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

Recovered Sixth Floor Clipboard Evidence

On December 2, 1963, employee Frankie Kaiser recovered a clipboard hidden behind book cartons in the northwest corner of the sixth floor, located a few feet from where the assassination rifle was found. The clipboard was made by and belonged to Kaiser, who confirmed Oswald had taken it when he began working at the Depository. It held three November 22 invoices for Scott-Foresman books located on the first and sixth floors, none of which Oswald had completed, corroborating his presence on the sixth floor near the sniper’s nest.

Eyewitness Identification of Assassin

This section compiles eyewitness accounts from individuals who observed a man in the sixth-floor southeast corner window before and during the assassination, including Howard Brennan, Ronald Fischer, Robert Edwards, and Amos Euins.

Howard Brennan’s Identification Testimony

Howard Brennan, an eyewitness seated on a concrete wall at the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets with an unobstructed view of the Depository sixth-floor window roughly 120 feet away, testified he saw a man in the window before and during the shooting. He observed the man leave and return to the window multiple times in the 6 to 8 minutes before the motorcade arrived, and watched him fire the final shot before disappearing from the window. Brennan provided a physical description of the man to police shortly after the assassination that matched Oswald’s profile, though he initially declined to make a positive identification in the November 22 police lineup out of fear for his and his family’s safety. He later confirmed to the Commission he could positively identify the man as Oswald, though the Commission did not base its conclusion about the assassin’s identity solely on his later positive identification, as his initial description of a man resembling Oswald was sufficient. Brennan explained his initial belief that the man was standing when firing was likely incorrect, as the low Depository window ledges made a squatting or kneeling person appear standing, a position consistent with the physical evidence of the scene. Brennan also identified two employees he saw leaving the building immediately after the shooting who had been in the fifth-floor window below the sniper’s nest, confirming his observations of the post-shooting scene.