Evidence Against Lee Harvey Oswald

Introduction

If you've clicked through to this page and you know something about the Kennedy assassination, you could well be yelling, "Ollie, you fool, it's obvious that Oswald killed JKF!!  You just left out all the good parts: 

• It was Oswald's gun!

• He carried it into the TSBD that day!

• Oswald's palmprint was on the rifle!

• Marina took photographs of Oswald with the gun!

• The paraffin test showed that Oswald had fired a gun that day!

Yes, yes, I know.  My problem with all that is that the critics have credible counter-evidence which refutes all of that.  I don't know how to draw a conclusion about this evidence; I think it all comes down to a question of faith: whether you believe that the FBI and Dallas Police were likely or unlikely to fabricate evidence in this case.  I'll give a brief high level outline of the critics case below with some links if you want to dive into the swamp.

CLICK HERE to listen to a 30 minute podcast of this chapter

The Critic's Response

Ownership of Rifle

The Warren Report describes how the FBI found that Crescent Firearms was a wholesale distributor of surplus Mannlicher-Carcano rifles.  On the evening of 11/22 they learned that Crescent had shipped a rifle with serial number C2766 to Klein's Sporting Goods of Chicago.  At Klein's, they determined that C2766 had been shipped to A. Hidell, which was Oswald's alias, to a Post Office Box  rented by Oswald, and the Post Office inspectors found a U.S. postal money order for $21.45, somewhere.  

John Armstrong has a readable chapter on the gun evidence.  David Josephs also has dug into this in extraordinary detail and believes the entire paper trail was fabricated.  Click HERE to read a 72 page pdf on discrepancies in the paper trail, and HERE for a timeline of the money order.  Among his findings are:

• The money order in evidence is stamped by Klein's but not the First National Bank of Chicago or the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, indicating it was never cashed.

• The order that Oswald filled out was captured on microfilm at Kleins.  That microfilm was taken by the FBI, but the roll of microfilm at the National Archives is blank

• There is documentation that the original money order was found in Kansas and another original money order was found in Washington DC

• Oswald's Post Office Box was not set up to receive mail or packages addressed to other individuals, and Post Office regulations called for the return of mail to a PO Box which was addressed to someone else.  The FBI determined that “Oswald did not indicate on his application that others, including “A. Hidell” would receive mail from the box in question.”  ( See  bottom of page 4.) Post Office regulations would require those picking up a package to show ID.

• Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald were alleged to have unloaded the rifle with Marina's household belongings from Ruth's car twice: when moving from Neely St in April and again from New Orleans in August.  Oswald wasn't present for either trip, yet the Ruth Paine maintained she never knew Oswald had a rifle.

• Larry Hancock claims that a forensics examination of the blanket the rifle was allegedly wrapped in revealed a total lack of gun oil traces—traces which would be expected from wrapping, handling, and transporting a disassembled rifle which the FBI determined to have been well-oiled.  Hancock, Larry Joe; Boylan, David. Oswald Puzzle: Reconsidering Lee Harvey Oswald (p. 387). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

From this the critics could conclude that either the paper trail was fabricated by the FBI and Postal Service, or perhaps that someone else ordered the rifle to be delivered to Oswald's PO Box and picked it up with a fake ID.

George DeMohrenschildt's Story

George De Mohrenschildt, an interesting White Russian anti-Communist petroleum geologist was Oswald's closest friend during 1962 after the Oswalds returned from Russia.  He got the OK to befriend Oswald with the local CIA representative J. Walton Moore.  De Mohrenschildt was quite sympathetic to Oswald and thought he was interesting and completely incapable of killing JFK.  In the 1970's De Mohrenschildt wrote a small book about Oswald titled "I Am A Patsy".  In the book as well as in his Warren Commission testimony, De Mohrenschildt describe a visit to the Oswald's apartment in April 1964 where they saw Oswald's rifle.  But that story may have been made up.  As reported by the HSCA, (pg 52):

Nevertheless, in an interview at the American Embassy in Haiti in December 1963 with State Department officials, the de Mohrenschildts claimed that the gun incident had occurred in the fall of 1962.  Mrs. de Mohrenschildt stated that Marina Oswald had said "Look how crazy he is, he has bought a gun."  Mrs. de Mohrenschildt said she thought Oswald had only recently purchased the gun, that it was about 4 feet long, and that she did not know if it was a rifle or a shotgun.   She said Marina Oswald told her there was something special about the gun, that it was either automatic or had a telescopic sight.  In that interview, de Mohrenschildt claimed that the last time he and his wife saw the Oswalds was in January 1963 and that the de Mohrenschildts were too busy preparing for their upcoming trip to Haiti to see the Oswalds after that.

Since the official story had Oswald receiving the rifle in late March 1963, De Mohrenschildt may have been pressured to concoct his story.

Oswald's Palm Print on the Rifle Barrel

Lieutenant Day of the Dallas Police took the rifle apart on the evening of 11/22 and found Oswald's palm print.  He then sent the rifle to the FBI laboratories, who could not find the palm print.  Day also found a palm print on a box in the sniper's nest.  Pat Speer goes into great detail to argue that the palm print on the box was planted by Day as was the palm print on the gun.   

And Pat Speer was not alone in his skepticism.  Both the staff of the Warren Commission as well as the FBI's liaison with the DPD felt the Dallas Police had planted those fingerprints:

"Mr. Rankin advised because of the circumstances that now exist there was a serious question in the minds of the Commission as to whether or not the palm impression that has been obtained from the Dallas Police Department is a legitimate latent palm impression removed from the rifle barrel or whether it was obtained from some other source.” 

Gerald Drain, the lead FBI agent in Dallas involved in liaising with the DPD concerning physical evidence, believed the Dallas Police Department had fabricated that evidence in a context of external pressure to build evidence in the case. Gerald Drain:

“I just don’t believe there ever was a print … All I can figure is that it [Oswald’s print] was some sort of cushion, because they were getting a lot of heat by Sunday night. You could take the print off Oswald’s card and put it on the rifle. Something like that happened.” (Drain quoted in Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt [1985], 109) 

The Back Yard Photographs

The three back yard photographs of Oswald holding a gun, and the publication of one of them on the cover of Life magazine, may have done more to convince the public that Oswald was the killer than anything else.

Of course the critics believe that these photographs) had been faked; Fritz reported that Oswald himself claimed that the backyard photographs were made by superimposing Oswald’s face on someone else’s body.   Critics argue that Oswald’s head appears the same in two of the photos: 133A and 133B, the shadows don’t appear consistent between the photos, the rifle in the photos appears to be slightly different from the rifle found in the Book Depository Building, and the fingers in the photos are short and stubby, quite different from Oswald’s fingers.  

In addition, the Dallas Police Department apparently was engaged in some hanky-panky with the photos.  The two official backyard photos, Warren Commission Exhibits 133A and 133B were found in a second search of Ruth Paine’s house on the afternoon of November 23, 1963 by DPD officer Gus Rose and Richard Stovall.  They were entered into evidence at 4:30PM on this date.

However Will Fritz’ interrogation report says that he asked Oswald about a backyard photo during an interrogation held from 12:35 to 1:10PM on Saturday.  This was prior to when the photos had been discovered in Irving.  In addition, Ruth’s husband, Michael Paine testified that he was shown a backyard photograph on the night of the assassination, the day before they were officially discovered.  And as Jim Marrs reported, two employees of the National Photo Lab in Dallas who were working for the FBI told him in 1970 that they saw copies of the backyard photographs on the night of the assassination, including a photo of the house with no person in the picture.  A third backyard photo, 133C, was turned over to the HSCA in 1976 by the widow of Roscoe White, whose son claimed that his father had been a shooter in the assassination, and in 1978 Richard Stovall, the policeman who originally found the photos, turned over a first generation print of 133C, along with evidence that the Dallas Police Department had used the photograph but suppressed it from the Warren Commission.  It’s not clear why the photo was surpressed.  It could be because it had been acquired in a search without a search warrant on the afternoon of the assassination, however all the other evidence acquired that afternoon was taken into evidence.

It's suspicious that the camera that took the back yard photographs was not discovered at Ruth Paine's house until  February 1964.   While anything related to Oswald including two cameras, as well as some of the Paine's belongings were taken into evidence, there was no good excuse as to why the police didn't take the back yard camera into evidence on 11/22 and 11/23 if it had been there.  The HSCA photography panel determined that the negatives were definitely taken from the Imperial Reflex camera, yet the FBI's photography expert testified that all they needed to do was to make a fake picture and take a picture of it with the Imperial Reflex: FBI agent Lyndal Shaneytfelt [sic], testified that, "I cannot entirely eliminate an extremely expert composite". ( 4 H 288 ) He went on to explain how it could be done: "...for this to be a composite, they would have had to make a picture of the background with an individual standing there, and then substitute the face, and retouch it and possibly rephotograph it and retouch that negative, and make a print, and them rephotograph it with this camera, which is Commission Exhibit 750, in order to have this negative which we have identified with the camera, and is Commission Exhibit 749."

Jeff Carter, in a long analysis of the backyard photos (Part 1-3, Part 4, and Part 5) argues that the photos were genuine, but they were taken by someone other than Oswald’s wife Marina, as part of establishing Oswald’s cover story of a pro-Cuba socialist, just prior to his strange sojourn in New Orleans.  It’s not clear who that person could be, as Oswald seemed to have few friends, but Carter suspects Michael Paine, with whom Oswald kept tabs on left wing and right wing groups in Dallas.

Here’s a 45 minute Youtube documentary promoting the view that the backyard photos were forgeries.

Prior Attempts to Kill

The Warren Report described how Oswald had tried to kill Richard Nixon and General Edwin Walker in the months before JFK's assassination.  I think both these accusations are silly, so I'm not really impartial on the matter.  Both cases rely heavily on the testimony of Lee's wife, Marina.  Many people think her testimony is problematic.  She was taken into custody by the Secret Service and interrogated for weeks without friends, family or legal counsel.  As a young woman with two very young children, she was very scared about what the authorities could do to her, including sending her back to Soviet Russia.  Mary Ferrell once examined the time logs of all the FBI and Secret Service men going into her hotel room at 15 minute intervals and conjectured that she might have been subject to serial rape.  In any event, her testimony was very inconsistent; she would testify one way one day and another way another day.  In the end, many think she just ended up saying what she was told to say.  In 1996 in a statement to the ARRB, Marina publicly stated that she thought Lee had been innocent.

Consider Marina's HSCA testimony regarding "the attempt to kill Richard Nixon".  Marina testifies that Oswald said Nixon was in town and he was going to look at him but he was taking his pistol or rifle with him, she couldn't remember which.  So she wrestled him into the bathroom which didn't have a lock on the door and held the door shut until he agreed not to go:

Mrs. PORTER. Well, after the Walker incident, he give me promise that he never do it again. I see him one day, I mean I don't know the exact date, that he was putting his gun, not gun, pistol or rifle, whatever, anyway he said he is leaving, but I knew he had a weapon with him. So I told him where you leaving, and he said "Well, the Nixons is coming to town, so I am just going to look." And I said for that you didn't need-you know, why you taking all this ammunition with you, not ammunition, the gun? And so we wind up having an argument over it, and we had a fight, and he did not go. 

Mr. McDONALD. All right, now the book "Marina and Lee" states that somehow you lured him into the bathroom, and then slipped out and held him in there. Mrs. PORTER. Yes. 

Mr. McDONALD. Tell us how that happened? 

Mrs. PORTER. Well, it was easier to remember details when you were working so many years ago on the book than right now. 

Mr. McDONALD. Try, if you could. At this time he had the handgun on his person, and he was preparing to go out? 

Mrs. PORTER. Yes, I guess. 

Mr. McDONALD. And how did you get him into the bathroom? 

Mrs. PORTER. Well, we wrestle or whatever you call it. You try with the time passing by not to-it is easier to forget the bad things of your life that bring memories back, so I cannot describe you the fight that we have, you know, in such scrupulous details that you wanted me to. 

Mr. McDONALD. But do you recall getting him, maneuvering him into the bathroom? 

Mrs. PORTER. Yes. 

Mr. McDONALD. How normally-well, was he stronger than you? 

Mrs. PORTER. Of course. 

Mr. McDONALD. So how did you get him into the bathroom? 

Mrs. PORTER. First of all, I was very angry and that maybe give me more energy and I was determined just that I am going to keep him there, and maybe he give in after a while. Maybe he was just trying to make me angry and see where he stand with me. If he really want-I mean he was much stronger than me. If he really wanted to, he could overpower me, definitely. 

Mr. McDONALD. I see . And then the book says, and other testimony, that you held him in. You held the door shut. 

Mrs. PORTER. The door for a while, yes. 

Mr. McDONALD. Did he try to pull the door open? 

Mrs. PORTER. But not for very long, yes. 

Mr. McDONALD. Did he appear to be pulling very hard? 

Mrs. PORTER. Well, it was hard for me to hold on to it . I don't know, if he try his best, you know, or how much power he used. 

Mr. McDONALD. Is it your testimony that in your opinion if he really had wanted to get out, he would have been able to? 

Mrs. PORTER. I think so. 

Mr. McDONALD. Thank you, Mrs. Porter

See: Did Oswald Try to Kill Richard Nixon?

The alleged attack on General Edwin Walker was equally ludicrous.  Marina testified that Lee took the bus to General Walker's house and tried to kill him.  Lee carried the rifle on the bus wrapped in a raincoat.  Besides Marina's testimony, the only corroborating evidence was a picture of Walker's house found in Ruth Paine's house, which is subject to the same issues as the back yard photos.

Consider the following:

1.  A neighbor of Walker, Walter Kirk Coleman, saw two men running off and getting in different cars and driving away following the shooting. The bullet which nearly hit Walker was originally identified as a 30.06 bullet, not a 6.5 bullet from a Mannlicher Carcano.  

2.  Walker testified that he saw a car driving away.  A neighbor heard the shooting and saw two men leave in two different cars.  Oswald did not know how to drive.

3.  See photo comparison of CE573, the Walker bullet vs CE399, the magic bullet.  They do look very similar. However, newspaper reports after the shooting said the bullet was a 30.06 caliber, not a 6.5 caliber and  General Walker claimed that CE573 was not the bullet that hit his house.

See: Did Lee Oswald Shoot General Edwin Walker?

And see Walker Bullet 573, Is it Real?