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

How old is Robert K. Tanenbaum? I can't find his date of birth. On Wikipedia, it says he was born in Brooklyn, NY, but it doesn't say when.

So, I'm going to try to deduce it. He went to Cal Berkeley on a basketball scholarship, and then he went to their law school. So, if he was 18 when he started college and did 4 years of college, that puts him at 22. Then, law school is 3 years, right? Alright, now he's a lawyer, and he's 25.  

So then, he goes back to New York. But, he studied law in California, and now he's got to pass the New York bar, which is all about New York law. I don't think it's unreasonable to assign a year to him passing the bar. So, now he's 26.

We know he became the Assistant New York County District Attorney under Frank Hogan. But, that couldn't have been immediately, right? They wouldn't make a new law school graduate the assistant DA, would they? He had to have some years ot litigating experience first, right? To establish his credentials, build a track record, etc. So, how many years do you think he had to work before they made him the Assistant DA? I don't know, but let's be conservative here and say 5. I can't see it being less than that. Alright, so that would mean that he became Assistant DA at age 31. Not bad. 

It says that during his tenure in the DA's office, he never lost a felony case. But, that's only meaningful if he did it for a while, right? So, how long did he do it? I don't know, but let's say 6 years. So now, he's 37. 

It was after his tenure at the Manhatten's DA office that he was appointed to be an attorney for the HSCA. He started out as the deputy to Chief Counsel Richard A. Sprague, and then replaced Sprague as chief counsel after Sprague resigned. The HSCA started in 1976 and went on to 1979. So, how old was Tanenbaum in 1979? Again, I don't know, but by my calculations, he was at least 40.

And, if he was 40 in 1979, then that makes him 78 in 2017. 

But, having done that, I'd say that it's entirely possible that Robert K. Tanenbaum is 80, or over 80. And I wonder to what extent his age contributed to his faulty performance today. Let's face it: 80 is pretty damn old for a human brain. Allen Dulles died with severe dementia at a younger age than that (76). Today, it seemed to me that Tanenbaum was oblivious to the fact that he was making no headway with the judge; none whatsoever. Perhaps the judge wrote him off before the trial even started, but even so, Tanenbaum only reinforced that opinion. And don't you think juries take their cues from the judge? It was so obvious that the judge thought of Tanenbaum as nothing but a self-inflated blowhard, and I don't see how the jury could have missed it. I paid attention to them as much as I could, although the camera wasn't on them often. And I saw none of them reacting favorably to Tanenbaum. For instance, as best I could tell, none of them seemed to have their eyes peeled on him. Their posture, which tells a lot, was often lazy-looking, like they were bored. Was it better when the prosecutor Gus Pappas was speaking? Yes, in fact, it was. And the judge was much more respectful to Pappas, and the jury could not have missed it. 

Tanenbaum did nothing right. He didn't even convey a passion for defending Oswald. If it were you, wouldn't you want to convey to the jury that Lee Harvey Oswald is one of the most wronged men in history, and if not the most wronged, then one of the most wronged? That you have sympathy and compassion for him, as should they? There was not the slightest conveyance of that sentiment from Tanenbaum to the jury. Again, he never once stated that Lee Harvey Oswald is innocent, and he never came close to saying it. He never even implied it. At no time did he even come across as Oswald's lawyer.

This trial is truly a disgrace, and I have to wonder if Bob Tanenbaum was chosen precisely because of his advanced age. Put it this way: he couldn't do a better job of losing even if he was deliberately trying to throw the case.