Death of the lunchroom hoax

[David Josephs]

I had just dove in without a preface.... The following is what jumped out at me in my first look thru of this work. I now understand that the lunchroom scene never occurred and was simply a way to cover for whoever it was coming down the stairs that these men ran into... MANY people were leaving and moving about in the TSBD at that time... something Richard fails to inform....

In any case, I felt it important to touch on a few things that I feel Mr. G over-reached upon...

Darnell filmed at almost exactly 20 degrees to the TSBD landing (Wiegman filmed at approximately 30 degrees). Darnell's Camera Car 3 was about "70 feet from the closest point of the building",[SUP]1[/SUP] and so about 75 feet from Frazier, and about 76.5 feet from PrayerMan. Their respective heights, above the Depository landing, were measured on my Darnell blowup as 5.2 and 4.4 cm. Since Frazier was 72.25 inches tall,
[SUP]1[/SUP] Pictures of the Pain by Richard Trask, p. 424
PrayerMan calculates to (4.4/5.2)(76.5/75)(72.25) = 5' 2 ½", to a reasonable approximation. This is a good 6 inches shorter than Oswald, and typical of the height of a woman. Based on the height analysis alone, it can be stated unequivocably unequivocally that PrayerMan is not Lee Harvey Oswald.

1. PM is farther away than Frazier
   

- 4.4 is 15.4% shorter than 5.2 yet they are not on the same "image plane" … nor have you determined a scale. In fact, you don't even use the word SCALE in your entire paper yet you can claim these measurements are accurate. ???

- Frazier was 76.5" tall… 15.4% shorter than that would be 64.7" or 5'4.7"
- Yet as we said, PM is easily 4 feet over to the left and 3 feet further back…. How do you think that changes these ratios? Well, it would make the PM, farther away, taller than the ratio's result… the only way PM is 5'4" is if he was standing next to Frazier and slightly in front based on the angle of the photo.

Add, as well, the complete lack of precision in the measurements and it is any wonder there are errors when he extrapolates them down to pixel and millimeter lengths? I'd suggest Richard go to a University which can perform Photogammetry and do precise measurements - if you are going to use this as a debating point.

Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs, especially for recovering the exact positions of surface points. Photogrammetry is as old as modern photography, dating to the mid-19th century and in the simplest example, the distance between two points that lie on a plane parallel to the photographic image plane, can be determined by measuring their distance on the image, if the scale (s) of the image is known.
The scale of a map is the ratio of a distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground.

1. The button argument is pure conjectural BS… there is not enough info in the images to allow a conclusion like that…
   

- the PM piece of the image relates to a piece of the negative shown in scale to the size of the photo at the top left of this analysis
- Assuming that level of detail is possible results in erroneous conclusions - such as there not being a uniform layout of these "buttons" .... additionally, there is so much pixelization due to the size of the area, Richard will now claim to tell us what time the watch on the wrist shows.... :: all kidding aside... buttons? Pu-lease.

1. We're now using Holmes' testimony and memory of the interrogations?? This is the same man who claims to have found and acquired the Postal Money Order 10 hours before it was ever found… as well as the key Postal Inspector who cannot show any of his assets reporting about OSWALD receiving a rifle at his PO Box at the main downtown post office….
   
2. It is next claimed that because Truly and Baker's testimony is so eerily similar it MUST have happened that way… 13 points of similarity…. And they both testified on the same day, with Mrs. Reid the only other person to have seen Oswald INSIDE the TSBD
   

• This storytelling fest is all the more remarkable once their mutual coordination is recognized- because a comparison of these parts of their testimonies shows 13 points of correspondence. Assuming each man actually spoke the words that are written- which were dutifully transcribed by the court stenographer- such coordination would have required many long hours of mutual preparation and a near-flawless delivery of their scripts.
  
• There is no doubt that many of the 13 items occurred on the way to and up the stairs.
  
• What I find a bit too much commentary is his passage:
  The machinations required to pull off a hoaxing of Truly & Baker's testimonies begin to rival the production of an off-Broadway play. And the hoaxers have never presented one scintilla of evidence to support any claim that such shenanigans ever occurred.
  
  So now we need to prove the negative? Let's look a bit closer to the 13 items of concurrence:
  
  Any bearing on the location of the encounter?
  

1- While inside the front lobby, Baker asked Truly where the stairs were
(WCH III pp. 221, 249) no bearing
2- Truly ran into the swinging door at the will-call counter and Baker bumped
into him (222, 249) no bearing
3- Truly pressed the call button and the freight elevator did not come down
(223, 254) no bearing
4- Truly & Baker looked up the elevator shaft (223, 254) no bearing
5- They saw that the elevators were stuck upstairs (240, 254) no bearing
6- Truly yelled up the shaft twice (223, 249) no bearing
7- Truly led the way up the stairs (224, 250) now this has a direct bearing based on the closing mechanism on the door, seeing Oswald thru the window and the discounting of the person in Baker's affidavit.
Once again we need to sift thru commentary about "hoaxsters" and how this or that "could not be possible" which over and over again reveals the lack of substance in the argument made up for by denouncing the belief in the opposite. Very juvenile.
----- One of the consequences of believing the hoax is that one has to believe that the
accounts given above were epic fables. One has to believe that Baker & Truly
confabulated, on camera, an explicit encounter with the alleged assassin- that they
lied about this investigative focal point, and did so flawlessly. Plus the hoaxer has to
remain in denial about the arguments thus far presented that establish the reality of
the lunchroom incident.-----
8- Baker & Oswald were just inside the lunchroom door area (225, 250) Once the "3[SUP]rd[/SUP] or 4[SUP]th[/SUP] floor" becomes the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] floor lunchroom, where else could they be?
9- Baker was facing Oswald (225, 250) ditto
10- Baker asked "Does he work here?" and Truly said "Yes" (225, 251) affidavit
11- Baker left immediately (225, 251) No pointing the pistol? No noticing the man was not out of breath nor nervous? He just left did not go back out the door, he just kept going up the stairs
12- Oswald was calm and collected (225, 252) NOT in the affidavit
13- Oswald had no change of expression as Baker's gun was pointed close to him

• (225, 252) NOT in the affidavit
  

1. He uses something MARVIN JOHNSON supposedly said and footnotes MARVIN JOHNSON!
   - …On about the 4th floor Baker apprehended a man walking away from the stairway on that floor. Officer Baker started to search the man, but the building manager stated that the man was an employee of the company and was known to him. Officer Baker later identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man he had seen on the 4th floor of the Texas Book Depository."[SUP]20[/SUP]
   20 WCH XXIV p. 307
   
   https://www.maryferrell.org/archive/docs/001/1140/images/img_1140_325_300.png is page 307... which is simply a page from his report.
   
   IN OTHER WORDS… there is nothing to corroborate MARVIN JOHNSON ever hearing Baker associate ANYONE with the man coming down the stairs that he and Truly encounter, let alone that it was Oswald… If it was Oswald, wouldn't honestly putting him on the stairs COMING DOWN so soon after the shooting be more incriminating than if he was in the lunchroom? And the reality is… we have no idea who the person coming down was… ATF was already in the TSBD, Sheriff's deputies were ALREADY IN THE BUILDING….
   

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I'd rather not get into an analysis of his attack on Bart Kamp's work. The simple reason is that Mr. Gilbride is not being forthright with us at most every turn. Here is the first point taken:

1) Why did Baker not call this in? implying that he was disobeying a direct order from Chief Curry by racing into the Depository

Gilbride then goes on to explain that Baker knew better than Curry and since Curry was in the lead car, he could not know from where the shots came.

Here is the actual testimony which Richard paraphrases:

Mr. BAKER - I heard Chief Curry, the chief of the police over there, say, "Get some men over on the railroad track." I think everyone at that time thought these shots came from the railroad track.
Mr. BELIN - By "everyone" do you include you, too?
Mr. BAKER - No, Sir. I had it-- (I had it…. What?)
I was in a better position due to the wind and you know under it, that I knew it was directly ahead, and up, and it either had to be this building here or this one over here.

So, Officer BAKER unilaterally decides to disobey a direct order and NOT go over to the RR track…. Because he "had it…." He knew better.

What is Gilbride's reply? But there were plenty of officers ahead of Baker who could check behind the picket fence.

That is not the point now is it Richard? These officer should do as ORDERED… Baker it appears has another agenda.

DJ

I will take some time and see if the critique of Bart's work crawls out of the muck at some point along the way yet to automatically assume that this is any more or less accurate simply because of the time, effort and images is to once again sell oneself short.

I find this work attack-oriented, highly subjective and basically incorrect on so many accounts it would take the hours Richard asks us to take to read it, just to identify all the inaccuracies and opinion-based conclusions.

The excuses made for MARVIN JOHNSON's report claiming to add significant detail and FACT without a shred of support is representative of the entire piece...