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

This concerns HSCA Attorney Kenneth Brooten's recorded interview of Billy Lovelady in Colorado in 1976. I had listened to the first part of it a while ago, but I just heard the second part, all of it, tonight. I'll give you the link after making some comments.

First, the interview was posted by The Lone Gunman, and I know who he is: Rob Clark. But, the interview involves the showing and discussing of various images, and Rob did not always correlate the images he showed with the image being discussed. For instance, when they were discussing when the FBI showed up at his house with a blow-up of the doorway to ask him to identify Doorway Man, Rob shows a frame of the doorway that is from the Hughes film.  Well, the FBI certainly didn't show up with a frame from the Hughes film. How could they, when it was a film? Just because we readily have frames from films today doesn't mean that they could instantly have it then. So, when they were discussing the Altgens photo, you'd think that Rob would be sure to show it, but he didn't. That adds an unnecessary level of confusion to the video. And it's confusing enough as it is because the audio quality is very poor, and Lovelady spoke with a heavy drawl, and it is hard to understand. Rob Clark also did that when they were talking about the image that I refer to as Pschedelic Lovelady.

They were definitely talking about that image, although Rob Clark didn't show it. Brooten even asked Lovelady about the beard, and Lovelady said that he must have had a two-day beard. That photo was made by Robert Groden, and Groden was there. You could hear his voice intermittently in the background. The "beard" is bogus. It's the result of whatever Groden did to the image. Look how ridiculous it is. Groden wound up turning his neck red. I'm surprised Brooten didn't ask Lovelady if he had a sunburn. 

But, I recall that Lovelady was also asked about this earlier, and he said that he had shaved the night before but not the morning of the assassination. But, this time, when he realized that Brooten was trying to rationalize that massive beard, Lovelady said that maybe he had a two-day beard. A two-day beard? Ha! That looks like something Jerimiah Johnson would have grown over an Alaskan winter. 

But, here's something interesting. Lovelady said that the FBI came to his apartment at 6 PM on the evening of the assassination to show him the Altgens photo. But, we know that they didn't. According to their statement, it was late in the evening the following night, on Saturday the 23rd, that they went to Lovelady's house to show him the photo. If this was something minor, I could understand him getting confused. But, we are talking about the JFK assassination. 

And, there is no reason to doubt them, the FBI, about this. It makes much more sense for it to have been the Saturday. That's because most people didn't even see the Altgens photo until Saturday, which they also acknowledged. A few evening papers had it on Friday night, but most papers didn't publish the Altgens6 photo until Saturday. It took some time for the controversy to ignite. They didn't get done altering the Altgens photo until late in the afternoon on Friday. 

But, here's something I think is very important: Brooten asked Lovelady if the FBI had him mark and sign the photo to indicate that the figure was him. Lovelady said yes. But, it isn't true. It was Joseph Ball of the Warren Commission who asked him to mark a photo, not the FBI. If the FBI had gotten him to mark and sign a photo, then where is it? How come in 53 years we haven't seen it? When the controversy burst upon the scene, why didn't the FBI brandish the photo? Why didn't they send it to the Warren Commission and make it part of the official record? But wait a second: If Lovelady was telling the truth there, then maybe he did the same thing that he did with Joseph Ball and indicated another figure as himself, which would explain why the FBI never showed it. But frankly, I think it's more likely that this was just Lovelady saying yes, yes, yes, to anything Brooten wanted.   

While they were talking, Rob Clark showed an image from the squad room, with the figure in the plaid shirt sitting at the desk, supposedly Lovelady, but it's impossible to tell from the discussion whether that was what they were talking about. At no time, did Brooten ask Lovelady if he saw Oswald at the police department or if he was ever in the squad room of the homicide detectives. (and it is ridiculous that he would be) That whole discussion never happened. And Lovelady didn't volunteer it. You'd think that being at the center of a media frenzy over Oswald would have stood out in his mind. 

Brooten asked Lovelady about the FBI photos, seeking to resolve the controversy about which shirt he wore on 11/22. He asked Lovelady if the FBI asked him to wear the clothes he wore on 11/22. And Lovelady said no. And he should have left it at that. Instead, he said that he asked the FBI agents if he should wear the clothes he wore on 11/22, and they told him no. Now you see, I find that hard to believe. Why would Lovelady, who comes across as a very timid, shy guy, interject any conditions into the photo shoot? It was like he was offering to wear the clothes, or even suggesting that he should. And it comes across as totally out of character for him. It was their photo shoot. I think it's ridiculous to think that Lovelady would have interjected anything. This was pure revisionism. Lovelady was trying to please Brooten, and he tried too hard.

Furthermore, for the picture, the FBI agents did have Lovelady unbutton his shirt like Doorman. Why would they do that unless they thought it was the same shirt? What would be the point?

So, yes, of course, they did ask him to wear the same clothes he wore on 11/22.

And think about it: If Lovelady offered to wear the same clothes he wore on 11/22, why would they say no? The only reason I can think of is because they knew very well that he didn't wear the clothes seen on Doorway Man. Still, I think it is far more likely that they DID ask him to wear the clothes he wore that day, and that he obliged, and they simply didn't notice that the shirt was incompatible. And, they fiddled with his shirt, trying to get it to behave like Oswald's, which it didn't. And they did nothing to match the sunken t-shirt on Doorman, it being Oswald's deformed t-shirt, the result of him stretching it.  

    

The ultimate irony and stupidity is that because of the boneheaded mistake of two FBI agents, the FBI had to go into the movie business, to place Lovelady into films wearing a longsleeved plaid shirt, yet, it's plain as day that Doorman's shirt is NOT plaid. Plaid refers to horizontal and vertical lines crossing and forming boxes. Think checkerboard. On thesaurus.com, they list "checked" as a synonym for plaid, and that is the word that Harold Weisberg preferred to use. But, Doorman's shirt is not checked. It doesn't have a single check. It's just vaguely mottled. 

That is the HSCA scan of Doorman, and there isn't a single box or check on it. So, how could Kenneth Brooten look at this:

and think that he was seeing this:

Stupidity, that's how. 

One more thing: Brooten asked Lovelady how long before he re-entered the TSBD building after the shooting, and Lovelady said 20 to 25 minutes, and that was also a lie. In his Warren Commission testimony, he explained, in detail, how he and Shelley walked to the railroad tracks, part of the throng of people who did that. That was immediately after the shooting, and once there, they looked around for a minute or so, and then they doubled back to the TSBD, re-entering through the back door. Once inside, they encountered Roy Truly, who told them to guard the freight elevator.  Then, they took the police up to the 6th floor. But, the point is that they reentered the building much sooner than 20 to 25 minutes after the shooting. So, why did Lovelady say that? He said it because Brooten had already shown him the image of Psychedelic Lovelady, supposedly from the Martin film, who is a variant of Gorilla Man

which Lovelady dutifully identified as himself, beard and all. And Groden had interjected that it was taken about 15 minutes after the shooting. With that in mind, Lovelady said 20 to 25 minutes. And by the way, both Lovelady and his wife professed to never having seen any of the other images of himself that they were shown. 

But, the gist of it is that this was Billy Lovelady lying his head off, desperately telling Kenneth Brooten anything and everything he wanted to hear. Lovelady would have identified an image of Pope Pius XII as himself, if asked. This taped interview was a substitute for Lovelady going to Washington DC to testify to the HSCA, which he desperately did not want to do. And that's no exaggeration. Brooten immediately quit his job with the HSCA just to represent Lovelady. I'll say it again: FOR THE FIRST AND ONLY TIME IN THE HISTORY OF JURISPRUDENCE, A GOVERNMENT LAWYER QUIT HIS JOB IN ORDER TO REPRESENT A WITNESS IN THE CASE. It's breathtaking. It's mindblowing. It is unbefrickinlievable. So, why did Brooten do that? He did it because he knew that Lovelady was a powder keg, a very shaky witness, that he could never hold up to any kind of cross, that he didn't like talking about any of this (and it's because he didn't like to lie and was lousy at it.) By quitting his job to represent Lovelady, Brooten figured that all questions, demands, etc. would come to him, Brooten, and he would handle them. He would do the talking. He was going to shield Lovelady- from the government, from the press, and from all others. He didn't want Lovelady talking to anybody. And when Lovelady died of a heart attack at the tender age of 41 right before the HSCA report came out, Brooten blamed conspiracy theorists for his death. 

Ken Brooten is still alive. Larry Rivera tried to contact him in Florida where he lives, asking him to answer some questions and discuss some issues concerning his HSCA experience, but Brooten never responded. Here is the link to the video. Again: Billy Lovelady, frantically desperate, lied his head off to get out of going to Washington. He would have said anything. I do mean anything. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SCQ7UBH1PU