Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

FBI Interview: Oswald Post-Assassination Travel and Personal Details

This section reproduces a second FBI FD-302 report documenting an interview of Oswald at the Homicide and Robbery Bureau on November 23, 1963 (dictated November 24, 1963), attended by Captain Fritz, Special Agent Bookhout, Secret Service personnel T. J. Tully and David B. Grant, U.S. Marshal Robert I. Nash, and Dallas detectives. Oswald stated that after leaving the Book Depository he boarded a city bus, obtained a transfer, and ultimately took a cab from the bus to his North Beckley apartment after two blocks due to traffic; he described a fare of approximately 85 cents, a woman who asked the driver to call her a cab, and that he changed his reddish button-down shirt and gray trousers upon arriving home. He denied bringing any package to work, denied telling Wesley Frazier that he went to Irving to obtain curtain rods, and described eating a cheese sandwich and apple alone in the Depository lunch room. Oswald denied owning or possessing a rifle, denied keeping a rifle in Ruth Paine’s garage (acknowledging stored sea bags, suitcases, and boxes), denied Communist Party membership, claimed membership in the ACLU, and stated he had purchased a pistol about six months earlier without disclosing the source. He denied shooting the President and asked to contact Attorney Abt in New York; he also declined a polygraph examination without counsel and admitted carrying a Selective Service card bearing the name Alek James Hidell without discussing its use.

FBI Interview: Oswald Response to Rifle Photograph and Lineup Complaint

This section contains an FBI FD-302 report dated November 25, 1963, documenting an interview of Oswald conducted at 6:35 p.m. on November 23, 1963, by Captain Fritz in the presence of Special Agent Bookhout. Captain Fritz exhibited to Oswald a photograph obtained by search warrant from the garage of Ruth Paine’s Irving, Texas residence, depicting Oswald holding a rifle and wearing a holstered pistol. Oswald stated that he would not discuss the photograph without advice of an attorney, suggested that the head in the photograph could be his but that the body might be that of another person, and proposed the possibility that news media photographs had been used by police to “doctor up” the image. Oswald denied purchasing any rifle from Kleins Store in Chicago, Illinois. He also complained that during a lineup he had not been permitted to wear a jacket similar to those worn by other individuals in the lineup.

Secret Service Inspector Kelley First Interview Report with Lee Harvey Oswald

This section reproduces the first interview report prepared by U.S. Secret Service Inspector Thomas J. Kelley following the assassination. At approximately 10:30 a.m. on November 23, 1963, Kelley attended an interview with Oswald at the Homicide Division of the Dallas Police Department, attended by Special Agent Jim Bookhout, Captain Will Fritz, U.S. Marshal Robert Nash, Special Agent David Grant, Special Agent in Charge Sorrels, and Officers Boyd and Hall; the interview was unrecorded, with Sorrels and Kelley present as observers. Oswald recounted leaving work by bus, securing a transfer, and later changing his account to say he exited the bus after two blocks and took a cab home for an 85-cent fare after the driver told him the President had been shot. He described going home, changing into clean clothes, and placing a reddish button-down shirt in a dresser drawer, and said his lunch of cheese, bread, fruit, and apples was the only package he had brought to work. Oswald stated that Mrs. Paine practiced Russian by having his wife live with her, denied ever owning a rifle, identified his brother Robert’s Fort Worth address, denied Communist Party membership, confirmed ACLU membership, and stated he had purchased the pistol found on him approximately seven months earlier, refusing to answer further questions about firearms until consulting a lawyer.

KAPITEL II. With the assistance of Agent in Charge Sorrels of the

Chapter II documents Secret Service Inspector Thomas J. Kelley’s account of interviews with Lee Harvey Oswald conducted on November 23–24, 1963, in Dallas, with the assistance of Agent in Charge Forrest V. Sorrels. The chapter covers Oswald’s refusal to answer substantive questions without counsel, his demand to retain New York attorney John Abt, the discovery of incriminating photographs among his effects at Mrs. Paine’s garage, the presentation of those photographs to Oswald, a final interview on the morning of November 24, the shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, the medical response at Parkland Hospital, Oswald’s death, and the subsequent security arrangements for the Oswald family. A supplementary memorandum from U.S. Postal Inspector H. D. Holmes corroborates the final interview.