bknight
Master Poster
JFK Conspiracy Theories VII: Late November back in '63...
- Thread starter HSienzant
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HSienzant
Philosopher
Since the employees didn't punch a time clock, it's unknown exactly when Oswald arrived to work that morning. Remember that there was a post office two blocks from Oswald's job (at the corner of Houston and Commerce Streets, the third leg of the triangle forming Dealey Plaza).
And of course, it's known that Oswald did duck out of work at the TSBD on at least one occasion early, leaving at 12:33 on 11/22/63 without reporting to his superior that he was leaving. Some may argue there were special circumstances but that argument only applies if you concede Oswald was guilty.
He also did this a lot on at least one other job, at Reily Coffee, so much so that they knew exactly where to find him when he went missing. This establishes he would have no compunction about slipping away from his job at the TSBD for a few minutes to purchase a money order:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/barbe.htm
So if I had to choose, I'm going to argue that Oswald did duck out of work for a brief while, went to the Post Office two blocks from his job, purchased the money order and mailed off his rifle order to Kleins Sporting Goods exactly as the evidence indicates.
Hank
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HSienzant
Philosopher
And books!
Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane
Whitewash by Harold Weisberg
High Treason by Groden and Livingstone
Of course that's very nearly what happened when Oswald was hired at the Depository. Roy Truly testified that he hired Oswald and one other man on the same day. Oswald was assigned to the warehouse on Elm Street, and the other man was assigned to another warehouse that was not on the parade route. It was happenstance Oswald got the job in the Depository, it was happenstance he still had it on 11/22/63. That's something CTs stay as far way from as possible.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/truly1.htm
Hank
Unless Oswald was handcuffed to a desk or was on camera for his entire shift, it's impossible to claim he didn't leave work for the entirety of the day in question.
It's just another case of conspiracy theorists demanding an impossible standard of proof.
Axxman300
Philosopher
Depending on which Post Office Oswald used it was either an 11-minute walk or an 8-minute walk. Derp.
turingtest
Mistral, mistral wind...
LHO's employment at the TSBD in relation to buying the rifle is kind of irrelevant, since he was working at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall at the time. Here is an image of the time sheet kept for him for the day the MO was purchased-
I'll just note two things-
1) He had from 12:15-12:45 for lunch- half an hour. I would think that would be plenty enough time to go to the PO to buy it; and it was within walking distance, since a fellow employee testified, in regard to offering Oswald a ride home in the evenings:
Anyway, the whole thing is ridiculous- this weird idea that CTists have that if you can't account for every single minute of Oswald's time on any given day, that throws the whole thing open to any silly possibility that a CT could be built on. There's a certain imbalance in assessment of plausibility that's necessary to sustain CT thinking- it's just completely out-of-bounds, kooky, to think that Oswald might have walked to a Post Office during an unaccounted-for break from normal working hours, or on his lunch break, to buy the money order and send it off for the rifle; but the alternative, that some shadowy conspiracy set him up with faked handwriting before it was even known that JFK would be in Dallas or that LHO would be in position to shoot him, is treated as just a normal, run-of-the-mill day at the office- and a scenario that it's not even necessary to back with any evidence, since the whole idea is that that's what conspiracies do, man, and the possibility is all that's needed to prove the scenario.
I'll just note two things-
1) He had from 12:15-12:45 for lunch- half an hour. I would think that would be plenty enough time to go to the PO to buy it; and it was within walking distance, since a fellow employee testified, in regard to offering Oswald a ride home in the evenings:
2) Oswald didn't socialize at lunch:
Anyway, the whole thing is ridiculous- this weird idea that CTists have that if you can't account for every single minute of Oswald's time on any given day, that throws the whole thing open to any silly possibility that a CT could be built on. There's a certain imbalance in assessment of plausibility that's necessary to sustain CT thinking- it's just completely out-of-bounds, kooky, to think that Oswald might have walked to a Post Office during an unaccounted-for break from normal working hours, or on his lunch break, to buy the money order and send it off for the rifle; but the alternative, that some shadowy conspiracy set him up with faked handwriting before it was even known that JFK would be in Dallas or that LHO would be in position to shoot him, is treated as just a normal, run-of-the-mill day at the office- and a scenario that it's not even necessary to back with any evidence, since the whole idea is that that's what conspiracies do, man, and the possibility is all that's needed to prove the scenario.
HSienzant
Philosopher
Good point. I actually made that point in a different way here:
But forgot it entirely when talking about the time off needed to buy the money order at the post office.
The CT argument is more complex than that. Oswald mailed the rifle order on March 12th, 1963. The order arrived in Chicago at Kleins Sporting Goods on the 13th. It was sent via AIRmail. The argument CTs advance is that Oswald had to have mailed it early on the 12th for the letter to arrive at Kleins on the 13th. I don't know if that's true or not (I've never seen it established, just asserted), but I accept their assertion for the sake of argument.
The dates are from the testimony of the Vice President of Kleins, and the microfilmed business records retained by Kleins, as well as the money order:
Waldman testimony: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/waldman.htm
Postmarked envelope: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh21/html/WH_Vol21_0364b.htm
Money Order: https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0352a.htm
So Oswald either went to the post office before work or skipped out early that day to go to the post office, at least as far as the CT argument goes. But his time at JCS was accounted for and lunchtime was too late to buy the money order and have it arrive by the 13th in Chicago (as far as the CT argument goes). Of course, the fact that Oswald wasn't exactly the most industrious worker - as established above at Reily Coffee - and was fired from JCS for inadequate work seems to escape the average CT.
Moreover, the only time Oswald had access to photographic equipment to make the fake Hidell ID was at JCS, so we know he was using some of his time there on personal items. That he would fudge his timesheet and go to the post office doesn't appear to take any great stretch of the imagination.
Hank
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Thanks for the correction. So it is damn obvious Oswald could have done it!
I remember reading crap from CTers that Oswald was a crap shot. It is as you just indicated total bollocks. I am also amazed the some CTers think a 88 yard shot is impossibly difficult. What planet do they live on?
kookbreaker
Evil Fokker
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Once again, why do JFK conspiracy theorists constantly bring up the idea that Oswald could have just bought a gun at a local store?
The answer is simple, even before you bring up any record keeping or memories of a store clerk.
Cost.
Oswald was a cheap b*stard. Plain and simple. He never had a lot of money to spend and a luxury like firearms wasn't something he could easily bear.
But mail-order firearm catalogs have one advantage over gun stores and that is pricing. They will beat physical stores 99% of the time on price, particularly on surplus weaponry since they can lot-buy and warehouse much better than a gun store can. A mail order place can order lots of 100 surplus rifles and warehouse them easily. If a gun store pulled that stunt they'd have to use all their storage space and would have no room for pricier, newer firearms. This is no way to run a business. Odds are the store would buy 1 or 2 from a middle distributor, and the pricing would be higher
In addition, Oswald would have no idea of pricing & availability before going into the store. In the catalog advertisement he could see the price in black and white. With a store, he'd never be certain what they would have. Maaaaybe they'd have a few surplus WW2 weapons, but more likely a bunch of higher-end hunting rifles that Oswald couldn't afford on his budget (and the clerk would try to sell him on).
So with mail-order, Oswald has only one disadvantage: time. He would have to wait for his order to be handled & shipped. In trade-off for that he gets a rifle (and pistol) sent to his alias' PO Box at a cost much lower than he'd get in a Texas gun store. He wasn't in desperate time-dependent need of a firearm. Walker lived in Dallas, and if he went on tour he would return.
The answer is simple, even before you bring up any record keeping or memories of a store clerk.
Cost.
Oswald was a cheap b*stard. Plain and simple. He never had a lot of money to spend and a luxury like firearms wasn't something he could easily bear.
But mail-order firearm catalogs have one advantage over gun stores and that is pricing. They will beat physical stores 99% of the time on price, particularly on surplus weaponry since they can lot-buy and warehouse much better than a gun store can. A mail order place can order lots of 100 surplus rifles and warehouse them easily. If a gun store pulled that stunt they'd have to use all their storage space and would have no room for pricier, newer firearms. This is no way to run a business. Odds are the store would buy 1 or 2 from a middle distributor, and the pricing would be higher
In addition, Oswald would have no idea of pricing & availability before going into the store. In the catalog advertisement he could see the price in black and white. With a store, he'd never be certain what they would have. Maaaaybe they'd have a few surplus WW2 weapons, but more likely a bunch of higher-end hunting rifles that Oswald couldn't afford on his budget (and the clerk would try to sell him on).
So with mail-order, Oswald has only one disadvantage: time. He would have to wait for his order to be handled & shipped. In trade-off for that he gets a rifle (and pistol) sent to his alias' PO Box at a cost much lower than he'd get in a Texas gun store. He wasn't in desperate time-dependent need of a firearm. Walker lived in Dallas, and if he went on tour he would return.
HSienzant
Philosopher
pgwenthold
Penultimate Amazing
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Remember, Walter Matthau said he had "Maggie's drawers," and if you can't believe Buttermaker from Bad News Bears, who can you trust?
I will point out again that, aside from whether he was a good shot or not, it's not like his performance was that of a great sniper or anything. Even at <100 yards, it still took him 3 shots to kill the president.
Axxman300
Philosopher
Yup, 2 for 3. The last two shots were the easiest as the car cleared the trees.
bknight
Master Poster
It has been some time since he visited and produced his bird droppings.
and he is no longer anonymous... he left a paper trail. One would think that anonymity would be critical if you were an Assassin.
Unless the weapon was never intended to be used in that way.
Every aspect of the assassination is subject to the same insane level of scrutiny. I remember a conspiracy theorist insisting the weight of Oswald's rifle was not correctly noted in its original shipping information, which (of course) invalidated the entire evidence trail for that rifle. That sent me digging through scans of old Italian shipping manifests trying to find what the weight of the crate of surplus Carcano rifles was when they were shipped to Klein's in Chicago. It's possible to drown in minutia surrounding this case.
To anyone claiming there is some issue with Oswald ordering/buying a money order for/receiving/picking up the Carcano rifle, my response is always simple. He ordered his pistol in the exact same way...same method of order and payment, same alias used, same PO box shipped to, and he clearly had no issue with receiving it since he was arrested with it in his possession.
He left a paper trail to Alek Hidell. That was presumably an attempt to shield his real identity. It can even be considered as somewhat successful, as the rifle did not lead to Hidell, and thence to Oswald, as Oswald was already arrested when the investigation revealed the Hidell identity.
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