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

It's time for me to settle something once for all: the claim that Oswald said he was eating lunch at the time of the motorcade.

Usually, the people who make this claim don't actually believe it. It's just an argument they use to counter Oswald in the doorway.

But, there is no basis whatsoever to the argument, as I'll explain.

Like everyone else, Oswald got off work at 11:45. It was actually 15 minutes early, and the idea was that, since the Presidential motorcade was expected at 12:25, that people would have enough to time (40 minutes) to finish their eating and drinking to be ready to watch the historic event. 

Oswald knew this. And he had absolutely nothing he had to do at 11:45 to keep him from commencing his lunch. He had no meeting to attend, no errand to run, to exercises to do, no person to look up- NOTHING. So, he went to the first floor lunch room, where the grunt workers ate, also called the domino room because there were dominoes in there which they would play on the lunch tables, time permitting- and he started eating. And while he was in there eating, he reported seeing two guys come in, James Jarman and Harold Norman. That was soon after the lunch break began. And, both Jarman and Norman confirmed that they went in there soon after the lunch break began to retrieve their lunch. So, out of 75 employees, Oswald correctly identified two who went in there at that time. 

Oswald had no reason to put off eating. He hadn't eaten anything all day. Ruth Paine said that all he had at her house that morning was a cup of instant coffee. And he worked all morning. So presumably, he was ready to eat by Noon. Don't you think? Wouldn't you be? 

Oswald knew that the President was expected to arrive at 12:25. He had as much reason to want to see the Kennedys as anyone else who worked there. The idea that he wouldn't be interested is just a baseless and arbitrary construct that a great many people help themselves to without any explanation or justification. The idea that he would put off eating lunch for 40 minutes, only to do it during the motorcade, and thus miss seeing the Kennedys is preposterous. And, it is especially preposterous because he had plenty of time to do both. In fact, he had absolutely nothing to do in lieu of eating lunch during the first part of the lunch break.

But, what did Oswald actually say? He said that he was "out with Bill Shelley in front" during the motorcade and that he had eaten lunch earlier in the first floor lunch room, as described above. It's in the Fritz Notes.

But, all kinds of lies surfaced about what Oswald said and right from the beginning. For instance, FBI Agent James Bookhout actually reported that Oswald said that he ate lunch AFTER the assassination- which is impossible on the face of it when you consider the timeline of events that followed the assassination. Captain Will Fritz bold-faced lied to the Warren Commission when he said that Oswald said he was eating lunch with "other employees" during the assassination. Other employees? Oh really? Who were these "other employees" who chose to eat with Oswald rather than see the President of the United States and his glamorous wife? The truth of the matter was that Oswald didn't eat with other employees even on a good day, and this was hardly a good day for him. 

Keep this very firmly in your mind: the only things we can be sure Oswald said are the things we can hear him say with our own two ears. That's it. 

Now beyond that, I put a lot of stock in the Fritz Notes precisely because Fritz not only never admitted having them but denied having them. He went to his grave without telling a soul about them. It was just a stroke of look that they surfaced in 1996 during the ARRB. These were notes that Fritz took only for himself. No one else. 

So, who would lie and fabricate on that basis? To oneself? Nobody would do that. You'd have to be insane to do that. 

And, it's in the Fritz Notes that he wrote down that Oswald said he was "out with Bill Shelley in front." It is the single most important evidence discovery in the JFK assassination to surface after November 22, 1963.  

So, the people who glibly say that Oswald said he was eating lunch during the shooting are just passing on lies that started on November 22, 1963 and then continued afterwards to suit the needs of the conspirators. 

Fact: Oswald ate in the domino room in the 11:50 to 12:15 time frame. He may have remained in there until 12:20. After eating, he may have browsed through the newspaper, as he often did. From there, who knows, he may have used the bathroom, but he wound up in the doorway, where we can see him in the Altgens photo and the Wiegman film.

That is it. Those are the facts. And the other stuff is just manipulation and lies. The people who say that Oswald said he was eating at 12:30 are of the same ilk as those who say he was on the 6th floor pumping rounds into Kennedy at 12:30. They're often good friends. But, I have the same contempt for both. You should too.