OSWALD TIMELINE (PART 2)

In early August 2007, I had an interesting discussion via e-mail with JFK researcher Dale K. Myers concerning my proposed "LEE HARVEY OSWALD 11/22/63 TIMELINE".

When I received Dale Myers' reply to my mail, I was a bit surprised at how much he disagreed with me regarding several of the specific points that are included in my "Oswald Timeline", but I also appreciate and respect Mr. Myers' opinions on the matter as well. And, as usual, Dale's thoughts are always very well-thought-out and well-stated.

So, I thought I'd share the e-mail exchange here, to illustrate the fact that "LNers" don't always agree with each other 100% of the time on some of the issues connected with Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt and the assassination of President Kennedy.

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SUBJECT: LHO Timeline Talk
DATE: 8/3/2007
SENT FROM: David R. Von Pein
SENT TO: Dale K. Myers

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DALE MYERS SAID: David, Regarding your timeline. I noted several
errors: 11:50-11:54 AM: Oswald must have gone to the fifth floor after
arriving at the sixth floor since he was seen there (and heard) by a
number of witnesses descending in the freight elevators.


DVP SAID: You could very well be correct....but AFAIK there's no
concrete proof that has Oswald on the FIFTH floor around lunchtime on
11/22/63. But we know he was seen on the 6th Floor that day by several
employees. And B.R. Williams said he wasn't sure whether Oswald called
down with his elevator request from the 5th or 6th floor. The matter
of what floor Oz was on during this time is in dispute.


DALE MYERS: 11:55 AM: The conversation with Givens was a reiteration
of what had already been said during the elevator race. Oswald's
request for an elevator occurred twice (if Givens is to be believed),
not once as you suggest.


DVP: Yes, you're right here (and I've mentioned the probability of TWO such Givens/Oswald conversations in other posts on the forum). But in my "Timeline" post specifically, I was saying it from the standpoint of "Givens' testimony" only. But HERE I mention the possibility of two such elevator requests being made by Oswald.


DALE MYERS: You write: "..And, in my view, there's just too much
evidence (overall) that concretely puts Oswald on the 6th Floor
during the approximate timeframe when Arnold claimed he was in the
lunchroom..." As far as I know, there is no evidence (concrete or
otherwise) that places Oswald on the sixth floor between the Givens
sighting and just before 12:30 p.m. If you mean the physical evidence
in the sniper's nest demonstrates that he is the murderer, while that
is true, it does not place him on the sixth floor except at the time
of the shooting, not necessarily at 12:15 p.m. or 12:20 p.m. per
Arnold. (This is a matter of language.)


DVP: Yes.....that was merely a semantics/language mistake there. I
was referring to the AFTER-THE-SHOOTING and DURING-the-shooting
evidence that concretely places Oswald on the 6th Floor at 12:30 and
just before.

And I think it's only common sense to believe that Oswald WAS, in
fact, on that sixth floor when C. Arnold said he was on lower floors.


DALE MYERS: There is far too much speculation about Oswald's
movements on the sixth floor during the 12-12:30 p.m. time period in
your timeline for my tastes (i.e., the paper gun sack, etc.) -- some
of which you yourself later question and admit the argument is weak.


DVP: True....but what else do we have when it comes to these forever
unknown "Timeline" matters (should we choose to dissect and discuss
them) BUT speculation and guesswork? The CT-Kooks can only guess in
these regards as well.

I happen to believe my Oswald timeline is fairly solid in most
respects. But I did admit it's not 100% perfect and cannot be proven
to be 100% true. How could it be when we're talking about subjective
speculation?

It's impossible to know exactly what was going through Oswald's mind
as he planned to kill the U.S. President. Several times that morning
he probably had "Should I Do It, Or Shouldn't I?" thoughts swimming in
his head.

And the whole thing was totally contingent, IMO, on whether that sixth
floor was COMPLETELY VOID OF OTHER HUMANS at the exact time JFK passed
the building.

I firmly believe that if Williams (or others) had been on the 6th
Floor at 12:30, the President would not have been shot. For, how could
Oswald have figured on eliminating multiple witnesses (with his ONE
leftover bullet) if he chose to pull the trigger while on a crowded
sixth floor? That'd be crazy for him to do. (Then, too, killing a
President is kinda crazy too...so who can know?) ;)


DALE MYERS: I don't think there is any doubt Oswald always intended
to shoot from the SE corner window.


DVP: I don't think that's necessarily true. I say that mainly because
of Arnold Rowland, who we know saw Oswald WITH HIS ASSEMBLED GUN on
the WEST side of the building.

And while we can be fully confident that Rowland's later
embellishments about the "elderly Negro" are pure hogwash (since he
never said a word about this Negro to anyone, including his wife,
until much later)....we can also be just as confident that Mr. Rowland
DID positively see a man with an assembled rifle in his hands on the
west end of the TSBD before the shooting.

Barbara Rowland is the key to knowing this part of her husband's story
is certainly accurate...because she herself corroborates it. She never
saw Oswald with the gun, true. But the key here, for me, is the fact
that she was told by her husband about the west-end man with a gun AT
THE TIME IT WAS HAPPENING, i.e., approx. 12:15 PM on November 22.

So, my "Timeline" which has Oswald possibly mulling over shooting
locations seems plausible....based on the fact that he (Oswald) was
almost certainly holding his assembled rifle at the WEST side of the
building shortly before 12:30.

Granted, it was stupid of Oswald to make himself visible WHILE HOLDING
THE RIFLE in the west-end window. But he obviously DID do just that.
And since that's not the window he ended up shooting from, I speculate
that possibly he had considered a west-end shooting location when
Rowland saw LHO there.

Other possibilities are, of course, open for people to speculate about
as well. But I'm not quite sure what those possibilities might be that
totally knock my speculation off the map. (Did Oswald just feel in a
mood to flaunt his weapon for all to see near a window he wouldn't be
firing from?)


DALE MYERS: There is no evidence that Oswald attempted to wipe his
prints from the rifle (in fact, his fingerprints were all over the
trigger housing).


DVP: You could be correct here (again). And, again, it's just my
speculation, as I try to reconcile in my mind the different "shirt
colors" that witnesses saw Oswald wearing. It's my opinion that it's
quite possible that he shot JFK in only his T-shirt, while his brown
"arrest" shirt was lying at his feet (or on a box) in the Sniper's
Nest.

Following the shooting, he then grabbed the brown shirt and wiped off
as many prints as he could with it as he fled the Nest. Hence, "fresh"
shirt fibers matching Oswald's brown arrest shirt are later found
jammed into a portion of the gun.

Yes, he missed wiping off the trigger guard, which was a stupid
mistake on his part, since he knew that that part of the gun surely
had his prints on it.

But given the fact that other than that trigger guard and the ONE solo
palmprint on the barrel of the gun (which was certainly left there
BEFORE the shooting, not during or afterward, since it was partially
covered by the stock when the rifle was assembled), we don't have a
single discernible LHO print on that gun barrel or stock after we KNOW
he handled it extensively on November 22nd.

That's telling me he probably used something to wipe off most of his
prints from the barrel and stock that almost surely WERE on that gun
at some point on 11/22. And, in his haste, he missed (or forgot) about
the trigger guard.


DALE MYERS: I don't believe Oswald had any pre-arranged plan to stash
the rifle. I believe he simply dumped it at the top of the stairs so
as not to get caught carrying it down the stairwell. The boxes at the
top of the stairs were simply a convenient place to dump it.


DVP: Could be. But the clipboard placement, IMO, is a key to my
thinking that you are wrong here. That clipboard was found in the very
same general area of the rifle-stashing location. And that clipboard
was obviously not dropped there at the same time as the rifle. (I
kinda doubt Oswald was carrying a clipboard AND his rifle to the
northwest corner of the building after he plugged the President.)

Oswald probably pre-planned and pre-arranged that rifle-stashing nook
when he left that clipboard where it was later found, near the
staircase.


DALE MYERS: 12:31-12:32 PM: It is more likely that Oswald heard Truly
yelling up the elevator shaft and ducked into the lunchroom. If Oswald
had waited until Truly and Baker were coming up the stairs, he would
have never gotten through the vestibule door (and it closed behind
him) before Truly and Baker reached the second floor landing.


DVP: Well, again, your version could very well be right. But so could
mine, quite easily too. There's no way to know, of course.

And we also don't know how FAR Oswald pulled open that door in order
to slip inside of it to try to avoid Baker/Truly.

Perhaps the following scenario occurred (more speculation, yes, but
what are ya gonna do? ~wink~).....Oswald, VERY LIKELY HAVING PRIOR
KNOWLEDGE THAT THAT DOOR HAS AN AUTOMATIC "CLOSING" DEVICE ON IT
(which makes the door shut rather slowly), opened that door just far
enough to allow his slim frame to slide through the opening.

Via that scenario, the door would have only been open a tiny fraction
of its FULL opening capacity, and would therefore not have had very
far to shut before it was completely closed. 2 or 3 seconds, maximum,
to get it fully closed. Maybe less.

Oswald might also have aided the door-closing process himself by
pulling on the doorknob from the other side. (Unless I'm mistaken, via
the WC/FBI photos I have seen, all of the TSBD doors had KNOBS, and
were not merely 'push/pull' type of doors...so Oswald would have had a
knob to pull on if he'd wanted to.)

Plus: I doubt we can be 100% sure of Marrion Baker's exactness re: the
open/closed status of that door. In fact, he never said it was fully
closed. He said this.....

"I can't say whether he had gone on through that door or not. All I did was catch a glance at him, and evidently he was--this door might have been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time." -- Marrion Baker

So Baker wasn't 100% sure of the door's status at all.

BTW, Dale, you might want to change your spelling of Marrion Baker's first name in your [Don] Thomas essay on your site. You've got it misspelled as "Marion" multiple times. And you probably don't want some crackpot conspiracy-loving kook to come along and berate you for making "Marrion" (with a double-R) sound like a female cop. ~grin~


DALE MYERS: I don't think Oswald's demeanor in the lunch room points
either way -- toward guilt or innocence. Way too much has been made of
this by far too many people.


DVP: Maybe so. But Oswald not saying a darn thing when a gun is placed inches from his gut, IMO, is telling me more about his guilt than his innocence (in a proverbial "I KNOW WHY YOU'RE HERE, SO I DON'T NEED TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT WHY THIS GUN IS POINTED AT ME" type of mindset).


DALE MYERS: 12:40 PM: I don't think Oswald had Whaley drive him
passed [sic] his room for the purpose of seeing if the cops were
waiting for him. More likely Oswald didn't want Whaley connecting his
passenger with the house at 1026 N. Beckley.


DVP: Yes. And I, too, have speculated on that very same thing myself in the past [such as in this post]. I just didn't mention that particular angle in my Timeline posting.


DALE MYERS: 1:00 PM: You didn't argue the point in the timeline, but
somewhere on a newsgroup posting you argued that Earlene Roberts was
probably mistaken about the 3-4 minutes Oswald stayed in his room.
While that may be true, I think the key point in the timeline is the
assumption that Earlene's arrival time of Oswald at "about 1:00 pm" is
spot on. I showed in "With Malice" that a time range is far more
accurate and shows he could have arrived as early as a few minutes
before one, which means he could have been out the door by 1:01 pm
even if you assume Earlene's guesstimate of 3-4 minutes in his room is
accurate.


DVP: Very good points indeed. And I firmly concur with your thoughts
on this matter. I've always stressed to the "Anybody But Oswald"
conspiracy kooks on the various forums that ALL times given by the
witnesses are merely ESTIMATES. That's all. But the CTers seem to
think all of these various times given by witnesses are embedded in
cement and are undeniable facts. And that's nonsense, of course.

While it's true that the WC says in its own Report that Oswald
probably arrived back home at "1:00" (via CE1119-A), their times, too,
are said to be "approximate" (which is only common sense).

And I'll maintain until the cows come home that it's very unlikely
that Oz stayed in that shoebox of a room for any 3-4 minutes that day.
No way. No how.

[Also see:]
http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/In Lee Harvey Oswald's Room


DALE MYERS: There are many other points of disagreement I have with
your timeline.


DVP: Which, IMO, is an absolutely incredible statement coming from a fellow LNer who knows with 100% certainty (as I do) that Oswald was in that Sniper's Nest at 12:30 firing 3 shots at JFK on November 22nd.

But, to each his own I guess.


DALE MYERS: I enjoyed reading your timeline. I've certainly considered the same things you did (many of which I subsequently rejected based on other facts) and as such am always curious to see how someone else comes to terms with the same evidence.


DVP: Thank you, Dale. As always, I respect the opinion of a knowledgeable and forthright researcher like yourself. Your contribution to the vast landscape of JFK assassination-related research is wide-sweeping, unique, and above all, filled with common sense, logic, and FACTS.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed response to my "Timeline" post today. I appreciate it.

Best Regards,
David Von Pein
[August 3, 2007]

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RELATED LINKS:

DVP-Potpourri.blogspot.com/Dale Myers

Blogger.com/profile/DVP

Blogger.com/profile/Dale K. Myers

DavidVonPein.blogspot.com

JFKFiles.com

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