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]