So! It turns out the first officer to see the famous paper bag was none other than Officer Marrion L. Baker. He saw it not on the sixth floor but in the hands of some civilian
(perhaps Mr. Bill Shelley) who, having witnessed Mr. Oswald's political stunt and having seen Mr. Oswald leave the steps and throw the long package behind the two mailboxes in front of the Depository, had just retrieved it from behind those mailboxes and was holding it up.
Mr. Oswald had brought the flag outside wrapped in a long bag made out of TSBD wrapping paper. Having taken up his position in the doorway, he furtively took the flag out of the bag in time to have it ready to wave at Pres. Kennedy. After making this political gesture, he rolled the flag up again around its makeshift curtain-rod flagstaff and put it back in the bag. Then he left the steps and disposed of the bag as described above.
Mr. Oswald had not come into work that morning with that bag, which he only needed for concealment purposes
after attaching the flagstaff to the flag (an action performed at some point while in the Depository that morning). He had come into work with the
smaller bag described by Mr. Buell Wesley Frazier, containing either 'dissassembled' flag (i.e. flag + not-yet-attached extendable curtain rod/s) or just the two curtain rods (the flag having already been sourced elsewhere and hidden somewhere in the Depository). However, he
was seen with the longer bag by at least one person later that day:
Mr. BALL - Did you ever see Lee Oswald carry any sort of large package?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - Well, I didn't, but some of the fellows said they did.
Mr. BALL - Who said that?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - Well, Bill Shelley, he told me that he thought he saw him carrying a fairly good-sized package.
Mr. BALL - When did Shelley tell you that?
Mr. DOUGHERTY - Well, it was--the day after it happened.The 'investigating' authorities knew full well the true circumstances of the long paper bag's discovery, as well as what had been in it, but they naturally took the decision to exploit the long paper bag (fingerprints, yum yum) as the bag Mr. Oswald had supposedly used to bring a
rifle into work with that morning.
As for what Officer Baker did after running up to the man holding the long paper bag? Well, it's safe to say that thereby hangs a tale very different to the one he and Mr. Truly told the Warren Commission..................