The Selectice Service card photo

[Tony Rose]

I realize that this is an old topic, but I've long wondered what the Hidell SS card was for? Every American male would know that it was a forgery as soon as they saw it; they were all carrying their SS cards and they didn't have pictures on them. What was the card for?

And, why is Oswald carry a picture of the card and not the actual card? Was his forgery-craft shoddy and he hoped that the photo would be enough? It sort of defies sense.

[Jim Hargrove]

Other than the highly suspect "Backyard Photos," this card was the only evidence linking "Oswald" (via "Hidell") to the Magic Carcano. My bet is that the card was planted in the wallet Westbrook brought to Tenth and Patton, and then planted directly on "Oswald." The mechanics involved in the assassinations of JFK and Tippit obviously didn't care how accurate the phony evidence was. They anticipated a government cover-up and no public scrutiny whatsover. All the other evidence for the rifle purchase was most likely created by the FBI after the shooting.

[Alan Denholm]

I agree with you Jim the ID card is all that ties Oswald to the rifle apart from the back yard photo's and without the card the backyard photo's do not work either,
since where did he get the rifle without the ID card in Hidell's name. It's a pity they did not dust the card for prints.
The other thing which still causes me to scratch my head is why go through such a convoluted way to get a rifle , which leaves a traceable path
requires forged documents , obtains such a poor quality rifle ( by which I mean Oswalds version of the gun not the Carcano in general) , introduces
a new set of variables and things that can go wrong in to the scenario , when a rifle can be obtained easily from a local source with no paper work
and no risk or trail leading back to Oswald. It's all just not simple enough for Oswald to have carried out the job on his own , buy rifle from pawn shop lean out window
and shoot Kennedy once as he turns the corner off Elm.

[Dawn Meredith]

Other than the highly suspect "Backyard Photos," this card was the only evidence linking "Oswald" (via "Hidell") to the Magic Carcano. My bet is that the card was planted in the wallet Westbrook brought to Tenth and Patton, and then planted directly on "Oswald." The mechanics involved in the assassinations of JFK and Tippit obviously didn't care how accurate the phony evidence was. They anticipated a government cover-up and no public scrutiny whatsover. All the other evidence for the rifle purchase was most likely created by the FBI after the shooting.

Jim: I agree, no other explanation makes sense. Once again Capt. Westbrook is the key to most of this case. No wonder he was richly rewarded later.

Dawn

[Dawn Meredith]

I agree with you Jim the ID card is all that ties Oswald to the rifle apart from the back yard photo's and without the card the backyard photo's do not work either,
since where did he get the rifle without the ID card in Hidell's name. It's a pity they did not dust the card for prints.
The other thing which still causes me to scratch my head is why go through such a convoluted way to get a rifle , which leaves a traceable path
requires forged documents , obtains such a poor quality rifle ( by which I mean Oswalds version of the gun not the Carcano in general) , introduces
a new set of variables and things that can go wrong in to the scenario , when a rifle can be obtained easily from a local source with no paper work
and no risk or trail leading back to Oswald. It's all just not simple enough for Oswald to have carried out the job on his own , buy rifle from pawn shop lean out window
and shoot Kennedy once as he turns the corner off Elm.

As we all know those "backyard photos" are totally fake. (As LHO said himself while in custody: that his head was superimposed over someone else's body. Badly at that. ) I remember at the time seeing them on the cover of Life mag and just laughing because, even at age 14 I knew that a pic of someone almost falling over while holding the "smoking guns" did not pass the laugh test. That Marina said she in fact took the pics also made sense given her dubious status in this country. She said what ever was fed to her, to keep from being deported, imho. What I have failed to understand since then is why she has (1) clearly denounced this assassination as a conspiracy yet (2) stands by her original statement about the pics. Has anyone ever asked her about this contradiction?

Dawn

[Jim Hargrove]

I agree with you Jim the ID card is all that ties Oswald to the rifle apart from the back yard photo's and without the card the backyard photo's do not work either,
since where did he get the rifle without the ID card in Hidell's name. It's a pity they did not dust the card for prints.
The other thing which still causes me to scratch my head is why go through such a convoluted way to get a rifle , which leaves a traceable path
requires forged documents , obtains such a poor quality rifle ( by which I mean Oswalds version of the gun not the Carcano in general) , introduces
a new set of variables and things that can go wrong in to the scenario , when a rifle can be obtained easily from a local source with no paper work
and no risk or trail leading back to Oswald. It's all just not simple enough for Oswald to have carried out the job on his own , buy rifle from pawn shop lean out window
and shoot Kennedy once as he turns the corner off Elm.

Alan....

As you probably know, around Labor Day prior to the assassination, a man identifying himself as "Lee Oswald" repeatedly tried to purchase four .300 Savage rifles from Robert McKeown, Castro's personal friend and long-time munitions supplier. McKeown smelled a rat and refused to consider even the ridiculously high price "Oswald" finally offered. Any doubt one of these guns would have appeared on the TSBD sixth floor had Castro's personal gun supplier made the sale to "Lee Oswald?"

I'd bet my life that the overall goal of the Kennedy assassins was to provoke a U.S. invasion of Cuba. For more info, click here.

[Peter Lemkin]

Just some thoughts. Just as there were MULTIPLE 'backyard photos' [all forged composites of things/people/times], there may well have been more than one Selective Service card made for Oswald [all forged and fake]. How Nagell came into possession of another or the other is not apparently recorded - but I'd posit a possible guess. Nagell was tasked with covertly shadowing Oswald to find out who he was, what he was up to and who was controlling him really. Giving him a card with a photo and a signature might have helped him in his work. Nagell also, later, wanted to very quietly let some know that he knew an assassination was in the works and he wanted not to be tared with that brush [thus the lame bank shoot up to be arrested et al.] He may well have placed this and other items in his wallet [which makes NO sense to have another man's card in one's wallet - but this also happened very strangely with a library card] to hint to cognoscenti that he knew Oswald's legend was a fake and to let them know he knew. Sadly, Nagell clammed up latter in his life and then was, I believe, murdered and his stash of proofs of what he knew stolen from its hiding place...so we may never know all the details of Nagell's motives and instructions at any given point. To me, however, it is clear that Nagell knew more than the basic outline of the assassination and the forces behind it...and felt this dangerous to both the Nation and himself and wanted 'out' of a game that one is usually not allowed out of.