THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: INTRODUCTION TO SHADOW OF LEE

Let the evidence speak. Gil Grissom, LVPD CSI. It is unusual for the author of a novel to include a foreword to his workwhich m ay look too much as a justification or as an explanation for something that shou ld have been clearly said in the novel and it is notbut more than a novel this is an analytical study of the role that Lee Harvey Oswald may have played in the e vents of nov. 22/1963 in Plaza Dealey, and in Oak Cliff, in the form of a novel. In other words an essay on the whereabouts of the presumed assassin of presiden t Kennedy that day which is written and developed in narrative form to make it ( I hope) less dry and monotone. For the initiate this text may appear as first as full or errors and tergiversations, but such thing should not dissuade them fro m going on with the reading, as what the plot develops it is not a working model of Oswald's actions that day but rather the analytical work of a fictional char acter developing such a model--just like Lt. Columbo, CSI Grissom do when puttin g a criminal case together. So it is only at the end of SOL that the fully devel oped version of events appears in its entirety to the eyes of the reader. One thing I got to say about this working model, or version of events, is that i t is remarkably simple, logical, consistent, and that is also all encompassing, or almost, as it has a place for the majority of well known testimonies speciall y those coming from non involved witnesses present in the events in Oak Cliff. F or once the chance is given to the reader of studying a version of events that d oesn't eliminate, discredit or ignore individual testimonies by batches just bec ause they don't fit the preconceived ideas, political bias or beliefs of the aut hor. The model has been built fundamentally bringing together the evidence in th e case in a layered form; the most credible, reliable, undisputed, first, formin g the nucleus or structure around which the rest will be added, in order of decr easing credibility. This means that, instead of taking as starting point a preco nceived ideafor ex. that LHO was a CIA agent--what has been put together here, as a nucleus of the model, is the indisputable facts, as seen in newsreels, newspa per clips, etc, to which have been added testimonies that have withstood the tes t of time and public scrutiny because of the general consensus about their relia bilityfor ex. that Oswald was seen in the 2nd floor cafeteria 90 sec. after the s hooting, that he arrived home at around 1.00 P.M.--and the rest of the evidence has been added to the resulting elemental model: the personal testimonies, the p hysical evidence, all that in decreasing order of credibility. Now, how can be p ossible to determine what is credibility in each particular case if there is so much dispute about many of them? isn't this selection in itself something subjec tive, vulnerable also to error, personal bias? While that is true, keep in mind that this an analytical model which makes heavy use of logics and typical forms of human behavior. For ex. testimonies provided by complete strangers to the sto ry, which they had no reason or obligation to offer, that in many cases brought them as a consequence only abuse and ridicule; that even in some cases put their lives in risk or even ruined them, merit special attention. Most notable in thi s category is the one of by Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig, for which he paid a heav y price, to the point of having his life ruined, and which was corroborated many years later by at least two credible individuals, Roy Cooper and his boss Marvi n Robinson who described exactly the same scene Craig had witnessed. But apart f rom the credibility that gives to an isolated testimony its corroboration by oth ers identical, by unrelated individuals, we may count also on the power of the a lready accepted evidence, the one which has already been integrated in the model because of its indisputableness. That is why I can affirm that this is a model built exclusively on the weight and credibility of every piece of evidence, ever

y testimony which forms it. It may be imperfect, it may not have all the answers ; it may be partially wrong, but in the basic thrust of things I think it works. At least what could do is to put researchers in the right path to a final reso lution of the case. It also may contains a few fictional elements, added mostly for dramatic effect, a little bit of artistic license--such as the revelation that after the operation the Plaza Dealey the shooters were put in a airplane that h ours later crashed into the seabut those flights of fantasy, or maybe not, do not essentially affect the model, not even interfere with it. The one thing I can't help mentioning is that, for once also, all indisputable evidence in the form of apparently legitimate signed legal documents; guns, bullets, cartridges, found i n a crime scene; pieces of clothing found in a supposed escape route are treated here with the greatest skepticism, even mistrust, considering thatif Oswald was effectively part of a covert team--everything left behind could have been plante d, either by him or others, or simply the result of improvisation, nervousness, etc. With one operation going wrong at every stage, as this one was, everything was possible. The most amazing thing I noticed upon complexion of this analytical mode l is that, when it come to the events in Oak Cliff, it fits almost every testimo ny given by non involved individuals. Even those that have come to light years l ater, such as that of John Andrews or Doris Holan. Even the fight in Marsalis & 12th St.. But even more intellectually gratifying is the fact that some of those testimonies came later in the research, to fill empty spaces that had been left open before, during the complexion of the theoretical model and which I didn't suspect they even exist. The best example of it is that, at a given stage in the analysis of the Oak Cliff events the model called for a command post, or commun ications center, in a specific 2 to 4--block area in the sector. When drawing th is conclusion I was certain I had very little chance of finding factual confirma tion, or even a hint, for this hypothesis. But then I fell upon the WC testimony of one DPD agent, Olsen, who declared having spent that day keeping guard of so me estate which exact location he couldn't remember but which was situated in the same 2 or 3block radio I had pinned down. Coincidence? Maybe, but you will see in the last part of the text, when the model is being finished, how the coincidenc es keep piling up. (The weirdest thing about Olsen's testimony is that he spent the day in that house; that he came out in the street at the news of the event, to talk with people, yet he couldn't remember later the location of the property neither its address, even if he could obviously situate it in a 2-city block ra dio). I have to say that at first didn't really have any interest in develop ing my own version of events, when I became interested in the case, in 1993, but I felt practically forced to do it after noticing that each one of the models d eveloped by researchers are fatally flawed. Either they are not more than the au thors' pet theory, which they try to push down our throats no matter how illogic al, unrealistic or contradictory to actual events they are, or the work of someo ne with a political agenda, who wants at all costs to prove something, even if t hat something contradicts the factual evidence. Many others are just absurd, as the one I found days ago in Internet, which pretends that the TSBD assassin was Junior Jarman, for the simple reason that the description he gave to the WC of K ennedy being shot...is that of someone looking through a telescopic sight! With that kind of theory, that level of analysis is little surprising that this consp iracy industry, so to speak, has become discredited along the years and that for many people it belongs only to loons and weirdos. During my research I have been also witness to a wholesale distortion of eviden ce; by authors and researchers of both sides, by those who back the W.C. version as by those who exonerate LHO. Even some amongst them pretending to be the most objective don't hesitate in distorting or discarding testimonies of witnesses w ho contradict their pet theory, that if they are not engaging in outright charac ter assassination--he/she was used to imagine things, to invent stories, to exagg

erate. For ex., amongst many cases of factual evidence being distorted to accommo date the author's pet theory, in his book Case Close, Gerald Posner quotes (pag. 331) what John Connelly said of the moment when he was hit by a bullet: I was looking straight forward again and I felt the impact of t he bullet that hit me. That is pretty straightforward. It also coincides with what we see in the Zaprud er film. One of the few things about it on which everyone agrees is that this ha ppened in frame 226, when Connelly is clearly seen sitting with his back against the seat, looking right ahead. Yet, in the same book, in the appendix, a drawin g of that moment, meant to illustrate the Single Bullet theory, shows Connelly w ith his torso turned at almost 45 to the right. Why? Well, because that is the on ly position he could have been at the moment of being hit for the SB theory to w ork. Posner got to turn Connelly's torso by that much against all evidence, to p ut him in the right position to validate the Warren Commission's official versio n. If we turn in that drawing Connelly to the position he said he really was, th e one seen in Z226, and prolong the bullet path in his torso--which is correctly drawn--to check from where it may have come, it appears as if originating in th e west most window of the 6th floor of the TSBD, the opposite to the one presuma bly used by Oswald. Of course that's the last thing a defender of the official v ersion wants, the presence of a shooter in that window, or in any other than the one it says Oswald used for that matter. That's the sort of manipulation of evi dence I found aplenty while reading about the subject. But I found something eve n worse than that, not only in the elimination or discrediting of diverse witnes s' testimonies that contradicted the researcher's pet theory or bias but also in the selective pick of pieces of testimony given by the same witness, hailing hi m, her, as reliable when their words fit the chosen theory and discrediting them when not. The most infamous case is of course that of Oswald's landlady Mrs. Ro berts. In many books advocating the WC version she is described at times as reli able, when stating that he arrived home exactly at 1.00 PM. Yet when she volunte ers too that, while he was in his room, a police cruiser came by the house, stop ped and honked twice, she suddenly turns into a senile old woman who doesn't kno w a thing, who doesn't have a very good sight anyway, who gets very easily confu sed and is also given to fantasize and exaggerate. But I have noticed also that even he best intentioned researchers and analysts t end to fall in logical traps when putting together their models, which turns the m away from what could be the intellectually rewarding experience of completing a wholesome logical version of events. The most common mistake they make is assu ming as a fact something that at best should come out as only one possible concl usion amongst several from a reliable testimony and no the only one possible. Th e most flagrant is obviously the pretension that discarding Oswald as the 6th fl oor sniper automatically makes of him an innocent man. He couldn't have come dow n to the 2nd floor cafeteria in 90 secit's the conclusionso he couldn't have kille d Kennedy. Even if that was truth, the possibility is still wide open that he wa s a member of an assassination team and that his duties as such could have made him stay in the lower floors of the TSBD, as a look-out for ex.. So, the only ev idence we got there is that he was in that cafeteria aprox. 2 min. after the sho oting and that he came then to the first floor, the entrance of the building and exited it. Seen that way this factual evidence could go either way, it does not allow for any definitive conclusion. There are also unbiased, well intentioned testimonies, from uninvolved individua ls, that had to be ignored because they don't stand the challenge presented by t he rest of the evidence. Such is the case of that of the TT employee Burroughs, who declared having seen LHO arrive there at 1.05 P.M. which puts an incredible strain on his already tight time schedule--only 1 min. before he was still in 10 26 North Berkley. Furthermore this is one that has absolutely no third part corr oboration at all.(as comparison, in the case of Roger Craig he was not only cons

idered up to then one of the best law enforcers in Dallas but also his testimony about having seen LHO leaving Plaza Dealey in a Rambler is corroborated by abou t five people). But all this hasn't stopped Oswald's defenders from clinging to this weak straw just because it exonerates him in Tippit's death; it hasn't stop either some researchers from using it as a basis for building their own assassi nation theories, sometimes using as another of its founding elements the bizarre tale by two seamstresses who claimed to have seen, minutes after the shooting, Jack Ruby handing a revolver to Oswald, right in front of the TSBD! As I already said, I started developing this analytical model after I be came interested in the case, mostly because of the Stone movie. Until then I was satisfied with the idea that Oswald was the assassin and that he acted alone; b ut as I studied the case more closely I realized that there was not one version of events fitting indisputable facts. Even Stone's version lacks credibility in what a motive concerns, even if I have to thank him for having awakened my inter est in the case. He states that Kennedy was killed because he wanted out of Viet nam, yet only two weeks before his death he had approved the overthrown of the South Vietnamese dictator for wanting as much. That's the kind of logical hole t hat I found in practically all assassination theories: they just don't fit well known, proven facts. The same thing could be said of the hypothesis of Oswald be ing, of thinking he is, a spy, a government agent. Nothing of what he does after his arrestor before it--fits this theory. Quite the contrary. His general behavi or from the afternoon of the 22th to the morning of the 24th is the typical of a n ordinary individual caught in a trap, a man who knows well he is in deep doo-d oo and his actions fit the pattern. Furthermore, a man aware of politics as he w as had to realize that his behavior was then becoming more and more that of a po litical prisoner, rather than that of a spy, a FBI informer or an undercover off icer. He insistently asked for someone to call a New York lawyer, John Abt, well known for his defense of unpopular cases--which in the U.S. means leftist onesan d at some point he raised his closed fist in a typical Marxist salute (some have pretended he was simply showing the press that the authorities were mistreating him, as if anyone was going to be shocked watching the man accused of killing t he U.S. president and a Dallas policeman in handcuffs!). These indisputable fact s must put to rest the idea that he was working for some intelligence organizati on, building himself a leftist facade so he could infiltrate the Left, do then s omething crazy and blame it on them. That could have been true up to a certain p oint in time, but what purpose an intelligent man could have seen in continuing with the charade when he had already been betrayed, abandoned by his handlers, l eft hanging to dry? What interest could have had LHO in keeping playing the role of a lone leftist nut when he was already staring at the electric chair in the distance, when doing such thing could have only hastened his journey to it? That is perhaps the more illogical hypothesis of all, because it assumes that he dec ided to go on with his own manipulation, now by his own initiative, beyond any u seful, rational, sane purpose--at least for himself--beyond any logic or common sense. Yet there are conspiracy buffs who persist in believing such a thing, goi ng even to the extreme of pretending that, with his words to the press, he was s ending coded messages to his handlers! If we need to fit Oswald's in some specific kind of typical behavior, an d if all we have as element of analysis was his own during his last 46 hours--wh ich is the case after all--the first case, or historic reference, coming to mind is the saga of Sacco & Vanzetti, 2 Italian American anarchists who were, withou t any strong proof, condemned and executed for the murder of a policeman during the 1920s, presumably to keep American workers, specially the recent European im migrants, in check at a time where socialists all over the world were rejoicing over the October Revolution. All signs Oswald gives during the few hours he stil l had to live indicate that he was preparing to reedit the Sacco & Vanzetti epic , he was already foreseeing that he would be receiving the same treatment as the m and actively preparing for a political trial. This is further demonstrated by his insistence--since the moment of his arrest--in being given adequate legal co unsel. In no way this is the way a covert operative, an undercover agent, behave

s. This is unmistakably the behavior of a Joe Average who painfully feels the vu lnerability of his own position, who feels he is being railroaded, and who is tr ying to reach out for help. We may like or not, but the facts are there. But let us not be led into hasty and maybe wrong conclusions because of that as, even i f we had come to the certainty that such was the way things were happening, and that LHO was preparing to go through the same odyssey as the two Italian anarchi sts once went, in no way this implies his innocence in the JFK assassination. Th at is because, if he had participated in some kind of covert operation in Plaza Dealey that day--of which few people still doubt--the only way for us to yield a verdict in this regard is to determine what was exactly that operation, as he s aw it. So the possibility that he willingly participated in the assassination is still open, it hasn't disappeared by the mere fact that he was being railroaded after the event. For the political animal of the Left that he wasor for one of t he Right, for that matterthe most important thing in life has to be sometimes the political end to be achieved and in such situation all the restfamily, friends-come second at best. And like it or not, Oswald was, in all appearances, a free lancer leftist playing a very risky game, one which ended up burning him. For a lone leftist playing such a dangerous double game with the far right, with assor ted law enforcement and intelligence outfits, it could have been tempting at som e point to juggle all that into a single project in pursuit of his political end s, leaving also with that his own mark in History. That could well have been the ultimate purpose of a man like him, one having his own particular perspective o f History in nov. 22, 1963: to get head on in a situation which most likely outc ome could serve his personal political agenda. Seen from this perspective, the m atter that could have counted the most about the events to unfold that day would have been the political consequences that would come out of all those events an d in what measure they could serve his ends. And while it's true that since the moment of his arrest he denied any involvement in an act of violence, the claims of innocence by a suspect in no way constitute evidence--as CSI Grissom would h ave pointed out. In any case if we buy this portrait of him, it is obviousby his own wordsthat he wasn't telling the truth at times, that he was hiding something or protecting someone. For ex. he says he supports the Cuban revolution yet, whe n asked why he left the TSBD, he answers that he thought that with all the commo tion, there would be no more work for the day so he went to see a movie. That ma kes no sense at all for a Castro supporter, considering the dire consequences th at the day events could have had for Cuba; it makes no sense for a true leftist to turn the back to an event that may have well brought the Cuban revolution to a tragic end--and I mean because of the stand of the new president could have ta ken towards the island--to go see an old flick. In any instance, it's not the pu rpose of this analysis to judge Oswald for the goodness or the badness of his po litical ends, but simply to answer the crucial question: was he the man, or one of the men, who assassinated Kennedy? He may have wanted a political trial but t hat's not what he'll be getting in the following pages, as they will be dedicate d to try to answer this single question or at least to give a few clues for its definite resolution. (Another fact that may help making the same point: According to Capt. Fritz, Osw ald said to him at some point, after declaring that he wanted Abt as his lawyer, that he was a Marxist, but not a Marxist Leninist. Now, how could have known Fr itz the difference between both terms, living and working in a right wing enviro nment where anyone left of center is just a Commie, a Red; where people have abs olutely no notion of theoretical differences known only of the educated of the L eft? how could this Dallas police Capt. have been aware of a terminology accessi ble only to the politically initiated? What Oswald was implying there is that he would have never advocated the violent overthrow the U.S. government. To be abl e to state such a thing he had to know well that Marxists are theorists; people who study and analyze History, Politics, from a Marxist point of view but who do engage in political action, at least not of a violent or revolutionary kind. (O ne good ex. of Marxist could be Noam Chomsky, if it was not for his stated pench ant for Anarchism). Leninists on the other hand are those who use Marxist theory

to provoke or engineer social and political change, generally using violence as Lenin, Mao and Castro did. How Capt. Fritz could have known the difference betw een both terms, if he was just putting words in his mouth afterwards? Furthermor e, it makes all sense that LHO would say that after saying that he wanted John A bt as his attorney, knowing well that the NYC lawyer would understand the meanin g of his words. That would have been more than enough as a presentation card, he may have thought, Abt would have known by that single remark the (political) ch aracter of his potential client. But these words show Oswald also as a sophistic ated leftist, a very different man from the right wing stooge, or right wing ope rative, spy, playing the Red as many have persisted for many years in seeing him . Had he been one of those, he would have never bothered with such subtleties, h ad he known them after all. He would have acted in a very different, typical, hi ghly provocative, way as people of that kind do. Instead, seeing LHO as a leftis t playing the double agent solves all his riddles)