Does "THE OSWALD PUZZLE" make any sense?

[Lance Payette]

The more I think about The Oswald Puzzle, the more it seems to me to make no sense at all. Since Larry Hancock and David Boylan are two of the more respected researchers, I am surprised by this.

Their theory is that Oswald had no idea an assassination was in the works. He had no participation whatsoever. He thought he was supposed to leave the TSBD during the noon hour and participate in the hijacking of a small charter plane that would take him to Cuba. He had been duped by DRE anti-Castro fanatics posing as pro-Castro brethren. His rifle – or at least a rifle connected to him – along with three spent shells, had been planted in the TSBD, possibly the night before. I gather from a past discussion that the theory posits him eating lunch in the lunchroom when the assassination occurred. As per the plan, when he left the TSBD he was going back to his room to retrieve his handgun for use in the hijacking.

If we believe Marina, Oswald had spoken of hijacking a plane to Cuba. Hancock and Boylan combine this with the Redbird Airport incident to support their theory. They choose not to speculate at all on what actually occurred in Dealey Plaza. They simply argue that being duped into a hijacking was consistent with who Oswald was (and I would agree).

The following questions occur to me:

1.   Why did Oswald go to Ruth Paine’s on Thursday? If he was hijacking a plane to Cuba the next day, he obviously didn’t need curtain rods. Why did he concoct the curtain rod story at all?
2.   Was he going to Ruth’s to say good-bye to his family? If so, why go through the charade of begging Marina to reunite with him? Why fail to give her the slightest clue that he might be saying good-bye or that his next call might be from Cuba?
3.   What was in the paper bag he was carrying? Even if we believe it was too small for the Carcano, it was too big for a lunch. Does anyone carry a 28” sack lunch cupped in his hand with the other end under his armpit?
4.   What was the source of the rifle that was planted? Did the conspirators sneak Oswald's rifle out of Ruth’s garage? How would they have even known it was there? If in fact Oswald had no rifle at all and this was a complete plant, then why not plant a more plausible assassination weapon than a clunky old Carcano?
5.   If a hijacking were occurring on Friday afternoon, what sense would it make for Oswald to go to work on Friday morning? Call in sick. Just don’t show up. Would Oswald not have thought the plan for him to go to work and leave during the noon hour was silly and suspicious?
6.   If a hijacking were occurring on Friday afternoon, what sense would it make for Oswald to have to go back to his room and get his handgun after leaving the TSBD? The conspirators chartering the plane couldn’t provide guns? Couldn’t Oswald have taken his gun to Ruth’s on Thursday evening and into the TSBD on Friday? Wouldn’t Oswald have thought this plan was silly and suspicious?
7.   If Oswald was the designated patsy, how could he possibly be allowed to be anywhere but on the 6th floor when the assassination occurred? If he was in the lunchroom, on the steps, or visible anywhere else, doesn’t the entire patsy thing go poof?
8.   Why on earth would Oswald remain in the TSBD to eat his lunch? “I’ll just have a bite and wait until 12:30 before I leave to go hijack the plane” – really?
9.   Why would the plan have required Oswald to return to his room by public transportation? His fellow hijackers couldn’t be waiting in a car outside the TSBD? Pick him up at noon and kill him. Wouldn’t Oswald have thought this plan was silly and suspicious?
10.   OK, Oswald is entirely surprised when JFK is shot. Why would he have connected the event with himself? He had no reason to think a gun connected with him was on the 6th floor or even that shots were fired from the TSBD. He really had no reason to think it was connected with his fellow hijackers – why would he? Why would he immediately think he’d been framed or go into any sort of panic?
11.   He then leaves the TSBD, showing no interest whatsoever in the assassination that has just occurred. Let’s say a car was supposed to pick him up but isn’t there – understandable, given the assassination and resulting congestion. Why not just wait? What reason is there to go into any sort of panic?
12.   OK, a car wasn’t supposed to pick him up; he was supposed to go get his gun. He can’t wait long enough for the bus to clear the traffic congestion, has the taxi take him past the rooming house (why?), rushes past Roberts with no interest in the TV news of the assassination, gets his gun, and leaves on foot. Again, what sort of hijacking plan was this? What sort of plan would have required one of the hijackers to go through these gyrations?
13.   The book does not deal at all with the Tippit shooting. What was it all about? Oswald, who at this point is completely innocent and has no reason think he’s been framed for the assassination, just decides to shoot Tippit for no particular reason? Even if Oswald thinks he’s been framed, why would he shoot Tippit and make himself an actual murderer? Perhaps the plotters shoot Tippit just to make Oswald look even guiltier than the rifle and shells on the 6th floor already do? What sense does any of this make?
14.   Oswald maneuvers his way to the rendezvous point at the Texas Theater. If you’re hijacking a plane, why do you need a rendezvous at the Texas Theater? Wouldn’t Oswald have viewed this unnecessary step as silly and suspicious?  If you really were supposed to rendezvous at the theater, just have the taxi take you directly there. If Oswald is completely innocent and all he is doing is meeting a contact, why does he resist the police at all?
15.   Once you’re in custody and know you’re guilty of nothing more than a conspiracy to commit a hijacking that never took place, why not be completely cooperative?

None of this makes any sense to me unless Oswald instantly went into complete panic when the assassination occurred, which he would have done only if he had known his rifle was on the 6th floor and he’d been framed. But why would he have allowed his rifle to be on the 6th floor if the entire plan were simply an afternoon hijacking? Moreover, if you know you’re completely innocent but have been framed, surely the most sane course of action would be to stay right where you are and immediately seek the police – especially if you know you were in the lunchroom or on the steps and may have an airtight alibi with numerous witnesses. Why compound the problem with a host of guilty-looking actions?

Contrary to the theme of the book, I would say that falling for the hijacking scam and going into utter panic would have been completely out of character for Oswald (as well as inconsistent with his behavior after he was arrested). Whatever I may think of Oswald, I give him credit for being intelligent and savvy enough not to be duped into a hijacking plan with as many obvious red flags at this. Having pretty much followed the Lone Nut script up to 11-22, Hancock and Boylan just seem determined to preserve their CT credentials at the expense of plausibility.

I simply can’t make any sense of any of this. If you can, please chime in.

I think it was Gerry Patrick Hemming who said something like "I guarantee you there were plans in the works to assassinate JFK. Maybe Oswald just beat 'em to it." That actually seems fairly plausible. The Oswald Puzzle documents the anti-Castro plans that were indeed in the works but works too hard to connect them to Oswald.

[Tom Graves]

Thanks for the synopsis of Hancock's and Boylan's book.

It's clear that they, JFKA "scholars" though they are, perform mental gymnastics that would make Houdini envious.

It seems as though they, for encouraged-by-KGB* reasons (can you say Joachim Joesten, Thomas G. Buchanan, Mark Lane, Oliver Stone, and Tucker Carlson, et al.?), WANT to believe the JFK assassination was a CIA-Mafia conspiracy.

They avoid the points you bring up (or create elaborate conspiracy sub-theories to incorporate them or dismiss them).

What's more, they cannot accept the fact that a sharpshooting, psychologically disturbed, self-described Marxist by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK by firing three shots at him over 10.2 seconds in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza.

They cannot accept the fact that, due to sheer "luck," Oswald had a job in a seven-story building (on the sixth floor of which tall stacks of boxes were already positioned near the Sniper's Nest window) on the motorcade route, which motorcade passed by within 100 feet of said Sniper's Nest during lunchtime.

They cannot accept the fact that he missed the too-close, fast-moving, steeply-downward-angled target with his first shot at hypothetical "Z-124," that the Single Bullet Hypothesis is correct, and that JFK's head was "caught" on the Zapruder film going forward and downward about an inch between frames Z-312 and Z-313.

Most importantly, they, like most Americans, cannot accept the fact that the KGB* has been "making hay" (with their probably unwitting help!) from the anomaly-replete assassination to such a degree over the past sixty years that it has enabled (along with other KGB-promulgated conspiracy theories) the installing of "useful idiot" (or worse) Donald J. Trump as our "president" in 2017 and 2025 by "former" KGB officer Vladimir Putin.

Hint: Russia won the Cold War on 5 November 2024, and we're witnessing the destruction of our Constitutional Federal Republic as I post this.

Accept that fact before it's too late, CTs and LNs, alike.

*Today's SVR and FSB

[Lance Payette]

I should point out that, upon re-reading the last chapter of the book, they do believe the rifle that was planted was Oswald's. They speculate there would have been multiple opportunities to surreptitiously acquire it.

Again, this is total speculation. Marina said it was wrapped in the blanket. Michael Paine said it felt like camping gear (presumably tents poles, etc.). But our intrepid authors, to build their theory, speculate it was acquired at some other time and Oswald didn't notice. HOW EARLY in the game could anyone have been thinking in terms of "we'll plant his rifle"? He wasn't working in the TSBD until October and JFK's route wasn't known until a couple of days before the JFKA. I've only participated in a couple of political assassinations and am strictly an amateur, but I think even I would have been bright enough to acquire a much more plausible weapon, create some sort of trail to Oswald and place it in his hands before the assassination.

The old cliche "You can have your own opinions but not your own facts" almost seems to have been invented for the CT community.

[Jim Hawthorn]

5.   If a hijacking were occurring on Friday afternoon, what sense would it make for Oswald to go to work on Friday morning? Call in sick. Just don’t show up. Would Oswald not have thought the plan for him to go to work and leave during the noon hour was silly and suspicious?
6.   If a hijacking were occurring on Friday afternoon, what sense would it make for Oswald to have to go back to his room and get his handgun after leaving the TSBD? The conspirators chartering the plane couldn’t provide guns? Couldn’t Oswald have taken his gun to Ruth’s on Thursday evening and into the TSBD on Friday? Wouldn’t Oswald have thought this plan was silly and suspicious?
7.   If Oswald was the designated patsy, how could he possibly be allowed to be anywhere but on the 6th floor when the assassination occurred? If he was in the lunchroom, on the steps, or visible anywhere else, doesn’t the entire patsy thing go poof?

Just picking up on these points as an example - have you considered that Oswald was part of a conspiracy and had a specific role to play (or so he thought). Imagine if he had no idea that shots were going to be fired from the TSBD or even at that moment. Imagine if he'd been told to wait in a back room, where he would be contacted at a precise time. Then, when he realised that shots had been fired outside and possibly from the TSBD, he was surprised and realised that it could look very bad for him, realising that he could be being set up. Fearing that he could also be wiped out to protect the conspiracy, he headed home to get his gun and tried to get out of town.

[John Mytton]

thought a

Just picking up on these points as an example - have you considered that Oswald was part of a conspiracy and had a specific role to play (or so he thought). Imagine if he had no idea that shots were going to be fired from the TSBD or even at that moment. Imagine if he'd been told to wait in a back room, where he would be contacted at a precise time. Then, when he realised that shots had been fired outside and possibly from the TSBD, he was surprised and realised that it could look very bad for him, realising that he could be being set up. Fearing that he could also be wiped out to protect the conspiracy, he headed home to get his gun and tried to get out of town.

I don't know why you have to invent a farfetched story to cover Oswald?

Forgetting the Mountain of evidence, let's examine the basics, Oswald a loser malcontent who at the height of the Cold War defected to the enemy and while there, Oswald sent a letter to his brother Robert saying that in a war he would kill any American which can be extrapolated to mean, mess with my current beliefs and expect, trouble!
Then after returning home from his failed Russia experiment, the ever fanatical Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald, initially bought a rifle to kill Castro hating General Walker and when another Castro hater, Kennedy came to Dallas, Oswald went home uncharacteristically on a Thursday to pick up his rifle to kill Kennedy!
It's as simple as that and no further mental gymnastics are required.

JohnM

[Jim Hawthorn]

I don't know why you have to invent a farfetched story to cover Oswald?

Forgetting the Mountain of evidence, let's examine the basics, Oswald a loser malcontent who at the height of the Cold War defected to the enemy and while there, Oswald sent a letter to his brother Robert saying that in a war he would kill any American which can be extrapolated to mean, mess with my current beliefs and expect, trouble!
Then after returning home from his failed Russia experiment, the ever fanatical Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald, initially bought a rifle to kill Castro hating General Walker and when another Castro hater, Kennedy came to Dallas, Oswald went home uncharacteristically on a Thursday to pick up his rifle to kill Kennedy!
It's as simple as that and no further mental gymnastics are required.

JohnM

There is no proof that Oswald took his rifle into the TSBD. That point has been debated here multiple times.
As for his background, yes, it made him the ideal participant for involvement in activity with the plotters, who in the end totally set him up - something that Oswald realised when the incident happened on Dealey Plaza.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

There is no proof that Oswald took his rifle into the TSBD. That point has been debated here multiple times.
As for his background, yes, it made him the ideal participant for involvement in activity with the plotters, who in the end totally set him up - something that Oswald realised when the incident happened on Dealey Plaza.

Sorry, when did he "realise" that he was set up? When *could* he realize this? And how? From the Baker confrontation?

He comes out of the building shortly after the shooting and sees this absolute chaos happening. People running to the grassy knoll and overpass, police with their guns drawn, people yelling and screaming falling to the ground: its complete madness and hysteria. No one knew at that early stage what happened. Was the president shot or did they miss? Is he dead? Is there a shooter they are chasing? Again, no one knew with certainty. It's right after the event, confusion reigned.

But your claim, apparently, is that Oswald was simply having lunch, hears screaming and yelling, comes out of the building, sees this madness and somehow realizes, "I am going to blamed for the shooting of the President." How can he possibly know this? How does he even know the President was shot? How does he know someone shot from the TSBD? How does he realize any of this? So he takes off (and not stopping to watch the TV the landlady has on about the shooting). He does the very thing that a guilty person would do. BTW, he told the interrogators that he left work because he thought they wouldn't be doing any more work that day. And despite numerous opportunities to tell his wife, his brother, his mother, the head of the Dallas Bar Association and the world he never mentioned any of this. I don't see any "proof" - if that's your standard - of any of this, of him somehow realizing this so soon.

Boy, he had some lousy luck. And despite having the chance to expose this, he didn't.

Here's his big chance:

[John Mytton]

There is no proof that Oswald took his rifle into the TSBD. That point has been debated here multiple times.
As for his background, yes, it made him the ideal participant for involvement in activity with the plotters, who in the end totally set him up - something that Oswald realised when the incident happened on Dealey Plaza.

There is no proof that Oswald took his rifle into the TSBD. That point has been debated here multiple times.

Oswald didn't carry his bare rifle into work because even he and you must realize how silly that was, but Oswald did lie to Frazier about what was in the bag, then Oswald lied to the Police about what was in the bag, Oswald lied about where in Frazier's car he placed the bag and to top it off a long bag contained Oswald's prints and his rifle with his prints was found at his work in the sniper's nest. BTW Frazier says repeatedly in his testimony that he didn't pay much attention to Oswald's bag and why should he, Oswald said they were curtain rods, which were not necessary because his room on Beckley street already had curtain rods, so in fact just another lie!

who in the end totally set him up - something that Oswald realised when the incident happened on Dealey Plaza.

Steve just explained how your explanation of Oswald's actions doesn't make sense but what Oswald does makes perfect sense if Oswald did indeed do the deed, then Oswald's actions are a natural consequence of someone in flight from the scene of his crime.
See how using logic about the known facts makes solving the murder much more realistic than inventing implausible self serving conclusions based on preconceived biases!

JohnM