Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

Nov 22 (Friday) Times are Central Standard Time unless indicated

6pm

6:00 PM A paraffin test is done on Oswald.

6:00 PM Zapruder & Schwartz drive to Jamieson to get three copies of film made Wrone, 24; Trask, 112; Schwartz interview

6:00 PM In Howard Brennan's testimony, he said that he was picked up by Secret Service Agent Patterson "at 6 o'clock, at my home, and taken to the Dallas Police Station" Somewhat confusingly, he went on to say that there were "a possibility seven more or less one" in the lineup. Since the lineup positions were permanently numbered from 1 to 6, it was not possible for there to be more than six people on the same lineup. When asked by Mr Belin: "Were they all white, or were there some Negroes in there?" Brennan produced the incredible reply: "I do not remember". He was never asked and did not volunteer the time of the lineup. In his book, Brennan quoted a different time for his journey to City Hall and described how he received a telephone call at home "about 7:15pm." He said that he was asked by FBI Agent Robert C. Lish to "come down to make an identification." He was then driven to City Hall by "one of the FBI (sic) agents who had been watching the house." This man has been identified as Dallas-based Secret Service Agent William H. Patterson. It is unfortunate that there is no further explanation of this odd occurrence and why the Secret Service had apparently mounted a surveillance operation on Brennan's home. In both his book and in his testimony, Brennan described his experience at the lineup. He said that he had entered the room and immediately recognised Oswald as the number two man in "perhaps as many as seven". However, he steadfastly refused to identify him. He explained that he felt personally threatened by the whole situation and as it was obvious that the police had got their man, his identification of Oswald would not make any difference. According to the account in his book, he was driven back to his home, arriving at "about 9:00 in the evening". Brennan lived at 6814 Woodard Street, Urbandale, a section of East Dallas, about six miles by road from City Hall. Forrest Verne Sorrels' Warren Commission testimony describes that it was his idea to get Brennan to a lineup that evening and he had arranged for SA Patterson to bring Brennan to City Hall. He said that Brennan was reluctant to identify Oswald and had said: "I am sorry, but I can't do it ... I just can't be positive. I'm sorry." Like Brennan, Sorrels seemed uncertain of the number of men on the lineup, eventually settling for five, together with Oswald.

Harold Weisberg: "It is true that Brennan "viewed" the lineup, although he appears to be the one person of whose presence the police have no written record." But he did not identify Oswald. Two pages later the Report, in its own way, acknowledges this by admitting "he declined to make a positive identification of Oswald when he first saw him in the police lineup." The fact is that Brennan at no time at the lineup made any identification (3H147-8). (Whitewash)

In Washington, LBJ has his first appointment as president with CIA director John McCone. What they discuss remains unknown. Captain Taswell Shepard, in charge of the briefcase known as the "nuclear football," remembers that the atmosphere in the White House on the evening of the assassination was not one of crisis as LBJ will later assert in order, for instance, to pressure Earl Warren to chair the commission investigating JFK's murder. BT

7:00 PM CST 8:00 PM (EST) Secret Service Report: SS-100-X and SS-679-X arrived at Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force Cargo Plane No. 612373 (C-130-E), which plane was assigned to the 78th Air Transport Squadron from Charleston Air Force Base and piloted by Captain Thomason. The plane was taxied to a point just off of Runway 1028, approximately 100 yards from the Control Tower at Andrews AFB, and a security cordon was placed around the aircraft while these vehicles were being unloaded. On the plane accompanying these vehicles were Special Agents Kinney and Hickey. It was taken to the White House garage and guarded by agents. Special Agent Samuel Kinney, accompanied by Agent Charles Taylor, Jr., drives the vehicle under police escort to the White House Garage. Taylor then specifically writes: "of particular note was the small hole just left of center [of the windshield] from which what appeared to be bullet fragments were removed." This is completely opposite of what will be reported by FBI agents who also inspect the vehicle. A week from now, it will be reported that a windshield is removed from the vehicle and stored in the garage. In March of 64, at the request of the Warren Commission, the Secret Service will send a windshield to the FBI laboratory, which will determine that it contains NO hole but only damage to the outside surface. (The chronology of exactly what happened to the limousine will eventually prove very disturbing to the HSCA. There have been rumors for many years that the Secret Service order up to twenty-one windshields for the limousine soon after the assassination. Dr. Robert B Livingstone, for instance, learns that the Secret Service obtains a dozen windshields from the Ford Motor Company, allegedly for "target practice.") MIDP According to Jim Bishop in The Day Kennedy Was Shot, the limo is inspected by Deputy Chief Paul Paterni of the Secret Service and Floyd Boring, assistant agent-in-charge of the White House detail. With them are Chief Petty Officers William Martinell and Thomas Mills of the White House medical staff. Paterni spots a dull gleam of metal, and calls attention to it. It is in the seat that was occupied earlier in the day by Roy Kellerman. He reaches down and picks up half of a bullet. It is intact, and the lead core is exposed. Moments later, another piece is discovered on the driver's side. When Paterni holds the two parts together, it is obvious that they constitute one bullet. On the rug in the car, they also pick up a three-inch piece of skull and hair.

JD Tippit's widow, Marie, remembers: " The doctor came over and gave me a shot, but I never went to sleep," she says. "The days and weeks and months that followed were just terrible. You keep on going because you have to. You say your prayers and you feed your children and you read your Bible and you live one day at a time, so it gets to the point where you can live a single day without crying. ... I don't see anything wrong with people crying." Mrs. Tippit recalls that Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, calls her and all but apologized for the trip to Texas. She says he tells her that if his brother had not come to Dallas, Officer Tippit would still be alive. "I said, But, you know, they were both doing their jobs. They got killed doing their jobs.' He was being the president, and J.D. was being the policeman he was supposed to be."

5-7pm somewhere in this time period WFAA reporter Victor Robinson saw Ruby try to enter the Robbery & Homicide Bureau on the third floor. Two police officers are guarding the door. Robertson sees Jack Ruby approach and attempt to enter the office. He is prevented from doing so by one of the officers who says: "You can't go in there Jack." Ruby makes a joking remark and heads back down the hall toward the elevator. Posner admits that "at least five witnesses, police and reporters who knew him, reported seeing Ruby on the third floor of the [police] headquarters sometime between 6:00 and 9:00pm." (Case Closed 377) But the WC believed Ruby when he said he wasn't there before 11:15pm.

6:05 PM CST 7:05 PM (EST) LBJ called Harry Truman.

6:07 PM CST 7:07 PM (EST) Ambulance drives away from the front of Bethesda. (Washington Star 11/23/63)

6:07 PM CST 7:07-7:18pm (EST) O'Neill, Kellerman, Sibert and Greer took the casket out of the ambulance. They were met by an Honor Guard, which was flown in by helicopter. (Francis X. O'Neill in 1992 Team Video; Death of a President) James Metzler held open the door as they took it inside. (Livingstone interview) At 7:14pm Gen. Wehle arrived with his aide. (Report concerning events of 11/22 by Escort Officer to the Commanding General)

6:10 PM CST 7:10 PM (EST) LBJ called Eisenhower. Johnson made it clear he would be needing Ike's advice.

6:10 PM The Marsalis City bus driven by Cecil McWatters comes to the bus stop at Dallas police headquarters. Two men get on board and identify themselves as police detectives. They ask McWatters to come inside for questioning. They take him in through the main entrance and up to the third floor. When shown bus transfer No. 4459 McWatters says "yes, that is the transfer I issued because it had my punch mark on it ... I only gave two transfers going through town on that trip (from North Dallas south to Oak Cliff) and that was at the one stop of where I gave the lady and the gentlemen that got off the bus, I issued two transfers. But that was the only two transfers were issued."

6:16 PM (approx) Lt. Day shows the press the Carcano rifle, describing it as "6.5, apparently made in Italy, 1940s." A clock on the wall confirms the time. This is apparently the first time the press is told the rifle is Italian.

6:17 CST 7:17 PM (EST) "Preparation for the autopsy" (Sibert & O'Neill interview with Specter 3/64)

6:20 CST 7:20 PM (EST) LBJ dictated two letters to Kennedy's children in the Executive Office Building in Washington, DC.

6:20 PM Oswald's second interrogation begins. Sometime after 6 PM a paraffin test is made on LHO's hand. LHO says: "What are you trying to do, prove that I fired a gun?" W.E. Barnes conducts the test in Capt. Fritz's office.

6:26 CST 7:26 PM (EST) LBJ calls J Edgar Hoover; Hoover told him the FBI had entered the case even though it didn't have the legal authority to do so. LBJ requested the FBI to make a full investigation and report to him. Up until this moment, the FBI has been controlling the case without legal jurisdiction.

6:30 CST 7:30 PM EST McNamara is at Bethesda. (Manchester)

6:30PM CST 7:30 PM (EST) SS Agent Richard Johnsen of the White House Detail gives bullet CE 399 to SS Chief James Rowley at the Executive Office building in Washington. The bullet has reportedly traveled, in Johnsen's coat pocket, to Washington from Dallas. SS agent Richard Johnsen writes a memo about "the attached expended bullet" found on a stretcher at Parkland 5 minutes before Mrs. Kennedy left the hospital. It was handed to him by O.P. Wright.

Mike Robinson, a fourteen-year-old boy, has watched the motorcade earlier today with another friend whose father works on the Dallas Police force. For most of the afternoon, Mike and his friend have been hanging around the police station ... and have even seen Lee Harvey Oswald being led down a hallway. Mike and his friend then continue to observe the goings-on in the Police station for the rest of the afternoon. They see Bobby Hargis, the motorcycle officer splattered by particulate matter from the president, return to headquarters with blood and brain matter on him and his helmet, and when the realization of events hit Hargis, he violently slams the helmet into a wall and literally goes beserk, requiring a number of other officers to restrain him. Toward evening, Mike tells his friend's father that he needs to use the bathroom. Since the restrooms on the third floor of the police station are now filled by newsmen and other visitors, Mike is taken by his friend's father to a restroom in the lower level of the building where the officers have their locker room. Mike is told that the restroom is just beyond the locker room and his friend's father then leaves him alone. While using the toilet in one of the stalls, Mike says that he hears three men enter the restroom. They are obviously police or police related individuals. Embarrassed, Mike pulls his feet up and out of view so that his stall appears to be empty. He then says he hears the three men whispering angrily to each other. As Mike Robinson reconstructs the statements, their order is "You knew you were supposed to kill Lee," followed by icy silence, then the same voice in the same nasty tone, "then you stupid son of a bitch, you go kill a cop..." At this point another individual enters the room, and the first three fall silent. The newcomer, whom Mike can not identify is wearing blue, "did his business, flushed the urinal, and left." The original three men then conclude, "Lee will have to be killed before they take him to Washington." Mike remains in his stall for a decent span of time after the three men leave the room, the Mike leaves as well. As he passes through the police locker room, one officer, in the process of changing his clothes, stares at Mike, as if to say, "Were you in there when we were?" Having been shown every available photo of officers on the Dallas police force at this time, Mike Robinson believes that the man who stared at him in a menacing way is Roscoe White. Mike finally comes forward with this information in November 1993.

At some point during this early evening, CIA agent Gary Underhill drives out of Washington, DC and heads for New York -- and the home of Robert Fitzsimmons on Long Island. (Fitzsimmons and his wife Charlene, are longtime friends whom Underhill feels he can trust. ) Bob is sleeping; Charlene is awake. Underhill tells Charlene that he fears for his life and plans on leaving the country. "I've got to get out of the country ... This country is too dangerous for me now. I've got to get on a boat ... I'm really afraid for my life." Upon questing by Charlene, Underhill goes on to explain that he has information about the Kennedy assassination and that "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did!" Underhill, emotionally distraught, continues to explain "They've gone mad! They're a bunch of drug runners and gun runners -- a real violence group. God, the CIA is under enough pressure already without that bunch in Southeast Asia ... . I know who they are. That's the problem. They know I know. That's why I'm here." Underhill begs Charlene to help hide him, and she consents to let him stay a few hours until Bob awakens -- then possibly Bob will leave Gary a key while the couple vacations in Spain, a trip they have previously planned on taking with departure, ironically, taking place this very day. "No, that's all right," says Underhill. "Maybe I shouldn't leave the country." Underhill turns toward the door. "I'll be back in a couple of hours." He never does. Underhill returns quietly to Washington and begins investigating JFK's assassination on his own. He mentions his efforts to another friend, Asher Brynes, of The New Republic, but probably no one else. (In six months, Underhill will be dead -- "suicide." He will be shot behind his left ear. Yet, Underhill is right-handed.)

6:30 PM Oswald at lineup for Cecil McWatters, Sam Guinyard, Ted Callaway
Oswald attended a second lineup at 6.30 that same evening. It was held in the same showup room and featured exactly the same four people as for Mrs Markham. They took up the same positions, with Oswald again choosing to stand between Perry and Clark in the number 2 position.
"I didn't shoot anyone" Oswald yelled to reporters in the halls, "I never killed anybody."

6:30 PM Dave Ferrie "said he left his home at 3330 Louisiana Avenue Parkway, New Orleans, on November 22,
1963, roughly at 6:30 PM in his light blue Comet four-door station wagon which he purchased from the Delta Mercury Company in New Orleans within the past month. He stated that CHARLES GRAHAM a saleman at Delta Mercury Company sold the Comet station wagon to him.
FERRIE related that on leaving his home he drove to the homes of ALVIN BEAUBOUEF and MELVIN COFFEY and picked them up in order that they might accompany him on the trip. He stated that at the time he left his home his did not know where he was going. He said the purpose of the trip was to merely relax and at that time he did not know whether he was going "hunting, drinking or driving." FERRIE stated he did not take any firearms with him when he left his home because he thought he might go out of the state of Louisiana and he did not know what the hunting seasons were in other states and he was also concerned about transporting firearms across the state line.
FERRIE said he had been considering for some time the feasabilty and possibility of opening an ice skating rink in New Orleans. He claimed he made a telephone call, possibly from MELVIN COFFEY's home to CHUCK ROLLAND at the Winterland Skating Rink in Houston, Texas. He advised that this call to ROLLAND was charged to either telephone number [...] or [...]. Ferrie claimed he had no prior acquaitance with ROLLAND but had knowledge of the fact that the Winterland Skating Rink was located in Houston."
FERRIE related that he left MELVIN COFFEY's home between 6:30 and 7:00 PM accompanied by BEAUBOUEF and COFFEY and drove to John Paul's Restaurant, Kenner, Louisiana, where they stopped to eat. (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

6:35 PM CST 7:35 PM (EST) Wehle left Bethesda and returned to headquarters of DMW. (Daily Staff Journal/Duty Officer's Log, Military District of Washington (MDW) HQ, 11/22/1963) Humes told the WC and HSCA that the president's body arrived at this time. (HSCA 7 324; H 2 349)

6:37 PM LHO's second lineup is over and he is escorted back to Captain Fritz's office.

6:30-7:45 PM Three copies of Zapruder film produced Wrone, 25; Trask, 114-5; Zavada Study 1

6:40 PM CST 7:40 PM (EST) LBJ meets with Congressional leadership. (Manchester)

6:48 PM AP report: Dallas - Dr. Robert R. Shaw, Connally's attending physician, said the Governor "seems to have been struck by just one bullet, which entered the back of his chest and moved outward, taking out and fragmenting a portion of a rib. "The bullet emerged from his chest and struck his wrist and thigh. …"We know the wound of entrance was along the right shoulder. He was shot from above. …" AP, Raymond Holbrook, 6:48 p.m. CST Shaw had given a press conference at Parkland, describing Connally's condition in carefully chosen words: one bullet went through his chest, fragmenting the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] rib on the right, fractured his wrist, and was spent in his thigh. "The bullet is in the leg, it hasn't been removed. This is a very insignificant factor. It will be removed."

6:48 PM Dallas - The fatal shot came from the second floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository Building, at a 45-degree angle, 100 yards away. Police know this. They found the rifle, partly hidden behind some books. It was a bolt action model, believed to be of Japanese make, with telescopic sights. AP, Raymond Holbrook, 6:48 p.m. CST Correction: "… an old .30 caliber rifle with telescopic sights, etc." [deleting Enfield] AP, 6:49 p.m. CST

6:50 PM CST, 7:50PM EST Hubert Humphrey tells LBJ he will serve in any job. (Manchester)

Just before 7 p.m., Captain Will Fritz said Oswald had been identified from a police lineup as the man who shot patrolman J. D. Tippit. He said an eyewitness made the identification.

7pm

7:00 PM Marina and Mrs. Paine are brought to police headquarters; shown the alleged assassination rifle, Marina said it was "like" her husband's but she was "not sure." Detectives Senkel and Adamcik take affidavit from Marina Oswald, assisted by Ruth Paine and Mr. J.A. Brourantus. (H 1 164-65; H 4 211; H 24 219).

Raymond Marcus, first generation Warren Commission critic: "By the evening of November 22, 1963, I found myself being drawn into the case. The government was saying there was only one assassin; that there was no conspiracy. It was obvious that even if this subsequently turned out to be true, it could not have been known to be true at that time." (Kelin, Praise from a Future Generation)

7:00 PM "Shortly after 7pm" Fritz signed a complaint against Oswald charging him with Tippit's death.

7:00 PM CST 8:00 PM (EST) Paul O'Connor told Lifton and the HSCA that the body came in at this time, and that he entered the information in the autopsy log. (HSCA 7 15) Dr. John Ebersole also said the body arrived at this time. (Philadelphia Inquirer 3/10/1978) O'Connor would later admit he could be wrong about the time. (Livingstone interview)

7:00 PM CST 8:00 PM (EST) Ceremonial casket team carries JFK's casket into the morgue, according to their report.

7:00 PM CST 8:00 PM (EST) after x-rays and photos were taken, the autopsy began on Kennedy. (WC; Manchester) The authorization for the autopsy, signed by RFK, included a space for any limitations to be made on the scope of the examination; none were listed by the Kennedys. (Post-Mortem) After examination and photos, Humes stated that the first incision was made at about 8 or 8:15pm (HSCA 7 11; H 2 349). The Sibert-O'Neill report said the same thing.
In Washington, Dr. James J. Humes arrives at the morgue in Bethesda hospital to conduct an autopsy on the body of JFK. " I was summoned from my home late in afternoon of that day by the Surgeon General of the Navy and the Commanding officer of the Naval Medical Center, and the Commanding Officer of the the Naval Medical School, and much to my surprise, was told that the body of the late President was being brought to our laboratories and that I was to examine the President and ascertain the cause of death ... I was in the morgue from 7:30 in the evening until 5:30 in the morning. I never left the room."

Dr. Humes is in his scrubs in the hospital's new morgue, built only four months earlier. He has selected Dr. Boswell as his assistant. Dr. Humes notices an unknown man carrying a large, old-fashioned "Speed graphic" camera. The pathologist tells the unknown cameraman, "Get out!" Then Humes asks, "Who is in charge here?" A man in full military dress answers, "I am. Who wants to know?" Humes says that the man was "some general representing the military section of the District of Columbia. I told him what my assignment was and asked him about the chap with the camera. Well, seconds later, this chap with the camera was sent away." Dr. Finck, an Army doctor and the only forensic pathologist involved with the autopsy, will testify that they are "told not to" trace the path of the bullet through JFK's body, and therefore did not.
"They had heard reports of Mac Perry's medical briefing for the press, and to their dismay they had discovered that all evidence of what was being called an entrance wound in the throat had been removed by Perry's tracheotomy. Unlike the physicians at Parkland, they had turned the President over and seen the smaller hole in the back of his neck. They were positive that Perry had seen an exit wound. The deleterious effects of confusion were already evident. Commander James J. Humes, Bethesda's chief of pathology, telephoned Perry in Dallas shortly after midnight, and clinical photographs were taken to satisfy all the Texas doctors who had been in Trauma Room No. 1." (William Manchester, Death of a President)

Autopsy on J. D. Tippit is completed.

This evening, Santos Trafficante meets Frank Ragano and his nineteen-year-old fiancee, Nancy, at Tampa, Florida's International Inn. He has invited them to supper and meets them in a jubilant mood. He embraces both of them warmly. "Our problems are over," he tells Ragano. "I hope Jimmy [Hoffa] is happy now. We will build hotels again. We'll get back into Cuba now." Once at the table, Trafficante launches into a tirade against the slain president, then proposes a toast. Turning to Ragano and his future bride, he raises a glass and says: "To your health and John Kennedy's death." Nancy, a college student, is horrified at what Trafficante has just said. She has only just come from her campus where the students are still crying over what has happened in Dallas. Unable to take it, she runs out of the restaurant, leaving Frank and Santos alone.

Also by this evening, Guy Banister and his investigator Jack Martin have spent hours drinking in New Orleans. Banister accuses Martin of going through his confidential files, then beats him over the head with a .357 Magnum revolver. The fracas starts, according to Martin, when he asks Banister: "What're you going to do, kill me like you all did Kennedy?"

7:10 PM The New Orleans FBI Bureau chief, Harry Maynor, contacts SAC Shanklin in Dallas "to determine if he could supply information that might make it unnecessary to determine the whereabouts of all Klan members, etc. and to determine if sufficient information was then available to definitely tie Oswald into the assassination of the President." Shanklin replies that "Oswald was probably a good suspect but they have been unable to develop information connecting the rifle with Oswald." The Fourth Decade/May 1996

LBJ - Pres. Dwight Eisenhower, 7:10 PM phone call

7:10 PM Oswald is arraigned and charged with Tippit's murder. (WC) Record of Oswald's arraignment by Judge David Johnston for the murder of Tippit read, "Lee Harvey Oswald...in the County of Dallas and State of Texas, did then and there unlawfully, voluntarily and with malice aforethought kill J.D. Tippit by shooting him with a gun." It was signed by Capt Fritz and Bill Alexander. (Johnston Exhibit 3, H 20 319) Oswald complained, "I insist upon my constitutional rights...The way you are treating me, I might as well be in Russia...I was not granted my request to put on a jacket similar to those worn by other individuals in some previous lineups."
Mr. BALL. Did Oswald make any reply to Judge Johnston?
Mr. FRITZ. He said a lot of sarcastic things to him.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. Irritable, I can't remember all the things that he said. He was that way at each arraignment. He said little sarcastic things, some of the things were a little impudent things.

7:15 PM CST 8:15 PM (EST) Humes made the Y-incision in Kennedy's body. (Sibert & O'Neill report)
FBI agents James W. Sibert and Francis X. O'Neill note that the first incision is made on the body of JFK, thus officially beginning the Bethesda autopsy. (This time notation is seriously questioned by some researchers.) Sibert and O'Neill also indicate in their report that some type of surgery has already been performed on JFK's head area. No surgery on his head has been performed at Parkland Hospital.

Two medical technicians present during the autopsy state that a bullet rolls out from the area of the President's back when the body is removed from the casket prior to the autopsy. One of the med-techs says the bullet rolls out from the back, while the other says it rolls out from the sheets. A third med-tech from the autopsy says he remembers personnel at the autopsy talking that night about a bullet that has fallen from the sheets. Admiral David P. Osborne, who is in attendance at the autopsy, reports that a bullet rolls out from the "clothing" that is wrapped around the President's body, and that he actually handles the missile. The HSCA will assert that Osborne "thought" he saw a bullet roll out, but that he later will say he wasn't sure when told no one else at the autopsy recalls such an event. Admiral Osborne will tell researcher and author David Lifton that he and the HSCA disagree over the matter. Says Osborne, "... I told them [HSCA investigators] that this was the way I remembered it, and they said: Well, it must be wrong, because the Secret Service testified that the bullet was found in the hospital in Parkland, and brought back to Washington.' And so I said: Well, if that's true, then they brought it back to the morgue, because I had that bullet in my hand, and looked at it.'" According to the official record of the chain of possession of the bullet that was found at Parkland Hospital, that missile is never taken to Bethesda Hospital.

Dr. John Walsh, Jackie Kennedy's obstetrician, arrives at Bethesda and quickly notices the unmistakable signs of nervous exhaustion in the widow. Jackie says "Maybe you could give me something so I could have a little nap." Walsh proceeds to inject her with 100 milligrams of Visatril. The dose has no effect. Walsh thinks "I might just as well have given her a shot of Coca-Cola."

Of the wounds observed on JFK's body, the following people report seeing an entry wound in the LEFT TEMPLE: Physicians McClelland, Jenkins, Giesecke, the priest Oscar Huber, photographers Altgens and Similas, and Hugh Huggins (aka Hugh Howell) - RFK's emissary to the autopsy. One more additional witness is Lito Porto, a neurosurgery resident under Kemp Clark.

7:15 PM The DPD had the Irving police arrest Wesley Frazier and take him into custody. Frazier was then picked up by the DPD at around 7:15 PM.

7:15 PM AP report: Dallas - Mrs. John Connally ... told the story of what happened through an aide, Julian Reid. Mrs. Connally ... said the President ... and Mrs. Kennedy … were chatting animatedly about the tremendous reception that the chief executive had received in downtown Dallas. Suddenly, she said, there was a shot ... and the President crumpled back in his seat. AP, 7:15 p.m. CST

7:16 PM FBI memo states that "Clark Anderson has called from Mexico City and advised that the U.S. Ambassador feels there is probably more to this matter than a "lone nut" shooting the President and orders the CIA to make available the photos believed to be taken at Mexico City of Oswald to the FBI at Dallas. Anderson advised SA Eldon Rudd is proceeding to Dallas in the Naval Attache Plane, C- 47. It is due to arrive Love Field at approximately 2 AM, 11/23/63. Anderson stated that the photos are deep snow stuff' and requested that they not be made available outside the FBI."

7:24 PM AP corrected report: " ... from the fifth floor of the six-story Texas etc." [correcting floor] AP 7:24 p.m. CST

7:30 PM Detective Roy Standifer, an acquaintance of Jack Ruby will later testify that they exchange greetings in the third floor hallway of the Dallas police building during this time period.

7:30PM CST 8:30 PM EST From Dr Pierre Finck's 2/1/1965 letter:
Commander Humes, MC, USN, Director of Laboratories, Naval Medical School,
National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, called me at home by
telephone on 22 Nov 1963, 2000 hours. He told me to go immediately to the Naval
Hospital. Brigadier General Blumberg, MC, USA, Director of the Armed Forces
Institute of Pathology, Washington, D. C., had given my name.
I arrived at the Naval Hospital at 2030 hours. I saw a helicopter on the ground.
A seaman escorted me to the autopsy room, guarded outside by military personnel
and inside by Agents of the U. S. Secret Service. Rear Admiral Galloway,
Commanding the Naval Center, Cdr Humes and Cdr Boswell, MC; USN, Chief of
Pathology, showed me the wounds in the President's head. The brain, the heart
and the lungs had been removed before my arrival. X ray films of the head and
chest had been taken.
Also present in the autopsy room were : Rear Admiral Kenney, Surgeon General of
the Navy; Rear Admiral Burkley, White House Physician; one Army Major General; a
Brigadier General, Air Force Aid to the President; Capt Stover, MC, USN,
Commanding the Naval Medical School; Capt Osborne, MC, USN, Chief of Surgery;
Cdr Ebersole, MC, USN, a radiologist; a Navy photographer, Navy officers and
enlisted men; Agents of the U. S. Secret Service and Federal Bureau of
Investigation ( FBI ).

7:30 PM AP report - Dallas - Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas police homicide department said it had been established the man [Oswald] had been in the building from which the shots that felled the President came -- at the time they were fired. AP, 7:30 p.m. CST

7:32 PM AP correction: "officers ... described it as a bolt-action, 6.5 mm weapon, apparently of Italian make, with a telescopic sight." AP 7:32 p.m. CST

At some point this evening Oswald was videotaped by reporters as he was brought down a hallway to a room for more questioning: "These people have given me a hearing without legal representation or anything." When asked again if he shot the President, he answered, "I didn't shoot anybody, no sir."

During another trip down the hallway, Oswald is asked, "Did you fire that rifle?" He replies, "I don't know what dispatches you people have been given, but I emphatically deny these charges," and is then quickly hustled through a doorway. He can then dimly be heard saying, "I have nothing against anybody, I have not committed any acts of violence."

At some point this evening, Jim Murray takes a photo of Oswald from the top of a cabinet.

7:37 PM AP report: Washington - President Kennedy apparently underwent a small surgical slit in his neck in the futile attempt to save his life. A medical report from Dallas said a "tracheotomy" was performed on the President - while he still was in moribund condition but still alive - in order to assist his breathing. A tracheotomy involves making a two-inch vertical cut through the neck tissue to lay open the trachea, or windpipe, in the event that air passage is wholly or partially blocked due to some obstruction in the larynx immediately above it. A wound of the larynx or nearby neck structures could cause such an obstruction. The open slit, into which a small tube is inserted allows air to reach the lungs from outside. The emergency measure, is-designed to prevent asphyxiation, or at least to help breathing if the trachea is only partly blocked. As a life-saving measure, such an operation can be performed without anesthesia. A report from Dallas said the President was given an anesthetic. AP, 7:37 p.m. EST

7:40 PM Oswald's third interrogation session begins. No notes or recordings are made. Oswald is still not represented by council. Six Secret Service agents and four FBI agents who are present at the interrogations of Oswald will never be questioned by the Warren Commission. Jesse Curry will later testify before the WC: "It seems to me we were violating every principle of interrogation, the method by which we had to interrogate."
Mr. RANKIN - Will you explain to the Commission what you mean by that?
Mr. CURRY - Ordinarily an interrogator in interrogating a suspect will have him in a quiet room alone or perhaps with one person there.
Mr. RANKIN - Is that your regular practice?
Mr. CURRY - That is the regular practice.
Mr. RANKIN - Tell us how this was done?
Mr. CURRY - This we had representatives from the Secret Service, we had representatives from the FBI, we had representatives from the Ranger Force, and they were--and then one or two detectives from the homicide bureau. This was, well, it was just against all principles of good interrogation practice.
Mr. RANKIN - By representatives can you tell us how many were from each of these agencies that you describe?
Mr. CURRY - I can't be sure. I recall I believe two from the FBI, one or two, Inspector Kelley was there from Secret Service, and I believe another one of his men was there. There was one, I recall seeing one man from the Rangers. I don't recall who he was. I just remember now that there was one. Captain Fritz, and one or two of his detectives--this was in a small office.
Mr. RANKIN - Did you do anything about this when you found out there were so many, did you give any instructions about it?
Mr. CURRY - No; I didn't. This was an unusual case. In fact, I had received a call from the FBI requesting that they have a representative from there in the hearing room. And we were trying to cooperate with all agencies concerned in this, and I called Captain Fritz and asked him to permit a representative of the FBI to come in.

Tonight, RFK phones Julius Draznin in Chicago, an expert on union corruption for the National Labor Relations Board, and asks him to look into whether there was any Mafia involvement in the killing of JFK. (Brothers)

7:45 PM Shanklin finds out about the note from Oswald and confronts Hosty with it. Shanklin and Howe worried how Hoover would react. (Assignment Oswald 29)

7:50 PM Oswald lineup for Jeannette and Virginia Davis:
Barbara Jeanette Davis and her 16-year old sister-in-law, Virginia Ruth Davis, lived in separate apartments at 400 East 10th Street, the house right on the corner of 10th and Patton. Neither of them claimed to have seen the actual shooting of Tippit. They did, however, see a man running from the approximate area of the crime and they later retrieved spent cartridge cases which he had emptied from a revolver. Together, they attended an identity lineup at City Hall at 7.55pm on the 22nd. The lineup again had Oswald in the no. 2 position but this time his companions were two of the remand prisoners, Richard Borchgardt and Ellis Brazel (at positions 1 and 3 respectively), with Jail Clerk Don Ables again at no. 4. The procedure was identical to the two previous lineups. The Warren Report deals with the result of this lineup in a very cold and matter-of-fact way. It states that the ladies "viewed a group of four men in a lineup and each one picked Oswald as the man who crossed their lawn while emptying his pistol.". A few lines later, we read that the two women "were sitting alongside one another when they made their positive identification of Oswald. Each woman whispered Oswald's number to the detective. Each testified that she was the first to make the identification." I find it difficult to imagine two witnesses sitting next to one another at an identity parade and casually indicating their opinions by whispering to a detective. To me that almost defies belief.
Oswald: "I have been dressed differently than the other three...Don't you know the difference? I still have on the same clothes I was arrested in. The other two were prisoners, already in jail."

Seth Kantor heard him yell "I am only a patsy" as he was taken through the hall. (Kantor Exhibit 3 366; this was also recorded by a television camera)

7:50 PM CST, 8:50 PM (EST) At the White House, SS chief Rowley turns a bullet over to FBI agent Elmer Todd. They sign a receipt. The time of the transfer is 8:50 PM on the 22nd. (Hunt, "The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet") Yet as John Hunt shows, agent Robert Frazier at the FBI lab enters the stretcher bullet's arrival into his notes at 7:30! (ibid) As Hunt notes, if Frazier and Todd can both tell time, something is really wrong here. Frazier has received a bullet that Todd has not given him yet. But it's even worse. For in an FBI document it says that Todd's initials are on the bullet. (CE 2011, at WC Vol. 24, p. 412) Yet as Hunt has amply demonstrated, they are not there. (Hunt, "Phantom Identification of the Magic Bullet") In other words, no one who carried this bullet in transit for law enforcement purposes--Johnsen, Rowley, Todd--put their initials on it. When that is what they are trained to do.
Later on, J. Edgar Hoover realizes he has a problem. So he writes up a document saying that agent Bardwell Odum visited Parkland, and Wright and Tomlinson did identify the bullet in June of 1964. (Aguilar, p. 282)
But later, when visited by Gary Aguilar and Josiah Thompson, this is exposed as another in the long line of Hoover generated lies in this case. For Odum did no such thing, and he says he would have recalled doing so since he and Wright were friends. (ibid, p. 284)
When Wright composes his affidavit for the WC, incredibly, he leaves out his co-discovery of the bullet and his giving it to the Secret Service. (Lifton, ibid) Even though Johnsen recorded this and its in the volumes. (Thompson, p. 155) Since he was a former law enforcement officer, to leave something like that out, he was probably directed to. When it comes time to write the Warren Report, Wright's name is not in it. And there is no evidence Arlen Specter interviewed him. In late 1966, we find out why Specter avoided him. Thompson interviews him and he rejects CE 399 as the bullet he gave Johnsen. Twice. (Thompson, p.175) Interestingly, in Reclaiming History, Vincent Bugliosi leaves this powerful incident out of his discussion of the issue. (Bugliosi, End Notes, pgs. 426-27, 544-45)
John Hunt: Among other artifacts I examined that day was the original envelope in which the CE-399 "Magic Bullet" [AKA FBI Q1] had been conveyed from the White House to the FBI Laboratory. In doing so, I discovered that the FBI agent who took possession of the bullet at the White House, Special Agent (SA) Elmer Lee Todd preserved the chain of custody by noting the time and circumstances under which he took possession of the bullet. Todd noted that he had:
Received from Chief Rowley, USSS, 8:50 PM.11-22-63.
E. L. Todd.
Figure 1. The envelope in which FBI SA E. L. Todd delivered a bullet to the FBI Lab on 11/22/63. [Author's computer scan.]
On the day JFK died, Todd took possession of a bullet at the White House and brought it to the FBI Laboratory. There, he turned the bullet over to the man who had been appointed Lead FBI Examiner in the JFK assassination investigation, SA Robert A. Frazier of the Firearms and Toolmarks Division. Frazier later identified CE-399 as the same bullet Todd handed to him on November 22, 1963 during his Warren Commission testimony. The historic CE-399 bullet introduced into evidence before the Warren Commission is not the same bullet SA Todd handled on the day of the assassination. Unfortunately, whatever bullet Todd actually handled that day has apparently been lost to history.

7:55 PM Oswald interrogation by Fritz. "I think I have talked long enough...I am waiting for someone to come forward and give me legal assistance...It wasn't actually true as to how I got home. I took a bus, but due to a traffic jam, I left the bus and got a taxicab, by which means I actually arrive at my residence."

8pm

Sometime this evening, Curry is interviewed on camera in the hallway of the police department. He thinks they have the right man, and there are no other suspects.

8:00 PM EST LBJ phone call to Allen Hoover (Herbert Hoover's son). The former President could not hear well enough to talk on the phone. LBJ: "I just wanted to talk to him and to tell him what a terrible day this has been. He has been my counsel many years."

8:00 PM Lt. Day begins checking the rifle for prints.
Dallas Police Lieutenant J. C. Day testifies that, by this time, he has completed taking photographs of the partial prints on the exterior of the rifle found in the TSBD. Day has reportedly lifted a palm print from the underside of the gun barrel before surrendering the rifle to the FBI in about four hours from now. This "lifted" print will not be released to the FBI until Nov. 29th - seven days from now - and will be identified as that of Lee Harvey Oswald's right palm. When he releases the gun to the FBI tonight, Day will testify that "the print on the gun ... still remained on there ... There were traces of ridges still on the gun barrel." In fact, when the rifle arrives at the FBI Laboratory, there is no trace whatever of a print or of the lifting of the print. Sylvia Meagher points out that "it is almost impossible to understand how the same fingerprint powder and the dried ridges could have disappeared from the gun barrel under the stock, which provided secure protection against any disturbance."
Lt. Day said he didn't take any photographs of the palm print because just as he was about to do so he received a call from Chief Curry's office telling him to stop all work on the rifle so that FBI could finish what he had started. In his WC testimony, Day said this call came at around 8:00 or 8:30 P.M. However, Lt. Day, by his own admission, took another photograph of the rifle half an hour to an hour later, at 9:00 or 9:30 (4 H 273). Why, then, didn't he take a picture of the print on the barrel?
Why didn't Lt. Day forward the lift along with the rifle? When asked about this by the FBI, Day, incredibly, said he didn't forward the lift because he wanted to analyze it further to compare it to Oswald's palm print. This seems to contradict Day's WC statement that he didn't photograph the print on the barrel because he was allegedly told to stop all work on the rifle at 8:00 or 8:30. How was the FBI supposed to finish what Day had started without the lift itself? If Lt. Day didn't photograph the print on the barrel because he felt he had to strictly comply with the alleged order from the chief's office, why would he have presumed to withhold the lift from the FBI so he could analyze it further?

8:00 PM CST 9:00 PM (EST) LBJ called Arthur Goldberg:
LBJ: I want you to be thinking about what I ought to do to try to bring all these elements together and unite the country to maintain and preserve our system in the world, because if it starts falling to pieces - and some of the extremists are going to be proceeding on the wrong assumption - why, we could deteriorate pretty quick.
Goldberg: It won't. I have no doubt about that.

Mr. Dulles. The only question I have in mind is as to what took place as far as Mr. Paine is concerned on the night of the assassination. Were you in the police station?
Mr. Paine. We went down to the police and stayed there until about 8 or 9 o'clock. Then Marguerite came home with us and spent the night.
Mr. Dulles. You didn't see Lee Harvey at that time, did you?
Mr. Paine. They asked me and I declined to see him at that time. I changed my mind. When they immediately asked me, I declined. I did not know what he would ask me, so I did not see him.
Mr. Dulles. You did not see him?
Mr. Paine. No.
In 1993, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the JFK assassination, Michael Paine told CBS that he had seen Oswald that night:
"At the police station when I saw him later on that night, he was proud of what he'd done. He felt that he'd be recognized now as somebody who did something."
The chance for Mr. Paine to tell the Commission he had seen a "proud" Oswald came up several times. There is this exchange with Wesley Liebeler:
Mr. Liebeler. Can you recall any conversations that you had with Oswald that you think would be helpful for us to know other than the ones you have already mentioned?
Mr. Paine. I don't recall one now.

An excerpt from the manuscript of a book George de Mohrenschildt was writing at the time of his death in March 1977: "Alston Boyd and I drove to my house overlooking Port-au-Prince in the area called Tonton Lyle [Haiti] and a block away from the presidential retreat, then we ate and took a siesta, like any self-respecting Haitian. Then later the afternoon we dressed and went to the reception at the Lebanese Embassy. The usually animated streets of the capital seemed deserted. "I feel trouble in the air," said my wife Jeann. The air was balmy, the soldiers and the tontons macoutes were absent and we could not hear any shots. We greeted the Lebanese Ambassador and joined the crowd. George Morel, head of the Pan-American Airways in Haiti came up to us immediately. "Didn't you know your president was killed?" He asked in a strained voice. At first we thought he was talking about the President of Haiti, Docteur Francois Duvalier who was my nominal boss in Haiti. Seeing our blank expression, Morel explained. "President Kennedy was assassinated today. I hoped that it wouldn't happen in Texas and especially in Dallas. But Morel summarily explained the situation-and it was in Dallas. Gloomily we filed out of the Lebanese Embassy, where people did not seem to be too badly concerned about President Kennedy's death, got in the car and drove away."

RFK, among his many telephone calls from the seventeenth floor suite at Bethesda, will call the White House ordering that JFK's personal belongings be removed from his White House bedroom in order to spare Jackie's feelings when she returns there. Dr. George Burkley is banished from the morgue shortly after JFK's autopsy begins, so he joins the Kennedy group in the suite. In 1982, Burkley will tell researcher Henry Hurt that JFK was the target of a conspiracy. He will refuse to elaborate. (Brothers)

Between 8 and 9 o'clock tonight in Texas, Waggoner Carr (Attorney General of the State of Texas) will recall: "I received a long-distance telephone call from Washington from someone in the White House. I can't for the life of me remember who it was. A rumor had been heard here that there was going to be an allegation in the indictment against Oswald connecting the assassination with an international conspiracy, and the inquiry was made whether I had any knowledge of it, and I told him I had no knowledge of it. As a matter of fact, I hadn't been in Dallas since the assassination and was not there at the time of the assassination. So the request was made of me to contact Mr. [Henry] Wade to find out if that allegation was in the indictment. I received the definite impression that the concern of the caller was that because of the emotion or the high tension that existed at that time that someone might thoughtlessly place in the indictment such an allegation without having the proof of such a conspiracy. So I did call Mr. Wade from my home, when I received the call, and he told me ... that he had no knowledge of anyone desiring to have that or planning to have that in the indictment; that it would be surplusage, it was not necessary to allege it, and that it would not be in there, but that he would doublecheck it to be sure. And then I called back, and--as I recall I did--and informed the White House participant in the conversation of what Mr. Wade had said, and that was all of it."

Manchester described the scene at the Bethesda Naval Hospital where Mrs. Kennedy was waiting: "Beckoning Jackie aside, Robert Kennedy told her, They think they've found the man who did it. He says he's a Communist."
"She stared. Oh my God, she thought, but that's absurd. Later, she would think about hatred and the highly-charged atmosphere of Dallas, but at the moment she just felt sickened. It was like existentialism, entirely purposeless, and, she thought, it even robs his death of any meaning. "She returned to her mother. He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights,' she said. 'It's -- it had to be some silly little Communist.'"

8-9:00 PM Zapruder & Schwartz return to Kodak with original and three copies. Copies developed and perforated with nos. 0185, 0186 and 0187 Trask, 115-6; Wrone, 26; Zavada Study 1

8:10 PM CST 9:10 PM (EST) LBJ calls Democratic party treasurer Richard Maguire.

8:30 PM Posner believes that Ruby left the police station at about this time, and made several calls (to Ralph Paul, Hyman Ruby, and two sisters, Marion and Ann) from his apartment around 9:00pm. (FBI report, CD 1193)

8:40 PM The FBI distributed the following teletype to all its field offices: "All offices immediately contact all informants, security, racial and criminal, as well as other sources, for information bearing on assassination of President Kennedy. All offices immediately establish whereabouts of bombing suspects, all known Klan and hate group members, known racial extremists, and any other individuals who on the basis of information available in your files may possibly have been involved."

8:55 PM Oswald is given fingerprint, ID and paraffin tests in Fritz's office. (H 4 218) "I will not sign the fingerprint card until I talk to my attorney. [His name is on the card anyway.]...What are you trying to prove with this paraffin test, that I fired a gun?...You are wasting your time. I don't know anything about what you are accusing me."
Detectives J. B. Hicks and Robert Studebaker take Lee Harvey Oswald to the Homicide and Robbery Office for fingerprinting. A few minutes later, Detective Pete Barnes comes in and the three crime lab men make paraffin casts of Oswald's hands and right cheek. The tests come back positive for his hands and negative for his right cheek, indicating that Lee Harvey Oswald may have fired a pistol but not a rifle.

This evening, a man identifying himself as Jim Rizzuto calls a New York City radio station to report that LHO has been seen in Greenwich village in 1962 in the company of Steve L'Eandes, a Nazi sympathizer and right-wing agitator from Wiggins, Mississippi. The FBI will ultimately determine that Rizzuto's story is a hoax and that Rizzuto's real name is Stephen Harris Landesberg. "Rizzuto" claims that he served in the Marine Corps with both Lee Oswald and L'Eandes. "Rizzuto" goes on to claim that he served in the Marine Corps with both LHO and L'Eandes in the Marine Corps at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, during the summer of 1956. (Landesberg is eventually charged with providing false information to the FBI and is committed by Federal Judge John Cannella to 10 days of psychiatric observation at Bellevue Hospital.)

8:47 PM CST 9:47 PM (EST) LBJ arrives at The Elms and Lady Bird meets him at the front door. In the terrace room, LBJ lifts a glass of orange soda to a photograph of Sam Rayburn and says: "Mr. Speaker, I wish you were here tonight." (LB)

9pm

9:00 PM Buell Wesley Frazier and Minnie Randle are brought to police headquarters to give affidavits.

9:00 PM EST LBJ phone call - Justice Arthur Goldberg. He asks for Goldberg's help in holding the country together from the "extremes" that might start working to pull the system apart.

9:00 PM New Orleans: Dave Ferrie "said that at approximately 9:00 PM or shortly after 9:00 PM, November 22, 1963, he, BEAUBOUEF and COFFEY left John Paul's Restaurant to go to Houston, Texas. He informed that the route traveled was through Baton Rouge to Lafayette, Louisiana and through Lake Charles, Louisiana to Houston, Texas." (FBI interview 11/25/1963) From New Orleans, David Ferrie and two young male friends, set off by car on a seven-hour drive through a storm to Houston, Texas -- a distance of 364 miles. The purpose of the trip, as Ferrie will later explain, is to look over an ice skating rink and to do some skating. Ferrie describes the trip as a "whim." While at the rink, Ferrie never puts on a pair of skates. He stays instead beside a public telephone for two hours, until he receives a call.

9:00 PM According to the account in his book, Howard Brennan was driven back to his home, arriving at "about 9:00 in the evening" 47. Brennan lived at 6814 Woodard Street, Urbandale, a section of East Dallas, about six miles by road from City Hall.

9:00 PM Zapruder & Schwartz leave Kodak, and drive to DPD HQ in search of Sorrels. Sorrels asks them to take 2 copies to agent Max Phillips at Secret Service office on Ervay Street Horne, 1199; Trask, 119-120; Wrone, 26-7; Schwartz/SFM interview

9:00-9:30 PM Lt. Day took a photo of the rifle.

9:10 PM LHO is formally advised that he has been charged with the murder of Patrolman J. D. Tippit.

9:10 PM EST LBJ phone call - Richard Maguire, 9:10 PM transcript

9:10 PM CST 10:10 PM EST Secret Service Report: At 10:10 P.M., Deputy Chief Paterni, ASAIC Boring, and representatives from Dr. Burkley's office at the White House, William Martinell and Thomas Mills, inspected SS-100-X.

9:30 PM New Orleans FBI chief, Harry Maynor, contacts Alan Belmont at FBI headquarters about how much he should continue to persist in efforts to locate Klan members who might possibly have been involved with the assassination. Belmont gives a somewhat ambivalent answer, being "somewhat reluctant" to authorize direct interviews with such suspects, unless their "whereabouts" can not be determined by other means, and unless such interviews can be done without "any repercussions from such contact." It is perhaps worthy to note that J. Edgar Hoover has already identified LHO as being the sole assassination suspect [lone nut]. There is great reluctance on the part of agents to go against Hoover's assumption. Any leads or revelations to the contrary can now only embarrass the FBI Director.

9:30 PM JFK's personal files and cases had been sealed by this time and were moved the next day to the Executive Office Building. By Saturday afternoon, nearly all of JFK's Oval Office belongings and furnishings had been removed. (The Making of the President 1964 p15)

Jack Ruby has the Nichols parking garage attendant sign a receipt that Karen Carlin was given $5 at 9:30 PM.

9:30PM CST 10:30 PM (EST) Maj. O'Malley called Maj. Pearson and reported that they would be leaving Bethesda at approximately 01:00 hours for the White House. (Daily Staff Journal/Duty Officer's Log, Military District of Washington (MDW) HQ, 11/22/1963)

9:55 PM SS Agent Max D. Phillips wrote a memo to James Rowley in Washington, enclosing one of the copies of the Zapruder film; he wrote, "According to Mr. Zapruder, the position of the assassin was behind Mr. Zapruder."
Phillips sends one copy to Secret Service Chief Rowley in Washington, and retains other copy (0186) for Sorrels CD87, 66; Wrone, 28, 279-280; Thompson "Six Seconds…", 311-2

9:57 PM AP report: Dallas - The shots that killed the President and wounded Texas' Gov. John Connally came from a pre-selected spot, a 5th floor window looking downward some 100 yards from a spot the President's car would pass. AP, 9:57 p.m. CST

10pm

10:00 PM The FBI has by this time traced the Carcano rifle to a Chicago mail-order house. (WC) They located the firm's executives, and ordered them to open the offices and allow the FBI to go through the company's files. They did not leave until 5am the next morning. "During the evening of November 22, 1963, a review of the records of Crescent Firearms revealed that the firm had shipped an Italian carbine, serial number C2766, to Klein's Sporting Goods Co., of Chicago, Ill. After searching their records from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. the officers of Klein's discovered that a rifle bearing serial number C2766 had been shipped to one A. Hidell, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex., on March 20, 1963. (See Waldman Exhibit No. 7, p. 120.) According to its microfilm records, Klein's received an order for a rifle on March 13, 1963, on a coupon clipped from the February 1963 issue of the American Rifleman magazine. The order coupon was signed, in hand printing, "A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas." (See Commission Exhibit No. 773, p. 120.)

Around 10:00 PM CST, the FBI sent another teletype to its field offices, this one even more instructive: "The Bureau is conducting an investigation to determine who is responsible for the assassination. You are therefore instructed to follow and resolve all allegations pertaining to the assassination. This matter is of utmost urgency and should be handled accordingly keeping the Bureau and Dallas, the office of origin, apprised fully of all developments."

10:00-11:00 PM CST (11pm-Midnight (EST)): the President's autopsy ended. (Francis X. O'Neill in 1992 Team Video, H 2 374)

After 10pm Ruby called the police and asked Richard Sims if they wanted any sandwiches brought over.

10:00 PM Jack Ruby visits a Dallas synagogue for religious services.

Around this time, Abraham Zapruder and Erwin Swartz deliver one copy of the film to the Secret Service office in Dallas with the understanding that it is to be sent immediately to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., by courier jet plane. Erwin Swartz says that he personally delivers the original film to Stolley at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas on either November 26 or 27.

10:30 PM Ruby leaves his synagogue, where he had wept openly. (Wills and Demaris, Esquire) He then went to Phil's Delicatessen, near his Vegas Club. He bought sandwiches and sodas. (H 5 187-8) At the deli, he talked to a group of students about the tragedy of the assassination (Marguerite Vea Riegler, CD 4; Rita Leslie Siberman, CD 856; Robert Louis Sindelar, CD 856; Dennis Patrick Martin, CD 856).

10:30 PM A Cubana Airlines flight from Mexico City to Cuba has been delayed for four hours and ten minutes, awaiting a passenger. The airfield at Mexico City has been particularly clogged with Cuban diplomatic personnel. The passenger arrives and boards the private twin-engine plane. He gets onto the flight directly without having to go through customs. Once aboard, he enters the cockpit of the aircraft and remains there during the entire flight to Havana. No other passengers see him well enough to be able later to identify him. He is believed to be one Miguel Casas Saez. According to the CIA, Casas was born in Cuba, is either twenty-one or twenty-seven, 5'5" in height, weighs 155 lbs. , speaks the Russian language and is an ardent admirer of Raul Castro, the brother of the Cuban premier. He is also believed to be part of the Cuban intelligence service. Using the name of Angel Dominiguez Martinez, Casas is believed to have entered the USA in early November in Miami. (One source in a CIA document reports that Casas was on "a sabotage and espionage mission" in the United States. Further CIA sources in Cuba report that Casas was in Dallas, Texas on the day of the assassination.) The HSCA will later conclude the following: It had been alleged that the flight was delayed 5 hours, awaiting the arrival at 9:30 p.m. of a private twin-engined aircraft. The aircraft was supposed to have deposited an unidentified passenger who boarded the Cubans flight without clearing customs and traveled to Havana in the pilot's cabin. The Senate committee reported that the Cubana flight departed at 10 p.m. This committee checked the times of key events that night by reviewing extensive investigative agency documents. It found the following facts: The Cubana flight was on the ground in Mexico City for a total of only about 4 hours and 10 minutes and thus could not have been delayed five hours. The Cubana flight had departed for Havana at 8:30 p.m., about an hour before the arrival of the private aircraft reportedly carrying a mysterious passenger, so he could not have taken the flight. The committee found that extensive records of flight arrivals and departures at the Mexico City airport were available and deemed it doubtful that the alleged transfer of a passenger from a private aircraft to the Cubana flight could have gone unnoticed, had it occurred. The committee concluded, therefore, that the transfer did not occur.

10:30 PM Zapruder and Schwartz both reach their homes Wrone, 31; Trask, 126-7; Schwartz & Reis SFM interviews

10:45 CST 11:45 PM (EST) Maj. O'Malley called and said that they would be leaving Bethesda at approx. 03:00 hours. (Daily Staff Journal/Duty Officer's Log, Military District of Washington (MDW) HQ, 11/22/1963)

10:45 PM (some sources say 11/23): Oswald, who has been placed in a cell on the fifth floor of the Dallas City Hall, places a long distance call to Raleigh, North Carolina.
One of the two John Hurts served in U.S. Military Intelligence during World War II. Professor Blakey, Chief Counsel of Congress' Assassinations Committee, will eventually conclude: "It was an outgoing call, and therefore I consider it very troublesome material. The direction in which it went was deeply disturbing."
Victor Marchetti, author of THE CIA AND THE CULT OF INTELLIGENCE, alleges that Oswald's attempted call to Raleigh is an effort to contact a "fake cutout." He explains that all intelligence agents work through "cutouts", middlemen who are called if an agent is in a scrape. Therefore, according to Marchetti, O

[Tracy Riddle]

Nov 23 1963 (Saturday)

"Beginning November 22, 1963, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted approximately 25,000 interviews and reinterviews of persons having information of possible relevance to the investigation and by September 11, 1964, submitted over 2,300 reports totaling approximately 25,400 pages to the Commission. During the same period the Secret Service conducted approximately 1,550 interviews and submitted 800 reports totaling some 4,500 pages. Because of the diligence, cooperation, and facilities of Federal investigative agencies, it was unnecessary for the Commission to employ investigators other than the members of the Commission's legal staff." (Warren Report)

12:01 AM Secret Service Report regarding Presidential Limo in White House garage: At 12:01 A.M., November 23, 1963, the security detail was relieved by Special Agents Paraschos and Kennedy and White House Policeman J. W. Edwards.

12:05 AM AP report - Dallas - A murder charge was filed against Oswald shortly before midnight, some 10 hours after he had been arrested on another charge - of slaying a policeman who stopped him for questioning on an Oak Cliff street. AP, 12:05 acs, Raymond Holbrook

12:10 AM Oswald is taken to the lineup room again, accompanied by all the detectives in the Homicide & Robbery division as well as numerous other detectives and officers; he remains there only five minutes.

12:23 AM Oswald placed in a fifth-floor maximum-security jail cell.

12:35 AM Oswald taken out of his cell for another set of fingerprint tests and photographs. He was removed by Lt. Knight, Sgt. Warren and a jailer (H 4 248).
Mr. BALL. There is one problem here in your records that we asked about. Where was Oswald between 12:35 a.m., and 1:10 a.m., on Saturday, November 23, that is right after midnight?
Mr. FRITZ. Right after midnight.
Mr. BALL. The jailer's records show he was checked out.
Mr. FRITZ. I think I know where he was right after midnight. I think he went to the identification bureau to be fingerprinted and have his picture made.

At a motel in Irving, Texas (about fifteen miles away from Dallas) Marina and Marguerite Oswald seek refuge from the hundreds of reporters assigned to the story.

1:00 AM Ruby spoke with KLIF radio employee Danny McCurdy; Ruby bragged about closing his clubs for the weekend even though it would cost him as much as $1500. But he wanted to show respect to JFK. (H 15 529)

EST? Secret Service Report: At 1:00 A.M., as per arrangements by Deputy Chief Paterni, a team of FBI Agents examined the Presidential limousine. This team was comprised of Orrin H. Bartlett, Charles L. Killian, Cortlandt Cunningham, Robert A. Frazier, and Walter E. Thomas. Mr. Orin Bartlett drove the Presidential vehicle out of the bin. The team of FBI Agents, assisted by the Secret Service Agents on duty, removed the leatherette convertible top and the plexi-glass bubbletop; also the molding strips that secure the floor matting, and the rear seat. What appeared to be bullet fragments were removed from the windshield and the floor rug in the rear of the car. The two blankets on the left and right rear doors were removed, inspected, and returned to the vehicle. The trunk of the vehicle was opened and the contents examined, and nothing was removed. A meticulous examination was made of the back seat to the car and the floor rug, and no evidence was found. In addition, of particular note was the small hole just to the left of center in the windshield from which what appeared to be bullet fragments were removed. The team of agents also noted that the chrome molding strip above the windshield, inside the car, just right of center, was dented. The FBI Agents stated that this dent was made by the bullet fragment which was found imbedded in the front cushion. During the course of this examination, a number of color photos were taken by this FBI <"FBI" inserted in longhand with an arrow> search team. They concluded their examination at 4:30 A.M. and the President's car was reassembled and put back in the storage bin.
We have the Secret Service log for the White House garage on November 22-23, 1963. It shows that at 1:05 AM on the morning of November 23rd, four FBI agents arrived to conduct a forensic examination of the limousine. They were Special Agents Orrin H. Bartlett, Cortlandt Cunningham, Robert Frazier and Walter Thomas. The log shows they left at 4:35 AM. In the three and one-half hours this team of agents spent examining the limousine, they found two 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Cacano bullet fragments in the front seat, other smaller fragments in the carpet under the left jump seat and found widespread dispersion of blood and brain debris extending from the hood ornament at the front of the limousine to the rear of the trunk. Robert Frazier testified at the Clay Shaw trial as follows:
The first examination which was made was of the exterior portions of the vehicle. We examined the outer surface of the hood, the grille area, both front fender areas, all the metal work on the outside of the automobile. The examination was for two purposes, to determine whether there were any bullets or other projectile impact areas on the outside of the car and also to note the presence of the foreign material deposited on it. We found blood and tissue all over the outside areas of the vehicle from the hood ornament over the complete area of the hood, on the outside of the windshield, also on the inside surface of the windshield, and all over the entire exterior portion of the car, that is, the side rails down both sides of the car, and of course considerable quantities inside the car and on the trunk lid area. We found however, no bullet holes or projectile marks. (http://www.jfk-online.com/rfraziershaw.html)
Although Frazier and his team found no evidence of a whole bullet impact, they did find two possible fragment impacts. First, they noted a dent in the rear-facing chrome strip above the windshield (Commission Exhibit 349). Second, they noted an impact area and lead smear on the inside of the windshield on the driver's side (Commission Exhibit 350). Frazier took notes as he examined the limousine early on the morning of November 23rd. John Hunt has been kind enough to provide copies of these notes obtained while doing research in the Archives.

1:10 AM Oswald was placed back in his jail cell.

1:18 AM AP: Dallas - Police claim that a search of Oswald's room turned up Communist literature. But landlord [A. C.] Johnson said: "We had never seen those books. He must have kept them hidden somewhere." AP, 1:18 p.m. CST

1:30 AM Oswald was removed from his cell again by Sgt. Warren and taken to the ID room.

1:30 AM "[William] Alexander participated in a midnight raid [11/22/1963] on the house of J.R. Molina...a Communist who was on the Dallas police's intelligence watch list, and it was originally thought he might be connected to Oswald. 'We did a deluxe search job on Molina's house,' recalls Alexander. 'He was polite and very scared. But there was nothing between him and Oswald.' Earlier than night, Alexander decided to 'shake things up a bit' and spoke to a friend at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Joe Goulden, and told him that he intended to indict Oswald for killing the President 'in furtherance of a Communist conspiracy.' As he told the author, 'The Inquirer got 200,000 papers on the street before Wade called me up and screamed, 'What the hell are you trying to do, start World War III?'...(Posner, Case Closed 348) Molina was a bookeeper at the TSBD.

1:35 AM (approx): Lee Harvey Oswald is formally arraigned and charged with murdering President John F. Kennedy. (WR) OSWALD is awakened in his cell and brought before the judge. Judge J. P. Johnson pens across the bottom of statement charging OSWALD: "1:35 AM 11-23-63. Bond hearing -- defendant remanded to Sheriff, Dallas County, Texas. No Bond -- Capital offense." (OSWALD had the legal right to be transferred "forthwith.")
Oswald snapped, "Well, sir, I guess this is the trial...I want to contact my lawyer, Mr Abt, in New York City."
OSWALD listens, and says: "I don't know what you're talking about." Johnson tells him: "You will be given the opportunity to contact the lawyer of your choice." OSWALD has been asking for John Abt of New York almost all day. OSWALD adds that if Abt is unavailable he will accept the services of a Dallas American Civil Liberties Union lawyer. OSWALD is irritated. He has pleaded for legal assistance for the past eight hours. He has begged for it at a press conference. He has phoned for it. He is still unrepresented. Judge Johnson will swear before the Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy that he apprised OSWALD of his constitutional right "again." Chief Jesse Curry, a witness, will eventually swear: "I do not recall whether he did or not." The American Civil Liberties Union has earlier contacted the police in an attempt to protect OSWALD's rights. They have been told by the police that OSWALD has declined the services of a lawyer. OSWALD is returned to his jail cell on the 5th floor in F block where he goes to sleep.
There is controversy over whether Oswald was actually arraigned or not; a 11/25/1963 FBI report states "No arraignment on the murder charge in connection with the death of President Kennedy was held, in as much as such arraignment was not necessary in view of the previous charges filed against Oswald and for which he was arraigned." (CD5-400) Fritz, Curry and Johnston are certain that he was charged at 1:35am, but Officer J.B. Hicks, who was on duty in that office until after 2:00am is certain Oswald was not arraigned at 1:35. Another FBI report not declassified until 1975 says that Oswald was never arraigned for Kennedy's death. (CD 1084A-11). Curry said that Oswald's reaction at the arraignment was "typical," that is, he denied having done it. Johnston says, "Oswald was very conceited. He said sarcastically, 'I guess this is the trial' and denied everything." (H 4 221, 155; H 15 507) WFAA-TV on 11/23 reported that Oswald said at the arraingment that the charge "was ridiculous."

Unknown time and day: As he is being brought out through the hallway, Oswald says, "I don't know what this is all about." Reporters ask him if he killed the President. "No sir, I didn't." Asked if he was in the TSBD that day. Oswald replies, "I work in that building naturally, if I work in that building, yes sir." When asked if he killed the president, he replied, "No, they're taking me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. I'm just a patsy!"

1:45 AM (EST) Sibert and O'Neil bring metal fragments to FBI lab.

1:45 AM Oswald returned to his cell. Or this was the time Ruby showed up at KLIF.

1:45 AM AP report - Dallas -- main story of the day on Oswald: Lee Harvey Oswald, charged with murdering President Kennedy , insisted during hours of questioning last night that he was not the assassin. With his jaw thrust out and his dark eyes intent and piercing, Oswald kept telling newsmen: "I did not kill President Kennedy. I did not kill anyone. I don't know what this is all about." "I don't think he is a nut," District Attorney Henry Wade told newsmen. I think he is sane. I don't mean that he is any PhD, but he answers questions very easily and he is sharp." AP, 1:45 a.m. CST

2:00 AM FBI agent Wally Heitman went to the Naval air base outside of Dallas to meet with FBI agent Eldon Rudd, who was also an assistant legal attache at the US embassy in Mexico City. Rudd was flown in by a Navy jet fighter and delivered to Heitman the CIA photo of the man at the Embassy, believed at this time to be Oswald.

2:00 AM Ruby left KLIF to drive to Times Herald Building. On the way stopped and talked to "Harry Carlson" (Harry Olsen) a Dallas Police officer and the young lady he was going with called Kathy Kay (who worked at Carousel. Ruby said he never mentioned this before because officer had marital problems and it was a secret that he went with Kathy Kay. Ruby said he didn't want the officer to get into trouble. (5 H 191) NOTE: Olsen was divorced first wife in October '63 (14 H 627) (Ruby's statement about Harry and Kathy Kay was made after Jack's trial.)
Ruby's WC testimony: "His name is Harry Carlson. Her name is Kathy Kay. And they talked and they carried on, and they thought I was the greatest guy in the world, and he stated they should cut this guy [Oswald] inch by inch into ribbons, and so on. And she said, 'Well, if he was in England, they would drag him through the streets and would have hung him.' I forget what she said. I left them after a long delay. They kept me from leaving. They were constantly talking and were in a pretty dramatic mood. They were crying and carrying on. I went to the building of the Times Herald."

2:00 AM (EST) Sibert and O'Neil teletype autopsy results to Dallas.

2:29 AM AP report: Oswald described himself as a member of the Fair Play for Cuba committee. In Buffalo, NY., V. T. Lee, national director of the committee said: "We have never issued a charter in that area [New Orleans]. I don't know if Oswald is a member. He could be. There is no one, however, named Oswald who is an official of the committee anywhere in the United States."

2:30 AM (approx) On his way to the Times-Herald, Ruby encountered Kathy Kay Coleman and Officer Olsen. He didn't mention this meeting until after his trial. Kathy Kay (Kay Helen Olsen), a 27-year-old Carousel Club stripper, born in Britain, saw Ruby on the night of the assassination for one hour outside a parking garage at Jackson and Field Streets in Dallas. At the time she was going out with police officer Harry Olsen. Kay remarked to Ruby that in England they would have hung Oswald. Saturday night, again accompanied by Harry, she saw Ruby outside the club. The Olsens were married in either 12/1963 or 1/1964 and moved to California soon after.

2:47 AM (CST) 3:47 (EST) The CIA's Mexico Station sends a plane with the Oswald embassy photos and transcripts to Dallas, where it lands at this time at Love Field. (John Newman) or this was at 4am

3:00 AM Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, J. Edgar Hoover's number-three man writes in his book, Hoover's FBI, that he sees the Zapruder film on television at this time while he is at FBI headquarters. This statement cannot be true because the film is not shown on television until years later. It is assumed that he is actually watching a projection on a screen of a copy of the actual film. DeLoach further writes of the "jerky image of John Kennedy pitching suddenly forward." The Zapruder film in existence today clearly shows the president's head and body being thrust suddenly backward. Note that Dan Rather will also report seeing JFK pitch forward when he views the film later this morning.

3:30 AM At the Navy Hospital, the body of JFK is now ready for burial. It has been prepared by employees of Gawler's funeral home. The morticians are certain that the only scalp missing on the corpse is in the back of the head. It is just about the size of an orange. Eventually, in at least one autopsy photograph, the scalp will appear in place - seemingly intact. Tom Robinson, one of the morticians, will also eventually say that there is a hole in JFK's right forehead that he filled with wax. He will also testify that there are three small holes in JFK's cheek, which he also plugged to prevent leakage of the embalming fluid. The description of the hole in the back of JFK's head will be repeated by John Van Hoesen, another of the undertakers, who will say that the hole was the size of an orange in "... the centerline of the back of the head, and its location was in the upper posterior of the skull. "... at or just below the cowlick area." Hurchel Jacks, Texas State Highway Patrolman who served as driver of the Vice-President's car in the motorcade, said in his written report of November 28, 1963, "Before the President's body was covered it appeared that the bullet had struck him above the right ear or near the temple."
In an interview conducted on May 26, 1992 by Certified Legal Investigator Joe West, Thomas Evan Robison, one of the JFK embalmers, describes JFK's wounds and partial embalming process as follows:
Wounds:
Large gaping hole in back of head. Patched by placing piece of rubber.....over it.
Thinks skull full of Plaster of Paris.
Smaller wound in right temple. Crescent shaped, flapped down (3")
(approx 2) Small sharpnel wounds in face. Packed with wax.
Wound in back (5 to six inches) below shoulder. To the right of the back bone.
Adrenlin gland and brain removed.
Other organs removed and then put back.
No swelling or discoloration to face.
(Died instantly)

3:40 AM (EST) President's body is taken to the East Room of the White House. The body had originally been scheduled to arrive at 10:00pm the previous night. Dr Burkley explained, "It's taking longer than expected." (CRENSHAW 149)

3:55 AM (EST) the body was taken to the White House. (Report to Commanding General, MDW)

3:56 AM Pontiac ambulance leaves Bethesda for the White House with coffin containing body of JFK.

4:00 AM (EST) the body arrived at the White House. (L.H. Frost, Commandant of Potomac River to MDW HQ report 12/20/1963) Other sources say it arrived at 4:30am (Report to Commanding General, MDW).

4:00 AM Shortly before this (Dallas time) Ruby arrived at the Times-Herald offices.

4:00 AM A Navy plane carrying a top-secret package from Mexico City to Dallas lands about 4 a.m. EST. The package contains information concerning OSWALD's visit to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City. Former FBI Agent Eldon Rudd, later a Republican congressman from Arizona, was aboard the plane. Years later, he will recall: "There were no tapes to my knowledge, I brought the pictures up (from Mexico) and it was my understanding that it was just pictures.'' (Associated Press/ 1999)

4:00 AM (approx) Chicago mail order house told police that the rifle had been ordered 3/1963 by "A. Hidel" for shipment to PO Box 2915, Dallas. (WC) After searching their records from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. the officers of Klein's discover that a rifle bearing serial number C2766 had been shipped to one A. Hidell, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex., on March 20, 1963. According to its microfilm records, Klein's received an order for a rifle on March 13, 1963, on a coupon clipped from the February 1963 issue of the American Rifleman magazine. The order coupon was signed, in hand printing, "A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas." It was sent in an envelope bearing the same name and return address in handwriting. Document examiners for the Treasury Department and the FBI will testify unequivocally that the bold printing on the face of the mail-order coupon was in the hand printing of Lee Harvey Oswald and that the writing on the envelope was also his. W.C.

4:00 AM (approx) The process of preparing the President's body for burial is completed. (EST? WC)

4:21 AM AP report - Dallas -- Oswald swore allegiance to the Soviet Union four years ago and tried to renounce his American citizenship. He said he is now a member of Fair Play for Cuba. Police termed him arrogant. AP, 4:24 a.m. CST, Frank Cormier

4:30 AM (approx) Ruby left the Times-Herald.

4:30 AM Dave Ferrie, Beauboeuf and Coffey check in at the Alamotel in Houston. "FERRIE claimed they arrived in Houston between 4:30 and 5:30 AM and went directly to the Alamotel located on South Main Street, six to ten blocks south of the Shamrock Hilton Hotel, where they checked into Room 19. He stated that the three of them registered on the same card at the motel. After registering they retired for the night." (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

4:34 AM Coffin containing body of JFK enters the White House. At one point, Bobby Kennedy opens the casket and looks at the body. He remarks that it doesn't look like his brother anymore and reconfirms the family's desire to have the casket remain closed. William Manchester will eventually write: "His eyes full, the Attorney General turned to Bill Walton and whispered, Please look, I want to know what you think.' Walton looked as long as he could, with a growing sense of outrage. He said to Bob, You mustn't keep it open. It has no resemblance to the President. It's a wax dummy ... Don't do it'." Arthur Schlesinger will eventually say: "It is appalling,... At first glance it seemed all right, but I am nearsighted. When I came closer it looked less and less like him." And also according to Manchester, Jacqueline Kennedy says, "It wasn't Jack. It was like something you would see at Madame Tussaud's."

RFK finally takes a sleeping pill and goes to the Lincoln bedroom to try to get some sleep. Once Charles Spalding closes the bedroom door, he hears RFK sob: "Why, God? Why, God? Why?" (Brothers)

5:00 AM Klein's identifies Lee Harvey Oswald as the buyer of the C2766 rifle.

5:00 AM (approx) Ruby, Crafard and Senator take photos of the IMPEACH EARL WARREN sign (WC)

Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry advises Gordon Shanklin, head of the FBI office in Dallas, that he has received information from an individual in North Carolina as to the location of the purchase of the rifle used in the assassination. An hour from now, FBI assistant Director A. H. Belmont advises Shanklin to tell Chief Curry that the sale of the gun has been traced to Chicago. There is no more discussion about information received from North Carolina. H&L

5:30 AM Ruby went to the Southland Hotel's coffee shop. (WC)

6:00 AM (approx) Ruby and Senator go back to their apartment to get some sleep. (WC)

WFAA-TV Dallas coverage (apparently this morning): A video clip of someone climbing through a 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] floor window on the west side of the TSBD, just above the annex building, is misidentified as the sniper's window. Again it is said that the shells were found on the 5[SUP]th[/SUP] floor, and the assassin fled to the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] floor where the rifle was hidden. On Texas Theater arrest: somebody reported that a man had gone inside the theater with a weapon. "Oswald lives in Fort Worth, there's been no explanation of what he was doing in Dallas today." Alyea film shows Capt Fritz and Lt. Day closely examining the found rifle. James Chaney is interviewed at DPD hallway: he though the first shot was a backfire, and looked back to his left, and he saw JFK look "back over his left shoulder." The second shot happened and he saw JFK "struck in the face." Chaney said the shots came "back over my right shoulder." ABC News' Bill Lord follows up by saying that Chaney's uniform was splattered with blood. Mary Moorman show recalling that 3 or 4 shots "real close together" and felt she was in the line of fire. She said she had turned her Polaroid over to the FBI. DPD would not say whether prints were found on the rifle. News is still reporting Tippit being shot in the Texas Theater. Gerry Hill interviewed on LHO capture: describes Oswald as being 5' 10" tall. Aired a TV statement (apparently from 11/22) blaming the assassination on the "irrational act of a single man…can only be the act of a deranged mind." Oswald was kept in an isolated cell overnight and slept little; he was watched constantly by a guard. At one point he talked to the guard for about an hour, about his family and about Russia ("His description of Russia was complimentary.") Bob Clark interviews Asst Dallas Chief M.W. Stevenson, who says there are no other suspects. Rifle has been sent to FBI, doesn't know if any prints were found on it. Bob Walker says Oswald is an admitted Castro supporter. Interview with Paul Bentley on crutches about LHO arrest: his gun was not necessarily being aimed, but was being pulled up; he and McDonald got hold of it and one of them got his finger between the hammer and firing pin. Oswald struggled like a "wild man." Bentley said Oswald only said, "This is it. It's all over with now," and was very belligerant and arrogant. Interview with DPD Glenn King: LHO seems mentally competent. Bob Clark mentions that Oswald told reporters he wanted a lawyer named Abt. WFAA interviews officers Bentley and McDonald; McDonald went in by the rear exit. As he approached, LHO jumped up, held his hands up and said, "This is it," then hit McDonald. He pulled his gun out of his waist, and was raising it up so that the hammer scratched McDonald's face. He snapped the trigger and it misfired. Otherwise Oswald was very calm and cool. Bentley arrived when the scuffle was in progress. He sprained his ankle climbing over the seats. Both men said they had no suspicion that LHO was involved with killing JFK at this point. When LHO refused to give his name, Bentley had to check his wallet; he found "Dallas public library card, he had other identification such as driver's license, I believe, credit cards, things like that." Henry Wade tells reporters he does not expect to have to call Jackie Kennedy or Gov. Connally at Oswald's trial, says LHO has "above average" intelligence. Louis Nichols is interviewed in the hallway, says LHO wanted Abt or an ACLU lawyer, but if he couldn't get them he would settle for one from the Dallas Bar. Nichols described him as calm and rational.

6:30 AM Shanklin tells his Dallas FBI agents that they do not have authority over this crime, but Washington wants them to do some fact-finding. He also said that Washington "does not want any of you to ask questions about the Soviet aspect of this case. Washington does not want to upset the public." (Assignment Oswald 36)

6:30 AM (EST) FBI agent Drain arrives in Washington with the rifle.

Shortly after Lyndon Johnson awakens this morning, one of his first official acts as President is to fire Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, President Kennedy's personal secretary, informing her that she is to have her desk cleared out by 9:00 AM. He then orders President Kennedy's personal effects to be removed from the White House -- including Kennedy's famous rocking chair in the Oval Office. Once this is completed, Johnson has a gold framed portrait of himself hung in the White House. He declares next Monday (Nov. 25) as a national day of mourning for JFK.

In today's Dallas Morning News there is a story quoting Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade as saying that preliminary reports indicate more than one person was involved in the shooting of JFK. Cliff Carter, LBJ's aide calls Wade three times to say that "LBJ feels that any word of a conspiracy - some plot by foreign nations - to kill President Kennedy would shake our nation to its foundation."

Also today, New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews calls his secretary from his hospital bed to say that he will be representing OSWALD. Andrews says he was asked to take the case by a man named Clay Bertrand

7:00 AM LBJ calls Pierre Salinger and says: "Pierre, I know how much President Kennedy meant to you, and I know how you must feel now. But I want you to stay on the job. I need you more than he ever did." Salinger tells LBJ that he will stay.

Gene Daniels, Black Star news photographer, on the morning of 11/23/1963 went to Oswald's rooming house on North Beckley and talked to a lady whose name he did not remember. She and her husband were putting up curtain rods in Oswald's room; she explained that they were putting them back up after newsmen the night before had made a mess. Daniels photographed them nailing the curtain rods into position. (Letter from Daniels to Howard Roffman 3/1970). Wesley Frazier had filed his affidavit about the curtain-rod story the day before. At 10:30 on 11/23 Capt Fritz asked Oswald if he had been carrying curtain rods to work, but he denied it.

7:30 AM An FBI report states that on this date, and at this time: "A snub nose thirty-eight caliber Smith and Wessen, Serial number 893265, with the word "England" on the cylinder is found in a brown paper sack in the general area of where the assassination took place." An FBI document released in 1978 will report that on 11/23/63 "Patrolman J. Raz brought into the Homicide and Robbery bureau, Dallas PD, a brown paper sack which contained a snub-nosed .38 caliber Smith and Wesson, SN 893265 .. had been found near the curb at the corner of Ross and Lamar Streets and was turned in by one Willie Flat" This location is several blocks north of Dealey Plaza. By the end of the month, records will indicate that the FBI is carrying on an investigation of the handgun, but there is no record as to what is finally concluded about this mysterious weapon. 11/29/63: URGENT TO DIRECTOR [J. Edgar Hoover] AND SAC, BOSTON [unknown] FROM SAC, DALLAS [J. Gordon Shanklin] ON THE MORNING OF NOVEMBER TWENTY-THREE, LAST, A SNUB NOSE THIRTY EIGHT CALIBER SMITH AND WESSON, SERIAL NUMBER EIGHT NINE THREE TWO SIX FIVE [893265], WITH THE WORD QUOTE ENGLAND UNQUOTE ON THE CYLINDER WAS FOUND AT APPROXIMATELY SEVEN THIRTY AM., IN A BROWN PAPER BAG IN THE GENERAL AREA OF WHERE THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY TOOK PLACE." This weapon is the same type weapon which has been allegedly taken from accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald at the time of his arrest in the Texas Theater. The serial numbers of the two guns are the only basic difference. The so-called Oswald pistol bears the serial number V510210.

7:30 AM Oswald awakens to eat breakfast.

8:00 AM Stolley arrives in Zapruder's office Wrone, 32; Trask, 127. This morning, two FBI agents view 16mm copy of film at Kodak for nearly an hour Trask, 120; Wrone, 26; Zavada Study 1
Unknown time today: Secret Service Insp. Kelley loans Zapruder copy #0186 to FBI's James Bookhout, who gives it to SA Robert Barrett, who gives it to SAC Shanklin Trask, 120; Wrone, 30

8:00 AM RFK takes a solitary walk around the South Grounds of the White House. RK

Richard B. Stolley, representing Life magazine, meets with Abraham Zapruder to view his film. Secret Service agents are also present during the showing. BT

Secret Service Report: At 8:00 A.M. on November 23, the security detail was relieved by Special Agents Hancock and Davis and White House Policeman J. C. Rowe. SA Gonzalez relieved SA Hancock at Noon and at 4:00 P.M., Messrs, Fox and Norton, Protective Research Section, photographed the Presidential limousine. At 4:30 P.M., SA Gonzalez contacted SAIC Bouck and Deputy Chief Paterni and, at their request, the flowers, torn pieces of paper, and other miscellaneous debris were removed from the floor of the car (SS-100-X) and taken to the Washington Field Office. At that time, the special detail securing the Presidential limousine and the follow-up car was discontinued.

8:30 AM Crafard wakes Ruby up. (WC)

9:00 AM Zapruder shows 8mm copy of film to Stolley and others in his office. Zapruder sells print rights to Life Wrone, 33; Trask, 128-9; Schwartz SFM interview; Horne 1200

9:00 AM (EST) FBI receives JFK clothing from Secret Service.

LBJ arrives at the White House. He goes at once to The Situation Room for his first intelligence briefing. This morning, LBJ received a briefing from John McCone, and met with Eisenhower. Walter Heller told LBJ this evening that Kennedy had wanted to emphasize his anti-poverty program in 1964. Heller may have been exaggerating, but Johnson responded favorably.

CIA Director John McCone talks to RFK. McCone is scheduled to meet with LBJ early this afternoon. US

The Zapruder Film is now shown at Abraham Zapruders office by the Secret Service to a small press corps including Dan Rather of CBS and reps from the Saturday Evening Post and the Associated Press.

Two reporters from Life Magazine knock on Mrs. Ruth Paine's door. After Marguerite Oswald, Marina, and their children dress, they are taken to the Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas.

Ted Kennedy tells his father, Joseph Sr., the news of JFK's death

RFK finds Evelyn Lincoln in distress outside of the Oval Office, now occupied by LBJ. Johnson had told her, "I have a meeting at 9:30 and would like you to clear your things out of your office by then so my own girls can come in." Johnson extended Lincoln's period of grace until noon. She was out by 11:30. (RFK and His Times, Schlesinger)

Also, at this time on Nov. 23rd, an unidentified man shows up at the Crescent City Garage in New Orleans. Adrian Alba partly owns and operates the place. On this particular morning, Alba is not present. The stranger tells an employee that he is one of Alba's "very best friends" and that he has come to borrow some of Alba's gun magazines which are displayed in the garage's waiting room. The stranger is admitted without further questioning and spends a few minutes browsing over the magazines. The employee, thinking the man is his boss's friend, pays no more attention to him. Lee Harvey Oswald is known to have spent hours browsing through Alba's gun magazines while working in New Orleans at the William B. Reily coffee company, located next door. Alba testifies that Oswald was talkative on the subject of guns and questioned him about the relative merits of various weapons. Alba further testifies that Oswald's special interest seemed to be in how one goes about ordering guns and how long it takes to get them delivered by mail order. Ultimately, investigators find two mail-order coupons for the very rifle supposedly in Oswald's possession in Dallas. In at least one case, the jagged edges of the coupon taken from Oswald's effects will perfectly match the space where a coupon has been ripped out of one of the magazines found in Adrian Alba's waiting room. It is an ad for, among other items, the infamous Mannlicher-Carcano, being offered by Klein's Sporting goods in Chicago -- the company identified as the supplier of the alleged assassination rifle. FBI laboratory examination of the JUNE 1963 issue of the "American Rifleman" found in the garage yields Oswald's thumb print. This same magazine has a Klein's ad coupon torn from it -- a coupon that is found among Oswald's possessions. All this doubtlessly constitutes prime evidence, EXCEPT that records later produced by Klein's will show that Oswald ordered his rifle from the FEBRUARY issue of "American Rifleman." This fact, plus the knowledge of the presence of the stranger in the garage waiting room seriously pollutes the evidence gathered here.

9:15 AM The border with Mexico was reopened. (L.A. Times)

9:20 AM The alarming implications of the CIA's Mexico City case against Oswald had to be faced on the morning after the assassination by the new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson. As a result of the public disclosure under the JFK Act of LBJ's taped conversations, we now know how Johnson was informed of the CIA setup. Michael Beschloss, editor of the Johnson tapes, tells us that at 9:20 A.M. on November 23, 1963, Johnson was briefed by CIA director John McCone about (in Beschloss' words) "information on foreign connections to the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, which suggested to LBJ that Kennedy may have been murdered by an international conspiracy. " (Michael R. Beschloss, editor, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-64 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1 997), p. 22.
It is not certain whether the conspiracy McCone referred to on November 23 involved Cuba or the Soviet Union. Beschloss's account implies that McCone's "information" concerned Oswald's alleged visit in September 1963 to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City:
"A CIA memo written that day reported that Oswald had visited Mexico City in September and talked to a Soviet vice consul whom the CIA knew as a KGB expert in assassination and sabotage. The memo warned that if Oswald had indeed been part of a foreign conspiracy, he might be killed before he could reveal it to U.S. authorities."

10:00 AM Richard B. Stolley of Life magazine negotiates with Abraham Zapruder to purchase print rights to the film for $50,000. Zapruder turns "original" over to Stolley. Life will later purchase all rights for a total of $150,000. BT

F. Vaughn Ferguson of the Ford Motor Company arrives at the White House garage in response to a telephone call to his home from the Secret Service. The "bubble top" is in a stall in the garage with two Secret Service agents guarding it. Ferguson is permitted to see only the windshield of the limo. "Examination of the windshield disclosed no perforation, but substantial cracks radiating a couple of inches from the center of the windshield at a point directly beneath the mirror." Ferguson is told to make arrangements to replace the windshield. MIDP

10:00 AM Agents Hosty and Joe Abernathy went to Ruth Paine's house to interview her.

Jesse Curry gives several televised interviews to reporters at various times while walking through the hallway.
First interview: They don't know how LHO got from Dealey Plaza to Oak Cliff; doesn't "want to elaborate on all the evidence that has been uncovered." "Very arrogant" during questioning. "He just denies everything." "I haven't personally been interrogating him." "I think this is the man who killed the President." "Found a great amount of communist literature, communist books" in his boarding house, enough to almost fill a large box. Paraffin tests: "I understand that it was positive." They're talking to another TSDB employee who is in their subversive files who had attended meetings of "left wing groups." Asked again about how he got to Oak Cliff: "We have heard that he was picked up by a negro in a car" but this was not confirmed. Smudged fingerprints on the rifle; "If we could put his prints on the rifle it would certainly connect him to the rifle." They don't know how he bought the rifle. Reporter asks if he had any connection to the Gen. Walker shooting: "I do not know." DPD don't have any witnesses who said they saw a rifle in the window during the shooting. DPD did not know LHO was in Dallas, but FBI did. Does not consider Oswald to be in danger from possible vigilantes. Thinks LHO carried the fully assembled rifle in the package ("it was large enough"). Oswald has no lawyer; it apparently is his responsibility to hire one. "He's mentally right," agrees with a reporter that he is not "off his rocker."

Second Curry interview: Capt Fritz, an FBI man and a SS man are interrogating Oswald this morning. Three officers were injured during LHO arrest.

Third Curry interview: Clarifies his statement about the FBI. Says repeatedly (3 or 4 times) and emphatically that "I do not know if and when the FBI has interviewed this man," praised FBI's past cooperation. Says that "someone told me" last night that the FBI had talked to Oswald, and he didn't know what someone was. Lie detector test offered to LHO but he refused. Asked about a pop bottle with fingerprints on it, but Curry doesn't know about it. Curry talks about Joe Molina, who voluntarily let the police search his house. Curry still doesn't know how LHO got from DP to Oak Cliff. Doesn't appear to have a car. Still working on where the rifle came from.
After Curry publicly recanted his reporting of Hosty's statement about Oswald, "Hoover ordered the severing of all FBI relations with the Dallas police. This extended even to training the police." (Weisberg, Never Again 19)

Fourth Curry interview: FBI just told them they have the mail order form Oswald bought the rifle with, in Oswald's writing. On ballistics: "We haven't had a final report but I understand it will be favorable."

Fifth Curry interview (evening): Oswald won't admit to owning the rifle. Curry was not present at interrogations. Pessimistic about getting a confession from him. Won't show the reporters the backyard photos because they would be evidence at the trial.

At some point today apparently the press began to report the rifle as a Mannlicher-Carcano.

Today, the Dallas FBI assumed custody of Connally's wrist fragments. FBI agent J. Doyle Williams interviewed Dr Gregory, Trooper Bobby Nolan and Nurse Audrey Bell. Doyle confused the fragments removed from the wrist with the one in the governor's thigh. (McKnight, Breach of Trust)

10:01 AM (EST) Lyndon Johnson receives a telephone call from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, updating him on the progress of the investigation. The recording of that conversation would later be destroyed. Only a transcript survives.
Hoover: The evidence that they have at the present time [against Oswald] is not very, very strong. We have just discovered the place where the gun was purchased and the shipment of the gun from Chicago to Dallas, to a post office box in Dallas, to a man - no, to a woman by the name of A. Hidell.'...We had it flown up last night, and our laboratory here is making an examination of it....We have the gun and we have the bullet. There was only one full bullet that was found. That was on the stretcher that the President was on. It apparently had fallen out when they massaged his heart, and we have that one. We have what we call slivers, which are not very valuable in the identification. As soon as we finish the testing of the gun for fingerprints...we will then be able to test the one bullet we have with the gun. But the important thing is that this gun was bought in Chicago on a money order. Cost twenty-one dollars, and it seems almost impossible to think that for twenty-one dollars you could kill the President of the United States.
LBJ: Now, who is A. Hidell?
Hoover: A. Hidell is an alias that this man has used on other occasions, and according to the information we have from the house in which he was living - his mother - he kept a rifle like this wrapped up in a blanket which he kept in the house...the man who drove him to the building where they work...said that he had a package wrapped up in paper...
LBJ: Have you established any more about the visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico in September?
Hoover: No, that's one angle that's very confusing, for this reason we have up here the tape and the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet embassy, using Oswald's name. That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's voice nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet embassy down there....We do have a copy of a letter which was written by Oswald to the Soviet embassy here in Washington [a November 9, 1963, letter that Oswald began by referring to 'my meetings with comrade Kostin in the Embassy of the Soviet Union, Mexico City, Mexico,' which was interpreted to mean Kostikov]…The case as it stands now isn't strong enough to be able to get a conviction...Now if we can identify this man who was at the...Soviet embassy in Mexico City...This man Oswald has still denied everything....[The rifle] was found on the sixth floor in the building from which it had been fired. I think that the bullets were fired from the fifth floor, and the three shells that were found were found on the fifth floor. But he apparently went upstairs to have fired the gun and throw the gun away and then went out. He went down to this theater. There at the theater was where he had the gun battle with the police officer.

According to the diary, the call from Hoover was followed by a brief call from Bundy (untaped) and a call to labor leader George Meany. The Vice-Presidential recording system in place at the time of these recordings used an IBM machine which recorded magnetically on wide looping belts. This is a different system from the "Dictabelt" system used by JFK and later by LBJ.

10:05 AM AP report: Dallas Police Chief Jess Curry said today Lee Harvey Oswald has "readily admitted he is a Communist." Curry said Oswald. admitted to officers in questioning last night that he was "a member of the Communist Party." The police chief said, "Apparently he was proud of being a Communist. He didn't try to hide it." Curry said he did not know whether Oswald was a card-carrying member of the party. "Last year Oswald said on the New Orleans television panel he was not a communist but was a Marxist," Curry said, "but actually, Oswald has never drawn any distinction between the two." Curry said police never had Oswald listed on their suspicious list. "We have another man working in that same building who has been listed in our subversive files since 1955,"Curry said. Police were seeking this man for questioning. ... Curry said that there are 25 to 30 known communists in the Dallas area. "I understand the Communists have had some meetings here but we don't have much to do with them," said the police chief. AP, 10:05 a.m. CST, Peggy Simpson

10:17 AM (EST) LBJ phone call with George Meaney

10:30 AM Stolley leaves Zapruder's office with original 16mm print of film (#0183), which is immediately couriered to Donnelly printing plant in Chicago, where Life magazine is being prepared. Zapruder retains the best of the 3 first day copies. Stolley, "What happened next", Esquire, November 1973, 134-5; Thompson and Mack e-mails to author, May 2010;Wrone, 34; Richard Bartholomew/Schwartz interview, 2004
Three 16mm b/w copies of film made by Life in Chicago Wrone, 27, 35; Horne, 1199; Trask, 119; Zavada 2010

10:30-11 AM Joe Molina comes to DPD for questioning, after his house was searched at 1:30 am. He was questioned by Lt. Revill about his membership in the G.I. Forum. Revill had also been present at the searching of his house. He was upset that afternoon to find his name mentioned on TV by Curry. He was terminated from his job at the TSBD in December, suspecting it was because of all the negative publicity. (WC testimony)

10:30 AM-11:33 AM, continued 12:35-1:10pm: Oswald interrogation in Fritz's office, with Sorrels, Bookhout and US Marshal Robert I. Nash: "I never owned a rifle...Michael Paine owned a car, Ruth Paine owned two cars...Robert Oswald, my brother, lives in Fort Worth. He and the Paines were closest friends in town...The FBI has thoroughly investigated me at various other times...They have used their hard and soft approach to me, and they use the buddy system...In the past three weeks the FBI has talked to my wife. They were abusive and impolite. [Oswald had Hosty's home phone and office numbers and car license on him when he was arrested.] "I was arrested in New Orleans for disturbing the peace and paid a $10 fine for demonstrating for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. I had a fight with some anti-Castro refugees and they were released while I was fined...I refuse to take a polygraph....I didn't shoot John Kennedy...I didn't even know Gov. John Connally had been shot...I don't own a rifle...I didn't tell Buell Wesley Frazier anything about bringing back some curtain rods...[Mrs Paine] was learning Russian....I don't know Mrs Paine very well, but Mr Paine and his wife were separated a great deal of the time...The garage at the Paines' house has some seabags that have a lot of my personal belongings. I left them after coming back from New Orleans in September... The name Alek Hidell was picked up while working in New Orleans in the Fair Play for Cuba organization...I speak Russian, correspond with people in Russia, and receive newspapers from Russia...I don't own a rifle at all...I did have a small rifle some years past. You can't buy a rifle in Russia, you can only buy shotguns. I had a shotgun in Russia and hunted some while there. I didn't bring the rifle from New Orleans ...I belong to the Civil Liberties Union...I did carry a package to the Texas School Book Depository. I carried my lunch, a sandwich and fruit, which I made at Paine's house...I had nothing personal against John Kennedy....When I left the Depository I took a bus to a stop near my room and walked the rest of the way there. Oh, yes - I did ride in a cab. The bus I took near the Depository got into heavy traffic and was going too slowly, so I got off and caught a cab. I remember when I got in the taxi a lady who came up who also wanted it but the driver told her to take another cab...When I got home after the cab ride, I changed both my shirt and trousers before going to the show. The cab fare was about 85 cents..."
Mr. BALL. You learned certain things from your investigation of the day before, hadn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. One of them was you found he had a transfer, didn't you, in his he was arrested?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I sure talked to him about the transfers.
Mr. BALL. All right. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. He admitted the transfer.
Mr. BALL. I don't want you to say he admitted the transfer. I want you to tell me what he said about the transfer.
Mr. FRITZ. He told he that was the transfer the busdriver had given him when he caught the bus to go home. But he had told me if you will remember in our previous conversation that he rode the bus or on North Beckley and had walked home but in the meantime, sometime had told me about him riding a cab.
So, when I asked him about a cab ride if he had ridden in a cab he said yes, he had, he told me wrong about the bus, he had rode a cab. He said the reason he changed, that he rode the bus for a short distance, and the crowd was so heavy and traffic was so bad that he got out and caught a cab, and I asked him some other questions about the cab and I asked him what happened there when he caught the cab and he said there was a lady trying to catch a cab and he told the busdriver, the busdriver told him to tell the lady to catch the cab behind him and he said he rode that cab over near his home, he rode home in a cab. I asked him how much the cabfare was, he said 85 cents.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him if he went directly to his home?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; he said he went straight home.
Mr. BALL. Didn't you learn from the cabdriver that he hadn't taken him to 1026 North Beckley?
Mr. FRITZ. I knew he had taken him near there but I am telling you what he told me, he told me he had taken him home.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him whether he had gone directly home?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't think so.
Mr. BALL. Then you found out the day before about the Wesley Frazier package, hadn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I found out about the package from Irving.
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. And also that he usually went home on Friday night and this time he went home on Thursday night.
Mr. FRITZ. I asked him why he had changed nights.
Mr. BALL. Yes, sir.
Mr. FRITZ. And let me see what he told me about why he had changed. The man I talked to told me he usually went out on weekends, on Friday, so I believe he told me, I am not positive why he told me why he went home on this different night but I think he told me because someone else was going to be over there on weekends or something to that effect.
Mr. BALL. And you asked him again, didn't you, what he was doing at the time the President was shot?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. Well, he told me about the same story about this lunch.
Mr. BALL. He mentioned who he was having lunch with, did he not?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; he told me he was having lunch when the President was shot.
Mr. BALL. With whom?
Mr. FRITZ. With someone called Junior, someone he worked with down there, but he didn't remember the other boy's name.
Mr. BALL. Did he tell you what he was eating?
Mr. FRITZ. He told me, I believe, that he had, I am doing this from memory, a cheese sandwich, and he also mentioned he had some fruit, I had forgotten about the fruit until I looked at this report.
Mr. BALL. Did he say that was in the package he had brought from home?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; there was one reason I asked him about what was in the package, we had had a story that had been circulated around the meantime about some chicken bones, I am sure you heard of that, and I wanted to find for sure what he did have in his lunch and he told me about having--he told me they did not have any chicken out there and I also talked with the Paines and they told me they didn't have any chicken in the icebox, they did have some cheese.
Mr. BALL. What about the pistol that he had on him when he was arrested, did you question him about that this morning?
Mr. FRITZ. That morning?
Mr. BALL. Your notes show that you did.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I talked to him about the pistol and asked him where he got it.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. He told me he had got it about 6 or 7 months before in Fort Worth but he wouldn't tell me where he got it. When I asked him a little further about that he told me he didn't want to talk any further about the pistol.
Mr. BALL. Did you ever ask him what he thought of President Kennedy or his family?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I asked him what he thought of the President.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. What he thought about the family--he said he didn't have any particular comment to make about the President. He said he had a nice family, that he admired his family, something to that effect. At one time, I don't have this in my report, but at one time I told him, I said, "You know you have killed the President, and this is a very serious charge." He denied it and said he hadn't killed the President. I said he had been killed. He said people will forget that within a few days and there would be another President.

11:00 AM Albert Bogard called the local FBI about Oswald's visit to his car dealership; they soon came by to interview him.

11:17 AM AP report: Dallas - Curry said a building porter also described Oswald as a possible suspect. The police chief did not identify the porter. "The porter said he carried Oswald up to the sixth [correct] floor and Oswald asked him to send the elevator back up. The porter went to the front steps to watch the parade," Curry said. AP, 11:17 a.m. CST, Peggy Simpson

11:20-11:25 AM In an interview, Jesse Curry implies that FBI agents had recently interviewed OSWALD, had him under surveillance, and had prior knowledge of his activities. When J. Edgar Hoover hears of these remarks, he immediately has C. D. DeLoach contact SAC Gordon Shanklin in Dallas. Shanklin is instructed to get a public retraction from Curry or lose his job with the FBI. Curry retracts his statements in a subsequent statement to the press. AP report from 11:20 AM: Dallas - Curry told newsmen the FBI had interviewed Oswald "a week or two ago." Asked if the FBI notified police of Oswald's presence, the chief said, "No, sir. They did not." "Why they hadn't gotten around to informing us of this man, we don't know," Curry said. He said the FBI told him of the interview last night after Oswald was in custody. Curry said the FBI agents did not reveal what information they had learned from their interview, or if the interview indicated he was a person to watch. AP, Peggy Simpson, 11:20 a.m. CST

11:30 AM Detectives Elmer Boyd, C.N. Dhority and Ray Hall obtain a search warrant from Justice Joe B. Brown, and proceed to Oswald's rooming house. (CRENSHAW 158)

11:30 AM (EST) LBJ talks with Eisenhower.

11:33 AM Oswald is returned to his jail cell

11:38 AM Eleven-year-old Mack White and his father visit Dealey Plaza.
"We walked to Dealey Plaza, passing the Dallas city jail. My father told me that Lee Harvey Oswald was being held inside. This made a great impression on me, to think that inside that very building was the man who had done the horrible thing. We were sure of Oswald's guilt. At that early hour, everyone was. It never occurred to us that his guilt might be less than a sure thing. The doubts would not begin until the next day, when local Mob man Jack Ruby appeared on the stage of history and shot Oswald while in police custody.
In front of the Texas Schoolbook Depository a man was selling copies of the Dallas Times-Herald. There was a huge stack of papers, but only a few people to buy them. Strange as it may seem now, tourists had not yet begun to arrive in Dealey Plaza in significant numbers. That morning it was mostly reporters and cops.
My father bought one of the papers (which I still have) and we walked around, my father taking pictures (which I also still have). At one point, my father pointed out the so-called "sniper" window to me. As I was looking up, my eye wandered away from the window to the fire escape on the building across the street--the Dal-Tex building-where I saw two men taking turns looking through the scope of a rifle mounted on a tripod.
I was alarmed. "What are they doing?" I asked.
"It's part of the investigation," said my father.
So the police were checking out an alternative sniper perch. Evidently, that morning, there was still something resembling a real investigation. The investigation, of course, would end the next day with Oswald's death."

Freelance news photographer Shel Hershorn (presently working for Black Star News Agency) takes telescopic sight photos from the 6[SUP]th[/SUP] or 7[SUP]th[/SUP] floor of the Dal-Tex Building, looking down Elm Street.

11:40 AM (EST) Jackie already sees a new rug placed in the Oval Office. (Death of a President)

11:58 AM AP report - Dallas - Oswald ... asked today for a lawyer. Police were escorting Oswald past rows of photographers and reporters on the way to further questioning in the interrogation room in the jail basement. Newsmen had agreed not to ask Oswald any questions as he passed, but as the slim accused man approached a television microphone, he stopped. Leaning over slightly, he said, "I want to contact Mr. Abt in New York to defend me as my lawyer." Without another word, Oswald and the police walked into a hallway and closed the door. AP, 11:58 a.m. CST, Peggy Simpson

12:00 PM Carousel Club employee Larry Crafard, a young man who bears some resemblance to Oswald, leaves Dallas without telling anyone and hitchhikes to Michigan with $7.00 in his pocket. He is located by the FBI several days later in a remote part of that state.

Around this time, Jack Ruby parks his car at Allright Parking and walks to City Hall.

David Ferrie will tell the FBI that on this afternoon, he spends two hours at the Winterland Rink in Houston, Texas, skating and talking with Chuck Rolland (the owner) about the cost of installing and operating his rink. Later, Rolland will tell FBI agents that Ferrie had called from New Orleans the afternoon of November 22 only to obtain the skating schedule at Winterland, and "at no time did he discuss the cost of equipping or operating an ice skating rink." Furthermore, Rolland will inform the agents that Ferrie does not skate at all while at his rink, but spends the entire stay at Winterland making and receiving calls at a public phone. From Winterland, Ferrie and his two friends go to another Houston skating rink, the Belair. Witnesses will later tell FBI agents the trio does not skate there either. Eventually, Ferrie and his companions will check out of the Alamotel in Houston and drive 100 miles to Galveston. First, however -- David Ferrie calls Carlos Marcello's Town & Country office from the Houston motel.
"FERRIE claims that he had left a call at the motel office for 8:30 AM and another call for 10:30 AM but has no recollection of receiving a call from the motel office at either time. FERRIE said he had left the calls so that he could call Attorney G. WRAY GILL in New Orleans to tell him he had left New Orleans and was on a vacation trip. FERRIE stated that he and his companions awakened roughly at noon and after having breakfast he went down Main Street to Sears, Roebuck and Company where he purchased a jacket, a sweater and several other items. After leaving Sears, they drove directly to the Winterland Ice Skating Rink, 2400 Norfolk, which he had learned opened at 3:30 PM and closed at 5:30 PM. FERRIE said he rented skates and skated at the rink for a while looking the situation over and also taking into consideration the amount of business at the rink. He stated that he introduced himself to CHUCK ROLLAND and spoke with him at length concerning the cost of installation and operation of the rink. FERRIE exhibited a leaflet of the Winterland Ice Skating Rink, 2400 Norfolk, Houston, Texas, which he had in his possession. FERRIE stated that during the time he was talking to CHUCK ROLLAND other employees of ROLLAND were present at the rink. He recalled specifically there was a young boy who was passing out skates and an older man who was on duty at the rink but he does not recall whether he was introduced to these two individuals or not. FERRIE claimed that he remained at the Winterland Skating Rink for a period of approximately two hours and after leaving there he returned to the motel." (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

A postman walks up to a WFAA cameraman on the street and hands him a 30.6 cartridge wrapped in a postal receipt. "Give this to Bert Shipp," the postman says. "He will know what to do with it". Shipp is a well known television personality and perhaps this is why the postman thinks of him. "Where did you get it?" The cameraman asks. "I found it in the bushes outside the School Book Depository Building," says the postman. Shipp at first doesn't take it seriously. The cartridge shell lies on Shipp's desk for months. Some law enforcement people hear about and have a look at the shell. Finally, a member of the Dallas Police Department comes by the television station and picks up the cartridge. The police keep the cartridge for awhile and then Patrolman George Butler gives it back to Shipp,. Police tell Shipp as far as they are concerned; he has one of the shells that had come out of Oswald's rifle. It must have flicked out the sixth floor window and landed in the bushes below. The only problem with that is there is no logical way the shell could have flicked out the window. And there are no bushes below the window---only cement. (Neither could a 30.6 shell be fired from the MC.). Engraved on the mystery bullet is "FA 41." This means the bullet was manufactured in 1941 at Frankfort Arsenal in Illinois. It was part of 1941 military ammunition.

In Dallas - Joe M. Dealey, president of the Dallas Morning News and grandson of the community builder whose bronze statue stands in the park where JFK was shot, says: "We are a tormented town." Dallas Mayor, Earle Cabell is under police guard because of threats to his own life following the assassination. H. L. Hunt issues the following statement: "Every American, whatever the faith of his views or his political affiliations, suffers a personal loss when a President dies ... freedom is in fearful danger when a President dies by violence." Secretary-Treasurer of the Dallas AFL-CIO, Allan Maley, says: "There is no use beating around the bush. Dallas is a sick city. There are powerful leaders who have encouraged or condoned or at best remained silent while the preachment of hate helped condition a citizenry to support the most reactionary sort of political philosophy." FD

Ike Pappas recalls: "It was chaos on the third floor of the Dallas police office. We were asked to stand behind a white-roped off area. They did not issue special press passes - anyone with a press pass was OK. I was stunned and amazed that we were permitted so close to the prisoner."

At some point during the day, Gilberto Policarpo Lopez crosses the border into Mexico at Laredo, Texas. In four days, he will fly to Cuba.

An official declaration is published today by the U.S. State Department: "Department authorities said today that there was no evidence to indicate that the USSR or any other power is implicated in the assassination." Fidel Castro's response is, "Why did the State Department have to mak

[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

[Tracy Riddle]

November 24 (Sunday)

12:45 AM Jack Ruby phoned his sister Eva.

1:15 AM J. Edgar Hoover urges secret transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald. Parkland Hospital is warned to prepare for possible emergency.

1:30 AM Jack Ruby went to bed.

1:30 AM The Secret Service has learned that "Lieut. J. Evans" and "Sgt. Robert Hidell" are listed as references on Oswald's application for employment with the William B. Reily Company and have instituted inquiries to trace those names. As a result, Mr. David Kerr, Office of Naval Intelligence, contacts SAIC Rice by telephone, advising that a thorough search has been made of the Marine Corps records with the following results: There are only four persons on active duty by the name of J. Evans, and twelve on inactive duty ... He said that there was only one officer, Lieutenant John Stewart Evans ... who might be associated with Oswald's reference. He further advised that there is no record of a "Hidell" either on active duty or inactive; and that the only similar name is John R. Heindel, age thirty-eight, born in Louisiana, who is not active, his record being available at the Federal Records Center, St. Louis.

2:15-2:20 AM Billy Grammer, Dallas switchboard officer, took a call at 2:20am on 11/24/1963 suggesting that Oswald would be killed. He tried to contact Curry but his phone was off the hook. The caller had specifically asked for Grammer, and though he did not identify himself, he said "You know me." He described the transfer plans in detail, and advised Grammer to have the transfer changed or "We're going to kill Oswald right there in the basement." When Grammer found out that Ruby had shot Oswald, he realized that it was Ruby's voice he had heard on the phone. Grammer speculated that Ruby didn't want to shoot Oswald, and hoped that the transfer would be secretly changed. ("The Men Who Killed Kennedy" documentary) 2:15 AM An anonymous telephone call is received at the Dallas FBI office. The caller warns that Oswald will be killed during the transfer to the county jail later this morning. There is no significant change of plans. The sheriff's office and FBI officials in Dallas receive almost identical telephone warnings that Oswald will be murdered as he is transferred. The switchboard operator later identifies the caller as Jack Ruby. Dallas FBI SAC Shanklin calls the Dallas Police Department in an attempt to reach Chief Curry with news of the threat. He will not reach Curry until 8:15 AM - hours later.

2:30-3:00am: anonymous phone calls threatening Oswald's life are received by the Dallas FBI office and the county sheriff's office. (WC)

2:30 AM Night clerk Vernon Glossup at the Dallas FBI office received a call from an anonymous male; the man spoke in a calm and mature voice, and said he represented "A committee that is neither right- or left-wing, and...we are going to kill the man who killed the President. There will be no excitement and we will kill him. We wanted to be sure and tell the FBI, police department and sheriff's office that we will be there and we will kill him." (Assignment Oswald p54)

3:10 AM AP story: Dallas - Curry said photographs found in the home of Oswald's Russian-born wife link him with the rifle used in the daylight assassination. The pictures, taken before the shooting, were found in the wife's home in suburban Irving, TX. AP, AP2dn, 3:10 a.m. CST

3:15 AM (EST) Gordon Shanklin called Hoover and told him that someone had called the Dallas FBI office to warn that Oswald would be shot while being transferred. Hoover then had Shanklin call Curry, who assured him that Oswald would be protected. Curry told him he had received the same warning call.

3:20 AM Capt. Frazier receives a call from FBI Agent Milton Newsom informing him about an anonymous threat to kill Oswald.

5-6 AM Terrance W. McGarry, a UPI reporter is awakened by his wife in Dallas. She makes her husband get up. "If anyone shoots that guy and you knew ahead of time that is was going to happen, you will never forgive yourself." McGarry is convinced that someone will try to kill Oswald during the transfer today.

6-7 AM National Photographic Intelligence Center (NPIC) complete production of briefing boards and notes for Lundahl / McCone regarding Zapruder film (Horne, 1230 ff). Today Zapruder shows 8mm copy of film for Sorrels; Life Chicago send original film to Life HQ in New York; film later damaged at frames 155-6 and 207-212; Stolley told to purchase all rights to film; Secret Service make copies of film in Washington Trask, 131-2; Stolley; Wainright, "The Great Magazine", 369; Wrone, 35; Mack e-mail to author, May 26, 2010; Zavada e-mail to author, July 9, 2010
"NPIC enjoyed the well-deserved reputation within the government as the finest photo-interpretation center in the world. The center's interpretation of the film…came to two conclusions: First, the first shot at the motorcade had not come from the sixth-floor sniper's nest'…Second, there had been at least two gunmen in Dealey Plaza shooting at the motorcade. The results of NPIC's analysis of the Zapruder were suppressed." (McKnight, Breach of Trust; CIA document # 1641-450, released May 18 1982, in Weisberg's files)

6:30 AM An FBI memo to the WC said that at this time and date "an anonymous male caller telephonically advised a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at Dallas, Texas, that at about 5:30pm he learned from an unidentified sack boy at Wyatt's Supermarket, Plymouth Park Shopping Center, Irving, Texas, that Lee Harvey Oswald, on Thursday, November 21 1963 had his rifle sighted at the Irving Sports Shop, 221 East Irving Boulevard..." It also said that Ray John of the TV news department of WFAA-TV in Dallas told the FBI that he had gotten a call around 3:00 or 3:30pm the same day from a man who gave him the same tip.

7:00 AM Preparations begun for Oswald's transfer.

7:30 AM Stephen Alexander, a television cameraman, will tell the FBI that he is present in various parts of the police basement from this time until Oswald is shot, at about 11:30 AM; "at no time was he asked for identification by any police officer," and he doubts that any other newsmen are asked to show their credentials. Ed Haddad, a radio newscaster, says that there is "no security set up as far as he could notice" and that "Oswald could easily have been slain on Friday or Saturday, for anyone could move freely throughout the building."

8:15 AM FBI SAC Shanklin reaches Police Chief Curry by phone and informs him of the Oswald death threat.

8:30 AM 8:30-9am: Elnora Pitts, who does some housecleaning for Jack Ruby calls his house, as he does each Sunday morning, to make sure Ruby wants her to come this day. A male voice answers the phone that does not sound, to Pitts, like Jack Ruby -- even though the speaker identifies himself as Ruby. The speaker also has no knowledge of the weekly cleaning arrangement. Ruby is actually outside the Dallas Police building.

8:00 AM TV engineer Warren Richey told the WC that he saw a man who looked like Ruby outside the police station at this time and again at 10am. (H 13 255)

8:00-8:30 AM "FERRIE stated that they arose around 8:00 or 8:30 AM on November 24, 1963. After having breakfast they took the ferry across the bay to pick up the road to Port Arthur, Texas that runs along the coast." (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

8:30 - 8:45 AM Immediately after his arrival at the building on Sunday morning, Jesse Curry speaks by telephone with Sheriff J. E. Decker about the transfer. When Decker indicates that he will leave to Curry the decision on whether the sheriff's office or the police will move Oswald, Curry decides that the police will handle it because "we had so much involved here, we were the ones that were investigating the case and we had the officers set up downstairs to handle it." After talking with Decker, Curry begins to discuss plans for the transfer. With the threats against Oswald in mind, Curry suggests to Batchelor and Deputy Chief Stevenson that Oswald be transported to the county jail in an armored truck, to which they agree. While Batchelor makes arrangements to have an armored truck brought to the building, Curry and Stevenson tentatively agree on the route the armored truck would follow from the building to the county jail. WC

9:00 AM Chicago member of the American Guild of Variety Artists sent a message to Ruby: "Tell Jack not to send the letter today, it would be awkward in Chicago." He didn't receive it.

9:00 AM In Columbia, S.C., William Somersett and Joseph Milteer have breakfast together. Milteer says to Somersett: "They did not have to worry about Lee Harvey Oswald because he doesn't know anything." Milteer goes outside of the Wade Hampton Hotel to get some coffee. He returns with same and also with a quantity of change which leads FBI informant William Somersett to conclude he has made a long distance call. "Oswald has not said anything and he will not say anything." Milteer tells Somersett.

At 9:00 (CST) senior officers of the Dallas Police Dept. begin issuing detailed orders for OSWALD's transfer. While the 10:00 transfer is now off, it is obvious to all that OSWALD will be transferred within hours.
Policemen supposedly clear the Dallas Police headquarters basement of all but police personnel. Guards are stationed at the top of the Main and Commerce Streets auto ramps leading down into the basement, at each of the five doorways into the garage, and at the double doors leading to the public hallway adjacent to the jail office. Then, Sgt. Patrick T. Dean, acting under instructions from Talbert, directs 14 men in a search of the garage. Maintenance workers are directed to leave the area. The searchers examine the rafters, tops of air conditioning ducts, and every closet and room opening off the garage. They search the interior and trunk compartment of automobiles parked in the garage. The two passenger elevators in the central part of the garage are not in service and the doors are shut and locked; the service elevator is moved to the first floor, and the operator is instructed not to return it to the basement. WC

William Lord, ABC news correspondent, tells the FBI that he enters the police basement at this time by public elevator from the third floor and that no one asks him to identify himself; he does not observe that anyone is responsible for identifying those who enter the basement.

9:00-9:30am: Jack Ruby got up (WC).

9:30 AM Ray Rushing, a preacher from Plano, Texas, has a short conversation with Jack Ruby during a ride in an elevator at the Dallas Police headquarters.

9:30-11:15am Oswald interrogation in Fritz's office, with Sorrels, Kelly, Harry Holmes and homicide detectives: "After the assassination, a policeman or some man came rushing into the School Book Depository Building and said, 'Where is your telephone?' He showed me some kind of credential and identified himself, so he might not have been a police officer...'Right there' I answered, pointing to the phone...'Yes, I can eat lunch with you,' I told my co-worker, 'but I can't go right now. You go and take the elevator, but send the elevator back up.'...After all this commotion started, I just went downstairs and started to see what it was all about. A police officer and my superintendent of the place stepped up and told officers that I am one of the employees in the building...If you ask me about the shooting of Tippit, I don't know what you are talking about...The only thing I am here for is because I popped a policeman in the nose in the theater...which I readily admit I did, because I was protecting myself...I learned about the job vacancy at the Texas School Book Depository from people in Mrs Paine's neighborhood...I visited my wife Thursday night, Nov 21, whereas I normally visited her over the weekend, because Mrs Paine was giving a party for the children on the weekend...It didn't cost much to go to Mexico. It cost me some $26...I went to the Mexican Embassy to try to get this permission to go to Russia by way of Cuba... I went to the Mexican Consulate in Mexico City. I went to the Russian Embassy to go to Russia by way of Cuba. They told me to come back in thirty days...The sack [he had 11/22] was in the car, beside me, on my lap, as it always is...It was not on the back seat. Mr Frazier must have been mistaken or else thinking about the other time when he picked me up...The Fair Play for Cuba Committee was a loosely organized thing and we had no officers. Probably you can call me the secretary of it because I did collect money....If anyone else was entitled to get mail in PO Box 6525 at the Terminal Annex in New Orleans, the answer is no...The rental application said Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union. Maybe I put them on there...I never ordered a rifle under the name of Hidell, Oswald or any other name...I never permitted anyone else to order a rifle to be received in this box...I subscribe to two publications from Russia, one being a hometown paper published in Minsk...We moved around so much that it was more practical to simply rent post office boxes...I don't recall anything about the AJ Hidell being on the post office card...I presume you have reference to a map I had in my room with some X's on it. I have no automobile...I was seeking a job, and I would put these markings on this map so I could plan my itinerary around with less walking. [Ruth Paine later said she marked the map]...What religion am I? I have no faith, I suppose you mean, in the Bible. I have read the Bible. It is fair reading, but not very interesting. As a matter of fact, I am a student of philosophy and I don't consider the Bible as even a reasonable or intelligent philosophy...I told you I haven't shot a rifle since the Marines, possibly a small bore, maybe a .22, but not anything larger since I have left the Marine Corps..I have been a student of Marxism since the age of 14...American people will soon forget the President was shot, but I didn't shoot him...[Johnson's] views on Cuba would probably be largely the same as those of President Kennedy...I never lived on Neely Street. These people are mistaken about visiting there, because I never lived there...I do deny shooting both the President and Tippit."
Mr. FRITZ. That time here at 9:30 in the morning, one of the postal inspectors, Mr. Holmes, Mr. Sorrels, Mr. Bookhout, and I am not sure about Mr. Sorrels staying in there all the time. He was in there part of the time, and that is the time that I showed him the map, too, that morning with these markings on it.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. Well, he said they didn't mean anything. Those markings were places he had gone looking for work. I asked him at that time, too, more about his religious beliefs, and Inspector Kelley asked him what he thought about religion and he said he didn't think too much of it. I believe he said of the philosophy of religion.
So he asked him two or three other questions and he was a little evasive so I asked him if he believed in a deity. He said he didn't care to discuss that with me.
Mr. BALL. What else was said?
Mr. FRITZ. I asked him, too, I believe on that same morning, I asked him more about his political beliefs and he told me he didn't belong to any political party and he told me he was-a Marxist but that he wasn't a Marxist-Leninist, that he was just a Marxist, and that he again told me that he believed in the Castro revolution. That is the morning of the transfer.
Mr. BALL. You asked him about the gun again, didn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. I asked him about a lot of things that morning, I sure did.
Mr. BALL. Tell us about it.
Mr. FRITZ. He denied anything about Alek Hidell, and again about his belief in the Fair Play for Cuba.
Mr. BALL. What about the rifle?
Mr. FRITZ. I asked him about the Neely Street address and he denied that address. He denied having a picture made over there and he even denied living there. I told him he had people who visited him over there and he said they were just wrong about visiting.
Mr. BALL. On the curtain rods story, do you remember whether you ever asked him if he told Frazier that he had curtain rods in the package?
Mr. FRITZ. If I asked him what, please, sir?
Mr. BALL. Did you ever ask Oswald whether or not he had told Frazier that he had curtain rods in the package?
Mr. FRITZ. I am sure I did but I can't remember that right now. But I am sure I asked him that because I must have asked him that because I asked him a lot of questions, I asked him if he was fixing his house, I remember asking about that, and he said he was not.
Mr. BALL. Was he questioned about post office boxes that morning?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I did, I asked him about those post office boxes, because the postal inspector had told us about those boxes, and Mr. Holmes did most of the talking to him about the boxes, and he knew about the boxes and where they were, and he said he had, and I asked him too if he had ordered a rifle to be shipped to one of those boxes, and he said he had not, to one of those box numbers.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him why he had the boxes?
Mr. FRITZ. He told me that he had, one of the boxes, if I remember correctly, he never admitted owning at all. The other box he told me he got his, he kept to get his mail, that he said he got some papers from Russia and correspondence with people from Russia and he used that box for his mail.
Mr. FRITZ. Someone told me he had a rifle and wrapped in a blanket and kept it in the garage and he said he didn't. It wasn't true.
Mr. BALL. Did he at any time tell you when you asked him if he owned a rifle, did he say, "How could I afford to order a rifle on my salary of a dollar and a quarter an hour," something like that?
Mr. FRITZ. I don't remember that.
Mr. BALL. Did you have any tape recorder?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't have a tape recorder. We need one, if we had one at this time we could have handled these conversations far better.
Mr. BALL. The Dallas Police Department doesn't have one?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I have requested one several times but so far they haven't gotten me one.
Mr. BALL. And you had quite a few interruptions, too, during the questioning, didn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; we had quite a lot of interruptions. I wish we had had--- under the circumstances, I don't think there is much that could have been done because I saw it as it was there and I don't think there was a lot that could have been done other than move that crowd out of there, but I think it would have been more apt to get a confession out of it or get more true facts from him if I could have got him to sit down and quietly talked with him.
Mr. DULLES. You had nothing to do with the investigation of the Walker case?
Mr. FRITZ. Not at all That happened to be Captain Jones and Lieutenant Cunningham.
Mr. DULLES. Did that case come up at all in any of your interrogations of Oswald? Did you ever ask him whether he was involved or anything of that sort?
Mr. FRITZ. I don't think that I ever asked him about that. If I did, I don't remember it. I don't remember asking about that, asking him about that at all. We had a little information on it but I didn't want to mix it up in that other case and I didn't want to mix it up.
Mr. DULLES. What was Oswald's attitude toward the police and police authority?
Mr. FRITZ. You know I didn't have trouble with him. If we would just talk to him quietly like we are talking right now, we talked all right until I asked him a question that meant something, every time I asked him a question that meant something, that would produce evidence he immediately told me he wouldn't tell me about it and he seemed to anticipate what I was going to ask. In fact, he got so good at it one time, I asked him if he had had any training, if he hadn't been questioned before.
Mr. DULLES. Questioned before?
Mr. FRITZ. Questioned before, and he said that he had, he said yes, the FBI questioned him when he came back from Russia from a long time and they tried different methods. He said they tried the buddy boy method and thorough method, and let me see some other method he told me and he said, "I understand that."
Mr. DULLES. Did you ask him whether he had had any communist training or indoctrination or anything of that kind?
Mr. FRITZ. I asked him some questions about that and I asked him where he was in Russia. He told me he was in Russia, first I believe he told me, first I believe he said in Moscow, and then he said he went to Minsk, Russia, and I asked him what did you do, get some training, go to school? I suspected he had some training in sabotage from the way he talked and acted, and he said "no, I worked in a radio factory." He acted like a person who was prepared for what he was doing.
Mr. DULLES. Have you any views of your own as to motive from your talks with him? Did you get any clues as to possible motive in assassinating the President?
Mr. FRITZ. I can only tell you what little I know now. I am sure that we have people in Washington here that can tell far more than I can.
Mr. DULLES. Well, you saw the man and the others didn't see the man.
Mr. FRITZ. I got the impression, I got the impression that he was doing it because of his feeling about the Castro revolution, and I think that he felt, he had a lot of feeling about that revolution.
Mr. DULLES. Did he express any animosity against anyone, the President or the Governor or Walker or anybody?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; he did not. Not with me he didn't.
Mr. DULLES. Not with you?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir. He just, the fact he just didn't talk about them much. He just didn't say hardly anything. When I asked him he didn't say much about them.
Mr. McCLOY. You knew Officer Tippit?
Mr. FRITZ. I wanted to tell you one thing before I forget. One time I asked him something about whether or not, either I asked him or someone else in there asked him, if he thought he would be better off, if he thought the country would be better off with the President killed and he said, "Well, I think that the Vice President has about the same views as the President has." He says he will probably do about the same thing that President Kennedy will do.
Mr. BALL. Captain Fritz, from being with Oswald for a couple of days what were your impressions about him? Was he afraid, scared?
Mr. FRITZ. Was he afraid?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't believe he was afraid at all. I think he was a person who had his mind made up what to do and I think he was like a person just dedicated to a cause. And I think he was above average for intelligence.
I know a lot of people call him a nut all the time but he didn't talk like a nut. He knew-exactly when to quit talking. He knew the kind of questions, I could talk to him as long as I wanted to if I just talked about a lot of things that didn't amount to anything. But any time I asked him a question that meant something he answered quick.

Marguerite and Marina Oswald and the two children are being "detained" by the Secret Service at the Executive Inn in Dallas. Following Lee Harvey Oswald's death, they will be moved to the Inn of the Six Flags, several miles outside of Dallas. Before this time, no protection has been afforded to the family of Lee Harvey Oswald.

10:19 AM Karen Carlin called Ruby's apartment about a loan.

10:20 AM Chief Jesse Curry tells a press conference that Oswald will be moved in an armored truck and gives a general description of other security precautions. Apparently no newsmen are informed of the transfer route, however, and the route is not disclosed to the driver of the armored truck until the truck arrives at the Commerce Street exit at about 11:07 a.m. When Chief Curry learns that the truck has arrived, he informs Captain Fritz that security controls are in effect and inquires how long the questioning of Oswald will continue. At this point, Fritz learns for the first time of the plan to convey Oswald by armored truck and immediately expresses his disapproval. He urges the use of an unmarked police car driven by a police officer, pointing out that this will be better from the standpoint of both speed and maneuverability. Curry agrees and the armored truck now becomes a decoy. WC

The morning of 11/24/1964, before Oswald was shot, Curry was asked by reporters if Oswald was right-handed. "I don't know," he replied. "I haven't seen him write....I haven't seen him do anything that would indicate whether he was right or left." (CE 2147)

10:35 AM WBAP-TV technician Ira Walker was in the news van outside City Hall awaiting Oswald's transfer. Jack Ruby walked up and asked him "Has he been brought down yet?" Though he did not know Ruby before that, he was later certain that the man who shot Oswald was the man he talked to that morning. (H 13 292-93)

Sometime this morning a reporter from WFAA-TV (Dallas) told the public that he was at the County Courthouse, where Oswald was to be moved, and after his arrival "representatives from the press will have their first opportunity for a real front to front confrontation" with Oswald.

10:47 AM (CST) Oswald's transfer begins. 11:47 AM (EST) Mass for JFK ends. (Manchester)

The Warren Commission estimates that 40 to 50 newsmen are present in the police basement when OSWALD is shot. Twenty-seven press representatives are listed as present in the police report on the so-called abortive transfer; the FBI interviews at least another 17 reporters, which brings the number to 44. The Commission states that "Many newsmen reported that they were checked on more than one occasion while they waited in the basement. A small number did not recall that their credentials were ever checked." According to Sylvia Meagher, 14 newsmen report that their credentials have not been checked, or not checked on some occasions. Fourteen is almost one-third of the total 44 newsmen - something over 31 per cent. Meagher suggests that 14 is not a "small number" but a large proportion, and that the Warren Report minimizes what is clearly inexcusable recklessness and irresponsibility on the part of the Dallas police in protecting a prisoner whose life has been threatened by unknown men. (Accessories, Meagher)

11:00 AM Deputy Chief Stevenson requests that Capt. O. A. Jones of the forgery bureau bring all available detectives from the third floor offices of Dallas Police headquarters to the basement. Jones instructs the detectives who accompany him to the basement to line the walls on either side of the passageway cleared for the transfer party. A ccording to Detective T. D. McMillon, "... Captain Jones explained to us that, when they brought the prisoner out, that he wanted two lines formed and we were to keep these two lines formed: you know, a barrier on either side of them, kind of an aisle ... for them to walk through, and when they came down this aisle, we were to keep this line intact and move along with them until the man was placed in the car. " WC

11:00 AM Armored truck arrives to pick up Oswald, but police decide to use an unmarked car. (WC) Shortly before this time, according to the WC, Ruby left his apartment.

Dallas Times Herald: "...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."

11:05 AM Ruby arrives at the Western Union office. Jack Ruby parks his car directly across the street from the Western Union office, places his keys and billfold in the trunk of the car, then locks the trunk which also contains approximately $1000.00 in cash. He then places the trunk key in the glove compartment of the car. He does not lock the car doors. His dog, Sheba, is left in the car. He is carrying his revolver and $2000.00 in cash and no personal identification.

11:10 AM Members of a police detail are heading to the basement in preparation for OSWALD's transfer. They see Officer William "Blackie" Harrison coming up from the subbasement. He will later say he has gone down there to get cigars. It has been suggested that Harrison, who had access to four telephones, was the one who calls Ruby and gives him the word that OSWALD is about to be transferred. (Conspiracy)

11:15 AM Capt. Fritz has completed his questioning of Oswald. A bundle of Oswald's clothes is brought in, and he is asked what he prefers to wear. "Just give me one of those sweaters," Oswald replies, and then slips into a black sweater with jagged holes in the shoulder. He is ready to go. Inspector Thomas J. Kelley of the Secret Service speaks to Oswald quietly out of earshot of everyone else. He tells Oswald that, if he is not guilty, then Kelley would be "very anxious to talk with him to make sure the correct story was developing as it related to the assassination." Oswald says he will be glad to discuss this proposition "with his attorney" but, for the moment, has "nothing more to say." Oswald , still handcuffed, is then escorted out of the small office by a phalanx of Dallas detectives.
Inspector Thomas Kelly talks with Oswald. He said he was anxious to talk with Oswald as soon as he secured counsel, since he had denied shooting the President. Oswald agreed and said, "but at the present time I have nothing more to say to you." Before being brought out he asked for a change of clothes; he was given a choice of sweaters and chose a black one. Posner claims that if Oswald had not delayed to change clothes, Ruby would have missed his transfer. Before entering the basement, he put on a black sweater, hoping to make himself look different - "There ain't nobody gonna shoot me," he told Leavelle.

Oswald was interrogated for a total of approximately 12 hours between 2:30 p.m. on Friday, November 22, 1963, and 11:15 a. m. on Sunday, November 24, 1963. There were no stenographic or tape recordings of these interviews. Along with Capt Fritz, also present during these interviews was FBI agents, James Hosty and James W. Bookhout. Also there was T.J. Nully and David B. Grant (Secret Service) Robert I. Nash (United States Marshal) and Billy L. Senkel and Fay M. Turner (Dallas Police Department). Only Fritz and Turner were talked to by the Warren Commission, and Turner was not asked about Oswald's interrogation. (There were also others present)

11:17-11:18 AM Ruby left City Hall, walked a half block to Western Union, and sent a $25 money order to Carlin in Fort Worth. From there he went straight to the police basement. (WC)
Jack Ruby is at the Western Union office located just down the street from the police station where Oswald is being prepared for transfer. He is sending a twenty-five-dollar money order to Karen Carlin in Fort Worth. Carlin is a stripper who works in his club. Ruby then goes to the police station and positions himself in a place to shoot Oswald.

Karen Bennett Carlin, who dances in Ruby's club using the name "Little Lynn" will be later interviewed by FBI Agent Roger C. Warner: "Mrs. Carlin was highly agitated and was reluctant to make any statement to me. She stated to me that she was under the impression the Lee 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."

Ruby's roommate, George Senator, makes a telephone call from the Eat Well Cafe to attorney Jim Martin in Dallas a few minutes before Ruby shoots OSWALD, requesting that the attorney represent Ruby for the shooting that has not yet occurred.

About this time, Jack Ruby's attorney, Tom Howard, enters the Dallas Police building. He comes through the Harwood Street entrance and walks up to the jail office window. At this time, Oswald is just being taken off the jail elevator. Tom Howard turns away from the window where he sees Oswald emerge from the elevator, waves at Detective H. L. McGee and walks back toward the Harwood Street door saying: "That's all I wanted to see."

Police Chief Jesse Curry is walking down a corridor toward the jail office when he is called to take a telephone call from Dallas Mayor Cabell in his office. Since other officers are in charge of moving Oswald, Curry stays in his office to give Cabell his report over the telephone.

A reporter in the basement seeks out Lieutenant George Butler. The reporter will later testify: Butler's former poise "appeared to have deserted him completely ... He was an extremely nervous man, so nervous that ... I noticed his lips trembling."

Sergeant Patrick Dean, who has known Jack Ruby for years, is in charge of securing the basement against intruders. Dean, who will later be allowed to write his own questions, will fail a lie-detector test. The records of Dean's test have since disappeared.

11:18 AM Jack Ruby leaves Western Union office. The time Ruby sends the twenty-five dollar money order is only four minutes from the time he shoots Oswald. Some researchers have reached the conclusion that the shooting of Oswald is not predicated on Ruby knowing the exact time of Oswald's transfer, but rather conversely that Oswald is transferred only after Ruby is in a position to shoot him.

On November 29, 1963, Police Reserve Officer Harold Holly will make a report stating that he arrives for duty about ten minutes after OSWALD is shot and that: "...then he was sent to Parkland Hospital. While at Parkland, he engaged in conversation with another reserve officer whose name is unknown to him. This reserve officer told Mr. Holly that prior to the shooting, he either observed, or himself admitted Jack Ruby to the basement. That Mr. Ruby was wearing a press identification card on his jacket. Mr. Holly states he could recognize this reserve officer if he could see him again." Subsequently, Holly identifies William J. Newman as the man he talks to. Burt Griffin, Warren Commission Counsel, will later call Newman "a damn liar" to his face as Newman is giving his testimony.

Detective Jim Leavelle, one of the men handcuffed to Oswald, has said he never understood the reason for the nearly one-hour delay in transferring Oswald, but that Capt. Will Fritz gives him the order to move just after conferring with FBI and Secret Service officials.

11:19 AM Detectives take OSWALD in an elevator from his upper floor cell to the basement of the city jail.
Note: The Dallas police force is housed in Dallas City Hall, which adjoins the Municipal Building. There are two ramps leading into the police basement - one on Main Street, normally reserved for entering vehicles, and one on Commerce Street, for departing vehicles. Officer R. E. Vaughn is stationed at the top of the Main St. ramp. Apart from the two ramps, access to the basement is possible through five doors, reached by entering City Hall or the Municipal Building in the first instance. While police witnesses will testify that all five doors to the basement are secure against unauthorized persons, the Warren Commission believes that there is some doubt about one of the doors.

UPI reporter Terrance McGarry tells the FBI that at least five minutes before Oswald is shot, he stations himself at the middle of the basement end of the Main St. ramp and that no one comes down the ramp during this period. Also, a taxi-driver, Harry Tasker, has been hired by a reporter to stand by outside the police station. He has positioned himself opposite the Main St. ramp and has kept the ramp entrance under constant observation, so that he will see the reporter as soon as he emerges and is ready to race to the county jail. Tasker tells the FBI (on Dec. 6, 1963) that he has been standing at the ramp entrance for about five minutes before the shot and that no one resembling Ruby enters the basement while he is there.

11:20 AM Lieutenant Pierce drives his car up the ramp at the police station. One version of Jack Ruby's entrance into the police station has him entering now. As a policeman guarding the ramp moves the crowd to one side to let Lieutenant Pierce's car pass by, it is alleged that Ruby starts down the ramp on the opposite side of the car. Officer R. E. Vaughn, who is stationed there, denies that Ruby enters the basement via the Main St. ramp. Other versions have members of the DPD assisting Ruby in gaining access to the building. James Turner, an employee of WBAP-TV Fort Worth, testifies that while he is standing near the railing on the east side of the Main St. ramp, perhaps 30 seconds before the shooting, he observes a man he is confident is Jack Ruby moving slowly down the Main St. ramp about ten feet away from the bottom. Two other witnesses testify that they think they have seen Ruby on the Main St. side of the ramp before the shooting. One witness, a reserve sergeant name Croy doesn't know "whether it was [Ruby] or not." Croy also fails to report this man in his written report after the shooting. Warren Commission document will eventually state: "Investigating officers have determined the Robert Huffaker, KRLD-TV newsman was in this area at the time, and his clothes were identical to the clothing described by this officer [Croy]."

Robert Kintner, an NBC executive, decides that his network should air the transfer of OSWALD instead of the services in Washington. Because of Kintner, the murder of OSWALD will be televised live on national television. Kintner will eventually join LBJ's White House staff.

Harold Weisberg, on his farm in Maryland, is watching TV coverage and complains to his wife about the transfer of Oswald. "You know, honey, this poor son-of-a-bitch is going to get killed. Everything that is happening is making it impossible to try him. Somebody wants to close his mouth." (Kelin, Praise from a Future Generation)

11:20 CST 12:20 PM (EST) Humes completes autopsy report after burning earlier draft.

11:21 AM Oswald is brought into the basement handcuffed to Detective Leavelle on the right, with Detective Graves at his left arm, preceded by Captain Fritz and Lieutenant Swain and followed by Detective Montgomery. Every one of these men except Captain Fritz knows Jack Ruby and has known him for periods of ten to twelve years. Thirty-six other officers present know Ruby. No one sees him until it is too late.

As OSWALD is led out, the assembled TV crews immediately snap on their bright lights, momentarily blinding some of the police escort. Captain Fritz has not assigned a single man to walk directly in front of the prisoner and shield him from possible attack. (In the television coverage, now preserved on tape, it is observed that Oswald appears to glance directly at Ruby as he walks out. In this split second, he seems aware of Ruby's presence. He shifts his gaze and continues to walk. Others say he was looking at a reporter, Ike Pappas, who was asking him a question.) A car horn sounds twice (in some videos, the horn is heard only once). Jack Ruby is sheltering himself behind police officer William "Blackie" Harrison. Ruby has known Harrison for eleven years.

Jack Ruby suddenly lunges through the crowd, pistol in hand --
A police officer, Detective Combest, sees Ruby stride swiftly forward. "He was bootlegging the pistol like a quarterback with a football ... I knew what he was going to do ... but I couldn't get at him." (Conspiracy)
He planted his pistol in Oswald's stomach and fired once. Oswald was pulled back into the office and began bleeding to death. It was shown live on NBC; this was the first televised murder in history. CBS's Harry Reasoner, desperately trying to sort out the commotion, finally announced, "What you saw very clearly is a man in a dark hat step out from the line and shoot Lee Harvey Oswald."
Ruby's single bullet enters OSWALD's abdomen. It ruptures two main veins carrying blood to the heart, and tears through the spleen, the pancreas, the liver, and the right kidney. Oswald cries out and crumples to the floor. He reportedly never speaks another word.
The wounded Oswald is guided to the floor by Jim Leavelle while L.C. Graves grabs Ruby. Oswald, mortally wounded, is then rushed back into the jail office where police give him artificial respiration while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. (Ruby's shot has traversed Oswald's lower abdomen, rupturing two main arteries carrying blood to the heart, and has torn through the spleen, pancreas, liver, and the right kidney. Obviously, pumping Oswald's chest is the worst possible reaction to the internal bleeding caused by his abdominal wound.) Jack Ruby is hustled out of the police basement and taken to the same jail cell that has only been vacated by Oswald earlier this morning. Oswald is placed on a stretcher and put into an ambulance and rushed to Parkland Hospital. It has been reported by the Dallas Police that they believe OSWALD actually died in the ambulance en route to the hospital. He reportedly sighed once, then grew still and ashen.

The following testimony is from Detective B. H. Combest, who is at OSWALD's left side when he is shot by Ruby:
Combest: I didn't hear him say a word hardly, after he had been shot. He was moaning at the time Jimmy Leavelle, Graves, and I laid him down on the floor and removed the handcuffs that he had on him...At the time I asked him and talked to him trying to get him to make a statement to me at the time. Especially, after I realized how serious the wound was. When we first asked him he appeared to comprehend what I was saying...I told him was there anything that he wanted me to tell anybody or was there anything he wanted to say right now before it was too late...trying to let him know if he was ever going to say anything he was going to have to say it then.
Hubert: You thought he was dying?
Combest: Yes, sir; I did.
Hubert: And do you think you used language to him to convey to him your idea that he was dying?
Combest: Yes, sir.
Hubert: Did you get any indication that he actually understood what you were trying to convey to him?
Combest: When I firt started asking him he did. He looked up at me, seemed to recognize that I - who was talking to him...
Hubert: But, he didn't say anything?
Combest: No sir, just shook his head and I said, "Do you have anything you want to tell us now," and he shook his head...I kept talking to him as long as I thought he would try to answer me, hoping that he would give a dying declaration on the shooting.

11:24 AM Ambulance arrives at City Hall. Jim Leavelle remembers the ride in the ambulance with Oswald to Parkland Hospital: "A med student was doing CPR and I was holding his wrists, trying to get blood pressure and couldn't get any. I told the doctors in the trauma room I want that bullet out. .... It just popped out in a tray, like a grape seed. I gave the nurse my pocketknife and I said, Scratch your initial in that bullet because you and I will testify that that was the bullet.' I wrapped it in a tissue and put it in the crime lab later for analysis. We both did testify several times on it."

Of twenty five detectives in the Dallas Homicide and Robbery Bureau (ten had been on duty for the motorcade), seven are on duty this day (28 percent), twelve are off (48 percent), three have taken the day off (12 percent), one is sick (4 percent), and two are on vacation (8 percent.)

Mobster John Roselli will eventually tell columnist Jack Anderson: "When Oswald was picked up, the underworld conspirators feared he would crack and disclose information that might lead to them. This almost certainly would have brought a massive U.S. crackdown on the Mafia. So Jack Ruby was ordered to eliminate Oswald ..." (Conspiracy)

LBJ aide, George Reedy, thinks the TV channel he is watching has cut away from coverage of the Kennedy funeral preparations to play an old Edward G. Robinson gangster movie when he first sees the shooting out of the corner of his eye. (Brothers)

LBJ enters the Blue Room in the White House and tells RFK of the shooting. LBJ urges the surprised attorney general "to do something...We've got to get involved. It's giving the United States a bad name around the world." RFK asks Walter Sheridan to find out all he can about Jack Ruby. (Brothers)

Desmond Fitzgerald's wife will eventually tell author Evan Thomas that the first and last time she ever saw her husband break down in tears was when Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby. Her husband has been upset from the moment of the assassination, and sits silently, watching the news along with millions of others around the globe. When Jack Ruby performs his deed, Fitzgerald begins to cry, and says, somewhat cryptically, "Now we'll never know."

The Warren Commission will state: "Although Chief Curry's estimate that approximately 25 to 50 of the 1,175 men in the Dallas Police Department knew Ruby may be too conservative, the Commission found no evidence of any suspicious relationships between Ruby and any police officer." Seth Kantor writes: "...starting with Sunday afternoon, you could no longer find a policeman in town who said that he knew Ruby ..."

On WFAA-TV, announcer Bob Walker is talking on camera about the shooting of Oswald. A man walks up and hands him a bulletin. As Walker reads it, the man starts to say, "Jack Ruby," and Walker puts his hand over the microphone on the desk. He looks very irritated and asks if it has been confirmed. Walker, looking somewhat disturbed, then announces that "Jack Ruby, owner of the Carousel, which is a bar in Dallas, did the shooting."

11:32 AM Oswald is brought into the emergency room (Trauma Room 2) at Parkland Hospital.

11:34 AM CST 12:34 PM EST Jackie and RFK enter the East Room to see the coffin opened. (Death of a President)

11:40 AM Capt. Ganoway called Hosty about any information the FBI might have on Ruby. Hosty soon found out that Ruby had been a Potential Criminal Informant for the FBI; Howe told Hosty that he would handle it and not to talk to Ganoway about it. (Assignment Oswald 57)

In a ceremonial precession, JFK's body was brought to the Capital to lay in state. A riderless black horse, carrying boots facing backwards, followed the flag-draped caisson pulled by 6 white horses.

11:44 AM Operation on Oswald begins.

Homicide and Robbery division Detective Guy F. Rose quickly obtains a search warrant for Jack Ruby's residence at the Marsala Place Apartments. The detective arrives around 1:00 PM and searches the rooms until about 2:00 PM looking through the clutter, though attempting to return items to their original positions. No photographs are made at the scene.

Within 30 minutes of his act of murder, Jack Ruby chooses to tell four police officers that he had entered the basement through the Main Street ramp, but not one of those officers reports what Ruby has said "until some days later." Having told the four policemen how he got in, Ruby then becomes uncooperative. When FBI Agent Hall begins to interrogate him at 12:40 PM, Ruby refuses to reveal his means of entry, even though two of the policemen to whom Ruby has already admitted using the Main St. ramp are present with FBI Agent Hall.

Dr. Charles A. Crenshaw, in his book Conspiracy of Silence, writes of receiving a telephone call from LBJ as the emergency surgery on Oswald is underway. LBJ tells Crenshaw: "I want a deathbed confession from the accused assassin. There's a man in the operating room who will take the statement. I will expect full cooperation in this matter."

On the phone with Bill Walton, Agnes Meyer, the aging mother of Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, growls, "What is this - some kind of goddam banana republic?" (Brothers)

In Washington - Jacqueline Kennedy appears at the north portico of the White House, dressed all in black, to watch her husband's last departure from the presidential mansion. Caroline and John, Jr. stand on either side of her as JFK's coffin is placed in position by the pallbearers. The casket is taken to the rotunda Capitol Building.

11:45 AM AP report: Policeman P. T. Dean, who was present at the shooting, said Oswald was shot in his lowest left abdomen. ... Officer Dean said, "The man was standing among newsmen in front of one of the police patrol cars parked in the basement to escort the armored car [which was to transfer Oswald from the city to the county jail]." Dean said, "I saw the man crouch down and then jump up and fire one shot."... Oswald was shot from about five feet.

11:55 CST 12:55 EST The Kennedys meet the Johnsons in the Blue Room. (Manchester)

Noon "FERRIE stated the first stop they made after reaching Port Arthur was at the Gulf Service Station on the left hand side of the highway in Port Arthur, Texas where they purchased a new set of spark plugs for the Comet station wagon. He stated that there was a television set in this station and as he walked into the station there was a picture on the television set showing the shooting of LEE OSWALD in the basement of the Dallas City Jail. FERRIE said he presumed he was looking at the original live broadcast of the shooting and that this was in the vicinity of 12:00 Noon on that date. He said the after changing the spark plugs in the station wagon he ran the car up on the rack in order that the attendant could check the transmission and differential. FERRIE estimated that he remained at this service station for approximately 20 to 30 minutes. They then left Port Arthur and drove to Orange, Texas and after crossing the Louisiana state line they stopped at Buster's Bar and Restaurant. He stated that the operator of Buster's Bar and Restaurant is MARION JAMES JOHNSON who is a client of Attorney G. WRAY GILL. He stated that he contacted JOHNSON at the bar and restaurant and talked to JOHNSON for approximately 30 minutes discussing the status of an appeal on a perjury conviction of JOHNSON in connection with an income tax case on Sheriff REID at lake Charles, Lousiana." (FBI interview 11/25/1963)

12:08 CST 1:08 PM EST The gun carriage leaves the North Portico for the Capitol. (Manchester)

12:26 PM CST Dallas - Witnesses said Ruby got out of an automobile, quietly slipped into the crowd, jumped a three foot railing and went about six more feet before firing. "It looked just like he was going to stake hands with him - but he jammed the gun up close," said Anthony Ripley of the Detroit News. "Those persons close by saw a bit of flash but then all we could see was Stetson hats [worn by some officers] and dust." Oswald was handcuffed at the time and his wrists were crossed over each other. AP, 12:26 p.m. CST

12:40 PM Ruby interrogated by FBI agent C. Ray Hall; it lasted five hours.

12:49 PM CST Dallas -- The only motive police could think of for the shooting of Oswald was smoldering resentment over the President's assassination. AP, Arthur Everett

12:52 CST 1:52 EST Band plays "Hail to the Chief" and Navy hymn. (Manchester)

1:03 PM CST Ruby, held as Oswald's assailant, was known as a man with a quick temper. His lawyer, C. A. Droby, said about a month ago Ruby was acquitted in court of badly beating a man involved in a fight it his club. AP, 1:03 p.m. CST, 2nd add 2nd lead Oswald shooting.

1:07 PM (CST) 2:07 (EST) Oswald is pronounced dead.

1:09 PM (CST) Oswald's assailant crouched amid a crowd of onlookers outside the Dallas city hall and sent a single bullet into Oswald's abdomen at such close range that the sound [of] the shot was partly muffled by the victim's body. AP, 1:09 p.m. CST

In an interview recorded by WFAA-TV 11/24/1963 at the Dallas Police and Courts Building: Q: Captain, what excuse - letting him [Ruby] get that close -? Fritz: What excuse did he use? Q: No, what excuse do you-all have, you know, that he got that close? Fritz: I don't have an excuse. (H 24 788-89).

Carousel Club stripper, Janet Conforto -- better known as Jada -- is driving home to New Orleans when she hears of the Oswald shooting. She immediately calls a Dallas Times Herald reporter with her Ruby recollections, then heads back to Dallas for publicity. She will appear on network television this evening in an interview with Paul Good. WFAA-TV keeps a video of that interview and the Warren Commission eventually publishes a transcript. Within 10 days Jada is in New York where FBI agents James Rogers and Edmund Fanagan interview her and write: "She had no knowledge of any association between Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald (and) had never seen Oswald in the Carousel Club, or at any place. (In an interview over thirty years later, her son confirms Jada's information and says she died in a motorcycle/bus accident in the late 1970's.)

Dallas - I was standing at a corner of the ramp as they led Lee Oswald out of the building, and then I saw Jack Ruby and I 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. He rushed right up to Oswald and put the gun just flat against his chest. And I saw a flash of fire. I think Ruby did what he was planning on doing all this 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 employees 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. I helped carry Oswald to the jail basement office. Someone said, "What do you want to do with him?" and I heard someone answer, "well, let's get him out of here fast." I think the city jail physician said the bullet went in at a slant but did not come out the other side ---that it entered his left side and you could feel it under the skin on the opposite side. I think the gun was a .38 caliber blue steel snub-nose. Ruby pushed it right up against him. Ruby must have climbed over the railing to get into the crowd. I didn't see him go over the railing --the first. I saw was when he rushed forward. Oswald had a powder burn as big as a fist on his sweater. Oswald Eyewitness, Detective B. H. Combest, AP

1:17 PM CST 2:17 PM (EST) Jackie and Caroline kneel by the coffin in the rotunda. (Manchester)

1:25 PM CST 2:25 PM EST NBC announces death of Oswald. (Manchester)

1:45 PM CST ... The black-haired accused assassin of the President had walked out of city hall and to his death handcuffed and with a tiny smile on his lips. However, he may have spotted his killer an instant before he was shot. Francois Pelou, a reporter for France Press, who watched the drama from very close by, said: "I'm sure he saw the man. It's my feeling he knew the gun was going to fire because he jerked his hands toward his stomach in sort of a reflex action even before I heard the shot." AP, 1:45 p.m. CST, 2nd add 4th lead Oswald shooting.

1:58 PM Jacqueline Kennedy enters the rotunda of the Capitol. She leaves twenty-two minutes later.

[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."

[Tracy Riddle]

• 1965 Charles De Gaulle orders all non-French soldiers out of France, and NATO headquarters to leave France in six months.
  
• Second Vatican Council formally admitted that Christian communities separated from the Catholic Church are used by the Holy Spirit as "means of salvation" for those who belong to them. The phrase calling Rome "the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ" was abandoned.
  
• US federal spending: $118 billion ($1.4 billion deficit). National debt was $313 billion. 28.5% of seniors live in poverty. Robert Moog shows elements of his early synthesizers. Also, William Lear (better known as the developer of the Learjet) sees his other great innovations, the 8-track cartridge and player, go into production.
  
• The Coinage Act of 1965 provides that US coins will have the inscription "E Pluribus Unum" and "In God We Trust." (Davis, US Coin Collecting)
  
• As part of Project 112, the US military sprays a biological agent on barracks in Oahu, Hawaii. The agent is believed to be harmless but later shown to infect those with damaged immune systems . The program is coordinated by the Desert Test Center, part of a "biological and chemical weapons complex" in the Utah desert. [Associated Press, 10/9/02] Civilians may have been exposed to the gasses. [Reuters, 10/10/02] 1965-1967: As part of Project 112, the US military performs a series of tests at the Gerstle River test site near Fort Greeley, Alaska, involving artillery shells and bombs filled with sarin and VX, both of which are lethal nerve agents. The program is coordinated by the Desert Test Center, part of a "biological and chemical weapons complex," in the Utah desert. [Associated Press, 10/9/02] Civilians may have been exposed to the gasses. [Reuters, 10/10/02] The US military later claims the experiments were conducted "out of concern for [the United States'] ability to protect and defend against these potential threats." [US Department of Defense, 10/09/2002; Reuters, 10/10/02]
  
• In a three year study beginning in 1965, 70 volunteer prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia were subjected to tests of dioxin, the highly toxic chemical contaminant in Agent Orange. Lesions which the men developed were not treated and remained for up to seven months. None of the subjects was informed that they would later be studied for the development of cancer. This was the second such experiment which Dow Chemical undertook on "volunteers" who did not receive the information which the world proclaimed was necessary for "informed consent" at Nuremberg.
  
• "Manhattan-based historical-documents dealer Gary Zimet told Newsday he has acquired a letter written by Jack Ruby accusing President Johnson of complicity in the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. In the 12-page letter written from prison in 1965, Ruby also claimed he was framed for conspiracy in the assassination of JFK. The letter was addressed to a Dallas police officer friend named "Joe," Zimet said…Zimet said he bought the letter six weeks ago from "someone one step removed from the Ruby family." In the letter, Zimet said, Ruby wrote he was "being framed for being in on the assassination, that I had been used to silence Oswald." "Someday, Joe, you will find out what President Johnson is!" Ruby wrote, according to Zimet. "What he had to do with the assassination. One thing is for certain, Joe, he couldn't stand a polygraph test." Ruby questioned in the letter how Oswald "went to work a week or 10 days at the Texas School Book Depository before even Kennedy knew he himself was coming to Dallas." "Who up in Washington was so close to the president to know this information and to pass it on the Oswald?" the letter had asked, according to Zirpet. (Newsday 4/16/1995)
  
• During this year, RFK - on the Amazon River - swims out of a dugout canoe in piranha-infested waters. As the rest of the men on the expedition paddle around, RFK intones to a petrified Richard Goodwin that, while "It was impossible to pinpoint the exact time and place when he decided to run for president...the idea seemed to take hold as he was swimming in the Amazonian River of Nhamunda."
  
• 1965 Suppressing Sarkhan The followup book to The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick disappears from bookstores. Lederer claims the CIA did it because it revealed too much about then current operations in Thailand. It was finally released in 1977 under the title 'The Deceptive American'.
  
• The city fathers of Bogalusa, Louisiana invited moderate Arkansas congressman Brooks Hays to speak at a local church. The state's Original Knights of the KKK distributed 6000 handbills claiming that Hays was coming "to convince you that you should help integration by sitting in church with the black man, hiring more of them in your businesses, serving and eating with them in your cafes, and allowing your children to sit by filthy, runny-nosed, ragged, ugly little niggers in your public schools…We will know the names of all who are invited to the Brooks Hays meeting and we will know who did and did not attend this meeting…Those who do attend this meeting will be tagged as integrationists and will be dealt with accordingly by the knights of the Ku Klux Klan." When the hosting church was threatened with bombing, Hays' visit was cancelled. (The Nation 2/1/1965)
  
• It was superfluous for a White House spokesman to publicly reassure Mr. J. Edgar Hoover ... that the President was not contemplating replacing him ... Several Presidents did not dare do that and the things already known about the amassing of Mr. Johnson's fortunes may well suggest the thickness of his file in Mr. Hoover's office. ...... Whether he preaches on religion, family, patriotism, Communism or civil rights, Mr. Hoover is America's most capable man in finding legal formulations for values most foreign to the Constitution and the very idea of freedom.While Hoover's hidden dialogue with the reactionaries of America accounts for the popular adulation of him, for power he relies on more tangible mechanisms. Where is the man who would not mind having everything about him exposed? And where is the man who does not have a personal file in Hoover's organization? Certainly, there is no such man in the White House. The Minority of One, Editorial, Hoover's Survivability, p. 4
  
• The January and March 1965 issues of Liberation magazine carried articles highly critical of the Warren Report by Philadelphia attorney Vincent Salandria.
  
• 1/1965 A Lawyer's Notes on the Warren Commission Report by Alfredda Scobey Law Assistant to the Court of Appeals of Georgia American Bar Association Journal, January 1965, Vol. 51, pages 3943.
  
• 1/1/1965 New Year's Eve costume ball at California Hall, S.F., to raise funds for the Council on Religion and the Homosexual was harassed by police. It became a turning point in the San Francisco gay rights movement. ACLU took the case, which was dismissed.
  
• 1/1/1965 After closing down Operation Mongoose and the CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami, Theodore Shackley and deputy Thomas Clines are sent to Laos to organize opposition to the Pathet Lao guerilla force. Meo hill tribesmen are recruited and conduct a massive extermination program of guerilla sympathizers. (Fonzi chronology)
  
• 1/2/1965 Martin Luther King Jr. announced the launching of Project Alabama, a campaign of mass marches in Selma in an effort to push the federal government to enact federal legislation to protect black voting rights.
  
• 1/3/1965 UC officials announce a new campus policy that allows political activity on campus. (SF Chronicle 6/9/02)
  
• 1/4/1965 In his State of the Union address, LBJ announced his goal of creating a Great Society, with programs aimed at eliminating poverty and racism. They included Head Start, Medicare, food stamps, housing subsidies, federal aid to elementary and secondary schools and to universities, Model Cities, job training, student loans. He also called for federal efforts to aid the arts, the cities, and fight pollution. Johnson would define the Great Society as a "war" on poverty, with federal funds to be "fired in" to pockets of poverty in what Washington called the "rifle-shot approach."
  
• 1/4/1965 Gerald Ford replaced Charlie Halleck as GOP House Minority Leader.
  
• 1/4/1965 Four armed CIA agents, among them Eloy Gutierrez Menoyo, who revealed U.S. plans against Cuba, captured by the Cubans. Menoyo is forced to go on Cuban television to publicly confess after beatings that result in having "all his ribs broken" and losing "all his hearing from one ear." Menoyo is "accused by the regime of having conspired to kill [Fidel] Castro" and begins serving a life sentence.
  
• 1/5/1965 Atlanta Constitution quoted the new member of the HUAC, liberal Atlanta congressman Charles Weltner, who was urging an investigation of the KKK: "I believe I speak for a vast majority of southerners in calling for action. For in doing nothing we will inaugurate a second century for the Ku Klux Klan." Liberals generally opposed the Un-American Activities Committee investigating the Klan, fearing a whitewash.
  
• 1/7/1965 Johnson sent his Medicare bill to Congress. LBJ met with labor leaders in the White House: Jim Carey, David Dubinsky, David MacDonald, George Meany, Walter Reuther.
  
• 1/7/1965 This evening, LBJ had the Businessmen's Council over to the White House: Roger Blough (US Steel), Frederick Kappel (AT&T), W.B. Murphy (Campbell's Soup), L.F. McCollum (Continental Oil of Houston), Tom Watson (IBM), Fred Lazarus Jr. (Federated Dept Stores), Neil McElroy (Procter and Gamble), C.R. Smith (American Airlines). (White House Diary p33)
  
• 1/14/1965 Lady Bird Johnson and Sargent Shriver discussed the new program Operation Head Start, designed to help young underprivileged children with education, nutrition and health before they enter the public schools.
  
• 1/17/1965 Journalist Arnold Beichman, who knew LBJ well when he was VP, wrote: "Johnson's loyalties were surely tried. He had an unhappy idea that he was being followed, that his wires were tapped." (New York Herald-Tribune)
  
• 1/17/1965 Two rural black churches were destroyed by fire in Jonesboro, Louisiana.
  
• 1/18-20/1965 Billy Hargis' Christian Crusade Anti-Communist Leadership School in Miami featured speaker Samuel Blumenthal, who had repeatedly charged that the JFK assassination was a "deliberately planned act of the Communist conspiracy."
  
• 1/20/1965 LBJ's inauguration for his first full presidential term. Lady Bird Johnson wrote in her diary, "I heard that the lone spectator watching the parade from the balcony on an upper floor of the Justice Department turned out to be J. Edgar Hoover. He has seen a lot of us come and go." The first change in the Cabinet he had inherited from JFK becomes official this month. John T. Connor is sworn in as secretary of commerce, succeeding Luther H. Hodges, Nicholas de B. Katzenbach is named Attorney General to succeed Robert F. Kennedy.
  
• 1/20/1965 At a large meeting of congressional leaders, Lyndon leaned over to Larry O'Brien and said, "John Kennedy is watching us up in heaven and we are going to wrap up all of his legislation and put it in a package and tie it up and label it JFK." (White House Diary p231)
  
• 1/21/1965 Iran: PM Hassan Ali Mansour was fatally wounded by an assassin in Teheran.
  
• 1/23/1965 LBJ entered Bethesda Hospital.
  
• 1/23/1965 Three explosions demolished a black funeral home in New Bern, North Carolina.
  
• 1/24/1965 Winston Churchill died.
  
• 1/26/1965 LBJ returned to the White House from Bethesda.
  
• 1/27/1965 LBJ spent the night before with a terrible attack of sweating, "a symptom of his illnesses for all the years I have known him," Lady Bird wrote. (White House Diary 232)
  
• 1/27/1965 McNamara and Bundy gave LBJ a memo saying that the weak political situation in Saigon might be partly due to low morale because of America's hesitant policy, and a full-scale US military presence might turn things around. Bundy was then sent to Saigon to appraise the prospects for military action against North Vietnam. Robert McNamara and McGeorge Bundy submit a memorandum on Vietnam to LBJ: "The worst course of action is to continue in this essentially passive role which can only lead to eventual defeat and an invitation to get out in humiliating circumstances. We see two alternatives. The first is to use our military power in the Far East and to force a change in Communist policy. The second is to deploy all our resources along a track of negotiation, aimed at salvaging what little can be preserved with no major addition to our present military risks. [We] tend to favor the first course, but we believe that both should be carefully studied." McNamara will later write: "Between January 28 and July 28, 1965, President Johnson made the fateful choices that locked the United States onto a path of massive military intervention in Vietnam, an intervention that ultimately destroyed his presidency and polarized America like nothing since the Civil War."
  
• 1/27/1965 Nick Katzenbach was named Attorney General, with Ramsey Clark being named Deputy Attorney General.
  
• 1/30/1965 As the KKK grows increasingly cocky over its ability to commit crimes, and the federal government's inability to stop them, the Saturday Evening Post quoted UKA Imperial Wizard Shelton at a South Carolina rally: "You know how they finally found them three boys that was buried in that dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi? The mailman found them. He walked by there delivering welfare checks, and the nigger reached up to get his."
  
• 2/1965 Harold Weisberg's Whitewash, the first book to critique the Warren Report and its 26 volumes of evidence, is completed. He has a difficult time finding a publisher and it is privately published later in the year.
  
• 2/1965 The journal Postgraduate Medicine characterized Oswald and the assassins before him as "stand[ing] midway between the aggressive and paranoid psychopath" who share a common "desire for recognition." (Story by Sidney J. Slomich and Robert E. Kantor)
  
• 2/1965 A view between both demonological poles of J. Edgar Hoover as a superlative bureaucrat in a superlatively bureaucratic environment. Quotes Francis Biddle: "A career man in the truest sense. … he cares for power and more power; but unlike many men, it is power bent to the purpose of his life's work - the success of the FBI." Commentary, J. Edgar Hoover, The Compleat Bureaucrat, Joseph Kraft
  
• 2/1965 Senator Hiram Fong (R-HI) answered questions concerning the possible change in our cultural pattern by an influx of Asians. "Asians represent six-tenths of 1 percent of the population of the United States ... with respect to Japan, we estimate that there will be a total for the first 5 years of some 5,391 ... the people from that part of the world will never reach 1 percent of the population .. .Our cultural pattern will never be changed as far as America is concerned." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965, pp.71, 119.) [Note: From 1966 to 1970, 19,399 immigrants came from Japan, more than three times Sen. Fong's estimate. Immigration from Asia as a whole has totaled 5,627,576 from 1966 to 1993. Three percent of the American population is currently of Asian birth or heritage.] A certain Myra C. Hacker, Vice President of the New Jersey Coalition, testified at a Senate immigration subcommittee hearing: "In light of our 5 percent unemployment rate, our worries over the so called population explosion, and our menacingly mounting welfare costs, are we prepared to embrace so great a horde of the world's unfortunates? At the very least, the hidden mathematics of the bill should be made clear to the public so that they may tell their Congressmen how they feel about providing jobs, schools, homes, security against want, citizen education, and a brotherly welcome ... for an indeterminately enormous number of aliens from underprivileged lands." "We should remember that people accustomed to such marginal existence in their own land will tend to live fully here, to hoard our bounteous minimum wages and our humanitarian welfare handouts ... lower our wage and living standards, disrupt our cultural patterns ..." "Whatever may be our benevolent intent toward many people, [the bill] fails to give due consideration to the economic needs, the cultural traditions, and the public sentiment of the citizens of the United States." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 681-687.)
  
• 2/1/1965 Dr. Pierre Finck letter about his experiences with the autopsy of President Kennedy.
  
• 2/3/1965 Mississippi's Senators Stennis and Eastland entered some horror stories about civil rights "agitators" into the congressional record: Stennis: The white boys and white girls would live in Negro houses. They would sit in the courthouse square on park benches, and they would love and hug and go down the street holding hands. I am speaking of the white girls and white boys in the groups that came in. Eastland: I know of several instances in which members of this group were syphilitic and the Public Health Service had to take charge. Stennis: Yes, I heard of that too. The mores, customs and traditions that the people there were taught in their youth were flouted daily in the faces of both races… Eastland: I know of an instance in my hometown in which a Negro woman cut her husband up because of his attention to one of those white girls.
  
• 2/7/1965 Mac Bundy wrote a memo advocating a sustained air campaign against North Vietnam.
  
• 2/8/1965 Bundy presented his report at an NSC meeting; he urged a bombing campaign to raise Vietnamese morale, but did not promise it would solve much: "At its very best the struggle in Vietnam will be long. It seems to us important that this fundamental fact be made clear and our understanding of it be made clear to our own people." But LBJ came away urging everyone to take the position that the bombing would not "broaden the war."
  
• 2/9/1965 500 US Marines, manning a Hawk anti-aircraft missile unit, arrive near Danang. (JFK & LBJ 265)
  
• 2/9/1965 Colonel Harold Hauser, head of the U.S. military mission to Guatemala, was the target of a failed assassination attempt by Movimiento Revolucionario-13 terrorists.
  
• 2/9/1965 Soviets condemned US air attacks and announced it would "take further measures to safeguard the security and strengthen the defense capabilities of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam." The Chinese accused the US of "expanding the war beyond South Vietnam."
  
• 2/10/1965 Jacques Vallee diary entry: "The Vietnam War is getting worse. The US army communiques about recent victories sound eerily identical to the French news I heard as a child. They speak of police operations,' of routine rounding-up of suspects, of mounting casualties among the rebels,' of their imminent defeat." (Forbidden Science p134)
  
• 2/10/1965 Senate immigration subcommittee chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA.) reassured his colleagues and the nation with the following: "First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same ... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset ... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia ... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think." Sen. Kennedy concluded by saying, "The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 1-3.) "
  
• 2/11/1965 US announced general policy of punishing "aggression" by bombing North Vietnam. 160 US and South Vietnamese planes attack Chan Hoa and Chap Le in retaliation for VC attack on Qui Nhon. (JFK & LBJ 265)
  
• 2/13/1965 Sustained US bombing of North Vietnam began.
  
• 2/13/1965 Portuguese Gen. Humberto Delgado gunned down
  
• 2/14/1965 NY Times commented that Nixon had "firmly grasped the leadership role" of the GOP after Goldwater abandoned it.
  
• 2/14/1965 Lady Bird wrote, "Ah, how comfortable the job of Senator looks from this vantage point! Bill Fulbright can disagree with everything that happens, and he doesn't have to come up with the answers of what to do." (White House Diary 245)
  
• 2/14/1965 Malcolm X said in a Detroit speech, "I've never advocated any violence. I've only said that Black people who are the victims of organized violence perpetrated upon us by the Klan, the Citizen's Council, and many other forms, we should defend ourselves... I think the Black man in this country above and beyond people all over the world will be more than justified when he stands up and starts to protect himself no matter how many necks he has to break." Tonight, he and his wife and four daughters escaped unharmed when three gas bombs were thrown into the living room of their Queens apartment.
  
• 2/14/1965 Arthur Krock reported in the NYT that the Joint Chiefs wanted to send 40,000 troops to Vietnam as early as the fall of '61, but JFK rejected their proposal 10/11/1961.
  
• 2/15/1965 In the Letters section of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a doctor wrote to complain that JFK's autopsy was "a grossly incomplete record."
  
• 2/16/1965 Washington Post published a Gallup poll showing that 64% of Americans wanted to "continue" in Vietnam, and only 18% wanted to "pull out."
  
• 2/16/1965 Truman issued a statement supporting LBJ's war policy; he attacked the "irresponsible critics...who have neither all the facts - nor the answers."
  
• 2/17/1965 LBJ met with Eisenhower, Bundy, McNamara, Wheeler. Ike told LBJ his first duty was to contain communism in Asia, and thought that bombing would weaken Hanoi's will. If it was necessary to send in large numbers of combat troops, "so be it." Ike also said that threatened Chinese or Soviet intervention should be detered by warning them that the US might use nuclear weapons. (In Retrospect 172-3)
  
• 2/18/1965 McNamara testified before the House Armed Services Committee, and called for a nationwide network of bomb shelters and development of an anti-ballistic missile system.
  
• 2/18/1965 Officially for the first time, US-piloted planes attack VC positions in South Vietnam. (JFK & LBJ 265)
  
• 2/19/1965 LBJ decided on air strikes against North Vietnam, but still wanted to keep it from the public. (In Retrospect 173)
  
• 2/20/1965 Ranger 8 spacecraft crashed on the moon after sending back thousands of pictures of the lunar surface.
  
• 2/21/1965 Malcolm X arrived at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem to speak before 400 people. He had just uttered the Arabic greeting "As-salaam alaikum" when he was assassinated. Five black men had come to NY that morning from Paterson, NJ and had arrived early. All were Muslims and belonged to the Newark mosque; they were able to slip past Malcolm's security. 22-year-old Talmadge Hayer took a seat near the podium. Another man in the back of the room jumped up and began yelling to distract attention; another assassin in the second row stood up, pulled a shotgun out of his trenchcoat and fired at Malcolm, striking him in the chest. Hayer pulled out his .45 automatic and a comrade brought out his 9mm Lugar; both blazed away at the fallen Malcolm. Someone shot Hayer in the leg and he was accosted by the crowd. His partners got away. Hayer confessed to the killing but claimed to have acted alone; within two weeks police arrested Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, both from the Bronx and from the Black Muslim militia unit Fruit of Islam. Though there was evidence that Butler and Johnson were elsewhere at the time, the jury found them and Hayer guilty. All were sentenced to life in prison. When Elijah Mohammed died in 1975, Hayer broke his silence and said he and four other Muslims Leon, Wilbur, Willie X and Ben had carried out the assassination because they feared Malcolm X would bring down their beloved leader. Hayer continued to insist that Butler and Johnson were innocent. The three men were released in the mid-80s.
  
• 2/21/965 Augustus Owsley Stanley, a former Air Force electronics specialist, working in radio intelligence and radar who later worked at Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had moved to Berkeley and got involved in making LSD and meth. On February 21, 1965, that lab was raided by state narcotics agents who seized all his lab equipment and charged Stanley with operating a meth lab. As Barry Miles recounted in Hippie, "Berkeley was awash with speed and Owsley was responsible for much of it." Nevertheless, Owsley walked away from the raid unscathed, and, with the help of his attorney, who happened to be the vice-mayor of Berkeley, he even successfully sued to have all his lab equipment returned (LSD was not yet illegal). He quickly put that equipment to work producing some 4,000,000 tabs of nearly pure LSD in the mid-1960s. Also in February of 1965, Owsley and his frequent sidekicks, the Grateful Dead, moved down to the Watts area of Los Angeles, of all places, to ostensibly conduct acid tests.' The group rented a house that was conveniently located right next door to a brothel, curiously paralleling the modus operandi of various intelligence operatives who were (or had been) involved in conducting their own acid tests.' The band departed the communal dwelling in April 1965, just a few months before Watts exploded in violence that left thirty-four corpses littering the streets. In 1967, Owsley unleashed on the Haight a particularly nasty hallucinogen known as STP. Developed by the friendly folks at Dow Chemical, STP had been tested extensively at the Edgewood Arsenal as a possible biowarfare agent before being distributed to hippies as a recreational drug. Owsley reportedly obtained the recipe from Alexander Shulgin, a former Harvard man who developed a keen interest in psychopharmacology while serving in the U.S. Navy. Shulgin worked for many years as a senior research chemist at Dow, and later worked very closely with the DEA.
  
• 2/22/1965 Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter died.
  
• 2/23/1965 DeLoach memo to Hoover noted that LBJ had promised "that Attorney General Katzenbach would not be around very long and that he hoped we could put up with him for the time being."
  
• 2/23/1965 Dean Rusk sent a memo to LBJ saying, "I am convinced it would be disastrous for the United States and the Free World to permit Southeast Asia to be overrun by the Communist North." Everything should be done to contain Hanoi, even at "the risk of major escalation."
  
• 2/23/1965 J. Edgar Hoover's relations with LBJ, problems of picking a successor. Among those who could retire along with Hoover, or earlier, are his associate director and his two assistants. Next in line are the 10 assistant directors, only four of whom are below voluntary-retirement age [50]. They are: James H. Gale, who was recently named head of the special investigations division; C. Lester Trotter, head of the identification division [and the man in charge of the enormous file of fingerprints]; Saxby Tavel, head of communications and records, and C. D. [Deke] DeLoach, head of crime records. Look, What's Ahead for the FBI, by Miriam Ottenburg
  
• 2/23/1965 Sen. Thomas Dodd made a lengthy speech charging that to advocate negotiating with the Vietnamese Communists "is akin to asking Churchill to negotiate with the Germans at the time of Dunkirk."
  
• 2/23/1965 Jacques Vallee diary entry: "In his most recent letter to me, Aime Michel reports on a curious change among some secret services in Europe which seem to have taken an open interest in the subject. Thus a former agent of the British Intelligence Service has leaked the news that Great Britain is now swapping information on UFOs with the Soviets, both having reached the conclusion that the objects are real. Another agent, an American, has assured Michel that the FBI took the whole issue very seriously. Finally, Colonel Clerouin, whom he had not seen for years, suddenly invited him for lunch and told him there was a lot of interest in the subject among the French military staff. Aime does not trust any of these shadowy people, whose very business is lying and cheating in the first place…Someone is using us to snow' somebody else, he thinks." (Forbidden Science p137)
  
• 2/24/1965 US attacks of 2/18 are disclosed in Saigon and new US sorties are flown in Binhdinh province. (JFK and LBJ 265)
  
• 2/25/1965 Beginning of US air attacks against VC concentrations near Saigon. (JFK & LBJ 265)
  
• 2/25/1965 NY Times: "The United States Embassy disclosed today that American jet aircraft were sent on air strikes against the Vietcong in South Vietnam during the last week." The administration used the Tonkin Resolution to justify these actions as "appropriate, fitting and measured."
  
• 2/26/1965 James Reston column in NYT: "The guiding principle of American foreign policy since 1945 has been that no state shall use military force or the threat of military force to achieve its political objectives. And the companion of this principle has been that the United States would use its influence and its power, when necessary and where it could be effective, against any state that defied this principle." This principle was "at stake in Vietnam…the United States is now challenging the Communist effort to seek power by the more cunning technique of military subversion."
  
• 2/27/1965 RFK records an oral history interview with Art Schlesinger: "The Bay of Pigs was the best thing that happened to the administration, because if it hadn't been for the Bay of Pigs, we would have sent troops into Laos...[JFK] started asking questions that were not asked at the Bay of Pigs..." He recalled that the JCS told him they could land 1000 troops a day into Laos, but when Kennedy asked how the early arrivals would fight off thousands of Pathet Lao guerillas, "Well, they said, they really hadn't thought about that....They just wanted to go in and drop bombs on people. Even after the Cuban missile crisis, two of the Chiefs of Staff were really mad. One of them suggested that we go and bomb them anyway on Monday, and the other one said, 'We've been sold out.'....LeMay and Anderson. That's really the reason why the President got rid of Anderson." He said that LBJ played little part in foreign policy: "he was never in on any of the real meetings...he was their for the first meeting, I think. Then he went to Hawaii...He wasn't there at all when the decisions were being made. He came back on the Sunday night before the Russians withdrew their missiles from Cuba...He was displeased with what we were doing, although he never made it clear what he would do. He said he had the feeling that we were being too weak...[LBJ] liked Diem...Johnson is...incapable of telling the truth...And my experience with him since then is that he lies all the time. I'm telling you, he just lies continuously, about everything. In every conversation I have with him, he lies. As I've said, he lies even when he doesn't have to...At one time, you know, I liked John Connally. I don't like him now...He's been very ungracious. I really dislike him..."
  
• 2/27/1965 State Dept issues a white paper accusing North Vietnam of aggression. It claimed that most of the communist fighters in the South were actually Northern infiltrators, not native rebels. This claim was greeted with considerable skepticism by reporters covering Vietnam.
  
• 2/27/1965 Warren Commission staffer Joseph Ball, on a Los Angeles KNBC-TV show, was asked about the grassy knoll; he replied, "That happens to be the part of the investigation of which I had charge...There were no people there."
  
• 2/28/1965 US announces "continuous limited airstrikes" against North Vietnam.
  

[Tracy Riddle]

• 3/1965 Analysis by former FBI agent. "When the FBI blunders it just makes another movie." Ramparts, After J. Edgar, Who?, William Turner, p. 66
  
• 3/1965 DEATH of a PRESIDENT: The ESTABLISHED FACTS by LORD DEVLIN Atlantic Monthly, March 1965, pages 112118
  
• 3/1 and 15/1965 Supreme Court rulings strike down the film-censorship laws in Maryland and New York; this causes an increase in demands for a movie ratings system.
  
• 3/1/1965 NY Times reported, "American commanders in Saigon were instructed to prepare for a continuing aerial offensive, but publicly and with announcements. Ambassador Maxwell D. Taylor argued for silence, but was overruled by the argument that clandestine raids would be politically unpopular in the United States."
  
• 3/2/1965 Operation Rolling Thunder, sustained bombing of the North, begins. 160 US aircraft launched from carriers in the South China Sea and air bases in South Vietnam hit an ammo depot at Xombang and a naval base at Quangkhe, both in the North. LBJ sent Army Chief of Staff Harold Johnson to Saigon to appraise the situation.
  
• 3/3/1965 RFK argued with Bernard Fensterwald, counsel for the Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, about informants. RFK defended their value in exposing criminal activity.
  
• 3/3/1965 More than 30 US planes from Danang bomb unspecified targest in Eastern Laos. (JFK & LBJ 265)
  
• 3/3/1965 NY Times: "The Administration described today's air strikes against North Vietnam as part of a continuing' effort to resist aggression and made no attempt, as in the past, to relate them to particular provocations."
  
• 3/4/1965 Hoover told the House Subcommittee on Appropriations that the FBI was now keeping tabs on 14 KKK-type groups. "During the past year there has been a marked increase in Klan membership." He named Robert Shelton's United Klans as the largest group, followed by Sam Bowers' White Knights in Mississippi.
  
• 3/5/1965 A Freedom School and library were burned to the ground by the KKK in Indianola, Mississippi.
  
• 3/6/1965 Bundy told LBJ that McNamara felt that the possibility of a negotiated settlement must always be kept in mind.
  
• 3/7/1965 525 marchers protesting lack of voting rights in Selma, Alabama, are attacked by 200 state troopers using nightsticks, tear gas and whips. The march from Selma to Montgomery begins as planned. The day will later be known as "Bloody Sunday." One of the marchers wounded is SNCC chairman John Lewis, who is hospitalized with a fractured skull.
  
• 3/7/1965 Lady Bird wrote, "I am counting the months until March 1968, when, like Truman, it will be possible to say, I don't want this office, this responsibility, any longer, even if you want me.'...In talking about the Vietnam situation, Lyndon summed it up quite simply, I can't get out. I can't finish it with what I have got. So what the hell can I do?'" (White House Diary 248)
  
• 3/8/1965 The first American uniformed combat units (3,500 from the Third Marine regiment) came ashore in Vietnam to defend Da Nang air base. Vietnamese girls were there to garland the Marines with leis. Westmoreland had requested them, though Max Taylor was opposed to it. By April 1965, fully 25,000 uniformed American kids, most still teenagers barely out of high school, will be slogging through the rice paddies of Vietnam. By the end of the year, U.S. troop strength will have surged to 200,000.
  
• 3/8/1965 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Hearing before Judge Brown on defense motion for sanity hearing. Defense counsel files motions to disqualify Judge Brown, for change of venue, for Ruby's right to choose his own attorneys, and for an extension to prepare for a pretrial conference and sanity hearing. Judge Brown overrules each motion. Jack Ruby's lawyers file motions to disqualify Judge Brown and for a change of venue.
  
• 3/1965 In March 1965 (some sources say September), Ruby conducted a brief televised news conference in which he stated: "Everything pertaining to what's happening has never come to the surface. The world will never know the true facts of what occurred, my motives. The people who had so much to gain, and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I'm in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world." When asked by a reporter, "Are these people in very high positions Jack?", he responded "Yes."
  
• 3/8/1965 Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the Seeger case to give a broad interpretation to conscientious objector status.
  
• 3/8/1965 US air attack on North Vietnamese border village of Cobai.
  
• 3/8/1965 In March 1965, several men and women in Alabama tested President Lyndon Johnson's legendary political skills. Martin Luther King, Hosea Williams, Amelia Boynton, John Lewis, and hundreds of other activists exposed the brutality of white supremacy in Selma, while Governor George Wallace was orchestrating his own responses in Montgomery. As the president struggled to satisfy the demonstrators' demands for voting rights, the notoriously brutal Al Lingo of the state police and Sheriff Jim Clark of Dallas County (where Selma was the county seat) and the arch-segregationist Governor Wallace made the balancing act even more difficult. In particular, over a two week period, Wallace retreated on his word, made inflammatory statements, and blamed the President for problems. For Johnson, the struggle began in earnest on March 8one day after the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march where Alabama law enforcement officials brutally attacked non-violent civil rights marchers on Selma's Edmund Pettis Bridge. President Johnson recognized the need to contact Wallace to resolve whether another march to Montgomery could actually take place. Nicholas Katzenbach, his attorney general, admitted the problem of getting through to Wallace. Wallace's "till the bitter end" philosophy would soon come into play in Selma. Knowing what they were up against, the President, Katzenbach, and Ellington took precautions to record their conversations with Wallace.
  
• 3/9/1965 Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian minister from Boston, was staying in Selma. This evening, he and a friend were accosted by four white men who beat them with clubs and lead pipes. Reeb fell into a coma.
  
• 3/10/1965 With Ellington's promise to help reach Wallace, President Johnson and Katzenbach quickly sought a policy to let the marchers continue to Montgomery safely. One complicating factor occurred on March 9, referred to by some as "turnaround Tuesday," as the Rev. Dr. King ended a follow-up demonstration by turning around at the Pettus bridge to avoid marching without federal judicial approval. That evening, a white Unitarian Minister from Boston was attacked by white thugs, dying a day later. The Supreme Court of Alabama ruled that the march could carry on the set route, and Buford Ellington transmitted the message to Wallace. President Johnson, believing that the limited conditions of the march combined with the cajoling by Ellington would satisfy Wallace, congratulated Katzenbach on their successful policy.
  
• 3/11/1965 Rev. James J. Reeb of Boston died in Selma, Alabama after being beaten 3/9 by four white segregationists. 4/13 three men would be indicted for killing him.
  
• 3/11/1965 Civil rights marchers, posing as tourists, walked into the White House and staged a sit-in on the ground floor.
  
• 3/12/1965 The judge in Jack Ruby's case, Joe Brown, wrote a letter to the managing editor of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, stating that he had about 190 pages of his book, Dallas, Ruby and the Law, completed. When this information was made public, Brown removed himself from the case. (Ruby-Oswald Affair 87)
  
• 3/14/1965 LBJ, speaking off the cuff to a group of southern officials in Nashville, said that satellite reconnaissance alone produced enough hard intelligence to justify spending ten times the $35 billion the US already invested in space programs.
  
• 3/14 and 3/15/1965 Tiger Island naval base and ammo dump at Phuqui were bombed by the US; US air attack on Phuqui, 100 miles south of Hanoi.
  
• 3/14/1965 NY Times: "The President acknowledged that in the last five weeks there had been a change in American tactics and in some instances in strategy. He was referring to strikes by American planes against Communist targets in North and South Vietnam..."
  
• 3/15/1965 LBJ, in an inspiring speech, asked Congress for a bill to guarantee blacks the right to vote. President Johnson addressed Congress, calling for passage of the voting rights act. The speech cam one week after a gathering in Selma, AL led to deadly violence when African-Americans preparing to march to Montgomery were attacked by police. A white Unitarian Minister from Boston, James J. Reeb, was killed.
  
• 3/15/1965 Harold Johnson told LBJ that more ground troops for security in the South, and an expanded air campaign were needed. He estimated that it could take half a million US soldiers five years to win the war. This estimate shocked LBJ and McNamara. (In Retrospect 177)
  
• 3/15/1965 Journalist Ted Szulc later writes that today "In Havana the thread between Fidel Castro and Che [Guevara] is broken forever, and Che is never seen [in public] again -- except two and a half years from now in Bolivia, South America. What occurs today continues to be a mystery."
  
• 3/16/1965 Black and white demonstrators are beaten by sheriff's deputies and police on horseback in Montgomery.
  
• 3/17/1965 Westmoreland asked for another marine battalion to defend Da Nang.
  
• 3/17/1965 MLK and his followers won a federal court order from Judge Franke Johnson allowing them to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Robert McNamara urged LBJ to federalize the state national guard to protect the marchers, because George Wallace wasn't going to do anything about preventing violence. LBJ initially refused, saying he would like to see Wallace hurt politically if there was any violence, but McNamara finally convinced him. (In Retrospect 177-8)
  
• 3/18/1965 Unfortunately, George Wallace's tendency to go back on his word caught up with President Johnson sooner than he had thought. The two met for almost three hours in a tense Oval Office setting on March 13, then emerged for a press conference. Two days later, Johnson delivered his powerful "American Promise" speech before Congress and the American public, calling for strong voting rights legislation and promising "we shall overcome. On March 18, in Alabama, a federal judge ruled that a march to Montgomery could proceed, thereby ensuring that the long-awaited response to Bloody Sundy would finally occur. For Johnson, the triumph was not yet complete. He recorded a conversation with Wallace where he pressed the governor to follow through on preserving law and order. As the conversation progressed, Wallace repeated his insistence that the President ensure an orderly march, while President Johnson continually told him to call up his own state National Guard.
  
• 3/18/1965 Vokshod II piloted by Belyayev while Alexei Leonov became the first man to walk in space. Some charged that the Soviets faked the entire incident. (Russia's Space Hoax, Lloyd Mallan, 1966)
  
• 3/18-19/1965 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Hearing before United States District Court in Dallas on defense counsel's petition to place jurisdiction of Jack Ruby under the district. Judge Davidson denies petition but returns case to the Administrative Judge of the Dallas Court instead of Judge Brown. Jack Ruby's attorneys made an appearance in the United States District Court in Dallas, with Judge T. Whitfield Davidson presiding, seeking a writ of habeas corpus in order to insure that control of Ruby's whereabouts remain under the jurisdiction of the Federal Court and the Federal Marshall. Opposing arguments were also heard from the State, represented by Bill Alexander. The following afternoon Judge Davidson called a further hearing on the matter, As required by law, Ruby himself was brought before the judge, but none of Ruby's attorneys were prepared to attend. Ruby took advantage of the opportunity to speak without his attorneys present, interrupting the proceedings to make an unexpected appeal to the judge. "Your Honor, may I say something? I don't have any counsel here, your Honor, and I wish the courtesy of the Court to give me a chance to take the stand . . ." Attorney Joe Tonahill was on hand, and, although he was not formally representing Ruby at the time, was allowed to preface Ruby's statements with some remarks. Tonahill sought to inform the Court that psychiatrist L. J. West had sworn an affidavit stating that "Jack Ruby was insane, and highly susceptible to delusions and suspicions, and a complete paranoid." Dr. West had demonstrated, Tonahill said, that Ruby's condition necessitated the presence of an attorney to represent him. He also insisted that Ruby's mental illness was primarily responsible for his own removal from Ruby's defense team. Judge Davidson allowed Ruby to speak, however. "I will permit him to stand where he is," without requiring Ruby to be sworn in, "and he may give the Court any statement he may care to give." Ruby wasted no time whatsoever. "This is the most tragic thing in the history of the world," he announced. "One of the most tragic conspiracies in the world," he declared. "I will get on the stand and speak with tears in my heart because of such a terrible conspiracy which is combined against me." What Mr. Tonahill has said is a total lie [Ruby continued]. That goes from the contract I signed, I never did sign a contract with him. It has been a conspiracy between him and the District Attorney, [attorney] Phil Burleson and Joe Tonahill, to convince the public that Jack Ruby is insane. Now, your Honor, you have had many a person appear before you pleading their case. If I am a person who sounds insane at this time, then the rest of the world is crazy. I say this with choking in my heart and tears in my eyes. The most tragic thing happened that Sunday morning when I went down that ramp. I happened to be there for a purpose which is going to be the most tragic thing that ever happened in this world. . . . [Lengthy description of Ruby's succession of attorneys omitted.] At 10:15, I left my apartment, and the story was out that this person [Oswald] was supposed to leave the jail at ten AM. I received a call from a young girl [Karen Carlin, one of Ruby's strippers] who wanted some money. [Because Ruby had closed his club for the weekend, out of respect for the slain President, Carlin was unable to pay her rent.](1) I went to the Western Union, which was coincidental, and prior to that, I will admit [I'd read] a letter [that] was written to Caroline [Kennedy -- actually an editorial in the November 24, 1963, edition of the Dallas Times Herald] which broke my heart. This letter was written to Caroline telling her how awfully sorry I [sic] was for her. And another situation [in another article], there was something about a trial [Mrs. Kennedy expected to return to Dallas for Oswald's trial]. Don't ask me what took place, and that triggered me off that Sunday morning. I accepted the call at 10:15 and went down to the Western Union and parked my car across the street, and took off to transact my business. . . . At 11:17 I walked, I don't say it was premeditated, but never prior to Sunday morning, I never made up my mind what to do. From 11:17 until later, I was guilty of a homicide. Which must be the most perfect conspiracy in the history of the world that a man was going to accept a call and came from his apartment down to the Western Union. If it had been three seconds later I would have missed this particular person [Oswald]. I guess God was against me. I left the Western Union and it took about three and a half minutes to go to the bottom of the ramp. I didn't conspire or sneak in to do these things, I am telling you. If they had said, 'Jack, are you going down now?' that would make some conspiracy on me. I left the Western Union and it was a fraction of a second until that tragic act happened. Now, it seems all these circumstances were against me. I had a great emotional feeling for our beloved President and Mrs. Kennedy, or I never would have been involved in this tragic crime, that was completely reverse from what my emotional feeling was. Ruby returned to the subject of his numerous attorneys and how he felt they had mistreated him and mishandled his defense. As far as Joe Tonahill is concerned, he doesn't care what happens to me, nor does Phil Burleson, and I am not saying this just to make the headlines, I am not remembering this from rehearsal, I am speaking word-for-word, that I know what took place. And I am like the stupid idiot, that loved this country so much, and I felt so sorry for Mrs. Kennedy when she was standing on that plane with blood on her dress, and they were bringing the casket back with our beloved President, and now I am going to [go] down in history as the most despicable person that ever lived. If I am able to use this little oratory on you, as I am doing, if I have that capability, looking at you and telling this courtroom a slight fraction of a lie then I am a genius. Thank you. (Elmer Gertz, Moment of Madness: The People vs. Jack Ruby (Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 174-189.)
  
• Unknown dated in 1965: Jack Ruby appeared in court to ask for a change of counsel and removal to federal jurisdiction. He told the court that while he was in jail, a guard became friendly with him and got him to talk about "me being involved in sending four guns to a friend of mine in 1959, during peacetime, and my association with Cuba, and this particular man, Mr. McWillie…" He denied conspiring with anyone to get into the basement. "I had a great emotional feeling for our beloved President and Mrs. Kennedy…it is strange that a person like Harvey Oswald, who never worked a day in his life…is able to secure a job in a bookstore weeks prior to the anticipated arrival of our beloved President." He again worried that he was being implicated in the plot to kill JFK. He was then seen briefly on TV (CBS telecast); Sylvia Meagher jotted down notes as she watched on TV in New York: "...complete conspiracy...and the assassination too...if you knew the facts you would be amazed," Ruby said. He told reporters that he was perfectly sane and in good health. (Accessories After the Fact 453)
  
• 3/19-5/13/1965 US and South Vietnamese air raids increased in numbers and intensity.
  
• 3/20/1965 JCS pushed for another marine division and an army division for offensive operations in Vietnam.
  
• 3/21/1965 A young Lynchburg, Virginia preacher, Jerry Falwell, denounced the mixing of religion and politics in a noted sermon, "Ministers and Marches." He said, "Nowhere are we commissioned to reform the externals [in society]. We are not told to wage war against bootleggers, liquor stores, gamblers, murderers, prostitutes, racketeers, prejudiced persons or institutions, or any other existing evil as such...our only purpose on this earth is to know Christ and to make Him known...Preachers are not called to be politicians but soul-winners." He also questioned "the sincerity and nonviolent intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. James Farmer and others, who are known to have left-wing positions. It is very obvious that the communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed." Falwell would later repudiate this sermon, even calling it a "false prophecy."
  
• 3/21/1965 An 80-car Klan motorcade drove along Highway 80 in Selma yelling obscenities at the marchers.
  
• 3/21-24/1965 MLK marches with 25,000 followers from Selma to Montgomery, gathering voter-registration support for blacks. Violence was kept to a minimum. LBJ had federalized the state national guard and sent 2200 troops to protect the demonstrators.
  
• 3/23/1965 Gemini 3 mission: three-orbit flight by Grissom and Young; the orbit was altered three times, demonstrating for the first time that a manned aircraft could change course. It splashed down in the Atlantic; the astronauts were recovered by the carrier Intrepid.
  
• 3/23/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Norman Redlich. Redlich said that "To say that they [JFK and Connally] were hit by separate bullets is synonymous with saying that there were two assassins."
  
• 3/24/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Melvin Eisenberg.
  
• 3/24/1965 First teach-in protest against the war held at the University of Michigan. A faculty group had planned a one-day moratorium during which professors would speak on the war instead of teaching. They decided to have an all-night meeting instead; more than 3000 students attended.
  
• 3/25/1965 This evening four Klansmen in Montgomery saw Viola Liuzzo driving with a black teenage boy, LeRoy Moton, in the front seat. She was returning from the rally in Selma They were shocked by the sight of a white woman with a black man and began following her. A skilled driver, she kept ahead of them, with the cars reaching 100mph. Finally, the pursuing car pulled up alongside and the Klansmen opened fire with .38 revolvers. Viola was hit in the head with two bullets and killed; Moton survived. But one of the men in the car, Gary T. Rowe, was an FBI informant. Mar 26 In an FBI memo (not declassified until 20 years later), Hoover recounted a private talk with LBJ: "I stated [Jim Liuzzo] doesn't have too good a background and the woman [Viola] had indications of needle marks in her arms where she had been taking dope; that she was sitting very, very close to the Negro in the car; that it had the appearance of a necking party." But the Alabama coroner's report said nothing about needle marks on her arms. (The Fiery Cross p352) Hoover's innuendoes were leaked by FBI agents to local police and the press in the South, and her moral character soon came to be the prime topic of conversation. Many thought she shouldn't have left her children at home while she was gallavanting around with civil rights activists. The resulting trial of the three Klansmen resulted in a hung jury, and the men were treated like local heroes.
  
• 3/26/1965 On or about this day, LBJ went on national TV: "We will not be intimidated by the terrorists of the Ku Klux Klan any more than by the terrorists of the Viet Cong. My father fought them in Texas. I have fought them all my life, because I believe them to threaten the peace of every community where they exist. I shall continued to fight them because I know their loyalty is not to the United States but to a hooded society of bigots…If Klansmen hear my voice today, let it be both an appeal and a warning to get out of the Klan now and return to decent society before it is too late."
  
• 3/26/1965 An FBI memo (not declassified until 20 years later), Hoover recounted a private talk with LBJ: "I stated [Jim Liuzzo] doesn't have too good a background and the woman [Viola] had indications of needle marks in her arms where she had been taking dope; that she was sitting very, very close to the Negro in the car; that it had the appearance of a necking party." But the Alabama coroner's report said nothing about needle marks on her arms. (The Fiery Cross p352) Hoover's innuendoes were leaked by FBI agents to local police and the press in the South, and her moral character soon came to be the prime topic of conversation. Many thought she shouldn't have left her children at home while she was gallavanting around with civil rights activists. The resulting trial of the three Klansmen resulted in a hung jury, and the men were treated like local heroes.
  
• 3/27/1965 Thomas Hale Howard, attorney, dies of a heart attack in Dallas. He is 48 years old. Howard is the attorney who advised Ruby to say that he shot LHO "to prevent Jackie Kennedy from having to return to Dallas." Howard was also the first attorney to represent Jack Ruby. According to Mark Lane, Howard met with Jack Ruby's roommate George Senator and two members of the press at Ruby's apartment on the evening of November 24, hours after Ruby shot Oswald. What was discussed at the meeting is unknown. None of the three men Senator met with will live past this year.
  
• 3/28/1965 De Gaulle assassination attempt.
  
• 3/29/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC chief counsel J. Lee Rankin.
  
• 3/30/1965 Katzenbach directed that Hoover's "bugs" could be initiated only with the same authorization procedures as wiretaps. He no longer wanted Hoover to tap or bug without getting permission from the Attorney General. (Church report)
  
• 4/1965 The House appropriated $50,000 for an investigation of the KKK by HUAC. Membes of the subcommittee: liberal Charles Weltner, red-hunter Edwin Willis of Louisiana, segregationist Joe Pool from Texas, and civil rights opponents John Buchanan of Alabama and John Ashbrook of Ohio.
  
• 4/1/1965 LBJ met with McNamara, Rusk and Bundy; decided to grant Westmoreland and Sharp their troop requests, but not the Joint Chiefs' request; he also decided to allow US troops to engage in active combat. But he kept the decision secret.
  
• 4/2/1965 In an NSC meeting, McCone urged a greatly expanded bombing program; he felt Hanoi's behavior could be changed by bombing alone. (In Retrospect 180) Over the years to come, millions of tons of bombs, missiles, rockets, incendiary devices and chemical warfare agents will be dumped on the people of Vietnam in what can only be described as one of the worst crimes against humanity ever perpetrated on this planet.
  
• 4/5/1965 Earl Warren wrote a letter to Katzenbach urging that JFK-related documents be declassified before the 75-year time limit, by letting the agencies involved review the documents and decide which ones could be released. The White House and other involved agencies approved of the plan, except for the CIA, which urged that the 75-year seal be kept and perhaps extended. (Hurt, Reasonable Doubt p433)
  
• 4/6/1965 The CIA told Johnson that Hanoi had sent a NVA battalion into the central highlands near Da Nang. The JCS wanted to send in two more brigades.
  
• 4/6/1965 NASA launches Early Bird', the first commercial space satellite (this one for telecommunications).
  
• 4/6/1965 NSAM 328 put in writing LBJ's decision to US troops to conduct offensive operations in South Vietnam. Again he emphasized that "premature publicity be avoided by all possible precautions...minimize any appearance of sudden changes in policy...The president's desire is that these movements and changes should be understood as being gradual and wholly consistent with existing policy."
  
• 4/7/1965 LBJ made a speech at Johns Hopkins where he offered a billion-dollar Southeast Asia aid package (a Mekong Delta TVA) if the North Vietnamese will participate in "unconditional discussions." But he also stressed that the US would not withdraw, "and we must be prepared for a long continued conflict." He explained, "We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny...North Vietnam has attacked the independent nation of South Vietnam...Over this war - and all Asia - is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China...We are there because we have a promise to keep...We are also there to strengthen world order...To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment...To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next...We want nothing for ourselves...We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement...The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied...No nation need ever fear that we desire their land, or to impose their will, or to dictate their institutions...But we dream of an end to war." Hanoi quickly responded with their "Four Points" peace plan, calling for an end to all foreign involvement in Vietnam, as well as Viet Cong participation in a Saigon government. Max Taylor cabled Washington that he didn't think more troops should be sent in: "It shows a far greater willingness to get into the ground war than I had discerned in Washington during my recent trip."
  
• 4/7/65 Washington - Katzenbach and J. Edgar Hoover friendly. Katzenbach goes to see J. Edgar Hoover instead of vice versa, but J. Edgar Hoover "carefully observing the proper channels through Katzenbach for official business [with the White House]. Notes LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover retain their close relationship of two decades. AP, Joseph Mohbat
  
• 4/7/1965 NY Times: "An improvement in the morale and performance of the South Vietnamese Government and its troops has been the chief discernible result of the last month's air strikes against North Vietnam, a senior American military spokesman said today."
  
• 4/8/1965 The House voted on Medicare; it was approved 313-115.
  
• 4/9/1965 A plan to assassinate Vice President Hubert Humphrey is foiled tonight at the Jack Tar Capitol House Hotel in Baton Rouge. Undercover agent Joe Cooper discovers a Ku Klux Klan plan to kill Humphrey while he delivers a speech. Cooper immediately tips off the FBI. A trap is set by the FBI and Secret Service. Two would-be assassins are arrested before any violence takes place. By next year, Cooper will be off on his own JFK assassination investigation. Cooper will become convinced that LHO was a Naval Intelligence agent.
  
• 4/10/1965 Richard M. Helms was the overnight guest of LBJ at his ranch in Texas, along with Sen. Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy was an outspoken critic of the CIA but an admirer of Helms, but he was dismayed when Helms couldn't identify various kinds of flowers or wine vintages. He was sure James Bond could do that. (Wise, Espionage Establishment)
  
• 4/11/1965 LBJ signed the Education Bill. He also announced to the press that he had named Adm. Raborn as head of the CIA and Richard Helms as his deputy.
  
• 4/16/1965 Lady Bird wrote, "Lyndon keeps talking more and more about retiring." (White House Diary 260)
  
• 4/17/1965 Johnson told the press that US request for peace talks have met with no reply from Hanoi or Peking.
  
• 4/17/1965 An anti-war rally in Washington DC by Students for a Democratic Society.
  
• 4/19/1965 LBJ complained to reporters, "How can an American Senator or an American newspaperman or an American student tie the hands of our fellow American military men? Are they duped; are they sucked in?" (White House Diary 262)
  
• 4/20/1965 Meeting in Honolulu: McNamara, Taylor, Westmoreland, Wheeler, Sharp, Bundy and John McNaughton. McNamara agreed to a moderate increase in troops.
  
• 4/20-23/1965 Hearing before United States District Court in Jacksonville, Florida, on defense counsel's petition for a stay of Judge Davidson's order to return Jack Ruby's case to the Administrative Judge of the Dallas Court. Motion denied.
  
• 4/21/1965 William H. Orrick, head of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department testified before the Senate that "concentration of industrial power may lead to the police state. Can anyone doubt that the prewar experience of Germany, Japan and Italy have proven the wisdom of the nation's concern over concentration of economic power?"
  
• 4/21/1965 McNamara told LBJ that more troops would be needed due to the likelihood of a Communist offensive; he urged Johnson to level with Congress about the broadening of the war, but LBJ refused. Ball, at the same meeting, urged Johnson not to send in more troops without exploring the possibility of a settlement; he replied, "All right, George, I'll give you until tomorrow to get me a settlement plan. If you can pull a rabbit out of the hat, I'm all for it." (The Past Has Another Pattern 393) Ball submitted a plan to LBJ that night, but it failed to show exactly how a non-Communist South Vietnam could be maintained. He urged free elections which would included the VC.
  
• 4/22/1965 Letter from Robert Kennedy to JFK's doctor George Burkley. "This will authorize you to release to my custody all of the material of President Kennedy, of which you have personal knowledge, and now being held by the Secret Service. I would appreciate it if you would accompany this material personally and turn it over for safekeeping to Mrs Evelyn Lincoln at the National Archives. I am sending a copy of this letter to Mrs Lincoln with instructions that this material is not to be released to anyone without my written permission and approval." Evelyn Lincoln's office is now in the National Archives.
  
• 4/25/1965 NYT reported that South Vietnamese PM Phan Huy Quat was opposed to the introduction of more US troops, saying it "would raise unpleasant recollections of the French Colonial War."
  
• 4/25/1965 Lady Bird Johnson honors Jackie Kennedy by naming the East Garden for her at a White House ceremony. Mrs. Kennedy does not attend.
  
• 4/26/1965 Letter from George Burkley, to Evelyn Lincoln. "In accordance with authorization dated April 22, 1965 from Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the items on the attached list relating to the autopsy of the late President John F. Kennedy are herewith transferred to the Archives for your custody, and in accordance with the instructions contained in Senator Kennedy's letter." An inventory lists microscopic tissue slides and photos of the internal chest wounds, which would later turn up missing. Secret Service transfer JFK autopsy photos, X-rays, brain, and slides to Robert Kennedy via Evelyn Lincoln. It is noted that the detailed inventory includes: 1 stainless steel container, 7 by 8 inches in diameter. It it suggested that this container may have held JFK's brain. What it known is that RFK takes possession of a brain (purportedly JFK's) at the National Archives on this date. On October 29, 1966 a second transfer occurrs when the Kennedys transfer the autopsy materials to the National Archives. Two days later, on October 31, 1966, a group of officials will meet at the Archives to open the footlocker that holds the autopsy materials. The inventory list [dated on this date] is also still inside the footlocker. It is quickly evident, however, that on October 31, 1966, six boxes of slides and the brain are missing. It will not be until August 1972 that the public first learns the brain is gone. Frank Mankiewicz, former press secretary for Robert F. Kennedy, will later recall that the brain was interred with the body at a later date. JFK's burial site will be moved and the coffin reinterred on March 14, 1967 - almost five months after the brain will be first noted to be missing, and while RFK is still alive.
  
• 4/27/1965 US carrier Boxer began an airlift in which over 1,000 men, women and children were evacuated from the Dominican Republic to Navy ships standing off shore.
  
• 4/28/1965 Supreme Court ruled 6-2 that remarks by a judge or prosecutor about a murder defendant's failure to testify violated his 5th Amendment rights. 4/28/1965 5pm Presidential meeting with advisers; LBJ debated about whether to include in his speech a warning that the DR could become "another Cuba," but it was decided not to.
  
• 4/28/1965 7:30pm LBJ briefed congressional leaders, expressing his fears that the Dominican Republic could go communist.
  
• 4/28/1965 8:40pm LBJ went on national TV to tell the public he had sent the Marines ashore in the Dominican Republic "in order to protect American lives." Johnson sent in 23,000 troops. The US press played up the familiar theme of benign US intervention to restore Latin chaos and protect Americans, supposedly the work of "Castroite extremists". 19 or 26 Americans died, 2,850 Dominicans were killed. The tidy little war was very popular in the US and "sent a message" to Castro, North Vietnam, etc. LBJ pulled together an OAS occupational force made up of Costa Rican, Salvadoran, Honduran and Nicaraguan troops; Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela refused to take part. Supposedly, ambassador Bennett called Washington from the DR to request US troops, and "was talking to us from under a desk while bullets were going through his windows and he had a thousand American men, women and children assembled in the hotel who were pleading with their president for help to preserve their lives." (LBJ's words, 6/17)
  
• 4/29/1965 US Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel announced that all public school districts must desegregate their schools by the fall of 1967.
  
• 4/30/1965 The wiretap on MLK's home was discontinued when he moved.
  
• 4/30/1965 Dean Rusk told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US had intervened in the Dominican Republic to protect American lives. No communist threat was mentioned.
  

[Tracy Riddle]

• 5/1965 Congress voted for a $700 million supplemental military appropriation for Vietnam. Gaylord Nelson, Morse and Gruening were the only Senators to vote against it. The Kennedy brothers privately wanted to vote against it, but did not yet want to create a public clash with the president.
  
• 5/1965 The FBI's vaunted record has been built against second and third stringers - it has never successfully tackled the real overlords of crime. Ramparts, The FBI and Organized Crime, Fred J. Cook., p. 16
  
• 5/1965 Jacques Vallee's Anatomy of a Phenomenon is published; it is one of the first scholarly books about UFOs, and is given generally good reviews in the mainstream press. "Anatomy of a Phenomenon" is one of the best books ever written on the subject of unidentified flying objects. Written in the 60s, Vallee shows that UFOs constitute a genuine scientific enigma of potentially explosive importance. Carl Sagan is said to have recommended this book to one of his colleagues before his abrupt departure from esoteric study. Given Vallee's scientific sensibilities and admirable refusal to jump to conclusions, it's easy to see why. "Anatomy of a Phenomenon" reveals a critical phase in Vallee's investigative career.
  
• 5/1965 The Warren Commission from the Procedural Standpoint Arthur L. Goodheart New York University Law Review, Vol. 40, May 1965, pp. 404423
  
• 5/1965 Did Lee Harvey Oswald Act Without Help? J. M. van Bemmelen New York University Law Review, Vol. 40, May 1965, pp. 466476
  
• 5/1965 Why the Warren Commission? Robert F. Cushman New York University Law Review, Vol. 40, May 1965, pp. 477503 (Robert F. Cushman is Associate Professor of Government at New York University.)
  
• 5/2/1965 Johnson told the American people that "what had begun as a popular democratic revolution in the Dominican Republic had been taken over and really seized and placed in the hands of a band of communist conspirators." But there was no real evidence of this, and he had previously made no public mention of such a threat. LBJ's policy toward Latin America was one of contempt. The Organization of American States "couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel." His man in charge of Latin American programs, Thomas Mann, once said: "They understand only two things - a buck in the pocket and a kick in the ass." LBJ had planned a second invasion of Cuba for early 1965, using US troops, but the operation was never carried out because of the unexpected crisis in the Dominican Republic. (Tad Szulc, "Cuba on Our Mind," Compulsive Spy)
  
• 5/3/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Howard Willens.
  
• 5/3/1965 In a speech, LBJ read a cable from ambassador W. Tapley Bennett in the Dominican Republic: "You must land troops immediately or blood will run in the streets, American blood will run in the streets."
  
• 5/4/1965 LBJ message to Congress; he assured them that his intelligence showed that the rebels in the Dominican Republican were led by Communists. Johnson bragged that "in March and April, we flew more than 3,200 sorties against military targets in hostile areas" in Vietnam. He also asked Congress for an "additional $700 million to meet mounting military requirements in Vietnam." Lady Bird wrote, "Lyndon looks tired and worn. The Dominican troubles have taken their toll." (White House Diary 265)
  
• 5/4/1965 Allen Dulles in NBC-TV interview: "All that I can say is that I am a parson's son, and I was brought up as a Presbyterian, maybe as a Calvinist, maybe that may be a fatalist. I don't know. But I hope I have a reasonable moral standard." In the same interview, Richard Bissell explained that CIA men "feel a higher loyalty and that they are acting in obedience to that higher loyalty." He conceded that agents sometimes undertook actions "that were contrary to their moral precepts" but contended that "the morality of, shall we call it for short, cold war is so infinitely easier than the morality of almost any kind of hot war that I never encountered this as a serious problem." (The Espionage Establishment, David Wise)
  
• 5/5/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed Sen. John Sherman Cooper, Rep. Gerald Ford, and Alfred Goldberg.
  
• 5/6/1965 RFK said before Congress that he advocated negotiations, rather than withdrawal or escalation, in Vietnam.
  
• 5/8/1965 Truman became the first former president to address the U.S. Senate while it was in formal session. The Senate honored him on his eightieth birthday.
  
• 5/9/1965 US government announces that there are 42,200 US fighting men in Vietnam.
  
• 5/10/1965 Dean Rusk State Dept bulletin: "I continue to hear and see nonsense about the nature of the struggle there...There is no evidence that the Viet Cong has any significant popular following in South Viet-Nam."
  
• 5/11/1965 Blacks held mass meeting in Norfolk (Va.) and demanded equal rights and ballots. Other equal rights meetings and conventions were held in Petersburg, Va., June 6; Vicksburg, Miss., June 19; Alexandria, Va., August 3; Nashville, Tenn., August 7-11; Raleigh, N.C., September 29-October 3; Richmond, September 18; Jackson, Miss., October 7.
  
• 5/13/1965 An unpublicized bombing pause in Vietnam begins, after McNamara had urged it, hoping it might encourage Hanoi to talk peace.
  
• 5/15/1965 National Teach-In held throughout the US. This anti-war effort was broadcast to over 100 colleges.
  
• 5/16/1965 After no response from Hanoi, LBJ indicated he wanted to resume the bombing.
  
• 5/17/1965 Jacques Vallee diary entry: "A curious incident recently took place during a conversation with a Martin Marietta engineer who says he is compiling a reference book on UFOs. As he was spending the evening at Bryn Mawr with our Little Society the conversation came to sightings in the Soviet Union. He told us he had written (in Russian) to their Academy of Sciences, and had received the reply that no study was being made of the subject. He showed us the Russian reply, held in a thick black binder. As the conversation continued the binder was passed around and came to Sam [Randlett] who read the letter and innocently turned the page. The engineer lept out of his chair like a tiger and tore the binder away, tersely spitting out, The other papers have nothing to do with that!' We were left fairly shocked by the violence of his reaction. Of course we began to wonder what else was in that binder. There are rumors that major aerospace companies are conducting their own secret studies of UFOs." (Forbidden Science p143) This month, Vallee's Anatomy of a Phenomenon' is published; it is one of the first scholarly books about UFOs, and is given generally good reviews in the mainstream press.
  
• 5/18/1965 US resumes bombing of North Vietnam. Tom Wicker says it was 5/19 (JFK & LBJ 265)
  
• 5/23/1965 David Wise coined the term "credibility gap" in an article for the Herald-Tribune.
  
• 5/24/1965 De Gaulle assassination attempt.
  
• 5/24/1965 Hearing before Judge Holland on Jack Ruby's choice of counsel. Joe Tonahill is removed as Ruby's counsel.
  
• 5/26/1965 OAS agrees to provide a peace-keeping force to enforce a truce to replace US troops in DR.
  
• 5/26/1965 Washington - Growing role for Hoover as Johnson adviser, as shown by assignment of FBI men to probe Communist activity in the Dominican Republic. Chronological editorial, same date, comments on curious role for FBI agents. San Francisco Chronicle, Times-Post Service
  
• 5/27/1965 At Raiford State Prison in Florida a riot ensued; after it was over, prisoners were treated horribly until they agreed to sign confessions (which were used to convict them in new trials). The Supreme Court would later rule unanimously to overturn the convictions.
  
• 5/29/1965 (The 48th anniversary of JFK's birth) The Texas House of Representatives defeats on a record vote of 72 - 52 (with Governor Connally's brother voting with the majority) a bill passed unanimously in the State Senate proposing to rename the state school for the mentally retarded at Richmond in JFK's honor.
  
• 5/29/1965 1000 Vietcong troops attacked three ARVN batallions at the hamlet of Ba Gia; the South Vietnamese troops panicked and fled, leaving their equipment behind. US air strikes and napalm fire drove the Vietcong out.
  
• 6/1965 Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to strike down a federal law making it a crime for a communist to hold office in a labor union.
  
• 6/1965 Federal Reserve Chairman Martin gave a speech underlining "disquieting similarities between our present prosperity and the fabulous 20s." This speech depressed the stock market for weeks.
  
• 6/1965 Sen. Fulbright gave a speech supporting the administration's Vietnam policy.
  
• 6/1965 Playboy interview with Melvin Belli. Detailed, highly opinionated analysis of what J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI do and do not do, and why.
  
• 6/1/1965 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Defense counsel files amended motion to disqualify Judge Brown.
  
• 6/1/1965 Cuban exile David Sanchez Morales is assigned as a deep-cover operative, working as a public safety officer for the Agency for International Development (AID) in Lima, Peru. (Fonzi chronology)
  
• 6/2/1965 Harold Weisberg on trying to get his first book, Whitewash, published in Europe: "An executive of a highly respected French publisher, in Washington on June 2, 1965, castigated American publishers as cowards. His house, he said, would be very interested in this subject. He would personally read the book and, if his approval was confirmed by the president, they would print it as fast as possible. He even laid out a tentative publishing schedule. Amidst the most uninhibited praise of the author's courage and persistence, he promised the final decision within 28 days. Those were his last words. Neither he nor his superior has answered six letters from the author and at least one informal inquiry from an appropriate member of the French foreign service, his personal friend. Mail from German publishers has failed to reach the author. But this is not surprising when it is understood that his mail from Washington, 30 miles away, sometimes requires six days, for delivery, and that from New York, less than 250 miles, as much as two weeks. A major magazine, first written before Thanksgiving by its United States correspondent and the author, finally received a later letter the next year and replied about Easter time, saying, "Unfortunately, the copy of your book . . . must have been lost, either here in our house or during transportation. We are, however, eagerly interested...." This letter reached the author three weeks prior to this writing."
  
• 6/3/1965 Taylor cabled Washington: "We should...make very clear that we do not believe that any feasible amount of bombing is of itself likely to cause the DRV to cease and desist its actions in the south."
  
• 6/3/1965 Gemini 4 mission: Ed White becomes first American to walk in space while James McDivitt was the pilot.
  
• 6/3/1965 LBJ stated, "Over the years of our history our forces have gone forth into many lands, but always they returned when they were no longer needed. For the purpose of America is never to suppress liberty, but always to save it. The purpose of America is never to take freedom, but always to return it; never to break peace but to bolster it, and never to seize land but always to save lives. One month ago it became my duty to send our marines into the Dominican Republic, and I sent them for these same ends." (US State Dept Publication 7971)
  
• 6/4/1965 LBJ spoke at Howard University about civil rights: "You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race saying 'you are free to compete with all the others' and still justly believe you have been completely fair."
  
• 6/5/1965 Taylor cabled that the South Vietnamese army was plagued by bad leadership, desertions and heading quickly toward collapse. At this point he felt "It will probably be necessary to commit US ground forces to action." That afternoon, in a White House meeting, LBJ was gloomy about the situation.
  
• 6/7/1965 Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law against the use of contraceptives; the ruling was 7-2 (with Black and Stewart dissenting over Douglas' view that the Constitution contained a right to privacy').
  
• 6/7/1965 Westmoreland cabled that the South Vietnamese army was near collapse, communist forces were growing stronger, and US troops would be needed in large numbers, 175,000 in all. He added that more soldiers might be needed down the road.
  
• 6/7/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC member John McCloy.
  
• 6/8/1965 White House meeting in the morning discussing Westmoreland's cable.
  
• 6/8/1965 LBJ authorizes commanders in Vietnam to commit US ground forces to combat.
  
• 6/8/1965 US Embassy in Saigon withdrew its support from PM Phan Huy Quat and his efforts to end the war.
  
• 6/8/1965 State Dept spokesman Robert McCloskey announced to the press that US forces in Vietnam would be available for "combat support" if needed. This was the first public mention of a combat role for US troops.
  
• 6/9/1965 White House issued a statement: "There has been no change in the mission of United States ground combat units in Vietnam in recent days or weeks."
  
• 6/10/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Samuel Stern.
  
• 6/11/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC member Rep. Hale Boggs.
  
• 6/15/1965 Lady Bird complained in her diary of "hammer blows of the front page stories - New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, even the Washington Post. All of them seemed to delight in faulting their country and their President."
  
• 6/15/1965 Sen. Richard Russell stated in the Senate, "Whether or not the initial decision was a mistake is now moot. The United States does have a commitment in South Vietnam. The flag is there. United States honor and prestige are there. And, most important of all, United States soldiers are there."
  
• 6/16/1965 McNamara spoke with the press, explaining that US strategy was to stop the communists' attempt to take over the South. The same day, Eisenhower informed LBJ that he thought Westmoreland should be given the forces he requested: "we have got to win." (In Retrospect 190)
  
• 6/17/1965 Grabbing documents from his pockets and slamming his fist on his desk, LBJ told the press that before he sent troops into the Dominican Republic, "some 1500 innocent people were murdered and shot, and their heads cut off...our ambassador...was talking to us from under a desk while bullets were going through his windows." It soon turned out that the atrocity stories were greatly exaggerated and ambassador W. Tapley Bennett Jr. had not been hiding under his desk. (Politics of Lying p42)
  
• 6/17/1965 A Lou Harris poll showed that 65% of the public approved of LBJ's handling of the war in Vietnam; 47% wanted to send in more troops; 23% were "not sure"; 19% did not want to increase troops; 11% wanted to withdraw. Johnson told reporters that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave him all the authority he needed in Vietnam. Sens. Mansfield and Dirksen had both told LBJ that if he brought the issue before Congress again it would just tear the country apart. (In Retrospect 191-2)
  
• 6/18/1965 The beginning of devastating Arc Light air raids by B-52 Stratofortresses against communist positions. Such massive strikes ("swatting flies with sledgehammers," said critics) were inconclusive. The Arc Light raids ended 8/1973.
  
• 6/18/1965 George Ball sent LBJ another memo, suggesting that US troops in Vietnam be kept below 100,000.
  
• 6/18/1965 State Senate's "Burns committee" on Un-American Activities releases a report blaming the campus protests of the fall on the lax policies of Kerr. (SF Chronicle 6/9/02)
  
• 6/19/1965 Nguyen Kao Ky is appointed South Vietnamese Prime Minister.
  
• 6/21/1965 Judge Brown requests that he be removed from any further duty in the case of The State of Texas vs. Jack Ruby.
  
• 6/21/1965 LBJ told McNamara he was pessimistic that the American people would continue to support the war as things got worse. "And I don't believe they're [the communists] ever goin' to quit. And I don't see...that we have any...plan for victory militarily or diplomatically...[Sen. Richard] Russell thinks we ought to take one of these [regime] changes to get out of there. I do not think we can get out of there with our treaty like it is and with what all we've said and I think it would just lose us face in the world and I just shudder to think what all of 'em would say." (In Retrospect p190-1)
  
• 6/23/1965 George Ball suggested in a meeting that if we were forced out of South Vietnam we could retreat to Thailand and hold there. Rusk and McNamara strongly objected.
  
• 6/23/1965 On this day, the dismembered bodies of the parents of Charles Frederick Rogers are discovered in Houston, Texas. Rogers has been positively identified by Houston police forensic artist Lois Gibson as "Frenchy," the shortest of the three tramps apprehended in Dealey Plaza moments after the JFK assassination, hiding in a railroad car behind the grassy knoll. According to private detective John R. Craig, Charles F. Rogers has worked for the CIA since 1956. He is a physicist with graduate training in nuclear physics, a linguist and was a close personal friend of assassination suspect David Ferrie. He was born in 1921. He graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in physics and was a member of Sigma Phi Sigma fraternity. He was also a member of the Civil Air Patrol in the mid-1950's. He was a seismologist for Shell Oil for nine years after World War II. Officially, Rogers will disappear this year and will not be seen again. It is Craig's theory, however, that Rogers is alive and still active as a secret agent. Craig claims that "He has been active with the CIA since he murdered his parents. The last place we have [placed] him is in 1986 in Guatemala where he was still working in the Iran-Contra program. He is a pilot and flew for Air America."
  
• 6/24/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Joseph Ball.
  
• 6/25/1965 Harry Truman received from the South Korean ambassador the "Order of Merit for the National Foundation Joongjang," the republic's highest honor.
  
• 6/25/1965 Department of Defense Directive 5230.7 stated that in the event of a "national emergency" declared by either the President or the Secretary of Defense, the Office of Wartime Information Security would activate contingency plans for imposing censorship on the press, the mails and all telecommunications. Provisions also existed for the detention in military camps of anyone deemed a "security risk."
  
• 6/26/1965 US government announces deployment of 21,000 more US soldiers to Vietnam.
  
• 6/28/1965 US combat troops began their first full-scale offensive in Vietnam, 20 miles NE of Saigon.
  
• 6/29/1965 Columnist Ralph de Toledano commented on the replacement of conservative RNC chairman Dean Burch with Ray Bliss: "Like other Liberal Leftist Republicans, Mr. Bliss had made no secret of the fact that he cares not a wit about the sensibilities of the Conservatives who make up the bulk of the party's workers. Conservatives, he contended, have nowhere else to go."
  
• 6/30/1965 As of today, there are 1,041,244 active-duty military personnel in the US, while the Pentagon also had control over 940,763 civilian employees. (Mollenhoff, The Pentagon)
  
• 6/30-7/1/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Wesley Liebeler.
  
• Mid-1965 The Making of the President 1964 is published. Author Theodore White described the Zapruder film in terms similar to Life's grossly inaccurate 12/1963 summary: "The President turns in the back seat, all the way around to his right, and flings out his hand in greeting. Then the hand bends quickly up as if to touch his throat, as if something hurts. His wife, at this moment, is also leaning forward, turning to the right. Slowly he leans back to her, as if to rest his head on her shoulder. She quickly puts her arm around him, and leans even farther forward to look at him. Then...the head of the president is jolted by some invisible and terrible second impact. It is flung up, jerked up...One notices the red roses spill from her lap as the President's body topples from sight." (p.3) Practically every part of that statement is incorrect; interestingly, it was written in early 1965, after the WR was already issued. White should have known by then that the bullet officially hit Kennedy in the back and exited through his throat. "John F. Kennedy was killed by a lunatic, Lee Harvey Oswald, who had momentarily given loyalty to the paranoid Fidel Castro of Cuba. And Oswald was, in turn...slain by another madman, Jack Ruby...an act of unreason, avenged by an individual act of obscenity." (p29-30)
  

[Tracy Riddle]

• 7/1965 Walt Rostow told Daniel Ellsberg, "Dan, it looks very good. The Vietcong are going to collapse within weeks. Not months but weeks." (The Best and the Brightest, Halberstam)
  
• 7/1965 Harold Russell attends a party with a female friend. (Russell was with Warren Reynolds when the J. D. Tippit shooting took place. Both men saw the Tippit killer escape.) He seemingly goes out of his mind at the party and starts telling everyone he is going to be killed. He begs friends to hide him. Someone calls the police. When the policemen arrive, one of them hits Russell on the head with his pistol. Russell is then taken to a hospital where he is pronounced dead a few hours later: cause of death is listed as "heart failure."
  
• 7/1965 The Journal-Lancet contained an article by a psychiatrist, Dr. Donald W. Hastings, characterizing American assassins as having "schizophrenia, in most cases a paranoid type."
  
• 7/1/1965 Dean Rusk wrote LBJ: "The integrity of the US commitment is the principal pillar of peace throughout the world. If that commitment becomes unreliable, the communist world would draw conclusions that would lead to our ruin and almost certainly to a catastrophic war. So long as the South Vietnamese are prepared to fight for themselves, we cannot abandon them without disaster to peace and to our interests throughout the world."
  
• 7/2/1965 LBJ was torn over what to do; he decided to send McNamara to Saigon again, send Averell Harriman to Moscow to explore a Geneva Conference, and told Ball to explore direct contacts with Hanoi's representative in Paris.
  
• 7/4/1965 The Vietcong quickly took over Ba Gia again, after only 90 minutes of battle with the ARVN. US Marines drove the VC out again.
  
• 7/4/1965 Brezhnev demands a rearmanent program to counter US military spending.
  
• 7/5/1965 David Atlee Phillips is made station chief in Dominican Republic following LBJ's decision to send the U.S. Marines to bolster the right-wing government's fight against leftist rebels. Serving as CIA adviser to the Dominican Republic's military is Mitchel Livingston WerBell III, an OSS veteran and CIA supplier of sophisticated assassination devices. (Fonzi chronology)
  
• 7/8/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed WC staffer Francis W.H. Adams.
  
• 78/1965 Bundy met with the "Wise Men" (Omar Bradley, Gilpatric, George Kistiakowsky, Arthur Larson, McCloy, John Cowles, Acheson, Arthur Dean, Paul Hoffman, Lovett) about the war; McCloy and Lovett had serious doubts about the war, though both felt the US had to stick it out and win. Later that evening, LBJ met with them; Acheson told him to stop whining about the criticism he was getting: "I blew my top and told him he was wholly right on Vietnam, that he had no choice except to press on..." (The Wise Men 651-2) According to McNamara, everyone but Larson and Hoffman was committed to doing whatever was necessary to win; Acheson and Arthur Dean were especially against negotiation. McCloy stated, "We are about to get our noses bloodied but you've got to do it. You've got to go in." (In Retrospect 197)
  
• 7/9/1965 RFK spoke about the need to find non-military solutions in Vietnam: "political first, political last, political always. Victory in a revolutionary war is won not by escalation, but by descalation." LBJ was furious, and the press generally accused him of being politically motivated.
  
• 7/12/1965 Le Monde quoted RFK: "If, in response to revolutionary activity, a government can only promise its people ten years of napalm or heavy artillery, there will not be government for long."
  
• 7/12-13/1965 Former Mississippi governor Jim Coleman testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee; LBJ had nominated him to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Nick Katzenbach defended him: "Some say that Mr. Coleman is a racial extremist. In the context of Mississippi politics, he could not be so classified in any sense of the term." Coleman did a remarkable amount of double-talking, telling Sen. Jacob Javits, "I don't think we have segregation in the true sense of the word in Mississippi or ever had."
  
• 7/13/1965 Thurgood Marshall is appointed US Solicitor General by LBJ.
  
• 7/13/1965 Lady Bird wrote in her diary, "the press has been boiling these last few days with Schlesinger's account in his book of how Lyndon became Vice President. Everybody's got to have his say about that...Everybody but us."
  
• 7/13/1965 LBJ told the press there was no credence to rumors that Dean Rusk might resign.
  
• 7/14/1965 Adlai Stevenson collapsed suddenly while walking in London's Grosvenor Square and died almost immediately. Rumors would circulate that he had somehow been assassinated.
  
• 7/14/1965 LBJ walks into a staff meeting, takes a seat, listens for a while, and then says: "Don't let me interrupt. But there's one thing you ought to know. Vietnam is like being in a plane without a parachute, when all the engines go out. If you jump, you'll probably be killed, and if you stay in, you'll crash and probably burn. That's what it is." Then, without waiting for a response, LBJ walks out of the room. During this period of time, both Bill Moyers and Richard N. Goodwin privately consult with psychiatrists concerning what they perceive to be LBJ's growing irrational behavior.
  
• 7/14/1965 LBJ told Newseek editor James Cannon that his number one goal as President was "to make life better and more enjoyable and more significant" for Americans. "I'm more aware of the problems of more people than before. I am more sensitive to the injustices we have put on the Negro...I'm a little less selfish, a little more selfless..."
  
• 7/14/1965 McNamara and LBJ talk before the Defense Secretary left for Saigon; Johnson agonized that he had never intended to send so many troops to Vietnam when he pushed the Tonkin Resolution through Congress.
  
• 7/16-17/1965 McNamara met with Westmoreland in Saigon; he was told 175,000 troops would be needed by year's end and 100,000 more in 1966. Westy noted that air attacks were having little effect since the communists forces relied on so few supplies to move and fight.
  
• 7/17/1965 De Gaulle assassination attempt.
  
• 7/18/1965 Washington - Disclosure of wiretapping by IRS regarded as great blow to feds' fight against organized crime. Quotes sources as saying drive been getting along on momentum generated during RFK tenure. The decline, it was reported, started on the day of President Kennedy's death. "The next day we stopped getting information from the FBI on the Bobby Baker investigation," said a young Justice Department lawyer, "Within a month the FBI men in the field wouldn't tell us anything. We started running out of gas." New York Times, Fred P. Graham
  
• 7/20/1965 General Maxwell D. Taylor was the target of an attempt on his life in Vietnam.
  
• 7/21/1965 Ho Chi Minh announces that his people "will fight 20 years if necessary"; US ground troops now number 75,000. McNamara reported to LBJ that "The situation in South Vietnam is worse than a year ago (when it was worse than a year before that)...A hard VC push is now on to dismember the nation and to maul the army...There are no signs that we have throttled the inflow of supplies for the VC or can throttle the flow while their material needs are as low as they are..."
  
• 7/22-23/1965 Tom Wicker articles in the NYT about the Bay of Pigs invasion. Richard Bissell was quoted as saying that the Cuban exile invasion force was powerful enough to cause trouble if they had not been allowed to invade Cuba: "…it is entirely possible that they might have tried to seize a base in Nicaragua, Honduras or Guatemala: there is not the slightest doubt that they could have defeated any Guatemalan force." Wicker concluded that the project became a "sort of Frankenstein's monster that once created, went out of control."
  
• 7/22/1965 Washington - J. Edgar Hoover challenges Katzenbach criticism of FBI role in fighting organized crime. Denies any organizational jealousy or lack of cooperation, etc. AP, Mohbat
  
• 7/23/1965 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Hearing before Judge Holland on defense counsel's petition formally to disqualify Judge Brown. No decision.
  
• 7/27/1965 LBJ signed a law to require health warnings to be printed on cigarette packages and ads.
  
• 7/27/1965 LBJ approved the plan to send more US troops. Sen. Mansfield told LBJ he was opposed to sending troops, and feared growing discontent about the war in the US.
  
• 7/27/1965 Assassination attempt against Castro.
  
• 7/28/1965 LBJ announced he was nominating Abe Fortas to the Supreme Court.
  
• 7/28/1965 US and South Vietnamese bombers mistakenly hit a Buddhist monastery, killing two.
  
• 7/28/1965 LBJ announces he is sending 50,000 more men to South Vietnam -- increasing American troop strength from the present 75,000 to 125, 000. LBJ announced to the public his plan to expand US forces in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000, but he tried to publicly downplay its scope by announcing it in a low-key press conference. The monthly draft quota is doubled from 17,000 to 35,000. "We did not choose to be the guardians at the gate, but there is no one else." He gave the example of Munich as the likely result of refusing to fight. "If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promises, or in American protection." A reporter asked him if this meant a change in US policy from simply providing backup support for South Vietnamese forces; LBJ replied, "It does not imply any change in policy whatever." Johnson also reiterated that the US would be glad to negotiate with Hanoi: "Fifteen efforts have been made to start these discussions with the help of 40 nations throughout the world but there has been no answer." McNamara advised asking for $10 billion from Congress and a tax hike, but Johnson refused. Polls taken in August reflected that 60%-70% of the American people agreed with LBJ's stance.
  
• 7/29/1965 Hanson Baldwin reported in the NY Times that the Pentagon had been hoping for a full wartime footing (calling up the reserves, etc.)
  
• 7/29/1965 The first 4000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division arrive at Camranh Bay.
  
• 7/29/1965 Washington - ... If Hoover's sense of public relations has deserted him to that extent. He is no longer the phenomenon who erected Washington's only record of infallibility. San Francisco Chronicle, Times Service, Tom Wicker, J. Edgar Hoover as a public relations expert. His record, his reputation, his mistakes.
  
• 7/30/1965 LBJ signed into law Medicare bill, providing health insurance for eldery and disabled. Medicaid also established. He signed the bill in Missouri at the Harry Truman Library, with the ex-president sitting next to him. Mr. and Mrs. Truman would receive the first two Medicare cards in January 1966. Spending on Medicare would rise from $7.1 billion in 1970 to $164.5 billion in 1994.
  
• 7/31/1965 Pravda quoted Ho Chi Minh: "South Vietnam will unquestionably be liberated."
  
• 8/1965 Mona B. Saenz dies, hit by a bus. She is the Texas State Employment clerk who interviewed LHO during his search for work in Dallas.
  
• 8/1965 Early this month at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, Daniel Marvin is asked by the CIA to kill US Navy Lieutenant Commander William Bruce Pitzer. Marvin is told that Pitzer is a traitor who is about to give States secrets to the enemy. Marvin refuses the offer.
  
• 8/1965 CBS documentary on the war showed US Marines burning villages while old people and children pleaded that their homes be spared. CBS was jammed with angry calls denouncing the program as Communist propaganda. Yet the program for the most part stuck to the government line; numerous officials were invited to participate (and even edit their interviews before broadcast), but no war critics appeared. (The First Casualty p396; Captive Press p134)
  
• 8/1965 Playboy featured an interview with UKA Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton. "There is several Klans, you know," Shelton said. "That is the trouble of throwing every nut in the same bag and saying it's all the same kind of nuts." Shortly after, Shelton told a rally in Alabama that anyone who took the Fifth Amendment before HUAC was probably a Communist. (The Fiery Cross p357)
  
• 8/1/1965 Gerald Ford is charged by LBJ with having accused prominent Democrats of pressuring Johnson into not calling up the reserves; Ford denies making the accusation.
  
• 8/2/1965 Tulsa, Oklahoma. A large wave of UFO sightings occurred in 1965 in the US. From coast to coast strange low flying flying objects were reported almost nightly by people of all ages and walks of life. As the year progressed, the number of reports rose dramatically. On the night of August 2, 1965, thousands of people in 4 midwestern states witnessed spectacular aerial displays by large formations of UFOs.
  
• 8/3/1965 LBJ assured the world that the US did not intend to impose its "ideology" on Vietnam or any other country; it only wanted to make sure that other countries could decide their own future.
  
• 8/4/1965 LBJ asked Congress for $1.7 billion more funding for the war.
  
• 8/4/1965 NYT quoted Dean Rusk: "We would be glad to go to the conference table but thus far Hanoi and Peking say no."
  
• 8/5/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed Melvin Eisenberg of the Warren Commission.
  
• 8/5/1965 NSC meeting on Vietnam; Max Taylor, now back from Saigon as a presidential adviser, predicted that the Communist offensive would be stopped by year's end. The same day, the Pentagon completed a series of war games that showed that a guerilla war would be difficult for the US to win, and that North Vietnam could probably withstand US bombing.
  
• 8/6/1965 LBJ signed Voting Rights Act into law, giving federal government the power to guarantee voting access for all; poll taxes and literacy tests were forbidden. It had passed the Senate 77-19 and the House 333-85.
  
• 8/6/1965 TIME's John Shaw reported that US marines in Vietnam were killing VC prisoners.
  
• 8/8/1965 Congress passed Omnibus Housing Act, with new funds for low-income housing.
  
• 8/11-16/1965 riots in Watts district of Los Angeles; looting and burning by blacks after a black man was mistreated by police. Unemployment among black males in Watts is 30%. 34 people died (mostly blacks), 1,032 were injured, over 200 businesses were destroyed. $40 million in damage was caused. 12,000 National Guardsmen was called out to restore order. Similar riots broke out in Chicago. It lasted 6 days in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in August 1965. By the time the riot subsided, 34 people had been killed, 1,032 injured, and 3,438 arrested. It would stand as the most severe riot in Los Angeles history until the Los Angeles riots of 1992.
  
• 8/17/1965 Even Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), who voted against the immigration bill out of concern for overpopulation, didn't think the new preference system would mean much of a change: "The preferences which would be established by this proposal are based, I believe, on sound reasoning and meritorious considerations, not entirely dissimilar in effect from those which underlie the national origins quotas of existing law." (Congressional Record, Sept. 17, 1965, p. 24237.)"
  
• 8/17-23/1965 a minor controversy erupts when Eisenhower said that his 10/1954 letter to Diem had intended to offer economic, not military aid to Vietnam. The Johnson Administration was to issue a pamphlet 8/23 titled "Why Vietnam?" which would use Ike's letter as justification for US involvement there. Finally, on 8/19 Ike tried to end the dispute by stating, "I support the president."
  
• 8/17/1965 Harold Weisberg's Whitewash, a critique of the Warren Report, is privately published in a limited edition.
  
• 8/18-21/1965 US forces won a major victory against VC forces on the Batangan Peninsula.
  
• 8/19/1965 In entering a New York Times editorial into the Congressional Record, Congressman Donald Rumsfeld said, "I believe the following significant and timely editorial which appeared in today's issue of the New York Times and which discusses our involvement in Vietnam merits wide attention. I concur in the conclusion expressed therein that the people of the United States must know not only how their country became involved but where we are heading." [Congressional Record, 89th Cong. Pg. 21081, 8/19/65; New York Times, 8/19/65]
  
• 8/25/1965 Rep. Philip Burton (D-CA) said in Congress: "Just as we sought to eliminate discrimination in our land through the Civil Rights Act, today we seek by phasing out the national origins quota system to eliminate discrimination in immigration to this nation composed of the descendants of immigrants." (Congressional Record, Aug. 25, 1965, p. 21783.) Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-NY), a sponsor of the bill, told his colleagues: "With the end of discrimination due to place of birth, there will be shifts in countries other than those of northern and western Europe. Immigrants from Asia and Africa will have to compete and qualify in order to get in, quantitatively and qualitatively, which, itself will hold the numbers down. There will not be, comparatively, many Asians or Africans entering this country. .. .Since the people of Africa and Asia have very few relatives here, comparatively few could immigrate from those countries because they have no family ties in the U.S." (Congressional Record, Aug. 25, 1965, p. 21812.)
  
• 8/25/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed Arlen Specter, former staffer on the Warren Commission.
  
• 8/27/1965 Rusk told a press conference that he would welcome De Gaulle's personal efforts to negotiate an end to the war.
  
• 8/27/1965 Harold Weisberg on trying to get his first book, Whitewash, published in the UK: "In addition, an aging but wonderful agent in England made strenuous efforts, without success. One prominent British publisher with a world-wide reputation for "courage" wrote her on August 27, 1965, that the subject "is absolutely no go for us. I'd even go so far as to say the subject is almost dead in England." Another British publisher of like stature wrote "I feel this subject has now been exhausted, at least on this side of the Atlantic.""
  
• 8/30/1965 Washington - Rate of increase of serious crime declines. No comment by J. Edgar Hoover, nor even mention of his name, usually found in crime progress reports of this kind. New York Times, Fred P. Graham
  
• 8/31/1965 LBJ signed into law a bill making it a crime to destroy or mutilate a draft card.
  

[Tracy Riddle]

• 9/1965 Fall 1965 the Hoover-approved TV series, The FBI Story, premiered on ABC. It was a glamorized account of the Bureau, controlled in almost every detail by Hoover, Tolson and DeLoach; yet several times Hoover tried to have the show cancelled when an episode didn't turn out just as he wanted it. Starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., the show never once mentioned the Mafia.
  
• 9/1965 This month's issue of the JBS' American Opinion featured an article by Martin Dies called "Warren Report: The Strange Conclusions." He criticized the commission for being unwilling to look into "the International Communist Conspiracy."
  
• 9/1965 In a classified paper, Westmoreland spelled out the objectives of the war: to stop North Vietnamese aggression and force them to make a negotiated settlement.
  
• 9/2/1965 Chinese Defense Minister Lin Biao called on developing nations to rise up against the industrialized world, and ridiculed America's effort in Vietnam.
  
• 9/3/1965 LBJ announced the settlement of the steel strike.
  
• 9/3/1965 In a newspaper column item regarding the JFK assassination, syndicated columnist Dorothy Kilgallen writes: "This story isn't going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive -- and there are a lot of them." Dorothy Kilgallen's last public reference to the JFK assassination appeared on Sept. 3, 1965 when she challenged the authenticity of the famous Life magazine cover of Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly holding a rifle. She also chastised Marina Oswald for vouching for it. The incriminating photo has since been discredited by analysts who say Oswald's head was pasted on someone else's body. (By Sara Jordan, Midwest Today Magazine, October 21, 2007)
  
• 9/4/1965 Melba Marcades (Rose Cheramie) is found dead beside a highway near Big Sandy, Texas -- a small town in East Texas about midway between Dallas and Louisiana. A man tells authorities that Cheramie was lying in the roadway, apparently after being thrown from a car, and that he drove over hear head while trying to avoid her. Police can find no relationship between the woman and the driver and the case is closed. A later attempt to contact the driver indicates that his Tyler, Texas address is nonexistent.
  
• 9/6/1965 ... The Russian leaders who would like still further deterioration in relations have been aided, regrettably, by the Johnson Administration's surrender to J. Edgar Hoover and several insistent pressure groups of right-wing extremists on the Soviet American consular agreement. The decision not to press for Senate ratification of the treaty now supplies ammunition for peddlers in Moscow of the tired propaganda line that American foreign policy is not determined by President Johnson but by "fascists" and "imperialists." New York Times Editorial, More Cold war Chill
  
• 9/7/1965 After having terrible pains in his stomach, LBJ called over Dr. Burkley, who felt he was having kidney stones. (White House Diary 316)
  
• 9/9/1965 LBJ signed legislation creating Department of Housing and Urban Development at Cabinet level; its head, Robert Weaver, is the first black Cabinet member.
  
• 9/9/1965 THE STATE OF TEXAS vs. JACK RUBENSTEIN -- Today in Judge Louis Holland's court, Jack Ruby disregards his lawyers who are telling him to be quiet and declares that there was a conspiracy in high places behind JFK's assassination. As his lawyers try to push TV microphones away, Ruby says: "The world has the right to hear the truth." Second hearing before Judge Holland on defense counsel's petition to disqualify Judge Brown. Judge Holland passes the defense counsel's petition up to the Court of Criminal Appeals. Jack Ruby gave some notes to Elmer Gertz while in court in Dallas: "Elmer, you must believe me, that I am not imagining crazy thoughts etc. This is all so hopeless, that they have everything in the bag and there isn't any chance or hope for me. These hearings are just to stall for time. What chance to do I have, when I know at this time that they are killing are our people here now in this very building….you must believe me, as to what is happening they are torturing people right here…Why should I continually repeat all these things over and over."
  
• 9/13/1965 Columnist Joseph Alsop wrote about Vietnam: "At last there is light at the end of the tunnel."
  
• 9/16/1965 Most of NYC's major papers go out on strike; it will last three weeks.
  
• 9/18/1965 Roscoe White resigns from the Dallas Police Department.
  
• 9/19/1965 "Meet the Press" became the first network television program to broadcast a live satellite interview.
  
• 9/21/1965 Water Quality Act passed.
  
• 9/23/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed J. Lee Rankin.
  
• 9/25/1965 Sen. Spessard Holland (D-FL), told his colleagues: "What I object to is imposing no limitation insofar as areas of the earth are concerned, but saying that we are throwing the doors open and equally inviting people from the Orient, from the islands of the Pacific, from the subcontinent of Asia, from the Near East, from all of Africa, all of Europe, and all of the Western Hemisphere on exactly the same basis. I am inviting attention to the fact that this is a complete and radical departure from what has always heretofore been regarded as sound principles of immigration." (Congressional Record, Sept. 22, 1965, p. 24779.) "
  
• 9/29/1965 Edward Jay Epstein interviewed Allen Dulles.
  
• 10/1965 Sylvan Fox's The Unanswered Questions about the Kennedy Assassination is published.
  
• 10/1965 Sirhan Sirhan takes a job as a stable boy at Santa Anita Racetrack, Calif.
  
• 10/1/1965 Congress passes an anti-pollution bill which empowers the Secretary of HEW to set emission standards on toxic pollutants in new diesel and gasoline powered cars.
  
• 10/1/1965 New Orleans: Clay Shaw, 52 years old, retires as director of the International Trade Mart, and a testimonial luncheon was held in his honor; the mayor presented him with the International Order of Merit medal.
  
• 10/3/1965 Liberty Island, NY harbor: LBJ signed the landmark Hart-Celler Immigration Bill that ended most ethnic quotas in effect since 1921, raised the ceiling on legal immigration; this led to a vast increase in immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America over the next few decades. Johnson said, "This bill we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not restructure the shape of our daily lives." He criticized the old quota system: "This system violates the basic principle of American democracy -- the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country." Despite the noble words, the architects of the 1965 law did not see it as a means of significantly changing the immigration flow it was considered more a symbolic act, an extension of civil rights sentiments beyond our borders. Proponents repeatedly denied that the law would lead to a huge and sustained increase in the number of newcomers and become a vehicle for globalizing immigration. Many senators and representatives believed that the new, equal quotas would not be fully used by European, Asian, and Middle Eastern nations. In addition, they did not foresee the expansion of non-quota admissions (those not covered by numerical limits) under the act's strengthened provisions for family reunification.
  
• 10/4/1965 The original version of the immigration bill gave top preference to people with special skills, but that was changed in the final version to the current nepotistic emphasis on family relationship. A Washington Post editorial was no better at predicting the result than the bill's congressional supporters: "The most important change, in fact, was in direction, shuffling the preference categories to give first consideration to relatives of American citizens instead of to specially skilled persons. This had more emotional appeal and, perhaps more to the point, insured that the new immigration pattern would not stray radically from the old one." (The Washington Post, Oct. 4, 1965, p. 16.)
  
• 10/4/1965 Pope Paul VI addressed the UN General Assembly: "Listen to the lucid words of the great departed John Kennedy, who proclaimed, four years ago, Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.' No more war, war never again! Peace, it is peace which must guide the destinies of peoples and of all mankind."
  
• 10/5/1965 Chalmers M. Roberts wrote in the Washington Post, "The FBI-Secret Service feud has long been well known. The Secret Service men have felt Hoover wanted to swallow their much smaller agency."
  
• 10/6/1965 LBJ signed a bill providing $340 million for regional medical centers fighting heart disease, cancer and stroke.
  
• 10/6/1965 "On Oct. 6, 1965, the Selective Service lifted its ban against drafting married men who had no children. Nine months and two days later, Mr. Cheney's first daughter, Elizabeth, was born." This quote comes from a Saturday NYTimes article -- "Cheney's Five Draft Deferments During the Vietnam Era Emerge as a Campaign Issue" -- discussing the lengths VP Dick Cheney went to in order to avoid serving during the Viet Nam war. It is apparent from the piece that Richard Cheney did everything humanly possible -- short of fleeing to Canada -- to avoid military conscription: He applied for and recieved 5 student deferments, a number described as "incredible" by professor David Curry of the University of Missouri in St. Louis. Curry has written extensively about the draft, including a 1985 book, "Sunshine Patriots: Punishment and the Vietnam Offender." The Times quotes Mr. Curry as observing: "That's a lot of times for the draft board to say O.K." Three weeks and a day after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed (giving President Johnson unlimited military force in Vietnam), Cheney married Lynn Cheney. Within a day or so of the end of deferment for "Married w/o children," Mr. and Mrs. Cheney conceived their first child.
  
• 10/8/1965 LBJ is operated on at Bethesda to have his gall bladder removed.
  
• 10/9/1965 Quotes Stouts "In a democratic country, J. Edgar Hoover is a completely impossible person to be in a position of authority …" Saturday Review, interview by Haskel Frankel with Rex Stout, author of The Doorbell Rang.
  
• 10/10/1965 Speaking at Coalinga Junior College, Ronald Reagan calls for an official declaration of war in Vietnam. (SF Chronicle 6/9/02) Reagan said in an interview with the Fresno Bee, "We should declare war on North Vietnam…It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas."
  
• 10/11/1965 Study group headed by Tommy Thompson, with Taylor, Bill Bundy and McNaughton, issued its report; attacking Northern targets such as Haiphong harbor could bring the Chinese and/or Soviets into the war, and they recommended a bombing pause to encourage peace talks.
  
• 10/11/1965 Columbia releases the film The Bedford Incident, a Cold War thriller, starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier. A Captain Ahab-type destroyer commander, armed with nuclear ASROC missiles, is obssessed with a Soviet sub armed with nuclear torpedoes. The screenplay by James Poe is based on the 1963 book by Mark Rascovich, which was patterned after Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. The film was directed by James B. Harris, who up to that time was best known as Stanley Kubrick's producer. Harris had recently split from a nine-year partnership with Kubrick. Just after the split, Kubrick would make Dr. Strangelove (1964), which raises similar issues to The Bedford Incident.
  
• 10/13/1965 Wesley Liebeler wrote a letter to Rankin about meeting David Lifton; he asked for an explanation of the splice and the missing frames in the Z-film. Rankin and Redlich soon replied that the missing frames couldn't possibly show a bullet hole in the Stemmons Freeway sign, because Oswald couldn't have hit the sign from where he was. Redlich added that the frames might have been deleted because "they were of little value because during those frames the Presidential limousine was almost completely hidden by the sign." Redlich also falsely claimed that the sign had not been replaced since the assassination. (Best Evidence p30) This year, the Stemmons Freeway sign is permanently removed from Dealey Plaza. Emmett Hudson, groundskeeper at Dealey Plaza, will later reveal that one of the two fixed points [the Book Depository window and the car positioned at the Stemmons Freeway sign] - the Stemmons sign is shifted from its place soon after the assassination and removed completely by early in 1965. Sylvia Meagher points out in her book, Accessories After The Fact, that "we do not know if the sign was moved before or after the FBI reenactment tests of May 24, 1964 or, for that matter, before or after the Secret Service reenactments of December 5, 1963. The repositioning and ultimate disappearance of the Stemmons sign is a mystery with ominous undertones. Having no interest in evidence which did not incriminate Oswald, the Warren Commission took not the slightest interest in the Stemmons sign and, needless to say, made no investigation into when and why it was moved."
  
• 10/15-16/1965 National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam sponsors nationwide demonstrations in the US. In New York, police made the first arrest under a new Federal draft-card-burning law. In Berkeley, marchers were attacked by the Hell's Angels.
  
• 10/15/1965 The Chicago Daily News quoted Nixon: "If the United States gives up [in Vietnam]…the Pacific Ocean will become a Red Sea."
  
• 10/17/1965 Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton testified before HUAC. The committee began by handing him a copy of the UKA's corporation papers and asking to identify them. Shelton pulled out a piece of paper and read haltingly from it: "Sir, I respectfully decline to answer that question for the reason that I honestly feel my answer might tend to incriminate me in violation of my rights as guaranteed to me under the amendments five, one, four and fourteen of the Constitution of the United States." Shelton took the Fifth a total of 158 times during his testimony. Walter Goodman commented in The Nation, "For a Kluxer to take the fifth like an ordinary Commie is poetry; for him to take the fourteenth is epic."
  
• 10/20/1965 AP: Washington - J. Edgar Hoover says Communist youth group [Dubois Club] is pulling the strings in anti Viet Nam war demonstrations. Rocky Mountain News, Denver
  
• 10/21/1965 Leaving Bethesda, LBJ stopped to meet with some wounded Vietnam vets.
  
• 10/22 or 29/1965 Time cover story: "The Turning Point in Viet Nam." It read, "Today, South Viet Nam throbs with a pride and power...The remarkable turnabout in the war is the result of one of the swiftest, biggest military buildups in the history of warfare..."
  
• 10/22/1965 Rep. John Bell Williams gave a speech in Congress: "The wave of demonstrations and civil disobedience that spread throughout the country last weekend have all the earmarks of a highly organized Communist plot...this same Communist influence and participation...that lately has been going on in the name of civil rights." He called Martin Luther King "the high mogul of all racial demagogues and racketeers."
  
• 10/24/1965 Washington Post (Stanley Karnow) reported that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: "You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was 'to be as rich and as wise as an American.' What happened?"
  
• 10/27/1965 Nixon stated in NYC: "We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam is lost…the right of free speech will be extinguished throughout the world."
  
• 10/29/1965 suicide of CIA's Frank Wisner
  
• 10/29/1965 NY Times quotes Nixon, warning that if the VC captured South Vietnam, it "would mean ultimately the destruction of freedom of speech for all time not only in Asia but in the United States as well." This was in response to Robert Kennedy's defense of the right of people to protest against the war.
  
• 10/29/1965 Diosdado Macapagal, president of the Philippines, was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt.