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

I receive quite a lot of letters, and here is an interesting one. I will only use his first name to protect the writer:

Dear Dr. Cinque,

  I have read all your analyses on Lee Oswald's shirt and also watched your video clips on YouTube. Although I am a layman and an amateur JFK researcher, I think that the presence of Lee Oswald in front of TBSD, documented by your analysis of Algens6, exculpates him from having committed the assassination, something which many have believed for years but struggled to prove. I would like to express my appreciation for your work.

 I would also like to learn your view about the shirt Lee worn on the 22nd of November. I found a collection of Oswald's statements made on Dallas police department during his last two days of life (http://www.prouty.org/lastwords.html)  authored by Mae Brussell. However, I have also looked at handwritten notes of Cpt. Fritz (from Merry Ferrell website), and there I read that Lee changed both the shirt and the trousers. Although it would be easier to believe Mae Brussell's document (fitting perfectly your analysis of Altgens6), the handwritten notes of Cpt. Fritz may actually be more authenthic, and I am inclined to believe them. 

I was thinking about the following possibilities:

1. Lee Oswald changed only trousers and mentioned the shirt at the Dallas police department so that there would be no association between the shirt worn while in TBSD (and during the assassination) and the shirt worn while being interrogated. I understand that the shirt was special to him (I remember reading that Mrs. Judyth Vary Baker gave the shirt to Lee Oswald; she bought two identical for $1 and gave one to her husband Robert and one to Lee - however, I cannot remember where I read it). I can figure out that Lee might fear that somehow this shirt might be traced to Mrs. Judyth Vary Baker and expose her. By claiming that he changed the shirt, no one would be interested in the shirt he was wearing later after he left his apartment whilst it would be the same shirt. If there would be a way to confirm whether the shirt on Lee seen in Altgens6 was a gift from Mrs. Baker, this explanation would be very credible, the more that Lee asked for the shirt on 11AM on the 24th of November (Mae Brussells' document). 

2. Lee changed both the shirt and the trousers, whereby the fresh shirt he took was actually very similar to the one worn in the morning of the 22nd, since he had his style which differed from e.g. Mr. Lovelady or the G-man. Clearly, this is a weaker argument than (1) and in my view we are then only left with the logical exclusion of Mr. Lovelady as being a Doorman (and identifying him with the Black hole man), whilst positive identification of Lee as the Doorman would be still uncertain, and eagerly used by all lone-assassin researchers.

3. It is actually not important what Lee said about the shirt. If the shirt in Altgens6 and the one he worn at the time of his interrogation were identical, then this proves Lee's presence in the doorway irrespective of any statements about changing the shirt. Did you have opportunity to inspect the real shirt in detail, and especially the collar? I saw only a photograph of a red-brown shirt, and it looked to me well washed, ironed, and not really torn. [I hope to get to Dallas and to National Archives one day to check some important items by myself, however, this perhaps will be only after I retire... I just do not have  time for such investigation].

I would be very interested to learn your view on this issue. As I am only amateur JFK researcher (while being a professional neuroscientist) I am a bit reluctant to write to public media; I am aware of how problematic my sources may be. Therefore I consider your analysis of visual data to be of such importance since it is not dependent on memory or sometimes even utterly wrong information.

Kind regards,
Andrew

Andrew,

Good questions. But, you forgot to mention one very important fact: In his first interrogation, Oswald said he only changed his "britches". At least, that is what Fritz wrote down. "home by bus changed britches".  Then, the next time when asked about it,  Oswald said "shirt and tr. Put in dirty clothes. Long sleeve red shirt and grey tr."

So, Oswald changed his story. The first time, he said he changed just his pants; the second time: shirt and pants.

The likelihood is great that he spoke the truth the first time. Odds are great that he thought of a reason to lie the second time.

Oswald definitely did not wear a red shirt to work. Marrion Baker saw him just 70 seconds after the shooting, and he reported him to be wearing a "light brown jacket". He was speaking of Oswald's arrest shirt, which had the lay of a jacket. About half the people who saw it described it as a jacket.

The other important point is that they found the bus transfer ticket in the pocket of his arrest shirt. He never said he transferred it to another shirt, and it's highly unlikely that he would have since he wasn't going to ride the bus again.

Now, why would Oswald lie about changing his shirt? Frankly, it is the only thing I know of about which he did lie. We can only speculate.

Your idea- that he was trying to protect Judyth Baker because she gave him the shirt- is plausible. I hadn't thought of it before, so I'm glad you mentioned it. What occurred to me is that he wanted to give himself more purpose for having gone to his room- to reduce the stigma of having gone there to get his gun.

As far as the idea of him having changed into an identical shirt, that was ruled out by Richard Hooke because Richard was able to match the wear lines and the folds and crinkles of Doorman's shirt to Oswald's arrest shirt- to a tee. It is beyond credulity to think that two shirts could have the exact same details and acquired developments.   

However, your third argument- that the photographic evidence wins the day regardless of what Oswald or anyone said- impresses me very much. We should never fight with our own eyes. But alas, your suggestion to go inspect the shirt at the National Archives fell on deaf ears. You can't trust anything they would show you. Over the years, do you know how many different shirts they have paraded as Oswald's arrest shirt? Here are three that they've showcased, and there may be more. 

Nothing the government shows you can be trusted. Remember, they've been lying about this whole upheaval since Day 1, and what's at stake is the whole moral authority of the government. If the government itself overthrew Kennedy in 1963 by killing him, then obviously, the administration that followed was not legitimate; it was a gangster government. How hard are they going to try to cover that up?

Of course, Lyndon Johnson is long dead, and I don't think they care about him any more,  not personally. It's the institutions they are trying to protect, and they'll go to the moon and back, if necessary, to protect them. There is no limit to what they will do to keep the lie going that Oswald killed Kennedy. Government and media have been lying about it for over 50 years, and they can't stop now. They have crossed the Rubicon. They have gone all-in. 

Thank you for your thoughtful letter.

Ralph Cinque