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

I found a letter that Harold Weisberg wrote in which he ripped apart the WC testimony of James Bookhout. It's not the kind of file that I can cut and paste text, so I will have to just provide the link to it:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/O%20Disk/Oswald%20Lee%20Harvey/Interrogations/Item%2002.pdf

If you read it, you'll plainly see that Harold Weisberg did not trust Bookhout, that he considered him a very devious, cunning, evasive person, and he frankly accused him of being a LIAR.

And not only was Bookhout a LIAR in general, but I believe he was a LIAR specifically to Oswald. I bet you that that crafty SOB's whole affect towards Oswald was warm, friendly, totally non-confrontational, and probably downright supportive- as if he was on his side. Why else would Oswald start talking to Bookhout in the hallway, in a one-on-one conversation?

You name me one other person that Oswald did that with. You can't. There was on one else. Just James Bookhout. And Oswald initiated it. Notice that Bookhout's eyes are closed. Now, why is that? There are two possibilities. One is that that they altered the photo to close his eyes, in order to hide his identity. Eyes, obviously, contribute a lot to a person's look. But, the other possibility is that Bookhout realized that if Oswald was talking to him right there in public, that there had to be cameras on them, so he closed his eyes for the same reason: to hide his identity. Note that, officially, there are NO images of James Bookhout from the time of the JFK assassination. And that, of course, is not an accident. 

Just consider what Harold Weisberg- the great Harold Weisberg- said about James Bookhout. He said that no one was more "consistently evasive" than Bookhout, and that no one made as many "false statements" as Bookhout. And, no one was given an easier time by the Warren Commission than James Bookhout. It's all in the letter. 

There is something in that letter that is new to me concerning Oswald's request for a lawyer. Harold maintained that Oswald NEVER refused to have a local Dallas lawyer represent him. What Oswald said was that rather than get a lawyer that was recommended by the Dallas Bar Association that he would rather get a lawyer recommended by the Dallas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. And, according to Harold, a "delegation" from the ACLU showed up at the Dallas PD to talk to Oswald, but they were refused access to him. Did you know that? I did not know that. It's all in the letter.

Then, Harold indicated that Bookhout probably attended all of the Oswald interrogations, and he cites an example from 11/22 in which Bookhout tried to absent himself from one of them to the Warren Commission. But, let's say that Harold is right, that Bookhout attended all of them. After all, he was the eyes and ears, the liaison, of the FBI. And, Harold confirmed that Hosty only attended the very first interrogation. That's it. After that, he was a goner. So, don't you think that Bookhout, being the only other FBI agent, was not going to miss any of them? And that would certainly have included the final one, shortly before Oswald's gruesome fate, in which Bookhout claimed to arrive late and therefore to watch it from outside through the glass. It didn't start until 10 AM. Not 6 AM. Not 7 AM. But 10 AM. You don't think Bookhout was there? And you don't think that if he was a minute or two late that he would go in anyway? 

Bookhout did not want to admit attending that last session because he didn't want to go on record about what was said.   Bookhout did say that afterwards that he asked Fritz if Oswald said anything important, and Fritz said no. This was the same interrogation in which Postal Inspector Harry Holmes said that Oswald sang like a canary about his sojourn to Mexico City- reversing his earlier emphatic denial of having gone there.  Nobody else but Holmes ever made this claim, and Bookhout may have known about it and known that Holmes was lying, and he didn't want to be put on the spot about it himself. So, he just said that he was there but outside the glass. And that was really clever too. And the whole impression you get from Harold Weisberg is that James Bookhout was a VERY clever guy. In the words of the vernacular: he was fuckin' lawyer, and he knew how to protect himself. 

James Bookhout WAS the garage shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald. I don't believe he actually shot Oswald. I believe it was a ruse and that Oswald was shot afterwards. But, it's James Bookhout we see in the various films and photos of the Oswald shooting, including the famous Jackson photo. 

Note that Bookhout went on a protracted paid leave of absence from the FBI after the assassination. He tried to make it sound like he was already on leave BEFORE the assassination, although he admitted going into the FBI office the morning of the assassination to do some "paper work." Since when does someone on leave of absence go in to do paper work? And then upon the shooting of JFK, Bookhout immediately sought to report to FBI headquarters for assignment- even though Dallas was crawling with other FBI agents. 

Understand something: when a person is on a "leave of absence" from work, it's for an explicit purpose, such as to take a sabbatical to learn something, to write a book, to care for an ailing parent or spouse, etc. It's not just a long vacation. It's clear to me that Bookhout was NEVER on leave before the assassination. He just said that because he wanted to hide the fact that he was put on leave AFTER the assassination precisely because he was the garage shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald, and it was necessary to keep him out of view. Out of view, out of view, out of view. 

And, in Bookhout's case, it was a life sentence. Listen to me: Bookhout may have spent more time with Oswald than anybody else. He may have talked to Oswald more than anybody else. So, how does a guy like him not write a book about the experience? Huh. He couldn't write a book. They put your picture in the dust cover of a book. They invite you on talk shows when you write a book. They invite you to do interviews and give talks and do signings at the book stores. You make the rounds. But, Bookhout wasn't going to do that. For all practical purposes, James Bookhout was never seen again. He made damn sure that even on his obituary that no image of him was published. And it's for one reason and one reason only: because he was the garage shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald.