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

The TSBD wasn't really distributing books. It was supposed to be textbook distributing to schools, but there were no school-size orders. A school orders books by the box, right? For classes? But, the "order-fillers" had just a clipboard but no cart or wagon. There is no evidence that any wholesaling was going on. And, the order-fillers brought their small, hand-held orders to one guy: Troy West, the mail-wrapper. He wrapped the order in brown paper, sealed it with tape you had to wet, and then used a Bowes string machine to slap cord around it. But, that could only apply to small retail orders, but supposedly, they didn't do that. They didn't sell to the public; they sold only to schools. And look what Troy West said: 

Mr. BELIN - Well I have a first floor map here of the Texas School Book Depository. Here is Elm Street and here is the front entrance. Here is Mr. Truly's office, and Here is Mr. Shelley's office. There is the stairway down to the basement, and there are the elevators and the back stairway. There are the toilets there. About where would you wrap mail there? Here is the Domino room and the shower. You are looking here, that is north Elm Street runs this way and Houston Street runs that way. It is shown on the diagram. 

Mr. WEST - Well, my place was in the west side of the other building. 

So, Troy West didn't even work in that building. And that just 

makes the whole thing even more confusing. What the hell was 

going on there?

I propose that these boxes were empty or they contained something other than books. You can't tell me that the order-fillers had to go fishing for books in stacks like this because I refuse to believe it. 

Nobody would run a business that way. A business has to be run efficiently. The small size of the orders is inexplicable, but besides having no carts or wagons, the order-fillers had no ladders. How were they supposed to get to the top of those stacks? I put those numbers there to show you that there were 7 boxes stacked. Who would do that? Nobody would. They even tell you not to go higher than 3 because the weight of the books crushes the ones on the bottom.  We have never seen a forklift either. And there is no discernible, legible writing on the boxes- at least none that we can see. So, how were they supposed to find what they were looking for? So, if you were supposed to get 3 copies of Dick and Jane go to the Zoo, how were you supposed to find it? And how long would it take? How much profit was there in those 3 copies to have to pay an order-filler to hunt and peck for them? That is no way to run a business. It isn't remotely possible to successfully run a business like that. 

And why, if these guys were filling orders all morning, don't we see finished results? I mean a pile of parcels ready to be taken to the post office that were wrapped and tied and labeled and stamped.

William Weston says that the TSBD was involved in espionage, and guns and narcotics smuggling, and they were doing it under the guise of book distributing. But, were they doing some book distributing? And what exactly were those order-fillers doing? 

Let's put that aside for now. I want to point out that Oswald was NOT comfortable working there. He was extremely reclusive. He was not friendly. He ate alone. He never socialized with any of them. He got rides from Frazier, but I suspect he was just barely conversational to him too. He wasn't interested in being his friend. But, this is in great contrast to how Oswald was in Russia, where he was popular, well liked, sociable, conversational, engaging, etc. So, what did he think of the TSBD? Did he have a sense that it wasn't legit? 

Now, fast forward to 11/22/63. Oswald was the patsy. They were going to say that he shot Kennedy from the 6th floor. Do you realize what it means? It means that they had to control his movements. They had to make sure he didn't wander so far from the 6th floor that linking him to it was impossible. In a word, they had to make sure that he didn't leave the building. 

And yet, Oswald, seemingly moved around freely during his lunch break. I'm sure he was being watched constantly, but did anyone actually say to him, 'Don't go outside." We don't know. But regardless, they must have had someone at the front door and the back door and the side door, the one on Houston Street, to make sure he didn't leave. I know who the person was in front. It was William Shelley. It was reported by Lovelady and others that Shelley was the first to park himself on the steps. He took his position early. Why? Because if Oswald was going to go out, that was the door he was going to use. Shelley was there precisely to block Oswald from leaving. 

So, at about 12:25, Oswald finally came out the front door. But, what was he thinking? What was he planning to do? Maybe he was planning to venture into Dealey Plaza. If Oswald started to descend the steps, Shelley surely stopped him. What reason did he give for why Oswald shouldn't go any further? I don't know, and I'm not going to speculate about that because I would just be guessing. Of course, it's possible that Oswald planned all along to watch from the top landing. But, I think the odds are great that he and Shelley did exchange words over this, and here's why: First, Oswald cited Shelley as the one he was "with" out front. Why didn't he say that he was with Lovelady or with Frazier? Perhaps because he didn't react with them, but he did react with Shelley. 

But, the second reason is that Shelley must have been alarmed, as in freaked out, when Oswald came out. And I have to think that he would have been driven, if only for his own peace of mind, to lay the law down to Oswald-immediately- that he wasn't going one step further than that landing.  So, I think they interacted over that. And I think they interacted again at the end when Oswald left for the lunch room.  I think that Shelley either ordered him to go there or ordered him to go near there- for something. And again, I won't speculate about what because it would just be guessing. And there is some evidence for it because David Wiegman did a second pass of the doorway from the press car, and it must be because he saw/heard some commotion. I'm thinking that Shelley interacting with Oswald was the commotion. Did Oswald make a fuss? Did Shelley have to strong-arm him? It's possible.  So, the reason Oswald said that he was out with Bill Shelley in front is because he engaged with Shelley- they interacted.  

Now, if I could just figure out what those order-fillers were doing.