But why on earth---------------one might ask----------------did Officer Baker not draw anyone's attention to the banner out on the sidewalk when he came back downstairs with Mr. Truly?
I suspect the answer is that, after Mr. Truly vouched for Mr. Oswald at the small storage room on the first floor, Officer Baker simply failed to further pursue any necessary link between it and the shooting. Not knowing this Oswald fellow's background, he just assumed the banner to have been one of several politically hostile signs seen that day. He gave it no more thought afterwards than the 'Go Home Yankee' and 'You're A Traitor' signs at Love Field and along the parade route. The shots had come from up high in the building, and the deployment of a political banner down on the street was no more than a coincidence. So he forgot about it. (He didn't, however, forget about the man in the light brown jacket he had caught walking away from the rear stairway several floors up: THAT encounter was to be the focus of his affidavit a few hours later.)
Mr. Oswald, for his part, went into this stunt confident he was unlikely to be arrested on the scene for having a political banner. But he knew that what he had done with it would be remembered, and that his own background as a pro-Castro agitator would come to light in the hours after the assassination-----------------by which time he would be well out of Dallas.
Had the JFK-approved 'Conspiracy A' gone to plan, the American public would have been told all about it in breathless press reports.
'President Kennedy narrowly escaped assassination earlier today as his motorcade rode through downtown Dallas. Witnesses say three shots were fired from the upper window of a book warehouse located along the route. A banner bearing the words 'Viva Fidel!' was found on the scene, reportedly left there by an employee of the warehouse, an ex-Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald, who defected to the Soviet Union before returning to the United States, where he has since been active in pro-Castro circles. Oswald is known to have left the scene shortly after the incident, and is currently being sought by Dallas police.'
