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

I wrote about Bill Shelley, that he had a background in military intelligence and the CIA, and now I'm going to write about Roy Truly, but first, I want to emphasize how non-credible the book-distributing was at the TSBD. 

They did NOT retail books to the public. It was entirely wholesale distribution to schools. Yet, those order-fillers, were opening boxes to remove units, and they were gathering orders the size of which that they could hold and carry in their hands. They didn't have carts or wagons. They had clipboards. And what did they even need a clipboard for? How about just a piece of paper that had the titles, the number of units, and the name of the school? What did they need the board for? 

So, even though schools were, supposedly, ordering books for classes, the order-fillers were filling small orders- exclusively. 

In the image, you can see the tall stacks of boxes, each of which was over 30 pounds. The small print on the box shows the word Mathematics, but that is the only word that is legible. Imagine if you had to look through those stacks for a certain title. And if you found what you were looking for, and the box was unopened, how did you open it? Wouldn't you need a razor-knife, or in 9/11 parlance, a box-cutter? They certainly weren't lifting 30-plus pound boxes down from high stacks and taking them to the first floor. That wasn't happening. 

The TSBD had 33 employees. If the income of the business was derived from book sales, how could a few guys gathering small, hand-held book orders, and taking them to Troy West, the mailer, to wrap in brown paper and tie with string generate enough revenue to cover the salaries, plus, all the other expenses, including the cost of the books; the cost of heating and cooling the building; electricity; advertising, etc. How does the economics of that work? 

Now, what about Roy Truly? We don't know much about him. He was born and raised in Hubbard, Texas, which is a small town about 100 miles northeast of Waco. During the war years, he worked for an aviation company, and apparently, he performed no military service. William Manchester, in The Death of a President, wrote that Truly was an extreme right-winger, that he hated Kennedy for being a "race-mixer." His job title was Building Superintendent. That sounds like he oversaw the maintenance of the building. So, why was he the one hiring order-fillers? Was he overseeing the building, or the book distributing, or both? 

Reportedly, Officer Marrion Baker got off his motorcycle and ran to the TSBD entrance, where Roy Truly offered to help him. Together, they proceeded to the back of the building to the freight elevators, but neither was available because no one sent them down. So, they took the stairs instead. Usually, the story goes that Truly led the way and Baker followed, but Baker got delayed on the 2nd floor landing because he saw somebody moving through the anteroom. 

It's important to understand what the anteroom was. It was a passageway room that had 3 doors. One door was from the office side; another was from the stairwell; and the third was to the lunch room itself. Oswald entered the anteroom from the office side, and we can be sure of that because the room was so small- just a cubbyhole- that if he had entered from the stairwell, that door would still have been moving. But, that door was closed and not moving. It was completely stationary. Since Oswald was still in the anteroom, he must have used the other door, the one on the office side. Therefore, it proves that Oswald did NOT come down from the 6th floor; he came up from the 1st floor. So, Baker's testimony completely exonerates Oswald. 

But then, upon seeing a man move through the anteroom, Baker drew his gun and followed him into the room. And by the time he got there, the man, Oswald, had moved about 20 feet through the lunch room when Baker ordered him to stop. Oswald had no Coke. Both, Baker and Truly were adamant about that. And they could not have conspired to lie. They didn't know each other. You don't conspire to commit perjury with a complete stranger. Then, Truly returned, looking for Baker, and that's when he reassured him that Oswald was harmless. By word and expression, Truly communicated to Baker that Oswald worked for him and could not possibly be involved in what happened. And that worked. Baker lost interest in Oswald, and he and Truly went on. 

I know there are people who deny that any of this happened, but it did. Oswld said it did. He told Fritz, Bookhout, and Hosty that he encountered a police officer in the 2nd floor lunch room. He wasn't referring to prior to the assassination because there is no chance that it happened then. It had to be after. And he certainly wouldn't have made it up. 

So, Oswald confirmed the 2nd floor lunch room encounter, and anyone who denies that it happened is calling Oswald a liar. But, Oswald had no reason to lie because he was innocent.  

But then, Roy Truly went on to sic the police on Oswald. Reportedly, there was a workers roll call and Oswald wasn't present for it. On that basis, Truly made him a suspect in the killing of Kennedy. And he had no trouble getting the Police to jump on it; to get them to issue an all-points bulletin for the arrest of Oswald- over the roll call and nothing else.  

But, Oswald wasn't the only one not present for the roll call. Charles Givens also wasn't present. He had left for the day. So, why didn't Truly suspect him? And if Truly had any capacity at all to suspect Oswald, why didn't he suspect him in the lunch room? Why was he so adamant to Baker that Oswald couldn't be the man, but then change his mind a short while later over a roll call? Oswald could have been using the head. He could have been talking to somebody. He could have been calling his wife. And remember that the roll call wasn't a regular thing; it was an impromptu thing. I don't know who else wasn't present besides Oswald and Givens, but there may have been others. But regardless, you don't suspect Oswald of murder over that. 

So, the contradiction of Truly brushing Oswald off to Baker, but then less than half an hour later, alerting police to Oswald's absence at a roll call, and with great suspicion that he was the killer, doesn't make sense. It's a complete reversal. 

The explanation is that Truly was involved in the plot. Baker wasn't, but Truly was. And Truly did not want Baker to arrest Oswald at the TSBD. The plan was for police to capture Oswald at the Texas Theater with the hope that they would kill him there. But, they couldn't kill him unless he was armed. There would have been no grounds to shoot an unarmed man. So, someone must have told Oswald to go to the Texas Theater and seen to it that he was armed. 

I have mentioned repeatedly that John Armstrong did a great job proving that Oswald did not order a rifle from Klein's Sporting Good in Chicago, and he did an equally good job of proving that Oswald did not order a pistol from Seaport Traders. You can read it here:

 https://harveyandlee.net/Guns/Pistol.html

I don't know who gave Oswald the order to go to the Theater, but someone did. He certainly didn't go there to watch a war movie. And of course, Oswald didn't shoot Tippit, but someone who looked like him did. It's a speculation as to why Tippit was killed, but one reason may have been simply to turn Oswald into cop-killer, so that police at the theater would be trigger-happy and kill him before he said a word. It didn't work out that way, but it could have and almost did. 

But, to finish on Truly, he had no reason to suspect Oswald. Just think about all the people you know, including your friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, etc. How many of them could you suspect of being a murderer? It takes a certain capacity to be a murderer, doesn't it? Isn't it fair to say that most people aren't murderers by nature? Sure, in an emergency, in response to someone else who was being violent or threatening to be violent, they might be able to kill easily. But, the commission of cold-blooded murder is outside the realm of most people. Wouldn't it take more than absence from a roll call for you to suspect someone of murder?  What about Oswald made Truly think he was capable of murder? What about Oswald made Truly think he would want to murder John Kennedy? Why would Truly even think that Oswald owned a rifle? Since Oswald had never shown the slightest tendency towards violence, or even enmity or anger, what reason was there to think that there was any chance that he shot Kennedy? His absence from the roll call doesn't cut it.

The killing of Kennedy was a CIA operation, and the TSBD, which was a CIA front company, had the task of framing Oswald. Truly and his underling Bill Shelley were both involved. Truly is the one who placed Oswald in the police crosshairs.  I wish I knew how Roy Truly got involved with the CIA, but I probably never will. He worked for the book distributor since 1934, although back then, the company was called the Hugh Perry Book Depository. It has also been reported that both Truly and Shelley were not being paid by the TSBD but by David Byrd, the oil tycoon who owned the building. What's up with that?