Refused To Sign By Jerry D. Rose

              ^ ^
PENN JONES T HE
CONTINUING
INQUIRY
198^
Refused to
by
>lgTl
Jerry D. Rose
State University Collep.e
Fredonia, New York 14063
After the Dallas police arrested lee Harvey Oswald on Noveirber 22, they
produced a set of fingerprint cards tor him that virtually ctfies huiran
comprehension. A standard set of pollce-tarcen tingerprlnts requires the
signature of the fingerprinted person thereon, an assurance that the prints
purported to belong to a plven individual were in f;ict taken from Chat person.
In the case of Oswald, his fingerprints were duly taken on the day of his
arrest; however, according to the official wlio fingerprinted him, W.E. Barnes,
Oswald refused to sign the fingerprint card, which act Barnes said he shrugged
off and told Oswald it didn't matter whether he signer or not. His alleged
refusal is a bit hard to understand since Oswald was proclaiming himself "-iust
a patay" being framed for others' crimes and must have reaJized that his
refusal would facilitate the possibility that someone else's fingerprints might
be misrepresented as being his own. At <my rate, the fingerprint card so
produced is the one depicted in Figure 1. The difficulty Is that, in the
place for the fingerprinted person's signature, there _is a handwritten -/ersion
of the name Lee Harvey Oswald. However this signature does not correspond with
any of Oswald's other authenticated handwriting or signatures.
Can one reconstruct, then, what may have been the consternation of Dallas
police officials on November 22 or 23, when they couJd coinpare this signatuir
with other written material of Oswald's that they had confiscated by this time?
People of suspicious mind would surely suspect that the "Oswald" In custody wap
not the Oswald born in New Orleans or October 18, 1939 and whose handwriting
appeared on so much other material. The only other explanation of che
fingerprint/signature mismatch, which the DFD would again wish to avoid, was
that some police or other official having access to the card took it upon
himself or herself to sign the card which the un-cooperative Oswald had refused
to sign.
The police embarrassment in this mstter may explain the appearance of
alternative versions of Oswald fingerprint cards. One such card, depicted in
Figure 2, appears in the Warren Commission exhibits. This fingerprint crrd
has rightly been called a "mystery card." It contains the notation "refused to
sien " bearing out the statement of Barnes about Oswald's refusal, but the card
is not authenticated by any officials whose names or initials are discernible,
and it contains the date 11/25/63. Since Oswald died during the early
afternoon of November 24, his uncooperativeness on the following day is perhaps
forelvable. At any rate this card allowed the Warren CommlFsion to avoid n
onfrontation with the meaning of an "Oswald" signature that was apparently not
that of Oswald.
The confusion of tlngerprint cards escalates significantly with the
earance of still another "refused to sign" fingerprint card which I have
f nd in the Archives. This is depicted in Figure 3. A covering letter found
"th this document, from Inspector Kc]]ey to Chief Rowley of the Secret Service
"^d dated December 2, 1963. notes the "Refused to sign" entry and the fact
"identifying
"fiuthenticat -
•ta" on the card
7 the siRnature oi
that
had not been filltc' out. The card is
Lt. K.P. Knight of the DPD's Identification
Cor,tinuo I.