During the last mock trial of Oswald, which was in Houston, I was kinda involved. Larry Rivera and I were both in communication with the two lawyers who were assigned to defend Oswald, and we interacted a lot. I urged them to push the fact that Oswald was in the doorway during the shooting, and therefore, he could not have been on the 6th floor. And Larry was saying the same. We both provided them with images. It seemed like they were going to do it.
But, somebody got to them, and instead, they went with the claim that Oswald was in the 2nd floor lunch room during the shooting. And that is what Oliver Stone went with in his movie JFK, where they showed Oswald eating alone in the 2nd floor lunch room.
Even then, there was Oswald's statement that he ate in the first floor lunch room early in the lunch break. FBI Agent James Hosty wrote it down in his own handwriting, which we still have today.
There is no chance that Oswald was eating in the 2nd floor lunch room during the motorcade. For one thing, he NEVER ate in that lunch room. That lunch room was for the office workers who worked on the 2nd floor. Oswald used that lunch room for one thing only, and that was to buy a Coke. So, read Hosty's note because that is what Oswald said, and it is what he did.
But, there is another way to prove that Oswald wasn't in the 2nd floor lunch room at 12:30. And that is that he only got to the 2nd floor lunch room at 12:31.5. Remember that Officer Marrion Baker saw Oswald moving from the vestibule into the lunch room. Oswald was in motion. He had just gotten there.
So, if Oswald was just getting to the 2nd floor lunch room at 12:31.5, how could he have been there at 12:30? Why would he leave the 2nd floor lunch room and then return to it a minute and a half later. Did he leave something there? No. There is no basis to go to that conclusion. Did he leave and then decide to go back to buy a Coke? That makes no sense either because if he ate there, he surely would have bought a Coke to have with his lunch. He was eating dry cheese sandwiches., and the Coke machine was right there. If he was going to get a Coke, he would have got it then.
Hosty wrote that Oswald said that he went to the 2nd floor lunch room to get a Coke before he ate lunch, and after he got it, he went down to the 1st floor lunch room eat and drink. So, why was he partial to the first floor lunch room? I can think of three reasons. First, it was considered the lunch room for the warehouse workers and order-fillers, which is what he was. Second, there was a shelf there where you could store your lunch, and it is well established that Oswald routinely brought his lunch and stored it there in the morning. And third, there was usually a newspaper there that Oswald liked to browse while he was eating.
There is some irony in this because it's assumed that Oswald found out about the motorcade route from seeing it in the newspaper. But, Oswald didn't subscribe to any newspaper. And he never bought one, that we know of. The newspaper that was routinely placed in the 1st lunch room is the only newspaper that can be connected to Oswald. That is where Oswald, ate, drank, and browsed the newspaper.
And why would Oswald be eating at 12:30? They were released from work at 11:45. Oswald brought his lunch. And he had nothing else to do. He had no calls to make. There was no one that he needed to talk to. By that point, he knew about the motorcade, which was expected to reach Dealey Plaza by 12:25, though it was 5 minutes late. So surely, Oswald would have gotten his eating done in the interval between 11:45 and 12:25. Why would he do nothing for 40 minutes and then start eating? And we learned from Ruth Paine and Marina that he ate nothing at Ruth Paine's house that morning. He drank some coffee, but that was it. He worked all morning. So, don't you think he would have been ready to eat at Noon?
It made perfect sense for him to eat early in the lunch break. He said that he did that, and there is absolutely no reason to doubt him.
And why wouldn't he want to go outside to see the President? JFK had, single-handedly, avoided war with the Soviet Union. His wife was Soviet. Her family was Soviet. And they both had many friends in the Soviet Union. So, it must have been a big relief to them that there was no war. And they knew who to thank: John F. Kennedy.
So, why Oswald do nothing for 40 minutes, and then go eat in the lunch room and miss the motorcade? He wouldn't. He couldn't. He didn't.
The story that Oswald was eating in the 2nd floor lunch room at 12:30 was invented in 1978 during the HSCA. It was created as an alternative to Oswald in the doorway. The idea was: that for people who refuse to accept that he was up on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy at 12:30, they needed someplace else to put him. So, they concocted that story then, over 5000 days after the assassination.
Oswald just got to the 2nd floor lunch a few seconds before Marrion Baker got there. There is no plausible, logical, and rational reason to think he was there a minute and a half before and came back. There is no evidence for it either. It is simply unsupported by the evidence in the case.
Oswald went from the doorway to the 2nd floor by way of the elegant stairs in the southeast corner that were next to the doorway. Then, he walked across the great expanse of the 2nd floor to get to the lunch room in the northwest corner. That appears to be what happened, and there is nothing with more plausibility than that.
So, the 2nd floor lunch room must be eliminated as a possible place that Oswald was during the motorcade. It is not possible. Do you realize what it means? It means that if you realize that Oswald was not on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy at 12:30, then he must have been in the doorway. There is simply no other place he could have been, except maybe the head. But, one doesn't hang out in the head. One uses the head, and then leaves the head. And frankly, at some point, he must have used the head, because he was, after all, a human being. But, unless he was sick, there is no reason to think that that consumed a significant amount of time.
Read this note because it is what Oswald said he did. And there is no reason to doubt him. The note makes perfect sense. And by itself, it is a microcosm of Oswald's innocence.


