I am informed by the reporters in the area that there were no such roadblocks, that planes continued to leave, trains continued to leave, and that the prosecution continued with its theory that Oswald was the assassin, that he acted alone, and they had secured his arrest, and there was nothing more to be done other than to prove as conclusively as possible, utilizing the press as we know, and the television, and the radio media for that purpose.
And while I am on this question, I wonder if I might ask the Commission to give consideration to—although I don't believe that it is present in any of the six panels which have been established by the Commission—but to give consideration nevertheless to the 48 hours in which Oswald was in custody, in reference to what happened to his rights as an American citizen, charged with a crime in this country.
The statement by the National Board of the American Civil Liberties Union, that had Oswald lived he could not have secured a fair trial anywhere in this country.
The Chairman. You may be sure, Mr. Lane, that that will be given most serious consideration by the Commission, and the Commission has already appointed as an act in that direction the President of the American Bar Association, with such help as he may wish to have, to make an investigation of that very thing. I assure you it will be done by the Commission.
Mr. Lane. Getting back to the evidence, Mr. Chief Justice, the spectator closest to President Kennedy, a Mrs. Hill, who was a substitute teacher in the Dallas public school system, stated to me that she was in her view the closest spectator to the President, and was standing alongside a Mary Moorman, who resides in Dallas.
Mr. Rankin. Do you have the date of this interview, Mr. Lane?
Mr. Lane. It was within the last week. She stated to me that she was the closest spectator to the President, she and her friend, when the President was struck by a bullet. She said that she heard some four to six shots fired.
Now, she was standing on the grass across the—across Elm Street, across from the Texas Book Depository Building. She said that in her—it is her feeling that all of the shots, the four to six shots, came from the grassy knoll near the triple overpass which was at that time directly in front and slightly to the right of the Presidential limousine, and that in her view none of the shots were fired from the Book Depository Building which was directly across the street from her, and which was to the rear of the Presidential limousine.
She said further that after the last shot was fired, she saw a man run from behind the general area of a concrete facade on that grassy knoll, and that he ran on to the triple overpass.
She told me that standing alongside of her was Mary Moorman, who took a picture of the President just a brief moment before the first shot was fired, and that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation took the film from Miss Moorman, and gave her a receipt, which she still has in her possession, but that she has not been able to see the picture, and that it is possible that the picture included the entire Book Depository Building, taken just precisely a second or less before the shots were fired.