Mr. Rankin. How did you learn about the assassination?
Mr. Wade. Well, one of the reporters for one of the newspapers told me there had been a shooting or something, of course, one of those things we were getting all kinds of rumors spreading through a crowd of 3,000–5,000 people, and then they got the radio on and the first report was they had killed two Secret Service agents, that was on the radio, and then the press all came running in there and then ran out, no one knew for sure what was going on until finally they announced that President had been shot and from the rostrum there the chairman of the——
Mr. Dulles. Who was the chairman of that meeting, do you recall?
Mr. Wade. Eric Johnson. Eric Johnson.
Mr. Rankin. Was he mayor then?
Mr. Wade. No; he wasn't mayor, he was the president of Texas Industries and I believe was president of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. I may have been wrong on that but he has been president of the chamber of commerce. He is president of Texas Industries, and this is not particularly important but he is—that was sort of a bipartisan deal, in that he is one of the leading Republicans of Dallas and he was chairman of the meeting.
Mr. Rankin. What did you do after you heard of the assassination?
Mr. Wade. Well, the first thing, we were set up in a bus to go from there to Austin to another party that night for President Kennedy, a group of us, 30 or 40. We got on a bus and went. I went back to the office and sent my wife home, my wife was with me.
And the first thing that I did was go check the law to see whether it was a Federal offense or mine. I thought it was a Federal offense when I first heard about it. We checked the law, and were satisfied that was no serious Federal offense, or not a capital case, anyhow.
There might be some lesser offense. I talked to the U.S. attorney.