Mr. Johnston. There was every bit of a hundred people in that room.
Mr. Hubert. Were the policemen armed?
Mr. Johnston. Yes, sir; all of the officers as far as I know, other than the plainclothesmen—the uniformed officers all had their sidearms on. I’m sure the majority of the detectives had their sidearms on.
Mr. Hubert. When you first went in, was the room empty or were there people in the room?
Mr. Johnston. No, sir; because the sequence of this was that after Oswald was charged, Chief Curry, Captain Fritz, Henry Wade, and myself went to the door—Captain Fritz was the first to speak and he advised the press that we were going to move to the detail room or the assembly room, that Oswald had been charged with the murder of President Kennedy, and that they could go to the detail room in the basement, and that Chief Curry would then give them instructions, and then Chief Curry spoke to them and then Mr. Wade spoke to them, because there were several members of the press there that wanted a statement from Henry Wade before they moved away from that door. Then the hall was vacated, I would say, to the extent that there were only maybe 15 or 20 people left standing in that hall.
Mr. Hubert. Everybody went downstairs?
Mr. Johnston. Everyone went downstairs, and in order to let you know this, and I’m sure that others have stated this—it was almost a human impossibility to get down the hall to the homicide office. They finally had to bring uniformed officers in and stationed two uniformed officers at each door of the forgery bureau, the homicide bureau, the auto theft bureau, and the burglary and theft bureau so that people could be maneuvered down there to get in and out of these offices for other routine business. That’s how packed it was with newspaper people in that hall.
Mr. Hubert. There were television cameras there too?
Mr. Johnston. They had two live television cameras set up there, they had one of these portable tape deals with a sound system on it and everything, right in front of the door.
Mr. Hubert. So what happened is that after it was announced that there would be this interview granted, they all went down to the room?