Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

The Warren Commission, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, was established by executive order on November 29, 1963, to determine the facts surrounding the murder of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the killing of the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald two days later. After ten months of investigation, the hearing of 552 witnesses, and the review of some 25,000 FBI interviews and 2,300 Bureau reports, the Commission unanimously concluded that Oswald alone fired the shots that killed the President and that Jack Ruby alone killed Oswald, with no evidence of any conspiracy, foreign or domestic. The report that follows sets out the Commission's narrative of the assassination, its evidence against Oswald, its investigation of possible conspiracy, its portrait of Oswald and Ruby, its account of the protective failures that had preceded the trip to Dallas, and its recommendations for the future protection of the President. It is the foundational public document of the case — the basis on which every subsequent investigation, official or unofficial, has had to proceed — and the source of most of what is now known about how the thirty-fifth President of the United States died.

Foreword

President Lyndon B. Johnson established this Commission by Executive Order on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, and to evaluate all facts and circumstances surrounding that killing and the subsequent murder of the alleged assassin. The subject of the inquiry was a chain of events that saddened and shocked the nation and the world: the assassination of the President, the simultaneous wounding of Governor John B. Connally, Jr., the slaying within the hour of Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit, and, two days later, the fatal shooting of suspect Lee Harvey Oswald by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Department — all of it witnessed on national television.

As Chairman, President Johnson selected Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Commission included Senators Richard B. Russell and John Sherman Cooper, Representatives Hale Boggs and Gerald R. Ford, and private citizens Allen W. Dulles and John J. McCloy. J. Lee Rankin, former Solicitor General, served as general counsel, supported by fourteen assistant counsel drawn from across the country. Federal agencies — the FBI, Secret Service, CIA, State Department, and others — furnished investigative support of extraordinary scope: the FBI alone conducted approximately 25,000 interviews and submitted over 2,300 reports totaling some 25,400 pages.

The Commission functioned neither as a court nor as a prosecutor, but as a factfinding body committed to ascertaining the truth. To safeguard the rights of the alleged assassin, the Commission invited Walter E. Craig, president of the American Bar Association, to participate in the proceedings and advise whether they conformed to the basic principles of American justice. Craig accepted and participated fully, with access to all working papers and the right to cross-examine witnesses. In all, 552 witnesses gave testimony — 94 before Commission members, 395 before staff counsel, and the remainder by affidavit or statement.

Chapter I: Summary and Conclusions

Narrative of Events

The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a cruel and shocking act of violence directed against a man, a family, a nation, and against all mankind. This Commission was created in recognition of the right of people everywhere to full and truthful knowledge concerning these events.

At 11:40 a.m. on Friday, November 22, President Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy, and their party arrived at Love Field in Dallas — the first day of a Texas trip planned five months earlier with Vice President Johnson and Governor Connally. A motorcade through downtown Dallas had been arranged to demonstrate the President's popularity in a city he had lost in 1960. The route, publicized in local papers since November 19, would carry the motorcade from Love Field past the intersection of Elm and Houston Streets to the Trade Mart via the Stemmons Freeway.

By midmorning, clearing skies had dispelled the threat of rain, and the President rode in his open limousine without the plastic bubbletop. Mrs. Kennedy sat to his left in the rear seat; Governor and Mrs. Connally occupied the jump seats ahead of them. Secret Service Agent William Greer drove, with Agent Roy Kellerman beside him. Directly behind followed an open car carrying eight Secret Service agents instructed to scan the crowds, rooftops, and windows for signs of trouble.

The motorcade left Love Field shortly after 11:50 a.m. and proceeded through residential neighborhoods to tumultuous crowds on Main Street. At the western end of Main, the cars turned right onto Houston Street and then left onto Elm, passing directly beneath the seven-story Texas School Book Depository. The clock atop the building read 12:30 p.m.

Seconds later, shots resounded in rapid succession. The President's hands moved to his neck; he stiffened and lurched slightly forward. A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck, traveled downward, and exited from the front, nicking his necktie. Governor Connally, turning to his left, felt a blow on his back — a bullet that entered below his right armpit, passed through his chest, exited below his right nipple, shattered his right wrist, and lodged in his left thigh. Then another bullet struck the President in the rear of his head, causing a massive and fatal wound. He fell to the left into Mrs. Kennedy's lap.

Agent Clinton Hill leaped from the running board of the follow-up car and raced to the President's limousine. Agent Youngblood vaulted into the rear of the Vice-Presidential car and threw himself over the Vice President. Agent Kellerman ordered the driver: "Let's get out of here; we are hit," and radioed ahead: "Get us to the hospital immediately." The Presidential car accelerated toward Parkland Memorial Hospital, four miles away.

At Parkland, physicians detected irregular breathing and a possible heartbeat but no pulse. They observed the massive head wound and a small wound in the lower third of the neck, performing a tracheotomy to facilitate breathing. At 1:00 p.m., after all heart activity ceased and Last Rites were administered, President Kennedy was pronounced dead. Governor Connally underwent surgery and ultimately recovered.

Vice President Johnson left Parkland under close guard for Love Field. At 2:38 p.m., in the central compartment of the Presidential plane, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President by Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes. The autopsy at Bethesda Naval Medical Center confirmed two wounds of entry — one in the rear of the skull, another near the base of the back of the neck — and concluded the bullets had been fired "from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased."

At the scene, confusion initially surrounded the origin of the shots, but attention quickly centered on the Texas School Book Depository. Eyewitness Howard Brennan, watching from Elm Street directly opposite, told police he had seen a slender man in his early thirties take deliberate aim from the sixth-floor corner window. By 12:34 p.m. the police radio mentioned the Depository as a possible source; by 12:45 a description of the suspect was broadcast.

Motorcycle patrolman Marrion Baker, certain the shot came from a high-powered rifle, raced to the building and, with superintendent Roy Truly, dashed up the stairs. On the second-floor landing, Baker glimpsed a man through the lunchroom door — empty-handed, calm. Truly identified him as an employee. The man was Lee Harvey Oswald, who had started work in the building on October 16, 1963. Within a minute, Oswald was seen passing through the second-floor offices carrying a Coke. By 12:40 p.m. he had boarded a bus on Elm Street, then switched to a taxi, arriving at his rooming house at about 1:00 p.m. The housekeeper noted he seemed in quite a hurry. Minutes later he emerged, zipping up his jacket, and rushed out.

Approximately forty-five minutes after the assassination, Patrolman J. D. Tippit was shot and killed near the intersection of 10th Street and Patton Avenue in Oak Cliff, about nine-tenths of a mile from Oswald's rooming house. Witnesses saw a man matching the broadcast description exchange words with Tippit through the car window, then draw a revolver and fire several shots as Tippit came around the front of his car. The gunman walked briskly away, shaking empty cartridge cases from his revolver, muttering what sounded like "poor dumb cop." He discarded his jacket in a parking lot and continued west on Jefferson Boulevard.

Johnny Brewer, a shoe store manager, saw a man duck into his store entrance as a police siren wailed, then slip into the nearby Texas Theatre without buying a ticket. The cashier called police. At 1:45 p.m. officers surrounded the theater. When confronted, the man said, "Well, it's all over now," drew a gun, and struck an officer. After a brief struggle he was disarmed, handcuffed, and driven to police headquarters.

Meanwhile, on the sixth floor of the Depository, Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney discovered three empty cartridge cases near the southeast corner window, where cartons had been arranged to form a sniper's perch screened from the rest of the floor. At 1:22 p.m. a bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight was found stuffed between boxes in the northwest corner — serial number C2766, caliber 6.5, made in Italy, 1940. When superintendent Truly reported that employee Lee Harvey Oswald was missing, Captain Fritz hurried to headquarters — only to learn that the man arrested at the Texas Theatre was the same Lee Harvey Oswald.

The suspect was born in New Orleans on October 18, 1939, two months after his father's death. Raised by his mother Marguerite through a succession of moves — orphanage, Dallas, Fort Worth, New York — he was a chronic truant who underwent psychiatric study at Youth House, where a social worker described him as "seriously detached" and "withdrawn," noting "a rather pleasant, appealing quality about this emotionally starved, affectionless youngster." In May 1953, after three weeks at Youth House, Oswald returned to school with temporarily improved attendance, but by fall teachers again complained of his behavior. His mother refused psychiatric treatment for the boy. In January 1954, Marguerite took Lee back to New Orleans, where he maintained mediocre grades but no obvious behavior problems. Neighbors remembered him as a quiet, solitary boy with an impressive vocabulary who read voraciously. Just after starting tenth grade, he forged a note from his mother claiming the family was moving to California, dropped out of school, and tried to join the Marine Corps — rejected because he was only sixteen.

Over the next ten months Oswald worked odd jobs in New Orleans and began reading communist literature, praising communism to coworkers and writing to the Socialist Party of America professing his belief in Marxism. In October 1956, six days after his seventeenth birthday, he enlisted in the Marines. During boot camp he scored 212 with the M-1 rifle — two points above "sharpshooter." Fellow Marines described him as a loner who resented authority and spent his free time reading. He served fifteen months overseas, mostly in Japan, and upon returning to California showed a marked interest in the Soviet Union, expressed admiration for Fidel Castro, and scored only 191 on his second rifle qualification — one point above "marksman."

Oswald secured early release from the Marines in September 1959, ostensibly to care for his ailing mother. He stayed with her three days, then booked passage on a freighter to France. He had been planning this move for months: he had applied to a Swiss college with a letter full of falsehoods, obtained a passport listing the Soviet Union, and saved as much as $1,500. On October 16, 1959, he arrived in Moscow and immediately applied for Soviet citizenship. Ordered to leave, he slashed his left wrist in an apparent suicide attempt and was hospitalized. On October 31 he appeared at the American Embassy, announced he wished to renounce his citizenship, and declared: "I am a Marxist." He never formally completed the renunciation. The Soviets denied him citizenship but permitted him to remain, sending him to Minsk to work in a radio factory.

In February 1961 Oswald wrote to the Embassy expressing a desire to return home. The following month he met Marina Nikolaevna Prusakova, a nineteen-year-old pharmacist; they married on April 30, 1961. After a year of negotiations with American and Soviet authorities, the couple — now with an infant daughter — left Moscow on June 1, 1962, assisted by a $435.71 State Department loan, and arrived in Fort Worth two weeks later.

Oswald found work as a sheet metal worker but was interviewed twice by FBI agents, who found him arrogant and evasive. In October 1962 he quit and moved to Dallas. A group of Russian-speaking émigrés in the area assisted Marina and the baby, though nearly all disliked Oswald himself, who remained dogmatically committed to Marxism and contemptuous of American democracy. In February 1963 the Oswalds met Ruth Paine, a woman separated from her husband who befriended Marina out of sympathy and an interest in Russian.

On April 10, 1963, after losing his job at a photography firm, Oswald attempted to assassinate Major General Edwin A. Walker with a rifle he had mail-ordered under an assumed name. Marina discovered the attempt when she found a note he had left with instructions in case he did not return. At her urging, Oswald left for New Orleans, where he formed a fictitious chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee — he was its only member, using the alias "A. J. Hidell" as its supposed president. He was arrested in August during a scuffle while distributing pro-Castro leaflets and appeared on radio programs claiming to represent the committee.

In September 1963, Ruth Paine drove Marina and the baby back to Irving, Texas, to stay at her home while Oswald ostensibly sought work elsewhere. Instead, he traveled by bus to Mexico City, where he visited the Cuban and Soviet Embassies seeking visas. Both refused him. He returned to Dallas on October 3, rented a room under the name "O. H. Lee," and on October 16 began work at the Texas School Book Depository — a job arranged through a neighbor's tip to Ruth Paine.

On Thursday, November 21, Oswald made an unexpected visit to Irving, telling his coworker Frazier he needed to pick up curtain rods. That evening Ruth Paine noticed the garage light burning, though she was certain she had not left it on. The next morning Oswald left before his wife awoke, leaving his wedding ring on the dresser — something he had never done before — and $170 in his wallet. He placed a long, bulky package in Frazier's car, calling it curtain rods.

When Marina heard that the President had been shot from the building where her husband worked, she recalled the Walker incident and went to the garage to check the blanket where the rifle had been stored. It appeared to still be there. At 3:00 p.m. police arrived and asked about the rifle. Marina led them to the blanket. When an officer lifted it, it hung limp. The rifle was gone.

At headquarters, Oswald denied everything — denied owning a rifle, denied involvement in the assassination or the Tippit murder, claimed a photograph of him holding a rifle was a forgery. More than a hundred reporters crowded the third-floor corridor, shouting questions and flashing cameras each time he was moved. Among them was Jack Ruby.

On Sunday morning, November 24, as Oswald was being transferred to the county jail before television cameras, Ruby darted from the crowd of newsmen and fired a single shot into Oswald's abdomen. Oswald died at Parkland Hospital at 1:07 p.m. without regaining consciousness. Ruby, instantly arrested, denied any conspiracy and claimed he had acted in a fit of depression and rage over the President's death. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death; as of September 1964 his case was on appeal.

Conclusions

The Commission reached the following principal conclusions:

The shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth-floor southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository, based on eyewitness testimony, ballistic evidence matching the 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on that floor, three spent cartridge cases fired from that weapon, and the trajectory of the wounds — all inflicted from above and behind. The weight of the evidence indicated three shots were fired. Persuasive expert testimony suggested the same bullet that pierced the President's throat also caused Governor Connally's wounds, though some difference of opinion existed on this point.

Lee Harvey Oswald fired those shots. He owned the rifle, carried it into the building that morning, was present at the window, and lied to police about substantive matters after his arrest. He had previously demonstrated a capacity for lethal violence by attempting to kill General Walker. Oswald also killed Patrolman Tippit approximately forty-five minutes after the assassination — identified by nine eyewitnesses, with cartridge cases at the scene matched to his revolver.

The Commission found no evidence that either Oswald or Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign. No evidence linked them to each other, to any foreign government, or to any political organization in connection with the assassination. Oswald acted alone. The Commission identified contributing factors in his character: a deep-rooted resentment of authority, an inability to form meaningful relationships, an urge to find a place in history, a capacity for violence, and an avowed commitment to Marxism as he understood it.

Recommendations

The Commission recommended that a Cabinet-level committee oversee Presidential protection; that the Secret Service overhaul its threat-detection criteria to encompass indirect dangers such as returned defectors; that it modernize data-processing capabilities and formalize agreements with other federal agencies for intelligence sharing; that motorcade security procedures be strengthened, including inspection of buildings along the route; that the Secret Service receive additional personnel and resources; that the President's physician always accompany him; and that Congress make assassination of the President a federal crime. The Commission further recommended that the bar, law enforcement, and news media collaborate on ethical standards to prevent interference with criminal investigations and fair-trial rights.

Chapter II: The Assassination

Planning the Texas Trip

President Kennedy's visit to Texas had been under consideration for almost a year. As a political leader he wished to resolve factional controversy within the Texas Democratic Party before the 1964 election; as Chief of State he welcomed the chance to meet citizens firsthand. The basic decision was made at a meeting of the President, Vice President Johnson, and Governor Connally on June 5, 1963, in El Paso. Originally planned as a single day, the trip was extended to span November 21--22, with stops in San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas, and Austin.

Everyone agreed that a motorcade through downtown Dallas would be the best way for the people to see their President. Kenneth O'Donnell, the President's special assistant, noted that motorcades were automatic in large cities — the Secret Service would arrange a route exposing the President "to the greatest number of people."

Advance Preparations

Secret Service Agents Winston Lawson and Forrest Sorrels handled advance preparations. Lawson checked the Protective Research Section files in Washington and found no listing for any individual deemed a potential danger in the Dallas--Fort Worth area. In Dallas, he conferred with local police and the FBI. Although the PRS files contained no mention of the hostile demonstration against Ambassador Adlai Stevenson on October 24, Lawson obtained photographs of some participants, and agents stood ready with copies at the Trade Mart. The FBI reported a handbill sharply critical of the President circulating on November 21, but neither the police nor the Bureau had identified its source. No one identified Lee Harvey Oswald as a potential threat.

The Trade Mart was selected as the luncheon site after the Women's Building proved unattractive and Market Hall was unavailable. Though the Trade Mart presented security challenges — numerous entrances, tiers of balconies, catwalks — Sorrels believed these could be overcome. Ultimately more than 200 law enforcement officers were deployed in and around the building.

The motorcade route, measuring ten miles from Love Field to the Trade Mart, was chosen to maximize public exposure within the allotted forty-five minutes. It ran through suburban Dallas, down Main Street through the downtown area, then right on Houston Street and left onto Elm — passing directly beneath the Texas School Book Depository — before entering the Stemmons Freeway. The route was publicized in both Dallas newspapers beginning November 19, with precise street-by-street details. No arrangements were made to inspect buildings along the route; under standard procedures, the responsibility for watching windows was shared between local police on the streets and Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade.

Dallas Before the Visit

The impending visit stirred both hospitality and hostility. Dallas officials and editorials urged citizens to be "congenial hosts," and the mayor called on the city to redeem itself after the Stevenson incident. Chief of Police Curry announced plans to call in a hundred extra off-duty officers. Yet on November 21, anonymous "Wanted for Treason" handbills appeared on the streets beneath two photographs of the President, and on the morning of his arrival, a full-page black-bordered advertisement in the Morning News — headed "Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas" — posed a series of hostile questions about his administration.

Visits to Other Texas Cities

The trip began on November 21 with stops in San Antonio, where the President dedicated the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, and Houston, where an enthusiastic crowd greeted him at Rice Stadium. David Powers told the President that a hundred thousand extra people had come to see Mrs. Kennedy. The party spent the night in Fort Worth, where the President spoke at a breakfast gathering the next morning. Before departing for Dallas, Kennedy remarked to O'Donnell: "If anybody really wanted to shoot the President of the United States, it was not a very difficult job — all one had to do was get a high building someday with a telescopic rifle, and there was nothing anybody could do to defend against such an attempt."

Arrival at Love Field and the Motorcade

By midmorning the rain had stopped and bright sunshine greeted Air Force One at Love Field at 11:40 a.m. The President and Mrs. Kennedy walked along a chain-link fence greeting spectators while Secret Service agents formed a cordon and scanned the crowd. The Presidential limousine — a specially designed 1961 Lincoln convertible with a clear plastic bubbletop that was neither bulletproof nor bullet-resistant — carried the President and Mrs. Kennedy in the rear seat, Governor and Mrs. Connally in the jump seats, with Agent Greer driving and Agent Kellerman beside him. Because the skies had cleared, the bubbletop was removed. The President had frequently stated he did not want agents riding on the rear running boards during motorcades except when necessary.

Directly behind followed the Secret Service follow-up car with eight agents armed with pistols, a shotgun, and an automatic rifle, instructed to scan crowds, windows, rooftops, and overpasses. The Vice-Presidential car trailed two to three car lengths back, carrying Vice President Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, and Senator Yarborough, with Agent Youngblood in the front seat.

The motorcade left Love Field shortly after 11:50 a.m. and proceeded through thinly populated suburbs before reaching the dense downtown crowds on Main Street, where Agent Hill had to leave the follow-up car four times to ride on the rear of the President's limousine. As the motorcade turned from Main onto Houston Street and approached Dealey Plaza, Mrs. Connally turned to the President and said, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." He replied, "That is very obvious."

The Assassination

At 12:30 p.m., as the limousine proceeded at approximately eleven miles per hour down Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass, shots rang out. Mrs. Kennedy heard a sound like a motorcycle noise and a cry from Governor Connally. Turning, she saw a quizzical look on her husband's face as he raised his left hand to his throat. Then a second shot tore open the President's skull. "Oh, my God, they have shot my husband," she cried. "I love you, Jack."

Governor Connally recognized the first noise as a rifle shot and instinctively turned right. Before he could look back over his left shoulder, something struck him in the back. Mrs. Connally, looking over her right shoulder, saw the President with both hands at his neck, then watched him slump with an empty expression. Kellerman heard the President say, "My God, I am hit," grabbed the microphone and radioed: "We are hit. Get us to the hospital immediately." Driver Greer pressed the accelerator. Governor Connally, pulled into his wife's lap with his chest covered in blood, cried out: "Oh, no, no, no. My God, they are going to kill us all."

Agent Hill, scanning the south side of Elm Street from the follow-up car's running board, heard a noise like a firecracker and saw the President "grab at himself and lurch forward and to the left." He leaped from the car and sprinted toward the limousine. As he reached it, a second shot removed a portion of the President's head. The car lurched forward; Hill lost his footing, ran three or four steps, and pulled himself onto the rear step. Mrs. Kennedy had climbed onto the trunk of the car — apparently reaching for something — and Hill grabbed her and pushed her back into the seat, then lay across the back to shield them both. In the Vice-Presidential car, Youngblood heard the explosion, saw the crowd scattering, vaulted into the rear seat and threw himself on top of the Vice President.

Parkland Memorial Hospital

On Kellerman's radio message, Chief Curry led the motorcade at speeds reaching seventy to eighty miles per hour down the Stemmons Freeway. The Presidential limousine reached Parkland's emergency entrance at approximately 12:35 p.m. Twelve doctors had already rushed to the emergency area. Agent Hill removed his jacket and covered the President's head to prevent photographs. Governor Connally, who had regained consciousness when the car stopped, lurched forward trying to stand and clear the way for the President, then collapsed in excruciating pain. For a moment Mrs. Kennedy refused to release her husband from her lap; then Kellerman, Greer, and Lawson lifted him onto a stretcher and wheeled him into trauma room 1.

Dr. Charles Carrico, the first physician to examine the President, found him ashen, with slow agonal respiration, dilated pupils, and no palpable pulse — but still alive. He noted two wounds: a small bullet hole in the front lower neck and a massive head wound with a sizable portion of skull missing and shredded brain tissue. Dr. Malcolm Perry took over, performing a tracheotomy through the neck wound to establish an airway. Other doctors inserted chest tubes, administered intravenous fluids and hydrocortisone for the President's known adrenal insufficiency, and began closed cardiac massage. Dr. William Kemp Clark, the chief neurologist, observed a large gaping wound in the right rear of the head with substantial brain tissue exposed. In the absence of any neurological, muscular, or heart response, the doctors concluded their efforts were hopeless. At approximately 1:00 p.m., after Father Oscar Huber administered Last Rites, Dr. Clark pronounced the President dead. The President could have survived the neck wound; the head wound was fatal.

The Parkland doctors never turned the President over. As Dr. Carrico later testified: in treating an acutely injured patient, "you have to establish an airway, adequate ventilation and adequate circulation" before evaluating the full extent of injuries. After the President expired, "I suppose nobody really had the heart to do it."

Meanwhile, a second medical team operated on Governor Connally. Dr. Robert Shaw sutured the damaged lung and lacerated muscles from the chest wound, then closed the elliptical wound in the Governor's back. Two additional operations followed: Dr. Charles Gregory repaired the shattered right wrist, and Dr. George Shires treated the puncture wound in the left thigh, where a small metallic fragment remained.

Vice President Johnson at Parkland

Secret Service agents surrounded the Vice President and Mrs. Johnson and moved them into a secured room at the hospital. At approximately 1:20 p.m. O'Donnell informed Johnson that the President was dead. Johnson decided to return to Washington on the Presidential plane because of its superior communications equipment, but refused to leave Dallas without Mrs. Kennedy. Unmarked police cars drove the Johnsons to Love Field, where the Vice President kept below window level at Youngblood's instruction.

Removal of the President's Body

After the President was pronounced dead, Mrs. Kennedy refused to leave his side. A casket was obtained, but two Dallas officials protested that the body could not be removed until an autopsy was performed. Despite their objections, the casket was wheeled out and transported to Love Field, arriving at approximately 2:15 p.m.

Swearing In and Return to Washington

From the plane, Vice President Johnson telephoned Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who advised that Johnson take the oath of office before departure. Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath at 2:38 p.m. in the central compartment of Air Force One, with Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Johnson standing at the new President's side. Nine minutes later the plane departed for Washington, landing at Andrews Air Force Base at 5:58 p.m. — thirty-one hours after President Kennedy had begun his last trip from that same field.

The Autopsy

Mrs. Kennedy chose Bethesda Naval Medical Center for the autopsy because the President had served in the Navy. The examination, beginning at approximately 8:00 p.m., revealed two head wounds: a small entry wound about an inch to the right and slightly above the external occipital protuberance, and a massive wound approximately five inches in diameter with multiple radiating fractures. X-rays showed thirty to forty tiny metal fragments running in a line from the rear wound toward the front of the skull. The autopsy also disclosed a wound near the base of the back of the neck, slightly right of the spine; the doctors traced the bullet's path and concluded it had exited through the front of the neck at the point where the Parkland tracheotomy had been performed. The cause of death was recorded as "Gunshot wound, head," with the bullets fired "from a point behind and somewhat above the level of the deceased." The autopsy concluded at approximately 11:00 p.m., and the President's body was prepared for burial through the early morning hours before being placed under ceremonial military guard in the East Room of the White House.

Chapter III: The Shots From the Texas School Book Depository

The Commission analyzed the source, effect, number, and timing of the shots through eyewitness testimony, physical evidence from the Presidential limousine, expert examination of the rifle and ammunition, the wounds suffered by the President and Governor Connally, ballistics experiments, clothing analysis, and motion-picture films taken at the scene.

The Witnesses

Passengers in the first cars of the motorcade had the impression that shots came from the rear and to the right — the general direction of the Texas School Book Depository — though none of them actually saw anyone fire. Several spectators on the street, however, did see a rifle being fired from the easternmost sixth-floor window on the south side of the building. Other witnesses saw a rifle in that window immediately after the shots. Three Depository employees on the fifth floor heard the shots fired from the floor directly above them. No credible evidence suggested that shots were fired from the railroad bridge over the Triple Underpass, the nearby railroad yards, or any place other than the Depository.

Howard Brennan, a forty-five-year-old steamfitter, watched the motorcade from a concrete retaining wall at the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets, approximately 120 feet from the sixth-floor corner window. He had a clear, unobstructed view of the south side of the building. While waiting about seven minutes for the President to arrive, Brennan noticed a man at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor and observed him leave the window "a couple of times." After the President's car passed, Brennan heard an explosion like a motorcycle backfire, then glanced up:

"Well, as it appeared to me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill, with gun shouldered to his right shoulder, holding the gun with his left hand and taking positive aim and fired his last shot. As I calculate a couple of seconds. He drew the gun back from the window as though he was drawing it back to his side and maybe paused for another second as though to assure hisself that he hit his mark, and then he disappeared."

Brennan saw seventy to eighty-five percent of the gun and the man's body from the waist up. He quickly reported his observations to police officers.

Fifteen-year-old Amos Lee Euins, facing the building as the motorcade turned the corner, saw "this pipe thing sticking out the window." When the first shot was fired he started looking around, thinking it was a backfire. Then he looked up at the window "and he shot again." Euins hid behind a fountain bench and saw the man shoot once more from the sixth-floor corner window. He immediately reported to Sergeant Harkness, who radioed headquarters at 12:36 p.m. — though Harkness's hasty count of floors produced an erroneous report of the fifth floor rather than the sixth.

Robert Jackson, a staff photographer for the Dallas Times-Herald riding eight or nine cars back in the motorcade, heard three shots — the last two closer together than the first. He looked straight up at the Depository and saw "two Negro men in a window straining to see directly above them, and my eyes followed right on up to the window above them and I saw the rifle or what looked like a rifle approximately half of the weapon, I guess I saw, and just as I looked at it, it was drawn fairly slowly back into the building." His colleagues Thomas Dillard, Malcolm Couch, and James Underwood confirmed Jackson's spontaneous exclamation. Dillard, who testified they "had an absolutely perfect view of the School Depository," immediately photographed the building, capturing three men in fifth-floor windows and the partially open sixth-floor window directly above them.

Three Depository employees — Harold Norman, Bonnie Ray Williams, and James Jarman — were watching the parade from the fifth floor, directly beneath the sniper's perch. Norman, in the southeast corner window, heard the shots and "could also hear something sounded like the shell hulls hitting the floor and the ejecting of the rifle." Williams said the second and third shots "sounded like it was right in the building" and "even shook the building, the side we were on. Cement fell on my head." Norman confirmed: "I can even hear the shell being ejected from the gun hitting the floor." After the shooting, Jarman recalled Norman saying "he was sure that the shot came from inside the building because he had been used to guns and all that, and he said it didn't sound like it was too far off anyway."

In a later experiment conducted for the Commission, a Secret Service agent operated the bolt of a rifle and dropped three cartridge shells on the sixth floor while Norman, Williams, and Jarman sat at their fifth-floor positions below. Norman testified: "Well, I heard the same sound, the sound similar. I heard three something that he dropped on the floor and then I could hear the rifle or whatever he had up there." All seven Commissioners who attended subsequent demonstrations clearly heard the shells drop to the floor.

No credible evidence supported the theory that shots came from the railroad bridge or the nearby yards. Many spectators ran in that direction after the shooting, but none saw anyone with a rifle. Witnesses on the bridge gave varying accounts — some thought the sound came from the trees on the north side of Elm Street, others from the Presidential limousine itself — but investigation attributed these impressions to reverberation. Lee Bowers, working in a railroad tower about fifty yards from the back of the Depository, noted "a reverberation which takes place from either location." Patrolman Foster, stationed on the bridge, ran toward the Depository after the shots and saw no suspicious activity in the railroad yards.

The Presidential Automobile

After the car was returned to Washington on November 22, Secret Service agents found two bullet fragments in the front seat: a nose portion weighing 44.6 grains beside the driver, and a base portion weighing 21.0 grains along the right side. FBI agents found three small lead particles under the left jump seat, a lead residue on the inside surface of the laminated windshield with a small pattern of cracks on the outer layer but no penetration, and a dent in the chrome strip across the top of the windshield. FBI firearms expert Robert Frazier testified that the windshield had been struck from the inside: the cracks appeared on the outer layer because the glass was "bent outward at the time of impact which stretches the outer layer of the glass to the point where these small radial or wagon wheel spoke-type cracks appear on the outer surface." All bullet fragments were found to be similar in metallic composition, though it was not possible to determine whether two or more came from the same bullet.

Expert Examination of Rifle, Cartridge Cases, and Bullet Fragments

Around 1:00 p.m. on November 22, Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney discovered three empty cartridge cases on the floor near the southeast corner window of the sixth floor, where cartons had been arranged to form a sniper's shield. At 1:22 p.m. Deputies Eugene Boone and Seymour Weitzman found a bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight stuffed between two rows of boxes in the northwest corner near the staircase. Nothing was touched until the crime laboratory photographed the scene and checked for fingerprints. The rifle was identified as a 6.5-millimeter model 91/38 Mannlicher-Carcano, serial number C2766, manufactured in Italy in 1940 — 40.2 inches long, eight pounds, fitted with an inexpensive four-power Japanese telescopic sight and a sling that appeared to be a musical instrument strap.

A nearly whole bullet was recovered from Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital. Darrell Tomlinson, the hospital's senior engineer, had bumped the stretcher against a wall and a bullet rolled out. The Commission concluded it came from the Governor's stretcher, since President Kennedy was never removed from his stretcher until his body was placed in a casket in the same room — a completely different location from where the bullet was found.

Four independent firearms identification experts — including FBI Special Agent Robert Frazier, with twenty-three years' experience and an estimated fifty to sixty thousand comparisons, and Joseph Nicol, superintendent of the Illinois bureau of criminal identification — positively identified the nearly whole bullet, the two largest fragments from the limousine, and the three cartridge cases as having been fired from the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons. The identification rested on distinctive microscopic markings unique to each weapon — markings arising during manufacture and use that create patterns as individual as fingerprints.

The Bullet Wounds: The President's Head

The Bethesda autopsy revealed two head wounds. A small entry wound — one-fourth by five-eighths of an inch — was located about an inch to the right and slightly above the external occipital protuberance at the back of the skull. The massive exit wound on the right side measured approximately five inches in its greatest diameter, with multiple radiating fractures. X-rays revealed thirty to forty tiny metal fragments running in a line from the rear wound toward the front of the skull.

Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Finck, chief of the Wound Ballistics Pathology Branch of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, explained the characteristic beveling effect based on his studies of more than four hundred cases: when a bullet perforates the skull, the diameter of the hole is smaller on the impact side and larger on the exit side. "President Kennedy was, in my opinion, shot from the rear," Finck testified. "The bullet entered in the back of the head and went out on the right side of his skull — he was shot from above and behind." Commander James Humes, the chief autopsy surgeon, concurred, comparing the coning effect to a BB shot striking a pane of glass — a round defect on the impact side and a belled-out surface on the opposite side. Ballistics experiments at Edgewood Arsenal, using the same rifle and ammunition type, confirmed that the weapon was capable of producing the President's head wound when fired into reconstructed human skulls.

The President's Neck Wounds

The autopsy revealed a second bullet wound near the base of the back of the President's neck, slightly to the right of his spine — approximately one-fourth by one-seventh of an inch, with clean, sharply delineated edges characteristic of a long-range entry wound. The bullet had passed between two large strap muscles, bruised the top of the right lung and ripped the windpipe, then exited through the front of the neck at the point where the Parkland doctors had performed the tracheotomy. No bone was struck. The examining surgeons rejected the theory that the bullet had lodged in the neck muscles and fallen out during heart massage; Commander Humes confirmed the exit path after speaking by telephone with Dr. Perry, who told him he had used the missile wound in the neck as the incision point for the tracheotomy.

At Parkland, Dr. Carrico had noted a small wound approximately one-fourth of an inch in diameter in the lower third of the neck. Dr. Perry described it as approximately one-fifth of an inch, with edges "neither cleancut, that is, punched out, nor were they very ragged." Both doctors testified that, based on the neck wound alone, it could have been either an entrance or exit wound. But when informed of the autopsy findings, the bullet's trajectory, and the weapon's muzzle velocity, both concluded it was an exit wound. Dr. Perry's initial press conference remarks — suggesting the neck wound might have been an entrance — had been speculative, based on incomplete information; he did not yet know about the wound on the back of the President's neck or the small entry hole in the rear of the skull.

Wound ballistics tests at Edgewood Arsenal simulated the President's neck using comparable material approximately five and a half inches thick, with animal skin on each side. Bullets fired from the C2766 rifle at 180 feet produced entry holes that were regular and round, and exit holes only slightly elongated — similar to the descriptions given by the Parkland doctors. The entrance velocity averaged 1,904 feet per second; exit velocity averaged 1,772 to 1,798 feet per second, confirming that the bullet lost very little velocity passing through soft tissue. Examination of the President's clothing corroborated the path: a roughly circular hole on the rear of his suit jacket, 5⅜ inches below the collar, with fibers pushed inward and traces of copper; a matching hole on the back of his shirt; and vertical ragged slits on the front of the shirt, with fibers protruding outward, plus a nick on the left side of his necktie knot.

The Governor's Wounds

Governor Connally sustained wounds of the back, chest, right wrist, and left thigh. Dr. Robert Shaw identified the small, clean-cut wound on the Governor's back as an entry wound. The bullet traversed his chest at a downward angle of twenty-five degrees, shattering his fifth rib, and exited below the right nipple through a ragged two-inch opening. On the back of his right wrist, Dr. Charles Gregory found a linear wound approximately one inch long; thread and cloth had been carried into the wound, and X-rays revealed small metal fragments — characteristics indicating an irregular, tumbling missile rather than a pristine bullet. The exit wound on the palm side was smaller. A puncture wound in the left thigh, about two-fifths of an inch in diameter, contained a tiny embedded metallic fragment.

Ballistics experiments proved that the Governor's wrist wound was not caused by a pristine bullet. Tests firing the same rifle and ammunition at comparable material showed that a pristine bullet produced greater damage, a smaller entry wound, and a larger exit wound — the opposite of the Governor's injuries. The bullet found on the Governor's stretcher weighed 158.6 grains, only slightly less than the unfired weight of 160--161 grains, and the minute fragments removed from his wrist were sufficiently small to have been deposited by that nearly whole bullet as it tumbled through. All three Parkland doctors who attended the Governor independently concluded that a single bullet had passed through his chest, tumbled through his wrist with very little exit velocity, punctured his left thigh, and fallen out of the thigh wound. Governor Connally himself thought it likely, recalling that he had repositioned his right hand on his left thigh in a way that aligned all three wound sites.

The Zapruder Film and Trajectory Analysis

The most important piece of physical evidence for reconstructing the assassination sequence was the 8-millimeter home movie taken by Abraham Zapruder, a Dallas dressmaker who filmed the motorcade from a concrete pedestal on the north side of Elm Street. Zapruder's camera operated at 18.3 frames per second, allowing the timing of events to be calculated to fractions of a second. Individual 35-millimeter slides were made from each frame of the film, and these were viewed by Governor and Mrs. Connally, the Governor's doctors, the autopsy surgeons, and the Army wound ballistics scientists.

On May 24, 1964, FBI and Secret Service agents conducted a detailed reenactment at the scene. Since the Presidential limousine was being remodeled, the Secret Service follow-up car was used as a substitute. Two Bureau agents with approximately the same physical characteristics as the President and Governor sat in the same relative positions. The back of the President's stand-in was marked with chalk at the point of bullet entry; the Governor's model wore the same coat Governor Connally had been wearing, with the hole in the back circled in chalk.

The C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was positioned at the sixth-floor window with a camera mounted on it to record the assassin's view. The Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore cameras were placed at their original locations for comparison. The agents verified that the foliage of the oak tree between the window and the motorcade route was approximately the same as on November 22.

The tests established that the President was in clear view of the sixth-floor window as he rode up Houston Street and for the first hundred feet down Elm, until frame 166, when he passed beneath the oak tree's foliage. He briefly reappeared at frame 186 through an opening in the leaves, then emerged fully at frame 210. When the President came back into full view at frame 225, he was clearly reacting to his neck wound — raising his hands to his throat. The reaction was "clearly apparent in 226 and barely apparent in 225."

The Commission concluded he was probably shot through the neck between frames 210 and 225 — when the limousine was between 138.9 and 153.8 feet west of Houston Street. The fatal head shot struck at frame 313, when the President was 230.8 feet from Houston Street and 265.3 feet from the rifle. The approximate angle of declination was 15°21'.

Two additional motion pictures — by Orville Nix and Mary Muchmore — captured the moment of the head shot from different angles. By plotting straight lines from each camera position through the President's location to fixed background points, investigators confirmed the President's precise position on a plat map. The locations determined from all three films were consistent.

FBI Agent Frazier, occupying the assassin's position during the reenactment, concluded that the bullet which passed through the President's neck must then have struck the automobile or someone else in it. Minute examination of the limousine revealed no interior damage that could have been caused by a bullet exiting at nearly 1,800 feet per second — except the windshield crack and chrome dent, neither of which could have resulted from a bullet at that velocity.

The "Single-Bullet" Trajectory

The trajectory analysis was central to the Commission's conclusion that a single bullet probably struck both the President and the Governor. FBI Agent Frazier, occupying the assassin's position during the reenactment, testified that the marks simulating the entry wounds on both stand-ins were "in direct alinement with the telescopic sight at the window. The Governor is immediately behind the President in the field of view."

A surveyor measured the angle of declination from the sixth-floor window to the President's back at frames 210 through 225 at approximately 20°52'30". Allowing for the street's downward grade of 3°9', the probable angle through the President's body was calculated at 17°43'30". When a rod was placed at this angle next to the stand-ins in a nearby garage, the line of fire from the sixth floor would have caused the bullet to exit under the Governor's right nipple — precisely where it did. The Governor's doctors measured a declination of about 25° through his chest; the five-degree difference was explained by a slight deflection from striking his fifth rib or by his leaning slightly backward.

The Commission acknowledged that the alignment was "only indicative and not conclusive" — the exact positions of the men could not be perfectly recreated, and variations in posture would have changed the angles. But the physical evidence, the wound ballistics experiments, and the expert testimony all converged on the same conclusion: it was probable that the same bullet traversed the President's neck and inflicted all the Governor's wounds.

Number and Timing of Shots

The consensus among witnesses was that three shots were fired, though some heard two and others as many as five or six. The difficulty of accurate perception was compounded by the multiple noises each shot produces — the muzzle blast, the bullet's shock wave, and the impact — and by reverberations off the tall buildings surrounding Dealey Plaza.

The physical evidence compelled the conclusion that at least two shots were fired: the nearly whole bullet from the stretcher and the two largest limousine fragments came from at least two separate bullets. The three spent cartridge cases on the sixth floor, all fired from the assassination rifle, supported the conclusion of three shots. The Commission recognized the possibility that the assassin carried an empty shell in the rifle and fired only two shots, but the preponderance of evidence — particularly the three cartridge cases — led to the conclusion that three shots were fired.

Since one bullet probably caused all the wounds to the President's neck and the Governor's body, and a subsequent bullet struck the President's head, one of the three shots probably missed the car and its occupants entirely. The evidence was inconclusive as to which shot missed; the timing calculations based on the Zapruder film are set out in the chapter's concluding section.

Films and Onsite Tests: Methodology

The reenactment tests of May 24, 1964, were designed to determine as precisely as possible what happened on November 22. To pinpoint the locations of the Presidential limousine at each moment, a man stood at Zapruder's position and directed the automobile and both models to the positions shown on each frame of the Zapruder film. A Bureau photographer then crouched at the sixth-floor window and looked through a camera whose lens recorded the view through the telescopic sight of the C2766 rifle. Each position was measured to determine how far the President had traveled down Elm from a reference point designated as "station C" on the west curbline of Houston Street.

The tests revealed that at frame 166, the President passed beneath the oak tree and the point of impact on his back disappeared from the gunman's view through the telescopic lens. For a fleeting instant at frame 186, the President reappeared through an opening among the leaves. The next clear view came at frame 210, when the car emerged from behind the tree. According to FBI Agent Shaneyfelt, "There is no obstruction from the sixth floor window from the time they leave the tree until they disappear down toward the triple overpass."

The President was waving to the crowd until around frame 205, when a road sign blocked most of his body from Zapruder's view — though the assassin continued to have a clear view as the President proceeded down Elm. It was probable that the President was not shot before frame 210, since it was unlikely the assassin would deliberately have fired with his view obstructed by the oak tree when he was about to have a clear opportunity. It was also doubtful that even the most proficient marksman would have hit him through the tree. The President's reaction was "barely apparent" in frame 225, approximately eight-tenths of a second after frame 210 — and a shot much before 210 would assume a longer reaction time than eyewitnesses recalled.

The fatal head shot was fixed at frame 313 through correlation of all three films. The Nix and Muchmore films, taken from different angles, allowed investigators to plot straight lines from each camera position through the President's location to fixed background points. The President's position on the plat map was identical when determined from both films, and was confirmed by the Zapruder film. At frame 313, the President was 265.3 feet from the rifle in the sixth-floor window, and the approximate angle of declination was 15°21'.

The tests also established the minimum firing time. The bolt of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle required at least 2.3 seconds to operate between shots — pulling it back to eject the spent cartridge case, then pushing it forward to chamber a new round. This minimum was determined by FBI experts who tested the weapon extensively. Combined with the Zapruder film's frame-by-frame timing, the 2.3-second minimum allowed the Commission to calculate the possible time spans for the three shots under each scenario; those calculations appear in the chapter's concluding section.

The Commission noted that the wide range of possibilities and the existence of conflicting testimony, coupled with the impossibility of scientific verification, precluded a conclusive finding as to which shot missed. The evidence was consistent with any of the three shots having been the one that missed the car and its occupants.

The Single-Bullet Conclusion

Since the bullet that exited the President's neck at nearly 1,800 feet per second struck no part of the limousine's interior, FBI Agent Frazier testified that it probably struck Governor Connally, who sat immediately in front of and slightly to the left of the President. Viewed through the rifle's telescopic sight during the reenactment, the marks simulating the entry wounds on both men were generally in a straight line — the Governor directly behind the President in the shooter's field of view.

Additional wound ballistics experiments at Edgewood Arsenal supported the single-bullet conclusion. A test bullet fired through simulated chest material displayed characteristics similar to the stretcher bullet and was tumbling upon exit — consistent with the larger entry wound and smaller exit wound on the Governor's wrist, the cloth carried into the wound, and the partial cutting of a radial nerve and tendon. Drs. Olivier and Dziemian, the Army's chief wound ballistics experts, concluded it was probable that the same bullet passed through the President's neck and inflicted all the Governor's wounds. "I think the probability is very good that it is, that all the wounds were caused by one bullet," Dr. Dziemian testified. The Governor's wrist wound would have been more extensive had the bullet merely passed through his chest at approximately 1,500 feet per second; the reduced damage suggested the bullet had already lost velocity passing through the President's neck and was yawing when it entered the Governor's back.

The Fatal Head Shot

The Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore films captured the instant the subsequent bullet struck the President's head at frame 313, when the limousine was 230.8 feet from Houston Street and 265.3 feet from the rifle in the sixth-floor window. The immediately preceding frame showed the President slumped to his left, clutching his throat, chin close to his chest. The impact was evident from the explosion of brain tissue from the right side of his head.

Number of Shots

Three spent cartridge cases on the sixth floor, all fired from the assassination rifle, provided the most convincing evidence of how many shots had been fired. Witness accounts ranged from two to as many as five or six — discrepancies attributable to the muzzle blast, the bullet's shock wave, the impact noise, and reverberations off the tall buildings — but the physical evidence supported the conclusion that three shots were fired.

The Shot That Missed

Since one shot passed through the President's neck and probably through the Governor, and a subsequent shot struck the President's head, one of the three shots probably missed the car and its occupants entirely. The evidence was inconclusive as to which shot missed. Governor Connally's testimony — that he heard the first shot, turned, and was struck by the second — supported the first shot missing. But other witnesses, including Agent Hill and photographer Phillip Willis, indicated the first shot hit the President. James Tague, standing near the Triple Underpass, was struck on the cheek by a fragment, and a fresh mark on the south curb of Main Street showed metal smears "spectrographically determined to be essentially lead with a trace of antimony" — consistent with a bullet fragment but not an unmutilated full metal-jacketed bullet. The Commission could not conclusively determine which shot missed.

Time Span and Conclusion

The time between the neck shot (frames 210--225) and the head shot (frame 313) was 4.8 to 5.6 seconds. If the missed shot was the first or third, a minimum of 2.3 seconds must be added, giving a total span of 7.1 to 7.9 seconds for all three shots. The Commission concluded that the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth-floor southeast corner window of the Texas School Book Depository. Two bullets probably caused all the wounds. One shot probably missed. The three shots were fired in a period ranging from approximately 4.8 to in excess of 7 seconds.

Chapter IV: The Assassin

The Commission evaluated eight categories of evidence to identify the assassin: ownership of the weapon, how it was brought into the building, who was at the window, the killing of Patrolman Tippit, resistance to arrest, lies told to police, the prior attempt on General Walker's life, and Oswald's rifle capability.

Ownership and Possession of the Assassination Weapon

On the evening of November 22, FBI agents traced the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial number C2766, from its Italian manufacturer through Crescent Firearms of New York to Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago. Klein's records showed the rifle had been shipped on March 20, 1963, to "A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas." The order coupon, clipped from the February 1963 American Rifleman, was in the handprinting of Lee Harvey Oswald, as was the accompanying postal money order for $21.45. The post office box was rented to "Lee H. Oswald." Document examiners from both the Treasury Department and the FBI testified unequivocally to these identifications.

The alias "Hidell" was one Oswald used repeatedly. When arrested, he carried a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver purchased by mail under the name "A. J. Hidell" at the same post office box. His wallet contained counterfeit Selective Service and Marine cards in the name "Alek James Hidell" — photographic reproductions of his own cards, retouched and reprinted, bearing Oswald's photograph and his handwriting. Marina Oswald testified that "Hidell is merely an altered Fidel, and I laughed at such foolishness." The name served as the fictitious president of Oswald's one-man New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

Additional evidence of possession came from a palmprint lifted from the underside of the rifle barrel — a location accessible only when the rifle was disassembled. FBI fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona and independent examiner Arthur Mandella of the New York City Police both identified it as Oswald's right palmprint. Cotton fibers found in a crevice of the rifle's butt plate matched the dark blue, gray-black, and orange-yellow fibers of the shirt Oswald was wearing when arrested — the same shirt witnesses confirmed he wore on the morning of the assassination.

Two photographs taken by Marina Oswald in the backyard of their Neely Street apartment showed Oswald holding the rifle, a pistol, and copies of the Worker and the Militant. FBI photography expert Lyndal Shaneyfelt confirmed the rifle's configuration matched the assassination weapon and established that the negative of one photograph was exposed in Oswald's Imperial Reflex camera to the exclusion of all other cameras. The photographs were not composites; Oswald's face had not been superimposed on another body.

Marina Oswald identified the rifle found on the sixth floor as "the fateful rifle of Lee Oswald" — the only rifle he owned after returning from the Soviet Union. She had seen it in their New Orleans apartment during the summer of 1963 and watched him practice operating the bolt on the screened porch at night. In September 1963, the rifle was loaded into Ruth Paine's station wagon along with the Oswalds' other possessions and transported to Irving, where it was stored in a green and brown blanket in the Paines' garage. About a week after arriving from New Orleans, Marina was looking for parts to the baby's crib and started to open the blanket — she saw the stock of the rifle. Ruth and Michael Paine both noticed the rolled-up blanket during the weeks that followed; Michael moved it on several occasions, thinking it contained tent poles or camping equipment. When he appeared before the Commission, Michael Paine lifted the blanket with the rifle wrapped inside and testified that it appeared to be the same approximate weight and shape as the package he had handled in his garage. The rifle remained in the blanket until the morning of the assassination.

Having reviewed all this evidence — the purchase records, the palmprint, the fibers, the photographs, and the testimony of Marina Oswald — the Commission concluded that the rifle used to assassinate President Kennedy and wound Governor Connally was owned and possessed by Lee Harvey Oswald.

The Rifle in the Building

On the morning of November 21, Oswald asked his coworker Buell Wesley Frazier for an unusual midweek ride to Irving, explaining he needed to pick up "curtain rods" for his apartment. The explanation was false: his room already had curtains and rods, he never mentioned curtain rods to his landlady or to Ruth Paine, and no curtain rods were found in the Depository after the assassination. That evening, Ruth Paine noticed the garage light burning — she was certain she had not left it on. An FBI firearms expert demonstrated that the rifle could be disassembled in under six minutes using a ten-cent coin.

The next morning, Oswald left the Paine house at approximately 7:15 while his wife was still in bed. Neither she nor Ruth Paine saw him leave. He left his wedding ring on the dresser — something he had never done before — and $170 in his wallet. Frazier's sister, Linnie Mae Randle, watched from her kitchen window as Oswald crossed the street carrying a "heavy brown bag," gripped near the top, tapered and "more bulky toward the bottom." She saw him open the right rear door of her brother's car and place the package inside. Oswald told Frazier it contained curtain rods. Frazier noticed that Oswald carried no lunch that day — the only time he had failed to bring one.

At the Depository parking lot, Oswald picked up the bag and walked ahead of Frazier toward the building — the first time he had not walked with Frazier from the lot to the entrance. When Frazier entered the building, Oswald was nowhere in sight. One employee, Jack Dougherty, believed he saw Oswald arrive but did not remember him carrying anything.

Frazier estimated the bag at about two feet long; Mrs. Randle estimated twenty-eight inches. The rifle's wooden stock measured 34.8 inches, and the bag found on the sixth floor was thirty-eight inches long. The Commission concluded that Frazier and Randle were mistaken about the length — Mrs. Randle saw the bag only fleetingly, and Frazier admitted he "didn't pay too much attention" because he was watching railroad cars being switched.

A handmade bag of wrapping paper and tape was found in the southeast corner of the sixth floor alongside the window from which the shots were fired. It was the appropriate size to contain the disassembled rifle. Lieutenant Day of the Dallas police wrote on it: "Found next to the sixth floor window gun fired from. May have been used to carry gun." FBI analysis developed Oswald's fingerprint and palmprint on the bag, and the paper and tape matched materials available in the Depository's shipping room where Oswald worked.

Oswald at the Window

Oswald's fingerprint and palmprint were developed on the handmade paper bag found beside the sixth-floor window — his left index finger and right palm, the heel of the hand near the wrist. The palmprint's position on the closed end of the bag was consistent with carrying a heavy or bulky object, and it was from Oswald's right hand, in which he carried the long package as he walked from Frazier's car to the building. FBI questioned-documents expert James Cadigan confirmed that the paper and tape used to make the bag were identical in all observable characteristics to materials from the Depository's shipping room — matching in thickness, color under various lighting conditions, width of tape, knurled markings, texture, felting pattern, and fiber composition. The Depository used approximately one roll of paper every three working days; a replica bag made on December 1 already showed different paper characteristics, confirming that the original bag was made from materials available on or before November 22. Fibers found inside the bag — a single brown viscose fiber and several light green cotton fibers — matched fibers from the blanket in which the rifle had been stored, though the FBI examiner could say only that the fibers could have come from the blanket, not that they probably did.

The Commission concluded that Oswald took paper and tape from the Depository's wrapping bench, fashioned a bag large enough to carry the disassembled rifle, removed the rifle from the blanket on Thursday evening, carried it into the building concealed in the bag, and left the bag alongside the window from which the shots were fired.

On the cartons arranged as a gun rest near the window, FBI fingerprint expert Latona identified Oswald's left palmprint and right index fingerprint on one of the "Rolling Readers" cartons — boxes of light reading-aid blocks that had been moved from their regular position several aisles away, apparently for the specific purpose of serving as a gun rest. On the large carton placed on the floor behind the window — where a person could sit and look southwesterly down Elm Street over the top of the smaller cartons — Dallas police developed Oswald's right palmprint, which Latona estimated was "not too long" old. Bureau experiments showed twenty-four hours was a likely maximum, though Latona could testify with certainty only that the print was less than three days old. Arthur Mandella of the New York City Police independently confirmed the identification and estimated the print was probably made within a day or a day and a half. None of the twelve other warehouse employees who might have handled the cartons left identifiable prints on them.

Charles Givens, the last known employee to see Oswald before the assassination, testified that at about 11:55 a.m. he returned to the sixth floor to retrieve his cigarettes and saw Oswald walking from the southeast corner with a clipboard in hand. "Boy are you going downstairs?" Givens asked. "It's near lunch time." Oswald replied, "No, sir. When you get downstairs, close the gate to the elevator." On December 2, that clipboard was found hidden by book cartons in the northwest corner of the sixth floor, near where the rifle had been discovered. It bore three invoices dated November 22 — none of which Oswald had filled.

Eyewitness Identification

Howard Brennan, seated on a concrete wall approximately 120 feet from the window, had watched the man there for six to eight minutes before the motorcade arrived. After the shooting, Brennan described the man to police as white, slender, about 5'10", 160 to 170 pounds, in his early thirties. This description most probably led to the radio alert broadcast at approximately 12:45 p.m. Oswald was 5'9", slender, and twenty-four years old, with an estimated weight between 140 and 150 pounds.

That evening, Brennan identified Oswald in a police lineup as the person who bore the closest resemblance to the man in the window but said he could not make a positive identification — he had seen Oswald's picture on television beforehand, and he feared for his family's safety if he became known as an eyewitness to "a Communist activity." Before the Commission, however, Brennan stated: "I could at that time — I could, with all sincerity, identify him as being the same man." The Commission did not base its conclusion on Brennan's subsequent certain identification, but was satisfied that he saw a man in the window who closely resembled Oswald.

Two other witnesses, Ronald Fischer and Robert Edwards, saw a man in the sixth-floor corner window approximately one minute before the assassination. Fischer watched him for ten to fifteen seconds and was struck by his stillness: the man "appeared uncomfortable" and "wasn't watching" for the parade — he was looking down toward the Triple Underpass, "transfixed." Fischer described him as having a slender face, light complexion, brown hair, and appearing twenty-two to twenty-four years old, wearing a light-colored open-neck shirt. He later said Oswald "could have been the man" but was not sure.

The Commission also investigated the allegation that Oswald appeared in an Associated Press photograph taken by James Altgens showing employees on the Depository steps during the shooting. The man alleged to resemble Oswald was identified as Billy Nolan Lovelady, confirmed by Lovelady himself and two coworkers standing beside him.

Oswald's Actions After the Assassination

The first person to see Oswald after the shooting was Patrolman Marrion Baker, who had raced his motorcycle to the Depository after hearing the shots and recognizing them as rifle fire. Baker and building superintendent Roy Truly dashed up the stairs. On the second-floor landing, Baker caught a fleeting glimpse through a small glass window of a man walking in the vestibule toward the lunchroom. He drew his revolver, opened the door, and commanded: "Come here." The man turned and walked back toward him — calm, empty-handed, not out of breath. "He never did say a word or nothing," Baker recalled. "In fact, he didn't change his expression one bit." Truly identified the man as an employee, and they continued upstairs.

To test whether Oswald could have descended from the sixth floor in time, Commission counsel had Baker and Truly reenact their movements. Baker's time from the simulated first shot to the second-floor landing was one minute fifteen to one minute thirty seconds. A Secret Service agent, carrying a rifle from the southeast corner of the sixth floor to the stairway and walking down to the lunchroom, completed the route in one minute fourteen seconds at a fast walk — without being short of breath. The minimum times were within three seconds of each other, and the actual time on November 22 was probably longer due to crowd conditions and delayed reactions. The Commission concluded that Oswald could have fired the shots and still been present in the lunchroom when Baker and Truly arrived.

Oswald's Departure from the Building

Within a minute of the lunchroom encounter, Mrs. R. A. Reid, the Depository's clerical supervisor, saw Oswald walking through the second-floor office carrying a full bottle of Coca-Cola — presumably purchased from the lunchroom vending machine after Baker and Truly left. "Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn't hit him," she said. Oswald mumbled something and walked past, heading toward the front stairway. He was wearing a T-shirt and no jacket; a blue jacket later identified as his was found in the building. Mrs. Reid's movements were reconstructed three times and timed at a minimum of two minutes, placing her encounter with Oswald at about 12:32 p.m. He could have been out the front door by 12:33 — three minutes after the shooting, before the building was sealed.

The building was not secured until at least 12:37 p.m. Officer Barnett estimated three minutes elapsed between the shots and his posting at the front door, during which "there were people going in and out." Oswald's absence was not noticed for at least half an hour, when superintendent Truly realized he was missing from the group of employees being questioned by police.

The Killing of Patrolman J. D. Tippit

After leaving the Depository, Oswald boarded a bus on Elm Street at approximately 12:40 p.m. Former landlady Mary Bledsoe, riding the same bus, recognized him immediately: "He looks like a maniac. His sleeve was out here. His shirt was undone." She pointed to her right elbow — the same location as a hole in the brown sport shirt Oswald was wearing when arrested. The bus moved slowly through heavy traffic. After about four minutes, near Lamar Street, Oswald requested a transfer and got off.

He walked several blocks south to the Greyhound Bus Station, where he hailed a taxi driven by William Whaley. "May I have the cab?" Oswald asked, getting into the front seat. An elderly woman appeared at the door wanting a cab; Oswald offered to give up his, but she told the driver to call her one instead. Oswald directed Whaley to "500 North Beckley." Police sirens wailed through the streets. "What the hell. I wonder what the hell is the uproar?" Whaley said. Oswald never responded — "So I figured he was one of these people that don't like to talk so I never said any more to him." Near the 700 block of North Beckley, Oswald said, "This will do fine," paid the ninety-five-cent fare with a dollar bill, got out, and walked across the street without a word. Whaley identified Oswald in a lineup the next day, picking him out immediately: "It was him all right, the same man." He noted that Oswald "showed no respect for the policemen, he told them what he thought about them." The reconstructed cab ride took five minutes and thirty seconds; the walk from the drop-off point to 1026 North Beckley took five minutes and forty-five seconds.

Housekeeper Earlene Roberts saw Oswald enter the rooming house at about 1:00 p.m. in unusual haste. "Oh, you are in a hurry," she said. He did not respond. He went to his room, stayed no longer than three or four minutes, and emerged zipping up a jacket. Roberts saw him standing near the bus stop in front of the house moments later.

Oswald was next seen about nine-tenths of a mile away, at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Patton Avenue, moments before the Tippit shooting. Walking at a brisk pace, he could have covered the distance shortly after 1:15 p.m. Tippit's murder was recorded on the police radio at about 1:16 p.m.

Description of the Shooting

Patrolman J. D. Tippit, an eleven-year veteran described by Chief Curry as "a very fine, dedicated officer," was cruising east on 10th Street in his patrol car. He had been ordered to the central Oak Cliff area after the assassination and had heard the broadcast description of the suspect: "white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 foot 10 inches, weight 165 pounds." About a hundred feet past the intersection of 10th and Patton, Tippit stopped alongside a man walking east whose general description matched the broadcast. The man approached the car and apparently exchanged words through the right window. Tippit got out and started to walk around the front of the car. As he reached the left front wheel, the man pulled a revolver and fired several shots. Four bullets struck Tippit, killing him instantly. The gunman started back toward Patton Avenue, ejecting empty cartridge cases as he went.

Eyewitnesses

At least twelve persons saw the man with the revolver at or immediately after the shooting. By the evening of November 22, five had identified Oswald in police lineups; a sixth did so the next day; three others subsequently identified him from photographs.

Taxi driver William Scoggins, eating lunch in his cab on Patton Avenue, watched the police car pull alongside the man, heard three or four shots, and saw the officer fall. The gunman cut through bushes within twelve feet of Scoggins, muttering what sounded like "Poor damn cop" or "Poor dumb cop." Scoggins identified Oswald in a lineup the next day.

Domingo Benavides, driving a pickup truck west on 10th Street, stopped about twenty-five feet from the police car and watched the gunman empty his revolver and throw the shells into bushes on the corner lot. Benavides used Tippit's car radio to report the shooting at about 1:16 p.m. — "We've had a shooting out here" — and recovered two empty shells, which he gave to the first officer on the scene.

Helen Markham, a waitress waiting to cross 10th Street at Patton, watched the entire sequence from the northwest corner of the intersection, approximately fifty feet away. She saw the man lean on the right window ledge, saw the officer "calmly" open his door and walk toward the front of the car, then heard three shots and saw him fall. The gunman did something with his gun — "He was just fooling with it. I didn't know what he was doing. I was afraid he was fixing to kill me" — then headed down Patton toward Jefferson Boulevard "in kind of a little trot." At about 4:30 p.m., though greatly upset and crying, Markham identified Oswald in a lineup. She began crying when he walked into the room. The Commission considered her testimony reliable, noting that even without it, ample evidence identified Oswald as Tippit's killer.

Murder Weapon and Ownership

The four cartridge cases found at the Tippit scene were unanimously identified by FBI firearms experts Cortlandt Cunningham, Robert Frazier, and Charles Killion — and independently by Joseph Nicol of Illinois — as having been fired from the Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver, serial number V510210, found in Oswald's possession at arrest, to the exclusion of all other weapons. The four bullets recovered from Tippit's body could not be positively matched to the revolver because they were slightly smaller than the barrel, causing erratic passage and inconsistent markings. However, all four had the rifling characteristics of Oswald's weapon, and Nicol identified one bullet as having been fired from it to the exclusion of all others. Three bullets were Winchester-Western manufacture and one Remington-Peters, but the cartridge cases showed two of each — suggesting either a missing bullet (meaning five shots were fired) or that one used Remington-Peters case had been in the revolver before the shooting.

The revolver was traced through Seaport Traders, Inc., of Los Angeles, which had received it from a Canadian supplier on January 3, 1963. Originally manufactured with a five-inch barrel, it had been shortened to two and a quarter inches. A mail-order coupon signed "A. J. Hidell, aged 28" with the return address of Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, ordered the weapon. Handwriting experts confirmed the writing was Oswald's — including the signature of the fictitious witness "D. F. Drittal" who attested that "Hidell" was an American citizen. Marina Oswald recognized the revolver as her husband's and identified it as the weapon in the backyard photographs.

Oswald's Jacket

Oswald left his rooming house wearing a zipper jacket he had not been wearing when he arrived. When arrested at the Texas Theatre, he was in shirt sleeves. Shortly after the Tippit shooting, Captain Westbrook found a light-colored jacket under a car in a parking lot along the gunman's flight path on Jefferson Boulevard. Marina Oswald identified it as her husband's second jacket — his only other jacket, a blue one, had been found in the Depository.

Oswald's Arrest

Johnny Brewer, manager of Hardy's Shoestore on Jefferson Boulevard, heard police sirens and saw a man duck into his store's recessed lobby — a space extending about fifteen feet between the sidewalk and the front door. A police car made a U-turn; as the sirens grew fainter, the man "looked over his shoulder and turned around and walked up West Jefferson towards the theatre." His hair was messed up, he looked scared, and he wore a T-shirt beneath his outer shirt with no jacket. Brewer followed him to the Texas Theatre, where cashier Julia Postal confirmed the man had slipped in without buying a ticket. "I don't know if this is the man they want," Postal told Brewer, "but he is running from them for some reason." She called the police.

At 1:45 p.m. the radio announced: "Have information a suspect just went in the Texas Theatre on West Jefferson." At least fifteen officers converged on the building. Brewer pointed out the man — sitting alone in the rear of the main floor near the right center aisle, with only six or seven other patrons on the floor. Patrolman M. N. McDonald searched two other men first, then walked up the aisle to the suspect's row and told him to get on his feet. Oswald rose, bringing up both hands. As McDonald reached to search his waist, he heard Oswald say, "Well, it's all over now." Oswald punched McDonald between the eyes with his left fist and drew a revolver with his right hand. McDonald struck back and grabbed the gun with his left; they fell into the seats together. Three other officers piled on from front, rear, and side. McDonald felt something graze his hand and heard what sounded like the snap of the hammer — though a firearms expert later established that the hammer never actually touched the shell in the chamber. McDonald wrenched the revolver away. As Oswald was led out in handcuffs, he was "cursing a little bit and hollering police brutality."

At headquarters, Captain Fritz was preparing to send detectives to Irving to pick up a Depository employee named Lee Oswald who had been absent from the roll call. Sergeant Hill, who had driven from the theatre with the prisoner, said: "Captain, we will save you a trip — there he sits."

Statements During Detention

Oswald was questioned intermittently for approximately twelve hours between 2:30 p.m. on November 22 and 11:00 a.m. on November 24. He denied involvement in either the assassination or the Tippit murder throughout. Captain Fritz kept no notes; there were no stenographic or tape recordings. Representatives of the FBI and Secret Service were present and occasionally participated.

Oswald denied owning a rifle. When confronted with the backyard photographs showing him holding the Mannlicher-Carcano, he sneered and called them fakes — claiming police had superimposed a rifle and revolver onto his image. He said that "at the proper time he would show that the pictures were fakes." He denied knowing "A. J. Hidell" and grew angry when confronted with the forged Selective Service card bearing that name and his photograph: "Now, I've told you all I'm going to tell you about that card in my billfold — you have the card yourself and you know as much about it as I do." He claimed he lived under the name "O. H. Lee" because the landlady had simply made a mistake — but the register showed he had actually signed that name himself.

He claimed he was eating lunch on the first floor at the time of the shooting with an employee named "Junior" — but James Jarman, Jr., the only "Junior" in the building, testified he neither ate with nor saw Oswald. Oswald said he spoke with foreman Bill Shelley for five to ten minutes after the shooting, then left because Shelley said there would be no more work; Shelley denied seeing Oswald after noon. He denied telling Frazier about curtain rods and denied carrying any package other than a lunch sack — though Frazier testified Oswald carried no lunch that day. Since independent evidence revealed that Oswald repeatedly and blatantly lied to the police, the Commission gave little weight to his denials of guilt.

Prior Attempt to Kill: General Walker

On April 10, 1963, a rifle bullet narrowly missed Major General Edwin A. Walker as he sat at his desk in his Dallas home. The shooting remained unsolved until December 3, 1963, when evidence linking Oswald emerged. Marina Oswald testified that on the evening of the shooting, her husband left a note in Russian with instructions about the mailbox, rent, and what to do "should there be anything about me in the newspapers" — including sending clippings to the Soviet Embassy. When he returned home late that night, pale and agitated, he told her he had shot at General Walker. She was horrified and made him promise never to do it again.

The Walker Shooting: Evidence

The Commission evaluated four categories of evidence linking Oswald to the Walker shooting. First, an undated note in Russian, found in a book among the Oswalds' belongings, gave Marina instructions for managing their affairs if he did not return — the mailbox key, rent payments, money from work, disposal of his clothing, and directions to the city jail. Handwriting expert James Cadigan confirmed it was written by Oswald. The note's references to house rent, water, and gas payments placed it during the Neely Street period; the phrase "you and the baby" indicated it was written before the birth of their second child.

Second, four photographs found among Oswald's possessions were identified by Marina as pictures of Walker's house and its surroundings. Two showed the rear of the house; the third depicted the entrance to Walker's driveway from a back alley, including the fence on which the assailant apparently rested the rifle. Construction work visible in the background dated the photograph to March 8--12, 1963 — just before Oswald ordered the rifle on March 12. An FBI photography expert confirmed the picture was taken with Oswald's Imperial Reflex camera. A fourth photograph showed a stretch of railroad tracks approximately seven-tenths of a mile from Walker's house — consistent with Marina's testimony that Oswald told her he had buried the rifle near some railroad tracks and retrieved it several days later.

Third, the bullet recovered from Walker's house was too badly mutilated for a definitive identification, but FBI expert Frazier found its general rifling characteristics consistent with the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, and Joseph Nicol concluded there was "a fair probability" it was fired from the assassination weapon.

Fourth, Marina Oswald testified that her husband told her he had been planning the attempt for two months. He returned home late on April 10, "very pale," and told her he had shot at General Walker. When he learned the next day that he had missed, "he was very sorry that he had not hit him." He told her he had buried the rifle near some railroad tracks and retrieved it several days later.

Marina also described a subsequent incident in which Oswald dressed in a good suit, took his pistol, and announced that "Nixon is coming. I want to go and have a look." She confronted him, and after several minutes of struggle and tears, he calmed down. Investigation revealed that Nixon was not in Dallas at that time; Vice President Johnson had visited on April 23, and Marina may have confused the names. The Commission concluded the incident had no probative value regarding the assassination.

Oswald's Rifle Capability

Four marksmanship experts testified that the shots were not particularly difficult. The target was moving slowly, almost directly away from the rifle, on a downward-sloping street — "an almost stationary target," as Master Sergeant James Zahm described it. The four-power telescopic sight was "a real aid, an extreme aid" in rapid fire. Zahm called the neck shot at 177 feet "very easy" and the head shot at 265 feet "an easy shot."

Oswald had received extensive Marine marksmanship training, firing at distances up to 500 yards over five days. He scored 212 in December 1956 — two points above "sharpshooter" — and 191 in May 1959, one point above "marksman." Major Anderson rated him "a good shot, somewhat better than or equal to — better than the average" Marine, and "a good to excellent shot" compared to untrained civilians. After leaving the Marines, Oswald hunted with his brother, joined a hunting club in Russia, and practiced with the Mannlicher-Carcano — Marina saw him on the screened porch at night, sighting through the scope and operating the bolt.

Tests at the Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory had three master-rated marksmen fire the assassination rifle from a tower at silhouette targets at 175, 240, and 265 feet. None had practiced with the weapon beyond two or three minutes of dry-firing the bolt. They achieved time spans of 4.6 to 8.25 seconds for three shots, with most hitting the targets. FBI experts fired three shots at 25 yards in as little as 4.6 seconds, landing within two-inch groups. All experts agreed the rifle was accurate — "quite accurate," Simmons said, comparable to current military rifles — and that one would not need to be an expert marksman to accomplish the assassination.

The Tippit Killing: Additional Eyewitness Detail

Beyond the principal witnesses — Scoggins, Benavides, and Markham — several other persons observed the gunman's flight from the scene and provided identifications that corroborated the Commission's conclusion.

Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis, sisters-in-law who lived in an apartment on the southeast corner of 10th and Patton, heard the shots and rushed to the door in time to see a man with a revolver cut across their lawn and disappear around the corner. Barbara Jeanette Davis testified that the man "had it open and was shaking it" — apparently emptying the spent cartridge cases. Each woman later found an empty shell on the ground near the house. That evening, both identified Oswald in a police lineup. Barbara Jeanette Davis testified: "I was pretty sure it was the same man I saw. When they made him turn sideways, I was positive that was the one I seen." Virginia Davis said: "I would say that was him for sure." Neither had been shown photographs of Oswald before the lineup.

Ted Callaway, manager of a used-car lot on the northeast corner of Patton and Jefferson, heard five shots and ran to the sidewalk. He saw a man coming south on Patton with a revolver held high in his right hand. From across the street, Callaway yelled, "Hey, man, what the hell is going on?" The man slowed, halted, said something, and then continued to the corner and turned west on Jefferson. Callaway ran to 10th and Patton, found Tippit lying in the street, picked up the officer's gun, and attempted to chase the gunman in Scoggins' taxicab. That evening, Callaway identified Oswald in a lineup: "So they brought four men in. I stepped to the back of the room, so I could kind of see him from the same distance which I had seen him before. And when he came out I knew him."

Sam Guinyard, a porter at the used-car lot, also saw the man running south on Patton with a revolver and identified Oswald in the same lineup: "I told them that was him right there. I pointed him out right there." Neither Callaway nor Guinyard had been shown photographs before the lineup.

Four men at another used-car lot on the southeast corner of Patton and Jefferson — Warren Reynolds, Harold Russell, Pat Patterson, and L. J. Lewis — saw a white male with a revolver running south on Patton. When the man reached Jefferson, he turned right and headed west. Reynolds and Patterson followed him to a gasoline service station one block away, where he turned north toward a parking area and disappeared. Russell and Patterson later identified photographs of Oswald as the man they saw. Reynolds, who initially did not make a positive identification, subsequently testified that photographs of Oswald were photographs of the man he saw.

Mrs. Mary Brock, wife of a mechanic at the service station, saw a white male in light clothing walk past her at a fast pace with his hands in his pockets. She identified a picture of Oswald as the same person. Johnny Brewer, the shoe store manager who followed the man to the Texas Theatre, described him as having messed-up hair, looking scared, and wearing a T-shirt beneath his outer shirt with no jacket — "He just looked funny to me."

The Commission noted that the Dallas Police Department furnished photographs of the men who appeared in the lineups with Oswald, and that the Commission inquired into both general lineup procedures and the specific procedures used in Oswald's lineups. The Commission was satisfied that the lineups were conducted fairly.

The Murder Weapon: Additional Ballistic Detail

The four bullets recovered from Tippit's body presented a more complex problem. Because the bullets were slightly smaller than the barrel of the revolver, they had an erratic passage that impressed inconsistent individual characteristics on the lead. FBI expert Cortlandt Cunningham testified that consecutive test bullets fired from the same revolver could not be identified as having come from it. Three of the four bullets were too mutilated for positive identification. However, Joseph Nicol of Illinois concluded that one bullet was fired from Oswald's revolver to the exclusion of all other weapons. All four bullets had the rifling characteristics — five lands and grooves with a right twist — consistent with Oswald's weapon.

The Walker Shooting: Additional Evidence

On the Walker bullet — too mutilated for definitive identification, its rifling characteristics consistent with the Mannlicher-Carcano but insufficient for positive match — Nicol elaborated on why his "fair probability" conclusion differed from the FBI's more cautious position: "I am aware of their position. This is not, I am sure, arrived at without careful consideration. However, to say that because one does not find sufficient marks for identification that it is a negative, I think is going overboard in the other direction."

Marina Oswald's testimony provided the most direct evidence. She testified that on the evening of April 10, her husband left their apartment shortly after dinner. When he failed to return by 10:00 or 10:30 p.m., she went to his room and discovered the note. "When he came back I asked him what had happened. He was very pale. I don't remember the exact time, but it was very late. And he told me not to ask him any questions. He only told me he had shot at General Walker." He showed her a notebook three days later containing photographs of Walker's house and a map of the area. Although Oswald destroyed the notebook, the photographs survived among his possessions.

Marina also testified that Oswald had postponed the attempt until Wednesday because he had heard there would be a gathering at the church next door to Walker's house that evening — he wanted more people in the vicinity so his arrival and departure would not attract attention. An official of the church confirmed that services were held every Wednesday except during August. Marina testified that Oswald had used a bus to return home; a study of bus routes confirmed that he could have taken any of several different buses to Walker's house or to the railroad tracks where he may have concealed the rifle.

Oswald's Rifle Capability: Additional Expert Testimony

The Commission heard testimony from four marksmanship experts, all of whom agreed that the shots were within the capability of a person with Oswald's training and the equipment he used.

Major Eugene Anderson reiterated his finding that the shots were "not particularly difficult" and his rating of Oswald as a good shot by Marine and civilian standards. Master Sergeant James Zahm, in charge of the Marksmanship Training Unit at the Marine Corps School in Quantico, elaborated on why the telescopic sight was decisive: it eliminated the need to align front and rear iron sights — "you only have the one element, the crosshair, in relation to the target." The slow recession of the limousine down the sloping street created, in his words, "an almost stationary target while he was aiming in, very little movement if any."

Ronald Simmons, chief of the Army's Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch, testified that "in order to achieve three hits, it would not be required that a man be an exceptional shot. A proficient man with this weapon, yes." FBI expert Robert Frazier stated: "From my own experience in shooting over the years, when you shoot at 175 feet or 260 feet, which is less than 100 yards, with a telescopic sight, you should not have any difficulty in hitting your target. I mean it requires no training at all to shoot a weapon with a telescopic sight once you know that you must put the crosshairs on the target and that is all that is necessary."

The Army's tests provided specific probability data: of the shots fired at the 265-foot target, where the angle of movement was smallest, five of six hit the mark. Simmons concluded that "the probability of hitting the targets at the relatively short range at which they were hit was very high." The FBI tests added further detail — at 100 yards, Frazier fired four groups of three shots in 5.6 to 6.5 seconds, each landing within three to five inches. All shots were slightly high and to the right because of a defect in the scope — but Frazier noted that this defect would actually have assisted the assassin, since "the fact that the crosshairs are set high would actually compensate for any lead which had to be taken." The scope would accomplish the lead automatically for a target moving away.

All experts agreed the rifle was accurate — Simmons described it as "quite accurate," comparable to current military rifles — and that one would not need to be an expert marksman to accomplish the assassination. The Commission concluded that "Oswald possessed the capability with a rifle which enabled him to commit the assassination."

The Single-Bullet Evidence: Additional Detail

The nearly whole bullet recovered from the Governor's stretcher weighed 158.6 grains, only 1.4 to 2.4 grains less than its unfired weight of 160-161 grains. X-rays of the Governor's wrist showed very minute metallic fragments, and two or three of these were removed during surgery. All were sufficiently small and light that the nearly whole bullet could have deposited them as it tumbled through the wrist. The three Parkland doctors who attended the Governor independently concluded that a single bullet had passed through his chest, tumbled through his wrist with very little exit velocity, punctured his left thigh, and fallen out of the thigh wound.

Governor Connally himself thought it likely that all his wounds were caused by a single bullet. He testified that he repositioned himself as he recalled his position on the jump seat, with his right palm on his left thigh, and said: "I wound up the next day realizing I was hit in three places, and I was not conscious of having been hit but by one bullet, so I tried to reconstruct how I could have been hit in three places by the same bullet."

Chapter IV Conclusion

On the basis of all this evidence, the Commission found that Lee Harvey Oswald owned and possessed the assassination rifle, brought it into the Depository on the morning of November 22, was present at the sixth-floor window when the shots were fired, killed Patrolman Tippit in an apparent attempt to escape, resisted arrest by drawing a loaded pistol, lied to police about substantive matters, had attempted to kill General Walker in April 1963, and possessed the rifle capability to commit the assassination. The Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy.

Chapter V: The Detention and Death of Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald spent almost all of the last forty-eight hours of his life in the Police and Courts Building in downtown Dallas. Following his arrest at the Texas Theatre on Friday afternoon, November 22, he remained there until Sunday morning, November 24, when he was scheduled to be transferred to the county jail. At 11:21 that morning, in full view of millions watching on television, he was fatally wounded by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner.

Treatment in Custody

The policemen who seized Oswald at the Texas Theatre arrived at police headquarters at about 2:00 p.m. and brought him immediately to the third-floor offices of the homicide and robbery bureau. After fifteen or twenty minutes he was ushered into Captain Will Fritz's office for the first interrogation session. Across the next three days he was questioned intermittently for approximately twelve hours — more than seven hours on Friday, three on Saturday, and less than two on Sunday morning. Fritz conducted most of the questioning in his small office, just 14 by 9½ feet, often crowded with as many as seven or eight people at a time, including Dallas detectives, FBI and Secret Service agents, postal inspectors, and other officials. More than twenty-five different persons participated at various times. Fritz was frequently called from the room to receive reports or give assignments. No stenographic or tape record was made.

Oswald was advised of his right to remain silent and to obtain counsel. He attempted several times to reach John Abt, a New York lawyer whose name he knew from left-wing publications, but failed. When H. Louis Nichols, president of the Dallas Bar Association, offered to obtain counsel for him Saturday afternoon, Oswald declined, stating his preference for Abt or an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer. As late as Sunday morning he said he still wished to make his own arrangements. He was fed, allowed to rest, and given eight to nine hours of sleep Friday night. He was not subjected to physical hardship. He remained calm most of the time but refused to answer any question, as Fritz put it, "that meant something, that would produce evidence." He denied shooting the President or Patrolman J. D. Tippit, denied owning a rifle, and denied carrying a long package to work on the morning of November 22.

Oswald was taken to a lineup four times, photographed and fingerprinted, subjected to a paraffin test, interviewed briefly by his wife, mother, and brother, and arraigned twice — once for Tippit's murder and once, after midnight, for the President's. Throughout these interruptions Fritz continued interrogating. Chief Jesse Curry later acknowledged the atmosphere bluntly: "We were violating every principle of interrogation — it was just against all principles of good interrogation practice."

Activity of Newsmen

Within an hour of Oswald's arrival, his status as a suspect in the President's assassination had become public knowledge. More than three hundred news representatives descended on Dallas within twenty-four hours. Upwards of a hundred crowded into the third-floor corridor outside the homicide bureau. An FBI agent described the scene as "not too much unlike Grand Central Station at rush hour, maybe like the Yankee Stadium during the World Series games." Television cameramen set up large cameras and floodlights, stretching cables through offices and out windows. Reporters wandered into police offices, sat on desks, and used police telephones. The corridor became so jammed that people had to push and shove to get through, stepping over cables, wires, and tripods.

Each of the fifteen or more times Oswald was moved along the twenty feet of corridor between the homicide office and the jail elevator, reporters turned cameras on him, thrust microphones at his face, and shouted questions. No permission was sought for any of this. On several occasions Oswald paused to respond, proclaiming his innocence and complaining that he had been denied counsel. Captain Fritz later testified that it was "pretty bad" and that he had complained to Chief Curry, who agreed the situation was intolerable, but added that the pressure from the media had become so great he did not know how to control it.

The Midnight Press Conference

Oswald's most prolonged exposure to the press occurred at a conference in the basement assembly room shortly after midnight Friday night. District Attorney Henry Wade, after consulting Curry and Fritz, announced that Oswald would appear there in response to persistent demands from newsmen. An estimated seventy to a hundred people, including Jack Ruby, crowded into the small room. No identification was required. The room was so packed that Deputy Chief Stevenson and Captain Fritz could not get in and had to remain in the doorway. Cameramen stood on tables; reporters shouted questions and shoved microphones into Oswald's face.

During his brief appearance Oswald told the assembled reporters: "Well, I was questioned by Judge Johnston. However, I protested at that time that I was not allowed legal representation during that very short and sweet hearing. I really don't know what the situation is about. Nobody has told me anything except that I am accused of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that and I do request someone to come forward to give me legal assistance." When asked, "Did you kill the President?" he replied: "No. I have not been charged with that. In fact nobody has said that to me yet. The first thing I heard about it was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question." Asked how he had hurt his eye, he said, "A policeman hit me." After only a few minutes Curry intervened and had Oswald taken back to jail because the newsmen, in his phrase, "tried to overrun him."

News Coverage and Police Policy

The Dallas Police Department's general policy required officers to "render every assistance" to accredited news media. Chief Curry appeared in television and radio interviews at least a dozen times during the three days, giving detailed information on the progress of the case — that the FBI had matched Oswald's handwriting to the rifle order, that photographs showed Oswald holding a similar rifle, that ballistics tests were "going to be favorable." When asked whether the case was "completely wrapped up," Curry replied: "We have a strong case at this time." Captain Fritz, though less frequently interviewed, told reporters on Saturday that he was "convinced beyond a doubt" that Oswald had killed the President. District Attorney Wade made several public statements, some of which contained errors that were corrected by newsmen on the scene.

The running commentary inevitably carried with it many details that proved erroneous. The rifle was initially misidentified as a 7.65 Mauser because a deputy constable who glimpsed it in the Depository thought it resembled one; that misidentification was repeated in countless broadcasts for hours. Chicken bones found on the sixth floor were attributed to Oswald's lunch, although they had actually been left by another employee at least fifteen minutes before the assassination. Curry repeated a false report that a Black man had picked up Oswald near the scene and driven him across town. A map found in Oswald's room was reported to show the motorcade route when it actually showed places where he had applied for jobs. Wade mistakenly stated that Oswald had told a woman on a bus that the President had been killed, a confusion with another passenger. In one memorable transcription error a section of Dallas called "Oak Cliff" became a nonexistent taxicab driver named "Darryl Click" — an error that, the Commission noted, "might have become permanently imbedded in the literature of the event but for the preservation and use of an original sound tape."

The premature disclosures also harmed innocent citizens. Joe Molina, a credit manager at the Depository and a member of the American G.I. Forum — a veterans' organization the police considered possibly subversive — had his home searched and was interrogated for six or seven hours, though never arrested or charged. Television reports insinuated he was a "second suspect." The FBI later confirmed that Molina had never been the subject of an investigation. He lost his job in December and had difficulty finding new employment.

The American Bar Association declared in December 1963 that "widespread publicizing of Oswald's alleged guilt, involving statements by officials and public disclosures of the details of 'evidence,' would have made it extremely difficult to impanel an unprejudiced jury and afford the accused a fair trial." The Commission agreed. Captain Fritz had called the case "cinched"; Curry announced he "considered Oswald sane"; Wade told the public he would ask for the death penalty. Rules of evidence might have prevented the prosecution from presenting some of this information at trial — Wade, for example, revealed that Marina Oswald had confirmed her husband's ownership of a rifle, though a wife could not be compelled to testify against her husband, and Curry stated that Oswald had refused a lie detector test, which would have been inadmissible. But exclusion at trial would have been meaningless if jurors already knew the facts from television.

The Abortive Transfer

Chief Curry decided Saturday evening to transfer Oswald to the county jail Sunday morning. He told reporters that if they returned by ten o'clock they would not miss anything. During the night, between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m., both the FBI's Dallas office and the sheriff's office received anonymous telephone calls warning that "a committee had decided to kill the man that killed the President." Curry was informed the following morning.

Sunday morning Curry decided the police would handle the transfer themselves. With the threats in mind he initially planned to use an armored truck. Captain Cecil Talbert secured the basement: policemen cleared it of all but police personnel, searched the garage — examining rafters, air-conditioning ducts, closets, and the interiors and trunks of parked cars — and stationed guards at every entrance. Despite these precautions the hallway near the jail office remained accessible from inside the building without identification, and several newsmen were able to run through the double doors into the basement unchallenged until seconds before the shooting. News representatives were allowed back into the basement and positioned along the railing on the east side of the Main Street ramp. By the time Oswald reached the basement, forty to fifty newsmen and seventy to seventy-five police officers were assembled there, and three television cameras stood along the railing.

When Captain Fritz learned of the armored-truck plan he objected and urged the use of an unmarked police car for speed and maneuverability. Curry agreed: the armored truck would serve as a decoy. Lieutenant Rio Pierce drove a lead car up the Main Street ramp to circle the block to Commerce Street. As Pierce's car departed at about 11:20 a.m., Oswald — his right hand handcuffed to Detective Leavelle's left — arrived at the jail office with Captain Fritz and four detectives. Cameramen photographed him through the glass windows. Someone shouted, "Here he comes!" Additional spotlights blazed on and the din increased.

The Shooting

Fritz and then Oswald, handcuffed to Detective Leavelle, emerged from the jail office into the basement passageway. Spotlights blazed; the din increased. Detective Montgomery, walking directly behind Oswald, recalled that "as soon as we came out this door, this bunch here just moved in on us." Newsmen were "poking their sound mikes across to him and asking questions, and they were everyone sticking their flashbulbs up and around and over him and in his face."

After Oswald had moved about ten feet from the jail office door, Jack Ruby stepped quickly out of the throng at the edge of the straining crowd on the Main Street ramp, passed between a newsman and a detective, extended his right hand holding a .38 caliber Colt Cobra revolver, and fired a single bullet into Oswald's abdomen. Oswald groaned once and lost consciousness. Ruby was seized by officers on the spot and disarmed; he continued to speak as he was wrestled to the floor, saying, according to several of the officers, "I hope I killed the son of a bitch" and "You guys know me — I'm Jack Ruby." An ambulance took Oswald to Parkland Hospital, the same emergency entrance through which President Kennedy had been carried less than forty-eight hours earlier. The bullet had entered Oswald's left side, passed through the spleen, the stomach, the aorta, and the inferior vena cava, and lodged in the right chest wall. Despite massive transfusions and an exploratory laparotomy performed by Dr. Tom Shires — who had treated Governor Connally the same Friday — Oswald went into cardiac arrest on the operating table and could not be revived. He was pronounced dead at 1:07 p.m. on Sunday, November 24, in the same trauma room in which President Kennedy had died. He never regained consciousness and never made any statement after the shooting.

How Ruby Entered the Basement

The killing of Oswald in the midst of more than seventy police officers immediately raised the question whether Ruby had received assistance from inside the Dallas Police Department. The Commission investigated the question with particular care and found no evidence that he had. Ruby told three policemen approximately thirty minutes after his arrest that he had walked from the nearby Western Union office — where, at the time of the shooting, he had just sent a twenty-five-dollar money order to one of his employees — up to the top of the Main Street ramp and descended it as Lieutenant Pierce's car emerged onto Main Street. A time stamp on the money order established that Ruby's transaction was accepted at Western Union at 11:17 a.m., four minutes before the shooting at 11:21. Video tapes showed Pierce's car clearing the crowd at the foot of the ramp fifty-five seconds before the shot, and Ruby standing at the foot of the ramp on the Main Street side just before the shooting.

At normal stride the walk from Western Union to the top of the ramp takes approximately one minute, and the descent about twenty to twenty-five seconds. Ruby could therefore have been in the basement no more than two or three minutes before the shooting — and if his account of passing Pierce's car was correct, no more than thirty seconds. One television employee, James Turner, partially corroborated Ruby's account, testifying that about thirty seconds before the shooting he had seen a man he was confident was Ruby moving slowly down the ramp. Patrolman Roy Vaughn, who was stationed at the top of the ramp, denied that anyone had passed him, but the Commission found no credible evidence supporting any alternative entry route. The Commerce Street ramp was blocked by the armored truck with narrow clearance on either side. All five doors from the buildings into the garage were reportedly secured. No press badge was found on Ruby, and no evidence indicated that any officer admitted him on any pretense. The Dallas Police Department's own internal investigation revealed no complicity between any officer and Ruby, and the Commission's independent inquiries — including interviews with every officer assigned to basement duty that morning — disclosed none.

Adequacy of the Security Precautions

The Commission concluded that the failure to remove Oswald secretly or to control the crowd in the basement were the major causes of the security breakdown. No single member of the department ever assumed full responsibility for the transfer arrangements. Chief Curry believed primary authority belonged to Captain Fritz; Fritz believed Curry was directing the arrangements. The basic decision to move Oswald at an announced time in the presence of the news media was, in the Commission's words, "never carefully thought through by either man."

The last-minute change from armored truck to unmarked police car compounded the confusion. Fritz was not informed of the armored-truck plan until shortly after 11:00 a.m.; when he objected, hurried modifications were made. He was then prematurely told that basement arrangements were complete. When Oswald emerged, the transfer car had not yet backed into position, and no solid lines of policemen blocked the newsmen's access to Oswald's path. Detective Leavelle testified that "had it been in position where we were told it was going to be, that would have eliminated a lot of the area in which anyone would have access to him, because it would have been blocked by the car. In fact, if the car had been sitting where we were told it was going to be — it would have been sitting directly upon the spot where Ruby was standing when he fired the shot."

The acceptance of inadequate press credentials posed a clear avenue for a one-man assault. Several newsmen reported that their credentials were never checked entering the basement Sunday morning. Many policemen did not know what function they were supposed to perform; no instructions were given that certain officers should watch the crowd rather than Oswald. No one considered the blinding effect of television lights upon the escort party. And by making the transfer plans public in advance, the police attracted people — whether merely curious or, in Ruby's case, homicidal — who otherwise would not have known of the move until it was completed.

Ruby in Custody

In the hours immediately after the shooting Ruby was taken to Room 317 of the Dallas Police and Courts Building, stripped, and searched. He was agitated, alternating between defiance and tears, and repeatedly told officers that he had done what had to be done to "show the world that a Jew has guts" and to spare Mrs. Kennedy the ordeal of returning to Dallas for a trial. He identified himself by name to everyone who spoke with him and made no effort to conceal his motive or his identity. Over the next several hours he was interviewed by Dallas detectives, FBI agents, and Secret Service inspectors, and gave substantially the same account to each: he had gone to the Western Union office to wire money to one of his employees, had walked from there toward the courthouse on his own, and had acted on impulse. He produced the Western Union receipt from his pocket, which established the 11:17 a.m. time of his money-order transaction. He said he had not been acquainted with Oswald, had never spoken with him, had no knowledge of any conspiracy, and had not been sent or asked by anyone to kill Oswald.

Ruby was formally charged that same afternoon with the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. He was later tried in Dallas state court, convicted of murder with malice, and sentenced to death in March 1964; as of the Commission's report in September 1964, his case was on appeal.

Responsibility of the News Media

Primary responsibility for the failure to control the press belonged, the Commission concluded, to the Dallas Police Department — the only agency that could have established orderly procedures. But the news media had to share the blame. Reporters ignored police instructions, used police offices without permission, tied up facilities, and placed insistent pressure on officials to disclose information. Chief Curry acknowledged: "I didn't order them out of the building, which if I had it to do over I would." He refused to put Oswald behind a screen at the Friday-night press conference because it might hinder photographs. His subordinates understood that an unannounced transfer was unacceptable because Curry had promised the press they could witness it. Some reporters reinforced their demands by suggesting that the police had brutalized Oswald, intimating that unless they could see him these suggestions would reach the public. The Commission deemed such veiled threats "absolutely without justification."

"Neither the press nor the public," the Commission concluded, "had a right to be contemporaneously informed by the police or prosecuting authorities of the details of the evidence being accumulated against Oswald. Undoubtedly the public was interested in these disclosures, but its curiosity should not have been satisfied at the expense of the accused's right to a trial by an impartial jury. The courtroom, not the newspaper or television screen, is the appropriate forum in our system for the trial of a man accused of a crime." The experience in Dallas was, in the Commission's final words on the subject, "a dramatic affirmation of the need for steps to bring about a proper balance between the right of the public to be kept informed and the right of the individual to a fair and impartial trial."

Chapter VI: Investigation of Possible Conspiracy

The Commission faced substantial difficulties in determining whether anyone conspired with or assisted the assassin. Oswald had died before trial without admitting his involvement or implicating any other person, and evidence in foreign countries could not be subpoenaed. Rumors of conspiracy ran in many directions — toward the Castro regime in Cuba, the Soviet Union, right-wing extremists in Texas, organized crime, and American intelligence agencies; after Ruby's killing of Oswald on national television, some imagined combinations of all of these. The Commission investigated every allegation regardless of source, explored the whole of Oswald's activities and associations in the months before the assassination, and gave the closest scrutiny to every strand of evidence bearing on foreign involvement, testing it against the possibility that it had been fabricated or slanted to mislead. Both the FBI and the National Security Agency examined all of Oswald's writings and possessions for code or espionage content. The Commission also thoroughly examined the life, associations, and movements of Jack Ruby and reviewed how he came to shoot Oswald. None of these inquiries disclosed any trace of the kind of operational contact that a conspiracy would require.

Circumstances Surrounding the Assassination

The Commission investigated each step in the sequence of events — the motorcade route, Oswald's presence in the building, the rifle, the carton arrangement, and his escape — for traces of assistance from any other person.

The motorcade route was selected on the basis of entirely legitimate considerations: the origin and destination of the motorcade, the desire to expose the President to the greatest number of people, and normal traffic patterns. The turn from Main Street onto Houston Street and then onto Elm Street — which took the motorcade past the Depository — was necessitated by a concrete barrier preventing direct access to the Stemmons Freeway from Main Street. The route was finalized on November 18 and published in the Dallas press on November 19.

Oswald's employment at the Texas School Book Depository was wholly unrelated to the President's trip. He obtained the job on October 15, 1963, after almost two weeks of fruitless job hunting that had begun immediately upon his return from Mexico City on October 3. He was in poor financial circumstances, having arrived with approximately $133, and his unemployment benefits were due to expire on October 8; he and Marina were expecting their second child, Audrey Marina Rachel, who was born on October 20. On October 4 he had applied to Padgett Printing Corp., a few blocks from what would become the parade route, and had impressed the plant superintendent — who then checked his prior job references. The reference call to Bob Stovall at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall produced a negative recommendation that Padgett's superintendent wrote on the back of the application: "Bob Stovall does not recommend this man. He was released because of his record as a troublemaker. — Has Communistic tendencies." Padgett hired someone else.

Oswald's eventual employment at the Depository came through a chance conversation on Monday, October 14, between Ruth Paine — with whom Marina and the children were staying — and her neighbor Linnie Mae Randle, whose brother Buell Wesley Frazier had recently been hired at the Depository as an order filler. Mrs. Paine telephoned Depository superintendent Roy Truly the same day, and Oswald was interviewed and hired the following morning at $1.25 per hour. On that same October 15 the Texas Employment Commission attempted to refer him to a higher-paying airline baggage-and-cargo job, but he was already at work and apparently never learned of the opportunity. The motorcade route was not announced in the press for another full month. He had no way to influence the Depository's role on the route, and no evidence suggested that anyone steered him to the job for that purpose. Planning of the motorcade was not even started until after November 4, when the Secret Service was first notified of the trip; a final decision could not be reached until November 14, when the Trade Mart was selected as the luncheon site; and the route itself was not finalized until November 18.

The Commission found no evidence that Oswald required assistance in bringing the rifle into the building on the morning of the assassination. Buell Wesley Frazier's offer to drive Oswald between Irving and Dallas was an innocent arrangement dating from Oswald's first day of work. Neither Ruth Paine nor Marina Oswald had reason to believe that his Thursday evening visit to Irving on November 21 — ostensibly to pick up "curtain rods" — was related to the next day's events. The arrangement of cartons at the sixth-floor window could have been accomplished by one man in a matter of seconds. Most of the cartons had already been moved there by the floor-laying crew, and the two "Rolling Readers" boxes used as a gun rest weighed only about eight pounds each. Of twenty-five identifiable fingerprints found on the four cartons near the window, all but one belonged to an FBI employee and a Dallas police officer who had handled them during the investigation, and the single unidentified palmprint was not unusual given the commercial handling of the cartons. No witness testified to seeing more than one person in the sixth-floor window. Arnold Rowland, an eighteen-year-old bystander, claimed before the Commission to have seen an elderly Black man in the southeast corner window, but he had never mentioned this in his original affidavit, his wife said he had never told her about it, and an FBI investigation revealed that numerous other statements by Rowland were false. The Commission rejected his testimony on this point.

Oswald's Escape

Seven witnesses traced Oswald's movements from the Depository to his rooming house, and at each point he was alone. The building was probably not sealed until at least 12:37 p.m. — sufficient time for Oswald to have descended from the sixth floor and left without assistance. Investigation produced no evidence that Oswald had prearranged plans for leaving Dallas or that any other person was to help him hide or depart. His housekeeper, Earlene Roberts, testified that a Dallas police car drove slowly by the rooming house at about 1:00 p.m. and honked, but the squad-car numbers she recalled were either at the Depository at that moment or had been sold off months earlier, and Roberts herself never saw Oswald enter any vehicle. He was last seen standing alone at a bus stop in front of the house.

The Soviet Union and the Question of a Foreign Conspiracy

The Commission examined Oswald's defection, residence in the Soviet Union, and return to the United States for any evidence of Soviet involvement. Secretary of State Dean Rusk testified that he had "not seen or heard of any scrap of evidence indicating that the Soviet Union had any desire to eliminate President Kennedy," adding that "it would be an act of rashness and madness for Soviet leaders to undertake such an action as an active policy. Because everything would have been put in jeopardy or at stake in connection with such an act. It has not been our impression that madness has characterized the actions of the Soviet leadership in recent years."

There was no indication that Oswald was recruited by Soviet agents before his defection. He may have begun studying Russian while stationed in Japan, and he told several people that he had been planning his defection for two years. He financed the trip himself, saving as much as $1,500 from his Marine Corps salary of $3,452.20 over nearly three years of service. His ship passage from New Orleans to France cost $220.75, his plane from London to Helsinki $111.90, and his Russian tourist vouchers approximately $300. When he arrived in Moscow in October 1959 he could barely speak Russian, having rated only "Poor" on an Army aptitude test eight months earlier. He practiced eight hours a day in Moscow and took lessons from a government-assigned interpreter in Minsk, eventually becoming fluent enough that his Russian wife initially thought he was from the Baltic region. The very fact that Oswald defected was itself persuasive evidence that he had not been recruited as a Soviet agent beforehand: had he remained a Marine radar specialist he might have been valuable as a clandestine source, but his open defection and public disloyal statements eliminated any possibility of his returning to duty with access to classified information. His visa to enter the Soviet Union was issued in two days — possibly shorter than usual but within the range of normal variation — and his apparent suicide attempt when told his application for citizenship had been denied provided strong evidence that through October 21, 1959, there was no undercover relationship with the Soviet Government.

Oswald's behavior at the American Embassy on October 31, 1959 — where he declared his intention to renounce his citizenship and volunteered that he would give the Soviets information about his Marine radar work — was unlikely to have been coached. Such a statement would have prejudiced any possibility of his being an effective clandestine agent. Embassy official Richard Snyder believed Oswald would have completed a formal renunciation immediately if permitted, which would have made his eventual return to the United States far more difficult — hardly in the Soviets' interest if they intended to use him. The American correspondent Priscilla Johnson, who spent nearly five hours interviewing him, found that beneath his pretense of intellectual engagement, "if you really did engage him on this ground, you very quickly would discover that he didn't have the capacity for a logical sustained argument about an abstract point."

Oswald waited approximately two and a half months before being granted permission to remain — not as a citizen, as he had requested, but merely as a resident on a year-to-year basis. The CIA confirmed that "when compared to five other defector cases, this procedure seems unexceptional." He was sent to Minsk, given a job in a radio and television factory at average piecework wages of 700 to 900 rubles per month, a pleasant apartment for only 60 rubles, and a monthly "Red Cross" subsidy of 700 rubles. The CIA confirmed that subsidizing foreign defectors to prevent disillusionment was standard Soviet practice. Oswald's own notes acknowledged that the subsidy came from the "MVD" and was payment for having "denounced" the United States; it was terminated as soon as he wrote the Embassy in February 1961 asking to return. His membership in a factory-sponsored hunting club was not suspicious: such clubs were very popular in the Soviet Union, and Soviet citizens could own shotguns simply by registering them. The CIA knew of no secret training institutions in or near Minsk during Oswald's residence. His marriage to Marina Nikolaevna Prusakova on April 30, 1961, also argued against his being an agent: a Russian wife would increase surveillance by American security agencies, decrease his mobility, and constitute a continuing risk of disclosure.

The Oswalds' eventual departure from the Soviet Union followed normal procedures. It took the Soviet authorities at least five and a half months to grant exit visas — consistent with Department of State data showing waiting periods of one month to thirteen months for Soviet wives of American citizens. Marina Oswald was subjected to pressure not to emigrate — she was dropped from the Komsomol and her aunt and uncle stopped speaking to her — but permission was ultimately granted. The Commission concluded that there was no reason to believe the Oswalds received unusually favorable treatment at any stage, and that the pattern of their experience was "consistent with what the Commission has learned about comparable cases."

The Ruby–Tippit Allegations and Other Local Claims

A number of Dallas-based allegations required specific investigation. It was suggested that Ruby's ownership of the Carousel Club — a downtown strip venue frequented by police officers — might have provided a cover for quiet meetings with Oswald and Patrolman Tippit. The Commission examined the Carousel's employment records, its patron lists so far as these could be reconstructed, its liquor-license inspections, and its telephone-call histories. No record, document, or witness linked Oswald to the premises. Mark Lane's uncorroborated allegation of a November 14 meeting between Ruby, Oswald, and Tippit at the Carousel was investigated as described in the section on Ruby above. A claim by a waitress at the Colony Club, next door to the Carousel, that she had seen Oswald there one evening in October was shown to be a case of mistaken identification when she was re-interviewed and confronted with a lineup of similar-looking men; she picked three and expressed uncertainty about all of them. The Commission declined to credit her identification.

Claims that Oswald had been seen in the company of known organized-crime figures in Dallas were similarly run down. The names of Dallas-area figures with any criminal record were cross-checked against all known Oswald sightings, telephone records, and acquaintances; none produced a match. The Commission's judgment on the local Dallas rumors was that they arose, for the most part, from the natural tendency of residents of a shocked city to recast ordinary coincidences — a familiar face glimpsed, a telephone call from an unknown number, a customer resembling a news photograph — as evidence of something larger. Each such rumor had to be investigated because the investigators did not know in advance which coincidence might prove decisive; none did.

Associations in the Dallas–Fort Worth Community

Shortly after returning to the United States in June 1962, the Oswalds settled in Fort Worth and met a group of Russian-speaking persons in the Dallas–Fort Worth area — mostly well-educated, accomplished people, many connected with the oil industry. They assisted Marina and the baby with gifts of food, clothing, and baby furniture, and arranged medical appointments. But the relationship was short-lived and strained. Oswald openly resented the help and the efforts of some members of the group to persuade Marina to leave him. By the end of 1962, as Katherine Ford summarized it, "Marina and her husband were dropped at that time, nobody actually wanted to help."

George De Mohrenschildt, a Russian-born petroleum engineer with a colorful international background, was apparently the only Russian-speaking person for whom Oswald had appreciable respect. On the evening of April 13, 1963 — three days after the Walker shooting — the De Mohrenschildts visited the Oswalds' Neely Street apartment. Mrs. De Mohrenschildt saw a rifle with a scope in a closet and mentioned it to her husband. "George, of course, with his sense of humor," she testified, said: "Did you take a pot shot at Walker by any chance?" Oswald "sort of shriveled" and "almost became speechless." The De Mohrenschildts left soon afterward and never saw the Oswalds again. The Commission found nothing in their background suggesting disloyalty or any connection with the assassination.

The Commission also thoroughly investigated Ruth and Michael Paine. Ruth Paine, a Quaker who had become interested in Russian through a Friends program to lessen East-West tensions, had met Marina Oswald in February 1963 at a party in Dallas attended by members of the Russian-speaking émigré community. The two women became friends; Ruth was eager to practice her Russian with a native speaker, and Marina — increasingly unhappy in her marriage — welcomed a sympathetic ear. After the Walker shooting in April, when Oswald left for New Orleans, Ruth drove Marina and the baby to join him; in September, when the marriage had deteriorated again and Marina was pregnant with a second child, Ruth drove her and the baby back to Irving and housed them at her home there. During October and November, Oswald visited on weekends, riding with Frazier, and Marina remained with Ruth through the birth of Audrey Rachel and until the morning of the assassination. Ruth Paine had been pivotal, through her telephone call to Roy Truly, in Oswald's eventual employment at the Depository, though she knew nothing of the significance that call would assume.

Before the assassination Ruth Paine had learned from the post office that Oswald was living in Dallas under the alias "O. H. Lee" — information that upset her deeply and that she had not yet confronted him about. On November 9 she had discovered a handwritten draft of Oswald's letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, referring to his "meeting with Comrade Kostin" in Mexico City; she was troubled by it and made a copy, intending to give it to the FBI if Agent Hosty returned. Hosty did not return before November 22. The Commission examined Ruth Paine's correspondence, her finances, her background, and her own movements in minute detail and found nothing suggesting disloyalty or any connection with the assassination. Her husband Michael Paine, from whom she was separated but on amicable terms, was also investigated thoroughly; his background, employment as an engineer at Bell Helicopter, and attitudes toward the Oswalds produced no evidence of complicity. Mrs. Paine testified candidly about all she knew. The Commission concluded that neither Paine was involved in the assassination in any way and that their assistance to Marina was the simple extension of kindness by a woman who had no inkling of what her friend's husband intended.

Political Organizations

Oswald subscribed to the Worker, a Communist Party publication, and corresponded with the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. His dealings with these organizations were investigated in detail. The Communist Party was not especially responsive: Arnold Johnson, the party's information director, told him the party had no "organizational ties" with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. When Oswald asked whether he should work "above ground" or "underground," Johnson replied that "often it is advisable for some people to remain in the background, not underground." The Socialist Workers Party declined his membership application because there was no chapter in Dallas, though it sent him literature. Neither organization asked for his assistance despite his offers. Leaders of the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Hall-Davis Defense Committee voluntarily testified under oath that Oswald was not a member and that their files contained no records beyond the routine correspondence they produced for the Commission.

The Commission also investigated the right-wing material circulating in Dallas in the days before the visit. The full-page, black-bordered "Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement in the Dallas Morning News was placed by four men — Bernard Weissman, William Burley, Larrie Schmidt, and Joseph Grinnan — who had devised plans while serving together in the Army in Munich to infiltrate conservative organizations. The fictitious "American Fact-Finding Committee" was invented for the occasion, and the $1,465 cost was raised from three wealthy Dallas businessmen. The "Wanted for Treason" handbill that had appeared on Dallas streets on November 21 was prepared by Robert Surrey, a printing salesman closely associated with General Edwin Walker, and printed surreptitiously by an employee of another firm. The Commission found no evidence connecting any of these persons with Oswald or with the assassination.

Fair Play for Cuba

In New Orleans from late April to September 1963, Oswald engaged in activity purportedly on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He applied for and received membership, then wrote to the national headquarters proposing to open a chapter. The FPCC's national director, Vincent Lee, replied with explicit warnings against opening a public office: "It would be hard to concieve of a chapter with as few members as seem to exist in the New Orleans area," he wrote, and advised that "most of our big city Chapters have been forced to Abandon the idea of operating an office in public," recommending instead that Oswald work "semi-privately out of a home" with a post office box for mailings. "We do have a serious and often violent opposition," Lee warned, "and this proceedure helps prevent many unnecessary incidents which frighten away prospective supporters."

Oswald ignored the advice entirely. He informed headquarters that he had decided "to take an office from the very beginning," and submitted copies of membership application forms and a circular headed "Hands Off Cuba!" that he had printed commercially. He later reported that he had been "evicted" from the office he claimed to have opened — though investigation revealed that no such office had ever existed. The address "544 Camp St., New Orleans, LA" stamped on some of his pamphlets was investigated; neither the FPCC nor Oswald ever maintained an office at that address. The chapter was entirely fictitious. Vincent Lee testified that no New Orleans chapter had been authorized and that no funds had been provided. Oswald was the only member, and the "president" listed on the membership cards was "A. J. Hidell," his own alias. Marina Oswald testified that she wrote the name "Hidell" on the cards at her husband's insistence, knowing there was no such organization and understanding that the name was simply a play on "Fidel" — an alias she found faintly absurd.

Oswald distributed his handbills on at least three occasions. On August 9, 1963, he was arrested and fined for disturbing the peace after a scuffle with anti-Castro Cuban refugees. The incident had been partly of his own making: he had previously approached the anti-Castro group, presenting himself as sympathetic to their cause in an apparent effort to gather information, before appearing on the street distributing pro-Castro literature. When arrested, he told police his chapter had thirty-five members — a complete fabrication. The arrest led to two radio appearances. On August 17 he appeared on William Stuckey's program "Latin Listening Post" on WDSU radio, presenting himself as a spokesman for the FPCC. On August 21 he participated in a radio debate with Stuckey and Carlos Bringuier, one of the anti-Castro Cubans involved in the August 9 incident. During the debate Stuckey confronted Oswald with his defection to the Soviet Union — information Stuckey had obtained from the House Un-American Activities Committee files — and Oswald handled the revelation with relative composure, acknowledging his residence in Russia but insisting that he was not a Communist. On one occasion Oswald hired a sixteen-year-old stranger for two dollars to help distribute leaflets; the youth, approached at the Louisiana State Employment Commission, accepted the offer but left as soon as he noticed television cameras. He testified that he had never seen Oswald before that day and never saw him again. The FBI advised the Commission that its information on undercover Cuban activities in the New Orleans area revealed no knowledge of Oswald before the assassination.

The Trip to Mexico City

Eight weeks before the assassination, Oswald traveled to Mexico City. Having abandoned an earlier and cruder scheme to hijack a plane from New Orleans — which Marina had refused to join — he boarded a bus on September 25 and arrived in Mexico City on the morning of September 27. His purpose, as Marina testified, was to evade the American prohibition on travel to Cuba by obtaining a Cuban transit visa and a Soviet visa together. He carried with him a dossier intended to establish his revolutionary credentials: his passport showing his residence in the Soviet Union for nearly three years, his Russian work permit, his marriage certificate to a Soviet citizen, letters in Russian, and his Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets and correspondence.

At the Cuban consulate, Oswald dealt primarily with Silvia Duran, the Mexican employee who handled visa applications. Her account of the encounter was reconstructed by the Commission through her testimony and through confidential sources described by the CIA as being of "extremely high reliability." Oswald presented his documents and claimed to be a member of the Communist Party, "displaying documents in proof of his membership" — though the Commission concluded that this claim was probably inaccurate, since the mass of papers Oswald produced, some in Russian, could easily have been misinterpreted by Duran. Oswald requested an "in-transit" visa that would permit him to enter Cuba on his way to the Soviet Union. Duran telephoned the Soviet consulate on his behalf and was told that the wait for a Soviet visa would be approximately four months. Oswald became, in her words, "very excited or angry" and insisted on his right to a visa "in view of his background and his loyalty and his activities in behalf of the Cuban movement." Consul Eusebio Azque was called in and "began a heated discussion in English with Oswald, that concluded by Ascue telling him that 'if it were up to him, he would not give him the visa,' and 'a person of his type was harming the Cuban Revolution rather than helping it.'" Despite her annoyance Duran gave Oswald a piece of paper with her name and the consulate's telephone number. The visa application was processed and sent to Havana, which replied some fifteen to thirty days later approving the visa — but only on condition that the Soviet visa be obtained first. The Cuban Government later provided the Commission with a photograph of Oswald's visa application and the communication from Havana refusing it without a Soviet visa; CIA experts confirmed that the handwriting on the application was Oswald's, and the clothes he wore in the application photograph matched items found among his effects after the assassination.

Oswald also visited the Soviet Embassy, where he dealt with consular officials including Valeriy Kostikov, identified by the CIA as a KGB officer stationed at the Embassy. The Commission noted that it was standard Soviet practice for KGB officers to carry on normal consular duties alongside their intelligence functions, and that Oswald's contact with Kostikov in no way established any intelligence relationship: Kostikov was simply the consular officer who happened to handle his visa inquiry. The investigation of Oswald's activities in Mexico City was exhaustive. All known persons he might have met — bus passengers, hotel employees and guests, restaurant workers — were interviewed. No credible witness saw him with any unidentified person. He traveled alone to and from Mexico City, stayed alone at his hotel (the Hotel del Comercio, which was investigated and found to have no unusual connections to Cuban or revolutionary organizations), and ate alone at a nearby restaurant. Two Australian women on the bus to Mexico City noticed him sitting next to an elderly itinerant preacher named Albert Osborne, but to other passengers it appeared that the two had not previously met, and extensive investigation of Osborne revealed no further contact with Oswald. By September 28 Oswald had failed at both embassies. He spent the remaining days sightseeing and making travel arrangements before departing on October 2, arriving back in Dallas on October 3, as Marina put it, "disappointed and discouraged."

Dozens of conspiracy allegations involving Cuba and the Mexico City trip were investigated and in every case shown to be without factual basis. The most serious involved an informant designated "D" who claimed to have seen Oswald receive $6,500 at the Cuban Embassy; "D" later admitted in writing that his entire narrative had been fabricated. The Commission concluded that "the investigation of the Commission has thus produced no evidence that Oswald's trip to Mexico was in any way connected with the assassination of President Kennedy, nor has it uncovered evidence that the Cuban Government had any involvement in the assassination." The CIA and FBI advised the Commission that their "secret and reliable sources corroborate the statements of Senora Duran in all material respects, and that the Cuban Government had no relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald other than that described by Senora Duran." Secretary Rusk testified that after the assassination "there was very considerable concern in Cuba as to whether they would be held responsible and what the effect of that might be on their own position and their own safety."

The November 9 Letter to the Soviet Embassy

Oswald's last letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, dated November 9, 1963, began by stating that it was written "to inform you of recent events since my meetings with Comrade Kostin in the Embassy of the Soviet Union, Mexico City, Mexico." Ruth Paine discovered a draft of this letter on November 10 and was troubled by it, though she and her husband initially assumed that it was "a figment of Oswald's imagination." She made a copy of the draft, intending to give it to the FBI if its agents returned. They did not return before the assassination.

Comparison of the draft with the final letter revealed that Oswald was intentionally making his Mexico trip sound more mysterious and important than it had been. The draft's first sentence originally read, "I was unable to remain in Mexico City because I considered useless" — the plain truth — but Oswald rewrote it to say he was "unable to remain in Mexico indefinily because of my mexican visa restrictions which was for 15 days only." In fact, his tourist card still had a full week to run when he departed. He wrote that he "could not take a chance on reqesting a new visa unless I used my real name," although he had used his real name throughout his dealings in Mexico City. The Commission concluded that the letter was "no more than a clumsy effort to ingratiate himself with the Soviet Embassy" — the gesture of a failed defector trying to salvage his political self-image rather than a communication from a trusted agent.

The CIA and Mexico City

Particular concern attached to the CIA's handling of information about Oswald's Mexico City visit, and the Commission reviewed that record closely. The CIA's Mexico City station had been monitoring the Cuban and Soviet Embassies through confidential sources, and on October 9, 1963, a report reached the station that an American male identifying himself as "Lee Oswald" had been in telephone contact with the Soviet Embassy on October 1 requesting information on a visa application he had filed. The station transmitted this report to CIA headquarters on October 10, and headquarters passed it to the FBI, the Department of State, and the Department of the Navy. The CIA traffic included no photograph of the caller; a photograph identified by the station as possibly associated with the person who had visited the embassies was of a different individual entirely — a larger, older man whose connection with Oswald was never established and who was later identified as having had his own separate dealings with the Soviet mission.

The Commission examined the possibility that the CIA had held back other information about Oswald's Mexico City activities and found none. The Agency provided the Commission with its full station reports, surveillance photographs, and communications with headquarters. CIA Director John McCone testified in person, as did Deputy Director for Plans Richard Helms, and both stated unequivocally that the Agency had had no pre-assassination relationship with Oswald of any kind and no information about him beyond what the station had relayed in October 1963. The Commission accepted this testimony and concluded that the CIA's handling of the Mexico City reports, while complete in what it transmitted, had been incomplete in its failure to link the name "Lee Oswald" back to the existing FBI file on the former defector. That failure was a shortcoming of interagency communication rather than of suppression.

Oswald Was Not a Government Agent

The Commission thoroughly investigated allegations that Oswald was an informant or agent of the FBI, CIA, or any other federal agency. CIA Director John McCone stated unequivocally that Oswald was never an agent, employee, or informant of the CIA, and that the Agency had never contacted him, interviewed him, talked with him, or received anything from him. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and every Bureau agent who would have been responsible for or aware of any recruitment attempt provided sworn affidavits that Oswald was never an FBI informant; the Commission's independent review of Bureau files and informant payment records corroborated that testimony. Investigation of Oswald's finances, conducted with the assistance of the Internal Revenue Service, showed that his known income was sufficient to cover all known expenditures, with an estimated balance of $164.10 against the $183.87 actually found in his possession at the time of his arrest. No evidence suggested hidden payments of any kind.

Possible Conspiracy Involving Jack Ruby

Ruby's killing of Oswald in the midst of more than seventy Dallas police officers immediately raised the possibility that the shooting had been arranged — that Ruby had been sent by conspirators to silence the only man who could describe the plot. The Commission reconstructed Ruby's movements from November 21 through November 24 on the premise that conspiratorial activity would have been reflected in his actions and associations during that period.

On Thursday evening, November 21, Ruby attended to his usual duties as proprietor of the Carousel Club, a downtown striptease establishment, and the Vegas Club, a rock-and-roll venue managed by his sister Eva Grant. He dined with his close friend and financial backer Ralph Paul, acted as master of ceremonies at the Carousel, visited the Bon Vivant Room at the Dallas Cabana with businessman Lawrence Meyers, and was seen eating at a restaurant near the Vegas Club as late as 2:30 a.m. Neither Paul nor Meyers recalled Ruby mentioning the President's trip to Dallas.

Ruby learned of the assassination on Friday at the Dallas Morning News offices, where he had come to place weekend advertisements. John Newnam, an advertising employee, observed that Ruby "weights about 175 lbs. and is a strong man" but that upon hearing the news "he turned white." Ruby expressed agitated concern about the black-bordered "Welcome Mr. Kennedy" advertisement, noting that the name "Weissman" appeared as chairman and worrying that it would be used to blame Jews for the assassination. He asked Newnam whether the name was "a Gentile or a Jewish name" and said, "I can't understand why they would want to do this to the President." Ruby left the newspaper building at approximately 1:30 p.m. and drove to the Carousel Club, where he told his employees that the club would be closed that evening and for the entire weekend. Andrew Armstrong, the club's bartender, testified that Ruby was "pretty shaken up" and made numerous telephone calls. He called his sister Eva Grant, who was ill and was crying on the phone. He called his brother Earl in Detroit, his friend Al Gruber (a former Chicago acquaintance visiting Dallas), and Ralph Paul. In all, Ruby made or received approximately twenty-five telephone calls between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning — all of which the Commission examined and found consistent with his emotional state and his need to talk to people about the assassination.

At approximately 4:00 p.m. Ruby went to Eva Grant's apartment, bringing food from a delicatessen. He found her crying and distraught. They watched television coverage of the assassination together. Ruby was, according to Grant, "carrying on about how terrible it was," and at one point said, "Someone tore my heart out." He mentioned the Weissman advertisement again and expressed concern about anti-Semitic repercussions. That evening he went to the synagogue for Friday services; the rabbi's eulogy for President Kennedy moved him deeply. He drove past the Carousel's competitor, the Weinstein brothers' Theatre Lounge, and was angered to see it was open; he called the Weinsteins to berate them for failing to close out of respect for the President.

At approximately 11:00 p.m. Ruby went to the Dallas police station, where he remained for several hours. He moved freely through the third-floor corridor, which was packed with reporters and cameramen, and spoke with various officers and reporters, some of whom knew him. He attended the midnight press conference in the basement assembly room where Oswald was briefly displayed to the press. During the conference District Attorney Wade referred to Oswald's "Free Cuba Committee" activities, and Ruby called out the correction: "Fair Play for Cuba." Ruby later told the Commission that he had his revolver with him that night, as was his habit when carrying large amounts of cash from his clubs. After the press conference he went to radio station KLIF, where he had arranged to bring sandwiches to the staff working through the night, then to the Times Herald newspaper plant, where he spoke with employees and watched the early edition being printed. He did not return to his apartment until approximately 4:30 a.m.

Saturday was spent in a state of continuing emotional disturbance. Ruby visited Eva Grant again, bringing more food. He made numerous telephone calls — to friends, to employees, to his brother Earl, to his lawyer. He visited the police station again in the afternoon. He drove past Dealey Plaza and was moved to tears by the wreaths and flowers that had been placed there. He sent a telegram of condolence to Mrs. Kennedy. He called the Weinstein brothers again to berate them. Multiple witnesses described him during this period as genuinely grief-stricken, weeping openly, unable to eat, and obsessively talking about the assassination. His roommate, George Senator, testified that Ruby woke him at approximately 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning, "talking and talking" about the assassination and the Weissman advertisement, and drove him and Larry Crafard to photograph an "Impeach Earl Warren" sign that had appeared on a Dallas highway, apparently because he wanted to document what he saw as evidence of right-wing extremism in Dallas.

On Sunday morning Ruby was at his apartment until sometime between 10:45 and 11:00 a.m. He received a telephone call from Karen Bennett Carlin, one of his strippers, who asked him to wire her twenty-five dollars because she needed money for rent and groceries. Ruby agreed and drove downtown to the Western Union office on Main Street, approximately one block from the police station. At 11:17 a.m. — established with precision by the time stamp on the money order — he sent the twenty-five dollars to Carlin. He then walked toward the police station. The Commission found that Ruby's decision to go to the Western Union office was prompted by Carlin's call and was not part of any premeditated plan to kill Oswald. The timing of the transfer had been publicized, but the actual transfer was delayed by Fritz's final interrogation session, which did not end until approximately 11:15 a.m. Ruby could not have known the precise moment Oswald would emerge from the jail office. His presence at the police basement at 11:21 a.m. appeared to be the result of a convergence of circumstances rather than planning.

Ruby and Oswald Were Not Acquainted

The Commission conducted an extensive investigation into the question whether Ruby and Oswald had ever been acquainted. The investigation covered Ruby's background, his associates, his telephone records, his movements, and every allegation of a connection between the two men. Ruby had lived in Dallas since 1947 and had operated nightclubs there for most of that period. Oswald had lived in the Dallas–Fort Worth area only intermittently — most recently from October 1962 to April 1963 and again from October to November 1963. The two men lived and worked in different parts of the city and moved in entirely different circles: Ruby's associates were nightclub employees, entertainers, police officers, and small businessmen; Oswald's few contacts were Russian-speaking émigrés and, briefly, political activists. An exhaustive check of telephone records, including Ruby's extensive calls during the days before the assassination, revealed no calls to Oswald or to any number associated with him. No witness who knew both men ever saw them together or heard either mention the other. The attorney Mark Lane alleged before the Commission that Ruby, Oswald, and Patrolman J. D. Tippit had met at Ruby's Carousel Club on November 14, 1963, citing an undisclosed informant whose identity he refused to reveal even on repeated demand; the Commission investigated the claim independently and found no evidence that any such meeting had taken place. Several witnesses initially claimed to have seen Oswald at Ruby's club, but upon investigation these claims proved unfounded or were based on mistaken identification. The Commission concluded that "on the basis of its investigation, there is no credible evidence that Ruby and Oswald were acquainted."

Ruby's Background and Associations

Ruby's background revealed a man of intense emotion, volatile temper, deep loyalties, and a desperate need for recognition and acceptance — but it revealed nothing suggesting a conspiracy. He had cultivated relationships with Dallas police officers for years, offering free coffee and club admissions. Chief Curry estimated that twenty-five to fifty of the department's 1,175 officers knew Ruby, though the actual number may have been somewhat higher. The Commission found no evidence of any suspicious relationship between Ruby and any officer, and no evidence that any officer had assisted him in entering the basement. Investigation of Ruby's broader associations revealed no credible evidence of significant organized-crime ties: while he had grown up in a Chicago neighborhood where he was acquainted with some individuals later involved in criminal activities, and while he had various minor contacts with underworld figures in Dallas, the evidence did not establish any meaningful association with organized crime, and his financial records — examined with the assistance of the Internal Revenue Service — showed only the chronically insolvent books of a marginal nightclub operator owing substantial back taxes, not the flows of money associated with underworld ventures. A fuller biographical treatment appears in Appendix XVI.

The Odio Incident and Other Alleged Contacts

The Commission gave particular attention to the testimony of Sylvia Odio, a member of the anti-Castro Cuban Revolutionary Junta (JURE), who testified that in late September 1963 three men visited her Dallas apartment — two apparent Cubans and an American introduced as "Leon Oswald." One of the Cubans, who identified himself only by the war name "Leopoldo," allegedly called the next day and said the American was "great, he is kind of nuts," had been in the Marine Corps, was an excellent shot, and had said that "President Kennedy should have been assassinated after the Bay of Pigs." Mrs. Odio was certain the American had been Lee Harvey Oswald, and her sister, who briefly saw the men, agreed. The Commission concluded, however, that Oswald could not have been in Dallas on the dates Mrs. Odio specified — September 26 or 27 — because he was known to have been in New Orleans as late as September 25 and on a bus to Mexico by September 26. The FBI located Loran Eugene Hall, an anti-Castro activist, who stated that he had visited Mrs. Odio in September 1963 accompanied by Lawrence Howard and William Seymour, the last similar in appearance to Oswald. The Commission concluded that Oswald was not at Mrs. Odio's apartment.

Other alleged Oswald contacts were examined and dismissed for similar reasons. Evaristo Rodriguez, a bartender, claimed to have seen Oswald in the Habana Bar in New Orleans with a Latin-appearing man; his identification was uncorroborated, and the bar owner who initially confirmed it later admitted that he could only recognize Oswald from news photographs. Dean Andrews, a New Orleans attorney, said that Oswald had visited his office accompanied by a Mexican; he could locate no records of the alleged visits, and investigation failed to identify either the supposed Mexican companion or the person who supposedly called him to represent Oswald after the assassination.

Investigation of Conspiracy Allegations Involving Ruby

Beyond the Odio and Lane allegations, the Commission investigated every allegation of a conspiratorial connection between Ruby and the assassination. Ruby's telephone records for the weeks before the assassination showed calls to persons connected with his labor problems — he was having difficulty with the American Guild of Variety Artists, which represented his strippers — and with his tax difficulties, but none that suggested a conspiratorial relationship. Examination of his finances revealed chronic insolvency: substantial back taxes owed to the Internal Revenue Service, rent and supplier arrears, and no evidence of unexplained income or payments. His own statements were consistent throughout. He told police immediately after the shooting that he had acted alone in a fit of depression and rage over the President's death, that he wanted to spare Mrs. Kennedy the ordeal of returning to Dallas for Oswald's trial, and that he had no connection with any conspiracy. During his polygraph examination in July 1964 — administered at his own insistence — his physiological responses indicated truthfulness when he denied any involvement in a conspiracy, prior acquaintance with Oswald, or assistance from police in entering the basement, though the Commission did not rely on the polygraph results because of the serious questions about Ruby's mental condition that had emerged by that time.

The Question of Police Assistance

The Commission investigated with particular care whether any member of the Dallas Police Department had assisted Ruby in entering the basement on Sunday morning. The investigation included interviews with every officer on duty in the basement, examination of video tapes and photographs, and review of the department's own internal inquiry. The Commission concluded that Ruby entered the basement unaided, probably via the Main Street ramp, during the brief moment when Patrolman Roy Vaughn's attention was diverted by Lieutenant Pierce's car emerging onto Main Street. Ruby's account was partially corroborated by James Turner, a television employee who saw a man he was confident was Ruby moving down the ramp approximately thirty seconds before the shooting. No credible evidence of an alternative entry route was found. The Commission further found no evidence that any police officer recognized Ruby as an unauthorized person in the basement before the shooting: Sergeant Patrick Dean testified that he had seen Ruby dart forward toward Oswald, but Dean was too far away to intervene, and the officers closest to Ruby — Harrison, King, Arnett, and Croy — were all facing away from him, toward the jail office, with television and press lights shining in their eyes and further reducing their ability to observe movement in the crowd. The Dallas Police Department's own investigation revealed no information indicating complicity between any officer and Ruby. While Ruby was known to have enjoyed rather free access to police quarters during the days after the assassination — he was a familiar figure around the station — there was no evidence implicating any officer in his actions on Sunday morning.

Oswald's Writings and Possessions

A conspiracy, the Commission reasoned, would likely have left traces in the writings and possessions of its executant. Oswald's surviving writings were therefore combed for coded content or evidence of operational communication. His "Historic Diary" — a handwritten journal covering his Soviet period — was examined by specialists from the FBI and the National Security Agency. Neither agency found any indication of cryptic content. The diary's narrative — the account of his arrival in Moscow, his suicide attempt, his reassignment to Minsk, his growing disillusionment, his marriage to Marina, his decision to return — was consistent with other evidence in every particular that could be independently verified. His letters to his brother Robert, his letters to the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party, his Fair Play for Cuba correspondence, the notes he made on the ship returning from the Soviet Union, and the various scraps of political writing found among his possessions were all reviewed with the same question in mind and found to be exactly what they appeared to be: the writings of a self-taught ideologue who had no operational contacts and was in no one's employ.

His physical possessions told a similar story. The search of the Paine residence garage produced the rifle wrapped in a blanket; cartons of personal papers; photographs; two books in Russian; the Minsk work permit and hunting club card; and the "Historic Diary" itself. The search of his rooming house at 1026 North Beckley produced a wallet, a few changes of clothing, a transistor radio, and little else. Nothing in either search suggested the presence of a paymaster, a handler, or any outside direction — no unexplained cash, no coded material, no unfamiliar names, no communications equipment, and no drafts of correspondence to any person whose identity could not be accounted for in the existing record of Oswald's life.

Other Allegations and Their Disposition

A number of more peripheral allegations were investigated and rejected for specific reasons that the Commission thought worth setting out on the record. George Michael Evica, a man who claimed to have been offered large sums to "take part in" the assassination, was found to have fabricated the account in the hope of advancing an unrelated legal dispute. A taxi driver who claimed to have heard Ruby discussing a plan to kill Oswald was unable to identify the alleged conversation partners and proved to have been elsewhere on the day in question. A Dallas woman who claimed to have received anonymous telephone warnings of "something going to happen to the President" on November 20 and 21 was unable to produce any telephone-record corroboration, and the descriptions of the calls varied in successive retellings. Each such allegation consumed investigative time the Commission would have preferred to devote to more substantial leads, but each had to be run down because the Commission had committed itself to investigating "every rumor and allegation, however remote."

The Commission also investigated whether Oswald might have been manipulated by a foreign intelligence service into undertaking the assassination without being a formal agent — a variant conspiracy theory suggesting that the Soviets or Cubans could have planted suggestions in his mind during his stay in Russia or his contact with the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. It found no evidence of such manipulation. Oswald's defection had been open and public, and his subsequent return, his disillusionment with Soviet life, his grievances against both societies, and his fictitious "Fair Play for Cuba" chapter were all products of his own initiative, not responses to any discernible external direction. Marina Oswald testified that she had no knowledge of any such contact and that her husband's decisions — including the Walker attempt and the trip to Mexico City — were planned without consultation with anyone outside their household. The Commission's extensive review of Oswald's writings, including the "Historic Diary" and the political tracts he composed on the ship returning from Russia, disclosed no cryptic content and no evidence of coded communication with any outside party.

Conclusion of Chapter VI

On the basis of the evidence reviewed in this chapter, the Commission concluded that there was no credible evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassinate President Kennedy. It found no evidence that Oswald was an agent of any foreign government, that he was encouraged or assisted by any person or group, or that he was connected with any political organization in a conspiratorial capacity. The Commission also found no evidence that Jack Ruby acted with any other person in the killing of Oswald, or that Ruby and Oswald were acquainted. "Because of the difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty," the Commission acknowledged, "the possibility of others being involved with either Oswald or Ruby cannot be established categorically, but if there is any such evidence it has been beyond the reach of all the investigative agencies and resources of the United States and has not come to the attention of this Commission."

Chapter VII: Lee Harvey Oswald — Background and Possible Motives

The evidence reviewed in the preceding chapters identifies Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin of President Kennedy and indicates that he acted alone. There remains the question of what impelled him to conceive and to carry out the assassination of the President of the United States. The Commission has considered many possible motives — those that might flow from Oswald's commitment to Marxism or communism, the existence of some personal grievance, a desire to effect political change or simply to go down in history as a widely publicized assassin. None of these possibilities satisfactorily explains Oswald's act if it is judged by the standards of reasonable men. But the motives of any man must be analyzed in terms of his own character and state of mind, and a motive that appears incomprehensible to other people may be the moving force of a man whose view of the world has been twisted, possibly by factors of which those around him were only dimly aware. Since Oswald is dead, the Commission cannot reach any definite conclusion as to whether he was "sane" under prevailing legal standards — no forum could properly make that determination unless Oswald were before it. What can be offered is a study of the events, relationships, and influences that appear to have been significant in shaping his character and in guiding him.

The most outstanding conclusion of such a study is that Oswald was profoundly alienated from the world in which he lived. His life was characterized by isolation, frustration, and failure. He had very few, if any, close relationships with other people and great difficulty in finding a meaningful place in the world. He was never satisfied with anything. When he was in the United States he resented the capitalist system which he thought was exploiting him and others like him, and he spoke highly of the Soviet Union and of Cuba. When he was in the Soviet Union, he resented the Communist Party members who were accorded special privileges and whom he thought were betraying communism, and he spoke well of the United States. He accused his wife of preferring other men to himself and told her to return to the Soviet Union without him, while at the same time professing his love for her and saying that he could not get along without her. Marina Oswald thought he would not be happy anywhere — "Only on the moon, perhaps." While he appeared to most of those who knew him as a meek and harmless person, he sometimes imagined himself as "the Commander" and, apparently seriously, as a political prophet who would be prime minister after twenty years. Such ideas of grandeur were accompanied by notions of oppression and by a quality that led him to act with an apparent disregard for consequences. He defected to the Soviet Union, shot at General Walker, tried to go to Cuba and even contemplated hijacking an airplane to get there. He assassinated the President, shot Patrolman Tippit, resisted arrest, and tried to kill another policeman in the process.

The Early Years

Oswald's father, an insurance-premium collector, died two months before Lee was born in New Orleans on October 18, 1939. His mother Marguerite, already the mother of two sons — Robert, born 1934, and the half-brother John Pic, born 1932 during a previous marriage — was forced to go to work to provide for her family. Reminding her sons that they were orphans and that the family was poor, she placed John and Robert in an orphans' home, and in December 1942 sent Lee there as well. She withdrew him when he was a little over four and moved him to Dallas; the other boys followed within the year. In 1945 she married Edwin Ekdahl, to whom Lee became attached — John Pic later thought his younger brother had found in Ekdahl "the father that he never had" — but the marriage was stormy and ended in divorce in 1948. After the breakup Marguerite complained of her lot as a widow with three children, moved from job to job, and pressed her eldest sons to supplement the family income. John Pic joined the Coast Guard as soon as he could; Robert joined the Marines. Lee was left in an atmosphere of constant money anxiety and with a mother who, as Pic later testified, "overstated her financial problems and was unduly concerned about money." When she worked during the school year, Lee ate his lunches alone in an empty house; his mother had trained him to come home rather than play with other children. On a visit to his aunt in New Orleans in 1950, he refused to play with other boys his own age despite their urgings — an early sign of the solitary habits that would define his life.

New York City and Youth House

In August 1952, shortly before Lee's thirteenth birthday, he and his mother moved to New York, where they lived briefly with John Pic. Relations soured quickly after Lee allegedly pulled a pocketknife on Mrs. Pic during an argument. Mother and son moved to their own apartment in the Bronx, where Lee enrolled in P.S. 117. The other children teased him for his "western" clothes and Texas accent, and he began to stay away from school, preferring to read magazines and watch television at home. When truancy charges were brought against him, he was remanded to Youth House, an institution for children awaiting psychiatric observation or custodial placement. He was there from April 16 to May 7, 1953, examined by its chief psychiatrist, Dr. Renatus Hartogs, and interviewed by other staff including the social worker Evelyn Siegel and the probation officer John Carro.

Contrary to reports that would later appear, the Youth House examinations did not suggest that Oswald was a potential assassin or that he should be institutionalized. Dr. Hartogs found him to be a tense, withdrawn, and evasive boy who disliked talking about himself — a boy of "superior mental resources" (IQ 118 on the Wechsler scale) who was functioning only slightly below his capacity despite chronic truancy. Hartogs diagnosed a "personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and passive-aggressive tendencies," and described Lee as "an emotionally, quite disturbed youngster who suffers under the impact of really existing emotional isolation and deprivation, lack of affection, absence of family life and rejection by a self involved and conflicted mother." Mrs. Siegel described him as a "seriously detached, withdrawn youngster" with "a rather pleasant, appealing quality about this emotionally starved, affectionless youngster which grows as one speaks to him," and thought he had detached himself from the world because "no one in it ever met any of his needs for love." Lee himself admitted to fantasies of being powerful and sometimes of hurting and killing people, but refused to elaborate: such matters, he said, were his own business. He told Mrs. Siegel that he felt "almost as if there were a veil between him and other people through which they could not reach him," and that he preferred the veil to remain intact. Hartogs recommended probation and child-guidance counseling by a male psychiatrist who could serve as a substitute father; the treatment was never provided. Before any further action could be taken, Marguerite and Lee left New York in January 1954 and returned to New Orleans.

Return to New Orleans and the Marine Corps

Back in New Orleans Oswald was teased for the northern accent he had picked up in the Bronx. He concluded that school had nothing to offer him and withdrew further into reading, long solitary walks, museum visits, and rides in the park on a rented bicycle on Saturday mornings. His friend Edward Voebel remembered him as "more bashful about girls than anything else." He was not aggressive but was involved in occasional scuffles — once he was beaten up by a group of white boys for sitting in the Black section of a bus, which he apparently did out of ignorance. On the ninth-grade personal-history record he wrote the names of two boys under "close friends," misspelled them phonetically ("Edward Vogel," "Arthor Abear"), then erased them and indicated that he had no close friends at all.

It was around this time that Oswald started reading Communist literature borrowed from the public library. One fellow employee at a shipping company, Palmer McBride, recalled him saying that he would like to kill President Eisenhower "because he was exploiting the working class," and that he wanted to join the Communist Party "to take advantage of their social functions." William Wulf of the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association remembered an evening on which Oswald began "expounding the Communist doctrine" so loudly that Wulf's father had him put out of the house. Oswald told the reporter Aline Mosby in Moscow that his ideological commitment had begun earlier: "I'm a Marxist. I became interested about the age of 15. From an ideological viewpoint. An old lady handed me a pamphlet about saving the Rosenbergs. I looked at that paper and I still remember it for some reason, I don't know why."

Despite this apparent interest in communism, Oswald tried to join the Marines at sixteen by forging a note from his mother claiming the family was moving to California. He was rejected because he could not convince the recruiter that he was seventeen. He studied his brother Robert's Marine Corps manual until, as his mother put it, "he knew it by heart," and enlisted six days after his seventeenth birthday. John Pic thought that the Marines were an escape route "from out and under the yoke of oppression from my mother."

Oswald did not adjust well to the Marines. He never rose above private first class despite passing the qualifying examination for corporal. His fellow Marines remembered him as a solitary reader of Walt Whitman and political tracts whose nickname, "Ozzie Rabbit," reflected his perceived meekness until an acquired girlfriend in Japan seemed briefly to give him, in Daniel Powers's phrase, "a male status or image in his own eyes." He held his officers in intellectual contempt for knowing less than he did about foreign affairs; he baited them into debates and, when they could not keep up, regarded them as unfit to exercise command over him. Kerry Thornley, a Marine associate who later wrote an unpublished novel based on Oswald, testified that Oswald "seemed to guard against developing real close friendships" and "labored under a persecution complex." He was court-martialed twice in Japan — once for possessing an unauthorized pistol with which he had accidentally shot himself, once for spilling a drink on a sergeant and provoking a fight — and spent time in the brig for each offense. While stationed in California after his return from Japan his sympathies for the Soviet Union became openly known in his unit. He was called "comrade" and "Oswaldskovitch," always chose the red pieces in chess because he preferred the "Red Army," and studied Russian with what Thornley thought was an "irrevocable conviction" that Marxism was correct. "I think you could sit down and argue with him for a number of years," Thornley said, "and I don't think you could have changed his mind on that." Oswald's idea of his own future, Thornley believed, was framed around the "eyes of future people" as "some kind of tribunal" — he wanted to be remembered as a man who had been ahead of his time. In September 1959, three months before his scheduled separation date, Oswald obtained early release from active duty ostensibly to care for his mother.

Defection to the Soviet Union

Oswald stayed with his mother in Fort Worth three days, then boarded a freighter from New Orleans to France. He had been planning the move for months: he had applied to the Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland with a letter of application full of falsehoods, obtained a passport listing the Soviet Union among the countries he intended to visit, and saved as much as $1,500 from his Marine salary of $3,452.20 over nearly three years of service. He arrived in Moscow on October 16, 1959, and immediately applied for Soviet citizenship. When told on October 21 that his application had been denied and that he must leave the country by 8:00 p.m., he slashed his left wrist in an apparent suicide attempt in his hotel bathroom. His "Historic Diary" captures the moment with characteristic melodrama: "I am shocked!! My dreams! I have waited for 2 year to be accepted. My fondes dreams are shattered because of a petty offial. I decide to end it. Soak rist in cold water to numb the pain. Than slash my leftwrist. Than plaug wrist into bathtum of hot water. Somewhere, a violin plays, as I wacth my life whirl away. I think to myself 'How easy to Die' and 'A Sweet Death, (to violins).'" He was discovered in time and hospitalized until October 28. Three days later, still determined, he appeared at the American Embassy to renounce his citizenship. Embassy official Richard Snyder found him "extremely sure of himself" — he "took charge, in a sense, of the conversation right from the beginning," presented a handwritten note affirming his "allegiance" to the Soviet Union, stated his "principal reason" as "I am a Marxist," and volunteered that he had offered to give Soviet officials information about Marine Corps radar operations. Snyder, following standard consular practice, refused to accept an immediate renunciation and told him to return the following Monday. Oswald never did, and his citizenship was preserved — a decision that would make his eventual return possible.

The letters Oswald wrote during this period show the intensity of his commitment. He told his brother Robert on November 26, 1959: "I have always considered this country to be my own... In the event of war I would kill any american who put a uniform on in defence of the american government — any american." He told Robert that their mother and brother were "not objects of affection, but only examples of workers in the U.S.," and that he would "never return to the United States which is a country I hate."

Life in Minsk

Oswald's residence in Minsk from January 1960 to June 1962 is the period of his life about which the least is known. The primary sources are his own writings and Marina Oswald's testimony, supplemented by photographs taken by American tourists and a University of Michigan student who noticed him during a band tour. He was given 5,000 rubles by the "Red Cross" for expenses on arrival — "like a rich man," his diary records — and about six weeks later a pleasant apartment for only 60 rubles per month. His job at the Byelorussian Radio and Television Factory paid piecework wages of 700 to 900 rubles per month, and in addition he received a 700-ruble monthly "Red Cross" subsidy which, as he noted in his diary during the return trip, actually came from the MVD as payment for having "denounced" the United States. The subsidy was terminated as soon as he wrote the Embassy asking to return home. His factory work was menial; Marina testified he was an "apprentice machinist" who "ground small metallic parts for radio receivers, on a lathe." He was not interested in his work and was regarded as a poor worker, and the record suggests he was bitterly disappointed at not being assigned to a university.

Disillusionment set in within about eighteen months. His diary records a growing awareness of the system's weight: "As my Russian improves I become increasingly concious of just what sort of a sociaty I live in. Mass gymnastics, complusory afterwork meeting, usually political information meeting. Complusory attendence at lectures and the sending of the entire shop collective (except me) to pick potatoes on a Sunday, at a state collective farm." He began to resent the Communist Party officials — "fat stinking politicians over there just like we have over here," he later told acquaintances in Dallas. On February 13, 1961, the American Embassy received a letter from him asking to be readmitted to the United States — his first word to the Embassy since November 1959. The letter was characteristically arrogant, demanding that the Embassy "come to some agreement" on the absence of legal charges against him before he would return. A month later he met Marina Nikolaevna Prusakova, a nineteen-year-old pharmacist, at a trade-union dance; they married on April 30, 1961, six weeks after meeting. After more than a year of negotiations with both governments, the couple and their infant daughter June left Moscow on June 1, 1962, assisted by a $435.71 loan from the Department of State, and arrived in Fort Worth on June 13.

Return to the United States and Personal Relations

The psychological effect of Oswald's return must have been profound. His defection had been an open expression of hostility against the United States and a rejection of his entire early life. Now that dramatic break had to be undone, and his return publicly testified to the utter failure of what had been the most important act of his life. He was not yet twenty-three years old. Marina Oswald confirmed the change: "Immediately after coming to the United States Lee changed. I did not know him as such a man in Russia." He became more reclusive, "very irritable, sometimes for a trifle," and "very unrestrained and very explosive." "Our family life began to deteriorate after we arrived in America," she wrote after the assassination. "Lee was always hot-tempered, and now this trait of character more and more prevented us from living together in harmony."

The material Oswald wrote on the ship returning home shows a mind in turmoil. He now rejected both the systems he had known: "No man, having known, having lived, under the Russian Communist and American capitalist system, could possibly make a choice between them, there is no choice, one offers oppresstion the other poverty. Both offer imperilistic injustice, tinted with two brands of slavery." He attempted to sketch a "third way" — a "separate, democratic, pure communist sociaty" with "union-communes" and "democratic socializing of production" that would emerge after "the final destrution of the capitalist system" through crisis. The writings are the work of a man who had rejected every society he had encountered and was still searching for a role that matched his grandiose self-image.

His marriage was marked by increasing conflict. He was domineering and sometimes physically abusive — Marina testified that he struck her on several occasions. He alternated between demanding she return to Russia and begging her to stay. He isolated her from the Russian-speaking community that had tried to help her, resenting their assistance and their efforts to persuade her to leave him. George De Mohrenschildt, the only Russian-speaking person for whom Oswald had appreciable respect, observed that Oswald "was very much attracted to autobiographies of outstanding statesmen of the United States and of other countries" and thought him "a very, very young man with not too much education who was seeking for something." Jeanne De Mohrenschildt recalled Oswald telling her that he had returned from Russia because "I didn't find what I was looking for."

Employment

Oswald's employment record after his return was a pattern of repeated failures. He worked as a sheet-metal worker at Leslie Welding Company in Fort Worth from July to October 1962, when he quit. He was hired by Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a commercial photography firm in Dallas, in October 1962, but was discharged in April 1963 for poor performance and a difficult personality. He found work in New Orleans at the William B. Reily Company, a coffee-processing firm, in May 1963, and was fired in July for spending too much time next door in the garage of Adrian Alba reading gun magazines. In each case the reasons for his difficulties were personal rather than political — poor work habits, inability to get along with coworkers, and a general attitude of superiority that irritated employers and colleagues alike. Yet he used his Marxist beliefs as excuses for his failures, presenting himself as a victim of political persecution rather than acknowledging the real causes of his problems. The pattern of self-deception prevented him from addressing his actual shortcomings and deepened his alienation from the world around him.

The Attempt on General Walker

The attempt on the life of General Edwin Walker on the evening of April 10, 1963, was the most significant demonstration of Oswald's capacity for political violence before the assassination. Walker, a controversial right-wing figure who had resigned from the Army after being admonished for indoctrinating his troops with John Birch Society material, was seated at his desk in his Dallas home when a rifle bullet passed within inches of his head, deflected by the wooden frame of the window. Oswald had been planning the attack for approximately two months. He had photographed Walker's house from multiple angles, prepared a map of the surrounding area, and scouted bus routes to and from the scene. On the evening of the shooting he left Marina a note in Russian with detailed instructions for managing their affairs if he did not return — the mailbox key, rent payments, money from work, directions to the jail. The tone was that of a man who expected to be killed or captured.

When he returned home late that night, pale and agitated, he told Marina he had shot at Walker. She was horrified. The next day, learning he had missed, he told her he wished he had succeeded. Marina made him promise never to repeat such an act. He broke the promise seven months later. The Walker shooting foreshadowed several of the characteristics that would be repeated in the Kennedy assassination: meticulous advance planning, the use of a mail-ordered rifle, the willingness to act alone, and an apparent indifference to consequences. It also revealed Oswald's grandiose self-image: he saw himself as a political actor striking a blow against the forces of reaction, not as a would-be murderer.

Political Activities and the Interest in Cuba

Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in New Orleans during the summer of 1963 were characteristic of his approach to political action — grandiose in conception, fraudulent in execution, and ultimately self-defeating. He formed a fictitious chapter of which he was the only member, using the alias "A. J. Hidell" as its supposed president. His leafleting on the streets of New Orleans attracted the attention he craved, including an arrest after a scuffle with anti-Castro Cuban refugees that he had apparently provoked. The arrest led to radio appearances in which he presented himself as a spokesman for the Cuban cause, debating anti-Castro activists with a confidence that belied the emptiness of his "organization." Marina Oswald testified that in her opinion her husband's primary purpose in these activities was to create a public record that he was a "friend" of Cuba — credentials he would later present at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City in his attempt to obtain a visa. (The details of that trip are covered in Chapter VI.)

Oswald's desire to reach Cuba became an obsession during that summer and fall. Marina testified that he had earlier laid plans to hijack an airliner flying out of New Orleans and had asked her to help; she refused and urged him to give up the idea, which he finally did. Instead, he traveled by bus to Mexico City in late September, where his separate efforts at the Cuban and Soviet Embassies both failed. The Cuban Embassy would not issue him a transit visa without a prior Soviet visa, and the Soviet Embassy told him the wait for its own visa would be about four months. He returned to Dallas on October 3, "disappointed and discouraged," Marina testified. The Mexico City failure was the last in a series of rejections that had characterized his adult life: the Soviet Union had denied him citizenship, the Communist Party USA had told him to stay "in the background," the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had never authorized his chapter, and now Cuba itself had refused him.

Possible Influence of Anti-Kennedy Sentiment

The Commission considered whether the hostile political atmosphere in Dallas might have influenced Oswald's decision to kill the President. The city had been the scene of the Stevenson incident on October 24, when Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was jeered, jostled, and spat upon by hostile demonstrators. Oswald attended a rally at which General Walker spoke the evening before the Stevenson incident, and he wrote to the Communist Party about the "political friction between 'left' and 'right'" in Dallas. However, the Commission found no evidence that Oswald was influenced by right-wing hostility toward the President. His own political views were diametrically opposed to those of the right-wing groups. Whatever his motivation, it appears to have been rooted in his own psychological needs rather than in any external political stimulus in the city around him.

The Unanswered Questions

The Commission acknowledged that it could not make any definitive determination of Oswald's motives. It identified a number of factors that appear to have contributed to his capacity to carry out the assassination: his deep-rooted resentment of all authority, expressed in hostility toward every society in which he lived; his inability to enter into meaningful relationships with other people, and a continuous pattern of rejecting his environment in favor of new surroundings; his urge to find a place in history and his despair over failures in his various undertakings; his capacity for violence as evidenced by the Walker attempt; and his avowed commitment to Marxism and communism as he understood them — expressed in his defection, his failure to be reconciled with life in the United States even after his disenchantment with the Soviet Union, and his frustrated efforts to go to Cuba. "Each of these," the Commission wrote, "contributed to his capacity to risk all in cruel and irresponsible actions."

Marina Oswald suggested on September 6, 1964, that her husband "was shooting at Connally rather than President Kennedy," citing his bitterness over the undesirable Marine Corps discharge — for which he had written on January 30, 1962, to Senator John Tower of Texas, promising to "employ all means to right this gross mistake or injustice," and Tower had forwarded the letter to the Navy Department. John Connally had been Secretary of the Navy when the discharge was issued but had resigned to run for Governor of Texas before the letter arrived; Oswald knew this, and there is no evidence that he ever expressed personal hostility toward Kennedy or Connally before the assassination — on the contrary, Marina recalled that in Russia her husband had spoken well of Connally and said he would vote for him for Governor. Moreover, at the moment the shots were fired, Connally sat directly in front of the President, making it nearly impossible for Oswald to hit the Governor without first hitting the President. If the discharge affected his motivation at all, the Commission concluded, it was "a general hostility against the government and its representatives rather than a grudge against any particular person."

The Commission's final conclusion on motive was an admission of the limits of what investigation could reveal. "Oswald's complete state of mind and character," the Commission wrote, "are now outside of the power of man to know." What remained was a life that, in its isolation and its relentless rejection of every surrounding in which he had placed himself, "provided him with a means to strike out at a world which, in his twisted and distorted view, had done him unjustifiable wrongs" — a life whose final, unanswered question was why, on November 22, 1963, that striking-out took the form it did.

Chapter VIII: The Protection of the President

In the hundred years since 1865, four Presidents of the United States have been assassinated — Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. During the same period there were three attacks on the life of a President, a President-elect, or a candidate for the Presidency that narrowly failed: on Theodore Roosevelt while campaigning in October 1912, on President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Miami on February 15, 1933, and on President Harry S. Truman on November 1, 1950, when his temporary residence at Blair House was attacked by Puerto Rican Nationalists. One out of every five Presidents since 1865 has been assassinated; there have been attempts on the lives of one out of every three. Prompted by these dismaying statistics, the Commission inquired into the problems and methods of Presidential protection in effect at the time of the Dallas trip. The Commission did not undertake a comprehensive examination of every facet of that subject, but it examined those broader aspects to which the events of November 1963 called attention, with full access to a major study prepared by the Secret Service for the Secretary of the Treasury after the assassination.

The Nature of the Protective Assignment

The President is Head of State, Chief Executive, Commander in Chief, and leader of a political party. In all these roles he must go to the people. Exposure of the President to public view through travel among the people is, in the Commission's words, "a great and historic tradition of American life" — desired by both the President and the public, and indispensable as a means of communication between the two. Presidential journeys are rarely single-purpose; they are at once ceremonial, administrative, and political. Kennedy's trip to Texas in November 1963 belonged to that tradition. His friend and Special Assistant Kenneth O'Donnell described the President's view of his responsibilities with simple clarity: the President's duty was "that he meet the people, that he go out to their homes and see them, and allow them to see him" — that he expose himself to "the actual basic problems that were disturbing the American people."

If the sole goal were to protect the life of the President, it could be accomplished with reasonable assurance. But his position as representative of the people prevents him from effectively shielding himself from the people, and he cannot take the precautions of a dictator or a sovereign. The protection of the President must therefore be "thorough but inconspicuous to avoid even the suggestion of a garrison state." As FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote to President Johnson after the assassination, "Absolute security is neither practical nor possible. An approach to complete security would require the President to operate in a sort of vacuum, isolated from the general public and behind impregnable barriers. His travel would be in secret; his public appearances would be behind bulletproof glass. A more practical approach necessitates compromise." The analysis that follows accepts that compromise, and measures the protection afforded in Dallas not against the standard of absolute security but against what was reasonably possible within the President's chosen mode of travel.

The Protective Research Section

A basic element of Presidential protection is the identification and investigation of people who might pose a danger to the President. That task within the Secret Service belonged to the Protective Research Section, a small unit at Washington headquarters responsible for collecting, processing, and evaluating information on potential threats. At the time of the assassination, PRS consisted of twelve specialists and three clerks under Special Agent Robert I. Bouck — a staff that also had to handle the security clearance of certain categories of White House employees, the screening of gifts sent to the President, and technical inspections against covert listening devices. Most of its threat material originated with persons who came to its attention by attempting to visit the President for bizarre reasons, or by writing or otherwise communicating with him in a threatening or abusive manner. The remainder was furnished by other federal agencies, with the FBI being the primary source.

The total volume of information received by PRS had risen steadily — from approximately 9,000 items in 1943 to more than 32,000 items in 1963 — but the staff and mechanization of the section had not kept pace. During the two-year period from November 1961 to November 1963, PRS received items in 8,709 cases. Over its twenty-year institutional existence it had accumulated basic information on roughly 50,000 cases, each filed manually under the subject's name. It had arrangements with some 1,000 penal and mental institutions to be notified when an individual of interest was released or escaped. It subjected approximately 400 persons to periodic review, with a visit or check-in at least every six months. Of these 400, it regarded about 100 as serious risks and twelve to fifteen as highly dangerous; photographs of the most serious were included in an "album" that members of the White House detail were expected to study. Only the "trip index" of 400 was organized geographically — the much larger general file of 50,000 cases was indexed only by name and was of no practical use in preparing for a Presidential visit to any specific city.

When the special trip-index file was reviewed on November 8, 1963, at the request of Special Agent Winston Lawson in connection with the forthcoming Texas trip, it contained the names of no persons from the entire Dallas–Fort Worth area — this despite the fact that Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been jeered, jostled, and spat upon by demonstrators in Dallas on October 24, less than a month earlier. Bouck explained the absence of any Dallas file by noting that PRS required "a more direct indication of a threat to the President" before it would investigate, and that no such indication had appeared until the visit was announced. The Commission judged that approach to seriously undermine the whole precautionary purpose of PRS work: "if the presence in Dallas of the Stevenson pickets might have created a danger for the President on a visit to that city, PRS should have investigated and been prepared to guard against it."

The criteria by which PRS decided which information to accept and retain had never been reduced to writing except in a single memorandum to its own mail-screening personnel. When asked by the Commission to state its standards, the Service replied that "the criteria in effect prior to November 22, 1963, for determining whether to accept material for the PRS general files were broad and flexible. All material is and was desired, accepted, and filed if it indicated or tended to indicate that the safety of the President is or might be in danger." In practice the broad language was applied narrowly: the Service concentrated on "crank" threats — overt statements of intent to harm the President — and paid little attention to more indirect indicators such as membership in organizations that advocated political violence, histories of instability or hostility toward government officials, or returned defectors with known grievances. The Commission concluded that "the facilities and procedures of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service prior to November 22, 1963, were inadequate" — not because the Service lacked diligence, but because its criteria for identifying dangerous persons were narrowly drawn and its methods for storing and retrieving information were outmoded.

Intelligence Liaison with Other Agencies

The Secret Service's requests to other federal agencies for intelligence information were no more specific than its internal criteria. Bouck testified that the Service asked other agencies to provide "any and all information that they may come in contact with that would indicate danger to the President." These requests were not communicated in writing; rather, the Service depended on the personal liaison maintained by PRS with the headquarters of the federal intelligence agencies — primarily the FBI — and at the working level with personnel of the field offices of the various agencies. The Service frequently participated in the training programs of other law enforcement agencies, and agents from other agencies attended the regular Secret Service training schools. But in the absence of more specific written instructions, other federal agencies interpreted the Service's informal requests to relate principally to overt threats to harm the President or other specific manifestations of hostility. The FBI Handbook in effect at the time instructed every Bureau special agent that "investigation of threats against the President of the United States, members of his immediate family, the President-Elect, and the Vice-President is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Secret Service," and required immediate referral of any "information indicating the possibility of an attempt against the person or safety of the President" — without any evaluation by the agent receiving the information. Under that handbook rule, information about a former Marine defector who had subscribed to the Worker, corresponded with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, been in recent contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, and was working in a building along the motorcade route would not ordinarily be referred, because none of it constituted a direct threat in the narrow sense the Service had cultivated. Responsibility for evaluating difficult cases was thus shifted from the Secret Service — the agency most responsible for performing that task — to the other agencies, without any guidance as to the criteria the Service itself considered relevant.

The FBI and Oswald: An Intelligence Failure

The Commission's examination of the FBI's handling of the Oswald case revealed a sequence of decisions that, while individually defensible under the Bureau's existing procedures, collectively resulted in a failure to bring Oswald to the attention of the Secret Service before the President's trip to Dallas.

The FBI opened a file on Oswald in October 1959 when news reports appeared of his attempted defection. Over the next three years the Bureau accumulated substantial information: Oswald had attempted to renounce his citizenship, described himself as a Marxist, offered to give the Soviets information about Marine Corps radar operations, and been discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve as undesirable. When Oswald returned to the United States in June 1962, FBI Agent John Fain interviewed him twice. Oswald was "impatient and arrogant" at the first interview and unwilling to discuss his motives for going to Russia. He denied having denounced his citizenship or applied for Soviet citizenship — both false statements. He denied involvement with Soviet intelligence and promised to advise the FBI if he was contacted. At the second interview he was less antagonistic but remained evasive. Fain concluded that Oswald was "not a security risk or potentially dangerous" and recommended that the case be closed.

The case was reopened in March 1963 by Agent James Hosty, who had inherited the file after Fain's retirement, after Hosty learned from a former landlady that Oswald was drinking excessively and beating his wife, and discovered that Oswald had subscribed to the Worker, a Communist Party publication. In April the FBI's New York office learned that Oswald was in contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and had written to the committee claiming to have distributed its pamphlets in Dallas. This information did not reach Hosty in Dallas until June, by which time he considered it "stale." When Oswald moved to New Orleans in May, Hosty asked the New Orleans office to locate him; Agents there found him in August, and on August 10, after Oswald's arrest for street disorder during his FPCC leafleting, Agent John Quigley interviewed him at his own request at the police station. Oswald was "completely evasive" about his FPCC activities and gave false biographical information — claiming that his wife's maiden name was "Prossa," that they had been married in Fort Worth, and that he had been born in Cuba. The discrepancies were recognized by the Bureau but were not considered sufficiently unusual to require another interview. Assistant Director Alan Belmont later explained: "He committed no violation of the law by telling us something that wasn't true, and unless this required further investigation at that time, we would handle it in due course."

The most critical piece of information came on October 10, 1963, when the CIA advised the FBI that an individual tentatively identified as Oswald had been in touch with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in early October. This intensified the Bureau's interest in locating Oswald. On October 25 the New Orleans office learned that he had given a forwarding address in Irving, Texas, and on October 29 Hosty interviewed neighbors there and learned the address was Ruth Paine's home. On November 1 Hosty interviewed Mrs. Paine, who told him that Marina Oswald and the children were staying with her, that Lee Oswald was living somewhere in Dallas — she did not know where — and that he worked at the Texas School Book Depository. Hosty gave Mrs. Paine his name and telephone number so she could notify him when she learned Oswald's Dallas address. On November 4 he called the Depository and confirmed Oswald's employment. On November 5 he stopped by the Paine residence again; Mrs. Paine had nothing new except that Oswald had described himself as a "Trotskyite Communist" during a weekend visit — a statement she found "illogical and somewhat amusing." Hosty did not learn Oswald's Dallas address or telephone number during either visit; Mrs. Paine had the number but did not volunteer it because she assumed the FBI could easily find it.

Hosty took no further action before the assassination. He had received a copy of Agent Quigley's New Orleans report and recognized that Oswald had given false information. He knew about the contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. He planned to interview Marina Oswald eventually, but he was carrying twenty-five to forty cases at a time and had determined that Oswald was "not employed in a sensitive industry." The Commission concluded that the FBI's handling of the Oswald case, "while consistent with the Bureau's existing procedures, reflected an unduly restrictive view of its role in preventive intelligence work." The Bureau's criteria for referring information to the Secret Service were limited to direct threats against the President. Under those criteria there had been no obligation to report Oswald — a former defector who had offered to give the Soviets military information, subscribed to Communist publications, been active in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, recently visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, and who worked in a building along the motorcade route. "A more carefully coordinated treatment of the Oswald case by the FBI," the Commission wrote, "might well have resulted in bringing Oswald's activities to the attention of the Secret Service."

Secret Service Advance Preparations in Dallas

The Commission found that the Secret Service's advance preparations for the Dallas trip were a mixture of thoroughness and deficiency. The security arrangements at Love Field and at the Trade Mart were well executed: more than 200 law enforcement officers were deployed at the Trade Mart, roof access was controlled, and the building's many balconies and catwalks were guarded. Agent Winston Lawson, the advance agent, had checked the PRS files in Washington and found no listing for any individual deemed a potential danger in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. He conferred with the Dallas police and the FBI, who reported no known threats. Although PRS contained no reference to the October 24 Stevenson incident, Lawson obtained photographs of some participants, and agents stood ready with copies at the Trade Mart.

The preparations for the motorcade route itself, however, were inadequate in several respects. The Secret Service did not investigate or cause to be checked any building along the ten-mile route between Love Field and the Trade Mart. This was consistent with standard practice — the Service had never routinely inspected buildings along parade routes — but the Commission found the practice insufficient given the vulnerability a moving motorcade presents. Responsibility for watching windows in buildings was divided between local police on the streets and Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade, an arrangement that placed an impossible burden on both groups: the police had not been specifically instructed to watch buildings, and agents in a moving vehicle could scan only a fraction of the windows visible along the route. No well-defined written instructions governed the respective responsibilities of federal and local officers, and the oral instructions varied from city to city.

The configuration of the Presidential limousine presented additional problems. The President had frequently stated that he did not want agents riding on the rear running boards of the follow-up car except when necessary — a preference he had repeated only days earlier, during his visit to Tampa. The plastic bubbletop, which was neither bulletproof nor bullet-resistant, was removed because the weather had cleared. The jump seats in which Governor and Mrs. Connally rode were positioned between the President and the front seat, limiting the front-seat agents' ability to shield the President from behind. These were not individual derelictions but features of a protective system that gave the President broad latitude to determine the conditions of his own travel.

Performance of Agents During the Assassination

Within the limits of the protective arrangement in force, the Commission found that the agents most immediately responsible for the President's safety reacted promptly. Agent Clinton Hill, riding on the left running board of the follow-up car, heard the first shot, saw the President "grab at himself and lurch forward and to the left," and immediately sprinted toward the limousine. He reached the car as the fatal shot struck, pulled himself onto the rear step despite the car's acceleration, pushed Mrs. Kennedy back into the seat from the trunk where she had crawled, and shielded the President and Mrs. Kennedy with his body as the limousine raced to Parkland Hospital. Agent Rufus Youngblood, in the Vice-Presidential car, heard the first explosion, observed "unnatural movement of crowds, like ducking or scattering," hit Vice President Johnson on the shoulder, shouted "Get down," and vaulted into the rear seat to cover him with his body — all within seconds of the first shot. President Johnson later emphasized Youngblood's "instantaneous reaction." Agent Roy Kellerman, in the front seat of the Presidential limousine, heard the President say "My God, I am hit," grabbed the radio microphone and called for high speed to the nearest hospital, and instructed driver William Greer to accelerate. The motorcade reached Parkland in approximately five minutes at speeds of seventy to eighty miles per hour.

The Commission found no individual fault in any of these responses. But it also found that no protective detail of sixteen or twenty agents, however promptly they react, can alter the outcome of a surprise rifle attack from a concealed position several floors above a slowly moving limousine. The deficiencies that mattered in Dallas were not of reaction but of prevention — of the information that might have been gathered before November 22 and of the coordination that might have prevented the assassin from reaching his perch.

Recommendations

On the basis of its investigation, the Commission made a series of recommendations addressing the systemic failures revealed by the assassination. First, a committee of Cabinet members — including the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, or alternatively the National Security Council — should be assigned responsibility for reviewing and overseeing Presidential protective activities, to ensure that "the maximum resources of the Federal Government are fully engaged in the task of protecting the President." Second, the Secret Service should completely overhaul its threat-detection facilities. The criteria of the Protective Research Section should be expanded beyond direct threats to encompass other indicators of potential danger — returned defectors, persons with histories of political violence, and individuals who had demonstrated hostility toward government officials — and the Section should replace its manual card-index system with modern data-processing techniques. Third, the Secret Service should enter into formal written agreements with each federal agency specifying the types of intelligence information to be shared, rather than relying on informal liaison and vague oral requests. Fourth, motorcade security should be strengthened: the Service should increase precautionary attention to buildings along motorcade routes, improve coordination with local police departments, and establish clear written instructions concerning the responsibilities of all agencies involved in protection. Fifth, the Secret Service should be provided with additional personnel and resources; the entire White House detail at the time of the assassination consisted of only thirty-six agents responsible for protecting the President twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Sixth, the President's physician should always accompany him during travels and occupy a position near the President where he could be immediately available in an emergency — Admiral George Burkley, the President's physician, had been riding several cars back in the Dallas motorcade and did not arrive at Parkland Hospital until three to five minutes after the President. Seventh, Congress should make the assassination of the President a federal crime; at the time of November 22, 1963, there was no federal statute making it so, and the investigation had to be conducted under general federal authority. Eighth, the bar, law-enforcement associations, and news media should collaborate on ethical standards governing the collection and presentation of information to the public, to prevent interference with criminal investigations and protect the rights of accused persons to a fair trial — a lesson drawn directly from the chaos of the Dallas police station during the forty-eight hours Oswald was in custody.

The Commission closed with a recognition of the inherent tension between security and democracy. "The varied responsibilities of the President," it wrote, "require that he make frequent trips to all parts of the United States and abroad. Consistent with their high responsibilities Presidents can never be protected from every potential threat." But with the recommended improvements, "the security of the office" could be "greatly advanced without any impairment of our fundamental liberties."

Appendix VII: A Brief History of Presidential Protection

The history of Presidential protection reflects a gradual, often reluctant recognition that the Chief Executive requires organized security. Before the Civil War, Presidents moved freely among the public with virtually no formal protection at all — George Washington dined in public taverns during his grand tours of the new republic; Andrew Jackson pushed his way through crowds at his own inaugural and was nearly trampled; and a would-be assassin named Richard Lawrence fired two pistols at Jackson at point-blank range on the Capitol portico in 1835, both misfiring. Even during the Civil War, Lincoln resisted the security measures urged upon him. Guards were assigned to the White House grounds and to him personally only irregularly, and Lincoln habitually ignored them. On the night of April 14, 1865, his single guard at Ford's Theatre, a Metropolitan Police officer named John Parker, left his post — and John Wilkes Booth entered the Presidential box unchallenged.

The Lincoln assassination shocked the nation but produced no immediate change in protective arrangements. For the next sixteen years Presidents continued to receive callers at the White House with minimal screening, and Presidential travel resumed its antebellum informality. The assassination of James A. Garfield in 1881 — shot at close range by a disappointed office-seeker named Charles Guiteau in a Washington railroad station — again demonstrated the need for formal protection, but Congress took no action. It was not until the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, shot at point-blank range by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz while greeting the public at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, that Congress finally began to assign the Secret Service informal protective duties. The Service had originally been created in 1865 to combat counterfeiting; it had been supplying agents to the White House since 1894 as a matter of administrative courtesy, not of legal authority.

Statutory Evolution

Formal statutory authority for Presidential protection followed slowly. In 1906 Congress passed the Sundry Civil Expenses Act, which for the first time provided funds specifically for Presidential protection, and in 1913 it extended the Service's protective responsibilities to the President-elect. Protection of the President's immediate family was authorized in 1917. The attempted assassination of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara in Miami on February 15, 1933 — in which Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago was mortally wounded instead — led to a modest expansion of resources. The attack on Blair House by two Puerto Rican Nationalists on November 1, 1950, during which White House Policeman Leslie Coffelt was killed defending President Truman, produced a 1951 statute extending Secret Service protection to the Vice President on a reimbursable basis. In 1962 coverage was extended permanently to the Vice President, his immediate family, a Vice President-elect, and the next officer in succession.

Persistent Underinvestment

Despite these expansions, resources consistently lagged behind the growing demands of the assignment. The Secret Service remained a relatively small agency within the Treasury Department, and its protective mission competed for resources with its original counterfeiting mandate. At the time of the Dallas trip, the entire White House detail consisted of only thirty-six agents responsible for protecting the President around the clock, supplemented by a Protective Research Section of fewer than a dozen employees whose manual card-index system was fundamentally unchanged from the methods of the 1930s. Agents routinely worked sixty or seventy hours a week. Training facilities were minimal; there was no formal threat-assessment doctrine; and liaison with other federal intelligence agencies was carried on by informal personal contact rather than by written agreement.

A Recurring Pattern

The Commission noted that the history of Presidential protection demonstrated a recurring pattern: each assassination or attempt produced a temporary increase in security consciousness, followed by a gradual relaxation as the memory of the event faded. Lincoln's murder produced only minimal protective expansion; Garfield's produced none; McKinley's produced the first statutory protection; each attempt on a twentieth-century incumbent produced incremental adjustments rather than structural reform. The Commission expressed the hope that its own recommendations, set out in Chapter VIII, would break this pattern — that the systematic overhaul of threat detection, intelligence sharing, and protective resources which the Kennedy assassination made unavoidable could be institutionalized before the memory of November 22 faded and the cycle of complacency began again.

Appendices VIII and IX: Medical Reports from Parkland Hospital and the Autopsy Report

Parkland Hospital Medical Reports

The medical reports from Parkland Memorial Hospital documented the emergency treatment of President Kennedy and Governor Connally with clinical precision. Dr. Charles Carrico, the first physician to examine the President, found him on his back with slow, spasmodic agonal respiration, dilated pupils unresponsive to light, no palpable pulse, and a few chest sounds thought to be heartbeats. He noted two wounds: a small bullet wound in the front lower third of the neck, and an extensive wound in the right rear of the head where a sizable portion of skull was missing, with shredded brain tissue and "considerable slow oozing." He felt the President's back and determined that there was no large wound there that would be an immediate threat to life, then inserted a cuffed endotracheal tube past the neck injury and connected it to a Bennett respirator.

Dr. Malcolm Perry arrived moments later and took charge of the resuscitation effort. He noted the President's back brace as he felt for a femoral pulse, which he did not find. He performed a tracheotomy through the anterior neck wound, selecting that location because it was the customary site for the procedure and because there was possibly an underlying wound to the muscles, the carotid artery, or the jugular vein. The tracheotomy required three to five minutes. Meanwhile, Drs. Carrico and Ronald Jones made cutdowns on the President's right leg and left arm to infuse blood and fluids, and Dr. Carrico administered hydrocortisone for the President's known adrenal insufficiency.

Dr. Fouad Bashour, chief of cardiology, Dr. M. T. Jenkins, chief of anesthesiology, and other physicians joined the effort. When Dr. Perry noted free air and blood in the chest cavity, Drs. Paul Peters and Charles Baxter inserted chest tubes for drainage. Through these measures, the doctors were briefly able to maintain peripheral circulation as monitored at the carotid and radial arteries, and a femoral pulse was detected. Dr. William Kemp Clark, the chief neurologist, observed the massive head wound — a large, gaping wound in the right rear part of the head with substantial brain tissue exposed and considerable blood loss. He did not see the small entry wound in the rear of the skull, which, he later testified, "could have easily been hidden in the blood and hair." In the absence of any meaningful neurological, muscular, or heart response, the doctors concluded that their efforts were hopeless. Admiral George Burkley, the President's personal physician, arrived after emergency treatment was underway and concluded that his "direct services to him at that moment would have interfered with the action of the team which was in progress." At approximately 1:00 p.m., after Father Oscar Huber administered Last Rites, Dr. Clark pronounced the President dead. The President, the Parkland doctors agreed, could have survived the neck wound, but the head wound was inevitably fatal. The Parkland doctors never turned the President over — they had been focused on airway, ventilation, and circulation while any sign of life remained, and afterward, as Carrico testified with unusual delicacy for a clinical report, "I suppose nobody really had the heart to do it."

Governor Connally was treated simultaneously in trauma room 2 by a second medical team. Dr. Robert Shaw, the chief thoracic surgeon, performed surgery on the large sucking wound in the front of the right chest, cutting away damaged tissue and suturing the lacerated lung and chest-wall muscles. The elliptical wound in the Governor's back was treated by cutting away damaged skin and suturing. Two additional operations followed in succession. Dr. Charles Gregory repaired the shattered right wrist, removing bone fragments and reconstructing the comminuted distal radius. Dr. George Shires treated the puncture wound in the left thigh, where a small metallic fragment remained embedded and could not be removed without greater injury to surrounding tissue; the fragment was left in place. The Governor was on the operating table for approximately four hours and ultimately made a full recovery, though his right wrist and left thigh retained visible scars and some permanent impairment of hand function.

Autopsy Report

The autopsy was performed at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, by Commander James J. Humes, Commander J. Thornton Boswell, and Lieutenant Colonel Pierre A. Finck. The examination began at approximately 8:00 p.m. on November 22, following preliminary X-rays and photographs. The Dallas-area autopsy requirement had been set aside at Mrs. Kennedy's request; she had chosen Bethesda because the President had served in the Navy.

The autopsy report noted that President Kennedy was forty-six years old, seventy-two and a half inches tall, weighed 170 pounds, and had blue eyes and reddish-brown hair. The body was muscular and well developed, with no gross skeletal abnormalities except those caused by the gunshot wounds. The cause of death was recorded as "Gunshot wound, head."

Two wounds were found in the President's head. The entry wound — approximately one-fourth by five-eighths of an inch — was located about an inch to the right and slightly above the external occipital protuberance at the lower rear of the skull; its clean, punched-out appearance on the inner table of the skull, with beveling on the interior side, was characteristic of a wound of entrance. The massive exit wound on the right side measured approximately five inches in its greatest diameter, with multiple crisscrossing fractures radiating out from the defect. Three pieces of bone recovered from Elm Street and from the Presidential automobile accounted for approximately three-quarters of the missing portion of skull. X-ray analysis revealed thirty to forty tiny dustlike fragments of metal running in a line from the rear wound toward the front of the skull, with a somewhat larger fragment lying just above the right eye behind the frontal bone. Two small, irregularly shaped metal fragments were recovered during the autopsy and turned over to the FBI for firearms identification; both were later matched by composition to the ammunition found at the scene.

A second wound was found near the base of the back of the neck, slightly to the right of the spine — approximately five and a half inches from the tip of the right shoulder joint and the same distance below the tip of the right mastoid process. The wound measured approximately one-fourth by one-seventh of an inch, with clean edges and sharply delineated margins consistent with a wound of entrance. Dissection of the wound track showed that the bullet had passed between two large strap muscles of the back, bruised the top of the right lung, and nicked the trachea — then exited through the front of the neck at the point where the Parkland tracheotomy had been performed. No bone was struck along the path, and the wound angle was consistent with a shot fired from behind and slightly above the President. The Bethesda surgeons had initially been uncertain about the exit point because the Parkland tracheotomy had obscured the original anterior wound; the exit path was confirmed after Commander Humes spoke by telephone with Dr. Perry early on the morning of November 23.

The supplemental autopsy report, issued after microscopic examination of tissue slides prepared from the autopsy, confirmed the initial findings. The brain showed extensive damage consistent with a high-velocity missile wound, with disruption of tissue extending from the right cerebral hemisphere across the midline and down into the brain stem. No bullet or large bullet fragment was recovered from the President's body; the shot that entered the head had disintegrated on impact with the skull, leaving behind the small fragments visible on X-ray and depositing a slightly larger piece just behind the frontal bone above the right eye. The neck-wound bullet had passed cleanly through the President's soft tissues without losing significant velocity or stability, consistent with the wound-ballistics experiments later conducted at Edgewood Arsenal using the recovered Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and ammunition.

Appendix X: Expert Testimony

Firearms and Firearms Identification: General Principles

The identification of bullets and cartridge cases with a specific weapon rests on the principle that every firearm, by virtue of its manufacture and use, acquires microscopic characteristics that are unique. When a bullet is fired through a rifle barrel, the spiral grooves cut into the barrel — known as "rifling" — engrave the bullet with a pattern of raised areas called "lands" and depressed areas called "grooves." The number, width, and direction of twist of these lands and grooves are common to all weapons of a given make and model. But superimposed on these class characteristics are individual markings — tiny striations caused by microscopic irregularities in the barrel's surface — that differ from weapon to weapon, even among weapons of identical make and model. These individual markings arise during manufacture, since the cutting tools change microscopically as they are used, and accumulate further as the weapon is fired.

Similarly, when a cartridge is fired, the base of the cartridge case is impressed with markings from the weapon's firing pin, bolt face, and other components. These markings, like those on bullets, are unique to each weapon. Under microscopic examination, a qualified expert compares a bullet or cartridge case of unknown origin with test specimens known to have been fired from a particular weapon. If the individual microscopic characteristics match, the expert can conclude that both were fired from the same weapon to the exclusion of all other weapons.

The Commission heard testimony from four firearms identification experts: Robert A. Frazier of the FBI, who had twenty-three years' experience and an estimated fifty to sixty thousand comparisons; Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of Criminal Identification; and two additional FBI experts, Cortlandt Cunningham and Charles Killion.

The Rifle

The C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository was a 6.5-millimeter model 91/38, manufactured in Italy in 1940. It measured 40.2 inches long, weighed eight pounds, and was fitted with an inexpensive four-power telescopic sight stamped "Optics Ordnance Inc./Hollywood California" and "Made in Japan." The weapon bore a sling that appeared to be a musical instrument strap rather than a standard rifle sling. When disassembled, its minimum length was 34.8 inches — the length of the wooden stock.

The rifle was a bolt-action, clip-fed weapon. To fire successive shots, the shooter had to manually operate the bolt — pulling it back to eject the spent cartridge case, then pushing it forward to chamber a new round. Tests established that a minimum of 2.3 seconds was required between shots. The rifle's mechanism had been rebarreled with a 6.5-millimeter barrel, though from outward appearance it might have been mistaken for a 7.35-millimeter weapon — which explains why Deputy Constable Weitzman, who saw it only at a glance, initially thought it was a 7.65 Mauser.

Rifle Cartridge and Cartridge Cases

The three spent cartridge cases found near the sixth-floor window were Western Cartridge Company 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano cartridges. All four experts independently concluded that these cases were fired from the C2766 rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons. The identification was based on matching breech face marks, firing pin impressions, and chamber marks. Examination of the cartridge cases also revealed that they had been previously loaded into and extracted from the rifle — indicating that Oswald had practiced operating the bolt.

The Rifle Bullets

The nearly whole bullet recovered from Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital weighed 158.6 grains — only slightly less than the unfired weight of 160-161 grains. Despite some flattening at the base, it retained sufficient unmutilated surface for positive identification. All four experts concluded it was fired from the C2766 rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons.

The two largest bullet fragments found in the Presidential limousine — a nose portion weighing 44.6 grains and a base portion weighing 21.0 grains — were also positively identified as having been fired from the same rifle. Each fragment had sufficient unmutilated area for identification, though it could not be determined whether the two fragments came from the same bullet or from two different bullets. The three smaller lead particles found under the left jump seat, and additional fragments recovered during treatment of the President and Governor, were "similar in metallic composition" to the identified fragments but too small or mutilated for positive identification.

The Revolver

The Smith & Wesson .38 Special caliber revolver, serial number V510210, taken from Oswald at the time of his arrest, was identified as the weapon that fired the four cartridge cases found at the Tippit shooting scene. The identification was made through breech face marks and firing pin impressions by three FBI experts and independently confirmed by Nicol.

The four bullets recovered from Tippit's body presented a more difficult problem. Because the bullets were slightly smaller than the barrel of the revolver, they had an erratic passage that impressed inconsistent individual characteristics on the lead. Consecutive test bullets fired from the same revolver could not be identified as having come from it. Three of the four bullets were too mutilated for identification. However, Nicol concluded that one bullet was fired from Oswald's revolver to the exclusion of all other weapons. All four bullets had the rifling characteristics — five lands and grooves with a right twist — of Oswald's weapon.

Fingerprints and Palmprints

Sebastian Latona, supervisor of the FBI's Latent Fingerprint Section, explained the general principles of fingerprint identification. Every person's fingerprints and palmprints are unique and remain unchanged throughout life. Identification is made by comparing the ridge patterns — loops, whorls, and arches — and the individual ridge characteristics — bifurcations, ending ridges, dots, and enclosures — of a questioned print with those of a known print.

On the paper bag found near the sixth-floor window, Latona developed Oswald's left index fingerprint and right palmprint using silver nitrate chemical processing. The palmprint was from the heel of the right hand near the wrist — consistent with carrying a heavy object. On the "Rolling Readers" carton used as part of the gun rest, Oswald's left palmprint and right index fingerprint were identified. On the large carton on the floor behind the window, Dallas police developed Oswald's right palmprint using powder — a method that allowed estimation of the print's age. Latona testified the print was "not too long" old, probably less than twenty-four hours, though he could certify only that it was less than three days old.

The palmprint lifted from the underside of the rifle barrel was identified as Oswald's right palmprint by Latona, by Arthur Mandella of the New York City Police Department, and by FBI expert Ronald Wittmus. This print could only have been placed when the rifle was disassembled, since the wooden foregrip covers the barrel at that point when the weapon is assembled.

Questioned Documents

Alwyn Cole of the Treasury Department and James Cadigan of the FBI examined numerous documents attributed to Oswald. They identified his handwriting on the mail-order coupon for the rifle, the accompanying envelope, the postal money order, the revolver purchase coupon, the post office box applications, and the change-of-address card. They also identified the handwriting on the counterfeit Selective Service card in the name of "Alek James Hidell" and the forged vaccination certificate signed "Dr. A. J. Hideel."

The counterfeit identification cards were determined to be photographic reproductions made by photographing Oswald's genuine documents, retouching the resulting negatives, and producing prints from the retouched negatives. Cole testified that the cards "did not exhibit a great deal of skill," pointing out various errors. The retouched negatives were found among Oswald's possessions after his arrest, along with a rubber stamping kit apparently used to produce the spurious vaccination certificate. Oswald had access to the necessary photographic equipment during his employment at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a commercial photography firm, from October 1962 to April 1963.

Neutron Activation Analysis

A further test of the bullet fragments was conducted by Dr. Vincent P. Guinn of Gulf General Atomic in San Diego, using neutron activation analysis — a technique in which samples are bombarded with neutrons and the resulting characteristic gamma-ray emissions measured to determine elemental composition with extreme precision. The technique could distinguish between bullets from different production lots on the basis of trace-element differences too small to detect by ordinary chemical analysis. Fragments from the nearly whole bullet recovered from Governor Connally's stretcher and from the wrist wound proved to be indistinguishable in composition, strongly suggesting a common origin. Fragments recovered from the Presidential automobile and from the head wound similarly matched one another. The test could not directly prove that particular fragments came from particular bullets, but it provided an additional line of evidence consistent with the two-bullet, single-assassin scenario — and wholly inconsistent with the presence of a third, chemically distinct bullet.

Wound Ballistics Experiments

The Wound Ballistics Branch of the U.S. Army laboratories at Edgewood Arsenal conducted extensive experiments under the supervision of Dr. Alfred Olivier, who had spent seven years in wound ballistics research. The tests used the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and Western Cartridge Company 6.5-millimeter ammunition — the same type found on the Governor's stretcher and in the limousine.

Tests simulating the President's neck wound used material approximately 5½ inches thick — the distance the bullet traversed — with animal skin on each side. Bullets fired from 180 feet produced entry holes that were regular and round, and exit holes only slightly elongated, indicating minimal bullet instability. The entrance velocity averaged 1,904 feet per second; exit velocity averaged 1,772 to 1,798 feet per second, confirming that the bullet lost very little velocity passing through soft tissue and remained stable throughout.

Tests simulating Governor Connally's chest wound used animal flesh covered by cloth. The bullet that struck the test material displayed characteristics similar to the stretcher bullet and was tumbling upon exit, having lost an average of 265 feet per second. Taking into account the Governor's size, the reduction in velocity through his body would have been approximately 400 feet per second.

Tests simulating the Governor's wrist wound proved critical to the single-bullet conclusion. Pristine bullets fired at comparable flesh and bone at 70 yards produced greater damage than the Governor's actual wound, with a smaller entry wound and larger exit wound — the opposite of the Governor's injuries. This demonstrated that the bullet which struck the Governor's wrist was not pristine but had already been destabilized by passing through other tissue. The striking velocity averaged 1,858 feet per second; exit velocity averaged 1,776 feet per second.

Tests on reconstructed human skulls demonstrated that the President's head wound could have been caused by the assassination weapon. One skull struck at a point closely approximating the President's wound of entry had its right side blown out in a manner very similar to the actual wound. Dr. Olivier testified that this result "surprised me very much, because this type of stable bullet I didn't think would cause a massive head wound, I thought it would go through making a small entrance and exit, but the bones of the skull are enough to deform the end of this bullet causing it to expend a lot of energy and blowing out the side of the skull." The recovered fragments were "very similar to the ones recovered on the front seat and on the floor of the car."

Hairs and Fibers

Paul Stombaugh of the FBI Laboratory examined fibers found in a crevice of the rifle's butt plate — dark blue, gray-black, and orange-yellow cotton fibers that matched the shirt Oswald was wearing when arrested. Stombaugh testified that while fiber analysis cannot achieve the certainty of fingerprint identification, "there is no doubt in my mind that these fibers could have come from this shirt." The fibers appeared fresh and clean, suggesting they were caught on the rifle recently — consistent with Oswald having handled the weapon on the morning of the assassination or the preceding evening.

Fibers found inside the paper bag — a single brown viscose fiber and several light green cotton fibers — matched fibers from the blanket in which the rifle had been stored. Stombaugh could say only that the fibers "could have come from this blanket," since not all fiber types present in the blanket were found in the bag.

Photographs

FBI photography expert Lyndal Shaneyfelt examined the backyard photographs of Oswald holding the rifle and determined that the negative of one photograph (Commission Exhibit 133-B) was exposed in Oswald's Imperial Reflex camera to the exclusion of all other cameras. He found no evidence that the photographs were composites or that Oswald's face had been superimposed on another body. The rifle visible in the photographs matched the general configuration of the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano, including "one notch in the stock at this point that appears very faintly in the photograph."

Shaneyfelt also examined photographs of General Walker's house found among Oswald's possessions and determined that one was taken with Oswald's camera. Construction work visible in the background dated the photograph to March 8–12, 1963 — just before Oswald ordered the rifle on March 12.

Handwriting and the Mail Orders

The most direct physical chain linking Oswald to the assassination weapon ran through the documents by which he had ordered it. James Cadigan of the FBI and Alwyn Cole of the Treasury Department independently identified the handwriting on the Klein's Sporting Goods mail-order coupon for the rifle, the accompanying envelope, and the postal money order for $21.45 as Oswald's. The coupon and envelope were dated March 12, 1963 — the same date on which he ordered the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver from Seaport Traders in Los Angeles under the same alias "A. Hidell." The rifle was shipped on March 20 from Chicago to Post Office Box 2915 in Dallas, a box Oswald had rented in his own name on October 9, 1962. The revolver was shipped on March 20 from Los Angeles to the same box. Oswald had been authorized to receive mail addressed to "A. Hidell" at that box — a fact he denied during his interrogation, but which the post office records plainly established.

On his application for Post Office Box 30061 in New Orleans the following June, Oswald entered the names "A. J. Hidell" and "Marina Oswald" as persons entitled to receive mail there. The Commission's handwriting examiners confirmed that the entries were in Oswald's own hand. Marina Oswald testified that she had never used the name "Hidell" and had never seen any correspondence addressed to that name at the New Orleans box. When Oswald was arrested, his wallet contained a forged Selective Service card in the name "Alek J. Hidell" with Oswald's photograph and a Dallas address. Cole testified that the card was a crude photographic reproduction — a negative of Oswald's genuine Selective Service card had been retouched to substitute the Hidell name, and a new print made.

The documentary chain — order form, money order, envelope, shipping record, box rental, alias, forged identification card — was, in the Commission's judgment, independently conclusive of Oswald's ownership of the rifle, and it aligned precisely with the physical evidence from the sixth floor of the Depository: the cartridge cases, the rifle itself, the paper bag, the fingerprints, the fibers, and the backyard photographs showing Oswald holding the weapon.

Appendix XI: Reports Relating to the Interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald

Captain J. Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Department's homicide and robbery bureau conducted most of the interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald during the approximately twelve hours of questioning between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. Fritz kept no notes during the sessions, and no stenographic or tape recordings were made — a circumstance the Commission found regrettable, since it meant that the only record of Oswald's statements consisted of memoranda prepared afterward by the various officials present. The Commission collected these memoranda from Captain Fritz himself, from FBI Agents James Bookhout and James Hosty, from Secret Service Inspector Thomas Kelley, from U.S. Marshal Robert Nash, and from Postal Inspector Harry Holmes, who participated in the final Sunday morning session. Their accounts, while generally consistent on major points, differed in emphasis and occasionally in detail — inevitable given the crowded conditions in Fritz's small office and the absence of contemporaneous notes.

The First Friday Session

During the first session on Friday afternoon, beginning about 2:25 p.m., Oswald was asked about his employment at the Texas School Book Depository, his whereabouts at the time of the shooting, and his recent movements. He said he had been eating lunch on the first floor when the President was shot and had then gone to the second floor to get a Coke, where he had encountered Patrolman Marrion Baker and building superintendent Roy Truly in the lunchroom. He acknowledged that encounter and said that Truly had identified him as an employee, and that he had walked calmly back to work. He said he had left the building because foreman Bill Shelley told him there would be no more work that day — a claim Shelley flatly denied. He admitted taking a city bus part of the way toward his rooming house, transferring to a taxi when the bus was caught in traffic, and arriving at his rooming house at about 1:00 p.m.; he said the housekeeper, Earlene Roberts, had seen him come in, and that he had changed his shirt and trousers and left shortly afterward.

When the questioners turned to the rifle, Oswald flatly denied owning one. He said he had not fired a weapon since leaving the Marine Corps except for a small-bore .22 rifle he had used occasionally in Fort Worth. When confronted with the backyard photographs seized at the Paine residence showing him holding the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle and wearing a revolver, he called them fakes — insisting that his face had been superimposed on someone else's body. He said that "at the proper time" he would demonstrate the photographs were fraudulent. Oswald refused to explain the forged Selective Service card in the name of "Alek J. Hidell" that had been found in his wallet at the Texas Theatre. When pressed, he became angry: "Now, I've told you all I'm going to tell you about that card in my billfold — you have the card yourself and you know as much about it as I do." He denied renting Post Office Box 2915 in Dallas under the name Hidell and denied receiving any package addressed to Hidell at that box, although the rental records produced at the interrogation bore his handwriting.

He explained that he had been living at his rooming house under the name "O. H. Lee" because the landlady had made a mistake on the register — but the rooming house register, when produced, showed that he had signed the name himself. He denied telling Buell Wesley Frazier on Thursday evening that he needed to pick up curtain rods, and denied carrying any package to work on Friday morning other than a lunch sack — although Frazier testified that Oswald had carried no lunch that day. When asked about the Paine residence in Irving, he denied that any rifle was stored in the garage there.

The Saturday Sessions

On Saturday Oswald added to his account by claiming he had been eating lunch with an employee named "Junior" at the time of the shooting. James Jarman, Jr. — the only "Junior" in the building, whom Oswald had asked about the motorcade route earlier in the day — testified he neither ate with nor saw Oswald at the lunch hour. Oswald also claimed he had gone outside and talked with Shelley for five to ten minutes after the shooting; Shelley again denied it. When the rifle was produced and shown to him, Oswald said he had never seen it. When shown the revolver taken from him at the Texas Theatre, he acknowledged it was his but said it was legal to carry in Texas.

Oswald was asked about his Russian-speaking acquaintances, his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities, and his visit to Mexico City. He denied having visited Mexico City, though the Commission later confirmed the trip from hotel records, bus passenger manifests, Cuban visa application photographs, and the testimony of Silvia Duran. He said he had applied to the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City only by mail. He denied meeting Silvia Duran or any other Cuban or Soviet official. He denied ever having used the alias "Alek Hidell" or "A. J. Hidell," although his wife had already confirmed that she had written the name "Hidell" on FPCC membership cards at his insistence and that she knew there was no such person. He refused to answer questions about the letter to the Soviet Embassy discovered in Ruth Paine's home, saying only that he did not know anything about it.

The Final Sunday Session

On Sunday morning, immediately before the fatal transfer attempt, Postal Inspector Holmes joined Fritz for a brief final session. Holmes questioned Oswald about his post office boxes in Dallas and New Orleans. Oswald admitted renting Box 2915 in Dallas but continued to deny that Hidell was listed as a person entitled to receive mail there. He denied receiving the rifle through the Dallas box, denied receiving any package at the box for any person other than himself, and denied any knowledge of how the rifle had come to the Depository. Holmes reminded him that "Hidell" was listed on his New Orleans post office box application as a person entitled to receive mail; Oswald replied only, "I don't know anything about that." When asked whether he had anything further to say, Oswald said that when he was returned to his cell he wished to have a shower, and that he would like to obtain a pair of rubber-soled shoes because the leather soles he had been wearing were slippery on the jail floor.

The Question of Counsel

Throughout the interrogation Oswald repeatedly demanded legal representation. He insisted that he wanted to contact John Abt, a New York attorney whose name he had encountered in left-wing publications — Abt had represented defendants in Smith Act cases in the 1950s and was known for his defense of Communist Party figures. Oswald had no prior relationship with Abt and had never met him. He attempted several times through Fritz's office and through a jail-house call to reach Abt by telephone; the calls went unanswered or were not returned. When H. Louis Nichols, president of the Dallas Bar Association, visited Oswald at the jail on Saturday afternoon and offered to find him local counsel, Oswald declined, asking first whether the Bar Association could locate Abt and then whether it could put him in touch with an American Civil Liberties Union attorney. Nichols testified that Oswald appeared calm and rational during the interview, expressed his preference for non-Dallas counsel, and said he would make his own arrangements if given time. The Commission found nothing in Oswald's refusal of local counsel that suggested any awareness of impending danger or any connection to any outside person — only his characteristic preference for figures of national rather than local standing and his insistence on managing his own affairs.

Assessment

Throughout the interrogation Oswald was generally calm but consistently evasive on substantive questions. Captain Fritz observed that Oswald "seemed to anticipate what I was going to ask" and would refuse to answer whenever a question "meant something, that would produce evidence." FBI Agent Bookhout confirmed that "anytime that you asked a question that would be pertinent to the investigation, that would be the type of question he would refuse to discuss." Secret Service Inspector Kelley said that Oswald's refusals were delivered in a clipped, almost rehearsed manner: "He would say, 'I don't care to answer that,' or 'I don't care to discuss that.'" When confronted with demonstrably false statements — the rifle, the alias, the package, Mexico City — Oswald responded either with flat denial, with a claim that the document or photograph was fake, or with silence. He repeatedly denied any involvement in the assassination or in the killing of Patrolman Tippit, maintained his innocence, and demanded legal representation — though he declined repeated offers of counsel from the Dallas Bar Association, insisting on his preference for New York attorney John Abt or a lawyer affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union. The interrogation, conducted in an office sometimes containing as many as seven or eight people at once, with Fritz frequently called away to take telephone calls, produced no admissions of any kind and no physical evidence linking Oswald to the crimes — the physical evidence that did exist was obtained independently, through the searches of the Paine residence and the rooming house, through the examination of the rifle and cartridge cases, and through the testimony of witnesses to the motorcade, the Tippit shooting, and the arrest at the Texas Theatre.

Appendix XII: Speculations and Rumors

Myths have traditionally surrounded the dramatic assassinations of history. The murder of President Lincoln gave rise to theories of a vast conspiracy involving Confederate leaders, Northern financiers, and even members of Lincoln's own cabinet — theories that persisted for decades despite the absence of supporting evidence. The assassination of President Kennedy generated an even greater volume of speculation, fueled by the unprecedented speed of modern communications, the shocking murder of the accused assassin before he could be tried, and the inevitable confusion that attended the initial investigation.

The Commission addressed the principal speculations and rumors systematically, organizing them by subject and tracing each to its source. In many cases, the rumors originated in the hasty and sometimes inaccurate statements made by Dallas officials in the hours immediately following the assassination. In others, they arose from the natural tendency of witnesses to reconstruct events in ways that conformed to their preconceptions or to information they acquired after the fact. Some were the deliberate fabrications of persons seeking attention or pursuing political agendas.

The Source of the Shots

The most persistent category of speculation concerned the direction from which the shots were fired. Many witnesses near the Depository believed the shots came from the direction of the railroad overpass or the grassy knoll to the northwest of the building. The Commission's investigation established that these impressions were attributable to the acoustic properties of Dealey Plaza — the tall buildings surrounding the open area created reverberations that made it difficult to determine the precise origin of the sounds. Lee Bowers, working in a railroad tower approximately fifty yards from the back of the Depository, noted "a reverberation which takes place from either location."

S. M. Holland, a signal supervisor for Union Terminal Company who was standing on the railroad bridge, testified that he heard four shots and saw "a puff of smoke" from the trees on the north side of Elm Street. However, Holland immediately ran to the area behind the picket fence and found no one among the parked cars. No other witness on the bridge saw anyone with a rifle, and no physical evidence — no cartridge cases, no bullet marks, no weapon — was found in the area. The three Depository employees on the fifth floor, directly below the sniper's window, heard the shots from above and heard the cartridge cases hitting the floor.

The initial misidentification of the rifle as a 7.65 Mauser generated considerable speculation that the weapon found on the sixth floor was not the weapon that fired the shots. The error originated with Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman, who saw the rifle only at a glance from several feet away and did not handle it. He later signed an affidavit describing it as a Mauser, but testified before the Commission that he had made the identification based on a superficial resemblance and acknowledged his error. The weapon was correctly identified by its markings — "MADE ITALY," "CAL. 6.5," "1940," and serial number "C2766" — as soon as it was examined by Lieutenant Day of the Dallas police identification bureau.

The Assassin

Speculation that Oswald could not have fired three shots in the available time was addressed through extensive testing. The Commission noted that the minimum time between shots was 2.3 seconds — the time required to operate the bolt action. If the second shot missed, the total time span was 4.8 to 5.6 seconds; if the first or third shot missed, the total was 7.1 to 7.9 seconds. Three master-rated marksmen from the Army's Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch fired the assassination rifle from a tower at silhouette targets at the relevant distances, achieving time spans of 4.6 to 8.25 seconds for three shots. FBI experts fired three shots at 25 yards in as little as 4.6 seconds. All experts agreed the shots were feasible.

The allegation that Oswald was seen on the first floor of the Depository at the time of the shooting — based on a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer James Altgens — was investigated. The man in the photograph was identified as Billy Nolan Lovelady, a Depository employee who identified himself in the picture. Two coworkers standing beside him confirmed the identification.

Speculation that Oswald was too poor a marksman to have made the shots was contradicted by his Marine Corps record (sharpshooter qualification in 1956) and by the testimony of marksmanship experts who characterized the shots as "not particularly difficult" given the telescopic sight, the slow-moving target, and the nearly straight-line trajectory. Master Sergeant James Zahm called the neck shot at 177 feet "very easy" and the head shot at 265 feet "an easy shot."

Oswald's Movements Between 12:33 and 1:15 p.m.

The claim that Oswald was picked up by a car after leaving the Depository was based primarily on the testimony of Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig, who claimed to have seen Oswald running to a light-colored Rambler station wagon about fifteen minutes after the assassination. However, seven witnesses traced Oswald's movements from the building to his rooming house — by bus, taxi, and on foot — and at each point he was alone. The bus transfer found in his pocket, the testimony of busdriver Cecil McWatters and former landlady Mary Bledsoe, the testimony of taxi driver William Whaley, and the testimony of housekeeper Earlene Roberts established a continuous chain of evidence. Craig's account was contradicted by this evidence and by Oswald's own confirmed movements.

Housekeeper Earlene Roberts testified that a Dallas police car drove slowly by the rooming house at about 1:00 p.m. and honked, but investigation could not confirm the presence of any police vehicle in the area. The squad car numbers Roberts recalled were either at the Depository or had been sold months earlier.

Murder of Tippit

Rumors that Tippit was killed as part of a conspiracy — or that he was somehow involved in the assassination — were investigated and found to be without foundation. Tippit was patrolling the Oak Cliff area as ordered by the police dispatcher. He stopped Oswald because Oswald matched the broadcast description of the assassination suspect. Nine eyewitnesses positively identified Oswald as the gunman, and the four cartridge cases at the scene were matched to his revolver to the exclusion of all other weapons.

The suggestion that Tippit knew Ruby was investigated. While both men lived and worked in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, the Commission found no credible evidence that they were acquainted. One witness claimed to have seen them together at Ruby's Carousel Club, but this testimony was uncorroborated and contradicted by other evidence.

Oswald After His Arrest

Speculation that Oswald was mistreated or coerced during his detention was addressed by the Commission's review of all available evidence. Oswald was not subjected to any physical hardship. He was fed, allowed to rest, and given eight to nine hours of sleep on Friday night. He was advised of his rights and offered counsel. The marks on his face — a cut over his right eye and a bruise under his left eye — were sustained during the struggle at the Texas Theatre, in which three arresting officers were also injured.

The allegation that Oswald was denied legal representation was examined. While Oswald was not represented by counsel during his interrogation, he was repeatedly advised of his right to an attorney. He attempted to reach John Abt, a New York lawyer, but was unable to do so. When the president of the Dallas Bar Association offered to obtain counsel, Oswald declined, stating his preference for Abt. As late as Sunday morning, he said he preferred to get his own lawyer.

Oswald in the Soviet Union

Speculation that Oswald was a Soviet agent was addressed through the Commission's extensive investigation of his defection, residence in the Soviet Union, and return. Secretary of State Dean Rusk testified that "it would be an act of rashness and madness for Soviet leaders to undertake such an action as an active policy." The CIA confirmed that Oswald's treatment in the Soviet Union — the waiting period for residency, the subsidized income, the factory job — was consistent with standard Soviet handling of foreign defectors. His marriage to a Soviet citizen, far from suggesting an intelligence relationship, would have been counterproductive for any espionage purpose.

Oswald's Trip to Mexico City

Allegations that Oswald received money or instructions from Cuban or Soviet agents in Mexico City were investigated exhaustively. The most serious involved an informant "D" who claimed to have witnessed Oswald receiving $6,500 at the Cuban Embassy. "D" later admitted in writing that his entire story was fabricated — he had never seen Oswald and had invented the tale to gain admission to the United States for anti-Castro activities. Dozens of other allegations were similarly investigated and found to be without factual basis, "in some cases the product of mistaken identification."

Oswald and U.S. Government Agencies

The allegation that Oswald was an FBI informant or CIA agent was categorically denied under oath by the directors of both agencies. FBI Director Hoover caused a search of all Bureau records and swore that Oswald "was never an informant of the FBI, and never assigned a symbol number in that capacity, and was never paid any amount of money by the FBI in any regard." CIA Director McCone stated unequivocally that Oswald was never an agent, employee, or informant of the CIA, that the Agency never communicated with him, and that he was never directly or indirectly associated with the CIA. The Commission's independent review of both agencies' complete files confirmed these denials.

Oswald's mother, Marguerite Oswald, testified that she believed her son went to Russia and returned as an undercover agent for the U.S. Government. She was unable to provide any reasonable basis for this belief. A public stenographer in Fort Worth, Pauline Bates, was reported to have said that Oswald told her he was a "secret agent" — but Bates denied this under oath, testifying that she had merely speculated that he might have gone to Russia "under the auspices of the State Department — as a student or something."

Conspiratorial Relationships

The rumor that Ruby and Oswald knew each other was investigated exhaustively through examination of telephone records, interviews with associates of both men, and investigation of every alleged sighting of the two together. No credible evidence of any acquaintance was found. The allegation by attorney Mark Lane that Ruby, Oswald, and Tippit met at Ruby's Carousel Club on November 14 was unsupported — Lane repeatedly refused to identify his informant despite the Commission's requests, and no evidence of such a meeting was discovered.

Several witnesses initially claimed to have seen Oswald at Ruby's club, but upon investigation these claims proved unfounded or based on mistaken identification. The Commission noted that Ruby's clubs were public establishments visited by many people, and that in the aftermath of the assassination, many persons came to believe they had seen Oswald in places where he had never been.

Other Rumors and Speculations

The Commission also addressed numerous other rumors: that Oswald had been seen at a rifle range practicing with a weapon similar to the assassination rifle (investigation showed the man at the range was probably someone else — he was there on dates when Oswald was known to be elsewhere, and the weapon he used had different characteristics); that Oswald had a second rifle repaired at a sporting goods store (the repair tag bearing the name "Oswald" was of doubtful authenticity, and neither the store owner nor the employee could recall Oswald as a customer); that Oswald was seen test-driving a car at a Lincoln-Mercury dealership (the salesman's testimony was contradicted by evidence that Oswald could not drive and was elsewhere on the date in question); and that Oswald had attempted to cash a $189 check at a grocery store (the grocer's testimony was contradicted by evidence that Oswald was not in Irving on the dates described).

In each case the Commission traced the rumor to its source and evaluated the evidence.

Witnesses to the Shooting

A number of eyewitnesses to the assassination contributed to the body of rumor by statements that were later partially or wholly contradicted by other testimony. Jean Hill, standing across Elm Street from the sniper's window, told an early interviewer that she had seen "a man running" from the Depository direction and had heard "four, five, or six" shots — variations that were later cited as evidence of a second gunman. Under detailed questioning by the Commission, Hill acknowledged that she had actually seen no one running from the Depository and that her shot count was based on echoes and her own uncertainty. Mary Moorman, the Polaroid photographer beside her, confirmed a three-shot sequence consistent with the three spent cartridge cases found at the sniper's window. Abraham Zapruder, the amateur photographer whose film became the primary visual record of the shooting, testified that the shots came "from behind me" — from the direction of the Depository — and that the sound was "so forceful it hit the wall behind me and came back at me." The sound reflections in Dealey Plaza, bounded by the Depository to the east, the railroad bridge to the west, and a masonry wall to the north, produced the impression of multiple origins that was reported by many witnesses.

Oswald at the Rifle Range

Several witnesses claimed to have seen Oswald at the Sports Drome Rifle Range in Dallas during the weeks before the assassination, firing a weapon similar to the Mannlicher-Carcano. Investigation showed that the man in question was almost certainly not Oswald. He was reported at the range on dates when Oswald was known to have been elsewhere — at work, at the Paine residence, or in New Orleans. The weapon he used had a different scope and sling configuration from the weapon found on the sixth floor. Oswald had no automobile, and the range was many miles from his rooming house with no convenient bus service. The Commission concluded that the witnesses had mistaken a different marksman, perhaps one deliberately impersonating Oswald or merely resembling him, for the assassin.

The Note at the FBI Office

A recurring rumor held that Oswald had delivered a threatening note to FBI Agent James Hosty at the Dallas field office in the weeks before the assassination. The note was indeed delivered by Oswald in early November 1963, but its content — when the Bureau eventually disclosed it — proved to be an angry protest against Hosty's interviews with Marina Oswald and a demand that the FBI cease contacting her. It made no reference to the President. Hosty destroyed the note after the assassination, a disposal the Commission found contrary to proper handling of potentially relevant evidence but not indicative of any cover-up of an Oswald threat.

Methodology of Rumor

The Commission closed its review of speculations and rumors with a broader observation about how such stories had arisen in the first place. "The publicizing of unchecked information," it wrote, "provided much of the basis for the myths and rumors that came into being soon after the President's death," and "the erroneous disclosures became the basis for distorted reconstruction and interpretations of the assassination." The Commission urged that the lesson of Dallas — the chaotic dissemination of half-verified information by police officials in the first forty-eight hours — be applied in the handling of future investigations, so that the "courtroom, not the newspaper or television screen," remained the appropriate forum for the trial of a man accused of a crime.

Appendix XIII: Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald

This appendix sets out in chronological form the principal events of Oswald's life, supplementing the analytical treatment of his character and possible motives in Chapter VII with the documentary record the Commission compiled.

Early Life (1939–1956)

Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans on October 18, 1939, two months after the death of his father Robert Edward Lee Oswald, an insurance-premium collector. His mother Marguerite Claverie Oswald was left with three sons — the half-brother John Pic from a previous marriage, born 1932; Robert Oswald, born 1934; and Lee — and was forced to work to support the family. She placed the older boys in orphanages and, in December 1942, sent Lee as well. The family's early moves tracked Marguerite's work and her brief 1945 marriage to Edwin Ekdahl, which ended in divorce in 1948. After Ekdahl's departure, John Pic and Robert Oswald left home as soon as the Coast Guard and the Marine Corps, respectively, would take them. In August 1952, Marguerite and Lee moved to New York, where Lee entered P.S. 117 in the Bronx and began the long pattern of truancy and withdrawal that would land him in Youth House for psychiatric observation in April 1953. The examinations there — by Dr. Renatus Hartogs, social worker Evelyn Siegel, and probation officer John Carro — diagnosed a "personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features" in a boy of superior intelligence who was suffering under "really existing emotional isolation." The recommended treatment never materialized. In January 1954, Marguerite and Lee returned to New Orleans, where Lee finished the ninth grade, left school to work, began reading Communist literature, and on October 26, 1956, six days after his seventeenth birthday, enlisted in the Marine Corps.

The Marine Corps

Oswald reported for boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego on October 26, 1956. During the intensive three-week marksmanship training period he received instruction in sighting, aiming, and trigger manipulation, went through dry-firing exercises in all positions, and fired live ammunition at distances up to 500 yards over five days. On December 21, 1956, he scored 212 on the M-1 rifle — two points above the minimum for "sharpshooter" on the marksman-sharpshooter-expert scale. After basic training he received instruction in aviation fundamentals at the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Jacksonville, Florida, and then in aircraft surveillance radar at the Marine Corps Air Station in Keesler, Mississippi. He was assigned to Marine Air Control Squadron No. 1 (MACS-1) at Atsugi, Japan, in September 1957. Atsugi was the base from which the CIA operated U-2 reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union and China — a fact that later gave rise to speculation about Oswald's possible intelligence connections, though the Commission found no evidence of any such connection.

In Japan, Oswald began studying the Russian language. He was court-martialed in October 1957 for possessing an unregistered privately owned .22-caliber derringer pistol with which he had accidentally shot himself in the left elbow, and was sentenced to twenty days at hard labor, forfeiture of $50 in pay, and reduction from private first class to private; the hard-labor sentence was suspended. He was then involved in a second incident — pouring a drink on a sergeant and challenging him to a fight — that resulted in a second court-martial and a sentence of twenty-eight days in the brig, which also activated the suspended sentence from the first court-martial. Despite these disciplinary problems, his military records show that he performed his radar duties adequately. He was transferred to Marine Air Control Squadron No. 9 (MACS-9) at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Santa Ana, California, in November 1958. There he showed a marked interest in the Soviet Union, expressed admiration for Fidel Castro, and began studying Russian more intensively. Fellow Marines described him as a loner who spent his free time reading and who resented the exercise of authority. On May 6, 1959, he fired the M-1 rifle for record a second time and scored only 191 — one point above the minimum for "marksman," the lowest qualification. Major John Anderson explained the decline by noting that Oswald no longer had the benefit of intensive preliminary training, an experienced coach, or high motivation. Oswald applied for early release from active duty on August 17, 1959, citing his mother's injury in an accident at work. The request was approved, and he was released on September 11, 1959 — three months before his scheduled separation date. He stayed with his mother in Fort Worth for only three days before departing for New Orleans, where he booked passage on the freighter SS Marion Lykes, which sailed for Le Havre, France, on September 20, 1959.

Defection to the Soviet Union

Oswald arrived in Helsinki, Finland, on October 10, 1959, and obtained a Soviet tourist visa on October 14 — a wait of two to four days that was within the normal range, though possibly shorter than average. He crossed the border by train on October 15 and arrived in Moscow on October 16. His Intourist guide, Rima Shirokova, was informed that same day of his desire to become a Soviet citizen. In 1959 virtually all Intourist guides were KGB informants, and there is no reason to believe Shirokova was an exception.

Over the next five days Oswald was interviewed by Soviet officials — probably KGB officers responsible for evaluating defectors. On October 21 he was informed that his visa had expired and that he must leave Moscow by 8:00 p.m. that evening. According to his diary, he slashed his left wrist in his hotel-room bathtub. He was discovered by his Intourist guide and taken to Botkinskaya Hospital, where he was treated until October 28. (The autopsy performed after his death in Dallas confirmed a scar on his left wrist consistent with a suicide attempt.) Three days after his release, on October 31, Oswald appeared at the American Embassy and declared his intention to renounce his citizenship. Consul Richard Snyder refused to accept the renunciation, telling Oswald to return when he had had time to consider. Oswald handed Snyder a written statement affirming his "allegiance to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" and stated that he had offered to give Soviet officials information about Marine Corps radar operations. He never returned to complete the formal renunciation.

For the next two months Oswald waited in his Moscow hotel room while Soviet authorities decided his fate. His diary records that he practiced Russian eight hours a day. On about January 4, 1960, he was informed that he could remain in the Soviet Union — not as a citizen but as a resident alien on a year-to-year basis. He was given 5,000 rubles by the "Red Cross" and sent to Minsk.

Residence in Minsk

In Minsk, Oswald worked as a metal lathe operator in the Byelorussian Radio and Television Factory. He received a pleasant one-room apartment with a balcony overlooking the Svisloch River for only 60 rubles per month, and a monthly "Red Cross" subsidy of 700 rubles in addition to his factory wages of 700 to 900 rubles. He joined a factory-sponsored hunting club and went hunting about six times, though Marina later testified that he went only once during their marriage. He had an active social life initially — attending dances at the trade-union hall, dating several young women, and socializing with coworkers — but gradually became disillusioned. His diary records the progression. By May 1960 an acquaintance was telling him things about the Soviet Union he had not known, and he began "to feel uneasy inside." By August–September 1960 he was "increasingly concious of just what sort of a sociaty I live in" — the compulsory meetings, political lectures, and collective-farm duties. By January 1961 he was "stating to reconsider": "the work is drab the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No night clubs or bowling allys no places of recreation. I have have had enough."

On February 13, 1961 — before meeting Marina — Oswald wrote to the American Embassy asking to be readmitted to the United States. The letter was characteristically arrogant, demanding assurances that no legal charges would be brought against him. In March 1961 he met Marina Nikolaevna Prusakova at a dance at the Palace of Culture. She was a nineteen-year-old pharmacist who had been raised in Leningrad but was living with her aunt and uncle in Minsk — her uncle, Ilya Prusakov, being a colonel in the MVD. They married on April 30, 1961, after a courtship of about six weeks. Marina later testified that by the time they met, Oswald spoke Russian well enough that she initially thought he was from one of the Baltic regions.

After months of correspondence with the Embassy and a personal visit to Moscow in July 1961, Oswald's passport was returned and the process of obtaining permission for Marina to enter the United States was begun. The Soviet authorities took five and a half months to grant exit visas. Marina was subjected to pressure not to emigrate — she was dropped from the Komsomol and her relatives stopped speaking to her — but permission was ultimately granted, and on June 1, 1962, the Oswalds, now with an infant daughter June born in February, left Moscow for the United States, assisted by a $435.71 State Department loan.

Return to the United States

The Oswalds arrived in Fort Worth in mid-June 1962 and stayed briefly with Robert Oswald, then with Marguerite. Lee found work as a sheet-metal worker at Leslie Welding Company but was interviewed twice by FBI agents, who found him arrogant and evasive. He denied having denounced his citizenship or applied for Soviet citizenship — both false statements — and promised to advise the FBI if he was contacted by Soviet agents. In October 1962 he quit his job and moved to Dallas, where he was hired by Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, a commercial photography firm. He had access to sophisticated photographic equipment there — equipment he would later use to create the counterfeit identification cards found in his possession after the assassination. He was discharged in April 1963 for poor performance.

The Oswalds had meanwhile been introduced to a group of Russian-speaking émigrés in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Many assisted Marina and the baby with gifts of food, clothing, and baby furniture, but nearly all disliked Lee. George Bouhe attempted to persuade Marina to leave her husband; when she returned to him in November 1962 Bouhe became displeased with her as well, and by the end of 1962 the Russian community had essentially dropped the Oswalds. George De Mohrenschildt, a Russian-born petroleum engineer, was the exception — he continued to see the Oswalds occasionally into the spring of 1963.

The Walker Attempt and New Orleans

On March 12, 1963, Oswald ordered a 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano rifle from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago, using the alias "A. Hidell," and on the same date ordered a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver from Seaport Traders in Los Angeles under the same alias. Both weapons were shipped to Post Office Box 2915 in Dallas. In late March or early April, Marina photographed him in the backyard of their Neely Street apartment holding the rifle, the revolver, and copies of the Worker and the Militant.

On April 10, 1963, Oswald attempted to assassinate General Edwin Walker. He had been planning the attack for two months, photographing Walker's house, mapping the area, and scouting bus routes. He left Marina a note in Russian with instructions for managing their affairs if he did not return. When he came home late that night, pale and agitated, he told her he had shot at Walker. She was horrified and made him promise never to do it again.

At Marina's urging, Oswald left for New Orleans on April 24. Ruth Paine drove Marina and the baby to join him in May. In New Orleans, Oswald found work at the William B. Reily Company, a coffee-processing firm, but was fired in July for spending too much time at a neighboring garage reading gun magazines. He formed his fictitious Fair Play for Cuba Committee chapter, was arrested during a leafleting incident on August 9, and appeared on two local radio programs as a Cuban spokesman. In September Ruth Paine drove Marina back to Irving while Oswald traveled to Mexico City.

Mexico City

Oswald departed New Orleans by bus on approximately September 25, 1963, and arrived in Mexico City on September 27. He went immediately to the Cuban Embassy, where he presented his passport, Russian documents, FPCC materials, and a prepared statement of his Marxist qualifications. Silvia Duran, the consular employee, took down his information and telephoned the Soviet consulate on his behalf. The Soviets told her the wait for a visa would be approximately four months. Oswald became agitated and insisted on his right to a visa "in view of his background and his loyalty and his activities in behalf of the Cuban movement." Consul Eusebio Azque told him bluntly that "a person of his type was harming the Cuban Revolution rather than helping it." Oswald spent the remaining days in Mexico City sightseeing, making travel arrangements, and checking with the Soviet Embassy for any progress on his visa application. He stayed alone at the Hotel del Comercio, a modest establishment with no unusual connections to Cuban or revolutionary organizations, and ate alone at a nearby restaurant. He left Mexico City by bus on October 2 and arrived in Dallas on October 3, "disappointed and discouraged" at his failure to reach Cuba.

The Last Weeks in Dallas

On October 4, Oswald visited his wife and daughter at the Paine home in Irving. It was decided that he would rent a room in Dallas and visit on weekends. He rented a room at 621 North Marsalis Street under his own name, then on October 14 moved to 1026 North Beckley Avenue, where he registered as "O. H. Lee." On the same day, at the suggestion of neighbor Linnie Mae Randle, Ruth Paine telephoned the Texas School Book Depository and learned of a job opening. Oswald was interviewed the next day and started work on October 16 as an order filler at $1.25 per hour. On October 20, the Oswalds' second daughter, Audrey Marina Rachel, was born. During October and November, Oswald established a pattern of weekend visits to Irving, riding with coworker Buell Wesley Frazier. On November 1 and 5, FBI Agent Hosty visited the Paine home looking for Oswald; Ruth Paine told him Oswald worked at the Depository but she did not know his Dallas address, and Hosty did not ask for his telephone number, which Mrs. Paine had.

On Monday, November 18, Marina learned for the first time that her husband was living under an assumed name. She was angry, and they quarreled bitterly by telephone. On Thursday, November 21, Oswald asked Frazier for an unusual midweek ride to Irving, explaining that he needed to pick up curtain rods. Both Marina and Ruth Paine were surprised to see him on a Thursday; he was conciliatory, but Marina remained angry. That evening Ruth Paine noticed the garage light burning — she was certain she had not left it on. In the garage were the Oswalds' possessions, including the rifle wrapped in a blanket. The next morning, Oswald left before his wife awoke. On the dresser he left his wedding ring — something he had never done before — and $170 in his wallet. He walked to Frazier's house, placed a long bulky package in the back seat of the car, and told Frazier it contained curtain rods. At the Depository parking lot he walked ahead of Frazier for the first time and entered the building alone, carrying the package. It was the morning of November 22, 1963.

Appendix XIV: Analysis of Oswald's Finances

The Commission's investigation of Oswald's finances was conducted with the assistance of the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI. The investigation was exhaustive: banks in New Orleans, Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, and Laredo were checked for accounts or safe deposit boxes in Oswald's name or known aliases; telegraph companies were checked for money orders; all known locations where Oswald cashed checks were queried; and inquiries were made at his places of employment, residences, credit associations, hospitals, utility companies, and government offices.

The results showed that Oswald's total cash receipts from all sources between June 13, 1962, and November 22, 1963, amounted to $3,665.89. This included wages from four employers ($3,084.98), unemployment compensation ($369), a State Department loan ($435.71, which he repaid), and small gifts from acquaintances. His estimated disbursements were $3,501.79, leaving a balance of $164.10 — within $19 of the $183.87 actually found in his possession at arrest ($13.87 on his person and $170 in his wallet at the Paine house).

The Oswalds' pattern of living was consistent with extreme frugality. They owned no major appliances, had no automobile, and used public clinics for medical care. Marina frequently lived with relatives and friends at no cost. Oswald did not smoke or drink. He read library books, rode buses, and wore T-shirts and cheap slacks. His one suit, of Russian manufacture, was ill-fitting and made of heavy fabric unsuitable for the Texas climate. Food was meager — Paul Gregory, who was tutored in Russian by Marina, testified that he was "amazed at how little they bought" when he took them grocery shopping, and Marina estimated that her husband spent "about a dollar, $1.30" for dinner when living alone. This thrift allowed him to repay the $435.71 State Department loan and a $200 loan from his brother Robert by January 1963, and to purchase the assassination rifle ($21.45) and revolver ($31.22) in March 1963 — purchases comfortably compatible with his available funds.

The Commission also investigated and rejected several allegations of unexplained income. Leonard Hutchison, a grocery store proprietor, claimed that a man he believed was Oswald had attempted to cash a $189 personal check at his store; Hutchison's testimony was contradicted by evidence that Oswald was not in Irving on the dates described, and neither Marina Oswald nor Marguerite Oswald had ever been in Hutchison's store. C. A. Hamblen, a Western Union employee, claimed to have seen Oswald collecting money orders, but a thorough search of Western Union records in multiple cities revealed no money orders payable to Oswald or his aliases, and Hamblen's superiors concluded "that this whole thing was a figment of Mr. Hamblen's imagination." Each such allegation was traced and disposed of in the same way.

The Commission concluded that "the funds known to have been available to Oswald during the period June 13, 1962, through November 22, 1963, were sufficient to cover all of his known expenditures during this period," and that there was no evidence of any unexplained income from any source. In a case where any unaccounted flow of money might have suggested a paymaster, the account balanced almost to the penny: the totals came out within nineteen dollars of what Oswald was actually carrying on the afternoon of his arrest. The Commission was satisfied that whatever Oswald had done, he had not been doing it for money.

Appendix XV: Transactions Between the Oswalds and the U.S. Government

Issuance of Passport in 1959

On September 4, 1959, while still on active duty with the Marine Corps, Oswald applied for a passport at the Superior Court of the State of California in Santa Ana. He stated that he planned to leave the United States on September 21 aboard the SS Marion Lykes and listed the countries he intended to visit as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, and Russia. He stated the purpose of his trip as "to attend the College of Albert Schweitzer, Churwalden, Switzerland, and to travel in countries as listed." He had in fact applied to the Albert Schweitzer College for admission to the spring 1960 term, though his application contained numerous falsehoods about his qualifications and background.

The passport was issued on September 10, 1959. At that time, the right to travel was considered an element of liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment, and the Supreme Court had recently held in Kent v. Dulles (1958) that the Secretary of State could not deny a passport to a citizen because of his political beliefs or associations. Passports were not denied to applicants merely because they intended to visit Communist countries, though travel to certain countries was restricted. The Commission found no irregularity in the issuance of Oswald's passport.

Oswald's Attempts to Renounce His Citizenship

Oswald appeared at the American Embassy in Moscow on Saturday, October 31, 1959, and informed the receptionist that he wished to "dissolve his American citizenship." He was referred to Richard Snyder, the Second Secretary and senior consular official. During an approximately forty-minute interview, Oswald presented a handwritten statement requesting that his citizenship be "revoked" and affirming his "allegiance" to the Soviet Union. He stated that his "principal reason" was "I am a Marxist." He also stated that he had been a radar operator in the Marine Corps, intimating that he might know something of special interest, and that he had informed a Soviet official that he would give the Soviets any information about Marine Corps radar operations that he possessed.

Snyder refused to accept the renunciation at that time, telling Oswald to return on the following Monday when the Embassy would be open for business. This was consistent with standard consular practice — officers were instructed to make certain that an act of renunciation was voluntary, not the result of duress or momentary impulse, and to give the applicant time to reconsider. Snyder testified that he "had every reason to believe" Oswald would have completed a formal renunciation immediately if permitted. By delaying, Snyder preserved Oswald's citizenship — a decision that later facilitated his return to the United States.

Oswald never returned to the Embassy to complete the formal renunciation. In a letter dated November 3, 1959, he again requested that his citizenship be "revoked" and protested the refusal to accept his renunciation on October 31. However, neither the October 31 statement nor the November 3 letter constituted a valid renunciation under section 349(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which required that the renunciation be made "before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in the manner and form prescribed by the Secretary of State." Oswald had attempted to use three of the four statutory methods for surrendering citizenship but succeeded in none — apparently because he had read the statute but understood it imperfectly.

The Commission examined whether Oswald's conduct at the Embassy constituted expatriation under any other provision of the Act. Section 349(a)(2) provided for loss of citizenship by taking an oath of allegiance to a foreign state. Oswald's written statement affirming his "allegiance" to the Soviet Union was not made under oath and was not made before a foreign official, as the statute required. Section 349(a)(3) provided for loss of citizenship by serving in the armed forces of a foreign state. There was no evidence that Oswald served in the Soviet armed forces. Section 349(a)(4) provided for loss of citizenship by accepting employment under a foreign government if the individual had or acquired the nationality of that state. Oswald was never granted Soviet citizenship.

The Department of State's legal analysis, prepared in May 1961, concluded that Oswald had not expatriated himself. This conclusion was ratified by the Embassy's determination in July 1961, when Oswald appeared in person to discuss his return, that he remained an American citizen.

Return and Renewal of Oswald's Passport

When Oswald appeared at the Embassy in Moscow on July 10, 1961, Snyder conducted an extensive interview to determine whether Oswald had expatriated himself during his residence in the Soviet Union. Oswald stated that he had not been granted Soviet citizenship, had not taken an oath of allegiance to the Soviet Union, and had not voted in Soviet elections. He said he had learned from his experience in the Soviet Union and was "not completely disenchanted with the Soviet system" but had "learned a hard lesson the hard way." He stated that he had not given the Soviets any information of value.

On the basis of this interview, Snyder concluded that Oswald had not expatriated himself and returned his passport, which was due to expire in September 1961. The passport was subsequently renewed in May 1962, after the Department of State in Washington confirmed the Embassy's determination. The Commission found that these decisions were consistent with established law and practice.

Authorization for Marina Oswald to Enter the United States

Marina Oswald's application for an American visa presented a more complex legal question. Under section 243(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Attorney General was authorized to withhold visas from natives of countries that refused to accept the return of their nationals who had been ordered deported from the United States. The Soviet Union was such a country, and Marina Oswald was a Soviet national. However, the Immigration and Naturalization Service waived this provision at the request of the Department of State, which concluded that it was in the interest of the United States to facilitate the return of an American citizen and his family.

The waiver was granted on May 9, 1962. The Commission found that this decision, while discretionary, was within the bounds of established practice. The INS had previously granted similar waivers in cases involving the Soviet wives of American citizens. The Commission noted, however, that the decision was made without knowledge of Oswald's statement at the Embassy that he had offered to give the Soviets information about Marine Corps radar operations — information that was in the Embassy's files but was not specifically brought to the attention of the INS.

Oswald's Letter to Senator Tower

On January 30, 1962, while still in the Soviet Union, Oswald wrote to Senator John Tower of Texas protesting his undesirable discharge from the Marine Corps Reserve. Tower forwarded the letter to the Navy Department. John Connally, who had been Secretary of the Navy when the discharge was issued, had just resigned to run for Governor of Texas. Oswald's subsequent petition to the Navy Discharge Review Board was denied on July 25, 1963.

The State Department Loan

The Department of State advanced $435.71 to cover the Oswalds' travel expenses from Moscow to New York. Such loans were routinely available to destitute American citizens abroad under the provisions of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act. The loan was repaid in full by January 1963, through a combination of monthly payments and two larger payments in December 1962 and January 1963.

Issuance of Passport in June 1963

On June 24, 1963, Oswald applied for a new passport at the New Orleans Passport Agency, stating he planned to depart by ship for an extended tour of Western European countries, the Soviet Union, Finland, and Poland. The Passport Office in Washington had no listing for Oswald requiring special treatment — no "lookout card" had been placed in the file. The application was approved the following day.

The Commission examined whether a lookout card should have been placed in Oswald's file. The Passport Office maintained a lookout list of persons whose passport applications required special attention. The criteria for inclusion on the list included persons who had attempted to renounce their citizenship, persons who were the subject of outstanding federal warrants, and persons whose travel abroad might be contrary to the interests of the United States. Oswald arguably fell within the first category, but no lookout card had been placed in his file when he attempted to renounce his citizenship in 1959, and none was added thereafter.

The Commission found that the failure to place a lookout card in Oswald's file was consistent with the Passport Office's existing procedures, which did not specifically require such action in the case of a person who had attempted but failed to renounce his citizenship. However, the Commission recommended that the Department of State exercise greater care in handling returning defectors and adopt better procedures for disseminating information about them to intelligence agencies.

Visit to the Russian Embassy in Mexico City

Oswald's visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in late September 1963 was reported to the CIA by confidential sources on October 10, 1963. The CIA transmitted this information to the FBI, the Department of State, and the Department of the Navy. The Department of State's Passport Office reviewed the information and noted that Oswald had obtained a passport on June 25, 1963, but did not advise either the CIA or the FBI of this fact. The Commission found this failure of communication to be a significant deficiency in the coordination of intelligence information among federal agencies.

Conclusion

The Commission concluded that the Department of State followed the law throughout its dealings with Oswald. The decisions to issue his passport in 1959, to determine that he had not expatriated himself, to return and renew his passport, to authorize Marina Oswald's entry into the United States, and to issue a new passport in 1963 were all consistent with established law and practice. However, the Commission recommended that the Department exercise greater care in the return of defectors who had evidenced disloyalty or hostility to the United States, and that procedures be adopted for better dissemination of information concerning such persons to intelligence agencies.

Appendix XVI: A Biography of Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby was born Jacob Rubenstein on March 25, 1911, in Chicago, the fifth of eight children of Joseph Rubenstein and Fannie Turek Rutkowski, both Polish-Jewish immigrants. The family was desperately poor. Joseph Rubenstein was a carpenter and cabinetmaker who drank heavily and was frequently unemployed; Fannie Rubenstein was described as an illiterate woman who spoke only Yiddish and had difficulty managing the household. The parents quarreled constantly and separated repeatedly, parting permanently around 1921. Ruby's early psychiatric record, compiled when the Jewish Home Finding Society intervened to place him and several of his siblings in foster homes, described a "quick-tempered" child with "a tendency to be somewhat wild." A psychiatric examiner in 1922 noted that he "has no friends," that he was "disobedient and a truant," and that he "appears to be egocentric and eccentric."

Childhood and Youth (1911–1933)

After the Jewish Home Finding Society's intervention, the Rubenstein children were largely left to fend for themselves. Jack attended school irregularly and spent much of his time on the streets, where he sold peanuts, delivered packages, and scalped tickets to Chicago sporting events. He was known for his willingness to fight anyone who insulted his mother or his Jewish heritage, and for his fierce loyalty to friends. Several who knew him in that period recalled a boy easily moved from explosive rage to tears and then to laughter within the span of an afternoon. Despite the chaotic home environment, Ruby developed strong family attachments that would persist throughout his life. He was particularly close to his sister Eva Grant, whom he would later help establish in the nightclub business in Dallas. He maintained contact with most of his siblings and frequently sent them money or gifts, even during the long stretches when he himself could barely pay his own rent.

Young Manhood and Military Service (1933–1946)

After leaving school, Ruby worked at various jobs in Chicago and then spent several years in San Francisco, where he sold newspaper subscriptions, worked as a singing waiter, and sold tip sheets at racetracks. He returned to Chicago in 1937 and became involved in the scrap-iron and waste-materials business, working briefly for the Waste Handlers Union, Local 20467, during a turbulent organizing drive. Through that work he was acquainted with some individuals who had connections to organized labor and, tangentially, to organized crime. He was briefly a union official, collecting dues. The Commission found no evidence that Ruby himself was involved in criminal activities during this period, but these associations — inflated and embroidered in the press after the Oswald shooting — would provide the raw material for conspiracy theories for years afterward.

Ruby served in the Army Air Forces from 1943 to 1946, stationed primarily at various training bases in the southern United States. His military record was unremarkable — he received no disciplinary actions and was honorably discharged as a private first class. Fellow servicemen remembered him as a patriotic, emotional man who was quick to anger but equally quick to forgive. After discharge he returned briefly to Chicago and then, in 1947, joined his brothers Earl, Sam, and Hyman in Dallas to help manage a nightclub his sister Eva was already operating.

Dallas (1947–1963)

Ruby changed his name legally from Rubenstein to Ruby in 1947 — a decision he later attributed to the length and awkwardness of the original rather than to any desire to conceal his Jewish heritage. Indeed, Ruby was proud of his Jewish identity and quick to confront anyone he perceived as anti-Semitic. Over the following sixteen years he operated a succession of Dallas clubs, most notably the Carousel Club — a downtown striptease establishment on Commerce Street near the police headquarters — and the Vegas Club, a rock-and-roll venue managed by his sister Eva. The clubs were marginally profitable at best, and Ruby was perpetually concerned about money. He had chronic difficulties with the Internal Revenue Service over unpaid excise and withholding taxes, owed rent and liquor suppliers, and frequently borrowed from friends. His tax problems had become serious by November 1963.

His labor relations were volatile. He was known to physically eject unruly patrons and occasionally struck employees who displeased him, though he could also be generous — lending money, paying medical bills, and helping his strippers and waiters with personal problems. Andrew Armstrong, his bartender, testified to multiple incidents in which Ruby would shift from rage to tears to laughter within minutes. He was engaged in a running dispute with the American Guild of Variety Artists, the union representing his strippers, and with competing club operators — notably the Weinstein brothers at the Theatre Lounge, whose refusal to close on the weekend of the assassination enraged him.

Police Associations

Ruby cultivated relationships with Dallas police officers throughout his years in the city. He offered free coffee at his clubs to officers on duty, free admissions and discounted drinks to those off duty, and occasional complimentary passes to the shows. He frequently visited police headquarters, where he was a familiar figure — so much so that many reporters and officers remembered seeing him around the third floor during the forty-eight hours between Oswald's arrest and the transfer. Chief Jesse Curry estimated that between twenty-five and fifty of the department's 1,175 officers knew Ruby personally, though the actual number was probably somewhat higher. These associations, while extensive, were not unusual for a nightclub operator in downtown Dallas, and the Commission found no evidence that any of them were connected with the assassination or with the killing of Oswald. No officer, under questioning by the Commission or by the Dallas Police Department's own internal investigation, admitted to any advance knowledge of Ruby's intentions or to any assistance in his entry to the basement on Sunday morning.

Character and Interests

Those who knew Ruby described a man of intense emotions, deep insecurities, and a desperate need for recognition and acceptance. He was generous to friends and strangers alike, often to a fault — lending money he could not afford and performing favors without being asked. He had a deep affection for his dogs, which he frequently brought to the Carousel Club and treated as family members; he referred to his dachshund Sheba as his "wife" and to his other dogs as his "children." He was interested in physical fitness and diet, often recommending health foods and exercise regimens to acquaintances, and was a regular customer at a local gym. His religious interests were genuine if sporadic. He attended synagogue services occasionally and was deeply moved by religious observances; the rabbi's eulogy for President Kennedy on the Friday evening after the assassination affected him profoundly, and witnesses described him as openly weeping at the service.

His capacity for violence was well documented. He had been involved in numerous physical altercations throughout his life, and several of his employees testified to being struck by him. Yet he was also capable of great tenderness and was described by many as fundamentally kind-hearted despite his explosive temper. He was morbidly sensitive to slights against Jews, against his patriotism, and against his sense of honor.

The Commission's Judgment

The Commission concluded that Ruby's biography, while colorful, revealed no evidence of the kind of steady, disciplined, long-term association that would be required to support a conspiracy theory. He was emotionally volatile, chronically insolvent, and well known to dozens of officers in a police department that he was incapable of corrupting in any systematic way. His life was unusual enough to generate rumor but ordinary enough — within the narrow world of downtown Dallas nightclub operators — to make rumor indistinguishable, under investigation, from the facts. "Based on its evaluation of the record," the Commission wrote, "it has concluded that Ruby acted alone in his killing of Lee Harvey Oswald and that there is no credible evidence that Ruby and Oswald ever knew each other or that Ruby killed Oswald as part of a conspiracy."

Appendix XVII: Polygraph Examination of Jack Ruby

Preliminary Arrangements

The polygraph examination of Jack Ruby was administered at his own repeated request. From the time of his arrest Ruby had expressed a desire to take a lie-detector test, believing that it would establish his truthfulness and demonstrate that he had not been part of any conspiracy. His defense attorneys initially opposed the examination, but Ruby persisted. The examination was conducted on July 18, 1964, during a hearing in the Dallas County Jail before Chief Justice Warren and Congressman Gerald Ford, with Ruby's defense attorney Clayton Fowler present. The test was administered by FBI polygraph operator Bell P. Herndon, who had extensive experience in polygraph examinations. Before the test Herndon interviewed Ruby at length to establish baseline responses and to formulate the specific questions to be asked. Ruby was informed that he could refuse to answer any question and could terminate the examination at any time.

Administration of the Test

Ruby was asked a series of relevant questions interspersed with control questions, a structure that allows the examiner to compare physiological responses to sensitive material against responses to neutral material. The relevant questions addressed the central issues of the Commission's investigation: whether he had known Oswald before November 22, 1963; whether anyone had asked him or suggested that he shoot Oswald; whether his shooting of Oswald was connected with any conspiracy to assassinate the President; whether he had shot Oswald to silence him; and whether he had ever met with Oswald and Patrolman Tippit at his Carousel Club. To each of these Ruby answered "no." He also answered questions about whether he had entered the police basement with the assistance of any police officer, whether he had been at the Depository on November 22, and whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party — "no" to each.

Interpretation of the Test

Herndon concluded that Ruby's physiological responses indicated that he was truthful when he denied any involvement in a conspiracy, any prior acquaintance with Oswald, and any assistance from police in entering the basement. However, the interpretation of the results was complicated by Ruby's mental and emotional state at the time of the examination. Dr. William R. Beavers, Ruby's defense psychiatrist, expressed the opinion that Ruby was suffering from a "major mental illness" — specifically a psychotic depressive reaction — and that his mental condition rendered the polygraph results unreliable. Dr. Emanuel Tanay concurred, stating that "in view of the serious question raised as to Ruby's mental condition, no significance should be placed on the polygraph examination and it should be considered nonconclusive as the charts cannot be relied upon."

The Commission, having granted Ruby's request for the examination, published the complete transcript of the hearing and the deposition of the FBI polygraph operator for the record. It did not rely on the results of the polygraph in reaching its conclusions, noting the serious questions about Ruby's mental condition. The Commission's findings regarding Ruby's actions were based instead on the extensive testimonial and documentary evidence gathered during its investigation — evidence that, independent of any polygraph, had already established the absence of any connection between Ruby and a conspiracy and the absence of any prior acquaintance between Ruby and Oswald.