A Mauser, is a Mauser, is a Mannlicher-Carcano

Top: Mauser. Bottom: Mannlicher-Carcano

Mauser Breech

The saga of three police officers finding a Mauser in the northwest corner of the room where Lee Oswald allegedly killed the President of the United States continues to attract attention. How could three police officers, all experienced with firearms and the identification of weapons, miss pinpointing this important piece of evidence? If indeed, they were wrong to begin with? The discovery of Oswald’s rifle and how it morphs from a German Mauser to an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano is an interesting study of either high confusion, or else men who were subjected to political pressure to recast their stories.

Discovered by Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone in the northwest corner of the sixth floor, it was identified as a Mauser by Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman, and Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig. Moments later, Capt. Fritz and Lt. Day shows up to examine and take possession of the firearm. Wetizman would give testimony to the Warren Commission that the rifle found was a Mauser. His signed affidavit of the 23rd describes the rifle as a Mauser. Capt. Fritz said it was a Mauser as well and said so to the Warren Commission. Later, officers Boone and Wetizman, along with Fritz would recant their stories of finding a Mauser. However, Deputy Roger Craig never would.

Mauser Carbine
Not commonly reported, the Mannlicher-Carcano is basically an Italian copy of a German Mauser carbine. A carbine is a short barreled rifle that originated many years ago for use with cavalry. Since a long barreled rifle proved to be ungainly for soldiers on horseback a shorter barreled rifle was developed. Years later, the carbine would again prove useful for paratroopers and their minimalist equipment and weight requirements. A carbine’s advantage is in close combat but offers poor long range accuracy due in part to lower bullet velocity. In the sample images provided here, one can see just how close the Italian version resembles the Mauser, particularly the trigger guard assembly, sights and the shape of the stock. It’s easy to see why the two could be mistaken.

If Lee Oswald did it, he must have been the first sniper to use a carbine. Because no real sniper uses that type of rifle. The only advantage gained would be the ability to sneak the weapon undetected in the building that morning.

But Was It Mistaken?
As already stated, the first man to see the weapon was Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone and he wrote two reports saying the rifle was a Mauser. He also said that Captain Fritz, who would show up to take possession of the rifle, thought it was a Mauser as well.

In a signed and sworn affidavit on the 23rd, Deputy Constable Weitzman reports the discovery of a 7.65mm, bolt-action Mauser rifle at approximately 1:22 P.M., on the day of the assassination. He would later give the same description in his Warren Commission testimony. The questioning attorney, Mr. Ball never questions Weitzman in regards to the discrepancy to the weapon type, or how the Mauser later becomes known as a Mannlicher-Carcano. But later, the Warren Commission will decide that Weitzman and the other police officers were simply mistaken.

Roger Craig stated in a filmed interview that he was standing with the other officers and examining the rifle up close, within 6-8 inches and he saw “7.65 Mauser” stamped on the barrel. He further states that Weitzman saw it too and pointed it out.

On the other hand, Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano clearly is marked "MADE ITALY" on the shoulder stock, and "CAL 6.5" stamped on the side of the barrel. How could all of these men miss this? Only if they had a Mauser to begin with.

Eventually, Fritz, Boone and Weitzman would recant their stories and all would say they had been mistaken all along. How could this be? Here are men that had given numerous reports and testimony under oath that the rifle they had discovered was a Mauser carbine. A weapon that Craig said Weitzman had examined up close. Did somebody get to these men?

Fritz, Boone and Weitzman all changed their stories and said they were mistaken and all went on to have normal careers in law enforcement. But Roger Craig, a rising star in the Dallas County Sheriff’s department, who never changed his story, went on to lose everything; his career, his health (including numerous murder attempts) and eventually taking his own life in 1975 at his father’s house.

Importantly, it should be pointed out here–that no signed or sworn affidavit by any police officer involved in the finding of the rifle listed it as a Mannlicher-Carcano–only as a Mauser. 

So when did the switcheroo take place?

The Weapon Mess
As I have often documented here is how mucked-up everything surrounding Oswald obtaining his firearms really are. Even the most simple of efforts on Lee Oswald’s part to acquire the weapons is a weird journey down the rabbit hole. From the buying of the money orders, their processing through the banking system, to the shipment and delivery, to the actual make and model of the rifle and pistol–it’s all one contradiction after the other. And as we see here even the discovery of the rifle is fraught with controversy. Nothing is left alone and the waters are troubled. Like all things in this case nothing is simple and straight-forward.

Adding a new wrinkle is the obscure testimony of Frank Ellsworth, an agent for the ATF that was in the Texas School Book Depository building and participated in later searches, claiming the Italian rifle was found on the fourth floor and not the sixth. He theorized that Oswald, after shooting, ran down the stairs and dumped the Mannlicher-Carcano behind the boxes there on the fourth floor. That would imply another shooter with Oswald on the sixth floor. Ellsworth stuck by this story years later in a 1993 interview with authors Ray and Mary LaFontaine. I note this account here only as a possible explanation in finding a different model of rifle on the sixth floor. Regardless, Frank Ellsworth remains the only witness to this event. It’s an odd side trip to say the least.

There have been discovered bullet fragments and or spent hulls found in and around the Dealey Plaza area. Of note is a bullet fragment found in 1974 by Richard Lester near the triple overpass. It made its way to the FBI lab and there, they determined that while it was 6.5mm caliber, it was not a jacketed bullet so it was dismissed as being fired with Oswald’s rifle.  (Note that the bullet that glanced off the curb near James Tague, left no copper residue as determined by the same FBI lab.) Nevertheless, the bullet that struck Kennedy’s head shattered which no jacketed bullet, in theory, is supposed to do. So what was the fragment doing there? Are we supposed to believe that good ole’ boys were rambling around at night joy-shooting at street lamps and signs?

ARRB And The Envelope
The AssassinationsRecord Review Board (ARRB) in 1995 uncovered an FBI Field Office Dallas (89-43-1A-122) envelope. It was dated 12/2/63 and detailed the contents (since missing) of a 7.65mm shell found in Dealey Plaza after the assassination. This recovered evidence was unknown until the ARRB uncovered it. Unfortunately, it did not contain the 7.65mm shell and the outside of the envelope listed it as having no value and was destroyed. Destruction of material evidence by the FBI?  Did they even bother to take fingerprints off of it? Or, was there too big of a rush?

One can see from this 7.65mm shell affair how deeply entrenched the lone gunman dogma is at this juncture. Yes, dismiss the evidence if there is only one shooter. But if there is a conspiracy, with multiple shooters, then the recovered shell has greater implications for it. But they don’t think like that. Ironically, the spent cartridge is of the same caliber as the recovered Mauser. With these people the evidence doesn't matter as much as the carefully constructed narrative. Just like it didn’t matter when Gerald Ford moved Kennedy’s back wound up to his neck and stated that lie as a fact to the American people.

The End Game
The misidentification in this is epic. There is a thread running through this episode that speaks of intimidation. We know there were witnesses coerced into changing their testimony. Kennedy aide Kenny O'Donnell being a more well known casualty, so much so, he basically perjured himself at the Warren Commission. We never heard his account till House Speaker Tip O’Neil wrote of O'Donnell’s coerced testimony in his autobiography. He admitted to O’Neil he was under a lot of pressure from the FBI.

There is no decent explanation why men so experienced with firearms, apparently of good vision and of good sense, could make such a blunder. Roger Craig read “Mauser” on the breach of a rifle and preserved that account to his dying day. As stated earlier, he said he heard Weitzman identify the rifle as Mauser as well. Roger became the last man standing to the controversy after the others had retreated and he cast a mystery over the proceedings but he surely wasn’t the only witness with troubling testimony. Though he stood his ground the opposition found ways to isolate him and cast him in the wilderness. He lost it all but never his ability to ruffle the status quo. All you need is one voice that never quivers. There are few heroes in this jam but Roger Craig stands like a rock. (And more than just the finding of the rifle--Deputy Craig testified to seeing Lee Oswald in places he should not have been. Craig is no stranger to controversy in many areas of that fateful day.)

So were the police officers browbeaten into changing their account of the discovery of the rifle? I think they were. After all, look at what happened to Roger Craig by not going along with the script. In comparison, the other police officers were left alone. It would be understandable for somebody to say to them, “You want to end up like Roger?”

But if coerced then by whom? Figure that out we’ll know what really went down on November 22. We’ll find out a lot of things. Things they don’t want us to know.


Addendum 5/29/13

Another Witness
Not widely reported in the annals of the Mauser controversy is the Warren Commission testimony of Malcolm Price.  On October 26, 1963 Price was at the SportsDrome Rifle Range in the next booth over from Lee Oswald and took note of the rifle he was using.  He reportedly talked to Oswald about the rifle and was allowed to handle it.  He identified the weapon as a German Mauser with a Tascosa brand scope.  Price said the scope was bright and sharp.  He also reported not seeing a serial number anywhere on the rifle (Armstrong, p.773).


Sources
Mars, Jim, Crossfire; The Warren Commission 26 Volumes; Dallas Police Online Archives; O’Neill, Tip, Man of the House; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Talbot, David, Brothers.

Oswald Had The Wrong Weapons

Certainly the wrong ones from what he allegedly ordered. Take for example the .38 Smith & Wesson pistol. The company it was ordered from, Seaport Traders, had two models available. An expensive one known as the S&W .38 Special Commando and another version that was ten dollars cheaper. All the paperwork on this from Seaport Traders, since none was found in Oswald’s things, has him ordering the cheaper model. But when he was arrested in the movie theater, he had on his person the more expensive, Special Commando model.

Conversely, the alleged assassination weapon, the Mannlicher-Carcano is the wrong model too. Oswald is supposed to have ordered the rifle from Kline’s Sport Goods in March of 1963. At that time Kline’s was only selling the 36” length model. But found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building was the 40” model that Kline’s was no longer stocking.

With one weapon, say the pistol, one can chalk it up to a clerical error; obviously mistakes happen. But this happened with the purchase of both weapons? Note also that Oswald is never known to have visited any local gun shop and bought any bullets. (It should be noted that the rifle came with no clip–where did he acquire it?) In his personal effects there were no receipts for their purchase or spare ammo boxes. Very odd since all gun owners have boxes of ammo about. It is intriguing to consider that when visiting the shooting range Oswald was seen to have plenty of ammo to practice with. Yet when he supposedly did the “deed” he only used four bullets in a six round clip. Maybe not so much would be required of the patsy in this event. And when using the pistol to allegedly murder police officer Tippit, he was using different brands of bullets, as marked on the brass. Of course, they are not sold individually. They have to come in boxes. Yet he has none. No one ever saw him buy any.

(Another curious fact at the shooting range was that Oswald was seen collecting spent hulls and pocketing them. I’ve wondered if Oswald never fired a shot that day, evidenced by no nitrites in the paraffin test, and he just simply tossed the spent rounds from the range on the floor to make it appear he took the shots.)

So here is another mystery in and already puzzling affair. And this is just a tiny fragment in a much larger display of fragments in the case. The paperwork is a mess too. In another article of mine, Who Bought The Guns?, I go into greater detail all the problems with that. Once you start down the rabbit trail you see how problematic the assassination is and how strange it all gets. Probably the most strangest thing is in the most simplest of acts, such as Oswald buying a money order to purchase a rifle. This is fastened with a multitude of complications.

I think the only viable explanation is that Oswald was provided the guns. A phony paper trail was created, and not a very good one at that, as conspirators probably had established methods to control a future investigation. The good ones plan ahead but were eventually sloppy and could afford to be. As sloppy as using for proof, a money order lacking the routing stamps to show it had been processed through the banking system (all three were missing) and then presented this flawed item for verification. So bad, it’s devoid of the alleged shooter’s fingerprints. It’s later found in the National Archives and nobody explains how it got there as that is a place for important documents to be stored and in the March of 1963, Oswald’s money order was just another instrument in circulation (though apparently not in the proper circulation as it should have ended up in the postal facility in Kansas City). In this last bit, it is as if they were safely compiling evidence before the crime was even committed! I don’t fancy that but one does wonder about such curious events.

The important thing with the guns is this: They were both upgrades. Call it an order error, a simple twist of fate or whatever you will, but Oswald won better guns out of this deal. He got a better quality pistol and in regards to the rifle, a longer barrel provides improved accuracy and range. It’s a short barreled weapon anyway, as the Mannlicher-Carcano was an Italian copy of a German Mauser carbine, the sort of short-barreled weapon that harkens back to the days of cavalry.

While Lee Oswald may have been a bit player in Cold War theater, and this can be discerned through his many peculiar actions, it has never let up. It’s called “Psyops” now for psychological operations. We see it today in the actions of Adam Gadahn, the alleged “American Al-Qaeda” spokesman spewing forth internet videos calling for violence upon the West. (For some odd reason also called the American Taliban but there is no evidence he speaks for them.) None of the mainstream media will tell the public what a faker this guy is. Even the New Media such as the Huffington Post referred to him as “a highly influential al Qaeda figure born in America…” Real name–Adam Pearlman. He’s not Arabic but Jewish and his grandfather was on the board of the Anti-Defamation League. Highly influential? Says who, the U.S. government? Who in al Qaeda says that about him? Remember who founded al Qaeda–elements of the CIA and MI6.
Gadahn/Pearlman supposedly converted to Islam in 1995 at the age of 17 but that may have been as real as Lee Oswald playing a Marxist on TV in 1963. (These players start out young–Oswald had his purported interest in communism under way by this same age.) As usual, it all amounts to one big deception by the major players.

So the smoke clears and it’s the same old thing we’ll never know about for certain. But there sure are a lot of footprints around here.

Sources
Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Mars, Jim, Crossfire; The Warren Report


http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2009/11/who-bought-guns.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/adam-gadahn-urges-muslims-kill-americans_n_871190.html

Bugliosi Takes To The Airwaves

Vincent Bugliosi is out hawking a new book, Divinity of Doubt: The God Question
and appeared recently on the Alex Jones show. The former LA prosector gained fame in the late 1960s for putting away Charlie Manson and his gang for the Tate-Labianca murders. Years later Bugliosi gained the ire of JFK conspiracy researchers with his 2007 book, Reclaiming History. Ever boastful, Bugliosi called this 1600+ book (plus over 900 pages on CD-ROM) his “Magnus Opus” on the JKF assassination and did so once again on Jones’ radio program. The book itself is rightly referred to as a door stop and it belly flopped in the marketplace. It is no longer in print.

There is something basically smarmy about Bugliosi with his high-pitched slick talking lawyer swag. His arguing style, and to a certain extent, his writing style about the assassination bare similarity to that of a stage magician with slight of hand tricks and a pretty leggy model on side. Throw in some straw men to shoot down, plus an added dose of vitriol towards naysayers (i.e., conspiracy theorists) and the naivety of an audience that might not be familiar the particulars in the case, and he comes off looking sharp and on-game. I’ve called him the “King of the cherry pickers” as he often picks the evidence that supports the Warren Commissions’s lone gunman conclusion and largely ignores (when not discrediting) any contrary evidence.

Alex Jones tried to get Bugliosi to talk some about other issues, particularly the Kennedy assassination, but it quickly became apparent that Bugliosi didn’t want to entertain the notion, stating the lack of time to properly get into the issue. Jones did get him to talk about the shots from the grassy knoll, getting the standard reply, “There is no evidence of anybody seeing a shooter on the grassy knoll.” More on that in a few paragraphs.

But take notice of Bugliosi’s modus operandi–he says there is nobody seeing a shooter on the knoll. But what about the witnesses that heard shots coming from the knoll? He ignores them using the classic Bugliosi pass. The fact is, there are over fifty people that heard shots from knoll; everybody from Abraham Zapruder making his famous film, to Phil Willis whose photographs appeared in Look magazine to Bill and Gayle Newman lying on the curb protecting their children from shots they say they heard coming from the knoll. As it happens, too many to mention here.

This very similar to how Bugliosi dismisses the whole idea of there being a shooter on the knoll at all. He does this by stating the shooter has the wrong angle and that the kill shot would have passed through Kennedy’s head from ear to ear, rather than laterally from the front to back. Seems reasonable upon first assessment and I have to admit I was taken in by this when I first read it. But there is a catch–Bugliosi places the shooter in the wrong position behind the picket fence to being with! He does not believe any witness testimony so invents this scheme. My grandmother used to call this, “Having your cake and eating it too.” Indeed. Beware of this man’s arguments as they appear well upon first glance, but fade when more light is focused upon them.

Going back to the witnesses that saw activity on the grassy knoll, Tip O’Neill, on page 178 in his book, “Man of the House” cites both Kennedy aides Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell as saying they saw smoke rising from behind the picket fence on the knoll. And most importantly, they both heard shots coming from behind the fence as well.

However, the Master Cherry Picker not need ponder such difficulties. The song and dance must go on.

Sources
YouTube links:

Bugliosi on Alex Jones, May 11.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LD46_HQtzM

Jim Marrs rebuttal, May 12.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ9clQ-QA4k

High Noon In Badville

“Madmen in power always need a fictitious ‘evil’ enemy to keep the game of war going, and keep the money flowing. Government is only able to grow and become more powerful by scaring the people about an outside enemy that is almost always manufactured and hyped by the government itself.”

Saman Mohammadi
The Excavator

I’ll give the the group that bumped JFK off one thing–at least they stuck to their story, flawed though it is, down through the decades. With the Mob hit on Osama bin Laden the official story had changed so many times one can’t help but think of the great bulk of malfeasance at work. On the face of it, much worse than the Kennedy assassination cover-up and the lies the public were told about that. An ill fated attempt at closure was remedied, but eventually ground to a halt. That seems to be the attempt here but it is so bizarrely imposed to make one wonder what precisely they are thinking. Are the adults still in charge?

By now, all are familiar with the yarn. First there was a big shoot out at the OK Corral. Nope, there was only one guy shooting who was easily dispatched. Then the Boogie Man was using women as human shields and they were killed. No, he wasn’t; only one women was allegedly wounded in the foot. We were told he was shot in resistance. No, he was shot in the head execution style instead. The glorious mansion turned out to be a rundown, nondescript cinder block building.

Over on the winner’s side, the picture of President Obama huddled with cabinet watching the event live on TV was contrived as well.

Obviously, there are problems with the narrative here. But no one in the mainstream press dares compare it to a series of lies. They are just a bunch of Court Scribes at this point taking it all with ease. Never mind the inconsistency. In many ways, this is no different than the way they handled the Kennedy assassination from 1963 or any other major news event till now. The only difference is the real independent press and commentators are on the Internet now. The news will out as long as the Net remains free. For how long is anybody’s guess.

Sleep with the Fishes
I thought it unsatisfactory they dumped the body in the sea. The body is the Prima facie evidence of what occurred–in other words, an irrefutable exhibit of fact. Down through history when the mighty foe is slain, the body is always put on display. Here, no such thing happens. Even the death photos are not to be revealed.

Even more puzzling is that no autopsy was completed. Of course, if bin Laden, was really killed in the manner they say, we know what he died of. However, a documented and photographed autopsy forms a trail of evidence. Evidence the government could use to prove their case. Evidently, the criminal enterprise that our government has become has grown so great in its hubris, that it no longer considers it necessary to prove anything. Their word will suffice. Or so they think. But the people that really think about things are not fooled.

The sheer incompetence shown with this basic course of action boggles the mind. Even the Bolivian authorities did an autopsy of Che Guevara’s remains which included fingerprints and photographs. They made sure the world knew they got the right guy. The body was put on exhibition, complete with CIA operatives standing by. Notwithstanding, for a major world superpower (i.e., Empire) to transgress like this addresses the political nature of the undertaking and how much they need to conceal. And what would that be? Did the Boogie Man really die years ago as former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dr. Steve Pieczenik said in an amazing series of disclosures recently on the Alex Jones show? Or did the Seals rush in and kill a doppelganger? What we know of evidence in this affair is fuzzy to the point of being ludicrous and strains our notion of common sense. Which of course, only encourages endless speculation. I guess they learned their lesson with the 26 volumes of collected hearings and evidence the Warren Commission published. Never again. In those books are stored facts that contradict the Warren Report.

Ultimately, there is not, nor will the ever be, any independent verification of what happened. That should disturb everybody interested in the truth.

Timmy, We Hardly Knew Ye...
Every player needs an alias and Tim Osman was Osama bin Laden’s in the glory days of fighting Russians in Afghanistan. And he got this alias from the intelligence agencies he worked with (CIA, MI6, others) that also founded Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization that allegedly materialized 9-11. There is so much mythology, high strangeness and haze surrounding bin Laden I cannot cover it all here. If you want to learn more, Saman Mohammadi at his excellent blog, The Excavator, will fill you in. (Forget Wikipedia as it only serves as a government propaganda tool.) Nonetheless, virtually nothing you’ll read in the mainstream is true on the man just as not much is true about Lee Harvey Oswald, and others like him. Suffice to say, the government basically took down one of its former employees.

This reminds me a lot of what L. Fletcher Proudy said in his book, JFK, in regards to the CIA’s chosen puppets. Men like the Diem brothers or Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. The Agency supports them as allies, builds them up, falls out of favor with them and finally, guns them down. If one wants a long life, it’s best not to work with the Agency. Bin Laden found that out–Lee Oswald did too.

An Egyptian newspaper published Osama bin Laden’s obituary in December of 2001. Whatever happen to him, he was by all accounts suffering from stage five kidney disease, meaning kidney failure, requiring dialysis by July of 2001. One can live a long time having kidney dialysis done three times a week but it needs to be administered by heath care professionals and needs constant attention. It’s not something a person ever recovers from. The “official” story ignores this important detail. So far, no reports of dialysis equipment being recovered.

High Noon In Badville
Not only were the 9-11 attacks one of the most tragic events in American history it was also one of the weirdest. There is so much going on with it, after a while the mind dulls to the relentless onslaught of particulars, each fact building on another to a huge pyramid of anomalies and seemingly unthinkable incidents. Everything from cell phones working at over 30,000 feet (impossible) to half a million tons of concrete and steel crashing to the ground with little notice on seismographic markers, to the put options being placed on airline stock of the exact hijacked airliners where a reported $100 million dollars were made, the evidence of the transaction located on the hard drives of the computers located in the Twin Towers. This rolling wreck never stops tumbling.

I’ve always been fascinated with how quickly they pinned this ghastly crime on bin Laden and Al-Qaeda within a few hours of the attacks before any investigation started. And nothing ever changed from that day forward, no matter how much investigating they did. The end result was–he’s guilty–that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. This is similar to Lee Oswald being apprehended within an hour of the assassination with the crime accredited to him which never changed either. In fact, a signed Dallas Police affidavit lists Oswald as President Kennedy and officer Tippit’s killer, dated at 1:40 PM that day. How is that for innocent till proven guilty?

Be that as it may, Osama bin Laden looks more and more like a patsy. The story of the former Company man gone rogue wears thin in places just as Lee Oswald, the Commie Marine, does. Oswald always had a cover and so did bin Laden. It’s called Legend building in the grand game; the old misdirection ploy stage magicians know so well. The cover is exposed a bit when bin Laden is in the Sudan using his wealth to rebuild some of the infrastructure there. Bad guys aren’t supposed to do that just as loners are not supposed to have a wife and kids and friends.

I guess only in a town as unlucky as Badville, where nothing is as it seems, can the outlaw die and return to be killed all over again. The truth is a mirage.


Sources:
Prouty, Fletcher L., JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy; Marrs, Jim, The Terror Conspiracy

Link:
http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/

Book Review: Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery by Norman Mailer

“Mailer, after all, was the sort of author who could both dazzle and infuriate, often within the space of a single paragraph. He was a major talent who could not keep himself from reminding you that he was a major talent, an astute observer of his moment, who tended to operate as if that moment were entirely his.”

David L. Ulin, LA Times Staff Writer

The trouble with reading books by Norman Mailer is there is too much of Norman in them. Such a dominating character in American literary art, to read him is to sense he is trying to dominate the reader as well. To “dazzle and infuriate” as David Ulin says above. His foray into the mysterious nature and ways of Lee Oswald in his Oswald’s Tale is a prime example of that. There are some new tidbits scattered about and his foray into Russia seeking new information regarding Oswald’s time there which is informative, but Mailer is sticking to the script. The Lone Gunman is staying alone. Much of the book features Warren Commission interview transcripts and abundant sections of written work by other authors (largely, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, interviewer of Oswald in Moscow in 1959 and Marina Oswald’s biographer and also, a known CIA dabbler which is never admitted to in this book.) Occasionally, Mailer throws in tasty little morsels of his own to consider.

Mailer back in the day, was a conspiracy believer and then at some point decided the evidence did not merit that view and joined up with the Lone Nut purists where he stayed during his final days. That influence can be seen throughout the book. Mailer takes a conventional view of the life of Lee Oswald, though he seems fascinated with forays into his personal habits, idiosyncrasies and sex life. Ironic that Mailer explores Oswald’s sexual habits in detail while ignoring more celebrated topics, such as, was he an intelligence agent as his mother claimed? There are so many controversies here that Mailer never addresses as if he doesn’t want to dirty his hands with the thing.

How Mailer Deals With Controversy
Mailer resorts to the same parsing of selective evidence as Posner, Bugliosi, and a host of other Warren Report defenders do. That of course, comes as no surprise.

A case in point is how he handles Oswald’s street scuffle with DRE member Carlos Bringuier while handing out pamphlets for the pro-Castro FPCC which has Oswald arrested, provides him local media time and establishes his persona as a communist in the public’s eye.

But along the way something odd happens that lets us know there is more here than meets the eye. Because Oswald mails a letter to the FPCC headquarters in New York vaguely describing the altercation. The trouble is, it was postmarked before the scuffle took place. This one little thing casts doubt on this street tussle being a spontaneous affair and implies it was a preplanned event. In CIA parlance, Oswald was being built a Legend. A common procedure of spy-craft.

And how does our great American literary figure handle this? Mailer recruits cabalist traditions and Classical Hebrew, with notions of calling things into being so as to create one’s future. In Mailer’s words, “To say, therefore, that you have done something that you have not yet done becomes the first and essential step in shaping the future.”

Sure, sure. Mailer resorts to metaphysics while missing the obvious–that Oswald mailed the letter too early for what was apparently a contrived event. Earlier, Oswald had approached the DRE to offer his Marine experience to Carlos Bringuier to train them. He offered them a donation as well and was rebuffed on both counts. It should be pointed out here, that the all Cuban DRE was being trained and financed by the CIA. A fact that Mailer never points out to his readers. Evidently, Oswald was on a fishing expedition, doing the labor of a “dangle” for somebody or some agency.

Frankly, I am perplexed as to why he would resort to this. It’s Mailer the novelist speaking here, not Mailer the seeker of the truth. I find it hard to believe that he even has confidence in these words. It is an odd way to brush off the controversy and it just doesn’t work on many levels. For a man so brilliant to revert to this weirdness is absurd but Mailer does so with no shame at all.
I guess when the mind is made up that there can’t be a conspiracy; that Lee Oswald is only lurching from one delusion and flight of fancy to the next, with no greater cause in effect.

KGB Transcripts
While investigating Lee Oswald’s Russian period, Mailer gets access to KGB transcripts taken from bugs that were placed in Oswald and Marina’s apartment. Ample sections of these are reproduced in the book. Basically, I found them not to add much light on Oswald’s character and it all amounts to a lot of bickering between a newly married couple. It’s essentially boring.

However, one item stands out, and it’s another thing Mailer omits–and that is what language are they speaking in? While it is known that Oswald was an excellent Russian speaker, it is also known that during his time in Russia he didn’t show off that skill that much. He apparently did upon meeting Marina, who thought at first he was a local as he spoke with a Baltic accent. But when socializing with the Ziger family, they report he never spoke Russian in front of them, only in English to their father who understood English. Fearing being arrested for being a spy, which he most likely was, Oswald never wanted this skill to be known to those who were listening in on him. It would denote a swift arrest for espionage.

Conversely, his wife Marina was apparently a very good English speaker but spoke little of it when she migrated over to the United States. John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee, states that he saw Marina’s handwritten notebooks in the National Archives and they were all in English. Lee wrote Marina letters in English to her while living in Russia and those are in evidence. Even mother Marguerite reveals in her Commission testimony detailed conversations she had with her daughter in law–conversations in English, without anyone to render in Russian. Yet Marina needs a translator to give her sworn testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. What is going on here? Evidently, she was under similar pressures in America as Lee was in Russia. Which of course, would fashion her an operative as well. At any rate, both were in a Cold War contest to not reveal too much of who they are and what they know to the Big Players.

And all of this interesting stuff Mailer ignores to create his vision of Lee Oswald as Walter Mitty, with his visions of greatness, constantly encountering dead ends, seeing his destiny smothered before his eyes. The other Oswald, the one that was a shadow warrior for the Home Team, which would explain a lot of his mysterious undertakings, has no place in the narrative, Mailer’s narrative.

The Pay Off
So when the smoke clears we’ve got our lone gunman solely responsible for the act and it’s time to move along. It’s all a sad dream anyway. As I was reading this work, I kept getting the feeling that Mailer would rather have jotted this all down as a novel. After all, he considered the novel to be the apex of literary art, and art he had a gift for. He at times uses the same devices one does in fiction writing and those devices seem out of place, like when invents the metaphysical reason for Oswald’s forecast of a scuffle in a letter before the event happens to work his way out of that mess. This is what a fiction writer does–gives his character some luck out of nowhere to extract himself from a crisis. When Mailer doesn’t wish to deal with something troublesome, he ignores it. At times he seems set on exposing a deep truth and then veers off of it as if the whole scene got too hot. Towards the end he refers to Lee Oswald as a ghost; the First Ghost he says. As if there are not hundreds of other ghosts haunting the American historical landscape. Once again, a metaphor better suited in fiction.

Oswald’s Tale takes off like it’s going to be an interesting, groundbreaking book, but that never happens as it fades into the same old thing for those of us familiar with the Oswald story. There are lots of fields left to follow, as Mailer never wants to deal with any of the major controversies in the case. After all, that might muddy up the nice, clean story being presented. Even at this late stage in JFK assassination research, by hundreds of researchers, Mailer still thinks the men selected to be a part of the commission were honorable and above reproach. You can still think that so long as you ignore their histories as Mailer does. Like many of his ilk, the Warren Report stands as the final authority on what happened and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the last official government investigation conducted in the late 1970s, which concluded in its report there was a probable conspiracy, is given no consideration at all.

Oswald’s Tale is really the same account of Lee Oswald’s life the Warren Report told us, just with better prose.

The Sum Of All Things

"The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy."

HSCA, Final Report, 1979

From the very beginning, the Powers that Be have treated the Warren Report as if it is the word of God, come down from on high, etched in stone. In the picture above, that big book almost looks like a stone tablet. Why, it might as well be Moses himself placing it in Lyndon Johnson’s awaiting hands. Later, he would tell Walter Cronkite that he never believed in the lone gunman theory. After second thoughts he asked CBS to delete the comment, under the grounds of National Security. A moment of candor we are not supposed to know about.

In a 1999 doctoral dissertation by Ross Frank Ralston, he relates an important concept in the study of JFK. It is the principle of "hegemony" in the media. In other words, the ability of certain players in the media to dominate others. According to Ralston, those main players are CBS and Time-Life in the way they presented the government’s case in the assassination. And early on, they set the standard as to how the assassination would be relayed to the public after the Warren Report was published in late 1964. The Warren Report, as Ralston summarizes is, "a man in a building shot a man in a car..."

However, there is more than one theory of what happened because there was another, and final, investigation launched in 1977 to become known as the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In this case they explored both the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Despite political infighting and government agencies lacking in openness and outright lying to the Committee (i.e., CIA) their final report published in 1979 concluded there was a possibility of a conspiracy in the deaths of Kennedy and King but they didn't have the means to continue any further investigation. 

So we are left with two official government investigations both with different outcomes. The first, a lone gunman with no confederates; and the last, more than one gunman with a conspiracy in play.

What Ralston concentrates on in his dissertation is how the media focuses on the former, ignoring the latter, and extending into every possible area of the media from print to TV. In effect, the Warren Report becomes the sum of all things.

The Watch Dog Became The Lap Dog
The way the "Fourth Estate" functions with the Kennedy assassination has long been the fly in the ointment. It is a frustrating issue to examine. Where they should question, they accept without comment. Isn't one of the aims of journalism to research what the facts are? Research what you are told? After all, we are not living in Nazi state, right? In many ways the American press operates like a propaganda arm of the government. Joseph Goebbels never had it so good! One can view this behavior in the way they cover the official government investigations from JFK, to Watergate, to 9-11.

And therein lies the disconnect. The public will question what they are told; the mainstream press, largely, will not. The Watch Dog became the Lap Dog. No one in the American Press ever did a critical analysis of the Warren Report, the 26 volumes of collected evidence and hearings, from then till now. It is as if they wanted to prove the Government's story of what happened. And why? Probably because press independence is a thing of the past. Plus, there are many connections between the government and press at this point. As Carl Bernstein reported in a piece for Rolling Stone magazine in 1976, he found at least 400 CIA operatives in the press, either as volunteers or paid agents.

The internet itself has been a great boon to critical thought on JFK’s assassination. No other media outlet comes close. True, there is a lot of junk out there, misinformation out there from both sides of the issue. One ultimately needs to do their own research to filter out the nonsense. And as I have found in my own research, a careful examination of the evidence paints a totally different picture of the assassination and the surrounding events. Well, back in the day when there were only three networks reporting the news it was easy to play cover for the Ruling Class. Or for that matter, cover up anything that the status quo wanted. Of course they have their own shills in operation on the Internet now as well, but they are all just voices–their impact is diminished as there are so many more voices in opposition

Various Machinations
Ross Frank Ralston does a good job at accounting the various machinations of CBS, Time and Life. It’s the standard mishmash of cherry picked evidence, straw man arguments, and slight of hand, misdirection ploys. These guys are good! And run this same game now. Just watch any History Channel or Discovery Channel documentary on the assassination of Kennedy and you’ll see the Warren Commission’s conclusion verified every time. If you take note of any of these documentaries, their aim is to support the government’s theories and claims on everything from assassinations to terror attacks. While there are too many to document in this post, you can download the PDF below,  about 7.9 megs in size.

I would however, like to point out a few discrepancies that Ralston chronicles regarding the 1967 CBS Kennedy assassination documentary since so much malfeasance occurred masquerading as a legitimate journalistic investigation.

Such as, when they tell us that Oswald’s rifle, utilized by an expert could recycle the weapon in 5 seconds. (The Warren Report settled on 4.8 to 5.6 seconds.) Sounds reasonable, of course. The trouble is, they never alert the viewers that Oswald was never an expert rifleman and barely qualified on his last of three marksmen tests. Nor do they mention the three metal shims used to properly align the telescopic site, or a host of other problems with the lone gunman scenario. (And I might add, you can read about this and a lot more here on this blog.) And since then, a FOIA request has uncovered a CIA document that their own photographic analysis department concluded a time span of just 1.6 seconds, obviously far too fast for anybody to work the bolt manually.

Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see how they manipulate the facts so the man in the building is forever shooting at the man in the car. The Lone Gunman is an ever present character in documentaries like this since he’s the fall-guy to quash conspiracy. In CBS ballistics tests done with a Mannlicher-Carcano, which by the way, is a model they acquired, not Oswald’s original weapon, they used it to shoot up masonite and gelatin dummies to simulate bone and flesh. Their conclusion? Yep, one bullet could do all that damage on two men. The trouble is, they never showed what the spent bullets looked like. Did they resemble CE399, the so-called pristine bullet? We’ll never know for sure but my hunch is that it did not. It certainly didn’t at the Edgewood Arsenal test where experts fired at the radial bones in 10 different cadavers and all ten bullets were, as Dr. Joseph Dolce said in his report, “markedly deformed.” He was never called to testify for the Commission and his report was concealed.

One thing Ralston left out, which I think is particularly egregious of CBS, is the way they treated Orville Nix in this show. He, of the Nix film and a witness to shots coming from the grassy knoll was interviewed in such a way so they could edit the tape later so he was heard saying the shots came from the school book depository building. This bit of tomfoolery is what the Nazis used to make propaganda films showing Jews in the ghetto, living happily. Years later, another TV producer would pull the same stunt on Jim Garrison making him look like a nut saying there were 33 gunmen in Dealey Plaza. When actually, he was referring to the number of people involved in a conspiracy. Garrison thought only six gunmen were involved in the slaying, which were cut out of the final broadcast in order to make him look like a fool. This is an example of the nasty games these people play under the guise of “journalism.” Yes, journalism for their Masters.

And this is why the Internet is so great. They can’t do this now. It would be posted somewhere on the web. One can see why the Ruling Class despises this new medium so much and are constantly floating ways of controlling it. As we used to say, “The free press is free for whomever owns one.” Now we all do..

Epilogue
Look at the lengths the government goes to quash a conspiracy in the death of John F. Kennedy? If this case is so strong and so true, why go to all the trouble to manipulate witness testimony as the CBS did with Orville Nix, or Life Magazine’s notorious shuffling of the Zapruder film frames in order to fool the public into thinking all the shots came from the rear? What do they have to fear? Why do they want us to believe this myth they created so strongly?

Probably because there is official history and there is what actually happened. They fear the truth and the public’s lack of confidence in them and their seat of power. Finally, they failed. The Majority do not believe the official fiction of what happened. They fail every time they have to resort to Nazi-style propaganda techniques in order to present their case, and by doing so, show us how weak their case really is.

1999 doctoral dissertation by Ross Frank Ralston.  PDF on https://georgebailey.substack.com/p/the-sum-of-all-things?sd=pf

Sources:
Fonzi, Gaeton; The Last Investigation; Law, William In The Eye of History; HSCA Report, 1979; Warren Report, 1964

And Then Harvey Rode Into The Trailer Park

“Harvey enters the duller reaches of the world, as if to add color to it by bringing forth sinister premonitions of future doom.”


William Henry Timmer has a childhood experience that while not too unusual at the time, though it would later become that. One summer day 1953 in an oil boom town of Stanley, North Dakota, a new kid showed up in his neighborhood. Scruffy, riding a beat-up bike with no chain guard, he hailed from New York and regaled Timmer and the other boys with stories of street gangs and razor fights. They were all impressed with this older, big city kid who went by the name of Harvey. Harvey Oswald.

But Timmer noticed there wasn't something quite right with this kid. He was older than the other boys in the neighborhood. Timmer saw that he carried with him Marxist literature. One odd thing was Harvey didn’t want to be seen by adults. When Timmer told Harvey and the other kids about some rabbits they had in a hutch and invited them all over to view them in his grandmother’s yard, Harvey came along till he saw Timmer’s mother appear out of their trailer. He then wheeled his bicycle around and rode off without saying a word or staying to see the rabbits.

Later, William Timmer reports, Harvey told him he was going to kill the president of the United States one day. When Timmer related this to his mother she told him not to ever associate with the boy again. He did not. Nor did he know where this boy lived, only that he came to their trailer park from somewhere south. He never saw Harvey after that summer or in the following years before they moved to Arizona in 1957.

Shortly after the assassination, Timmer’s mother, Mrs. Leslie Cole, sent him some newspaper clippings of Lee Oswald following his arrest for the murders asking him if this is the boy he met in Stanley ten years earlier. Timmer identified the man in the pictures as Harvey and his mother preceded to write President Lyndon Johnson a letter describing how her son met Oswald ten years earlier. This letter was forwarded to the Secret Service and from there to the FBI.

Both William Timmer and his mother were interviewed about this incident by the FBI. As with many controversial witnesses, they were never called to testify to the Warren Commission about this encounter with Harvey (Lee?) Oswald. Why? Conflicting records and timelines.

(FBI Special Agent, James Hosty, in his book Assignment: Oswald, tells of meeting Marguerite Oswald and asking her if she and Lee ever lived in South Dakota. She laughed it off, denying ever having lived there. Odd that Hosty got the wrong state in questioning her. It also shows how fast the ND story flashed around as Hosty’s question was posed just five days after the assassination.)

New York City, 1953
Marguerite Oswald moved herself and Lee New York for the purpose of being closer to her son form her first marriage, John Pic. All existing records indicate that Marguerite Oswald was employed for most of 1953 a various department and hosiery stores in New York. Meanwhile, Lee Oswald’s school records have him enrolled in PS #117 and later, PS #44. It was #117 that he was largely truant from, and court proceedings were launched to place Lee Oswald in The Youth House, a home for delinquent boys. Subsequent events had Oswald evaluated for the first and only time by a psychiatrist and interviewed by a probation officer.

The year of 1953 was filled with discrepancies in records and witness testimony. John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee, documents in exhaustive detail the conflicting witness testimony and the disappearance of records pertaining to this and many other phases of Lee Oswald’s life. Take for example, Louise Robertson, who states she was employed by Marguerite Oswald as a housekeeper for six weeks to take care of their one bedroom apartment. Never mind the strangeness of hiring a maid for small apartment when Marguerite is supposed to impoverished, but Mrs. Robertson claims her employment ended as a result of Marguerite and Lee moving out of New York in the summer of 1953. However, the FBI obtain employment records from the Lady Orva Hosiery store which has Marguerite Oswald employed there from May to December of 1953. So she and Lee can’t be living in ND during this time, contradicting not only William Timmer and his mother, but Louise Robertson’s account of the Oswald’s leaving in the summer of that year.

This mess expands even larger than what I can describe here as there all kinds of strange happenings with all of this. John Armstrong documents how all of the family court records regarding Oswald in New York were placed in the FBI’s custody in December of 1963 by Judge Florence Kelley, for the sole purpose of being relayed to the Warren Commission. The FBI claims they were but only copies of the originals were sent. Subsequent attempts by later investigations, such as the ARRB (Assassination Records and Review Board) in the 1990’s, were unable to determine where the originals. No detailed list of the files has been found to make sure everything in Judge Kelley’s order was sent. And apparently something is missing because there are no report cards or school pictures from Oswald’s school days in New York.

So, all of Oswald’s school records are copies of the files and not originals. This is a common occurrence in the case. In fact, Armstrong goes on to state that all the records that the FBI turned over to the Warren Commission, regarding everything with Lee Oswald’s life were copies–never originals. Safe to say, find a copy of John Armstrong’s book to read the seemingly endless details on this and a lot more, as this pattern extends throughout Lee Oswald’s life.

Back To North Dakota
I found William Timmer and his mother’s account of what happened in ND in 1953 to have a ring of truth to it, despite the contradictions. After all, they are describing an Oswald we already know, complete with Marxist reading material. They are not publicity hounds seeking fame, nor did they ever try to make any money off their experiences. Besides that, there are quite a number of people that knew Oswald that report he hated being called Lee and preferred being called Harvey instead. All events like this, from assassinations to huge disasters like 9-11 reveal weird incidents with murky undercurrents. Spooky Harvey showing up in a way-out place like a trailer park in North Dakota carries with it a creepy, dislocated feeling. At least to me. This older kid hanging out with younger boys, playing the role of the tough guy, mouthing off about disquieting threats, builds to a collective whole. Harvey enters the duller reaches of the world, as if to add color to it by bringing forth sinister premonitions of future doom.

All of this has the hint of the doppelganger playing with us again. Either by a tease or just some higher-up agency manufacturing phony files to lead future investigators astray. Though this Harvey interlude has a tinge of the supernatural to it. Or maybe not that. Just sort of a borderline mysterious event with dubious meaning. Such as a few years ago when clowns were spotted around the country in vans offering children candy, bidding them to enter. Apparently, they never got any takers and then vanished from the American landscape. Just like Harvey did on his junky bike.

As former CIA director Richard Helms once said, “No one will ever know who or what Lee Harvey Oswald represented.” Maybe not, but somebody, somewhere, knows. Maybe that is why Marguerite cackled at Agent Hosty’s inquiry about living in South Dakota. Hey, you boys are so out of the loop you can’t even get the state right.


Sources
Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Hosty, James, Assignment: Oswald