Beyond security failures, the Commission examined the broader consequences of the police-press relationship. Police released information through informal oral statements and impromptu press conferences. Curry appeared on television and radio at least a dozen times during November 22-24, releasing detailed information on the case. This running commentary inevitably disclosed many erroneous details: the rifle was initially identified as a Mauser 7.65 rather than a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5; chicken bones on the sixth floor were mistakenly reported as Oswald’s lunch; the map in Oswald’s room was said to show the motorcade route when it actually showed places he may have applied for jobs. District Attorney Henry M. Wade also made several erroneous statements.
The Commission concluded that the disclosure of evidence by the police seriously endangered his constitutional right to trial by an impartial jury. The American Bar Association declared in December 1963 that publicizing Oswald’s alleged guilt would have made it extremely difficult to impanel an unprejudiced jury, and the Commission agreed that his opportunity for trial by twelve jurors free of preconception would have been seriously jeopardized.
The Commission placed primary responsibility for failing to control the press on the Dallas Police Department. However, the Commission also found the news media bore a share of responsibility: the crowd of newsmen generally failed to respond properly to police demands, used offices without permission, tied up facilities, and ignored instructions. While recognizing the public’s right to know which agencies were participating and the rate of progress, the Commission concluded that neither the press nor the public had a right to be contemporaneously informed of the details of the evidence being accumulated. The courtroom, not the newspaper or television screen, is the appropriate forum for the trial of a man accused of a crime.
CHAPTER VI – Investigation of Possible Conspiracy
Following Ruby’s slaying of Oswald, suspicions multiplied regarding conspiracy behind Kennedy’s assassination. Allegations spanned the political spectrum and implicated Cuba’s Castro regime or the Soviet Union. The Commission faced difficulties: witnesses and evidence abroad could not be subpoenaed, requiring foreign-sourced information to be tested for fabrication. It investigated every allegation regardless of source and examined all of Oswald’s writings and possessions—through the FBI and NSA—for code or espionage use.
The chapter reviews the assassination’s circumstances (established earlier as a single sixth-floor shooter, Oswald); Oswald’s life since 1959 (defection, return, Communist/Socialist contacts, Mexico City trip, Soviet Embassy correspondence); and whether Jack Ruby was part of a conspiracy.
Circumstances Surrounding the Assassination
The Secret Service selected the motorcade route—west on Main, right onto Houston, left onto Elm through the Triple Underpass to Stemmons Freeway and the Trade Mart—for maximum exposure and scheduling. The turn at Houston and Elm brought the motorcade within roughly 90 yards of the Depository; a concrete barrier prevented alternative routing. The Commission found the route appropriate and unrelated to conspiracy.
Oswald’s Depository employment was ordinary. He arrived from Mexico on October 3, 1963, with little money, expiring unemployment benefits, and a pregnant wife. After rejection at Padgett Printing Corp—whose superintendent cited “Communistic tendencies” based on a Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall reference—Oswald found work through Ruth Paine, who told neighbor Linnie Mae Randle; Randle’s brother worked at the Depository. Mrs. Paine telephoned Superintendent Roy Truly, who hired Oswald on October 16—the same day the Texas Employment Commission tried to refer him to a higher-paying airline job he never learned of. The Commission concluded his employment was unrelated to the President’s trip.
Oswald carried the assassination rifle into the building on November 22 in a handmade brown paper bag assembled from shipping room materials—possibly in the Paines’ garage the previous evening. Buell Wesley Frazier, Randle’s brother, regularly drove him between Irving and Dallas. Oswald’s unusual Thursday evening visit—he claimed he needed curtain rods—provided cover for the long package. The Commission found no evidence of assistance beyond Frazier’s innocent ride.
The carton arrangement at the sixth-floor window was carefully analyzed. Most cartons near the window had been moved by a floor-laying crew clearing space. The three boxes in the window, plus a fourth on which the assassin may have sat, consisted of two heavier cartons of about 55 pounds each and two lighter “Rolling Readers” boxes of about 8 pounds each—movable by a single person within seconds. Twenty-five identifiable fingerprints were found on the four cartons; all but one were attributed to an FBI employee and a Dallas police officer who handled them during investigation. The remaining unidentified palmprint and unidentifiable prints were unremarkable, given commercial handling.
Two Depository employees were on the sixth floor briefly between 11:45 a.m. and the assassination. Charles Givens retrieved his jacket and cigarettes around 11:55 a.m., saw Oswald walking away from the southeast corner, and saw no one else. Bonnie Ray Williams returned at noon to eat lunch and watch the motorcade, sitting 20 to 30 feet from the southeast corner window; seeing no one else, he took the elevator to the fifth floor to watch with Harold Norman and James Jarman. Outside witnesses, including Howard L. Brennan, who positively identified Oswald at the window, all described seeing only one person.
The Commission devoted particular attention to Arnold Rowland, an 18-year-old who claimed to have seen both a man with a rifle in the southwest corner window and an elderly, balding Negro man in the southeast corner window minutes before the motorcade. Rowland failed to mention the second man in his original affidavit or FBI interviews, and his wife testified she never heard him speak of such a person. The FBI found numerous demonstrably false statements about Rowland’s education and background. Deputy Sheriff Roger D. Craig claimed Rowland told him of seeing two men, contradicting both the Rowlands and every recorded law enforcement interview. After investigating every Depository employee whose description might match the elderly Negro man, the Commission rejected Rowland’s testimony as unreliable.
Oswald’s escape was traced through seven witnesses. Patrolman M. L. Baker and Roy Truly saw him on the second floor within two minutes; Mrs. R. A. Reid saw him walking through second-floor offices a minute later. Busdriver Cecil J. McWatters and Oswald’s former landlady Mrs. Mary Bledsoe saw him board a bus around 12:40 p.m. and disembark four minutes later. Cabdriver William W. Whaley drove him to Oak Cliff, and housekeeper Earlene Roberts saw him enter his roominghouse at about 1 p.m. before leaving a few minutes later. In every sighting, Oswald was alone. The Commission determined he had approximately three minutes to descend before exits were sealed—sufficient time without assistance. Mrs. Roberts’s claim of seeing a police car honking outside the roominghouse at about 1 p.m. could not be corroborated. The Commission found no evidence of prearranged escape plans.
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