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

The men on Leavelle's right were other cops, whom presumably he could trust, but the men on his left were reporters. I circled their microphones. Leavelle didn't know them. That's the direction from which an attack could come. It's the only direction from which an attack could come. So, shouldn't Leavelle have been focused in that direction? Leavelle had just joked to Oswald, "If someone tries to shoot you, Lee, I hope he's as good a shot as you are." It was something like that, implying that since Oswald killed Kennedy he was a good shot. So, it was fresh on Leavelle's mind that someone might try to shoot Oswald. 

And why wasn't there concern about someone trying to shoot Oswald before that? Remember that this was before they had people walk through medal detectors to enter public buildings. Couldn't someone have tried to shoot Oswald in the hallway? Remember how packed it was with people, presumably reporters? Why no concern then? And if they were so concerned, why didn't they put a bullet-proof vest on Oswald? Why didn't they move him in the dead of night? Why didn't they move him without announcing it? Why was it necessary to have people view it? They could have just done it and then announced what they did. Why give all the potential assassins a heads-up that this was their golden opportunity? 

This was a danger zone, a potential battlefield. In battle, don't you scan the battlefield? 

Since guns can be fired in a split-second, I should think they would have had men with guns drawn so that they could react quickly to a gunman. Otherwise, how could you have any hope of stopping him? Were they just going to talk him out of it? 

"Hey! You put down that gun! We'll have none of that here. You will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law unless you put that gun down now."

Why was Leavelle looking away? Why was Graves looking down? Why weren't they looking in the direction of vulnerability? What about any of this suggests any effort to protect Oswald? What's the difference between this and doing nothing to protect Oswald? 

It was a travesty is what it was.  They did NOTHING to protect Oswald. And what they did do, such as the announcements they made, just increased the danger to him; it stoked the flames. It's terrible that this wasn't acknowledged at the time, but it's worse that few acknowledge it today, and no one on the side of officialdom.