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

This is to those who accept my conclusion that Jack Ruby was not the Garage Shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald, and that FBI Agent James Bookhout was. The rest of you: talk amongst yourselves. 

So, if I'm right about that, that it was Bookhout in the garage spectacle not Ruby, and I am, then there is absolutely NO CHANCE that the shooting was real. It is simply impossible. And that's because there is no way the Dallas Police and FBI would have risked having Bookhout shoot Oswald for real in the garage. Just think about all the things that could have gone wrong: 

1) Bookhout could have missed. How could he miss, you ask? Well, what if Oswald resisted? What if he saw Bookhout coming and took evasive action? We know he wasn't wearing handcuffs, and I seriously doubt he was handcuffed to Leavelle either. But, even if he was, his feet weren't tied. He could have kicked Bookhout in the balls. He could have jerked his left hand free from Graves and slugged Bookhout. He slugged the cop in the theater, didn't he? He could have charged Bookhout, using his head as a battering ram. There was plenty he could have done, which means there was plenty that could go wrong with that scenario. 

2). Look at the danger to Leavelle. The bullet was headed towards him too. It was a straight shot from the shooter to Oswald to Leavelle. 

Oswald was lean. He was skinny. What if the bullet traversed him? Leavelle could have been hit. They were never going to take a chance like that. Who would be willing to submit to it? Who would want to be on the other side of that bullet? 

3) What if Oswald was hit but the shot wasn't lethal? That would have been an absolute, unmitigated disaster for them. If Oswald survived that meant his trial would proceed. It means that he would have told his lawyer everything. It means his lawyer would have told him about the Altgens photo and showed it to him. How many times can you have a prisoner shot in police custody before even the dumbest person in the world realizes that you are doing it? So, one try was all they were going to get.  But, under the conditions involved, how could Bookhout possibly pinpoint the shot? And again, Oswald, if he wasn't in on it, would have taken evasive action. You know, the instinct for self-preservation? So, how could Bookhout accurately place the shot? 

4) And what about James Bookhout, himself? Bookhout was a lawyer; an FBI lawyer. He graduated from SMU law school and became a lawyer for the FBI. He was never in the military. He was never in combat. He was never a policeman.  He never shot at anyone. What shooting could he have done in his life? Even if he was, say, a hunter, and I have no idea if he was, that involves a rifle, right? It certainly didn't involve a Colt Special.  If this thing was real, why would they trust James Bookhout to do the shooting? They wouldn't. They couldn't They didn't.  

5) If this thing was planned, and the plan involved having it televised live, then it couldn't be real. Once a thing is televised, there's no taking it back. It's like the genie escaping from the bottle. I'm not even sure the thing was live. Maybe it was done a few minutes before and then they ran it as though it was live. At one point, you hear Tom Petit say it happened at 11:15. But officially, it happened at 11:21. Even the ruse could have gone wrong. So, they may have added that precaution. But, the idea that they would have televised the actual planned shooting, with all that could have gone wrong, is preposterous. 

So, if you believe, as I do, that this was a spectacle designed for television, and that the Garage Shooter was James Bookhout, then you have to believe that it was a ruse. There is no logical way to make it that Bookhout actually shot Oswald. No way; no chance; no how.