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

One of the well-known sightings of an Oswald double before the assassination is the one who visited a Lincoln dealership in Dallas and tried out an expensive car which he took out on the Stemmons Freeway and drove at high speeds. The name he gave was Lee Harvey Oswald, and the date was November 9, 1963- just two weeks before the assassination. 

Lots of people cite the above story, and that includes Jim Douglass and John Armstrong. And, I have never heard anyone deny that it happened. The difference is that LNs and HSCA CTs (who are just a more stupid version of LNs- as though Oswald was anyone the plotters would have chosen to shoot at Kennedy) say it was really him, whereas Oswald-defenders, like Douglass and Armstrong, say it was a double.

But, it couldn't have been the Oswald we know because he didn't know how to drive.

Mr. JENNER - I think you said to me this morning, and please correct me if my recollection is not good, that he always spoke to you in Russian.
Mrs. PAINE - With, perhaps, a couple of rare exceptions, yes, he spoke to me in Russian. When I tried to teach him to drive I tried to explain to him, proceeded to explain to him in English.
Mr. JENNER - Excuse me, you tried to teach him to do what?
Mrs. PAINE - To drive. This is later.
Mr. JENNER - Drive, yes.
Mrs. PAINE - But he would answer me in Russian, which is a way of getting the person to go back to Russian. But I couldn't explain driving in Russian, so I did it in English.

This testimony establishes two things: that Oswald could speak Russian and that he could not drive. There is more testimony about his driving, but like much Warren Commission testimony, it gets rather tedious.  

Mr. JENNER - Did you have a discussion with him about your desire, your recommendation, that he qualify to drive an automobile in Texas so it would assist him in connection with his job hunting?
Mrs. PAINE - Probably. We certainly had conversation about it.
Mr. JENNER - Give us the subject of the conversation in terms of recommendations by you, or what did you say?
Mrs. PAINE - I again recommended, as I had in the spring, that he learn to drive.
Mr. JENNER - What did he say?
Mrs. PAINE - He was interested in learning to drive.
Mr. JENNER - Did he say anything to you?
Mrs. PAINE - I would like to offer to the Commission something we didn't get to last night, which is a letter I wrote to my mother which makes reference to the date I first gave him a lesson in driving.
Mr. JENNER - That would be helpful to us. May I have the letter, please?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. Now only a portion of it is applicable.
Mr. JENNER - Why don't we give it a number?
Mrs. PAINE - Another portion is applicable in another connection, which I would like especially to bring up.
Mr. JENNER - Having that in mind, we will give that document for identification at the moment only, the number Commission Exhibit No. 425.
I won't identify it beyond that for the moment because the witness will be using it to refresh her recollection.
Mrs. PAINE - I will read what applies here.
Mr. JENNER - You are now reading from Commission Exhibit No. 425.
Mrs. PAINE - Which is a letter dated October 14, in my hand, from me to my mother.
Mr. DULLES - Would you give your mother's name?
Mrs. PAINE - Her name is Mrs. Carol Hyde.
Representative BOGGS - Where does she live?
Mrs. PAINE - In Columbus, Ohio. It was likely written to Oberlin, where she was a student at that time.
"If Lee can just find work that will help so much. Meantime I started giving him driving lessons last Sunday (yesterday). If he can drive this will open up more job possibilities and more locations."
Mr. JENNER - Yes.
Mrs. PAINE - I want to comment too on the nature of this lesson.
Mr. JENNER - The Commission will be interested in that but you go ahead.
Mrs. PAINE - Now?
Mr. JENNER - Go right ahead.
Mrs. PAINE - I knew that he had not even a learner's permit to drive. I wasn't interested in his driving on the street with my car until he had such. But on Sunday the parking lot of a neighboring shopping center was empty, and I am quite certain that is where the driving lesson took place.
Mr. JENNER - That is your best present recollection?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. Now I recall this also, and it is significant. I offered him a lesson and intended to drive him to this area for him to practice. He, however, started the car.
Mr. JENNER - He got in and started the car?
Mrs. PAINE - He got in and started the car so that I know he was able to do that and wanted to drive on the street to the parking lot.
Mr. JENNER - He wanted to?
Mrs. PAINE - He wanted to. I said, "My father is an insurance man and he would never forgive me."
Mr. JENNER - Your father?
Mrs. PAINE - My father. And insisted that he get a learner's permit before he would drive on the street.
Mr. JENNER - At that moment and at that time he acted, in any event in your presence, as though he himself thought--
Mrs. PAINE - That is right.
Mr. JENNER - He would be capable of driving an automobile from your home to the parking area in which you were about to give him a lesson. That was your full impression, was it not?
Mrs. PAINE - Yes. I should add that, as I am recalling, he did drive a portion of the way, he drove in fact, it is about three blocks, to the parking lot. I was embarrassed to just tell him "No, don't." But I did, in. effect, on the way there, when he was on the street, driving on the street in my car, when we got there I said, "Now, I am going to drive back." I didn't want him to.
Mr. JENNER - From your home to the parking lot?
Mrs. PAINE - The first time before we had any lesson at all. And at that time I made it clear I didn't want him to drive in the street. Also, it became clear to me in that lesson that he was very unskilled in driving. We practiced a number of the things you need to know, to back up, to turn, right angle turn to come to a stop.
Mr. JENNER - Was this on the parking lot?
Mrs. PAINE - This was all on a parking lot.
Mr. DULLES - Did I understand you to say he drove three blocks, was that all the way to the parking lot? So he drove all the way to the parking lot?
Mrs. PAINE - Perhaps a little longer. But a short distance, whatever it was, to the parking lot, yes. Rather than stopping in midstreet and changing drivers. Going to turn a right angle----
Mr. DULLES - How well did he do on that?
Mr. McCLOY - That is what she is telling.
Mrs. PAINE - No; that is a separate answer.
Mr. JENNER - She is talking about the parking lot.
Mrs. PAINE - I was very nervous while he was doing it and was not at all happy about his doing it. I would say he did modestly well; but no means skilled in coming to a stop and turning a square right angle at a corner.
Mr. JENNER - Was there much traffic?
Mrs. PAINE - No. But then too, I noticed when we got to the parking lot when he attempted to turn in a right angle he made the usual mistake of a beginner of turning too much and then having to correct it. He was not familiar with the delay of the steering wheel in relation to the wheels, actual wheels of the power--
Mr. JENNER - Was it power--
Mrs. PAINE - It was not power steering. But it has no clutch so that makes it a lot easier to drive.
Mr. JENNER - It is an automatic transmission?
Mrs. PAINE - It is an automatic transmission.
Mr. JENNER - Describe your automobile, will you please?
Mrs. PAINE - It is a 1955 Chevrolet station wagon, green, needing paint, which we bought secondhand. It is in my name.
Mr. McCLOY - But automatic transmission?
Mrs. PAINE - Automatic transmission; yes.
Then, in the later lessons, I think there were altogether three with Lee.

Why did Ruth Paine think that learning to drive would help Lee find a job? Because, he didn't own a car and therefore could not have driven himself to work. If she thought he could start working and saving money to buy a car, that could only happen AFTER he got a job, so it had no bearing on him finding one. Did she think that having a driver's license would help him find a job because the job might entail some driving? Or did she just think that his having a driver's license would impress a potential employer? This is unclear. 

But, what is perfectly clear is that he was a neophyte about driving and that he did not have a driver's license or even a learner's permit. 

Now, we all know from personal experience that when you visit a car dealership and want to take a car out for a test drive that they demand to see your driver's license. They certainly aren't going to let you take a car out without one. In fact, the times that I have done it, they have always made a photocopy of my license beforehand. Therefore, somebody else besides the Lee Harvey Oswald we know must have visited that Lincoln dealership in early November 1963 and taken that luxury car out on the Stemmons Freeway and driven it at high speeds.

And, it really doesn't matter if the one who did that was the "Lee" that John Armstrong refers to or someone else. It could have been anybody, but the fact that it was somebody, tells you that there was a concerted plan to have an Oswald double creating a phony evidence trail against the Lee Harvey Oswald we know. And that means, automatically, that they were setting Oswald up, that they were framing him, that he was, indeed, just a patsy. It means that he was innocent. 

By the way, the visit to the Lincoln dealership supposedly occurred on the same day that Lee supposedly visited a shooting range and made a scene by shooting at other people's targets- diagonally.

The point is that this issue of the report about the incident at the Lincoln dealership is a relatively small thing, yet, it completely exonerates Oswald. It exonerates him because Lee Harvey Oswald could not both drive a car and not drive a car. He could not both have a driver's license and not have a driver's license. IT, BY ITSELF, PROVES THAT THERE WERE TWO OSWALDS.  And establishing that there were two Oswalds proves that the Lee Harvey Oswald we know was completely and totally innocent of murdering President Kennedy.