Anyone want to discuss HARVEY & LEE?

[Jim Hargrove]

No doubt we should first consider more mundane explanations for the discrepancies. Here's what the W.C. Report says about Baker's encounter:

Baker testified that he entered the lobby of the building and "spoke out and asked where the stairs or elevator was ... and this man, Mr. Truly, spoke up and says, it seems to me like he says, 'I am a building manager. Follow me, officer, and I will show you.'" 330 Baker and building superintendent Roy Truly went through a second set of doors 331 and stopped at a swinging door where Baker bumped into Truly's back.332 They went through the swinging door and continued at "a good trot" to the northwest corner of the floor where Truly hoped to find one of the two freight elevators.

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 1118: Texas School Book Depository Diagram of Second Floor Showing Route of Oswald

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(See Commission Exhibit No. 1061, p. 148.) Neither elevator was there.333 Truly pushed the button for the west elevator which operates automatically if the gate is closed.334 He shouted twice, "Turn loose the elevator."335 When the elevator failed to come, Baker said, "let's take the stairs," and he followed Truly up the stairway, which is to the west of the elevator.336

The stairway is located in the northwest corner of the Depository Building. The stairs from one floor to the next are "L-shaped," with both legs of the "L" approximately the same length. Because the stairway itself is enclosed, neither Baker nor Truly could see anything on the second-floor hallway until they reached the landing at the top of the stairs.337 On the second-floor landing there is a small open area with a door at the east end. This door leads into a small vestibule, and another door leads from the vestibule into the second-floor lunchroom.338 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1118, p. 150.) The lunchroom door is usually open, but the first door is kept shut by a closing mechanism on the door.339 This vestibule door is solid except for a small glass window in the upper part of the door.340 As Baker reached the second floor, he was about 20 feet from the vestibule door.341 He intended to continue around to his left toward the stairway going up but through the window in the door he caught a fleeting glimpse of a man walking in the vestibule toward the lunchroom.342

Since the vestibule door is only a few feet from the lunchroom door,343 the man must have entered the vestibule only a second or two before Baker arrived at the top of the stairwell. Yet he must have entered the vestibule door before Truly reached the top of the stairwell, since Truly did not see him.344 If the man had passed from the vestibule into the lunchroom, Baker could not have seen him. Baker said:

He [Truly] had already started around the bend to come to the next elevator going up, I was coming out this one on the second floor, and I don't know, I was kind of sweeping this area as I come up, I was looking from right to left and as I got to this door here I caught a glimpse of this man, just, you know, a sudden glimpse ... and it looked to me like he was going away from me.

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I can't say whether he had gone on through that door [the lunchroom door] or not. All I did was catch a glance at him, and evidently he was--this door might have been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time.345

With his revolver drawn, Baker opened the vestibule door and ran into the vestibule. He saw a man walking away from him in the lunchroom. Baker stopped at the door of the lunchroom and commanded, "Come here."346 The man turned and walked back toward Baker.347 He had been proceeding toward the rear of the lunchroom.348 Along a side wall of the lunchroom was a soft drink rending machine,349 but at that time the man had nothing in his hands.350

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Meanwhile, Truly had run up several steps toward the third floor. Missing Baker, he came back to find the officer in the doorway to the lunchroom facing Lee Harvey Oswald.351 Baker turned to Truly and said, "Do you know this man, does he work here?"352 Truly replied, "Yes."353 Baker stated later that the man did not seem to be out of breath; he seemed calm. "He never did say a word or nothing. In fact, he didn't change his expression one bit." 352 Truly said of Oswald: "He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might have been a bit startled, like I might have. been if somebody confronted me. But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face." 355 Truly thought that the officer's gun at that time appeared to be almost touching the middle portion of Oswald's body. Truly also noted at this time that Oswald's hands were empty. 356

My understanding of the TSBD floor plan is that entering the building in the back (on Houston St.) you're on what is referred to as the 1st floor, though some people would probably consider it the basement. Entering from the Main Entrance on Elm, you are actually on what is referred to as the 2nd floor. Since Baker parked his bike at the NW corner of Houston and Elm, it seems that he would most likely have entered the building through the Main Entrance on Elm, which would put him immediately on the 2nd floor (the floor with the lunchroom.) But the WCR makes it sound as if he climbed a flight of stairs to get to the second floor, suggesting he walked a block out of his way to enter through the lower Houston St. entrance at the back of the building. Perhpas this is where some confusion--or subterfuge--began, because it is critical to establishing whether or not Baker had to walk up ANY stairs in order to encounter Oswald on the 2nd floor.