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

The issue of Oswald being picked up and driven out of Dealey Plaza is not crucial to establishing his innocence. His presence in the doorway during the shooting, in which we can see his shirt, his t-shirt, etc., completely exonerates him no matter what he did afterwards. 

Still, it is important to know the truth about it. This is a matter in which knowing how to think and how to analyze evidence is paramount. 

Most of those who champion Oswald being picked up in a private car do so on the basis of the Roger Craig story. It's a vast majority, and I'll give them credit that at least it's based on something. There are a few, like Joseph Backes, who make the claim based on nothing. Without referring to anything concrete- not to any car, not to any driver, not to anything anybody saw, and not to anything substantial, Backes maintains that Oswald must have been picked up in a private car. His whole claim is based on nothing but his dislike for the claim of public transportation; not on any evidence of private transportation.  

But, JFK research is not like Imagination Day at kindergarten. You can't just make stuff up. Everything has to be based on actual evidence. If you have no evidence of Oswald being picked up, if you have no idea who picked him up or when and how it was arranged- in other words, if you know absolutely nothing about it- then you have nothing. 

But, getting back to the Roger Craig claim, it is definitely something, and Roger Craig was not the only person who reported seeing a Nash Rambler. I think it would be very foolish and misguided to dismiss the whole story.

However, when it comes to parsing the verbal exchange between Fritz and Oswald, as per Roger Craig, that is dicey. When you try to make sense of it, you realize it doesn't make sense. 

Of course, what matters most is what Oswald said. He confirmed that he told police that he left Dealey Plaza, but he never said that he left the way Craig said he did. And, it is absolutely certain that Oswald never said that to police: that he left in a private car. He said that he left by bus, and it is in the same Fritz note as "out with Bill Shelley in front". 

  
"home by bus changed britches" You see that. That is what he told police. And if he were going to revise that to what Roger Craig said, there would have been some acknowledgment. "I know I told you I took the bus, but actually, a friend picked me up." But, Oswald didn't say that. He never corrected or retracted his prior statement. 

Then Fritz asked him about the car, and Oswald said "that station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine." But, what car was he talking about? There is a certain minimum of exposition needed in order to communicate effectively. He never said, "I was picked up today in Mrs. Paine's station wagon. So-and-so was driving." It never happened. So, why would he be so obscure and cryptic?  It wasn't a crime to be picked up by a friend. No crime was committed while they were supposedly driving around. And since Oswald didn't kill Kennedy, it wasn't an escape from a crime scene for him. He may have been breaking a rule of the TSBD by leaving, but he was not committing a crime by leaving with a friend. So, why lie to police about it? 

And his last comment about everybody will know who he really is, who knows what the hell he meant. I certainly don't. 

So, the presumption that Oswald confirmed Craig's narrative is ridiculous. It didn't come close to confirming it. And it was after the encounter with Craig that Oswald went on to say that he took a cab and paid a fare of eighty-five cents. So, Oswald did NOT confirm Craig's narrative, and that is definite. 

And what is completely lacking from the whole story is any knowledge of when and how it was arranged. The who is also absent- except to those who are willing to jump to David Sanchez Morales just because Craig mentioned a "colored" or "dark-skinned" man. That's all it took for them to ID Morales. Talk about taking liberties.

But, this is a very important issue because if an arrangement was made before the assassination for Oswald to be picked up at 12:45 on a work day- it means that Oswald had foreknowledge of the assassination. Or, at the very least, it meant he was told that something monumental was going to happen that day.  

And how could it have been arranged afterwards? How could it have been communicated in that short a time? And by whom? According to Joseph Backes, there was no pre-arrangement nor post-arrangement, that Oswald was just hanging around outside, and somebody pulled up and yelled, "Oswald! Get in the fucking car!" That's how it happened according to Backes- pulled from straight out his ass. 

But, the Roger Craig people have to answer the same question. When and how was it arranged for Oswald to be picked up and by whom? And what was it based on? What was the understanding of what would happen? You don't arrange to pick somebody up at 12:45 on a work day for no reason. 

And then there is a larger question than that. Oswald, obviously, was being played like an instrument, manipulated like a puppet. He had no friends in Dallas- only handlers. So, any ride that was arranged was set up by the people who were running the whole show. And, you know how important the whole "long gunman" idea was to them. They very much wanted Oswald dead ASAP. It took them two days to accomplish it but that's because it got delayed by unforeseen circumstances. But, the whole idea was that once Oswald was dead, it was case closed, that there was no one else to pursue. 

Well, a get-away driver would have been someone else to pursue, and they didn't want that. So, if a get-away driver was bad for their story, why would they provide one? If it looked better for Oswald to use public transportation, why not let him? Why provide him a private driver only to have to concoct an elaborate lie about him using public transportation?  If it looked better for him to use public transportation, then why not let him? What was the harm?  

The more mature researchers who advocate for the private pickup will see the need to answer these questions. The childlike ones will evade them because that's what childlike people do. They don't care. They don't feel any responsibility to be sweeping and thorough and comprehensive in their analysis. 

As I said, Joseph Backes makes his claim of a private pickup based on nothing- absolutely nothing. He just doesn't like the official story. And those who live off the Roger Craig account need to take stock of what they really have. Did the Lee Harvey Oswald of fame really get into that Nash Rambler, or was it somebody else? And did the LHO of fame ever say that he did? He did not. I maintain that an honest appraisal of Oswald's response cannot be construed as a confirmation of what Roger Craig said. If English is a precise language, and if words have specific meanings, then he did not confirm it.