Why the second floor lunch room encounter could not have happened

[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.