The Paines and the Minox Camera Charade

[Deborra Ann Low]

If the Dallas police did not look for the camera that film went to then they are probably in the wrong business.

They WERE probably in the wrong business, but that doesn't mean they were completely incompetent, even when mistakes were inevitably made owing to the urgency of the situation and it being such an high profile case. The FBI capitalizes on this far too much, I believe, for the purpose of doing a disappearing act with the Minox camera that Det. Gus Rose found in Oswald's seabag. The film inside may have even been of lesser importance to the FBI if they were concerned about the camera leading to Oswald being identified as an FBI informant, a CIA operative or both. With Michael Paine's Minox III camera being injected into the evidence, they were killing a few birds with one stone, (i.e., making the DPD look incompetent by not finding or even being interested in Michael Paine's Minox camera, even when Michael later claimed he informed DPD about his inoperable Minox camera damaged by salt water, but they seemed completely uninterested; they could confuse opinions about whether this was the actual camera Det. Rose claimed to find but somehow failed to confiscate; they could make the Minox camera seem more innocuous and have less importance if it actually belonged to Michael Paine rather than Lee Oswald; they could instill a strong measure of doubt as to whether the Minox camera was ever found in Oswald's seabag and maybe Det. Rose was having a lapse in memory about finding it there. Still the problem falls back to square one with the DPD's recorded serial number of the camera found by Rose. How did they obtain and record a serial number for a Minox model A, II camera if the only Minox camera eventually recovered from the Paine residence turned out to be a Minox model A, III. Plus, the camera charade has a far more sinister focus when so much effort is obviously being made to confuse the matter by inserting a new Minox camera and basically laying blame on the DPD for botching their own investigation, because they were extremely easy targets to make incompetency charges against, especially after Oswald's murder while he was in police custody and with so many officers being mentally and emotionally compromised after the Tippit killing. One can expect obfuscatory operatives to be professionals at making things look completely unintended or accidental to increase doubts about the veracity of witnesses, to confuse the chronology of events, and to obscure red flags that might otherwise lead to important information that must be kept secret. It's not far fetched or difficult to imagine that this is what took place here regarding Oswald's missing Minox camera. Oswald was a lone wolf and everything had to point in that direction. Loose ends had to be secured.