Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

During OSWALD's autopsy, Marina enters the room. She stands next to the body of her husband and raises his eyelids to look at his eyes. Four months later, she will tell a French journalist "I had two husbands: Lee, the father of my children, an affectionate and kind man; and Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy."

Mortician Paul Groody will be asked if he notes a mastoid scar on the left side of OSWALD's neck or scars near his left elbow. In 1945 Lee Oswald had a mastoidectomy operation at Harris Hospital in Fort Worth. A three-inch mastoid scar is noted on his Marine medical records. In 1957, Lee shot himself in the arm with a .22 Derringer. Neither the three-inch mastoid scar nor scars from the bullet wounds are now observed by Groody or noted on his 1963 report.

Researcher Gary Mack has stated that Dr. Carl Dockery photographs the OSWALD autopsy. He runs out of film and borrows a camera from someone out in the hallway - possibly a photographer. Dockery remembers shooting approximately 150 photographs. They are confiscated by Parkland security and ultimately go to J.C. Price. The photographs have not been seen since.

2:50 PM Eugene Victor Rostow, dean of the Yale Law School, calls Bill Moyers. Rostow says: "In this situation, with this bastard killed, my suggestion is that a presidential commission be appointed of very distinguished citizens in the very near future, bipartisan and above politics - no Supreme Court justices, but people like Tom Dewey and, you know, Bill [sic] Storey from Texas, and so on, a commission of seven or nine people - maybe [even] [Richard] Nixon, I don't know, to look into the whole affair of the murder of the President because world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they're just not believing anything."
TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN BILL MOYERS AND
DEAN ROSTOW, YALE LAW SCHOOL

WM: It is good to talk to you, Dean Rostow.

DR: Thank you, boy, and if I can help in any way, I am calling with a suggestion. I've just talked to Nick Kazenbach [sic] and the poor fellow, he has so much of a burden on him. I've talked to him about three times today and he just sounded so groggy so I thought I'd pass this thought along to you. And, of course, I realize how tough it must be now for the President. In this situation, with the suspect [another transcript has "bastard"] killed, my suggestion is that a Presidential Commission be appointed of very distinguished citizens in the very near future. Bi-partisan and above politics no Supreme Court justices but people like Tom Dewey and Bill Story [sic] from Texas and so on. A Commission of seven or nine people, maybe Nixon, I don't know, to look into the whole affair of the murder of the President because world opinion and American opinion is just now so shaken by the behavior of the Dallas Police that they're not believing anything.

WM: I can understand that. . . .

DR: Now, I've got a party here, I've been pursuing the policy, you know, that people need to come together at this time.

WM: You know what you could do that would be very helpful and this is a good suggestion and I'll pass it on just a minute the President is calling. . . . excuse me, go ahead . . .

DR: Well, what can I do that will help.

WM: Well, I was just speaking coming in after hearing the news of Oswald's shooting that this is symptomatic of what has been happening in this country in the last few years that there is a breakdown in respect for law and order you know these signs of "impeach the Supreme Court" etc. etc. etc. If I could have a memorandum to give the President along these lines . . . one of his great tasks is to help continue the institutions that seem to be at least, if not in doubt, right now, at least weakened by some kind of sickness that has taken hold of some parts of our population. Now, I'd like him to have to consider in some private talks he's having with newsmen and with perhaps, with his Joint Session next Wednesday night. He needs to make some points, you know, that America is known as a land of public order, a land of civility, a land of . . . in which the public safety is guaranteed and . . . there's a very serious question, right now, in the mind of the world about these institutions that undergird us so tremendously and . . .

DR: Well, his Gettysburg speech last Spring was just terrific . . . couldn't have been better . . . I'll be more than glad to send any message he thinks will be helpful right away . . .

WM: All right. Now, your suggestion is that he appoint a Special Commission of distinguished Americans, primarily in the field of law, I presume, to look into the whole question of the assassination.

DR: That's right and a report on it.

WM: All right, I'll get to him. Also, I wish you would keep me informed about how Nick is doing we don't want to put any greater strain on him than is necessary but . . .

DR: Well, he's a great and able man, utmost personable, he's, he's fighting back, he's terrific . . .

WM: Yes, yes. Thanks for calling. I'll follow through.

DR: You're welcome. Goodbye

WM: Goodbye.


This afternoon in New Orleans, G. Wray Gill visits David Ferrie's apartment and speaks to his roommate Layton Martens. Gill tells Martens that when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by the Dallas Police, he was carrying a library card with Ferrie's name on it. Gill instructs Martens to tell Ferrie to contact him and Gill will represent Ferrie as his attorney. How does G. Wray Gill have this information? In the Dallas Police Department's inventory of Oswald's personal effects, no mention is made of the library card. Further complicating the subject is the fact that Marina Oswald is asked if she knows a "Mr. David Farry."

Jack Martin telephones a friend of New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Herman Kohlman and tells him that he suspects Lee Harvey Oswald has conspired with David Ferrie to assassinate JFK. Martin then informs Kohlman's friend that Oswald and Ferrie have known each other since 1955, when they served on the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol together. It was then, according to Martin, that Ferrie taught Oswald how to fire a high-powered rifle with telescopic sight. Martin adds that Ferrie is passionately anti-Kennedy and he, Jack Martin, has once overheard him discussing with Oswald the necessity of assassinating JFK.

Also later this afternoon, David Ferrie places a call to his roommate in New Orleans, Layton Martens, and, according to his FBI testimony, is shocked to learn from him that he is being accused of having been involved in the assassination of JFK. Ferrie immediately heads back to Louisiana. On the advice of attorney G. Wray Gill, Ferrie spends this night in Hammond, at Southeastern Louisiana University, visiting a friend who is conducting research in narcotics addiction.

3:00 PM (approx) Ruby taken to the Homicide Bureau; questioned by Fritz and FBI agent C. Ray Hall for about an hour. Ruby told Fritz he entered the basement through the Main St ramp as Rio Pierce drove out, and then added, "Don't you think I would make a good actor?" (Ruby Cover-up 156) In his undated report of that interrogation, Fritz states, "Claimed he came in off of Main Street down ramp to basement of City Hall"; C. Ray Hall, however, describing the same interrogation, testifies that "Ruby did not wish to say how he got into the basement or at what time he entered." The Warren Commission will accept Hall's statement as correct. AATF

3:05 PM Capt Fritz talks to Ruby
Mr. FRITZ. He told me he came down that ramp from the outside. So I told him, I said, "No, you couldn't have come down that ramp because there would be an officer at the top and an officer at the bottom and you couldn't come down that ramp." He said, "I am not going to talk to you any more, I am not going to get into trouble," and he never talked to me any more about it.

3:35 PM Dean Rusk, George Ball and Robert S. McNamara depart after meeting with LBJ. With the exception of two phone conversations with national-security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, the second at 5:30 PM, all other entires in the President's activity log are social, conversations for the extending of sympathies and expressions of thanks or kindnesses.

Aristotle Onassis has arrived in the USA, and is now a private guest in the White House - paying his respects to Jackie Kennedy.

3:51 PM AP report: Dallas - ... Wade said Ruby had ready access to city hall, and had approached the district attorney during a Friday night news conference. "I'm Jack Ruby. I own the Carousel Club here." Wade said he replied that he thought a press conference was just for newsmen but that Ruby said: "Oh, I know all the policemen and all the newsmen too. I just came down to listen in."

4:00 PM J. Edgar Hoover meets with Walter Jenkins, LBJ's administrative assistant. Hoover believes that the bureau should deliver an investigative report to the attorney general, leaving the president to decide what part of a Justice Department report to make public.

In a memo for the record, J. Edgar Hoover begins by stating: "There is nothing further on the Oswald case except that he is dead."

4:00 PM "On leaving Buster's Bar and Restaurant they drove to Alexandria, Louisiana, arriving there at approximatley 4:00 PM. FERRIE informed that ALVIN BEAUBOUEF has relatives in Alexandria. FERRIE also said that he had tentatively planned to atend a party in Alexandria and that his plans were tentative because he did not know whether or not he would be needed in New Orleans on November 25, 1963 in connection with the trial of a murder case which was scheduled to begin on that date. He stated that to ascertain whether he would be needed in New Orleans he made several pre-paid long distance calls from a gas station trying to reach Attorney G. WRAY GILL's office, but was unsuccessful. He stated that he then telephonically contacted his home and talked to LAYTON MARTENS who at that time informed him that two WWL-TV representatives had been making inquiries at his home and in the neighborhood and he learned that he was being accused of being implicated in the assassination of President KENNEDY.
FERRIE said that as a result of the information furnished by LAYTON he was very much disturbed over the fact that he was being accused of being implicated in the assassination of the President and that he left Alexandria, Louisiana between 4:00 and 5:00 PM, possibly close to 5:00 PM. He said that he stopped at several service stations along the way to use the telephone in an attempt to reach Attorney G. WRAY GILL. He said that he was finally sucessful in contacting Attorney GILL by telephone and that Attorney GILL informed him that HARDY DAVIS, a former bondsman in New Orleans, had telephonically contacted GILL stating that DAVIS had been contacted by JACK S. MARTIN who claimed he had tied FERRIE in with the killing of President KENNEDY and had tipped of the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office, the FBI, the Secret Service, newspapers and radio stations. MARTIN claimed that FERRIE knew OSWALD, had trained OSWALD and had flown OSWALD to Dallas, Texas. FERRIE said he asked Attorney GILL if he had made any attempt to verify any of this information and if he thought there was any substance to it. FERRIE said he told Attorney GILL what LAYTON MARTENS had told him about the inquiries of the WWL-TV representatives and asked Attorney GILL for his advice. Attorney GILL advised him to continue with his plans and return to New Orleans in keeping with his original plans. FERRIE said that he proceeded directly to New Orleans, stopping at a restaurant on the west side of the highway at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which restaurant is located between the Mississppi River Bridge and the Hammond Circle. He stated that this restaurant has several rooms and that one of the dining rooms is for formal attire and one is for infomal attire and that this restaurant specializes in steaks. He said that after eating they drove on to New Orleans, arriving at about 9:30 PM. He stated that he dropped ALVIN BEAUBOUEF in the vicinity of his (FERRIE's) home in order that BEAUBOUEF could check his home to see if anyone was waiting for him. He then drove to MELVIN COFFEY's home and dropped him off. FERRIE said that he then telephonically contacted Attorney GILL for the purpose of trying to get GILL to obtain some more information concerning the accusations made against him. He stated that after talking to Attorney GILL he drove to Hammond, Louisiana, by way of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and upon arriving in Hammond contacted a friend, THOMAS COMPTON at the Holloway-Smith Hall at Southeastern Louisiana College. He stated that COMPTON is doing research at this school. FERRIE claimed that he spent the balance of the night of Holloway-Smith Hall and remained in Hammond until 1:00 or 1:30 PM, November 25, 1963." (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

As the televised rerun of JFK's funeral reaches the moment when Jacqueline Kennedy and her children kneel by the president's coffin and the widow inclines her head to say good-bye, FBI bugging technicians catch Martin Luther King muttering, "Look at her. Sucking him off one last time." J. Edgar Hoover immediately sends Courtney Evans over with a transcript for RFK, deploring this "vilification of the late President and his wife." B&JE Another version has it that King cracked, "That's what she's going to miss the most."

4:22 PM AP report: Dallas He's a tough guy, this Jack Ruby. He's a loner; too.... "I can take care of myself, Ruby always boasted. "Yeah, he could do that," said a close personal friend, a guy who used, to run public social dances with the stocky health faddist. "Yeah, man. He's always after it. He lives for that business. ... to make a buck," said his one time business associate. ... The cops know Ruby, too. "I know all the policemen," Ruby breezily told Wade at the press conference." And the newsmen, I just came down to listen in." That's why it didn't seem strange to have Jack Ruby pop up among the crowd of newsmen, photographers and Stetson-hatted detectives forming an almost human barrier that Oswald had to cross in his transfer from one jail to another.
He was used to being around. The police had had him around for other reasons. Like two arrests for carrying a concealed weapon, ones in July of this year; once in May of 1954. For violating a dance hall ordinance in 1959. And just a few days ago for aggravated assault. He had a fight in another night spot. A guy heckled him.
"He's a little odd," said Bill DeMarr, the MC who was master of ceremonies who brings on the Strippers at the Carousel Club. "But tremendously patriotic." "For a buck," said his ex-partner. "You know, this just about would have killed him. Not the President's death. But the business. You live for the holidays in this town. Two months of the free-spending and it carries you the rest of the year. "The business is shot for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. Man, who's gonna live it up now?" AP, 4:22 p.m. CST. Jack Ruby profile, Wilburn Martin

LBJ phone call - Gov. Pat Brown, 4:40 PM
LBJ phone call - Cong. Jack Brooks, 4:53 PM

5:00 PM Humes turned over his notes and handwritten draft of the final autopsy report to the commander of the US Naval Medical School. (CE 397 48) In a separate certificate Humes stated that he burned certain "preliminary draft notes" and turned over all other autopsy papers to "higher authority." (CE 397 47)

LBJ phone call - McGeorge Bundy, 5:10 PM

5:40 PM Ruby was taken to ID Bureau to be fingerprinted (by Ed Carlson, whom he knew).
5:55 PM (EST) LBJ had a friendly phone conversation with Whitney Young of the National Urban League; both agreed that targeting hatred - both abroad and at home - would be the major theme behind LBJ's civil rights, tax cuts and other programs.

Evening Stolley contacts Zapruder to discuss purchase of all rights to film Stolley, 1973; Thompson, 1998; Trask, 146

6:00 PM Ruby talked with Eva Grant in the visitors' room, telling her, "I got lots of friends here." He told her that one of his lawyers, Fred Bruner, would post bail for him in the morning. (Ruby Cover-up 157)

6:00 PM Shanklin told Hosty to destroy the Oswald note since there would be no trial. Hosty tore up the note and flushed the pieces down the toilet. (Assignment Oswald)

6:00 PM (EST) Humes brings autopsy report to Burkley at the White House.

6:26 PM AP report: Dallas - ... "Why did you do it," newsmen shouted at Ruby, who was charged with murder. "His expression betrayed no flicker of emotion as he ignored the question. His sister, Mrs. Eva Grant, said he had; talked incessantly of the Kennedy assassination, grieving more that he did for his own dead father. The sister said she had predicted Oswald would never go to trial, that the Communists would kill him first. AP, 6:26 p.m. CST. 5th lead Oswald shooting.

6:30 PM An anonymous male caller tells an FBI agent in the Bureau's Dallas office that Lee Harvey Oswald has had a rifle sighted, or prepared for the mounting of a sight, at Irving Sports Shop, on Irving Boulevard in Irving, Texas. Similar calls are received by the Dallas police and a local television station.

Abe Fortas is having dinner with LBJ at The Elms. The two engage in a discussion about how the investigation of JFK's murder should be handled. Fortas thinks poorly of Nicholas de B. Katzenbach's suggestion for a presidential commission, primarily because there is no legal precedent, and also because he is leery of getting LBJ involved in an investigation of his predecessor's murder.

After dinner at The Elms, LBJ receives three distinct proposals about what to do in the wake of OSWALD's murder. On one point everyone is in agreement: some kind of report and process must take place that will convince the American public that Oswald was the actual assassin. Already TV commentators such as ABC's Howard K. Smith are suggesting that "we don't know if Oswald really committed the crime and perhaps we will never know."

6:50 PM Dallas - from interview with Mrs. Ruth Paine on Oswald and his family.… Thursday night, Oswald went to the Paine garage where the family belongings were stored. "I thought nothing of it," said Mrs. Paine. She didn't know what he went after, but she remembered he did because he left the garage light burning. The next day, she found a blanket that had once contained something bulky - lying empty on a work table. Mrs. Paine said Marina had told police she had once opened that blanket and thought she remembered seeing the butt of a gun. AP, 6:50 p.m. CST, Patricia Curran

7:50 PM CST 8:50 PM (EST) LBJ talked to Bill Moyers by phone. (Secret Service log)

LBJ then calls Katzenbach to say he wants the matter left to ordinary legal processes, namely, an FBI report to the attorney general and simultaneously a Court of Inquiry in Texas. TKAT

7:55 PM CST 8:55 PM (EST) LBJ phoned Hoover. (SS log) Johnson calls J. Edgar Hoover from his private residence. The topic of the conversation is not known. The FBI, however, immediately begins lobbying the Washington Post in a successful effort to kill the Post's planned editorial endorsement of the appointment of a presidential commission. (AOT & Never Again!)

8:00 PM (CST) 9:00 PM (EST) LBJ called Katzenbach. (SS log)

8:00 PM 16 mm Zapruder film brought from Kodak in Rochester to McMahon and Hunter at NPIC by "Secret Service Agent Bill Smith." Hunter recalls nothing of "Smith" or "Rochester". McMahon says it was original film, but Hunter recalls working on a copy with no intersprocket images. Hunter says film "not high resolution." Horne, 1222 ff; Bugliosi endnotes, 354; "Murder In Dealey Plaza", 314-322; Thompson, 2001

9:24 PM CST Evansville, IN. -- Entertainer Bill Demar of Evansville told the Associated Press by telephone today he was positive Lee Harvey Oswald was a patron about nine days ago [11/15] in the Dallas night club of Jack Ruby. …Demar, Bill Crowe in private life, had completed two weeks of a five week engagement at Ruby's Carousel Club when it was closed indefinitely Friday. "I have a memory act," the magician-ventriloquist said, "in which I have 20 customers call out various objects in rapid order. Then I tell them at random what they called out. I am positive Oswald was one of the men that called out an object about nine days ago." AP, 9:24 p.m. CST

9:30 PM New Orleans time: Dave Ferrie claimed to have returned home at this time. He talked to C. Wray Gill on the phone several times, who suggested he leave the city. Around midnight he drove to Hammond, La., to stay with a friend, Dr. Nichols. (SS report)

9:30 PM CST Dallas -- story on Ruby's sister, Mrs. Eva Grant. ... "He called me six times yesterday and kept asking me, " Do you need anything?' He said he was going to one of the radio stations in town and take them some sandwiches because the boys were working so hard on the Kennedy death. He even brought coffee yesterday and took it to the policemen who were working such long hours at City Hall. "He called me for the last time about 12:30. Today in the jail he told me 'take care of yourself and don't worry. I'm in good health. The FBI and the officers are treating me well. I've got friends.' "We didn't discuss the shooting. It's sort of an old fashioned Code of ethics. He didn't mention it to me so I didn't mention it to him." ... A reporter from Long Beach, CA, said Mrs. Grant told him she may have inadvertently planted the thought of killing Oswald in Ruby's mind. The Long Beach Independent and Long Beach Press-Telegram said reporter Bill Hunter quoted her as saying: "I told him [Ruby], 'don't worry. Someone will shoot Oswald,'" she said. "He told me, 'look at the logic of this. Oswald got to the President, but no one can get to Oswald.." AP, 9:30 p.m. CST

11:11 PM CST Evansville, IN - Entertainer Bill DeMarr of Evansville told the Associated Press by telephone today he was positive Lee Harvey Oswald was a patron, about nine days ago in the Dallas night club of Jack Ruby. ... "I have a memory act," the magician, ventriloquist said, "in which I have 20 customers call out various objects in rapid order. Then I tell them at random what they called out. I am positive Oswald was one of the men that called out an object about nine days ago. ... DeMarr described Ruby as "a little odd," and " "tremendously patriotic" in an earlier call today to an old friend in Evansville. Dave Hoy said Crowe [DeMarr] told him Ruby was at "rather a quiet guy, but nice. He was intensely partiotic. He seemed upset when Kennedy was killed, but not more than other people. I'm surprised at this." AP, 11:11 p.m. CST.

"I want it known by everyone that I do not blame the Dallas Police Department for what happened Sunday morning. Chief Curry and his men did not neglect their duty. I honestly believe my brother had gotten hold of a press pass which got him into the police headquarters. This criticism of the Police Department is uncalled for and they must not be held in blame. My brother was grieving so, and I feel it got the best of him. I know; he was with me a great deal Friday and Saturday. He had been very upset about the death of the President. When he came face to face with Oswald, he must have felt this man had one him some personal harm, and I believe my brother become insane suddenly, otherwise this never could have been done. Please, please, don't blame the Police Department!"
Exclusive statement obtained by KTIF News from Ruby's sister, Mrs. Eva Grant. No date given, but from context probably 11/24 or 11/25/63.

Attorney Jim Martin, George Senator (Ruby's roommate), attorney Tom Howard and newsmen Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe meet together in Jack Ruby's Dallas apartment this evening.

On this date, a long-distance telephone operator in Mexico City monitors an international phone call and alerts U.S. authorities. She has overheard one of the voices on the line saying: "The Castro plan is being carried out. Bobby is next. Soon the atomic bombs will begin to rain and they won't know from where." The telephone numbers are traced. One of them belongs to Emilio Nunez Portuondo, the Cuban ambassador to the United Nations during the Batista regime. A British publication, which will eventually have access to House Committee files, identifies Portuondo as having been an "agent" of the CIA's Cuban specialist in Mexico City -- David Atlee Phillips. The other number is traced to Jose Antonio Cabarga of Mexico City. According to Portuondo, "Carbaga is in close contact with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and is a good investigator who could develop information in the event the plans to assassinate the President were formulated in Mexico City." The Washington office of the Secret Service fails to send an agent to interview Carbaga and the case is closed. CDIA

During a White House meeting, LBJ voices dissatisfaction with the state of the Vietnam situation; he told Lodge, "I am not going to lose Vietnam. I am not going to be the President who saw Southeast Asia go the way China went." RFK was not invited to this meeting, which included Taylor, Rusk, Ball, Harriman (?), Bundy, McCone and McNamara. (JFK and LBJ p205) Johnson claims he is continuing JFK's Vietnam policy.

Afghanistan and China signed a treaty formally delimiting their 40-mile frontier.

New Orleans lawyer Dean Andrews originally told the WC that a lawyer named Clay Bertrand contacted him on this day and asked him to go to Dallas to be Oswald's lawyer. At the time Andrews was in the hospital for pneumonia and was under sedation (CE 2899). Later that day, he phoned his secretary, Eva Springer. (CE 2901) She corroborated his story and the phone call from him that day, but could not recall Oswald ever having come into the office. After calling Springer, he then called a fellow attorney: "I called Monk Zelden on Saturday [actually Sunday] at the N.O.A.C. [New Orleans Athletic Club] and asked Monk if he would go over - be interested in a retainer and go over to Dallas and see about that boy...While I was talking with Monk, he said, 'Don't worry about it. Your client just got shot.'" (H 11 337)

The FBI stated that the case was still open and the investigation would continue. (St Louis Post-Dispatch). This investigation lasted just short of three weeks. Hoover also blasted the Dallas police publicly for ignoring the death threats against Oswald.

Autopsy doctors meet in Galloway's office to review and sign their report. This night, Humes hand-delivers the report to George Burkley at the White House.

The FBI sends the Carcano rifle back to the Dallas police.

Castro announced that "the most reactionary elements" in the US were trying to link him to Oswald: "The first thing that appears to be a lie is that this man was president of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans. We have searched through all of our files and this man is not listed as president of any committee...nowhere is there any mention of any Fair Play for Cuba Committee in Dallas or New Orleans." (UPI)

Dave Ferrie's roommate, Layton Martens, when questioned by police this night, said that Wray Gill had told him that Ferrie's card had been found on Oswald. Blakey and Billings take seriously the evidence Garrison found of Oswald's relationship with Ferrie (the Clinton, Louisiana episode, the Civil Air Patrol, the library card); it "led us to conclude that Oswald and Ferrie had in fact been acquainted." Though they could not turn up any police or FBI record of Ferrie's library card having been among Oswald's effects, the story was corroborated by Nina Garner, Oswald's New Orleans landlady. (Fatal Hour)

Secret Service interview with Marina this night at the Inn of the Six Flags in Arlington. She said that Oswald never attended any meetings of his Russian hunting club, and that Lee enjoyed getting out in the countryside. She said he owned a "hunting gun" in Russia but "he never used it." (Whitewash II)

In a press conference several hours after Oswald's death, Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade gave a news conference and outlined the evidence against Oswald. It was about 24 minutes long. At this conference, Mr. Wade provides the press and the viewing audience on TV with details about the evidence that had been gathered against Oswald up to that point on the evening of November 24th. "A number of witnesses who saw a person with a gun on the sixth floor"; palm print found on a box; mentions backyard photos; Marina said she had seen his rifle the night before; "Every other employee was located" except LHO; "A description and name of him went out by police to look for him"; got on a bus, told the driver the president had been shot; another witness said Oswald "laughed very loud." Tippit was shot 3 times; Wade didn't know the exact location of the shooting, but it was "a block or two" from Oswald's roominghouse. Wade claims Oswald's gun failed to fire at the Texas Theatre (that the firing pin struck the bullet but if didn't go off), but a reporter repeated the story he had heard that an officer had wedged his finger in the gun to prevent the hammer from striking. "His fingerprints [later clarified as "palm print"] were found on…the rifle." Paraffin tests were positive on both hands. Wade at one point refers to Ruby as "Ruben." Investigation will go on about any possible accomplices to LHO. "Without any doubt and to a moral certainty," LHO was guilty. When asked about the ballistics, Wade says, "This was the gun, the bullet from this gun killed the president." Wade says he did not know Ruby, but saw him at the midnight press conference and thought he was a reporter. Wade is uncertain about what kind of rifle it was foreign, apparently Italian, unusual caliber. Only group LHO was known to belong to was FPCC. Wade had not been in any phone contact with Washington officials.

Edward Butler, who debated Oswald on the radio in New Orleans, testified before Sen. Thomas Dodd's Internal Security Subcommittee on November 24, 1963.

H.L. Hunt expressed his "deep sense of sorrow and loss...Freedom is in fearful danger when a President dies by violence." (Dallas Morning News)

SS agent Roger Warner interviews Karen Carlin; "Mrs. Carlin was highly agitated and was reluctant to make any statement to me. She stated to me that she was under the impression that Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and other individuals unknown to her, were involved in a plot to assassinate President Kennedy and that she would be killed if she gave any information to the authorities. It was only through the aid of her husband that she would give any information at all. She twisted in her chair, stammered in her speech, and seemed on the point of hysteria...She stated that she did not wish to get involved in the matter at hand...all information she had related had to be kept confidential to prevent retaliation against her..." (H 15 619-20).

CIA summary report on their knowledge of Oswald; "Mexico Station has, to date, found no pictures of Oswald entering the Soviet or Cuban Embassy...all this information shows that Lee Harvey Oswald entered Mexico (apparently by car) at Nuevo Laredo on 26 Sept 1963, claiming he was a photographer, living in New Orleans and bound for Mexico City...On October 1, Oswald has his phone conversation with Soviet Consul Kostikov about his visa, and on the same day, Oswald phones the Soviet Military Attache about the same matter...on 3 October, Oswald phoned the Military Attache again and tried to talk about a visa, but the Military Attache again referred him to the Consul...Observation of the Soviet and Cuban Embassies in Mexico and of their principal intelligence officers, including Kostikov, since the assassination...shows nothing unusual." (Declassified 1995, Assignment Oswald)

Letter From Chairman Khrushchev to President Johnson
Moscow, November 24, 1963.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I am writing this message to you at a moment that holds a special place in the history of your country. The villainous assassination of Head of the American State John F. Kennedy is a grievous, indeed a very grievous loss for your country. I want to say frankly that the gravity of this loss is felt by the whole world, including ourselves, the Soviet people.
There is no need for me to tell you that the late President John F. Kennedy and I, as the Head of the Government of the socialist Soviet Union, were people of different poles. But I believe that probably you yourself have formed a definite view that it was an awareness of the great responsibility for the destinies of the world that guided the actions of the two Governments--both of the Soviet Union and of the United States--in recent years. These actions were founded on a desire to prevent a disaster and to resolve disputed issues through agreement with due regard for the most important, the most fundamental interests of ensuring peace.
An awareness of this responsibility, which I found John F. Kennedy to possess during our very first conversations in Vienna in 1961, laid down the unseen bridge of mutual understanding which, I venture to say, was not broken to the very last day in the life of President John F. Kennedy. For my own part, I can say quite definitely that the feeling of respect for the late President never left me precisely because, like ourselves, he based his policy on a desire not to permit a military collision of the major powers which carry on their shoulders the burden of the responsibility for the maintenance of peace.
And now, taking the opportunity offered by the visit to the United States of my First Deputy A.I. Mikoyan to attend the funeral of John F. Kennedy, I address these lines to you, as the new President of the United States of America in whom is vested a high responsibility to your people. I do not know how you will react to these words of mine, but let me say outright that in you we saw a comrade-in-arms of the late President, a man who always stood at the President's side and supported his line in foreign policy. This, I believe, gives us grounds to express the hope that the basis, which dictated to the leaders of both countries the need not to permit the outbreak of a new war and to keep the peace, will continue to be the determining factor in the development of relations between our two States.
Needless to say, on our part, and on my own part, as Head of the Government of the Soviet Union, there has been and remains readiness to find, through an exchange of views, mutually acceptable solutions for those problems which still divide us. This applies both to the problems of European security, which have been handed down to the present generation chiefly as a legacy of World War II, and to other international problems.
Judging by experience, exchanges of views and our contacts can assume various forms, including such an avenue as the exchange of personal messages, if this does not run counter to your wishes.
Recently we marked the Thirtieth Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. This was a historic act in which an outstanding role was played by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. We have always believed that, being a representative of one and the same political party, the late President John F. Kennedy to a certain extent continued in foreign policy Roosevelt's traditions which were based on recognition of the fact that the coinciding interests of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. prevail over all that divides them.
And it is to you Mr. President, as to a representative of the same trend of the United States policy which brought into the political forefront statesmen, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, that I want to say that if these great traditions could go on being maintained and strengthened, both Americans and Soviet people could, we are convinced, look optimistically into the future. We are convinced that this development of events would meet the sympathy of every state, and indeed of every individual who espouses and cherishes peace.
I would welcome any desire on your part to express your ideas in connection with the thoughts--though they may, perhaps, be of a somewhat general nature--which I deemed it possible to share with you in this message/

On November 24 President Johnson also wrote to Khrushchev. After thanking the Chairman for his letter of condolence, Johnson wrote:
"I should like you to know that I have kept in close touch with the development of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and that I have been in full accord with the policies of President Kennedy. I shall do my best to continue these policies along the same lines and hope that we can make progress in improving our relations and in resolving the many serious problems that face us.
"May I say that I am fully aware of the heavy responsibility which our two countries bear for the maintenance and consolidation of peace. I hope that we can work together for the achievement of that great goal, despite the many and complex issues which divide us. I can assure you that I shall sincerely devote myself to this purpose." (Ibid.: Lot 77 D 163)
Respectfully,
N. Khrushchev/2/

CIA in Mexico City cabled CIA headquarters that it was now unable to locate any tapes at all for comparisons with Oswald's voice: " Regret complete recheck shows tapes for this period already erased. " (Lopez report) After an extensive analysis, the House Select Committee's Lopez Report concluded that these and other CIA statements about tapes having been erased before voice comparisons could be made conflicted with sworn testimony, the information on other cables, and the station's own wiretapping procedure.

A memo dated on this day regarding Hoover phone conversation with Walter Jenkins several hours after Oswald's death (it was first released by the Church Committee in 1976): "The thing I am most concerned about," wrote Hoover, "and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin."
Acting Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, whose discussions helped spark the commission's creation, testified on 9-21-78 that his basic motivation at that time was "the amount of speculation both here and abroad as to what was going on, whether there was a conspiracy of the left or a lone assassin or even in its wildest stages, a conspiracy by the then vice president to achieve the presidency, the sort of thing you have speculation about in some countries abroad where that kind of condition is normal."

Alan Belmont wrote a memo to Tolson saying that he was sending two headquarters supervisors to Dallas to review the "investigative findings of our agents on the Oswald matter, so that we can prepare a memorandum to the Attorney General [setting] out the evidence showing that Oswald is responsible for the shooting that killed the President." (The Man and the Secrets p547)

Houston Chronicle: "CUBAN TRIBUNAL GIVES CANADIAN PILOT 30 YEARS - Military tribunal Saturday sentenced Canadian pilot Donald Lippert to 30 years in prison for conspiracy against that state and illegal possession of explosives. The prosecutor had demanded a death penalty. William Milne, his alleged associate, was acquitted. Miss Maria Magdalena Volta Bravo, Lippert's Cuban aunt, was sentenced to nine years for receiving and storing explosives. The two pilots were arrested Oct. 24 after landing their cargo plane at Havana International Airport. The government charged that customs inspectors found explosives sealed within olive and fruit tins aboard. The pair was charged with introducing the explosives for operatives of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lippert admitted on the witness stand he smuggled in the explosives for the CIA."

NY Times and NY Post reported that Parkland doctors called the throat wound an entrance wound.

Washington Star editorial: "The desolation Americans have felt since Friday afternoon is made more complete by our knowledge that such an act of murder has no rational relationship to the course of American politics, policy or history...the American political assassin has invariably presented a problem in personal mental health rather than one in political conditions...The final horror of the violent death of an American President is that in our system assassination is a political irrelevancy. That is also our consolation."

Houston Chronicle story about Detective Combest: "I was standing at the corner of the ramp as they led Lee Oswald out of the building, and then I saw Jack Ruby and knew what he was going to do. I yelled, Jack, you son-of-a-bitch.' I tried to reach him but I couldn't get to him...I think Ruby did what he was planning on doing all the time since the President was killed. He didn't say anything as he was carried out - I think he'd already accomplished his purpose. One of his employes had called me earlier and told me Ruby felt a sense of shame for Dallas. A lot of us knew him because of the business he was in - running a strip joint."

St Louis Post-Dispatch story by Richard Dudman reported that the DPD said on 11/23 "that Lee Harvey Oswald, 24 years old, assassinated President John F. Kennedy and they have the evidence to prove it. This case is cinched,' homicide chief Will Fritz told reporters. The man kill President Kennedy. We are convinced without any doubt that he did the killing. There were no accomplices,' Fritz asserted. The announcement came only 24 hours after a sniper hidden in a building along the presidential parade route at the edge of downtown Dallas had used a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight to shoot Mr. Kennedy fatally and seriously wound Gov. John B. Connally of Texas...Police Chief Jesse E. Curry outlined this web of evidence that, he said, showed Oswald was the sniper: Photographs show him with both the rifle used to kill President Kennedy and the pistol used to kill a pursuing patrolman...Other witnesses said they saw Oswald entering the building carrying a long parcel, large enough to have contained the weapon...His wife, a Russian who speaks little English, has told police through an interpreter that she saw a rifle that looked like the murder weapon in her husband's possession Thursday...Several persons saw the muzzle of a rifle being drawn back into the sixth-story window immediately after the three shots were fired, but police say they have not found anyone who saw the assassin as he pointed the rifle and pulled the trigger...Police passed Oswald by in their first search of the building. The manager of the textbook concern told them he was an employee and they paid him no further attention....[At the Texas Theatre] This is it,' Oswald said, springing from his seat. He drew his pistol, but it failed to fire...Assault to murder charges were being filed against Oswald in the wounding of Connally...Before being returned to a cell in the jail on the fifth floor of city hall, Oswald was taken to the police station basement for a brief press interview. He grinned, somewhat glassy-eyed, and said: I didn't know I was a suspect. I didn't even know President Kennedy was killed until reporters told me in the hall.'....Wade said Oswald would be tried first - probably in mid-January - in the death of the President....Officials here indicate a belief that they have complied fully with constitutional requirements by informing Oswald that he has the right to retain a lawyer and that anything he says, now that he is charged with murder, may be used against him...Curry told reporters last night: He says he wants one, but we can't go out and begin calling lawyers to find him one.' Curry said that if Oswald wanted an attorney it was up to him to hire one....Texas law, it has been pointed out, does not require that the court appoint a lawyer for a defendant - if he cannot engage one - until after he is indicted. No indictment is expected in this case before next week. Oswald, when being escorted through the corridor to another period of interrogation, was asked by reporters if he wanted anything. I'd like to have the basic, fundamental, hygienic right of a shower,' he said...No one in Dallas appeared inclined to criticize the handling of the case. Emotions here are so inflamed and defensive that normally temperate persons speak openly of their personal willingness to fight and kill the President's assassin...Foreman said that federal decisions for at least five years have held that a defendant has a right to legal counsel at every level including arraignment before a justice of the peace. It's not being done in Texas, but it's the law,' Foreman said. And he is entitled to counsel whether he requests it or not.'...Meanwhile, the Defense Department announced in Washington that Oswald once wrote to Gov. Connally from Russia, pleading that his undesirable discharge from the Marines Corps be reversed...One shot hit Mr. Kennedy in the head, one in the neck. Another bullet tore through Connally's back, smashing ribs...Fritz refused to say whether the killing of the President and wounding of Connally was an organized plot or a spur-of-the-moment act. There were no accomplices,' Fritz said, however...A building porter said he took Oswald to the sixth floor in an elevator. When he got out, Oswald asked the porter to send the car back up for him. The porter went to the ground floor to watch the Kennedy motorcade...Fritz said further that Oswald had made no admissions since he was arrested within two hours of the assassination, but he has given some helpful hints.'...Police disclosed that in a dragnet' operation after the assassination, seven members of a racist right-wing' organization had been arrested. The organization was identified as the Indignant White Citizens Council, established last summer in the outlying community of Grand Prairie. The seven, mostly teen-age youths, had been picketing near the Trade Mart, where Mr. Kennedy was scheduled to make a luncheon speech. The seven were still being held today on a booking of investigation of conspiracy to murder' and a charge of trespassing. Chief Curry said there were believed to be only 25 or 30 Communist party members in the Dallas area; that the police had had no trouble' with them lately; and that his organization had had no contacts with the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee..."

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 11/24/63
A fingerprint expert has obtained evidence which allegegdly links Lee Harvey Oswald with the assassination of President Kennedy. "We've got a print that matches Oswald's," one investigator said. They (investigators) said that three spent shells found near the officer's body (Tippit) matched those in the revolver which Oswald carried in the near-by Texas Theater. Fritz said a bus transfer slip confirms Oswald's admission that he drove from the area where President Kennedy was shot to Oak Cliff, where Officer Tippit was slain, in a bus and a taxi.
"The witness said Tippit pulled his car over to the curb and there was a conversation between Tippit and the murderer," Wade said. "Tippit got out of his car and started towards the murderer who pulled his pistol and fired three shots into Tippit's body. He then ejected the cartridge hulls, reloaded his revolver and fled."
The Texas School Book Depository is privately owned by Jack C. Cason and O.V. Truly [sic]. Oswald was classified as a part-time employe - a handy man - and earned $1.25 a hour, Cason said. Truly (R.S., the superintendent of the TSBD) said he saw Oswald about the building Friday prior to the shooting and said there was "no indication of nerviousness." The next time he saw Oswald was right after the shooting when he and a Dallas policeman started a check of the building. "The policeman threw a gun into Oswald's stomach and asked me if Oswald belonged there. I told him 'yes' and we both went on up the stairs for a check on the other floors.
Oswald looked a bit startled - just as you or I would if someone suddenly threw a gun on you - but he didn't appear too nervious nor panicky." Truly said he placed "no significance" on Oswald's presence there "until later when we found him missing and I reported it."
The building was built in 1903 and is owned by the D. Harold Byrd Associates. The school depository firm moved in in 1960 and took a 15 year-lease. It was previously occupied by a wholesale grocery firm. Cason said they remodled most of the building, except the sixth floor where Oswald allegedly stalked his victim. On the first floor is the general shipping area and the second is the company's administrative offices. The third and fourth floors are occupied by publishers' manufacturing representatives. The fifth floor and basement are used for filling book orders. Cason said the sixth floor is seldom used. He said an employe might go up there two or three times a week. There are two freight elevators that go to the sixth floor, but a passenger elevator only reaches the fourth floor.
Lee Harvey Oswald, charged with murdering President Kennedy, was interviewed by the FBI here six days before the Friday assassination. But word of the interview with the former defector to Russia was not conveyed to the U.S. Secret Service and Dallas police, reliable soures told The Dallas Morning News Saturday. However, in Washington, a spokesman for the FBI said it was "incorrect" that the FBI had questioned Oswald or had him under surveillance at any time in resent months, the Associated Press reported. The interview reportedly was held Nov. 16 - at a time when the Secret Service and police officials were coordinating security plans for the President's ill-fated Dallas visit. These sources said the Oswald interview added more data to an already "thick file" the FBI has on the 24-year old avowed Marxist who defected to Russia in 1959 and returned in 1962. In retracting his earlier statement about the FBI interview, Curry told gathered reporters: "I do not want to accuse the FBI of withholding information. They have no obligation to help us."

In an article printed in the Early City Edition from the North American Newspaper Alliance, written by Priscilla Johnson on her interview with Oswald in Moscow, she states: "He had no friends in Russia and he didn't speak a word of the language."

THE DALLAS TIMES HERALD, 11/24/63
...as police prepared to transfer Oswald...to the county jail on Sunday, they indicated there was little hope at that point of obtaining a confession of the President's murder. Another employee of the firm (TSBD) was interviewed at length Saturday after appearing voluntarily. Capt. W.P. Gannaway of the Police Department's Special Services Bureau said this man's name has been in the subversive files of the department since 1955. He was not jailed and police said he was not arrested.

UPI reported ambulance driver Aubrey Rike's story: "We had just brought our patient in and were at the emergency desk at the hospital when these two men came in. One was carrying a briefcase and the other a big rifle. It looked like a machine-gun to me. The one with the briefcase yelled, 'We need some stretchers right now.' The one with the gun said, 'All right, everybody clear out of here.' I looked up and the first man I saw coming in was Vice-President Johnson. From the way he was walking and because he was so pale, I thought he had suffered another heart attack...Then they wheeled in this stretcher with a man's body on it. His head was covered, but I recognized Mrs. Kennedy. She was running alongside the stretcher, holding onto it and crying. I knew then the president had been shot."

Fort Worth Star Telegram: "As evidence mounted Saturday night, information from a Dallas couple placed Oswald at the intersection of the building used by the assassin a short time after the fatal shots were fired. Leon Stanfield and his wife, Diane, who had heard an early radio report of the shooting, told police they stopped their car for a red light at the intersection and asked a young man they later identified as Oswald: Is the President dead?' Mrs. Stanfield said the man replied, No, he's going to wait and let us hang him.' Oswald was on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's list as a suspected subversive. Police here said the FBI knew Oswald was in Dallas working in a building that fronted the President's motorcade route. A spokesman for the FBI in Washington, however, denied Saturday that the FBI had questioned Oswald or had him under surveillance at any time in recent months."

Dallas Morning News:
"FEDERAL AGENTS CONTINUE THEIR OSWALD INVESTIGATION": "With the police in possession of evidence they said they were keeping secret, and with the evidence already made public piling up a strong case against Oswald, did Ruby, an unsavory person himself, have some reason of his own for sealing the man's lips in death?...Police Chief Jesse Curry said today that his department would make public the entire file on Oswald unless federal authorities forbid it." "Police say that a search of Oswald's room turned up Communist literature. But landlord Johnson said: We had never seen those books. He must have kept them hidden somewhere.'"

Houston Chronicle reported, in story titled, "Lone Man With Mauser May Have Diverted Flow of History," reported: "The police chief said it was uncertain how Oswald reached the Oak Cliff section of Dallas....A 31-year old Quaker friend [Ruth Paine] of Lee Harvey Oswald says the accused assassin of President Kennedy was in Houston last month looking for a job. She said she could not imagine that Oswald was capable of murdering the President.' The Oswalds had no marital difficulties that Mrs. Paine knew of. She said Oswald lived in Dallas because that was where he had been able to find work. I believe now that the rifle must have been here,' Mrs. Paine said. The police came yesterday (Friday) afternoon. Marina and I were sitting on the sofa crying over the death of the president. This was the first indication we had that Lee was of interest to the police. We looked through various rooms and in the garage. Marina told me she had been looking through some things in the garage and saw something wrapped in a blanket and poked into it. She said she saw something that looked like a rifle stock. When Marina told me that she knew of this, I pointed it out to the policemen. The blanket was still on the floor. They picked it up and it was empty. We went with her then to the police station. They showed her the rifle. She could not identify it as the one she had seen in his possession....Mrs. Paine said she had never heard Oswald speak harshly of either Kennedy or Gov. John Connally. Marina once told me she liked the President very much - thought he was a very fine and wonderful person. She said nothing Lee had ever said was derogatory. He expressed some dissatisfaction with Gen. (Edwin A.) Walker, which would be more in keeping with his left-wing views.'...In early October, she said, she told a neighbor that Oswald was looking for a job. He had sought work in Houston about that time, without success, Mrs. Paine said...Mrs. Paine pointed out that the parade route was announced only the day before the assassination."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The wound in the throat was small and neat. Blood was running out of it. It was running out too fast. The occipito parietal, which is part of the back of the head, had a huge flap...There was a mediastinal wound in connection with the bullet hole in the chest...[Dr Perry] began to massage the chest. He had to do something to stimulate the heart. There was not time to open the chest and take the heart in his hands, so he had to massage on the surface...for ten minutes he massaged the chest. Over in one corner of the room, Dr. Clark kept watching an electrocardiogram for some sign that the massaging was creating action in the President's heart. There was none."

Los Angeles Times reported that Dallas police were positive Oswald was the assassin: "A key piece of evidence revealed Saturday was a photograph found by police that shows Oswald holding a rifle believed to be the murder weapon....Capt Will Fritz...told newsmen that 'the case is cinched.' He said there is no question of Oswald's guilt in the murder of President Kennedy and [Tippit]....Fritz also reported that police have no evidence to indicate that Oswald had any accomplice....Henry Wade declared: 'I think we have enough evidence to convict him and we will be gathering more evidence.'...It was Wade's conclusion that Oswald...had plotted the assassination of the President for nearly two months...Jesse E. Curry suggested that the murder might have been prompted in part by Mr. Kennedy's strong appeal to the Cuban people Monday night to rise up against Castro. Other police suggested that the shooting might have been the product of Oswald's hatred for the President and Connally because he was discharged from the Marine Corps as an 'undesirable.' The suspect apparently acquired skill as a marksman during his service as a Marine. He also had written a threatening letter to Connally when the governor still was serving as Secretary of the Navy....Connally refused to change the designation of Oswald's discharge....paraffin tests had disclosed that both of Oswald's hands had fired a gun...[Marina], speaking through an interpreter, told police that her husband owned a rifle similar to the one used to kill Mr. Kennedy. She said the rifle, which had been purchased in New Orleans, was in the garage of her home...but had disappeared by Friday...". The article recounted the paper-bag/curtain rod story. "The first police officer who dashed into the book depository saw Oswald sitting in a lunch counter....Oswald ran into the rooming house, where his landlady was watching reports of the President's shooting on television, and grabbed a brown coat....Six officers then converged on the theater and dragged the suspect out in a brutal battle...Among the witnesses who were questioned Saturday afternoon was the Negro cab driver who reportedly transported Oswald to his rooming house."

The New York Times reported that investigators were eagerly tracking down the source of Oswald's rifle ammunition: "The assassination, they said, involved excellent marksmanship that could only have come from regular practice recently, and this in turn would have required sizable quantities of the special ammunition." They were soon to be disappointed.

The Dallas Morning News reported: "Pathologists in Washington speculated Saturday that President Kennedy's spinal cord and some vital nerve tracts near the base of his brain may have been badly damaged by the bullet that killed him Friday...from medical details given out at Parkland hospital, pathologists not connected with the case pieced together this admittedly speculative picture of what may have happened. They noted that reports from Dallas said there were two wounds, one in the neck and one in the back of the head. The neck wound was just below the 'Adam's apple,' or larynx. The Washington pathologists said that if the wound was near the Adam's apple...the bullet probably struck the spinal cord...They said a bullet entering the body near the Adam's apple - or leaving it at that point could also plow into vital nerve channels at the base of the brain."

Dallas Morning News reporter John Geddie wrote of an interview he did with Dr. Perry on 11/23; Perry told him, "In the lower portion of [JFK's] neck, right in front, there was a small puncture."