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

In addition to all the visual reasons I've given for why it had to be Oswald standing in the doorway, there is also the simple fact that there is no place else he could have been but the doorway.

He wasn't up the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy, and I'm not talking to the pinks and punks here. I'm talking to Professor James Norwood. Oswald wasn't up on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy, now was he, Dr. Norwood? So, if you don't think that's him in the doorway, where do you think he was? He had to be somewhere. And don't you think that after denying that it's him in the doorway, that you might feel a responsibility to say where he was? It is a very finite situation. There aren't that many places he could have been. 

Do you think he was in the lunch room? But, Oswald said he ate his lunch in the first floor lunch room (where he always ate lunch) early in the lunch break at a time that James Jarman and Harold Norman were milling around. And that was definitely early in the lunch break because they said so. It had to be because by 12:30, they were up on the 5th floor where they were photographed. And all Oswald had to eat was a cheese sandwich and and apple. How long does it take to eat that? And it probably wasn't a very big apple because Ruth Paine had young children, and she wouldn't be buying big apples; she'd be buying little ones.

That is what Oswald told police, and they had the means to confirm it. They could have gone to that lunch room and looked for the remnants of his lunch: a small paper bag, an apple core, crusts of bread, wax paper? There had to be some refuse. But, they never mentioned doing it. If I could think of it, don't you think the Dallas Police could? But, who is to say they didn't? Who is to say they didn't go there and collect that evidence and destroy it? But, the point is that they could have done it, and if they didn't find it, they could have said so. "Oswald told us he ate lunch in the lunch room, a cheese sandwich and an apple, but we found no remnants of it in the garbage." What I'm saying is that it implies that Oswald was telling the truth, since if he was lying, they could easily have proven it. 

Oswald got off work at 11:45, just like everyone else. So, why wouldn't he proceed to eat his lunch? He hadn't eaten all day. We know that for sure. Ruth Paine said that the only thing he had that morning at her house was coffee. And he worked all morning, schlepping books around, filling those orders. So, why wouldn't he be ready to eat at 11:45? And what did he have to do instead of eat? Nothing. So, he said that he ate then, and it makes perfect sense that he would have eaten then. And therefore, it makes no sense that he would be eating at 12:30, which was 45 minutes later.

And remember the testimony of Officer Marrion Baker, who said that he saw Oswald just entering the lunch room on the 2nd floor at 12:31. Repeat: Oswald was just getting there at 12:31 when Baker saw him. So, since he was just getting there then, there is no basis to claim that he was there a minute before. 

So, there is no basis to claim that Oswald was in either lunch room at 12:30. So, where else could he have been?

There is no other place that he could have been, that is, there is no other place with any credibility.  Do you want to say he was in the bathroom coaxing his bowels? Sorry. You can't say it. You have no basis to say it. You see: you can't make things up. You can only go where the evidence leads. And speculations that are not tied to the evidence do not belong in the discussion.  

So, since Oswald wasn't up on the 6th floor shooting at Kennedy, and since he wasn't in either of the lunch rooms at 12:30 (Note: he did get to the 2nd floor lunch room at 12:31 but we're talking about where he was 12:30), there really is no place else but the doorway that he could have been. So, the doorway wins even by default. And the reality of that makes the photographic evidence of him in the Altgens photo and the Wiegman film even more compelling. 

But, my point is that, for the people who object to him being in the doorway without stipulating where he was instead, that it demonstrates how vacuous their thinking is, how faulty their reasoning, and helpless and hopeless they are at studying the case. 

It is a sad and pathetic state of affairs when someone reaches the point that they simply want a certain outcome in the JFK case, that they want something to be true because emotionally they need it. 

If Oswald had lived and been tried (and that is purely theoretical because they were never going to let that happen) the State would have been screwed. If he had survived the Sunday plot with James Bookhout pretending to be Jack Ruby, say if Parkland doctors could have saved him, they would have thought of another way to kill him. They could never, under any circumstances, let him to be tried. Remember: all the evidence against him was fake. He never ordered or owned any rifle. Read John Armstrong.  And as soon as he talked to a lawyer, the lawyer would have realized that the authorities weren't just mistaken about Oswald, rather, the authorities were framing him. And think also about the fact that if Oswald had lived and been tried, the State would never have been able to do its Stepford Wife thing to Marina, and she would have been Oswald's witness and testified for him. You've heard of spousal privilege?  And there are more reasons why a trial of Oswald would have turned into a trial of the State. 

So, Oswald had to be exterminated, and no matter how many times it took to do it, they'd have done it. But theoretically, if a trial had ensued, his presence in the doorway would have been the core of his defense.  And that's because a defendant's alibi is always the core of his defense. 

Yet, alas, it's true that in all the mock trials, and there have been quite a few, the only one in which it came up was the 1984 British one, which was the most elaborate one, and in it, Gerry Spence only tepidly suggested that it was Oswald in the doorway. He didn't pursue it vigorously. After he got Marrion Baker to admit that the Doorway Man looked like Oswald, Vincent Bugliosi put the demented Frazier up there, who said it was Lovelady. And that's when Spence should have treated Frazier as a hostile witness and really gone after him. But, he didn't. He was soft and gentle with Frazier, and I think it's because Frazier has got this child-like quality about him. Spence didn't challenge him at all. And the result was that his brief foray into the doorway question did absolutely no good. He should have made it the crux of Oswald's defense. 

But, you can be sure that in real life, if a trial had happened, the doorway would have been the core and the crux of Oswald's defense. Have no doubt about it. You know how adamant Oswald was, and he would have adamantly told his lawyer or lawyers that he was in the doorway. And that's especially true after they showed him the Altgens photo, which they surely would have.

But, what I'm getting at is this: if there were a mock trial in which Oswald's presence in the doorway was the basis for his defense,  then people like James Norwood would hope and pray that he gets convicted. That's how sick and twisted the situation is. He would jump for joy as soon as he heard the word, "Guilty." And again there isn't even another theoretical place Oswald could have been but the doorway. Oswald was DEFINITELY in the doorway. People like Norwood can't even proffer an alternative. So, what does that tell you? 

But, the good news is that we have made an awful lot of progress. and people like Norwood are irrelevant. Oswald in the doorway is back, and he's back for good. He is never going away again. And the fact of his presence in the doorway will be at the fore and forte when JFK truth triumphs.