How Did Oswald Get the Wrong Bus Transfer? – Part 1
Will Fritz’s Freudian slip: Why was a bus transfer for the number 23 Lakewood Line found on Oswald if he’d been on a number 30 Marsalis Line bus?
By the Warren Commission’s account, Lee Oswald got on and then off a Marsalis southbound bus - 12:39-12:43 pm - on Elm Street, Downtown Dallas, just before the intersection with Lamar. However, Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig said that approximately 10 minutes after Kennedy was shot (making it 12:40 pm), he saw Oswald running down the slope near the Depository and then getting into a station wagon.
Craig’s affidavit of November 22, 1963, said the man was identical to Oswald, whom he saw again later at 5:18 pm in the office of the head of the Dallas Police Homicide Bureau, Captain Will Fritz, 3 hours after Oswald arrived at City Hall after his arrest at the Texas Theatre.
Craig later testified to the Warren Commission at 2:35 pm, April 1, 1964, before Counsel Belin.
Mr. BELIN - All right. Then, what did Captain Fritz say, what did you say, and what did the suspect say?
Mr. CRAIG - Captain Fritz then asked him about the---uh---he said, "What about this station wagon?"
And the suspect interrupted him and said, "That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine"---I believe that is what he said. "Don't try to tie her into this. She had nothing to do with it."
And--uh--Captain Fritz then told him, as close as I can remember, that, "All we're trying to do is find out what happened, and this man saw you leave from the scene."
And the suspect again interrupted Captain Fritz and said, "I told you people I did." And--uh--yeah--then, he said--then he continued and he said, "Everybody will know who I am now."
By that account, Craig and Oswald himself not only ruled out Oswald being on the Marsalis bus but also linked Ruth Paine – the owner of the house in Irving where Marina Oswald lived and Oswald stayed at weekends - to that car.
But Captain Fritz, in testifying to the Warren Commission (Vol IV, p. 202) on April 22, 1964, to Counsel Ball, said this about Craig.
FRITZ. One deputy sheriff who started to talk to me but he was telling me some things that I knew wouldn't help us and I didn't talk to him but someone else took an affidavit from him. His story that he was telling didn’t fit with what we knew to be true.’
Given that all of this relates to the afternoon of November 22, 1963, how could Fritz at that time have possibly known what Craig was telling him was not going to help him? Especially as Fritz claims Craig had only started to tell him something, and Fritz’s account of Oswald’s own story--as I show later--was fluid, inconsistent and far from truthful.
This article explores that question. Was Fritz emitting a Freudian slip?
Nothing appearing as evidence on November 22, 1963, provides a basis for Fritz to have dismissed what Roger Craig always maintained. What does appear in the record is a making up and suppression of evidence instead.
I. The Other Witnesses: Cooper and Robinson
Roy Cooper worked for a military aircraft maker, Ling-Temco-Vought (now part of Northrop Grumman). He told the FBI on November 23, 1963, that he saw a Nash Rambler pick up a man running from the direction of the Depository. Cooper said he was driving behind his boss, Marvin Robinson, who nearly collided with it. The vehicle headed under the overpass in the direction of Oak Cliff.
Cooper told the FBI to contact Robinson at home or at the Naval Air Station at Grand Prairie. Cooper was following Robinson to drop a car off at Robinson’s house, 5120 S Marsalis, Dallas. Marvin Robinson was traced and confirmed that in an interview with the FBI the same day, November 23, 1963.
The Commission file for Roger Craig shows that Robinson was scheduled by Commission staff to testify on April 1, 1964, at 2:30 pm to Counsel Ball, simultaneously with Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig. But his testimony does not appear in any records. Attendance was tightly managed. If a witness did not acknowledge the request to appear, by phone call, the Secret Service made contact to ensure it happened.
Robinson had been very easily traced on November 23 via Cooper as they worked at the same air base. Robinson carried on working on aircraft even in retirement near Dallas. He was very much of fixed abode and workplace and appears at the stated address in the City Directory. There is no explanation as to why Robinson did not testify. Or if he did testify, why is that testimony missing from the records? But whatever the case, Josiah Thompson used his FBI report to telling effect in his early book, Six Seconds in Dallas. If one reads the effect that Robinson’s testimony has combined with Craig’s, which Thompson does, then one may be able to ponder the reason for his absence. (Thompson, pp. 242-43)
The Warren Commission’s report dismissed Craig’s story on the basis that Oswald was on the bus at that same time. But the timeline of Fritz’s denial of Craig’s relevance is also important. Fritz, in testifying to the Warren Commission on April 22, 1964 to Counsel Ball, said this:
Mr. FRITZ. He [Oswald] told me that was the transfer the busdriver had given him when he caught the bus to go home. But he had told me if you will remember in our previous conversation that he rode the bus or on North Beckley and had walked home but in the meantime, someone had told me about him riding a cab.
And,
So, when I asked him [Oswald] about a cab ride if he had ridden in a cab he said yes, he had, he told me wrong about the bus, he had rode a cab. He said the reason he changed, that he rode the bus for a short distance, and the crowd was so heavy and traffic was so bad that he got out and caught a cab, and I asked him some other questions about the cab and I asked him what happened there when he caught the cab and he said there was a lady trying to catch a cab and he told the busdriver, the busdriver told him to tell the lady to catch the cab behind him and he said he rode that cab over near his home, he rode home in a cab.
Fritz was misleadingly inaccurate regarding the “someone” in the “meantime”. By cab driver William Whaley’s testimony of March 12, 1964, in Washington, and his affidavit of November 23, the cab lead, and his description of the lady, etc., didn’t appear until the next day, November 23. Whaley testified thus.
Mr. BALL. Later that day did you-were you called down to the police department?
Mr. WHALEY. No, sir.
Mr. BALL. Were you the next day?
Mr. WHALEY. No, sir; they came and got me, sir, the next day after I told my superior when I saw in the paper his picture, I told my superiors that that had been my passenger that day at noon. They called up the police and they came up and got me.
Mr. BALL. When you saw in the newspaper the picture of the man?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. You went to your superior and told him you thought he was your passenger?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir.
So up to the point when Craig was telling Fritz something, there was nothing to provide any basis to dismiss what Craig was telling him. Indeed, Fritz’s account of Oswald changing his story of how he got to Beckley cannot be true, given that there was no cab revelation that day.
Fritz’s peremptory dismissal of Roger Craig’s story seems to be based on Fritz making up a counter-story that is full of holes and contradictions.
By April 1, 1964, the story that Oswald was identified on the bus was in tatters.
II. The Misidentification of Oswald by the Bus Driver
Without a lead to a cab on November 22, all there was to go on was the bus transfer, which was allegedly found on Oswald at around 4:05 pm on November 22, by Detective Simms, just as Oswald was taken downstairs for his first witness lineup (see later).
The transfer lead involved driver Cecil McWatters and his Line 30 Marsalis bus. However, and counter to what Fritz had said, Oswald originally told him that the bus line wasn’t a route to Oswald’s 1026 N Beckley rooming house. The Marsalis line deviated ¾ mile before that Beckley destination, at the south end of the Houston Street Viaduct.
This is then from the testimony of Detective Dhority taken on April 6, 1964. The lineup referred to is Oswald’s second.
Mr. BALL. What was the first thing that you did that day with respect to the investigation of the President's assassination?
Mr. DHORITY. Around 6 p.m., Detective Brown and myself went out and got Mr. McWatters from the bus in front of the city hall there and brought him into the lineup and took an affidavit off of him.
Ball then read from that affidavit taken on November 22.
Mr. BALL. What did McWatters say to you?
Mr. DHORITY. He identified him as the man that rode on the bus and said he wasn't for sure exactly where he picked him up, but he said he believed that he got off shortly after he got on the bus, but after he identified him he went upstairs and looked at a transfer that Detective Sims had took out of Oswald's pocket, and he positively identified the transfer as his transfer.
Mr. BALL. You took McWatters' affidavit after that, didn't you?
Mr. DHORITY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Right after he had made an identification?
Mr. DHORITY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Of Oswald?
Mr. DHORITY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. At that time, and I'll show you a copy of an affidavit by McWatters, and will you take a look at that, please?
Mr. DHORITY. [Examined instrument referred to.]
Mr. BALL. Mr. Dhority, after the showup, did you take the affidavit from Mr. McWatters?
Mr. DHORITY. Yes, I did.
Mr. BALL. Now, in the affidavit here he says he picked up a man on the lower end of town on Elm and Houston and went out on Marsalis and picked up a woman, and then he mentions that as he went out, "This man was grinning and never did say anything. The woman said that it was not a grinning matter. I don't remember where I let this man off. This man looks like the No. 2 man I saw in a lineup tonight.".Now, you read that, didn't you?
Mr. DHORITY. Yes.
But as Ball noted, the positive identification Dhority cited did not accord with what McWatters’ affidavit actually said. Nor did it accord with McWatters’ FBI statement the next day, November 23 (page 6). That FBI statement said.
MCWATTERS stated that he went to the Dallas Police Department on November 22, 1963, and from a lineup picked a man whom he said is the only one in the lineup who resembles the man who had ridden on his bus on November 22, 1963. He stated that this man was LEE OSWALD, but emphasized that he cannot specifically identify him as being on his bus or as being the person who made the remark to the effect that the President was shot in the temple.
He stated he “cannot be sure where this man got off the bus, but he believes it was south of Saner Avenue in Oak Cliff”.
Saner Avenue was near the south end of the Marsalis line, over 5 miles from Elm Street. The bus was scheduled for arrival at the Saner end of the line at 12:58 pm (CE378).
Dhority’s assertions are also discredited by what McWatters testified 25 days earlier to the Commission in Washington on March 12, 1964 (Vol II page 263), immediately after Whaley.
McWatters withdrew any identification of Oswald entirely and said the person he’d seen on the bus was actually Roy Milton Jones, a teenager.
Mr. BALL - Now you realize you were mistaken in your identification that night?
Mr. McWATTERS - That is right.
Mr. BALL - As I understand it, neither then nor now are you able to identify or say that you have again seen the man that got off your bus to whom you gave a transfer?
Mr. McWATTERS - No, sir; I couldn't. I could not identify him.
Milton Jones was traced at the Commission’s request. On March 30, 1964, he told the FBI (CE2641) that the bus was held up by police boarding it on Elm Street for almost an hour and said he got off at Marsalis@Brownley at 1:45 pm. That is one block south of Saner Avenue and hence chimes with McWatters’ account. But given that is where the bus should have been circa 12:56 pm, the bus was 50 minutes late.
All of McWatters’ police and FBI statements were silent about the delay and the police boarding causing it. But Milton Jones’ account can be corroborated on time. The Dallas Morning News of 28 November 1963, reported.
“The cashier of the Texas Theater immediately called the police - who had just sped en masse to a false alarm at the Dallas Library branch on Jefferson, further to the east. The police sirens wailed again. Oddly enough it was at the library that McWatters, the bus driver who, unknowingly, had Oswald as a passenger earlier, had his second brush with fate. His bus pulled up at the intersection as a swarm of 10 or 15 police cars zeroed in on the library, *I couldn't imagine what was going on" said McWatters. "Little did I know!“.
That false sighting of Oswald at the library at Marsalis and Jefferson appears on the patrol radio around 1:30 pm. The bus should have been there at 12:50 pm (CE378), thus it was at least 40 minutes late. That would make a late arrival at Saner of 1:40 pm. Thus corroborating what Milton Jones told the FBI.
Milton Jones told the FBI that he and McWatters talked about those events on Monday, November 25, when Milton Jones was back on the bus again.
Milton Jones also revealed to the FBI that McWatters told him the DPD had questioned him until 1:00 am the next day.
Seven hours is a long time to hold a witness who hadn’t actually made a positive identification of Oswald. But it would be consistent with trying to turn things into “evidence”.
Nevertheless, Oswald was charged on November 22, 1964, for the murder of Officer JD Tippit by relying on McWatters and the bus story as the explanation for how Oswald could have gotten to 1026 N Beckley to then get to the Tippit murder scene.
Given the discrepancies on the person, the time and the place, then the story of the bus transfer must also be in doubt.
Rather than incriminating Oswald, the transfer actually incriminates the police. The transfer supposedly found on Oswald was not for Line 30 Marsalis, but Line 23 Lakewood.
III. THE BUS ROUTE, TIMES AND THE TRANSFER
The Line 30 Marsalis route McWatters was driving was also known as Marsalis-Munger. It was confirmed by the foreman at the bus company, Mr. JE Cook (McWatters file page 8). Munger is a district north of Downtown, as well as an intersection towards Lakewood on Gaston Avenue. He said the sign would have been set for “30 • Marsalis – Union Station” and set the signs for that for FBI photographs for the Commission.
McWatters, in testifying to the Commission, said that he was scheduled for that run from 11:52 am until 2:27 pm, when he then switched lines.
The bus schedule (CE378) shows that Marsalis Line 30, 1213, started its crosstown schedule at 12:11 pm from Ellsworth/Anita (Lakewood), Gaston Avenue (a long road running south to Downtown), Elm Street (Downtown), Houston Street (Dealey Plaza), North and South Marsalis Avenue (Oak Cliff), with a scheduled end at Ann Arbor (Saner district), at 12:58 pm.
The turnaround schedule (heading to Munger) was to be back at Lakewood at 2:11 pm, then ending at Gaston@Paulus 2:20 pm, which leads to the bus transfer ticket.
A bus transfer is a form of ticket issued when a passenger breaks a journey, enabling a follow-up journey on another connecting bus line, without paying another full fare. According to McWatters’ Warren Commission testimony, a passenger had to give a reason for getting a transfer.
The Commission photograph of the transfer 004459 supposedly found on Oswald, which appears as CE383-A, is blurry to read, but the one on the left is a color one via John Armstrong.
Drivers were given books, each containing 50 transfers preprinted for the date. The first transfer was torn off and left at the depot as the receipt for taking that book. The photo on the right is transfer 004451. The 1963 Dallas transfer states it was valid “within 15 minutes from the time indicated on the first point of intersection or transfer point for connecting lines”.
The transfer had punches for relevant boxes, except for the time, which was cut. The same ticket company, Globe Ticket Co, still exists and still sells cutters and punchers. Comparing these two transfers shows how CE381-A was cut back to the first possible time, 1:00 and punched PM. Whereas, a horizontal cut at the foot would be 12:45.
Transfers were charged at much less than full fare. Given that an incentive to tamper would be to extend to a later time to create a cheap ride, then the cutting system is tamper-proof. All later hours and minutes are cut off. The Dallas transfer above has a list of 17 bus lines. Each Dallas bus line had a name and number. (See page 12 of this Ford Presidential Library document) This later Dallas Bus map still tallies with the routes on the Globe transfer described above.
A review of the names and numbers of the 17 bus lines shows that routes are not systematically named for the ends of the lines, which would require two names. Instead, for the transfers, the Dallas lines were named unsystematically on the basis of any road or district of prominence on the line, e.g., 22 Beckley, 15 Ramona, and 30 Marsalis are names of middles and not ends of bus lines. Downtown was the start of the Beckley line. Lakewood is the district where the Ramona line and the Marsalis line started/ended. But Lakewood was also the name of a line itself. Its route - 23 - is shown in the FBI dossier (page 90, top right). It ran from the Lakewood district and terminated at Downtown, Union Station, and returned to Lakewood.
A punched hole would indicate the relevant bus line. As did boxes indicating direction of travel “NSEW”, North, South, East and West, so that a passenger could not skip paying for a return ticket by doubling backward.
But the Dallas transfer did have a “Shopper” box which, if punched, did enable someone who had asked for that form of transfer to get a return bus ride – once they had spent more than a dollar in a participating store. McWatters said that at that time of day, transfers were usually used by elderly people shopping.
These lines crossed the Trinity River into Oak Cliff, thus,
- Marsalis bus Line 30. Also known as “Munger”. The one Oswald was supposed to have boarded and then disembarked from. That ran from Lakewood, along Gaston through Downtown on Elm, over Houston St Viaduct along North and South Marsalis ending at Ann Arbor/Saner and back.
- Ramona bus Line 15. That shared the same Downtown route as Marsalis until over the river, where it branched off Marsalis, to Ramona, ending at Singing Hills.
- Elmwood Line 42. That ended south of the river at Elmwood (not to be confused with Ellwood) and has no relevance here.
- The Beckley bus Line 22. That started Downtown, crossed the Trinity River on the Commerce Viaduct and went down North and South Beckley to Kiest and back. That would have been the direct bus for Oswald to go to work at the Depository from his 1026 N Beckley rooming house.
- Other buses running along Beckley, Belmont Line 1 and Skillman Line 20. CE2694.
The above-cited lines are all visible on the CE381-A transfer.
The ticketing system Dallas used was widespread in the USA. The Reading Bus Co ticket, for example, is explicit on the ticket that the convention was that a punch indicated the line the journey had started on.
That is consistent with wording on CE381-A stating 15-minute validity “for connecting lines”. Plural. Meaning any lines connecting with the one disembarked from and punched for. A passenger transferring on Elm from any one of Beckley, Marsalis, Elmwood, Skillman, Bellmont or Ramona would have - at least - the five other lines to choose to transfer to.
IV. The Question about the Wrong Punch
The transfer, which appears as CE381-A, is punched not for the Marsalis • 30 line but the Lakewood • 23 line. The Lakewood line in either direction would be of no use to Oswald – nor anyone else - heading to Oak Cliff. Counsel Ball asked McWatters why CE381-A would be punched for [Line 23] “Lakewood”.
McWatters gave the Commission a convoluted story about punching the hole next to “Lakewood [23]” as Lakewood was an end of the Marsalis [30] route. He said in the following (my square brackets).
“Going that way, while at Marsalis, I would punch the Lakewood when I would leave Marsalis coming toward Lakewood [hence northbound], I would have Lakewood on the front of my bus [hence also northbound] but I would punch the transfer Marsalis.”
This is patently absurd. Firstly, he merely described northbound journeys in a different way but punched inconsistently. Secondly, even if he had his own system of punching “Lakewood” as a destination, it couldn’t possibly be a destination from a stop on one-way Elm Street for a Line 30 Marsalis bus heading south towards Marsalis.
McWatters seems to be trying to find excuses for punching a transfer for the Lakewood Line 23 when he was driving the Marsalis 30 Line, and as per the photograph above, with “30 Marsalis” on the sign.
McWatters’ account of him being called to the police department for the lineup chimes with Dhority above. McWatters was only shown the – problematic – Lakewood Line 23 transfer after he had attended the Oswald lineup.
Mr. Ball. Now, you were called down to the Dallas police department later, weren't you?
Mr. McWatters. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ball. What day was it?
Mr. McWatters. It was on the same day, the 22d.
Mr. Ball. 22d. Do you know how they happened to get in touch with you, did you notify them that you——
Mr. McWatters. No, sir; I didn't know anything to that effect.
Mr. Ball. Did they come out and get you?
Mr. McWatters. They come out and——
Mr. Ball. What did they ask you?
Mr. McWatters. Well, they stopped me; it was, I would say around 6:15 or somewhere around 6:15 or 6:20 that afternoon.
Mr. Ball. You were still on duty, were you?
Mr. McWatters. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ball. Still on your bus?
Mr. McWatters. I was on duty but I was on a different line and a different bus.
Mr. Ball. What did they ask you when they came out?
Mr. McWatters. Well, they stopped me right by the city hall there when I come by there and they wanted me to come in, they wanted to ask me some questions. And I don't know what it was about or anything until I got in there and they told me what happened.
Mr. Ball. What did they tell you?
Mr. McWatters. Well, they told me that they had a transfer that I had issued that was cut for Lamar Street at 1 o'clock, and they wanted to know if I knew anything about it. And I, after I looked at the transfer and my punch, I said yes, that is the transfer I issued because it had my punch mark on it.
It is perplexing how the police could have deduced Lamar. There is no reference to Lamar on the transfer. Ball picked up on that, with McWatters then confirming it was impossible.
Mr. BALL - If this transfer was issued around the Lamar area or St. Paul--Elm area, is there any place that you could punch and show that particular location?
Mr. McWATTERS - No, sir.
McWatters then undermined his own assertion of Lamar with this.
Mr. Ball. When you got to the police station that day did they show you a transfer?
Mr. McWatters. Yes, sir.
Mr. Ball. What did you tell them about the transfer?
Mr. McWatters. Well, I recognized the transfer as being the transfer that I had issued.
Mr. Ball. How did you recognize it?
Mr. McWatters. By my punch mark on it.
Mr. Ball. And what about the line?
Mr. McWatters. The line?
Mr. Ball. Lakewood.
Mr. McWatters. The Lakewood punch on it, and where it was punched and Lakewood with my punch mark on it.
The purpose of a transfer is to convey information to a different driver on the bus that the holder chooses to board next. A system needs consistency and understandability for passengers as well as drivers. What McWatters was saying is inconsistent and incomprehensible.
