Mr. Hubert. What were the circumstances under which the viewing of Oswald in the assembly room on Friday were held?
Mr. Waldo. Well, at what I would judge to be approximately 10 to 10:30 p.m., Captain Fritz and District Attorney Wade came out of the homicide office into the third floor corridor and Captain Fritz, whose voice never carries—he speaks in a hoarse whisper most of the time—tried to say something, and there were immediate shouts of “We can’t hear you, we can’t hear you” from people only 15 feet away. So then Mr. Wade took over and I was close enough to hear him say that Oswald had been formally charged with the assassination of President Kennedy, but immediately there were cries from people two or three rows, if that’s the word, behind me in this jammed, packed mass, “Henry, we can’t hear you. We can’t hear you. Can’t we hold this someplace else?”
He then conferred with Captain Fritz and by then Chief Curry had moved in, maybe Chief Curry was there all the time—I didn’t notice him—but the three conferred and then Chief Curry, who can on occasion speak with considerable force and volume, called out and everybody heard this, “All right, we’ll set it up in the Police Assembly Hall in the basement for Mr. Wade to make his announcement, if that’s what you want?” Or—approximately those words, and then there was another momentary conference between the district attorney and the two police officials, and Chief Curry added, and I am almost certain that no one requested this—it was a voluntary statement on his part, “And I’ll have the prisoner brought down for you, too, if you like.”
So, immediately there was movement, because the TV people had to start getting their equipment down, all of which of course took a considerable time. I might add first that Curry said, “We can do it in about 20 minutes,” but while waiting for the TV cameras to be transferred down and set up properly, it took more than an hour.
Mr. Hubert. What security measures or identification measures were used to start security as to the assembly room, as to who would go in it?
Mr. Waldo. None whatever that I observed. I myself walked down the stairs, which faced the elevators on the third floor, to the basement. The basement is also the site of the police booking office. People were being brought in or coming in to inquire about relatives, I presume. That seemed to be the general tenor of it, and were not being kept away, and peering curiously into this police assembly room where everything was being set up.
Mr. Hubert. There were no guards at the entrance of the assembly room?
Mr. Waldo. None that I saw, sir; no.
Mr. Hubert. So that everybody got into the assembly room who wanted to get in, and Oswald was brought down shortly thereafter?
Mr. Waldo. Yes.