The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald’s return to Irving on Thursday evening November 21st was to retrieve his rifle and not the excuse that he intended to pick up curtain rods for “an apartment.” ( Report, pg. 15 )

The Report attempted to destroy this excuse by noting that:

(a) Oswald spoke with neither his wife, nor his landlady, nor Mrs. Paine about curtain rods,
(b) Oswald’s landlady testified that his room on North Beckley Avenue had curtains and rods, and
(c) “No curtain rods were known to have been discovered in the Depository Building after the assassination” ( pg. 130 ).

Lets take these assertions one at a time.

Examining the Commission’s “evidence”

Assertion # 1

(a) Oswald spoke with neither his wife, nor his landlady, nor Mrs. Paine about curtain rods.

All of the Oswald family’s meager possessions had been brought back from New Orleans and were stored in the Paine garage. Although it is assumed that the family had curtains in their apartment in New Orleans and those curtains would have required curtain rods, the Commission never explained why Oswald would need permission from his wife or Ruth Paine to remove his own curtain rods from the Paine garage.

The Commission acted like the only curtain rods that were in the garage were Ruth Paine’s. And although she testified that hers were the only rods in the garage, she also testified that she allegedly didn’t know there was a rifle in her garage, thus making her credibility when it comes to what was and was not in her garage questionable at best.

The Commission also never explained why Oswald would “ask permission” of his landlady to bring curtain rods to his room before he knew for sure they were in the Paine garage.

Assertion # 2

(b) Oswald’s landlady testified that his room on North Beckley Avenue had curtains and rods.

The Commission accepted without question the landlady’s assurance that Oswald’s room had curtain rods. Had it conducted the least investigation, it could easily have determined that the room did need curtain rods.

A photograph taken on the evening of November 22 by a photographer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram shows the curtain rods in Oswald’s room pulled away from the wall.

The Fort-Worth Star Telegram photo is corroborated by a photo taken by Life Magazine photographer Allen Grant also on the evening of November 22nd. Grant’s photo is provided by the Warren Commission believers as “proof” that Oswald’s room had curtains and curtain rods and that both were intact. Below is the Grant photo alongside the Telegram photo and both show the curtain rod on the far window damaged and hanging.

The obvious dropping down of the curtain rod on the right side of the far window ( yellow arrow, below ) becomes more obvious when the above two photos are placed side-by-side and enlarged.

The next morning, November 23, Black Star photographer Gene Daniels went to Oswald’s rooming house and obtained a fascinating set of pictures of A.C. Johnson repairing the curtain rods. Daniels explained the circumstances:

“I went to the rooming house the following morning and requested permission to make the photograph from the landlady. I’m not sure of her name but I don’t think she was the owner. We went into the room and she told me she preferred not to have me take any pictures until she put ‘the curtains back up.’

She said that newsmen the evening before had disturbed the room and she didn’t want anyone to see it messed up. I agreed and stood in the room as she and her husband stood on the bed and hammered the curtain rods back into position. While she did this, I photographed them or possibly just her I forget right now, up on the bed with the curtain rods etc.”

Daniels was never called to give testimony to the Warren Commission.

It seems extremely doubtful that Mr. and Mrs. Johnson would have stood idly by while newsmen physically tore the curtain rods from the wall in Oswald’s room. The rods were barely hanging on the wall.

This is not something one could do with their bare hands. Don’t believe me ? Try pulling the curtain rod brackets out of the window frame with your bare hands. Never happen. You need a hammer.

The Star-Telegram photo shows that the rods were broken and in need of replacement on November 22, and it’s more likely that Mrs. Johnson was embarrassed by the condition of the room and blamed newsmen for its disarray.

But newsmen weren’t the only ones she blamed.

Commission Exhibit 2046 is an FBI report in which Mrs. Johnson tells the FBI that it was the Dallas Police who damaged the curtain rods.

One would expect the conflict in who damaged he curtain rods to pique the interest in anyone determined to find the truth.

But remarkably, during their testimony, neither Mrs. Johnson nor her husband were asked one question by Commission counsel about the damaged curtain rods.

Assertion # 3

(c) “No curtain rods were known to have been discovered in the Depository Building after the assassination”.

The source cited for the assertion that no curtain rods were found in the Depository after the assassination is CE 2640. The Report neglects to mention that CE 2640 details an investigation conducted on September 21, 1964, ten months after the assassination, when only one person, Roy Truly, was questioned about curtain rods ( 25 H 899 ).

Truly was “certain” that no curtain rods had been found because “it would be customary for any discovery of curtain rods to immediately be called to his attention.”

Customary? You mean the TSBD had rules on the discovery of curtain rods?
Aside from this ludicrous implication that the Depository had rules governing the discovery of curtain rods, this “inquiry” was too limited and too late to be of any significance.

Apparently, the Commission’s request for this inquiry calculated its worthlessness. Rankin made this request of Hoover in a letter dated August 31, 1964. The letter leaves little doubt that the result of the inquiry was preconceived to be against Oswald.

Rankin ordered the FBI to interview TSBD Suprintendent Roy Truly in order to, “establish that no curtain rods were found in the Texas School Book Depository building following the assassination.”

This phraseology seems to instruct Hoover NOT to conduct an objective investigation; otherwise, the letter would have read “in order to establish WHETHER ( or “if” ) any curtain rods were found.”

This was not to be an interview to inquire or ascertain, but rather to inform. This was to make sure that Roy Truly understood that no curtain rods were ever found in the Texas School Book Depository.

But conflicts in the document evidence cast a reasonable doubt on whether this was so.

Conflicts in the documents

One of the many conflicts in evidence in the case against Oswald has to do with the receipt by the Dallas Police of curtain rods from the Paine garage. Credit researcher Alan Ford for bringing this issue to the forefront.

Commission Exhibit 1952 is the Crime Scene Search (CSS) form used to record the receipt, result and release of the evidence. It indicates that the Dallas Police received a set of curtain rods from Secret Service agent John Joe Howlett on 3/15/64.

The first problem with the 3/15 date is that the authorities never even heard of Paine curtain rods until Michael Paine mentioned them in his Commission testimony of 3/17 ( 9 H 447 ) and they were not removed from the garage until Ruth Paine’s deposition at her home on 3/23. ( 9 H 424, below )

A second problem with the 3/15 date on CE 1952 is that the Commission Exhibit numbers given to the Paine rods, Paine Exhibits 275 and 276, were not designated until the discovery of the rods in the Paine garage on 3/23. ( last highlighted section below )

So you might ask, what’s going on here ?
How can the police be receiving curtain rods on 3/15 and citing their Commission Exhibit numbers eight days before they were found and their Exhibit numbers designated ?

The answer is obvious: the Commission Exhibit numbers were added to the 3/15 form after 3/23. And that raises the question: If the form was revised after 3/23 for the exhibit numbers, what other information was added to it ?

What we have here is a corruption of the public record in order to hide the fact that the Dallas Police dusted TWO sets of curtain rods, one they received on 3/15 and a second set they received on 3/23.
And the evidence that these were two separate events lies in the record of when the curtain rods were released.

Evidence the Dallas Police dusted two sets of curtain rods

The evidence indicates that two different sets of curtain rods were dusted for fingerprints by the Dallas Police and released on different dates. I will attempt to explain how this was done and how they pulled this off but screwed up and left the record with a conflict.

The 3/15 first set of curtain rods

Lt. Day dusted these rods and I believe that he identified one or more prints that belonged to Oswald. Again, this is speculative and the only proof that day received curtain rods on 3/15 is the CSS form dated 3/15. I believe that the CSS form he filled out looked like this:

NOTE: Keep in mind that the above is NOT an official document but rather one created by me in order to make my argument.

The 3/23 second set of curtain rods

Lt. Day received a SECOND set of curtain rods, this one from the Paine residence via SS agent Howlett on 3/23. He knew he had a problem dusting for two sets of rods. The 3/23 set had to be returned to Agent Howlett. The 3/15 set had to vanish into eternity, but in order to do that, he had to have a release form to get it out of the building. Instead of filling out a new form for the 3/23 ( Paine rods ), which would prove that he dusted two sets of curtain rods, he finished filling out the above form with information he got on 3/23. When he was done, the form looked like this:

Lt. Day dusted that second set of curtain rods and released them to Howlett on 3/24. These were the Paine rods and these are the ones in evidence. Of course, Oswald’s prints were not on that set and that fact was added to the above form.

Lt. Day then made a copy of this form as it looked above and set it aside. Howlett signed the original form receiving the rods back on 3/24 and that form ended up in Dallas Police Box 7, pg. 576.

You’ll notice that that document has no Commission Exhibit number.

With Howlett signing the original form receiving back the Paine rods from the Dallas Police, Lt. Day was left with the 3/15 rods and a partially filled copy of the original form, sans the release information. I believe he used that partially filled out copy of the original form to remove the 3/15 rods from the building.

The fate of the 3/15 first set of rods

I believe that because Oswald’s prints were on that first set of rods, they were destroyed. Lt. Day used the copy of the form to release the first set to himself on 3/26 and destroyed them. That form became Commission Exhibit 1952.

You’ll notice that those rods were released by Lt. Day on 3/26 and that no one signed for them.
That’s because he didn’t release them to anyone else.

More evidence of two separate dusting events

Not only were the discrepancies in the release dates evidence of two separate fingerprinting events, the signatures on the release part of the forms were not identical, meaning that the forms were filled out at different times.

As you can see, beside the different dates, the writing scripts and their positions on the form are not identical, indicating that the release part of the forms were signed at different times.

For example, none of the numbers or letter designation in the time “750a” are identical. The “C” in “JC Day” is not identical. And where Lt. Day starts his signature on the line is not identical.

Then there is the missing signature of Agent Howlett on the 3/26 release.

These would be evidence to a document examiner that neither of these documents were a copy of the other and that they were signed at different times.

Summing it all up

The evidence indicates that Lt. Day used the original paperwork from the first set of rods he received on 3/15 and applied it to the rods turned in on 3/23 from the Paine garage.

When he received the Paine curtain rods on 3/23, he added all of the information of the Paine rods on the form he had started on 3/15.

He released those rods he had received on 3/15 to himself on 3/26/64.
That copy became Commission Exhibit 1952.

This is the reason why you have two seemingly identical documents with different release dates.

CE 1952 is a partial copy of the original form. This is the reason why Howlett’s signature is not present on the 3/26 document.

Lt. Day simply forgot to destroy the original paperwork that proved that the Dallas Police dusted TWO sets of rods, one set released by Lt. Day on 3/24 to Agent Howlett and the other released on 3/26, apparently to himself.

He also forgot to change the record of the Dallas Police ID bureau that they had received curtain rods on 3/15.
Those were NOT the Paine curtain rods because any curtain rods turned into the Dallas Police ID Bureau on 3/15 or anytime before 3/23 were NOT the Paine curtain rods.

The copy would have allowed Lt. Day to take the 3/15 rods out of the building on 3/26 without Howlett’s signature on the pretense that he was returning the rods to the Secret Service office in Dallas, where he’d get a signature.

Below is a calendar for March 1964, explaining the timeline of the curtain rods.

Unanswered questions still remain.
For example, where is the CSS form from the Dallas Police ID Bureau indicating it received a pair of curtain rods from Agent Howlett on 3/23 or 3/24 ?

And why on earth would the Dallas Police dust for fingerprints curtain rods found the Paine garage, rods that had nothing to do with the case ?