Mr. Lawson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Stern. Why is that?
Mr. Lawson. I suppose for various reasons. No. 1, the Presidential driver, although you might have given him a route or all that, he wouldn't really be familiar probably with the streets and all that, and this is the car that has the command police officials in it, and the Secret Service agent that knows the most about the start.
So in any emergency situation the Presidential car will follow that lead car if possible unless told otherwise. It is the best place for an agent, and also he controls the motorcade speed, and so forth, from there.
Mr. Stern. Was there anything unusual in the motorcade until you got to Main and Houston?
Mr. Lawson. Not unusual. There were crowds along the way, sometimes heavier than others in about the spots that it was expected to be that way.
Mr. Stern. What was your impression of the attitude of the crowd generally?
Mr. Lawson. It looked quite friendly, not as hopping and skipping as much as some other places, but very friendly and sometimes people just jumped up and down and screamed and yelled. This one seemed to be a quite friendly group by and large.
On one occasion I noticed a sign, I can't recall what it is right now, but it was an out-of-the-ordinary sign, a sign designed to catch someone's attention, and I thought right then that probably it would catch the President's attention if he was looking to the right-hand side of the car, which he was, and he stopped there, which is not unusual.
Sometimes he would stop for certain groups, certain types of people at certain places unannounced, if there was something that caught his fancy or caught his eye, and he did there. And of course the crowd pressed around, and the other agents got off the followup car, got around his car.