JFK and the Doorways to Perception, Part Two
Entering the doorways of the Kennedy Assassination
In the first installment of this two-part article, three doorways to perception in the assassination of JFK were encountered and unlocked. The next step is to enter through those doors and have a look around. This article will take a closer look at each doorway in turn, explore some of the relevant context pertaining to the issues encountered, and initiate a process of narrative frame comparison in examining each doorway. In the articles that follow, this process will continue, building on the work done here.
The narrative frame comparison process will apply evidence and reasoning to opposing narrative interpretations in each of the three doorways in the following order:
The Assassination of Oswald
a. Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald for personal motives
b. Jack Ruby shot Oswald for conspiratorial motivesThe Zapruder Film
a. The head shot originated from in front of Kennedy
b. The head shot originated from behind KennedyThe Backyard Photos
a. The backyard photos are authentic photos of a real occurrence
b. The backyard photos are fabrications and do not depict a real event
The first two doorways will be addressed briefly, but the third doorway of the backyard photos will be explored in more depth as a basis of exploring a number of narrative fallacies and narrative reasoning tools that apply in this instance.
Doorway One: The Assassination of Oswald
The first doorway, Jack Ruby’s assassination of Oswald, splits the competing narratives as follows:
1. Ruby shot Oswald for solely personal motives. This narrative is compatible with a world in which Oswald was a lone nut gunman who himself shot Kennedy for solely personal motives. It is also compatible with a world in which Oswald was part of a conspiracy or was framed by conspirators. Ruby still could have shot him for personal or disorganized motives in that world. In this case, the benefit of Ruby’s actions to the conspirators would be a happy coincidence for them.
2. Ruby shot Oswald in accordance with conspiratorial motives. This narrative is only compatible with a world in which Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. If Oswald was a member of that conspiracy, killing Oswald would prevent him from disclosing information about the other conspirators. If Oswald was not a member of that conspiracy but was framed for Kennedy’s murder, killing Oswald would prevent Oswald from standing trial disclosing information that could exonerate him and provide leads to the people who set him up. Either way, Oswald’s death would make it possible to limit public exposure of that evidence and preclude further investigation by law enforcement.
What did Jack Ruby himself have to say? At one point Ruby claimed he shot Oswald out of compassion for Jackie Kennedy, so she wouldn’t have to testify at Oswald’s trial. Another early claim was that he spontaneously shot Oswald due to an involuntary epileptic spasm in his arm (I’m not kidding). He also tried to claim he shot Oswald due to temporary insanity. At other times, he claimed his motive was to show the world that Jewish people have “guts” (Ruby was Jewish), or that somehow his assassination of Oswald would dispel any speculation that Jewish people were behind Kennedy’s assassination (I’m not sure how that one works).
After trying on and discarding these explanations, Jack Ruby eventually claimed that powerful people had coerced him into doing it, but he wasn’t willing to say who or why, because he believed he was not safe from them while incarcerated in Dallas. In his interview with Chief Justice Earl Warren of the Warren Commission, Ruby repeatedly asked Warren to transfer him to Washington, DC where he would feel safe to talk. This request was denied.
When discussing the reasons he felt unsafe in Dallas, Ruby stated: “There is an organization here, Chief Justice Warren, if it takes my life at this moment to say it, and Bill Decker said be a man and say it, there is a John Birch Society right now in activity, and Edwin Walker is one of the top men of this organization—take it for what it’s worth, Chief Justice Warren. Unfortunately for me, for me giving the people the opportunity to get in power, because of the act I committed, has put a lot of people in jeopardy with their lives. Don’t register with you, does it?”
Warren’s response was, “No, I don’t understand that,” to which Ruby replied, “Would you rather just delete what I said and pretend nothing is going on?”
The following year, in March 1965, Ruby spoke at a press conference (you can view the clip here) and stated: “Everything pertaining to what's happening has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts of what occurred—my motives. The people who had so much to gain, and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I'm in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world.”
Ruby soon died (in January, 1967) at the age of 55, and his death was attributed to fast-acting cancer. The circumstances of his death are a subject of dispute in the assassination research community, with some speculating he was murdered—but evidence is not conclusive.
If Ruby was a conspirator and not a lone nut, his history and associations could provide clues to guide an inquiry into the identity of the other conspirators. Ruby had longstanding ties to organized crime, had served as an informant to the FBI and the anti-communist House Un-American Activities Committee, and ran guns to Cuba in conjunction with the CIA and the Mafia in the late ‘50s. He was spotted with numerous people and in several locations connected to the assassination. The number of long-distance phone calls made by Ruby in the weeks leading up to the assassination increased exponentially, and most of these calls were placed to well-connected Mafia and organized crime figures. A close associate of Ruby’s (and frequent visitor of Ruby after his arrest for killing Oswald) was Joe Campisi, widely considered to be the number two man in the Dallas Mafia during the 1960s (under Boss Joe Civello), eventually becoming Dallas Mafia Boss in 1973.
Ruby’s references to General Edwin Walker and the John Birch Society (quoted above) provide another possible lead. After Oswald’s arrest, Ruby spent much of his time hanging around the police station where Oswald was jailed, even to the point of correcting the statement of Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade at a press conference regarding Oswald’s involvement with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans that summer, demonstrating that Ruby was well-informed regarding Oswald’s activities.
The circumstances of Ruby’s assassination of Oswald are suspicious on their face, especially when one takes Ruby’s associates into consideration, including the fact that Ruby was well-known to the Dallas Police who were responsible for Oswald’s safety when Ruby killed him at Dallas Police Headquarters. Ruby was on a first-name basis with dozens, perhaps over a hundred, officers in the department. They were welcomed with free drinks as patrons of the strip club he owned, the Carousel Club and were recipients of other favors and gestures of hospitality bestowed by Ruby.
The briefly summarized evidence listed above make Ruby’s assassination of Oswald one of the best initial reasons to suspect conspiracy in the Kennedy case. Although Ruby claimed to have killed Oswald for personal motives, he later claimed or insinuated others had coerced him into doing it. The changing nature of Ruby’s explanations for his personal motives, coupled with the considerable personal costs suffered by Ruby due to killing Oswald, make these reasons hard to believe. Ruby permanently sacrificed his personal freedom and career, supposedly for nothing more than emotional relief—the lone nut thesis.
It is not possible to obtain direct evidence of any person’s motive for any action; no person has direct access to the thoughts and emotions of another. As such, the question of motive is initially useful in establishing competing narrative frames for comparison, which are both held open. An examination of the concrete evidence in the assassination of Kennedy will then be applied to the open narrative frames.
After these narrative frames are narrowed and sharpened through the application of other evidence, questions of motive are revisited. Then, the narrative reasoning tool of contextual narrative integrity is applied. The role of this tool is to test the winnowed-down narrative frames for consistency with the additional evidence in the case. In other words, each piece of evidence in the case must align in context with all of the other evidence. An explanatory narrative that fits this evidence must demonstrate internal consistency, or integrity with these contextual evidentiary relationships.
For these reasons, it makes sense to defer further exploration of Ruby and his motives for now. If conspiracy is established as responsible for Kennedy’s death, the question of Ruby’s motives in killing Oswald will provide important context in learning more about the nature of that conspiracy, including whether or not Ruby was part of it. Ruby’s anti-communist activities, references to General Walker and the anti-communist John Birch Society, and connections with the FBI, CIA, anti-Castro paramilitary operations, the Mafia, other members of organized crime, and the Dallas Police can be considered and explored. So can Ruby’s other activities and associations with possible links to the assassination. If conspiracy cannot be established in Kennedy’s death, then Ruby's motives would be a moot point.
Ruby’s assassination of Oswald is a doorway into the case because it is immediately accessible as a point of evidence, appears suspicious on its face, and appears increasingly suspicious in the context of other facts pertaining to Ruby. For now, the job of this doorway should be enough to arouse significant reasonable suspicion regarding the Oswald-as-lone-gunman narrative.
Doorway Two: The Zapruder Film
The head shot that killed Kennedy, followed by the forceful movement of Kennedy’s head and torso to his back and left, as seen in the Zapruder Film, open up two primary narrative frames for comparison:
The head shot originated from in front of Kennedy. This resulted in the movement of Kennedy’s body and head one would expect to see. Since it is widely agreed that Kennedy was also shot at from behind, this is evidence of at least two shooters, and his assassination must have been carried out by multiple people, i.e., a conspiracy.
The head shot hit Kennedy from behind. Although one would normally expect Kennedy to be thrust forward when struck in the head by a high-powered bullet from behind, his body and head responded in an unexpected way instead. Since the bullet came from behind, this narrative is consistent with the official narrative of Oswald firing alone from the Texas School Book Depository.
The first narrative frame speaks for itself. If it is true, one would expect to see further evidence of a shot from the front. This evidence exists in droves. A large percentage of witnesses in Dealey Plaza believed the shots fired at Kennedy came from behind a picket fence on the grassy knoll to the north of Elm Street, on which Kennedy’s limo was driving southeast when he was hit. Several witnesses were located on the overpass east of Kennedy when he was hit and saw a puff of smoke emerge from the trees surrounding the fence at the time of the shots. Lee Bowers observed the same location from a railroad tower located behind the fence to the northeast, on the other side of a parking lot behind that fence. He observed two men walking through and waiting in that area minutes prior to the assassination, as well as several cars that moved through the parking lot at that time.
Immediately after the shooting, film evidence shows large crowds of witnesses running up the knoll to investigate the presumed source of the shots following the assassination, corroborated by extensive witness testimony. No shooters were encountered or apprehended behind the fence, but several police officers who ran up the knoll after the shooting testified to encountering a man (or multiple men) with Secret Service credentials in that area when they arrived at the area behind the fence. The Secret Service claimed they had no personnel stationed in the plaza that day other than in the motorcade. This indicates that either the Secret Service is lying, the police officers are lying, or that one or more Secret Service impersonators were stationed at that location.
Some have argued for the possibility that frontal shots could have been fired from the overpass itself, or from a tree-covered corner on the opposite knoll on the south side of the plaza. Shots from either of these locations, as well as shots from the north grassy knoll could have struck Kennedy on the right side of his head, driving his head and torso back and to the right. At least 50 witnesses (and by some counts over 80) who observed Kennedy’s wounds (either at Dealey Plaza; Parkland Hospital in Dallas; Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, where the autopsy was performed; or in transit), described those wounds as consistent with a frontal shot. Many confirmed the presence of a large, gaping wound on the back of Kennedy’s head, close to center on Kennedy’s right-hand side, consistent with an exit wound fired from in front of Kennedy. Others confirmed a small, neat entrance wound in Kennedy’s throat. These witnesses included almost all medical personnel who observed the wound (over 30 of them).
In addition, the Zapruder Film shows Jackie Kennedy crawling onto the back of the limo after her husband is shot. Secret Service Agent Clint Hill is seen running up to the back of the limo and guiding Jackie back to her seat as he climbs onto the vehicle. He reports that Jackie was picking up pieces of JFK’s brain that had been blown out of his head onto the back of the limo, consistent with a shot from the front. The motorcycle officers driving just behind Kennedy’s limo also reported being splattered with blood and brain matter from Kennedy’s head as they drove. This is also consistent with a shot from the front that sprayed body tissue behind Kennedy from the exit wound at the rear of his head. Dr. MT Jenkins testified that when the limo arrived at Parkland hospital several minutes later, Jackie was still holding the pieces of her husband’s brain she had retrieved from the back of the limo and presented it to him.
The second narrative frame (holding that the head shot must have come from behind Kennedy) requires an explanation for why Kennedy’s head and body would hurtle backward after being struck by a bullet from the rear. This argument has been attempted by suggesting Kennedy’s movement was the result of a nerve spasm so powerful that he was thrown backward instead of forward. This hypothetical nerve spasm would have to be powerful indeed to completely counteract the force carried by a bullet from behind. The other offered explanation is that a jet effect must have been created by a rush of blood and tissue streaming forward from an exit wound on the front of Kennedy’s head, propelling his head backward so strongly that his entire body was thrown backward as well.
In the absence of strong evidence to indicate the shot came from behind instead of the front, there is no reason to assume Kennedy’s body and head were thrown backward due to the unlikely (and as argued by many, impossible) explanations of either a jet effect or a nerve spasm. A reasonable inquiry would regard the movement of Kennedy’s head and torso as prima facie evidence of a frontal shot and only try to explain how this movement could have resulted from a rear shot if other evidence in the case is conclusively inconsistent with a frontal shot and conclusively consistent with a rear shot.
The evidence consistent with a frontal shot is very strong: Kennedy’s brain matter was expelled to his rear, multitudes of eyewitnesses and ear witnesses testified and behaved in reaction to a shot coming from the north grassy knoll. Overwhelming witness observations testify to a large exit wound in the rear of Kennedy’s skull. The rear-shot narrative requires us to simply discount the entirety of this testimony and evidence as resulting from witness error or fabrication. The only evidence offered that the head shot that killed Kennedy must have come from the rear is that other shots were fired at Kennedy that can be shown to have come from the rear.
The rear-shot narrative is another example of narrative frontloading. With a pre-existing narrative about a solitary gunman shooting from Kennedy’s rear at the Texas School Book Depository, unlikely to impossible explanations are required to explain the movement of Kennedy’s head and torso. All of the other corroborating evidence of a shot or shots from the front must be ignored or dismissed with no reason to do so—other than the fact that this evidence does not fit the pre-existing narrative.
The Zapruder Film Doorway provides very strong reason to believe the shot that struck Kennedy’s head came from the front. With the evidence seen in the film, together with the corroborating evidence of witnesses in Dealey Plaza and witnesses to Kennedy’s head wound, it is reasonable to presume that a frontal shot struck Kennedy unless very strong evidence exists elsewhere that no shots were fired from the front. This doorway into the assassination provides even stronger reason to doubt the official lone gunman narrative than the first doorway of Ruby’s assassination of Oswald.
Doorway Three: The Backyard Photos
The implications regarding the authenticity of the backyard photos are not immediately apparent without further context. On a surface level, the narrative frames look like this:
The backyard photos are authentic. Lee Harvey Oswald had some creepy photos taken of him brandishing weapons and communist newspapers. It is unclear whether these photos have bearing on his innocence or guilt in the Kennedy assassination.
The backyard photos are forgeries. If these photos are forgeries, it is an indication that someone was trying to frame Oswald for Kennedy’s murder, either before or after the fact. Or, they might have been created to assist in framing Oswald for a different crime, or crimes yet to be determined. If Oswald made the forgeries himself, or they were made with his knowledge, it’s hard to understand why.
With additional context, the implications of these narrative frames can be expanded upon. It will also be useful to explore the history and evidence related to these photos, as well as evidence for and against their forgery.
Oswald’s impossible lean in one of the backyard photos (discussed in part one of this article) is only one of many evidentiary points which point to the photos being faked. The first extensive work done to identify evidence of forgery in the photos was conducted by Stephen Jaffe during New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison’s investigation of the case. Other photo analysis experts have corroborated and built on this work. The primary evidence supporting their forgery is presented by Jack White in the following video, Lee Harvey Oswald Photo Analysis, starting at minute 18:43 and running until about minute 34:00. The entire 48 minute documentary provides further context and information regarding the provenance and inauthenticity of these photos. I will summarize the primary points below, though the video does a much more thorough job of this than I am capable of here, so I would encourage watching it.
The first thing to know is that the famous Life Magazine photo with Oswald’s impossible lean is one of three different backyard images, which are shown below. The images were labeled in evidence as 133-A, 133-B, and 133-C, from left to right. The image on the far right (133-C) was not discovered until many years after the assassination; the first two were reported by police as having been found the day after Kennedy’s assassination during a search of Ruth Paine’s garage, at the house where Oswald’s wife Marina was living.
In addition to Oswald’s gravity-defying lean in CE133-A, which shows this cannot be an authentic photo, there is something else wrong with 133-A. Upon immediate comparison, it can be seen that Oswald’s head is out of proportion to his body in the “Oswald Lean” photo—it’s too large. His head appears closer to normal size for his body in the other two photos. This is because the heads are exactly the same size in each photo, but the bodies are of different lengths—indicating that a single photo of Oswald’s head was pasted on top of the three different body photos. Of the three body images, the body used in the “Oswald Lean” photo was a smaller image than the other two.
Next, compare Oswald’s chin in the backyard photos to photos taken of him while in Dallas Police custody. In the backyard photos, his chin is wide, flat, and rectangular. Elsewhere, Oswald’s chin is noticeably more pointed and can often be seen to have a cleft chin. Below are close-ups of his November 22, 1963 mug shot and the “Oswald Lean” photo that show the clear discrepancy.
Here are some more photos of Oswald in custody in November, 1963, showing his significantly narrower, longer, and sharper chin:
All of the backyard photos feature the same broad, flat chin, which does not resemble Oswald’s actual chin. Notice that both photos below also show a line separating the bottom of his chin from the rest of his head above. In the photo analysis video I linked above, Oswald’s head is overlaid from one photo onto the other, and the features and size of the heads align perfectly, which is not possible in two different photographs.
The video demonstrates that one photo of Oswald’s head was used for all three backyard composite images. This image of his head from above the chin and up, were placed on top of another person’s body and chin in three different poses. The line separating the chin from another man’s body and the image of Oswald’s face is clearly visible in each case. The image of Oswald’s head was attached at slightly different angles and touched up around the mouth and eyes to give each photo a slightly different look.
In case you missed it the first time, here’s that link to the video again: Lee Harvey Oswald Photo Analysis. The photo analysis begins at minute 18:43. Further evidence is detailed in the video, showing how the three poses of the model’s body and the same image of Oswald’s head were overlaid on top of an empty backyard photo. This explains how one of those poses is standing at an impossible lean—the body’s original pose would have been upright and laid crooked on top of the backyard scene. Shadows corresponding to those bodies were then added to the composites.
Shadow analysis reveals discrepancies between the directions of shadows under Oswald’s nose, the shadows meant to be cast by the body, and the remaining shadows in the picture. Varying perspectives show the composites may have been created using a technique called keystoning. The completed composites would each have been tilted at different angles and photographs taken of each composite image to give all three completed backyard photos a unique perspective angle.
Other anomolies present in the photographs include the fact that Oswald’s ringswitches from his right hand in 133-A and 133-B to his left hand in 133-C (though this difficult to see at the level of resolution in the photo images shown above). The rifle pictured in these photos cannot be the rifle Oswald was accused of killing Kennedy with (I will demonstrate discrepancies between these rifles in a future article). The clothing worn by the figure in these photographs does not match any clothing Oswald was ever known to possess, including all articles of clothing found after his death. The length of the newspaper and the rifle depicted in the photos are both out of proportion, and the images of the figures fingers appear to be retouched and distorted.
Numerous points of evidence demonstrate that the photos were faked, although the evidence of Oswald’s impossible lean was already enough on its own to demonstrate that one was. As mentioned in part one of this article, when I first became aware of the evidence indicating forgery in these photos, I initially thought the photos might have been faked after Oswald was arrested—an attempt to manufacturing evidence against the available suspect and secure a conviction. Crooked police departments are known to do this from time to time. If that were the case, the forged photographs would not necessarily indicate that Oswald was framed for the crime ahead of time, and would not be evidence of a conspiracy in Kennedy’s murder.
But I later learned that the photos must have been created before the assassination. The Dallas Police entered photos 133-A and 133-B into evidence on the afternoon of November 23, the day after the assassination, along with the photo negatives (although the negative for 133-A apparently disappeared from their files sometime after that). However, reporter Jerry O’Leary and witness Michael Paine both claimed to have been shown the 133-A photograph on the night of November 22 at Dallas Police Headquarters. Also, when Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz interrogated Oswald on November 23, he took notes that show Fritz mentioned Michael Paine’s testimony from the night before to Oswald in reference to the photos.
This evidence from O’Leary, Paine, and Fritz demonstrates that at least 133-A was in the possession of Dallas Police on the night of the assassination, the night before the DPD claims to have discovered them at the Paine residence. In particular, the evidence regarding Michael Paine and Captain Fritz is an example of what I call concrete corroboration, when witness testimonies are independently corroborated with each other and are also independently corroborated by temporal or spacial circumstances that eliminate the possibility of witness error or fabrication. In this case, not only do Fritz’s notes independently corroborate Michael Paine’s reports of being shown the photo the night before, they were written during Fritz’s interrogation of Oswald, which occurred four hours before the photos were officially discovered.
It would not have been possible for the photographs to be forged after Oswald was arrested as a suspect in the case. This would have required the police to locate Oswald’s address from 7 months prior, travel there and take a photo of the empty backyard, round up a body double, the two communist newspapers, and the two guns for a photo shoot, then procure the facial shot of Oswald and paste everything together, adding the shadows and keystoning effect—all in just a few hours. Even if the concrete corroboration showing the DPD had the photos the night of the 22nd is disregarded and 24 hours are allotted, this is still not enough time for such an elaborate undertaking. If the photos are forgeries constructed to assist in framing Oswald, they must have been created before the assassination occurred.
Evidence showing the Dallas Police had possession of the photos the day before they claimed to take possession of them also casts suspicion on the provenance of the photos—and on the Dallas Police. Someone with access to Ruth and Michael Paine’s garage (including Ruth or Michael Paine) might have planted them there for the police to find. Alternatively, the photos might never have been in the Paine household and the police lied about how they came into possession of these photos. The Dallas Police searched the Paine residence on the 22nd, did not report finding the photos, and yet had the photos in their possession. They then returned to the Paine residence on the 23rd for another search and claimed to find the photos then. The third possibility is that one or more backyard photos were already in the possession of the DPD on November 22, and additional backyard photos and their negatives were also found in the Paine garage the next day.
Attempts to Authenticate the Photos
There are many possibilities. But what about the evidence of forgery within the photos themselves? What are the counter-claims? A quick internet search on the backyard photos will yield myriad results that either assume the photos are legitimate without question (and presume that Oswald killed Kennedy without question), or purport to have debunked claims that they are forgeries. My favorite of these is a 2015 study released by Dartmouth College claiming to have finally proven that Oswald’s impossible lean is in fact, possible. This was accomplished by 3-D computer modeling.
It is amusing to me that the great minds at Dartmouth are forced to resort to 3-D computer models to verify that Oswald’s lean is possible when millions of people in the country, including the researchers at Dartmouth, have access to 3-D bodies and can attempt to duplicate this lean facing a mirror. In the 50 years before the Dartmouth study, no one in the real world has been able to do so. And in the 10 years since the study was conducted, it’s still the case that no one in the real world with real bodies can do so. It cannot be done. But we are meant to rest assured Oswald’s stance was possible because it can be done in a Dartmouth computer lab’s simulated 3-D reality. This is gaslighting.
This Dartmouth study is an attempt to sway the public by way of reasoning mistake I call expert foreclosure. It occurs when a layperson abandons their own analysis of the evidence in question by deferring to an expert pronouncement, or throwing their hands up and excluding the evidence from their own analysis entirely.
As finders of fact, like members of a jury, we can expect both sides on any point of controversy to produce experts who claim to have proven their case. I have provided a walk-through of the strongest evidence for forgery in the backyard photos, as well as a link to Jack White’s presentation of this evidence (and extensive additional evidence) for the forgery. Each step of the way, the claims made can be demonstrated clearly to the layperson. Experts who hide their analysis behind a computer model cannot demonstrate the reliability of their work to the layperson. The layperson is forced to either believe or disbelieve that the expert’s computer model is representative of reality.
Faced with such a dilemma, and despite the availability of countervailing experts who can demonstrate their conclusions to the layperson, many finders of fact will succumb to another narrative fallacy I call authoritative narrative allure. Befuddled by the unwavering tenacity of narratives supported by the veneer of authority (and their contracted experts), the finder of fact either capitulates to the authoritative narrative, or abandons the attempt to arrive at conclusions by applying their own reasoning to the available evidence. Authoritative veneer may adhere to the pronouncements of a government body, an academic institution, establishment media sources, or experts authorized by these authorities with access to advanced technological tools (in a combined approach of authoritative narrative allure and expert foreclosure). Search engines may also confer authoritative veneer to favored perspectives through over-representation in search results. Authoritative veneer may also adhere to individuals in our private lives who present themselves with unshakable confidence or charisma, amplified by their measure of social status and power. By dismantling processes of authoritative narrative allure in the Kennedy case, we simultaneously gain resilience to manipulation in our personal lives.
The Dartmouth study was an absurd attempt to authenticate the “Oswald Lean” photo through the expert foreclosure process, but the earliest attempt to do so was conducted by the FBI for the Warren Commission in 1964. This analysis concluded that marks on the backyard photo negative of 133-B showed it was taken by an Imperial Reflex camera purported to have belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald. But this camera was not entered into evidence until it came into the possession of the FBI on February 24, 1964: three months after the assassination. The FBI reports that Oswald’s brother Robert turned it over to them on that date, having retrieved it from Ruth Paine three weeks after the assassination when Mrs. Paine informed Robert that some odds and ends that had belonged to Lee (including the camera) were still at her house and she would like Robert to pick them up.
The delayed nature of the Imperial Reflex’s entry into evidence and the questionable manner in which it was procured invites scrutiny as to the provenance of the camera. Given the importance of the backyard photos as evidence, it is difficult to believe the camera was present in the Paine garage at the time of the assassination and the Dallas Police declined to take it into evidence.
Only a few other photos were found to have been taken with the Imperial Reflex: a series of domestic snapshots of Oswald’s family taken in May, 1963 while Ruth Paine was visiting them in New Orleans, and one mysterious photograph of General Edwin Walker’s house. (This photo was used as evidence to posthumously implicate Oswald in an assassination attempt against Walker that occurred in April, 1963.) If the Imperial Reflex did not belong to Lee Harvey Oswald, scrutiny falls on Ruth Paine as the potential owner of the camera due to her association with the domestic photos and her role in the camera’s delayed journey into evidence.
A letter written to Mrs. Paine by Oswald’s wife Marina in the summer of 1963 confirms that Paine indeed took the New Orleans photos in question. In the letter, Marina asks Ruth whether she has the photos she took during her May visit. This implies that Ruth likely took the camera with her back to Dallas where she would have the opportunity to develop the film, and would further indicate the camera belonged to Ruth.
Regardless of who owned the camera, if it was used to take the backyard photo 133-B in evidence, this does not authenticate the backyard photos. The case for their forgery postulates use of a camera to photograph the keystoned composite images. If the Imperial Reflex camera was used for that purpose, further scrutiny falls on Mrs. Paine as a potential accomplice in the framing of Oswald due to her connection to the camera. Furthermore, if Oswald was framed for the Walker assassination attempt, as many believe, and the photo of Walker’s house was also taken with the Imperial Reflex, the scrutiny toward Mrs. Paine only increases. Other evidence used to implicate Oswald in the Walker shooting also came from Ruth Paine—and was not among the evidence seized by the Dallas Police from her garage—but was procured by Paine at a later date.
The next expert attempt to authenticate the backyard photos was conducted by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978, citing the results of film grain analysis that showed a consistent grain pattern in the photos. Under scrutiny, however, this explanation amounts to the same rationale used 14 years earlier by the FBI. The consistency in grain pattern simply means the photos themselves were produced by a single camera. The case for forgery holds that this is exactly how the photos were produced—by photographing a composite image and taking a photo of that image with another camera.
Nevertheless, the HSCA relied on the results of this expert analysis to frontload a narrative that the photos were authentic. They did not need to provide believable refutations for the evidence of forgery in the photos such as Oswald’s chin, his changing head size, the identical overlap in features and shadows on Oswald’s head across all three photos, and Oswald’s impossible lean. None of that evidence needed to be considered because their experts had already declared the photos authentic (employing a method that in no way contradicted the case for forgery). Thus, the attempts at expert foreclosure by the FBI and HSCA both fail for the same reason, and both conclusions are contradicted by other experts who are able to clearly demonstrate how the photos were forged.
The first person to identify the photos as fraudulent was Lee Harvey Oswald himself. Oswald worked six months for the photography firm Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall in 1962-63 and claimed extensive knowledge in the manipulation of photo imagery. The Dallas Police seized Oswald’s extensive collection of photographic equipment (but not the Imperial Reflex) from the Paine garage following his arrest, further evidence of Oswald’s proficiency in this area of skill. When the DPD presented Oswald with the backyard photos while he was in custody, Oswald quickly identified them as fakes, stating that his face had been overlaid on someone else’s body. He also stated that with his knowledge of photography, he would be able to demonstrate how the photos were faked. Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby the next morning and never had the chance to do so.
The remaining evidence in support of the authenticity of the backyard photos includes a print of backyard photo 133-A possessed by George de Mohrenschildt before he was found dead of a gunshot wound (ruled suicide) hours after being contacted by HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi regarding the Kennedy assassination case. The photo bears the following inscriptions on the back: “To my friend George from Lee Oswald 5/IV/63,” and in different ink, written in Russian, “Hunter of fascists, ha-ha-ha!!” The “hunter of fascists” remark is seemingly meant to be a reference to the General Walker assassination attempt. Oddly enough, the back of the photo bears a third inscription that reads: “copyright G. de M.” Who copyrights a photo they didn’t claim to personally create? Or is he claiming to copyright the inscriptions themselves? Very strange behavior.
Make of it what you will. Here’s an image of the back of the photo:
HSCA handwriting experts concluded the first inscription was written by Oswald, but this is disputed, as is the identity of whomever wrote the second inscription. Not willing to engage in expert foreclosure, I ran an internet search for examples of Oswald’s handwriting and signatures. The other examples of Oswald’s handwriting I found appears cramped and uneven, with many characters undifferentiated in the flow of his script. In contrast, the inscription pictured above appears written in a bold, even, graceful hand. It does not look like Oswald’s writing. In particular, the “O” in Oswald is written in a highly unique style never duplicated in any signatures attributed to him that I’ve seen.
If this was written by Oswald, he used a different style of handwriting than he used in any example of handwriting I found through internet searches. If this inscription was written by someone else, they apparently didn’t try very hard to make it look like other examples of Oswald’s writing. These of course are simply my inexpert impressions. But even if the handwriting appeared identical to other examples of Oswald’s handwriting, his handwriting could be duplicated by an expert in handwriting forgery. (Experts of this kind might be found in the FBI, the CIA, or in the organized crime world.)
Expert foreclosure asks us to accept as an article of faith that official handwriting experts would be able to detect a skilled forgery—and that if so, such experts would faithfully report evidence of handwriting forgery even if their expert opinion differed from the officially sanctioned narrative in the case. But if official photographic experts are able and willing to ignore the evidence of forgery in the backyard photos (as I’ve demonstrated above), why would we assume official handwriting experts would behave differently?
George de Mohrenschildt claims to have discovered this photo in 1967 after returning to Dallas from Haiti in 1966—found in the sleeve of a vinyl record from a set of records he loaned to the Oswalds before moving to Haiti in April of 1963. After finding it, he arranged to meet up with the Paines—apparently the only time they ever met up after the assassination.
The records were in the Paines’ garage for a period of time prior to and after Kennedy’s assassination, and were also among the evidence seized by the Dallas Police following the assassination. The DPD denies having witnessed the photo in the set of records during this time. Eventually they returned the records to the Paines. If the photos were forgeries meant to link Oswald to the assassination, it would be no stretch to also view the inscriptions as forgeries meant to link Oswald to the photo.
The final evidence in support of the authenticity of the backyard photos is the testimony of Oswald’s wife, Marina. She testified to taking the photos herself. But when Mrs. Oswald was first presented with the two original backyard photos in evidence, she denied any knowledge of them. Later she claimed to have taken just one photo, then both photos. She originally claimed they were taken with a different camera, then changed her story when the Imperial Reflex camera emerged.
When she described how she took the photos, she stated she held the Imperial Reflex up to her eye to do so, apparently unaware that the view display of the Imperial Reflex is on the top of the camera, requiring the person taking a picture to hold the camera below their head and look down into the top of it. When prints of the third backyard photo emerged over a decade later, Marina changed her testimony again and claimed to have taken all three. She insisted that the one and only time in her life she ever took a photograph was when she took the backyard photos.
This is not the only inconsistent testimony given by Marina Oswald. She changed her story and contradicted herself many times throughout her testimony in the case. It is very easy to identify the secondary gains available to Marina in providing testimony desired by authorities seeking to pin Kennedy’s assassination on Oswald. As a Soviet citizen in the United States at the height of the Cold War, with two young children, the fear of deportation and separation from her children would have been a crucial factor. She might also have feared that she would be accused as a Soviet spy, complicit in the assassination. The Secret Service held her in protective custody for several months following Kennedy’s death, and much of the evidence used against Lee Harvey Oswald emerged from her evolving testimony. In 1978, Marina admitted she had lied to the FBI and Secret Service for her own protection; she now insists that her late husband was innocent all along.
Applying Narrative Frame Comparison to the Backyard Photos
The backyard photos provide a fine demonstration of how methods like expert foreclosure and the authoritative allure can prop up frontloaded narratives that cause us to doubt ourselves, question our own reasoning and memory—and in short, gaslight us. In this case, there is a readily available method to break the gaslighting spell. Get back up in front of the mirror and try to duplicate Oswald’s impossible lean. You will never be able to do it. Because it is impossible. The photos cannot be authentic.
Now that additional context has been applied to the backyard photos, here is the updated narrative frame comparison:
1. The backyard photos are authentic. One fine spring day in 1963 (March 31, according to the Warren Commission), at Lee Harvey Oswald’s urging, his wife Marina agreed to take a series of photos for the only time in her life. These photos featured Oswald brandishing his rifle, his handgun, and two communist newspapers. Oswald then quickly produced a print of one of these photos and inscribed a message on the back of it for his friend, George de Mohrenschildt on April, 5. Oswald may or may not have then tried to assassinate General Edwin Walker on April 10. Instead of giving the photo to de Mohrenschildt on April 13 (the last time they met before he de Mohrenschildt left for Haiti), Oswald held onto the photo and tucked it into the sleeve of one of the records he was borrowing from de Mohrenschildt.
That’s it. If the photos are authentic, they do nothing to provide evidence that 8 months later, Oswald used the rifle to assassinate President Kennedy. Nor do they provide evidence that he used the handgun to murder police officer JD Tippit less than an hour after that. The photos might be used as evidence to show that Oswald possessed the rifle used to kill Kennedy—but analysis of the photos show that the rifle on display is not even the same length as the rifle the FBI claims belonged to Oswald and was used against Kennedy.
If the photos are authentic, all they show is that for some reason Oswald wanted some photos that showed him holding weapons and communist newspapers at the same time. Would he have wanted to use these photos to prove he was a committed badass communist to someone? If so, why would he choose to hold up a copy of both the Militant and the Worker newspapers? These newspapers represent conflicting communist ideologies; brandishing both of them together would merely alienate communists on both sides of the ideological divide. Would he have wanted the photos as a joke, or to satisfy a lark? If he were harboring the desire to carry out a political assassination, did he want to create a photographic record of his politically inspired violent intentions for some reason?
If the photos are authentic, they tell us nothing about whether Oswald shot Kennedy or didn’t shoot Kennedy. It’s hard to even think of any coherent reason why he would want these photos taken. At best, they demonstrate that Oswald was a very strange person who did strange things for reasons that are hard to fathom (which is pretty much the picture of Oswald required by the lone nut narrative). The only thing we would really learn from these photos is that somehow it is actually possible to stand with both feet on the ground and to the left of one’s center of gravity.
2. The backyard photos are forgeries. If these photos are forgeries, it is hard to think of a plausible reason Oswald would create them himself or consent to someone else making them. Presumably, if he wanted these photos to exist for some reason, he would have simply have posed for them and forgeries would not be needed. If they were created against Oswald’s will, they were created for a purpose. In light of Kennedy’s assassination and the accusations against Oswald as his assassin, the forgery of these photos demonstrates that people who planned to kill Kennedy created these photos to aid them in framing Oswald for the crime. Assuming Oswald did not know about these photos, whoever assisted in framing him either planted the photos among his possessions in the Paine garage or supplied them directly to the Dallas Police.
As mentioned earlier, the choice to regard these photos as authentic does not actually provide any proof that Oswald killed Kennedy. Their main function is to cement the frontloaded narrative of Oswald’s guilt in the mind of the public through arresting imagery. One glance at the image of Oswald brandishing his weapons and communist literature on the cover of Life magazine speaks a thousand words. Oswald was dangerous, violent, deranged—criminally insane, but determined. He was the kind of man who could and did kill the president.
These forged photos powerfully demonstrate that the conspirators behind Kennedy’s death knew the power of narrative frontloading. They knew narrative frontloading would be a key technique in ensuring the success of the coup against Kennedy—they had to know that. I’m engaging in conjecture here, but please stay with me a moment: Acceptance of the photos as authentic does not provide sufficient evidence to convict Oswald. On the other hand, if the photos are identified as forgeries, that one fact alone exposes the plot. So why go to the trouble and risk of creating these photos and planting them as evidence? The plan can’t possibly be to convict Oswald in a trial. In fact, the very existence of these photos suggests to me that Oswald was never intended to survive long enough to stand trial. The value of the forged photos were in helping to craft a mass narrative the whole country could live within after the coup was completed.
If the photos are forgeries, we also learn something about who participated in the framing of Oswald. This must have been done by way of Michael and Ruth Paine, by way of the Dallas Police, or by both. The Paines are implicated by Ruth’s association with the Imperial Reflex camera and the New Orleans photos, by the presence of the photos and camera in their garage, and by storing George de Mohrenschildt’s records in which (according to de Mohrenschildt) an additional photo was later found. Whether the Imperial Reflex belonged to the Paines or the Oswalds, someone had to take possession of that camera to complete the photographic forgery. Either the Paines supplied the camera to the conspirators knowingly, someone stole it from the Paines or Oswalds to make the photographs, or either the Paines or Oswalds were tricked into giving or loaning the camera to a conspirator without knowing what it would be used for.
The Dallas Police are implicated through their access to this evidence and discrepancies in the record as to when this evidence was discovered. In addition, the 133-C backyard photo, which was never entered into evidence or publicly known of at the time of the assassination, was eventually discovered in the possession of former Dallas Police Officer Roscoe White following his untimely demise due to a freak workplace accident in which he was burned alive. Officer White possessed photographic expertise, and it is speculated that he may have been hired by the Dallas Police in October, 1963 to participate in the Kennedy assassination plot, including the forgery of the backyard photographs. Similarities to the body portrayed in these photos are found in Officer White’s chin shape, body shape, manner of standing, and right wrist protrusion.
Another composite image comparing Roscoe White’s body and chin to the body/chin portrayed in the backyard photos.
Similarities in the wrist protrusions are clear to see. White’s flat-bottomed chin also appears to be a close match to the chin seen in the backyard photos. The shape of White’s body and neck also appears to match the body and neck seen in these photos, as does White’s manner of standing in the beach photo, with tilted hips and his body weight resting on his right foot.
Roscoe White is a possible candidate for the body double used in the backyard photographs, though this conclusion cannot be reached by observing photographic similarities alone. Whether or not Roscoe White participated in the creation of the backyard photographs, the previously undisclosed print of 133-C was found among his effects and eventually submitted to the HSCA in the 1970s by his widow, Geneva White. Around the same time, the Dallas Police revealed they also had a print of 133-C in their files, as well as yet another print of 133-A. They were unable to account for the provenance of either of these photos or why their existence had never been previously disclosed.
In addition, the Dallas Police were also discovered to have the above photo in their records, termed the “Ghost Photograph.” This one was not disclosed until 1993. The Dallas Police were unable to give a satisfactory explanation for this photo either, or an explanation for why its existence had never been revealed. The white silhouette matches the pose in backyard photo 133-C, the photo never disclosed by the Dallas Police until after Roscoe White’s print was revealed in 1976. The purpose for creating this “Ghost Photograph” was never made clear. Multiple points of evidence point to members of the Dallas Police, and perhaps Roscoe White specifically, as suspects in the creation of the backyard photos and the use of these to assist in the framing of Oswald.
Conclusions
The case for conspiracy in Kennedy’s assassination does not rely on a determination that the backyard photos were forged. In contrast, the case for Oswald-as-lone-nut relies on the authenticity of these photos as a necessity. This is another aspect of the backyard photos that make them a great doorway into the case. Only adherence to the lone gunman narrative requires determinative certainty regarding the photos. But in consideration of these photos as forgeries, we are able to considerably narrow the frame for conspiracy in Kennedy’s death.
We can conclude that Oswald was selected as a patsy for the assassination in advance, possibly at as far back as March of 1963, based on the links between Oswald’s residence at the time (the location of the backyard), the Imperial Reflex camera’s use in producing one of the backyard photos and the photo of General Walker’s house, the April 5 inscription date and “hunter of fascists” line written on the back of George de Mohrenschildt’s backyard photo print, and the supposed assassination attempt against Walker on April 10. These links further suggests the likelihood that the attempt on Walker may have been linked to the assassination plot from the beginning—and to the framing of Oswald.
Like the backyard photos, the truth about the Walker shooting is superfluous to the case for conspiracy in terms of its evidentiary relevance. But both the backyard photos and the accusations against Oswald in the Walker attempt were key elements in crafting a narrative about Oswald. The narrative of the confused communist with dreams of assassinating political figures was more important than any actual solid evidence against him (of which little existed). Both the backyard photos and the attempts to implicate Oswald in the Walker shooting are notably linked to the roles of Marina Oswald, the Paines, and George de Mohrenschildt in crafting the lone nut Oswald narrative and in supplying dubious evidence against him.
The centrality of these narratives in the case against Oswald, rather than hard evidence, also suggests that Oswald was not intended to survive and stand trial. If so, the doorway of Ruby’s assassination of Oswald is clarified, and it seems more likely than ever that Oswald’s death was a necessity for the plot to succeed in the aftermath of Kennedy’s murder.
The doorway of the Zapruder film further clarifies the understanding that Kennedy was killed by multiple gunmen, not Oswald alone. Moreover, the confluence of these narrative frames suggests that Oswald was likely not one of the shooters at all. If he was a shooter, it would not be necessary to frame him. The real evidence would point to his guilt. But exposing the identity of an actual shooter would be an unnecessary risk, even if that shooter was soon assassinated, as Oswald was.
Having traversed three doorways of entry into the case, leads to follow in the framing and assassination of Oswald include the Dallas Police, Jack Ruby (who worked closely with the police), Ruth and Michael Paine, George de Mohrenschildt, and General Edwin Walker. The activities and people connected to these suspects may provide further understanding in the nature of the plots against Kennedy and Oswald.
In contrast, belief in the official narrative promulgated by the FBI and the Warren Commission requires us to dismiss the testimony of dozens of witnesses in Dealey Plaza and of Kennedy’s head wound. It requires us to overlook strong evidence of forgery in the backyard photos, and it requires us to dismiss the evidence of our own eyes in reference to Oswald’s impossible lean and the backward force transferred to Kennedy’s head by the bullet that killed him. It also requires us to believe that Jack Ruby threw his own life away in killing Oswald for no discernible or sensible reason. And in considering Oswald’s motivations for taking the backyard photos, we begin to see how Oswald too must indeed be a “lone nut,” a man who takes actions that make no sense in terms of his own benefit and cannot be understood by any process of reason.
At the very least, applying narrative frame comparison to these three doorways into the case must produce strong doubts about the validity of the lone gunman official narrative. That view must be looked at as less plausible than the conspiracy view by now. The next step then, is to move past the doorways and create an overview of the case from a broader perspective. That much is certainly justified by the evidence encountered so far. And that will be the focus of the next article in the series.
Relendra’s series of Kennedy Assassination Articles
While it is outside the scope of this series of articles to provide footnotes or citations for much of the evidence presented here, I have compiled a resource guide to encourage readers to verify the facts of the case for themselves: a compendium of the books, websites, podcasts, films, and methods of research available in researching or learning about the Kennedy case, complete with links.
An intro to the discipline and benefits of understanding the assassination of John F. Kennedy—with reference to its utility and applicability in understanding power dynamics and narrative reasoning on the macro scale of history and global politics, now and then, as well as in one’s personal relationships and spiritual journey.
An introduction to three images that open the mind to the Kennedy Assassination—and a guide to the process of encountering the doors of perception and the keys that unlock them.
A deeper exploration of the path beyond the initial doorways of the Kennedy case through narrative frame comparison, guidance in the use of narrative reasoning tools, and identification of reasoning pitfalls and narrative fallacies. The backyard photos and the circumstances surrounding them are held to particular scrutiny. The case for seriously questioning the official narrative of the assassination is firmly established.
An exploration of the medical and ballistic evidence in the Kennedy Assassination, using narrative frame comparison to eliminate impossibilities in two competing narrative frames: Kennedy was assassinated by a single gunman, or Kennedy was assassinated by multiple gunmen.
In continuing the process of eliminating impossibilities through narrative frame comparison, the evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald is examined in detail. Through this examination, the exoneration of Oswald is established. Oswald did not fire any shots at Kennedy, nor did he participate in the assassination. Multiple gunmen fired at Kennedy, but Oswald was not one of them.
Two men, Ralph Yates and Buell Frazier, both testified to transporting Lee Harvey Oswald to the Texas School Book Depository—and that Oswald bore a package with him he described as containing curtain rods. In examining the reports of both men through narrative frame comparison, it can be established that Yates did transport a hitchhiker claiming to carry curtain rods, but it wasn’t Oswald; and Frazier did transport Oswald, but Oswald didn’t carry a curtain rods package. The intersection of these stories provides strong evidence that Oswald was framed for Kennedy’s Assassination prior to its occurrence and that members Dallas Police Department assisted in framing Oswald, possessing foreknowledge of the plot.
A glossary of terms to aid in the process of contextual narrative reasoning. Includes descriptions of narrative fallacies and narrative reasoning tools, with examples and application to the Kennedy assassination case
My goodness, such richness to dig into (still didn't). Love it and looking forward to it.
Thank you for doing this 🙏
Wow that’s incredible research. Even Oliver Stone didn’t go to the depths as you did here. Bravo