The room was twice as long as it was wide and, when the lights went on and the two doors were flung open, it was as though sluice gates had been lifted. A swirling foam of faces poured in. The tide knocked over chairs. A small table was slammed into an abutment. A one-way screen, behind which witnesses might study a suspect, was rolled to one side and came to rest against a wall. Uniformed policemen walked backward before the wave yelling: “Take it easy! Take it easy!” Men with still cameras took positions along the side walls or down front. A television camera in the rear lifted one large dark eye above the crowd.
The voices became a bedlam. The demands and complaints blended into a solid roar of incomprehensible sound. The police assembly room was filled in a minute and the wave seemed to curl backward, shoving those at the doors out into the hall. There was a rostrum up front and Assistant Chief Charles Batchelor stood on the low platform and shouted for order. He could not be heard. In the hall Lieutenant T. B. Leonard, leaving for home with Lieutenant George Butler, stood on tiptoe. Batchelor saw them and motioned wildly for them to come in and assist him. Jack Ruby, pressed against the little table at the abutment, climbed on it and crouched with his back to the wall. He could see over the heads, and he was only eleven feet from the rostrum. The sound was deafening, and the press shouted to itself to keep quiet.
On the third floor Fritz said he wanted all of his men in that room, and they dropped their assignments to hurry down. Chief Curry was worried, tossed between duty and a public image. He sensed that the two were not compatible. The dour expression was on the little man. He saw Detectives Sims and Boyd flanking Oswald, and the chief said: “Don’t let anybody get near him or touch him. If anyone tries to, I want you fellows to get him out of there immediately.” Curry laid good groundwork for his defense. In the third-floor hall twenty minutes ago, when the press conference had been suggested, he had asked Wade: “Do you think this is all right?” The district attorney had shrugged and said: “I don’t see anything wrong with it.” Curry had held up both hands for the press to be quiet, and he had said: “——anything goes wrong with his being down there—if there’s a rush, he’s immediately going out and that’s it. Now, do we understand each other?” The reporters shouted: “Right! Yes! Right!” One more thing: the chief did not want the prisoner to stand up on the rostrum. “Put him down in front of it, on the floor, and put a guard of men around him.”
There was a mutual distrust among the savages. Oswald, standing quietly between the detectives, understood the situation. This was not one more lineup; it was a press conference. It may have been pleasing to him. He uttered no protest. The press conference was the only way in which he could restore contact with the world. He could use it to serve his ends, as the police were using it to serve theirs, and the press hoped it would satisfy theirs.
In the front of the assembly room, Wade sat on a desk, dangling his legs. He was a man almost impervious to danger, but he had an uneasy feeling that there was no way out of this room. It was a mob, pressed face-to-face. Without the pencils, the pads, the portable tapes, and the cameras, the faces might have been cast in a motion picture about a lynching. They were angry faces, and they pressed forward and receded in waves. The district attorney shouted to a policeman: “You’d better get some officers in here to protect him!”
The tall solemn figure of Captain Will Fritz could be seen in the hall. He tried to elbow his way into the room, but he failed. A dozen detectives, preceded by the chief, forced their way into the front of the big room with Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a bobbing figure in a vortex of police helmets and ten-gallon hats. Wade saw them coming and waved the reporters back from the rostrum. He saw one lined face above the crowd, over in a corner, and absentmindedly wondered where he had seen it before. It was probably some local reporter or radio commentator. In the hall, Will Fritz still hoped that Curry would put Oswald up on the stage. He would be out of arm’s reach of the press, and besides he could be yanked offstage into the prison admitting office in a trice. Curry told the police to put Oswald down front. The wall of protection around the prisoner kept the reporters three feet away.
The inner circle of policemen began to jostle policemen already in the room. There wasn’t sufficient space to step out of the way. A roar of sound enveloped the room as the crowd saw Lee Harvey Oswald. Still cameras were held overhead and aimed in the direction of the protective circle around the prisoner. The place smelled of stale sweat and fetid breath. When the prisoner was in front of the lectern, the press yelled to the police: “Down in front! Down in front! Let’s get a look at him. Is this the guy, chief? Did he do it? We can’t hear anything. Hey, Oswald, why did you shoot Kennedy? How about a statement?”
Ruby, crouched on the little table, saw the police guard flex their knees and he studied Oswald closely. There was a purplish bruise under one eye. The prisoner had not uttered a word, but the nightclub owner interpreted Oswald’s expression as being “proud of what he had done.” He thought that the suspect was smirking. Oswald acknowledged the greeting of the mob by raising both manacled hands over his head. Jack Ruby saw it as a clenched-fist communist salute.
In a doorway, Gregory Olds watched. He could hear unintelligible shouts. Near the director of the Dallas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union stood a law professor from Southern Methodist University named Webster. Another authority on law, Greer Ragio, stood nearby. Henry Wade noticed them and cupped his hands to ask Chief Curry about Oswald’s civil rights. The chief said that “those people” had been given an opportunity to talk to the prisoner.
“Well, I was questioned . . .” Oswald began. The crowd yelled: “Louder! Louder!” The cordon of policemen around the prisoner began to tense. They looked for a nod from someone to take the prisoner out of the room. “Well, I was questioned,” the prisoner said louder, and his voice began to crack with the volume. “I was questioned by a judge.” The crowd began to grow quiet. Those who continued to yell “Louder!” were told to “Shut up!”
Every eye was on Oswald. He could read the expressions. They were not friendly to his cause. The objective press was subjective. It was a hanging jury. “However, I protested at the time that I was not allowed legal representation during that very short and sweet hearing.” They had no time for his protests or his sarcasm. “Did you do it?” they yelled. “Did you shoot the President?”
“I really don’t know what the situation is about,” he said calmly. “Nobody has told me anything except that I am accused of—” The voice faltered. “—of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that. I do request someone to come forward to give me legal assistance.” No one stepped forward. His problems about lawyers were not their concern. What they came for was the story. It wasn’t Tippit; it was Kennedy. The press was determined to try anew, before this man was yanked offstage.
“Did you kill the President?” It was a simple question and it ran through the room from a dozen lips. Oswald shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet.” He was in a position to appear aggrieved. “The first thing I heard about it,” he said, almost plaintively, “was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question.”
“You have been charged—” “Nobody said what?” “Sir?” said Oswald. “What happened to your eye?” “When were you in Russia?” “Mr. Oswald, how did you hurt your eye?” The press in the rear began to shout to the press in front to repeat the questions and answers. Oswald said: “A policeman hit me.” Some of the reporters, crouched low in the front line, began to cramp. A few straightened their knees furtively. The chief nodded to a detective.
Oswald was grasped by the arm. The press conference was over. The cordon was tight around him, and the police began to propel the suspect toward the door. A radio commentator held a microphone to his lips and said: “That was Oswald, Lee Oswald, who was charged with the murder of the President of the United States, although he said he did not know it. He’s being taken back upstairs, he’s being taken back upstairs for further investigation, as Henry Wade pointed out earlier.”
The interview was a failure. The big question had been answered with “No.” His plea for counsel was a legal complaint and added no substance to the material of the story. The press might have protested that the interview was a mockery, but they had made a fiasco of it and they were silent. Some left the room running to file late stories. Others remained because they saw Henry Wade remain. It was possible that something could be salvaged by staging a conference with the district attorney.
Wade was accustomed to the give-and-take of reporters. He could handle “the boys.” As the chief law enforcement officer of Dallas County, his concern would have to be with possibly prejudicing the rights of the defendant to a fair trial. He could snap “No comment” to any question which held a hint of danger. He lowered his head as he sat on the edge of the desk and swung a big foot off the floor.
”He’s been formally charged in Precinct Two of Dallas County Judge David Johnston,” he said in the toneless tone of one who has been through this situation many times. “He’s been taken before the judge and advised of his rights. He’s been charged with both killing Officer Tippit and John F. Kennedy. . . .” The reporters formed a tight scimitar. “Can you tell us any of the evidence against him so far, sir?” The D.A. shook his head. “No. We are still working on the evidence. This has been a joint effort by the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Dallas Police Department, the Dallas Sheriff’s Office, my office, and Captain Will Fritz has been in charge of it.”
All the credits had been pronounced. Some of the reporters wrote them. Some stared dully at the man. “What does he tell you about the killing of the President? Does he volunteer anything or what has he got to—?” “He denies it.” “Was he charged with the President’s killing?” All of the networks remembered Oswald shouting that he had not heard that charge. “11:26 P.M.” Wade said. “11:26 he was charged on the latter charge. . . .”
“Do you have a good case?” “I figure,” said Wade, squinting, “we have sufficient evidence to convict him.” He could have chosen to ignore the question. “Are there other people involved?” “There is no one else but him.” The reporters were still copying the words when the district attorney said: “—he has been charged in the Supreme Court with murder with malice. The charge carries the death penalty, which my office will ask in both cases.” For a time it appeared that Mr. Wade could anticipate the kind of material the reporters hoped for and enunciate it without waiting for a question. “Is there a similar federal charge?” “I don’t know of any.”
The pencils and pens were whirling. “Well,” said Wade, “there is a lot of the physical evidence that was gathered, including the gun, that is on its way by Air Force jet to the FBI crime lab in Washington. It will be back here tomorrow. There are some other things that is going to delay this for probably the middle of next week before it’s presented to the grand jury.” Someone asked about witnesses. “We have approximately fifteen witnesses.” “Who,” said a reporter, trying to complete Wade’s sentence for him, “identified him as the killer of the President?” “I didn’t say that,” the district attorney snapped. “What did they do?” “They have evidence which indicates his guilt.” “Do you have anything to indicate why the man killed the President, if he so did?” “Well,” said Wade, “he was a member of the movement—the Free Cuba movement.” “Fair Play for Cuba,” said Ruby. He had heard it on the radio. “What’s the make of the rifle, sir?” “It’s a Mauser, I believe.”
“Does he have a lawyer?” “I don’t know whether he has or not. His mother has been here and his brother has been here all afternoon.” Sometimes the leonine face came up, and the D.A. studied the faces around him as a gambler might a marked deck. “Does he appear sane to you?” “Yes, he does.”
“Why do you think he would want to kill the President?” Motive is important, but the D.A. decided to forget it. “The only thing I do,” he said with exaggerated patience, “is take the evidence, present it to a jury, and I don’t pass on why he did it or anything else. We, we’re just interested in proving that he did it, which I think we have.” The questions dragged on. Some involved vital statistics. Others asked about the gun which was alleged to have killed Officer Tippit.
One, which might have induced laughter but didn’t, was: “If he has been formally charged with killing the President, how is it he says there is no connection to it?” Henry Wade stared at the man. “I just don’t know what he says. He says he didn’t do it.” An eager voice shouted: “Was he in Russia? Henry, was he in Russia?” Another voice said: “. . . and he no longer has citizenship to the United States. Is this correct, sir?” Wade said: “I can’t verify it or deny it.” “Are you looking for any other suspects at all now that you’ve got—” “We’re always looking for other suspects, but we have none at present.”
”Henry, do you think this is part of the communist conspiracy?” “I can’t say that.” “Well, do you have any reason to believe that it might be?” “No, I don’t have any reason to believe either way.” “What time will you begin in the morning with him?” “Seven or eight o’clock, I would say, roughly.” The material was growing weaker. Mr. Wade sat quietly. “Do you have some prints on him?” The question was a wild shot, but Wade electrified the group when he said: “They are on their way to Washington at present.” “Who?” “Which?” “What’s on the way to Washington?” “The gun. The rifle.” “Both guns?” “Both guns.”
Justice of the Peace Johnston watched with fascination. The questioning turned a corner when the reporters reminded Wade that Oswald said he didn’t know he had been charged with the assassination of the President. Wade said he had been filed on. Which was right? “I do not know,” the D.A. replied. “He has just been charged. I know he has been advised of the other and taken before the magistrate.” One of the newspapermen put the question to Johnston: “Did he answer that question whether the man had been advised that he’s been charged? The man said here that he didn’t know he had been, Dave. How about that?”
David Johnston thought it over. “He has not been advised that the charge of the murder of the President, because he is on capital offense on the other.” The reporters could not decipher the sentence. “He has not been advised?” one asked. The judge said: “He has not been advised.” “When will the arraignment be for the President?” Wade reclaimed his press conference. “I imagine in—tonight sometime.” The interviewers could not seem to let go of the question. “He has not been arraigned on the assassination?” “No.”
“Have there been ballistic tests made locally on the gun?” “No, sir.” On and on, the questions probed. The district attorney said: “Is that all?” but no one responded to that. The men kept asking. One struck ore by inquiring: “Sir, can you confirm the report that his wife said he had in his possession as recently as last night, or some recent time, the gun such as the one that was found in the building?” “Yes, she did.” Several voices said: “She did?” “She did, but—” “She did what? She did what?” “She said that he had a gun of this kind in his possession.” “Rifle? A rifle?” “Last night?” The district attorney sighed. He was mired in this press conference and he couldn’t extricate himself. “Last night,” he said. “It’s that—the reason I answer that question—the wife in Texas can’t testify against her husband, as you may or may not know.” It was a peculiar rationale. If a wife couldn’t testify about the rifle, Ruth Paine could swear that she heard Marina say that the rifle had been stored in a blanket in the garage. Further, the fact that a wife cannot testify would appear to impose a degree of restraint on what a district attorney can repeat of her admissions.
“Mr. Wade, was he under any kind of federal surveillance because of his background, prior to today, today’s events?” “None that I know of. We don’t have any knowledge—” “Do you think you’ve got a good case against him?” “I think we have sufficient evidence.” “Sufficient evidence to convince—to convict him of the assassination of the President?” “Definitely. Definitely.”
The district attorney started to move away from the desk. The last few questions came. “What did she say about the gun?” “She said the gun, he had a gun, a gun of this kind in his possession last night.” “Does he give any indication of breaking down?” “No, not particularly.” “Are you willing to say whether you think this man was inspired as a communist or whether he is simply a nut or a middleman?” “I’ll put it this way: I don’t think he’s a nut.” “Does he understand the charges against him?” “Yes.”
The district attorney left with David Johnston. Wade said, “You ought to go up to the jail and have him brought before you and advise him of his rights and his right to counsel and this and that.” Someone stuck a hand between them and both men stared at Jack Ruby. “Hi, Henry!” he said. “Don’t you know me? I’m Jack Ruby. I run the Vegas Club. Henry, I want you to know that I was the one who corrected you.” Ruby kept pumping the hand of the district attorney. Wade introduced David Johnston. The nightclub owner shook hands, and passed a card. It featured a line cut of a nude girl in black stockings holding a champagne glass. The wording read: “Vegas Club. Your Host, Jack Ruby.” Wade murmured that Johnston was a justice of the peace. Jack Ruby shook hands again.
He bowed away from the group and asked two strangers: “Are you Joe DeLong?” “No,” one said. “Why do you want him?” “I got to get to KLIF. I have some sandwiches.” “How about us?” Ruby hurried away. “Some other time,” he said. He had trouble getting the night number of the radio station. The doors were locked after 6 P.M. There was no way to bring the sandwiches unless he could get someone to unlock the door, and to do this he required the night phone number.
There was a surging excitement in his chest.* He felt that he had been deputized as a reporter. He was helping the press to get the facts straight. Ruby asked nothing in return. He had a compulsion to be a part of this great story. He had to be “in it.” Sandwiches were not enough. Correcting Mr. Wade was not enough. Giving out cards to his nightclubs was not enough. Some recipients smiled, crumpled the card, and dropped it. Others had the effrontery to ask: “What will this get me?” No, it was far better to be part of history than to study it.
Ruby saw a man walking by with a microphone and handed a card to Icarus M. Pappas of WNEW, New York City. Mr. Pappas glanced at it and stuck it in a pocket. Another man carried a portable machine stenciled KBOX. The nightclub owner asked him for the phone number of KLIF and got it. There was a row of phone booths, and Jack Ruby got into one next to Mr. Pappas, who was phoning New York. KLIF answered the ring and Ruby said: “I’m Jack Ruby. I have some sandwiches and good pickles for DeLong and the night crew. I hear you’re working late.”
Outside the booth he could see Pappas trying to attract the attention of Henry Wade. “Hold it a minute,” said the deputized reporter and brought the district attorney to the radio reporter. He popped back into the booth and said: “How would you like an interview with Henry Wade? I can get him for you.” The man at KLIF thought it was fine. Wade was talking to Pappas when Ruby took him by the arm gently and said: “There’s a call for you, Henry.” Wade went into the booth and was interviewed.
When it was over, Wade held the receiver for Ruby. “Now,” said Ruby into the phone, “will you let me in?” The night man said: “All right. I’ll leave the door open for five minutes. Just five minutes.” The station was a block away. To Ruby it represented a crisis. He could walk the block within five minutes, but the sandwiches and soda were in the car. If he reached the car, he might as well use it to drive to the radio station.
He was up on the main floor, almost trotting, when someone grabbed his arm. “Jack,” said a bright young face, “where is everything happening?” It was Russ Knight, radio reporter of KLIF. He carried a portable taping machine. The novice reporter thought about it for a moment. “Come on downstairs,” he said. Knight was from the station whose attention he was soliciting. It was important to show as many of these people as possible that Jack Ruby could do things for them that they could not do themselves. In the basement, Ruby said: “Henry, this is Russ Knight of KLIF” and hurried back to the main floor.
In a minute, he was out in the cool midnight air, hurrying to the parked car. On the front seat, Sheba sat waiting. Ruby sometimes referred to her as “my wife.” He started the car and moved it quickly to the curb in front of KLIF. There, across the sidewalk, was the door. Ruby parked, grabbed the big bags, slammed the door, and hurried to the building. The door was locked. The reporter had missed his first deadline.
He stood in front of the door, breathing. He waited ten minutes. Russ Knight came down the street, returning to KLIF with a fresh interview with Henry Wade. “I brought some sandwiches and soda for you guys,” Jack Ruby said. Knight unlocked the door. They went upstairs to the radio station. The Good Samaritan had bought his way in for $9.60.
The several parts of the funeral had been hammered together. Nothing was “finalized,” but Sargent Shriver and his White House “pickup team” could see the outlines and the stages at 1 A.M. The handsome, square-jawed man who directed the Peace Corps could not sit in Dungan’s office any longer. Walking was a necessity. He chose to go all the way across the White House to inspect the decoration of the East Room.
As Shriver stood, he beckoned to David Pearson and Lloyd Wright to follow him. He walked sturdily, purposefully through the curving empty corridor of the main floor. Somewhere ahead, he heard John F. Kennedy speaking. It was strange and depressing to hear once more the clear New England accent of a man who would not be heard in this building again. Mr. Shriver continued ahead. In a small office, empty, a television set was on. Pearson and Wright followed their man to the doorway and watched him take an empty chair.
The President, with chin high, was addressing the people of West Berlin. He was stirring and forceful and, beneath the stand, scores of thousands of Germans turned bright expectant faces upward, like cool petals to a warming sun. “Ich bin ein Berliner!” shouted Kennedy in limping German and a deep roar of approval came up from the crowd. Sargent Shriver stood. He left the set on, as though he didn’t want to be a party to stilling that voice forever.
At the office of the President, Shriver paused again. A United States marine, stiff in dress blues, guarded the empty place. He flicked the office lights on, and the bright interior became the natural frame for the voice coming from a box. Every place, every sound was designed to salt sorrow with recollection. The outside walk, between the swimming pool and the Rose Garden, clicked with the Kennedy heels, the Kennedy chuckles when the children rushed him from ahead, the Kennedy laughter when he was in the pool with Dave Powers and Dave said: “I had to learn the breast stroke because it’s the only way I can swim and talk to you.” Next to the boxed hedge, the President dozing fitfully behind sunglasses on the lounge, hands behind head, the lean figure as straight as an exclamation point, secretly watching his wife and the children at the swings and the slides.
Shriver was a couple of strides ahead of Wright and Pearson, as the President used to be a couple ahead of O’Donnell and Salinger. The ridiculous recollections could go on and on. Shriver continued along the grand corridors, empty except for a pair of Secret Service eyes at posts along the way. He walked along the main corridor to the East Room and inside. The artist who had studied the Lincoln funeral, William Walton, was lighting a cigarette. Shriver nodded to him and to Richard Goodwin, who had another book in his hand.
“She wants the East Room to be prepared for him,” said Walton, knowing that there was only one “she”—”like it was for Lincoln.” The visitors had known this for hours. So had Walton and Goodwin and Schlesinger. It is possible that Walton was relating this to himself. “If they are going to get here about two-thirty, I doubt that we can match the Lincoln scene. . . .”
There was an artistic disinclination to do the room á la Lincoln. Goodwin said: “They were pretty rococo in those days.” Shriver looked over some of the drawings of ninety-eight years ago and agreed. The catafalque was heavy with black bunting. Mirrors were covered with black gauze, as though the sight of an image alive might bring bad luck. The hanging crystal chandeliers were swathed with circular black; the windows were edged with crepe. It was overdone. To imitate it would be deliberately depressing. Shriver agreed with Walton.
“I think we can capture the right feeling,” said Walton, “and yet adapt it a little more to Jack Kennedy.” The artist decided to make the room mournful without making it sob. The mirrors would have slender skeins of black around the frames, but not across the glass. Bits of black here and there in the room would establish the proper aura of respect for the dead, without darkening the place and robbing it of life.
Pearson said: “Maybe there ought to be a crucifix.” Like everything else thought of or devised that night, it was “sent for.” Christ Himself must be in good taste. When a bloody crucifix was tendered, Sargent Shriver declined it and sent for one in his Maryland home. Someone brought up the option of open casket versus closed. The artist was positive that the President would prefer to have it closed. “Jack didn’t like to be touched,” he said quietly to David Pearson. “I doubt whether he would like to be stared at now.”
The elevator door opened on the fourth floor and Deputy Chief Lumpkin and four detectives stepped off. Within the embrasure of heads was Lee Harvey Oswald. He carried his handcuffs forward of his body and he watched the procedure of transfer from Homicide and Robbery Division to the municipal jail with no interest. One of the jailers asked if he had been fingerprinted and mugged, and a detective said: “I think so.” The prisoner knew he had not been photographed. The frisking was repeated. A prisoner’s card was filled out by the jailers as a receipt for the custody of Oswald.
The party went to the fifth floor. There, Lumpkin turned his man in for the night. The late shift in the prison went through the procedures as though Oswald had not been through it before. This time he was permitted to keep trousers and an undershirt. Two men led him to the old row of three cells and put him in the center one. The cuffs were taken from his wrists. He asked about permission to take a shower and he was told to get some rest. For the second time, he announced that he had “hygienic rights.”* The two men who kept the dangling ceiling bulb lit sat for a long night. If Oswald noticed that the Negro had been removed from Cell Number Three, he made no comment.
On the floor below, Officer R. D. Lewis completed his polygraph test on Wesley Frazier. He had nothing to show for fifty minutes of work. Two policemen had been stationed behind a one-way mirror watching the witness and listening to his replies to questions, and they, too, were convinced that, if there was such a thing as an assassination plot, this young man was not a party to it.
Lewis ran through the tape, studying the controls and the intensity of response, and shook his head negatively. One of the policemen phoned Captain Fritz. The captain ordered the three detectives to release the boy and to take him home. The detectives were to report off duty and be available in the morning. It did not assist morale to know that Fritz was more overworked than his men. Stovall knew that he would get home about 2 A.M., after delivering Frazier and Linnie Mae Randall and the Baptist minister to their homes in Irving. The officers would have to be out of bed and ready before 8 A.M. The only man who might sleep straight through the night was Oswald.
Robert Frazier was explicit. Evidence was going to continue to come into the FBI’s Weapons Identification Section all night long. He wanted each item to be tested exhaustively. New York had just Telexed Alan Belmont that a firm in Chicago called Klein’s Sporting Goods was known to have sold the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle by magazine coupon. Chicago had been asked to track down Klein’s management and, if necessary, to get them out of bed and try to locate a Dallas or New Orleans order from Lee Harvey Oswald, Lee Oswald, L. H. Oswald, Alex Hiddell, A. Hidell, or A. Hidel.
Handwriting experts would be studying the Oswald and Hiddell signatures; others were working all night in New Orleans to get background and biographical matter; a man was in the State Department working on Oswald’s Russian file; Gordon Shanklin in Dallas had a group of agents with the police and the Secret Service; Drain was having evidence photographed before flying it to Washington; Frazier was taking a team to the White House garage to examine the President’s car.
The hour was late, but the men, members all of an elite corps of law enforcement agents, wanted to “wrap the case up” before dawn. In Dallas, Chief Curry and Captain Will Fritz thought it was already “wrapped.” The FBI considered that Dallas had a good case against Oswald; the bureau wanted to secure the loose ends, such as tracking and tracing the rifle and revolver to Oswald; identifying a bit of metal taken from the President’s brain as coming from that rifle; examining that recent trip to Mexico, inch by inch, to find out whether Oswald was part of a conspiracy or acting alone.
Frazier, who looked like a twenty-year bank teller, led Agents Charles Killian, Cortlandt Cunningham, Orrin H. Bartlett, and Walter E. Thomas onto Pennsylvania Avenue on the west side of the building. Two Agents, Sibert and O’Neill, were on their way in. They said they were returning from the autopsy. Supervisor Frazier didn’t have time to listen to a summary of the results. All he asked was: “Did you find anything?” They said yes, and displayed a shallow salve jar. The top was unscrewed. On white cotton batting were slivers of lead.
“Here are some metal fragments from the President’s head,” Sibert said. One weighed 1.65 grains; the other was 0.15 of a grain. Frazier touched them as though they were rare gems. “Is this all you found?” They said that X-ray plates disclosed that there were thirty or forty tiny bits of metal along the edges of the skull and embedded in the brain, but the doctors felt that they were too tiny to locate and withdraw.*
The Frazier group drove to M Street and identified themselves to the Secret Service agents. Deputy Chief Paterni had agreed to an FBI examination of SS-100-X, and they trundled it out from the alcove by hand. The plastic cover was removed; so was the leatherette convertible top. An FBI photographer mounted an aluminum ladder and began a series of shots from above, from the sides, from front and back. A shortwave aerial on the left side was broken off. Robert Frazier guessed it might have happened when Clint Hill made a dash for the back of the car as Mrs. Kennedy tried to climb out. Shots were made of the interior of the trunk.
When this phase was complete, Frazier and his agents moved in for an intense survey of the vehicle. The radiating crack on the windshield was examined, measured, and photographed. The glass was double, fused together by a gelatinous substance. The outside of the crack, at the front of the windshield, was smooth to the touch. On the inside, it felt like a small sharply edged crater. A receptacle was held under it; then Frazier ordered it carefully scraped with a sharp jack knife. Metal fragments, as small as bits of rust, were recovered. The metal content was identical with that of the bits of bullets recovered.
A dent was found in the upper frame of the windshield. This too was measured and observed. Frazier thought that a bit of flying metal might have hit it.* Inch by inch, the FBI men examined the exterior of the automobile, the body, the doors, the wheels, fenders, hood, trunk, even the ribs of the tires. No one hurried. The work was tedious. Frazier opened the back doors, then the front doors. The interior was still laden with petals of red and yellow roses.
Each one was removed and examined to see if any metal content adhered to the flower. The two limousine blankets, sealed in pockets in the doors, were removed and spread on the floor of the White House garage to be felt and dusted. On the back seat and on the rug FBI men picked up dry clots of blood and brain tissue. These scrapings were placed in envelopes, in the same manner that Doctor Burkley’s warrant officers had done earlier. Most of these grisly bits were sifted between rolling fingertips for metal.
The metal runner which held the rug down, in the front section as well as the rear, was carefully unscrewed and lifted clear. Some FBI agents held bright spotlights as others began the painstaking task of feeling each inch of the rugs, then lifting them clear to the floor of the garage for additional examination. The floorboards of the car were probed.
Three bits of lead missile material was found on the rug. The rear seat, which operated on a hydraulic lift, was removed. The trunk was opened. In all cases, a visual examination came first; notes were taken. The two sizable bullet ends found earlier in the front of the car were already being tested in the Weapons Identification Section of the FBI. It was considered possible that, as the President fell to his left with his head angling down, the third bullet may have crashed through the back of the skull, tumbled through the brain and out the top of the head, and spun to the inside of the windshield on the driver’s side, to inflict a crack in the glass and fall to the floor.
Frazier realized that many suppositions would never be proved. There were possibilities and probabilities and few provabilities.
On a table with dead microphones Jack Ruby made a space and put the bags of sandwiches and soda down. “Well!” he said happily, and then comically slapped a hand over his mouth and pointed to the mikes. The radio announcer on duty, William Glenn Duncan, Jr., pointed to a thick glass section, where a sound engineer was playing a tape. “You can talk,” he said. Russ Knight came in. He was going to splice his interview with Wade so that it would be a flawless interview. Ruby waved everyone in to shop for the right sandwiches and drinks.
One of each was brought into the sound engineer, who smiled and nodded his mute thanks. “Isn’t it awful,” said Ruby. “A weasel like that.” He chewed a sandwich and looked around. It was not the first time he had been in a radio studio. On the receiving end, in his automobile, radio stations always sounded loud and imperative and musically busy. In a room like this, a man felt like a dead fish in a vault. Excitement seemed to be one room removed, except when Mr. Duncan cut in with the late news. For a few minutes, Ruby stopped chewing and listened in fascination as the words fled in all directions to be heard in homes and automobiles and restaurants all over the Dallas prairie.
There were times to be quiet and times to speak. Jack Ruby asked Knight if he had seen that “terrible ad” placed in the News by someone named Bernard Weissman. It referred to President Kennedy in disgraceful terms, and Jack Ruby was afraid it might reflect on the Jewish community. Knight didn’t think so, but Ruby feared that the gentiles would think, with a name like Weissman, that it had been inspired by Jews. Besides, Ruby was sorely afflicted with a feeling that Dallas assessed Jews as being without courage. “Jews have guts,” he said frequently. “They’re ready to stand up and fight for the things they believe in.”
Knight played the interview with Wade. A little later he devised an oral editorial about the assault on Adlai Stevenson and the Weissman advertisement. Ruby said that Russ Knight was one guy who “will go to bat immediately if anything is wrong.” Once again, the nightclub owner was manipulating the news in a small way. He was part of a big story, and he would remain as long as he was within it. Russ Knight kindly mentioned Jack Ruby as the man who suggested, at the press conference, that reporters ask the D.A. if Oswald was sane. It was pleasing to know that one’s name was flying through the night sky to thousands and thousands of ears.
The men were told to go home, complete whatever they were working on and leave. Captain Fritz knew that some of them had been on duty sixteen hours. He wanted them back in the morning. In the race to close the case, he had an understandable ambition to help Homicide and Robbery to lead it. Fritz, sitting alone in his office, thumbing through the reports, was sorry that all that evidence had gone up to Washington. If Chief Curry had given the captain one full day, he would probably have traced that cheap rifle to some shop in Dallas and from there right to Oswald.
The phone rang. He picked it up and learned from Lieutenant Knight, in charge of the Bureau of Identification, that there were no fingerprint and no mug shots on Lee Harvey Oswald. Fritz thought he recalled prints being made. These were done by Lieutenant Day for swift comparison with latent prints on the rifle and the cardboard box. Knight wanted something more permanent. The captain said that the prisoner had been sent up to the fifth floor for the night and to go get him.
Knight and Sergeant Warren went to the jail and filled in a checkout card at 12:35 A.M. Oswald did not protest. He was lying on a lower bunk, still in his T-shirt and slacks. He sat up and announced that he had been fingerprinted, but it was explained that it had been done with an inkless pad. Now that two felony counts had been filed against him, the Dallas department required permanent prints and photos. Copies of these would be sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a matter of course to find out if the prisoner had a criminal record or if he was wanted by any other police department.
The car stood halfway in the gate at Carswell. Vincent Drain sat in back with his evidence. An Air Force sergeant phoned that he had a visitor without permit who wanted access to the hardstand. Except for the yellow overhead lights at the gate, Carswell Air Force Base was dark. In the distance, a service runway was flanked with deep blue lights. Drain and his FBI driver waited. A car pulled up behind them.
A man got out, walked up, and introduced himself as Winston Lawson, Secret Service agent. “I remember,” said Drain. “You were at headquarters this afternoon.” Lawson said that Inspector Kelley had heard about the evidence being transferred and had ordered him to accompany Drain. The FBI man had no objection; Gordon Shanklin had agreed to it. The sergeant at the gate was told that there were now two men to get aboard a special plane—one FBI, one Secret Service.
A few minutes later an officer arrived in a staff car. He greeted the agents, apologized for the delay, and took them through the barracks section in the darkness and out onto the air strip. They had to climb a small iron ladder. Lawson said he would help Drain with the packages. The FBI man declined with thanks. He clutched the material because his function was to protect the chain of evidence. Drain knew that when he arrived in Washington, no matter how tired he felt, he would have to remain with this material until Robert Frazier’s section had completed its exhaustive tests; then he would have to reboard this jet tanker at Andrews and fly back to Carswell and return the material to Captain Fritz.
The hatch on the K-135 closed, and the two men secured seat belts as the big silvery bird waddled to the head of the runway and received permission to take off for Andrews. When the shrieking of the engines settled down and the craft was airborne, Lawson took out a pencil and asked Drain what kind of evidence he had. It consisted of the following:
(1) A live 6.5-millimeter rifle shell found in a 6.5 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building; (2) three spent 6.5-millimeter shells, found on sixth floor of the Depository inside the northeast window; (3) one blanket found in garage of Mrs. Ruth Paine, 2515 Fifth Street, Irving, Texas; (4) shirt taken from Lee H. Oswald at police headquarters; (5) brown wrapping paper found on sixth floor, near rifle, believed to have been used to wrap the weapon; (6) sample of brown paper used by School Book Depository and sample of paper tape used for mailing books; (7) fragment of bullet found in the wrist of Governor John Connally; (8) Smith and Wesson .38 revolver, V510210, taken from Lee H. Oswald at Texas Theatre; (9) .38 bullet recovered from the body of J. D. Tippit; (10) One 6.5-millimeter bolt action rifle, inscribed “1940, Made in Italy,” serial number C2766. Also inscribed on the rifle was a crown which appeared similar to an English crown. Under it was inscribed “R-E.” Also inscribed was “Rocca,” which was enclosed in rectangular lines and was on the plunger on the bolt action on the rear of the gun. On the four-power scope of the gun was inscribed “Ordnance Optics Inc., Hollywood, California, 010 or 010 Japan.” Also inscribed was a cloverleaf and inside the cloverleaf was “OSC.”
The copilot came back with cardboard containers of coffee. Lawson completed his list and looked out a window. The night was bright with stars. The plane raced them but appeared to stand still. The drone of the engines reduced conversation and increased drowsiness. A radio operator told the agents that they would make Andrews about 4:30 A.M. Eastern Time. Vincent Drain turned his watch ahead an hour. He estimated that he would have this material in Frazier’s hands by 5 A.M.
The show was over. The audience had dissipated. Roy Kellerman phoned Clint Hill on the seventeenth floor. “Come on down,” he said. “I want you to look at these wounds.” The Gawler group arrived. Joseph Hagan introduced himself and his assistants to a Navy enlisted man. For the embalming, he had Mr. John Van Haesen, Mr. Edwin Stroble, and Mr. Thomas Robinson. They would not begin their labors until the autopsy team signified that its work had been completed.
It had. Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh remained in the room with the body, as he had vowed to do. Dr. George Burkley got to his feet, walked over to the sheet-covered remains, and worked on the left hand. The wedding ring came off. The doctor, who felt emotional about the death of his patient, took the gold band and went to the seventeenth floor with it. The Attorney General came to the door and held out his hand. The graying man said he would like to deliver it “personally” to Mrs. Kennedy. There was no reason to doubt that Robert Kennedy would give it to her. Still he held the door open and Burkley went inside and handed the ring to Jacqueline Kennedy. The rear admiral made a touching speech about his feelings. For a moment, grief matched grief in mutual appreciation.
In the autopsy room, the sheet was removed from the President’s body, and Kellerman ordered Clint Hill to make his observations. The body was turned face down, then returned to its original position. Hill was stoical as he noted a bullet puncture at the base of the neck in the back and a small hole in the rear of the head, in addition to the big rent in the middle of the head. He was sent back to the Kennedy suite to stand guard and to file a personal report.
The Navy doctors removed their X-rays from the opaque screen and their notebooks from the autopsy table. They were zealous men who had tried to reduce observations and measurements to a precise science and failed. They could and would correct original impressions, but those who enjoy varnishing history with suspicion would not forgive the doctors for misreading a tracheostomy.
The three men were replaced by four. The function of the new men was to restore John Fitzgerald Kennedy to an approximation of serene sleep. In a manner of speaking, this is the most tender and most difficult of services. It is normally performed in secrecy. For Joseph Gawler’s Sons, it would have been easier to take the body to their establishment. The instruments and material would be at hand, and the body could have been returned in ninety minutes.
This was not permitted because Mrs. Kennedy did not want the body taken from the hospital. Understandably the word hospital did not have the note of finality encompassed in “funeral home,” “autopsy,” and “embalming.” It lifted the weary spirit a trifle to think of a Navy officer in a Navy hospital. It postponed a final accounting.