5 Kennedy: The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald

Defenders of the Warren Commission would have us believe that the case against Lee Harvey Oswald had gone to trial, he would have been convicted of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But I think that Oswald was framed and a fair and impartial jury would have aquitted him had he gone to trial.

The first step in convicting Oswald would be to link him with the alleged murder weapon, an Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano. Even doing this is a problem. Warren Commission defenders will show that the writing on the envelope, the money order, and the order from used to purchase the Mannlicher-Carcano has been identified as Oswald's. They will also point to Oswald's alleged use of the alias "Alex Hidell." The rifle was ordered in the name of, and addressed to, "A. Hidell." The Dallas Police also said that Oswald was carrying an "Alek Hidell" ID card. But this is not the end of the story. First of all, the money order was purchased when Oswald was at work. But if he didn't purchase the money order, why was his handwriting matched with the handwriting on the envelope, money order, and order form? There are forgers who can copy a person's handwriting so well that detection of fakery is impossible. Proof of this can be found in the so-called "Mr. Hunt" note. It was examined by three different handwriting experts and they all agreed the note was written by Oswald. The HSCA (House Select Committee on Assassinations) said the writing was similar to Oswald's but their doubts centered on the signature. Warren Commission defenders are now claiming the note was forged by the KGB. This goes to show you that even the top handwriting experts can be fooled.

Another problem is that no one at the post office remembered giving Oswald a large package like the kind a rifle would be shipped in. In fact, no one remembered giving Oswald a package of ANY kind.

There is also a difference in size between the rifle "A Hidell" ordered and the one allegedly left by Oswald on the sixth floor. "A. Hidell" ordered item C20-T750 from an advertisement placed by Klein's Sporting Goods in the February 1963 issue of American Rifleman. The rifle is listed as being 36 inches long. But the rifle on the sixth floor of the Book Depository is 40.2 inches long.

The way the rifle was ordered is evidence of a frame-up. In Texas in 1963, Oswald could have purchased a rifle across the counter with few or no questions asked. Instead, we are told that he bought the rifle with the alias "A. Hidell," gave his own post office box number, committed his writing to paper, and when out and assassinated the President with this same "A. Hidell" rifle, all while carrying an "A. Hidell" ID card in his wallet!

I doubt Oswald was carrying the ID card when he was arrested. The Dallas Police said nothing about the fake ID card until the FBI announced that the alleged murder weapon had been ordered by "A. Hidell." The radio traffic between the arresting officers and the police station has no mention of a phony identification or the use of an alias. Paul Bentley, an officer who brought Oswald to the police station said, "On the way to City Hall I removed the suspect's wallet and obtained his name." There is no suggestion that he was confused about whether the suspect was Oswald or Hidell. In fact, not one of the arresting officers' in their reports to the police chief mentioned seeing any Hidell ID card.

If Oswald did order the rifle, he could have simply been under orders from the men who were framing him for the assassination. If for no other reason, the might have wanted Oswald's prints on the rifle.

The Dallas Police claimed that they found partial fingerprints on the Carcano's magazine housing. On the day after the assassination, the FBI studied the prints and determined them to be worthless. However, in 1993, fingerprint experts Jerry Powdrill and Vincent J. Scalice studied the prints and concluded that they were Oswalds. There are problems with their identifications. The prints were studied by the FBI's Sebastian Latona, a very highly-skilled fingerprint expert, and found to be worthless. Latona was able to study the original prints themselves and had additional pictures taken of them for examination purposes. Here is what Latona said to the Warren Commission:

Mr. LATONA. I could see faintly ridge formations there. However, examination disclosed to me that the formations, the ridge formations and characteristics, were insufficient for purposes of either effecting identification or a determination that the print was not identical with the prints of people. Accordingly, my opinion simply was that the latent prints which were there were of no value. Now, I did not stop there.

Mr. EISENBERG. Before we leave those prints, Mr. Latona, had those been developed by the powder method?

Mr. LATONA. Yes; they had.

Mr. EISENBERG. Was that a gray powder?

Mr. LATONA. I assumed that they used gray powder in order to give them what little contrast could be seen. And it took some highlighting and sidelighting with the use of a spotlight to actually make those things discernible at all. Representative FORD. As far as you are concerned.

Mr. LATONA. That's right.

Mr. DULLES. Is it likely or possible that those fingerprints could have been damaged or eroded in the passage from Texas to your hands?

Mr. LATONA. No, sir; I don't think so. In fact, I think we got the prints just like they were. There had, in addition to this rifle and that paper bag, which I received on the 23d--there had also been submitted to me some photographs which had been taken by the Dallas Police Department, at least alleged to have been taken by them, of these prints on this trigger guard which they developed. I examined the photographs very closely and I still could not determine any latent value in the photograph.

So then I took the rifle personally over to our photo laboratory. In the meantime, I had made arrangements to bring a photographer in especially for the purpose of photographing these latent prints for me, an experienced photographer--I called him in. I received this material in the Justice Building office of operations is in the Identification Division Building, which is at 2d and D Streets SW. So I made arrangements to immediately have a photographer come in and see if he could improve on the photographs that were taken by the Dallas Police Department.

Well, we spent, between the two of us, setting up the camera, looking at prints, highlighting, sidelighting, every type of lighting that we could conceivably think of, checking back and forth in the darkroom--we could not improve the condition of these latent prints. So, accordingly, the final conclusion was simply that the latent print on this gun was of no value, the fragments that were there.

After that had been determined, I then proceeded to completely process the entire rifle, to see if there were any other prints of any significance or value any prints of value--I would not know what the significance would be, but to see if there were any other prints.

Defenders of the Warren Commission say that the Dallas Police found Oswald's palm print on the barrel of the alleged murder weapon. But there is no chain of evidence for the palm print and the Dallas Police said nothing about the palm print to the FBI until after the death of Oswald on November 24th (Oswald was shot in the basement of the Dallas Police Station by Jack Ruby). Moreover, the Dallas Police officials said Oswald's prints had not been found on the rifle in public interviews and journalists assigned to the police station were reporting the same thing as late as the evening of the 24th. When Latona examined the Carcano on November 23, he said it looked like it hadn't even been processed for prints. There is evidence that the palm print was taken off Oswald's body at the morgue or later at the funeral home.

According to the Warren Commission, Oswald brought the rifle to the Texas School Book Depository in a brown paper bag, which was allegedly found in the so-called "Sniper's Nest" where Oswald supposedly shot the President. The Commission also said that a blanket found in Ruth Paine's garage was used to store the rifle. But there are problems with using these as evidence to link Oswald with the rifle. Sylvia Meagher explains:

"The Commission . . . offered no firm physical evidence of a link between the paper bag and the rifle. The [Warren] Report does not mention the negative examination made by FBI expert James Cadigan. Cadigan said explicitly that he had been unable to find any marks, scratches, abrasions, or other indications that would tie the bag to the rifle. Those negative findings assume greater significance in the light of an FBI report (CE 2974) which states that the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Book Depository was in a well-oiled condition. It is difficult to understand why a well-oiled rifle carried in separate parts [as the WC claimed] would not have left distinct traces of oil on the paper bag, easily detected in laboratory tests if not with the naked eye. The expert testimony includes no mention of oil traces, a fact which in itself is cogent evidence against the Commission's conclusions.

Equally significant, there were no oil stains or traces on the blanket in which a well-oiled rifle ostensibly had been stored--not for hours but for months. This serves further to weaken, if not destroy, the Commission's arbitrary finding that the Carcano rifle had been wrapped in that blanket until the night before the assassination."

Although the bag was allegedly found in the "sniper's nest", the Dallas Police "failed" to take a photograph of the bag. There is no existing photograph of the sixth floor of the Depository that shows the bag. One explanation for this put forward by lone-gunman theorists is that the two policemen who took photos of the nest, Lt. Day and Detective Studebaker, didn't notice the bag. This is highly unlikely.

The bag measured 38" x 8" and was allegedly "shaped like a gun case." If the police officers found three small shells in the nest, the surely could not have "overlooked" a 38" x 8" bag. Three officers who saw a bag on the sixth floor said that it was small and it had a partially eaten chicken leg beside it, just like an ordinary lunch bag. It was probably a bag belonging to a TSBD employee, Bonnie Ray Williams who ate his chicken lunch on the sixth floor shortly before the shooting.

The only other explanation offered is that the bag was "accidentally" removed before Day and Studebaker took crime scene photographs. But the policman who supposedly prematurely removed the bag said that no evidence was moved until after Day and Studebaker "took pictures and everything"

It should also be noted that the bag didn't leave the TSBD until three hours after the assassination. Many researchers believe that the bag was created with paper that Oswald had recently handled. This was probably done by the Dallas police, federal agents, or both. This would explain why only two fingerprints were found when more should have been found.

And then there are the shirt fibers that were found on the Carcano. Fibers on the Carcano appeared to match the shirt Oswald was wearing when he was arrested in the Texas Theater. But unfortunately for the conspirators, Oswald was not wearing the same shirt he wore to work that day. No fibers from the shirt he went to work in were found on the rifle. Some researchers believe that the Dallas Police rubbed the butt of the gun against Oswald's shirt, ignorant of the fact he didn't wear that shirt to work.


The Warren Commission said that Oswald fired three shots and two of those shots were hits. Oswald's alleged markmanship has never been duplicated. In the Warren Commission's test, three Master-rated marksmen were hired. All three used the alleged murder weapon and fired at stationary targets from only 30 feet away. These men missed head and neck areas of the target 17 out of 18 times and one of the marksmen took 4.1 seconds per shot. The marksmen were also able to practice before the test while Oswald would have had little time to target practice in the forty days preceeding the assassination.


While you can't say exactly how a jury will decide a case, I think that the case against Oswald is woefully lacking in any substance.

[edit on 27-6-2004 by maynardsthirdeye]

[edit on 29-7-2004 by maynardsthirdeye]

Accidentally clicked post instead of preview. It isn't ready yet.

faith than I do.

The prevailing conditions at the time, had he been tried in Texas, would have been to save face and convist him, even if he could prove he was in Mexico when the shooting occurred.

The conspiracy against Oswald was in place before he was made aware of any impending attempt on the President.

G

Okay, now it's finished.

Was Lee Harvey Oswald a British spy sent to infiltrate the USSR ? Was he then used as a cheap and disposable asset by MI6 ?

Or was Oswald just a guy who decided to shoot the president