A hole in Bledsoe's story?

[John Iacoletti]

Where I find the JFKA debate ultimately tedious and boring is that the majority of CTers uncritically accept and parrot factoids as though they were facts.  Factoid Busting is fun in small doses just for mental exercise since I did spend my entire professional life busting fallacious legal arguments, but Conspiracy World is almost nothing but a near-impenetrable forest of factoids.

Have you ever seen Rankin's outline? I'm betting you haven't because it's damn hard to find.

Rankin's January 11, 1964 "Memorandum for Members of the Commission" was just a short cover memo to which was attached a "Progress Report" that Warren had asked him to prepare, to wit:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files%20Original/W%20Disk/Warren%20Commission/File/Item%2003.pdf.

The Progress Report referred to a "Tentative Outline of the Work of the President's Commission" that was attached as Appendix C. The description of the outline in the Progress Report, alas, does not match any version of the Tentative Outline that I've been able to find. For example, the PR says the TO includes a section on "Oswald's Foreign Activity (Military Excluded)," which the versions I have seen do not. Such a section could obviously encompass possible conspiratorial contacts by Oswald.

I hate to burst your "factoid-busting" bubble, but you didn't look very hard.  The tentative outline from the January 11 memo is in the same folder.

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Meagher%20Sylvia%20Folders/Warren%20Commission%20Working%20Papers%20Memos%20Lists/WC%20Papers%2006.pdf

This doesn't quite fit your preferred narrative, does it?

Not sure what you think my "preferred narrative" is.

(The partial TO and Redlich's memo can be found as Appendices A and C of Howard Roffman's conspiracy-oriented Presumed Guilty, https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/PG/PG.pdf.)

And so was the outline that you claimed was "damn hard to find".  So it's not clear what you think you're "busting" here.  It's exactly as I stated: an outline was presented before the WC called their very first witness that indicated that Oswald was the assassin.

Did the WC operate on the presumption Oswald was guilty? Well, yeah - duh.

The exact definition of a predetermined conclusion.  Glad to see you on board.

By January of 1964, there was a mountain of evidence that he was.

LOL.

[Zeon Mason]

Since Charles posted some WC testimony from
Bledsoe and her affidavit not taken
Until the next day of Nov/23/63 then she is not  the initial cause to investigate Oswafd taking
a bus.

And McWatters never came forward until he was sought out by the investigators. So he is not the initial cause either, be investigating bus drivers.

Markams affidavit was on the same day and probably Fritz was aware of her 1:06 time sighting Oswald before he even had started his 3::15 interview of Oswald.

Whaley, Earlene Roberts , Bledsoe ,  Bowley, Burroughs , and Davis have not yet given a signed affidavit on Nov/22/63. So their times are probably not yet known by Fritz.

Therefore the initial construction of a time line would be limited to Markams 1:06 sighting and the fact Oswald managed to not get trapped in the TSBD building when Officer Barnett locked the front entrance as early as 12:33 by his own estimate.

So with only a time of departure for Oswald leaving TSBD at 12:33 and a 1:06 time of sighting of Oswald by Markam at 10th/Patton, and then arresting Oswald at approx 1:40, the timeline is very incomplete at the time  of the 3:15 interrogation of Oswald by Fritz.

So why would Will Fritz at 3:15 write in his very early scribbles a note about a bus ride?

What are the possible causes to start searching out bus drivers and bus times?
Options:
1. Oswald told Fritz about taking a bus home.
2. A ticket was found in Oswald’s shirt that he was wearing at time of his arrest.
3. A ticket was found in a shirt found at Oswald’s boarding room.

4. If none of the above then for some reason Fritz just wrote a note about a bus ride and sent off officers to search out bus drivers operating a bus in the vicinity of  TSBD on the day of Nov/22/63. And then a ticket was taken from McWatters pre punched roll of tickets to be used as evidence that Oswald was on a bus approx 12:40-12:43pm.

No.4 makes no sense whatsoever imo, because of the limited knowledge that Fritz had of just the 1:06 time of Markam and possibly a DOA 1:15 time from the hospital for Tippit.

Fritz just having an idea to scribble a note that Oswald took a bus  and then Fritz initiating an investigation to find a bus driver and taking a ticket to use as evidence of Oswald on a bus at 12:43, makes it MORE difficult to reconcile with Markams sighting of Oswald at 1:06pm.

Somehow that seems to me to be an necessary act by Fritz especially if he is following the Hoover memo and had a call from LBJ that “Oswald is our man” Why would Fritz risk introducing complications early on day one by searching out bus drivers and finding a ticket from a pre punched roll and then claiming it was found in Oswald shirt, all of which would be severely compromising an early known witness (Markam ) affidavit of seeing Oswald at 1:06 shooting Tippit?

[Lance Payette]

I hate to burst your "factoid-busting" bubble, but you didn't look very hard.  The tentative outline from the January 11 memo is in the same folder.

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Meagher%20Sylvia%20Folders/Warren%20Commission%20Working%20Papers%20Memos%20Lists/WC%20Papers%2006.pdf

Doesn't burst my bubble or bub my burstle, I'm happy to have it. That version seems considerably longer than any I found, which is interesting, but I'm happy to have it.

Not sure what you think my "preferred narrative" is.

You were clearly implying that a section entitled "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy" showed the WC was a stacked deck. You conveniently ignored - or had never seen - the portion within that very section making clear that the WC considered "Evidence Implicating Others in the Assassination or Suggesting Accomplices."

And so was the outline that you claimed was "damn hard to find".  So it's not clear what you think you're "busting" here.  It's exactly as I stated: an outline was presented before the WC called their very first witness that indicated that Oswald was the assassin.

The exact definition of a predetermined conclusion.  Glad to see you on board.

LOL.

This is simply silly. By the time Rankin wrote his outline, there was indeed a mountain of evidence and had been a mountain of very public discussion focused on Oswald. You putting "LOL" every time you can't deal with an issue, as you do with JM as well, doesn't alter this fact.

OBVIOUSLY, any investigation was going to start with Oswald, not a blank slate. The starting point was "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy" - not, as you might have preferred "Gee, We Wonder Who Killed President Kennedy?" Rankin's terminology certainly wouldn't have precluded a determination that Oswald wasn't the assassin or wasn't the lone assassin if this was in fact where the investigation had led.

To quote myself - the highest form of flattery - I believe this the key point: CTers insist on living in some wacky fantasy world whereby the WC should have proceeded as though it were dealing with a blank slate (Oswald, who's Oswald?), Oswald was treated as a criminal defendant who was presumed innocent, the Rules of Criminal Procedure and Evidence should apply, every witness should be intensely cross-examined, and all inferences should be drawn in favor of Oswald's innocence and the existence of a conspiracy. It's just goofy.

But thanks for the complete outline.

[John Iacoletti]

You were clearly implying that a section entitled "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy" showed the WC was a stacked deck. You conveniently ignored - or had never seen - the portion within that very section making clear that the WC considered "Evidence Implicating Others in the Assassination or Suggesting Accomplices."

I'm not sure how that changes the point that "Oswald did it" was a predetermined conclusion before the WC "investigation" ever began.

This is simply silly. By the time Rankin wrote his outline, there was indeed a mountain of evidence and had been a mountain of very public discussion focused on Oswald. You putting "LOL" every time you can't deal with an issue, as you do with JM as well, doesn't alter this fact.

"Fact".  LOL.  To this day, you and your fellow parishioners have yet to come up with anything remotely resembling a "mountain of evidence".  Yeah, I know, he left his wedding ring behind.   

[Martin Weidmann]

Doesn't burst my bubble or bub my burstle, I'm happy to have it. That version seems considerably longer than any I found, which is interesting, but I'm happy to have it.

You were clearly implying that a section entitled "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy" showed the WC was a stacked deck. You conveniently ignored - or had never seen - the portion within that very section making clear that the WC considered "Evidence Implicating Others in the Assassination or Suggesting Accomplices."

This is simply silly. By the time Rankin wrote his outline, there was indeed a mountain of evidence and had been a mountain of very public discussion focused on Oswald. You putting "LOL" every time you can't deal with an issue, as you do with JM as well, doesn't alter this fact.

OBVIOUSLY, any investigation was going to start with Oswald, not a blank slate. The starting point was "Lee Harvey Oswald as the Assassin of President Kennedy" - not, as you might have preferred "Gee, We Wonder Who Killed President Kennedy?" Rankin's terminology certainly wouldn't have precluded a determination that Oswald wasn't the assassin or wasn't the lone assassin if this was in fact where the investigation had led.

To quote myself - the highest form of flattery - I believe this the key point: CTers insist on living in some wacky fantasy world whereby the WC should have proceeded as though it were dealing with a blank slate (Oswald, who's Oswald?), Oswald was treated as a criminal defendant who was presumed innocent, the Rules of Criminal Procedure and Evidence should apply, every witness should be intensely cross-examined, and all inferences should be drawn in favor of Oswald's innocence and the existence of a conspiracy. It's just goofy.

But thanks for the complete outline.

OBVIOUSLY, any investigation was going to start with Oswald, not a blank slate.

You just destroyed any notion of the WC conducting a proper investigation. But you are right, in this case "Oswald did it" was the starting point and then they started looking for the evidence to support that claim.

A normal investigation collects evidence and eliminates suspects based on the information obtained. And, it frequently happens that the person who the investigators considered to be their main suspect at the outset turned out not to the killer after all!