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

 Today, I wrote to Debra Steidel Wall, the Acting Director of the National Archives, and I made the case to her why this image is fraudulent, bogus, and certainly not James Bookhout.

And I asked her to do two things: first, disavow that the National Archives posits Pipe-Man as an image of James Bookhout, and second, remove this image from the Richard E. Sprague Collection for being highly suspect and unvetted.

I could post everything I sent to her, but I won't. That's between me and her. The question is: what is she going to do? How is she going to respond?

There are three possibilities. One: she ignores my letter and says nothing; no response at all. I suppose she might, but frankly, I don't think that would look good. That would be like taking the 5th.

Second, she could respond with an explanation why she is unwilling to do it, and defend the claim that it's Bookhout. I give that a VERY low probability. Because, she's not going to decide on this herself. She's going to call in professional archivists and forensic photo experts, and I don't think they are going to want to vouch for this photo.

And third, she could just politely respond and say, "We do not claim to know that this man is James Bookhout. And we will remove the image from the collection, pending further investigation. Thank you for alerting us to this matter."

Now, if I were going to bet on this, I would bet on the third possibility. I think it's the most likely one.

But, one of those three things is going to happen, and we'll find it soon enough. I'll post the results, and if there is no response, I'll tell you that too.

So, place your bets. What do you all think is going to happen?

Me, I'm not worried.