“Investigations: Between Two Fires” – Time Magazine’s
Valentine’s Day Massacre of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Character
as an Example of Bias in Media

by Judyth Vary Baker



INTRODUCTION

On Valentine’s Day in 1929, Al Capone’s gang had two men dress up as policemen. They entered a garage, and lined up six mobsters and a doctor from a rival crime syndicate facing a wall. Two men in ordinary clothes entered the garage and opened fire, massacring the men facing the wall. Witnesses outside the garage heard gunfire, but felt safe when they saw two policemen leaving the scene of the crime with the two gunmen walking ahead of them, their hands raised in the air. To the outside world, the police had done their job. But what the witnesses saw was the use of “the law” to get away with murder.
(Ref: “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre…” www.mysterynet.com/vdaymassacre/ )
It is now believed that “the law” and uniformed police were also used in another famous incident – the arrest and condemnation of Lee Harvey Oswald, accused of killing President Kennedy mere minutes after his arrest. According to the Dallas Police department arrest record, Oswald was immediately charged with the murders of Kennedy and Tippitt. He was also charged with wounding Governor Connelly.
Pg. 179 of the Warren Report states “At 1:51 p.m., police car 2 reported by radio that it was on the way to headquarters with the suspect.” Oswald was arrested a few minutes prior to that report – no earlier than 1:45. But the arrest report was made out with the time of arrest shown as 1:40PM, even though police weren’t called to the scene until 1:45 according to the Warren Commission and Dallas Police radio records.




What is disturbing is that the arrest report shows the arrest was made at 1:40 PM. But it wasn’t until 1:45 p.m. that the police arrived at the Texas Theater, according to p. 143 of the Warren Commission Report. Between the Dallas Police and the Warren Commission, we find an abundance of such discrepancies. This was the investigation of the death of President Kennedy, and we cannot find them with the same data.
A blatant example of manipulated information and evidence by the Dallas Police is summarized by the saga of the bullets and their casings as described by the Dallas Police, versus what the FBI laboratories reported.

The Bullets and Officer Tippit: an Example of Bias at the Basic Level
In a footnote to an article titled “Lee Harvey Oswald’s “Murder” of Policeman JD Tippit,” (REF: http://scribblguy.50megs.com/tippit.htm), the reader is encouraged to


learn the difference between a regular revolver and an automatic hand gun in order to realize how Lee Oswald was framed:
To appreciate the injustice described here, it is necessary to understand the difference between an automatic hand gun and a revolver. An automatic contains the bullets in a clip, which fits inside its [large, fat] handle. Each time the gun is fired, the empty cartridge remaining in the chamber is automatically flipped out by the ejector mechanism… [and] the new cartridge and bullet are pushed up into place by a spring at the bottom of the clip… each time the automatic flips out a used cartridge it leaves on it an ineradicable mark of the ejector mechanism….A revolver…[ has a smaller gripping handle] and holds its cartridges and bullets in a circular, revolving chamber and does not automatically eject each cartridge as fired…A revolver…leaves only the mark of the firing pin. “
The article quotes from New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s book, On the Trail of the Assassins. Garrison, who was also a former FBI agent, is the featured character in the much-maligned Oliver Stone movie, JFK, which over the years has proven to be closer to the truth than its critics want you to believe. A big Internet website spends pages and pages telling the reader that Oliver Stone’s film, which is not a documentary, isn’t an accurate documentary. Duh! Here’s what the real Jim Garrison had to say about the bullets in the Tippit murder case (bold face mine):
…I discovered that beyond the eyewitnesses there was other evidence gathered and altered by the Dallas homicide unit showing that Lee Oswald had been framed in the Tippit murder.
For instance…Just minutes after a citizen first reported the murder on Tippit's radio. Patrolman H.W. Summers in Dallas police unit number 221 (the designation for the squad car) reported that an "eyeball witness to the getaway man" had been located. The suspect was described as having black wavy hair, wearing an Eisenhower jacket of light color, with dark trousers and a white shirt. He was "apparently armed with a .32, dark finish, automatic pistol," which he had in his right hand. Moments later, Sergeant G. Hill reported that "the shell at the scene indicates that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38 rather than a pistol."



It seemed clear to me from this that the hand gun used to shoot Tippit was an automatic. But the gun allegedly taken from Lee Oswald when Dallas police later arrested him at the Texas Theatre was a revolver. Unless Oswald had stopped and changed guns, which no one had ever suggested, this fact alone put a severe hole in the government's case.
The bullets found in Officer Tippit's body and the cartridges found at the scene of his murder yielded further evidence of the frame-up. The Dallas coroner had conducted an autopsy on Tippit's body and had removed four bullets from it. Three of them, it turned out, were copper-coated and had been manufactured by the Winchester Western company. The fourth, however, was a lead bullet made by the Remington-Peters company
This was awfully strange… bullets were never sold in mixed lots. Gun users bought either a box of all Winchesters or one of all Remingtons, but not some of each. The discovery of two different makes of bullets in Tippit's body indicated to me and would indicate to most experienced police officers a likelihood that two different gunmen did the shooting. This was consistent with the eyewitness testimony of Acquilla Clemons and Mr. and Mrs. Wright.
When a homicide occurs…the police homicide division [sends]…the bullets and cartridges to the F.B.I. Iaboratory in Washington, D.C. for study and possible identification of the gun that fired them. In this case, the Dallas homicide unit,…sent only one bullet to the F.B.I. Iab, informing the Bureau that this was the only bullet found in Tippit's body.
To everyone's surprise, the Bureau lab found that the bullet did not match Oswald's revolver. When it discovered this oddity, the Warren Commission…[looked] for other bullets that might match up better. Although the Commission never received a copy of Tippit's autopsy report, somehow it found out that four bullets rather than merely one had been found in Tippit's body. The ordinarily incurious Commission asked the F.B.I. to inquire about the three missing


bullets, and they were found after four months gathering dust in the files of the Dallas homicide division. These bullets were sent to the F.B.I. Iab. But Special Agent Courtlandt Cunningham, the ballistics expert from the lab, testified before the Commission that the lab was unable to conclude that any of the four bullets found in Tippit's body had been fired by the revolver taken from Lee Oswald.
The cartridges allegedly found at the scene proved even more problematic. While the bullets had initially been under the control of the coroner who found them in Tippit's body, the cartridges, the metal casings which provide propulsion power to the bullets, were Dallas homicide's responsibility from the outset.
On the very day of Officer Tippit's murder, Dallas homicide had made a summary of all the evidence it had in the case, a most important standard police procedure. Although a number of witnesses mentioned that they had seen cartridges strewn around after the shooting and the early recorded radio messages had described the murder weapon as an automatic because of the ejector marks on cartridges found at the scene, this summary did not include cartridges of any kind.
It was not until six days after it had sent the single bullet to the F.B.I. Iab in Washington that the Dallas homicide division finally added four cartridges allegedly found at the scene to the Tippit evidence summary. The cartridges were then sent off to Washington, and the Bureau lab promptly reported back that they indeed had been fired by the same revolver that Oswald allegedly purchased through the mail under the alias of A. Hidell….[but] the late appearance of the cartridges only focused more attention on the Dallas homicide unit's unconscionable manipulation of evidence.
I knew that if the cartridges had actually been fired by Oswald before his arrest, they routinely would have been included in the summary of evidence and sent off to the F.B.l. Iab on the evening of the murder. But these cartridges were not sent until well *after* Dallas homicide had learned that the lab could not find positive markings from Oswald's gun on the single bullet. (This evaluation would have come from the Washington lab to the Dallas Bureau office by telex within 24 hours.)

It seemed clear to me what had happened. Having failed to get a positive identification with Oswald's revolver from the bullet, Dallas homicide was not about to send off cartridges with an automatic hand gun's ejector marks on them, even if these were the actual cartridges found at the scene. Instead, someone in the homicide division or cooperating with it had fired the confiscated revolver *after* Oswald's arrest, thereby obtaining the needed cartridges bearing its imprint. Then those cartridges were sent to Washington.
However, competence was not the Dallas homicide unit's strong suit, even in fabricating evidence. The F.B.I. Iab found that *two* of the cartridge cases had been manufactured by Western and *two* by Remington. Since the lab had already concluded that *three* of the bullets found in Tippit's body were copper-coated Westerns and *one* was a lead Remington, these numbers simply did not add up.
Worse yet, at the Warren Commission hearings it became embarrassingly apparent that the used cartridges that the Dallas homicide team had sent to the F. B.l. Iab were not the cartridges actually found at the scene of Tippit's murder. One witness, Domingo Benavides, found two used cartridge shells not far from the shooting and handed them to Officer J.M. Poe. Dallas Police Sergeant Gerald Hill instructed Poe to mark them i.e., to scratch his initials on them in order to maintain the chain of evidence. This is standard operating procedure for all homicide officers everywhere.
Poe informed the Warren Commission that he believed he had marked them, but he could not swear to it. At the Commission hearing Poe examined four cartridges that were shown to him but was unable to identify his marks on them. Sergeant W.E. Barnes informed the Commission that he had received two cartridges from Officer Poe back at police headquarters and had added his own initials to them. However, he too was unable to positively identify the two shells.

No wonder Jim Garrison, a former FBI man, tried to solve the murder by indicting Clay Shaw Dr. Alton Ochsner, a longtime close friend of Shaw’s, as stated in Surgeon of the South, his official biography, feared he would be arrested, too. We now know that tremendous efforts were made using the media to discredit Garrison’s investigation. Not only newspapers and magazines, but even TV and radio programs united in criticizing Garrison. A close look at emerging evidence since 2000 indicates that the government actively influenced the media in these efforts, but this is another story to look at later.
Evidence has also emerged that Officer Tippit may have been shot for private reasons unconnected to Oswald, but it gave an excuse to bring many police into the same area – Oak Cliff -- where Lee Oswald was. The fact that Dallas police first sought their suspect in the nearby public library (Oswald’s favorite after-work haunt) indicates that police had been tipped off where to look for him.
It should be evident by now that Oswald was framed, though we have offered but a single example -- additional instances are also on record.
Erroneous information in this highly political case reached not only the media, but also the Warren Commission. It was announced that “without a doubt,” Oswald had murdered Tippit. The media lapped it up.
One should ask, why was Oswald being set up for Tippit’s murder? The answer might be that the Dallas Police would be more likely to kill the suspect when he was apprehended. Oswald probably saved himself from getting shot on the spot in the Texas Theater by shouting, “I am not resisting arrest!” and “Police brutality!”
The police might also have been more willing to cooperate with directives to plant evidence against Lee Oswald if they were convinced that he shot one of their own. Any mistreatment of Oswald by police would be excusable because of his “cold-blooded murder” of Tippit.

The Government and Police Were Initially in Charge of Information Release

Information the first few days of the assassination was doled out to the press and media through the FBI, the CIA, the Dallas Police, and the District Attorney. Only later, when independent interviews and investigations of those events could be made can we lay blame on media, saying it was biased in its reportage.
On top of that, we must remember the deep impact of this tragic event on everyone. The President had been murdered, but police were being lauded because his supposed killer had been arrested quickly. But then the accused assassin was suddenly gunned down. It was that shocking event that created question marks: in Europe, as many of my friends here have reminded me, there was little doubt that Oswald was the patsy he said he was. The violent elimination of accused assassins was something Europeans had seen before. In general, Europeans never bought into the Official Version. By January,


1964, Lord Bertrand Russell had launched a committee to try to look into the murky depths of the matter. The committee’s findings would be ignored in America. For Americans still trusted their government (it wouldn’t last much longer).

When Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade told reporters that there was no doubt that Oswald had killed both Kennedy and Tippit, he was generally believed.



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Reporter: "Did you shoot the President?"Oswald: "I did not shoot anybody, no sir."
The PSE chart of Oswald's statement reveals no stress. Lie detection experts have confirmed that Oswald was telling the truth. Ref: The Assassination Tapes: An electronic probe into the Murder of John F. Kennedy and the Dallas cover-up, George O'Toole, Penthouse Press Ltd., New York, 1975. This voice-stress analysis printout shows Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent. Such tests are more reliable than polygraphs.

Lee Oswald was also denied legal counsel. This shameful denial of the prisoner’s rights occurred despite the fact that Oswald spoke directly to reporters saying, “I do request – -that someone to come forward -- to give me – legal assistance.” On YouTube and elsewhere, that plea for help, and two others, can be seen on film: “…they have given me a hearing without legal representation or anything,” he first stated, and, “I’d like some legal representation,” he said later, “…these police officers have not allowed me to have any…”
But nobody stepped forward. ACLU lawyers later said they were turned away. Oswald’s request for legal assistance was buried with him by the police.
Soon after the accused assassin was killed by mobster Jack Ruby, Dallas police authorities told the media that Oswald had refused a lawyer when he was arraigned. That’s how fast the truth was altered. Researcher Gil Jesus spoke on Black Op Radio on Nov. 1, 2009, listing the incidents where Oswald supposedly refused counsel, in contradiction to the testimony of witnesses. Read the text and see the citations at my blog:
(Ref: http://oswald-not-guilty.blogspot.com/2009/11/lee-harvey-oswald-was-not-allowed-to.html )

Attorney Mark Lane, urged by Oswald’s mother, Marguerite Oswald to take the case, came to Lee’s defense after Oswald was buried. Lane’s “Lawyer’s Brief,” an eight-page “tabloid-sized pamphlet,” soon followed. It was printed by The National Guardian in its December 19, 1963 edition, addressing potent problems with fifteen statements given to the media by Henry Wade, District Attorney for Dallas as evidence of Oswald’s guilt. Though all fifteen statements had problems with honesty or with the reliability of the evidence, which Lane points out – and which has been substantiated through the years, to their shame, the Warren Commission and Oswald-did-it Internet websites still quote from this dismal litany of false accusations.
Lane’s “Lawyer’s brief,” as posted on the Internet, is a valuable introduction to media bias to anyone seeking the truth about the assassination. Most of Lane’s points remain patent today, and many additional difficulties with the case have emerged, along with fresh evidence backing up Lane’s initial observations.
A careful study shows that if damning evidence, reported by the media, turned out to be false, the public was likely not to be told.. Mark Lane addressed an instance of this tendency in his “Point Fifteen”:
Point Fifteen
“A map was found in Oswald’s possession showing the scene of the assassination and the bullet’s trajectory.
THE DAY AFTER Wade’s historic press conference, and three days after the Oswald arrest, a new discovery was made.
“Today Mr. Wade announced that authorities had also found a marked map, showing the course of the President’s motorcade, in Oswald’s rented room. ‘It was a map tracing the location of the parade route,’ the district attorney said, ‘and this place [the Texas School Book Depository, a warehouse from which the fatal shots were fired] was marked with a straight line.’ Mr. Wade said Oswald had marked the map at two other places, ‘apparently places which he considered a possibility for an assassination.’” (New York Times, Nov. 25.)

A document written by the defendant showing his intention to commit a crime is important evidence. It seems incredible, were such a map in the hands of the Dallas authorities on the previous day when Wade presented the evidence, “piece by piece,” that he would have neglected to mention it.

Oswald was arrested three days prior to the map announcement. On the day of his arrest police removed all of his belongings from his room, telling the landlady that Oswald “would not return.” One wonders where the map came from three days later. The same newspapers that hailed the discovery of the map Nov. 25, without a single question as to its legitimacy, origin. or previous whereabouts, totally ignored or buried the last comment regarding this important document. “Dallas officials yesterday denied that such a map exists.” (Washington Post, Nov. 27.)”

By then, the media had labeled Lee H. Oswald as “the sole assassin,” just as the Hoover-inspired Katzenbach memo had wanted:



A SWIFT VERDICT OF GUILTY—N.Y. TIMES HEADLINE NOV. 25
The Times later 'regretted' its failure to qualify the word assassin

The Oswald-did-it headline appeared about the same time the notorious memo from the FBI (the Katzenbach memo, written to Bill Moyers) was circulating, reflecting J. Edgar Hoover’s order to “convince the public” that Oswald was a lone assassin, and that nobody else was involved; “the wrong kind” of investigations were to be quashed, and the public was to be left with no doubts about the matter.
The National Guardian complained about the general bias against Oswald in the United States, evident when Lane’s “Brief “was largely ignored by US media:

“New readers will be interested in the reaction to the publication of the Lane brief. The press reaction was interesting. Except for the Times, no New York newspaper printed a line on the Lane brief. The United Press International got proof sheets in advance and announced it “wouldn’t touch it.” The Associated Press was offered the proofs, but said it was not interested; after the Times story appeared, AP became interested.

Abroad the reaction was quite different. In Rome the Lane brief was scheduled to be printed in full in Paese Sera, the largest in the evening field, and in Liberation in Paris. Oggi, an Italian magazine with a circulation of one million, sought permission to reprint. The Japanese press and news agencies also were on top of the story. Several Mexican papers picked it up, too.”

How could the public doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald was a deranged misfit, a communist, a friendless, smirking malcontent? With an abundance of evidence proving his guilt, mothers stopped naming their children “Lee.” Lee Harvey Oswald had the most hated name in the 1960’s by the time the media was finished with him. Everything stated above can be verified through official records and witness testimony, and has been repeated here only for the uninformed. Though the myth that Oswald killed Kennedy is still propagated on websites (by people who know better), concerned people who have delved into the matter realize that Oswald was framed to hide a complex coup d’etat.

While the Internet provides the intelligent reader and researcher abundant information proving that Oswald was innocent, recently some very old screeds against Oswald have been trotted out. Since these articles were written in 1963-1969, they may be regarded by the unsuspecting public as, thereby, more accurate than material written some five decades later.
But that depends on who wrote them.

“INVESTIGATIONS BETWEEN TWO FIRES”

Criticize Time, Life or other major media outlets at your peril. It can make or break a book, a reputation, a human life. Major media shape public opinion. This was also true in the 1960’s.
Getting Life Magazine and Time Magazine – trusted media resources --to write nasty things about the accused assassin was no hard task. Life had already purchased the Zapruder film that we now know was deeply doctored, even to the point of painting the back of Kennedy’s head black. Life also ‘accidently” printed some frames of the
film backwards, trying to reduce the suggestion in the few frames shown that Kennedy had been thrown violently backwards due to a shot from the front (Oswald’s building was located behind the Presidential limo). (Then) New Orleans reporter Dan Rather helpfully stated that he saw the film (before it was locked up) , and described its contents for all Americans, telling everyone that Kennedy’s head was thrusr forward “with considerable violence,” clearly indicating that Kennedy had been shot from behind. The veteran researcher Penn Jones took Rather to task for his duplicity, which was not limited to what he “saw’ in the Zapruder film:

“But the biggest distortion is what he said he saw when he was one of the few persons in the world privileged to see the Abraham Zapruder film that Saturday morning, November 23. In his narration of the film as part of CBS nationwide television coverage, Rather said the President's head "went forward with considerable violence." This narration confirmed the so-called "Oswald position" for the nation, but he said nothing about the violent backward motion of the President's head which would have strongly suggested a second gunman at that early date.
Actually the President's head went forward for about three inches and then was slammed to the left rear--not consistent with a shot being fired from the "Oswald position" from behind President Kennedy.

[Rather’s] book says this about the incident:
"…Years later, a group of assassination buffs took an audio tape of my description of what I saw in the office of Zapruder's lawyer and laid it over the film as a narration. So the impression was given that Dan Rather was part of a conspiracy. Either that or he was a Communist dupe, or something, how else could he have seen the film, etc. etc."
No one that I know ever thought Rather was a Communist dupe. All I wanted Rather to do was admit his error to the television audience he had misinformed. Grudgingly, he admits the error in his book, but that is not the same as saying so on CBS evening news. “


Penn Jones, Jr., who laid Rather’s narration as a sound track with he Zapruder film, kindly calls Rather’s description “an error,” but I cannot be so kind. Notice that Rather uses the term “assassination buffs” in his excuses for his unconscionable quotation. This is the sleazy term that is also used by Official Version Internet websites notorious for their bias. The biggest “Oswald-did-it” websites typically use the same term to cast aspersions on honest researchers in the case -- researchers who have spent time, money and effort as patriotic citizens to do the job the U.S. government failed to do.

One would never call persons investigating the 2010 BP oil spill disaster, “oil spill buffs.”

As one writer observed, would we call those investigating the Holocaust “holocaust buffs”? The preferred term used today is “conspiracy theorists,” -- as if conspiracies have never occurred, except in theory.

Readers should be aware that there are government officials out there who have recommended a crackdown on “conspiracy theorists,” using the media as its chief weapon:

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Top Obama Czar: Infiltrate all 'conspiracy theorists'
Presidential adviser wrote about crackdown on expressing opinions
________________________________________
Posted: January 14, 2010 12:30 am Eastern By Aaron Klein WorldNetDaily

In a lengthy academic paper, President Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, argued the U.S. government should ban "conspiracy theorizing."
…Sunstein…recommended the government send agents to infiltrate "extremists who supply conspiracy theories" to disrupt the efforts of the "extremists" to propagate their theories.
In a 2008 Harvard law paper, "Conspiracy Theories," Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule, a Harvard law professor, ask, "What can government do about conspiracy theories?"
"We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories."

In the 30-page paper – obtained and reviewed by WND – Sunstein argues the best government response to "conspiracy theories" is "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups."


Continued Sunstein: "We suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories…Sunstein said government agents "might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action."
Sunstein defined a conspiracy theory as "an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role."
Some "conspiracy theories" recommended for ban by Sunstein include…"The view that the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."…"The Trilateral Commission is responsible for important movements of the international economy." …"That Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by federal agents."…The moon landing was staged and never actually occurred."
Sunstein allowed that "some conspiracy theories, under our definition, have turned out to be true."
He continued: "The Watergate hotel room used by Democratic National Committee was, in fact, bugged by Republican officials, operating at the behest of the White House. In the 1950s, the CIA did, in fact, administer LSD and related drugs under Project MKULTRA, in an effort to investigate the possibility of 'mind control.'”
…WND reported that in a recently released book, "On Rumors," Sunstein argued websites should be obliged to remove "false rumors" while libel laws should be altered to make it easier to sue for spreading such "rumors." ....Sunstein compared the need for the government to regulate broadcasting to the moral obligation the U.S. had to impose new rules that outlawed segregation…”

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The media admittedly has problems reporting controversial news material: it isn’t fun or profitable to be banned from a White House press conference for happening to write a less popular opinion. Efforts to conscientiously and accurately report controversial events are impeded by government influences, as exemplified by Dan Rather’s less-than-honest description of the long-hidden Zapruder film. We basically have the much-maligned Jim Garrison to thank for bringing that film before the public at last, with Robert Groden as the projectionist at the Clay Shaw trial, the main topics of Oliver Stone’s film, JFK. The projectionist was inspired to do a bit more:

“In 1975, Robert Groden and Dick Gregory secured access to a copy of the film and showed it on ABC television. Groden’s version was enhanced—it was a sharper version that was slowed down. Therefore, its impact was even stronger than the version shown in New Orleans. Now, without the media to neuter the reaction, the public was allowed to see the film for the first time. The reaction was nothing less than sensational. It was one of the major reasons why the House Select Committee [HSCA] was created the next year.
…After over two decades, the Review Board has now tried to revert the film back to its proper owners: the citizenry of this country. Who knows what would have happened if this film would have been shown on national television in 1963? Would the Warren Commission have been able to complete their whitewash? After all, in 1969 the film helped convince a jury that Kennedy had been killed as a result of a conspiracy.”
Frequently, to their shame, many TV showings of the Zapruder film cut out part of the film where Kennedy’s head is shown exploding as if it were a melon as the President is thrown violently “back, and to the left.” The usual excuse is that the scene is in poor taste.

I call it censorship by the media, and you should, too.

In June, 2010, the City of Dallas arrested “vendors” (people selling souvenirs and books, as well as tour guides) at Dealey Plaza, among them that same paragon of research, Robert Groden, who along with other “vendors” has been educating the public about the truth for decades. Groden was arrested for “not having a permit” to sell his books there -- but the City of Dallas would not give him a permit (such do not exist, but the statute under which Groden was arrested specifies that a permit must be obtained, nevertheless – a handy Catch-22). Groden filed suit early in July, 2010 against the City of Dallas for curtailing his civil rights. The City of Dallas wants no dissenting voices on the sidewalks overlooking the site of Kennedy’s murder. They want everyone to go to the Sixth Floor Museum, where Groden’s books –and any other books by “conspiracy theorists” – such as Jim Marrs’ Crossfire, or James Douglass’ JKF and the Unspeakable, or Edward T. Haslam’s Dr. Mary’s Monkey -- are banned.

What you’ll find for sale at the Museum will be the “Oswald-did-it” official version staples. The general belief is that Dealey Plaza is being cleared out in anticipation of the 50th anniversary. There has been talk that Dealey Plaza will be sealed off and admission will be charged to all who wish to visit the site in 2013. A tradition will die if the City gets its way. Imagine having to pay admission to Arlington cemetery, or to the Lincoln Memorial! Dallas, sometimes called “the City of Hate” has only one noticeable memorial to John F. Kennedy – the Sixth Floor Museum that charges a fee for entry and offers only the Official Version to its captive audience.

Censorship by silence is the most prevalent form of media bias. How many people were told in November, 2009, that post-production film CEO Sydney Wilkinson’s “Hollywood Seven” discovered that the back of Kennedy’s head had been painted black, hiding a shot from the front, on the Zapruder film? Read about it in Doug Horne’s Inside the ARRB.

However, if something can be concocted that might implicate Oswald, it’s sure to get attention. Example: a highly flawed study of one of the infamous ‘backyard photos” was widely publicized. The Dartmouth professor who stated that the photo he studied showed that the backyard photos were “genuine” turned out to have his research in digital photography analysis funded by the CIA. And it turned out he never analalyzed an original photo –just a digitalized copy of it. His finding that he found nothing wrong with the digitalized copy is rather like painting a potato green and then declaring that the paint was green. His analysis had nothing to do with the original photo. But you’d never know that from the reaction by the media.

To this day, the Dartmouth professor’s highly flawed analysis of his digital copy (of what seems to be a mere digital copy of a copy!) of the photo is dotted all over the Internet and was in all the newspapers. To best comprehend why the study was as fake as the photo Professor Farid studied, go to the Internet and read articles by Dr. James Fetzer and Jim Marrs, by Dr. Fetzer, and by myself, published by Op-Ed News and on our blogs on the Internet. Below is a paragraph from the Op Ed article by Fetzer and Marrs
mentioning my own observations about Farid’s work:


The professor could have learned much more had he only conducted a search of the literature. Even YouTube includes this documentary, FAKE: The Forged Photograph that Framed Lee Harvey Oswald. One of the most interesting has been posted by Judyth Vary Baker, whom we believe to be who she claims -- a cancer researcher who became acquainted with Oswald in New Orleans.
In her study, she notes that digitizing a backyard photo creates a problem of trustworthiness, where the strongest conclusion he is justified in drawing is that the pixels in the copy of a copy of a copy he analyzed were not tampered with. He simply reconstructed portions of a backyard photo -- we do not know which one he chose -- but only seems to have reconstructed the head and neck, not a full figure corresponding to the image.
The media never questioned the authenticity of Farid’s work: the newspapers lapped it up. They do the same thing every November, when well-funded “specials’ bring forth the latest attempt to “prove” “Oswald did it.”

Why We Should Examine This Old Article about Oswald

People were snapping up stories about “the assassin” after Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby – itself a suspicious event. The more sensational, the better. The guilt of Oswald was accepted as a ‘given’ by most popular media outlets. It was difficult to write a piece in true perspective after the FBI announced in December that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole assassin. Proving that he was capable of such a deed seemed easy.

The Valentine’s Day massacre of Lee Harvey Oswald’s reputation by Time Magazine is the centerpiece of “Investigations Between Two Fires” -- so named because that’s how Marina Oswald identified herself, trapped between deportation fears and interrogations. In its Feb. 14, 1964 article, Time added its own prestigious name to the disgraceful avalanche of media lies concerning Oswald.

The article you are reading has become necessary to provide balance for the impression the 1964 article can make on the uninformed and the naïve, including the new generation that has risen that knows nothing of the saga of misinformation that has plagued the reconstruction of the Kennedy assassination.

The Valentine’s Day article appears high on Google if a search for “Lee Harvey Oswald” is made. Official Version websites, including a highly biased Wikipedia


biography, distort the truth, often by using quotations derived from the Dallas police and early media stories based on what the police and the FBI told them. The article serves as ian excellent example of how the media cooperated in the framing of a man presumed guilty without a trial. The article’s quotations are still used today, exemplifying how old lies can be used to push an official agenda.

“Investigations Between Two Fires” – Time Magazine’s oft-quoted contribution to the vilification of Oswald – tells readers about his half-crazy mother, his bamboozled Russian wife, and his cold-blooded ways. It seem natural that such a man could soot Kennedy on nothing more than a whim. The article goes far to convince the ill-informed reader that Oswald, without any friends or co-conspirators, did the job all by himself. The magazine presented its own modified version of Oswald’s life, crafted to help the public hate the man who had cried out, “I’m just a patsy!”

After a description of Oswald’s youth that focused mostly on the negative, his mother was brought center-stage for a good drubbing. Marguerite Oswald was a proud, obdurate, opinionated woman. She was easy to caricature:
“The Mother. Marina Oswald was the first witness to appear before the Warren Commission. But as the commission continues to delve deeply into the secret life of Lee Harvey Oswald, she may not necessarily be the most important. For there is evidence that the dominating figure in that life was his mother. This week, at her own request, Marguerite Claverie Pic Oswald Ekdahl, 56, a practical nurse, is scheduled to appear before the commission along with her lawyer, Mark Lane, a New Yorker with an unquenchable passion for the defense of underdogs and liberal causes.”
The article lists Marguerite’s surnames culled from her three marriages—one which had ended in a sudden death ---a veritable sneer in print, then goes on:
There is not much doubt about the mother's purpose: to defend her son's name. She has been doing that ever since the assassination.

Such a campaign is actually rather admirable, but here it is made to sound close to ridiculous.”…doing that” is just what one would expect from a mother who loved her son and believed he was innocent. The term “defend her son’s name” is carefully worded. Later, you will read several truly outrageous statements attributed to Marguerite Oswald. One of the quotes is both gross and shocking. The question you will be asked to consider: was Marguerite Oswald deliberately misquoted by the august Time Magazine? It may be easier for you to decide after reading the rest of this article.

“A short, stout woman with grey hair drawn back in a bun, Marguerite has hardly been hostile to the publicity that has come her way since Nov. 22. "I am an important person," she says with obvious relish. "I understand that I will go down in history too." (emphasis mine)

Imagine the average American reader’s reaction to such a statement. But nobody in 1964 would doubt that this quote was accurate. After all, this is a quote reported by Time Magazine! Keep that in mind as we examine this article.
“…She was at home last week when a reporter went by. "Here," said Mrs. Oswald genially, "have a press release."

The handout related how Mrs. Oswald had sent a wire to President Johnson asking for legal representation for her son at the investigation proceedings.

"You know what I got back?" she asked the reporter. "You know? I got back a note from the White House saying that in the future I ought to direct such messages to the Warren Commission and not the White House at all. Can you imagine? Why, I've got as much right as any citizen to write the President of the United States, to petition him, and let me tell you this, Mr. Johnson should also remember that I am not just anyone, and that he is only President of the United States by the grace of my son's action."

How outrageous! How disgusting! Could the same woman who was telling people her son was innocent actually saying this? The woman was a walking oxymoron. Surely this was an accurate quotation. Right? The two outrageous quotes attributed to Marguerite Oswald are frequently found in researchers’ materials. After all, the information is coming from Time Magazine. So we “must” believe it. Other quotations reported as dropped from the lips of the accused assassin’s mother include:

"Everybody has sympathy for Mrs. Kennedy. Doesn't anybody feel sorry for me? I've had enough misery. I've been married three times and altogether had husbands for a total of eight years. I did my best for my boys."

The same article, on p. 4 of the online version, described Lee Oswald in this manner:
“At one point during an examination, young Lee was asked what he would feel if he plunged a knife into a person. His reply: "Nothing."”


But the written reports on Lee H. Oswald at Youth House, however, obtained by the Warren Commission, mention nothing of the sort, nor do we find any such wording in the testimonies of either the psychiatrist (Hartogs) or of the social worker (Carro).
Since the article was written early in 1964, we do not have to look through reams of prior material. The only “examinations” “young Lee” had that are on record show no mention of the youth being asked such a heinous question. It makes us wonder what else might have been misreported by Time Magazine.

The quotations supposedly made by Marguerite Oswald seem damning, indeed.

Furthermore, there is no doubt that Marguerite neglected young Lee. Both Hartogs and Carro agreed that Marguerite did not provide adequate emotional support or even adequate presence: her typical work day saw her leaving at 7:00 am and returning home at 7:30 pm in New York. Lee told me he often went hungry and sometimes fixed himself “tomato soup” made of catsup and hot water.

Was Marguerite Oswald as outrageously crude in her statements as the Time article represents her? There are several other interviews by mainstream media presenting her in the same light.

But Marguerite Oswald comes out looking more rational and circumspect in an article written by Harold Feldman for the Sept., 1964 issue of The Realist. This non-mainstream media contribution was brought to my attention by researcher Linda Minor. Its title: “The Unsinkable Marguerite Oswald.” Huh? An article praising the looney mom of Lee Harvey Oswald? Granting that Oswald’s mother harbors “extravagant suspicions and speculations” as well as exhibiting “a touch of the prima donna,” nevertheless, the piece is a refreshing expose on Marguerite, compared to mainstream media. Check out these quotations, and compare them to what we found in the Time article:
“One thing is sure…she is a brave, bold, and good woman.” (p. 12)
“I …was led by newspaper accounts to expect a gruff paranoid harridan. What I heard instead…not a second of hesitation in the warm courtesy hat carried within it only a faint suggestion of loneliness.” (p. 12)
“Our tour came several days after the newspapers reported how Oswald was prevented from starting a homicidal career with Richard Nixon only by his wife locking him in his room [the bathroom]. We went to the rooming house…where Lee and marina lived at the time. Marguerite was admitted with sympathetic deference and she went form (sic) room to room, pointing out that none of the doors had ever had locks on them.”
It seems that Marguerite Oswald was doing some investigations of her own. As for direct quotes from Marguerite:

(on the subject of nobody willing to employ the mother of the accused assassin): “The money is running out,” she says, “but I’ve learned not to worry.” (P. 13)
“First they took the President’s body out of Texas. The Dallas doctors thought the bullets came from the front, but the federal men had a secret autopsy in Bethesda, Maryland, when it should have been done here and become part of the court record. Then they took the president’s limousine out of the state, rushed it off. This was a most important item of evidence, but they dismantled it and rebuilt it before anyone here could examine it for bullet holes.” (p. 14)

Feldman told us what the mainstream media somehow missed, about how 13-year-old Lee Oswald felt about being placed in Youth House in New York City for playing hooky:
“…placed in a reformatory for being absent…from school for 17 days, he cried out, “You’ve got to get me out of here, mother. They have real criminals here, kids who have stabbed people and killed people with guns!” (p. 14)

That jives with what Lee Oswald told me about his stay there: he said he had been “brutalized” and that his mother, desperate to make certain he would not be returned there, fled with her son to New Orleans when the judge warned Marguerite that Lee was likely to be placed back at Youth House if she couldn’t supervise him better.

What do we have here? A rational, intelligent-sounding Marguerite Oswald? Is it possible? Feldman, noting that Marguerite used the word “nigger” as did others at that time in the South, seems to be presenting a more balanced and accurate picture of the accused assassin’s mother. There is nothing like it in mainstream media. Summarizing his report on Marguerite, and her intelligent efforts to prove that her son was not only innocent, but was a government agent, Feldman wrote,

“Is Marguerite Oswald “emotional” and “unstable” as the…press says?
We spent 5 days in her house and watched her under high pressure.
If she is emotional, then Molly Pitcher was a hysteric. If she is unstable,
then Mount Rushmore is putty.” (p. 14)

The Time article, then, may have presented a slanted picture of Marguerite Oswald.

So how did Oswald himself fare in Time’s tender hands?

The Valentine’s Day article we have been inspecting reports on p. 6 that Lee Oswald told his wife, Marina, that he had killed General Walker:

“On the night of April 10, Lee Oswald rushed home, exultantly told Marina that he had just killed ex-Army Major General Edwin A. Walker, the right-wing extremist who lives in Dallas.”

Imagine what a reaction Time Magazine readers had to such a directly damning statement: Oswald “exultantly told Marina” that he “had just killed” the right-wing populist, General Walker.

But on Feb, 3, 1964, which was the same time frame within which this article was written, Marina testified before the Warren Commission’s J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel, in the presence of Earl Warren and other eminences of the Warren Commission, that
“When he fired, he did not know whether he had hit Walker or not. He didn't take the bus from there. He ran several kilometers and then took the bus. And he turned on the radio and listened, but there were no reports.”


Marina also told the Warren Commission that her husband buried the rifle that night before coming home. Marina had originally stated to the FBI that she did not know if Oswald owned a rifle.

We understand her position: a Russian citizen whose dead husband was accused of killing the President of the United States, with a toddler and a six-week-old baby, Marina had been “whisked off” as the Time article itself describes the event, into isolation.
The Time article mentioned that Marguerite had bitterly complained about Marina having been spirited away and kept from contact from other family members. Poor Marina! Three months after denying that her husband even owned a rifle, she now described it as having been buried by her husband after he reported shooting at General Walker.
Once again, Time Magazine injects another reason to hate Lee Oswald –supposedly exulting over a killing. How much, then, should we trust the quotations they attribute to Marguerite, which have been repeated ad nauseum ever since to display what an ugly, demented personality she had?

Ruth Paine, in contrast, is presented as a fine, truthful, self-denying lady. On p. 7, Time Magazine quotes Paine, in whose home in Irving (near Dallas) Marina was living in the weeks before the assassination. Oswald lived weekdays in an Oak Cliff boarding house:, “"Usually," recalls Ruth Paine, "he would hitchhike out [to visit on weekends].”

So Oswald was a hitch-hiker! Up comes a picture in middle-class 1963 heads of tramps, bums and hobos. But Oswald is on record as getting almost all his rides with a neighbor near his own age -- Wesley Buell Frazier – when needing a ride to the Paine home. Why is Oswald being depicted as a hitch-hiker, then, by Paine? Or is she being misquoted?
The Time Magazine article is beginning to look like a careful construction to make Oswald look as bad as possible. The public had already been fed plenty of potent misquotations. These would not be noticed by a public hungry for every tidbit that could. tell them more about the mysterious “assassin.” But we are obliged to notice them now.

On page 7, Frazier is mentioned, along with a package of curtain rods that Frazier reported Lee Oswald placed in the back seat of his car. The package was stubbornly described by both Frazier and his sister as too short to be hiding a rifle despite persistent efforts by the Warren Commission to get them to change their story. That’s not what Time Magazine suggests:

“Next morning Lee was up and gone before anyone else in the household was awake. He caught a ride to Dallas with a coworker, Wesley Frazier. He carried a long object wrapped in brown paper. "Curtain rods," he explained. (p. 8) But the rifle was gone from the Paine garage. At 12:30 that afternoon, just as President Kennedy's car passed by the Texas Book Depository, that same rifle was poked out of a sixth-floor window.” (bold face mine)

Gone, too, is all mention of the Mauser rifle that for almost two days was described as the murder weapon before it was replaced in official reports with a Mannlicher Carcano traceable to Oswald, through what we now know are impossible means.

Among many other problems, the mail order involved with the weapon left Dallas by ordinary mail mikes from Oswald’s place of work, with the money order for the rifle purchased at yet another site miles from Oswald’s work – and he had only half an hour for lunch, with no known transportation from his workplace. Yet the order reached

Chicago the very next day and was processed that same day as well. Further, that same day, the rifle was supposedly mailed to Oswald’s post office box to his alias, Hidell. Trouble is, post office records indicated that nobody named “Hidell” was on Oswald’s list of persons who could receive mail at that post office box (see George Bailey’ blog for his research on the mail order slip).

Nevertheless, the article assumes that the weapon, described on Oswald-did-it sites as the same kind of rifle used by Italian infantry (not true: this was a different and inferior model) goes on to say that Oswald “slipped out of the rear entrance of the building” when witnesses tell us he walked out the front door and even stopped to talk to people there before leaving work for the day. The killing of Officer J. D.Tippit is mentioned as a casual killing along the way:

“Oswald whipped out a .38-cal. revolver, pumped three bullets into Tippit and killed him. Minutes later, he was cornered in a movie house. “
We have already discussed the problem with the cartridges. The cartridges found at the scene of the crime came from a semi-automatic, not the revolver Oswald was said to have on his person in the theater. Tippit had four bullets removed from his body.
At the police station, though he had been patted down, frisked and inspected, more bullets were ‘found’ on Oswald’s person.

As for any remarks supposedly made by Oswald, remember that they are all provided to us, as were the cartridges, the map, the Magic Bullet, and the Mannlicher-Carcano, compliments of the Dallas Police, the CIA and the FBI. No tape recordings (!) or stenographic notes (!) were taken during the many hours of interrogation Oswald endured.

We have to rely on those fine paragons of the defenders of justice as to what Lee Oswald said while in custody, and also, we must rely on heir reports as to how Oswald was treated. We know he was treated unfairly in line-ups. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Oswald, beaten, unshaven, and wearing torn clothing, stood out like a sore thumb. The line-ups were a travesty because Oswald was required to give his name and workplace—already plastered in the newspapers and over radio and TV—while those standing with him gave fake names and fake workplaces.

The Valentine’s Day massacre of Lee H. Oswald’s character is now being read by the unwary new generation that may trust Time and other mainstream media to be accurate, unbiased reporters of the truth. We would like to think that today Time would reconsider before publishing the outrageous quote attributed to Marguerite Oswald, on p. 2 of the Valentine’s Day article: “"I am an important person," she says with obvious relish. "I understand that I will go down in history too."

Such a statement raises the hackles and engenders feelings of disgust for this woman. But did Marguerite Oswald actually say such a thing? Can we be certain that she did? Can we be certain that mainstream media accurately described Lee Harvey Oswald? I urge you to consider the arrests of “vendors” at Dealey Plaza by the Dallas Police. I urge you to consider that The History Channel banned here important documentaries exonerating Lee H. Oswald – the last three in a series called The Men Who Killed Kennedy –episodes 7-8-9 (“The Smoking Guns,” “The Love Affair” and “The Guilty Men.”). After these documentaries were banned (they can be seen on YouTube, at Edward T. Haslam's websie (doctormarysmonkey.com) and at my website http://www.judythvarybaker.com)-- following outcries and threats of lawsuits from powerful Oswald-did-it forces, the History-Rewritten-Channel has gone on to air only official version anti-Oswald documentaries ever since, along with “specials” aimed at the character assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family.

The once-beloved President’s dirty laundry, above all, must be exposed to the public. Is the media out to make sure nobody cares what happened to John F. Kennedy, once heralded as the hero of PT-109?
Then maybe nobody will care who kills our next presidents, or who runs our country. With major media firmly under control, only voices such as mine, from the past, remain to warn you that only the truth will keep the American people free.

Judyth Vary Baker
witness to Oswald’s innocence,
at age 67, forced to live in exile
Consider reading my book, Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and
Lose Lee Harvey Oswald.



REFERENCES AND COMMENTS:

NOTE: SCRIBD HAS THIS DOCUMENT IN ITS ENTIRETY, WITH ALL PHOTOS AND REFERENCES NUMBERED AND TAGGED.

President Kennedy was shot at 12:30 pm and Officer Tippit was reported dead at 1:16 pm. The Warren Commission said Tippit was killed at 1:15 pm. Police description of Oswald’s arrest shows the process –including the fight that ensued— took less than ten minutes.

The Warren Commission’s prime witness, Helen Markham, testified she heard three bullets fired. A fifth bullet, according to an ambulance driver, rolled out of Tippit’s uniform button where it had smashed flat.

None of these three witnesses were called to testify to the Warren Commission. Why?

The explanation was that the .38 involved with Oswald was supposed to have been rechambered to accept those kind of bullets.
See the books Dr. Mary’s Monkey by Edward T. Haslam and Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald, by the author of this article, for information on why Oswald had to die before he talked.

6 Pamela Ray, from her interview on Live Talk ERadio regarding her book about James Files, Interview with History: The JFK Assassination
( http://jfkmurderjamesfiles.weebly.com/lee-harvey-oswald.html )
Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FDDuRSgzFk


“When Lee Harvey Oswald was first arrested, Otto Mullinax, on behalf of the ACLU, went to the Dallas jail to see if Oswald wanted assistance, and word came back that Oswald did not want to talk to any ACLU lawyer.” “ACLU in Texas-The Early Years,” The Texas Observer, Mar 7, 2008 by Richards, Dave

KEN RAHN HTTP://WWW.KENRAHN.COM/JFK/THE_CRITICS/LANE/NATL-GUARDIAN/NATL_GUARDIAN.HTML
“The Katzenbach Memo” www.jfklancer.com/Katzenbach.html

See Douglas P. Horne’s discussion of the findings of “The Hollywood Seven” – a group of Hollywood film restoration experts who determined some frames in the Zapruder film had been crudely painted to hide Kennedy’s being shot from the front, and much more, in his book Inside the ARRB.


“The Zapruder Film Comes to Home Video,” Jim DeEugenio, Probe Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 6
http://www.ctka.net/pr998-zfilm.html

”Dan Rather Blinked” by Penn Jones, Jr, The Continuing Inquiry, July 22, 1977 edition. http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/05th_Issue/rather.html

See the entire article at: http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=121884

“Jim DiEiugenio, “The Zapruder Film Comes to Home Video,” Probe Magazine, Vo. 5 No. 6, 1990 http://www.ctka.net/pr998-zfilm.html

16 “The Dartmouth-JFK Photo Fiasco” by Dr. James Fetzer and Jim Marrs http://www.opednews.com/articles/THE-DARTMOUTH-JFK-PHOTO-FI-by-Jim-Fetzer-091116-941.html;

Also see my article on the subject: “Is Dartmouth Professor's Analysis of Oswald Backyard Photo Flawless? at “Oswald Framed: Convenient Lies and Cover-Ups”
http://oswald-framed.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-dartmouth-professors-analysis-of.html
17

To see the YouTube film, “Fake,Forged Photograph that Framed Lee Harvey Oswald, go to this URL: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3488132719239248250#

All quotations regarding this article come from “Investigations: Between Two Fires” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870730-4,00.html#ixzz0sBc90mA1

“The Unsinkable Marguerite Oswald” The Realist, issue #53, September, 1964,pp. 12-15.
http://www.ep.tc/realist/53/12.html

Read more:: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870730-6,00.html#ixzz0sBskEeoL

See the following YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=249DTnfrKMo, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AqqNKsWCGY&feature=PlayList&p=02BABD331C6CAE12&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=5
http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2009/11/who-bought-guns.html

Also, read “Osald and the Sixth Floor MC Can’t Be Linked,” by Miles Scull, for technical and background information on the rifle Oswald supposedly used to kill JFK at : http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php?topic=1925.5;wap2

Interviewed by Captain Fritz 11/22/63, Oswald said "as he was leaving the TSBD buildng, two men (had intercepted him at the front door, identified themselves as Secret Service Agents and asked for the location of a telephone" (CD 354). Oswald then left the TSBD and walked east on Elm.

24 “Did Oswald Shoot Tippit? A Review of Dale Myers' Book With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit, Michael T. Griffith 2002 http://www.kenrahn.com/jfk/the_critics/griffith/With_Malice.html