Commission finding.—There is no evidence that Marina Oswald ever told this to any authorities. On the afternoon of November 22, she told the police that her husband owned a rifle and that he kept it in the garage of the Paine house in Irving. Later, at Dallas police headquarters, she said that she could not identify as her husband’s the rifle shown her by policemen. When Marina Oswald appeared before the Commission she was shown the Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository and identified it as the “fateful rifle of Lee Oswald.”[A12-38]
Speculation.—The picture of Oswald taken by his wife in March or April 1963 and showing him with a rifle and a pistol was “doctored” when it appeared in magazines and newspapers in February 1964. The rifle held by Oswald in these pictures is not the same rifle that was found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building.
Commission finding.—Life magazine, Newsweek, and the New York Times notified the Commission that they had retouched this picture. In doing so, they inadvertently altered details of the configuration of the rifle. The original prints of this picture have been examined by the Commission and by photographic experts who have identified the rifle as a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5, the same kind as the one found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. FBI experts testified that the picture was taken with Oswald’s camera.[A12-39]
Speculation.—The rifle picture of Oswald was a composite one with Oswald’s face pasted on somebody else’s body.
Commission finding.—Marina Oswald has testified that she took this picture with a camera owned by her husband and subsequently identified as Oswald’s Imperial Reflex camera. She identified the man in the picture as her husband. Experts also state the picture was not a composite.[A12-40]
Speculation.—After firing the shots, Oswald could not have disposed of the rifle and descended the stairs to the lunchroom in time to get a drink from a soft drink machine and be there when Patrolman Baker came in.
Commission finding.—A series of time tests made by investigators and by Roy S. Truly and Patrolman M. L. Baker at the request of the Commission, show that it was possible for Oswald to have placed the rifle behind a box and descended to the lunchroom on the second floor before Patrolman Baker and Truly got up there. Oswald did not have a soft drink bottle in his hand at the time he was confronted by Baker and he was not standing by the soft drink machine. He was just entering the lunchroom; Baker caught a glimpse of him through the glass panel in the door leading to the lunchroom vestibule.[A12-41]
Speculation.—There were other people present in the lunchroom at the time that Baker and Truly saw Oswald there.
Commission finding.—Baker and Truly have both stated that there was no one in the lunchroom other than Oswald at the time that they entered. No other witness to this incident has been found.[A12-42]
Speculation.—Police were sealing off all exits from the building by the time Oswald got to the second floor.