Why the second floor lunch room encounter could not have happened

[Bob Prudhomme]

Immediately after the last shot was fired Victoria Adams, who viewed the motorcade from the 4th floor of the TSBD, ran down the same stairs that Oswald supposedly descended in his escape from the 6th floor, along with her friend Sandra Styles. These are also the same stairs Truly and Baker ascended, on their way to the alleged 2nd floor lunch room encounter with Oswald. Somewhere on these stairs, Adams and Styles would have either seen or heard Oswald, Truly and Baker.

Warren Commission apologists have long maintained there is a simple explanation for this problem. According to them, Truly, Baker and Oswald were in the 2nd floor lunch room, behind a closed vestibule door, when Adams and Styles crept unseen past them through the 2nd floor landing.

This sounds like a plausible explanation but, like most LN propaganda, it falls apart upon closer examination of the evidence.



Vestibule door as seen from 2nd floor landing. This door opened onto the 2nd floor lunch room door, which was only a few feet from it.



Diagram of 2nd floor plan of TSBD, with 2nd floor landing in upper left. Note how close lunch room door and vestibule door are.

The following is an excerpt from the Warren Commission testimony of Roy S. Truly:

"Mr. BELIN. All right. Number 23, the arrow points to the door that has the glass in it.
Now, as you raced around, how far did you start up the stairs towards the third floor there?
Mr. TRULY. I suppose I was up two or three steps before I realized the officer wasn't following me.
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?
Mr. TRULY. I came back to the second floor landing.
Mr. BELIN. What did you see?
Mr. TRULY. I heard some voices, or a voice, coming from the area of the lunchroom, or the inside vestibule, the area of 24.
Mr. BELIN. All right. And I see that there appears to be on the second floor diagram, a room marked lunchroom.
Mr. TRULY. That is right.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do then?
Mr. TRULY. I ran over and looked in this door No. 23.
Mr. BELIN. Through the glass, or was the door open?
Mr. TRULY. I don't know. I think I opened the door. I feel like I did. I don't remember.
Mr. BELIN. It could have been open or it could have been closed, you do not remember?
Mr. TRULY. The chances are it was closed.
Mr. BELIN. You thought you opened it?
Mr. TRULY. I think I opened it. I opened the door back and leaned in this way.
Mr. BELIN. What did you see?
Mr. TRULY. I saw the officer almost directly in the doorway of the lunch-room facing Lee Harvey Oswald.
Mr. BELIN. And where was Lee Harvey Oswald at the time you saw him?
Mr. TRULY. He was at the front of the lunchroom, not very far inside he was just inside the lunchroom door.
Mr. BELIN. All right.
Mr. TRULY. 2 or 3 feet, possibly.
Mr. BELIN. Could you put an "O" where you saw Lee Harvey Oswald?
All right.
You have put an "O" on Exhibit 497.
What did you see or hear the officer say or do?
Mr. TRULY. When I reached there, the officer had his gun pointing at Oswald. The officer turned this way and said, "This man work here?" And I said, "Yes."
Mr. BELIN. And then what happened?
Mr. TRULY. Then we left Lee Harvey Oswald immediately and continued to run up the stairways until we reached the fifth floor.
Mr. BELIN. All right."

Please take careful note of how Truly described what happened, when he realized Baker had not followed him up the stairs to the 3rd floor. Truly went to the vestibule door, looked in and saw Baker standing just a couple of feet away in the lunch room doorway. Does he go through the vestibule door, and let it close behind him? According to his testimony, it does not appear he did.

"Mr. TRULY. I think I opened it. I opened the door back and leaned in this way."

From this statement, it would seem Truly was still standing in the open vestibule doorway, with Baker and Oswald a mere couple of feet in front of him.

In other words, if Adams and Styles passed through the 2nd floor landing at this moment, they would have seen Roy Truly standing in the open vestibule doorway (see photo) and would likely have heard their conversation. Truly and Baker could not have missed the sound of their 3" heels going by on the hard landing floor either.

And how long would Truly's attention have been diverted? According to his testimony, he opened the vestibule door and Baker immediately turned back and asked him "This man work here?" to which he replied "Yes". The moment "Yes" escaped Truly's lips, Baker and Truly were out of the vestibule and on their way to the 3rd floor. In other words, Adams and Styles had maybe five seconds to slip by Truly.

No wonder such effort was made to discredit Victoria Adams' testimony.

[Albert Doyle]

If only someone could have questioned Miss Garner more specifically in order to ascertain exactly how long Baker and Truly appeared after Adams and Styles.

That Gilbride claim does seem kind of cramped for timing.


Also: The CE 498 photo shows that anyone crossing the landing between staircases on the 2nd floor could see right in to the lunch-room directly counter to Kamp's claim.

[Bob Prudhomme]

If only someone could have questioned Miss Garner more specifically in order to ascertain exactly how long Baker and Truly appeared after Adams and Styles.

That Gilbride claim does seem kind of cramped for timing.


Also: The CE 498 photo shows that anyone crossing the landing between staircases on the 2nd floor could see right in to the lunch-room directly counter to Kamp's claim.

Absolutely. And, if Truly never went through the vestibule door but was instead standing in the doorway, Adams and Styles would have been looking right at him.

[Alan Ford]

Sharp assessment, Mr. Prudhomme

So much of what officialdom initially invented, err, said was met by a general public still reeling in shock. However, the dense fog would eventually lift...

It's astute researchers like yourself, Sean Murphy (cannot say enough about him), and a great many others, etc., that know the difference between reality and a hastily contrived script. Ms./Mrs. Adams didn't see Oswald descending the back stairwell like a mad man infused with an adrenaline rush like no other, because he simply was below her position on a lower floor when shots rang out. No wonder officialdom did all they could to discredit her.

IMHO many revamped statements were notarized in the name of "national security" over the next few days...nowhere in his initial affidavit does Officer Baker even mention a bogus 2nd floor encounter, but by the time he was called upon to do his "patriotic" duty against an innocent soul painted in the corner as a red-commie loving US traitor...well, we can faintly hear Paul Harvey say, "now you know the rest of the story".

[Drew Phipps]

Don't you mean, couldn't have happened THEN? You raise good points about the official timing, but if Baker and Truly were even a minute late (as I believe you have argued persuasively before), a meeting between the Baker/Truly posse and the Adams/Styles gang on the stairway would not have occurred.

I realize that throws doubt onto the "90 second" timeline (and raises doubts about Ms. Reid's timing of the Oswald walk, which is not central to the narrative anyhow), but I have always thought that the case for Oswald as assassin would be better if you gave him an extra minute to ditch the rifle, catch his breath, and fumble for his change. I have never understood the seemingly urgent necessity for the WC narrative to put Oswald, unwinded, calmly "drinking a coke" on the second floor at 90 seconds. Seems to me that's the very BEST EVIDENCE that he didn't shoot.

Question: Which of those two doors, vestibule or lunchroom, had the pneumatic door closer?

[Bob Prudhomme]

Don't you mean, couldn't have happened THEN? You raise good points about the official timing, but if Baker and Truly were even a minute late (as I believe you have argued persuasively before), a meeting between the Baker/Truly posse and the Adams/Styles gang on the stairway would not have occurred.

I realize that throws doubt onto the "90 second" timeline (and raises doubts about Arnold's timing of the Oswald walk, which is not central to the narrative anyhow), but I have always thought that the case for Oswald as assassin would be better if you gave him an extra minute to ditch the rifle, catch his breath, and fumble for his change. I have never understood the seemingly urgent necessity for the WC narrative to put Oswald, unwinded, calmly "drinking a coke" on the second floor at 90 seconds. Seems to me that's the very BEST EVIDENCE that he didn't shoot.

Question: Which of those two doors, vestibule or lunchroom, had the pneumatic door closer?

The vestibule door (first door Baker would have gone through) had the automatic closer on it. This device has been the basis of the LN defense for quite some time, that Truly and Baker were in the lunch room with Oswald and, as the door would have closed behind Truly, Adams and Styles could not have seen or heard the three men, and vice versa. Truly's testimony more than puts the lie to that notion.

I believe the conspirators felt that anything longer than 90 seconds would have put Oswald either on the 1st floor or outside, as Oswald would naturally have been in a bit of a hurry to get out of there.

Whatever the case, this is the story the WC chose to go with, and now they are stuck with such inconveniences as Victoria Adams.

[Bob Prudhomme]

Some more interesting points about the 2nd floor landing.



What is comical about this diagram is the position it claims Baker was in (just in front of the vestibule door) when he spied Oswald in the lunch room. This photo below shows how difficult that would have been for him. You are looking at the vestibule door (leading to lunch room) from the 2nd floor landing.



Also note in the left foreground of the photo that the corner of the elevator shaft can be seen, at least six feet closer to the photographer than the vestibule door. In the 2nd floor plan in CE 1118 above, the elevator shaft and vestibule door have been incorrectly represented, making the vestibule door appear much closer and the elevator shaft much further away. This was done to give the impression it was possible for Baker to make a wide sweeping arc through the 2nd floor landing that would take him close enough to the vestibule door to be able to see Oswald in the lunch room.

However, as Truly never actually went through the vestibule door and let it close behind him, the 2nd floor lunch room encounter is still dead in the water.

From the WC testimony of Roy S. Truly:

"Mr. TRULY. I ran over and looked in this door No. 23.Mr. BELIN. Through the glass, or was the door open?
Mr. TRULY. I don't know. I think I opened the door. I feel like I did. I don't remember.
Mr. BELIN. It could have been open or it could have been closed, you do not remember?
Mr. TRULY. The chances are it was closed.
Mr. BELIN. You thought you opened it?
Mr. TRULY. I think I opened it. I opened the door back and leaned in this way.
Mr. BELIN. What did you see?
Mr. TRULY. I saw the officer almost directly in the doorway of the lunch-room facing Lee Harvey Oswald.
Mr. BELIN. And where was Lee Harvey Oswald at the time you saw him?
Mr. TRULY. He was at the front of the lunchroom, not very far inside he was just inside the lunchroom door."

Note that Truly testified "I think I opened it. I opened the door back and leaned in this way." Translation: He was holding the door open and leaning in. Baker was a couple of feet away from him, standing in the lunch room doorway and holding a gun on Oswald.

If Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles were passing through the 2nd floor landing while Baker was checking out Oswald, they would have seen, plain as day, Truly standing in the vestibule doorway speaking to Baker. They also would have heard every word spoken.

From the WC testimony of Victoria E. Adams:

"Mr. BELIN - You took those stairs. Were you walking or running as you went down the stairs?
Miss ADAMS - I was running. We were running.
Mr. BELIN - What kind of shoes did you have on?
Miss ADAMS - Three-inch heels.
Mr. BELIN - You had heels. Now, as you were running down the stairs, did you encounter anyone?
Miss ADAMS - Not during the actual running down the stairs; no, sir."

[Drew Phipps]

If the (slow) pneumatic door closer was on the vestibule door, how is it that Truly would have had to re-open the pneumatic door to see Baker (and answer his question)? It wouldn't have closed quickly enough, assuming Truly is telling the truth and had just moved a couple steps up the stairs and then returned.

It makes sense that Baker could have viewed a slowly closing vestibule door on his run right past it, cops are trained observers, after all. But why would Truly have to open it again?

[Albert Doyle]

There's a disconnect between Adams' claim she left within 30 seconds of the shooting and Baker's 90 second claim.

I still believe in the 2nd floor encounter because Carolyn Arnold places 'Oswald' there around 12:25, however I would be open to good evidence that showed otherwise.

If you try to get Adams down to the 1st floor before Baker you run into the timing problem of Baker seeing Adams as she emerged on the 1st floor. Prudhomme's delay of Baker might accommodate getting Adams out of the building before Baker got to the 1st floor elevator, but then you stretch the timing of Miss Garner seeing Baker come up the stairs right after Adams descended.

My money is on Baker seeing 'Oswald' in the lunch-room and then seeing him again on the 4th floor landing. Somehow Truly and some others intervened and Baker dropped the lunch-room encounter in order not to expose 2 Oswalds in the building. The reason Baker didn't name the person he saw on the 4th floor was because he wanted to leave this spook witnessing as undetailed as possible. And he was probably serving Dallas PD purposes in placing the Oswald he did see closer to the 6th floor until further advised.

[Bob Prudhomme]

If the (slow) pneumatic door closer was on the vestibule door, how is it that Truly would have had to re-open the pneumatic door to see Baker (and answer his question)? It wouldn't have closed quickly enough, assuming Truly is telling the truth and had just moved a couple steps up the stairs and then returned.

It makes sense that Baker could have viewed a slowly closing vestibule door on his run right past it, cops are trained observers, after all. But why would Truly have to open it again?

Excellent question, Drew. Of course, we have to ask the next logical question. Was the pneumatic door closer on the vestibule door a fast closer or a slow closer? If it was a slow closer, there is a very good chance Truly would have seen the door closing, as he went through the 2nd floor landing ahead of Baker. Also, as you observed, the door would still be open partly when Truly came back to find Baker. Is this why Truly was able to hear Baker's and Oswald's voices so clearly? Is this also why Truly had some confusion while testifying, trying to think if it was better to say the door was open or closed?

A fast closing door would fit neatly with the WC's story. However, it doesn't really matter, now that we are all aware that Truly stood in an open doorway all the time he was speaking with Baker, and that his presence, both visually and audibly, would have been impossible for Adams and Styles to have missed.