TESTIMONY OF PATRICK TREVORE DEAN RESUMED
The testimony of Patrick Trevore Dean was taken at 4:45 p.m., on April 1, 1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building, Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. Leon D. Hubert, Jr., assistant counsel of the President's Commission. Mr. P. T. Dean was accompanied by his lawyer, Mr. Ted MacMasters.
Mr. Hubert. Note that I am present. Note that Sgt. P. T. Dean is present and Mr. Ted MacMasters assistant city attorney of Dallas, and appearing as attorney for Mister—Sergeant Dean. Now, Sergeant Dean, your deposition was begun on——
Mr. Dean. I believe it was a Tuesday.
Mr. MacMasters. March 24.
Mr. Hubert. Mr. Burt Griffin as the member of the Commission's advisory staff conducting the examination. At that time you took an oath, I believe?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. Are you willing to consider that this is simply a continuation of that deposition?
Mr. Dean. Yes; I am.
Mr. Hubert. And that you are under the same oath that you were before?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. I wish to advise you that I have been authorized by Mr. J. Lee Rankin, general counsel for the Commission's staff to take your deposition under oath also. In other words, both Mr. Griffin and I have been so authorized, and I think he advised you of the general conditions and the right of notice and waiver and so forth?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. So that as far as I am concerned, I will just ask you if you have anything to add to your deposition or anything to say at all in any way?
Mr. Dean. I told Mr. Griffin on that date that I would bring him additional information that he wanted.
One was a record of the telephone call received on the 24th. Now, that would make your interview on the 25th, actually, I believe. Now, no, no; that's right. The morning, early morning hours of the 24th is when I received this call from Victoria, Canada.
That is a record of it from the city hall operator. That was pertaining to the film from the fellow in Alaska—or—correction, in Canada that he said he would——
Mr. MacMasters. Do you want to identify this?
Mr. Hubert. You have handed me two documents and I judge that one of them is a photostatic copy of a front of a document, and the other is a photostatic copy of the rear of that document?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. Well; I am going to mark them for identification as follows: "Dallas, Tex., April 1, 1964. Exhibit—" We'll use number—5136, continuation of deposition of Sgt. P. T. Dean." And I am signing my name for the purposes of identification and I am signing the second document which you state is a photostatic copy of the back of the document now identified as Exhibit 5136, as follows: "Dallas, Tex., April 1, 1964. Exhibit 5136-A, continuation of Deposition of P. T. Dean." Signing my name on the back of this, and for the purposes of identification and to show that we are both talking about the same document, would you mind putting your name below mine?
Mr. Dean. All right, sir.
Mr. Hubert. Now, will you identify what these two documents were? Perhaps we'd better do it again, in the light of their identification numbers, so, let me ask you what are the documents that have now been marked for identification as 5136 and 5136-A?
Mr. Dean. A record of the city hall's operator receiving a call from Victoria, Canada, on that date of March 24, about 4 o'clock in the morning and at that time I talked to—I believe it is Jack Simpson, or it is Ralph Simpson, and he stated that he had a reel of movie film that he had taken of the assassination and the trajectory of the line of fire which was on the far side of the plaza, which would be on the south side of Commerce Street. Mr. Simpson told me on the phone that he believed he had gotten not only the assassination, but also the building from where the bullet was fired. But I advised him—he wanted to know what to do with this film, and I advised him to send it to the Warren Commission in Washington, and he said that he had talked to his attorney and the attorney, Batter [phonetic] in Victoria, I didn't get the first name, his attorney had advised him to contact someone in Dallas and to send them to whatever place they said other than to the Warren Commission. He then asked me could he send them to me and I told him that he could. I checked with my office then just before coming over here today and the film hadn't come in.
Mr. Hubert. Did he say he was going to send them by mail?
Mr. Dean. Yes; he said he would airmail them the next day.
Mr. Hubert. Did he indicate why he had called you, or just that you were on duty?
Mr. Dean. Just on the advice of his attorney.
Mr. Hubert. But, I mean, your particular name?
Mr. Dean. No; he didn't ask for me particularly. However, he said that he recognized my name from reading of my testimony in the papers.
Mr. Hubert. In other words, he made the call, he was calling specifically to you. You happened to be on duty, and therefore, the call came to you?
Mr. Dean. That's right, and that is the record of the call received. That is what Mr. Griffin wanted.
Mr. Hubert. And the other part that you told us about was the substance of a phone call?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. Right. Okay. Now, if you are going to talk about another document let's get it identified first and get numbers on it. Now. Mr. Dean, you are handing me a document consisting of three pages being apparently a photostatic copy of a letter dated April 8, 1963, addressed to J. E. Curry, Chief of Police. Last page shows "P. Treavor Dean——
Mr. MacMasters. I believe that is December 8. You said April.
Mr. Hubert. Oh, no, no. December 8. Couldn't be April 8, we aren't there yet.
"P. Treavor Dean, Sergeant Police Control Division," and in order that it may be identified and that the record may show what we're talking about, I am marking this first page in the right-hand margin, "Dallas, Tex., April 1, 1964. Exhibit 5137, Continuation of Deposition of P. T. Dean," signing my name below that, and the inscription on the second page, placing my initial in the right-hand lower corner and on the third page I am doing the same, and also ask you to sign the pages and initial them as I have done.
Mr. Dean. All right.
Mr. Hubert. All right, sir. Now, do you have any comments to make with reference to this Document 5137, which you have handed me?
Mr. Dean. No, sir; I believe it is self-explanatory.
Mr. Hubert. Is this one of the documents that——
Mr. Dean. Mr. Griffin asked me would I bring.
Mr. Hubert. All right, sir. Thank you.
Mr. Dean. Mr. Griffin also asked me to bring a copy, if I had one, of my original notes that I had taken in the basement that day of my assignments and I have those.
Mr. Hubert. Now, what day are you speaking of? The 24th?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir; November 24.
Mr. Hubert. November 24.
Mr. Dean. They are not all—all my assignments are not here. However, the majority of them are.
Mr. Hubert. When you say your assignments, you mean the people you assigned, or the job you were assigned to?
Mr. Dean. The people that I assigned to various locations in the basement.
Mr. Hubert. I see. Now, do you propose to let me then have that or a photostatic copy of it, or do you propose simply to dictate the information into the record?
Mr. Dean. Well, how about me just dictating it and I will keep this?
Mr. Hubert. All right. Now, if Mr. Griffin's purpose was to find out whether they existed, then perhaps I ought to look at them so I can state I have seen these things myself.
Mr. Dean. All right, sir.
Mr. Hubert. Therefore, let the record show that as Mr. Dean reads the information he is going to read, I am following him, and if he reads them correctly, I will say nothing. If he reads them incorrectly, or in a way that I do not understand, I will call it to his attention so that we may get it clear.
All right?
Mr. Dean. My first assignments were made just prior to our searching the basement. They were Officer Vaughn. R. E. Vaughn I assigned to the Main Street ramp, which is the north ramp entering the basement. Officer Patterson, B. G. Patterson to the Commerce Street ramp, which is the exit onto Commerce Street. These men were to be—were assigned to the top of these ramps. Officer Brock was assigned to the elevator in the basement. Officer Nelson was assigned in the hall at the jail doors. Well, in—at the jail window.
Mr. Hubert. What is that?
Mr. Dean. This is "Commerce ramp".
All right, now, Officer Jez, I assigned him with Patterson at the Commerce Street ramp.
Mr. Hubert. Now, of course, these notes are not exactly like that. You have added a few words, but let the record show that there is—displayed to me a paper which has, in substance, all that Mr. Dean has testified to.
Mr. MacMasters. You are interpolating your notes, aren't you?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir; and adding initials and—yes, sir. These two other men here, I don't know which one for sure, but they are Reserve Officers Fred A. Briederdorf, it looks like [spelling] B-r-i-e-d-e-r—or, B-e-r-d-r-f, and also another man by the name of Hunt, initials of which I don't know, or the first name.
They were assigned to the basement, and I think that one of these two men I assigned to the entrance into the basement, or the machinery room.
Mr. Hubert. There is a word here.
Mr. Dean. Reserve.
Mr. Hubert. Oh, that is reserve——
Mr. Dean. This is the page where I started to make some traffic assignments and they changed it, so, I—now, these are the traffic assignments just prior to the movement of Oswald. At Commerce and Pearl I assigned Officer Erwin, initials I don't know. At Commerce and Central, Officer Burton. At Central and Main, Officer Wages. At Central and Elm, Officer Gregory. At Pearl and Elm, Officer Tolbert. At Harwood and Elm, Officer Fox. At St. Paul and Elm, Officer Wise. At Elm and Ervay, shows here Brock. Brock. At Stone and Elm, Officer Raz. Akard and Elm, Officer Hibbs. At Field and Elm, Officer Anderson, and at Lamar and Elm, Officer Ferris. Now, these were just tentative assignments. I think in one of my reports that is already in evidence is the permanent assignments, but these are the originals that I made that afternoon which were tentative.
Now, this is just a note that I had written down from a Bob Stewart. He worked for WRR, and he was giving me some information that he had received. I don't remember from where he had received it, but he stated to me, and I had written it down here, a Serge Fliger, he is with Mutual News in Vienna, Austria, and that in essence—now, I can interpret these notes for you, if you would rather.
Mr. Hubert. Why don't you just read them and then interpret them.
Mr. Dean. That source of Serge's information from behind the Iron Curtain that a man told him, and he—it was a man that he stated that he trusted completely, that there was a group of dissident Russian soldiers, that this whole thing was an international plot, and that the Communists would kill off Oswald as quick as possible.
Mr. Hubert. Now, with reference to those last few notes about Fliger, what you have read is not exactly what is in the book itself, but it is rather your——
Mr. Dean. More of an interpretation of my notes, because I had written it rather hurriedly.
Mr. Hubert. But, let the record show that as I read the notes the interpretation of them seems consistent with what I read.
Mr. Dean. I believe that is all that is in here, Mr. Hubert. I believe that's all.
Mr. Hubert. Now, may I ask this; were all those notes that you have just shown to me and read into the record with interpolations written in your own hand?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. Were they written at the time that you made the various assignments and so forth?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. And that includes also that information about that Serge Fliger from Austria?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. All right.
Mr. Dean. And also, Mr. Griffin wanted me to find, if I could obtain a copy of the—regarding a tape recording. It was an interview with radio station KLIF, and this interview took place about 2:30 on November 24.
Mr. Hubert. 2:30 p.m.?
Mr. Dean. That afternoon. Yes, sir; I do have a copy of that and I have listened to it and it is true and correct to the best of my knowledge, sir.
Mr. Hubert. Are you proposing to give me the tape itself, or a transcription of it?
Mr. Dean. Well, that is a transcript, I assume. I just asked KLIF would they make me a copy of it and this is, a transcript.
Mr. Hubert. Do you propose to let me have the film, or this little record, or seems to be tape on a regular roll. Do you want it back?
Mr. Dean. Could I have it back when the Commission gets through with it?
Mr. Hubert. Yes, sir; but I don't know when that will be, you know.
Mr. Dean. Well, whenever it might be.
Mr. Hubert. I am trying to see how we are going to mark this.
Mr. MacMasters. Could it be placed in a sealed envelope and initialed across it and seal it and so forth?
Mr. Hubert. I have placed my initials, LDH, on one end of the tape, and I have done that also, on the other end of the tape and giving the exhibit number of—by marking it "EX, 5138," with ball point pen on both ends of the tape, and then I'm also marking the small box, "5138" on one side, and "5138" on the other side, with my initials on both sides.
Mr. Dean. Do you want me to initial it?
Mr. Hubert. Oh, I don't know that that is necessary if you have heard that recording.
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. And it is a true recording of an interview of you, as I understand it, that you had with some reporter of the——
Mr. Dean. At KLIF.
Mr. Hubert. Do you remember his name?
Mr. Dean. Glenn Duncan. It is on the tape also.
Mr. Hubert. All right, sir. You think it is a correct recording of a conversation?
Mr. Dean. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. All right, anything else?
Mr. Dean. No, sir; I, well, when these film, if they do come in, this fellow does send them to me, I will make them available to you.
Mr. Hubert. You can do so through Mr. Barefoot Sanders. Contact us immediately.
Mr. Dean. All right, sir.
Mr. Hubert. I will accept this and place these various exhibits you have given me today in with the other exhibits in the folder that we are putting all these exhibits in.
Mr. Dean. All right.
Mr. Hubert. Any other matters?
Mr. Dean. No, sir.
Mr. Hubert. That is all. Thank you very much. Mr. MacMasters, thank you very much.