Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

Nov 23 1963 (Saturday)

3:00 PM The original Zapruder film is sent by courier to Life's Chicago office where it is studied on a Moviola projector. Ten black-and-white prints are made.

3:00 PM Ruby called Ken Dowe. Around that time he was seen by D.V. Harkness at the police station.

3:00 PM Hosty was told that headquarters wanted to know more about his relations with Oswald.

3:07 PM AP report: Homicide Captain Will Fritz said Oswald had told police he caught a bus when he left the Depository Building, decided the bus was too slow and switched to a taxicab. He went to his rooming house in Oak Cliff, changed clothing and decided to go to a movie. AP, 3:07 p.m. CST

3:08 PM AP report: Dallas - His mother, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald of Fort Worth, wife Marina Nicholaevna and daughters, June, about 4, and Rachel, 2 months, visited Oswald today. They did not answer questions of reporters as they left. AP, 3:08 p.m. CST

3:15 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with Sen. Warren Magnuson

3:22 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with Gov. George Romney

3:30 PM (approx) Ruby left Dealey Plaza and went to the police station for the expected transfer.

3:30-3:40pm Lee visits with his brother Robert Oswald, talking through phones: "I cannot or would not say anything, because the line is apparently tapped....They are treating me alright. What do you think of the baby? Well, it was a girl, and I wanted a boy, but you know how that goes...I don't know what is going on. I just don't know what they are talking about...Don't believe all the so-called evidence." When Robert looked into Lee's eyes for some clue, Lee said, "Brother, you won't find anything there...My friends will take care of Marina and the two children." When Robert said he didn't think the Paines were friends of Lee's, he answered, "Yes they are" and added, "Junie needs a new pair of shoes."
Robert is escorted to a cubicle that has a telephone and a glass window. Presently OSWALD is brought out and sits in the opposite cubicle. He motions to his brother to pick up the phone. In a calm voice, Robert hears him say, "This is taped" -- a warning to be cautious in their conversation. After some discussion of various personal matters, Robert asks, "Lee, what in Sam Hill is going on?
"I don't know," he says.
"You don't know? Look, they've got your pistol, they've got your gun, they've got you charged with shooting the President and a police officer. And you tell me you don't know what is going on?"
OSWALD visibly stiffens and he replies: "I just don't know what they're talking about," he says. "Don't believe all this so-called evidence."

3:35 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with Alex Rose

3:54 PM (EST) LBJ called House Speaker John McCormack and worried that he had to "keep the government going" but didn't want to show a lack of respect for the Kennedy family.

3:30-5:30pm sometime during this period Dave Ferrie and his friends arrived at the Winterland Skating Rink in Houston (according to the FBI)

3:40 PM Oswald called Ruth Paine. He asked her to call a certain lawyer for him, a man named John Abt of New York. Ruth Paine told the Warren Commission: "...he sounded to me almost as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened...I felt, but did not express, considerable irritation at his seeming to be so apart from the situation, so presuming of his innocence if you will...I was quite stunned that he called at all or that he thought he could ask anything of me, appalled, really." Ruth Paine said she tried without success to call Abt, but never told Oswald that she couldn't reach him.

4-5pm: Thayer Waldo sees Ruby at the police station mingling with reporters.

4:15 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with Dave McDonald

4:20 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with Walter Reuther

4:30 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with Gov. John Reynolds

4:45 EST, Curtis from Knight, Knight is the cover name for Richard Helms, the DDP, and basically it is extremely urgent that we get, as soon as possible all of these transcripts and other tape, all this stuff, 'in cabling your highly valuable information which is being read and processed around the clock here,' okay? In other words we are really fixated on this, on this stuff coming out of Mexico City. (John Newman presentation)

4:51 PM LBJ proclaims period of national mourning on TV

5:00 PM (approx) Frederic Rheinstein told the WC he saw a man whom he was "reasonably certain" was Ruby in the DPD on the third floor.

5:20 PM Dallas FBI office send 16mm Zapruder film (#0186) on American Airlines flight 20 to Washington HQ Wrone, 30; Trask, 122; Horne, 1346

5:30 PM 5:30-5:35pm Oswald visits with H. Louis Nichols, President of Dallas Bar Association "Well, I really don't know what this is all about, that I have been kept incarcerated and kept incommunicado...Do you know a lawyer in New York named John Abt?" Nichols offered to help him find a lawyer but he said, "No, not now. You might come back next week, and if I don't get some of these other people to assist me, I might ask you to get somebody to represent me."

5:30 PM - 6:00 PM John Currington, a member of H.L. Hunt's security staff, will testify that Hunt asks him to go to the Dallas jail and see what kind of security they have surrounding Oswald. Currington is told to report back to Hunt no matter how late it is. He finally meets personally with Hunt around midnight - and tells him that "there was no security whatsoever around the jail. A lot of news people, but nobody too concerned with security."

5:52 PM LBJ phone call with McGeorge Bundy

[EVENING] Cliff Carter, President Johnson's aide again calls District Attorney Henry Wade in Dallas. He tells Wade that LBJ feels that any word of a conspiracy -- some plot by foreign nations -- to kill JFK will shake the nation to its foundation. Wade then goes to the Police Department at City Hall to see Captain Will Fritz -- to make sure the Dallas police don't involve any foreign country in the assassination.

6:00 PM (EST) CIA document "This is now around 6 o'clock at night on the 23rd and this is Mexico City 7054. And now we have the statement that, 'regret complete recheck shows tapes from this period already erased.' And this is the only other contemporaneous CIA reference to tape erasure at all." (John Newman)

6:00 PM Curry tells the press that Oswald will be transferred at 10:00am the next day. Ruby leaves the police station. He also announces that OSWALD will be transferred from the Dallas city jail to the Dallas county jail - probably sometime tomorrow morning. Regarding his reluctance to give the exact time of the transfer, Curry finally tells reporters "If you come here by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, nothing will have happened."

6:00 PM 6:00-6:30pm Interrogation of Oswald in Fritz's office, also present are agents Kelly and Bookout. He confidently said "In time I will be able to show you that this is not my picture....I will not discuss this photograph [the backyard photo] without advice of an attorney...There was another rifle in the building. I have seen it. Warren Caster had two rifles, a 30.06 Mauser and a .22 for his son...That picture is not mine, but the face is mine. The picture has been made by superimposing my face. The other part of the picture is not me at all, and I have never seen this picture before. I understand photography real well, and that, in time, I will be able to show you that is not my picture and that it has been made by someone else....It was entirely possible that the Police Dept has superimposed this part of the photograph over the body of someone else...The Dallas Police were the culprits...The small picture was reduced from the larger one, made by some persons unknown to me...someone has been able to get a picture of my face, and with that, they have made this picture...I never kept a rifle at Mrs Paine's garage...We had no visitors at our apartment on North Beckley...I have no receipts for purchase of any gun, and I have never ordered any guns. I do not own a rifle, never possessed a rifle...I will not say who wrote AJ Hidell on my Selective Service card...I will not tell you the purpose of carrying the card or the use I made of it...The address book in my possession has the names of Russian immigrants in Dallas, Texas, whom I have visited."
Mr. BALL. Will you look at page 138B of your notes. (Commission Document 81B) Was that the time you talked to him about the rifle?
Mr. FRITZ. 6 o'clock?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. That is when I showed an enlarged picture, yes, sir, that is what I show here, yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. In the meantime you had gone out to Neely Street, hadn't you, to try to determine whether or not this was the place for the rifle?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; we didn't find that out until some time later.
Mr. BALL. You didn't?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; we had heard of the Neely Street address but we didn't know that that was the place where the picture was taken. But later on, Mr. Sorrels and some of the Secret Service men called me and they had found out, I believe from Marina, that that is where the picture was made and they called me and asked me to go with them and we made some other pictures out there to show the place.
Mr. BALL. Who was present at that, do you remember, on 6 o'clock on Saturday evening, the 23d? See page 138B.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I believe Mr. Bookhout, Inspector Kelley, myself, and officers.
Mr. McCLOY. This was an interrogation?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Was that the time when he told you, someone superimposed the picture on his face?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; that is right.

For reasons explained but still not entirely clear, FBI agent Bardwell Odum showed one or more of the CIA photos from Mexico City to Oswald's mother Marguerite on the evening of November 23, 1963. The man in the photos has a superficial resemblance to Jack Ruby, and Marguerite subsequently asserted before the Warren Commission that she had been shown a photo of Ruby before Ruby killed her son. [WH1, p. 152-153]

6:28 PM White House press secretary Pierre Salinger announces that the Kennedy family has decided that JFK will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

NBC News correspondent Nancy Dickerson and her husband have supper with LBJ and Lady Bird at The Elms.

The Soviet news agency, Tass, tonight accuses the American police of trying to implicate the Communist Party in the assassination of JFK and says the case against Lee Harvey Oswald is suspicious.

Terrance W. McGarry, a reporter from UPI and another UPI reporter, Curt Gans talk over drinks later. "The more we talked about it, the more we were convinced that somebody would try to kill Oswald."

6:45 PM FBI advised Dallas police that Oswald had ordered the Carcano rifle, based on handwriting analysis. (WC)

6:50 PM AP report: Dallas - H. Louis Nichols, President of the Dallas Bar Association, who met with Oswald this afternoon, said Oswald told him he would like to be represented by John Abt of New York City. … If he could not get Abt, Nichols said, Oswald would like a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union, of which he is a member. Nichols said he went to see Oswald because he had heard that Oswald had been unable to get legal counsel. During the three-minute conversation he had with Oswald, Nichols said, he did not discuss the case with the charged man and that Oswald appeared calm and rational. Under questioning by newsmen, Nichols said he felt that Oswald would be able to get a fair trial in Dallas. … In Kent [Connecticut?], Abt said, "If I were asked, I would in all probability have to decline - because of my schedule - to defend Oswald." AP, 6:50 p.m. CST, Peggy Simpson

7:00 PM 7-7:30pm Ruby left the club and went to Eva's place.

7:15 PM Oswald is returned to his cell. (Fritz WC testimony) He has been questioned less than 3 hours during this day.

7:21 PM Dallas - [Fritz] said the rifle had definitely been purchased by mail order from Chicago, but he declined to say who had bought it. AP, 7:21 p.m. CST, Peggy Simpson
Dallas - Dallas police said tonight they have photographs that link accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald with the rifle used to kill President Kennedy. Homicide Capt. Will Fritz ... would not elaborate on the photographs to say when or where they had been taken. … Fritz said police also have photographs that place Oswald with the pistol used in the slaying of the policeman. AP, 7:21 p.m. CST, Peggy Simpson

7:30 PM "After arriving at the motel he [Dave Ferrie] placed a telephone call to Attorney G. WRAY GILL but was unable to complete this call. He placed a second call to the Town and Country Motel in an effort to determine whether Attorney Gill was located at the Town and Country Motel. FERRIE further related that ALVIN BEAUBOUEF may have made a telephone call to his home. He said that they later checked out of the Alamotel and went to the Bellaire Skating Rink on Chimney Rock Road in the Belleview section of Houston, arriving there between 7:30 and 8:00 PM. FERRIE stated that he looked the skating rink over and tried to locate the owner but the owner was unavailable. He said that he remained at the Bellaire Skating Rink for approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour." (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

7:32 PM (EST) LBJ phone call with David Dubinsky

7:40 PM (EST) LBJ and Ted Kennedy phone conversation; LBJ expressed his condolences.

7:40 PM Chief of Police Jesse Curry later announced that the FBI had a letter in Oswald's handwriting addressed to a Chicago mail order firm seeking to purchase a rifle priced at $12.78. He said the letter used an alias and a Dallas Post Office box number. AP, 7:40 p.m. CST

Tonight in the White House, Milt Ebbins, who has flown in from Los Angeles, sees RFK standing alone in the East Room next to JFK's casket. RFK is crying. Years from now, Peter Lawford - who is also present in the White House - will tell a friend that during this weekend, RFK reveals that he thinks JFK has been killed by a powerful plot that has grown out of one of the government's secret anti-Castro operations. RFK reportedly tells Lawford and other family members that there is nothing he can do at this point, since they are facing a formidable enemy and they no longer control the government. (Brothers)

8:00 PM Oswald made a phone call around 8 pm that evening; the call apparently went through: Oswald talked to someone for about 30 minutes. Who did he talk to, and why have the records of this phone call been suppressed? On page 74 of Chief Curry's book Retired Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry Reveals His Personal JFK Assassination File, there is a notarized "Affidavit of Any Fact" signed by Thurber T. Lord and dated August 20, 1964. It reads as follows:
"May (sic) name is Thurber T. Lord. I entered the Dallas Police Department on November 11, 1942. I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant of Police and assigned to the Service Division as Jail Lieutenant on March 29, 1960. I was on duty in this capacity on November 22, and 23, 1963, working 2:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. About 4:00 p.m. on November 23, 1963, Detective M.G. Hall of Homicide and Robbery Bureau called me and stated that Lee Harvey Oswald had requested permission to use the telephone and told me it would be o.k. I called J.L. Popplewell who was on duty on the fifth floor and told him to put Oswald on the phone. Popplewell called back within twenty or thirty minutes and said that Oswald had not been able to complete his call. He said Oswald told him that his party would not be in until later in the evening. I relayed this information to Detective Hall, who asked that Oswald be allowed to use the phone again at that time. I went to the fifth floor about 8:00 o'clock and told Popplewell to let Oswald use the phone again if he wanted to use it. Popplewell put Oswald in the telephone booth and was standing near by. I called to Popplewell and told him that Oswald was entitled to make his call privately. Popplewell was advised to keep Oswald in view but to stay back a reasonable distance. Oswald was in the telephone booth about thirty minutes, making his call and then talking to his party. After Oswald completed his call he was returned to his cell by J.L. Popplewell."
I have been unable to find this Lord affidavit anywhere in the online Warren Commission volumes. I also did not find it in the DPD online JFK collection. On the Nook of Eclectic Inquiry website, there is a list (link below) entitled "Warren Commission, Dallas Police Department Documents," which identifies the affidavit of Thereby (sic) T. Lord as CD No. 1444d. There is also a J.L. Popplewell affidavit identified as CD No. 1444g. Where are these documents? Also listed are affidavits by Arthur E. Eaves (CD 1444e) and Buel T. Beddingfield (CD 1444f). Both the Eaves and Beddingfield docs relate to phone calls that Oswald made or attempted to make earlier in the day, and both are found online in the WC materials. But what happened to the Lord and Popplewell docs relating to the 8:00 p.m. call? Also listed as CD 1444c is "Telephone sheets on prisoner's telephone calls for November 22, 23, and 24, 1963." Where is this document?

9:00 PM Huey Reeves spoke with Ruby at the Nichols garage about making a loan to Karen Carlin. (H 13 243)

9:00 PM "On leaving the skating rink they drove out Old Spanish Fort Trail and stopped at a restaurant near Telephone Road. They left this restaurant at approximately 9:00 or shortly after 9:00 PM and decided to drive to Galveston, Texas. He [Dave Ferrie] said that while enroute to Galveston, Texas, they stopped at the Manned Space Craft Center and looked around for about 20 minutes." (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

9:30 PM Oswald tried to reach his wife on the phone.

9:30 PM Michael Paine gives Detectives John Adamcik and Elmer Moore an affidavit saying he had seen a rifle wrapped in a blanket in his garage on a few occasions.

9:30 PM Ruby went back to his apartment by this time.

9:43 PM AP report: Miami, FL - Fidel Castro expressed disapproval tonight of John F. Kennedy's assassination by accused the slain President of having carried the world "to the brink of nuclear war:" (after nearly 1,000 words, penultimate paragraph Of Oswald, Castro said: "Is he really guilty? Perhaps he is a psychopath, possibly an instrument of the most reactionary circles of the United States. "Conditions were not propitious for an assassination by leftists -- but for ultra-reactionaries, yes." Castro spoke two hours.

10:30-11:30 PM David Ferrie and his two companions check into the Driftwood Motel in Galveston, Texas. Ferrie then leaves the motel and stays out until early morning. "They then proceeded to Galveston, Texas, arriving there between 10:30 and 11:30 PM. They immediately checked into Room 117 at the Driftwood Motel, 3128 Seawall Boulevard, Galveston. After checking into the motel they drove around in the vicinity of some old clubs in Galveston, Texas, returning to the motel after midnight and it could have been as late as 1:00 AM." (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

10:44 PM A call is placed from Jack Ruby sister's apartment to The Bullpen, a restaurant owned by Ralph Paul, a longtime backer of Jack Ruby. Paul later says he has already left the restaurant, but a waitress remembers Paul taking a phone call from Jack Ruby and saying something about a gun while talking on the phone.

10:00 PM CIA Director McCone alerts NPIC Director Lundahl to expect Zapruder film. Lundahl calls in Brugioni Horne, 1231, 1236
The CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center develops stills of the Zapruder film, enlarges them, mounts them on a large board which CIA Director McCone then takes to show to LBJ. The CIA later has a U-2 photograph OSWALD and Marina's residences in Minsk. These photos are given to Richard Helms. McCone meets with LBJ to discuss information from the CIA in Mexico City. Additionally, the CIA cables AM/LASH's case officer, telling him to break off contact with AM/LASH because of the president's assassination. The Agency also wants the planned arrest of Sylvia Duran called off, saying, "The arrest could jeopardize U.S. freedom of action on the whole question of Cuban responsibility."

10:45 PM (some sources say 11/22) Oswald apparently attempted to place a call to a John Hurt in Raleigh, North Carolina on Saturday evening, November 23, 1963, but was mysteriously prevented from completing the call. Though there is speculation that the call was incoming rather than outgoing (for example, a crank call to the jail from someone by that name), private and Congressional researchers believe Oswald, for whatever reasons, was the one attempting the call. The implications of that call have prompted former U.S. Intelligence officials to speculate on Oswald's possible link with intelligence agencies. On the night of November 23, 1963, two telephone operators were working the switchboard that controlled, among other Dallas municipal offices, the jail. One of the ladies, Mrs. Alveeta A. Treon, made a statement concerning the events of that night to assassination researcher and attorney Bernard Fensterwald some five years after the assassination, but then refused to sign it on advice from her lawyer, according to Fensterwald. The following is a condensation of that statement:
Mrs. Treon arrived for work at the switchboard between 10:15 and 10:35 that evening, and was told by her fellow worker, Mrs. Louise Swinney, that their supervisor had asked them to assist law enforcement officials to listen to a call that Lee Harvey Oswald would be making soon. Two men, that Mrs. Treon thinks might have been Secret Service agents, subsequently came into the switchboard area and were put in an adjacent room where they could monitor the expected call.
At about 10:45, the call from the jail came through, and both ladies rushed to take it. Mrs. Swinney handled the call, as it turned out; wrote down the information on the number Oswald wished to reach; and notified the two men of the call. Quoting from Mrs. Treon's statement: "I was dumbfounded at what happened next. Mrs. Swinney opened the key to Oswald and told him, 'I'm sorry, the number doesn't answer.' She then unplugged and disconnected Oswald without ever really trying to put the call through. A few moments later, Mrs. Swinney tore the page off her notation pad and threw it into the wastepaper basket."
After Mrs. Swinney left work at approximately 11:00 p.m., Mrs. Treon retrieved the piece of paper, and copied the information from it onto a telephone slip commonly used by the operators to record calls, so that she could keep it as a "souvenir."
That slip, which would turn up seven years later in a Freedom of Information suit brought by Chicago researcher Sherman H. Skolnick (a civil action filed in Federal District Court in Chicago, April 6, 1970, No. 70C 790), contains some startling things. It purports to show a collect call attempted from the jail by Lee Harvey Oswald to a John Hurt at 919-834-7430 and it gives another telephone number in the 919 Area Code, 833-1253. (The slip is reproduced in the Appendix of the 1975 book, Coup d'Etat in America by Canfield and Weberman, the first major work to deal with the "Raleigh call" and its implications for Oswald's links to intelligence agencies.)
What do we know about those two telephone numbers? The House Assassinations Committee gave one of its staffers, Surell Brady, responsibility for investigating the "Raleigh Call." Though the committee's final report did not mention the call, Brady wrote a 28-page internal memorandum outlining the results of their investigation of the incident.
In an insert after page 15 of the document, it is incorrectly reported that the two numbers listed on the telephone slip "were unpublished in 1963." This information was reported as having been supplied by Carolyn Rabon of Southern Bell Telephone Co. in 1978. However, a simple check of the December, 1962 Southern Bell telephone directory for Raleigh, North Carolina (which would have been current at the time of the assassination) and the December, 1963 directory (which would contain any new information and reflect any changes of listing status) shows that both numbers were published.
Thus, both of these numbers would have been available to anyone calling "Information" in Raleigh, asking for a John Hurt. This is the way the listings appear in those directories:
DECEMBER, 1962
Hurt John D 415 New Bern Av TE4-7430
Hurt John W Old Wake Forest Rd 833-1253
DECEMBER, 1963
Hurt John D 201 Hillsbro 834-7430
Hurt John W Old Wake Forest Rd 833-1253

10:53 PM AP report: Dallas - Oswald, under security guard, has no lawyer. AP, 10:53 p.m. CST

11:00 PM Ruby went to the Nichols garage to repay the attendant money he loaned to Carlin.

11:00 PM Will Fritz received a personal call from LBJ and is ordered to stop the investigation. Fritz had previously been trying to conduct a fair investigation, but had been receiving calls from higher-ups telling him "You have your man." (according to Mary Ferrell)

11:44 PM Breck Wall (Billy Ray Wilson), a friend of Jack Ruby and president of the Dallas council of AGVA, receives a long distance call from Ruby at the Galveston number of a Thomas J. McKenna. This is the last long-distance call Ruby is known to have made before shooting Lee Harvey Oswald at Dallas Police Headquarters the following day. Thomas J. McKenna was present when Billy Ray Wilson of Dallas received a long-distance phone call from Ruby at his (McKenna's) telephone in Galveston Tex. The telephone is SO 3-8022 (HSCA) A 2-minute call is made from the Carousel to Bill Ray Wilson at the Galveston number of Thomas McKenna at 11:44 p.m. (PR; Cr360, p. 133)
Mr. SPECTER. What time did you arrive in Galveston?
Mr. WALL. It would be 11 o'clock; somewhere around 11 o'clock.
Mr. SPECTER. How far is it from Dallas to Galveston?
Mr. WALL I didn't make the call from Dallas to Galveston at 2--it must have been 5:30--because it only takes 4 1/2 hours.
Mr. SPECTER. What is the distance?
Mr. WALL. Around 200 miles.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you make any stops en route?
Mr. WALL. Only for gas.
Mr. SPECTER. Where did you have dinner?
Mr. WALL. We didn't have dinner. We don't ever eat when we drive to Galveston; just go straight on down.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you eat when you arrived at Galveston?
Mr. WALL. Yes, sir; we ate at the house.
Mr. SPECTER. At Mr. McKenna's house?
Mr. WALL. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. What did you do after arriving in Galveston that night?
Mr. WALL. Well, just as nearly, as quickly as we arrived is when we got a telephone call from Jack Ruby. After I talked to him we sat and visited and then went to bed.
Mr. SPECTER. How long did the telephone call from Mr. Ruby last?
Mr. WALL. I would say it couldn't have been more than only 5 minutes. Maybe 3 1/2 minutes.

11:50 PM (approx) Ruby left the Carousel to go to the Pago Club.

12:00 Midnight Joseph Milteer and William Somersett arrive in Columbia, SC and register at the Wade Hampton Hotel. They have traveled from Jacksonville, Florida by automobile and are to meet with representatives of the Association of South Carolina Klans (ASCK) in furtherance of Milteer's plan to establish a new party, the Constitutional American Parties (CAP.) Somersett had told the Miami police that Milteer had admitted his connection with an international underground organization, which was building a propaganda campaign to blame Zionist Jews for the assassination. Milteer was enthusiastic about this plan and pleased with how the JFK hit went off; Somersett told police that in Jacksonville Milteer "was very happy about it and shook hands with me. He said, 'Well, I told you so. It happened like I told you, didn't it? It happened from a window with a high-powered rifle...That is the way it was supposed to be done, and that is the way it was done." (The Killing of a President 153)

Midnight Brugioni meets two Secret Service agents with 8mm copy of Zapruder film Horne, 1231, Wrone, 28-9

Arthur Schlesinger turned in his resignation to LBJ. (Exercise of Power 341)

Warren Hinckle wrote in 1974 about the book Farewell America: "Under prodding, the proprietorship of Frontiers Publishing came clean as to their most extraordinary source: the material on the internal foul-ups of the Secret Service -- detailed down to the number of bourbons a Secret Serviceman had had the night before and how many aspirins he took the morning after -- was hand delivered from the inner councils of the Kennedy family. The chapter was based on a private, unpublished and undistributed memorandum prepared for Attorney General Robert Kennedy after his brother's murder. Bobby had convened a select committee the day after the assassination, which was to conduct a secret investigation of the Secret Service, independent of the work of other federal agencies such as the FBI or the CIA. For RFK's first thought had been that the person responsible for his brother's death was his old enemy, Jimmy Hoffa. Michel said the committee's report had been written by Daniel Moynihan. It excoriated the Secret Service for organizational and functional deficiencies, but it also cleared Hoffa of any involvement in any plot. Once he was assured that his nemesis hadn't done it, Bobby apparently lost all interest in the investigation. He didn't even turn the report over to the Warren Commission, although it was far more critical of the Secret Service than the eventual Warren Report. This memorandum had lain hidden somewhere in the file cabinets of Camelot ever since. Through "personal friendships" developed within the Kennedy inner circle -- Michel would not say with whom -- it had come to rest in the hands of French intelligence, which had made such expert use of it. Such was the root of the strangest one-liner in the inscrutable text of the espionage classic Farewell America: "Only Daniel Moynihan, a former longshoreman, had some idea of such things.""

Jacques Vallee wrote in his diary, "The assassination…deprives us of a sincere man who gave the world a remarkable lesson in genuine democracy. Beyond this it puts a tragic halt to the acceptance of new social concepts, from civil rights to the conquest of space…This brutal death reminds me of the existence of a volcano of violent realities underneath the orderly unfolding of our best plans." (Forbidden Science p86)

The BBC satirical program "That Was the Week That Was," contained a tribute to JFK, a song "In the Summer of His Years," sung by Millicent Martin: "A young man rode with his head held high Under a Texas sun. And no one guessed that a man so blessed Would perish by the gun, Lord, would perish by the gun. A shot rang out like a sudden shout And heaven held its breath. For the dreams of a multitude of men Rode with him to his death, Lord, rode with him to his death. Yes, the heart of the world weighs heavy With the helplessness of tears. For the man cut down in a Texas town In the summer of his years, The summer of his years. And we who stay must not ever lose The victories that he won. For whenever men look to freedom Then his soul goes riding on, Lord, his soul goes riding on."

Gen. Walker talked about Oswald during a trans-Atlantic phone call with a reporter from a right-wing newspaper in Munich, West Germany. (H 11 425) That same paper (the Deutsche National-Zeitung und Soldaten-Zeitung), in its 11/29 edition, published a story alleging that both Ruby and Oswald had been behind the Walker shooting, and that the two had known each other for a long time. Supposedly they had not been arrested on request of the Justice Department. The paper's editor, Gerhard Frey, was a friend of Walker's. Another version of the story was published by the National Enquirer 5/1964 (CE 837).
What exactly did this far-right German newspaper have to say? From a translation provided to researcher Irving Heineman by General Walker:
The Strange Case of Oswald
The murderer of Kennedy made an attempt on U.S. General Walker's life early in the summer when General Walker was sitting in his study. The bullet missed Walker's head only by inches. Oswald was seized, but following investigation--as it was reported to us--was stopped by U.S. Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. In the case that Oswald would have been imprisoned for many years and so he would not have been able to commit the murder of John F. Kennedy, the brother of Robert Kennedy.

JFK's body lay in state in the White House; LBJ was working out of the Executive Office Building.

Late in the morning, Hoover sent a teletype to all FBI field offices: "In view of developments, all offices should resume normal contacts with informants and other sources...Daily teletype summaries may be discontinued."

SS agent Glen Bennett wrote in his report that he saw a wound in JFK's back "four inches down from the right shoulder."

Richard Helms had a meeting at the CIA over who would be responsible for the Agency's investigation of the assassination.

This morning, the SS went to the Newman Building in New Orleans, carrying some of Oswald's leaflets marked 544 Camp Street, intending to find out if Oswald "had occupied office space." They learned that "Cuban revolutionaries" had been there until recently; an exile accountant told them that "those Cubans were members of organizations known as 'Crusade to Free Cuba Committee' and 'Cuban Revolutionary Council.'" Banister's office was closed, and the agents were unable to find any trace of the FPCC. (CE 1414, 3119)

November 23, Mexico City CIA employee Ann Goodpasture, an assistant to David Phillips, sent a cable to CIA headquarters in which she reported the Saturday, September 28 , call, then stated: " Station unable compare voice as first tape erased prior receipt second call . " (Lopez Report)

Sylvia Duran is arrested by Mexico City police and held for questioning. CIA message of this day: "Arrest of Silvia Duran is extremely serious matter which could prejudice [code word] freedom of action on entire question of [code word] responsibility...request you ensure that her arrest is kept absolutely secret, that no information from her is published or leaked, that all such info is cabled to us...We are trying to get more info on Oswald from [code word]..." (Declassified 1995; Assignment Oswald 286)

Castro made a speech about the assassination: "...These events occur precisely at a moment when Kennedy was being severely attacked by those who considered his Cuban policy to be weak. It could not be us, but only the enemies of the Revolution and the enemies in general of a more moderate policy, a less warlike policy, the enemies of a policy like this one who might be interested in the death of President Kennedy, the only ones who perhaps could have received the news of Kennedy's death with satisfaction." Castro made reference to a 11/18 speech by JFK in Florida which "disappointed a number of persons who favor a more aggressive policy against Cuba." He noted press reports in the US: "The Daily News editorial stated that...'Kennedy now refuses to allow Cuban exiles to launch attacks against Cuba from US territory...and in fact uses US naval and air power to maintain Castro in power'..." Castro went on, "And then, finally, there is something very interesting - really very interesting and curious which drew my attention when I read it...It says: 'The third editor to express his opinion was Sergio Carbo'...Carbo...is Director of the Executive Council of the Inter-American Press Association...an important post in reactionary intellectual circles...his statement ends (and this is what drew my attention)...by saying: 'I believe that a coming serious event will oblige Washington to change its policy of peaceful coexistence.' What does this mean? What did this gentleman mean when he said three days before the assassination...in a cable...from Associated Press, dated November 19, AP number 254, Miami Beach...What does this mean?...Was there perhaps some sort of plot?...was there perhaps in certain civilian and military ultra-reactionary circles in the United States a plot against President Kennedy's life?"

Commentary on Castro's speech from Radio Havana emphasized that "an event like that of yesterday, can only benefit the ultraright, the ultra-reactionaries among whom cannot be included the President and some of the people who worked with him...." The WC did not print this speech. (Oswald in New Orleans 145-6) Castro had come to view JFK as the "lesser of all evils" in the US political system and by late 1963 was convinced of Kennedy's "reasonableness." Castro and his aides saw Kennedy as a counterbalance to men like Nixon and Goldwater. "There was no reason to wish him personal harm. Besides, Kennedy could be followed by someone worse...I always used to say that at least we knew Kennedy." He expressed "great displeasure" over JFK's death; "...we would have preferred that he continue in the Presidency of the United States. Because if there was a President of the United States who could have had the courage to change policy...that was Kennedy." "...when he became President, this whole plan of training troops and of invading Cuba had already been organized. And he had great doubts...It must not be forgotten, as I have mentioned, that it was Nixon who had proposed that the Marines and the Armed Forces to be used." "For a while, the CIA was attempting assassination of some of our revolutionary leaders. Some say the decision was on Kennedy's desk several times. We do not know. It's as much a mystery as Kennedy's own assassination. It would be a good thing if the truth were known. I have heard that there are certain documents that will not be published for 100 years and I ask myself why. What secret surrounds the Kennedy assassination that these papers cannot be published? I ask myself why the man who commits such an act tries to come here? As you know, he applied for - and was denied - a permit to travel to Cuba. And one must take into account the fact that a few days after killing Kennedy, he himself was killed. How can the conclusion be avoided that there are others behind all this? Who knows what goals they were seeking by killing Kennedy? Sometimes we ask ourselves if someone did not wish to involve Cuba in this, because I am under the impression that Kennedy's assassination was a conspiracy organized in the United States by reactionaries with possible connections to the CIA. This is my opinion, and my opinion is that the man who carried it out was an agent-provocateur. The other mystery is that this other man, Ruby, who had no moral ideals, no political ideals, no political passions, becomes so enraged by Kennedy's assassination that he kills the assassin right in front of the police. It was incredible, inconceivable. That does not happen even in the most mediocre of movies." (a later interview in With Fidel 141-2,145-147)

Roy Kellerman delivered the autopsy film and X-rays to SS agent Robert Bouck.

Two letters are sent from Cuba to RFK at the Justice Dept implying that a pro-Castro agent "Pedro Charles" paid Oswald to shoot JFK. The letters were written on the same typewriter, though both were signed by different people. (CE 2763) Or the first letter was sent from Havana 11/28. (H 26 148; HSCA 3 401)

US ambassador to Moscow Foy Kohler cabled Washington expressing concern over the "political repercussions which may develop if undue emphasis is placed on the alleged 'Marxism' of Oswald...I would hope, if facts permit, we could deal with the assassin as 'madman'...rather than dwell on his professed political convictions."

Memo written on this date from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to Secret Service Chief James Rowley:
"The Central Intelligence Agency advised that on Oct. 1, 1963, an extremely sensitive source had reported that an individual identified himself as Lee Oswald, who contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring as to any messages. "Special Agents of this bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above and have listened to a recording of his voice. These Special Agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald.'' (Letterhead Memo from Hoover to James J. Rowley, Secret Service, 11/23/63; AR 249-50; cf. FBI #62-109060-1133, in Holmes papers at NARA #104-10419-10022. (The drafter is SA Fletcher D. Thompson of Criminal Division, who on the next day flew to Dallas with SA Richard Rogge, to prepare memoranda on deaths of Kennedy and Oswald: 3 AH 465, 478, 479).

Report by FBI agents Sibert and O'Neill (CD7) on the autopsy they witnessed; it was not published by the WC and was only declassified 7/1966 due to the efforts of Vincent Salandria and Paul Hoch. "A total body X-ray and autopsy revealed one bullet hole located just below shoulders to right of spinal column and hand-probing indicated trajectory at angle of 45 to 60 degrees downward and hole of short depth with no point of exit. No bullet located in body. A second bullet entered back of head and thereafter emerged through top of skull. Two metal fragments removed from brain area, the first 7 x 2 mm and the other 3 by 1 mm in size. The above two metal fragments were turned over to Agents of the FBI for delivery to the FBI laboratory. A piece of skull measuring 10 by 6.5 cm had been flown in to Bethesda from Dallas hospital and this disclosed minute metal fragments where bullet emerged from skull. With respect to the bullet hole located in the back, pathologist at National Naval Medical Center was of the opinion this bullet worked its way out of the victim's back during cardiac massage...it is noted that Secret Service Agent Richard Johnson turned over to the FBI Laboratory one 6.5 mm rifle bullet...copper alloy, full jacket, which he advised was found on a stretcher...Johnson was unable to advise whether stretcher on which this bullet was found had been used for the President." The report incorrectly states the date of the autopsy as 11/23/1963.

Memo written on this date from Alan Belmont, third in command at FBI Headquarters, to Clyde Tolson, Hoover's right-hand man. "The Dallas agents who listened to the tape of the conversation allegedly of Oswald from the Cuban Embassy to the Russian Embassy in Mexico and examined the photographs of the visitor to the Embassy in Mexico ... were of the opinion that neither the tape nor the photograph pertained to Oswald.''

11-23-63 memo from Cartha DeLoach to J. Edgar Hoover regarding the FBI's acquisition of the Zapruder film states that the Dallas Special Agent in-Charge, J. Gordon Shanklin, who'd been provided a copy of the film by the Secret Service, "did not believe the film would be of any evidentiary value; however, he first had to take a look at the film to determine this factor."

SS report of attempt to interview William J. Waldman, vice-president of Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago, about the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. He refused to answer the Secret Service's questions because he said the FBI had already met with him and "kept reiterating" that he was "not to discuss this investigation with anyone." (McKnight, Breach of Trust)

Hoover sent the White House the FBI's "preliminary inquiry," which contained a summary memo featuring only some of the FBI's file information on Oswald. (The Man and the Secrets 543) This was also sent to James Rowley of the SS.

FBI interview of Mrs. Louis Rico, 23 Nov 1963. Mrs. Rico lived in an apartment in the same building in New Orleans with the Oswalds. She told the FBI of a "woman who drove a station wagon" helping the Oswalds move in September 1963.

FBI interview of Alexander Eames, 23 Nov 1963. Another neighbor, Alexander Eames, recalled the woman with the station wagon. Like Mrs. Rico, Eames remembered the woman "loading luggage and other articles into the station wagon." Weisberg points out that this raises doubt about the idea that Oswald had secretly put the rifle into the car.

UPI's Robert J. Serling wrote on November 23, 1963, based in part on "private conversations" with unnamed agents: "There are two absolute rules for motorcade protection: The agent running or riding at the President's shoulder must never leave that position unless relieved. The other is to turn out the manpower in all secret service cars the moment trouble arises and get secret service bodies around the President." In the same UPI story written by Serling from Washington entitled "Secret Service Men Wary of Motorcade": "The United States Secret Service … has always feared a motorcade assassination attempt more than anything else. In private conversations and in books published by high officials after they left the service, agents admit that Chief Executives riding in open cars down crowded city streets are at their most vulnerable as the targets of assassination … For motorcades the secret service checks every manhole cover and sewer along the parade route for bombs or dynamite. Buildings frequently are checked, along with records of occupants to make sure there are no known President-haters on the premises … They are trained never to watch the President himself but the people and crowds around him. They are also sworn to throw themselves in front of their charge at the first indication of gunfireto take the bullets, if possible, meant for the Chief Executive … An agent is the only man in the world who can order a President of the United States around if the latter's safety is believed at stake … in certain situations an agent outranks even a President."

Tampa Tribune ("Threats on Kennedy Made Here")
Tampa police and Secret Service agents scanned crowds for a man who had vowed to assassinate the President here last Monday, Chief of Police J. P. Mullins said yesterday. In issuing notice to all participating security police prior to the President's motorcade tour in Tampa, Mullins had said:
"I would like to advise all officers that threats against the President have been made from this area in the last few days." A memo from the White House Secret Service dated Nov. 8 reported: "Subject made statement of a plan to assassinate the President in October 1963: Subject stated he will use a gun, and if he couldn't get closer he would find another way. Subject is described as: White, male, 20. slender in build," etc. Mullins said the Secret Service had been advised of three persons in the area who reportedly had made threats on the President's life. One of the three was--and still is--in jail here under heavy bond. Mullins said he did not know if the other two men have followed the Presidential caravan to Dallas.
Sarasota County Sheriff Ross E. Boyer also said yesterday that officers who protected Kennedy in Tampa Monday were warned about "a young man" who had threatened to kill the President during that trip.
Within 24 hours of that November 23, 1963 article, a veil of secrecy had slammed shut on the matter, with Mullins and others refusing comment, and the later government investigating committees weren't told about the attempt to kill JFK in Tampa. When I [Lamar Waldron] interviewed Mullins in 1996, he said I was the first journalist or investigator to talk to him about it since November 1963, and he'd been surprised the Warren Commission or the Congressional investigations had never asked him about it. Mullins, and another high Florida law enforcement official, provided additional information about the threat, its ties to the Mafia and to a young Tampa suspect (not Oswald) linked to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. They also indicated that in addition to the Secret Service, the FBI was also well aware of the threat. When I reviewed the Tampa FBI field office files for the JFK assassination at the National Archives, there was not one mention of the Tampa threat, not even a routine copy of the Tampa newspaper article just cited (something that should have been in the file). However, at one time the FBI had--and may still have--files about the Tampa threat. There was one surprise in the Tampa FBI file, that had accidentally been left in the file when it was sent to the National Archives: the wire tap transcripts of a bugging operation against some casual associates of the young Tampa suspect.

NYT (Gladwin Hill): Dallas - … Captain Fritz said it was of obscure foreign origin, possibly Italian, of about 1940 vintage, of an unusual undetermined caliber. He displayed a bullet he said fitted the gun. It was about .30 caliber and about 2½ inches long, with a narrow tapered nose.

UPI/AP: Dallas - The 7.65 mm [roughly .30 caliber] bolt action Mauser German army rifle with 4-power sniperscope was found tucked among books on the sixth floor. Near it were gnawed chicken bones and an empty soda bottle.

Peter Maas wrote an article in the Saturday Evening Post about Joseph Valachi's testimony. He would later expand it into a book called The Valachi Papers in 1968.

Dallas Times Herald reported: "Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, who left Dallas only a few hours before President Kennedy was shot to death on a city street, had made a prophetic plea for the chief executive's safety. Mr. Nixon had urged a courteous reception for President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson in an interview printed in The Times Herald Thursday and in the first edition Friday. The former vice president, who was defeated by President Kennedy in 1960, told The Times Herald by telephone from New York he was shocked and distressed by the news of the President's death. He said he learned of the President's death while in a taxi driving from Idlewild Airport. He said a citizen ran into the street, hailed the cab--not knowing who was inside--and excitedly told him, "The President has been shot."

New York Daily News reported: "Just Last Week, He Wanted No Special Guard, By Edward Kirkman: Top city police with many years of experience in guarding Presidents and visiting heads of state said yesterday that President Kennedy took too many chances. On Nov. 14--eight days before the assassin's bullet struck him down--the President rode through New York City without a motorcycle escort and with fewer guards than police and the Secret Service wanted him to have. Authorities believed that Kennedy was too responsive to criticism for his own good. Heavily Guarded Until Last Week: A frequent visitor to New York City, the President until last week had been heavily guarded, had a motorcycle escort, and traveled heavily-guarded streets which had been cleared of other traffic to make way from him. There were those who spoke disparagingly of the interruption of normal living occasioned by the President's visits, and this disturbed him.
Small Guard Not Enough for Safety: He insisted last week that there be no motorcycle escort and that his motorcade stop for traffic lights. His principal protection on the ride from LaGuardia Field to the Hotel Caryle, 76th and Madison Ave., was two city police cars in front of his limousine and one car with Secret Service men immediately behind the limousine. During the ride into Manhattan, cars containing newsmen on occasion came dangerously close to the side of the President's car before being waved off. While the President's car was stopped for a red light at 72d St. and Madison Ave., an amateur photographer stepped up close and took pictures before he was chased off. All this was clear evidence to security men that the small guard insisted upon by the President was not adequate to insure his safety. Queried on this point, Police Commissioner Michael Murphy officially said, "No comment." But those close to him knew that he and his top brass and the Secret Service were deeply concerned.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "LEE H. OSWALD, LEFTIST, DENIES SHOOTING, HELD IN DALLAS CELL...Lee Harvey Oswald, a 24-year old left-wing extremist...Curry said the Texan admitted to officers in questioning last night that he was a member of the Communist Party.' Curry said he did not know whether Oswald was a card-carrying members of the party...Curry said police never had Oswald on their suspicious list. We have another man working in the same building who has been listed in our subversive files since 1955,' Curry said. Police were seeking this man for questioning. Oswald insisted he was not the assassin of President Kennedy. But an officer said today, I think we got some good results from the paraffin test on both of Oswald's hands.'....Oswald fired at least one shot in the killing of a patrolman and attempted a second shot when arrested....The Department of Defense disclosed today that the hand written letter from Oswald to Connally was in the personnel records of Oswald which were flown here from the Military Records Center in St. Louis...When first arrested last night in a suburban theater four miles from the assassination scene, Oswald refused to give his name or answer any other question almost continuously for ten hours....He complained repeatedly to reporters that he had not been permitted to get a lawyer...No witnesses have been produced thus far who saw him fire the three shots...Fingerprints on the murder weapon were either nonexistant or too smudged to be useful police said...They arrested him first as a suspect in the killing of J.D. Tippit, a police patrolman, 30 minutes after the shots were fired at the President...The textbook warehouse was sighted immediately as the sniper's hideout....At least two police officers and a cameraman in the motorcade, looking for the source of the shots, saw muzzle of a rifle being pulled back through the window....Others in the building pointed to the sixth floor, window, where apparently, they too, had seen the rifle....In a little-used corner of the sixth floor, police found cartons of books pulled near the window, partly shielding it from the rest of the floor. The rifle was there as well as three used cartridges and some chicken bones where the killer had waited. The book firm's president Jack D. Cason, said today that Mr. Kennedy's assassin could have spent as long as four days on the sixth floor dead storage area of the building. Sometimes three or four days go by without anybody going to the sixth floor to get anything,' Cason said. After the shooting yesterday, police sealed off the building and began a thorough search, thinking the assassin was still inside...Chasing the assailant, police first were directed on false leads to two furniture warehouses and a library. Finally a shoe repairman told them, The man you are looking for is in the Texas Theater.'...Examination of the weapon afterwards showed that it had misfired. The chambers of the pistol, a snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver, were all full....Patrolman J.M. Chaney, escorting the presidential car on a motorcycle at the right rear fender, said the first shot caused the President to look back to the left and the second shattered his face.'...Physicians who attended the President at Parkland Hospital said nothing about injuries to the President's face. They mentioned only two wounds - a bullet hole in the throat, below the Adams apple, and a massive wound on the right side of the back of the head. The President was actually shot twice, it was learned today in Washington. An authoritative White House source said one bullet entered Mr. Kennedy's head and another penetrated the neck and chest.'...[Parkland doctors] described the throat wound as an entrance wound and said the wound to the back of the head could have been caused by the exit of a bullet. At the back of the head, they said, there was extensive laceration and loss of brain tissue.'

St Louis Post-Dispatch: "The man charged with assassinating President John F. Kennedy is an admitted "Marxist" who spent three years in Russia trying to renounce his American citizenship, but got a United States government-paid passed home when he had a change of heart...Police said Oswald worked in the Texas School Book Depository Building. After the assassination, police found a 7.65 German army Mauser rifle in the building. Beside it were three empty shells. One cartridge remained in the chamber of the rifle...The Marine Corps record of Oswald was removed from the Military Records Center, 9700 Page avenue, Overland, Mo., last night and flown to Washington. The record was delivered to Scott Air Force Base, where it was placed aboard an Air Force jet plane and flown to Washington. The record shows that Oswald was given an undesirable discharge from the Marine reserves in 1960. A corps spokesman said this discharge was a result of Oswald's renunciation of United States citizenship...His discharge from the inactive reserve was ordered on Sept. 13, 1960 and was sent to a board of record correction for review. The board upheld the undesirable discharge. One of the summary court marshals in Japan was on April 11, 1958, on the charge of violating a regulation of a privately owned firearm. For this conviction, Oswald was reduced from Pfc. to private. The second court-martial occurred on June 18, 1958. The charge was using provocative words to a non-commissioned officer. The record does not show the disposition of this charge. His occupation specialty in the Marine Corps was electronics operator. The spokesman said that a skilled man in this category works with radar and fire control of weapons systems, but that as a Pfc. Oswald probably would not have been assigned to this skilled work. The spokesman said Oswald's service record showed that: He was a recruit at San Diego from October 1956 to January 1957; from Jan. 20 to Feb. 26, 1957, he was in a combat training unit at Camp Pendleton, Calif. From March 18 to May 3, 1967, he was at the Marine air detachment training center at Jacksonville, Fla. In May and June of 1957 he was attached to a casual company. From July 1957 to October 1958 he was in Marine Air Group 11, First Marine Air Wing, Japan. From December 1958 to Sept.11,1959 he was in the Third Air Wing at El Toro, Calif., from which he was released from active duty....The House Committee on Un-American Activities said Oswald "appears to be" the same man who headed a Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans."

St Louis Post-Dispatch reported: "The marksmanship of the assassin of President John F. Kennedy was effective but not exceptional, in the opinion of Col. John J. Godfrey, National Guard commander and combat veteran of World War II. 'Analyzing the situation, as described in the press accounts,' he said, 'it is my opinion the rifleman was firing at one man, the President. One bullet hit the mark and a second missed and struck Gov. Connally, sitting ahead of the President. It is not clear where the third shot went.' Col. Godfrey said a rifleman with military training shooting from a window ledge five stories above the street in bright light would have a clear range of fire. 'The rifle is described as a German Army Mauser with a four-powered sight,' Godfrey continued. 'My World War II service was in Europe, and we had great respect for the accuracy of German weapons. A four-powered sight would bring the target in close view and the accuracy of the rifle would do the rest, even at a moving target.' The fact that the rifleman got away three fast shots with a bolt-action rifle attested to the killer's training, Col. Godfrey said. 'He had to work smoothly to get away three shots in the period of time indicated.' Godfrey pointed out that standard United States Army rifle ranges have stationary targets at 200 and 300 yards distance and moving and bobbing targets at lesser ranges. Col. Godfrey, an attorney, has spent 21 years in the Army and National Guard service. He is a graduate of the Command and General Staff College and commands the Combat Command of the Missouri National Guard. He is a former commanding officer of the 138th Infantry, National Guard." The next day, the Dispatch featured the article again with a changed quote: "The rifle is described as a high-powered rifle of foreign make with a four-power sight,' Godfrey continued. 'My World War II service was in Europe, we had great respect for the accuracy of European weapons. A four-power sight.....'"

NY Times reported that "Lee Harvey Oswald was not highly regarded as a rifleman."

Dallas Morning News reported interview with landlords Mr and Mrs A.C. Johnson, and Earlene Roberts. They agreed that Oswald was neat and clean, caused no trouble, kept to himself, went to bed by 10pm, often listened to his radio, and had never spent a weekend there.

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 11/23/63
The President died in a sixth-floor surgery room at Parkland Hospital at 1 p.m., about 40 minutes after the assassin had sent a Mauser 7.62 bullet smashing into his head....(** or two star edition paper).
The President died in a sixth floor surgery room at Parkland Hospital at 1 p.m., about 40 minutes after the assassin had sent a Mauser 6.5 rifle bullet smashing into his head...(*** or three star edition paper).
The assassin, firing from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building near the Triple Underpass sent a Mauser 6.5 rifle bullet smashing into the President's head...(**** or four star edition paper). He (the assassin) fired at least three carefully measured shots into the car. (**)
The original plans for President Kennedy's visit called for a fast ride from Dallas Love Field to a Trade Mart luncheon. Then Democratic leaders urged the President to ride in motorcade through Fort Worth and Dallas to give more voters a chance to see him. Jack C. Cason, president of the depository, said the sixth floor was used solely as a "dead storage" area. It was stacked about eight feet high with books. Cason, who left the scene about 30 minutes before the president's caravan rode down Main Street, said the firm often had difficulty finding employes who had fallen asleep amidst the stacks of books. "Sometimes it will be three or four days without anybody going up to the sixth floor to get anything," Cason said. He said the "dead storage" area was used to keep books already stocked in the basement and on the second and fourth floors. Only when they ran out of copies there does anybody generally go to the sixth floor. Cason said the killer was apparently "well aware" of the building's layout because there was no elevator that goes up to the sixth floor from the front entrance. He would have had to get off the elevator on the fourth floor, walk to the back of the building and get the stairs or one of the two freight elevators on the sixth….They (the local police) arrested several persons, among them a Fort Worth man who was said to be driving a car linked with the slayer.
Dallas Morning News reporter and assassination witness Mary E. Woodward, who was standing with 3 other women near the Stemmons Freeway sign, wrote: "...After acknowledging our cheers, he (JFK) faced forward again and suddenly there was a horrible, ear-shattering noise coming from behind us and a little to the right. My first reaction, and also my friends', (Maggie Brown, Aurelia Alonzo and Ann Donaldson) was that it was a joke, someone had backfired their car. Apparently the driver and occupants of the President's car had the same impression, because instead of speeding up, the car came almost to a halt. Things are a little hazy from this point, but I don't believe anyone was hit with the first bullet. The President and Mrs. Kennedy turned and looked around, as if they, too, didn't believe the noise was really coming from a gun. Then after a moment's pause there was another shot and I saw the President start slumping in the car. This was followed rapidly by another shot. Mrs. Kennedy stood up in the car, turned half-way around, then fell on top of her husband's body.....Next to us were two Negro women. One collapsed in the other's arms, weeping and uttering what everyone was thinking: 'They shot him'." "They've shot him...They've shot the President," screamed a middle-aged man holding the hand of a small boy. Dozens of people thought the reports from the killer's muzzle were just firecrackers[B]. A few pointed towards the textbook building. But most ran to the west side of the building thinking