Then went inside with the curtain rods

[Bill Chapman]

Polygraph-testing remains controversial to this day: For example, an honest person may be nervous when answering truthfully and a dishonest person may be non-anxious.

Buell barely had a pulse, FFS
Not one of the most excitable people in town.

[Dan O'meara]

All he would have to say is that he never saw any package.  How would they prove differently?  The Paine house wasn't close enough to the Randle house for Ruth or Marina to have seen him go to Frazier's car anyway (unless they followed him).  It makes no sense in a CYA scenario to admit seeing any package.

So, Oswald shows up with a long package.
Later that day the world hears that he's shot the President.
Ruth and Marina tell the police he left that morning to walk half a block to the Randle house with a long package.
One of the neighbours notices a man putting a long package into a car across the street.
But Frazier tells the police there was no long package.

What would the police think in this scenario?
Might they think BWF was lying?

By shortening the length of the bag BWF can be accused of being 'mistaken', that's not a crime.
But lying about there being no package? That is a crime.
I'm surprised you don't see the difference.

"It makes no sense in a CYA scenario to admit seeing any package."


It makes no sense to risk becoming an accessory to he murder of the President.
Why on earth would it even cross his mind to do such a thing?
I know it's only a proposed scenario but I'm trying to keep it realistic John.
Do you really think there might be a scenario where Frazier decides to take that kind of chance?
I certainly don't.

[Dan O'meara]

Because he told the truth. Because he did nothing wrong.


How does deliberately undersizing the bag that he saw, inventing a story about how the package was carried. and falsely calling the paper flimsier than the paper in CE 142 (in your proposed scenario) constitute telling the truth?

You must excuse me John.
I didn't realise the questions Frazier was asked during his polygraph were public knowledge.
I'm sure I read somewhere that they weren't available but they must be because you are such a stickler for having your details right and you know so much about the case.
Please direct me to the transcript of Frazier's polygraph and I'll most certainly retract that point.

[Dan O'meara]

That one threw me too

Wow,
You knew about the transcript of Frazier's polygraph as well Jerry.
I feel so stupid.
I must take more care in future.

[Martin Weidmann]

You must excuse me John.
I didn't realise the questions Frazier was asked during his polygraph were public knowledge.
I'm sure I read somewhere that they weren't available but they must be because you are such a stickler for having your details right and you know so much about the case.
Please direct me to the transcript of Frazier's polygraph and I'll most certainly retract that point.

We don't need to know the questions Frazier was asked during his polygraph to know what he told them. His affidavit, his testimony, his statements to investigators are all on record and he tells them the same things over and over again. If he had told them something different during his polygraph we would have known it.

But, although there is no transcript (and you know it!), there is an FB 302 report by FBI Vincent Drain, dated 1 December 1963 that details what Oswald told Detectives Lewis and Day about the bag during the polygraph.

And btw, when you ask for a transcript and pretend not to know what Frazier said during the polygraph, how have you been able to determine that he told the truth?

[Colin Crow]

There is no reason I can see for Oswald to take curtain rods with him that day. I can't make any kind of reasonable case to support the assumption he takes them.
He doesn't need them.
He never mentions them to Roberts.
He never mentions them to Paine.
But he does to Frazier.

According to Frazier. Not fact. Linnie May mentioned nothing about them to Adamcik. Adamcik doesn’t even mention their discussion in his report of events that afternoon. Yet the Thursday visit by Oswald to Irving was a hot topic of discussion between brother and sister that afternoon. By Friday morning short term memory loss hits both.

[Dan O'meara]

We don't need to know the questions Frazier was asked during his polygraph to know what he told them. His affidavit, his testimony, his statements to investigators are all on record and he tells them the same things over and over again. If he had told them something different during his polygraph we would have known it.

But, although there is no transcript (and you know it!), there is an FB 302 report by FBI Vincent Drain, dated 1 December 1963 that details what Oswald told Detectives Lewis and Day about the bag during the polygraph.

The only thing Drain's report reveals is that it wasn't a real polygraph test.
Frazier isn't being asked specific questions that he answers 'yes' or 'no' to. He's having a conversation - "it's possible it was this, but it could have been that" type of thing.
A good reason to suppose that there will never be a record found of the polygraph test is because it wasn't real.
I don't know a lot about polygraphs but I'm assuming they don't work by having the person being tested just chat away.
The bottom line is, in the scenario I'm proposing Frazier changes one small detail at the beginning  - the length of the bag.
Everything else he can be completely honest about because he is innocent. He's done nothing wrong.
It's not unimaginable to assume the authorities already think they know what was in the bag. They are 100% certain what was in the bag Oswald brought to work that day.
There only real concern would probably be whether Frazier was involved in some way.
He wasn't.
He really did believe there were curtain rods in the bag. That's the truth.
He really wasn't involved in any way. That's the truth.

And to get back to a point John made earlier.
Imagine Frazier hooked up to a polygraph that he thought was real and thinking he could get away with "There was no long package".

If the authorities think he's mistaken over one detail that's not a crime.
If they think he's lying to them, that's a different ball game.
They obviously believe he is being truthful.

And btw, when you ask for a transcript and pretend not to know what Frazier said during the polygraph, how have you been able to determine that he told the truth?

Because the authorities obviously believed he was being truthful.
And I imagine that belief didn't come easy.
I imagine Frazier was put through the wringer before they were satisfied.
History tells us they were satisfied and did believe he was being truthful.
I imagine if there was the slightest doubt the police would've been all over him because these are men whose specialist subject is whether they are being told the truth or not.
They believed he thought it was curtain rods in the bag.
They believed he had nothing whatsoever to do with the assassination.

[Walt Cakebread]

Because he told the truth. Because he did nothing wrong.


How does deliberately undersizing the bag that he saw, inventing a story about how the package was carried. and falsely calling the paper flimsier than the paper in CE 142 (in your proposed scenario) constitute telling the truth?

The Lie detector test that they gave Frazier was a sham.    A lie detector test under the conditions that they administered the test would have proved nothing.   Frazier was way to nervous and upset.......