Impossible: The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald (45 page)

[T]he addition of new elements to their stories, particularly important details that would never have been omitted by them in the original telling if they were true, has to be taken, as they say in Latin,
cum grano salis
(with a grain of salt). . . .

No hard and fast rules can be employed, without exception, to determine the credibility of the various witnesses . . . other than the dictates of
logic
and common sense.

Witnesses sometimes are
coached
to change their testimony; however, there is such a thing as a
bad
coach, you know, the kind who calls for a “Hail Mary” pass on the one-yard line. This makes it easy to tell when coaching has occurred, and this final paragraph gives us the way to tell the true from the false, particularly when the revisions are spun purely from thin air.
Logic
, as Bugliosi noted, is absolutely key in this regard. Vincent Bugliosi noted, “
[t]he problem with fabricated stories is that inconsistencies frequently occur.
As opposed to the truth, which is compatible with its environment,
falsehoods, as Daniel Webster said, not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.
” (RH 882; emphasis supplied).

Logic is the spotlight that makes these inconsistencies visible for all the world to see. No better example of that can be given than the following.

The rehabilitation effort began very quietly with an affidavit by Day given on May 7, just over a month after his Warren Commission testimony.

Here is the pertinent part of that affidavit, which introduces only one subtle change, anticipating more significant changes which will come in a later affidavit (7 H 401-402; pages consolidated by author):
59

This version has only one small change from the previous story. In the previous story, only
two
hulls were returned to Day at 10 p.m., but in this new version,
three
hulls were returned. Just a small change, which results in the following revision of the model, a change from “2” to “3”:

But this subtle shift was only a precursor to that yet to come.

A far more interesting set of changes, one to be reflected in a later affidavit, was handwritten on the version that is archived at the Dallas Municipal Archives website:
60

We will go in depth regarding these changes more in a moment, especially the point about the “bent [place]”, but now let’s look at the revised affidavit which officially incorporated the notations of this handwriting, delivered over a month later on June 23, 1964 (don’t be intimidated by all these words, I will highlight the important lines in the next screen capture) (7 H 402):
61

At a heavy cost to the credibility of J. C. Day, but a necessary expense for the Warren Commission, this affidavit seeks to salvage the legitimacy of the chain of custody by revising the initial story in its most fundamental aspects. Alas for the authors of this new version of events, who probably thought that this would address the issues raised in the previous affidavit, it only served to seal an already well-nailed coffin.

Let us zoom in on and highlight the most relevant portion of this testimony:

In this testimony, we come across no less than
four
reversals in the story:

1. Day’s name was not on
   two
   hulls, but
   three
   ;
   
2. Doughty’s initials were not on
   one
   hull, but
   two
   ;
   
3. Doughty’s initials were now said to have been placed on the
   two
   shells because they were going to be sent to
   Washington
   , but in the old version those initials were to be placed just on the
   one
   shell said to have remained in
   Dallas
   ;
   
4. Shells CE
   543
   and 545 were sent to Washington, not shells CE
   544
   and 545;
   

Quite the makeover,
n’est-ce pas
?

More than a mere touch-up job, this is a complete overhaul of the prior testimony, necessitated by the apocalyptic effect the previous testimony had on the chain of custody sequence. This testimony, when consolidated, results in the new, supposedly final model of what transpired in Dallas on November 22 at the Dallas Police Department with reference to the empty shells:

The dramatic difference between the “before” model and the “after” model can be revealed when we compare them side-by-side: