Lee Harvey Oswald’s whereabouts between 11:45 am and 12:25 pm is documented by 5 different witnesses who claimed to have seen him on the first floor. According to Dallas Homicide Captain Will Fritz, Oswald told him that he was on the first floor in the “Domino Room” at the time of the assassination having his lunch. Fritz testified: “I asked him what part of the building at the time the President was shot. He said he was having lunch at about this time on the first floor. ( 4 H 231 )
JFK’s motorcade was scheduled to be at Dealey Plaza at 12:25pm but was 5 minutes late. Oswald was seen on the first floor of the TSBD at 12:25pm by an employee as she was exiting the building.
That employee was not interviewed by the Warren Commission.
Two lunchrooms explained
Author Don Thomas in his review of Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History puts it in the proper perspective.
“To place this incident in proper perspective it is necessary to understand that there were two lunchrooms in the Book Depository. Texas was a part of the deep south and even the Mayor of Dallas acknowledged that the city had a reputation as the “Hate capitol of Dixie.” (WR41) The building superintendent, Roy Truly, told writer William Manchester ( Manchester, the Death of a President, pp. 132-133 ),
‘Except for my niggers the boys are conservative, like me — like most Texans.‘
The domino room.
Truly further stated that he disliked John F. Kennedy because he was a “race-mixer” ( ibid., pp. 49, 132-133 ).
The main “whites only” lunchroom on the second floor had soft drink and snack machines.
The first floor lunch room ( Domino Room ) was used by the minority employees: blacks, Mexican-Americans, a mentally handicapped man ( Jack Dougherty ) and the depository’s one Marxist, Lee Harvey Oswald. Civil rights movement was a major issue for the American Communist Party in the 1960’s, so it’s not hard to understand that Oswald would “suffer” with the downtrodden masses by eating in their facilities with them. Because he ate there regularly.
That is because another black employee, Charles L. Givens, had seen Oswald by himself, reading a newspaper, in the first floor lunchroom ( CD 5, p. 329 ) – see also Meagher [1971] for discussion).”
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-Rewriting_History-_Bugliosi_Parses_the_Testimony.html
Evidence Oswald ALWAYS had lunch on the 1st floor
The “Domino Room” was a recreation room on the first floor where the minority employees would take their breaks, play dominoes and eat lunch. The “white” lunchroom was on the second floor, but the minority warehouse employees used the first floor “Domino Room” to eat lunch. TSBD witness testimony was unanimous: Oswald ALWAYS ate his lunch in the Domino room which was on the FIRST floor.
This testimony is corroborated by another of Oswald’s co-workers, James Jarman, who testified that Oswald ate his lunch either in the first floor Domino Room or over by the coffee table on the first floor.
Additional corroboration for Oswald eating his lunch on the first floor comes from fellow employee Bonnie Ray Williams, who testified that Oswald would, “come into the lunchroom sometimes and eat a sandwich maybe” and then, “would go for a walk”. And the lunchroom he was talking about was the “Domino Room” on the first floor. ( 3 H 164 )
The Commission never produced a witness who said that Oswald always ate his lunch in the second floor lunchroom.
Oswald on the first floor BEFORE the shooting
At least four witnesses claimed they saw Oswald on the first floor.
WITNESS # 1: Charles Givens told the FBI that he saw Oswald reading a newspaper in the Domino room at 11:50 am. ( CD 5, pg. 329 ) Givens testified that when he saw Oswald reading, it was usually “right at lunch time” and Oswald always ate lunch in the Domino Room. ( 6 H 354 )
WITNESS # 2: William Shelley remembered seeing Oswald “when I came down to eat lunch about 10 to 12”. ( 6 H 328 ) He said the last time he saw him was “10 or 15 minutes before 12 on the first floor over near the telephone”. ( 7 H 390 )
WITNESS # 3: Janitor Eddie Piper came down to the first floor at 11:30 am and never left. He spoke to Oswald on the first floor at about noon. ( 6 H 384 )
These sightings of Oswald on the first floor between 11:45 and 12:00 give credibility to Givens’ original account of seeing Oswald reading the newspaper in the Domino Room at 11:50 am. Later on Givens, under tremendous pressure, changed his story to not seeing Oswald at all that day.
In the first floor “lunchroom”
During questioning by FBI agent James W. Bookhout, Oswald claimed that he saw two “Negro employees” in the Domino Room. One he recognized as “Junior”; the other was a shorter man whose name he did not recall. The “Junior” he referred to was James “Junior” Jarman; the other man was Harold Norman.
In his WC testimony, Jarman admitted being in the Domino Room at the time Oswald said he was, but denied seeing Oswald. He said that after descending from the sixth floor he went to the first floor to wash up. He then picked up his lunch in the Domino Room and went upstairs to the second floor to buy a soda from the machine. Then returned to the first floor where he ate a part of his sandwich while standing, then walked around on the first floor eating his sandwich and drinking his soda.
Harold Norman ate his lunch in the Domino Room. Although he admitted that there was someone else there with him, he “could not remember who ate in the domino room with me”. Norman’s lack of memory of who had lunch with him on the day the President of the United States was assassinated is strange in light of his excellent memory.
A good memory
Harold Norman:
remembered that after eating his lunch, he stood on the sidewalk with Danny Arce.
recalled seeing Roy Truly and TSBD Vice President O.V. Campbell and Billy Lovelady outside as well. He said that he returned to the building with James Jarman.
remembered coming out of the building after the shooting and seeing Howard Brennan.
remembered being interviewed by an FBI agent named Kreutzer on November 26th.
If Oswald had been on the sixth floor prior to 12:15, as the Commission believed, it was a remarkable coincidence that out of all of the employees of the TSBD, Oswald was able to pick out two who were together as he claimed, on the same floor as he claimed, in the same room as he claimed and at the same time as he claimed.
And Oswald guessed all this from the sixth floor. Remarkable.
Harold Norman could remember all of these details, but not who he had lunch with in the “Domino Room”. Could the other person in the Domino Room have been Oswald ?
12:25-12:30: Oswald seen on the first floor
WITNESS # 4. Carolyn Arnold told the FBI that as she was “leaving the TSBD”standing in front of the building”, she caught a “fleeting glimpse” of someone she thought was Oswald “standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse located on the first floor.” The FBI report indicated that she claimed to have seen Oswald “a few minutes before 12:15″. Her detailed description of his exact location indicates more than a fleeting glimpse. She had to have seen him for at least a few seconds.
But in her sworn affidavit that she stated that she left the building at 12:25. The difference is obvious: an FBI report vs. a sworn statement hand-written by the attestee and given under the penalties of perjury. The affidavit is then typed out, read and signed by the attestee. Her affidavit indicates that she both read and signed the typewritten final version.
The Warren Commission and its supporters would rather give more weight to an FBI report over a sworn statement because the report supports their narrative that Oswald was the assassin.
But why would she write out by hand, read and attest to leaving the building at 12:25, when the truth was ( according to the them ) that she left “a few minutes before 12:15” ?
Because she didn’t leave at 12:15, she left at 12:25.
The FBI altered her statement of 11/26 to reflect something less than the truth. They took a positive identification and reduced it to a “fleeting glimpse”. They altered the time she said she left the building from 12:25 to “a few minutes before 12:15 “.
The FBI did that. Why ? Because they needed Oswald in that window at 12:30. He couldn’t be on the first floor after 12:25 and be the shooter. They knew that because both elevators were tied up on the fifth floor and there wasn’t enough time to climb the rear stairway from the first to the sixth floor.
So they altered her statement of 11/26/63 to reflect that she had “caught a fleeting glimpse of Oswald” on the first floor “a few minutes before 12:15”. That would have given Oswald plenty of time to get to the sixth floor.
Searching for the correct time she left the building
In order to find the true time she left the building, we have to ask the question: Did the witness ever confirm either time to other people ? And if so, which time did she confirm, 12:15, or 12:25 ?
The evidence shows that she never confirmed 12:15 as the time she left the building, but DID confirm the 12:25 time.
She confirmed that 12:25 time in an interview with reporter Earl Golz. ( Golz interview, 9/26/78 )
So if she left the building at 12:25 and she “caught a fleeting glimpse” of Oswald AFTER she was outside the building, she had to have seen him some time between 12:25 and 12:30.
The FBI knew that Carolyn Arnold saw Oswald on the first floor after 12:25 and that’s why she was left off the list of witnesses called to testify to the Warren Commission.
I repeat: She was never called to testify.
Assembling the rifle
Another reason why Oswald could not have been the assassin is that Oswald would have needed SIX minutes to assemble the rifle using a dime.
During his testimony, FBI agent Cortlandt Cunningham was timed by Commission counsel while he assembled the rifle using a dime and the record shows it took him six minutes.
It should be noted that NONE of the Texas School Book Depository employees ever reported seeing Oswald assembling a rifle or with a rifle that day.
Another reason being that witness Arnold Rowland testified that he saw a man in the sixth floor window with a rifle at 12:15 pm, 10 minutes BEFORE Carolyn Arnold saw Oswald on the first floor.
Oswald confirms Arnold’s sighting of him on the first floor
Perhaps Carolyn Arnold was never called as a witness was because her account of seeing Oswald on the first floor corroborated what Oswald told police after he was arrested.
During his interrogation, Oswald told police that he had gone to the second floor to get a Coke BEFORE he had his lunch and that he was on the first floor at the time of the assassination having his lunch.
This is reflected in the notes of the parties who were present at the time.
Capt. Fritz’s report indicates that Oswald said he was, “having his lunch about that time on the FIRST floor.”
FBI Agent James Hosty’s handwritten notes confirm that Oswald said that, “at noon went to lunch”, went to the second floor, “to get Coca-Cola to eat with lunch” and “returned to first floor to eat lunch”.
Hosty’s partner, Agent James Bookhout, in his report is more exact, saying that Oswald told them, “he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch. Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building.”
As time went on, both Fritz and Hosty claimed publicly the Oswald said he was on the SECOND floor lunchroom, which is a lie. They needed Oswald on the second floor to support their narrative that Off. Baker and Truly encountered Oswald in the SECOND floor lunchroom immediately after the shooting.
It would have been physically impossible for Oswald to have been the assassin of President Kennedy if he had been encountered on the first floor as they ran into the building.
But that’s exactly what the evidence says happened.
Oswald on the first floor AFTER the shooting
Shout out to Bart Kamp for the next two graphics. I got them from the Kennedys and King website, but I recognized the green highlighting as his documents.
Ochus Campbell, Vice-President of the TSBD, was standing out front of the building with Roy Truly and informed the NY Herald Tribune on 11/23/63 that following the assassination, they “raced back into the building and we saw him ( Oswald ) in a small storage room on the ground floor”.
Ochus Campbell was never called by the Warren Commission to testify.
Kent Biffle, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, corroborates Campbell and reported that Baker and Truly encountered Oswald “in a storage room on the first floor” and NOT in the second floor lunchroom.
The location Biffle gave is the same general area where Carolyn Arnold saw Oswald at 12:25 and Ochus Campbell saw him as he, Truly and Baker entered the building ( pink area, below ):
Kent Biffle was never called by the Warren Commission to testify.
There is no way that Oswald could have gone from the sixth floor to the first floor in the seconds it took Baker and Truly to enter the building, which means that Oswald was telling the truth when he told police that he was on the first floor at the time of the shooting.
Oswald tells police that he encountered a policeman and Roy Truly vouched for him on the FIRST floor
The accounts of Ochus Campbell and Kent Biffle that Baker and Truly encountered Oswald on the first floor corroborate what Oswald told police. Postal Inspector Harry Holmes interrogated Oswald on the morning of November 24th, just before his transfer and murder by Jack Ruby.
Holmes told the Warren Commission that Oswald’s version of the encounter with Baker was that he was on the first floor, just about to go outside to see what had happened when he ran into Baker coming into the building. He said that Baker started asking him questions and “my superintendent” Truly vouched for him.
Some have speculated that Oswald was talking about William Shelley. But Roy Truly WAS the superintendent. He’s listed as such in the Commission’s witness list, he testified to that fact and was described by William Shelley as such. Nowhere in the evidence does it say that Shelley was the superintendent. Roy Truly was.
And the evidence indicates that it was ROY TRULY and not Shelley that vouched for Oswald on the FIRST floor.
Corroboration for TRULY vouching for Oswald on the FIRST floor
Oswald’s story that his encounter with a Dallas policeman occurred on the FIRST floor and that his superintendent ( Truly ) vouched for him is supported by witness James Jarman, who testified to the House Select Committee in 1977 that he was told by another employee, Billy Lovelady, that a policeman stopped Oswald on the first floor as he was leaving the building and Roy Truly vouched for him.
According to this testimony, Billy Lovelady told him that the officer who stopped Oswald was the SAME officer who prevented Williams, Norman and him from leaving the building.
Jarman’s HSCA testimony is significant for several reasons.
Firstly, it casts doubt on the official version that Oswald was encountered in the second floor lunchroom.
Secondly, it exposes the fact that Oswald was leaving the building when Truly vouched for him and Truly HAD to know that Oswald had left because it was Truly who sent him on his way.
The question remains why did Truly vouch for Oswald and not Jarman, Williams or Norman, who were also trying to leave the building ?
Why did Truly tell the officer it was alright for Oswald to leave the building and not the others ?
Did Truly want Oswald out of the building and if so, why ?
Was Roy Truly connected to the CIA or their anti-Castro Cuban groups ?
Neither the Warren Commission nor the House Select Committee on Assassinations looked into his affiliations.
Conclusion
The Commission didn’t hear from witnesses who placed Oswald on the first floor five minutes before and seconds after the shooting. Witnesses who had evidence of Oswald’s innocence, Carolyn Arnold, Ochus Campbell and Kent Biffle were never called to give testimony because their accounts made it physically impossible for Oswald to have been in the sixth floor window at 12:30 with a rifle.
The Commssion also never asked Mrs. Robert Reid, the TSBD Clerical Supervisor, who had lunch in the second floor lunchroom between 12:00 and 12:30, ( 3 H 271-272 ) if Oswald was present eating his lunch at that time.
Mrs. Reid testified that, “the girls who work under me”, were in the second floor lunchroom at the same time she was, but that the, “younger girls had gone” before she left the lunchroom at 12:30 and that she “left alone”. ( 3 H 272 )
In fact, there were so many women in the lunchroom, that she testified, “it is all hard for me to remember how many there were, but the general ones who usually eat there with me every day.” ( 3 H 271 )
Nearly all of the young women who worked in the offices and were interviewed by the FBI said that they had not seen Lee Harvey Oswald that day. ( CE 1381 )
Not surprisingly, none of these women were asked in their FBI interviews whether or not they had been among the people who had lunch in the second floor lunchroom between 12:00 and 12:30.
Apparently, there were some things the FBI did not want to know.
Finally, there is overwhelming evidence that Oswald regularly ate his lunch in the first floor “Domino Room” and was on the first floor at the time of the shooting.
Although he may have gone up the front stairs to the second floor to get a Coke after the shooting, no witness saw Oswald in the window with a rifle, no witness saw him on the sixth floor after noontime and no witness saw him on the stairway after the assassination.
Finally, there is NO evidence that Oswald was on the sixth floor between Noon and 12:30 pm.