Interesting Thread at ROKC re: Oswald's Bus Transfer

[Bob Prudhomme]

http://www.reopenkennedycase.org/apps/fo...rs-?page=1

[Drew Phipps]

Just as a courtesy to those who don't want to wade thru all that to get the gist of it:

a. The punch marks on it are not the punch marks of a bus "transfer," so Oswald could not have used it to transfer buses.

b. The other identifying text on the back side of the WC exhibit "bus transfer" doesn't match the text from a period sample book of tickets/receipts/transfer which the author of that thread managed somehow to obtain.

Hope I captured the pertinent points.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Really good stuff. Almost as crucial as Sean Murphy's work.

If this is accurate, then how did Oswald get back to the rooming house?

Was Roger Craig correct in his testimony about LHO jumping into a Rambler?

Bob Fox and Lee Farley have just about wrecked Mary Bledsoe. And Dave Perry looks like a fool today--what else is new-- in trying to support such a bad witness.

WE thought the Warren Report had been sliced and diced by 1967. It was even worse than they thought it was.

[David Josephs]

(Edit - I wanted to add that the interview reports of Bookout and Kelley state he said he took a bus to either his home or to the theater until it is mentioned that a taxi was involved... Without a stenographer we are treated to Fritz and others quoting Ozzie directly about the change from the bus to taxi... )


The Evidence IS the Conspiracy IS the Evidence - the bus transfer

Kudos goes to John Amstrong for detailing some of this in his great book and for giving me the launching point to compile the following:
Thoughts on a Bus transfer

H&L p884
"At 4:00 pm Oswald was taken to the show-up room in the basement by Detectives Sims, Boyd, and M.G. Hall.32 While waiting for the lineup to be arranged Oswald took off his Marine Corps ring and gave it to Sims.33 Boyd then searched Oswald and removed five rounds of .38 ammunition from the left front pocket of his pants, and bus transfer No. 4459 from the left pocket of his long sleeved brown shirt. The bus transfer led police to the Dallas Transit System and Cecil McWatters, the driver who issued the transfer to Oswald."

On page 100 in CE1988 we have SA James Bookout telling us "He stated that after arriving at his apartment, he changed his shirt and trousers because they were dirty. He described his dirty clothes as being reddish in color, long sleeved, shirt with a button down collar and gray colored trousers. He indicated that he had placed these articles of clothing in the lower drawer of his dresser". (this is also reflected in Fritz' notes and in the report of Kelley on the interview)
One of the images attached is of the last page of Oswald's inventory sheets that connected what the FBI took, returned, and took again to the images on 5 rolls of DPD film - most of which did not turn out and were blank making it virtually impossible to tell what was original and what wasn't... only those items on which the DPD's initials appear, originally came from DPD... MOST of the items do not have these initials.

After item #455 we see listed the button down shirt and gray slacks taken from his room... just as the notes state. The transfer he supposedly got on that bus was good for 15 minutes and then worthless... he never did use it. Yet somehow this same transfer - which was supposedly folded and placed in the WORK SHIRT winds up hours after the arrest taken from Oswald's ARREST SHIRT along with 5 round of ammo... that the DPD just left with Oswald for 2 hours... uh, right.
In essence we are made to believe that Oswald, before changing his clothes, removed the bus transfer, changed clothes, and then took with him this useless transfer in his new shirt… which, after his arrest and first search at DPD was not found… along with 5 bullets. So what was found during the first search?



"Det. Bentley and Sergeant Hill escorted Oswald to the Homicide Department on the 3rd floor and placed him inside one of the interrogation rooms with Officer C. T. Walker. Walker removed Oswald's brown billfold from his pants pocket and instructed him to sit down.1 While looking through his billfold Walker asked Oswald his name and he replied, "Lee Oswald." (but there was a billfold at the Tippit scene found/brought by Westbrook…? And they missed 5 bullets and the bus transfer?)

The police took $13.87 in cash from Oswald, a black belt, a brass key, an ID bracelet, and two items which appear to be out of place. One of those items was a check stub from the American Bakeries Company, dated August 22. 1960. The payroll check was issued to James A. Jackson, but why did Oswald have a 3-year-old check "stub" in his pocket on November 22? The second item was a -small box top bearing the name "Cox's, Fort Worth."3
No reasonable explanation has been offered for the 3 year old payroll stub or the box top… and surprisingly the bus transfer finds its way to this inventory page… yet not the 5 bullets.

Now the transfer itself... from H&L
"After DPD Detective Richard Sims found bus transfer No. 4459 in Oswald's
shirt pocket the Dallas Police contacted Mr. Yates, Division Superintendent of the Dallas Transit System. Yates told police that bus drivers were given a book of 50 bus transfers each morning. Drivers tore off the first transfer, wrote their badge number on the back side, and left the first transfer in the office. The transfer found by the Dallas Police, No. 4459, came from the book which contained transfers No. 4451 through 4500. The first transfer from this book had the number "195" written on the backside, which was Cecil McWatters' badge number.

McWatters was picked up by the Dallas Police and escorted to headquarters shortly after 6:00 pm. When shown transfer No. 4459 McWatters said, "Yes, that is the transfer I issued because it had my punch mark on it ..... I only gave two transfers going through town on that trip (from North Dallas south to Oak Cliff) and that was at the one stop of where I gave the lady (the blond lady who was probably following Oswald) and the gentlemen (Harvey Oswald) that got off the bus, I issued two transfers. But that was the only two transfers were issued."84

The exhibit we have from McWatters' book is transfer # 4451, the first in the series from that book, and the one left by SOP…. with a note on the back stating that the transfer comes from the same book from which the accused assassin of JFK was taken… If he only issued two transfers, one to a lady who gets off which causes the Oswald impersonator to grab a transfer and also get off… then it would have to come from either the FRONT of the book (4452 and 4453) or the back of the book (4500 or 4498). Yet the transfer which has gone from Oswald's work shirt to now his arrest shirt and found during the 2nd search is #4459…

We do not get to see the original book from which 4459 was torn, and yet we are given 4451 and are told that is the book from which 4459 was torn… That is the total extent of the authentication for that transfer…
….
Mr. McWATTERS - I was on duty but I was on a different line and a different bus.
Mr. BALL - What did they tell you? (at 6:15pm when they found him driving a bus)
Mr. McWATTERS - Well, they told me that they had a transfer that I had issued that was cut for Lamar Street at 1 o'clock, and they wanted to know if I knew anything about it. And I, after I looked at the transfer and my punch, said yes, that is the transfer I issued because it had my punch mark on it.
"They told him"… Problem here is that they ask later whether there is a way to designate "Lamar Street"
Mr. BALL - If this transfer was issued around the Lamar area or St. Paul--Elm area, is there any place that you could punch and show that particular location?
Mr. McWATTERS - No, sir.
So how does the DPD or FBI even know to refer to Lamar street related to this transfer??

NOTE: Some researchers have suggested the bus transfer was planted by the Dallas Police and never taken from Oswald. They support this theory by suggesting the transfer was never folded and therefore could not have been taken from Oswald's shirt pocket. The original transfer was examined by National Archives Specialist Steve Hamilton at my request.

On October 6, 1998 Mr. Hamilton wrote, "The original bus transfer 'does appear to have creases in it consistent with folding. "
The transfer in evidence, as shown below, does not have these creases.





And finally those who encountered Oswald on his way to his room while still wearing his WORK SHIRT, the button down Briarloom, describe and identify CE150, the ARREST SHIRT as the one he was wearing… including the missing buttons and torn elbow…

Mr. BALL - Now, what color shirt did he have on?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - He had a brown shirt.
Mr. BALL - And unraveled?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Hole in his sleeve right here [indicating].
Mr. BALL - Which is the elbow of the sleeve? That is, you pointed to the elbow?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Well, it is.
Mr. BALL - And that would be which elbow, right or left elbow?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Right.
Mr. BALL - Did he have anything on. Was the shirt open or was it buttoned?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Yes; all the buttons torn off.


Mr. BALL. I have some clothing here. Commission Exhibit No. 150, does that look like the shirt?
Mr. WHALEY. That is the shirt, sir, it has my initials on it.
Mr. BALL. In other words, this is the shirt the man had on?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir; that is the same one the FBI man had me identify.
Mr. WHALEY. That is what I told you I noticed. I told you about the shirt being open, he had on the two jackets with the open shirt.

One has to wonder how Bledsoe knows about the three buttons and torn elbow for a shirt Oswald had yet to be wearing. Or how Whaley knows about the silver stripe for the same reason.
Evidence suggests he changed his shirt BEFORE he was arrested and AFTER he was at the TSBD/BUS/CAB. Kinda makes Bledsoe, Whaley and any doorman discussions moot - don't it?


In the linked article he states we do not see the back of the ticket... Here it is.

[Drew Phipps]

I read somewhere that Oswald might have been carrying the box top, or the check stub, as a pre-arranged "spy-craft" means to identify yourself to someone you don't know and a method of verifying the identity of someone claiming to be your contact. You might conclude from this that Oswald had been trained in at least the basics of spy-craft and was on his way to meet someone in the Texas Theater.

[Gordon Gray]

How Oswald got to the rooming house is indeed a mystery, as is how he got to the Texas Theatre. I've never accepted that it was Oswald who Craig saw getting into the Rambler. Once they had him in the, car they would have taken him to the airfield and flown him out of the country to later eliminate him. They never would have dropped him off at the rooming house and risk exactly what happened, his arrest.

[David Josephs]

How Oswald got to the rooming house is indeed a mystery, as is how he got to the Texas Theatre. I've never accepted that it was Oswald who Craig saw getting into the Rambler. Once they had him in the, car they would have taken him to the airfield and flown him out of the country to later eliminate him. They never would have dropped him off at the rooming house and risk exactly what happened, his arrest.

Gordon,

no disrespect intended - how do you KNOW this? "would have done this or that" suggests a knowledge of the plans that I fail to understand how you could know this from any other possibilities...

Just a thought... what if it was LEE who was picked up and taken to the rooming house... Our Oswald was wearing an outer shirt (Briarloom) and a Tshirt when he left work... yet the person who entered Roberts' home?

Mr. BALL. When he came in he was in a shirt?
Mrs. ROBERTS. He was in his shirt sleeves. (2. shirtsleeves The state of wearing no coat, jacket, or other outer garment over one's shirt)

Mr. BALL. You say he put on a separate jacket?
Mrs. ROBERTS. A jacket.

I think it very possible that the "honk-honk" she hears is to pick LEE up and get him down to 10th and Patton yet to the EAST so he is walking WEST (from Armstrong)



The one thing I've learned is that from the outside looking in, logic based on the motivations of conspirators usually does not provide the answer since we are truly unaware of the motivation behind these players, let alone Oswald. Let's suppose the actual assassins WERE wisked away and flown out of the country... Our Oswald was never going to "escape"... 12 hours of interrogation and 5 pages of notes? Reports of the interrogation parroting each other.

If we start with the premise that nothing was as it seemed and proceed from there... Does Oswald say things about his situation that we never hear or was never recorded? If not, then he was either fully convinced he was doing work that could not be revealed, or truly did not know enough to say anything... I believe the former - he was aware of his roll, something got him to Irving Thursday night.... and it wasn't to retrieve the rifle...

Did Marina manipulate him into coming to Irving?

Mrs. PAINE - Yes, sir. She apologized for his having come without permission and
I said that was all right, and we said either then or later--I recall exchanging
our opinion that this was a way of making up the quarrel or as close as he could
come to an apology for the fight on the telephone, that his coming related to
that, rather than anything else

Mr. RANKIN. Did your husband give any reason for coming home on Thursday?
Mrs. OSWALD. He said that he was lonely because he hadn't come the preceding weekend, and he wanted to make his peace with me.