THE LITTLE THINGS: Oswald's Bus Transfer
One of the most significant, and yet often ignored, pieces of evidence in the case against Lee Harvey Oswald is the bus transfer that was supposedly found on his person when he was arrested in the Texas Theatre.
There are two stories as to how Oswald left Dealey Plaza only minutes after the assassination. There is the official story, which states that Oswald left the Depository at approximately 12:33 p.m. He reportedly walked several blocks north on Elm Street where he caught a bus at approximately 12:38. Despite the argument that he was fleeing the scene because he had just murdered the President of the United States, he boarded a bus travelling back towards Dealey Plaza. Once the bus became stranded, Oswald deboarded the bus at approximately 12:44 and flagged down a taxi cab at 12:48. The cab took him to Oak Cliff, where he lived. He was dropped off at approximately 12:54 and arrived at his rooming house at 1:00 p.m. Timed tests performed, with less traffic, showed a taxi could not have driven Oswald from downtown Dallas to Oak Cliff, a four mile trip, in only six minutes. Multiple timed tests for all of Oswald’s movements between 12:33 and 1:00 show there is no way things could have happened that way.
Nevertheless, the Commission defended this as the manner in which Oswald arrived at his rooming house, seen by the landlady Earlene Roberts. They likely defended this impossibility because the only other alternative was that Oswald fled the scene with an accomplice. At least six witnesses , one of which was Dallas officer Roger Craig, saw a man, identical to Oswald in appearance, flee from the backside of the Depository and dive into a Nash Rambler station wagon with a man who appeared to be of Latin decent. They then fled the scene. The Commission did not want to recognize this, of course, because it suggests that Oswald had an accomplice.
This is significant in the case of the bus transfer reportedly recovered on Oswald because it seems unlikely that he ever took the bus. There was only one witness who apparently saw him on the bus, who interestingly enough was Oswald’s landlady for a week back in October, Mary Bledsoe. Seeing as she had a past connection to Oswald it seems unlikely that she could have been mistaken in her identification. However, her prior experience with Oswald consisted if his living with her for less than a week, during which time he was hardly ever around. Furthermore, she described him as looking erratic with his hair and clothes tattered and messed up. She even recalled Oswald having a hole in his shirt. However, even after the scuffle that led to his arrest, Oswald’s clothes were not tattered in this way. Furthermore, had Oswald been behaving so erratically it is unlikely that she would have been the only one to grab his attention. And this erratic behavior is entirely inconsistent with the way Oswald behaved after his arrest and up to the time of his death two days later. During this time he was very calm, cool and collected as described by multiple officers that dealt with him. Also, by her own description of the events of that day, there is reason to believe that Bledsoe was not even on the same bus as the one Oswald was supposedly on.
But if Oswald was not on the bus, how did he obtain this transfer? It appears more than likely that this item was planted on him to defend the idea that he fled on his own and not with an accomplice. The significance is clear. But for the sake of argument, let us presume that Oswald took the bus and that he obtained the transfer at that time. What is most remarkable about the transfer is the fact that it was in pristine condition and yet it had presumably been in his pocket for almost two hours. Furthermore, what supposedly happened to Oswald during this time? He boarded the bus and then deboarded and took a cab, which for some reason he got out of several blocks from his rooming house. He then arrived at the rooming house and, according to Earlene Roberts, went into his room and changed his shirt. This is highly significant because the transfer was reportedly found in his shirt pocket. If he took the time to move the transfer from the pocket of his other shirt to the one he put on then obviously it would have to be presumed that he planned on boarding another bus. And even when he left, Roberts said that Oswald stood outside the rooming house at a bus stop for a matter of moments before walking off. From here, he reportedly encountered Dallas officer J.D. Tippit, whom he shot to death. From there he took off running and ultimately ended up ducking into the Texas Theatre. After being there for a short while, the police arrived and Oswald had a struggle with the police before being subdued and dragged out to a police squad car. Despite all of this action, we must presume that this transfer went completely undamaged through it all.
If he did switch the transfer to the new shirt he put on, which by itself sound have given it at least a wrinkle or two, and he was planning on boarding another bus, why didn’t he? Why did he stand out by the bus stop in front of his rooming house for only a few moments before walking away? This are rhetorical questions, obviously no one can know. But they are significant when one considered the path Oswald took. Several timed tests show it was next to impossible without sprinting nearly the whole way for Oswald to have reached the place where Tippit was killed from his rooming house at the time he was killed. All witnesses who saw the man who killed Tippit said he was walking. What is interesting, if we are to consider the likelihood that Oswald was not Tippit’s killer, is when he arrived at the Texas Theatre. Texas Theatre employee Butch Burroughs was monitoring the concession stand when Oswald arrived. It was a slow day, with only a handful of customers in the theatre, meaning he had little to distract him, and thus his identification of Oswald is hard to discredit. Burroughs stated that Oswald arrived at the theatre no latter than 1:07 p.m. Nobody in the Warren Commission wanted to hear this because Oswald officially didn’t leave his rooming house till around 1:03 p.m. and they placed the Tippit murder as occurring some time around 1:14 to 1:16 p.m. Obviously if Burroughs was correct then Oswald could not have been Tippit’s killer. But with the theatre being roughly a mile and a half from his rooming house, there is no way Oswald could have even run that distance with the four minutes or so he had between when he left the house and arrived at the theatre. But it is possible he could have had he boarded another bus. And even with the news of the President’s assassination spreading, nobody all the way down in Oak Cliff would have been looking around that bus for fear that the assassin might be there among them. It would have been easy for him to be on a bus for four or five minutes, get on and get off, and no one, even after his face was pasted all over the news, would have remembered him being there. However, this only gives credence to the validity of the transfer as being Oswald’s. It’s equally possible he got a ride from a presumed accomplice, like this man in the Rambler station wagon. However, if Oswald was to be thrown to the wolves as the patsy for the killing of Kennedy and Tippit, it is likely if someone gave him a ride to the theatre, he was merely serving him up as a sacrificial lamb to the police. Shortly before 2:00 p.m. the police received a tip only stating that a man who fit the description of the assassin behaving strangely, who ducked into the theatre. Despite several arrests being made, even out in Fort Worth several miles away, and potential suspects being sought out everywhere, a calvary of police descended on the Texas Theatre. Their apparent intuition worked in their favor as they found Oswald at the back of the theatre and arrested him.
Shortly after this arrest the bus transfer was discovered on Oswald. Upon examination, beyond the flawless condition it was in, other discrepancies were discovered about it. Cecil McWatters, who drove the bus that Oswald reportedly boarded right after the assassination, did not recall him being on his bus. At a line-up on the evening of the assassination he was unable to identify Oswald as the man on his bus. When shown the transfer he was also unable to identify the hole punch on it as being from his punch. As anyone who has driven a bus knows, the driver’s have particular punches for particular days. This further casts dark criticism on the legitimacy of this transfer. Another thing about bus drivers is that they marked their transfers based in fifteen minute increments (in particular, either on the hour, fifteen minutes after, thirty minutes after or forty-five minutes after). This should have made it easy to identify within a few minutes when Oswald arrived on the bus. If he boarded the bus at approximately 12:38 then the transfer should have shown either 12:30 or 12:45 as when he boarded the bus. However, this transfer was marked at 1:00 meaning if it was valid that Oswald didn’t board the bus until after 12:45. With his arrival at his rooming house being less than fifteen minutes after that, it is obviously preposterous to believe that this occurred.
By all accounts and all legitimate evidence, more than anything else the transfer itself, this bus transfer was most certainly planted on Oswald to bolster the idea that he rode the bus, in order to dissuade the idea that he fled by other means. Like so many other pieces of evidence in the case against Oswald this one tried to deny a conspiracy in the case of Oswald. But few, even those with a decent knowledge on the Kennedy assassination, even know of the existence of this transfer and what it means.
There are two stories as to how Oswald left Dealey Plaza only minutes after the assassination. There is the official story, which states that Oswald left the Depository at approximately 12:33 p.m. He reportedly walked several blocks north on Elm Street where he caught a bus at approximately 12:38. Despite the argument that he was fleeing the scene because he had just murdered the President of the United States, he boarded a bus travelling back towards Dealey Plaza. Once the bus became stranded, Oswald deboarded the bus at approximately 12:44 and flagged down a taxi cab at 12:48. The cab took him to Oak Cliff, where he lived. He was dropped off at approximately 12:54 and arrived at his rooming house at 1:00 p.m. Timed tests performed, with less traffic, showed a taxi could not have driven Oswald from downtown Dallas to Oak Cliff, a four mile trip, in only six minutes. Multiple timed tests for all of Oswald’s movements between 12:33 and 1:00 show there is no way things could have happened that way.
Nevertheless, the Commission defended this as the manner in which Oswald arrived at his rooming house, seen by the landlady Earlene Roberts. They likely defended this impossibility because the only other alternative was that Oswald fled the scene with an accomplice. At least six witnesses , one of which was Dallas officer Roger Craig, saw a man, identical to Oswald in appearance, flee from the backside of the Depository and dive into a Nash Rambler station wagon with a man who appeared to be of Latin decent. They then fled the scene. The Commission did not want to recognize this, of course, because it suggests that Oswald had an accomplice.
This is significant in the case of the bus transfer reportedly recovered on Oswald because it seems unlikely that he ever took the bus. There was only one witness who apparently saw him on the bus, who interestingly enough was Oswald’s landlady for a week back in October, Mary Bledsoe. Seeing as she had a past connection to Oswald it seems unlikely that she could have been mistaken in her identification. However, her prior experience with Oswald consisted if his living with her for less than a week, during which time he was hardly ever around. Furthermore, she described him as looking erratic with his hair and clothes tattered and messed up. She even recalled Oswald having a hole in his shirt. However, even after the scuffle that led to his arrest, Oswald’s clothes were not tattered in this way. Furthermore, had Oswald been behaving so erratically it is unlikely that she would have been the only one to grab his attention. And this erratic behavior is entirely inconsistent with the way Oswald behaved after his arrest and up to the time of his death two days later. During this time he was very calm, cool and collected as described by multiple officers that dealt with him. Also, by her own description of the events of that day, there is reason to believe that Bledsoe was not even on the same bus as the one Oswald was supposedly on.
But if Oswald was not on the bus, how did he obtain this transfer? It appears more than likely that this item was planted on him to defend the idea that he fled on his own and not with an accomplice. The significance is clear. But for the sake of argument, let us presume that Oswald took the bus and that he obtained the transfer at that time. What is most remarkable about the transfer is the fact that it was in pristine condition and yet it had presumably been in his pocket for almost two hours. Furthermore, what supposedly happened to Oswald during this time? He boarded the bus and then deboarded and took a cab, which for some reason he got out of several blocks from his rooming house. He then arrived at the rooming house and, according to Earlene Roberts, went into his room and changed his shirt. This is highly significant because the transfer was reportedly found in his shirt pocket. If he took the time to move the transfer from the pocket of his other shirt to the one he put on then obviously it would have to be presumed that he planned on boarding another bus. And even when he left, Roberts said that Oswald stood outside the rooming house at a bus stop for a matter of moments before walking off. From here, he reportedly encountered Dallas officer J.D. Tippit, whom he shot to death. From there he took off running and ultimately ended up ducking into the Texas Theatre. After being there for a short while, the police arrived and Oswald had a struggle with the police before being subdued and dragged out to a police squad car. Despite all of this action, we must presume that this transfer went completely undamaged through it all.
If he did switch the transfer to the new shirt he put on, which by itself sound have given it at least a wrinkle or two, and he was planning on boarding another bus, why didn’t he? Why did he stand out by the bus stop in front of his rooming house for only a few moments before walking away? This are rhetorical questions, obviously no one can know. But they are significant when one considered the path Oswald took. Several timed tests show it was next to impossible without sprinting nearly the whole way for Oswald to have reached the place where Tippit was killed from his rooming house at the time he was killed. All witnesses who saw the man who killed Tippit said he was walking. What is interesting, if we are to consider the likelihood that Oswald was not Tippit’s killer, is when he arrived at the Texas Theatre. Texas Theatre employee Butch Burroughs was monitoring the concession stand when Oswald arrived. It was a slow day, with only a handful of customers in the theatre, meaning he had little to distract him, and thus his identification of Oswald is hard to discredit. Burroughs stated that Oswald arrived at the theatre no latter than 1:07 p.m. Nobody in the Warren Commission wanted to hear this because Oswald officially didn’t leave his rooming house till around 1:03 p.m. and they placed the Tippit murder as occurring some time around 1:14 to 1:16 p.m. Obviously if Burroughs was correct then Oswald could not have been Tippit’s killer. But with the theatre being roughly a mile and a half from his rooming house, there is no way Oswald could have even run that distance with the four minutes or so he had between when he left the house and arrived at the theatre. But it is possible he could have had he boarded another bus. And even with the news of the President’s assassination spreading, nobody all the way down in Oak Cliff would have been looking around that bus for fear that the assassin might be there among them. It would have been easy for him to be on a bus for four or five minutes, get on and get off, and no one, even after his face was pasted all over the news, would have remembered him being there. However, this only gives credence to the validity of the transfer as being Oswald’s. It’s equally possible he got a ride from a presumed accomplice, like this man in the Rambler station wagon. However, if Oswald was to be thrown to the wolves as the patsy for the killing of Kennedy and Tippit, it is likely if someone gave him a ride to the theatre, he was merely serving him up as a sacrificial lamb to the police. Shortly before 2:00 p.m. the police received a tip only stating that a man who fit the description of the assassin behaving strangely, who ducked into the theatre. Despite several arrests being made, even out in Fort Worth several miles away, and potential suspects being sought out everywhere, a calvary of police descended on the Texas Theatre. Their apparent intuition worked in their favor as they found Oswald at the back of the theatre and arrested him.
Shortly after this arrest the bus transfer was discovered on Oswald. Upon examination, beyond the flawless condition it was in, other discrepancies were discovered about it. Cecil McWatters, who drove the bus that Oswald reportedly boarded right after the assassination, did not recall him being on his bus. At a line-up on the evening of the assassination he was unable to identify Oswald as the man on his bus. When shown the transfer he was also unable to identify the hole punch on it as being from his punch. As anyone who has driven a bus knows, the driver’s have particular punches for particular days. This further casts dark criticism on the legitimacy of this transfer. Another thing about bus drivers is that they marked their transfers based in fifteen minute increments (in particular, either on the hour, fifteen minutes after, thirty minutes after or forty-five minutes after). This should have made it easy to identify within a few minutes when Oswald arrived on the bus. If he boarded the bus at approximately 12:38 then the transfer should have shown either 12:30 or 12:45 as when he boarded the bus. However, this transfer was marked at 1:00 meaning if it was valid that Oswald didn’t board the bus until after 12:45. With his arrival at his rooming house being less than fifteen minutes after that, it is obviously preposterous to believe that this occurred.
By all accounts and all legitimate evidence, more than anything else the transfer itself, this bus transfer was most certainly planted on Oswald to bolster the idea that he rode the bus, in order to dissuade the idea that he fled by other means. Like so many other pieces of evidence in the case against Oswald this one tried to deny a conspiracy in the case of Oswald. But few, even those with a decent knowledge on the Kennedy assassination, even know of the existence of this transfer and what it means.
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