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

Did Billy Lovelady, when shown a copy of the Altgens photo, claim that the Doorway Man was him?

According to the FBI, he did. But, they didn't sit him down in front of a sea of microphones to tell the world that. They just said that he said it. But, Lovelady certainly didn't say it during his Warren Commission testimony. At no time, did he ever point to Doorway Man and say, "That's me." In fact, it appears that he drew an arrow to another figure, Black Hole Man, to indicate himself. 

The big black arrow pointing to Doorman is definitely Frazier's. The only other mark on the photo is the discreet mark on BH Man's forearm. We know from Joseph Ball's testimony that Lovelady's arrow was drawn mostly in the black. It just happened to overlap the forearm a little bit. And, that was very lucky for us. 

Eventually, Lovelady started claiming that he was Doorman. He said so to journalist Jones Harris in May 1964. That was the first, and I believe the only time that he talked to a reporter about it. And, even in his informal deposition with Ken Brooten in 1976, he never pointed to Doorman and claimed to be him. As with Joseph Ball, they just talked around it. When Tink Thompson wrote his book in 1967, he covered the issue but for some reason never talked to Lovelady about it. Why didn't he go to Colorado and interview Lovelady? It's very obvious that Lovelady did NOT like talking about it. Why? Because he wasn't a good liar. He was no good at lying. 

So, to claim that Lovelady, when shown the Altgens photo, said that the figure was him is to take an unproven, unsubstantiated, unverified FBI announcement about it as fact. 

Now, why would a real Oswald defender do that? Trust the FBI? He certainly wouldn't.