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

 The TSBD moved into the 411 Elm building the summer of 1963. Few people are aware of that. And lies are often told about it. But, William Weston, the author of The Spider's Web: The TSBD and the Dallas plot, he found a quote by Roy Truly admitting that they just moved into the building that summer.

But, why did they move there? They were previously across the street in the Dal-Tex Building. They occupied just one floor, the first floor, of the Dal-Tex building. So, why would a company that was operating with just one floor move into a gigantic 7 story building?

But, the story goes that once the TSBD moved there that several major book publishers moved their offices into the building as well. I wonder if it's true or if it's just another lie. I say that because: why would a book publisher think that it needed to be located in the same warehouse as a book distributor? What's the benefit? Where's the advantge? I can't see any purpose in it. One publishes books, while the other distributes books. Why do they have to be under the same roof? And especially that roof because the place was old, dingy and ugly.

And the way the TSBD kept it, so sloppy and dilapidated, had to be depressing. Imagine having to work at that unsightly place month. I've known slobs in my life, but this was a slob company. When you look at the squalor of those pictures- it's unbelievable. And there was no organization at all; no system. They just plopped the boxes down on the various floors, and the "order-fillers" had to wade through the mess of it all.

For a minute, think about how YOU woudl organize your book distributing company. Your objective would be to have a system so that everything was very accessible. You would organize it, and you might even do it the way a library is organized or even a retail bookstore, with divisions, sections, and signs telling you exactly where everything is. But, they had nothing like that; just stacks of boxes just plopped down- as much as 7 boxes high!

And there were so many open boxes that it's obvious that they were taking individual books out, rather than shipping whole boxes. If you were shipping whole boxes, you wouldn't have to open any. But again, this was not retail. They were NOT selling to the public. They were providing textbooks to school for classes. Were they all one room, prairie schoolhouses with three students?

And then there was the plywood. The story went that the wholesale grocer who was in there before the TSBD was the John Sexton Company, and they had boxes of meat which leaked meat juice, and lo and behold, the meat juice damaged the books. But wait. Didn't they find that out when they inspected the building to consider renting it? You can't tell me that they didn't learn about it until after they moved in. Don't tenants expect to get a building or a home in good condition?

Then, the solution became to fasten plywood down over it. But, wouldn't that just be like a bandaid? How long before the meat juice soaked into the porous plywood? Why didn't they just clean and dry the floors? It's not like there was a continuing source of meat juice. Theoretically, once they cleaned it up, it would be gone. So, why nail plywood over the problem?

But, plywood was decided on. So, Bill Shelley, who was the supervisor of the "order-fillers," took on the job of "foreman." And the work-crew was the same motley crew of order-fillers that we've all come to know and love.

But, was that a good idea? Construction involves lifting and moving and cutting. Nobody in his right mind would cut plywood with a hand saw- not if square cuts and straight edges matter. Compared to order-filling, it's dangerous work. I know a man who practically cut his hand off with a table saw.

So, on a construction site, the workers are all bonded. There is insurance in case of an accident. You wouldn't proceed without it if you're in business.

But, why use those young whippersnappers in the first place? Why not let them stick to their order-filling and get real craftsmen in there to build the floor? Why try to squeeze skilled work out of these young guys, some of whom were still teenagers?

And the owner of the building was David Harold Byrd, a bazillionaire. Wasn't it his responsibility to provide dry floors to his tenant? So, why didn't he take care of it? Why did they have to do it? They're not the ones who made the mess. Would you rent a place and then undertake construction to deal with the previous tenant's mess?

Now, let's consider how they were doing it. I'm attaching two pictures. One is the 5th floor that had the plywood installed. You can see that that floor is practically empty. There are some boxes on the left, but mostly, the floor is empty. And that's what you'd expect, right? If you were going to install flooring, you would start by clearing the room. Wouldn't you? Well, they didn't do that on the 6th floor. We have many images of the 6th floor- in all its clutter- and even though they started putting plywood down in the southwest corner that morning, they chose to do it by working around the clutter. Is that how you would tackle that job? Not even the worst workman in the world would do it that way.

And by the way, how do you cut plywood without a table? You can cut a 2x4 with a couple saw horses, but you can't cut plywood that way. The cuts are too big and too long. And some plywood is very flimsy. It doesn't look like they were using thick, heavy plywood. It looks like it was pretty thin, cheap stuff. And there's a lot of leverage in an 8 foot board. It's big and unwieldly, and you've got to support it throughout. You need a large table saw with guides to do it right. And, you need plenty of open space around the table to do it effectively and safely.

So, let's try to picture how it was that morning on the 6th floor. You had Billy Lovelad, Bonnie Ray Williams, Harold Normanm, Charles Givens and others, manning the saws and hammers, presumably, though we don't see them. And, you had Bill Shelley in his suit acting as foreman.

And how were they fastening the plywood? You wouldn't use nails, unless it was going to be temporary. It definitely had to be screws if it was permanent. And you'd have to get considerable depth into original floor to make it solid and secure. And that would be a long way to go turning a screwdriver by hand. And you can't tell me they had electric drills for every man to drive those screws in. We're not aware of any drills. And think about how many screws you would want to use on each piece of plywood to secure it. Every 8x4 has a perimeter of 24 feet!

I'm telling you that the book-distributing at the TSBD was bogus and so was the floor-laying. You notice how posed the picture of the finished floor is, with the guys lined up for the picture. That was not taken on 11/22/63. That was taken later as damage control; to legitimize the bogus floor-laying on 11/22/63.

The Texas School Book Depository was CIA, CIA, CIA.