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

I have grave concerns about the authenticity of the image used by TIME magazine on its cover for the 50th commemoration of the JFK assassination in November 2013. Here is the cover:

What do you see when you look at this? It's Jack and Jackie waving at the adoring crowd, right? And look how their arms go up in unison, in the same trajectory. It's like a plane taking off, isn't it? What were the chances they would capture a picture like that? 

Well, that is not what it is. It appears that Jackie is facing straight ahead and looking straight ahead, and I don't doubt that she was. But, her arm was veering off to the side. One way you can tell, is that the metal frame of the window is in front of her hand. 

You see the purple box, right? That's the window frame. And you see that it is uninterrupted, right? That means that her hand was behind it. The frame was closer to us than her hand. So, her hand was behind the window. 

And, if you're wondering why the window frame looks purple, it's because it was reflecting light from her pink dress. We even see it in the Zapruder film.

Why does it look pink in the Zapruder film and purple in the TIME photo? That I can't tell you.

First, a little history. The TIME photo was one of three taken by H.Warner King, a Dallas jewelry wholesaler. After his death, his daughter Sonya King found them among her father's possessions. She wound up giving them to TIME magazine for publication, and I don't know if money changed hands. So, these photos were not published until 2013. Here is the totality of the photo in question.

So, Jackie's left arm is actually hanging over the left side of the car as she is looking straight ahead. That's rather weird in itself as behaviors go because usually your arm and your eyes are oriented the same way. But, let's take a close look at what her hand is actually doing. She isn't waving. 

Jackie has got her hand externally rotated. That is the palm side of her hand that we are seeing, and that is why her thumb is on the left. And her hand isn't opened. Stick out your left hand with the palm side up. You notice that your fingers extend a lot farther than your thumb, right? Well, why don't we see her fingers extending beyone her thumb here? It's because her fingers are curled. She is making a partial fist. It's something like this:

What is very distracting is the white stripe in the road to the left of her thumb. And from a distance, it looks like a thumb itself. Look again at the magazine cover. At first glance, and from a distance, doesn't it seem like that stripe is her thumb, and that it's her right hand raised?

So, because of the two-dimensionality of the photograph, it seems like that's her right arm and her right hand, and the road stripe is her thumb. What were the chances that that stripe would be there? I call it the Lucky Stripe. And what helps you make the mistake is the cue you are getting from JFK because that is what he is doing: waving with his right arm. It's like they are a tandem couple doing the same thing. But, it's a complete optical illusion. It's her left arm, not her right; and it's veering off to the left, not going straight ahead; and she isn't waving with it at all. Who would wave with a fist? Maybe Che Guevara, but not Jackie Kennedy. 

Some have tried to claim that Jackie was reaching for the window frame to hold on to it, but there are two arguments against that. The first is that her thumb is behind the frame, and it would have to be in front of the frame for her to grab it. The second is that she wasn't looking that way, and when we are trying to do something with your hands, you don't do it blindly; you look in the direction that you're doing it. But, her eyes and her hand were not on the same track.

Why are her fingertips green in the photo when she was wearing white gloves? I do not know. 

So, what was Jackie's total position at that moment? It was something akin to St. Francis Assisi.

That is basically it, except of course that he was standing, and she was sitting. 

So, do you think she was really doing that at that moment? I have my doubts. 

For one thing, I don't think her arm could reach. In the photo, Jackie's elbow is bent, and we can't see her upper arm. If her upper arm was extended in front of her, we would see it, but we don't. 

We really can't see her upper arm there, but we know where it is. And her elbow is bent. That means that she is not using the length of her upper arm to contribute to the action, to take her hand where it is going. 

This is the closest image we have which duplicates her action in the disputed photo. But notice that here, as her arm reaches leftward, so too is she turned leftward and looking leftward. That is normal. That's what you expect. The head and the eyes lead, and the body follows. But notice that in order to reach that ledge by the window, her arm is straightened. Her elbow isn't bent. She needs to use all the length that she has in her arm and forearm in order to deliver her hand to its destination. So, how in the other picture, did she get her hand there with a bent elbow? I don't think she could do it. There just wasn't enough length to cover the distance.

But now, look at this. You see this guy's hand?

He is, obviously, closer to the camera than she is. He is right in front of the camera. So, why is she covering up the terminal digits of his fingers?

The fingers are composed of three small bones called phalanges. So, there is a proximal phalange, a middle phalange, and a distal phalange. What we're seeing here are just his proximal and middle phalanges. The distal phalanges of his index and middle fingers are being covered up by her wrist. But, how could she do that from the car? And, I believe we are seeing the tip of his index finger rising above her wrist. 

Jackie Kennedy isn't the only troubling image in this photograph. Just as jarring to my eyes is the image of a little girl and her mother who are spectators. 

So, the mother is waving with her right arm, and presumably, she is holding the little girl with her left arm. Except that being held is NOT what that girl is doing. That girl is sitting. How do I know? Because she's in a sitting posture. You see those angles? Those angles are the indication of someone sitting. And I don't mean on her mother's arm. First, her mother wasn't strong enough to do that. Women don't hold kids with their arms alone. They lean and shift and do things to get the child's weight distributed over their body so that their relatively weak arms don't have to support the whole load alone. But, in this case, we're not talking about "arms" but rather "arm."  We are expected to believe that that girl's weight is plopped on top of that woman's one arm, and she is supporting her that way, and without even flinching. It's as though the girl was as light as a feather. 

In the photograph on the left, you know that George Costanza is sitting, and even if you couldn't see his seat, you can tell from his position that he is sitting. It's the same for the little girl. 

Furthermore, even if the woman was strong enough to do it (and I assure you she was not) her arm would not have been a stable enough surface for the girl to be sitting on so upright like she is. She is really sitting up straight, as we were told to do in school. She isn't slouching at all. You need a firm, solid surface underneath you to do that.

So, the only way that picture makes sense is if there was a post or a bench or some other firm, solid surface that the girl was sitting on next to her mother. But, what could have been there? It's a street corner. I can't think of anything.

So, it looks to me like that girl was plopped into the picture in front of the mother. Why would anyone do such a thing? Well, maybe there was something showing that they didn't want shown. Look at the man behind them. Doesn't he look like he could be a Secret Service agent?

Maybe something was sticking out on him, such as a gun holster. 

If you're thinking that the girl was sitting on the mother's hip bone, straddling her, she's not. That's a completely different look.

 And, if you look closely, you can see that, on the right, both of the girl's legs are in front of the mother.

So, she is not straddling her mother, and there is just no way her mother could be supporting her. Either you have to come up with an object that that girl was sitting on in that spot, or it doesn't pass the smell test. And, if she were sitting on an object, why wouldn't she face forward? Why sit sideways and have to turn your head? 

There are other problems with this photograph pertaining to shadows and colors, and I think a heck of a lot of photoshopping was done to it.  But, here is one last point, just for good measure.

Here is the shadow cast by a window frame.

You see that it's the same shape as the window frame itself, right?

OK, very well. Then, why is it that the window frame next to Jackie's hand is casting such an odd-shaped shadow that is totally not in keeping with its own shape?

Anyone? Anyone? Ain't Physics fun? 


But, let me make something clear: I do not think this has any bearing on the assassination itself. It's not like anything nefarious was happening at that moment. But, if they altered this photo to the extent that I believe they did, it shows a willingness to deliberately deceive the public with fraudulent images.  That's false images rendering false information. And if they were willing to do that, particularly to create a false impression of Jackie waving when she was not waving, what would they have been willing to do to hide Oswald in the doorway? And he was most certainly in the doorway at the time of the shots.

Again, I realize that nothing crucial was going on at that moment, but still, it appears to my eyes to be an incredible amount of altering of a very historical photo. And look how their arms are. Does it remind you of anything? 

It's almost like they are both doing Heil Hitler salutes. 

Is there a subliminal message here? Jack and Jackie paying homage to the Almighty State like all good Americans should?

If TIME magazine did as much manipulation of an important historical photograph as I think they did, what does it say about their attitude towards Americans? Are they out to inform them or indoctrinate them? 

I encourage TIME magazine to respond to this and explain exactly what they did to that photograph. 

This is what former Navy test pilot and OIC senior member Dennis Cimino said about it:

"It is important because it shows their conviction that they can manipulate Americans at will and to any extent and without consequences, and with the full confidence that Americans will be too stupid to notice. That makes it important."

I couldn't have said it better, and I couldn't agree more.