by Barry Ernest
Chapter 10
1. See Part II, 6, of the official transcript of “CBS News Inquiry: ‘The Warren Report,’” which aired June 26, 1967.
2. CE 139 (as shown in 16H512).
3. WR, 84.
4. See CE 2003 (as shown in 24H228).
5. See Decker Exhibit 5323 (as shown in 19H507) (hereinafter listed as DE).
6. 3H294.
7. 7H108.
8. See DE 5323 (as shown in 19H528-29).
9. 3H281-90.
10. Ibid.
11. 7H107 (Weitzman) and 3H293 (Boone).
12. WR, 9.
13. See, for example, CE 3048 (as shown in 26H599). Note also that this news report states the rifle was found “in a staircase on the fifth floor of the building.”
14. See CE 2169 (as shown in 24H831). It is interesting to note that Malcom H. Price, Jr., one of those who thought he saw Oswald at a rifle range in September 1963, told a Commission attorney that the gun he saw that man carry, and which Price actually handled, was “a Mauser-type rifle.” When asked whether there was printing stamped on it, Price said he didn’t notice any other than its serial number (see 10H373-74). By coincidence, Warren Caster testified that two days prior to the assassination, he brought two rifles he had purchased over his lunch hour into the Depository building, where he was employed. One of the guns he openly displayed to fellow workers was a Mauser (7H387).
15. CE 543-45 (as shown in 17H241). A busy man, Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney found the shell casings about ten minutes before he observed the rifle.
16. CE 143 (as shown in 16H513).
17. See CE 853 and 856-58 (as shown in 17H849-51). The bullet I was holding actually looked remarkably like two bullets that had been test fired from Oswald’s rifle in such a way, and presumably into a soft substance, that they would be undamaged, easily recovered, and capable of being used for comparison purposes (see 3H497 and CE 572, as shown in 17H258).
18. CE 150 (as shown in 16H515). See also Shaneyfelt Exhibit 24 (as shown in 21H467-70).
19. Although the Report diminished the significance of the laundry tag and mark by not mentioning them at all, these important clues still caused quite a stir. In Six Seconds in Dallas (New York: Bernard Geis Associates, 1967), author Josiah Thompson writes that an extensive FBI investigation of all laundry and dry-cleaning businesses in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area failed to uncover the originator of the labels. The FBI also struck out after conducting inquiries of 293 such establishments in the metropolitan New Orleans area. (See Thompson, 228-29.)
20. Much has been made of the fact that Oswald wore size-small shirts while the jacket supposedly discarded by the fleeing cop killer in Oak Cliff was a medium, the implication being that the jacket was the wrong size to be a part of Oswald’s meager wardrobe and therefore it belonged to someone else. Oswald’s only other jacket was a heavier blue one found in the first-floor lunchroom of the Texas School Book Depository after the assassination (see 6H345 and CE 163, as shown in 16H521). It would have been revealing to determine the size of this jacket in comparison to the other, but as is symptomatic of research into the Kennedy assassination, no size labels appear on this item.
21. Commission Documents (CDs) are documents the Warren Commission examined during the course of its investigation but chose not to publish in its twenty-six volumes of evidence. CDs are only available for review at the National Archives.
22. CD 5, 39.
23. Ibid.
24. CD 105, 339.
25. “Key Persons Interviewed” file; Adams, Victoria E.
26. 3H173 and 178.
27. 3H191.
28. Consider, for example, the following exchange during Jarman’s testimony (3H205-6):
Ball: Had you heard any person running upstairs?
Jarman: No, sir; I hadn’t.
Ball: Or any steps upstairs?
Jarman: No, sir.
Ball: Any noise at all up there?
Jarman: None.
29. Ibid., 195.
30. WR, 153 and 3H180.
31. FBI File No. DL 89-43, 120-22.
32. WR, 152. According to the Report, Howlett “placed the rifle on the floor near where Oswald’s rifle was actually found.” In a March 20, 1964, affidavit, Howlett also says he “placed the rifle on the floor” (see “Key Persons Interviewed” file; Howlett, John Joe). Yet pictures taken when the rifle was discovered show that it had not been simply “placed” on the floor by the fleeing assassin but was rather carefully secreted between and under several boxes (see CE 514, as shown in 17H224, and CE 718, as shown in 17H501). This would have resulted in slightly longer reenactment times than what Howlett was able to achieve. Howlett may not have even been using a gun for his simulations. Many years later I would find a three-page Secret Service document titled “Explanation of Film Sequences: Reconstructing the Assassination of the President.” The document provides an interpretation of several films taken by the government to duplicate key events of the assassination. One of these shows Agent Howlett on the sixth floor of the Depository, “fleeing the scene by the route which we believe Lee Oswald used, as it is the most direct route,” the document states. “The end of this sequence shows Agent Howlett placing a stick [author’s emphasis] at the point where the assassin [sic] weapon was found and exiting down the steps which we think Lee Oswald used.” See CD 87, 233.
33. Ibid. Truly told me in a March 21, 1968, interview that he and Baker were actually moving “much faster” on the day of the assassination than what they did during the Commission’s timed tests. Regarding those tests, Baker testified they were conducted in such a way that “we walked the first time and then we kind of run the second time” from his motorcycle into the building (3H253). Yet Baker’s description of the actual event in his testimony reads as if his movements were in reality nothing short of an outright bolt into the building, knocking people out of the way and even colliding with Truly as they both hurriedly tried to enter the swinging front door. Photos published later clearly show Officer Baker running at full stride toward the Depository building. (See, for instance, Richard B. Trask, Pictures of the Pain [Danvers, MA: Yeoman Press, 1994], 424, and Robert J. Groden, The Killing of a President [New York: Viking Studio Books, 1993], 64.)
34. CD 87, 324. One day while reading through files marked “Staff Working Papers” of the Commission, I came across a two-page unsigned, undated, and badly typed document titled “Memo To Files Re: Movements of Oswald after the Assassination.” The anonymous author had discovered that if the times furnished by the Secret Service were accurate, Oswald could not have been Tippit’s murderer. Concluding with a look at how long it would have taken Oswald to walk from his rooming house to where Tippit was slain, the memo states, “According to the Secret Service Report, this takes 12 minutes putting him at that spot 1:19. Tippit was killed at 1:18.” (See Staff Working Papers, Box 6.) The Commission actually made matters worse when it stated on page 165 of its Report that Tippit was killed sometime prior to 1:16 P.M.
35. Staff Working Papers, “Outline of Ball-Belin Report #1,” 116.
36. Ibid., 117-18.
37. From handwritten notes made after my first meeting with Weisberg, June 27, 1968.
38. Whitewash—The Report on the Warren Report (1965) and his subsequent Whitewash II—The FBI-Secret Service Cover-up (1966) were privately published by Harold Weisberg at Hyattstown, Maryland. Both titles were later picked up and distributed by Dell Publishing Company.
Chapter 11
1. Harold Weisberg, letter to author, July 26, 1968.
2. See, for instance, Melvin M. Belli, Dallas Justice: The Real Story of Jack Ruby and His Trial (New York: David McKay, 1964), 43.
3. From handwritten notes made during a personal interview with Decker, July 31, 1968.
4. Decker was riding in the backseat of the motorcade’s lead car, which was being driven by Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry. At the moment shots were fired, Curry got on his police radio to say, “Get men on top of the under
pass; see what happened up there.” Decker, grabbing the microphone from Curry, is quoted as telling the radio dispatcher, “I’m sure it’s going to take some time to get your men in there. Put every one of my men there.” (See Sawyer Exhibit A, as shown in 21H390-91.) It is not clear what Decker meant by “there.” Was he referring to putting his men on the underpass, as Curry had just directed, or having them report to Dealey Plaza in general? In a nine-page statement of his activities that day, Decker elaborated on his radio order by saying that he wanted his deputies advised “to immediately get over to the area where shooting occurred and saturate the area of the park, railroad and all buildings.” (See DE 5323, as shown in 19H458.) Unfortunately, he was never asked for further clarification of the orders to his men when Commission counsel questioned him on April 16, 1964 (see 12H42-52).
5. It would be many years later, after the House Select Committee on Assassinations conducted its investigation during which it more thoroughly examined the Dallas Police radio recordings, that Decker’s actual message that day would become available in full. And it would also be made clear at that point that the copy of the “edited transcript . . . from the Dallas police radio log for November 22, 1963,” as printed for public inspection in volume 31 of the twenty-six volumes, was amended for more than just purposes of length. In this more recent version of the log, Curry’s response about putting men onto the underpass remains unchanged from what the Commission published in 1964. But Decker’s words, according to this later transcript, vary dramatically from what was shown in the Commission’s transcript: “Have my office move all available men out of my office into the railroad yard [author’s emphasis] to try to determine what happened in there and hold everything secure until Homicide and other investigators should get there” (see, for instance, Groden, 52).
6. 19H452-543.
7. I wrote Weisberg about my interview when I returned home. “Decker lied to you, as might have been expected,” he responded on August 12. “All of his files are not in the 26. None of the pictures, which interested me most.”
8. From handwritten notes made during a personal interview with Jarnagin, August 1, 1968.
9. I searched for Miss Mauldin in Dallas but could not find her.
10. See CE 2821 (as shown in 26H254-57).
11. 5H232.
12. Ibid., 239.
13. Ibid., 232.
14. Ibid., 234.
15. Ibid., 232.
16. From handwritten notes made during a telephone interview with Jones, August 1, 1968.
17. From handwritten notes made during a telephone interview with Miller, August 1, 1968.
18. 19H481.
19. CD 5, 30.
20. 7H560.
21. Ibid., 564.
22. From handwritten notes made during a personal interview with Hudson, August 2, 1968.
23. Liebeler: Did the shots seem evenly spaced or were some of them closer together?
Hudson: They seemed pretty well evenly spaced.
Liebeler: Evenly spaced; is that it?
Hudson: Yes, sir. (7H565.)
24. Stenographers keeping the official record for the Warren Commission would routinely use the notation “(off the record)” to indicate that such discussions took place. It is interesting that despite Hudson’s claims to the contrary, not a single mention of an off-the-record conversation can be found in his testimony, as published in the twenty-six volumes.
25. From handwritten notes made during a personal interview with Holland, August 2, 1968.
26. Several questions came to mind at this point. For instance, what happened to the two men that railroad-tower operator Lee Bowers had observed standing behind the fence only moments before he heard the shots? During his testimony in April 1964, Bowers told the Commission all about those men and how he felt “something out of the ordinary” had occurred at that location when the shooting started (6H288). He also related to author Mark Lane in 1966 that his attention was drawn to that area when the shots rang out and he felt there had been “a flash of light or smoke or something” (see Lane, 32). Wouldn’t the two men he noticed have seen a gunman fire a weapon from there? And after years of worldwide controversy over this matter, why have those two individuals still not come forward to offer their observations?
27. Years later I would stare intently at a black-and-white picture, taken about five minutes after the assassination, by Dallas Times Herald photographer William Allen. Taken from the same side of the street and just west of where Mary Moorman snapped her famous shot, the Allen photograph shows a group of spectators converged on the sidewalk and street in front of the steps leading up to the knoll. In the background is the corner of the picket fence. At the exact spot where I had stood that August day, an unidentified police officer is shown standing behind the fence, gazing down onto the street where the shooting had just occurred, apparently after having been directed there by witnesses.
28. Holland died in 1969, apparently of natural causes.
29. From a taped interview with Craig, August 4, 1968.
30. It indeed would have been very revealing, and would have lent credence to what Craig was saying, had Fritz used the general term “car,” while Oswald replied with the more specific and incriminating “station wagon.” But when Commission attorney David Belin questioned him in Dallas on April 1, 1964, Craig did not quote Fritz as saying “car” when the police captain was addressing Oswald:
Belin: Then, what did Captain Fritz say and what did you say and what did the suspect say?
Craig: Captain Fritz then asked him about the—uh—he said, “What about this station wagon?” And the suspect interrupted him and said, “That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine”—I believe is what he said. “Don’t try to tie her into this. She had nothing to do with it.” (6H270)
31. Craig provided a more detailed description in his testimony:
Craig: Oh, he was a white male in his twenties, five nine, five eight, something like that; about 140 to 150; had kind of medium brown sandy hair—you know, it was like it’d been blown—you know, he’d been in the wind or something—it was all wild-looking; had on—uh—blue trousers—
Belin: What shade of blue? Dark blue, medium or light?
Craig: No; medium, probably; I’d say medium. And, a—uh—light tan shirt, as I remember it.
Belin: Anything else about him
Craig: No; nothing except that he looked like he was in an awful hurry. (6H266)
32. 7H404.
33. WR, 160.
34. Ibid., 161.
Chapter 12
1. DE 5323 (as shown in 19H492).
2. CD 5, 65.
3. Lane, 33.
4. Ibid.
5. From handwritten notes made during a telephone interview with Price, August 6, 1968.
6. From a taped interview with Wise, August 7, 1968. Wise would later become mayor of Dallas.
7. It was this observed demeanor—Ruby with tears in his eyes at the thought of the slain president, his widow, and the now-fatherless children—that caused Wise to be called as a witness for the defense during the March 1964 murder trial of Ruby. Ruby’s defense hinged on his claim that he killed Oswald to keep Mrs. Kennedy and her children from having to return to Dallas had Oswald’s case gone before a jury. See CE 2413 (as shown in 25H498-505).
8. See, for instance, Elmer Gertz, Moment of Madness: The People vs. Jack Ruby (Chicago: Follett, 1968), 110-11.
9. 15H491.
10. See Hall (C. Ray) Exhibit 3 (as shown in 20H47-62).
11. WR, 340-42. At one point during the press conference, somehow-knowledgeable Ruby corrected District Attorney Henry Wade by saying Oswald was really a member of a pro-Castro group instead of the anti-Castro organization Wade had erroneously mentioned to the media.
12. During that trial testimony, Harkness responded as follows:
[Assistant District Attorney] Alexander: I’ll ask you if you saw Jack Ruby in that crowd that you moved back from the jail entrance?
&nb
sp; Harkness: Yes sir.
Alexander: And did you see which direction he went after you moved him back?
Harkness: No, sir. The last I had seen of him was at Elm and Houston, on the jail side, on the east side of Houston.
Alexander: Now that was on Saturday afternoon, just before four o’clock?
Harkness: Yes sir. (See 25H403.)
13. 6H314.
14. Ibid. Harkness introduced two other areas of importance during his testimony, both of which virtually cried out for elaboration. The first occurred behind the Depository, where the officer had gone to search after the assassination:
Belin: Was anyone around in the back when you got there?
Harkness: There were some Secret Service agents there. I didn’t get them identified. They told me they were Secret Service. (6H312)
These were not two men who quickly flashed a badge or identification card that Harkness, under the circumstances, could have mistaken as being Secret Service credentials; these men actually “told” the officer they were from that agency. But no Secret Service agents had been assigned to the grounds of Dealey Plaza. Who were these men? What were they wearing? What did they look like? What happened to them? Instead of asking these questions or ones similar, Belin wanted to move on to what Harkness did when he returned to the front of the Depository. This led Harkness to mentioning the second area of ignored significance, which concerned what happened when he entered the railroad yards and searched a train that had been leaving the area until the alert tower operator, Lee Bowers, stopped it:
Harkness: Well, we got a long freight that was in there, and we pulled some people off of there and took them to the station.
Belin: You mean some transients.
Harkness: Tramps and hoboes. . . .
Belin: Do you know whether or not anyone found any suspicious people of any kind or nature down there in the railroad yard?
Harkness: Yes, sir. We made some arrests, I put some people in. (6H312)
What were these people doing that made them “suspicious” enough for police to “put them in”? In what I was finding typical of Belin’s approach, he wasn’t concerned, even though he initiated the question. Rather, convinced by Harkness that the hoboes and tramps were weaponless when arrested, he moved on to an unrelated area.