03-04-2010, 12:50 AM
JIM REPLIES TO DAVID LIFTON ABOUT JUDYTH ON LEE'S ARRIVAL
As a former professor of critical thinking, I am not used to your committing so many fallacies at once:
(1) You beg the question by taking for granted that Judyth is a fraud, which is the issue we confront;
(2) You commit the genetic fallacy by assuming that my arguments are affected by who offered them;
(3) You commit the appeal to pity by suggesting I should abandon Judyth lest my reputation should suffer.
But you and I have been there before, David. You have been assailed for suggesting that there was surgery to the head and that all of the shots were fired from the front (correct me if I am wrong) and we have both been assailed for our advocacy of the position that the Zapruder film has been fabricated. Neither of us would be worth a damn if we abandoned positions in which we believe because of social pressure. I haven't done it in the past and I am not going to do it now, in spite of your entreaties.
We both tend to compose long posts, so let me make this more pointed. We agree that he left Dallas on the 24th. We both agree he had an interview on the 26th. We both agree that the trip by bus would have taken 14 or 15 hours. Yet you write IN THIS VERY POST, "If the bus left on the evening of Wednesday, April 24 (as Ruth Paine testified was the case) then –if it was a 14 hour trip—it would have arrived late on the evening of Thursday, April 25, or perhaps in the early AM of Friday, April 26." Perhaps on the 26th?
Give me a break, David. You have to have the courage to admit when you are wrong. If he left on the 24th and it was a 14 or 15 hour trip, then he arrived on the 25th! I cannot believe that you are trading on a presumed vagary or ambiguity--another fallacy, by the way--when there is none. If he left on the 24th and took a 14 or 15 hour bus trip, then he arrived on the 25th, with no "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s, absent some heretofore unknown traffic accident that interfered with his arrival, of which there is no evidence.
Hence, you have a missing day to account for. Now, in dealing with events in the relatively distant past-- where this occurred in April of 1963 and this is April of 2010, which makes it 47 years ago--we really should not expect to be able to nail down every aspect of every day, even though, in this case, quite a lot of effort has been expended in that endeavor. Now unless you are prepared to suggest that he slept in the street, as Judyth has appropriately observed, he slept somewhere, and it was not with the Murrets.
Your dependence on the FBI and THE WARREN REPORT would be ridiculous if you did not find them useful to you in this instance. The FBI was "tidying things up" on behalf of the official account, just in case you haven't noticed. They even secretly took the physical evidence to Washington, cleaned it up, brought it back and then staged an elaborate and public "official transference" to Washington! They had agents at all the photo processing plants in Dallas for two weeks taking photos and films of relevance, and all that.
Surely we was staying somewhere. You say, "We don't know." But Judyth has an explanation that seems to fit the situation, which she has elaborated in painstaking detail. You seem to regard these "details" as proof of fabrication, but in my judgment--from a logical point of view--quite the opposite is the case. As Karl Popper observed, the more precise an hypothesis, the more easily it can be subjected to potential refutation, which is part and parcel of the importance of quantitative formulations over non-quantitative.
If Lee had the luggage she described (and we have no reason to dispute it), then it would have made a great deal of sense for him to have stored most of it at the bus depot (which is what I myself would have done had I thought it through) before heading for the "Y" to check in and become oriented before making contact with my relatives (which, of course, he would do subsequently). What we don't have (according to you) is records from the "Y", which may be absent for various reasons, including the FBI took them.
Judyth has been accused of so many distortions and fabrications where she has been able to fend them off, again and again, that I am simply astonished by how much she appears to know about these things. She has, again and again, provided more detailed and more specific explanations in rebuttal, which, in my view, by and large, are more reasonable than the arguments of those who challenge her authenticity, where of course, I specifically include you. And she has more and more to tell us about Lee H. Oswald!
Not only does her story "hang together" in the right way, but she has demonstrated, again and again, the extent of her knowledge of the man she knew in New Orleans. Let me offer her eye-color story as a nice illustration. John Armstrong and Jack White maintain, in defense of their thesis of "the two Oswalds", that one of the subjects had blue eyes and the other one had hazel eyes. In post #736, Judyth takes this claim to task in a brilliant study that demonstrates--conclusively, in my view--that their claim is unsustainable.
Now, according to her own account, Judyth was motivated because of her profound affection for the man she knew in New Orleans. She knew the color of his eyes based upon personal experience, if we are to believe her. And the fact of the matter is that, to the best of my knowledge, even though you are also a skeptic of the "Harvey & Lee" scenario, you have not only not advanced any supporting evidence for your position, but have not even been willing to simply state your attitude toward it, much less defend it here.
Let me offer an example of why I believe in Judyth. Ed Haslam conducted extensive discussions (some would say "interrogations") with Judyth before he concluded that she was "the real deal". Unlike your solitary conversation, he examined her for as much as 1,000 hours! Something that struck him early on was Judyth's observation that the photograph he was planning for the cover was NOT Dr. Mary Sherman. He actually visited the family and discovered it was actually a photo of her sister, who looked a lot alike.
Now unless Judyth had actually known her, it is not simply highly improbable but virtually impossible that Judyth could have distinguished between a photo of her sister and a photo of Mary Sherman. But she did. And the fact that she can provide so much new information about Lee H. Oswald in New Orleans--much of which has seemed implausible on its face but upon further investigation appears to be true--tremendously enhances her credibility. And Ed Haslam and I are far from alone in believing that she is "the real deal".
Fallacious reasons are not going to affect my attitude. I am going to defend the truth as I understand it, which I presume you can appreciate, having "been there" yourself! When I am convinced that she is not the person I believe her to be, you will be among the first to know. In the meanwhile, I would appreciate just a bit more candor about your take on "Harvey & Lee" and current information about your book on the subject that fascinates us even more than Judyth Vary Baker, which, of course, is Lee H. Oswald himself.
[quote name='David Lifton' post='188513' date='Apr 2 2010, 01:03 PM']Jim:
Contrary to your glib assertions (“Judyth refutes the purported details of his [Lifton’s] account”) Judyth has refuted nothing. My facts are impeccable, and my logic sound. Contrary to your statement that “Lifton appears to have committed a ser[ies] of blunders in making assumptions that turn out to be false,” it is you have become entangled in the false details of Judyth’s tale, to the point where you have been bamboozled by a woman promulgating a thoroughly false and fictitious account of a non-existent relationship with Lee Oswald.
Candidly, I could care less if the only casualty was whether or not—either through carelessness or excessive credulity--you were taken in by this lady. What concerns me is the role you have played in attempting to expose major fraud in the physical evidence, and what I am talking about, of course, is the Zapruder film.
Because surely, as this situation unwinds—and it will-the question will be asked: if a person cannot distinguish between the false and the real, when it comes to the matter of Judyth Baker, can we trust that person’s judgment when it comes to the far more important situation of “fraud in the evidence,” and especially in a matter as technical as the Zapruder film?
Do you remember a month or two back, when a photo was circulating supposedly showing JFK's body--laid out on the autopsy table? And you were rather enthusiastic about that item? Within a ay or so, when it became obvious that that was nothing but a mock-up, one created in connection with the making of the movie JFK, you changed your opinion. Well, that photo sure looked real--and, at first glance, Judyth's story can look real, and even be appealing. Unfortunately, it is all bogus, and the prodocut of someone who is the victim of what, medically, is called "pseudologia fantastica" or "mythomania."
Unfortunately, you have been taken in my all this; and it is sure to result in great harm.
Anyway, those are my concerns—but I am sure you will not be deterred in doing what you personally believe is right—even if it is provably incorrect.
So let me now drop that subject, and turn to Judyth’s latest post, as conveyed by you, to all the readers on this board.
MY RESPONSE TO JUDYTH”S LATEST POST (i.e., to the one titled “Judyth Replies to Lifton on Lee’s Arrival in New Orleans”)
Judyth’s very long post is loaded with weak arguments, circular logic, and just plain false statements. If this were a university test booklet, the reader would give her a failing grade, writing again and again, either “irrelevant,” or “so what?” or “false inference.”
Let’s review the immutable facts:
Fact: Lee’s journey from Dallas to New Orleans began on Wednesday, April 24. We know that from the testimony of Ruth Paine, who says she brought Lee to the bus station, with some bags. Then—after dropping those bags off at the bus station, and after offering Marina the option of not accompanying Lee to New Orleans, but instead staying with her-- they returned to his apartment and emptied what was left from his apartment. Then, they all returned (and by “they all” I’m referring to Ruth Paine, Lee, and Marina) to Paine’s home. Ruth Paine testified that Lee left that evening, Wednesday, April 24, for New Orleans, but she does not say who took Lee from Irving back to the Greyhound bus station in Dallas. All she does is mention that Lee would have had to take a city bus to get back to Dallas from Irving, and then board the Greyhound bus for New Orleans.
Did he do that? The fact is—we don’t know. The assumption is that he did, but he could just as well have used Greyhound to carry his baggage, and gone to New Orleans by some other means (and in fact I’m very open, if not partial, to that possibility). Judyth notes an interesting fact that I have not dwelt on here--that twice in FBI interviews, Marina says that Lee went to the bus station the day before April 24--i.e., on April 23--to check some bags. Marina told the FBI that (the believed) Ruth drove Lee there, the day before, but Ruth's account says nothing about that. If Marina is correct, and Lee checked some bags on 4/23/63, then obviously, someone else was involved with Lee, in making preparations for this trip to New Orleans, and that also raises the possibility that he simply shipped his bags by Greyhound, but did not actually use the bus, to get to New Orleans.
BUT, for the purpose of this discussion, let’s return to what the Warren Report states. That keeps the discussion very simple, and permits us to see how Judyth is attempting to “burrow into” a small hole in the actual historical record, one at the New Orleans end of the line.
Fact: Lee traveled to New Orleans –as far as the Warren Commission investigation is concerned—alone. Further, according to the Warren Report, he traveled by bus—i.e., on the Greyhound bus carrying his bags. Marina stayed with Ruth Paine. If the bus left on the evening of Wednesday, April 24 (as Ruth Paine testified was the case) then –if it was a 14 hour trip—it would have arrived late on the evening of Thursday, April 25, or perhaps in the early AM of Friday, April 26.
Fact: The contemporaneous record created by John Rachal, at the Louisiana Department of Labor, records the data that Lee was attired in a suit and tie on Friday, April 26, at the time of his interview. His handwritten notes read “Neat. Suit. Tie. Polite” (See Rachel deposition Exhibit, Volume 21, p. 283, of the WC hearings) and his June 1964 Warren Commission affidavit reads: “I recall that Oswald was neatly dressed with a suit, dress shirt, and tie on the occasion of our initial interview.” (Volume 11, p. 475).
Fact: Lillean Murret testified that she first heard from Lee on a Monday—when he called from the bus station, saying that he had “just arrived” in New Orleans.” That statement is provably untrue because he had already had an interview on Friday, April 26, at which point he was dressed in “a suit, dress shirt, and tie.”
Fact: Monday—the day Lillian Murret first heard from Lee, who said he was calling from the bus station, and had “just arrived” etc.—would have been Monday, April 29, 1963. This is a critical time-marker: nothing Judyth says can change that immutable fact. “Monday” was April 29.
FACT: No one was ever located, nor did any one ever come forward to say that they were on that bus—or any bus—with Lee Oswald, from Dallas to New Orleans, leaving on or about Wednesday evening, April 24, 1963. Unlike the situation regarding Oswald’s trip to Mexico, where the FBI was able to locate people who were halfway around the world on that bus, we have no eyewitness placing Oswald on a bus from Dallas to New Orleans on or about April 24, 1963. The Dallas-to-New Orleans bus journey—with Lee Oswald (and not just his luggage) on board, is all conjecture—perhaps reasonable conjecture, based on his having brought his boxes to the bus station—but there is no evidence that he actually rode on the bus to New Orleans. All we know is that he was in New Orleans on Friday, April 26, 1963, when he appeared at the Louisiana Department of Labor, and had the interview with John Rachal.
FACT: As any discerning reader can see, this leaves a small “time hole” in the record—one extending from Lee’s putative “time of arrival” in New Orleans, until his April 26, 1963 placement interview with Rachal; and then another between that same placement interview and Monday, April 29, 1963, when he called his Aunt Lillian for the first time, said he was at the bus station, and desired help in getting all his boxes over to her place.
FACT: No one –except Judyth—says that Lee Oswald stayed at the YMCA between April 25 and April 29. She can say anything she wants, but that does not make it so. The YMCA keeps records. No one has ever produced such a record.
FACT: Anyone who has studied the records of the warren Commission knows how careful and meticulous the FBI could be (when it wanted to be); and how hotels and motels were scoured for records of Lee’s whereabouts. When he stayed at the Dallas YMCA, for example, between October 15 an October 19, 1962, the actual records were produced, which listed his room number, and even accounted for the $1 deposit for a room key. (See the deposition exhibit of John Hulen, in volume 10 of the Warren Commission, and the Hulen Deposition Exhibits, in Volume 21).
Question: where did Lee stay between the time he arrived in New Orleans—however he got there, and whenever he got there—and Friday, April 26, 1963? And where did he stay between Friday, April 26, and Monday, April 29, when he first called his aunt? Honest answer: we don’t know. According to Aunt Lillian’s testimony, Lee did not call her (saying he had “just arrived” etc.) until a Monday—which would be April 29, 1963—when he called from the bus station, and when his uncle Dutz (Lillian’s husband) then went to pick him up, and his luggage.
But Lee’s statement about when he “first arrived” was clearly false, i.e., a deliberate lie—and that’s obviously so based on the data proferred by John Rachal, and published in the Warren Report. Lee was there some days earlier, and was certainly there on Friday, April 26. Well, then, where did he stay? Truthful answer: We don’t know.
Fact: No Murrett family member—not Aunt Lillian, not Uncle Dutz, not cousin Marilyn—ever stated, in any statement to the FBI, nor in any Warren Commission testimony, that Lee had said he had stayed in the YMCA. That is purely an unsupported assertion of Judyth.
Fact: Because no Murrett family member ever stated, or even speculated, that Lee had stayed at the YMCA, the FBI never checked the New Orleans YMCA for any record of his having stayed there. (If I am wrong on this point, and there was in fact an FBI investigation on this point, I would sure appreciate being informed where it can be found). Nor, for that matter, did the FBI ever check hotels or rooming houses seeking to find where Lee stayed between April 24, 1963 and April 29, 1963. In other words, this “gap” wasn’t spotted by the official investigation. And so there is no paper trail that Lee ever stayed at the YMCA—or anywhere else, for that matter—upon arriving in New Orleans in the Spring of 1963, and one reason there is no paper trail is that there was never any FBI investigation; and the reason there was no FBI investigation is that there is not a scintilla of testimony that Lee ever said he stayed anywhere prior to the time he called Aunt Lillian.
So now we turn to Judyth’s justification and rationale for invoking the YMCA.
JUDYTH AND HER STATEMENTS ABOUT LEE OSWALD HAVING STAYED AT THE YMCA
Fact: Lee stayed at the Dallas YMCA in the fall of 1962, for some four days, when he moved from Fort Worth to Dallas (10/15-10/19/62). Lee also stayed at the Dallas YMCA on the night of Thursday, October 3, 1963, upon his return from Mexico City, and before he hitched a ride out to the Paine house on Friday, October 4, 1963. In each case there is a clear YMCA paper trail. The room number is listed; the amount paid; even the $1 deposit for a room key (See the testimony of John Leroy Hulen, who’s deposition was taken by WC attorney Jenner, and the document admitted into evidence at that time—called the Hulen Deposition Exhibit, in Volume 20 of the Warren Report).
We now come to an important false inference by Judyth Baker, one which exposes her entire methodology.
False Inference By Judyth: in effect, Judyth claims—but has no right to—that because LHO stayed once before at the Y in Dallas (and would later stay at the YMCA after his Mexico City trip) she can now infer that he stayed at the YMCA in New Orleans late April, 1963. That is what she does—repeatedly. (She wonders aloud: Where ELSE could he have stayed? Did he sleep on the street? And Jim Fetzer chimes in: Yeah, what do you say to that? Did he sleep on the street?”
What do I say to that? Here’s what I say. Everyone has heard the phrase “junk science.” This is “junk history.” What Judyth has done, in an attempt to insert herself into the valid history of this event—a history that (admittedly) has some gaps in the record—is to use the concept of “pattern evidence” to find a home for Lee Oswald in the brief period between the time she infers the bus from Dallas must have arrived, and the time Lee called Aunt Lillian on Monday, April 29. So the YMCA serves that purpose—it is, for Judyth, her “Motel 6.” But it is as contrived as the Single Bullet Theory, with all its twists and turns. In that case, we have a trajectory designed to account for a multiplicity of wounds. Here we have an itinerary, custom-designed by Judyth Baker, to account for some missing nights. This is her invention concerning the YMCA. This is her device for inserting herself into the Oswald narrative. And the gullible buy into that and say, “Well, where could he have stayed? Did he sleep on the street?”
Sorry, but posing such a question is no substitute for evidence as to where he stayed.
THE LACK OF A YMCA PAPER TRAIL
Unfortunately, for Judyth, there is no New Orleans YMCA paper trail, nor is there a smidgeon of evidence that Lee ever told anyone that he stayed at the YMCA—not his aunt, not his uncle, not his cousin, not his own wife. (And, to repeat, had he said any such thing, the FBI would have been all over it—interviewing the YMCA people and checking the records.) But no such investigation ever occurred, and it’s a safe inference that it did not because no one ever reported Lee as having said any such thing. And that’s a crucial missing link: no statements about the YMCA, no FBI investigation of the New Orleans YMCA; no YMCA paper trail. Just unsupported assertions by Judyth.
No doubt Lee stayed somewhere—but Judyth has struck out here (and once again, I might add) by positing it was the New Orleans YMCA, and then attempting to crawl into this interstitial space, by manufacturing dialogue and events.
JUDYTH’s “Ooops” moment
BUT (as in “ooops,” as I have said), Judyth did not realize—until this past month, when Jack White posted the exhibit I prepared--that there is a documentary record of how Lee was dressed on Friday, April 26, the day she claims to have met him at the post office; and that record, created by John Rachal, of the Louisiana Deaprtment of Labor, and published in the Warren Report, established that Lee was attired in a suit and tie. I have just quoted that record, earlier in this post: handwritten notes by Rachal made on 4/26/63, plus his Warren Commission affidavit: “Neat. Suit. Tie. Polite” (the notes) and “Oswald was neatly dressed with a suit, dress shirt, and tie on the occasion of our initial interview” (Rachel Affidavit, 11 WCH 475).
The second aspect of this “oops” moment concerns me, and the first (and only) time I ever spoke with Judyth—on March 4, 2000. Yes, it is a tape recorded conversation, but not because I was lying in wait, or anything of the sort. It was tape recorded because –initially—I gave Judyth the benefit of the doubt, thought I’d be speaking to someone the official investigation had missed, and wanted there to be an accurate record of what she said.
So what happened?
Judyth was unaware, until a few days ago, that not only did she now have to contend with the Rachal Exhibit, and what it says, but another “inconvenient truth” as well: what Judyth told me on March 4, 2000. That’s when I personally questioned Judyth, on this very point, as to how he was dressed, on April 26, 1963, the day she supposedly met Lee Oswald at the Post Office. And she told me he was in workman’s clothes. At that time (3/4/2000), Judyth was decidedly uncomfortable with my repeated questions on the subject, and wanted to know why, but I declined to say. In other words, I did not say, “Judyth, I am asking you a very important question, and you keep answering it the wrong way, so let’s repeat the question, just to make sure there is no misunderstanding.” No, I did not say that. But I asked my question more than once, because I knew very well the implication of the false response I was getting, and she kept answering it all wrong—and further (I might add) she also has it wrong in her manuscript.
WHERE WE ARE NOW—10 YEARS LATER (i.e., in March-April, 2010)
Well, ten years have passed, and now she knows. Judyth now knows that ten years ago, on March 4, 2000, in my first and only telephone conversation with her, and at a time when I (but not she) was fully aware of the Rachal evidence, I carefully questioned her as to how Lee was attire on the day she met him at the Post Office, and she answered in workman’s clothes.
And so now—i.e., in March, 2010—having just found this out—Judyth has to deal with this double whammie: the record of April, 1963, and, in addition, the record she herself created in March 2000, in her conversation with me, a conversation which was tape recorded. And so, having just had this embarrassing “ooops” moment—she goes back to her story, and –like a screenplay writer after a meeting with the producer, and after being informed that there is a glitch in her account—Judyth now adds new dialogue to her narrative. “Lee told me he was going to borrow a shirt,” she now lamely writes.
Well, then, what about the suit? (And what about the tie?) Well, she speculates, perhaps he borrowed that (the suit) from the Murrets. (Lee “told me” he was going to borrow a tie, she says; but, unfortnatley (for Judyth), that won’t work, because—say what she might-- Lee didn’t meet the Murrets until Monday, April 29, when she called Aunt Lillian, and when Aunt Lillian’s husband, Uncle Dutz, came to the bus station to pick up Lee and his luggage. And so now Judyth has become all tangled up in the problem of her fabricated chronology. Because regardless of whether or not Aunt Lillean wanted to buy Lee some clothes—i.e., later—that cannot (and does not) account for his attire on Friday, April 26. But Judyth is unfazed. She proclaims: “I am a witness. . I know. . I was there.” She wants us to believe; indeed, she practically demands that we do so.
And so now she embroiders some more. Well, what can be done about the chronology?
Here’s what Judyth does. Judyth, ignoring the record while attempting to amend her story, says that Lee actually arrived on April 25, and stayed with the Murrets, and they cooked him a nice dinner, loaned him clothing, etc etc. ad nauseum.
I write ad nauseum because it is all false, and contrary to the known record.
And throughout, she makes all kinds of personal accusations against me, and furthermore, adopts the tone that she is some kind of exalted witness:
Just get a whiff of her tone:
QUOTE:
Lee spent a Saturday night with his aunt and uncle, I think, because he reported eating a nice supper with them. Lee was very busy working with Guy Banister during his first week in New Orleans -- and also helping me find a room. UNQUOTE
My comment:: “Lee spent a Saturday night with his aunt and uncle, I think, . . . “
Notice the “I think”—how modest of you Judyth, followed by “because he reported eating a nice support with them. . “
Reported? Reported to whom? To the FBI? Not at all. “Reported” as in “reported” to Judyth, of course. In this manner, she becomes a corroborating witness to her own false story.
ANOTHER INSTANCE:
Judyth writes: “everyone please see the above list of facts offered by the witness” Notice how she now narrates her own story in the 3rd person.
What gall. She’s both narrator—as if she was speaking from the bench—and a witness. Just read that again: “everyone please see the above list of facts offered by the witness.”
Translated: Everyone should believe what I say and believe it to be a fact, even thought I’m a fabricator, because I claim the status of being a witness.
Judyth: who are you kidding? Do you really believe everyone is that gullible? That we should heed your command when you say: “I’m a witess. . I know what happened. . everyone please see the above list of facts offered by the witness.”
Finally: I must make the following personal statement, directed at Judyth.
A PERSONAL STATEMENT TO JUDYTH
Lee Oswald is not akin to some wall in a pubic toilet, where you can inscribe your destructive graffiti. Besmirching the personal reputation of a man with a wife and child, and expecting another (daughter Rachel, born on 10/20/63) on the way. Lee Oswald was a real person, with a real wife and a young child, both of whom he loved very much—and who had just learned she was pregnant with their 2nd child.
The notion that he was carrying on an affair with you in New Orleans is not just false—it is ludicrous.
I knew Marina, very well—having spoken to her dozens of times, over a thirteen year period, after Best Evidence was published in 1981.
And, as Lloyd Bentsen said to Senator Dan Quayle, “Senator, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine, and you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
Judyth: Marina Oswald was a friend of mine—and I (along with another writer) even threw her daughter a party here in Hollywood, when the Warner Brothers movie was being made. So let me assure you, Judyth Baker: I knew Marina quite well, and Judyth, you’re no Marina. Not even close.
If you wish to write fiction, go take a course in creative writing, and try your hand at a screenplay—but lay off the Oswald family and spin your false yarns elsewhere.
Again: Lee Oswald’s life is not akin to a public washroom, where you can go and inscribe graffiti, while you run around attempting to manufacture a counterfeit version of history.
DSL
4/2/2010; 4:40 AM[/quote]
As a former professor of critical thinking, I am not used to your committing so many fallacies at once:
(1) You beg the question by taking for granted that Judyth is a fraud, which is the issue we confront;
(2) You commit the genetic fallacy by assuming that my arguments are affected by who offered them;
(3) You commit the appeal to pity by suggesting I should abandon Judyth lest my reputation should suffer.
But you and I have been there before, David. You have been assailed for suggesting that there was surgery to the head and that all of the shots were fired from the front (correct me if I am wrong) and we have both been assailed for our advocacy of the position that the Zapruder film has been fabricated. Neither of us would be worth a damn if we abandoned positions in which we believe because of social pressure. I haven't done it in the past and I am not going to do it now, in spite of your entreaties.
We both tend to compose long posts, so let me make this more pointed. We agree that he left Dallas on the 24th. We both agree he had an interview on the 26th. We both agree that the trip by bus would have taken 14 or 15 hours. Yet you write IN THIS VERY POST, "If the bus left on the evening of Wednesday, April 24 (as Ruth Paine testified was the case) then –if it was a 14 hour trip—it would have arrived late on the evening of Thursday, April 25, or perhaps in the early AM of Friday, April 26." Perhaps on the 26th?
Give me a break, David. You have to have the courage to admit when you are wrong. If he left on the 24th and it was a 14 or 15 hour trip, then he arrived on the 25th! I cannot believe that you are trading on a presumed vagary or ambiguity--another fallacy, by the way--when there is none. If he left on the 24th and took a 14 or 15 hour bus trip, then he arrived on the 25th, with no "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s, absent some heretofore unknown traffic accident that interfered with his arrival, of which there is no evidence.
Hence, you have a missing day to account for. Now, in dealing with events in the relatively distant past-- where this occurred in April of 1963 and this is April of 2010, which makes it 47 years ago--we really should not expect to be able to nail down every aspect of every day, even though, in this case, quite a lot of effort has been expended in that endeavor. Now unless you are prepared to suggest that he slept in the street, as Judyth has appropriately observed, he slept somewhere, and it was not with the Murrets.
Your dependence on the FBI and THE WARREN REPORT would be ridiculous if you did not find them useful to you in this instance. The FBI was "tidying things up" on behalf of the official account, just in case you haven't noticed. They even secretly took the physical evidence to Washington, cleaned it up, brought it back and then staged an elaborate and public "official transference" to Washington! They had agents at all the photo processing plants in Dallas for two weeks taking photos and films of relevance, and all that.
Surely we was staying somewhere. You say, "We don't know." But Judyth has an explanation that seems to fit the situation, which she has elaborated in painstaking detail. You seem to regard these "details" as proof of fabrication, but in my judgment--from a logical point of view--quite the opposite is the case. As Karl Popper observed, the more precise an hypothesis, the more easily it can be subjected to potential refutation, which is part and parcel of the importance of quantitative formulations over non-quantitative.
If Lee had the luggage she described (and we have no reason to dispute it), then it would have made a great deal of sense for him to have stored most of it at the bus depot (which is what I myself would have done had I thought it through) before heading for the "Y" to check in and become oriented before making contact with my relatives (which, of course, he would do subsequently). What we don't have (according to you) is records from the "Y", which may be absent for various reasons, including the FBI took them.
Judyth has been accused of so many distortions and fabrications where she has been able to fend them off, again and again, that I am simply astonished by how much she appears to know about these things. She has, again and again, provided more detailed and more specific explanations in rebuttal, which, in my view, by and large, are more reasonable than the arguments of those who challenge her authenticity, where of course, I specifically include you. And she has more and more to tell us about Lee H. Oswald!
Not only does her story "hang together" in the right way, but she has demonstrated, again and again, the extent of her knowledge of the man she knew in New Orleans. Let me offer her eye-color story as a nice illustration. John Armstrong and Jack White maintain, in defense of their thesis of "the two Oswalds", that one of the subjects had blue eyes and the other one had hazel eyes. In post #736, Judyth takes this claim to task in a brilliant study that demonstrates--conclusively, in my view--that their claim is unsustainable.
Now, according to her own account, Judyth was motivated because of her profound affection for the man she knew in New Orleans. She knew the color of his eyes based upon personal experience, if we are to believe her. And the fact of the matter is that, to the best of my knowledge, even though you are also a skeptic of the "Harvey & Lee" scenario, you have not only not advanced any supporting evidence for your position, but have not even been willing to simply state your attitude toward it, much less defend it here.
Let me offer an example of why I believe in Judyth. Ed Haslam conducted extensive discussions (some would say "interrogations") with Judyth before he concluded that she was "the real deal". Unlike your solitary conversation, he examined her for as much as 1,000 hours! Something that struck him early on was Judyth's observation that the photograph he was planning for the cover was NOT Dr. Mary Sherman. He actually visited the family and discovered it was actually a photo of her sister, who looked a lot alike.
Now unless Judyth had actually known her, it is not simply highly improbable but virtually impossible that Judyth could have distinguished between a photo of her sister and a photo of Mary Sherman. But she did. And the fact that she can provide so much new information about Lee H. Oswald in New Orleans--much of which has seemed implausible on its face but upon further investigation appears to be true--tremendously enhances her credibility. And Ed Haslam and I are far from alone in believing that she is "the real deal".
Fallacious reasons are not going to affect my attitude. I am going to defend the truth as I understand it, which I presume you can appreciate, having "been there" yourself! When I am convinced that she is not the person I believe her to be, you will be among the first to know. In the meanwhile, I would appreciate just a bit more candor about your take on "Harvey & Lee" and current information about your book on the subject that fascinates us even more than Judyth Vary Baker, which, of course, is Lee H. Oswald himself.
[quote name='David Lifton' post='188513' date='Apr 2 2010, 01:03 PM']Jim:
Contrary to your glib assertions (“Judyth refutes the purported details of his [Lifton’s] account”) Judyth has refuted nothing. My facts are impeccable, and my logic sound. Contrary to your statement that “Lifton appears to have committed a ser[ies] of blunders in making assumptions that turn out to be false,” it is you have become entangled in the false details of Judyth’s tale, to the point where you have been bamboozled by a woman promulgating a thoroughly false and fictitious account of a non-existent relationship with Lee Oswald.
Candidly, I could care less if the only casualty was whether or not—either through carelessness or excessive credulity--you were taken in by this lady. What concerns me is the role you have played in attempting to expose major fraud in the physical evidence, and what I am talking about, of course, is the Zapruder film.
Because surely, as this situation unwinds—and it will-the question will be asked: if a person cannot distinguish between the false and the real, when it comes to the matter of Judyth Baker, can we trust that person’s judgment when it comes to the far more important situation of “fraud in the evidence,” and especially in a matter as technical as the Zapruder film?
Do you remember a month or two back, when a photo was circulating supposedly showing JFK's body--laid out on the autopsy table? And you were rather enthusiastic about that item? Within a ay or so, when it became obvious that that was nothing but a mock-up, one created in connection with the making of the movie JFK, you changed your opinion. Well, that photo sure looked real--and, at first glance, Judyth's story can look real, and even be appealing. Unfortunately, it is all bogus, and the prodocut of someone who is the victim of what, medically, is called "pseudologia fantastica" or "mythomania."
Unfortunately, you have been taken in my all this; and it is sure to result in great harm.
Anyway, those are my concerns—but I am sure you will not be deterred in doing what you personally believe is right—even if it is provably incorrect.
So let me now drop that subject, and turn to Judyth’s latest post, as conveyed by you, to all the readers on this board.
MY RESPONSE TO JUDYTH”S LATEST POST (i.e., to the one titled “Judyth Replies to Lifton on Lee’s Arrival in New Orleans”)
Judyth’s very long post is loaded with weak arguments, circular logic, and just plain false statements. If this were a university test booklet, the reader would give her a failing grade, writing again and again, either “irrelevant,” or “so what?” or “false inference.”
Let’s review the immutable facts:
Fact: Lee’s journey from Dallas to New Orleans began on Wednesday, April 24. We know that from the testimony of Ruth Paine, who says she brought Lee to the bus station, with some bags. Then—after dropping those bags off at the bus station, and after offering Marina the option of not accompanying Lee to New Orleans, but instead staying with her-- they returned to his apartment and emptied what was left from his apartment. Then, they all returned (and by “they all” I’m referring to Ruth Paine, Lee, and Marina) to Paine’s home. Ruth Paine testified that Lee left that evening, Wednesday, April 24, for New Orleans, but she does not say who took Lee from Irving back to the Greyhound bus station in Dallas. All she does is mention that Lee would have had to take a city bus to get back to Dallas from Irving, and then board the Greyhound bus for New Orleans.
Did he do that? The fact is—we don’t know. The assumption is that he did, but he could just as well have used Greyhound to carry his baggage, and gone to New Orleans by some other means (and in fact I’m very open, if not partial, to that possibility). Judyth notes an interesting fact that I have not dwelt on here--that twice in FBI interviews, Marina says that Lee went to the bus station the day before April 24--i.e., on April 23--to check some bags. Marina told the FBI that (the believed) Ruth drove Lee there, the day before, but Ruth's account says nothing about that. If Marina is correct, and Lee checked some bags on 4/23/63, then obviously, someone else was involved with Lee, in making preparations for this trip to New Orleans, and that also raises the possibility that he simply shipped his bags by Greyhound, but did not actually use the bus, to get to New Orleans.
BUT, for the purpose of this discussion, let’s return to what the Warren Report states. That keeps the discussion very simple, and permits us to see how Judyth is attempting to “burrow into” a small hole in the actual historical record, one at the New Orleans end of the line.
Fact: Lee traveled to New Orleans –as far as the Warren Commission investigation is concerned—alone. Further, according to the Warren Report, he traveled by bus—i.e., on the Greyhound bus carrying his bags. Marina stayed with Ruth Paine. If the bus left on the evening of Wednesday, April 24 (as Ruth Paine testified was the case) then –if it was a 14 hour trip—it would have arrived late on the evening of Thursday, April 25, or perhaps in the early AM of Friday, April 26.
Fact: The contemporaneous record created by John Rachal, at the Louisiana Department of Labor, records the data that Lee was attired in a suit and tie on Friday, April 26, at the time of his interview. His handwritten notes read “Neat. Suit. Tie. Polite” (See Rachel deposition Exhibit, Volume 21, p. 283, of the WC hearings) and his June 1964 Warren Commission affidavit reads: “I recall that Oswald was neatly dressed with a suit, dress shirt, and tie on the occasion of our initial interview.” (Volume 11, p. 475).
Fact: Lillean Murret testified that she first heard from Lee on a Monday—when he called from the bus station, saying that he had “just arrived” in New Orleans.” That statement is provably untrue because he had already had an interview on Friday, April 26, at which point he was dressed in “a suit, dress shirt, and tie.”
Fact: Monday—the day Lillian Murret first heard from Lee, who said he was calling from the bus station, and had “just arrived” etc.—would have been Monday, April 29, 1963. This is a critical time-marker: nothing Judyth says can change that immutable fact. “Monday” was April 29.
FACT: No one was ever located, nor did any one ever come forward to say that they were on that bus—or any bus—with Lee Oswald, from Dallas to New Orleans, leaving on or about Wednesday evening, April 24, 1963. Unlike the situation regarding Oswald’s trip to Mexico, where the FBI was able to locate people who were halfway around the world on that bus, we have no eyewitness placing Oswald on a bus from Dallas to New Orleans on or about April 24, 1963. The Dallas-to-New Orleans bus journey—with Lee Oswald (and not just his luggage) on board, is all conjecture—perhaps reasonable conjecture, based on his having brought his boxes to the bus station—but there is no evidence that he actually rode on the bus to New Orleans. All we know is that he was in New Orleans on Friday, April 26, 1963, when he appeared at the Louisiana Department of Labor, and had the interview with John Rachal.
FACT: As any discerning reader can see, this leaves a small “time hole” in the record—one extending from Lee’s putative “time of arrival” in New Orleans, until his April 26, 1963 placement interview with Rachal; and then another between that same placement interview and Monday, April 29, 1963, when he called his Aunt Lillian for the first time, said he was at the bus station, and desired help in getting all his boxes over to her place.
FACT: No one –except Judyth—says that Lee Oswald stayed at the YMCA between April 25 and April 29. She can say anything she wants, but that does not make it so. The YMCA keeps records. No one has ever produced such a record.
FACT: Anyone who has studied the records of the warren Commission knows how careful and meticulous the FBI could be (when it wanted to be); and how hotels and motels were scoured for records of Lee’s whereabouts. When he stayed at the Dallas YMCA, for example, between October 15 an October 19, 1962, the actual records were produced, which listed his room number, and even accounted for the $1 deposit for a room key. (See the deposition exhibit of John Hulen, in volume 10 of the Warren Commission, and the Hulen Deposition Exhibits, in Volume 21).
Question: where did Lee stay between the time he arrived in New Orleans—however he got there, and whenever he got there—and Friday, April 26, 1963? And where did he stay between Friday, April 26, and Monday, April 29, when he first called his aunt? Honest answer: we don’t know. According to Aunt Lillian’s testimony, Lee did not call her (saying he had “just arrived” etc.) until a Monday—which would be April 29, 1963—when he called from the bus station, and when his uncle Dutz (Lillian’s husband) then went to pick him up, and his luggage.
But Lee’s statement about when he “first arrived” was clearly false, i.e., a deliberate lie—and that’s obviously so based on the data proferred by John Rachal, and published in the Warren Report. Lee was there some days earlier, and was certainly there on Friday, April 26. Well, then, where did he stay? Truthful answer: We don’t know.
Fact: No Murrett family member—not Aunt Lillian, not Uncle Dutz, not cousin Marilyn—ever stated, in any statement to the FBI, nor in any Warren Commission testimony, that Lee had said he had stayed in the YMCA. That is purely an unsupported assertion of Judyth.
Fact: Because no Murrett family member ever stated, or even speculated, that Lee had stayed at the YMCA, the FBI never checked the New Orleans YMCA for any record of his having stayed there. (If I am wrong on this point, and there was in fact an FBI investigation on this point, I would sure appreciate being informed where it can be found). Nor, for that matter, did the FBI ever check hotels or rooming houses seeking to find where Lee stayed between April 24, 1963 and April 29, 1963. In other words, this “gap” wasn’t spotted by the official investigation. And so there is no paper trail that Lee ever stayed at the YMCA—or anywhere else, for that matter—upon arriving in New Orleans in the Spring of 1963, and one reason there is no paper trail is that there was never any FBI investigation; and the reason there was no FBI investigation is that there is not a scintilla of testimony that Lee ever said he stayed anywhere prior to the time he called Aunt Lillian.
So now we turn to Judyth’s justification and rationale for invoking the YMCA.
JUDYTH AND HER STATEMENTS ABOUT LEE OSWALD HAVING STAYED AT THE YMCA
Fact: Lee stayed at the Dallas YMCA in the fall of 1962, for some four days, when he moved from Fort Worth to Dallas (10/15-10/19/62). Lee also stayed at the Dallas YMCA on the night of Thursday, October 3, 1963, upon his return from Mexico City, and before he hitched a ride out to the Paine house on Friday, October 4, 1963. In each case there is a clear YMCA paper trail. The room number is listed; the amount paid; even the $1 deposit for a room key (See the testimony of John Leroy Hulen, who’s deposition was taken by WC attorney Jenner, and the document admitted into evidence at that time—called the Hulen Deposition Exhibit, in Volume 20 of the Warren Report).
We now come to an important false inference by Judyth Baker, one which exposes her entire methodology.
False Inference By Judyth: in effect, Judyth claims—but has no right to—that because LHO stayed once before at the Y in Dallas (and would later stay at the YMCA after his Mexico City trip) she can now infer that he stayed at the YMCA in New Orleans late April, 1963. That is what she does—repeatedly. (She wonders aloud: Where ELSE could he have stayed? Did he sleep on the street? And Jim Fetzer chimes in: Yeah, what do you say to that? Did he sleep on the street?”
What do I say to that? Here’s what I say. Everyone has heard the phrase “junk science.” This is “junk history.” What Judyth has done, in an attempt to insert herself into the valid history of this event—a history that (admittedly) has some gaps in the record—is to use the concept of “pattern evidence” to find a home for Lee Oswald in the brief period between the time she infers the bus from Dallas must have arrived, and the time Lee called Aunt Lillian on Monday, April 29. So the YMCA serves that purpose—it is, for Judyth, her “Motel 6.” But it is as contrived as the Single Bullet Theory, with all its twists and turns. In that case, we have a trajectory designed to account for a multiplicity of wounds. Here we have an itinerary, custom-designed by Judyth Baker, to account for some missing nights. This is her invention concerning the YMCA. This is her device for inserting herself into the Oswald narrative. And the gullible buy into that and say, “Well, where could he have stayed? Did he sleep on the street?”
Sorry, but posing such a question is no substitute for evidence as to where he stayed.
THE LACK OF A YMCA PAPER TRAIL
Unfortunately, for Judyth, there is no New Orleans YMCA paper trail, nor is there a smidgeon of evidence that Lee ever told anyone that he stayed at the YMCA—not his aunt, not his uncle, not his cousin, not his own wife. (And, to repeat, had he said any such thing, the FBI would have been all over it—interviewing the YMCA people and checking the records.) But no such investigation ever occurred, and it’s a safe inference that it did not because no one ever reported Lee as having said any such thing. And that’s a crucial missing link: no statements about the YMCA, no FBI investigation of the New Orleans YMCA; no YMCA paper trail. Just unsupported assertions by Judyth.
No doubt Lee stayed somewhere—but Judyth has struck out here (and once again, I might add) by positing it was the New Orleans YMCA, and then attempting to crawl into this interstitial space, by manufacturing dialogue and events.
JUDYTH’s “Ooops” moment
BUT (as in “ooops,” as I have said), Judyth did not realize—until this past month, when Jack White posted the exhibit I prepared--that there is a documentary record of how Lee was dressed on Friday, April 26, the day she claims to have met him at the post office; and that record, created by John Rachal, of the Louisiana Deaprtment of Labor, and published in the Warren Report, established that Lee was attired in a suit and tie. I have just quoted that record, earlier in this post: handwritten notes by Rachal made on 4/26/63, plus his Warren Commission affidavit: “Neat. Suit. Tie. Polite” (the notes) and “Oswald was neatly dressed with a suit, dress shirt, and tie on the occasion of our initial interview” (Rachel Affidavit, 11 WCH 475).
The second aspect of this “oops” moment concerns me, and the first (and only) time I ever spoke with Judyth—on March 4, 2000. Yes, it is a tape recorded conversation, but not because I was lying in wait, or anything of the sort. It was tape recorded because –initially—I gave Judyth the benefit of the doubt, thought I’d be speaking to someone the official investigation had missed, and wanted there to be an accurate record of what she said.
So what happened?
Judyth was unaware, until a few days ago, that not only did she now have to contend with the Rachal Exhibit, and what it says, but another “inconvenient truth” as well: what Judyth told me on March 4, 2000. That’s when I personally questioned Judyth, on this very point, as to how he was dressed, on April 26, 1963, the day she supposedly met Lee Oswald at the Post Office. And she told me he was in workman’s clothes. At that time (3/4/2000), Judyth was decidedly uncomfortable with my repeated questions on the subject, and wanted to know why, but I declined to say. In other words, I did not say, “Judyth, I am asking you a very important question, and you keep answering it the wrong way, so let’s repeat the question, just to make sure there is no misunderstanding.” No, I did not say that. But I asked my question more than once, because I knew very well the implication of the false response I was getting, and she kept answering it all wrong—and further (I might add) she also has it wrong in her manuscript.
WHERE WE ARE NOW—10 YEARS LATER (i.e., in March-April, 2010)
Well, ten years have passed, and now she knows. Judyth now knows that ten years ago, on March 4, 2000, in my first and only telephone conversation with her, and at a time when I (but not she) was fully aware of the Rachal evidence, I carefully questioned her as to how Lee was attire on the day she met him at the Post Office, and she answered in workman’s clothes.
And so now—i.e., in March, 2010—having just found this out—Judyth has to deal with this double whammie: the record of April, 1963, and, in addition, the record she herself created in March 2000, in her conversation with me, a conversation which was tape recorded. And so, having just had this embarrassing “ooops” moment—she goes back to her story, and –like a screenplay writer after a meeting with the producer, and after being informed that there is a glitch in her account—Judyth now adds new dialogue to her narrative. “Lee told me he was going to borrow a shirt,” she now lamely writes.
Well, then, what about the suit? (And what about the tie?) Well, she speculates, perhaps he borrowed that (the suit) from the Murrets. (Lee “told me” he was going to borrow a tie, she says; but, unfortnatley (for Judyth), that won’t work, because—say what she might-- Lee didn’t meet the Murrets until Monday, April 29, when she called Aunt Lillian, and when Aunt Lillian’s husband, Uncle Dutz, came to the bus station to pick up Lee and his luggage. And so now Judyth has become all tangled up in the problem of her fabricated chronology. Because regardless of whether or not Aunt Lillean wanted to buy Lee some clothes—i.e., later—that cannot (and does not) account for his attire on Friday, April 26. But Judyth is unfazed. She proclaims: “I am a witness. . I know. . I was there.” She wants us to believe; indeed, she practically demands that we do so.
And so now she embroiders some more. Well, what can be done about the chronology?
Here’s what Judyth does. Judyth, ignoring the record while attempting to amend her story, says that Lee actually arrived on April 25, and stayed with the Murrets, and they cooked him a nice dinner, loaned him clothing, etc etc. ad nauseum.
I write ad nauseum because it is all false, and contrary to the known record.
And throughout, she makes all kinds of personal accusations against me, and furthermore, adopts the tone that she is some kind of exalted witness:
Just get a whiff of her tone:
QUOTE:
Lee spent a Saturday night with his aunt and uncle, I think, because he reported eating a nice supper with them. Lee was very busy working with Guy Banister during his first week in New Orleans -- and also helping me find a room. UNQUOTE
My comment:: “Lee spent a Saturday night with his aunt and uncle, I think, . . . “
Notice the “I think”—how modest of you Judyth, followed by “because he reported eating a nice support with them. . “
Reported? Reported to whom? To the FBI? Not at all. “Reported” as in “reported” to Judyth, of course. In this manner, she becomes a corroborating witness to her own false story.
ANOTHER INSTANCE:
Judyth writes: “everyone please see the above list of facts offered by the witness” Notice how she now narrates her own story in the 3rd person.
What gall. She’s both narrator—as if she was speaking from the bench—and a witness. Just read that again: “everyone please see the above list of facts offered by the witness.”
Translated: Everyone should believe what I say and believe it to be a fact, even thought I’m a fabricator, because I claim the status of being a witness.
Judyth: who are you kidding? Do you really believe everyone is that gullible? That we should heed your command when you say: “I’m a witess. . I know what happened. . everyone please see the above list of facts offered by the witness.”
Finally: I must make the following personal statement, directed at Judyth.
A PERSONAL STATEMENT TO JUDYTH
Lee Oswald is not akin to some wall in a pubic toilet, where you can inscribe your destructive graffiti. Besmirching the personal reputation of a man with a wife and child, and expecting another (daughter Rachel, born on 10/20/63) on the way. Lee Oswald was a real person, with a real wife and a young child, both of whom he loved very much—and who had just learned she was pregnant with their 2nd child.
The notion that he was carrying on an affair with you in New Orleans is not just false—it is ludicrous.
I knew Marina, very well—having spoken to her dozens of times, over a thirteen year period, after Best Evidence was published in 1981.
And, as Lloyd Bentsen said to Senator Dan Quayle, “Senator, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine, and you’re no Jack Kennedy.”
Judyth: Marina Oswald was a friend of mine—and I (along with another writer) even threw her daughter a party here in Hollywood, when the Warner Brothers movie was being made. So let me assure you, Judyth Baker: I knew Marina quite well, and Judyth, you’re no Marina. Not even close.
If you wish to write fiction, go take a course in creative writing, and try your hand at a screenplay—but lay off the Oswald family and spin your false yarns elsewhere.
Again: Lee Oswald’s life is not akin to a public washroom, where you can go and inscribe graffiti, while you run around attempting to manufacture a counterfeit version of history.
DSL
4/2/2010; 4:40 AM[/quote]