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

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.