Additional testimony linking Oswald with the point from which the shots were fired was provided by the testimony of Charles Givens, who was the last known employee to see Oswald inside the building prior to the assassination. During the morning of November 22, Givens was working with the floor-laying crew in the southwest section of the sixth floor.[C4-233] At about 11:45 a.m. the floor-laying crew used both elevators to come down from the sixth floor. The employees raced the elevators to the first floor.[C4-234] Givens saw Oswald standing at the gate on the fifth floor as the elevator went by.[C4-235] Givens testified that after reaching the first floor, “I discovered I left my cigarettes in my jacket pocket upstairs, and I took the elevator back upstairs to get my jacket with my cigarettes in it.”[C4-236] He saw Oswald, a clipboard in hand, walking from the southeast corner of the sixth floor toward the elevator.[C4-237] (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 get downstairs, close the gate to the elevator.”[C4-238] Oswald was referring to the west elevator which operates by pushbutton and only with the gate closed.[C4-239] Givens said, “Okay,” and rode down in the east elevator. When he reached the first floor, the west elevator—the one with the gate—was not there. Givens thought this was about 11:55 a.m.[C4-240] None of the Depository employees is known to have seen Oswald again until after the shooting.[C4-241]
The significance of Givens’ observation that Oswald was carrying his clipboard became apparent on December 2, 1963, when an employee, Frankie Kaiser, found a clipboard hidden by book cartons in the northwest corner of the sixth floor at the west wall a few feet from where the rifle had been found.[C4-242] This clipboard had been made by Kaiser and had his name on it.[C4-243] Kaiser identified it as the clipboard which Oswald had appropriated from him when Oswald came to work at the Depository.[C4-244] Three invoices on this clipboard, each dated November 22, were for Scott-Foresman books, located on the first and sixth floors.[C4-245] Oswald had not filled any of the three orders.[C4-246]
Eyewitness Identification of Assassin
Howard L. Brennan was an eyewitness to the shooting. As indicated previously the Commission considered his testimony as probative in reaching the conclusion that the shots came from the sixth floor, southeast corner window of the Depository Building.[C4-247] (See ch. III, [pp. 61-68].) Brennan also testified that Lee Harvey Oswald, whom he viewed in a police lineup on the night of the assassination, was the man he saw fire the shots from the sixth-floor window of the Depository Building.[C4-248] When the shots were fired, Brennan was in an excellent position to observe anyone in the window. He was sitting on a concrete wall on the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets, looking north at the Depository Building which was directly in front of him.[C4-249] The window was approximately 120 feet away.[C4-250](See Commission Exhibit No. 477, [p. 62].)
In the 6- to 8-minute period before the motorcade arrived,[C4-251] Brennan saw a man leave and return to the window “a couple of times.”[C4-252] After hearing the first shot, which he thought was a motorcycle backfire, Brennan glanced up at the window. He testified that “this man I saw previously was aiming for his last shot * * * as it appeared to me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill * * *.”[C4-253]
Brennan saw the man fire the last shot and disappear from the window. Within minutes of the assassination, Brennan described the man to the police.[C4-254] This description most probably led to the radio alert sent to police cars at approximately 12:45 p.m., which described the suspect as white, slender, weighing about 165 pounds, about 5’10” tall, and in his early thirties.[C4-255] In his sworn statement to the police later that day, Brennan described the man in similar terms, except that he gave the weight as between 165 and 175 pounds and the height was omitted.[C4-256] In his testimony before the Commission, Brennan described the person he saw as “* * * a man in his early thirties, fair complexion, slender, but neat, neat slender, possible 5 foot 10 * * * 160 to 170 pounds.”[C4-257] Oswald was 5’9”, slender and 24 years old. When arrested, he gave his weight as 140 pounds.[C4-258] On other occasions he gave weights of both 140 and 150 pounds.[C4-259] The New Orleans police records of his arrest in August of 1963 show a weight of 136 pounds.[C4-260] The autopsy report indicated an estimated weight of 150 pounds.[C4-261]
Brennan’s description should also be compared with the eyewitness description broadcast over the Dallas police radio at 1:22 p.m. of the man who shot Patrolman J. D. Tippit. The suspect was described as “a white male about 30, 5’8”, black hair, slender. * * *”[C4-262] At 1:29 p.m. the police radio reported that the description of the suspect in the Tippit shooting was similar to the description which had been given by Brennan in connection with the assassination.[C4-263] Approximately 7 or 8 minutes later the police radio reported that “an eyeball witness” described the suspect in the Tippit shooting as “a white male, 27, 5’11”, 165 pounds, black wavy hair.”[C4-264] As will be discussed fully below, the Commission has concluded that this suspect was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Although Brennan testified that the man in the window was standing when he fired the shots,[C4-265] most probably he was either sitting or kneeling. The half-open window,[C4-266] the arrangement of the boxes,[C4-267] and the angle of the shots virtually preclude a standing position.[C4-268] It is understandable, however, for Brennan to have believed that the man with the rifle was standing. A photograph of the building taken seconds after the assassination shows three employees looking out of the fifth-floor window directly below the window from which the shots were fired. Brennan testified that they were standing,[C4-269] which is their apparent position in the photograph.[C4-270] (See Dillard Exhibits Nos. C and D. [pp. 66-67].) But the testimony of these employees,[C4-271] together with photographs subsequently taken of them at the scene of the assassination,[C4-272] establishes that they were either squatting or kneeling. (See Commission Exhibit No. 485, [p. 69].) Since the window ledges in the Depository Building are lower than in most buildings,[C4-273] a person squatting or kneeling exposes more of his body than would normally be the case. From the street, this creates the impression that the person is standing. Brennan could have seen enough of the body of a kneeling or squatting person to estimate his height.
Shortly after the assassination Brennan noticed two of these employees leaving the building and immediately identified them as having been in the fifth-floor windows.[C4-274] When the three employees appeared before the Commission, Brennan identified the two whom he saw leave the building.[C4-275] The two men, Harold Norman and James Jarman, Jr., each confirmed that when they came out of the building, they saw and heard Brennan describing what he had seen.[C4-276] Norman stated, “* * * I remember him talking and I believe I remember seeing him saying that he saw us when we first went up to the fifth-floor window, he saw us then.”[C4-277] Jarman heard Brennan “talking to this officer about that he had heard these shots and he had seen the barrel of the gun sticking out the window, and he said that the shots came from inside the building.”[C4-278]
During the evening of November 22, Brennan identified Oswald as the person in the lineup who bore the closest resemblance to the man in the window but he said he was unable to make a positive identification.[C4-279] Prior to the lineup, Brennan had seen Oswald’s picture on television and he told the Commission that whether this affected his identification “is something I do not know.”[C4-280] In an interview with FBI agents on December 17, 1963, Brennan stated that he was sure that the person firing the rifle was Oswald.[C4-281] In another interview with FBI agents on January 7, 1964, Brennan appeared to revert to his earlier inability to make a positive identification,[C4-282] but, in his testimony before the Commission, Brennan stated that his remarks of January 7 were intended by him merely as an accurate report of what he said on November 22.[C4-283]