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.