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

There are some things in life about which it's easy to mis-communicate. But, the clothing a person wore on a certain day isn't one of them.

Question: What clothing did you wear that day?
Answer: I wore a red and white striped shirt and blue jeans. 

That's it. It's a straight-forward, unambiguous thing. And, if the answer had been a plaid shirt, he'd have said that, and they'd have gotten it straight. It doesn't matter. No matter what the answer is, it can't go wrong. It's too direct. It is too straight-forward. 

Lovelady DEFINITELY told them that he wore the striped shirt. So, how did the FBI come to put it in writing TWICE, even though it ruled him out as Doorman? I'll tell you how. 

It happened because Lovelady never told them that the shirt was SHORT-SLEEVED.  That's the clincher. That's what sinks their ship. If he had said it was striped, and it was referring to a long-sleeved shirt, there would have been no problem. Stripes can go any which way, and they could have come up with some cockmamie reason why Doorman's shirt pattern is really striped. Hey,  it isn't plaid either, and they're calling it that, so they could have done the same with striped. 

But, the length of the sleeves, that's what buried them. There is absolutely no way that a short-sleeved shirt can appear long-sleeved in a photograph.

But apparently, Lovelady never distinguished the shirt that way. He just said it was red and white striped, and he said nothing about the sleeves.  

And they might have gotten away with it if they had never taken the pictures of him. But, it turns out he was wearing that very striped shirt on 2/29/64, and we can see for ourselves that it was short-sleeved.

But, the two FBI letters didn't say anything about it being short-sleeved. They just said that he stated that he wore a red and white vertical striped shirt and blue jeans. So, the statement may have been checked and double-checked, and nobody blinked because the issue of sleeve length wasn't addressed. 

You see what I mean? No mention of sleeve length. That's how they blew it. The whole issue just sailed over their heads. 

And you can't blame Lovelady. He didn't mention the sleeve length, but I'm sure there was no malfeasance involved. It was just a spontaneous utterance. It's just how it came out. 

But, it certainly is a comedy of errors. And, as I have said, it resulted in the FBI going into the movie business.