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

Uh-oh. You really screwed up this time, Unger.

Unger went to John McAdams' propaganda page which defends the idea that Oswald learned of the motorcade route by reading it in the newspaper. 

Are those authenic? I don't know. It certainly wouldn't surprise me that they would produce phony copies of the newspapers. But, let's assume that they are authentic. The top one is the Dallas Times Herald, and the bottom one is the Dallas Morning News, and the date of both is November 19. Supposedly, Oswald read one or the other while reading the newspaper at the TSBD on that day.

The problem is that there is no evidence that Oswald did that on that day. There is only the report that sometimes he read the newspaper at work on his lunch hour. Nobody testified that he did it on that day.

But, the other problem is that people don't "read" the newspaper. Newspapers are too long to read the way you would a book, word for word. People flip through newspapers. They glance through them. And especially in a situation where Oswald ate his lunch and then had a few minutes to dabble with the newspaper before resuming work, he certainly wouldn't have read it word for word. 

So, on what grounds can anyone assume that Oswald's eyes fixed on that fine print concerning the motorcade route? It's not as though anyone picking up that paper for a few minutes would have surely done that. It is not a presumption that anyone is entitled to make. Even if we knew for sure that Oswald did pick up the newspaper that day (and we don't), the odds that he read and registered the motorcade route are small at best. To presume it outright is just plain ridiculous when it's obscured in a block of print as it is. 

What if we gave that newspaper to 100 people for say 10 minutes and just told them to read it as they wished. And then we tested them afterwards. How many would be able to recite the motorcade route? 

And actually, that test would be rather skewed because TODAY, the significance of the JFK motorcade is much greater than it was then precisely because we all know what happened. 

So, what we would really have to do is get a modern paper that listed Obama's motorcade route and then ask people who had a few minutes to dabble with the paper to recite it afterwards. How many people do you think would know it? I figure maybe 5% at best. 

But, what if there was an eye-catching diagram? Now, that's a horse of a different color. That indeed might attract Oswald's attention. Like this, for instance:

How much more visible is that? Much more. Way to go, Unger.

But, there's a trick here. They threw this in with the others which were put under November 19. But, look at the date on this one.

    

Doesn't that look like November 22? What else could it be? Plus, I found this elsewhere: 

1. NOVEMBER 22, 1963 (Friday) ... The headlines of today’s Dallas Morning News read: “Storm of Political Controversy Swirls Around Kennedy Visit,” 

Well, that is clearly what it says: Storm of Political Controversy Swirls around Kennedy Visit. So, it is from November 22 and therefore too late to have any bearing on what Oswald did. 

That means that the whole claim rests on nothing but block text announcing the motorcade route and the hope that Oswald's eyes caught it and read it while flipping through the newspaper on his lunch break on November 19, which he may or may not have done. We know for sure that he didn't do any newspaper flipping on November 22, so you can't presume that he did on November 19. It certainly isn't bankable. 

So, why'd you do it, McAdams? Why did you put up a map of the motorcade route that wasn't published until Friday, November 22 while hiding the fact that it was from November 22 and leading the reader to assume that it was from the same day as the much less visible printed announcements, November 19? 

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/route.htm