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

Anyone who claims to be an Oswald defender, who asserts that he was NOT on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy at 12:30, needs to establish where he was. If you don't think he was in the doorway, as I do, you need to say where he was. And, the reason is: there aren't that many places he could have been. 

If I said you could count the alternatives on the fingers of one hand, I would be grossly exaggerating. You can count the alternatives on the fingers of two fingers because the only other places he could have been were the first floor lunch room or the second floor lunch room. That's it.

What else is there? The bathroom? Yeah, I guess. When you gotta go, you gotta go.  But in 51 years, nobody has suggested that, and I really don't think we need to consider it.

We know for sure that Oswald was in the first floor lunch room, and it was at a time that James Jarman and Harold Norman were there, milling around. There is no reason to doubt it because out of 75 employees, Oswald correctly identified two who were there at the time and who admitted being there at the time.  But, it was NOT during the motorcade. After Oswald saw Jarman and Norman, they wound up going outside, fully intending to watch the motorcade from out there. But then, lo and behold, they changed their minds. So, they walked down the length of Houston Avenue and around the corner of the building to enter through the back door. They then took the elevator up to the 5th floor and parked themselves at the southeast corner window. Bonnie Ray Williams wound up joining them from the 6th floor, and we have this image of Williams and Norman taken during the assassination by Dallas Times Herald photographer Robert Allen.

  

So, Oswald's encounter with Jarman and Norman had to take place well before 12:30. How much before? The late Vincent Bugliosi said 12:15. 

Of course, it takes time to eat one's lunch. Oswald's consisted of a cheese sandwich and an apple. So how long was he in there eating? I figure 7 to 10 minutes. 

So, if he got there at 12:10, which is possible, it means he would have left by 12:20. If he got there at 12:15, it means he would have left by 12:25. Since Bugliosi assumed that Oswald went from there to the 6th floor to set up to kill Kennedy, I presume he meant that Oswald LEFT the 1st floor lunch room for the 6th floor at 12:15. 

But, the point is that there are no grounds to stretch Oswald's stay there to 12:30. Captain Will Fritz tried to do that. He even told the WC that Oswald said he was eating lunch with Jarman and Norman at 12:30, but look again at the photo! You can see one of them in the 5th floor window at 12:30. So, you know that what Fritz said was a lie. 

The evidence shows that Oswald was in the first floor lunch room well before 12:30, and there is no reason to think that he was still there at 12:30. So, that's out.  

What about the 2nd floor lunch room? Well, the information that I provided yesterday, which was new to me, completely eliminates the 2nd floor lunch room, and the reason is that Oswald wasn't in the 2nd floor lunch room when Baker first saw him. Rather, Oswald was in the vestibule leading to the 2nd floor lunch room when Baker first saw him, and he was heading into the lunch room.  

 You see where it says vest.? That stands for vestibule. It was the little anteroom before the lunch room. Oswald was going through that door when Baker first saw him. Baker was looking through the glass pane in the door on his side of the vestibule. And by the time Baker caught up with Oswald, Lee was in the lunch room. But, the point is: he just got there. It was 12:31 and a half, and Oswald was on the move; he was walking; he was walking INTO the lunch room. Not FROM the lunch room, but INTO it. Like Baker himself, Oswald had just gotten there. He had just arrived. So, there is no reason to think that he was there a minute and a half before. 

So, careful analysis reveals that Oswald could not have been in the 1st floor lunch room at 12:30, and he could not have been in the 2nd floor lunch room at 12:30. So, the only place he could have been if he was not on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy was in the doorway.  

And I'll mention again Gil Jesus' analysis that Oswald definitely took the front stairs to get to the lunch room. Those are the stairs in the southeast corner of the building, right next to the doorway. Look at the diagram:

However, the front stairs only went up one flight. The rear stairs went all the way to the top, but the front stairs only went to the 2nd floor. Do you realize what that means? It means that there was NO WAY Oswald could have come down from the 6th floor because the stairs he used didn't go there.  That alone completely exonerates him. 

But, the bottom line is that once you exclude Oswald from being on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy, there is no place he could have been except the doorway. There is no other plausible place. The 1st floor lunch room came before; the 2nd floor lunch room came after. At exactly 12:30, the only place he could have been was that doorway, and we have two images of him there.