Re: THE "MARRION BAKER / HOWARD BRENNAN" PARALLELS.....
Donald Willis
Pein says...
>
>A follow-up from a previous post........
>
>It is certainly worth again noting the following for those CTers who
>think Howard Brennan's testimony is full of crap.....
>
>As previously mentioned by Jean Davison --- Marrion Baker, in his
>11/22/63 affidavit, described the person whom he had encountered in the
>second-floor lunchroom as being "A white man approximately 30 years
>old, 5'9", 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket".
>
Very nice job synching Baker & Brennan. Now, try synching Baker & Mrs Reid,
who--less than a minute after Baker saw Oswald in a jacket/long-sleeved
shirt--testified that she saw Oswald wearing a white (sleeveless) T shirt with
no overshirt or jacket....
dw
>http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/baker_m3.htm
>
>And since we know for a fact that the man Baker was talking about here
>was positively Lee Harvey Oswald, it puts a bit of a different light on
>Howard Brennan's very-similar stats regarding the gunman he saw in the
>Sniper's Nest window just minutes earlier.
>
>Brennan said the assassin on the 6th Floor was in his "Early 30s,
>slender, 5'10" tall, and 160-175 pounds". (That weight estimate is a
>combination of figures from Brennan's two statements re. the assassin's
>approximate weight....Brennan, in his 11/22/63 affidavit, said the
>gunman weighed "about 165 to 175 pounds"; but he later told the Warren
>Commission "from 160 to 170 pounds". But either figure perfectly aligns
>with the figure Marrion Baker gave in his signed affidavit.)
>
>IOW -- Just like Howard Brennan (a man that CTers love to try to
>discredit in every way imaginable), Officer Baker ALSO thought Lee
>Oswald looked older than his true age (which was 24), and also was of
>the opinion that Oswald weighed more than his true weight (which was
>estimated to be "150 pounds" via LHO's autopsy report).
>
>Very interesting parallel there, IMO, re. Baker's and Brennan's
>nearly-identical physical facts 'n figures with respect to a man who
>was inside the Depository at the time of JFK's murder -- with one man
>(Baker) positively seeing Oswald himself and describing him in the very
>same physical fashion as another man (Brennan), who saw a 6th-Floor
>sniper whose description perfectly matched Baker's description of
>Oswald.
>
>Officer Baker's description of Oswald only enhances the likelihood that
>Brennan most certainly ALSO saw Oswald on the sixth floor of the TSBD
>in the SN window.
>
>
David Von Pein
Any other slight witness discrepancies you would like to use to take
the noose from around an obvious murderer's neck, Don? Surely there are
hundreds more....after all, there WERE 216 total DP witnesses I think
was the number (approx. anyway)....and if every single one of them
doesn't corroborate all of the other 215....well, the plot's
exposed....right?
Humbug! And pfffttt to that shit.
I wrote the following essay for another JFK-related topic (re. the Jim
Garrison interview with Johnny Carson in the late 1960s)....but some of
it applies here (re. the "clothing" thing), so I'll post it here too.
.......
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stuff about Jim Garrison and his TV interview with Johnny
Carson..........
http://www.prouty.org/garrison.html
The link above provides access to several interesting Jim Garrison
audio files, including his entire interview with Johnny Carson in the
late 1960s....which I had never heard or seen heretofore.
By the way, the Carson interview is fascinating (IMO), and I was very
impressed by Johnny Carson's depth of knowledge concerning the JFK
case. Much more so than I was with Mr. Garrison's paper-thin
pro-conspiracy arguments. (But then, too, I guess I would be inclined
to be more impressed by Johnny, even if he hadn't known the names of
the two Nov. 22 victims, seeing as how I think Mr. Garrison is [was] a
total loon when it comes to anything the man ever said re. the
assassination of John Kennedy.)
About the only thing Johnny seemed unsure of (regarding any REAL
evidence in the case) was the mentioning of Dr. Humes burning his
notes, a topic that Garrison brought up to make things seem more
"shady" of course. Garrison lied (as usual) when he said he didn't know
why Humes burned his notes....even though he should have known full
well why Humes burned them, because Humes told the WC why he did so,
with the reason being: the notes were blood-stained and Humes didn't
want notes with the President's blood all over them to become a part of
the permanent record in the case. So, Humes re-copied (verbatim) many
of his original notes.
More on the Carson/Garrison interview --- Garrison likes to make huge
conspiracy-flavored mountains of out of things that can just as easily
be explained in non-hinky ways. E.G.: The differing eyewitness accounts
of the color of the Depository sniper's clothing. Garrison wants
Carson's audience to believe that just because a certain witness
described a "blue shirt" (vs. another color garment), this therefore is
absolute PROOF that it wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald in the window.
That type of argument is nonsense for several reasons, of course....not
the least of which is the fact that eyewitness accounts re. "clothing"
and "hair color" and "height", etc., are almost always (in any criminal
case) going to differ whenever you get several witnesses together to
compare these things. People, in general, just do not recall details
like this very well (esp. under conditions when they have no real NEED
to notice these mundane things at the time they are seeing them).
The same goes for "timelines", which are hardly EVER exactly the same
from one witness to the next. In the JFK case for example, the
witnesses told of the shooting taking anywhere from 5 seconds to 5
MINUTES to complete. (One witness actually thought the shots were a
total of FIVE MINUTES apart; James Altgens thought the shooting took up
to a full thirty seconds as well, illustrating how people don't measure
"time" very well when they are asked to do so.)
Back to Oswald's clothing -- There were, indeed, varying versions from
the witnesses as to what the ONE ASSASSIN IN THE SNIPER'S NEST was
wearing. Meaning: somebody's got to be wrong. Unless Mr. Garrison (and
other CTers) actually want to believe that there were MULTIPLE KILLERS
jammed and squeezed into that teeny-tiny sniper's nook at the very same
time on 11/22.
Some CTers do seem to feel that there were multiple killers on the 6th
Floor at the very same time. But as far as I can recall, not ONE
witness reported seeing more than ONE single man in the SN at any given
time. Nobody ever saw TWO men at the same time in the SN, which IMO is
rather important. Because it means that there was most likely just ONE
man up there, period.*
* = Unless CTers want to purport that the TWO killers were very, very
careful about their movements as they approached the SE corner window
and the SN, making sure that just ONE of them at a time would ever be
seen by any witnesses, instead of somebody catching a glimpse of BOTH
of these men at the same point in time in the Nest.
But the bottom line is that the whole case against Oswald can't be
simply tossed into Garrison's trash bin just because of a witness'
description of the assassin's shirt.
Plus, there's the possibility (however remote) that Oswald DID have on
a different shirt when he was shooting JFK, and then changed to the
brown shirt in flight (just after leaving the Nest), possibly putting
on the brown shirt hastily as he descended the four floors to the
lunchroom. Why was that simplistic clothes-changing activity not
possible in Mr. Garrison's mind?
Granted, I don't think any other shirt was found discarded in the TSBD
that day. But, the more I think of this shirt-changing scenario, the
more sense it makes from Oswald's POV. For, it probably WOULD have been
a smart move on Oswald's behalf to want to change his outward
appearance somewhat after having just shot the President. Right?
(Similar to what he did to change his appearance when he tossed aside
his windbreaker jacket after shooting Officer Tippit.)
Another very real possibility is that Oswald shot JFK in his white
T-shirt ONLY....and then (after the shooting) hurriedly threw on his
brown shirt over the top of the T-shirt (hence, Officer Baker sees
Oswald with an untucked brown shirt that Baker thinks is a "jacket").
That seems the most likely "clothing discrepancy" scenario to me....and
is a scenario which does not require Oswald to ditch a second shirt
someplace. He merely puts on one shirt over another to change his
appearance slightly from 12:30 to 12:32.
In the Johnny Carson interview, Carson asks a very prudent question of
Garrison that's as true today as it was during that interview --- "What
makes it {meaning Garrison's overall belief in a JFK conspiracy} a
fact? Just because YOU say so?"
As Johnny was uttering the above words, I was nodding my head firmly,
in thorough agreement with Johnny's skepticism toward Mr. Garrison's
unprovable theories.
Another witness that Garrison spends a good deal of time on in the
Carson interview is Julia Ann Mercer (who claimed to have seen Jack
Ruby driving a green pick-up truck in Dealey Plaza about an hour before
the assassination).
It's quite interesting to take note of Mercer's apparent verbiage that
she used (as relayed by Garrison). Per those words of Mercer (as read
by Garrison), it would seem as if Mercer was actually claiming she
could RECOGNIZE Jack Ruby via facial features (et al) as Ruby was
killing Oswald.
That IDing of Ruby DURING the shooting of Lee Oswald is, of course, a
virtual impossibility, since Ruby was on camera for a mere fleeting
instant (with his back to the live TV cameras as well), and then Ruby
was wrestled to the ground by police and was then out of sight of the
cameras.
But does Garrison point out that apparent impossibility/discrepancy re.
Mercer's statement? Of course not. Because he wants America to believe
Mercer's entire account -- including the preposterous part that has a
batch of brain-dead assassins actually being stupid enough to take a
rifle from the back of a pick-up truck (being driven by Jack Ruby no
less -- how convenient there too -- that guy was EVERYWHERE it seems on
Nov. 22) in front of a gob of potential witnesses who were stalled in a
traffic jam near the Triple Underpass.
Brilliant "professional" assassination plan there, huh? Why not just
paste a sign on the truck too, which says in bold letters for all to
see -- "Ruby & Co. -- Assassins For Hire, Inc. -- We're Here To Unload
The JFK Murder Weapon And We Don't Give A Damn How Many Dallas
Motorists See Us With This Rifle!" [[laugh]]
More re. Johnny Carson......
The Garrison interview brought out a low-key and totally-serious side
of Mr. Carson that I don't recall ever seeing (or hearing) before. He
was restrained and completely serious and thoughtful throughout his
lengthy piece with Garrison. Usually there's a lot of comedy and
quipping going on in a Carson interview (even when the subject matter
is dead serious). But not in this footage with Garrison. Great archival
stuff, IMO. I'd recommend people give it a listen when they can. The
"Real Player" download is very fast, too.
Allow me to close this rambling message with this comment (which I
think applies aptly here, since I'm discussing a kook named Garrison
who disbelieved virtually all of the actual, documented evidence in the
Kennedy and Tippit murder cases)......
The physical evidence surrounding President Kennedy's assassination
that supports just one shooter by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald is too
overpowering to merely be arbitrarily tossed into the trash can. And
doubting (or denying) the veracity of ALL of this physical evidence,
sans proof of a large amount of foul play, is merely the cowardly act
of hardened conspiracy buffs who simply cannot face the raw fact that
the physical evidence in this case hangs Mr. Oswald as surely as the
Pope is Catholic.
David Von Pein
Donald Willis
Pein says...
>
Apparently, he changed shirts every day, according to James Jarman, who told the
FBI that O kept his long-sleeved shirts & jackets in a closet on the first
floor, & generally worked upstairs in his T shirt. And certainly on this day,
if he were a shooter, he wouldn't want to attract attention by varying his
clothing routine.
So, to explain what you clearly find inexplicable.... O was upstairs in his T
shirt, & came into Mrs Reid's office as the latter said he would do, in his T
shirt, & was looking for change for the machines. But this was *not* after
12:30: Geneva Hine, one of the secretaries, testified that *she* was the first
back to the office, after 12:30, & saw no one else, until Mrs Reid came in with
a group. Clearly, Mrs Reid was thinking of an earlier time when O was working,
& came by.
But how did Baker come across O in sleeves, on the 2nd floor, when that would
have seemed unusual to his co-workers, & he thus if he were a perp, would seem
not have wanted to vary his routine? You have an explanation, based on Baker &
Truly's WC testimony. But earlier, Truly told reporters that he & Baker
accosted O just as the latter was leaving the building; and years later Baker
told the same story for "JFK First Day Evidence". This would tally with
Jarman's FBI interview: Leaving the building, O retrieved his shirt from the
1st-floor closet, & B&T ran into him just after that, near the front
entrance....
dw
Donald Willis
Pein says...
>(Similar to what he did to change his appearance when he tossed aside
>his windbreaker jacket after shooting Officer Tippit.)
That was easy to say when all we had was Warren Reynolds' WC testimony that he
last saw the suspect running past the Texaco station, towards the lot where the
jacket was found. And, oh yes, in a statement, Texaco employee Robert Brock
seconding Reynolds. The End.
Easy, until about 10 years ago, when WFAA-TV footage from 11/22/63 circa 1:30
turned up showing Reynolds telling police that he last saw the suspect running
into the rear of an *old house". So, now, we've got jacket over here, suspect
over there, & gee how did that jacket get there...? Why did Reynolds & Brock
lie?
dw
Donald Willis
Pein says...
>
>>>> "How come you are so sure of Brennan's ID of Oswald?" <<<
>
>In a nutshell --- Because Brennan's I.D.ing of Oswald corroborates
>everything ELSE with respect to the evidence at hand in the JFK case.
>
>I.E.:
>
>It was Oswald's gun on that same 6th Floor;
>Oswald's prints in the very area where Brennan saw the sniper*;
>Shells from Oswald's gun in the very area where Brennan saw the sniper**
*O's prints in the very area where he worked, is another way of putting it
**We don't know for sure (a) where the hulls were found, (b) how many hulls were
found, or (c) what kind of hulls they were, because Homicide Capn Fritz picked
them up before they could be photographed, as per Luke Mooney, Jack Faulkner &
Tom Alyea.
dw
;
>Plus Brennan's description of the killer perfectly aligns with Marrion
>Baker's description of Oswald almost to the letter.*
>
>* = And while reading some pages from Dale Myers' Tippit book ("With
>Malice") yesterday I discovered another interesting "link" between
>Baker's and Brennan's overall description of The Sniper/Oswald ---
>Gerald Hill talked to a witness who said Tippit's killer was "a white
>male, about 5-foot-10, 160 to 170 pounds". Which, again, aligns with
>the numbers given by Brennan***
***amazing how Brennan got the same *height*, tho he could not have seen nearly
all of anyone in the half-closed window! (please tell me how tall Bonnie Ray
Williams, James Jarman & Harold NOrman were, based only on the photos of same in
their respective (wide open) windows...)
and by Baker....with the latter person
>(Baker), of course, actually describing Oswald to the exclusion of all
>others.
>
>Given all of the above items which back up the notion that Brennan was
>right when he positively identified Oswald as the SN shooter --
>somebody tell me the odds of the person Brennan saw in the window NOT
>being Lee Harvey Oswald?
>
>Given these other pieces of "Oswald Was There" evidence (coupled with
>Brennan's eyewitness account, including his INITIAL AFFIDAVIT), the
>odds of the SN sniper actually NOT being Mr. Oswald must be pert-near
>close to being in the "Impossible" range.
>
>Why are CTers so quick to totally dismiss this "Linkage Of Overall
>Evidence" re. the possibility/probability of Brennan actually having
>seen LHO in the SN? (Is it due to a preordained belief in "Patsy"-ism
>perhaps? That'd be my guess.)
>
>Because even if CTers wish to believe that Brennan did not give Sawyer
>the description used in the 12:43 PM DPD APB broadcast, there's still
>Brennan's initial 11/22 affidavit. Was Brennan strong-armed into say
>these things about the sniper within just hours (or maybe minutes) of
>the assassination?.......
>
>http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/brennan1.htm
>
>And Howard Brennan almost certainly did give that description to Sawyer
>as well. Because if he DIDN'T, then it really only doubles the
>likelihood that Oswald was in the SN window...because it would mean
>that yet ANOTHER witness gave a description of the killer to the police
>which perfectly mirrored Brennan's account via Brennan's 11/22
>affidavit.
>
>More on an unfairly-maligned witness named Howard Brennan:
>
>www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/discussions/start-thread.html/ref=cm_rdp_dp/002-0824397-5815226?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0898963311&store=yourstore&reviewID=R3F1CPXWMU0RFI&iid=0898963311&displayType=ReviewDetail
>
>www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/discussions/start-thread.html/ref=cm_rdp_dp/002-0824397-5815226?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0872440761&store=yourstore&reviewID=R3OQH162L5VOLU&iid=0872440761&displayType=ReviewDetail
>
>
Donald Willis
Pein says...
>
>But Brennan just HAPPENED to give a description in his 11/22 affidavit
>of the sniper that almost mirrored the Marrion Baker description of
>Oswald...just by pure coincidence right?
No, obviously there had to be some coordination here, behind the scenes.
Brennan could not, on his own, have possibly guessed the approximate weight of a
person, or rather a *part* of a person, seen in a half-closed window 6 stories
up. Or, rather, on his own, he would not have *attempted* to guess the weight.
Clearly, he needed some prompting. A little common sense, please! Look at the
photos of Williams, Norman & Jarman. What are their respective weights? You
couldn't possibly guess, right? You wouldn't want to try, except there's
something at stake here.
What was at stake was the DPD-radio suspect description, an obvious plant.
Baker saw Oswald close up; the folks in Oak Cliff (Scoggins et al) saw the
assailant at least at the same (street) level--they had a clear chance to size
the man up. Brennan did not. But the Dealey suspect description, it was
apparently thot, should have some grounding, some witness backing, & Brennan was
chosen to provide stats. To his credit, he did not attempt to hazard a guess at
*height* in his affidavit--he merely, properly, said "slender". But, to his
discredit, he threw out a *weight* estimate (165 to 175 pounds), which could not
have been of his own concoction.
The DPD radio description is a complete concoction: No one on the ground saw a
shooter 5 or 6 floors up, in a half open window, & ventured, "five feet ten, one
sixty five"! Height?!? Jeezus! Weight?!? Kee-rist! Pardon me. And some say
*CTers* are kooky! Those stats didn't come from a witness....
dw
The REAL sniper just happened
>to match LHO's physical make-up perfectly. Right?
>
>Good job by the plotters to get such a perfect Oswald look-alike
>indeed. Too bad they planted the wrong rifle up there, though, huh?
>(Per the "It Was A Mauser" CT crowd.) ;)
>
>Can't be good at everything I guess. Patsy-Framing, after all, is a
>hit-&-miss operation I suppose.
>
>
Donald Willis
Pein says...
>
>But Brennan just HAPPENED to give a description in his 11/22 affidavit
>of the sniper that almost mirrored the Marrion Baker description of
>Oswald...just by pure coincidence right?
No, obviously there had to be some coordination here, behind the scenes.
Brennan could not, on his own, have possibly guessed the approximate weight of
person, or rather a *part* of a person, seen in a half-closed window 6 stories
up. Or, rather, on his own, he would not have *attempted* to hazard such a
guess. Clearly, he needed some prompting. A little common sense, please! Look
at the photos of Williams, Norman & Jarman in the windows. What are their
respective weights? You couldn't possibly guess, right? You wouldn't want to
try, except there's something at stake here.
What was at stake was the DPD-radio suspect description, an obvious
plant--courtesy primarily of DPD Inspector J H Sawyer.
Baker saw Oswald close up; the folks in Oak Cliff (Scoggins et al) saw the
assailant at least at the same (street) level--they had a clear chance to size
the man up. Brennan did not. But the Dealey suspect description, it was
apparently thot, should have some grounding, some witness backing, & Brennan as
chosen to provide stats. To his credit, he did not attempt to hazard a guess at
*height* in his affidavit--he merely, properly, said "slender". But, to his
discredit, he threw out a *weight* estimate (165 to 175 pounds), which could not
have been of his own concoction.
(By the time of Brennan's Commission testimony, he *did* venture a foolish guess
as to height: cave-in complete. I mean "foolish" that he would throw out
something so obviously gift-wrapped *for* him....)
The DPD radio description is a total concoction: No one on the ground saw a
shooter 5 or 6 floors up, in a half open window, & ventured, "five feet ten, one
sixty five"! Height?!? Jeezus! Weight?!? Kee-rist! Pardon me. And some say
*CTers* are kooky! It's hilariously obvious that those stats didn't come from a
witness. At 12:44, the cover-up was already beginning....
dw