End of Days

by James L. Swanson

  Wade was skeptical.

  “I don’t know anything about that. We have [Oswald] charged in the state court, and he’s a state prisoner at present.”

  “And will you conduct the trial?”

  “Yes sir. I plan to.”

  “In how many cases of this type have you been involved, that is, when the death penalty is involved?”

  “Since I’ve been district attorney we’ve asked—I’ve asked the death penalty in twenty-four cases.”

  “How many times have you obtained it?”

  “Twenty-three.” In Wade’s mind, Oswald was as good as dead. Putting aside the assassination of the president, Wade knew he would get an easy conviction in the murder of Officer J. D. Tippit. That crime alone would send Oswald to the electric chair. He would be lucky to live out the year of 1964.

  At 2:05 P.M., Captain Will Fritz followed Wade’s comments with some of his own. Later it became notorious as the “cinched” interview.

  “Captain, can you give us a resume of what you now know concerning the assassination of the president and Mr. Oswald’s role in it?”

  “There is only one thing that I can tell you without going into the evidence before talking to the district attorney. I can tell you that this case is cinched—this man killed the president. There’s no question in my mind about it.”

  “Well, what is the basis for that statement?”

  “I don’t want to go into the basis. In fact, I don’t want to get into the evidence. I just want to tell you that we are convinced beyond any doubt that he did the killing.”

  “Was it spur of the moment or a well-planned, long thought-out plot?”

  “I’d rather not discuss that. If you don’t mind, please, thank you.”

  “Will you be moving him today, Captain? Is he going to remain here?”

  “He’ll be here today. Yes, sir.”

  FINALLY, AT 3:37 P.M., Robert Oswald was allowed to see his brother, in the same room where Lee had met with Marina.

  “This is taped,” Oswald warned Robert.

  “Well it may be or it may not be.”

  Robert noticed the cut above Lee’s eye.

  “What have they been doing to you? Were they roughing you up?”

  “I got this at the theater. They haven’t bothered me since. They’re treating me all right.”

  “Lee, what the Sam Hill is going on?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Look, they’ve got your pistol, they’ve got your rifle, and they’ve got you charged with shooting the president and a police officer. And you tell me you don’t know? Now, I want to know just what’s going on.”

  “Don’t believe all this so-called evidence.”

  Robert stared into Lee’s eyes, searching for answers.

  Lee shut him down. “Brother, you won’t find anything there.”

  “Well, what about Marina? What do you think she’s going to do now, with those two kids?”

  “My friends will take care of them.”

  Oswald told Robert his daughter June needed shoes. “Junie needs a new pair of shoes.” It was incredible, surreal. Lee was under arrest for a double homicide, and his mind was distracted by the trivial subject of footwear for a toddler.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of that.”

  Robert asked about an attorney and offered to get one for his brother.

  “No, you stay out of it.”

  “Stay out of it? It looks like I’ve been dragged into it.”

  Lee said he doesn’t want a local attorney. He wants Abt from New York.

  Robert prepared to leave. “I’ll see you in a day or two.”

  “Now, you’ve got your job and everything,” Lee warned him. “Don’t be running back and forth all the time and getting yourself in trouble with your boss.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Robert assured him. “I’ll be back.”

  Lee said good-bye. “All right. I’ll see you.”

  The Oswald brothers would never meet again.

  DALLAS POLICE paraded Lee Harvey Oswald many times before newspaper reporters and television cameras. In a crowded hallway, they allowed him to make several public statements that were filmed and broadcast across the country. Oswald played dumb.

  “I really don’t know what this situation is about,” he told reporters, “except that I am accused of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that.” Oswald said he wanted a lawyer. “I do request that someone . . . come forward and give me legal assistance.”

  When a reporter asked him point-blank, “did you shoot the president?” Oswald gave an odd, wordy, and indirect reply: “No, I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question.”

  The prosecutor discussed the case against Oswald in front of reporters and pronounced him guilty. At one point, Oswald raised his handcuffed hands and, for several seconds, clenched his right fist into what appeared to be a Communist salute. Photographs and videos captured the moment. Another time, Oswald complained to journalists that his “fundamental hygienic rights” were being violated because the police would not allow him to take a shower. He told reporters he had a cut above his eye because a policeman had hit him. He asked for a lawyer several times, but the police and prosecutors ignored him. A policeman walked through a crowded hallway holding Oswald’s rifle above his head like a cheap bowling trophy.

  The Dallas Police Department allowed its headquarters to deteriorate into a carnival-like spectacle. Shouting, pushing reporters packed the halls and, like jackals, became frenzied whenever the police teased them with a glimpse of their prisoner. “Oswald, did you shoot the president?” yelled one journalist during one of these brief, impromptu hallway interviews.

  “I didn’t shoot anybody sir,” he replied. “I haven’t been told what I am here for.”

  When another reporter shouted the same question, Oswald said, “No, they’ve taken me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union.” Then Oswald claimed, “I’m just a patsy,” by which he meant that he was the fall guy for whoever committed the crime.

  Oswald admitted just one thing. When asked whether he was in the Book Depository at the time of the assassination, he said yes. “I work in that building . . . naturally, if I work in that building, yes sir,” he was there. But he denied everything else.

  When a third reporter asked if he was the gunman—“Did you fire that rifle?”—Oswald uttered an emotional denial. “I don’t know the facts you people have been given, but I emphatically deny these charges!” Oswald’s denials did not surprise the detectives. Experienced policemen knew that most murderers denied their guilt.

  There was no proper security at police headquarters. No one checked IDs or searched the journalists who crowded the hallway. What explains the incompetence of the police when they had Oswald in their custody? The wild atmosphere was shameful. The answer is simple: police officials wanted to curry favor with the journalists from all over the country who had descended upon Dallas. The assassination had stained the city’s and its police department’s reputations. There was disturbing talk that the people of Dallas shared some kind of collective guilt for the murder. The police wanted the reporters to say good things about Dallas, so they gave the press free rein. It was a fateful decision that impeded their investigation and put Oswald’s life in danger.

  ELSEWHERE IN Dallas on November 23, word had gotten out about Abraham Zapruder’s home movie. He had already been interviewed on a local television station. Journalists desperate to purchase the rights to his film went to his office to meet with him. He had locked up the film overnight. He hoped to sell it for a lot of money, and soon he would.

  BACK AT the White House, after Jackie returned from Arlington Cemetery, she remained in seclusion. Aside from the morning mass, she participated in no other events that day. She received only a few visitors—close friends a
nd family. She needed to gather her strength for the ordeal that lay ahead. In two days, on Monday, November 25, she had to be ready to preside over two events that would test her body and soul.

  The first was her husband’s public funeral. With meticulous attention to detail, Jackie Kennedy threw herself into planning the event. With Abraham Lincoln’s funeral as her inspiration, researchers had set to work. They uncovered historical details that had been forgotten since the Civil War, including the exact way that the White House entrances and East Room chandeliers had been draped in mourning with ribbons of black crepe paper.

  Then, after the funeral, Jackie had to prepare for a second event. On Monday night she would host a birthday party for her son, John Jr. In two days, on the day of his father’s funeral, he would be three years old. Jackie would not hear of canceling the party.

  ON THE afternoon of Saturday, November 23, at 4:45 P.M., President Lyndon Johnson read to the nation over live radio and television his proclamation of a national day of mourning for President Kennedy.

  To the people of the United States: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, has been taken from us by an act which outrages decent men everywhere. . . . Now, therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do appoint Monday next, November 25, the day of the funeral service of President Kennedy, to be a national day of mourning throughout the United States. I earnestly recommend the people to assemble on that day in their respective places of divine worship . . . and to pay their homage of love and reverence to the memory of a great and good man.

  On the night of Saturday, November 23, reporters begged Police Chief Jesse Curry for a tip on when Oswald would be transferred from the jail in City Hall to the County Jail about a mile away. They were tired. Most of them had been covering the story from about one P.M. Friday, through the middle of the night, and then all day Saturday into the evening. They wanted to leave so they could take a break and rest, but they worried that the prisoner would be moved in the middle of the night when they were gone and that they would miss out on the story.

  The chief told them it was safe for them to leave—and promised that the suspect would not be moved tonight. “I think if you fellows are back here by ten o’clock in the morning,” Curry said, “you won’t miss anything.”

  Curry then conferred with Captain Fritz about the timing.

  “What time do you think you will be ready tomorrow,” Curry asked.

  Fritz said he did not know exactly when.

  “Do you think about ten o’clock?”

  “I believe so.”

  Curry stepped out of Fritz’s third floor office to talk to the press to confirm that Oswald would be moved tomorrow morning. “I believe if you are back here by ten o’clock you will be back in time to observe anything you care to observe.”

  Asked if Oswald had admitted killing the president, Curry said no.

  “I don’t think we’ve made any progress toward a confession.”

  “You don’t think so? ”

  “No.”

  “Why are you so pessimistic about a confession?”

  “Well, you know we’ve been in this business a good while, and sometimes you can sort of draw your own conclusions after talking to a man over a period of time. Of course he might have a change of heart, but I’d be rather surprised if he did.”

  A reporter asked about security.

  “Will you transfer him under heavy guard?”

  “I’ll leave that up to Sheriff Decker. That’s his responsibility.”

  “The sheriff takes custody of him here?”

  “Yes, that’s all I have, gentlemen, thank you.”

  ALL THROUGH the day of November 23, and into the night, the body of John F. Kennedy lay in repose at the White House.

  THE DEATH threats against Oswald began after midnight on Sunday, November 24.

  Then at 2:30 A.M., an anonymous man called the Dallas FBI office and warned, “I represent a committee that is neither right nor left wing, and tonight, tomorrow morning, or tomorrow night, we are going to kill the man who killed the president. There will be no excitement and we will kill him. We wanted to be sure and tell the FBI, police department, and Sheriff’s Office and we will be there and we will kill him.”

  The night man at the office who had taken the message informed an agent, Milton L. Newsom, of the threat. When Newsom called the Dallas County sheriff’s office to report it, Deputy Sheriff C. C. McCoy said he had received a similar call. The two messages were almost identical, except the caller to the sheriff’s office claimed he spoke on behalf of a secret group of about one hundred people “who have voted to kill the man who killed the president.”

  The purpose of the call was to warn the sheriff’s office in advance so no deputies would get hurt when Oswald was shot to death tomorrow. McCoy called Sheriff Bill Decker at home to alert him to the threats.

  Agent Newsom also called the Dallas Police Department and reported the threats to Captain William B. Frazier. At 5:15 A.M., Frazier called Captain Will Fritz at home, who told him to notify Chief Curry.

  In the meantime, Deputy Sheriff McCoy had reported the threats to Sheriff Bill Decker, who became alarmed. He told McCoy to call the Dallas police and tell them he wanted Chief Curry to call him right away. McCoy made the call and told Frazier to have Curry call Decker.

  Then McCoy conveyed a more urgent message. Decker thought the Dallas Police should drive Oswald over to the county jail right now. That way, the transfer will be over before the reporters—or potential assassins—can gather at City Hall.

  But Frazier could not reach Chief Curry on the phone. When Captain C. E. Talbert showed up for duty at 6:15 A.M., Frazier brought him up to date. Talbert reached the assistant chief of police, who told him to send men to Curry’s house. Around 7:30 A.M., Talbert also called FBI agent Newsom, the man who, more than four hours ago, first spread word of the threats. Talbert said that Chief Curry would not be in the office until 8:00 or 9:00 A.M.

  Newsom was worried. He asked about the transfer plans.

  Talbert was nonchalant. He said he did not think there would be any effort to sneak Oswald out of the city jail because the police wanted to maintain good relations with the press. The media had set up extensive coverage to cover the transfer, and he did not think that Chief Curry would want to “cross” the media.

  BEFORE OSWALD went anywhere that morning, Captain Will Fritz wanted to see him for one last time. After two days of trying, Fritz knew he could not break Oswald’s willpower, frighten him, or trick him into confessing. Oswald was too cool and collected for that. Yes, he had exploded in occasional flashes of anger and frustration, but he always reeled himself back in to a state of calm. He was unflappable. Not even the sight of his wife or brother weakened him or compelled him to confess.

  This Sunday morning was Captain Will Fritz’s last chance to speak freely with Oswald before he was transferred from the city jail, before he got a lawyer (who would no doubt advise his client not to say another word to the police), and before the next stage of the case, when the grand jury, the prosecutor, and the trial would claim center stage. There was already plenty of evidence. Indeed, the first-day evidence alone was enough to indict Oswald and put him on trial. District Attorney Henry Wade did not need a confession. He could get a conviction without one.

  Fritz was sure Oswald was guilty. But the old detective wanted the psychological satisfaction of hearing it from Oswald’s own lips. And he wanted to know, why? This was the most notorious case of Fritz’s career, but the legendary lawman had failed to break the president’s assassin. There was one form of leverage Fritz had not used. He could have threatened to deport Marina, and to take her children away from her (at least the one born in the United States). But that kind of threat was for the federal authorities, not Fritz, to make.

  Fritz showed Oswald one of the “backyard” photographs of him holding the rifle he claimed he never owned. The detective hoped that once Oswald
saw this undeniable proof, he might confess.

  Oswald said he had never even seen the photograph. “I know all about photography . . . that is a picture that someone else has made. I never saw that picture in my life.” Again, he denied any involvement in or knowledge of the Kennedy or Tippit shootings.

  “The only thing I am here for is because I popped a policeman in the nose in a theater on Jefferson Avenue, which I readily admit I did, because I was protecting myself.”

  Fritz turned the questioning over to Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes. The U.S. Post Office had been researching the identity of the person who rented the post office box to which Klein’s Sporting Goods shipped the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

  Holmes asked if Oswald had a post office box in Dallas.

  “Yes.”

  Box 2915. Oswald said he had rented it at the main post office a few months before moving to New Orleans. He explained that he rented it in his own name and only he and his wife had access to the box.

  Oswald had just admitted the rifle that killed the president was shipped to his post office box.

  Holmes asked him to confirm that no one else received mail in that box. He was struck by Oswald’s response. “He denied emphatically that he had ever ordered a rifle under his name, or any other name, nor permitted anyone else to order a rifle to be received in this box . . . he denied that he ever . . . bought any money order . . . to [pay] for such a rifle.”

  “Well,” Fritz asked, “have you shot a rifle since you have been out of the Marines?”

  Oswald said no.

  “Do you own a rifle?” Fritz asked again.

  “Absolutely not! How can I afford a rifle? I make $1.25 an hour. I can’t hardly feed myself.”

  Inspector Holmes wanted to ask about the Dallas post office box again.

  “Did you receive mail through box 2915 under the name of any other than Lee Oswald?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “What about a package to an A. J. Hidell?”

  “No!”

  “Did you order a gun in that name to come here?”

  “No, absolutely not!”