The Second Oswald

by Richard Popkin

  Some corroboration of this possibility recently appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer of June 27, 1966, in an interview with Mr. S. M. Holland, who had previously reported seeing smoke rise from the knoll area at the time of the shooting:

  Backed up against the [picket] fence, says Holland, were a station wagon and a sedan. The ground was muddy and … there were two muddy marks on the bumper of the station wagon, as if someone had stood there to look over the fence. The footprints led to the sedan and ended.

  “I’ve often wondered,” says Holland, “if a man could have climbed into the trunk of that car and pulled the lid shut on himself, then someone else have driven it away later.”

  As to the two Oswalds, we know that one, probably Lee Harvey, was seen on the second floor at about a minute-and-a-half after the shooting, by Policeman Baker and Mr. Truly. One, described with different clothes, was seen by an employee, Mrs. Reid, a few moments later holding a coke and moving in the direction of the front exit. Oswald Two left by the rear (observed by Worrell), hid until his ride arrived, raced down to the freeway (observed by Deputy Sheriff Craig), was picked up, and disappeared.

  The real Oswald went on a strange journey, leaving a wide trail, taking a bus from several blocks away (and taking a transfer he didn’t need), exiting from the bus a few minutes later, walking to the railroad station, and taking a cab. If he had really wanted to vanish rather than be followed, he had ample opportunity to disappear into the mob in downtown Dallas, to take a train, to go to the movies, or anything. At the railroad station, he was in no great hurry. He even offered a lady his cab.

  According to the cab driver, Mr. Walley, an elderly lady came up just as he was about to drive off with Oswald, and she wanted a cab. Oswald “opened the door a little like he was going to get out and he said, ‘I will let you have this one,’ and she said, ‘No, the driver can call me one’” (II: 256). Oswald insisted on riding in front with the driver (so he could be seen, perhaps), got off a few blocks from his rooming house, and walked there—another indication of his lack of haste. He rushed into the house, went into his room, and emerged a few minutes later.

  Mrs. Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper, reported two interesting facts: one, that while Oswald was in his room (around 1 P.M.), a police car pulled up in front of the house and honked, waited a bit, and then drove off; the other that when Oswald left, he stood by the bus stop in front of the house (the bus that stopped there went back to downtown Dallas) for “several minutes” (XXII: 160 and XXVI: 165). In an affidavit dated December 5, 1963, Mrs. Roberts said that she looked out a moment after Oswald left, and that she does not know how long he stood there. When she testified before the Commission, she seemed to be confused on various matters. She was not, however, asked anything about this particular item.

  Oswald claimed he went to his room to change clothes and to get his revolver. One of the many oddities of that amazing day is that when Oswald was arrested he had on him a payroll stub from the American Bakery Co. dated August 1960, a period when Oswald was in Russia. The stub turned out to have nothing to do with Oswald, but to belong to someone else who lived at the same address where Oswald once had lived. Maybe Oswald was collecting misleading data in case he was arrested. [XXII: 178 and XXVI: 542].) He then apparently walked to the place where the encounter with policeman Tippit occurred. The physical evidence about the times involved indicates it just might barely be possible for Oswald to have made this odyssey.

  The Tippit affair is puzzling. It seems out of keeping with Oswald’s calm, unflappable character that he would have shot Tippit on the spur of the moment. It seems odd that Tippit would have stopped a suspect. He was unimaginative, and had shown no real initiative in all his years on the force, as evidenced by his failure to get a promotion in thirteen years. It is hard to believe that, on the basis of a vague description which must have fitted at least several thousand males in Dallas that day, Tippit would have stopped Oswald far away from the scene of the crime. Few other suspects were stopped in all of Dallas, although the city contained thousands of white males aged thirty, five foot nine, weighing around 165 pounds, a description that doesn’t fit Oswald, who was twenty-four and weighed much less.

  The legal evidence that Oswald shot Tippit is pretty bad, and a good defense lawyer might have prevented a conviction. The only witness to the shooting itself was Mrs. Markham, whose testimony was strongly doubted by some of the Commission lawyers. Mark Lane has done much to undermine the probative value of Mrs. Markham’s evidence. The tape recording of his conversation with her (XX: 576-77, for instance) does not inspire confidence in the reliability of her reports, nor does her testimony to the Commission.

  Many of the others who were in the area where the Tippit shooting occurred, and who identified Oswald as being on the scene had already seen pictures of him in the press or on television. The cartridge cases found at the scene came from Oswald’s pistol but could not be linked to the bullets in Tippit’s body, since the bullets were smaller than the revolver barrel and did not show identifiable markings. It is also odd that the bullets found in Tippit and the recovered shells do not form a matching set. Also there are conflicting reports from those present as to what took place, as well as many other unsettled problems. Weisberg, Lane, and Sauvage have presented most of the difficulties.

  None of the witnesses could offer any explanation for what happened. If Oswald did the shooting, as I am inclined to believe, what could be the reason? If Tippit was suspicious of Oswald, Oswald had all sorts of fake (A. J. Hidell) identification on him to satisfy the non-too-bright Tippit. If Oswald was trying to disappear, shooting Tippit in broad daylight would hardly seem to be a way of accomplishing that.

  I should like to suggest an explanation of the Tippit affair with reference to some of the above points. If Oswald’s role was to become the prime suspect, he did his job well. Within an hour he had become the principal person sought by the police, independent of the Tippit murder. If this was a conspiracy, and Oswald had his role qua suspect, how was he to get away? The two assassins are rescued right away. Oswald goes off on his own to his rooming house. Just then a police car arrives. What better get-away than a police car, fake or real? As it happens, the Report mentions the fact that old Dallas police cars had been sold to private individuals. Oswald misses his ride, looks for it at the bus stop, and then starts up the street looking for it. Tippit comes along slowly. Oswald thinks it is his ride, and approaches the car. Tippit has had a confrontation with second Oswald at the Dobbs House on November 20, and recognizes him from the previous encounter. A monumental misunderstanding then occurs, and Oswald may suddenly have feared that Tippit realized what had been going on. Hence, the shooting. Oswald then disappears for half an hour, and mysteriously reappears across the street from the Texas Theatre. Because he didn’t buy a ticket, he attracts attention and gets arrested.

  The only other crucial event in this early post-assassination period was the finding of bullet No. 399. As I have already indicated, bullet No. 399 was essential in connecting Oswald’s gun with the assassination. If it was never fired through a human body, then someone had to take it to Parkland Hospital and plant it. The descriptions of the chaos in the hospital indicate that almost anyone could have walked in and placed the bullet where it was found.

  One conspirator could have left bullet No. 399 on a bloody stretcher, trusting it was Kennedy’s or Connally’s. Bullet No. 399 would again lead to making Oswald a suspect. The various clues—the shells, the brown paper bag, Oswald’s prints on the boxes, the rifle, bullet No. 399, Oswald’s absence from the Book Depository—would all lead a mammoth police search for Oswald, while the others could vanish. The conflicting data, due to the two Oswalds, would confuse the search. Oswald presumably had some get-away planned, so that he, too, would disappear.

  Then, possibly, as Fidel Castro suggested in his analysis of November 29, 1963, all of Oswald’s fake Cuban activities would lead to cries that Oswald had fled to Cuba (XXVI: 433). Castro
, in fact, offered a very interesting and intriguing commentary on the affair in this speech, pointing out some of the oddities and implausibilities in the initially reported data. He also indicated that he was suspicious of Oswald’s pro-Cuban activities, and thought they were a planned cover to create the illusion that Oswald was on Castro’s side. When the deed was done, and Oswald “left a trail, was identified, and disappeared, they would then say he came to Cuba.” Castro also indicated in this speech that Oswald had “passed through Cuba” when he went to Russia, which doesn’t seem possible in view of the data gathered about the trip.

  The Tippit affair and the arrest in the movie theater are all that went awry. If I am right that the Tippit affair was an accident, it also led to the arrest by getting a large group of policemen into the area searching for Oswald. Only if he wanted to be arrested can I believe that the Tippit shooting was deliberate. It certainly would make it harder, if not impossible, for Oswald ever to get released from jail.

  If Oswald’s role was to attract all suspicion, while not being an actual assassin, his behavior in prison certainly fits this. Marina claimed at one point that he wanted a page in history. If so, and if he had done it, he would have gained lasting fame and shame by proclaiming his achievements. Instead he calmly insisted on his innocence, and contended that as soon as he got his lawyer it would be established. The police, the FBI, and the Secret Service were all amazed by his sangfroid and his continual protestations of innocence. His brother Robert tells us that Lee assured him of his innocence and told him not to believe the “so-called evidence” (XVI: 900). Oswald also insisted that the famous photograph showing him holding the rifle was a fake, and that he, with his photographic experience, knew how it was done.

  If the plot was as I have suggested, Oswald played his role well. The police chased him and found him, and ignored all other clues, suspects, and possibilities. The second Oswald data would probably have made all eyewitness evidence against Oswald useless. (Somebody did go to the trouble of making sure that the FBI knew about a second Oswald by calling on November 24th and telling them about the tag in the Irving Sports Shop.) Except for the Tippit episode, Oswald’s subsequent arrest and Jack Ruby’s shooting, it might have been a perfect plot. Nobody could place Oswald at the scene of the crime. (What is Brennan’s poor testimony worth, especially if there was a second Oswald?)

  The paper bag would have been worthless as a clue, especially if two bags were introduced. Oswald may well have waited in the lunchroom until Baker and Truly turned up, and then thought he had a solid alibi. The planted evidence of a second Oswald’s movements would have raised reasonable doubts, by showing that another reconstruction of the crime was and is possible.

  Eleven

  The Remaining Questions

  My reconstruction is, of course, no more than a possibility, but unlike the Commission’s theory, it fits much of the known data, and requires fewer miracles or highly unlikely events. Since the second Oswald was an excellent shot, my theory makes the skillful marksmanship plausible. By having two assassins, this theory fits the testimony of the majority of the observers that at least the first shot came from the knoll.

  The theory does not require the dismissal of all of the people who saw second Oswald as mistaken, no matter how much corroboration they have. The theory accounts for bullet No. 399 and its role, and it offers some explanation for the Tippit affair.

  The Commission resorts to extremes to make the one-assassin theory possible, and has had to select some of the weakest evidence and weakest witnesses in order to hold on to its conclusion. Its time reconstruction really shows how improbable it is that Oswald did it all, all by himself. And the Commission is left with all sorts of discrepancies: the absence of Oswald’s fingerprints on the gun surface and the bullets; the absence of rifle ammunition; the unaccountable behavior of Oswald if he had done it; any serious account of motivation, etc. The criticisms of Cook, Epstein, Lane, Salandria, and Weisberg leave the Commission with the problem of defending just the bare possibility that their theory could hold up.

  The answers to Epstein that have appeared are simply concerned to show that the one-bullet hypothesis is possible (it never was probable), and so far they haven’t done a good job of it. If Kennedy was shot in the back, and some replies to Epstein tend to concede this point, then it seems unlikely that anything can redeem a one-assassin theory. In this connection, one point must be made clear: The Commission’s Report made no attempt to resolve the contradiction between the FBI reports and the autopsy. The O’Neill-Sibert report clearly strengthens the reliability of the FBI reports of December 9, 1963, and January 13, 1964, as accurate accounts of where the first bullet entered the body and of how far it penetrated. The Commission apparently chose to ignore the matter, and to keep the conflicting FBI data out of public view by omitting all of this material from the reams of documents published in the twenty-six volumes.

  The question whether the FBI reports were accurate can only be answered if the photographs of the autopsy and the X-rays are made available for examination by responsible and independent observers, if not by the public at large. Since the Commission’s theory of a single assassin depends heavily on this point, the photos and X-rays should be made available immediately. Cohen, in his article in The Nation, while professing to support the Commission’s theory, has stressed the need for some responsible examinations of these materials.

  Sinister accusations have been made, and the longer these X-rays and photos are hidden, the more credible these accusations will appear. If there is something sinister afoot, let us expose it. If there is not, let us silence these accusations and also inhibit what promises to be decades of dreary fantasizing (p. 49).

  I do not know how dreary or how fantastic the speculating will be, but if it turns out that the photos show that the bullet hole is in Kennedy’s back, and the X-rays show that the bullet did not exit from the body, then there should be an urgent public demand for an accounting of what has gone on. If the photos and the X-rays confirm the critics’ view, then there will have to be some explanation from the Commission and the doctors for the information they have set forth.

  From the beginning of the investigation a two-assassin theory was a more probable explanation for all of the strange events of that day. The evidence collected, however, left few traces of a second assassin, but many problems in proving that Oswald was one of the killers or the only one. As I have argued, the problem can be overcome by admitting a conspiracy theory suggested by the “evidence” of the brown paper bag and bullet No. 399. But to establish the exact nature of a conspiracy would obviously require a lot more data than are available in the twenty-six volumes since the Commission didn’t look into this possibility. What I have outlined is a tentative version that seems to fit the data available at present. Further investigation may produce different explanations of some of the incidents I have mentioned. Other and better hypotheses can probably be set forth if more information becomes available.

  The political or social nature of the conspiracy must be purely speculative at this stage. We know too much about Oswald (but still not enough to ascertain what he was really up to), and nothing about the others. Perhaps, as someone has suggested to me, Oswald was a minor figure in the venture and his proclivities in no way represent those of the group. Maybe Oswald met some far-right extremist when he went to hear General Walker on October 23. Maybe some right-wing Cubans involved him in a plot when he was in New Orleans, or maybe he got involved with some leftist plotters in New Orleans, Mexico City, or Dallas.

  Whatever information might emerge from a renewed investigation, a reading of the twenty-six volumes forces one to the conclusion that the Commission did a poor job; it served the American and the world public badly. But Weisberg’s constant charge that the Commission was malevolent is, I believe, quite unfounded. Until Epstein came along, one searched for some possible explanation for the deficiencies of the Dallas Police, the FBI, and the Commission. Epstein has at le
ast explained the failings of the last group. They did a rush job, a slap-dash one, defending a politically acceptable explanation.

  The American Press, as well as others in positions of responsibility, would not and could not dream of a conspiratorial explanation. In a world in which conspiracies are going on all of the time—in business (the anti-trust cases), in crime (the Mafia), in foreign affairs (the CIA)—it somehow was still not imaginable that two or more persons could decide to assassinate the President of the United States. The activities of Weissman (the far-right-winger who put the ad in the paper) show that a conspiracy to defame the President was going on in Dallas among a handful of rightists. Why was this possible, but not a conspiracy by others to shoot Kennedy? The printer, Surrey, refused to reveal who was conspiring to pass out leaflets denouncing the President. The information gathered about this clearly indicated that some group was involved, probably another far-right one.

  If the answer is, So what? there are lots of conspiracies going on, but not in this particular case, then I would argue that a two-assassin theory makes the most (and maybe the only) sense. And so, in this case, if we are ever to understand what happened, we have to consider seriously all of the indications that there was a conspiracy in which second Oswald played a part.

  The assassination of Kennedy was a momentous event in our history. We cannot hide from it by clinging to a hope that one lonely, alienated nut did it all by himself, and that nobody else was involved. And we cannot hide from the fact that some of our most serious and well-meaning citizens have catered to our childish needs for security, and have given us an inadequate and perhaps grossly misleading explanation of the event. Many of us in this country are afraid to face reality, and part of our reality is living with our history. Can we continue to live a lie about what happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963, or has the time come to face what it means and what it involves for all of us? The public must cry out for a real examination and understanding of the events of that day.