First to Second Evolution – Part 13

French Le Figaro correspondent Leo Sauvage was puzzled by press references to Oswald's sipping a coke when the police officer saw him, so he asked Roy Truly about it in early 1964. Truly told him: "From where I stood, I couldn’t see if Oswald held something in his hand."* 

Huh?

Showtime. Warren Commission. Roy Truly is up to bat.

Warren Commission Testimony of Roy S. Truly, 3.24.1964

Mr. BELIN: All right. Could you see whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald had anything in either hand?

Mr. TRULY: I noticed nothing in either hand.

Mr. BELIN: Did you see both of his hands?

Mr. TRULY: I am sure I did. I could be wrong, but I am almost sure. I did.

Why the change? To cut to the chase, it had become painfully clear to the Warren Commission that an Oswald with a Coke already in his hand—meaning an Oswald who had already reached into his pocket, already had pulled out change, already had inserted the correct change, already selected his beverage of choice, already had waited for the "chunk clunk" of the machine to deliver his pop, already had uncapped it and commenced to drinking—this is an Oswald with even less time to descend from the sixth floor (and in case you're wondering, time was critical folks).

Through "unnatural selection," First to Second Evolution determined that Oswald drinking a Coke when a police officer came barging through the door was a trait that no longer was useful so it was excised out of the story.

Not that the story got appreciably better, but it was different, and that was the important thing.

*The Oswald Affair: An examination of the contradictions and omissions of the Warren report, Leo Sauvage, 1966, p. 30.