Mr. Waldo. Well, we had arrived some time earlier and had seen the preparations. I had gone upstairs and checked Chief Curry’s office and had been told that it would be half to three-quarters of an hour yet before the prisoner would be removed. This was at the time that I arrived over there on Commerce Street from the hotel, and that everybody would be notified before there was any movement, so since it was a pleasant morning, we were standing out on the sidewalk—the three of us.
Mr. Hubert. Were you told it was going to be by elevator down into the basement and then through the basement ramps out Commerce Street?
Mr. Waldo. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hubert. Who told you that, sir?
Mr. Waldo. As I recall it, it was Lieutenant Butler himself, who was on the third floor at the time I went up, and I would like to for whatever it’s worth, add something at this point. Lieutenant Butler was since, oh, probably 2:30 on the afternoon of the 22d of November, the man whom I had sought out on every occasion that I wanted to learn something about developments, whenever I could find him, because he was a man of remarkable equanimity, poise, and very cooperative within the authorization that he had, and the first thing——
Mr. Hubert. You mean he would give you more news than anybody else?
Mr. Waldo. He was more able to understand what was wanted and he was always in on, apparently, on high-level information, and if it was for release, he would be the one who would have it and be most willing apparently to give it. This is a thing that happens in circumstances like this. A reporter picks out a man, tries him out, and if he finds that he’s cooperative the first time, he tries to stick to him, because by that time the official recognizes his face.
Mr. Hubert. Did you find that other officials were not so cooperative?
Mr. Waldo. I would say, yes, to that with reference to the 22d and part of the 23d. By Saturday afternoon, the 23d, everybody seemed to be pretty accessible and pretty willing to answer questions. What I wanted to say about Lieutenant Butler was that this almost stolid poise, or perhaps phlegmatic poise is a better word, that I had noticed all through even the most hectic times of the 22d and the 23d, appeared to have deserted him completely on the morning of the 24th. He was an extremely nervous man, so nervous that when I was standing asking him a question after I had entered the ramp and gotten down to the basement area, just moments before Oswald was brought down, he was standing profile to me and I noticed his lips trembling as he listened and waited for my answer. It was simply a physical characteristic. I had by then spent enough hours talking to this man so that it struck me as something totally out of character. Now, he may merely have had a bad night.
Mr. Hubert. At that time, had the movement of Oswald begun or was it known that he was coming?