Mr. Dulles. What was the lead car doing at this time?
Mr. Lawson. The car that I was in, sir?
Mr. Dulles. I thought you were in the second car.
Mr. Stern. The pilot car.
Mr. Dulles. The pilot car, not the lead car.
Mr. Lawson. The pilot car was up ahead of us, so appeared other things I recall noting a police officer pulled up in a motorcycle alongside of us, and mentioned that the President had been hit.
When the Presidential car leaped ahead, although there was quite a distance, not quite a distance but there was some distance between the two cars, they came up on us quite fast before we were actually able to get in motion. They seemed to have a more rapid acceleration than we did.
Mr. Dulles. Did they actually pass you?
Mr. Lawson. No, sir; they never did. We stayed ahead of them. The route was clear to the Trade Mart anyway, which was part of the route that we used to get to the hospital.
And then from the Trade Mart on, the route was going to be policed after we arrived at the Trade Mart, so that on the route from the Trade Mart to the Parkland Hospital, which isn't very far, we had to do some stopping of cars and holding our hands out the windows and blowing the sirens and the horns to get through, but we made it in pretty good time.