They Killed Our President
Page 12
Even though they were not found in the first police searches of Oswald’s belongings—which one would think were fairly thorough considering the fact that they were already saying that he had just killed the President of the United States—the Dallas police said they found two photographs of Oswald holding a rifle. Since the rest of the evidence was so weak, those two photos were used to spotlight his link to the murder weapon. The photo of Oswald with that rifle was plastered right onto the front cover of Life Magazine. Everybody saw that and it basically convicted Oswald in the court of public opinion.
Both of those photos show Oswald’s figure in a different pose but in the same location.
However, there are a number of anomalies regarding the photographs, as well as a number of irregularities concerning the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the photographs.
Photographic expert Major John Pickard was a former commander of the photographic department of the Canadian Defense Department. He professionally examined the photographs and declared them to be fakes.
Another photographic expert, Detective Superintendent Malcolm Thompson (retired), was a past president of the Institute of Incorporated Photographers in England. Detective Thompson analyzed the photographs in question and came to the same professional conclusion as Major Pickard—they were faked.
Yet another photographic expert, Jack White, has spent more than two decades on the case and also concluded that the photos were faked. Many of White’s professional determinations are explained in a video study that’s available online. If that study gets removed, just Google “Fake: The Forged Photograph That Framed Lee Harvey Oswald”: youtube.com/watch?v=UJemmagl0tI.
That photograph of Oswald with the rifle was actually shown to Oswald at the police station while he was in custody after the shooting. Quite obviously, Oswald knew something about that photograph of himself standing with a rifle. Oswald seemed to be playing it cagey, holding his cards close to his vest. Here’s how he responded to the police when shown the photograph—and note the implied knowledge in Oswald’s response:
In time I will be able to show you that this is not my picture, but I don’t want to answer any more questions . . . I will not discuss this photograph without advice of an attorney. . . . That picture is not mine, but the face is mine. The picture has been made by superimposing my face. The other part of the picture is not me at all, and I have never seen this picture before. I understand photography real well, and that, in time, I will be able to show you that is not my picture and that it has been made by someone else. . . . The small picture was reduced from the larger one, made by some persons unknown to me.229
Photographic experts think they have figured out what Oswald was talking about in that cagey remark.
There are indications of fraud in the backyard photos that are obvious even to the layman. For example, the shadow of Oswald’s nose falls in one direction while the shadow of his body falls in another direction. And the shadow under Oswald’s nose remains the same in all three photos even when his head is tilted.230
Another photo was also discovered later, making that three, as the above quote references.
Then, in 1977, a much clearer version of 133-A was found among the possessions of George de Mohrenschildt, a wealthy member of the Dallas Russian community who had intelligence connections and who was a friend of Oswald’s. The de Mohrenschildt family has stated they believe the photo was planted in their father’s belongings to further incriminate Oswald in the public mind.231
Another indication that they were artificially produced is the sameness of everything in the background. It’s a strong indication that the things in the foreground were manipulated, because background just can’t be exactly the same in every different photograph.
Another indication of fakery in the photos is the fact that the HSCA’s photographic panel could find only minute (“very small”) differences in the distances between objects in the backgrounds. This virtual sameness of backgrounds is a virtual impossibility given the manner in which the pictures were supposedly taken. In order to achieve this effect, Marina would have had to hold the camera in almost the exact same position, to within a tiny fraction of an inch each time, for each of the three photos, an extremely unlikely scenario, particularly in light of the fact that Oswald allegedly took the camera from her in between pictures to advance the film.
Furthermore, graphics expert Jack White has shown that the backgrounds in the photos are actually identical, and that the small differences in distance were artificially produced by a technique known as key stoning.232
There are a lot of strange things about those photos.
• The shadows are all wrong and photographic experts agreed on that point;233
• The totally identical backgrounds are not photographically possible under actual circumstances;234
• The background shadows were never duplicated. It was claimed that photographer Lawrence Schiller managed to duplicate them, but upon examination, that was clearly not the case;235
• As investigative author Anthony Summers observed, another major oddity in the backyard photos is that in one of them, the Oswald figure is wearing a ring on a finger of his left hand, but in another photo, the ring is not visible. That is definitely “a curious difference, if, as Marina testified, she took one picture after another in the space of a few moments”236
• The shirt and watch worn that appear to be on the Oswald figure in the photographs could not be located anywhere in Oswald’s possessions;237
• The shirt on the Oswald figure in the photos was a pullover style shirt and was not the type of shirt that Oswald wore;238
• Oswald’s wife, Marina Oswald, is the one who supposedly took those photos, according to the United States Government. But get a load of this. Marina is on-camera saying that she never took them. When she was shown those photographs, her exact words were, “These aren’t the pictures I took.”239
Then there’s what I would call the Common Sense Factor.
Note that all of these photographs were found after:
• Oswald told the police that some of his belongings were in the garage of the house of some friends named the Paines;
• Oswald told police where the Paines’ house was;
• The house was thoroughly searched on several occasions by “various waves” of FBI agents and Dallas and Irvine police search teams;
• Then and only then, were the two incriminating photos of Oswald with the rifle supposedly discovered;
• The third photograph in the “matching set” was not found until fourteen years later in 1977 at an entirely different location, and the family who lived there believed that it was planted there.240
So think this out for a second: You’re being grilled by the police, but even under intense questioning, you completely maintain your innocence. You even tell the police precisely where they can locate some of your belongings. Now ask yourself this one: Would a guy who left incredibly incriminating photos really direct the cops right to their specific location? Do you really think Oswald thought those photos were there? And if he did, why would he send the police there? In fact, if he knew those photos were there, why wouldn’t he have destroyed them before committing the planned out “murder of the century”? I don’t think so.
But hey, don’t take my word for it. It doesn’t matter what I think. Below are some excerpts from the transcript of testimony by a well-acknowledged forensic photographic expert. For twenty-five years, Detective Superintendent Malcolm Thompson was head of a Police Forensic Science Laboratory Identification Bureau. And it does matter what he thinks.
QUESTION: Mr. Thompson, would these photographs be acceptable as evidence in a British court of law?
DETECTIVE
THOMPSON: No. I have examined these photographs and have established without doubt that there is retouching on them . . .
QUESTION: So you think that those shadows have actually been touched in?
DETECTIVE
>
THOMPSON: They have been touched in. Again, there is something peculiar about this hand. The entire hand and arm is very, very unnatural. It possibly could have been stuck in afterward; but I can’t relate physiologically the position of that arm to the body.
The butt of the rifle I think is the telltale in this picture here where we see very, very little of the butt actually protruding beyond the trouser line and yet down here having been painted in is a very, very large butt. I say very large in relation to the length of the shadow and we can measure the length of that shadow in relation to the height of the person and measure off the butt of the gun as against the shadow of the butt and that is to me unnatural.
The head itself, I have seen photographs of Oswald and his chin is not square. He has a rounded chin. Having said that, the subject in this picture has a square chin but again it doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to appreciate that from the upper lip to the top of the head is Oswald and one can only conclude that Oswald’s head has been stuck on to a chin, not being Oswald’s chin.
Then to cover up the montage, retouching has been done both to the right, that is Oswald’s right and Oswald’s left and when we consider this area of retouching here—compare it with what we see in photograph A [where] we have a shadow cast by this wooden pillar. I have measured those and even allowing for the difference and degree of enlargement between photograph A and photograph B the area we see in shadow here is far in excess of what it should be and of course that is the area to which I referred earlier on where the pillar coming down does not continue in a straight line but has this bulge in it.
QUESTION: Are there other things about the face itself which would make you suspicious?
DETECTIVE
THOMPSON: Yes, again we have a shadow underneath the nose. In photographs A and B you see Oswald’s face in a different posture and yet the shadow under the nose hasn’t moved or if it has moved it is only fractional compared with the actual movement we see in the face and one comes to the conclusion that it is the same picture used for both faces, possibly in this face here he has got a scowl on his face and there has been retouching done in the chin area which is what one would expect if my conclusion is correct, that this face has been added on to the chin.
He has a very, very thick lower lip here which is not consistent with Oswald’s lip and again the shadow underneath the lip is a horizontal shadow, that is consistent in both, even allowing for the fact that we have a slight tilt in the head of photograph B as against that in photograph A.
QUESTION: How easy is it to make a photo montage like this, how would people go about it?
DETECTIVE
THOMPSON: It’s not difficult. If one has a background scene, the subject [is] photographed against a white background making it simpler to cut out the subject from the back.
QUESTION: Do you believe that those photographs are a fake?
DETECTIVE
THOMPSON: I think they are false and possibly the shadow detail and its relation to the static scene and the body are the giveaway, plus the fact there is retouching in sufficient salient places to make one appreciate that something peculiar has gone on in relation to the head and the body and the areas surrounding it.
QUESTION: Was your method to look for discrepancies?
DETECTIVE
THOMPSON: Exactly, that has been my life’s work looking for the unusual and comparing one thing with another to see similarities or dissimilarities.
QUESTION: And what in general has been your conclusion in looking at those two photographs?
DETECTIVE
THOMPSON: In general I have come to the conclusion that we have a montage of three pictures to make one end product as we see it here today.
QUESTION: So does it strike you as strange that in their search, after all connected with the assassination of a president, that they should find such damning evidence the next day?
DETECTIVE
THOMPSON: It does, it does seem unusual. One would think that the officers involved would be highly experienced officers, would know and have been trained to carry out the search of premises.
QUESTION: Is there any possibility in your mind that those two photographs are genuine?
DETECTIVE
THOMPSON: I don’t think there is any possibility; having examined them for a considerable time it is my considered opinion that they are not genuine.241
229 “The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald: Compiled by Mae Brussell.”
230 Griffith, “Faulty Evidence: Problems with the Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald,”: michaelgriffith1.tripod.com/faulty.htm
231 Ibid.
232 Ibid.
233 Griffith, “Faulty Evidence.”
234 Ibid.
235 Ibid.
236 Summers, Conspiracy.
237 Griffith, “Faulty Evidence.”
238 Ibid.
239 Harrison Edward Livingstone, High Treason 2, (Carroll & Graf: 1992).
240 Griffith, “Faulty Evidence.”
241 Griffith, “Faulty Evidence.
23
Oswald Denied Shooting the President and Modern Voice Technologies Determined He Was Telling the Truth
If you haven’t heard the clip where Oswald proclaims his innocence, you should really listen closely to it. It’s right on the Internet; just search “Lee Harvey Oswald declares ‘I’m just a patsy’” or go straight to: youtube.com/watch?v=T9F-szqv_RIv.
What you see and hear on that clip is a man who seems genuinely confused about the circumstances of his arrest, yet stringently maintains his innocence. He asks for legal representation which, as he says, has been denied. He acknowledges he was in that Book Depository building but points out that he works there, so of course he was there. He denies shooting anyone and says that he was “a patsy”; that he was set up. It’s pretty powerful stuff.
Well, it occurred to some very savvy researchers, that technologies even by the mid-1970s had improved a great deal since 1963 and they had yet to be applied to the case of the Kennedy assassination. So they took the clearly recorded voice of Oswald saying those things and subjected it to the latest voice technologies.
Psychological Stress Evaluation (PSE) is a scientific method of measuring voice stress. It measures and registers the stress level of the person as they say each word. PSE testing was actually developed by experts in the intelligence community.242
The PSE was invented in 1970 by a group of intelligence experts who sought to improve upon the traditional polygraph. Two of the PSE’s inventors, Allan D. Bell Jr. and Charles H. McGuiston, both retired lieutenant colonels from army intelligence, discovered that the frequencies composing the human voice shift from eight to fourteen times every second. But when the speaker is under stress, this frequency modulation disappears. What remains are the pure component frequencies of the voice—and a strong indication that the speaker is lying . . .243
George O’Toole, the former head of the CIA’s Problem Analysis Branch,244 wrote the book on PSE—literally—and explains the function:
Stress is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of lying; it must be interpreted, and therein lies the margin of error. But the absence of stress is a sufficient condition of truthfulness. If someone is talking about a matter of real importance to himself and shows absolutely no stress, then he must be telling the truth.245
It’s acknowledged legally, and in fact—unlike the lie detector test, the poly-graph—Voice Stress Analysis evidence is admissible evidence in a court of law. As historian Michael Griffith notes:
The PSE has been shown to be reliable in several tests. It is used by hundreds of U.S. law enforcement agencies, and it is accepted as evidence in more than a dozen states.246
That scientific voice analysis and evaluation of Oswald’s recorded voice overwhelmingly indicated that Oswald was being truthful about his innocence. Here are the results of those tests on Oswald’s recorded statements, direct from and in the words of Lloyd H. Hitchcock, the man who condu
cted the testing. Hitchcock was not only a member of the American Polygraph Association; he actually wrote the manuals on polygraph training and was also a former Army intelligence officer:247
• Oswald denied shooting anybody—the president, the policeman, anybody. The psychological stress evaluator said he was telling the truth.248
• There is no other plausible interpretation of the Oswald PSE charts than the explanation that Oswald was simply telling the truth.249
• My PSE analysis of these recordings indicates very clearly that Oswald believed he was telling the truth when he denied killing the president.250
The plain fact of the matter is that Oswald didn’t act anything like an assassin. And now we know that he didn’t sound like one either!
242 Penthouse News Release, “Lee Harvey Oswald apparently was telling the truth when he said he did not kill President John F. Kennedy, a new-type lie detector that examines the human voice for stress reveals,”10 March1975:jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20 Subject%20Index%20Files/O%20Disk/O’Toole%20George%203-10-75/Item%2001.pdf
243 Ibid.
244 Ibid.
245 George O’Toole, The Assassination Tapes: An electronic probe into the Murder of John F. Kennedy and the Dallas Cover-up (Penthouse Press, 1975).
246 Michael T. Griffith, “Hasty Judgment: A Reply to Gerald Posner-Why the JFK Case is Not Closed,” 8 April 1998: karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/griffith/Hasty_Judgment.html