him was about medium height. He had on a long coat. It ended just above his hands." 

He defines "long coat" as a coat that ends just above the hands.  The waist is just above the hands.  So this was a possibly slightly longer than waist length jacket.

[Walt Cakebread]

Marina said that she took one photo with a black camera that you hold up to your face.  Then she changed that to two photos.

If one wants to claim that a certain camera took a certain photo, I think one does. Or if an examination of an enlargement of a purported area of said negative is conducted without having the negative to validate it.

The microfilm itself is missing too.  So we're left with having to take somebody's word for it that the copies reflect what was actually on the film and that the film reflects the original documents.

So we're left with having to take somebody's word for it that the now destroyed prints were those of a particular person.

Mr. BALL. I have a jacket, I would like to show you, which is Commission Exhibit No. 162. Does this look anything like the jacket that the man had on that was going across your lawn?
Mrs. [Barbara] DAVIS. No, sir.
Mr. BALL. How is it different?
Mrs. DAVIS. Well, it was dark and to me it looked like it was maybe a wool fabric, it looked sort of rough. Like more of a sporting jacket.


Frank Wright interview:

"I looked around to see what had happened. I knew there had been a shooting. I saw a man standing right in front of the car. He was looking toward the man on the ground. He stood there for a while and looked at the man. The man who was standing in front of him was about medium height. He had on a long coat. It ended just above his hands." 

Marrs, Crossfire,
Summers, The Kennedy Conspiracy

Marina said that she took one photo with a black camera that you hold up to your face.  Then she changed that to two photos.

This is true .....Marina did tell the cover up committee that she took CE 133A and CE 133B BUT....  I don't believe she did...I do believe she took CE 133A...But she did NOT take CE 133B and most definitely did not take 133c

When she testified before the cover up committee she told the attorney that she had taken only one B.Y. photo. The attorney then displayed CE 133A and she acknowledged that she had taken that photo at Lee's request.     Then the attorney showed her CE 133B ...and she was puzzled because she could see that it was different than CE 133A..... So in an effort to "be cooperative" she offered an explanation....that perhaps she had taken two photos though she only remember taking one single photo.....She said that she may have inadvertently snapped the shutter twice....  An utterly ridiculous idea, but the attorney never even blinked... Those erudite and venerated men on the commission simply accepted that silly idea as if it was possible.

[Bill Chapman]

Almost sounds like Wright is referring to the jacket sleeves being so long that the cuff end went beyond Oswald's scrawny wrists.

I don't know about scrawny wrists; look at the photo of Oswald in the lineup room in the tshirt. But wasn't the jacket a little over-sized... I think I read that somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if Oswald originally bought the jacket a size or two larger in order to mask his small frame.

As you know, colours in shadow can appear darker, just as they can appear lighter in strong sunlight.

These brainiacs seem to think everybody has identical colour perception.

[Andrew Mason]

This is true .....Marina did tell the cover up committee that she took CE 133A and CE 133B BUT....  I don't believe she did...I do believe she took CE 133A...But she did NOT take CE 133B and most definitely did not take 133c .

There were only two backyard photos. There was no 133c.

[Jerry Freeman]

There were only two backyard photos. There was no 133c.

 
HSCA Exhibit 133-C

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/infojfk/jfk6/6IV36p171.jpg

[Andrew Mason]

 
HSCA Exhibit 133-C

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/infojfk/jfk6/6IV36p171.jpg

Right.  I stand corrected. 133c was not introduced as a WC Exhibit but was discovered in 1977 and given that designation by the HSCA.  It appears to have been seized by the Dallas police but never tendered in evidence to the WC.  Unlike the other two photos (CE133A and CE133B) no negative for this photo was found among Oswald's possessions, which may be the reason they did not try to use it as evidence.

133C appears to have been taken at the same time of day and in the same general location as the other two.  Is the only reason you say Marina definitely didn't take it is because she couldn't remember taking three pictures?   That makes no sense.  She didn't remember taking two pictures, but she said that she obviously did because she was presented with the two pictures.  What makes you think that she would not have said something similar if she had been presented with all three?  It is not as if she said there was someone other than her in the back yard taking pictures.

[Ray Mitcham]

Right.  I stand corrected. 133c was not introduced as a WC Exhibit but was discovered in 1977 and given that designation by the HSCA.  It appears to have been seized by the Dallas police but never tendered in evidence to the WC.  Unlike the other two photos (CE133A and CE133B) no negative for this photo was found among Oswald's possessions, which may be the reason they did not try to use it as evidence.

133C appears to have been taken at the same time of day and in the same general location as the other two.  Is the only reason you say Marina definitely didn't take it is because she couldn't remember taking three pictures?   That makes no sense.  She didn't remember taking two pictures, but she said that she obviously did because she was presented with the two pictures.  What makes you think that she would not have said something similar if she had been presented with all three?  It is not as if she said there was someone other than her in the back yard taking pictures.

Andrew, how would she forget that she held the camera at waist level? The Imperial reflex is operated like a Hasselblad, not like a 35mm eye level camera, and unlike the Hasselblad doessnot have an eye view finder. She said she held it to up her eyes. She should also have remembered that the image in the camera was upside down, which it is in a reflex camera. Both very hard to forget.

[Andrew Mason]

Andrew, how would she forget that she held the camera at waist level?

Are you assuming that this was a moment in time for which every detail would be permanently seared in Marina's memory?   I take pictures with my camera, with cameras belonging to others. I don't necessarily remember what camera I used let alone how many photos I took.   She remembered taking a photo of her husband with his guns and that there was no one else in the backyard taking photos.  When shown that there was more than one photo that appeared to be at a very similar time and in the same location with the same conditions, she agreed that she must have taken more than one.  She still couldn't remember taking more than one but she agreed she did only because the photo was shown to her.  133A is very similar to 133C.  What makes you think she would not have said the same thing if shown 133C?

The Imperial reflex is operated like a Hasselblad, not like a 35mm eye level camera, and unlike the Hasselblad does not have an eye view finder. She said she held it to up her eyes. She should also have remembered that the image in the camera was upside down, which it is in a reflex camera.

Was the image reversed left to right or upside down?  Wikipedia says that TLR cameras with the waist-level finder reversed left and right.  That makes sense, because you are looking at the upside-down reflection from the mirror and the mirror is reflecting the focused image from the viewing lens which is inverted (i.e upside down and reversed left-right)

Both very hard to forget.

But easy to not remember in the first place. Our brain does not store details that are unimportant so that it has room to store the important things. At the time, the detail of where she held the camera was of no importance to her. Why would she remember?  She admitted she took at least one of the photos. They were all taken with the Imperial Reflex 620 camera so it is apparent that she was wrong on thinking it was taken with a camera that had an eye-level viewfinder.