Chapter 4 (2024)

Chapter 4: The Assassin

• Introduction
• Ownership and Possession of Assassination Weapon
  • Purchase of Rifle by Oswald
  • Oswald's Palmprint on Rifle Barrel
  • Fibers on Rifle
  • Photograph of Oswald With Rifle
  • Rifle Among Oswald's Possessions
  • Conclusion
• The Rifle in the Building
  • The Curtain Rod Story
  • The Missing Rifle
  • The Long and Bulky Package
  • Location of Bag
  • Scientific Evidence Linking Rifle and Oswald to Paper Bag
  • Conclusion
• Oswald at Window
  • Palmprints and Fingerprints on Cartons and Paper Bag
  • Oswald's Presence on Sixth Floor Approximately 35 Minutes Before the Assassination
  • Eyewitness Identification of Assassin
  • Oswald's Actions in Building After Assassination
  • Conclusion
• The Killing of Patrolman J. D. Tippit
  • Oswald's Movements After Leaving Depository Building
  • Description of Shooting
  • Murder Weapon
  • Ownership of Revolver
  • Oswald's Jacket
  • Conclusion
• Oswald's Arrest
• Statements of Oswald During Detention
  • Denial of Rifle Ownership
  • The Revolver
  • The Aliases "Hidell" and "O.H. Lee"
  • The Curtain Rod Story
  • Actions During and After Shooting
• Prior Attempts to Kill
  • The Attempt on the Life of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker
  • Richard M. Nixon Incident
• Oswald's Rifle Capability
  • The Nature of the Shots
  • Oswald's Marine Training
  • Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the Marines
  • Accuracy of Weapon
  • Conclusion
• Conclusion

THE PRECEDING chapter has established that the bullets which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building and that the weapon which fired these bullets was a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter Italian rifle bearing the serial number C2766. In this chapter the Commission evaluates the evidence upon which it has based its conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin. This evidence includes (1) the ownership and possession of the weapon used to commit the assassination, (2) the means by which the weapon was brought into the Depository Building, (3) the identity of the person present at the window from which the shots were fired, (4) the killing of Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit within 45 minutes after the assassination, (5) the resistance to arrest and the attempted shooting of another police officer by the man (Lee Harvey Oswald) subsequently accused of assassinating President Kennedy and killing Patrolman Tippit, (6) the lies told to the police by Oswald, (7) the evidence linking Oswald to the attempted killing of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army) on April 10, 1963, and (8) Oswald's capability with a rifle.

OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION OF ASSASSINATION WEAPON

Purchase of Rifle by Oswald

Shortly after the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was found on thesixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building,1 agents ofthe FBI learned from retail outlets in Dallas that Crescent Firearms,Inc., of New York City, was a distributor of surplus Italian6.5-millimeter military rifles.2 During the evening of November 22,1963, a review of the records of Crescent Firearms revealed that thefirm had shipped an Italian carbine, serial number C2766, to Klein'sSporting Goods Co., of Chicago, Ill.3 After searching their recordsfrom 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. the officers of Klein's discovered that a riflebearing serial number C2766 had been shipped to one A. Hidell,

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Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex., on March 20, 1963.4(SeeWaldman Exhibit No. 7, p. 120.)

According to its microfilm records, Klein's received an order fora rifle on March 13, 1963, on a coupon clipped from the February 1963issue of the American Rifleman magazine. The order coupon was signed,in handprinting, "A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas." (SeeCommission Exhibit No. 773, p. 120.) It was sent in an envelopebearing the same name and return address in handwriting. Documentexaminers for the Treasury Department and the FBI testifiedunequivocally that the bold printing on the face of the mail-ordercoupon was in the handprinting of Lee Harvey Oswald and that thewriting on the envelope was also his. 5 Oswald's writing on these andother documents was identified by comparing the writing and printingon the documents in question with that appearing on documents known tohave been written by Oswald, such as his letters, passportapplication, and endorsem*nts of checks.6 (See app. X, p. 568-569.)

In addition to the order coupon the envelope contained a. U.S.postal money order for $21.45, purchased as No. 2,202,130,462 inDallas, Tex., on March 12, 1963.7 The canceled money order wasobtained from the Post Office Department. Opposite the printed words"Pay To" were written the words "Kleins Sporting Goods," and oppositethe printed word "From" were written the words "A. Hidell, P.O. Box2915 Dallas, Texas." These words were also in the handwriting of LeeHarvey Oswald. 8 (See Commission Exhibit No. 788, p. 120.)

From Klein's records it was possible to trace the processing ofthe order after its receipt. A bank deposit made on March 13, 1963,included an item of $21.45. Klein's shipping order form shows animprint made by the cash register which recorded the receipt of $21.45on March 13, 1963. This price included $19.95 for the rifle and thescope, and $1.50 for postage and handling. The rifle without the scopecost only $12.78.9

According to the vice president of Klein's, WilliamWaldman, the scope was mounted on the rifle by a gunsmith employed byKlein's, and the rifle was shipped fully assembled in accordance withcustomary company procedures. 10 The specific rifle shipped againstthe order had been received by Klein's from Crescent on February 21,1963. It bore the manufacturer's serial number C2766. On that date,Klein's placed an internal control number VC836 on this rifle. 11According to Klein's shipping order form, one Italian carbine 6.5 X-4x scope, control number VC836, serial number C2766, was shipped parcelpost to "A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas," on March 20, 1963.12 Information received from the Italian Armed Forces IntelligenceService has established that this particular rifle was the only rifleof its type bearing serial number C2766.13 (See app. X, p. 554.)

The post office box to which the rifle was shipped was rentedto "Lee H. Oswald" from October 9, 1962, to May 14, 1963.14 Expertson handwriting identification from the Treasury Department and the

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBITS 791, 773, 788, and WALDMAN'S EXHIBIT 7showing documents establishing purchase of rifle by Lee Harvey Oswald

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FBI testified that the signature and other writing on the applicationfor that box were in the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald,15 as was achange-of-address card dated May 12, 1963,16 by which Oswald requestedthat mail addressed to that box be forwarded to him in New Orleans,where he had moved on April 24.17 Since the rifle was shipped fromChicago on March 20, 1963, it was received in Dallas during the periodwhen Oswald rented and used the box. (See Commission Exhibit No. 791,p. 120.)

It is not known whether the application for post office box 2915listed "A. Hidell" as a person entitled to receive mail at this box.In accordance with postal regulations, the portion of the applicationwhich lists names of persons, other than the applicant, entitled toreceive mail was thrown away after the box was closed on May 1963. 18Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes of the Dallas Post Office testified,however, that when a package is received for a certain box, a noticeis placed in that box regardless of whether the name on the package islisted on the application as a person entitled to receive mail throughthat box. The person having access to the box then takes the noticeto the window and is given the package. Ordinarily, Inspector Holmes testified, identification is not requested because it isassumed that the person with the notice is entitled to the package.19

Oswald's use of the name "Hidell" to purchase the assassinationweapon was one of several instances in which he used this name as analias. When arrested on the day of the assassination, he had in hispossession a Smith & Wesson 38 caliber revolver purchased bymail-order coupon from Seaport-Traders, Inc., a mail-order division ofGeorge Rose & Co., Los Angeles. The mail-order coupon listed thepurchaser as "A. J. Hidell Age 28" with the address of post office box2915 in Dallas. 21 Handwriting experts from the FBI and the TreasuryDepartment testified that the writing on the mail-order form was thatof Lee Harvey Oswald.22

Among other identification cards in Oswald's wallet at the timeof his arrest were a Selective Service notice of classification, aSelective Service registration certificate,23 and a certificate ofservice in the U.S. Marine Corps,24 all three cards being in his ownname. Also in his wallet at that time were a Selective Service noticeof classification and a Marine certificate of service in the name ofAlek James Hidell.25 On the Hidell Selective Service card thereappeared a signature, "Alek J. Hidell," and the photograph ofLee Harvey Oswald.26 Experts on questioned documents from the TreasuryDepartment and the FBI testified that the Hidell cards werecounterfeit photographic reproductions made by photographing theOswald cards, retouching the resulting negatives, and producing printsfrom the retouched negatives. The Hidell signature on the notice ofclassification was in the handwriting of Oswald. (See app. X, p. 572.)

In Oswald's personal effects found in his room at 1026 NorthBeckley Avenue in Dallas was a purported international certificate ofvaccination signed by "Dr. A. J. Hideel, Post Office Box 30016, New

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Orleans. 28 It certified that Lee Harvey Oswald had been vaccinatedfor smallpox on June 8, 1963. This, too, was a forgery. The signatureof "A. J. Hideel" was in the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald. 29There is no "Dr. Hideel" licensed to practice medicine in Louisiana.30 There is no post office box 30016 in the New Orleans Post Office butOswald had rented post office box 30061 in New Orleans on June 3,1963, listing Marina Oswald and A. J. Hidell as additional personsentitled to receive mail in the box.32 The New Orleans postalauthorities had not discarded the portion of the application listingthe names of those, other than the owner of the box, entitled toreceive mail through the box. Expert testimony confirmed that thewriting on this application was that of Lee Harvey Oswald. 33

Hidell's name on the post office box application was part ofOswald's use of a nonexistent Hidell to serve as president of theso-called New Orleans Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.(As discussed below in ch.VI, p. 292.) Marina Oswald testified thatshe first learned of Oswald's use of the fictitious name "Hidell" inconnection with his pro-Castro activities in New Orleans.34 Accordingto her testimony, he compelled her to write the name "Hidell" onmembership cards in the space designated for the signature of the"Chapter President." 35 The name "Hidell" was stamped on some of the"Chapter's" printed literature and on the membership applicationblanks.36 Marina Oswald testified, "I knew there was no suchorganization. And I know Hidell is merely an altered Fidel, and Ilaughed at such foolishness." 37 Hidell was a fictitious president ofan organization of which Oswald was the only member.38

When seeking employment in New Orleans, Oswald listed a "Sgt.Robt. Hidell" as a reference on one job application 39 and "GeorgeHidell" as a reference on another.40 Both names were found to befictitious.41 Moreover, the use of "Alek" as a first name for Hidellis a further link to Oswald because "Alek" was Oswald's nickname inRussia.42 Letters received by Marina Oswald from her husband signed"Alek" were given to the Commission.43

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Oswald's Palmprint on Rifle Barrel

Based on the above evidence, the Commission concluded that Oswaldpurchased the rifle found on the sixth floor of the DepositoryBuilding. Additional evidence of ownership was provided in the form ofpalmprint identification which indicated that Oswald had possession ofthe rifle he had purchased.

A few minutes after the rifle was discovered on the sixth floorof the Depository Building 44 it was examined by Lt. J. C. Day of theidentification bureau of the Dallas police. He lifted the rifle bythe wooden stock after his examination convinced him that the wood wastoo rough to take fingerprints. Capt. J. W. Fritz then ejected acartridge by operating the bolt, but only after Day viewed the knob onthe bolt through a magnifying glass and found no prints.45 Daycontinued to examine the rifle with the magnifying glass, looking for

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possible fingerprints. He applied fingerprint powder to the side ofthe metal housing near the trigger, and noticed traces of twoprints.46 At 11:45 p.m. on November 22, the rifle was released to theFBI and forwarded to Washington where it was examined on the morningof November 23 by Sebastian F. Latona, supervisor of the LatentFingerprint Section of the FBI's Identification Division.47

In his testimony before the Commission, Latona stated that when hereceived the rifle, the area where prints were visible was protectedby cellophane.48 He examined these prints, as well as photographs ofthem which the Dallas police had made, and concluded that:

...the formations, the ridge formations and characteristics,were insufficient for purposes of either effecting identification or adetermination that the print was not identical with the prints ofpeople. Accordingly, my opinion simply was that the latent printswhich were there were of no value.49

On November 22, however, before surrendering possession of therifle to the FBI Laboratory, Lieutenant Day of the Dallas PoliceDepartment had "lifted" a palmprint from the underside of the gunbarrel "near the firing end of the barrel about 3 inches under thewoodstock when I took the woodstock loose." 52 "Lifting" a printinvolves the use of adhesive material to remove the fingerprint powderwhich adheres to the original print. In this way the powderedimpression is actually removed from the object.53 The lifting hadbeen so complete in this case that there was no trace of the print onthe rifle itself when it was examined by Latona. Nor was there anyindication that the lift had been performed. 54 Day, on the otherhand, believed that sufficient traces of the print had been left onthe rifle barrel, because he did not release the lifted print untilNovember 26, when he received instructions to send "everything that wehad" to the FBI.55 The print arrived in the FBI Laboratory inWashington on November 29, mounted on a card on which Lieutenant Dayhad written the words "off underside gun barrel near end of gripC2766." 56 The print's positive identity as having been lifted fromthe rifle was confirmed by FBI Laboratory tests which established thatthe adhesive material bearing the print also bore impressions of thesame irregularities that appeared on the barrel of the rifle. 57

Latona testified that this palmprint was the right palmprint ofLee Harvey Oswald.58 At the request of the Commission, ArthurMandella, fingerprint expert with the New York City Police Department,conducted an independent examination and also determined that this wasthe right palmprint of Oswald.59 Latona's findings were alsoconfirmed by Ronald G. Wittmus, another FBI fingerprint

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expert.60 In the opinion of these experts, it was not possible toestimate the time which elapsed between the placing of the print onthe rifle and the date of the lift.61

Experts testifying before the Commission agreed that palmprintsare as unique as fingerprints for purposes of establishingidentification.62 Oswald's palmprint on the underside of the barreldemonstrates that he handled the rifle when it was disassembled. Apalmprint could not be placed on this portion of the rifle, whenassembled, because the wooden foregrip covers the barrel at thispoint.63 The print is additional proof that the rifle was in Oswald'spossession.

In a crevice between the butt plate of the rifle and the woodenstock was a tuft of several cotton fibers of dark blue, gray-black,and orange-yellow shades.64 On November 23, 1963, these fibers wereexamined by Paul M. Stombaugh, a special agent assigned to the Hairand Fiber Unit of the FBI Laboratory.65 He compared them with thefibers found in the shirt which Oswald was wearing when arrested inthe Texas Theatre.66 This shirt was also composed of dark blue, gray-black and orange-yellow cotton fibers. Stombaugh testified that thecolors, shades, and twist of the fibers found in the tuft on the riflematched those in Oswald's shirt.67 (See app. X, p. 592.) Stombaughexplained in his testimony that in fiber analysis, as distinct fromfingerprint or firearms identification, it is not possible to statewith scientific certainty that a particular small group of fibers comefrom a certain piece of clothing to the exclusion of all othersbecause there are not enough microscopic characteristics present infibers.68 Judgments as to probability will depend on the number andtypes of matches.69 He concluded, "There is no doubt in my mind thatthese fibers could have come from this shirt. There is no way,however, to eliminate the possibility of the fibers having come fromanother identical shirt." 70

Having considered the probabilities as explained in Stombaugh'stestimony, the Commission has concluded that the fibers in the tuft onthe rifle most probably came from the shirt worn by Oswald when he wasarrested, and that this was the same shirt which Oswald wore on themorning of the assassination. Marina Oswald testified that shethought her husband wore this shirt to work on that day. Thetestimony of those who saw him after the assassination wasinconclusive about the color of Oswald's shirt,72 but Mary Bledsoe, aformer landlady of Oswald, saw him on a bus approximately 10 minutesafter the assassination and identified the shirt as being the one wornby Oswald primarily because of a distinctive hole in the shirt's rightelbow. 73 Moreover, the bus transfer which he obtained as he left.the bus was still in the pocket when he was arrested.74 AlthoughOswald returned to his roominghouse after the assassination and whenquestioned by the police, claimed to have changed his shirt,75 theevidence

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indicates that he continued wearing the same shirt which he waswearing all morning and which he was still wearing when arrested.

In light of these findings the Commission evaluated the additionaltestimony of Stombaugh that the fibers were caught in the crevice ofthe rifle's butt plate "in the recent past."76 Although Stombaugh wasunable to estimate the period of time the fibers were on the rifle hesaid that the fibers "were clean, they had good color to them, therewas no grease on them and they were not fragmented. They looked as ifthey had just been picked up." 77 The relative freshness of thefibers is strong evidence that they were caught on the rifle on themorning of the assassination or during the preceding evening. For 10days prior to the eve of the assassination Oswald had not been presentat Ruth Paine's house in Irving, Tex.,78 where the rifle was kept. 79Moreover, the Commission found no reliable evidence that Oswald usedthe rifle at any time between September 23, when it was transportedfrom New Orleans, and November 22, the day of the assassination.80The fact that on the morning of the assassination Oswald was wearingthe shirt from which these relatively fresh fibers most probablyoriginated, provides some evidence that they were placed on the riflethat day since there was limited, if any, opportunity for Oswald tohandle the weapon during the 2 months prior to November 22.

On the other hand Stombaugh pointed out that fibers might retaintheir freshness if the rifle had been "put aside" after catching thefibers. The rifle used in the assassination probably had been wrappedin a blanket for about 8 weeks prior to November 22.81 Because therelative freshness of these fibers might be explained by thecontinuous storage of the rifle in the blanket, the Commission wasunable to reach any firm conclusion as to when the fibers were caughtin the rifle. The Commission was able to conclude, however, that thefibers most probably came from Oswald's shirt. This adds to theconviction of the Commission that Oswald owned and handled the weaponused in the assassination.

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Photograph of Oswald With Rifle

During the period from March 2, 1963, to April 24, 1963, theOswalds lived on Neely Street in Dallas in a rented house which had asmall back yard.32 One Sunday, while his wife was hanging diapers,Oswald asked her to take a picture of him holding a rifle, a pistoland issues of two newspapers later identified as the Worker and theMilitant.83 Two pictures were taken. The Commission has concludedthat the rifle shown in these pictures is the same rifle which wasfound on the sixth floor of the Depository Building on November 22,1963. (See Commission Exhibits Nos. 133-A and 133-B, p.. 126.)

One of these pictures, Exhibit No. 133-A, shows most of therifle's configuration.84 Special Agent Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, aphotography expert with the FBI, photographed the rifle used in theassassination, attempting to duplicate the position of the rifle andthe lighting in Exhibit No. 133-A.85 After comparing the rifle inthe simulated

Page 126This page reproduces the photographs of Oswald holding rifle: COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 133-A;COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 133-B; and COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 134 (Enlargement of Commission Exhibit No. 133-A)

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photograph with the rifle in Exhibit No. 133-A, Shaneyfelt testified,"I found it to be the same general configuration. All appearanceswere the same." He found "one notch in the stock at this point thatappears very faintly in the photograph." He stated, however, thatwhile he "found no differences" between the rifles in the twophotographs, he could not make a "positive identification to theexclusion of all other rifles of the same general configuration." 86

The authenticity of these pictures has been established byexpert testimony which links the second picture, Commission ExhibitNo. 133-B, to Oswald's Imperial Reflex camera, with which MarinaOswald testified she took the pictures.87 The negative of thatpicture, Commission Exhibit No. 133-B, was found among Oswald'spossessions.88 Using a recognized technique of determining whether apicture was taken with a particular camera, Shaneyfelt compared thisnegative with a negative which he made by taking a new picture withOswald's camera.89 He concluded that the negative of Exhibit No.133-B was exposed in Oswald's Imperial Reflex camera to the exclusionof all other cameras. 90 He could not test Exhibit No. 133-A in thesame way because the negative was never recovered. 91 Both pictures,however, have identical backgrounds and lighting and, judging from theshadows, were taken at the same angle. They are photographs of thesame scene.92 Since Exhibit No. 133-B was taken with Oswald's camera,it is reasonably certain that Exhibit No. 133-A was taken by the samecamera at the same time, as Marina Oswald testified. Moreover,Shaneyfelt testified that in his opinion the photographs were notcomposites of two different photographs and that Oswald's face had notbeen superimposed on another body.93

One of the photographs taken by Marina Oswald was widely publishedin newspapers and magazines, and in many instances the details ofthese pictures differed from the original, and even from each other,particularly as to the configuration of the rifle. The Commissionsought to determine whether these photographs were touched prior topublication. Shaneyfelt testified that the published photographsappeared to be based on a copy of the original which the publicationshad each retouched differently.94 Several of the publicationsfurnished the Commission with the prints they had used, or describedby correspondence the retouching they had done. This informationenabled the Commission to conclude that the published pictures werethe same as the original except for retouching done by thesepublications, apparently for the purpose of clarifying the lines ofthe rifle and other details in the picture.95

The dates surrounding the taking of this picture and thepurchase of the rifle reinforce the belief that the rifle in thephotograph is the rifle which Oswald bought from Klein's. The riflewas shipped from Klein's in Chicago on March 20, 1963, at a time whenthe Oswalds were living on Neely Street.96 From an examination of oneof the photographs, the Commission determined the dates of the issuesof the Militant and the Worker which Oswald was holding in his hand.

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By checking the actual mailing dates of these issues and the timeusually takes to effect. delivery to Dallas, it was established thatthe photographs must have been taken sometime after March 27.97Marina Oswald testified that the photographs were taken on a Sundayabout 2 weeks before the attempted shooting of Maj. Gen. Edwin A.Walker on April 10, 1963.98 By Sunday, March 31, 1963, 10 days priorto the Walker attempt, Oswald had undoubtedly received the rifleshipped from Chicago on March 20, the revolver shipped from LosAngeles on the same date,99 and the two newspapers which he washolding in the picture.

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Rifle Among Oswald's Possessions

Marina Oswald testified that the rifle found on the sixth floor ofthe Depository Building was the "fateful rifle of Lee Oswald."Moreover, it was the only rifle owned by her husband following hisreturn from the Soviet Union in June 1962.101 It had been purchasedin March 1963, and taken to New Orleans where Marina Oswald saw it intheir rented apartment during the summer of 1963.102 It appears fromhis wife's testimony that Oswald may have sat on the screened-inporch at night practicing with the rifle by looking through thetelescopic sight and operating the bolt.103 In September 1963, Oswaldloaded their possessions into a station wagon owned by Ruth Paine, whohad invited Marina Oswald and the baby to live at her home inIrving,104 Tex. Marina Oswald has stated that the rifle was amongthese possessions,105 although Ruth Paine testified that she was notaware of it.106

From September 24, 1963, when Marina Oswald arrived in Irving fromNew Orleans, until the morning of the assassination, the rifle was,according to the evidence, stored in a green and brown blanket in thePaines' garage among the Oswalds' other possessions.107 About 1 weekafter the return from New Orleans, Marina Oswald was looking in thegarage for parts to the baby's crib and thought that the parts mightbe in the blanket. When she started to open the blanket, she saw thestock of the rifle.108 Ruth and Michael Paine both noticed therolled-up blanket in the garage during the time that Marina Oswald wasliving in their home.109 On several occasions, Michael Paine movedthe blanket in the garage.110 He thought it contained tent poles, orpossibly other camping equipment such as a folding shovel.111 When heappeared before the Commission, Michael Paine lifted the blanket withthe rifle wrapped inside and testified that it appeared to be the sameapproximate weight and shape as the package in his garage.112

About 3 hours after the assassination, a detective and deputysheriff saw the blanket-roll, tied with a string, lying on the floorof the Paines' garage. Each man testified that he thought he coulddetect the outline of a rifle in the blanket, even though the blanketwas empty.113 Paul M. Stombaugh, of the FBI Laboratory, examined theblanket and discovered a bulge approximately 10 inches long midway inthe blanket. This bulge was apparently caused by a hard protruding

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object which had stretched the blanket's fibers. It could have beencaused by the telescopic sight of the rifle which was approximately 11inches long.114 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1304 p. 132.)

Having reviewed the evidence that (1) Lee Harvey Oswald purchasedthe rifle used in the assassination, (2) Oswald's palmprint was on therifle in a position which shows that he had handled it while it wasdisassembled, (3) fibers found on the rifle most probably came fromthe shirt Oswald was wearing on the day of the assassination, (4) aphotograph taken in the yard of Oswald's apartment showed him holdingthis rifle, and (5) the rifle was kept among Oswald's possessions fromthe time of its purchase until the day of the assassination, theCommission concluded that the rifle used to assassinate PresidentKennedy and wound Governor Connally was owned and possessed by LeeHarvey Oswald.

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THE RIFLE IN THE BUILDING

The Commission has evaluated the evidence tending to show how LeeHarvey Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial number C2766, wasbrought into the Depository Building, where it was found on the sixthfloor shortly after the assassination. In this connection theCommission considered (1) the circ*mstances surrounding Oswald'sreturn to Irving, Tex., on Thursday, November 21, 1963, (2) thedisappearance of the rifle from its normal place of storage, (3)Oswald's arrival at the Depository Building on November 22, carrying along and bulky brown paper package, (4) the presence of a longhandmade brown paper bag near the point from which the shots werefired, and (5) the palmprint, fiber, and paper analyses linking Oswaldand the assassination weapon to this bag.

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The Curtain Rod Story

During October and November of 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald lived in aroominghouse in Dallas while his wife and children lived in Irving, atthe home of Ruth Paine,113 approximately 15 miles from Oswald's placeof work at the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald traveled betweenDallas and Irving on weekends in a car driven by a neighbor of thePaines, Buell Wesley Frazier, who also worked at the Depository.116Oswald generally would go to Irving on Friday afternoon and return toDallas Monday morning. According to the testimony of Frazier, MarinaOswald, and Ruth Paine, it appears that Oswald never returned toIrving in midweek prior to November 21, 1963, except on Monday,October 21, when he visited his wife in the hospital after the birthof their second child.117

During the morning of November 21, Oswald asked Frazier whetherhe could ride home with him that afternoon. Frazier, surprised, asked

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him why he was going to Irving on Thursday night rather than Friday.Oswald replied, "I'm going home to get some curtain rods... [to]put in an apartment." 118 The two men left work at 4: 40 p.m. anddrove to Irving. There was little conversation between them on the wayhome.119 Mrs. Linnie Mae Randle, Frazier's sister, commented to herbrother about Oswald's unusual midweek return to Irving. Frazier toldher that Oswald had come home to get curtain rods.120

It would appear, however, that obtaining curtain rods was notthe purpose of Oswald's trip to Irving on November 21. Mrs. A. C.Johnson, his landlady, testified that Oswald's room at 1026 NorthBeckley Avenue had curtains and curtain rods,121 and that Oswald hadnever discussed the subject with her.122In the Paines' garage,along with many other objects of a household character, there were twoflat lightweight curtain rods belonging to Ruth Paine but they werestill there on Friday afternoon after Oswald's arrest.123 Oswaldnever asked Mrs. Paine about the use of curtain rods,124 and MarinaOswald testified that Oswald did not say anything about curtain rodson the day before the assassination.125 No curtain rods were known tohave been discovered in the Depository Building after theassassination.126 In deciding whether Oswald carried a rifle to workin a long paper bag on November 22, the Commission gave weight to thefact that Oswald gave a false reason for returning home on November21, and one which provided an excuse for the carrying of a bulkypackage the following morning.

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The Missing Rifle

Before dinner on November 21, Oswald played on the lawn of thePaines' home with his daughter June.127 After dinner Ruth Paine andMarina Oswald were busy cleaning house and preparing their childrenfor bed.128 Between the hours of 8 and 9 p.m. they were occupied withthe children in the bedrooms located at the extreme east end of thehouse.129 On the west end of the house is the attached garage, whichcan be reached from the kitchen or from the outside.130 In the garagewere the personal belongings of the Oswald family including, as theevidence has shown, the rifle wrapped in the old brown and greenblanket.131

At approximately 9 p.m., after the children had been put tobed, Mrs. Paine, according to her testimony before the Commission,"went out to the garage to paint some children's blocks, and worked inthe garage for half an hour or so. I noticed when I went out that thelight was on." 132 Mrs. Paine was certain that she had not left thelight on in the garage after dinner.138 According to Mrs. Paine,Oswald had gone to bed by 9 p.m.; 134 Marina Oswald testified thatit was between 9 and 10 p.m.135 Neither Marina Oswald nor Ruth Painesaw Oswald in the garage.136 The period between 8 and 9 p.m.,however, provided ample opportunity for Oswald to prepare the riflefor his departure the next morning. Only if disassembled could

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the rifle fit into the paper bag found near the window 137 fromwhich the shots were fired. A firearms expert with the FBI assembledthe rifle in 6 minutes using a 10-cent coin as a tool, and he coulddisassemble it more rapidly.138 While the rifle may have already beendisassembled when Oswald arrived home on Thursday, he had ample timethat evening to disassemble the rifle and insert it into the paperbag.

On the day of the assassination, Marina Oswald was watchingtelevision when she learned of the shooting. A short time later Mrs.Paine told her that someone had shot the President "from the buildingin which Lee is working." Marina Oswald testified that at that time"My heart dropped. I then went to the garage to see whether the riflewas there and I saw that the blanket was still there and I said 'ThankGod.'" She did not unroll the blanket. She saw that it was in itsusual position and it appeared to her to have something inside.139

Soon afterward, at about 3 p.m., police officers arrived andsearched the house. Mrs. Paine pointed out that most of the Oswalds'possessions were in the garage.140 With Ruth Paine acting as aninterpreter, Detective Rose asked Marina whether her husband had arifle. Mrs. Paine, who had no knowledge of the rifle, first said "No,"but when the question was translated, Marina Oswald replied "Yes."141 She pointed to the blanket which was on the floor very close towhere Ruth Paine was standing. Mrs. Paine testified:

As she [Marina] told me about it I stepped onto the blanket roll...And she indicated to me that she had peered into this roll and saw aportion of what she took to be a gun she knew her husband to have, arifle. And I then translated this to the officers that she knew thather husband had a gun that he had stored in here... I then steppedoff of it and the officer picked it up in the middle and it bent so... 142

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The Long and Bulky Package

On the morning of November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald left thePaine house in Irving at approximately 7:15 a.m., while Marina Oswaldwas still in bed.145 Neither she nor Mrs. Paine saw him leave thehouse.146 About half-a-block away from the Paine house was theresidence of Mrs. Linnie Mae Randle, the sister of the man with whom*oswald drove to work--Buell Wesley Frazier. Mrs. Randle stated thaton the morning of November 22, while her brother was eating breakfast,she looked out the breakfast-room window and saw Oswald cross thestreet and walk toward the driveway where her brother parked his carnear the carport. He carried a "heavy brown bag." 147 Oswald

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 1304: C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and paper bag found on the sixth floorof the Texas School Book Depository.

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gripped the bag in his right hand near the top. "It tapered like thisas he hugged it in his hand. It was ... more bulky toward thebottom" than toward the top.148 She then opened the kitchen door andsaw Oswald open the right rear door of her brother's car and place thepackage in the back of the car.149 Mrs. Randle estimated that thepackage was approximately 28 inches long and about 8 inches wide.150She thought. that its color was similar to that of the bag found onthe sixth floor of the School Book Depository after theassassination.151

Frazier met Oswald at the kitchen door and together they walkedto the car.152 After entering the car, Frazier glanced over hisshoulder and noticed a brown paper package on the back seat. Heasked, "What's the package, Lee?" Oswald replied, "curtain rods."153Frazier told the Commission "... the main reason he was going overthere that Thursday afternoon when he was to bring back some curtainrods, so I didn't think any more about it when he told me that."154Frazier estimated that the bag was 2 feet long "give and take a fewinches," and about 5 or 6 inches wide.155 As they sat in the car,Frazier asked Oswald where his lunch was, and Oswald replied that hewas going to buy his lunch that day.156 Frazier testified that Oswaldcarried no lunch bag that day. "When he rode with me, I say he alwaysbrought lunch except that one day on November 22 he didn't bring hislunch that day." 157

Frazier parked the car in the company parking lot about 2 blocksnorth of the Depository Building. Oswald left the car first, pickedup the brown paper bag, and proceeded toward the building ahead ofFrazier. Frazier walked behind and as they crossed the railroadtracks he watched the switching of the cars. Frazier recalled thatone end of the package was under Oswald's armpit and the lower partwas held with his right hand so that it was carried straight andparallel to his body. When Oswald entered the rear door of theDepository Building, he was about 50 feet ahead of Frazier. It wasthe first time that Oswald had not walked with Frazier from theparking lot to the building entrance.158 When Frazier entered thebuilding, he did not see Oswald.159 One employee, Jack Dougherty,believed that he saw Oswald coming to work, but he does not rememberthat Oswald had anything in his hands as he entered the door.160 Noother employee has been found who saw Oswald enter that morning.161

In deciding whether Oswald carried the assassination weapon inthe bag which Frazier and Mrs. Randle saw, the Commission hascarefully considered the testimony of these two witnesses with regardto the length of the bag. Frazier and Mrs. Randle testified that thebag which Oswald was carrying was approximately 27 or 28 incheslong,162 whereas the wooden stock of the rifle, which is its largestcomponent, measured 34.8 inches.163 The bag found on the sixth floorwas 88 inches long.164 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1304, p. 132.)When Frazier appeared before the Commission and was asked todemonstrate how Oswald carried the package, he said, "Like I said, Iremember that I didn't look at the package very much ...

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but when I did look at it he did have his hands on the package likethat," 165 and at this point Frazier placed the upper part of thepackage under his armpit and attempted to cup his right hand beneaththe bottom of the bag. The disassembled rifle was too long to becarried in this manner. Similarly, when the butt of the rifle wasplaced in Frazier's hand, it extended above his shoulder to ear level.1 Moreover, in an interview on December 1, 1963, with agents of theFBI, Frazier had marked the point on the back seat of his car which hebelieved was where the bag reached when it was laid on the seat withone edge against the door. The distance between the point on the seatand the door was 27 inches.167

Mrs. Randle said, when shown the paper bag, that the bag she sawOswald carrying "wasn't that long, I mean it was folded down at thetop as I told you. It definitely wasn't that long." 168 And shefolded the bag to length of about 28½ inches. Frazier doubted whetherthe bag that Oswald carried was as wide as the bag found on the sixthfloor,169 although Mrs. Randle testified that the width wasapproximately the same.170

The Commission has weighed the visual recollection of Frazier andMrs. Randle against the evidence here presented that the bag Oswaldcarried contained the assassination weapon and has concluded thatFrazier and Randle are mistaken as to the length of the bag. Mrs.Randle saw the bag fleetingly and her first remembrance is that it washeld in Oswald's right hand "and it almost touched the ground as hecarried it." 171 Frazier's view of the bag was from the rear. Hecontinually advised that he was not paying close attention.172 Forexample, he said,

...I didn't pay too much attention the way he was walking because Iwas walking along there looking at the railroad cars and watching themen on the diesel switch them cars and I didn't pay too much attentionon how he carried the package at all.173

A handmade bag of wrapping paper and tape 174 was found in thesoutheast corner of the sixth floor alongside the window from whichthe shots were fired.175 (See Commission Exhibit No. 2707, p.142.) It was not a standard type bag which could be obtained in astore and it was presumably made for a particular purpose. It was theappropriate size to contain, in disassembled form, Oswald'sMannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial No. C2766, which was also found onthe sixth floor.176 Three cartons had been placed at the windowapparently to act as a gun rest and a fourth carton was placed behindthose at the window.177 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1301,

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p. 138.) A person seated on the fourth carton could assemble the riflewithout being seen from the rest of the sixth floor because thecartons stacked around the southeast corner would shield him.178 (SeeCommission Exhibit No. 723, p. 80.) The presence of the bag in thiscorner is cogent evidence that it was used as the container for therifle. At the time the bag was found, Lieutenant Day of the Dallaspolice wrote on it, "Found next to the sixth floor window gun firedfrom. May have been used to carry gun. Lt. J. C. Day." 179

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Scientific Evidence Linking Rifle and Oswald to Paper Bag

Oswald's fingerprint and palmprint found on bag.--Using a standardchemical method involving silver nitrates 180 the FBI Laboratorydeveloped a latent palmprint and latent fingerprint on the bag. (Seeapp. X, p. 565.) Sebastian F. Latona, supervisor of the FBI's LatentFingerprint Section, identified these prints as the left indexfingerprint and right palmprint of Lee Harvey Oswald.181 The portionof the palm which was identified was the heel of the right palm, i.e.,the area near the wrist, on the little finger side.182 These printswere examined independently by Ronald G. Wittmus of the FBI,183 and byArthur Mandella, a fingerprint expert with the New York City PoliceDepartment. 184 Both concluded that the prints were the right palmand left index finger of Lee Oswald. No other identifiable printswere found on the bag.185

Oswald's palmprint on the bottom of the paper bag indicated, ofcourse, that he had handled the bag. Furthermore, it was consistentwith the bag having contained a heavy or bulky object when he handledit since a light object is usually held by the fingers.186 Thepalmprint was found on the closed end of the bag. It was fromOswald's right hand, in which he carried the long package as he walkedfrom Frazier's car to the building.187

Materials used to make bag.--On the day of the assassination, theDallas police obtained a sample of wrapping paper and tape from theshipping room of the Depository and forwarded it to the FBI Laboratoryin Washington.188 James C. Cadigan, a questioned-documents expert withthe Bureau, compared the samples with the paper and tape in the actualbag. He testified, "In all of the observations and physical teststhat I made I found ... the bag ... and the paper sample ...were the same." 189

Among other tests, the paper and tape were submitted to fiberanalysis and spectrographic examination.190 In addition the tape wascompared to determine whether the sample tape and the tape on the baghad been taken from the tape dispensing machine at the Depository.When asked to explain the similarity of characteristics, Cadiganstated: 191

Well, briefly, it would be the thickness of both the paper andthe tape, the color under various lighting conditions of both thepaper and the tape, the width of the tape, the knurled markings

on the surface of the fiber, the texture of the fiber, the lettingpattern ...
°°°°°
I found that the paper sack found on the sixth floor ... and thesample ... had the same observable characteristics both under themicroscope and all the visual tests that I could conduct.
°°°°°
The papers I also found were similar in fiber composition,therefore, in addition to the visual characteristics, microscopic andUV [ultra violet] characteristics.

On December l, 1963, a replica bag was made from materials foundon that date in the shipping room. This was done as an investigatoryaid since the original bag had been discolored during variouslaboratory examinations and could not be used for valid identificationby witnesses.193 Cadigan found that the paper used to make thisreplica sack had different characteristics from the paper in theoriginal bag.194 The science of paper analysis enabled him todistinguish between different rolls of paper even though they wereproduced by the same manufacturer.125

Since the Depository normally used approximately one roll of paperevery 3 working days,196 it was not surprising that the replica sackmade on December 1, 1963, had different characteristics from both theactual bag and the sample taken on November 22. On the other hand,since two rolls could be made from the same batch of paper, one cannotestimate when, prior to November 22, Oswald made the paper bag.However, the complete identity of characteristics between the paperand tape in the bag found on the sixth floor and the paper and tapefound in the shipping room of the Depository on November 22 enabledthe Commission to conclude that the bag was made from these materials. The Depository shipping department was on the first floor to whichOswald had access in the normal performance of his duties fillingorders.197

Fibers in paper bag matched fibers in blanket.--When Paul M.Stombaugh of the FBI Laboratory examined the paper bag, he found, onthe inside, a single brown delustered viscose fiber and several lightgreen cotton fibers.198 The blanket in which the rifle was stored wascomposed of brown and green cotton, viscose and woolen fibers.199

The single brown viscose fiber found in the bag matched some of thebrown viscose fibers from the blanket in all observablecharacteristics.200 The green cotton fibers found in the paper bagmatched some of the green cotton fibers in the blanket "in allobservable microscopic

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characteristics." 201 Despite these matches, however, Stombaugh wasunable to render on opinion that the fibers which he found in the baghad probably come from the blanket, because other types of fiberspresent in the blanket were not found in the bag. He concluded:

All I would say here is that it is possible that these fibers couldhave come from this blanket., because this blanket is composed ofbrown and green woolen fibers, brown and green delustered viscosefibers, and brown and green cotton fibers... We found no browncotton fibers, no green viscose fibers, and no woolen fibers.
So if I found all of these then I would have been able to saythese fibers probably had come from this blanket. But since I foundso few, then I would say the possibility exists, these fibers couldhave come from this blanket.202

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Conclusion

The preponderance of the evidence supports the conclusion that LeeHarvey Oswald (1) told the curtain rod story to Frazier to explainboth the return to Irving on a Thursday and the obvious bulk of thepackage which he intended to bring to work the next day; (2) tookpaper and tape from the wrapping bench of the Depository and fashioneda bag large enough to carry the disassembled rifle; (3) removed therifle from the blanket in the Paines' garage on Thursday evening; (4)carried the rifle into the Depository Building, concealed in the bag;and, (5) left the bag alongside the window from which the shots werefired.

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OSWALD AT WINDOW

Lee Harvey Oswald was hired on October 15, 1963, by the TexasSchool Book Depository as an "order filler." 204 He worked principallyon the first and sixth floors of the building, gathering books listedon orders and delivering them to the shipping room on the firstfloor.205 He had ready access to the sixth floor, 208 from thesoutheast corner window of which the shots were fired. 207 TheCommission evaluated the physical evidence found near the window afterthe assassination and the testimony of eyewitnesses in decidingwhether Lee Harvey Oswald was present at this window at the time ofthe assassination.

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT 1301: Southeast Corner of Sixth Floor showing Arrangement of Cartons Shortly After Shots Were Fired.

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 1302: Approximate Location of Wrapping-PaperBag and Location of Palm Print on Carton Near Window in Southeast Corner. (Hand Position Shown by Dotted Line on Box).

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Below the southeast corner window on the sixth floor was a largecarton of books measuring approximately 18 by 12 by 14 inches whichhad been moved from a stack along the south wall.208 Atop this cartonwas a small carton marked "Rolling Readers," measuring approximately13 by 9 by 8 inches.209 In front of this small carton and restingpartially on the windowsill was another small "Rolling Readers"carton.210 These two small cartons had been moved from a stack aboutthree aisles away. 211 The boxes in the window appeared to have beenarranged as a convenient gun rest.212 (See Commission Exhibit No.1301, p. 138.) Behind these boxes was another carton placed on thefloor on which a man sitting could look southwesterly down Elm Streetover the top of the "Rolling Readers" cartons.213 Next to thesecartons was the handmade paper bag, previously discussed, on whichappeared the print of the left index finger and right palm of LeeHarvey Oswald.214 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1302, p. 139.)

The cartons were forwarded to the FBI in Washington.Sebastian F. Latona, supervisor of the Latent Fingerprint Section,testified that 20 identifiable fingerprints and 8 palmprints weredeveloped on these cartons.205 The carton on the windowsill and thelarge carton below the window contained no prints which could beidentified as being those of Lee Harvey Oswald.216 The other "RollingReaders" carton, however, contained a palmprint and a fingerprintwhich were identified by Latona as being the left palmprint and rightindex fingerprint of Lee Harvey Oswald.217 (See app. X, p. 566.)

The Commission has considered the possibility that the cartonsmight have been moved in connection with the work that was beingperformed on the sixth floor on November 22. Depository employees werelaying a new floor at the west end and transferring books from thewest to the east end of the building.218 The "Rolling Readers"cartons, however, had not been moved by the floor layers and hadapparently been taken to the window from their regular position forsome particular purpose.219 The "Rolling Readers" boxes contained,instead of books, light blocks used as reading aids.220 They could beeasily adjusted and were still solid enough to serve as a gun rest.

The box on the floor, behind the three near the window, hadbeen one of these moved by the floor layers from the west wall to nearthe east side of the building in preparation for the laying of thefloor.221 During the afternoon of November 22, Lieutenant Day of theDallas police dusted this carton with powder and developed a palmprinton the top edge of the carton on the side nearest the window.222 Theposition of this palmprint on the carton was parallel with the longaxis of the box, and at right angles with the short axis; the bottomof the palm rested on the box.223 Someone sitting on the box facingthe window would have his palm in this position if he placed his handalongside his right hip. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1302, p. 139.)This print

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which had been cut out of the box was also forwarded to the FBI andLatona identified it as Oswald's right palmprint.224 In Latona'sopinion "not too long" a time had elapsed between the time that theprint was placed on the carton and the time that it had been developedby the Dallas police.225 Although Bureau experiments had shown that 24hours was a likely maximum time, Latona stated that he could onlytestify with certainty that the print was less than 3 days old.226

The print, therefore, could have been placed on the carton at anytime within this period. The freshness of this print could beestimated only because the Dallas police developed it through the useof powder. Since cartons absorb perspiration, powder can successfullydevelop a print on such material 227 only within a limited time. Whenthe FBI in Washington received the cartons, the remaining prints,including Oswald's on the Rolling Readers carton, were developed bychemical processes. The freshness of prints developed in this manner228 cannot be estimated, so no conclusions can be drawn as to whetherthese remaining prints preceded or followed the print developed inDallas by powder. Most of the prints were found to have been placedon the cartons by an FBI clerk and a Dallas police officer after thecartons had been processed with powder by the Dallas Police.229 (Seech. VI, p. 249; app. X, p. 566.)

In his independent investigation, Arthur Mandella of the New YorkCity Police Department reached the same conclusion as Latona that theprints found on the cartons were those of Lee Harvey Oswald.229 Inaddition, Mandella was of the opinion that the print taken from thecarton on the floor was probably made within a day or a day and a halfof the examination on November 22.230 Moreover, another expert withthe FBI, Ronald G. Wittmus, conducted a separate examination and alsoagreed with Latona that the prints were Oswald's.231

In evaluating the significance of these fingerprint andpalmprint identifications, the Commission considered the possibilitythat Oswald handled these cartons as part of his normal duties. Sinceother identifiable prints were developed on the cartons, theCommission requested that they be compared with the prints of the 12warehouse employs who, like Oswald, might have handled the cartons.They were also compared with the prints of those law enforcementofficials who might have handled the cartons. The results of thisinvestigation are fully discussed in chapter VI, page 249. Although a person could handle a carton and not leave identifiable prints, noneof these employees except Oswald left identifiable prints on thecartons.232 This finding, in addition to the freshness of one of theprints and the presence of Oswald's prints on two of the four cartonsand the paper bag led the Commission to attach some probative value tothe fingerprint and palmprint identifications in reaching theconclusion that Oswald was at the window from which the shots werefired, although the prints do not establish the exact time he wasthere.

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 2707: Sixth Floor, Texas School Book Depository,Dallas, Texas

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Additional testimony linking Oswald with the point from which theshots were fired was provided by the testimony of Charles Givens, whowas the last known employee to see Oswald inside the building prior tothe assassination. During the morning of November 22, Givens wasworking with the floor-laying crew in the southwest section of thesixth floor.233 At about. 11:45 a.m. the. floor-laying crew used bothelevators to come down from the sixth floor. The employees raced theelevators to the first floor.234 Givens saw Oswald standing at thegate on the fifth floor as the elevator went by.235 Givens testifiedthat after reaching the first floor, "I discovered I left mycigarettes in my jacket pocket upstairs, and I took the elevator backupstairs to get my jacket with my cigarettes in it." 236 He sawOswald, a clipboard in hand, walking from the southeast corner of thesixth floor toward the elevator.237 (See Commission Exhibit No. 2707,p. 142.) Givens said to Oswald, "Boy are you going downstairs? ...It's near lunch time." Oswald said, "No, sir. When you getdownstairs, close the gate to the elevator." 238 Oswald was referringto the west elevator which operates by pushbutton and only with thegate closed.239 Givens said, "Okay," and rode down in the eastelevator. When he reached the first floor, the west elevator--the onewith the gate was not there. Givens thought this was about 11:55a.m.240 None of the Depository employees is known to have seen Oswaldagain until after the shooting.241

The significance of Givens' observation that Oswald wascarrying his clipboard became apparent on December 2, 1963, when anemployee, Frankie Kaiser, found a clipboard hidden by book cartons inthe northwest corner of the sixth floor at the west wall a few feetfrom where the rifle had been found.242 This clipboard had been madeby Kaiser and had his name on it.243 Kaiser identified it as theclipboard which Oswald had appropriated from him when Oswald came towork at the Depository.244 Three invoices on this clipboard, eachdated November 22, were for Scott-Foresman books, located on the firstand sixth floors.245 Oswald had not filled any of the threeorders.246

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Eyewitness Identification of Assassin

Howard L. Brennan was an eyewitness to the shooting. Asindicated previously the Commission considered his testimony asprobative in reaching the conclusion that the shots came from thesixth floor, southeast corner window of the Depository Building.247(See ch. III, pp. 61-68.) Brennan also testified that Lee HarveyOswald, whom he viewed in a police lineup on the night. of theassassination, was the man he saw fire the shots from the sixth-floorwindow of the Depository Building.248 When the shots were fired,Brennan was in an excellent position to observe anyone in the window.He was sitting

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on a concrete wall on the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets,looking north at the Depository Building which was directly in frontof him.249 The window was approximately 120 feet away.250 (SeeCommission Exhibit No. 477, p. 62.)

In the 6- to 8-minute period before the motorcade arrived,251Brennan saw a man leave and return to the window "a couple of times."253 After hearing the first shot, which he thought was a motorcyclebackfire, Brennan glanced up at the window. He testified that "thisman I saw previously was aiming for his last shot ... as it appearedto me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill ...252

Brennan saw the man fire the last shot and disappear from thewindow. Within minutes of the assassination, Brennan described the manto the police.254 This description most probably led to the radioalert sent to police cars at approximately 12:45 p.m., which describedthe suspect as white, slender, weighing about 165 pounds, about 5'10"tall, and in his early thirties.255 In his sworn statement to thepolice later that day, Brennan described the man in similar terms,except that he gave the weight as between 165 and 175 pounds and theheight was omitted.256 In his testimony before the Commission,Brennan described the person he saw as "... a man in his earlythirties, fair complexion, slender, but neat, neat slender, possible 5foot 10 ... 160 to 170 pounds." 257 Oswald was 5'9'' slender and 24years old. When arrested, he gave his weight as 140 pounds.258 Onother occasions he gave weights of both 140 and 150 pounds.259 The NewOrleans police records of his arrest in August of 1963 show a weightof 136 pounds.260 The autopsy report indicated an estimated weight of150 pounds.261

Brennan's description should also be compared with the eyewitnessdescription broadcast over the Dallas police radio at 1:22 p.m. of theman who shot Patrolman J. D. Tippit. The suspect was described as "awhite male about 30, 5'8", black hair, slender ..." 262 At 1:29p.m. the police radio reported that the description of the suspect inthe Tippit shooting was similar to the description which had beengiven by Brennan in connection with the assassination.263Approximately 7 or 8 minutes later the police radio reported that "aneyeball witness" described the suspect in the Tippit shooting as "awhite male, 27, 5'11", 165 pounds, black wavy hair." 264 As will bediscussed fully below, the Commission has concluded that this suspectwas Lee Harvey Oswald.

Although Brennan testified that the man in the window wasstanding when he fired the shots,265 most probably he was eithersitting or kneeling. The half-open window,266 the arrangement of theboxes,267 and the angle of the shots virtually preclude a standingposition.268 It is understandable, however, for Brennan to havebelieved that the man with the rifle was standing. A photograph of thebuilding taken seconds after the assassination shows three employeeslooking out of the fifth-floor window directly below the window fromwhich the shots were fired. Brennan testified that they werestanding,269 which is their apparent position in the photograph.270

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(See Dillard Exhibits Nos. C and D, pp. 66-67.) But the testimony ofthese employees,271 together with photographs subsequently taken ofthem at the scene of the assassination,272 establishes that they wereeither squatting or kneeling. (See Commission Exhibit No. 485, p.69.) Since the window ledges in the Depository Building are lowerthan in most buildings,273 a person squatting or kneeling exposes moreof his body than would normally be the case. From the street, thiscreates the impression that the person is standing. Brennan couldhave seen enough of the body of a kneeling or squatting person toestimate his height.

Shortly after the assassination Brennan noticed two of theseemployees leaving the building and immediately identified them ashaving been in the fifth-floor windows.274 When the three employeesappeared before the Commission, Brennan identified the two whom he sawleave the building.275 The two men, Harold Norman and James Jarman,Jr., each confirmed that when they came out of the building, they sawand heard Brennan describing what he had seen.276 Norman stated, "... I remember him talking and I believe I remember seeing him sayingthat he saw us when we first went up to the fifth-floor window, he sawus then." 277 Jarman heard Brennan "talking to this officer aboutthat he had heard these shots and he had seen the barrel of the gunsticking out the window, and he said that the shots came from insidethe building." 278

During the evening of November 22, Brennan identified Oswald asthe person in the lineup who bore the closest resemblance to the manin the window but he said he was unable to make a positiveidentification.279 Prior to the lineup, Brennan had seen Oswald'spicture on television and he told the Commission that whether thisaffected his identification "is something I do not know." 238 In aninterview with FBI agents on December 17, 1963, Brennan stated that hewas sure that the person firing the rifle was Oswald.281 In anotherinterview with FBI agents on January 7, 1964, Brennan appeared torevert to his earlier inability to make a positive identification,282but, in his testimony before the Commission, Brennan stated that hisremarks of January 7 were intended by him merely as an accurate reportof what he said on November 22.283

Brennan told the Commission that he could have made a positiveidentification in the lineup on November 22 but did not do so becausehe felt that the assassination was "a Communist activity, and I feltlike there hadn't been more than one eyewitness, and if it got to be aknown fact that I was an eyewitness, my family or I, either one, mightnot be safe." 284 When specifically asked before the Commissionwhether or not he could positively identify the man he saw in thesixth-floor window as the same man he saw in the police station,Brennan stated, "I could at that time--I could, with all sincerity,identify him as being the same man." 285

Although the record indicates that Brennan was an accurateobserver, he declined to make a positive identification of Oswald whenhe first saw him in the police lineup.286 The Commission, therefore,

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does not base its conclusion concerning the identity of the assassinon Brennan's subsequent certain identification of Lee Harvey Oswald asthe man he saw fire the rifle. Immediately after the assassination,however, Brennan described to the police the man he saw in the windowand then identified Oswald as the person who most nearly resembled theman he saw. The Commission is satisfied that, at the least, Brennansaw a man in the window who closely resembled Lee Harvey Oswald, andthat Brennan believes the man he saw was in fact Lee Harvey Oswald.

Two other witnesses were able to offer partial descriptions of aman they saw in the southeast corner window of the sixth floorapproximately 1 minute before the assassination, although neitherwitness saw the shots being fired.287 Ronald Fischer and RobertEdwards were standing on the curb at the southwest corner of Elm andHouston Streets,288 the same corner where Brennan was sitting on aconcrete wall. 289 Fischer testified that about 10 or 15 secondsbefore the motorcade turned onto Houston Street from Main Street,Edwards said, "Look at that guy there in that window." 290

Fischer looked up and watched the man in the window for 10 or 15seconds and then started watching the motorcade, which came into viewon Houston Street.291 He said that the man held his attention untilthe motorcade came because the man:

...appeared uncomfortable for one, and secondly, he wasn'twatching ... he didn't look like he was watching for the parade. Helooked like he was looking down toward the Trinity River and theTriple Underpass down at the end--toward the end of Elm Street.And ... all the time I watched him, he never moved his head, henever--he never moved anything. Just was there transfixed.292

Approximately 1 week after the assassination, according to Fisher,policemen showed him a picture of Oswald.298 In his testimony hesaid, "I told them that that could have been the man... That thatcould have been the man that I saw in the window in the School BookDepository Building, but that I was not sure." 299 Fischer describedthe man's hair as some shade of brown--"it wasn't dark

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and it wasn't light." 300 On November 22, Fischer had apparentlydescribed the man as "light-headed." 301 Fischer explained that he didnot mean by the earlier statement. that the man was blond, but ratherthat his hair was not black.302

Robert Edwards said that, while looking at the south side of theDepository Building shortly before the motorcade, he saw nothing ofimportance "except maybe one individual who was up there in the cornerroom of the sixth floor which was crowded in among boxes." 303 He saidthat this was a white man about average in size, "possibly thin," andthat he thought the man had light-brown hair.304 Fischer and Edwardsdid not see the man clearly enough or long enough to identify him.Their testimony is of probative value, however, because their limiteddescription is consistent with that of the man who has been found bythe Commission, based on other evidence, to have fired the shots fromthe window.

Another person who saw the assassin as the shots were fired wasAmos L. Euins, age 15, who was one of the first witnesses to alertthe police to the Depository as the source of the shots, as has beendiscussed in chapter III.305 Euins, who was on the southwest cornerof Elm and Houston Streets 306 testified that he could not describethe man he saw in the window. According to Euins, however, as the manlowered his head in order to aim the rifle down Elm Street, heappeared to have a white bald spot, on his head.307 Shortly after theassassination, Euins signed an affidavit describing the man as"white," 308 but a radio reporter testified that Euins described theman to him as "colored." 309 In his Commission testimony, Euinsstated that he could not ascertain the man's race and that thestatement in the affidavit was intended to refer only to the whitespot on the man's head and not to his race.310 A Secret Service agentwho spoke to Euins approximately 20 to 30 minutes after theassassination confirmed that Euins could neither describe the man inthe window nor indicate his race.311 Accordingly, Euins' testimony isconsidered probative as to the source of the shots but is inconclusiveas to the identity of the man in the window.

In evaluating the evidence that Oswald was at the southeastcorner window of the sixth floor at the time of the shooting, theCommission has considered the allegation that Oswald was photographedstanding in front of the building when the shots were fired. Thepicture which gave rise to these allegations was taken by AssociatedPress Photographer James W. Altgens, who was standing on the southside of Elm Street between the Triple Underpass and the DepositoryBuilding.312 As the motorcade started its descent down Elm Street.,Altgens snapped a picture of the Presidential limousine with theentrance to the Depository Building in the background.313 Just beforesnapping the picture Altgens heard a noise which sounded like thepopping of a firecracker. Investigation has established that Altgens'picture was taken approximately 2 seconds after the firing of the shotwhich entered the back of the President's neck.314

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 1061: Texas School Book Depository, Diagramof First Floor

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In the background of this picture were several employees watchingthe parade from the steps of the Depository Building. One of theseemployees was alleged to resemble Lee Harvey Oswald. 315 TheCommission has determined that the employee was in fact BillyLovelady, who identified himself in the picture.316 Standingalongside him were Buell Wesley Frazier 317 and William Shelley,318who also identified Lovelady. The Commission is satisfied that Oswalddoes not appear in this photograph. (See Commission Exhibit. No. 900,p. 113.)

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Oswald's Actions in Building After Assassination

In considering whether Oswald was at the southeast cornerwindow at the time the shots were fired, the Commission has reviewedthe testimony of witnesses who saw Oswald in the building withinminutes after the assassination. The Commission has found thatOswald's movements, as described by these witnesses, are consistentwith his having been at the window at 12:30 p.m.

The encounter in the lunchroom.--The first person to see Oswaldafter the assassination was Patrolman M. L. Baker of the Dallas PoliceDepartment. Baker was riding a two-wheeled motorcycle behind the lastpress car of the motorcade.319 As he turned the corner from Main ontoHouston at a speed of about 5 to 10 miles per hour,320 a strong windblowing from the north almost unseated him.321 At about this time heheard the first shot.322 Having recently heard the sounds of rifleswhile on a hunting trip, Baker recognized the shots as that of ahigh-powered rifle; "it sounded high and I immediately kind of lookedup, and I had a feeling that it came from the building, either rightin front of me [the Depository Building] or of the one across to theright of it." 323 He saw pigeons flutter upward. He was not certain,"but I am pretty sure they came from the building right on thenorthwest corner." 324 He heard two more shots spaced "pretty welleven to me." 325 After the third shot, he "revved that motorcycle up,"drove to the northwest corner of Elm and Houston, and parkedapproximately 10 feet from the traffic signal.326 As he was parking henoted that people were "falling, and they were rolling around downthere ... grabbing their children" and rushing about.327 A womanscreamed, "Oh, they have shot that man, they have shot that man." 328Baker "had it in mind that the shots came from the top of thisbuilding here," so he ran straight to the entrance of the DepositoryBuilding.329

Baker testified that he entered the lobby of the building and"spoke out and asked where the stairs or elevator was ... and thisman, Mr. Truly, spoke up and says, it seems to me like he says, 'I ama building manager. Follow me, officer, and I will show you.'" 330Baker and building superintendent Roy Truly went through a second setof doors 331 and stopped at a swinging door where Baker bumped intoTruly's back.332 They went through the swinging door and continued at"a good trot" to the northwest corner of the floor where Truly hopedto find one of the two freight elevators.

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 1118: Texas School Book DepositoryDiagram of Second Floor Showing Route of Oswald

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(See Commission Exhibit No. 1061, p. 148.) Neither elevator wasthere.333 Truly pushed the button for the west elevator whichoperates automatically if the gate is closed.334 He shouted twice,"Turn loose the elevator."335 When the elevator failed to come, Bakersaid, "let's take the stairs," and he followed Truly up the stairway,which is to the west of the elevator.336

The stairway is located in the northwest corner of the DepositoryBuilding. The stairs from one floor to the next are "L-shaped," withboth legs of the "L" approximately the same length. Because thestairway itself is enclosed, neither Baker nor Truly could seeanything on the second-floor hallway until they reached the landing atthe top of the stairs.337 On the second-floor landing there is asmall open area with a door at the east end. This door leads into asmall vestibule, and another door leads from the vestibule into thesecond-floor lunchroom.338 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1118, p. 150.) The lunchroom door is usually open, but the first door is kept shutby a closing mechanism on the door.339 This vestibule door is solidexcept for a small glass window in the upper part of the door.340 AsBaker reached the second floor, he was about 20 feet from thevestibule door.341 He intended to continue around to his left towardthe stairway going up but through the window in the door he caught afleeting glimpse of a man walking in the vestibule toward thelunchroom.342

Since the vestibule door is only a few feet from the lunchroomdoor,343 the man must have entered the vestibule only a second or twobefore Baker arrived at the top of the stairwell. Yet he must haveentered the vestibule door before Truly reached the top of thestairwell, since Truly did not see him.344 If the man had passed fromthe vestibule into the lunchroom, Baker could not have seen him. Bakersaid:

He [Truly] had already started around the bend to come to the next elevator going up, I was coming out this one on the second floor, and I don't know, I was kind of sweeping this area as I come up, I was looking from right to left and as I got to this door here I caught a glimpse of this man, just, you know, a sudden glimpse ... and it looked to me like he was going away from me.
°°°°°°°
I can't say whether he had gone on through that door [the lunchroom door] or not. All I did was catch a glance at him, and evidently he was--this door might have been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time.345

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Meanwhile, Truly had run up several steps toward the thirdfloor. Missing Baker, he came back to find the officer in the doorwayto the lunchroom facing Lee Harvey Oswald.351 Baker turned to Trulyand said, "Do you know this man, does he work here?"352 Trulyreplied, "Yes."353Baker stated later that the man did not seem tobe out of breath; he seemed calm. "He never did say a word ornothing. In fact, he didn't change his expression one bit." 352 Trulysaid of Oswald: "He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid oranything. He might have been a bit startled, like I might have. beenif somebody confronted me. But I cannot recall any change inexpression of any kind on his face." 355 Truly thought that theofficer's gun at that time appeared to be almost touching the middleportion of Oswald's body. Truly also noted at this time that Oswald'shands were empty. 356

In an effort to determine whether Oswald could have descended tothe lunchroom from the sixth floor by the time Baker and Trulyarrived, Commission counsel asked Baker and Truly to repeat theirmovements from the time of the shot until Baker came upon Oswald inthe lunchroom. Baker placed himself on a motorcycle about 200 feetfrom the corner of Elm and Houston Streets where he said he heard theshots.357 Truly stood in front of the building. 358 At a givensignal, they reenacted the event. Baker's movements were timed with astopwatch. On the first test, the elapsed time between the simulatedfirst shot and Baker's arrival on the second-floor stair landing was 1minute and 30 seconds. The second test run required 1 minute and 15seconds. 359

A test was also conducted to determine the time required to walkfrom the southeast corner of the sixth floor to the second-floorlunchroom by stairway. Special Agent John Howlett of the SecretService carried a rifle from the southeast corner of the sixth flooralong the east aisle to the northeast corner. He placed the rifle onthe floor near the site where Oswald's rifle was actually found afterthe shooting. Then Howlett walked down the stairway to thesecond-floor landing and entered the lunchroom. The first test, run atnormal walking pace, required 1 minute, 18 seconds; 360 the secondtest, at a "fast walk" took 1 minute, 14 seconds. 361 The second test.followed immediately after the first. The only interval was the timenecessary to ride in the elevator from the second to the sixth floorand walk back to the southeast corner. Howlett was not short winded atthe end of either test run. 362

The minimum time required by Baker to park his motorcycle andreach the second-floor lunchroom was within 3 seconds of the timeneeded to walk from the southeast corner of the sixth floor down thestairway to the lunchroom. The time actually required for Baker andTruly to reach the second floor on November 22 was probably longerthan in the test runs. For example, Baker required 15 seconds afterthe simulated shot to ride his motorcycle 180 to 200 feet, park it,and run 45 feet to the building. 363 No allowance was made for thespecial conditions which existed on the day of theassassination--possible delayed reaction to the shot, jostling withthe crowd of people on

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the steps and scanning the area along Elm Street and the parkway.364Baker said, "We simulated the shots and by the time we got there, wedid everything that I did that day, and this would be the minimum,because I am sure that I, you know, it took me a little longer." 365On the basis of this time test, therefore, the Commission concludedthat Oswald could have fired the shots and still have been present inthe second-floor lunchroom when seen by Baker and Truly.

That Oswald descended by stairway from the sixth floor to thesecond-floor lunchroom is consistent with the movements of the twoelevators, which would have provided the other possible means ofdescent. When Truly, accompanied by Baker, ran to the rear of thefirst floor, he was certain that both elevators, which occupy the sameshaft, 366 were on the fifth floor. 367 Baker, not realizing thatthere were two elevators, thought that only one elevator was in theshaft and that it was two or three floors above the second floor. 368In the few seconds which elapsed while Baker and Truly ran from the first to the second floor, neither of these slow elevators could havedescended from the fifth to the second floor. Furthermore, noelevator was at the second floor when they arrived there. 369 Trulyand Baker continued up the stairs after the encounter with Oswald inthe lunchroom. There was no elevator on the third or fourth floor.The east elevator was on the fifth floor when they arrived; the westelevator was not. They took the east elevator to the seventh floorand ran up a stairway to the roof where they searched for severalminutes. 370

Jack Dougherty, an employee working on the fifth floor, testifiedthat he took the west elevator to the first floor after hearing anoise which sounded like a backfire. 370 Eddie Piper, the janitor,told Dougherty that the President had been shot, 372 but in histestimony Piper did not mention either seeing or talking withDougherty during these moments of excitement. 373 Both Dougherty andPiper were confused witnesses. They had no exact memory of the eventsof that afternoon. Truly was probably correct in stating that thewest elevator was on the fifth floor when he looked up the elevatorshaft from the first floor. The west elevator was not on the fifthfloor when Baker and Truly reached that floor, probably because JackDougherty took it to the first floor while Baker and Truly wererunning up the stairs or in the lunchroom with Oswald. Neitherelevator could have been used by Oswald as a means of descent.

Oswald's use of the stairway is consistent with the testimony ofother employees in the building. Three employees-- James Jarman, Jr.,Harold Norman, and Bonnie Ray Williams--were watching the parade fromthe fifth floor, directly below the window from which the shots werefired. They rushed to the west windows after the shots were fired andremained there until after they saw Patrolman Baker's white helmet onthe fifth floor moving toward the elevator. 374 While they were at thewest windows their view of the stairwell was completely blocked byshelves and boxes. 375 This is the period during which Oswald wouldhave descended the stairs. In all likelihood Dougherty took theelevator down from the fifth floor after Jarman,

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Norman, and Williams ran to the west windows and were deciding what todo. None of these three men saw Dougherty, probably because of theanxiety of the moment and because of the books which may have blockedthe view. 376 Neither Jarman, Norman, Williams, or Dougherty sawOswald. 377

Victoria Adams, who worked on the fourth floor of the DepositoryBuilding, claimed that within about 1 minute following the shots sheran from a window on the south side of the fourth floor, 378 down therear stairs to the first floor, where she encountered two Depositoryemployees--William Shelley and Billy Lovelady. 379 If her estimate oftime is correct, she reached the bottom of the stairs before Truly andBaker started up, and she must have run down the stairs ahead ofOswald and would probably have seen or heard him. Actually shenoticed no one on the back stairs. If she descended from the fourthto the first floor as fast as she claimed in her testimony, she wouldhave seen Baker or Truly on the first floor or on the stairs, unlessthey were already in the second-floor lunchroom talking to Oswald.When she reached the first floor, she actually saw Shelley andLovelady slightly east of the east elevator.

Shelley and Lovelady, however, have testified that they werewatching the parade from the top step of the building entrance whenGloria Calverly, who works in the Depository Building, ran up and saidthat the President had been shot. 380 Lovelady and Shelley moved outinto the street. 381 About this time Shelley saw Truly and PatrolmanBaker go into the building Shelley and Lovelady, at a fast walk ortrot, turned west into the railroad yards and then to the west side ofthe Depository Building. They reentered the building by the rear doorseveral minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the frontentrance? 382 On entering, Lovelady saw a girl on the first floor whohe believes was Victoria Adams. 384 If Miss Adams accurately recalledmeeting Shelley and Lovelady when she reached the bottom of thestairs, then her estimate of the time when she descended from thefourth floor is incorrect, and she actually came down the stairsseveral minutes after Oswald and after Truly and Baker as well.

Oswald's departure from building.--Within a minute after Bakerand Truly left Oswald in the lunchroom, Mrs. R. A. Reid, clericalsupervisor for the Texas School Book Depository, saw him walk throughthe clerical office on the second floor toward the door leading to thefront stairway. Mrs. Reid had watched the parade from the sidewalk infront of the building with Truly and Mr. O. V. Campbell, vicepresident of the Depository. 385 She testified that she heard threeshots which she thought came from the building. 386 She ran insideand up the front stairs into the large open office reserved forclerical employees. As she approached her desk, she saw Oswald. 387He was walking into the office from the back hallway, carrying a fullbottle of Coca-Cola in his hand, 388 presumably purchased after theencounter with Baker and Truly. As Oswald passed Mrs. Reid she said,"Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn't hit him." 389Oswald mumbled something and walked by. 390 She paid

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no more attention to him. The only exit from the office in thedirection Oswald was moving was through the door to the frontstairway. 391 (See Commission Exhibit 1118, p. 150.) Mrs. Reidtestified that when she saw Oswald, he was wearing a T-shirt and nojacket. 392 When he left home that morning, Marina Oswald, who wasstill in bed, suggested that he wear a jacket. 393 A blue jacket,later identified by Marina Oswald as her husband's, 394 wassubsequently found in the building, 395 apparently left behind byOswald.

Mrs. Reid believes that she returned to her desk from the streetabout 2 minutes after the shooting. 396 Reconstructing her movements,Mrs. Reid ran the distance three times and was timed in 2 minutes bystopwatch. 397 The reconstruction was the minimum time. 398Accordingly, she probably met Oswald at about 12:32, approximately30-45 seconds after Oswald's lunchroom encounter with Baker and Truly.After leaving Mrs. Reid in the front office, Oswald could have gonedown the stairs and out the front door by 12:33 p.m.399--3 minutesafter the shooting. At that time the building had not yet been sealedoff by the police.

While it was difficult to determine exactly when the policesealed off the building, the earliest estimates would still havepermitted Oswald to leave the building by 12:33. One of the policeofficers assigned to the corner of Elm and Houston Streets for thePresidential motorcade, W. E. Barnett, testified that immediatelyafter the shots he went to the rear of the building to check the fireescape. He then returned to the corner of Elm and Houston where hemet a sergeant who instructed him to find out the name of thebuilding. Barnett ran to the building, noted its name, and thenreturned to the corner. 400 There he was met by a constructionworker--in all likelihood Howard Brennan, who was wearing his workhelmet. 401 This worker told Barnett that the shots had been firedfrom a window in the Depository Building, where upon Barnett postedhimself at the front door to make certain that no one left thebuilding. The sergeant did the same thing at the rear of thebuilding. 402 Barnett estimated that approximately 3 minutes elapsedbetween the time he heard the last of the shots and the time hestarted guarding the front door. According to Barnett, "there werepeople going in and out" during this period. 403

Sgt. D. V. Harkness of the Dallas police said that to hisknowledge the building was not sealed off at 12:36 p.m. when he calledin on police radio that a witness (Amos Euins) had seen shots firedfrom a window of the building. 404 At that time, Inspector Herbert V. Sawyer's car was parked in front of the building. 405 Harkness didnot know whether or not two officers with Sawyer were guarding thedoors. 406 At 12:34 p.m. Sawyer heard a call over the police radiothat the shots had come from the Depository Building. 407 He thenentered the building and took the front passenger elevator as far asit would go--the fourth floor. 408 After inspecting this floor, Sawyerreturned to the street about 3 minutes after he entered the building.409 After he returned to the street he directed Sergeant Harkness tostation two patrolmen at the front door and not let anyone in or out;

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he also directed that the back door be sealed off. 410 This was noearlier than 12:37 p.m. 411 and may have been later. Special AgentForrest V. Sorrels of the Secret Service, who had been in themotorcade, testified that after driving to Parkland Hospital, hereturned to the Depository Building about 20 minutes after theshooting, found no police officers at the rear door and was able toenter through this door without identifying himself.412

Although Oswald probably left the building at about 12:33 p.m.,his absence was not noticed until at least. one-half hour later.Truly, who had returned with Patrolman Baker from the roof, saw thepolice questioning the warehouse employees. Approximately 15 menworked in the warehouse 413 and Truly noticed that Oswald was notamong those being questioned. 414 Satisfying himself that Oswald wasmissing, Truly obtained Oswald's address, phone number, anddescription from his employment application card. The address listedwas for the Paine home in Irving. Truly gave this information toCaptain Fritz who was on the sixth floor at the time. 415 Trulyestimated that he gave this information to Fritz about 15 or 20minutes after the shots,416 but it was probably no earlier than 1:22p.m., the time when the rifle was found. Fritz believed that helearned of Oswald's absence after the rifle was found.417 The factthat Truly found Fritz in the northwest corner of the floor, near thepoint where the rifle was found, supports Fritz' recollection.

Fingerprint and palmprint evidence establishes that Oswald handledtwo of the four cartons next to the window and also handled a paperbag which was found near the cartons. Oswald was seen in the vicinityof the southeast corner of the sixth floor approximately 35 minutesbefore the assassination and no one could be found who saw Oswaldanywhere else in the building until after the shooting. An eyewitnessto the shooting immediately provided a description of the man in thewindow which was similar to Oswald's actual appearance. This witnessidentified Oswald in a lineup as the man most nearly resembling theman he saw and later identified Oswald as the man he observed.Oswald's known actions in the building immediately after theassassination are consistent with his having been at the southeastcorner window of the sixth floor at 12:30 p.m. On the basis of thesefindings the Commission has concluded that. Oswald, at the time of theassassination, was present at the window from which the shots werefired.

After leaving the Depository Building at approximately 12:33p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald proceeded to his roominghouse by bus and taxi.He arrived at approximately 1 p.m. and left a few minutes later. At

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about 1:16 p.m., a Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit, was shot lessthan 1 mile from Oswald's roominghouse. In deciding whether Oswaldkilled Patrolman Tippit the Commission considered the following: (1)positive identification of the killer by two eyewitnesses who saw theshooting and seven eyewitnesses who heard the shots and saw the gunmanflee the scene with the revolver in his hand, (2) testimony offirearms identification experts establishing the identity of themurder weapon, (3) evidence establishing the ownership of the murderweapon, (4) evidence establishing the ownership of a zipper jacketfound along the path of flight taken by the gunman from the scene ofthe shooting to the place of arrest.

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Oswald's Movements After Leaving Depository Building

The bus ride.--According to the reconstruction of time and eventswhich the Commission found most credible, Lee Harvey Oswald left thebuilding approximately 3 minutes after the assassination. He probablywalked east on Elm Street for seven blocks to the corner of Elm andMurphy where he boarded a bus which was heading back in the directionof the Depository Building, on its way to the Oak Cliff section ofDallas. (See Commission Exhibit 1119-A, p. 158.)

When Oswald was apprehended, a bus transfer marked for theLakewood-Marsalis route was found in his shirt pocket. 476 Thetransfer was dated "Fri. Nov. 22, '63" and was punched in two placesby the busdriver. On the basis of this punchmark, which wasdistinctive to each Dallas driver, the transfer was conclusivelyidentified as having been issued by Cecil J. McWatters, a busdriverfor the Dallas Transit Co. 419 On the basis of the date and time onthe transfer, McWatters was able to testify that the transfer had beenissued by him on a trip which passed a check point at St. Paul and ElmStreets at 12:36 p.m., November 22, 1963. 420

McWatters was sure that he left the checkpoint on time and heestimated that it took him 3 to 4 minutes to drive three blocks westfrom the checkpoint to Field Street, which he reached at about 12:40p.m. 421 McWatters' recollection is that he issued this transfer to aman who entered his bus just beyond Field Street, where a man beat onthe front door of the bus, boarded it and paid his fare. 422 Abouttwo blocks later, a woman asked to get off to make a 1 o'clock trainat Union Station and requested a transfer which she might use if shegot through the traffic.

... So I gave her a transfer and opened the door and she was going out the gentleman I had picked up about two blocks [back] asked for a transfer and got off at the same place in the middle of the block where the lady did.
... It was the intersection near Lamar Street, it was near Poydras and Lamar Street. 423

This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 1119-A: a diagram showing the Whereabouts of Lee HarveyOswald between 12:33 p.m. and 1:50 p.m., November 22, 1963.

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The man was on the bus approximately 4 minutes.424

At about 6:30 p.m. on the day of the assassination, McWattersviewed four men in a police lineup. He picked Oswald from the lineupas the man who had boarded the bus at the "lower end of town on Elmaround Houston," and who, during the ride south on Marsalis, had anargument with a woman passenger.425 In his Commission testimony,McWatters said he had been in error and that a teenager named MiltonJones was the passenger he had in mind.425 In a later interview, Jonesconfirmed that he had exchanged words with a woman passenger on thebus during the ride south on Marsalis.427 McWatters also rememberedthat a man received a transfer at Lamar and Elm Streets and that a manin the lineup was about the size of this man.428 However, McWatters'recollection alone was too vague to be a basis for placing Oswald onthe bus.

Riding on the bus was an elderly woman, Mary Bledsoe, whoconfirmed the mute evidence of the transfer. Oswald had rented a roomfrom Mrs. Bledsoe about 6 weeks before, on October 7,429 but she hadasked him to leave at the end of a week. Mrs. Bledsoe told him "I amnot going to rent to you any more." 430 She testified, "I didn't likehis attitude.... There was just something about him I didn't likeor want him.... Just didn't want him around me." 481 On November22, Mrs. Bledsoe came downtown to watch the Presidential motorcade.She boarded the Marsalis bus at St. Paul and Elm Streets to returnhome.432 She testified further:

And, after we got past Akard, at Murphy--I figured it out. Let's see. I don't know for sure. Oswald got on. He looks like a maniac. His sleeve was out here. ... His shirt was undone.
°°°°°°°
Was a hole in it, hole, and he was dirty, and I didn't look at him. I didn't want to know I even seen him ...
°°°°°°°
... he looked so bad in his face, and his face was so distorted.
°°°°°°°
... Hole in his sleeve right here.433

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had been shot.438 People on the bus began talking about it. As thebus neared Lamar Street, Oswald left the bus and disappeared into thecrowd.439

The Marsalis bus which Oswald boarded traveled a route west onElm, south on Houston, and southwest across the Houston viaduct toservice the Oak Cliff area along Marsalis.440 A Beckley bus whichalso served the Oak Cliff area, followed the same route as theMarsalis bus through downtown Dallas, except that it continued west onElm, across Houston in front of the Depository Building, past theTriple Underpass into west Dallas, and south on Beckley.441 MarsalisStreet is seven blocks from Beckley.442 Oswald lived at 1026 NorthBeckley.443 He could not reach his roominghouse on the Marsalis bus,but the Beckley bus stopped across the street.444 According toMcWatters, the Beckley bus was behind the Marsalis bus, but he did notactually see it.445 Both buses stopped within one block of theDepository Building. Instead of waiting there, Oswald apparently wentas far away as he could and boarded the first Oak Cliff bus which camealong rather than wait for one which stopped across the street fromhis roominghouse.

In a reconstruction of this bus trip, agents of the Secret Service andthe FBI walked the seven blocks from the front entrance of theDepository Building to Murphy and Elm three times, averaging 6.5minutes for the three trips.446 A bus moving through heavy traffic onElm from Murphy to Lamar was timed at 4 minutes.447 If Oswald leftthe Depository Building at 12:33 p.m., walked seven blocks directly toMurphy and Elm, and boarded a bus almost immediately, he would haveboarded the bus at approximately 12:40 p.m. and left it atapproximately 12:44 p.m. (See Commission Exhibit No.1119-A, p. 158.)

Roger D. Craig, a deputy sheriff of Dallas County, claimed thatabout 15 minutes after the assassination he saw a man, whom he lateridentified as Oswald,448 coming from the direction of the DepositoryBuilding and running down the hill north of Elm Street toward alight-colored Rambler station wagon, which was moving slowly along Elmtoward the underpass:449 The station wagon stopped to pick up the manand then drove off.450 Craig testified that later in the afternoonhe saw Oswald in the police interrogation room and told Captain Fritzthat Oswald was the man he saw.451 Craig also claimed that when Fritzpointed out to Oswald that Craig had identified him, Oswald rose fromhis chair, looked directly at Fritz, and said, "Everybody will knowwho I am now." 452

The Commission could not accept important elements of Craig'stestimony. Captain Fritz stated that a deputy sheriff whom he couldnot identify did ask to see him that afternoon and told him a similarstory to Craig's.453 Fritz did not bring him into his office toidentify Oswald but turned him over to Lieutenant Baker forquestioning. If Craig saw Oswald that afternoon, he saw him throughthe glass windows of the office. And neither Captain Fritz nor anyother officer can remember that Oswald dramatically arose from hischair and said,

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"Everybody will know who I am now." 454 If Oswald had made such astatement, Captain Fritz and others present would probably haveremembered it. Craig may have seen a person enter a white Ramblerstation wagon 15 or 20 minutes after the shooting and travel west onElm Street, but the Commission concluded that this man was not LeeHarvey Oswald, because of the overwhelming evidence that Oswald wasfar away from the building by that time.

The taxicab ride.--William Whaley, a taxicab driver, told hisemployer on Saturday morning, November 23, that he recognized Oswaldfrom a newspaper photograph as a man whom he had driven to the OakCliff area the day before.455 Notified of Whaley's statement, thepolice brought him to the police station that afternoon. He was takento the lineup room where, according to Whaley, five young teenagers,all handcuffed together, were displayed with Oswald.456 He testifiedthat Oswald looked older than the other boys.457 The police asked himwhether he could pick out his passenger from the lineup. Whaleypicked Oswald. He said,

... you could have picked him out without identifying him by just listening to him because he was bawling out the policeman, telling them it wasn't right to put him in line with these teenagers and all of that and they asked me which one and I told them. It was him all right, the same man. °°°°°°°
He showed no respect for the policemen, he told them what he thought about them. They knew what they were doing and they were trying to railroad him and he wanted his lawyer.458

Whaley's memory of the lineup is inaccurate. There were fourmen altogether, not six men, in the lineup with Oswald.460 Whaleysaid that Oswald was the man under No. 2.461 Actually Oswald wasunder No. 3. Only two of the men in the lineup with Oswald wereteenagers: John T. Horn, aged 18, was No. 1; David Knapp, aged 18, wasNo. 2; Lee Oswald was No. 3; and Daniel Lujan, aged 26, was No. 4. 462

When he first testified before the Commission, Whaley displayed atrip manifest 463 which showed a 12 o'clock trip from Travis Hotel tothe Continental bus station, unloaded at 12:15 p.m., a 12:15 p.m.pickup at Continental to Greyhound, unloaded at 12:30 p.m., and apickup from Greyhound (bus station) at 12:30 p.m., unloaded at 500North Beckley at 12:45 p.m. Whaley testified that he did not keep anaccurate time record of his trips but recorded them by the quarterhour, and that sometimes he made his entry right after a trip while atother times he waited to record three or four trips.464 As heunloaded his Continental bus station passenger in front of Greyhound,

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he started to get out to buy a package of cigarettes.465 He saw a manwalking south on Lamar from Commerce. The man was dressed in fadedblue color khaki work clothes, a brown shirt, and some kind of workjacket that almost matched his pants.466 The man asked, "May I havethe cab?", and got into the front seat.467Whaley described theensuing events as follows:

And about that time an old lady, I think she was an old lady, I don't remember nothing but her sticking her head down past him in the door and said, "Driver, will you call me a cab down here?"
She had seen him get this cab and she wanted one, too, and he opened the door a little bit like he was going to get out and he said, "I will let you have this one," and she says, "No, the driver can call me one."
°°°°°°°
... I asked him where he wanted to go. And he said, "500 North Beckley."
Well, I started up, I started to that address, and the police cars, the sirens was going, running crisscrossing everywhere, just a big uproar in that end of town and I said, "What the hell. I wonder what the hell is the uproar?"
And he never said anything. So I figured he was one of these people that don't like to talk so I never said any more to him. But when I got pretty close to 500 block at Neches and North Beckley which is the 500 block, he said, "This will do fine," and I pulled over to the curb right. there. He gave me a dollar bill, the trip was 95 cents. He gave me a dollar bill and didn't say anything, just got out and closed the door and walked around the front of the cab over to the other side of the street [east side of the street]. Of course, the traffic was moving through there and I put it in gear and moved on, that is the last I saw of him.468

After a review of these inconsistencies in his testimony beforethe Commission, Whaley was interviewed again in Dallas. The route ofthe taxicab was retraced under the direction of Whaley.472 Hedirected the driver of the car to a point 20 feet north of thenorthwest corner of the intersection of Beckley and Neely, the pointat. which he said his passenger alighted.473 This was the 700 blockof North

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Beckley.474 The elapsed time of the reconstructed run from theGreyhound Bus Station to Neely and Beckley was 5 minutes and 30seconds by stopwatch.475 The walk from Beckley and Neely to 1026North Beckley was timed by Commission counsel at 5 minutes and 45seconds.476

Whaley testified that Oswald was wearing either the gray zipperedjacket or the heavy blue jacket.477 He was in error, however. Oswaldcould not possibly have been wearing the blue jacket during the tripwith Whaley, since it was found in the "domino" room of the Depositorylate in November. 478 Moreover, Mrs. Bledsoe saw Oswald in the buswithout a jacket and wearing a shirt with a hole at the elbow.479 Onthe other hand, Whaley identified Commission Exhibit No. 150 (theshirt taken from Oswald upon arrest) as the shirt his passenger waswearing.480 He also stated he saw a silver identification bracelet onhis passenger's left wrist.481 Oswald was wearing such a braceletwhen he was arrested.482 On November 22, Oswald told Captain Fritzthat he rode a bus to a stop near his home and then walked to hisroominghouse.483 When queried the following morning concerning a bustransfer found in his possession at the time of his arrest, headmitted receiving it.484 And when interrogated about a cab ride,Oswald also admitted that he left the slow-moving bus and took a cabto his roominghouse.485

The Greyhound Bus Station at Lamar and Jackson Streets, whereOswald entered Whaley's cab, is three to four short blocks south ofLamar and Elm.486 If Oswald left the bus at 12:44 p.m. and walkeddirectly to the terminal, he would have entered the cab at 12:47 or12:48 p.m. If the cab ride was approximately 6 minutes, as was thereconstructed ride, he would have reached his destination atapproximately 12:54 p.m. If he was discharged at Neely and Beckleyand walked directly to his roominghouse, he would have arrived thereabout 12:59 to 1 p.m. From the 500 block of North Beckley, the walkwould be a few minutes longer, but in either event he would have beenin the roominghouse at about 1 p.m. This is the approximate time heentered the roominghouse, according to Earlene Roberts, thehousekeeper there.487 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, p. 158.)

Arrival and departure from roominghouse.---Earlene Roberts,housekeeper for Mrs. A. C. Johnson at 1026 North Beckley, knew LeeHarvey Oswald under the alias of O. II. Lee. She first saw him theday he rented a room at that address on October 14, 1963.488 signedhis name as O.H. Lee on the roominghouse register.489

Mrs. Roberts testified that on Thursday, November 21, Oswalddid not come home. On Friday, November 22, about 1 p.m., he enteredthe house in unusual haste. She recalled that it was subsequent tothe time the President had been shot. After a friend had called andtold her, "President Kennedy has been shot," she turned on thetelevision. When Oswald came in she said, "Oh, you are in a hurry,"but Oswald did not respond. He hurried to his room and stayed nolonger than 3 or 4 minutes. Oswald had entered the house in his shirtsleeves,

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 1968: a diagram showing Location of Eyewitnesses to the Movements of Lee Harvey Oswald in the Vicinity of the Tippit Killing

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but when he left, he was zipping up a jacket. Mrs. Roberts saw him afew seconds later standing near the bus stop in front of the house onthe east side of Beckley.490

Oswald was next seen about nine-tenths of a mile away at thesoutheast corner of 10th Street and Patton Avenue, moments before theTippit shooting. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, p. 158.) IfOswald left. his roominghouse shortly after 1 p.m. and walked at abrisk pace, he would have reached 10th and Patton shortly after 1:15p.m.491 Tippit's murder was recorded on the police radio tape atabout 1:16 p.m.492

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Description of Shooting

Patrolman J. D. Tippit joined the Dallas Police Department in July1952.493 He was described by Chief Curry as having the reputation ofbeing "a very fine, dedicated officer." 494 Tippit patroled districtNo. 78 in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas during daylight hours. He drove a police car painted distinctive colors with No. 10 prominently displayed on each side. Tippit rode alone, as only one man was normally assigned to a patrol car in residential areas during daylight shifts.495

At about 12:44 p.m. on November 22, the radio dispatcher onchannel 1 ordered all downtown patrol squads to report to Elm andHouston, code 3 (emergency).496 At 12:45 p.m. the dispatcher orderedNo. 78 (Tippit) to "move into central Oak Cliff area."497 At 12:54p.m., Tippit reported that he was in the central Oak Cliff area atLancaster and Eighth. The dispatcher ordered Tippit to be: "... atlarge for any emergency that comes in." 498 According to Chief Curry,Tippit was free to patrol the central Oak Cliff area.499 Tippit musthave heard the description of the suspect wanted for the President'sshooting; it was broadcast over channel 1 at 12:45 p.m., again at12:48 p.m., and again at 12:55 p.m.500 The suspect was described as a"white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 foot 10 inches,weight 165 pounds." 501 A similar description was given on channel 2at 12:45 p.m.502

At approximately 1:15 p.m., Tippit, who was cruising east on10th Street, passed the intersection of 10th and Patton, about eightblocks from where he had reported at 12:54 p.m. About 100 feet pastthe intersection Tippit stopped a man walking east along the southside of Patton. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, p. 164.) The man'sgeneral description was similar to the one broadcast over the policeradio. Tippit stopped the man and called him to his car. Heapproached the car and apparently exchanged words with Tippit throughthe right front or vent window. Tippit got out and started to walkaround the front of the car As Tippit reached the left front wheel theman pulled out a revolver and fired several shots. Four bullets hitTippit and killed him instantly. The gunman started back towardPatton Avenue, ejecting the empty cartridge cases before reloadingwith fresh bullets.

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At least 12 persons saw the man with the revolver in thevicinity of the Tippit crime scene at or immediately after theshooting. By the evening of November 22, five of them had identifiedLee Harvey Oswald in police lineups as the man they saw. A sixth didso the next day. Three others subsequently identified Oswald from aphotograph. Two witnesses testified that Oswald resembled the manthey had seen. One witness felt he was too distant from the gunman tomake a positive identification. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, p.164.)

A taxi driver, William Scoggins, was eating lunch in his cabwhich was parked on Patton facing the southeast corner of 10th Streetand Patton Avenue a few feet to the north. 503 A police car movingeast on 10th at about 10 or 12 miles an hour passed in front of hiscab. About 100 feet from the comer the police car pulled up alongsidea man on the sidewalk. This man, dressed in a light-colored jacket,approached the car. Scoggins lost sight of him behind some shrubberyon the southeast corner lot, but he saw the policeman leave the car,heard three or four shots, and then saw the policeman fall. Scogginshurriedly left his seat and hid behind the cab as the man came backtoward the corner with gun in hand. The man cut across the yardthrough some bushes, passed within 12 feet of Scoggins, and ran southon Patton. Scoggins saw him and heard him mutter either "Poor damncop" or "Poor dumb cop." 504 The next day Scoggins viewed a lineup offour persons and identified Oswald as the man whom he had seen the daybefore at 10th and Patton.505 In his testimony before the Commission,Scoggins stated that he thought he had seen a picture of Oswald in thenewspapers prior to the lineup identification on Saturday. He had notseen Oswald on television and had not been shown any photographs ofOswald by the police.506

Another witness, Domingo Benavides, was driving a pickup truckwest on 10th Street. As he crossed the intersection a block east of10th and Patton, he saw a policeman standing by the left door of thepolice car parked along the south side of 10th. Benavides saw a manstanding at the right side of the parked police car. He then heardthree shots and saw the policeman fall to the ground. By this time thepickup truck was across the street and about 25 feet from the policecar. Benavides stopped and waited in the truck until the gunman ranto the corner. He saw him empty the gun and throw the shells intosome bushes on the southeast corner lot.507 It was Benavides, usingTippit's car radio, who first reported the killing of Patrolman Tippitat about 1:16 p.m.: "We've had a shooting out here." 508 He found twoempty shells in the bushes and gave them to Patrolman J. M. Poe whoarrived on the scene shortly after the shooting.509 Benavides neversaw Oswald after the arrest. When questioned by police officers onthe evening of November 22, Benavides told them that he did not thinkthat he could identify the man who fired the shots. As a result, theydid not take him to the police station.

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He testified that the picture of Oswald which he saw later ontelevision bore a resemblance to the man who shot Officer Tippit. 510

Just prior to the shooting, Mrs. Helen Markham, a waitress indowntown Dallas, was about to cross 10th Street at Patton. As shewaited on the northwest corner of the intersection for traffic topass,511 she noticed a young man as be was "almost ready to get up onthe curb" 512 at the southeast corner of the intersection,approximately 50 feet away. The man continued along 10th Street.Mrs. Markham saw a police car slowly approach the man from the rearand stop alongside of him. She saw the man come to the right windowof the police car. As he talked, he leaned on the ledge of the rightwindow with his arms. The man appeared to step back as the policeman"calmly opened the car door" and very slowly got out and walked towardthe front of the car. The man pulled a gun. Mrs. Markham heard threeshots and saw the policeman fall to the ground near the left frontwheel. She raised her hands to her eyes as the man started to walkback toward Patton.513 She peered through her fingers, lowered herhands, and saw the man doing something with his gun. "He was justfooling with it. I didn't know what he was doing. I was afraid he wasfixing to kill me." 514 The man "in kind of a little trot" headeddown Patton toward Jefferson Boulevard, a block away. Mrs. Markhamthen ran to Officer Tippit's side and saw him lying in a pool ofblood. 515

Helen Markham was screaming as she leaned over the body.516 Afew minutes later she described the gunman to a policeman. 517 Herdescription and that of other eyewitnesses led to the police broadcastat 1:22 p.m. describing the slayer as "about 30, 5'8", black hair,slender." 518 At about 4:30 p.m., Mrs. Markham, who had been greatlyupset by her experience, was able to view a lineup of four menhandcuffed together at the police station. 519 She identified LeeHarvey Oswald as the man who shot the policeman.520 Detective L. C.Graves, who had been with Mrs. Markham before the lineup testifiedthat she was "quite hysterical" and was "crying and upset." 521 Hesaid that Mrs. Markham started crying when Oswald walked into thelineup room. 522 In testimony before the Commission, Mrs. Markhamconfirmed her positive identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the manshe saw kill Officer Tippit. 523

In evaluating Mrs. Markham's identification of Oswald, theCommission considered certain allegations that Mrs. Markham describedthe man who killed Patrolman Tippit as "short, a little on the heavyside," and having "somewhat bushy" hair.523 The Commission reviewedthe transcript of a phone conversation in which Mrs. Markham isalleged to have provided such a description.525 A review of thecomplete transcript has satisfied the Commission that Mrs. Markhamstrongly reaffirmed her positive identification of Oswald and deniedhaving described the killer as short, stocky and having bushy hair.She stated that the man weighed about 150 pounds.526Although sheused the words "a little bit bushy" to describe the gunman's hair, thetranscript establishes that she was referring to the uncombed

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state of his hair, a description fully supported by a photograph ofOswald taken at the time of his arrest. (See Pizzo Exhibit No. 453-C,p. 177.) Although in the phone conversation she described the man as"short," 527 on November 22, within minutes of the shooting and beforethe lineup, Mrs. Markham described the man to the police as 5'8" tall.528

During her testimony Mrs. Markham initially denied that sheever had the above phone conversation.529 She has subsequentlyadmitted the existence of the conversation and offered an explanationfor her denial.530 Addressing itself solely to the probative value ofMrs. Markham's contemporaneous description of the gunman and herpositive identification of Oswald at a police lineup, the Commissionconsiders her testimony reliable. However, even in the absence ofMrs. Markham's testimony, there is ample evidence to identify Oswaldas the killer of Tippit.

Two young women, Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis,were in an apartment of a multiple-unit house on the southeast cornerof 10th and Patton when they heard the sound of gunfire and thescreams of Helen Markham. They ran to the door in time to see a manwith a revolver cut across their lawn and disappear around a corner ofthe house onto Patton.531 Barbara Jeanette Davis assumed that he wasemptying his gun as "he had it open and was shaking it." 532 Sheimmediately called the police. Later in the day each woman found anempty shell on the ground near the house. These two shells weredelivered to the police.533

On the evening of November 22, Barbara Jeanette and Virginia Davisviewed a group of four men in a lineup and each one picked Oswald asthe man who crossed their lawn while emptying his pistol.534 BarbaraJeanette Davis testified that no one had shown her a picture of Oswaldbefore the identification and that she had not seen him on television. She was not sure whether she had seen his picture in a newspaper onthe afternoon or evening of November 22 prior to the lineup.535 Herreaction when she saw Oswald in the lineup was that "I was pretty sureit was the same man I saw. When they made him turn sideways, I waspositive that was the one I seen." 536 Similarly, Virginia Davis hadnot been shown pictures of anyone prior to the lineup and had not seeneither television or the newspapers during the afternoon.537 Sheidentified Oswald, who was the No. 2 man in the lineup,538 as the manshe saw running with the gun: she testified, "I would say that was himfor sure." 539 Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis were sittingalongside each other when they made their positive identifications ofOswald.540 Each woman whispered Oswald's number to the detective.Each testified that she was the first to make the identification.541

William Arthur Smith was about a block east of 10th and Pattonwhen he heard shots. He looked west on 10th and saw a man running tothe west and a policeman falling to the ground. Smith failed to makehimself known to the police on November 22. Several days later hereported what he had seen and was questioned by FBI

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agents.542 Smith subsequently told a Commission staff member that hesaw Oswald on television the night of the murder and thought thatOswald was the man he had seen running away from the shooting.543 Ontelevision Oswald's hair looked blond, whereas Smith remembered thatthe man who ran away had hair that was brown or brownish black.Later, the FBI showed Smith a picture of Oswald. In the picture thehair was brown.544 According to his testimony, Smith told the FBI, "Itlooked more like him than it did on television." He stated furtherthat from "What I saw of him" the man looked like the man in thepicture.545

Two other important eyewitnesses to Oswald's flight were TedCallaway, manager of a used-car lot on the northeast corner of PattonAvenue and Jefferson Boulevard, and Sam Guinyard, a porter at thelot. They heard the sound of shots to the north of their lot.546Callaway heard five shots, and Guinyard three. Both ran to thesidewalk on the east side of Patton at a point about a half a blocksouth of 10th. They saw a man coming south on Patton with a revolverheld high in his right hand. According to Callaway, the man crossedto the west side of Patton.547 From across the street Callaway yelled,"Hey, man, what the hell is going on?" He slowed down, halted, saidsomething, and then kept on going to the corner, turned right, andcontinued west on Jefferson.548 Guinyard claimed that the man randown the east side of Patton and passed within 10 feet of him beforecrossing to the other side.549 Guinyard and Callaway ran to 10th andPatton and found Tippit lying in the street beside his car.550Apparently he had reached for his gun; it lay beneath him outside ofthe holster. Callaway picked up the gun.551 He and Scogginsattempted to chase down the gunman in Scoggin's taxicab,552 but he haddisappeared. Early in the evening of November 22, Guinyard andCallaway viewed the same lineup of four men from which Mrs. Markhamhad earlier made her identification of Lee Harvey Oswald. Both menpicked Oswald as the man who had run south on Patton with a gun in hishand.553 Callaway told the Commission: "So they brought four men in.I stepped to the back of the room, so I could kind of see him fromthe same distance which I had seen him before. And when he came out Iknew him." 554 Guinyard said, "I told them that was him right there. Ipointed him out right there." 555 Both Callaway and Guinyardtestified that they had not been shown any pictures by the policebefore the lineup.556

The Dallas Police Department furnished the Commission withpictures of the men who appeared in the lineups with Oswald,557 andthe Commission has inquired into general lineup procedures used by theDallas police as well as the specific procedures in the lineupsinvolving Oswald.558 The Commission is satisfied that the lineupswere conducted fairly.

As Oswald ran south on Patton Avenue toward Jefferson Boulevard hewas moving in the direction of a used-car lot located on the southeastcorner of this intersection.559 Four men--Warren Reynolds,560

Page 170This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT NO. 143: Revolver Used in Tippit Killing

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Harold Russell 561 Pat Patterson 562 and L. J. Lewis 563--were on thelot at the time, and they saw a white male with a revolver in hishands running south on Patton. When the man reached Jefferson, heturned right and headed west. Reynolds and Patterson decided tofollow him. When he reached a gasoline service station one block awayhe turned north and walked toward a parking area in the rear of thestation. Neither Reynolds nor Patterson saw the man after he turnedoff Jefferson at the service station. 56 These four witnesses wereinterviewed by FBI agents 2 months after the shooting. Russell andPatterson were shown a picture of Oswald and they stated that Oswaldwas the man they saw on November 22, 1963. Russell confirmed thisstatement in a sworn affidavit for the Commission.565 Patterson, whenasked later to confirm his identification by affidavit said he did notrecall having been shown the photograph. He was then shown twophotographs of Oswald and he advised that Oswald was "unquestionably"the man he saw.566 Reynolds did not make a positive identificationwhen interviewed by the FBI, but he subsequently testified before aCommission staff member and, when shown two photographs of Oswald,stated that they were photographs of the man he saw.567 L.J. Lewissaid in an interview that because of the distance from which heobserved the gunman he would hesitate to state whether the man wasidentical with Oswald. 568

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Murder Weapon

When Oswald was arrested, he had in his possession a Smith &Wesson 38 Special caliber revolver, serial number V510210. (SeeCommission Exhibit No. 143, p. 170). Two of the arresting officersplaced their initials on the weapon and a third inscribed his name.All three identified Exhibit No. 143 as the revolver taken from Oswaldwhen he was arrested.569 Four cartridge cases were found in theshrubbery on the corner of 10th and Patton by three of theeyewitnesses--Domingo Benavides, Barbara Jeanette Davis, and VirginiaDavis.570 It was the unanimous and unequivocal testimony of expertwitnesses before the Commission that these used cartridge cases werefired from the revolver in Oswald's possession to the exclusion of allother weapons. (See app. X, p. 559.)

Cortlandt Cunningham, of the Firearms IdentificationUnit of the FBI Laboratory, testified that he compared the four emptycartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting with a testcartridge fired from the weapon in Oswald's possession when he wasarrested. Cunningham declared that this weapon fired the fourcartridges to the exclusion of all other weapons. Identification waseffected through breech face marks and firing pin marks.571 Robert A.Frazier and Charles Killion, other FBI firearms experts, independentlyexamined the four cartridge cases and arrived at the same conclusionas Cunningham. 572 At the request of the Commission, Joseph D. Nicol,superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of Criminal IdentificationInvestigation, also examined the four cartridge cases found near thesite of the homicide and compared them with the test cartridge cases

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fired from the Smith & Wesson revolver taken from Oswald. Heconcluded that all of these cartridges were fired from the sameweapon.573

Cunningham compared four lead bullets recovered from the body ofPatrolman Tippit with test bullets fired from Oswald's revolver. 574 Heexplained that the bullets were slightly smaller than the barrel ofthe pistol which had fired them. This caused the bullets to have anerratic passage through the barrel and impressed upon the lead of thebullets inconsistent individual characteristics which madeidentification impossible. Consecutive bullets fired from therevolver by the FBI experts could not be identified as having beenfired from that revolver.575 (See app. X, p. 559.) Cunninghamtestified that all of the bullets were mutilated, one being uselessfor comparison purposes. All four bullets were fired from a weaponwith five lands and grooves and a right twist 576 which were therifling characteristics of the revolver taken from Oswald. Heconcluded, however, that he could not say whether the four bulletswere fired from the revolver in Oswald's possession.577 "The onlything I can testify is they could have on the basis of the riflingcharacteristics--they could have been." 578

Nicol differed with the FBI experts on one bullet taken fromTippit's body. He declared that this bullet 579 was fired from thesame weapon that fired the test bullets to the exclusion of all otherweapons. But he agreed that because the other three bullets weremutilated, he could not determine if they had been fired from the sameweapon as the test bullets.580

The examination and testimony of the experts enabled theCommission to conclude that five shots may have been fired, eventhough only four bullets were recovered. Three of the bulletsrecovered from Tippit's body were manufactured by Winchester-Western,and the fourth bullet by Remington-Peters, but only two of the fourdiscarded cartridge cases found on the lawn at 10th Street and PattonAvenue were of Winchester-Western manufacture.581 Therefore, onecartridge case of this type was not recovered. And though only onebullet of Remington-Peters manufacture was recovered, two emptycartridge cases of that make were retrieved. Therefore, either onebullet of Remington-Peters manufacture is missing or one usedRemington-Peters cartridge case, which may have been in the revolverbefore the shooting, was discarded along with the others as Oswaldleft the scene. If a bullet is missing, five were fired. Thiscorresponds with the observation and memory of Ted Callaway,582 andpossibly Warren Reynolds, but not with the other eyewitnesses whoclaim to have heard from two to four shots.

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Ownership of Revolver

By checking certain importers and dealers after the assassinationof President Kennedy and slaying of Officer Tippit, agents of the FBIdetermined that George Rose & Co. of Los Angeles was a majordistributor

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This page reproduces COMMISSION EXHIBIT No. 790, MICHAELIS EXHIBIT No. 2, MICHAELIS EXHIBIT No. 4, MICHAELIS EXHIBIT No. 5: Revolver Purchase and Shipping Documents.

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of this type of revolver.583 Records of Seaport Traders, Inc., amail-order division of George Rose & Co., disclosed that on January 3,1963, the company received from Empire Wholesale Sporting Goods, Ltd.,Montreal, a shipment of 99 guns in one case. Among these guns was a.38 Special caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, serial No. V510210, theonly revolver made by Smith & Wesson with this serial number.584 Whenfirst manufactured, it had a 5-inch barrel. George Rose & Co. had thebarrel shortened by a gunsmith to 2 1/4 inches.585

Sometime after January 27, 1963, Seaport Traders, Inc.,received through the mail a mail-order coupon for one ".38 St. W. 2"Bbl.," cost $29.95. Ten dollars in cash was enclosed. The order wassigned in ink by "A. J. Hidell, aged 28." 588 (See Commission ExhibitNo. 790, p. 173.) The date of the order was January 27 (no yearshown), and the return address was Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex.Also on the order form was an order, written in ink, for one box ofammunition and one holster, but a line was drawn through these items.The mail-order form had a line for the name of a witness to attestthat the person ordering the gun was a U.S. citizen and had not beenconvicted of a felony. The name written in this space was D. F.Drittal.587

Heinz W. Michaelis, office manager of both George Rose & Co.,Inc., and Seaport Traders, Inc., identified records of SeaportTraders, Inc., which showed that a ".38 S and W Special two-inchCommando, serial number V510210" was shipped on March 20, 1963, to A.J. Hidell, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex. The invoice wasprepared on March 13, 1963; the revolver was actually shipped on March20 by Railway Express. The balance due on the purchase was $19.95.Michaelis furnished the shipping copy of the invoice, and the RailwayExpress Agency shipping documents, showing that $19.95, plus $1.27shipping charge, had been collected from the consignee, Hidell.588(See Michaelis Exhibits Nos. 2, 4, 5, p. 173.)

Handwriting experts, Alwyn Cole of the Treasury Department andJames C. Cadigan of the FBI, testified before the Commission that thewriting on the coupon was Oswald's. The signature of the witness, D.F. Drittal, who attested that the fictitious Hidell was an Americancitizen and had not been convicted of a felony, was also in Oswald'shandwriting.589 Marina Oswald gave as her opinion that the mail-ordercoupon was in Oswald's handwriting. 590 When shown the revolver, shestated that she recognized it as the one owned by her husband.591 Shealso testified that this appeared to be the revolver seen in Oswald'sbelt in the picture she took in late March or early April 1963 whenthe family was living on Neely Street in Dallas. Police found an emptyrevolver holster when they searched Oswald's room on Beckley Avenueafter his arrest.593 Marina Oswald testified that this was the holsterwhich contained the revolver in the photographs taken on NeelyStreet.594

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Approximately 15 minutes before the shooting of Tippit, Oswald wasseen leaving his roominghouse.595 He was wearing a zipper jacketwhich he had not been wearing moments before when he had arrivedhome.596 When Oswald was arrested, he did not have a jacket.597Shortly after Tippit was slain, policemen found a light-colored zipperjacket along the route taken by the killer as he attempted toescape.598 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, p. 164.)

At 1:22 p.m. the Dallas police radio described the man wantedfor the murder of Tippit as "a white male about thirty, five footeight inches, black hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, white shirtand dark slacks." 599 According to Patrolman Poe this descriptioncame from Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Barbara Jeanette Davis.600 Mrs.Markham told Poe that the man was a "white male, about 25, about fivefeet eight, brown hair, medium," and wearing a "white jacket." Mrs.Davis gave Poe the same general description: a "white male in hisearly twenties, around five foot seven inches or eight inches, about145 pounds," and wearing a white jacket.

As has been discussed previously, two witnesses, WarrenReynolds and B. M. Patterson, saw the gunman run toward the rear of agasoline service station on Jefferson Boulevard. Mrs. Mary Brock, thewife of a mechanic who worked at the station, was there at the timeand she saw a white male, 5 feet, 10 inches ... wearing lightclothing ... a light-colored jacket" walk past her at a fast pacewith his hands in his pocket. She last saw him in the parking lotdirectly behind the service station. When interviewed by FBI agentson January 21, 1964, she identified a picture of Oswald as being thesame person she saw on November 22. She confirmed this interview by asworn affidavit.601

At 1:24 p.m., the police radio reported, "The suspect last seenrunning west on Jefferson from 400 East Jefferson." 602 Police Capt.W. R. Westbrook and several other officers concentrated their searchalong Jefferson Boulevard.603 Westbrook walked through the parkinglot behind the service station 604 and found a light-colored jacketlying under the rear of one of the cars.605 Westbrook identifiedCommission Exhibit No. 162 as the light-colored jacket which hediscovered underneath the automobile.606

This jacket belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald. Marina Oswald statedthat her husband owned only two jackets, one blue and the othergray.607 The blue jacket was found in the Texas School BookDepository 608 and was identified by Marina Oswald as herhusband's.609 Marina Oswald also identified Commission Exhibit No.162, the jacket found by Captain Westbrook, as her husband's secondjacket.610

The eyewitnesses vary in their identification of the jacket. Mrs.Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper at Oswald's roominghouse and the lastperson known to have seen him before he reached 10th Street and PattonAvenue, said that she may have seen the gray zipper jacket but

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she was not certain. It seemed to her that the jacket Oswald wore wasdarker than Commission Exhibit No. 162.611 Ted Callaway, who saw thegunman moments after the shooting, testified that Commission ExhibitNo. 162 looked like the jacket he was wearing but "I thought it had alittle more tan to it." 612 Two other witnesses, Sam Guinyard andWilliam Arthur Smith, testified that Commission Exhibit No. 162 wasthe jacket worn by the man they saw on November 22. Mrs. Markham andBarbara Davis thought that the jacket worn by the slayer of Tippit wasdarker than the jacket found by Westbrook.613 Scoggins thought it waslighter.614

There is no doubt, however, that Oswald was seen leaving hisroominghouse at about 1 p.m. wearing a zipper jacket, that the man whokilled Tippit was wearing a light-colored jacket, that he was seenrunning along Jefferson Boulevard, that a jacket was found under a carin a lot adjoining Jefferson Boulevard, that the jacket belonged toLee Harvey Oswald, and that when he was arrested at approximately 1:50p.m., he was in shirt sleeves. These facts warrant the finding thatLee Harvey Oswald disposed of his jacket as he fled from the scene ofthe Tippit killing.

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Conclusion

The foregoing evidence establishes that (1) two eyewitnesseswho heard the shots and saw the shooting of Dallas Police Patrolman J.D. Tippit and seven eyewitnesses who saw the flight of the gunman withrevolver in hand positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the manthey saw fire the shots or flee from the scene, (2) the cartridgecases found near the scene of the shooting were fired from therevolver in the possession of Oswald at the time of his arrest, to theexclusion of all other weapons, (3) the revolver in Oswald'spossession at the time of his arrest was purchased by and belonged toOswald, and (4) Oswald's jacket was found along the path of flighttaken by the gunman as he fled from the scene of the killing. On thebasis of this evidence the Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswaldkilled Dallas Police Patrolman J. D. Tippit.

The Texas Theatre is on the north side of Jefferson Boulevard,approximately eight blocks from the scene of the Tippit shooting andsix blocks from where several witnesses last saw Oswald running west on Jefferson Boulevard.615 (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, p.164.) Shortly after the Tippit murder, police sirens sounded alongJefferson Boulevard. One of the persons who heard the sirens wasJohnny Calvin Brewer, manager of Hardy's Shoestore, a few doors eastof the Texas Theatre. Brewer knew from radio broadcasts that thePresident had been shot and that a patrolman had also been shot in OakCliff.616 When he heard police sirens, he "looked up and

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This page reproduces HILL EXHIBIT B: Oswald in Front of Texas Theater; FRANK PIZZO EXHIBIT 453-C and COMMISSION EXHIBIT NO. 1797: Oswald at Dallas Police Department

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saw the man enter the lobby," a recessed area extending about 15 feetbetween the sidewalk and the front door of his store.617 A police carmade a U-turn, and as the sirens grew fainter, the man in the lobby"looked over his shoulder and turned around and walked up WestJefferson towards the theatre." 618 The man wore a T-shirt beneathhis outer shirt and he had no jacket.619 Brewer said, "He just lookedfunny to me. ... His hair was sort of messed up and looked like hehad been running, and he looked scared, and he looked funny." 620

Mrs. Julia Postal, selling tickets at the box office of theTexas Theatre, heard police sirens and then saw a man as he "duckedinto" the outer lobby space of the theatre near the ticket office. 620 Attracted by the sound of the sirens, Mrs. Postal stepped out of thebox office and walked to the curb.622 Shortly thereafter, JohnnyBrewer, who had come from the nearby shoestore, asked Mrs. Postalwhether the fellow that had ducked in had bought a ticket.623 Shesaid, "No; by golly, he didn't," and turned around, but the man wasnowhere in sight.624 Brewer told Mrs. Postal that he had seen the manducking into his place of business and that he had followed him to thetheatre.625 She sent Brewer into the theatre to find the man andcheck the exits, told him about the assassination, and said "I don'tknow if this is the man they want. ... but he is running from themfor some reason." 626 She then called the police.627

At 1:45 p.m., the police radio stated, "Have information asuspect just went in the Texas Theatre on West Jefferson." 628 Patrolcars bearing at least 15 officers converged on the Texas Theatre.629Patrolman M. N. McDonald, with Patrolmen R. Hawkins, T. A. Hutson, andC. T. Walker, entered the theatre from the rear.630 Other policemenentered the front door and searched the balcony.631 Detective Paul L.Bentley rushed to the balcony and told the projectionist to turn upthe house lights.632 Brewer met McDonald and the other policemen atthe alley exit door, stepped out onto the stage with them 633 andpointed out the man who had come into the theatre without paying. 634 The man was Oswald. He was sitting alone in the rear of the mainfloor of the theatre near the right center aisle.635 About six orseven people were seated on the theatre's main floor and an equalnumber in the balcony.636

McDonald first searched two men in the center of the mainfloor, about 10 rows from the front.637 He walked out of the row upthe right center aisle.638 When he reached the row where the suspectwas sitting, McDonald stopped abruptly and told the man to get on hisfeet. 639 Oswald rose from his seat, bringing up both hands.640 AsMcDonald started to search Oswald's waist for a gun, he heard him say,"Well, it's all over now." 641 Oswald then struck McDonald betweenthe eyes with his left fist; with his right hand he drew a gun fromhis waist.642 McDonald struck back with his right hand and grabbedthe gun with his left hand.643 They both fell into the seats.644 Threeother officers, moving toward the scuffle, grabbed Oswald from thefront, rear and side.645 As McDonald fell into the seat with his left

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hand on the gun, he felt something graze across his hand and heardwhat sounded like the snap of the hammer.646 McDonald felt the pistolscratch his cheek as he wrenched it away from Oswald.647 DetectiveBob K. Carroll, who was standing beside McDonald, seized the gum fromhim.648

The other officers who helped subdue Oswald corroborated McDonaldin his testimony except that they did not hear Oswald say, "It's allover now." Deputy Sheriff Eddy R. Walthers recalled such a remark buthe did not reach the scene of the struggle until Oswald had beenknocked to the floor by McDonald and the others.649 Some of theofficers saw Oswald strike McDonald with his fist.650 Most of themheard a click which they assumed to be a click of the hammer of therevolver.651 Testimony of a firearms expert before the Commissionestablished that the hammer of the revolver never touched the shell inthe chamber.652 Although the witnesses did not hear the sound of amisfire, they might have heard a snapping noise resulting from thepolice officer grabbing the cylinder of the revolver and pulling itaway from Oswald while he was attempting to pull the trigger.653 (Seeapp. X, p. 560.)

Two patrons of the theatre and John Brewer testified regardingthe arrest of Oswald, as did the various police officers whoparticipated in the fight. George Jefferson Applin, Jr., confirmedthat Oswald fought with four or five officers before he washandcuffed.654 He added that one officer grabbed the muzzle of ashotgun, drew back, and hit Oswald with the butt end of the gun in theback.655 No other theatre patron or officer has testified that Oswaldwas hit by a gun. Nor did Oswald ever complain that he was hit with agun, or injured in the back. Deputy Sheriff Walthers brought a shotguninto the theatre but laid it on some seats before helping subdueOswald.656 Officer Ray Hawkins said that there was no one near Oswaldwho had a shotgun and he saw no one strike Oswald in the back with arifle butt or the butt of a gun.657

John Gibson, another patron in the theatre, saw an officer grabOswald, and he claims that he heard the click of a gun misfiring.658He saw no shotgun in the possession of any policeman near Oswald.659Johnny Brewer testified he saw Oswald pull the revolver and theofficers struggle with him to take it away but that once he wassubdued, no officer struck him.660 He further stated that while fistswere flying he heard one of the officers say "Kill the President, willyou." 661 It is unlikely that any of the police officers referred toOswald as a suspect in the assassination. While the police radio hadnoted the similarity in description of the two suspects, the arrestingofficers were pursuing Oswald for the murder of Tippit.662 As Oswald,handcuffed, was led from the theatre, he was, according to McDonald,"cursing a little bit and hollering police brutality." 663 At 1:51p.m., police car 2 reported by radio that it was on the way toheadquarters with the suspect.664

Captain Fritz returned to police headquarters from the TexasSchool Book Depository at 2:15 after a brief stop at the sheriff's

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office.665 When he entered the homicide and robbery bureau office, hesaw two detectives standing there with Sgt. Gerald L. Hill, who haddriven from the theatre with Oswald.666 Hill testified that Fritztold the detective to get a search warrant, go to an address on FifthStreet in Irving, and pick up a man named Lee Oswald. When Hill askedwhy Oswald was wanted, Fritz replied, "Well, he was employed down atthe Book Depository and he had not been present for a roll call of theemployees." 667 Hill said, "Captain, we will save you a trip ...there he sits." 668

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STATEMENTS OF OSWALD DURING DETENTION

Oswald was questioned intermittently for approximately 12 hoursbetween 2:30 p.m., on November 22, and 11 a.m., on November 24.Throughout this interrogation he denied that he had anything to doeither with the assassination of President Kennedy or the murder ofPatrolman Tippit. Captain Fritz of the homicide and robbery bureaudid most of the questioning, but he kept no notes and there were nostenographic or tape recordings. Representatives of other lawenforcement agencies were also present, including the FBI and the U.S.Secret Service. They occasionally participated in the questioning.The reports prepared by those present at these interviews are setforth in appendix XI. A full discussion of Oswald's detention andinterrogation is presented in chapter V of this report.

During the evening of November 22, the Dallas Police Departmentperformed paraffin tests on Oswald's hands and right cheek in anapparent effort to determine, by means of a scientific test, whetherOswald had recently fired a weapon. The results were positive for thehands and negative for the right cheek.669 Expert testimony before theCommission was to the effect that the paraffin test was unreliable 670in determining whether or not a person has fired a rifle orrevolver.671 The Commission has, therefore, placed no reliance on theparaffin tests administered by the Dallas police. (See app.. X, pp.561-562.)

Oswald provided little information during his questioning.Frequently, however, he was confronted with evidence which he couldnot explain, and he resorted to statements which are known to belies.672 While Oswald's untrue statements during interrogation werenot considered items of positive proof by the Commission, they hadprobative value in deciding the weight to be given to his denials thathe assassinated President Kennedy and killed Patrolman Tippit. Sinceindependent evidence revealed that Oswald repeatedly and blatantlylied to the police, the Commission gave little weight to his denialsof guilt.

From the outset, Oswald denied owning a rifle. On November 23,Fritz confronted Oswald with the evidence that he had purchased arifle under the fictitious name of "Hidell." Oswald said that this

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was not true. Oswald denied that he had a rifle wrapped up in ablanket in the Paine garage. Oswald also denied owning a rifle andsaid that since leaving the Marine Corps he had fired only a smallbore 22 rifle.673 On the afternoon of November 23, Officers H. M.Moore, R. S. Stovall, and G. F. Rose obtained a search warrant andexamined Oswald's effects in the Paine garage. They discovered twophotographs, each showing Oswald with a rifle and a pistol.674 Thesephotographs were shown to Oswald on the evening of November 23 andagain on the morning of the 24th. According to Fritz, Oswald sneered,saying that they were fake photographs, that he had been photographeda number of times the day before by the police, that they hadsuperimposed upon the photographs a rifle and a revolver.675 He toldFritz a number of times that the smaller photograph was either madefrom the larger, or the larger photograph was made from the smallerand that at the proper time he would show that the pictures werefakes. Fritz told him that the two small photographs were found inthe Paine garage. At that point., Oswald refused to answer any furtherquestions.676 As previously indicated, Marina Oswald testified thatshe took the two pictures with her husband's Imperial Reflex camerawhen they lived on Neely Street. Her testimony was fully supported bya photography expert who testified that in his opinion the pictureswere not composites.677

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The Revolver

At the first interrogation, Oswald claimed that his only crime wascarrying a gun and resisting arrest. When Captain Fritz asked him whyhe carried the revolver, he answered, "Well, you know about a pistol.I just carried it." 678 He falsely alleged that he bought therevolver in Fort Worth,679 when in fact he purchased it from amail-order house in Los Angeles.680

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The Aliases "Hidell" and "O. H. Lee"

The arresting officers found a forged selective service cardwith a picture of Oswald and the name "Alek J. Hidell" in Oswald'sbillfold.681 On November 22 and 23, Oswald refused to tell Fritz whythis card was in his possession,682 or to answer any questionsconcerning the card.683 On Sunday morning, November 24, Oswald deniedthat he knew A. J. Hidell. Captain Fritz produced the selectiveservice card bearing the name "Alek J. Hidell." Oswald became angryand said, "Now, I've told you all I'm going to tell you about thatcard in my billfolds--you have the card yourself and you know as muchabout it as I do." 684 At. the last interrogation on November Oswaldadmitted to Postal Inspector Holmes that he had rented post office box2915, Dallas, but denied that he had received a package in this boxaddressed to Hidell. He also denied that he had received the riflethrough this box.685 Holmes reminded Oswald that A. J.

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Hidell was listed on post office box 30061, New Orleans, as oneentitled to receive mail. Oswald replied, "I don't know anythingabout that."686

When asked why he lived at his roominghouse under the name O. H.Lee, Oswald responded that the landlady simply made a mistake, becausehe told her that his name was Lee, meaning his first name.687 Anexamination of the roominghouse register revealed that Oswald actuallysigned the name O. H. Lee.688

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The Curtain Rod Story

In concluding that Oswald was carrying a rifle in the paper bag onthe morning of November 22, 1963, the Commission found that Oswaldlied when he told Frazier that he was returning to Irving to obtaincurtain rods. When asked about the curtain rod story, Oswald liedagain. He denied that he had ever told Frazier that he wanted a rideto Irving to get curtain rods for an apartment.689 He explained that aparty for the Paine children had been planned for the weekend and hepreferred not to be in the Paine house at that time; therefore, hemade his weekly visit on Thursday night.690 Actually, the party forone of the Paine's children was the preceding weekend, when MarinaOswald suggested that Oswald remain in Dallas.691 When told thatFrazier and Mrs. Randle had seen him carrying a long heavy package,Oswald replied, "Well, they was mistaken. That must have been someother time he picked me up." 692 In one interview, he told Fritz thatthe only sack he carried to work that day was a lunch sack which hekept on his lap during the ride from Irving to Dallas.693 Fraziertestified before the Commission that Oswald carried no lunch sack thatday.694

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Actions During and After Shooting

During the first interrogation on November 22, Fritz askedOswald to account for himself at the time the President was shot.Oswald told him that he ate lunch in the first-floor lunchroom andthen went to the second floor for a co*ke which he brought downstairs.He acknowledged the encounter with the police officer on the secondfloor. Oswald told Fritz that after lunch he went outside, talked withForeman Bill Shelley for 5 or 10 minutes and then left for home. Hesaid that he left work because Bill Shelley said that there would beno more work done that day in the building.695 Shelley denied seeingOswald after 12 noon or at any time after the shooting.696 The nextday, Oswald added to his story. He stated that at the time thePresident was shot he was having lunch with "Junior" but he did notgive Junior's last name.697 The only employee at the DepositoryBuilding named "Junior" was James Jarman, Jr. Jarman testified thathe ate his lunch on the first floor around 5 minutes to 12, and thathe neither ate lunch with nor saw Oswald.698 Jarman did talk to Oswaldthat morning:

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... he asked me what were the people gathering around on the corner for and I told him that the President was supposed to pass that morning, and he asked me did I know which way he was coming, and I told him, yes, he probably come down Main and turn on Houston and then back again on Elm. Then he said, "Oh, I see," and that was all.699

The Attempt on the Life of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker

At approximately 9 p.m., on April 10, 1963, in Dallas, Tex.,Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, an active and controversial figure on theAmerican political scene since his resignation from the U.S. Army in1961, narrowly escaped death when a rifle bullet fired from outsidehis home passed near his head as he was seated at his desk.700 Therewere no eyewitnesses, although a 14-year-old boy in a neighboringhouse claimed that immediately after the shooting he saw two men, inseparate cars, drive out of a church parking lot adjacent to Walker'shome.701 A friend of Walker's testified that two nights before theshooting he saw "two men around the house peeking in windows." 702General Walker gave this information to the police before theshooting, but it did not help solve the crime. Although the bullet wasrecovered from Walker's house (see app. X, p. 562), in the absence ofa weapon it was of little investigatory value. General Walker hiredtwo investigators to determine whether a former employee might havebeen involved in the shooting.708 Their results were negative. UntilDecember 3, 1963, the Walker shooting remained unsolved.

The Commission evaluated the following evidence in consideringwhether Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot which almost killed GeneralWalker: (1) A note which Oswald left for his wife on the evening ofthe shooting, (2) photographs found among Oswald's possessions after theassassination of President Kennedy, (3) firearm identification of thebullet found in Walker's home, and (4) admissions and other statementsmade to Marina Oswald by Oswald concerning the shooting.

Note left by Oswald.--On December 2, 1963, Mrs. Ruth Paine turnedover to the police some of the Oswalds' belongings, including aRussian volume entitled "Book of Useful Advice." 704, In this book wasan undated note written in Russian. In translation, the note read asfollows:

1. This is the key to the mailbox which is located in the mainpost office in the city on Ervay Street. This is the same street where the drugstore, in which youalways waited is located. You will find the mailbox in the post office which is located 4 blocksfrom the drugstore on that street. I paid for the box last month so don't worry about it.

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2. Send the information as to what has happened to me to theEmbassy and include newspaper clippings (should there be anythingabout me in the newspapers). I believe that the Embassy will comequickly to your assistance on learning everything.
3. I paid the house rent on the 2d so don't worry about it.
4. Recently I also paid for water and gas.
5. The money from work will possibly be coming. The money will besent to our post office box. Go to the bank and cash the check.
6. You can either throw out or give my clothing, etc. away. Do notkeep these. However, I prefer that you hold on to my personal papers(military, civil, etc.).
7. Certain of my documents are in the small blue valise.
8. The address book can be found on my table in the study shouldneed same.
9. We have friends here. The Red Cross also will help you.(Red Cross in English). [sic]
10. I left you as much money as I could, $60 on the second of themonth. You and the baby [apparently] can live for another 2 monthsusing $10 per week.
11. If I am alive and taken prisoner, the city jail islocated at the end of the bridge through which we always passed ongoing to the city (right in the beginning of the city after crossingthe bridge).705

James C. Cadigan, FBI handwriting expert, testified that this note waswritten by Lee Harvey Oswald.706

Prior to the Walker shooting on April 10, Oswald had beenattending typing classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings. Hehad quit these classes at least a week before the shooting, whichoccurred on a Wednesday night.707 According to Marina Oswald'stestimony, on the night of the Walker shooting, her husband left theirapartment on Neely Street shortly after dinner. She thought he wasattending a class or was on his own business." 708 When he failed toreturn by 10 or 10:30 p.m., Marina Oswald went to his room anddiscovered the note. She testified: "When he came back I asked himwhat had happened. He was very pale. I don't remember the exacttime, but it was very late. And he told me not to ask him anyquestions. He only told me he had shot at General Walker." 709 Oswaldtold his wife that he did not know whether he had hit Walker;according to Marina Oswald when he learned on the radio and in thenewspapers the next. day that he had missed, he said that he "was verysorry that he had not hit him." 710 Marina Oswald's testimony wasfully supported by the note itself which appeared to be the work of aman expecting to be killed, or imprisoned, or to disappear. The lastparagraph directed her to the jail and the other paragraphs instructedher on the disposal of Oswald's personal effects and the management ofher affairs if he should not return.

It is clear that the note was written while the Oswalds wereliving in Dallas before they moved to New Orleans in the spring of1963.

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The references to house rent and payments for water and gas indicatedthat the note was written when they were living in a rented apartment;therefore it could not have been written while Marina Oswald wasliving with the Paines. Moreover, the reference in paragraph 3 topaying "the house rent on the 2d" would be consistent with the periodwhen the Oswalds were living on Neely Street since the apartment wasrented on March 3, 1963. Oswald had paid the first month's rent inadvance on March 2, 1963, and the second month's rent was paid oneither April 2 or April 3.711 The main post office "on Ervay Street"refers to the post office where Oswald rented box 2915 from October 9,1962, to May 14, 1963.712 Another statement which limits the timewhen it could have been written is the reference "you and the baby,"which would indicate that it was probably written before the birth ofOswald's second child on October 20, 1963.

Oswald had apparently mistaken the county jail for the city jail.From Neely Street the Oswalds would have traveled downtown on theBeckley bus, across the Commerce Street viaduct and into downtownDallas through the Triple Underpass.713 Either the viaduct or theunderpass might have been the "bridge" mentioned in the last paragraphof the note. The county jail is at the corner of Houston and MainStreets "right in the beginning of the city" after one travels throughthe underpass.

Photographs.--In her testimony before the Commission in February1964, Marina Oswald stated that when Oswald returned home on the nightof the Walker shooting, he told her that he had been planning theattempt for 2 months. He showed her a notebook 3 days latercontaining photographs of General Walker's home and a map of the areawhere the house was located.714 Although Oswald destroyed thenotebook,715 three photographs found among Oswald's possessions afterthe assassination were identified by Marina Oswald as photographs ofGeneral Walker's house.716 Two of these photographs were taken fromthe rear of Walker's house.717 The Commission confirmed, bycomparison with other photographs, that these were, indeed,photographs of the rear of Walker's house.718 An examination of thewindow at the rear of the house, the wall through which the bulletpassed, and the fence behind the house indicated that the bullet wasfired from a position near the point where one of the photographs wastaken.719

The third photograph identified by Marina Oswald depicts theentrance to General Walker's driveway from a back alley.720 Also seenin the picture is the fence on which Walker's assailant apparentlyrested the rifle.721 An examination of certain construction workappearing in the background of this photograph revealed that thepicture was taken between March 8 and 12, 1963, and most probably oneither March 9 or March 10.722 Oswald purchased the money order forthe rifle on March 12, the rifle was shipped on March 20,728 and theshooting occurred on April 10. A photography expert with the FBI wasable to determine that, this picture was taken with the ImperialReflex camera owned by Lee Harvey Oswald.724 (See app. X, p. 596.)

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A fourth photograph, showing a stretch of railroad tracks, wasalso identified by Marina Oswald as having been taken by her husband,presumably in connection with the Walker shooting.725 Investigationdetermined that this photograph was taken approximately seven-tenthsof a mile from Walker's house.726 Another photograph of railroadtracks found among Oswald's possessions was not identified by hiswife, but investigation revealed that it was taken from a pointslightly less than half a mile from General Walker's house.727 MarinaOswald stated that- when she asked her husband what be had done withthe rifle, he replied that he had buried it in the ground or hidden itin some bushes and that he also mentioned a railroad track in thisconnection. She testified that several days later Oswald recoveredhis rifle and brought it back to their apartment.728

Firearms identification.--In the room beyond the one in whichGeneral Walker was sitting on the night of the shooting the Dallaspolice recovered a badly mutilated bullet which had come to rest on astack of paper.729 The Dallas City-County Investigation Laboratorytried to determine the type of weapon which fired the bullet. Theoral report was negative because of the battered condition of thebullet.730 On November 30, 1963, the FBI requested the bullet forballistics examination; the Dallas Police Department forwarded it onDecember 2, 1963.731

Robert A. Frazier, an FBI ballistics identification expert,testified that he was "unable to reach a conclusion" as to whether ornot the bullet recovered from Walker's house had been fired from therifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book DepositoryBuilding. He concluded that "the general rifling characteristics ofthe rifle ... are of the same type as those found on the bullet ... and, further, on this basis ... the bullet could have been firedfrom the rifle on the basis of its land and groove impressions." 732Frazier testified further that the FBI avoids the category of"probable" identification. Unless the missile or cartridge case can beidentified as coming from a particular weapon to the exclusion of allothers, the FBI refuses to draw any conclusion as to probability.733Frazier testified, however, that he found no microscopiccharacteristics or other evidence which would indicate that the bulletwas not fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle owned by Lee HarveyOswald. It was a 6.5-millimeter bullet and, according to Frazier,"relatively few" types of rifles could produce the characteristicsfound on the bullet.734

Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of CriminalIdentification and Investigation, conducted an independent examinationof this bullet and concluded "that there is a fair probability" thatthe bullet was fired from the rifle used in the assassination ofPresident Kennedy.735 In explaining the difference between his policyand that of the FBI on the matter of probable identification, Nicolsaid:

I am aware of their position. This is not, I am sure, arrived atwithout careful consideration. However, to say that because one doesnot find sufficient marks for identification that it is a negative,

I think is going overboard in the other direction. And for purposes ofprobative value, for whatever it might be worth, in the absence ofvery definite negative evidence, I think it is permissible to say thatin an exhibit such as 573 there is enough on it to say that it couldhave come, and even perhaps a little stronger, to say that it probablycame from this, without going so far as to say to the exclusion of allother guns. This I could not do. 736

Additional corroborative evidence.--The admissions made to MarinaOswald by her husband are an important element in the evidence thatLee Harvey Oswald fired the shot at General Walker. As shown above,the note and the photographs of Walker's house and of the nearbyrailroad tracks provide important corroboration for her account of theincident. Other details described by Marina Oswald coincide withfacts developed independently of her statements. She testified thather husband had postponed his attempt to kill Walker until thatWednesday because he had heard that there was to be a gathering at thechurch next door to Walker's house on that evening. He indicated thathe wanted more people in the vicinity at the time of the attempt sothat his arrival and departure would not attract great attention.737An official of this church told FBI agents that services are heldevery Wednesday at the church except during the month of August.738Marina Oswald also testified that her husband had used a bus to returnhome.739 A study of the bus routes indicates that Oswald could havetaken any one of several different buses to Walker's house or to apoint near the railroad tracks where he may have concealed therifle.740 It would have been possible for him to take differentroutes in approaching and leaving the scene of the shooting.

Conclusion.--Based on (1) the contents of the note which Oswaldleft for his wife on April 10, 1963, (2) the photographs found amongOswald's possessions, (3) the testimony of firearms identificationexperts, and (4) the testimony of Marina Oswald, the Commission hasconcluded that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to take the life of Maj.Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army) on April 10, 1963. Thefinding that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to murder a public figure inApril 1963 was considered of probative value in this investigation,although the Commission's conclusion concerning the identity of theassassin was based on evidence independent of the finding that Oswaldattempted to kill General Walker.

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Richard M. Nixon Incident

Another alleged threat by Oswald against a public figureinvolved former Vice President Richard M. Nixon. In January 1964,Marina Oswald and her business manager, James Martin, told RobertOswald,

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Lee Harvey Oswald's brother, that Oswald had once threatened to shootformer Vice President Richard M. Nixon.741 When Marina Oswaldtestified before the Commission on February 3-6, 1964, she had failedto mention the incident when she was asked whether Oswald had everexpressed any hostility toward any official of the United States.742The Commission first learned of this incident when Robert Oswaldrelated it to FBI agents on February 19, 1964,743 and to theCommission on February 21.744

Marina Oswald appeared before the Commission again on June 11,1964, and testified that a few days before her husband's departurefrom Dallas to New Orleans on April 24, 1963, he finished reading amorning newspaper "... and put on a good suit. I saw that he took apistol. I asked him where he was going, and why he was gettingdressed. He answered 'Nixon is coming. I want to go and have alook." He also said that he would use the pistol if the opportunityarose.745 She reminded him that after the Walker shooting he hadpromised never to repeat such an act. Marina Oswald related the eventswhich followed:

I called him into the bathroom and I closed the door and I wanted toprevent him and then I started to cry. And I told him that heshouldn't do this, and that he had promised me.
°°°°°°
I remember that I held him. We actually struggled for several minutes and then he quieted down.746

Oswald's revolver was shipped from Los Angeles on March 20, 1963,749 and he left for New Orleans on April 24, 1963. 750 No edition ofeither Dallas newspaper during the period January 1, 1963, to May 15,1963, mentioned any proposed visit by Mr. Nixon to Dallas.751 Mr.Nixon advised the Commission that the only time he was in Dallas in1963 was on November 20-21, 1963.752 An investigation failed toreveal any invitation extended to Mr. Nixon during the period whenOswald's threat reportedly occurred.753 The Commission has concluded,therefore, that regardless of what Oswald may have said to his wife hewas not actually planning to shoot Mr. Nixon at that time in Dallas.

On April 23, 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was inDallas for a visit which had been publicized in the Dallas newspapersthroughout April.754 The Commission asked Marina Oswald whether shemight have misunderstood the object of her husband's threat. Shestated, "there is no question that in this incident it was a questionof Mr. Nixon." 755 When asked later whether it might have been

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Mr. Johnson, she said, "Yes, no. I am getting a little confused withso many questions. I was absolutely convinced it was Nixon and nowafter all these questions I wonder if I am right in my mind? 756 Shestated further that Oswald had only mentioned Nixon's name once duringthe incident.757 Marina Oswald might have misunderstood her husband.Mr. Johnson was the then Vice President and his visit took place onApril 23d. 758 This was 1 day before Oswald left for New Orleans andMarina appeared certain that the Nixon incident "wasn't the daybefore. Perhaps 3 days before." 759

Marina Oswald speculated that the incident may have beenunrelated to an actual threat. She said,

... It might have been that he was just. trying to test me. Hewas the kind of person who could try and wound somebody in that way.Possibly he didn't want to go out at all but was just doing this allas a sort of joke, not really as a joke but rather to simply wound me,to make me feel bad.760

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OSWALD'S RIFLE CAPABILITY

In deciding whether Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots which killedPresident Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally, the Commissionconsidered whether Oswald, using his own rifle, possessed thecapability to hit his target with two out of three shots under theconditions described in chapter Ill. The Commission evaluated (1) thenature of the shots, (2) Oswald's Marine training in marksmanship, (3)his experience and practice after leaving the Marine Corps, and (4)the accuracy of the weapon and the quality of the ammunition.

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The Nature of the Shots

For a rifleman situated on the sixth floor of the Texas SchoolBook Depository Building the shots were at a slow-moving targetproceeding on a downgrade in virtually a straight line with thealinement of the assassin's rifle, at a range of 177 to 266 feet.761An aerial photograph of Dealey Plaza shows that Elm Street runs at anangle so that the President would have been moving in an almoststraight line away from the assassin's rifle.762 (See CommissionExhibit No. 876, p. 33.) In addition, the 3° downward slope of ElmStreet was of assistance in eliminating at least some of theadjustment which is ordinarily required when a marksman must raise hisrifle as a target moves farther away.763

Four marksmanship experts testified before the Commission. Maj.Eugene D. Anderson, assistant head of the Marksmanship Branch of

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the U.S. Marine Corps, testified that the shots which struck thePresident in the neck and in the head were "not ... particularlydifficult." 764 Robert A. Frazier, FBI expert in firearmsidentification and training, said:

From my own experience in shooting over the years, when you shoot at175 feet or 260 feet, which is less than 100 yards, with a telescopicsight, you should not have any difficulty in hitting your target.
°°°°°°
I mean it requires no training at all to shoot a weapon with atelescopic sight once you know that you must put the crosshairs on thetarget and that is all that is necessary.765

The effect of a four-power telescopic sight on the difficultyof these shots was considered in detail by M. Sgt. James A. Zahm,noncommissioned officer in charge of the Marksmanship Training Unit inthe Weapons Training Battalion of the Marine Corps School at Quantico,Va.767 Referring to a rifle with a four-power telescope, SergeantZahm said:

... this is the ideal type of weapon for moving targets ... 768
°°°°°°
... Using the scope, rapidly working a bolt and using the scope torelocate your target quickly and at the same time when you locate thattarget you identify it and the crosshairs are in close relationship tothe point you want to shoot at, it just takes a minor move in aimingto bring the crosshairs to bear, and then it is a quick squeeze.769°°°°°°
I consider it a real advantage, particularly at the range of 100yards, in identifying your target. It. allows you to see your targetclearly, and it is still of a minimum amount of power that it doesn'texaggerate your own body movements. It just is an aid in seeing inthe fact that you only have the one element, the crosshair, inrelation to the target as opposed to iron sights with aligning thesights and then aligning them on the target.770

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head at a distance of 265.3 feet was "an easy shot." 771 Afterviewing photographs depicting the alinement of Elm Street in relationto the Texas School Book Depository Building, Zahm stated further:

This is a definite advantage to the shooter, the vehicle movingdirectly away from him and the downgrade of the street, and he beingin an elevated position made an almost stationary target while he wasaiming in, very little movement if any.772

Oswald's Marine Training

In accordance with standard Marine procedures, Oswald receivedextensive training in marksmanship.773 During the first week of anintensive 8-week training period he received instruction in sighting,aiming, and manipulation of the trigger.774 He went through a seriesof exercises called dry firing where he assumed all positions whichwould later be used in the qualification course.775 Afterfamiliarization with live ammunition in the .22 rifle and .22 pistol,Oswald, like all Marine recruits, received training on the rifle rangeat distances up to 500 yards, firing 50 rounds each day for fivedays.776

Following that training, Oswald was tested in December of 1956,and obtained a score of 212, which was 2 points above the minimum forqualifications as a "sharpshooter" in a scale of marksman--sharpshooter--expert.777 In May of 1959, on another range,Oswald scored 191, which was 1 point over the minimum for ranking as a"marksman." 778 The Marine Corps records maintained on Oswald furthershow that he had fired and was familiar with the Browning Automaticrifle, .45 caliber pistol, and 12-gage riot gun.779

Based on the general Marine Corps ratings, Lt. Col. A. G. Folsom,Jr., head, Records Branch, Personnel Department, Headquarters U.S.Marine Corps, evaluated the sharpshooter qualification as a "fairlygood shot." and a low marksman rating as a "rather poor shot."

When asked to explain the different scores achieved by Oswald onthe two occasions when he fired for record, Major Anderson said:

... when he fired that [212] he had just completed a veryintensive preliminary training period. He had the services of anexperienced highly trained coach. He had high motivation. He hadpresumably a good to excellent rifle and good ammunition. We havenothing here to show under what conditions the B course was fired. Itmight well have been a bad day for firing the rifle--windy, rainy,dark. There is little probability that he had a good, expert coach,and he probably didn't have as high a motivation because he was nolonger in recruit training and under the care of the drill instructor. There is some possibility that the rifle he was firing might not havebeen as good a rifle as the rifle that he was firing in his A coursefiring, because [he] may well have carried this rifle for quite sometime, and it got banged around in normal usage. 781

Major Anderson concluded:

I would say that as compared to other Marines receiving the sametype of training, that Oswald was a good shot, somewhat better than orequal to--better than the average let us say. As compared to acivilian who had not received this intensive training, he would beconsidered as a good to excellent shot.782

Based on that training, his basic knowledge in sight manipulationand trigger squeeze and what not, I would say that he would be capableof sighting that rifle in well, firing it, with 10 rounds.783

I would say in the Marine Corps he is a good shot, slightly aboveaverage, and as compared to the average male of his age throughout thecivilian, throughout the United States, that he is an excellentshot.784

Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the Marines

During one of his leaves from the Marines, Oswald hunted with hisbrother Robert, using a .22 caliber bolt-action rifle belonging eitherto Robert or Robert's in-laws.785 After he left the Marines andbefore departing for Russia, Oswald, his brother, and a thirdcompanion went hunting for squirrels and rabbits.786 On that occasionOswald again used a bolt-action .22 caliber rifle; and according toRobert, Lee Oswald exhibited an average amount of proficiency withthat weapon.787 While in Russia, Oswald obtained a hunting license,joined a hunting club and went hunting about six times, as discussedmore fully in chapter VI.788 Soon after Oswald returned from theSoviet Union he again went hunting with his brother, Robert, and useda borrowed .22 caliber bolt-action rifle.789 After Oswald purchasedthe Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, he told his wife that he practiced withit.790 Marina Oswald testified that on one occasion she saw him takethe rifle, concealed in a raincoat, from the house on Neely Street.Oswald told her he was going to practice with it. 791 According toGeorge De Mohrenschildt, Oswald said that he went target shooting withthat rifle.792

Marina Oswald testified that in New Orleans in May of 1963, sheobserved Oswald sitting with the rifle on their screened porch atnight, sighting with the telescopic lens and operating the bolt.798Examination of the cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of theDepository

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Building established that they had been previously loaded and ejectedfrom the assassination rifle, which would indicate that Oswaldpracticed operating the bolt.794

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Accuracy of Weapon

It will be recalled from the discussion in chapter III that theassassin in all probability hit two out of the three shots during themaximum time span of 4.8 to 5.6 seconds if the second shot missed, or,if either the first or third shots missed, the assassin fired thethree shots during a minimum time span of 7.1 to 7.9 seconds.795 Aseries of tests were performed to determine whether the weapon andammunition used in the assassination were capable of firing the shotswhich were fired by the assassin on November 22, 1963. The ammunitionused by the assassin was manufactured by Western Cartridge Co. of EastAlton, III. In tests with the Mannlicher-Carcano C2766 rifle, over100 rounds of this ammunition were fired by the FBI and the InfantryWeapons Evaluation Branch of the U.S. Army. There were no misfires.796

In an effort to test the rifle under conditions which simulatedthose which prevailed during the assassination, the Infantry WeaponsEvaluation Branch of the Ballistics Research Laboratory had expertriflemen fire the assassination weapon from a tower at threesilhouette targets at distances of 175, 240, and 265 feet. The targetat 265 feet was placed to the right of the 240-foot target which wasin turn placed to the right of the closest silhouette.797 Using theassassination rifle mounted with the telescopic sight, three marksmen,rated as master by the National Rifle Association, each fired twoseries of three shots. In the first series the firers required timespans of 4.6, 6.75, and 8.25 seconds respectively. On the secondseries they required 5.15, 6.45, and 7 seconds. None of the marksmenhad any practice with the assassination weapon except for exercisingthe bolt for 2 or 3 minutes on a dry run. They had not even pulled thetrigger because of concern about breaking the firing pin.798

The marksmen took as much time as they wanted for the first targetand all hit the target.799 For the first four attempts, the firersmissed the second shot. by several inches. 800 The angle from thefirst to the second shot was greater than from the second to thethird shot and required a movement in the basic firing position of themarksmen.801 This angle was used in the test because the majority ofthe eyewitnesses to the assassination stated that there was a shorterinterval between shots two and three than between shots one andtwo.802 As has been shown in chapter III, if the three shots werefired within a period of from 4.8 to 5.6 seconds, the shots would havebeen evenly spaced and the assassin would not have incurred so sharpan angular movement.803

Five of the six shots hit the third target where the angle ofmovement of the weapon was small.804 On the basis of these results,Simmons testified that in his opinion the probability of hitting thetargets at the relatively short range at which they were hit was veryhigh.805

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Considering the various probabilities which may have prevailed duringthe actual assassination, the highest level of firing performancewhich would have been required of the assassin and the C2766 riflewould have been to fire three times and hit the target twice within aspan of 4.8 to 5.6 seconds. In fact, one of the firers in the rapidfire test in firing his two series of three shots, hit the targettwice within a span of 4.6 and 5.15 seconds. The others would havebeen able to reduce their times if they had been given the opportunityto become familiar with the movement of the bolt and the triggerpull.806 Simmons testified that familiarity with the bolt could beachieved in dry practice and, as has been indicated above, Oswaldengaged in such practice.807 If the assassin missed either the firstor third shot, he had a total of between 4.8 and 5.6 seconds betweenthe two shots which hit and a total minimum time period of from 7.1 to7.9 seconds for all three shots. All three of the firers in thesetests were able to fire the rounds within the time period which wouldhave been available to the assassin under those conditions.

Three FBI firearms experts tested the rifle in order to determinethe speed with which it could be fired. The purpose of thisexperiment was not to test the rifle under conditions which prevailedat the time of the assassination but to determine the maximum speed atwhich it could be fired. The three FBI experts each fired three shotsfrom the weapon at 15 yards in 6, 7, and 9 seconds, and one of theseagents, Robert A. Frazier, fired two series of three shots at 25 yardsin 4.6 and 4.8 seconds.808 At 15 yards each man's shots landed withinthe size of a dime.809 The shots fired by Frazier at the range of 25yards landed within an area of 2 inches and 5 inches respectively.810Frazier later fired four groups of three shots at a distance of 100yards in 5.9, 6.2, 5.6, and 6.5 seconds. Each series of three shotslanded within areas ranging in diameter from 3 to 5 inches.811Although all of the shots were a few inches high and to the right ofthe target., this was because of a defect in the scope which wasrecognized by the FBI agents and which they could have compensated forif they were aiming to hit a bull's-eye.812 They were instead firingto determine how rapidly the weapon could be fired and the area withinwhich three shots could be placed. Frazier testified that while hecould not tell when the defect occurred, but that a person familiarwith the weapon could compensate for it.813 Moreover, the defect wasone which would have assisted the assassin aiming at a target whichwas moving away. Frazier said, "The fact that the crosshairs are sethigh would actually compensate for any lead which had to be taken. Sothat if you aimed with this weapon as it actually was received at thelaboratory, it would not be necessary to take any lead whatsoever inorder to hit the intended object. The scope would accomplish the leadfor you." Frazier added that the scope would cause a slight miss tothe right. It should be noted, however, that the President's car wascurving slightly to the right when the third shot was fired.

Based on these tests the experts agreed that the assassinationrifle was an accurate weapon. Simmons described it as "quiteaccurate,"

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in fact, as accurate as current military rifles.814 Fraziertestified that the rifle was accurate, that it had less recoil thanthe average military rifle and that one would not have to be an expertmarksman to have accomplished the assassination with the weapon whichwas used.815

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Conclusion

The various tests showed that the Mannlicher-Carcano was an accuraterifle and that the use of a four-power scope was a substantial aid torapid, accurate firing. Oswald's Marine training in marksmanship, hisother rifle experience and his established familiarity with thisparticular weapon show that he possessed ample capability to committhe assassination. Based on the known facts of the assassination, theMarine marksmanship experts, Major Anderson and Sergeant Zahm,concurred in the opinion that Oswald had the capability to fire threeshots, with two hits, within 4.8 and 5.6 seconds.816 Concerning theshots which struck the President in the back of the neck, SergeantZahm testified: "With the equipment he [Oswald] had and with hisability I consider it a very easy shot." 817 Having fired this slotthe assassin was then required to hit the target one more time withina space of from 4.8 to 5.6 seconds. On the basis of Oswald's trainingand the accuracy of the weapon as established by the tests, theCommission concluded that Oswald was capable of accomplishing thissecond hit even if there was an intervening shot which missed. Theprobability of hitting the President a second time would have beenmarkedly increased if, in fact, he had missed either the first orthird shots thereby leaving a time span of 4.8 to 5.6' seconds betweenthe two shots which struck their mark. The Commission agrees with thetestimony of Marine marksmanship expert Zahm that it was easy shot" tohit some part of the President's body, and that the range where therifleman would be expected to hit would include the President'shead.818

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CONCLUSION

On the basis of the evidence reviewed in this chapter, theCommission has found that Lee Harvey Oswald (1) owned and possessedthe rifle used to kill President Kennedy and wound Governor Connally,(2) brought this rifle into the Depository Building on the morning ofthe assassination, (3) was present, at the time of the assassination,at the window from which the shots were fired (4) killed Dallas PoliceOfficer J. D. Tippit in an apparent attempt to escape, (5) resistedarrest by drawing a fully loaded pistol and attempting to shoot another police officer, (6) lied to the police after his arrestconcerning important substantive matters, (7) attempted, in April1963, to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, and (8) possessed thecapability with a rifle which would have enabled him to commit theassassination. On the basis of these findings the Commission hasconcluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of PresidentKennedy.

Bibliographic note: Web version based on Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Washington, DC: United States Government PrintingOffice, 1964. 1 volume, 888 pages. The formatting of this Web version may differ from the original.