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

In searching about this bus transfer ticket, I was impressed how highly placed the Oswald Innocence Campaign website is. This is happening more and more often that I do a search for something and find our website first page or second page, and sometimes with multiple listings.


The time is not stamped on the transfer ticket, and the idea that a widely spaced 1 and 0 and nothing more would constitute a specific 15 minute period or even a time at all is ludicrous. Since the next listing, accordingly, would be a widely space 2 and 0, the same objection applies. And how does that register as a 15 minute interval? And whatever arcane system you want to say they had is irrelevant. 

Let's be real. There is no reason to think that Oswald even looked at that ticket. We all know damn well that it was handed to him and he just put it in his pocket. But, even if he had looked at it, would he have likely recognized a time? A widely spaced 1 and 0 and nothing more below the term Shopper Transfer does not a time indicator make.  1                   0         does not register as 1:00 PM. 

And even if it did, which I don't grant, since it was about 12:45, it's far more likely that he would take it as the time of expiration. Don't tell me Lee Harvey Oswald registered on what you see above and said to himself, "OK, that gives me until 1:15". You say that, and I tell you to go shove your M16 rifle the same place Joseph Backes shoves his proscenium arches. Anything that arcane counts as nothing- and it is a huge stretch to assume that Oswald even looked at it. 

Personal to Joseph Backes: Note that MacRae is granting here that Oswald did indeed ride McWatters' bus. So, he is telling you, just as I am telling you, that you are full of shit. 

But so are you full of shit, MacRae. It's presumptuous as Hell to think that Oswald even looked at that ticket. The bus driver gave it to him; he put it in his pocket; end of story. Out of sight; out of mind. Oswald may have had a general sense that he had 15 minutes to use it, but that's all. And it's Oswald's state of mind that matters and not anything else.

Oswald got off that bus. He walked 4 blocks to the Greyhound bus station. He saw McWatters cab and interacted with him. Oswald got in. Then, they had an interaction with a woman who also wanted a cab. Then they took off and had minimal conversation, but Whaley said that sirens were blasting. They passed Oswald's rooming house by several blocks. Oswald told Whaley to pull over, which he did. Oswald paid him. Oswald got out and crossed the street and walked back the several blocks to his room. He went inside, walking by Earlene Roberts to his room. She spoke to him, but he didn't reply. A police car pulled up and the car horn was tapped twice. 

I'm stating all this to point out that life went on for Oswald after he got off the bus. The idea that Oswald even looked at that bus transfer ticket or gave it a moment's thought is unfounded, but as the minutes ticked away, his mind got further and further away from that ticket. The idea that his mind retained any consciousness of it at all is highly unlikely. 

Listen up, MacRae: Unless Oswald had a specific plan to ride the bus again, and he didn't, there is no reason to think that transfer ticket existed in his consciousness at all. I'm saying that he forgot all about it, and the notion that he transferred it from one shirt to another is absurd; it is preposterous. Again, you show that you have the mind of a child.   

Mr. BALL. Can you tell me what time it was approximately that Oswald came in?
Mrs. ROBERTS. Now, it must have been around 1 o'clock, or maybe a little afterMr. BALL.. How long did he stay in the room ?
Mr. ROBERTS. Oh, maybe not over 3 or 4 minutes

What did Oswald do next? She didn't know. But, there is no chance that he took a bus. Butch Borroughs placed Oswald in the Texas Theater by 1:07, and that was in a direct communication with Jim Douglass. But, even if he was off by a few minutes- say it was 1:10- Oswald could not have walked there, and he could not have taken the bus there either because that would have entailed waiting for the bus and enduring all the stops that buses make and the tedium and fanfare involved with processing passengers, coming and going. Oswald must have been driven directly to the theater, without stops, and like Jim Douglass and John Armstrong, I think the most likely thing is that he was driven there in that police car. They tapped the horn to give him a signal. 

But, the question of the bus is completely moot. The prospect of Oswald being able to use that transfer ticket- or having any consciousness of being able to use it- is extremely remote.

It is very immature for researchers to hone-in on highly unlikely things and treat them like money in the bank. Again: the childishness of the perennial adolescent: Duncan MacRae.   

One must assume that Oswald knew what was expected of him. If Douglass and Armstrong are right about the police car driving Oswald to the theater, then Oswald had to know that that was about to happen. It's not as though he walked out of that rooming house with no idea what he was going to do next. He wasn't thinking: 

"Gee, I wonder what I should do now. I wonder where I should go. Should I take the bus somewhere? Should I hitch-hike? If so, which direction and to what destination? Maybe a policeman will come along and give me a ride. What ever should I do?"

There was a plan, you dumb pluck! Everything was arranged. Oswald knew what he was doing. He knew what came next. He knew where he was going - to the Texas Theater- and he knew how he was going to get there. It was all pre-arranged. He definitely didn't take the bus- there was no time for that. And by that point, he surely had no consciousness whatsoever about that ticket. 
Therefore: THE NOTION THAT HE TRANSFERRED THAT BUS TICKET FROM ONE SHIRT TO ANOTHER IS NOT AT ALL REASONABLE.

If it's reasonable, why didn't the Dallas Police and the FBI and the Secret Service- and later the Warren Commission- think of it themselves? What, do you think you're smarter than everybody else? Forget it, MacRae. This is just another of your harebrained schemes- like the one about the shirt fibers being deposited in the groove of the gun just from him handling it months before- where you don't even know that he did. The Warren Commission said that that rifle lay wrapped in a blanket in Ruth Paine's garage for at least 8 weeks prior to the assassination. For most people, that would be enough to preclude any chance of finding fibers from the shirt on the rifle FROM A PRIOR HANDLING months before. But no, not you, and that's because you have the immature, fanciful mind of a child. Childish art, childish jibes, childish thoughts, awful raucous teenage music- that's you MacRae. Are you ever going to grow up?