Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Oswald asked Junior Jarmon why people were gathering on the sidewalk outside the TSBD.  That means Lee didn't know that JFK's limo would be passing the building that day. And that means that he could not possibly have planned to murder President Kennedy.

Now, what is the alternative to that? There is only one, and that is that Oswald was putting on a show for Junior Jarman to create an alibi, of sorts, for himself.

I say "of sorts" because it wasn't really an alibi. An alibi is, technically, a story that places you somewhere else at the time of the crime, making it physically impossible for you to have done it. But, this didn't do that, hence, it did not have the power of an alibi.

So, if Oswald was thinking ahead to the possibility that he might get caught, he would have to assume that either he would be caught red-handed doing it, in which case the Jarman story wouldn't help him, or that one or more witnesses saw him do it, or that some physical evidence was found, such as his fingerprints at the scene, which again would make the Jarman story quite impotent. So, the only circumstance in which the Jarman story would have any exculpatory power would be if there was NO evidence against him anyway- which is to say if he really didn't need it.

But, Hank Sienfake and SV Andersen and others like them have no choice but to adopt the "Oswald was acting" scenario. But, how plausible is it? When in the history of crime has any criminal been known to do that? Name one other case in which that happened. 

Supposedly, this was a crime that Oswald conceived of just scant days before. The totally unsupported presumption is that he was reading the newspaper on his lunch break a the TSBD when he saw the motorcade route and decided: "I shall kill Kennedy." Most crimes of that magnitude take much more time to evolve in the criminal's mind than that. But once he got the idea, he still had to figure out how to go about it. It wasn't automatic. How did he decide upon the 6th floor? Did he go up there and size it up? When? And how did he decide to wait until Kennedy made the turn and shoot him from behind as he was driving away? Wouldn't it have been easier to shoot at him as he was approaching from Houston? There would have been no tree in the way, so much better visibility.  Even I am enough of a marksman to tell you that it's easier to shoot at an approaching target than one that is distancing. 

And what about his plan afterwards? Did he have it all worked out that he would hide the rifle and then dart down the stairs and try to look innocent in the 2nd floor lunch room? Did he time it? Did he have a sense about how long it would take? 

And he had to know that they were eventually going to find the rifle and that it would be linked to him. Wasn't Ruth Paine going to tell them that it was stored in her garage? Wasn't Wesley Frazier going to say that Oswald carried it to work that morning? Didn't Oswald know that?

So, what was his post-assassination plan? And where was he going when he was stopped by Tippit? (I am speaking hypothetically because I know very that Lee was in the theater at the time of Tippit's murder.) But, officialdom has it that Lee was walking down the street, got stopped by Tippit, killed Tippit, and then "ducked" into the theater, except that he first had to walk 16 blocks in broad daylight before he could duck into it, which seems very weird for ducking. But, if you assume that he only went into the theater to get off the street for having killed Tippit, what was his plan before that? He wasn't expecting to kill Tippit that afternoon, was he? He had to be going somewhere, right? Was he trying to escape? But, he was just walking. How many criminals escape by just walking down the street?    

So, Oswald had a lot of details to work out to execute this plan, and very little time to do it. From beginning to end it was no more than several days.

So, with everything he had to conceive of and work out, what are the chances that he would have added that little theatrical performance with Junior Jarman? The chances are not very good. 

And if he did conceive of it, isn't it likely he would have given it more flourish? He never responded to Jarman.  If he really conceived of it, wouldn't he have said, "Oh really? Wow. I didn't know that. I had no idea." Or something? I mean to really gel it? To really give it substance? Make it memorable?

Or, was Oswald so shrewd, so cunning, so Machiavellian, that he not only conceived of it, but did it so subtly, so delicately, and so understated, as to make him a criminal genius? I, for one, don't credit him like that. I say Oswald just stumbled into that situation with Jarman, and I'm sure he gave it no thought- not beforehand, not afterwards, nor during it. It was just a natural, spontaneous, unplanned occurrence.

So, you all have a simple choice to make, and it's one or the other: Either you agree with me that Oswald asked Jarman why the people were gathering outside because he honestly didn't know OR you think he deserves the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay AND Best Actor.

The other side is dangling from a thin cord on this. I say we cut it.