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

This is an open, public response to John Armstrong about a question he asked about Oswald in the doorway. 

Yes, John, Oswald told Fritz that he was "out with Bill Shelley in front" and Fritz wrote it down. The release of those notes is one of the most important developments in JFK assassination research.

And I greatly appreciate your question because is shows interest. And as you can imagine, it is something to which I have given a lot of thought. Believe me, I can't be stumped when it comes to the Doorman issue.

Let's start with your reasoning: Oswald reached the lunch room ahead of Truly and Baker, and he wasn't the least bit winded, which means he didn't run there; he walked at a comfortable pace. But Baker reportedly was moving fast. So, that means that Oswald must have left well before Baker. 

I've done the Math, and it means that Oswald must have left that doorway very soon after the Altgens photo was taken, and before the fatal head shot occurred, and I think I can prove it. It requires comparing the Wiegman film to the Altgens photo.

There is very close time correlation between the Altgens photo and the start of the Dave Wiegman film. They are so close that some people say that one came first while others say the other came first. My opinion is that the Altgens photo came first by about 1 second. But, Oswald was still there, so we can compare the Altgens Doorman to the Wiegman Doorman. So, this is the Altgens photo compared to frame 1 from Wiegman:

I apologize for the blurrines of the Wiegman frame on the left, but it's the best I can do. I am convinced that they deliberately blurred the Wiegman film to keep Oswald out of focus. But note something indisputable: that both men are wearing an unbuttoned, sprawled-open outer shirt over a white t-shirt, which was Oswald's look. There is no evidence that Lovelady was dressed that way. Here is the most widely used image of Lovelady from 11/22/63, taken supposedly, a few minutes later:

So, the Altgens and Wiegman Doormen do correspond to each other very well and to Oswald very well. Who could be wearing Oswald's clothes except Oswald? 

But then, Oswald left that doorway. That's what I maintain. HE HAD TO in order to reach the 2nd floor lunch room before Truly and Baker and without being winded. 

After capturing the doorway in the first few frames, Wiegman turned his camera directly down Elm. He was riding in a car on Elm; it was the press car, the 10th car in the motorcade, so 7 cars behind JFK's limo. But at 4 seconds in the footage, Wiegman, for some reason, swung his camera around to the right to capture the doorway again, which has been called his second pass of the doorway. 

Why did he do that? We don't know, but it may be because he saw something in his peripheral vision which caught his attention or that he heard something from that direction. But by the time his camera gets there, he captures this:

We see a Doorman there, but is it the same Doorman as before? Let's compare them up-close:

So, there you have the first Wiegman Doorman and the second Wiegman Doorman. They are not the same man. The shirt sprawls are different: vee shaped on the left and r-shaped on the right. The shape of their heads is different, rectangular on the left and round, oval on the right. You get a great sense about the man on the right being BALD. He looks heavier, rounder in the face, cherubic. You get a sense that he had a shorter neck and a barrel chest. This was supposed to be the same man 4 seconds apart. 

But, there is another important difference. The man on the left is oriented towards Kennedy- as you would expect. He is turned and facing the southwest where Kennedy was. It was also the direction that the shots came from. But, the man on the right is facing straight ahead looking straight out the doorway. Why would he be doing that? Look at again at the broad picture. Notice how poignant it is. Notice how engaged the people are in the horrifics of it all. This was definitely after the fatal head shot when people were realizing the horror and magnitude of the tragedy.

 Look at them, the people. They are behaving as you would expect. Look at the black man in the doorway Roy Lewis. He is behaving as you would expect. Focused where you would expect him to be focused. But why at that moment is the Doorman looking straight ahead straight out the doorway to the front? Doesn't he seem to be disengaged? Doesn't he seem to be removed from what is going on? 4 seconds before he had his focus on Kennedy. So why not now? What would cause him to turn away from Kennedy, look straight forward, stand at attention, and just stare ahead like a Cigar Store Indian?

He wasn't there, John. He was added to the image. They did that because the real Doorman, whom we saw at the beginning, and who was Oswald, left. He departed. He took off for the lunch room. 

Why did he go? My best guess is that Shelley must have ordered him to. I hope you know that Bill Shelley was in on it. Bill Shelley was US Army Intelligence during WW2 and then joined the CIA from its inception in 1947. Do you really think he was innocently working at a company that distributed Dick and Jane books for little kids? Read The Spider's Web by William Westin if you haven't. The TSBD was a CIA front company. Shelley was in tight with David Byrd, the owner of the building. Shelley was in the Texas and Louisiana Civil Air Patrol with Oswald from 10 years before, which was started and financed by David Byrd. Bill Shelley was involved in this up to his neck. 

So, my best guess is that it was Shelley who gave Oswald the instruction, the order to go to the lunch room. It was the VERY BEST place to send him. It was the most accessible place there was to the 6th floor, that could link Oswald to the 6th floor. 

What excuse he gave Oswald, I do not know. Maybe he told him to wait for a call. Maybe he told him to be on the lookout for someone. I don't know, but it's significant that Oswald cited Shelley as the person he was "with" outside. He could have named any number of people, but he named Shelley. The odds are great that some interaction took place between them. Was there a ruckus of some kind? Roy Schaffer, our resident photo expert, thinks there was because of all the masking and opaquing. But, what I know for sure is that the 2nd Wiegman Doorman was not the same man as the 1st Wiegman Doorman, who was definitely Oswald. So, Oswald left. He left early. He left for the lunch room way before Marrion Baker. And, I believe he left for the lunch room before the fatal head shot. 

I don't even know what Oswald knew of JFK's condition at that point. Did he even know that JFK was dead? 

And I hope you know that it is bogus to say that Oswald went to the lunch room to get a Coke. If he went for that reason he would either have had one when Truly and Baker arrived, or he would have been in the process of getting one. But, they both insisted that he had no Coke, and neither said anything about him getting one. He did get one shortly afterwards, but that's different. It doesn't mean that he went there explicitly to get one. He went there explicitly because he was told to go there and probably by Bill Shelley.  

Look, I'm sure you agree that Oswald went to the Texas Theater because he was told to go there. He didn't have a hankering for a war movie, did he? Well, you should think of his trek to the lunch room the same way, that he was just following orders.   

What is the alternative to this analysis? It is that Oswald was seen in the lunch room by Carolyn Arnold about 12:20 (and that's an average time between 12:15 to 12:25) and that he just remained planted there until 12:31.5, 11.5 minutes later. But, he definitely had eaten his lunch, and he definitely wouldn't be getting a Coke until later, so that's 11.5 minutes of complete idleness for a man who was fascinated by Kennedy, who read books specifically because Kennedy read them, whose wife admired Kennedy, and who always spoke highly of Kennedy. The idea that Oswald spent all that time doing nothing in the lunch room rather than step outside to see his hero when we can plainly see Oswald outside wearing his unique distinctive clothing which no one else but him could have worn- is just plain ridiculous. He really was standing in that doorway.