Mr. Wade. Well, I don't know whether you have seen—it is a room larger than this and you have a glass here on this side. Behind that glass they have a place out here where they walk prisoners in through there and you can see through this side but you can't see through that side. I think that is the way it is set up.
Senator Cooper. You mean observers can see?
Mr. Wade. Observers can see, but the defendants or suspects can't see through or at least can't identify.
Mr. Rankin. Do you remember who else besides Lee Harvey Oswald was in the showup?
Mr. Wade. No; I am just telling you about the showup room. Now, they had had showups on him but I wasn't there at any of those, but this was, the purpose of this, was to let the press see Oswald, if I understand it.
And the police were yelling, "Everybody wants to see him, wants a picture of him." They started in the screened-in portion and a howl went up that you can't take a picture through that screen. Then they had a conference with, among some of them, and the next thing I knew I was just sitting there upon a little, I guess, elevated, you might say a speaker's stand, although there were 300 people in the room, you couldn't even actually get out, you know.
Mr. Rankin. Did they ask you whether they should do this?
Mr. Wade. I don't think I said yea or nay to the thing so far as I know, because it was—and I actually didn't know what they were doing until, the next thing I knew they said they were going to have to bring him in there.
Well, I think I did say, "You'd better get some officers in here or something for some protection on him."
I thought a little about, and I got a little worried at that stage.