The Oak Cliff Payphone

[Gerry Down]

At 1 hour and 15 minutes in on this video (the 1993 PBS documentary):

https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-who-was-lee-harvey-oswald/

The PBS doc says that LHO used make calls from a payphone across the street from the 1026 north Beckley rooming house. The documentary distinguishes between this payphone and the phone inside the rooming house itself (which it says Ruth Paine called to try to get through to Oswald).

This payphone is never mentioned in JFK research. Who was the source for the PBS documentary that said LHO used make calls from this payphone? I've never heard any eyewitness say there was even such a payphone there, let alone that Oswald used make calls from it.

[Charles Collins]

At 1 hour and 15 minutes in on this video (the 1993 PBS documentary):

https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-who-was-lee-harvey-oswald/

The PBS doc says that LHO used make calls from a payphone across the street from the 1026 north Beckley rooming house. The documentary distinguishes between this payphone and the phone inside the rooming house itself (which it says Ruth Paine called to try to get through to Oswald).

This payphone is never mentioned in JFK research. Who was the source for the PBS documentary that said LHO used make calls from this payphone? I've never heard any eyewitness say there was even such a payphone there, let alone that Oswald used make calls from it.

LHO was very frugal. If he used a pay phone right across the street from one that he could use for free, then it was most likely because the one in the rooming house was busy and he didn’t want to wait for it to be freed up. Or he wanted more privacy than he could get at the phone in the rooming house.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

LHO was very frugal. If he used a pay phone right across the street from one that he could use for free, then it was most likely because the one in the rooming house was busy and he didn’t want to wait for it to be freed up. Or he wanted more privacy than he could get at the phone in the rooming house.

The phone in the rooming house was reportedly a "communal pay phone" and not a free one. I've never heard of a pay phone in a private residence but apparently they had one there. There were 17 residents in that house/home so I imagine it was often difficult to use the phone.

From Bugliosi/"Reclaiming History."

"But in a telephone conversation, Mrs. [Kaye] Puckett told me that none of the seventeen tenants of the rooming house in 1963 had their own phone. She said they all shared "one communal pay phone on the wall in the hall back near the kitchen, and with all of them having only this one phone, it was in use a lot."

Puckett ran the place that "her family has owned since 1939, and was married with three children and living at the rooming house in 1963."

And: "Mrs. Johnson recalled that he [Oswald] arrived home about half-past five every afternoon and made a phone call in a foreign language, switching to English if anyone came near enough to the pay phone on the wall to overhear him."

So it makes sense that if Oswald wanted to make a call and not be overheard he would go to another phone. Since he had to pay for the use of the phone in the house it didn't matter if he had to pay for another one.
 

[Charles Collins]

The phone in the rooming house was reportedly a "communal pay phone" and not a free one. I've never heard of a pay phone in a private residence but apparently they had one there. There were 17 residents in that house/home so I imagine it was often difficult to use the phone.

From Bugliosi/"Reclaiming History."

"But in a telephone conversation, Mrs. [Kaye] Puckett told me that none of the seventeen tenants of the rooming house in 1963 had their own phone. She said they all shared "one communal pay phone on the wall in the hall back near the kitchen, and with all of them having only this one phone, it was in use a lot."

Puckett ran the place that "her family has owned since 1939, and was married with three children and living at the rooming house in 1963."

And: "Mrs. Johnson recalled that he [Oswald] arrived home about half-past five every afternoon and made a phone call in a foreign language, switching to English if anyone came near enough to the pay phone on the wall to overhear him."

So it makes sense that if Oswald wanted to make a call and not be overheard he would go to another phone. Since he had to pay for the use of the phone in the house it didn't matter if he had to pay for another one.

Thanks for the correction. It makes sense to me that it was a pay phone. That would eliminate some of the issues that would be likely with a free one.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Thanks for the correction. It makes sense to me that it was a pay phone. That would eliminate some of the issues that would be likely with a free one.

I can imagine the owners/landlord wouldn't want the renters to be able to make free calls all day. Not worry about paying for them.

Marina said that Oswald was worried that the landlady would find out that he had lived in the USSR. And that the FBI might find out where he lived. So it's understandable that he would switch to English to try and hide that fact.

From "Marina and Lee". This is after Marina asked Ruth to phone the rooming house so she could talk to Oswald. Ruth did but when she asked to talk to a Lee Oswald she was told no one by that name lived there. Oswald would be oddly (to me) furious with Marina over the call. He thought it would get him "into trouble."

Here's the account:
"The next day, Monday, November 18, Lee called as usual at lunchtime. "We phoned you last evening", Marina said, "Where were you?"
"I was at home watching TV. Nobody called me to the phone. What name did she ask for me by?"
Marina told him. There was a long silence at the other end. "Oh, damn. I don't live there under my real name."
"Why not? Marina asked.
Lee said he did not want his landlady to know he had lived in Russia.
"It's none of her business," Marina retorted.
"You don't understand a thing," Lee said. "I don't want the FBI to know where I live, either....You and your long tongue," he said; "they always get us into trouble."

[Bill Chapman]

Doesn't look like a pay phone to me


From a Beckley house tour

I didn't see any pictures of a phone on the wall yet

[Gerry Down]

Nice carpet. I'd say Oswalds DNA could still be vacuumed out of it.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Doesn't look like a pay phone to me


From a Beckley house tour

Pucket: They had "One communal pay phone on the wall in the hall back near the kitchen."

I imagine they had more than one phone? And that the owners had a personal/private one and another separate one for the renters/residents.