From: willisdonald824@gmail.com   
      
   Ted Callaway and the "55 feet"--Genius!   
      
   Mr. Dulles:  [The suspect] was going south on Patton?   
   Ted Callaway:  On the WEST [emphasis added] side of the street.   
   Rep. Ford:  You saw him run from about the taxicab [at 10th & Patton]...   
   Callaway:  Across the street, up this sidewalk. (v3p353)   
      
   Sam Guinyard:  [The suspect] come down Patton until he got to five feet from   
   the corner of Jefferson and then he went across to the west corner on   
   Jefferson.   
   Mr. Ball:  What side of the street did you see him coming down on?   
   Guinyard:  When he come down... it would be the EAST [emphasis added] side.   
   (v7p397)   
      
   This west side/east side conundrum I always found curious, though not quite   
   compelling, as apparently most everyone else has also found it, or it would   
   have been brought up more often. Just a simple mix-up.     
      
   However, in looking at it more closely, I can't quite envision how such a   
   contretemps could happen.  Callaway and Guinyard were both on the east side of   
   the street.  Guinyard testifies that the gunman got to "about 10 feet from me"   
   (p398).  But--four    
   times--Callaway testifies that the gunman crossed the street, early on, near   
   Patton (v3p353).  I think Ball got the point, thank you.  Callaway "figured   
   [the man] was about 55 feet from him when he passed." (v7p398)  Supposedly,   
   the two were near the    
   east sidewalk at the same time,  and saw the same man.  (Guinyard:  "We was   
   together" [p398].)    
      
   At 10 feet, Callaway, certainly, could have identified the type of gun, simply   
   by its look--revolver or automatic.  But at 55 feet, Callaway says that he   
   could tell the type of gun only by the way the man held it--in the "raised   
   pistol position...[with]    
   his left hand going toward the butt of the gun, like the way you'd load an   
   automatic." (With Malice p78)  It was apparently he who told DPD Patrolman   
   Summers that the man was "apparently armed with a 32 dark finish automatic   
   pistol." (DPD radio-log    
   transcription/CE 1974 p74)   
      
   At 55 feet, that was apparently just a wild, wrong guess.  But Guinyard clung   
   to his "east side" version, even when counsel informed him re Callaway's   
   version:   "Well," he maintained, "[the gunman] crossed over after he crossed   
   the driveway" (p398),    
   which was more than two-thirds of the block, on Patton, from 10th.  (In his   
   diagram, Myers has Callaway at the north end of that driveway--before the   
   crossover point described by Guinyard ([WMp83].)  Yes, according to Guinyard,   
   then, Callaway would also,    
   at one point, have been just about 10 feet from the man.   
      
   We see which witness that counsel Joseph Ball favored, in this gentleman's   
   disagreement, when the latter invokes Callaway's "55 feet" during Guinyard's   
   testimony.  Hint, hint.  Guinyard must have been a little disconcerted by   
   Callaway's reported    
   witnessing here.  Even after Guinyard says "east side" (p397), Ball tries to   
   correct Guinyard's "mistake":  "And [Oswald] was across the street from you,   
   wasn't he?"  Guinyard:  "No, we was on this side of the street."  Ball:  "He   
   was on the east side of    
   the street?"  Ah!  Guinyard:  "Yes, sir.  And he was on the east side of the   
   street until he got across our driveway." (p398)   
      
   The Ball monkey wrench fails.  His leading-the-witness favoritism backfires   
   and--along with Guinyard's plucky persistence in the face of a determined   
   lawyer and possible backlash from his boss, Callaway--tips the scales the   
   other way.  What would    
   Guinyard have to gain, anyway, by sabotaging Callaway's reloading scenario?    
   At one point, he too endorses a "pistol up" image, but not Callaway's   
   left-hand-towards-the-gun-butt reloading.  Guinyard has the gunman   
   *unloading*, not reloading.  In fact,    
   Guinyard testifies, "I never did see him use his left hand" (v7p397).  But it   
   all comes back to "10 feet"... If the Callaway version were correct, why would   
   Guinyard have to be, shall we say, weaned off "55 feet" and reloading?  No   
   logical reason.   
      
   However, plenty of reason to have Callaway weaned off "10 feet", if that were   
   the correct version.  "10 feet" makes the weapon an automatic.   I'm not   
   saying that Callaway was in any way leaned on--he always seemed happy to   
   assist the police.  Witness    
   his superfluous call re the Tippit shooting on the latter's police radio, and   
   the Great Car Chase with Scoggins. That "dark finish automatic pistol" had to   
   be neutralized.  Did Callaway change his story in order to help nail Oswald?    
   Different    
   definitions of "good citizen" may come into play here...   
      
   And all Callaway had to do was to go to the other side of the street, or, more   
   precisely, have the gunman go to the other side.  And if he was willing to do   
   that in order to help out, he might also have been glad to ID Oswald as the   
   east side/west side    
   gunman.  And it certainly would have bolstered the government's case if the   
   latter somewhat resembled Oswald, who, after all--Callaway may have been   
   reminded--murdered the President.     
      
   But why the startling lack of coordination between the respective testimonies   
   of Callaway and Guinyard?  How could Ball, that is, have blundered into his   
   "And he was across the street from you, wasn't he?", as if he, Ball, knew the   
   answer and was    
   expecting Guinyard just to confirm it.  He put himself, and Callaway, out on a   
   limb, and Guinyard cut it off.  Ball must have been pissed.  It's as if much   
   thought had gone into developing Callaway's story, and Guinyard had been   
   neglected until showtime.    
    Or the Guinyard version had been developed in a vacuum, by some moron   
   unfamiliar with what was going on with Callaway, Benavides, and the Davises.    
   In any event, Ball is left lying, rather bruised, on the ground.  But the   
   Patton Street train wreck, or    
   timber wreck, is instructive in its glimpse into the behind-the-scenes   
   workings of the wheels of "justice".   
      
   On the other (Callaway) hand... Misplaced brilliance: to wit, the inventive   
   conspirers having Callaway testify that the guy with the gun was so very, very   
   far away from him, from, that is, his ears as well as from his eyes--across an   
   apparently very,    
   very noisy street--that he could not quite make out what the man was trying to   
   tell him.  An inspired invention.  The audible reinforcing the visible.  I   
   imagine Ball wished they'd shared their brilliance with Guinyard...   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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