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

第二章 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.

INTERVIEWS WITH LEE HARVEY OSWALD ON NOVEMBER 23, 1963

Section heading introducing a chronological record of the interviews conducted with Lee Harvey Oswald on November 23, 1963, in the offices of Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Homicide Division. Inspector Kelley’s narrative is presented in summary form, covering an earlier morning interview and two subsequent interviews that day.

Interview at 12:35 P.M., November 23, 1963

At approximately 12:35 P.M. on November 23, 1963, Oswald was interviewed in Captain Fritz’s office with Inspector Kelley, Detectives Senkel and Tiernon, and FBI SA James Bookhout present. Fritz sought to determine the location of Oswald’s belongings in Dallas; Oswald stated that most of his personal effects, including a sea bag, were stored in the garage at Mrs. Paine’s residence at 2515 West 5th Street, Irving, Texas. The interview ended at about 1:10 P.M., after which Homicide Division detectives obtained a search warrant and recovered the effects. Among the items seized were snapshot photographs of Oswald holding a rifle and copies of The Militant and The Worker, with a holstered revolver visible on his right side. These photographs were enlarged by the Dallas Police Laboratories and used as the basis for further questioning later that evening.