Brennan told the Commission that he could have made a positive identification in the lineup on November 22 but did not do so because he felt that the assassination was “a Communist activity, and I felt like there hadn’t been more than one eyewitness, and if it got to be a known fact that I was an eyewitness, my family or I, either one, might not be safe.”[C4-284] When specifically asked before the Commission whether or not he could positively identify the man he saw in the sixth-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.”[C4-285]
Although the record indicates that Brennan was an accurate observer, he declined to make a positive identification of Oswald when he first saw him in the police lineup.[C4-286] The Commission, therefore, does not base its conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin on Brennan’s subsequent certain identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the man he saw fire the rifle. Immediately after the assassination, however, Brennan described to the police the man he saw in the window and then identified Oswald as the person who most nearly resembled the man he saw. The Commission is satisfied that, at the least, Brennan saw a man in the window who closely resembled Lee Harvey Oswald, and that Brennan believes the man he saw was in fact Lee Harvey Oswald.
Two other witnesses were able to offer partial descriptions of a man they saw in the southeast corner window of the sixth floor approximately 1 minute before the assassination, although neither witness saw the shots being fired.[C4-287] Ronald Fischer and Robert Edwards were standing on the curb at the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets,[C4-288] the same corner where Brennan was sitting on a concrete wall.[C4-289] Fischer testified that about 10 or 15 seconds before the motorcade turned onto Houston Street from Main Street, Edwards said, “Look at that guy there in that window.”[C4-290]
Fischer looked up and watched the man in the window for 10 or 15 seconds and then started watching the motorcade, which came into view on Houston Street.[C4-291] He said that the man held his attention until the motorcade came because the man:
* * * appeared uncomfortable for one, and secondly, he wasn’t watching * * * he didn’t look like he was watching for the parade. He looked like he was looking down toward the Trinity River and the Triple Underpass down at the end—toward the end of Elm Street. And * * * all the time I watched him, he never moved his head, he never—he never moved anything. Just was there transfixed.[C4-292]
Fischer placed the man in the easternmost window on the south side of the Depository Building on either the fifth or the sixth floor.[C4-293] He said that he could see the man from the middle of his chest to the top of his head, and that as he was facing the window the man was in the lower right-hand portion of the window and “seemed to be sitting a little forward.”[C4-294] The man was dressed in a light-colored, open-neck shirt which could have been either a sports shirt or a T-shirt, and he had brown hair, a slender face and neck with light complexion, and looked to be 22 or 24 years old.[C4-295] The person in the window was a white man and “looked to me like he was looking straight at the Triple Underpass” down Elm Street.[C4-296] Boxes and cases were stacked behind him.[C4-297]
Approximately 1 week after the assassination, according to Fischer, policemen showed him a picture of Oswald.[C4-298] In his testimony he said, “I told them that that could have been the man. * * * That that could have been the man that I saw in the window in the School Book Depository Building, but that I was not sure.”[C4-299] Fischer described the man’s hair as some shade of brown—“it wasn’t dark and it wasn’t light.”[C4-300] On November 22, Fischer had apparently described the man as “light-headed.”[C4-301] Fischer explained that he did not mean by the earlier statement that the man was blond, but rather that his hair was not black.[C4-302]
Robert Edwards said that, while looking at the south side of the Depository Building shortly before the motorcade, he saw nothing of importance “except maybe one individual who was up there in the corner room of the sixth floor which was crowded in among boxes.”[C4-303] He said that this was a white man about average in size, “possibly thin,” and that he thought the man had light-brown hair.[C4-304] Fischer and Edwards did not see the man clearly enough or long enough to identify him. Their testimony is of probative value, however, because their limited description is consistent with that of the man who has been found by the Commission, based on other evidence, to have fired the shots from the window.
Another person who saw the assassin as the shots were fired was Amos L. Euins, age 15, who was one of the first witnesses to alert the police to the Depository as the source of the shots, as has been discussed in chapter III.[C4-305] Euins, who was on the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets,[C4-306] testified that he could not describe the man he saw in the window. According to Euins, however, as the man lowered his head in order to aim the rifle down Elm Street, he appeared to have a white bald spot on his head.[C4-307] Shortly after the assassination, Euins signed an affidavit describing the man as “white,”[C4-308] but a radio reporter testified that Euins described the man to him as “colored.”[C4-309] In his Commission testimony, Euins stated that he could not ascertain the man’s race and that the statement in the affidavit was intended to refer only to the white spot on the man’s head and not to his race.[C4-310] A Secret Service agent who spoke to Euins approximately 20 to 30 minutes after the assassination confirmed that Euins could neither describe the man in the window nor indicate his race.[C4-311] Accordingly, Euins’ testimony is considered probative as to the source of the shots but is inconclusive as to the identity of the man in the window.
In evaluating the evidence that Oswald was at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor at the time of the shooting, the Commission has considered the allegation that Oswald was photographed standing in front of the building when the shots were fired. The picture which gave rise to these allegations was taken by Associated Press Photographer James W. Altgens, who was standing on the south side of Elm Street between the Triple Underpass and the Depository Building.[C4-312] As the motorcade started its descent down Elm Street, Altgens snapped a picture of the Presidential limousine with the entrance to the Depository Building in the background.[C4-313] Just before snapping the picture Altgens heard a noise which sounded like the popping of a firecracker. Investigation has established that Altgens’ picture was taken approximately 2 seconds after the firing of the shot which entered the back of the President’s neck.[C4-314]