JIM HARGROVE SAID:
There is plenty of evidence at the National Archives incriminating “Lee Harvey Oswald,” and all of it is phony.
[...]
...the FBI altered their statements.
[...]
...FBI report falsifications.
[...]
...the FBI and/or Warren Commission merely had to alter his testimony.
[...]
...documents were fabricated.
[...]
...I don't trust ANY report.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
When you have to resort to such massive allegations of constant "alteration" and "falsification" and "fabricated" stuff, it's a good sign that you've reached a level of deep desperation from which you can likely never escape.
In other words....since you've got no evidence of your own to prove any conspiracy, you have no choice but to try and invalidate the real evidence in the case. (The Hidell money order and CE399 being two prime examples, among dozens of others.)
When I see words like "all of it is phony", it's a sure sign that the CTer who wrote such nonsense has a very weak case for "conspiracy". So he's got to attack the legitimacy of ALL of the evidence. A very tiresome (and predictable) way to approach any murder case.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I call this DVP land, which is similar to the territory that Rod Serling inhabited in his TV days.
Consider:
For a solid week, up until about the 29th, the entire media, which included literally hundreds of reporters, maybe thousands, somehow missed the fact that the rifle the DPD had was equipped with a scope!
Were they all blind? And this included the local newspapers.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Utter nonsense, Jim. The media was reporting that the murder weapon had a SCOPE on it as early as just a few hours after the assassination. There are even several FILMS (broadcast to the public on television on November 22) that show the scope attached to the rifle -- such as Tom Alyea's film, which was shown in its "wet" form (i.e., totally unedited) on WFAA-TV on the afternoon of the 22nd, with the film being narrated at various times by Bob Clark and Bert Shipp and Bob Walker, with the newsmen even pointing out the obvious fact that the rifle had a SCOPE on it.
And Walter Cronkite, on Nov. 22 and 23, talked about the rifle's "sniper scope attachment". And Dan Rather, at about 7:00 PM on Nov. 22, narrated a film showing Lt. Carl Day walking through the DPD corridor carrying the rifle, with Rather telling the CBS audience that the rifle "has a four-power telescopic sight on it" (with the scope easily visible in the film as well; see video below)....
And the newspapers were reporting about the "telescopic sight" on the rifle as early as Day 1 on November 22 as well. Here's an example from a Portland, Oregon, paper.
Here's another newspaper (also dated 11/22/63), showing the same information about the "telescopic sight" on the rifle.
And yet another here.
Those newspapers were reporting the early erroneous info about the rifle being a "7.65 Mauser". But each paper also mentioned the fact that the assassination rifle was equipped with a "telescopic sight". That Oxnard paper was even correctly reporting, as early as November 22 (the date on the paper), that the rifle was an "Italian" gun.
So, as all these examples illustrate, Jim DiEugenio doesn't know what he's talking about.
I guess Jim thinks that just because the media was reporting the $12.78 price for the assassination weapon for a few days beyond November 22, that means that "the entire media...somehow missed the fact that the rifle the DPD had was equipped with a scope".
But if that's Jimmy's belief, he looks awfully silly, because I just provided a bunch of examples showing that the media WAS reporting on the "scope" within hours of the assassination.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I love it when Davey goes into one of his tantrums. As he did above. It shows you how exacerbated this issue gets him.
See, that is not what I meant. Let me explain:
If DVP is saying that the 12.78 price which was widely circulated was a mistake, because they did not realize the scope was a part of the purchase, then all they had to do was look at the rifle and see it had a scope. Which as he shows, many outlets did. OK, what is the price of the scope?
But if he is saying that they knew it had a scope, then why did so many outlets still get it wrong?
It's that simple. DVP wants to have it both ways.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The media kept getting it wrong because they simply kept repeating the main $12.78 price for the rifle (without the scope) that was originally reported by Chief Curry on TV on 11/23/63 [see video clip below]. Nobody in the media took the time in those first few days to seek out what the price was WITH the scope included. Big deal.
There's no cover-up there. Just a lack of details regarding the "With Scope" price.
Again....big deal. It's only a "big deal" to rabid conspiracy theorists like you, Jim.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Davey:
Curry of the police said that the FBI reported that price [$12.78]. For a rifle with scope.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But keep in mind that when Curry told the press about the $12.78 price for the rifle, the complete information concerning the $21.45 money order had not been revealed to Chief Curry yet. I believe Curry provided the $12.78 info at about 7 PM Dallas time on 11/23, while the money order was recovered at 9:35 PM EST (8:35 PM Dallas time) on 11/23. The Secret Service and FBI knew a little earlier than that, of course, that they were looking for a money order in the amount of $21.45 (see Commission Document No. 87), but the DPD wouldn't necessarily have been privy to the $21.45 price until much later (assuming they were ever provided that figure by the SS or FBI, which perhaps they weren't, I don't really know).
So the press people went with the info they had available as of Curry's makeshift conference at DPD at 7:00 on Nov. 23 --- i.e., Oswald's handwriting was traced to the Klein's "order letter" (not the money order), with Curry telling the reporters this....
"I believe the gun was supposed to cost twelve dollars and seventy-eight cents, I believe. I believe it was advertised in some magazine for that."
JIM HARGROVE SAID THIS.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
LOL, this is crazy! The FBI was initially going to go with the March 20 $21.95 money order purchase. Then later changed their minds and decided to fabricate their own money order!
DVP, how do you explain the fact that the FBI got the wrong order from the microfilm? I mean, are they so inept that they thought they saw serial number C2766 on that order when in fact it wasn't there? Remember, this was not just one FBI agent... it was three! So all three hallucinated the C2766 serial number???
This is yet another smoking gun, Jim. But can DVP convincingly explain it away?? I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for a reply!
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Sandy,
The FBI didn't get the "wrong order" from the microfilm. There WAS NO ORDER FOR $21.95 for the C2766 rifle. That was merely a slipped digit. And Harry Holmes talks about that mistake in his testimony too. That was one of the reasons it took a little longer to find the $21.45 Hidell money order --- because they were searching (in vain) for the wrong amount ($21.95).
Once they realized what the correct figure was--$21.45--they found it very quickly.
Do you think Waldman No. 7 is a fake document, Sandy? It clearly says $21.45 on it. And it also says C2766. And A. Hidell. And Italian Carbine. And William Waldman testified in detail about that order form. Was he a plotter too?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
What a bunch of Von Peinian baloney.
And by God in heaven, to use Holmes as your witness. As a famous lawyer said to Joe McCarthy, "Have you no shame sir?"
Well, we know the answer to that don't we? In both cases.
How anyone can write the above knowing they were looking for the serial number, not the price, is simply beyond the realm of normal thinking. He still has not read John's essay.
But that is why Davey is Davey.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Jimmy,
When it came time to look for the money order, they were most certainly looking for the AMOUNT, not the serial number. (The serial number wasn't on the M.O.)
And this sentence written by John Armstrong....
"They did, however, find documentation that showed Klein's sold a $21.95 rifle that was paid for with a postal money order issued on March 20, 1963."
....is just a flat-out distortion of the facts, because the FBI most certainly did NOT find any $21.95 Klein's order form for the C2766 rifle. They found the Waldman Exhibit No. 7 document, which is the ONLY document that has BOTH a price and the C2766 serial number on it--and Armstrong knows it. He's merely trying to turn an innocent error regarding the exact amount of the purchase ($21.95 vs. $21.45) into a mountain of conspiracy and cover-up. Silly beyond belief.
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
What specifically is the "order" anyway? Is it the coupon cut out from the magazine? The money order? Both?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The "order letter" that Chief Jesse Curry refers to in his hallway press conference on the night of Nov. 23 is CE773, which is the microfilm of the order form clipped by Oswald out of the Feb. '63 American Rifleman magazine. That's the microfilmed document that was the basis for the FBI's findings that the "order letter" had Oswald's writing on it. That order form, of course, doesn't have the $21.45 figure on it either. Nor does it have $12.78 on it. It has $19.95 on it. (Shall we dance some more over those three figures?)
SANDY LARSEN SAID:
David, can you write a quick summary for me so that I can understand what happened. I'll write one up right now to give you an idea of what I want:
1. The FBI has the serial number, C2766. (I'm not sure how they got that, but I'll try to understand that later.)
2. The FBI guys search the Klein's microfilm for seven hours and find what they THINK they are looking for... an order with C2766 printed on it. (Even though it wasn't.)
3. The order is dated March 20 (now we're talking about the money order, right?) for $21.95.
4. The FBI authenticated Oswald's handwriting.
5. They discover they had the wrong order. (But then how did they authenticate Oswald's handwriting??)
David, I don't know how to fix the above with your solution to the problem. You say they were searching for an order with the wrong price. But I thought they were searching for an order with a given serial number, C2766, not with a given price.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
1. The FBI did, indeed, have the serial number. (They had the rifle in their possession at 11:45 PM CST on Friday, you know. So why would you be surprised they knew the serial number? And even if they didn't have the rifle themselves, the FBI could have simply telephoned the DPD and gotten the number from them at any time on Nov. 22....couldn't they?)
2. The FBI discovers from a gun dealer in Dallas that Italian surplus WW2 rifles were being distributed by Crescent Firearms in New York City. This leads the FBI to Klein's in Chicago after finding out that Crescent had sold the "C2766" rifle to Klein's.
3. The Klein's records are searched and the "C2766" invoice is found (via what would soon become "Waldman Deposition Exhibit No. 7"), which provides all the pertinent information about the sale of Italian rifle No. C2766 for $21.45 to one A. Hidell of Dallas, Texas (via "M.O." [Money Order]) on March 20, 1963 (which is the date the FBI goes with, instead of the date stamped at the very top of Waldman No. 7--March 13, 1963--which was the date Klein's put the Hidell order through their cash register, as William Waldman explained in his Warren Commission testimony; the March 20 date was, of course, the date the rifle was shipped to Hidell/Oswald).
4. Somebody connected with the discovery of the "Waldman No. 7" invoice must have transmitted the wrong purchase price to other FBI personnel ($21.95 instead of $21.45), which led to confusion when the FBI and Secret Service began searching for the money order that was used to pay for the rifle.
5. In addition to the internal Klein's invoice (Waldman No. 7), the FBI also found the "order letter" (as Curry called it), which is CE773. They quickly determined that the writing on the order form was that of Lee Harvey Oswald.
In short, there was no "wrong order". Somebody just wrote down or transmitted to somebody the wrong purchase price after the discovery of Waldman No. 7.
But even though some officials had the wrong price, there were others who knew the correct price of $21.45 for the Hidell rifle order, because we find the correct figure being written in two separate reports (connected with the discovery of the money order) authored by both the FBI and the Secret Service on November 23 -- CD75 and CD87.
David Von Pein
February 17-20, 2016
