Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

11/25/1963 (Monday)

AP article by Lewis Gulick: "Johnson Reaffirms Viet Policy, Pledges U. S. To Victory - Grasping the reins of foreign policy quickly . President Johnson pledged the United States anew to winning the war against the Communist guerrillas in South Viet Nam. This was the core of a general directive - his first in the foreign-policy field - he issued after conferring with Henry Cabot Lodge, U. S. ambassador to South Viet Nam, and other top diplomatic and military leaders. President Johnson's directive said also that he will adhere to the schedule set up by President Kennedy to withdraw at least 1,000 Americans from South Viet Nam by the end of this year. Service personnel now numbers about 14,000 plus about 2,500 civilians. Johnson adheres also to the objective of withdrawing all military personnel by the end of 1965, contingent upon a demonstrated ability of the South Vietnamese government by that time to carry the war to a successful conclusion.

JFK's friend John Kenneth Galbraith, his ambassador to India, said in a reflection published the day of the president's funeral that none of Kennedy's advisers could keep up with the man's own understanding: "What Mr. Kennedy had come to know about the art and substance of American Government was prodigious...My Harvard colleague Professor Carl Kaysen, who has worked in the White House these last years, has said that when asked who is the most knowledgeable of the President's advisers he always felt obliged to remind his questioner that none was half so well informed as the President himself. "Departments and individuals, in approaching the President, invariably emphasized the matters which impress them most. Mr. Kennedy knew how to make the appropriate discounts without anyone quite realizing they were being made. He had a natural sense for all of the variables in a problem; he would not be carried away by anyone. " Galbraith said, " No one knew the President well. " (John Kenneth Galbraith, "A Communication , " originally published in the Washington Post (November 25, 1963) ; in Ambassador's journal: A Personal Account of the Kennedy Years ( Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), pp. 63 1-3 2)

The Justice Department pressured the Washington Post into dumping an editorial calling for an independent investigation; Johnson wanted to get an FBI report out first. A declassified FBI memo showed that Katzenbach called Post editor Russell Wiggins and told him that "the Department of Justice seriously hoped that the 'Washington Post' would not encourage any specific means" by which the facts should be made public. The memo also says that an FBI agent talked with Post managing editor Al Friendly, discouraging publication of the editorial and and claiming that it would "merely 'muddy the waters' and would create further confusion and hysteria." The editorial was killed and later that day J. Edgar Hoover boasted in a memo that "I called Mr. Walter Jenkins at the White House and advised him that we had killed the editorial in The Post." (Village Voice, Robert Hennelly and Jerry Policoff, 3/31/1992)

FBI agents went to Laredo, Texas, to investigate a story that Oswald had bought $32 worth of clothes at a store there; a receipt from the store dated 9/26 was found among his belongings. (NY Times 11/30)

Hosty and DeBrueys went to the police department to review their evidence on Oswald. (Assignment Oswald 71)

DPD took two photos of Dealey Plaza, apparently from the position where Zapruder was standing.

Afternoon: Stolley and Zapruder agree sale of all rights to film to Life. Dan Rather may have been present for part of meeting. Stolley leaves with the last of the first-day copies, which Zapruder retained since Nov 22. Horne, 1202; Wrone, 35-6, 283-5; Trask, 146; Mack e-mail to author, May 14, 2010; Zapruder / Time Inc contract, Nov 25, 1963

Today, Multiple copies of Zapruder film (#0186) generated by FBI Lab in Washington between Nov. 23 and Nov. 25 Trask, 122; Wrone, 30; Murr (unpubl) 2010

SS agent Patterson interviewed Marina and wrote in his report: "She advised that she was a Castro supporter and from the interview it was felt that she is still a hard-core Communist...She stated that she did not know the man who killed her husband. It was felt by the interviewer that she was not telling the truth and still believes in Communism." (H 23 390)

Jack Ruby is transferred to the Dallas county jail under heavy guard.

FBI interviewed Adrian Thomas Alba, a New Orleans acquaintance of Oswald. He told the FBI that he knew of no rifle practice which Oswald had engaged in while in New Orleans, adding that from his conversation with Oswald he did not believe that Oswald belonged to any of the local gun clubs. He added that it would have been almost impossible for Oswald to practice with a rifle around New Orleans unless he belonged to a gun club. (CD 7:203)

Joe Alsop phone call to LBJ; Johnson did not want a presidential commission which would be seen as a "carpetbagger" interference in the Texas investigation. Alsop strongly recommended an independent panel to report on the FBI's findings.

Sen. Eastland phone call with LBJ; Eastland explains that a committee hearing would be used to present proof that Oswald was the assassin. LBJ sounds like a committed states' righter as he worries about federal interference in the Texas investigation.

Silvia Duran and her husband are released.

Wayne January reports the Red Bird Airport incident to the Dallas FBI. (Summers, Conspiracy)

Dean Andrews told the Secret Service about the phone call and Oswald's visits in June and July '63. His secretary recalled that Andrews spoke of a client who wanted to change his Marine discharge. (CE 2901) Another employee in his office, R.M. Davis, recalled talking with Andrews 6/1963 about that subject, and that Andrews had mentioned Oswald on various occasions. (CE 2900) Also on this day Andrews gave information to the SS about Oswald that he couldn't possibly have known if the story weren't true. Weisberg: "Not one of those [agents] who questioned Andrews was a [WC] witness. ...there are quite a few Andrews-Bertrand exhibits that could have been printed in the millions of words the Commission did publish. The extent of what is still suppressed is unknown, but there is a considerable amount that I have obtained." (Oswald In New Orleans 129)

FBI agents interviewed Sam Zelden, a lawyer friend of Dean Andrews': "Zelden advised that he was surprised [at Dean's call] and not interested in defending Oswald and he told Andrews that he would have to think about it and about this time he heard on television that Oswald had been shot." This report was not published by the WC. (Oswald in New Orleans 135)

LBJ phone call with Boggs. Johnson explored the idea of a presidential commission. During another call with Boggs, Johnson says he has his lawyers working on how a commission could be set up.

LBJ phone call with Dirksen. Johnson worries about "international complications" and suggests a commission that includes Allen Dulles.

LBJ phone call with Fortas about a commission; Johnson suggests McCloy and Sens. Russell and Cooper. Fortas suggests Boggs and Ford. Dulles is again mentioned, and the possibility of Earl Warren heading it is mentioned.

LBJ call to Sen. Russell, who is surprised that Hoover is already done with his assassination report. Russell doesn't want to serve on the commission. Johnson says that RFK is agreeable to Dulles being on the Commission.

LBJ call to Dulles asking him to serve on the commission.

On this day, Harry L. Power, an Army veteran and one-time resident of San Antonio, inexplicably leaves a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano in the Terre Haute House Hotel in Terre Haute, Indiana. When Terre Haute officials investigate the matter they find no fingerprints on the rifle and no explanation as to why it was abandoned. They also believe that the name of "Harry Power" may be an alias. Terre Haute Police Chief Frank Riddle will eventually tell an AP reporter that all the information his office collected was turned over to the Warren Commission when Secret Service Agents confiscated the rifle. A National Archives document, released in 1970, will report that Power was investigated in connection with the shooting attempt on General Walker in Dallas. Other files associated with the Power rifle claim that it was a 7.65 Mauser. CIA agent Richard Nagell will tell Garrison investigators in 1967 at Power was a Maoist or Trotskyite and "had known Lee Harvey Oswald and had been seen with him."

Gilberto Policarpo Lopez checks into the Roosevelt Hotel in Mexico City. He stays there for two days before flying to Havana, Cuba.

Sometime during this weekend, RFK asks family friend Daniel Patrick Moynihan, assistant secretary of labor, to explore whether Jimmy Hoffa was involved in the murder and whether the Secret Service might have been bought off. (Brothers)

FBI agents, acting on an anonymous telephone tip, visit the Irving Sports Shop and find a repair tag indicating that a rifle has been sighted for a customer named "Oswald." The man who did the work, Dial D. Ryder, claims he never worked on an Italian-manufactured rifle similar to the one allegedly found in the Texas School Book Depository Building. Further, the ticket indicates that three holes were drilled in the rifle to mount the sight, while the rifle alleged to be Oswald's requires only two holes for its mount. It has since been speculated that an impersonator using Oswald's name had a rifle sighted at the shop, then later tipped off the FBI and police to lead them to this "evidence" against Lee Harvey Oswald.

Alvin Beauboeuf is questioned by the FBI about Dave Ferrie.

Galloway transmits 'sole remaining copy' of autopsy to Burkley at the White House.

Former California Gov. Goodwin Knight attacked the Dallas police: "This is a crime of the century, yet because of the carelessness of these officials in Dallas the American people will now forever be denied the whole truth of the assassination." (UPI)

According to LBJ Chief of Staff Bob Hardesty, LBJ asks Nicholas Katzenbach and Ramsey Clark to investigate the Oswald-Castro connection. LBJ's press secretary, George Reedy, also notes, "[LBJ] frequently made statements that the Cubans must have been involved. The whole idea that the Cubans - meaning Castro - might have had something to do with it was linked to the CIA's attempt to assassinate Castro. That was the root of Johnson's concern." Michael Beschloss writes: "Richard Helms found Lyndon Johnson distracted well into 1964 by his worry that Kennedy had been assassinated by a conspiracy. As Helms recalled, the Agency was very helpful to Johnson on this' and met the new President's requests for an independent CIA study."

In Dallas, Police sergeant J.C. Bowles, the radio-room supervisor, who will later prepare transcripts for the Warren Commission, states that federal agents "borrow" the original police Dictabelts and he is under the impression they take them to a recording studio in Oklahoma. These Dictabelts contain all recordings of police communications during the assassination on Channels 1 & 2.

On this day, Jack Ruby is interviewed for the first time by the FBI. He recites the chronicle of an aggrieved loner who desired only to spare the Kennedy family the anguish of a trial. HSCA polygraph experts will study Jack Ruby's polygraph and find it was very ineptly done. They will find that the polygrapher ignored standard procedure in a way that made it harder to detect falsehood. Yet, even with the polygraph's sensitivity turned down (instead of up, as it should have been), the registered responses indicate Ruby is lying when he denies having a role in the assassination. The HSCA polygraph experts state the following in their report regarding the reaction to the question, "Did you assist Oswald in the assassination?": In fact, the reactions to the preceding question--(Did you assist Oswald in the assassination?)--show the largest valid GSR reaction in test series No. 1. In addition, there is a constant suppression of breathing and a rise in blood pressure at the time of this crucial relevant question. From this test, it appears to the panel that Ruby was possibly lying when answering "no" to the question, "Did you assist Oswald in the assassination?" This is contrary to Herndon's opinion that Ruby was truthful when answering that question. (8 HSCA 217-218)

Rep. Hale Boggs called for a full-scale congressional investigation into the assassination.

White House formally announces that LBJ has ordered Hoover to investigate the assassination.

Texas Atty Gen. Waggoner Carr, after talking by phone with LBJ aide Walter Jenkins, announced that his state would hold a public court of inquiry on the assassination. Carr named Texas lawyers Leon Jaworski and Dean Robert G. Storey as special counsel.

Around noon today, an employee of the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, reports to the glass plant lab as ordered. There, according to him, are two lab men, and they have the windshield from JFK's motorcade limousine. The windshield has a bullet hole in it, coming from the outside through. The lab men are using the windshield as a template in order to make another windshield. The workers have been told that, if anybody asks what they are doing, they are to say they are running a template for a prototype. The employee notes that the entire interior of the limo has been stripped out. The carpeting and everything is gone. The windshield eventually presented to the Warren Commission does NOT have ANY hole going through it. The employee relating this account is not named- but is interviewed by Douglas Weldon. The interview is eventually included as part of a book entitled Murder In Dealey Plaza.
F. Vaughn Ferguson of the Ford Motor Company returns to the White House garage today. Personnel from Arlington Glass also arrive. They advise Morgan Geis and Ferguson that removal of the limo's windshield will cause additional damage. Geis tells them to go ahead and remove the windshield anyway. The Arlington Glass personnel remove it by putting their feet against the inside of the windshield and pushing it out. In doing so, additional cracks form (downward to the bottom of the windshield). A Mr. Davis of the Secret Service then takes the windshield and puts it in the stockroom under lock and key. Ferguson never sees the windshield again. Ferguson also attempts to clean a blood spot on the limo carpet with only moderate success. Morgan Geis calls to Ferguson's attention a dent in the chrome topping of the windshield at a point just above the rear view mirror.
The windshield is reportedly preserved as evidence, and metallic fragments are taken from the inside of the original crack. These fragments are tested by the FBI on March 20, 1964, and determinded to be lead. The minute quantity of lead recovered from the crack in the windshield reportedly makes further testing, such as neutron activation analysis, impossible. The Warren Report states: "Although there is some uncertainty whether the dent in the chrome on the windshield was present prior to the assassination, Frazier testified that the dent had been caused by some projectile which struck the chrome on the inside surface.' If it was caused by a shot during the assassination, Frazier stated that it would not have been caused by a bullet traveling at full velocity, but rather by a fragment traveling at a fairly high velocity.' It could have been caused by either fragment found in the front seat of the limousine." "The minute examination by the FBI inspection team, conducted in Washington between 14-16 hours after the assassination, revealed no damage indicating that a bullet struck any part of the interior of the Presidential limousine, with the exception of the cracking of the windshield and the dent on the windshield chrome. Neither of these points of damage to the car could have been caused by the bullet that exited the President's nect at a velocity of 1,772 to 1, 779 feet per second." Secret Service agents William Greer and Roy Kellerman both state that they did not observe the dent in the windshield trim prior to the assassination.

Jack Martin is interviewed today by special Agent Regis Kennedy at the New Orleans FBI Office. According to Kennedy's report of the interview, Martin states that he has seen rifles of the type Oswald had allegedly used against the President in David Ferrie's apartment, that Ferrie is a well-known amateur hypnotist who could have hypnotized Oswald, that Ferrie is "a completely disreputable person, a notorious sex deviate with a brilliant mind," and that he, Martin, "suspected him of being capable of any type of crime." Martin concludes his statement saying that he feels "Ferrie's possible association with Lee Oswald should be the subject of close examination as he personally believes that he could be implicated in the killing of President John F. Kennedy."

New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Herman Kohlman informs FBI Agent Regis Kennedy that "An unknown police officer had told the Intelligence Division of the New Orleans Police Department that he was in the Civil Air Patrol with Lee Harvey Oswald and that [David] Ferrie knew Oswald." Later today, the FBI is able to identify Fred O'Sullivan of the New Orleans Police Department Vice Squad as the classmate. In an interview with Bureau agents today, O'Sullivan states that he had persuaded his classmates, Lee Oswald and Ed Voebel, to attend his Civil Air Patrol squadron meetings at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. Oswald and Voebel had come "to one or two meetings, but did not join." O'Sullivan states that Oswald thought the Lakefront CAP location was too far away and decided to attend the Moisant Airport CAP squadron instead. O'Sullivan tells the FBI that Ferrie "was Squadron Commander" at the "approximate time" that Oswald came to the Lakefront CAP meetings. He adds, however, that he "could not say for certain that Oswald ever met Ferrie" at the time. He further states that Ferrie himself also subsequently began working with the other CAP unit at Moisant Airport.

Today, a Nicaraguan double agent, Gilberto Alvarado, tells a Mexico City CIA officer that he saw Lee Harvey Oswald recruited to kill Kennedy inside the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City. The fatal weakness of the Alvarado story is his claim to have seen Oswald in the Cuban Consulate on September 18, 1963, at a time when Oswald had not yet left New Orleans. Faced with this problem, Alvarado will retract his story on November 30. We do not yet know if CIA Director McCone told President Johnson this when he discussed Alvarado with him on November 30 and December 1. By November 29, Lyndon Johnson will have announced the formation of the Warren Commission. (It appears that the Alvarado story delayed the FBI's official report on the assassination, originally scheduled for November 29, until December 5.)

12:23 AM CST Dallas - [Ruby] had an arrest record in Dallas for carrying concealed weapons. He was acquitted of aggravated assault just recently after a fight with a heckler 'in another night spot.
"I can take care of myself," was his proudest boast.
… Ruby drove up to City Hall in his car shortly before the Oswald shooting. His background had given him an extensive acquaintance among Dallas policemen and there seemed no apparent reason why his presence amidst newsmen and officials should be restricted. AP, 12:23 a.m. CST, Arthur Everett

3:56 AM CST Dallas - His roommate, George Senator, said Ruby appeared to go into a state of shock after the assassination and grieved particularly for "those poor [Kennedy] children." Senator, also an employee at Ruby's night spot, was questioned by police and dismissed. AP, 3:56 a.m. CST

4:50 AM CST Dallas -- Personality sketch on Ruby, quoting C. D. Kelley of New Orleans, a business associate of Ruby's two years ago, as figuring Ruby was more upset over the killing of a Dallas policeman [by Oswald] than over the President's death. "Patriotic, he wasn't. A police buff, he was." AP, 4:50 a.m. CST. Wilbur Martin

7:00 AM FBI agent Hosty was shocked to find that he had been made a member of the team to investigate Ruby's background, rather than Oswald's. (Assignment Oswald 68)

10:25 AM (EST) Johnson called Hoover.
LBJ: Apparently some lawyer in Justice is lobbying with the Post because that's where the suggestion came from for this presidential commission, which we think would be very bad and put it right in the White House. We can't be checking up on every shooting scrape in the country, but they've gone to the Post now to get em an editorial, and the Post is calling up and saying they're going to run an editorial if we don't do things. Now we're going to do two things and I wanted you to know about it. one - we believe that the way to handle this, as we said yesterday - your suggestion - that you put every facility at your command, making a full report to the Attorney General and then they make it available to the country in whatever form may seem desirable. Second - it's a state matter too, and the state Attorney General is young and able and prudent and very cooperative with you. He's going to run a Court of Inquiry...But he's a good conservative fella and we don't start invading local jurisdictions that way and he understands what you're doing and he's for it...
Hoover: We'll both work together on it.
LBJ: And any influence you got with the Post...point out to them that...just picking out a Tom Dewey lawyer from New York and sending him down on new facts - this commission thing - Mr. Herbert Hoover tried that and sometimes a commission that's not trained hurts more than it helps.
Hoover: It's a regular circus then.
LBJ: That's right.
Hoover: I don't have much influence with the Post because I frankly don't read it. I view it like the Daily Worker. [both laugh]

10:40 AM (EST) LBJ talks on the phone with Joe Alsop. Alsop heaped praise on LBJ for handling the governmental transition so well. Johnson expresses his opposition to a presidential commission. LBJ: Now, if we have another commission, hell, you're gonna have people running over each other and everybody agrees...We decided that the best thing to do to counterattack is, number one, to put the FBI in full force, number two, to put the state in full force....And the FBI is of the opinion that the wisest, quickest, ablest, most effective way to go about it is for them to thoroughly study it and bring in a written report to the Attorney General at the earliest possible date, which they've been working on since twelve-thirty yesterday. Number one - and they have information that is available to no one, that has not been presented so thus far...Number two, to parallel that, we're having a blue-ribbon Court of Inquiry...in Texas, where this thing occured....We just don't want to be in a position....[where] some outsiders have told them that their integrity is no good and that we're going to have some carpetbag trials. Alsop: [Fred] Friendly is going to come out tomorrow morning with a big thing about a blue-ribbon commission, which he thought of independently...I suggest that you announce that as you do not want the Attorney General to have the painful responsibility of reporting on his own brother's assassination, that you have authorized three jurists...to review all the evidence by the FBI and produce a report to the nation... LBJ: ...My lawyers, Joe, tell me that...the President must not inject himself into local killings. Alsop: I agree with that. But in this case it does happen to be the killing of the President... LBJ: I know that....Why can't the FBI transmit it [the report to the public]? Alsop: Because no one...on the left - they won't believe the FBI. And the FBI doesn't write very well...I just wouldn't put it on Bobby and Nick Katzenbach...I'm just suggesting...this very small addition to the admirable machinery that you've already set up...And I now see exactly how right you are and how wrong I was about this idea of a blue-ribbon commission. LBJ: Now, you see, Katzenbach suggested that and that provoked it. The lawyers that counsel me just hit the ceiling.

10:50 AM EST JFK's body is taken from the Capitol rotunda. JFK's lavish funeral with representatives from 102 nations present. His son, John Jr., saluted his father's coffin; it was the boy's third birthday. Daughter Caroline's birthday was on the 27th. Kennedy is buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetary. Harry Truman met afterward with Eisenhower, effecting for the press a final "reconciliation" between these two political adversaries.

10:50 AM CST Dallas - Ruby had been in City Hall police press facilities often since the President was assassinated. City Manager Elgin Crull said "We now have good evidence that Ruby got into the basement by helping to move one of the heavy television cameras." AP, 10:50 am CST

The body of Lee Harvey Oswald is being held at Miller Funeral Home in Fort Worth, Texas - prior to his funeral. Funeral home director Paul Groody says that the FBI comes and fingerprints Oswald's corpse. Oswald had been fingerprinted three times while alive and in Dallas police custody. There is no explanation for this postmortem fingerprinting. FBI agent Richard Harrison confirms that he personally drives another Bureau agent AND the Oswald rifle to the Miller Funeral home. Harrison says he understands that the other agent intended to place Oswald's palm print on the rifle "for comparison purposes."

Later this morning, OSWALD is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth, Texas. The two grave diggers are told that they are preparing a plot for a "William Bobo." The Lutheran minister who ends up presiding over the funeral is practically forced to do so by the National Council of Churches in Dallas. Reporters are pressed into service as pallbearers.

11:00 AM Kyle Clark told Hosty that he managed to get him switched to the Oswald squad, and make him lead investigator of Oswald's background. Hosty asked for Warren DeBrueys as his partner. (Assignment Oswald p70)

11:30 AM Funeral ceremonies begin in Washington. After the funeral, LBJ met with the governors of the 50 states and warned them that without confidence in his administration, "our whole system could go awry..." (Exercise of Power 347) At the end of the funeral ceremonies, KLIF radio broadcast an editorial: "Dallas has one of the nation's finest police forces. Dallas is one of the nation's cleanest cities. There are no payoffs, no rackets, no bribes - an extremely low incidence of violence...to the Eastern critics of Dallas police, we say that where there is life, there is always human error." This evening, following the Kennedy funeral services, LBJ holds a reception in the State Department Building for the 220 government leaders who have gathered from all parts of the world to honor the late president.

Adlai Stevenson met with LBJ, who asked for Stevenson's support, saying, "I know and you know that you should be sitting behind this desk rather than me. You could have had the vice-presidential nomination in Los Angeles, but you kept your word to me that you wouldn't back any of the candidates and as a result I am here instead of you." Though Stevenson had thought he would have more of a role in policy-making under LBJ, he actually found himself shut out. (Exercise of Power 342)

LBJ told Hubert Humphrey, "We had a hand in killing him [South Vietnam's Diem]. Now it's happening here." (Education of a Public Man 265) Days after JFK's burial, LBJ tells Kennedy aide Ralph Dungan: "I want to tell you why Kennedy died. Divine retribution. He murdered Diem and then he got it himself."

1:00 PM Dave Ferrie leaves Hammond, Louisiana and returns to New Orleans, arriving about 3pm. Ferrie was then brought to the DA's office for questioning. He denied having been in Dallas for about 8 to 10 years. Ferrie said he suspected that Jack Martin was the source of the rumor about him and Oswald. That afternoon and evening, Ferrie was then interrogated by the Secret Service and FBI, and was cleared by the latter. (Secret Service report 12/13/1963, CO-2-34,030; FBI report 11/26/1963 #89-68) Ferrie denied knowing Oswald or being involved with the assassination, and had an alibi: as a private investigator for attorneys of Carlos Marcello, he had been sitting outside a New Orleans federal courtroom while Marcello was facing a deportation hearing at the the time of Kennedy's assassination. He then went to Houston and Galveston for a weekend trip with two young companions (Alvin Beaubouef and Melvin Coffey). They drove 350 miles in heavy thunderstorms to Houston, arrived at four in the morning 11/23, and checked into the Marcello-owned Alamotel. On Saturday afternoon, they placed a collect call to the Town & Country, Marcello's New Orleans hotel and headquarters. They then went to the Winterland and Belair skating rinks, then drove to Galveston and checked into the Driftwood Motel. As they were returning on Sunday, Ferrie talked with Gill on the phone and learned that Jack Martin had implicated him in the assassination. When he reached his apartment, Ferrie spotted police cars; he sent in Beaubouef, who was arrested, along with Ferrie's roomate, Layton Martens. He turned himself in the next day and was questioned by Secret Service and the FBI. Ferrie told Garrison that he and his friends had gone goose-hunting, but his friends had told Garrison's investigators that they had no guns. A talk with the manager of the Winterland rink revealed that Ferrie had spent the entire time talking on the pay phone. (Fatal Hour) David Ferrie leaves Hammond for New Orleans. Once in the city, he immediately contacts attorney G. Wray Gill, who then accompanies him to the New Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office for questioning in connection with the assassination of JFK. During this initial questioning session, a Secret Service agent asks him: "Did you loan your library card to Lee Harvey Oswald?" Ferrie replies that he has not. Immediately following the questioning, however, there is evidence that Ferrie goes into something of a panic and takes off for Oswald's former New Orleans residence in search of information about his library card.

1:23 PM CST Chicago - Luis Kutner, Chicago lawyer ... said Ruby boasted he was well acquainted with members of the Chicago Crime Syndicate. "I got the impression he liked to hang around with those fellows," Kutner said. Chicago - Luis Kutner, Chicago lawyer, told the AP that Ruby was an organizer for the Waste Handlers for about three or four months in 1947 or 1948. Kutner said Ruby got interested in the labor movement and was employed by [secretary-treasurer Pau1] Dorfman as an organizer for a brief period. The lawyer said he learned later that Dorfman became dissatisfied with the rough methods employed by Ruby in his organizing efforts and fired him. Kutner said the FBI questioned him yesterday about his relationship with Ruby. The lawyer said Ruby in 1950 told him he had certain information he wanted to deliver to the Senate Rackets Investigating Committee and asked Kutner to arrange a meeting with Rudolph Halley, committee investigator. Kutner said he phoned Halley and told him where to reach Ruby. Kutner said he doesn't know whether Halley ever talked with Ruby. AP, 1:23 p.m. CST Chicago - One man who said he knew Ruby from 1944 on, and visited with him as recently as three years ago in Dallas, scoffed at the idea that a patriotic motive was involved in the slaying of Oswald. "I can't see the guy as pushing through a thing like this out of patriotism. He might for publicity, yes. He might for money," said Jack Kelley, 54, former vaudevillian and nightclub master of ceremonies. Kelley, now manager of a Pekin, IL, drive-in restaurant, said he knew Ruby during World War II, and that Ruby wore a false hearing aid. "He wasn't deaf. His friends all said it was to duck the draft board," Kelly said. AP, 1:23 p.m. CST

4:00 PM Texas time, Oswald's body was buried.

4:00 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with McGeorge Bundy

4:04 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with Larry O'Brien

4:23 PM CST Dallas - Ruby, transferred from city to county jail. ... His sister [Mrs. Eva Grant] said she was sure Ruby did not know Oswald. "I would stake my life on that. "My brother and I saw Oswald on television, and we both agreed he looked like a creep. Jack hadn't ever seen him before." AP, 4:23 p.m. CST, Wilbur Martin

6:06 PM CST Detroit - Earl R. Ruby, a 48-year-old brother of Lee Harvey Oswald's slayer, told a news conference today his brother, Jack, is a highly emotional man with a quick temper and "almost aggressively patriotic." … Jack also was pictured by his brother as "tremendously in favor of President Kennedy" and an admirer of American presidents, regardless of their political ties. AP, 6:06 p.m. CST

David Ferrie is interviewed by FBI agents today. He recommends Jerry Paradis as a CAP member who will be able to verify whether Oswald had ever been involved in the CAP unit headed by Ferrie. Ferrie tells the FBI agents that he has never known Oswald and that other witnesses can confirm that Oswald had never attended CAP meetings during the period that Ferrie was active with the group. According to the report of his FBI interview, Ferrie states that "during the period he was commander of the squadron, Jerry C. Paradis was the recruit instructor and took all the squadron recruits through their training." Ferrie supplies the Bureau with the home and business addresses of Paradis, so as to aid the agents in interviewing him. The committee also interviews Jerry Paradis, the former recruit instructor of the New Orleans Lakefront CAP unit. In confirming that Oswald had attended the Lakefront squadron meetings (in addition to the Moisant CAP meetings), Paradis corroborates the accounts of other Oswald colleagues in the CAP. Paradis, now a corporate attorney, tells the committee that Oswald attended the Lakefront CAP meetings for several weeks or several months. During the period that he had served as recruit instructor, Paradis can recall that Oswald came to "at least 10 or 15 meetings," attending the CAP sessions "quite a few times. Oswald was a quiet person and rarely discussed anything with him other than CAP business and instructions."
In an interview today with Special FBI Agents Wall and Shearer, David Ferrie denies all allegations recently made about him. No, he does not know Lee Harvey Oswald. No, Oswald had not served under him in the Civil Air Patrol. No, he had never taught Oswald how to shoot a high-powered rifle and had never loaned him his library card. When it comes to his association with Carlos Marcello, Ferrie is quite candid. He tells his interviewers that he has worked hard throughout October and November helping to prepare Marcello's defense, that he flew twice to Guatemala on behalf of Marcello in October and met with Marcello on November 9 and 16 "at Churchill Downs [sic], which is a farm owned by Carlos Marcello, mapping strategy in connection with Marcello's trial."

8:40 PM Dallas Secret Service contact Dallas FBI office requesting return of their copy (#0186) of the Zapruder film. Request passed to Washington HQ Wrone, 31; Trask, 122

9:20 PM LBJ phone call with Martin Luther King
PRESIDENT JOHNSON: A good many people told me that they heard about your statement. I guess on TV, wasn't it?
MARTIN LUTHER KING: Yes, that's right.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I've been locked up in this office and haven't seen it, but I want to tell you how grateful I am and how worthy I'm going to try to be of all your hopes.
MARTIN LUTHER KING: Well, thank you very much. I'm so happy to hear that, and I knew that you had just that great spirit. And you know you have our support and backing. We know what a difficult period this is.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON: It's just an impossible period. We've got a budget coming up that we've got nothing to do with. It's practically already made. And we've got a civil rights bill that hasn't even passed the House and it's November, and Hubert Humphrey told me yesterday that everybody wanted to go home, and I'm going to ask the Congress Wednesday to just stay there till they pass em all. They won't do it, but we'll just keep them there next year until they do, and we just won't give up an inch.
MARTIN LUTHER KING: Uh-huh. Well, this is mighty fine. I think it's so imperative. I think one of the great tributes that we can pay a memory of President Kennedy is to try to enact some of the great progressive policies that he sought to initiate
PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Well, I'm going to support em all, and you can count on that. And I'm going to do my best to get other men to do likewise. I'll have to have you-all's help. And I never needed it more than I do now.

9:29 PM LBJ phone call with McGeorge Bundy
10:10 PM LBJ phone call with Ted Sorensen

11:53 PM RFK and Jackie Kennedy visit JFK's grave alone. She places a small sprig of lily-of-the-valley on his grave. AOT

By now, LBJ is telling everyone concerned that J. Edgar Hoover is in charge of the investigation. This same day, Hoover tells LBJ the investigation is winding down, and that he has succeeded in "killing" a Washington Post story suggesting there will be a full presidential report on the assassination.

FBI agent James Anderton is contacted today by Dr. Jack Harper from Dallas's Methodist Hospital. The doctor explains that his nephew, William Allen Harper, a college student, has found a fragment of what appears to be a human bone in the grassy triangle just to the left of where the president was hit. When the Secret Service learns about the fragment, Anderton is told to send it directly to the White House. This order is quickly countermanded by FBI assistant director Alan Belmont, who orders the piece of bone sent to the FBI laboratory in Washington, D.C.

On November 25, 1963, Richard Helms sent a memorandum to J. Edgar Hoover that marshaled the CIA's phone-tapped evidence suggesting that Oswald had received not only Soviet but also Cuban government support in assassinating Kennedy. Attached to the Helms memorandum were transcripts for the audiotapes of seven calls to the Soviet Mexico City embassy attributed to Oswald. Two of them stood out. One was the October 1 call in which " Oswald " identified Kostikov as the Soviet consul he had met with on September 28 . In the other outstanding call, reportedly made on September 28 , the same man, speaking from the Cuban Consulate, made reference to his having just been at the Soviet Embassy. To understand this revealing call, we need to put it in the context of what may or may not have been the real Oswald's shuttles between the Cuban and Soviet Consulates during his first two days in Mexico City, September 27 and 28.

The Dallas Police took official photos reconstructing the "sniper's nest" scene which later became WC evidence (CE 1301, 1302)

FBI interview of Mrs. Gladys Rodgers, 25 Nov 1963. Mrs. Rodgers told the FBI of Oswald's afternoon outings after he lost his job at the Reilly Coffee Company, and also how several days before Oswald moved away a man with "dark complexion...probably Spanish" came looking for him.

A memo from Alan Belmont, an assistant director and number three man in the FBI, to Hoover's assistant, William Sullivan, dated November 25th, refers to conversations between Katzenbach and Hoover about the assassination. The memo emphasizes that the FBI's report should cover all the areas that might cause concern with the press and the public. Belmont wrote: "In other words, this report is to settle the dust, in so far as Oswald and his activities are concerned, both from the standpoint that he is the man who assassinated the President, and relative to Oswald himself and his activities and background, et cetera."

The CIA produced a document on the 25th of November 1963 declaring " ... employed in this criminal attack is a Model 91 rifle, 7.35 caliber, 1938 modification ... the description of a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in the Italian and foreign press is in error. It was a Mauser." [CIA report 104-40, WC XXIV, p. 829, 831.] Oswald told his inquisitors that he had seen a Mauser in the Texas School Book Depository. On November 20th, Warren Carter, an employee of Southwestern Publishing Company that occupied part of the second floor in the Depository, brought a Mauser rifle and a .22 calibre rifle for his fellow employees to look at, a fact that was verified by numerous Depository employees. A CIA memo written on this day and declassified in 1976 (CIA 104-40, document #1367; Reasonable Doubt 102-3): "The rifle he used was a Mauser which Oswald had ordered (this is now known by handwriting examination) from Klein's Mail Order House, Chicago, Illinois...In the order for the rifle, Oswald used the name Alex Hidell. Oswald also had in his possession at the time of his arrest...a US Selective Service card in the name of Alex Hidell."

Deputy Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach sent a memorandum to Bill Moyers, LBJ's press secretary: "It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's Assassination be made public in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now. 1.The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial 2. Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem to pat to obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced. 3. The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been mixed with rumor and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered. I think this objective may be satisfied by making public as soon as possible a complete and thorough FBI report on Oswald and the assassination. This may run into the difficulty of pointing to inconsistencies between this report and statements by Dallas police officials. But the reputation of the Bureau is such that it may do the whole job. The only other step would be the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions. This has both advantages and disadvantages. It (sic) think it can await publication of the FBI report and public reaction to it here and abroad. I think, however, that a statement that all the facts will be made public property in an orderly and responsible way should be made now. We need something to head off public speculation or Congressional hearings of the wrong sort." Katzenbach would later say that RFK never saw this memo. (McCall's 3/1977)

FBI report: "Jack Ruby was observed by Special Agent Joseph M. Myers [who was not a WC witness] at the Dallas City Jail, Fifth Floor, from 5:06 p.m. November 24, 1963 to 1:20 a.m. November 25....He was allowed to talk to two visitors through the visiting room on a communication system and the permit allowing these visitors was signed by Will Fritz, 5:55 p.m. The visitors were Pauline Hall [not a WC witness] and Eva L. Grant. Ruby kept talking to his sister, Eva Grant, about all of his attorneys, naming Fred Bruner, Tom Howard, George Sanders, Jim Martin, and another named Kaufman. He made the following remarks to his sister: 'Bruner is my man. I have friends here so don't worry about me. Something happens inside of you and then you crack and then it happens. Fred Bruner will come down in the morning and arrange bonds and have a hearing. I have nothing else to say and I've got the strength to stand up. I got lots of friends here so don't make a scene and get hysterical.' Jack [unknown person] came up and said 'we don't care how much the bonds are we'll make them.' 'You can't live forever so they will let any of my relatives come up to see me any time. The judge is real nice and they don't bother me here.'" (CE 2080) Curry would later tell the WC that the police had no way of monitoring conversations between inmates and visitors (using the phones on either side of the glass windows): "...we have no setup for doing this." (H 4 200)

Internal FBI memo written on this date by J. Edgar Hoover:
"Oswald made a phone call to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City, which we intercepted. It was only about a visa, however. He also wrote a letter to the Soviet Embassy here in Washington, which we intercepted, read and resealed. This letter referred to the fact that the FBI had questioned his activities on the Fair Play to Cuba Committee and also asked about extension of his wife's visa. That letter from Oswald was addressed to the man in the Soviet Embassy who is in charge of assassinations and similar activities on the part of the Soviet government. To have that drawn into a public hearing would muddy the waters internationally."

On this day, around noon, Raymond B. Carnay, news director for radio station KBEA in Mission, Kansas, calls a friend of his on the Dallas Police Department, Officer Art Hammett. Carnay had worked at KBOX in Dallas in the early 1960s, and he calls Hammett to see if there is "any newsworthy information available on the Ruby matter." Carnay's other reason for calling Hammett is to seek the officer's advice on an interesting matter relating to the late Lee Harvey Oswald. Carnay says that he had met with Oswald in person several times in Dallas in 1961, and that Oswald had tried repeatedly to convince him to cease and desist anti-Castro activities while expressing "pro-Castro sympathies ... in an effort to convince him that Castro was right." Oswald, of course, was working at a radio factory in Minsk at the time.

FBI Interview of Jack S. Martin 11/25/1963
by SA REGIS L. KENNEDY and SA CLAUDE L. SCHLAGER at New Orleans, Louisiana
JACK S. MARTIN, 1311 North Prieur Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, advised that he was listening to a TV program on WWL-TV reporting the life of LEE OSWALD and reporting various interviews with people in New Orleans that were acquainted with LEE OSWALD. MARTIN stated that one of the people interviewed whose name he does not know who he describes as a white male, age early 20's, wearing horn rimmed glasses, recalled that OSWALD had been active in the Civil Air Patrol with DAVID FERRIE. MARTIN stated that when he heard this he "flipped." MARTIN advised that in his occupation as a private investigator he has had occasion to develop considerable information about FERRIE and reported it to RICHARD E. ROBY, Special Agent, Investigative Division, Office of Compliance and Security, Federal Aviation Agency, Washington, D.C., who must have a big file on FERRIE as they conducted a complete investigation of his activities in New Orleans several years ago. MARTIN advised that he called WWL-TV Station and furnished the station with background information about FERRIE, particularly his homosexual tendencies and the fact that he formerly operated the Civil Air Patrol. He also told them that FERRIE was an amateur hypnotist and that it was his idea that FERRIE may have hypnotized LEE OSWALD and planted a post-hypnotic suggestion that he kill the President.
MARTIN state that has visited in the home of DAVID FERRIE and he saw a group of photographs of various Civil Air Patrol cadet groups and in this group he is sure he saw several years ago a photograph of LEE OSWALD as a member of one of the classes. He stated he did not recall the group that OSWALD was in or any other details. In addition he stated that FERRIE conducted military type drills with rifles, fatigue clothes and helmet liners of the Civil Air Patrol Cadets and he recalled that FERRIE claimed to have taught these cadets how to shoot. MARTIN stated that he observed in FERRIE's home a number of foreign made firearms and it is his opinion that FERRIE could have taught OSWALD how to purchase a foreign made firearm or possibly have purchased the gun that was shown on television. He advised that he saw similar type weapons at FERRIE's home when he visited there two years ago.
MARTIN advised that FERRIE discussed with him the charges of crime against nature which resulted in the his arrest by Jefferson Parish authorities and he recalled that FERRIE had told him that one of the "kids that was a witness against him" had moved to Mississippi from New Orleans and subsequently joined the United States Marine Corps. He heard on television that OSWALD had been in the Marine Corps therefore he surmised that OSWALD was that "kid," that he was a witness against FERRIE in the crime against nature charge that had joined the Marine Corps. Martin explained that it might have been the same individual or a very close coincidence.
MARTIN advised that he has reported this matter to Major TROSCLAIR of the New Orleans Police Department, Intelligence Division, and he felt that Major TROSCLAIR was not giving the matter sufficient concern so he called Assistant District Attorney HERMAN KOHLMAN who was a former newspaper reporter and who was very familiar with the FERRIE case as he had written various feature stories about FERRIE. MARTIN stated that he explained all of his ideas and suspicions to KOHLMAN.
MARTIN advised he was really suspicious of FERRIE's activities when he received a report from W. HARDY DAVIS, a New Orleans Bail Bondsman, who told him that G. WRAY GILL, New Orleans attorney and employer of FERRIE had called him to locate FERRIE who lives down the street from him and at the same time had denied to the TV station that FERRIE was an employee of GILL's Office. DAVIS furnished MARTIN information that FERRIE had left town for Texas on Friday evening, November 22, 1963, which information he also made available to Mr. KOHLMAN of the District Attorney's office. Martin stated that FERRIE is a completely disreputable person, a notorious sex deviate with a brilliant mind being highly trained in mathematics, sciences, several foreign languages including Latin, modern Greek and ancient Greek. MARTIN advised that FERRIE had been educated in a seminary and subsequently expelled from the Catholic Church and he, MARTIN, suspected him of being capable of committing any type of crime.
MARTIN stated that he felt that FERRIE's possible association with LEE OSWALD should be the subject of close examination as he personally believed that he could be implicated in the killing of President JOHN F. KENNEDY.

An FBI Teletype from the New Orleans field office to Director J. Edgar Hoover and the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Dallas summarizes an interview with Layton Martens, David Ferrie's roommate: "Martens said that attorney G. Wray Gill visited Ferrie's residence and told Martens he was looking for Ferrie who was then not at home. Gill remarked to Martens that when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by the Dallas Police Oswald was carrying a library card with Ferrie's name on it. Gill instructed Martens to tell Ferrie to contact him and Gill would represent Ferrie as his attorney."

FBI Document #89-69-169
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
MEMORANDUM
TO: SAC, NEW ORLEANS (89-69) DATE: 11/25/63
FROM: ASAC J. T. SYLVESTER, JR.
SUBJECT: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT Re: DAVID WILLIAM FERRIE JOHN F. KENNEDY, 11/22/63, DALLAS, TEXAS

[REDACTED] Intelligence Unit, at 8:32 p.m., 11/22/63 telephonically contacted ASAC J. T. SYLVESTER at home. He inquired as to whether or not the gun had been identified and whether this office had any information concerning the gun that was used to shoot the President. He stated the reason he was asking was because they had received no request from the Dallas police or anyone; that the only information he had was via the radio and T.V. concerning this gun. He advised there were a lot of outlets in New Orleans that could be checked as LEE HARVEY OSWALD had lived here. He was advised that I had no definite information concerning this and that all of our leads would be coming out of Dallas if they desired any check.

He referred to DAVID WILLIAM FERRIE, advising he was tied in with a Cuban movement; was an ex-pilot of Eastern Airlines; had flown planes into Central America and was currently employed by G. WRAY GILL, an attorney. He stated he understood but he had to back it up that OSWALD was possibly friendly with FERRIE in view of his Cuban activities. I advised [REDACTED] that we were interested in any information he might have which would indicate that OSWALD was friendly with FERRIE.

BILL REED of WWL T. V. on 11/24/63 at 12:25 p.m. stated they were running a check of DAVID FERRIE of 3303 Louisiana Ave. Pkwy., formerly connected with the Civil Air Patrol and Eastern Airlines, who allegedly a few years ago was a friend of LEE HARVEY OSWALD and that OSWALD might be
connected with the Civil Air Patrol. He stated they were looking to interview FERRIE who is employed by G. WRAY GILL but were unsuccessful and FERRIE had an unlisted telephone.

5 - New Orleans
JTS:lil

FBI interview of Dean Andrews, 25 Nov 1963. Andrews told the FBI of Oswald's visit and contacts with his office, in the company of others, and also of Clay Bertrand's 23 Nov 1963 call requesting legal assistance for Oswald.

FBI interview of Sam "Monk" Zeldeon, 25 Nov 1963. Andrews' colleague Monk Zelden corroborated Andrews' account regarding having been contacted to defend Oswald.

FBI interview of Carlos Bringuier, 25 Nov 1963. Bringuier told the FBI of Oswald's approach and the later scuffle over Oswald's leafletting.

FBI interview of Oscar DeSlatte, 25 Nov 1963. The interview report notes that DeSlatte had retained a carbon copy of the form with the name Oswald on it, which he "made available to the interviewing Agents."

The Associated Press reported that J. Edgar Hoover "said today all available information indicates that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination...'Not one shred of evidence has been developed to link any other person in a conspiracy with Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy,' Hoover said in a statement."

The New York Times reports today that when Oswald crossed the border from Texas to Mexico, his "movements were watched at the request of a Federal agency at Washington," according to "William M. Kline, assistant United States Customs Agent-in-Charge of the Bureau's Investigative Service at Laredo, Texas."

The NYT headline - "President's Assassin Shot to Death in Jail Corridor by a Dallas Citizen" was typical of media coverage in that it reflected no presumption of Oswald's innocence.

NYT: Dallas, [11/24] - …The shooting occurred in the basement of the municipal building at 11:26 a.m. CST ..
… At 11:25 Oswald was taken in an elevator to the basement. He was led through the booking office to the open vestibule between two lines of detectives. As they turned right from the vestibule to start up the ramp, Ruby jumped forward from against the railing.

San Francisco Chronicle: Dallas - The man who shot the accused assassin of President Kennedy was constantly seeking and apparently enjoying the company of policemen. He had a press pass on his windshield.

In The New York Times of November 25, Fred Powledge's story from Dallas listed as part of the evidence supporting the Oswald-School-Book-Depository-Mannlicher-Carcano theory: "A bullet that Secret Service men removed from a stretcher at Parkland Hospital after the shooting, and two bullet fragments removed from the Presidential automobile matched bullets fired by the rifle [FBI] agents found inside the [warehouse]." Powledge cites Gordon Shanklin, FBI agent in charge in Dallas, as his source of information. This it would appear accounts for two bullets.

NY Herald Tribune: "Dallas - ... Mr. Senator talked with reporters inside ... police headquarters . … He had gone there voluntarily with James Martin, a lawyer, after hearing the stunning news. … It is interesting that after he [Ruby] was arrested no less than six lawyers appeared at the police station, ready to represent him if he indicated he wanted them."

UPI: "Dallas - Ruby went out of his way to make friends with policemen. Once, said an attorney, he rushed to the side of a patrolman being beaten by a group of thugs and fought them off "like a tiger."

NYT (Gladwin Hill): Dallas, [11/24] - [Shooting of Oswald]: The group with the chief walked through a short corridor past the basement booking office and out the door onto the guarded ramp. Uniformed policemen checked the reporters' credentials. But they passed familiar faces, such as those of policemen and collaborating Secret Service and FBI agents. Ruby's face was familiar to many policemen who had encountered him at his two nightclubs and in his frequent visits to the municipal building. New York Times, Gladwin Hill

The Sunday Dallas Morning News publishes a banner story revealing that Oswald met with the FBI on November 16.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram story by reporter Phil Vinson: "In 1947, the year I met Lee Oswald, I'm sure neither of us had heard of John Kennedy nor Karl Marx. But to this tousle-haired boy, who was my classmate in the second grade at Lily B. Clayton Elementary School in Fort Worth, these two men were to probably be the most important in Lee's life - and death. Of all the boys in our class at the South Side school, I think probably Lee Oswald stands-out most vividly in my mind. Perhaps it's because of the mystery that seemed to surround this quiet, soft-spoken and popular boy. No one in our class was a close friend of Lee's. Yet, all of the boys seemed to look up to him. During recess periods, the boys would form into what we called gangs' and engage in friendly wrestling matches or games of touch football. According to the code of us 7 or 8-year olds, being in Lee's gang was a high honor. Lee was a leader and he chose those to serve with him on the grade school playground. In class, he remained quiet. I recall no disciplinary action being taken against him. He usually answered questions when called upon, or told our teacher, Mrs. Florence Murphy, he didn't know the answer. He appeared to be honest. When we were called upon to read aloud, I remember that Lee read well, but I also recall that when report cards time came around, he didn't post very good grades. I never saw Lee outside school. To my knowledge, he didn't associate with any of his classmates except during school hours. Lee spoke with an accent unlike most of the kids in the class. At the time I thought he was from the North...nobody knew much about him, except that he lived with his mother and apparently had no father...I moved from the South Side the year after the second grade and never saw Lee again until Friday...The disbelief [in his being shot] was almost as great as when I heard the first word of Kennedy's assassination."

AP reported: "The assassin had not been apprehended late Friday afternoon. However, police held a 24-year-old Ft. Worth man for questioning....Lee Harvey Oswald, an ex-Marine who was a prime suspect in the killing of a Dallas policeman...A number of suspects were picked up during the next few hours...[Connally] was riding beside Mr. Kennedy...Connally slumped in his seat beside the President...[Police] believed the fatal shots were fired by a white man about 39, slender of build, weighing about 165 lbs, and standing 5 feet 10. The murder weapon reportedly was a 30-30 rifle....Ironically, Mr. Kennedy was shot to death at a spot where there were few spectators - after driving almost within handshaking distance of many thousand...Mr. Kennedy's body was removed from Parkland Hospital at 2:05pm in an ambulance..."

The New York Times reported that Gordon Shanklin said the chicken lunch bag contained Oswald's fingerprint and palmprint.

AP reported: "The killing of Lee Harvey Oswald was a highly appreciated gift to the Communist propaganda machine. Within minutes after news of the second Dallas assassination, the machine went into action, depicting Oswald as a martyr shot in an attempt to hide those responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination. The murderers of President John Kennedy are trying to cover up their traces,' said the Soviet news agency Tass. now the only person who was accused of killing President Kennedy, the man who until the very end denied implication, has been silenced forever.' Neues Deutschland, the East German Communist party newspaper, told its readers the killing of Oswald strengthened suspicion that Mr. Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy by right-wing extremists....'I don't think we've had the whole truth from Dallas,' said a Swede in West Berlin. It almost seems as if they wanted him killed, just to close the case.' Stephen Barber, special correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, cabled from Dallas that precautions at the police headquarters there were extraordinary lax. During the past 48 hours," he wrote, "I have been able to saunter in and out of the City Hall police headquarters on innumerable occasions without anyone asking to see my White House press card. The first and only time it was required was to enter the underground garage where this astonishing shooting (of Oswald) took place. Even that was a completely perfunctory request.'...Belgian Catholic and Socialist papers questioned whether the killing had been ordered by a political group or criminal organization,' as the Catholic Le Cite put it. Was Lee Oswald perhaps the man who knew too much and had to be liquidated, since he would be forced to speak?' queried the Socialist Vooruit. In Lebanon, the Beirut daily Al Hadaf raised the same question. Said Bildzeitungen, which has West Germany's largest circulation: Until now it is not known whether he (Ruby) belonged with Oswald to a ring of agents that planned the Kennedy murder. Did he kill Oswald because he feared he would reveal all? Or, did he want to avenge Kennedy's death?' A comment by a French television announcer summed up much of the reaction in Western Europe to the Oswald killing. There will always be a doubt in the world whether he was innocent or guilty.'

New Delhi newspaper The Patriot reported, "It looks now as though Oswald, who was silenced so quickly, was only an agent...the ease with which a nightclub keeper with a criminal record could get access to a prisoner in police custody and shoot him suggests collusion [and] points to the existence of influences bent on changing Mr. Kennedy's policies at whatever cost."

The tiny Texas newspaper, Midlothian Mirror, published by JFK fan Penn Jones Jr., featured the editorial: "We think the disgrace of Dallas may well hang on its conscience for many years. We have only contempt for H. L. Hunt and his lackey former General Edwin Walker. The blame should also be shared by too many gutless people who live in a city that should be plowed under the soil and sowed with salt."

[B]NYT story by Foster Hailey was titled, "Lone Assassin the Rule in U.S.: