Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  Another car salesman at the dealership that day, Eugene Wilson, confirmed all of Bogard’s story about the customer test-driving the car. Wilson was told by Bogard that the customer drove like a “madman,” didn’t have enough money for the down payment, and so on, but he could not say, from photos, whether or not the man was Oswald. Anti-conspiracy theorists seize on Wilson’s statement to the FBI that the man was only about five feet tall. But this observation by Wilson, who told the FBI he had “poor vision,” is outweighed by others who saw the man that day, each of whom describe him as being of average height (e.g., Bogard said, “Medium” height; Frank Pizzo said, “Maybe five feet, eight and a half inches”). Further militating against the accuracy of Wilson’s observation is that he didn’t give it until September 8, 1964, nearly ten months after the incident in question. There is another point that makes it hard to give Wilson credibility, since Bogard never mentioned it: Wilson claims that when the man was unable to get the car, he said, rather sarcastically, “Maybe I’m going to have to go back to Russia to buy a car.”50

  Jack Lawrence, another salesman, confirmed that he was present at the dealership with other salesmen when Oswald’s name was mentioned over the radio, and heard Bogard say Oswald had been to the dealership about ten days or so earlier test-driving a new car. He said Bogard was nervous about calling the authorities, so he, Lawrence, took it upon himself to do so, and he immediately called the FBI. He had already given notice that he was leaving his job at the end of the month, but he feels his discharge was expedited because of his reporting the matter and he was let go that same day by William Faller, the manager of the dealership.51

  Frank Pizzo, the assistant manager at the dealership, told the Warren Commission that when Bogard was trying to close the deal with Oswald, he asked Pizzo how much money Oswald would need for a down payment and Pizzo said, “Around $200 or $300.” When Bogard was unable to close the deal, he brought Oswald to the door of Pizzo’s office and told Pizzo, “He doesn’t have the down payment, but he will have $200 or $300 in a couple or three weeks,” and Pizzo said, “Okay.” Pizzo testified that when he saw Oswald on TV, “He looked familiar to me, and at that time I could have sworn it was him.” But Pizzo added that he had only seen the man for “a few seconds” at his door and “couldn’t say absolutely sure” that Oswald was the man. He also said that the “hairline” on two out of three photos he was shown of Oswald was not quite the same hairline of the man he saw for a few seconds.52

  In addition to the problem of whether Oswald could have been at the dealership on November 9 (see later text), there are other problems with Bogard’s story, perhaps the most important of which is that the day after the assassination, Bogard, Pizzo, and an FBI agent emptied out the large dumpster in back of the dealership where all the refuse had been placed from the wastebaskets and other sources, and a thorough search revealed no card of Bogard’s with Oswald’s name on it.53 Nonetheless, Bogard was consistent in telling his story three times and, as indicated, passed a polygraph test, and all of his coworkers who had knowledge of the incident confirmed one or more parts of his story, not one of them negating the essence of it. So although I am not very confident, I feel that one is led to the conclusion that it is just as likely as not that it was Lee Harvey Oswald who came to the car dealership.

  One thing is clear. There can be little doubt that the essentials of the incident described by Bogard took place. As indicated, no one disputes this and everyone at the dealership confirms it. The only question is whether the man was Oswald. Despite the aforementioned evidence that it may have been Oswald, anti-conspiracy theorist Gerald Posner, in the finest traditions of his opposition, the conspiracy theorists, not only didn’t tell his readers that Bogard passed a polygraph test, but actually wrote this about Bogard in Case Closed: “A Dallas car salesman, Albert Bogard, said Lee Oswald visited him on Saturday, November 9, and test-drove a car at high speeds. It could not be the real Oswald since he was occupied with Marina and Ruth in Irving that entire day. Again, the specter of a ‘Second Oswald’ was raised. Bogard said he had written Oswald’s name on a business card, which he had thrown away, and also claimed to have introduced Oswald to his manager [Frank Pizzo], who could not remember such a meeting. [Pizzo, of course, confirmed the meeting.] None of his fellow workers supported Bogard’s story [just the opposite is true], although one did remember a five foot tall ‘Oswald,’ not a very good imposter. Bogard was fired soon after he told his story.”54 (Posner gives no source for this last statement and I am unaware of anything in the Warren Commission volumes or elsewhere indicating that Bogard was fired soon after he told his story. As we’ve seen, Jack Lawrence, the salesman who called the FBI about Bogard’s story, may have been.)

  If, indeed, it was Oswald whom Bogard saw, the biggest problem with Bogard’s story is that he says the incident occurred on November 9, 1963, which was a Saturday. We know that Oswald arrived at the Paine residence in Irving after work on November 8. The next day, November 9, was the day that Ruth Paine drove Oswald to the Texas drivers’ license examining station in Oak Cliff for him to make an application for a learner’s permit, but the station was closed because it was an election day in Texas. She drove Oswald back to Irving, where he remained for the rest of the day.55 However, we don’t know, for sure, that the incident took place on November 9. Bogard said, “To be exact…I think it was…the ninth day of November…a Saturday.”56 But Pizzo said the incident happened “in the middle of the week, towards the weekend.” He said he couldn’t swear to it but thought “it was a weekday.”57 And Eugene Wilson said that “it had been raining” on the day of the incident and Bogard had told him the pavement “was slick,” making Oswald’s driving so fast all the more hazardous.58 But it was desert dry in Dallas on November 9, 1963, without a trace of precipitation.59 The next Saturday, November 16, Oswald was not at the Paine residence in Irving; he had stayed in Dallas because Ruth Paine was having a birthday party for her daughter, and Marina asked him to stay in Dallas.60 We also know that on that day, November 16, Oswald had cars and driving on his mind because he went back to get a driver’s permit that morning, but the line was very long and he left.61 Since we know that Oswald told Wesley Frazier he intended to buy a car, albeit an old one,62 it’s not far-fetched to imagine that he went to the subject car dealership that Saturday, November 16 (when it also didn’t rain in Dallas), or at some previous time that month, and on a lark took a spin in a new car. The fact that the subject car dealership was right near the Triple Underpass, and hence within view of the Texas School Book Depository Building where Oswald worked,63 increases the likelihood that if Oswald did have any interest in buying a car, this dealership, of which he was probably aware, would have been a natural place for him to go.

  The argument by anti-conspiracy theorists that the man could not have been Oswald because Oswald couldn’t drive has some merit, but not much. Though Oswald was not proficient, Ruth Paine, who was teaching him how to drive, said that by November he had made “considerable” progress and had “learned well.”64 Although the Warren Report cites Marina as saying Oswald was unable to drive, of the three citations it gives to support this, one doesn’t deal directly with the issue and one doesn’t address the issue at all. Only the third does and it supports the opposite. When Marina was asked in her testimony if he was “able to drive a car,” she answered, “Yes, I think that he knew how. Ruth [Paine] taught him how.”65*

  The only relevance of the whole Bogard story, of course, is that if the man was Oswald, his telling Bogard he was going to be coming into some money soon raises the inference that he was getting paid to kill Kennedy and hence, many conspiracy theorists argue, the existence of a conspiracy. But when we look closely at the matter, there’s much less to it than meets the eye. What type of money was Oswald (assuming it was he) talking about? It is not clear from Bogard’s testimony whether Oswald intended to buy the car outright or just make a down payment.

  “Did you tell him you needed a d
own payment?” Warren Commission counsel asked Bogard.

  “He said he would have it…in two or three weeks.”

  “Did you tell him how much?”

  “Yes…Three hundred dollars.”

  But later Bogard quotes Oswald as telling him he “would just pay cash for it [the car] at a later date,” so there is some ambiguity. But there is no ambiguity in Frank Pizzo’s testimony. As indicated, he said Bogard told him, “He [Oswald] doesn’t have the down payment, but he will have $200 or $300 in a couple or three weeks.” So we may only be talking about $200 or $300. But even assuming Oswald led Bogard to believe he would pay cash for the whole purchase price of the car, nothing can be made of this for two reasons. If a man can tell his wife, as Oswald did, that one day “he would be Prime Minister,” certainly he would be very capable of telling a persistent car salesman he’d be coming into some money soon and would pay cash for the car. These words, like those between lovers, are written on the wind. But far more importantly, we know no one paid Oswald to kill Kennedy, not only because there’s no evidence of this, but because we know that Oswald virtually hadn’t a dime to his name on the day he killed Kennedy. He left $170 behind for Marina on the morning of the assassination, and had $13.87 on his person when he was arrested. In a highly detailed analysis of Oswald’s finances from January 13, 1962 (when he arrived back in the United States from Russia), through November 22, 1963, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald and Marina had $183.87 to their name at the time of the assassination.66

  The remainder of the conspiracy community believes that the man at the car dealership was not Oswald but an imposter. As conspiracy theorist Walt Brown puts it, “It would seem, on [its] face, that this test-drive event was a bonafide ‘Oswald impersonation’ which immediately shouts ‘conspiracy,’ as someone wanted to have it on record that a ‘Lee Oswald’ would soon be coming into money.”67 But this argument is counterintuitive. Any group of conspirators out to frame Oswald would obviously want the authorities to believe that Oswald acted alone, that no conspiracy was involved. If the Oswald impersonator said or did anything to advertise that he was not acting alone, that there were conspirators behind him, it would immeasurably increase the risk that law enforcement, now knowing there were people behind Oswald, would eventually find them. Apparently Walt Brown’s good mind was taking a rest when he wrote those words.* If conspirators had Oswald kill Kennedy for them, the last thing in the world they would do would be to encourage the suspicion that anyone was behind Oswald’s act. It should be added parenthetically that a professional imposter, as the conspiracy buffs would want us to believe was impersonating Oswald, would clearly have shown Bogard a fake ID to implant his name in Bogard’s mind. But Bogard said “Oswald” showed him no ID. In fact, Bogard said the man had to be prodded even to give his name.68 Some imposter.

  My sense is that the man in the Bogard incident was either Oswald, in which case no conspiratorial inferences can reasonably be drawn from all the evidence, or someone else whom Bogard sincerely believed was Oswald. But he surely was no imposter.

  Several witnesses claim they had seen Oswald firing a rifle at the Sports Drome Rifle Range in Dallas at various times from September through November of 1963. Malcolm H. Price Jr., who helped out at the range, told the Warren Commission he first saw Oswald at the range on September 28 when Oswald asked him to set the scope on his rifle for him, which he said he did, zeroing it in at one hundred yards. Apart from the fact that Oswald, a former marine, would certainly know himself how to set the scope on his rifle, the problem with Price’s story is that Oswald is known to have been in Mexico City on that date. Price said he saw Oswald two times thereafter at the range, the last time being the “Sunday before…Thanksgiving.”

  Warren Commission counsel: “Well, the Sunday before Thanksgiving [November 24, the day Ruby killed Oswald] was after the assassination.”

  Price: “It was after?”

  “Yes, and you saw…Oswald at the rifle range after the assassination?”

  “I believe I did.”69

  Garland Slack, who fired at the range, said that on November 10, when they had a turkey shoot at the range, and November 17, he saw Oswald firing at the range. On the seventeenth he had a run-in with Oswald because Oswald was shooting at Slack’s target. Though Oswald was not at the Paine residence on the weekend of November 16 and 17, and hence, it was possible for him to be at the range, it was not possible for Slack to see Oswald at the range on the tenth. Ruth Paine said that “except for the trip to Dallas, Texas, on November 9, 1963 [to get Oswald’s driver’s permit], Lee Oswald remained in my home from the time of his arrival, the late afternoon of November 8, 1963, until he departed for Dallas, Texas, in the early morning of November 12, 1963.” (November 11 was Armistice Day, a holiday, so Oswald returned to Dallas on Tuesday morning.) Slack acknowledged how “you read the papers and you get to where you…find yourself imagining you saw somebody.” But he said he was positive (“I know”) Oswald was the man at the range. What type of hair did “Oswald” have? Slack said he had “hair that grew down his neck, all the way down into his jacket.”70 Certainly sounds like Oswald to me.

  Two other shooters at the range, Dr. Homer Wood and his thirteen-year-old son, Sterling, told the Warren Commission they were confident they saw Oswald firing on the range on November 16, 1963.71*

  Though other witnesses partially corroborated the testimony of the above witnesses, the Warren Commission said, “There was other evidence which prevented the Commission from reaching the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the person these witnesses saw.”72 In addition to the impossibility of some of the witnesses seeing Oswald on certain days, when we know Oswald was elsewhere, some of the descriptions of him (very long hair, the hair was “blonde,” he wore a “Bulldogger Texas style” hat, and had bubble gum or chewing tobacco in his cheek, etc.) simply didn’t fit Oswald. Nor did the allegation that Oswald drove up in a 1940 or 1941 Model Ford, since there’s no evidence that Oswald had access to a car. Also, neither Oswald’s name nor any of his known aliases were found on the sign-in register at the Sports Drome Rifle Range, though customers didn’t always sign their names. Moreover, there is no evidence that Oswald owned more than one rifle, and the one the witnesses saw did not match Oswald’s Carcano. For instance, Price and Slack said that certain pieces were missing from the top of the weapon, and Dr. Wood and his son recalled that the weapon spouted flames when fired. Price and Slack also said they did not believe the rifle had a sling, but the Carcano did.73 Also, all casings recovered from areas where witnesses claimed to have seen Oswald firing his weapon were examined at the FBI laboratory, which determined that none had been fired from Oswald’s Carcano rifle.74

  Despite all this, if the man, indeed, was Oswald, his practice firing at the range with his Carcano would be a normal activity and would not implicate him in Kennedy’s murder. Some conspiracy theorists believe that the man at the range was not Oswald. “The [Warren] Commission may be correct,” Mark Lane says, immediately segueing to the possibility that the man at the range was “impersonating Oswald” for the obvious purpose of a frame-up.75 But how, may I ask, would impersonating Oswald firing at the range serve to implicate Oswald in the murder of President Kennedy? That’s evidence of guilt? And if the man were impersonating Oswald, why would he keep his hair very long (like a “beatnik,” Slack told the FBI), wear a type of hat Oswald was never seen wearing, and use a rifle not identical to Oswald’s Carcano (which the conspiracy theorists believe the framers of Oswald knew about and indeed planted on the sixth floor)? Why, indeed, didn’t he tell some of the people at the range that his name was Lee Harvey Oswald, or even print his name in the sign-in register? The whole rifle range story doesn’t add up to a hill of beans.

  Leonard E. Hutchison, the owner of a supermarket in Irving, told the Warren Commission that early Friday evening in the first week of November, Oswald tried to cash a personal check payable to him for $189 at his store, but he declined since
he never cashed personal checks in excess of $25. Oswald is not known to have received a check for this amount from any source, once again raising in the minds of conspiracy theorists the specter of conspiracy. Hutchison’s story broke down when he said he had seen Oswald in his store on weekday mornings four or five times starting in late September. Not only didn’t Oswald start coming out to Irving until he got his job at the Book Depository Building in mid-October, but in Hutchison’s earlier statement to the FBI on December 3, 1963, he said the $189 check incident in November was the first time he had seen Oswald, and Oswald started coming to the store “once or twice a week” thereafter up to the assassination.76 Hutchison also told the Commission that Oswald would always come into the store between 7:20 and 7:45 in the morning (he said 7:15 to 7:20 to the FBI) to buy cinnamon rolls and milk, presumably for breakfast. But Marina said that Oswald would never eat breakfast. “He just drank coffee and that is all.”77 Moreover, except for rare occasions, Oswald was in Irving only on weekends, and Wesley Frazier testified that he’d pick Oswald up around 7:20 on Monday mornings, and never later than 7:25 to get to work by 8:00.78 The Paine and Frazier residences were eight-tenths of a mile from Hutchison’s store.79

  Hutchison told the FBI that on Wednesday evening, November 13, Oswald came into the store with a woman he “presumed” was his wife, and this was the only person he had ever seen Oswald with.80 In his testimony before the Warren Commission, he said the woman was Marina, and the two were accompanied by an “elderly lady.”81 We know that Oswald was not at the Paine residence in Irving on Wednesday evening, November 13, having returned to Dallas on the morning of the twelfth, making his going to the store in Irving with Marina and the “elderly lady” highly unlikely. Marina, as well as Oswald’s mother, Marguerite, both told the FBI they had never been to Hutchison’s market, and Marina said neither had her husband.82