donald willis
2020-09-02 14:37:57 UTC
Vainly, Mr. Corbett throws everything against the wall
Reports of my vanishing have been greatly exaggerated. I just took a
little time out to document John Corbett's ever-evolving onslaught against
the testimony of four witnesses who either said or indicated that the
depository shooter's window was wide open. The parenthetical dates, in the
text which follows, indicate the dates of the quotes from the threads on
alt.assassination.jfk, at the end.
In his first attack, he asserted that witness Bob Jackson's word
"halfway", in his Commission testimony, "shoots down [my] argument" (7/9),
ignoring the fact that Jackson indicated to counsel, as an illustration of
the word "halfway", a window which was actually open as far as it could
have been open. I suspect that Jackson is not usually thought of as a
witness to a wide-open window because few people have apparently gone
beyond that word "halfway" and actually looked at the photo which he was
looking at.
Next, Mr. Corbett decided that "wide open" was a "vague" term: "It doesn't
mean all the way open" (7/31): It's no more vague than "halfway", which
word he embraces and could, yes, mean a window which was open a few inches
more or less than halfway. No one had their tape measures out on 11/22/63,
except perhaps the DPD Crime Lab personnel.
Then Mr. Corbett admittedly followed a certain logic (8/2) when he wrote
that a shooter would certainly only open the "window partially... in order
to maintain partial concealment", and a mere onlooker "would have opened
it all the way", for a better view. He fails to entertain the possibility
that the assassination planners might have been sophisticated enough to
reverse that logic, intentionally, the better to throw off students of
Logic 1A. That is, the partially-opened window seems to have been simply a
ruse--and a pretty ingenious one at that--and--illogical or not--the
shooter seems to have fired from a wide-open window, despite Mr. Corbett's
Rules for Snipers.
The giveaway is the fact that the suspect--contrary to what Mr. Corbett suggests--hardly maintained "partial concealment". He used that wide-open window as a stage on which he could make himself seen, by walking to and from the window "to my knowledge a couple of times" (Howard Brennan/v3p143), and by sitting "sideways on the window sill" (p144), and by having the window open so far that witness Ronald Fischer "wouldn't have been able to see past the top of his head had it not been" (v6p199). And a third witness, Robert Edwards, "noticed that he seemed to be laying down there or in a funny position anyway" (11/22/63 affidavit). Whatever was intended by this display, the suspect succeeded in drawing attention both to that area of the depository and to himself, perhaps--in the latter case--to provide a basis for the forthcoming suspect suspect-description from DPD Insp. Sawyer, which could have come from nowhere else in the plaza, though the nutty precision of "five feet ten, one sixty five" (Sawyer Exh A) is still a stretch, even with that much southern exposure .
In his next volley, Mr. Corbett posited that a "few witnesses.. misremembered that the shooter had fired from a wide open window" (8/5). First, it was actually four witnesses, not a "few". A "few" might, yes, "misremember". But a chorus of four is harder to dismiss. And another witness, Malcolm Couch, testified that it was his "impression that [the window] was all the way open" (v6p157). Only an impression, but it tallies with the more-definite observations of the other four. And to buy Mr. Corbett's "misremembered", you have to dismiss the fact that Edwards said that "the window was wide open all the way"--in his same-day affidavit.
On 8/8, Mr. Corbett finally admitted that "the westernmost window on the sixth floor was wide open". Unfortunately, on 8/10, he forthwith cancelled out his admission with "we have a few vague descriptions of the shooters window as wide open". And yet that westernmost window which Jackson indicated was not "vaguely" wide open. It was wide open. Mr. Corbett giveth and Mr. Corbett taketh away, blessed be the name....
On 8/12, I noted that Jackson "indicated a wide open window". Quick as a bunny, Mr. Corbett added, "He also said it was halfway open. Combined, those two descriptions are very vague." No, they are not. It's crystal clear that the window in question was wide open; Jackson and Counsel Arlen Specter's word "halfway" is, simply, factually wrong, not just vague. You can't combine a right and a wrong and get a half-right, as Mr. Corbett attempts to do.
On 8/18, Mr. Corbett presented his best argument: "Months old recollections of how wide open the shooter's window was are not probative when they conflict with all other available evidence." I have disputed, of course the "all" in "all other available evidence", and, yes, the physical evidence is persuasive, but it doesn't tell us where said evidence was found. And Edwards' 11/22 affidavit was not "months old".
8/19: The "Wide Open" Four were not vague in their description of how wide the window was open. Jackson and Brennan, in fact, indicated windows which were either wide open or almost all the way open, certainly not "halfway" open. And Fischer, as noted, testified that he could not have seen as much as he did of the suspect if the window had not been "almost all the way open if not all the way open" (v6p199)--"almost all the way open", in fact, perfectly describes the easternmost fifth-floor window, which Brennan also used as an illustration of how wide he recalled the window being open.
8/20: "Would anyone have even taken notice of how wide open the window was?" Well, let's see, wherever can I go to find someone, anyone, who did take such notice? Where oh where? Oh, right--to the observations of our witnesses, Edwards, Fischer, Brennan, and Jackson. They've been there all this time. Mr. Corbett just didn't notice them. He is excellent at asking questions which have already been answered. Answered and asked--wrong order. And these witnesses agreed that the window was wide open. Only Couch was equivocal.
On 8/21, Mr. Corbett added a new rule to his list of Rules for Witnesses--in order for their testimony to be accepted, they must have used the word "notice"--otherwise, what they said apparently doesn't count. I know I'm often accused of going off the deep end, but if so I'm certainly not the only one! Welcome to the fold, Mr. Corbett....
On 8/22, Mr. Corbett took Edwards to task for not going up to the fifth floor with a tape measure: His "recollection does nothing to establish that the window was wide open". Well, it actually does if we accept his first take, on 11/22, and accept that he was looking at a fifth-floor window. He said, in his affidavit, that the window was both wide open and on the fifth floor. That description does fit the two easternmost windows on the fifth-floor. But by the time of his testimony, he had been encouraged to return to the scene of the crime and retract half of that description (v6p204). Yet, mysteriously, he also testified that he did not see "any people on the fifth floor" (p204). So when Edwards 2.0 takes the suspect off the fifth floor, there's no one at all left behind--although fifth-floor witnesses Jarman, Williams, and Norman were supposedly there. And they were supposedly close enough to the window that Brennan testified that he saw them there, before the motorcade arrived:
Brennan: At one of the windows I saw two, two of those people, employees that came down.
Belin: Are you basing your recollection on what you saw during the moments that the shots were fired or on what you saw when you observed these windows prior to the time that motorcade arrived?
Brennan: What I saw prior. (v3p186)
I tend to go along with Edwards here, partly because Brennan, too, left Norman's end window unattended, and Norman's presence there is critical to his testimony, though it's not to Edwards'. Brennan, that is, testified that the fifth-floor witnesses were "one window over", not at an end window (v3p152), as Norman supposedly was. The problem is that Brennan thought that Norman was one of the two men that he said that he saw downstairs (v3p185), and Norman concurred (v3p197). But Bonnie Ray Williams was the man "one window over". He's the only one of the three that we can be pretty sure that he saw.
8/23: Mr. Corbett tries to turn Fischer's "almost all the way open if not all the way open" into a "halfway open window"--and we're back to one of his two favorite words, "halfway". (The other is "vague".) In other words, Square One.
Mr. Corbett zigs and zags, doubles back, invents strictures for snipers and witnesses, and employs words like "halfway" and "vague" very irresponsibly, all in an effort to dismiss the unanimity of four witnesses as to the state of the suspect's window. No, their unanimity cannot establish that the suspect's window was, in fact, wide open. Neither can their observations be so easily dismissed.
References:
7/9:
Mr. JACKSON - I would say that it was open like that window there, HALFWAY
(emphasis mine).
Mr. SPECTER - Indicating a window on the sixth floor of the westernmost
portion of the building open halfway as you described it.
Jackson said halfway. His word. Kind of shoots down your argument, doesn't it.
7/31:
"Wide open" is a vague term. It doesn't mean all the way open.
8/2:
Let me throw something else out at you. Given how low the windows on both
the fifth and sixth floor were, about a foot above the floor, why do you
think someone would only open the window partially. Do you think someone
who wanted to watch the motorcade would only open the window halfway which
would force them to get down even lower in order to look out. Or do you
think opening the window partially is something somebody would do in order
to maintain partial concealment. The window on the 6th floor was open just
enough to give a shooter a clear line of sight to the limo as it traveled
down Elm St. Somebody who only wanted to watch the motorcade from that
window would have opened it all the way.
8/5:
Earlier I posed a question to Don Willis whose insistence the assassin
fired from the fifth floor of the TSBD is based solely on a few witnesses
who misremembered that the shooter had fired from a wide open window. The
southeast corner window on the sixth floor was open about halfway while
the windows below were fully open. Given that the windows on both floors
are only about a foot off the floor, does it make sense that someone who
wanted to watch the motorcade would only open the window about halfway as
the one on the sixth floor was.
8/8:
The westernmost window on the sixth floor was wide open. Now you don't
have any excuse for dodging the question I posed.
8/10:
Here is where you show how bad you
are at weighing evidence. On one side of the scale we have a few vague
descriptions of the shooters window as wide open.
One way to resolve the conflict is to simply
conclude that the witnesses who remembered the shooter firing from a wide
open on the sixth floor simply got it wrong as to how wide open the window
was but were right as to where the shooter fired from.
I think Don's problem is that he overthinks this.
8/12:
(Me: Jackson indicated a wide open window. Nothing "vague" about that.)
He also said it was halfway open. Combined, those two descriptions are
very vague.
It is obvious to anyone who evaluates all the evidence that Jackson was
correct when he said the shooter fired from a halfway open window and was
wrong when he compared it to a fully open window.
8/18:
Months old recollections of how wide open the shooter's window was
are not probative when they conflict with all other available evidence.
8/19:
These witnesses were either less than accurate
with their recollection of how wide open the window was or vague in their
description of it.
8/20:
would anyone have even taken notice of how wide open the window
was? Why would they? Why would that have seemed the least bit important at
the time? What would have been important at the time and drawn their
attention was the rifle. Why would we expect that months later they could
accurately remember just how wide open that particular window was.
8/21:
I hate to confront you with facts but not one of them said they noticed
how wide open the window was. Brennan used the word "notice(d)" six times
in his testimony, none regarding how wide open the window was. Jackson,
Fischer, and Edwards used it once each, also not regarding how wide open
the window was. Jackson' used the word regarding the two black employees
who were below the shooter
Couch and Euins never used the word. None of these witnesses said they
noticed how wide open the window was. They simply gave their impressions
when asked about it.
8/22:
You fail to grasp that "notice" is the key word. It is the reason
witnesses cannot be relied upon. People see things but they don't
necessarily notice them.
Edwards recollection does nothing to establish that the window was wide
open. That was the impression he had. That doesn't mean his impression was
correct. It has been pointed out you countless times that witnesses don't
always get minor details correct. They focus on what seems important to
them at the time. There would have been no reason for Edwards to think at
that time that it was the least bit important how wide open the window
was. For that matter, there was no reason to think at the time he was
looking at that window that any of what he saw would later become
important. The shots hadn't even been fired yet. Why would it matter AT
THAT TIME how wide open the window was and why would he have even made
note of that or any other detail?
8/23:
If we compare the window on the sixth floor with the one right below it,
we can see there is not really that much difference between the two
windows. The sixth floor window is about halfway open and the fifth floor
window is a little more than three quarters open. A rough guess is there
is about 6-8 inches difference between these two windows.
But now you are saying the fifth floor window was not really
all the way open which makes it much easier to believe the witnesses could
have misjudged a halfway open window to window which was not quite fully
open.
[Me: It did to Edwards, who in his 11/22/63 affidavit, noted, "the window was
wide open all the way]
What reason would he have to take note of how wide open the window was?
dcw
Reports of my vanishing have been greatly exaggerated. I just took a
little time out to document John Corbett's ever-evolving onslaught against
the testimony of four witnesses who either said or indicated that the
depository shooter's window was wide open. The parenthetical dates, in the
text which follows, indicate the dates of the quotes from the threads on
alt.assassination.jfk, at the end.
In his first attack, he asserted that witness Bob Jackson's word
"halfway", in his Commission testimony, "shoots down [my] argument" (7/9),
ignoring the fact that Jackson indicated to counsel, as an illustration of
the word "halfway", a window which was actually open as far as it could
have been open. I suspect that Jackson is not usually thought of as a
witness to a wide-open window because few people have apparently gone
beyond that word "halfway" and actually looked at the photo which he was
looking at.
Next, Mr. Corbett decided that "wide open" was a "vague" term: "It doesn't
mean all the way open" (7/31): It's no more vague than "halfway", which
word he embraces and could, yes, mean a window which was open a few inches
more or less than halfway. No one had their tape measures out on 11/22/63,
except perhaps the DPD Crime Lab personnel.
Then Mr. Corbett admittedly followed a certain logic (8/2) when he wrote
that a shooter would certainly only open the "window partially... in order
to maintain partial concealment", and a mere onlooker "would have opened
it all the way", for a better view. He fails to entertain the possibility
that the assassination planners might have been sophisticated enough to
reverse that logic, intentionally, the better to throw off students of
Logic 1A. That is, the partially-opened window seems to have been simply a
ruse--and a pretty ingenious one at that--and--illogical or not--the
shooter seems to have fired from a wide-open window, despite Mr. Corbett's
Rules for Snipers.
The giveaway is the fact that the suspect--contrary to what Mr. Corbett suggests--hardly maintained "partial concealment". He used that wide-open window as a stage on which he could make himself seen, by walking to and from the window "to my knowledge a couple of times" (Howard Brennan/v3p143), and by sitting "sideways on the window sill" (p144), and by having the window open so far that witness Ronald Fischer "wouldn't have been able to see past the top of his head had it not been" (v6p199). And a third witness, Robert Edwards, "noticed that he seemed to be laying down there or in a funny position anyway" (11/22/63 affidavit). Whatever was intended by this display, the suspect succeeded in drawing attention both to that area of the depository and to himself, perhaps--in the latter case--to provide a basis for the forthcoming suspect suspect-description from DPD Insp. Sawyer, which could have come from nowhere else in the plaza, though the nutty precision of "five feet ten, one sixty five" (Sawyer Exh A) is still a stretch, even with that much southern exposure .
In his next volley, Mr. Corbett posited that a "few witnesses.. misremembered that the shooter had fired from a wide open window" (8/5). First, it was actually four witnesses, not a "few". A "few" might, yes, "misremember". But a chorus of four is harder to dismiss. And another witness, Malcolm Couch, testified that it was his "impression that [the window] was all the way open" (v6p157). Only an impression, but it tallies with the more-definite observations of the other four. And to buy Mr. Corbett's "misremembered", you have to dismiss the fact that Edwards said that "the window was wide open all the way"--in his same-day affidavit.
On 8/8, Mr. Corbett finally admitted that "the westernmost window on the sixth floor was wide open". Unfortunately, on 8/10, he forthwith cancelled out his admission with "we have a few vague descriptions of the shooters window as wide open". And yet that westernmost window which Jackson indicated was not "vaguely" wide open. It was wide open. Mr. Corbett giveth and Mr. Corbett taketh away, blessed be the name....
On 8/12, I noted that Jackson "indicated a wide open window". Quick as a bunny, Mr. Corbett added, "He also said it was halfway open. Combined, those two descriptions are very vague." No, they are not. It's crystal clear that the window in question was wide open; Jackson and Counsel Arlen Specter's word "halfway" is, simply, factually wrong, not just vague. You can't combine a right and a wrong and get a half-right, as Mr. Corbett attempts to do.
On 8/18, Mr. Corbett presented his best argument: "Months old recollections of how wide open the shooter's window was are not probative when they conflict with all other available evidence." I have disputed, of course the "all" in "all other available evidence", and, yes, the physical evidence is persuasive, but it doesn't tell us where said evidence was found. And Edwards' 11/22 affidavit was not "months old".
8/19: The "Wide Open" Four were not vague in their description of how wide the window was open. Jackson and Brennan, in fact, indicated windows which were either wide open or almost all the way open, certainly not "halfway" open. And Fischer, as noted, testified that he could not have seen as much as he did of the suspect if the window had not been "almost all the way open if not all the way open" (v6p199)--"almost all the way open", in fact, perfectly describes the easternmost fifth-floor window, which Brennan also used as an illustration of how wide he recalled the window being open.
8/20: "Would anyone have even taken notice of how wide open the window was?" Well, let's see, wherever can I go to find someone, anyone, who did take such notice? Where oh where? Oh, right--to the observations of our witnesses, Edwards, Fischer, Brennan, and Jackson. They've been there all this time. Mr. Corbett just didn't notice them. He is excellent at asking questions which have already been answered. Answered and asked--wrong order. And these witnesses agreed that the window was wide open. Only Couch was equivocal.
On 8/21, Mr. Corbett added a new rule to his list of Rules for Witnesses--in order for their testimony to be accepted, they must have used the word "notice"--otherwise, what they said apparently doesn't count. I know I'm often accused of going off the deep end, but if so I'm certainly not the only one! Welcome to the fold, Mr. Corbett....
On 8/22, Mr. Corbett took Edwards to task for not going up to the fifth floor with a tape measure: His "recollection does nothing to establish that the window was wide open". Well, it actually does if we accept his first take, on 11/22, and accept that he was looking at a fifth-floor window. He said, in his affidavit, that the window was both wide open and on the fifth floor. That description does fit the two easternmost windows on the fifth-floor. But by the time of his testimony, he had been encouraged to return to the scene of the crime and retract half of that description (v6p204). Yet, mysteriously, he also testified that he did not see "any people on the fifth floor" (p204). So when Edwards 2.0 takes the suspect off the fifth floor, there's no one at all left behind--although fifth-floor witnesses Jarman, Williams, and Norman were supposedly there. And they were supposedly close enough to the window that Brennan testified that he saw them there, before the motorcade arrived:
Brennan: At one of the windows I saw two, two of those people, employees that came down.
Belin: Are you basing your recollection on what you saw during the moments that the shots were fired or on what you saw when you observed these windows prior to the time that motorcade arrived?
Brennan: What I saw prior. (v3p186)
I tend to go along with Edwards here, partly because Brennan, too, left Norman's end window unattended, and Norman's presence there is critical to his testimony, though it's not to Edwards'. Brennan, that is, testified that the fifth-floor witnesses were "one window over", not at an end window (v3p152), as Norman supposedly was. The problem is that Brennan thought that Norman was one of the two men that he said that he saw downstairs (v3p185), and Norman concurred (v3p197). But Bonnie Ray Williams was the man "one window over". He's the only one of the three that we can be pretty sure that he saw.
8/23: Mr. Corbett tries to turn Fischer's "almost all the way open if not all the way open" into a "halfway open window"--and we're back to one of his two favorite words, "halfway". (The other is "vague".) In other words, Square One.
Mr. Corbett zigs and zags, doubles back, invents strictures for snipers and witnesses, and employs words like "halfway" and "vague" very irresponsibly, all in an effort to dismiss the unanimity of four witnesses as to the state of the suspect's window. No, their unanimity cannot establish that the suspect's window was, in fact, wide open. Neither can their observations be so easily dismissed.
References:
7/9:
Mr. JACKSON - I would say that it was open like that window there, HALFWAY
(emphasis mine).
Mr. SPECTER - Indicating a window on the sixth floor of the westernmost
portion of the building open halfway as you described it.
Jackson said halfway. His word. Kind of shoots down your argument, doesn't it.
7/31:
"Wide open" is a vague term. It doesn't mean all the way open.
8/2:
Let me throw something else out at you. Given how low the windows on both
the fifth and sixth floor were, about a foot above the floor, why do you
think someone would only open the window partially. Do you think someone
who wanted to watch the motorcade would only open the window halfway which
would force them to get down even lower in order to look out. Or do you
think opening the window partially is something somebody would do in order
to maintain partial concealment. The window on the 6th floor was open just
enough to give a shooter a clear line of sight to the limo as it traveled
down Elm St. Somebody who only wanted to watch the motorcade from that
window would have opened it all the way.
8/5:
Earlier I posed a question to Don Willis whose insistence the assassin
fired from the fifth floor of the TSBD is based solely on a few witnesses
who misremembered that the shooter had fired from a wide open window. The
southeast corner window on the sixth floor was open about halfway while
the windows below were fully open. Given that the windows on both floors
are only about a foot off the floor, does it make sense that someone who
wanted to watch the motorcade would only open the window about halfway as
the one on the sixth floor was.
8/8:
The westernmost window on the sixth floor was wide open. Now you don't
have any excuse for dodging the question I posed.
8/10:
Here is where you show how bad you
are at weighing evidence. On one side of the scale we have a few vague
descriptions of the shooters window as wide open.
One way to resolve the conflict is to simply
conclude that the witnesses who remembered the shooter firing from a wide
open on the sixth floor simply got it wrong as to how wide open the window
was but were right as to where the shooter fired from.
I think Don's problem is that he overthinks this.
8/12:
(Me: Jackson indicated a wide open window. Nothing "vague" about that.)
He also said it was halfway open. Combined, those two descriptions are
very vague.
It is obvious to anyone who evaluates all the evidence that Jackson was
correct when he said the shooter fired from a halfway open window and was
wrong when he compared it to a fully open window.
8/18:
Months old recollections of how wide open the shooter's window was
are not probative when they conflict with all other available evidence.
8/19:
These witnesses were either less than accurate
with their recollection of how wide open the window was or vague in their
description of it.
8/20:
would anyone have even taken notice of how wide open the window
was? Why would they? Why would that have seemed the least bit important at
the time? What would have been important at the time and drawn their
attention was the rifle. Why would we expect that months later they could
accurately remember just how wide open that particular window was.
8/21:
I hate to confront you with facts but not one of them said they noticed
how wide open the window was. Brennan used the word "notice(d)" six times
in his testimony, none regarding how wide open the window was. Jackson,
Fischer, and Edwards used it once each, also not regarding how wide open
the window was. Jackson' used the word regarding the two black employees
who were below the shooter
Couch and Euins never used the word. None of these witnesses said they
noticed how wide open the window was. They simply gave their impressions
when asked about it.
8/22:
You fail to grasp that "notice" is the key word. It is the reason
witnesses cannot be relied upon. People see things but they don't
necessarily notice them.
Edwards recollection does nothing to establish that the window was wide
open. That was the impression he had. That doesn't mean his impression was
correct. It has been pointed out you countless times that witnesses don't
always get minor details correct. They focus on what seems important to
them at the time. There would have been no reason for Edwards to think at
that time that it was the least bit important how wide open the window
was. For that matter, there was no reason to think at the time he was
looking at that window that any of what he saw would later become
important. The shots hadn't even been fired yet. Why would it matter AT
THAT TIME how wide open the window was and why would he have even made
note of that or any other detail?
8/23:
If we compare the window on the sixth floor with the one right below it,
we can see there is not really that much difference between the two
windows. The sixth floor window is about halfway open and the fifth floor
window is a little more than three quarters open. A rough guess is there
is about 6-8 inches difference between these two windows.
But now you are saying the fifth floor window was not really
all the way open which makes it much easier to believe the witnesses could
have misjudged a halfway open window to window which was not quite fully
open.
[Me: It did to Edwards, who in his 11/22/63 affidavit, noted, "the window was
wide open all the way]
What reason would he have to take note of how wide open the window was?
dcw