Well, how do we know he didn't say that during interrogation? My point here is that if everyone were to adopt your attitude of not believing anything we're told then we can't dismiss the fact that he might have admitted to buying it for himself.
The problem is not that I believe something or not. The problem is that the interrogators failed to document correctly and verbatim what was being said during interrogation. The problem gets subsequently even bigger when individual interrogators write things in their reports that either don't match or even contradict eachother.
Having said that, the interrogators told us that Oswald denied owning a rifle. Now, unless you can tell me how somebody who denies owning a rifle can admit to buying a rifle for himself, it is not unreasonable to assume that Oswald never admitted to buying the rifle.
As absurd as it may be, there's as much evidence suggesting Oswald admitted this during interrogation than there is evidence that he purchased the rifle for someone else, yet you're willing to dismiss this without questioning the lack of evidence. You can't just pick whatever unproven aspects of the Warren Commission you choose to believe to suit your theory.
I agree that there is no evidence for either, but I disagree that I am willing to dismiss either option, because I am not. What I find amazing is that you seem to agree with me that the Warren Commission failed to prove that Oswald bought the rifle for himself, when there were two other possibilities they never even looked at. They just assumed Oswald bought the rifle for himself and presented it as fact. Now, please tell me why I can't choose to believe one thing, which you reject, but the WC can choose to believe the other, which you accept?
No, by saying "he definitely did order the rifle" I meant that Oswald physically wrote the order form and sent it off. Indicating that he was clearly involved in obtaining the rifle. Whether it be for him or for someone else.
You get no disagreement from me. I'll go even one step further and say that it's nearly impossible for Oswald to simply have been an innocent bystander, as some CTs claim. That's why I am willing to accept the possibility that he actually wrote the order documents instead of them being faked. He was most surely involved, but how and to what extent, that is the question. But let there be no doubt about my position. Having worked with handwriting experts in the past, I know from my own observations about how they work, that the conclusions reached by the FBI expert about the handwriting on the order documents are at best questionable.
Yes, I purposely worded it as "we are told" because I knew that is something you'd have picked up on otherwise. Again, this is selective choosing on what you want to believe. You're also indirectly suggesting that Klein's are therefore somehow involved in the whole conspiracy which is just widening the circle of people involved which makes it even more unlikely.
No, I am not suggesting for one moment that Klein's were somehow involved in the conspiracy. I actually believe that Waldman testified to the best of his ability and knowledge. The problem is that Waldman had no direct knowledge of any of the details in this case. He was Vice-President of an entirely different department of Klein's and had nothing to do with the sale of weapons.
All Waldman could do was confirm the information contained in the photocopies of documents. When he testified he had no way of telling if these were the exact copies from the micro-film in November 1963 or if they were manipulated. After all, we're talking about photocopies and not the original documents!
In order to create such a chain of documents, all that was required is sending in an orderform and a money order. The rest of the documents were internal ones from Klein's that were automatically generated when the order was received. The most important document Waldman "authenticated" was # 7, of which the original is remarkably lost. On that "order blank" document everything was typed except for the handwritten serial number of the rifle and a control number and the letters "PP" were encircled.
That serial number is the
only link between the Klein's order and the rifle found at the TSBD. The encirclement of the letters "PP" was apparently enough for Waldman to conclude that the rifle had been sent by Parcel Post and that, in turn, was enough for the WC to conclude that the rifle had been sent to Oswald's P.O. box as well as that he had received it. You may consider this sufficient evidence to justify the conclusions, but I don't.
And it's easy to say in 2022, when everything is computerised, every parcel has a barcode and every parcel is scanned upon being posted and delivered, that for there to be no record of the rifle being posted is "odd". But even as recent as 2010 I worked at a place that would just print postage labels off via their franking machine and just drop letters and parcels off at the post office with no record of what had or hadn't been sent.
I have to admit I haven't tried to find out what Klein's official postal procedure was back in 1963. Was there a record for every single parcel they sent out? Was it ONLY the AJ Hiddell parcel that had no record of postage from all of the mail orders they did that year?
If Klein's was sending any old parcel I would probably agree with you, but they were sending a weapon by Parcel Post. It seems incomprehensible to me that they would do so without keeping some proof of shipment and/or receipt.
It's like the people who like to point out that it was odd that Oswald's interrogation wasn't taped, which by today's standards is quite peculiar. But the reason it wasn't taped was because they didn't have recording facilties at the Dallas Police Dept because recording the interviewing of suspects wasn't their standard procedure so therefore not taping their conversations with Oswald wasn't particularly out of the ordinary after all.
If we were talking about a petty crime, I would agree with you. But we are talking about a suspect in the killing of the President and a DPD officer. They had Oswald in custody and could have easily arranged to obtain recording equipment from somewhere. Or are you trying to tell me that nowhere in the state of Texas was there any recording equipment? For crying out loud, they could have had it flown in from Washington, if they really wanted to have and use it. The conclusion must be that they were not interested in recording verbatim what the suspect had to say and that's on them. The WC may have accepted the word of the interrogators but I seriously doubt that a court of law would have done the same.
Ah, the whole wallet mystery thing. CTers like to make a big deal of this. Was Bentley expected to give a whole itinerary of every single item that was in the wallet to the public? There was (allegedly) photos of his family in the wallet as well which Bentley didn't list, or are you suggesting they were planted later too?
Also, at that point the Dallas Police probably didn't know if AJ Hiddell was a real person or not so would it have been a good idea to blab it all over the national TV and potentially give AJ Hiddell (if he was a real person) the heads up that the police might be looking for him?
Once again though, we're back at the same notion of selecting what you want to believe and what you don't. Just because Bentley didn't mention the fake ID doesn't mean that it's conclusive proof that it wasn't in the wallet originally.
Was Bentley expected to give a whole itinerary of every single item that was in the wallet to the public?No, but a second ID would have been remarkable enough to be mentioned, don't you think? And why do you focus only on what Bentley said in the TV interview?
There was (allegedly) photos of his family in the wallet as well which Bentley didn't list, or are you suggesting they were planted later too?Your use of the word "allegedly" makes your question a moot one. It also tells me that you seem to believe that the wallet Bentley took from Oswald in the car must be the same one that Detective Rose was given at the police station. There is no evidence for that, simply because there is no chain of custody for the wallet.
Also, at that point the Dallas Police probably didn't know if AJ Hiddell was a real person or not so would it have been a good idea to blab it all over the national TV and potentially give AJ Hiddell (if he was a real person) the heads up that the police might be looking for him?So, let's see if I understand this correctly. You are saying that DPD was aware of the Hidell ID (which I presume means that Bentley did find it) from the start, but kept the information to themselves? Really? Then please explain to me, if you can, why there is not a single day one report by any DPD officer about Bentley finding the Hidell ID in Oswald's wallet? In fact there isn't a single report which details the exact content of that wallet. About just about everything else there are all sorts of reports all over the place, but there is none about this crucial piece of evidence. Now, why do you think that is?
And not only that. It has also never been established who gave Detective Rose the wallet that contained the Hidell ID.
Mr. BALL. Did you search him?
Mr. ROSE. He had already been searched and someone had his billfold. I don't know whether it was the patrolman who brought him in that had it or not.
Just how many unanswered questions and honest mistakes do you need before you start wondering what in the world was really going on?
Btw, do you know if the wallet and Hidell ID were part of the evidence shipped to the FBI on Friday night? I can't remember, but if they were not, why do you think the DPD held that back?
Again, I'm not sure what the procedure was for obtaining a PO Box and collecting stuff from it in 1963 but I don't think it's a wild assumption to say that some form of ID would be required.
Also, if It was completely innocent and he was just ordering it for someone he knew, why didn't he just use his own name rather than go though the whole routine of doing it in someone else's name and potentially have to make a fake ID to do it?
He was definitely up to something dodgy. Even without hard evidence I think even you'd have to admit that, right?
I have already said that I don't see how Oswald could be completely innocent. It is pretty obvious that he was involved in something dodgy. Which may in fact be the reason why he did not use his own name to order the rifle and revolver.
Obviously, this is a hypothetical scenario, but it could have gone down this way. At some point in time Oswald was introduced to a man who called himself A. Hidell. After having gained Oswald's trust, that man told him some story about how he wanted to order a rifle and a revolver but he didn't want the people around him (like for instance a wife) to know, so he asks Oswald if he can use his P.O. box to receive the weapons. Oswald agrees but doesn't really trust it completely, so to keep his name out of the transactions, he puts Hidell's name on the orderforms.
And btw, what makes you think that Oswald made a fake ID? Just because we are told one was found in "his" wallet?
Well there's a thing called circumstantial evidence. From what I've listed I don't think it's a totally unreasonable conclusion to arrive at.
If as you stated Oswald did indeed write the envelope, money order and send off for the rifle, then there is clear evidence that he intended to purchase a rifle. Shortly after this time he is photographed holding a rifle, his wife is aware of him being in possession of a rifle and, correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure you will), George de Mohrenschildt also claims to have seen a rifle in Oswald's apartment shortly after the Walker shooting. A rifle that was linked to the exact one Oswald sent off for was then discovered at his place of work, on a floor that Oswald was seen on on the day of the assassination.
Now, whether he ordered the rifle for himself or for someone else isn't really relevant. We know that Oswald had a rifle, or if you want to be pedantic, we know he HAD ACCESS to a rifle shortly after ordering a rifle from Klein's. Whether it was actually his or someone else's doesn't alter the fact that he had access to it and therefore could have used it to shoot the President.
Well there's a thing called circumstantial evidence. From what I've listed I don't think it's a totally unreasonable conclusion to arrive at.I agree. The problem with a circumstantial case is that you require assumptions and speculation to fill in the blanks. The more assumptions, the weaker the case. It's all about interpretations and the desired result. Using assumptions and speculation (as much as the WC did) I can easily use the same evidence to build a circumstantial case for Oswald having been set up as a patsy as part of a conspiracy to kill the President, although I will admit that would be a uphill battle, as most people - unfortunately - find it easier to jump to conclusion than honestly examine all the information put before them.
If as you stated Oswald did indeed write the envelope, money order and send off for the rifle, then there is clear evidence that he intended to purchase a rifle. True, although I did not state that Oswald wrote those documents. I merely asked my question based on the assumption that he did.
Shortly after this time he is photographed holding a rifle, his wife is aware of him being in possession of a rifle and, correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure you will), George de Mohrenschildt also claims to have seen a rifle in Oswald's apartment shortly after the Walker shooting.Well, the WC never identified the rifle Oswald is holding in the BY photos as the MC that was purchased at Klein's. They just assumed it was. All we have to make that connection is the opinion of HSCA experts who compared markings they said were on the rifle with the rifle in the blurry BY photos. But then, the HSCA also had experts who concluded there had been a fourth shot, right. So, so much for the opinion of experts! On the evening of day one, Marina was shown the MC rifle found at the TSBD and she failed to identify it. If I recall correctly she even said that Oswald only had a rifle in Russia. And De Mohrenschildt did indeed claim he saw a rifle in Oswald's appartment, but he failed to mention in his testimony that Oswald had given them a HQ print of a BY photo (making him a less than credible witness) and he also never identified the MC rifle as the one he said he had seen.
And what to think of the Russian text written on the back of the DeMohrenschildt's copy? Marina denied having written that text, so who did? Doesn't that make you think there must at least been one more person involved we know nothing about?
A rifle that was linked to the exact one Oswald sent off for was then discovered at his place of work, on a floor that Oswald was seen on on the day of the assassination. And there we go with the assumptions to fill in the blanks of insufficient circumstantial evidence. According to the orderform, a 36" MC rifle was ordered. A 40,2" MC rifle was found at the TSBD. The only thing potentially linking both rifles is a handwritten serial number on a photocopy of a Klein's document (Waldman 7). Everything else is supposition. Can you explain the discrepancy ?
Now, whether he ordered the rifle for himself or for someone else isn't really relevant. We know that Oswald had a rifle, or if you want to be pedantic, we know he HAD ACCESS to a rifle shortly after ordering a rifle from Klein's. Whether it was actually his or someone else's doesn't alter the fact that he had access to it and therefore could have used it to shoot the President.
Well, we know he was photographed holding
a rifle shortly after the Klein's order, so that's a given. But the BY photos were taken nearly 8 months prior to the assassination and during all that time nobody has seen Oswald anywhere near a rifle. So, how do we know he had access to a rifle on 11/22/63?
Well, I don't think it is a house of cards. Like I said, I don't think the actual ownership of the rifle makes much difference. It's clear that Oswald had access to it due to photographs and witness testimony.
You argued that you yourself was once photographed holding a rifle but it didn't belong to you, suggesting that makes the BY photos invalid. But on the flip side, just because it wasn't your actual rifle, there's nothing to say that you couldn't have used that exact rifle to shoot someone with. Whether it was your gun or not makes absolutely no difference whatsoever, what the photo shows is that you had access to the gun.
I agree that the actual ownership of the rifle normally doesn't make much difference, but in this case it clearly did. Why else would the WC go out of it's way to claim that Oswald owned the rifle? The answer is simple; if he had borrowed the rifle from somebody else, that person would be involved, at least to some extent, and that would open up the door to the possibility of a conspiracy. And, btw, I had never access to the rifle I was photographed with, after the photo was taken.
I think if this whole thread is entirely just to question whether Oswald ordered the rifle solely for himself or whether he ordered it as a favour for someone else, then you're right in that there is no conclusive evidence to prove this.
However, if the whole point of this was to somehow prove that Oswald was less likely to be the assassin then I genuinely don't think it's made the slightest bit of difference.
Actually, the first question was only one of many I could be asking. As you have demonstrated clearly there is only circumstantial evidence that tentatively links Oswald to the rifle found at the TSBD and that's not really a good way to start if you want to build a credible and persuasive case against Oswald. And, no, the question was not asked to prove that Oswald was less likely to be the assassin. Just as the case against Oswald is circumstantial, so also is the case for him not being the assassin. I've said this before and I'll say it again; I don't really care if Oswald was the assassin or not. My only interest in this case is to determine if the case against him is solid enough to withstand scrutiny.
There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest Oswald ordered the rifle for someone else. I haven't even bothered mentioning the revolver that he ordered and that was, allegedly, found on him at the Texas Theatre. I say 'allegedly' because I'm guessing you doubt the authenticity of that account bearing in mind that other than a few policemen's testimonies, there's no physical or hard evidence to suggest he was carrying the revolver and it could well have been planted by the Police, but this just refers back to the point of where do you draw a line on witness testimony?
In this particular case, that's an easy question to answer. Detective Hill was given a revolver at the TSBD and he was told it belonged to Oswald. That, by itself, is bad enough, but it gets worse. Instead of handing in the revolver immediately after arriving at the DPD office, with Oswald, Hill allegedly carried that revolver around for some two hours. Regardless of what Hill said about it in his testimony, nobody knows what happened to the revolver during the time it was out of sight. In other words, there was no chain of custody to prove the authenticity of that revolver. I know most LNs say that the absence of a chain of custody isn't a big thing, but that's wrong. The purpose of a chain of custody is to ensure that the evidence can not be tampered with by anybody handling it.
And btw the purchase of the revolver has similar evidentiary problems as the order for the rifle.
You can even apply doubt to hard evidence like DNA at a crime scene by suggesting that someone purposely planted DNA to frame someone. If the criminal justice system took your approach then we might as well just abolish trials and let every accused criminal walk free.
Funny you should say that, because a detective walking around with a vial of OJ Simpson's blood, and thus breaking the chain of custody, was one of the reasons why OJ walked, so the criminal justice system is exactly taking my approach.
There is more than enough reasoning to come to the conclusion that Oswald was guilty. You don't need physical hard evidence to see that. Going a bit off subject but Charles Manson was convicted (and rightly so I believe) of the Tate and LaBianca murders without even being at the murder scene or committing the murders himself. But with the amount circumstantial evidence and testimony against him he was convicted. Applying your rule of hard evidence only would have meant Manson walking free, and in this case Oswald potentially too.
There is more than enough reasoning to come to the conclusion that Oswald was guilty. You don't need physical hard evidence to see that. Now you are losing it. If the physical evidence is ignored, such a conclusion based on "reasoning" would be no more than an assumption of guilt, which, funny enough, is exactly what seems to have happened in the case against Oswald.
Going a bit off subject but Charles Manson was convicted (and rightly so I believe) of the Tate and LaBianca murders without even being at the murder scene or committing the murders himself. But with the amount circumstantial evidence and testimony against him he was convicted. Applying your rule of hard evidence only would have meant Manson walking free, and in this case Oswald potentially too. You've got the wrong end of the stick on this one. To be an accessory to murder you don't have to commit the actual murder yourself, nor do you need to be present when it happened. All you have to be is a co-conspirator and that's exactly what Manson was convicted for; being part of a conspiracy for the murder of seven people. In other words, the physical (or as you seem to call it "hard") evidence that was used against the actual killers was also applied to Manson.
Thanks for the conversation. You did in fact raise some interesting points. If you have more, I'll gladly take them in consideration.
