The "Domino Room Alibi"

[Royell Storing]

Where do you theorise that Oswald was when he noticed them John? Sitting next to BRW in the SN? 

    That is exactly why we have people speculating about Oswald knocking around the Domino Room and then turning into Flash Gordon and racing up to the 6th Floor. They have No Way to explain No One being in the sniper's nest when BRW was sitting on that dolly scant feet away.

[Colin Crow]

I was merely pointing out a verified FACT---i.e., that even if LHO had been in or near the Domino Room at approximately 12:25 PM CST on 11/22/63, it would NOT give Oswald an alibi for 12:30 PM when the President was shot.

A related thought....

At another forum a few years ago, an LNer named Bud put a theory on the table that I thought was kind of interesting. It can never be proven, of course, but I thought it was intriguing nevertheless....

Bud's speculation was that Oswald might have gone back downstairs to the first-floor Domino Room shortly before he assassinated the President in order to retrieve the rifle bullets that he had forgotten to take up to the sixth floor earlier in the day. (I think Bud was theorizing that Oswald probably had the bullets in the pocket of his blue coat which was later found in the Domino Room.) Such a quick bullet-retrieving trip could have afforded Oswald the opportunity to see James Jarman and Harold Norman as they entered the building via the loading dock door at the rear of the TSBD. Oswald would have then hustled right back up to the sixth floor after grabbing the bullets. Time elapsed for such an excursion would likely have been less than 3 minutes.

So for this theory to have traction Oswald has to take the NW staircase or the west elevator. Jarman and Norman took the west elevator to the 5th and shut the gates, allowing it to be "called" down. For Oswald to have used this method he would have had to waited for it to go to the 5th, then down again, and back up to the 6th. He then shuts the gates so that it can be used by Dougherty just a few minutes before the shots.......seems doubtful time wise.

This leaves the back stairs and a race across to the SN on the 6th floor. Not anywhere a convincing theory I am afraid.

[Colin Crow]

    That is exactly why we have people speculating about Oswald knocking around the Domino Room and then turning into Flash Gordon and racing up to the 6th Floor. They have No Way to explain No One being in the sniper's nest when BRW was sitting on that dolly scant feet away.

He was never on the dolly Royell. He was in the SN.

Here is the view to the west wall from the SN position when standing on the 22nd........looks a clear view to the wall to me from the dolly position. He didn't notice the guy with a rifle there at 12.15? Maybe he was sitting in the SN..."those boxes" would have prevented him seeing the gunman.



Williams is a proven liar by his own statements.

[Royell Storing]

He was never on the dolly Royell. He was in the SN.

Here is the view to the west wall from the SN position when standing on the 22nd........looks a clear view to the wall to me from the dolly position. He didn't notice the guy with a rifle there at 12.15? Maybe he was sitting in the SN..."those boxes" would have prevented him seeing the gunman.



Williams is a proven liar by his own statements.

      Why would he bother to fight his way through those boxes in order to get inside the sniper's nest?

[David Von Pein]

     Regarding possible forgotten bullets, where does the Carcano Clip come into this? It would be far easier to already have the bullets in the, "now you see it, now you don't" Carcano Clip.

Yes, I agree with you there. It would make sense for the bullets to already be contained within the rifle clip.

But how about this for yet another (admittedly) wholly speculative LN theory concerning this topic? ....

It's Thursday night (Nov. 21st) in Ruth Paine's garage....

Lee Oswald is busy in the garage preparing his rifle package (aka: the "curtain rod" package) for the next day's trip into work with Buell Frazier....

Oswald seals up the brown paper bag with disassembled Carcano Rifle No. C2766 inside....

After taping down the top end of the package, Oswald then remembers something....

He has forgotten to put the rifle's clip (which contains the four 6.5 mm. bullets) inside the now-sealed brown paper package....

What should he do now? Should he unwrap and unseal the taped package in order to place the clip and bullets inside it (perhaps running the risk of ripping the bag and/or possibly not being able to re-tape the end of the bag adequately enough to ensure that it stays sealed during the entire ride to the TSBD the next morning in Frazier's car)? Or should he not disturb the already-sealed bag and just carry the clip (w/bullets) in the pocket of the jacket that he will wear to work the following morning?

Possibly....just possibly....perhaps Oswald decided on the latter option.

Food for (bullet) thought anyway.

[David Von Pein]

So for this theory to have traction Oswald has to take the NW staircase or the west elevator. Jarman and Norman took the west elevator to the 5th and shut the gates, allowing it to be "called" down. For Oswald to have used this method he would have had to waited for it to go to the 5th, then down again, and back up to the 6th. He then shuts the gates so that it can be used by Dougherty just a few minutes before the shots.......seems doubtful time wise.

This leaves the back stairs and a race across to the SN on the 6th floor. Not anywhere a convincing theory I am afraid.

As I said earlier, the total time to do all that would have probably been less than 3 minutes. Maybe even less than that if Oswald moved at a good rapid pace. But, just like with LHO's trip from the 6th floor to the lunchroom after the shooting, to hear a CTer tell it, such a simple journey from the sixth floor to the first floor and back was Mission Impossible.

[Colin Crow]

      Why would he bother to fight his way through those boxes in order to get inside the sniper's nest?

Mr. BALL. What did you sit on while you ate your lunch?
Mr. WILLIAMS. First of all, I remember there was some boxes behind me. I just kind of leaned back on the boxes first. Then I began to get a little impatient, because there wasn't anyone coming up. So I decided to move to a two-wheeler.
Mr. BALL. A two-wheeler truck, you mean?
Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir. I remember sitting on this two-wheeler. By that time, I was through, and I got up and I just left then.
Mr. DULLES. How much of the room could you see as you finished your lunch there? Was your view obstructed by boxes of books, or could you see a good bit of the sixth floor?
Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, at the time I couldn't see too much of the sixth floor, because the books at the time were stacked so high. I could see only in the path that I was standing--as I remember, I could not possibly see anything to the east side of the building. But just one aisle, the aisle I was standing in I could see just about to the west side of the building. So far as seeing to the east and behind me, I could only see down the aisle behind me and the aisle to the west of me.

So why did he not notice the gunman at 12.15 seen in the SW window? Because he was eating in the SN.......where his lunch was originally discovered. And he was noticed by Rowland.

[Martin Weidmann]

At The Education Forum, Lance Payette has made several excellent points regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's so-called "Domino Room Alibi". If you'd like to take a gander, here's the link....

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26009-who-was-mrs-robert-reid/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-406382

As an addendum to Lance's comments on this matter, I'd like to also point out the following fact (which Lance has not mentioned [as yet anyway])....

For the sake of argument, even if all three of the individuals being discussed in the "Domino Room Alibi" discussion (Jarman, Norman, and Oswald) were, in fact, together at the same time in or near the Domino Room on the first floor of the Book Depository Building shortly before JFK was killed on 11/22/63, that fact most certainly does not exonerate Lee Harvey Oswald as President Kennedy's assassin.

Why?

Because we know that two of those three people—James Jarman Jr. and Harold Norman—were present on the south side of the fifth floor of the TSBD at the time of the assassination. They were photographed by Tom Dillard just seconds after the last shot was fired.

Therefore, since we know that Jarman and Norman had the capability of getting from the first-floor Domino Room to an upper floor of the Depository prior to the time when President Kennedy arrived at the corner of Elm and Houston Streets, then why wouldn't Lee Harvey Oswald have possessed that same capability?

Conspiracy theorists would no doubt argue that the above scenario is not very realistic, in that it would be hard to believe that a person who was planning on killing the President would have been located on the first floor (and at the back of the building) at a time when he should have been in his sniper's perch on the sixth floor waiting for the President to arrive in Dealey Plaza.

But there are several "unknown" factors associated with Lee Oswald's pre-assassination actions and mindset that have never been proven or firmly established—such as the "unknown" answers to these three questions:

Where and when did Oswald assemble his rifle (and how long did it take him to do so)?

and...

How long did it take Oswald to construct his "Sniper's Nest" of boxes?

and...

What exactly was Oswald thinking in the hours and minutes leading up to JFK's arrival?

I'm not saying that I think that Oswald was in the Domino Room with Jarman and Norman just a few minutes before the assassination. I don't believe he was. But I am saying that the so-called "Domino Room Alibi", which many conspiracy theorists think is some sort of rock-solid proof of Lee Harvey Oswald's innocence, is really nothing of the kind—even if Oswald had been located in that Domino Room a few minutes before 12:30 PM on November 22, 1963.

For the sake of argument, even if all three of the individuals being discussed in the "Domino Room Alibi" discussion (Jarman, Norman, and Oswald) were, in fact, together at the same time in or near the Domino Room on the first floor of the Book Depository Building shortly before JFK was killed on 11/22/63, that fact most certainly does not exonerate Lee Harvey Oswald as President Kennedy's assassin.

Why?

Because we know that two of those three people—James Jarman Jr. and Harold Norman—were present on the south side of the fifth floor of the TSBD at the time of the assassination. They were photographed by Tom Dillard just seconds after the last shot was fired.

Therefore, since we know that Jarman and Norman had the capability of getting from the first-floor Domino Room to an upper floor of the Depository prior to the time when President Kennedy arrived at the corner of Elm and Houston Streets, then why wouldn't Lee Harvey Oswald have possessed that same capability?

I agree that when Norman and Jarman could make it to the 5th floor, Oswald could indeed have made it to the 6th. But IMO there are two flaws in this reasoning. First of all, we now know that the motorcade was running late. At the time it happened, the shooter wouldn't and couldn't have known that. So, for the shooter to show up on the 6th floor just prior to 12.30 pm seems an unlikely scenario. Even more so as witnesses said that they saw movement in the window from 12.15 pm, which would make a lot more sense as it computes far better with the scheduled time the motorcade was due to pass by the TSBD. It obviously doesn't compute well with a scenario in which Oswald stays in the Domino room until just prior to 12.30 pm