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

by United States. Warren Commission

CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING THE ASSASSINATION

Earlier chapters have set forth the evidence upon which the Commission concluded that President Kennedy was fired upon from a single window in the southeast corner of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, and that Lee Harvey Oswald was the person who fired the shots from this point. As reflected in those chapters, a certain sequence of events necessarily took place in order for the assassination to have occurred as it did. The motorcade traveled past the Texas School Book Depository; Oswald had access to the sixth floor of the building; Oswald brought the rifle into the building; the cartons were arranged at the sixth-floor window; and Oswald escaped from the building before the police had sealed off the exits. Accordingly, the Commission has investigated these circumstances to determine whether Oswald received help from any other person in planning or performing the shooting.

Selection of Motorcade Route

The factors involved in the choice of the motorcade route by the Secret Service have been discussed in chapter II of this report.[C6-2] It was there indicated that after passing through a portion of suburban Dallas, the motorcade was to travel west on Main Street, and then to the Trade Mart by way of the Stemmons Freeway, the most direct route from that point. This route would take the motorcade along the traditional parade route through downtown Dallas; it allowed the maximum number of persons to observe the President; and it enabled the motorcade to cover the distance from Love Field to the Trade Mart in the 45 minutes allocated by members of the White House staff planning the President’s schedule in Dallas. No member of the Secret Service, the Dallas Police Department, or the local host committee who was consulted felt that any other route would be preferable.

To reach Stemmons Freeway from Main Street, it was determined that the motorcade would turn right from Main Street onto Houston Street for one block and then left onto Elm Street, proceeding through the Triple Underpass to the Stemmons Freeway access road. This route took the motorcade past the Texas School Book Depository Building on the northwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets. Because of the sharp turn at this corner, the motorcade also reduced its speed. The motorcade would have passed approximately 90 yards further from the Depository Building and made no turn near the building if it had attempted to reach the Stemmons Freeway directly from Main Street. The road plan in Dealey Plaza, however, is designed to prevent such a turn. In order to keep motorists from reaching the freeway from Main Street, a concrete barrier has been erected between Main and Elm Streets extending beyond the freeway entrance. (See Commission Exhibits Nos. 2114-2116, [pp. 35-37].) Hence, it would have been necessary for the motorcade either to have driven over this barrier or to have made a sharp S-turn in order to have entered the freeway from Main Street. Selection of the motorcade route was thus entirely appropriate and based on such legitimate considerations as the origin and destination of the motorcade, the desired opportunity for the President to greet large numbers of people, and normal patterns of traffic.

Oswald’s Presence in the Depository Building

Oswald’s presence as an employee in the Texas School Book Depository Building was the result of a series of happenings unrelated to the President’s trip to Dallas. He obtained the Depository job after almost 2 weeks of job hunting which began immediately upon his arrival in Dallas from Mexico on October 3, 1963.[C6-3] At that time he was in poor financial circumstances, having arrived from Mexico City with approximately $133 or less,[C6-4] and with his unemployment compensation benefits due to expire on October 8.[C6-5] Oswald and his wife were expecting the birth of their second child, who was in fact born on October 20.[C6-6] In attempting to procure work, Oswald utilized normal channels, including the Texas Employment Commission.[C6-7]

On October 4, 1963, Oswald applied for a position with Padgett Printing Corp., which was located at 1313 Industrial Boulevard, several blocks from President Kennedy’s parade route.[C6-8] Oswald favorably impressed the plant superintendent who checked his prior job references, one of which was Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, the firm where Oswald had done photography work from October 1962 to April 1963.[C6-9] The following report was written by Padgett’s plant superintendent on the reverse side of Oswald’s job application: “Bob Stovall does not recommend this man. He was released because of his record as a troublemaker.—Has Communistic tendencies.”[C6-10] Oswald received word that Padgett Printing had hired someone else.[C6-11]

Oswald’s employment with the Texas School Book Depository came about through a chance conversation on Monday, October 14, between Ruth Paine, with whom his family was staying while Oswald was living in a roominghouse in Dallas, and two of Mrs. Paine’s neighbors.[C6-12] During a morning conversation over coffee, at which Marina Oswald was present, Oswald’s search for employment was mentioned. The neighbors suggested several places where Oswald might apply for work. One of the neighbors present, Linnie Mae Randle, said that her brother had recently been hired as a schoolbook order filler at the Texas School Book Depository and she thought the Depository might need additional help. She testified, “and of course you know just being neighborly and everything, we felt sorry for Marina because her baby was due right away as we understood it, and he didn’t have any work * * *.”[C6-13]

When Marina Oswald and Mrs. Paine returned home, Mrs. Paine promptly telephoned the Texas School Book Depository and spoke to Superintendent Roy Truly, whom she did not know.[C6-14] Truly agreed to interview Oswald, who at the time was in Dallas seeking employment. When Oswald called that evening, Mrs. Paine told him of her conversation with Truly.[C6-15] The next morning Oswald went to the Texas School Book Depository where he was interviewed and hired for the position of order filler.[C6-16]

On the same date, the Texas Employment Commission attempted to refer Oswald to an airline company which was looking for baggage and cargo handlers at a salary which was $100 per month higher than that offered by the Depository Co.[C6-17] The Employment Commission tried to advise Oswald of this job at 10:30 a.m. on October 16, 1963. Since the records of the Commission indicate that Oswald was then working,[C6-18] it seems clear that Oswald was hired by the Depository Co. before the higher paying job was available. It is unlikely that he ever learned of this second opportunity.

Although publicity concerning the President’s trip to Dallas appeared in Dallas newspapers as early as September 13, 1963, the planning of the motorcade route was not started until after November 4, when the Secret Service was first notified of the trip.[C6-19] A final decision as to the route could not have been reached until November 14, when the Trade Mart was selected as the luncheon site.[C6-20] Although news reports on November 15 and November 16 might have led a person to believe that the motorcade would pass the Depository Building, the route was not finally selected until November 18; it was announced in the press on November 19, only 3 days before the President’s arrival.[C6-21] Based on the circumstances of Oswald’s employment and the planning of the motorcade route, the Commission has concluded that Oswald’s employment in the Depository was wholly unrelated to the President’s trip to Dallas.

Bringing Rifle Into Building

On the basis of the evidence developed in chapter IV the Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald carried the rifle used in the assassination into the Depository Building on Friday, November 22, 1963, in the handmade brown paper bag found near the window from which the shots were fired.[C6-22] The arrangement by which Buell Wesley Frazier drove Oswald between Irving and Dallas was an innocent one, having commenced when Oswald first started working at the Depository.[C6-23] As noted above, it was Frazier’s sister, Linnie May Randle, who had suggested to Ruth Paine that Oswald might be able to find employment at the Depository. When Oswald started working there, Frazier, who lived only a half block away from the Paines, offered to drive Oswald to and from Irving whenever he was going to stay at the Paines’ home.[C6-24] Although Oswald’s request for a ride to Irving on Thursday, November 21, was a departure from the normal weekend pattern, Oswald gave the explanation that he needed to obtain curtain rods for an “apartment” in Dallas.[C6-25] This served also to explain the long package which he took with him from Irving to the Depository Building the next morning.[C6-26] Further, there is no evidence that Ruth Paine or Marina Oswald had reason to believe that Oswald’s return was in any way related to an attempt to shoot the President the next day. Although his visit was a surprise, since he arrived on Thursday instead of Friday for his usual weekend visit, both women testified that they thought he had come to patch up a quarrel which he had with his wife a few days earlier when she learned that he was living in Dallas under an assumed name.[C6-27]

It has also been shown that Oswald had the opportunity to work in the Paines’ garage on Thursday evening and prepare the rifle by disassembling it, if it were not already disassembled, and packing it in the brown bag.[C6-28] It has been demonstrated that the paper and tape from which the bag was made came from the shipping room of the Texas School Book Depository and that Oswald had access to this material.[C6-29] Neither Ruth Paine nor Marina Oswald saw the paper bag or the paper and tape out of which the bag was constructed.[C6-30] If Oswald actually prepared the bag in the Depository out of materials available to him there, he could have concealed it in the jacket or shirt which he was wearing.[C6-31] The Commission has found no evidence which suggests that Oswald required or in fact received any assistance in bringing the rifle into the building other than the innocent assistance provided by Frazier in the form of the ride to work.

Accomplices at the Scene of the Assassination

The arrangement of boxes at the window from which the shots were fired was studied to determine whether Oswald required any assistance in moving the cartons to the window. Cartons had been stacked on the floor, a few feet behind the window, thus shielding Oswald from the view of anyone on the sixth floor who did not attempt to go behind them.[C6-32] (See Commission Exhibit No. 723, [p. 80].) Most of those cartons had been moved there by other employees to clear an area for laying a new flooring on the west end of the sixth floor.[C6-33] Superintendent Roy Truly testified that the floor-laying crew moved a long row of books parallel to the windows on the south side and had “quite a lot of cartons” in the southeast corner of the building.[C6-34] He said that there was not any particular pattern that the men used in putting them there. “They were just piled up there more or less at that time.”[C6-35] According to Truly, “several cartons” which had been in the extreme southeast corner had been placed on top of the ones that had been piled in front of the southeast corner window.[C6-36]

The arrangement of the three boxes in the window and the one on which the assassin may have sat has been described previously.[C6-37] Two of these four boxes, weighing approximately 55 pounds each, had been moved by the floor-laying crew from the west side of the floor to the area near the southwest corner.[C6-38] The carton on which the assassin may have sat might not even have been moved by the assassin at all. A photograph of the scene depicts this carton on the floor alongside other similar cartons. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1301, [p. 138].) Oswald’s right palmprint on this carton may have been placed there as he was sitting on the carton rather than while carrying it. In any event both of these 55-pound cartons could have been carried by one man. The remaining two cartons contained light block-like reading aids called “Rolling Readers” weighing only about 8 pounds each.[C6-39] Although they had been moved approximately 40 feet[C6-40] from their normal locations at the southeast corner window, it would appear that one man could have done this in a matter of seconds.

In considering the possibility of accomplices at the window, the Commission evaluated the significance of the presence of fingerprints other than Oswald’s on the four cartons found in and near the window. Three of Oswald’s prints were developed on two of the cartons.[C6-41] In addition a total of 25 identifiable prints were found on the 4 cartons.[C6-42] Moreover, prints were developed which were considered as not identifiable, i.e., the quality of the print was too fragmentary to be of value for identification purposes.[C6-43]

As has been explained in chapter IV, the Commission determined that none of the warehouse employees who might have customarily handled these cartons left prints which could be identified.[C6-44] This was considered of some probative value in determining whether Oswald moved the cartons to the window. All but 1 of the 25 definitely identifiable prints were the prints of 2 persons—an FBI employee and a member of the Dallas Police Department who had handled the cartons during the course of the investigation.[C6-45] One identifiable palmprint was not identified.[C6-46]

The presence on these cartons of unidentified prints, whether or not identifiable, does not appear to be unusual since these cartons contained commercial products which had been handled by many people throughout the normal course of manufacturing, warehousing, and shipping. Unlike other items of evidence such as, for example, a ransom note in a kidnaping, these cartons could contain the prints of many people having nothing to do with the assassination. Moreover, the FBI does not maintain a filing system for palmprints because, according to the supervisor of the Bureau’s latent fingerprint section, Sebastian F. Latona, the problems of classification make such a system impracticable.[C6-47] Finally, in considering the significance of the unidentified prints, the Commission gave weight to the opinion of Latona to the effect that people could handle these cartons without leaving prints which were capable of being developed.[C6-48]

Though the fingerprints other than Oswald’s on the boxes thus provide no indication of the presence of an accomplice at the window, two Depository employees are known to have been present briefly on the sixth floor during the period between 11:45 a.m., when the floor-laying crew stopped for lunch, and the moment of the assassination. One of these was Charles Givens, a member of the floor-laying crew, who went down on the elevator with the others and then, returned to the sixth floor to get his jacket and cigarettes.[C6-49] He saw Oswald walking away from the southeast corner, but saw no one else on the sixth floor at that time. He then took one of the elevators back to the first floor at approximately 11:55 a.m.[C6-50]

Bonnie Ray Williams, who was also working with the floor-laying crew, returned to the sixth floor at about noon to eat his lunch and watch the motorcade.[C6-51] He looked out on Elm Street from a position in the area of the third or fourth set of windows from the east wall.[C6-52] At this point he was approximately 20-30 feet away from the southeast corner window. He remained for about “5, 10, maybe 12 minutes” eating his lunch which consisted of chicken and a bottle of soda pop.[C6-53] Williams saw no one on the sixth floor during this period, although the stacks of books prevented his seeing the east side of the building.[C6-54] After finishing his lunch Williams took the elevator down because no one had joined him on the sixth floor to watch the motorcade.[C6-55] He stopped at the fifth floor where he joined Harold Norman and James Jarman, Jr., who watched the motorcade with him from a position on the fifth floor directly below the point from which the shots were fired. Williams left the remains of his lunch, including chicken bones and a bottle of soda, near the window where he was eating.[C6-56]

Several witnesses outside the building claim to have seen a person in the southeast corner window of the sixth floor. As has already been indicated, some were able to offer better descriptions than others and one, Howard L. Brennan, made a positive identification of Oswald as being the person at the window.[C6-57] Although there are differences among these witnesses with regard to their ability to describe the person they saw, none of these witnesses testified to seeing more than one person in the window.[C6-58]

One witness, however, offered testimony which, if accurate, would create the possibility of an accomplice at the window at the time of the assassination. The witness was 18-year-old Arnold Rowland, who testified in great detail concerning his activities and observations on November 22, 1963. He and his wife were awaiting the motorcade, standing on the east side of Houston Street between Maine and Elm,[C6-59] when he looked toward the Depository Building and noticed a man holding a rifle standing back from the southwest corner window on the sixth floor. The man was rather slender in proportion to his size and of light complexion with dark hair.[C6-60] Rowland said that his wife was looking elsewhere at the time and when they looked back to the window the man “was gone from our vision.”[C6-61] They thought the man was most likely someone protecting the President. After the assassination Rowland signed an affidavit in which he told of seeing this man, although Rowland was unable to identify him.[C6-62]

When Rowland testified before the Commission on March 10, 1964, he claimed for the first time to have seen another person on the sixth floor. Rowland said that before he had noticed the man with the rifle on the southwest corner of the sixth floor he had seen an elderly Negro man “hanging out that window” on the southeast corner of the sixth floor.[C6-63] Rowland described the Negro man as “very thin, an elderly gentleman, bald or practically bald, very thin hair if he wasn’t bald,” between 50 and 60 years of age, 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall, with fairly dark complexion.[C6-64] Rowland claimed that he looked back two or three times and noticed that the man remained until 5 or 6 minutes prior to the time the motorcade came. Rowland did not see him thereafter. He made no mention of the Negro man in his affidavit.[C6-65] And, while he said he told FBI agents about the man in the southeast corner window when interviewed on the Saturday and Sunday following the assassination,[C6-66] no such statement appears in any FBI report.[C6-67]

Mrs. Rowland testified that her husband never told her about seeing any other man on the sixth floor except the man with the rifle in the southwest corner that he first saw. She also was present during Rowland’s interview with representatives of the FBI[C6-68] and said she did not hear him make such a statement,[C6-69] although she also said that she did not hear everything that was discussed.[C6-70] Mrs. Rowland testified that after her husband first talked about seeing a man with the rifle, she looked back more than once at the Depository Building and saw no person looking out of any window on the sixth floor.[C6-71] She also said that “At times my husband is prone to exaggerate.”[C6-72] Because of inconsistencies in Rowland’s testimony and the importance of his testimony to the question of a possible accomplice, the Commission requested the FBI to conduct an inquiry into the truth of a broad range of statements made by Rowland to the Commission. The investigation showed that numerous statements by Rowland concerning matters about which he would not normally be expected to be mistaken—such as subjects he studied in school, grades he received, whether or not he had graduated from high school, and whether or not he had been admitted to college—were false.[C6-73]

The only possible corroboration for Rowland’s story is found in the testimony of Roger D. Craig, a deputy sheriff of Dallas County, whose testimony on other aspects of the case has been discussed in chapter IV. Craig claimed that about 10 minutes after the assassination he talked to a young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Rowland,

* * * and the boy said he saw two men on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building over there; one of them had a rifle with a telescopic sight on it—but he thought they were Secret Service agents or guards and didn’t report it. This was about—oh, he said, 15 minutes before the motorcade ever arrived.[C6-74]

According to Craig, Rowland said that he looked back a few minutes later and “the other man was gone, and there was just one man—the man with the rifle.”[C6-75] Craig further testified that Rowland told him that when he first saw the two men, they were walking back and forth in front of the window for several minutes. They were both white men and one of them had a rifle with a scope on it.[C6-76] This report by Craig is contradicted by the testimony of both the Rowlands, and by every recorded interview with them conducted by law enforcement agencies after the assassination.

As part of its investigation of Rowland’s allegation and of the general question of accomplices at the scene of the assassination, the Commission undertook an investigation of every person employed in the Texas School Book Depository Building. Two employees might possibly fit the general description of an elderly Negro man, bald or balding. These two men were on the first floor of the building during the period before and during the assassination.[C6-77] Moreover, all of the employees were asked whether they saw any strangers in the building on the morning of November 22.[C6-78] Only one employee saw a stranger whom he described as a feeble individual who had to be helped up the front steps of the building. He went to a public restroom and left the building 5 minutes later, about 40 minutes before the assassination.[C6-79]

Rowland’s failure to report his story despite several interviews until his appearance before the Commission, the lack of probative corroboration, and the serious doubts about his credibility, have led the Commission to reject the testimony that Rowland saw an elderly balding Negro man in the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Depository Building several minutes before the assassination.

Oswald’s Escape

The Commission has analyzed Oswald’s movements between the time of the assassination and the shooting of Patrolman Tippit to determine whether there is any evidence that Oswald had assistance in his flight from the building. Oswald’s activities during this period have been traced through the testimony of seven witnesses and discussed in detail in chapter IV.[C6-80] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, [p. 158] and Commission Exhibit No. 1118, [p. 150].) Patrolman M. L. Baker and Depository superintendent Roy Truly saw him within 2 minutes of the assassination on the second floor of the building. Mrs. R. A. Reid saw him less than 1 minute later walking through the second-floor offices toward the front of the building. A busdriver, Cecil J. McWatters, and Oswald’s former landlady, Mrs. Mary Bledsoe, saw him board a bus at approximately 12:40 p.m., and get off about 4 minutes later. A cabdriver, William W. Whaley, drove Oswald from a cabstand located a few blocks from where Oswald left the bus to a point in Oak Cliff about four blocks from his roominghouse; and Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper at Oswald’s roominghouse, saw him enter the roominghouse at about 1 p.m. and leave a few minutes later. When seen by these seven witnesses Oswald was always alone.

Particular attention has been directed to Oswald’s departure from the Depository Building in order to determine whether he could have left the building within approximately 3 minutes of the assassination without assistance. As discussed more fully in chapter IV, the building was probably first sealed off no earlier than 12:37 by Inspector Herbert Sawyer.[C6-81] The shortest estimate of the time taken to seal off the building comes from Police Officer W. E. Barnett, one of the officers assigned to the corner of Elm and Houston Streets for the Presidential motorcade, who estimated that approximately 3 minutes elapsed between the time he heard the last of the shots and the time he started guarding the front door.[C6-82] According to Barnett, “there were people going in and out” during this period.[C6-83] The evidence discussed in chapter IV shows that 3 minutes would have been sufficient time for Oswald to have descended from the sixth floor and left the building without assistance.[C6-84]

One witness, James R. Worrell, Jr., claims to have seen a man running from the rear of the building shortly after the assassination, but in testimony before the Commission he stated that he could not see his face.[C6-85] Two other witnesses who watched the rear of the building during the first 5 minutes after the shooting saw no one leave.[C6-86] The claim of Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig that he saw Oswald leave the Depository Building approximately 15 minutes after the assassination has been discussed in chapter IV.[C6-87] Although Craig may have seen someone enter a station wagon 15 minutes after the assassination, the person he saw was not Lee Harvey Oswald, who was far removed from the building at that time.

The possibility that accomplices aided Oswald in connection with his escape was suggested by the testimony of Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper at the 1026 North Beckley roominghouse.[C6-88] She testified that at about 1 p.m. on November 22, after Oswald had returned to the roominghouse, a Dallas police car drove slowly by the front of the 1026 North Beckley premises and stopped momentarily; she said she heard its horn several times.[C6-89] Mrs. Roberts stated that the occupants of the car were not known to her even though she had worked for some policemen who would occasionally come by.[C6-90] She said the policeman she knew drove car No. 170 and that this was not the number on the police car that honked on November 22. She testified that she first thought the car she saw was No. 106 and then said that it was No. 107.[C6-91] In an FBI interview she had stated that she looked out the front window and saw police car No. 207.[C6-92] Investigation has not produced any evidence that there was a police vehicle in the area of 1026 North Beckley at about 1 p.m. on November 22.[C6-93] Squad car 207 was at the Texas School Book Depository Building, as was car 106. Squad cars 170 and 107 were sold in April 1963 and their numbers were not reassigned until February 1964.[C6-94]

Whatever may be the accuracy of Mrs. Roberts’ recollection concerning the police car, it is apparent from Mrs. Roberts’ further testimony that she did not see Oswald enter a car when he hurriedly left the house. She has stated that when she last saw Oswald, shortly after 1 p.m., he was standing at a bus stop in front of the house.[C6-95] Oswald was next seen less than 1 mile away, at the point where he shot Patrolman Tippit. Oswald could have easily reached this point on foot by about 1:16 p.m., when Tippit was shot. Finally, investigation has produced no evidence that Oswald had prearranged plans for a means to leave Dallas after the assassination or that any other person was to have provided him assistance in hiding or in departing the city.