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

 The story of Billy Lovelady’s life following the JFK assassination was a mixture of huge financial success and utter misery.

Even though he was an uneducated ex-con who made only $1.11/hr at the TSBD, he went on to own a freight company in Colorado and vast tracts of land across the state, before his untimely and suspicious death at the age of 41.

It was just days after the assassination that the FBI claimed that Lovelady told them that he was Doorman. But wait. Since this was so important, and since Lovelady’s likeness to Oswald was part of the story, why didn’t they let him tell the world himself? They gave Oswald a press conference (although I think the purpose of it was to kill him, but it just didn’t work out) so why didn’t they give Lovelady a press conference? They claimed that he looked so much like Oswald (and apparently dressed just like him too) that his step-kids, upon seeing Oswald on tv, thought he was their dad. Another story they told was that Lovelady’s wife Patricia saw Oswald from behind at the TSBD and thought he was Billy. That’s strange, considering that Billy was shorter than Oswald and 40 pounds heavier.

But, not only did they not put Lovelady on tv, they didn’t publish any images of him either. They just lip-flapped it.

Eventually, the FBI did send staged, doctored images of Lovelady to the Warren Commission. But, the WC didn’t publish them or refer to them. They just left them in the “document pile.” The only reason we got to see them is because Harold Weisberg went through the document file and found them and published them.

In 1967, CBS was making its 4 hour Special on the JFK assassination, and they brought Lovelady back to Dallas from Colorado, and they photographed him in the doorway. They also interviewed him at length. They were going to have a whole segment on the Doorman controversy. But then, they yanked it. The photo, the interview, the discussion- all of it trashed. Why? I think it was because somebody high-up realized that including the segment would just create more doubts about the official story.

In 1976, the HSCA was underway, and HSCA Attorney Ken Brooten went to Lovelady’s house in Colorado with Robert Groden. Then, a most bizarre thing happened: Brooten resigned as HSCA attorney to become Lovelady’s lawyer. And as Lovelady’s lawyer, he got the HSCA not to subpoena Lovelady. They subpoenaed hundreds of people, and they were investigating the Doorman question. So, why didn’t they subpoena Lovelady? How did Brooten get a pass for him? I think Brooten must have told them that Lovelady was a basket case mentally, that he would fall apart under questioning, and it would be a disaster for them.

And then in January 1979, right before the HSCA Final Report was released Lovelady died suddenly of a first heart attack at the age of 41. His dear devoted wife Patricia had this to say: “I’ve been harassed for 15 years, and I’m not going to be harassed anymore.” That chokes me up every time.

Now, I realize it is possible to die of a heart attack that young, or even younger, but statistically, it is very uncommon.

So, when did we ever hear Lovelady claim that he was Doorman? The answer is: never. And he never claimed it in his Warren Commission testimony either, for which we have the transcripts.

That poor man was tortured by being forced to lie about something, and he just wasn’t any good at it. CBS realized it. Kenneth Brooten realized it. And the FBI realized it too because they could have put him in front of a sea of cameras and mics, but they didn’t. They knew better. They knew it would only hurt the story, not help it. There are natural born liars in the world, but Billy Lovelady wasn’t one of them.