Legacy of Secrecy (26 page)

shots had come from.8

Several law enforcement personnel saw someone behind the picket

fence claiming to be a Secret Service man, even though no real Secret Ser-

vice agents were stationed there. Dallas Police Officer Joe Smith ran to

the knoll after hearing a woman scream, “They’re shooting the President

from the bushes!” Once Officer Smith was behind the fence, he noticed

“the lingering smell of gunpowder.” Smith noticed a man near one of

the cars, and, as he later testified to the Warren Commission, Smith

pulled his pistol on him. The man then “showed me that he was a Secret

Service agent.”9 Smith later explained that the credentials “satisfied me

and the deputy sheriff,” who had joined him. The deputy was Seymour

Weitzman, who confirmed in his Warren Commission testimony that he

had met the fake Secret Service agent.10 Officer Smith later explained his

regret at allowing the phony agent to leave, because—instead of looking

like a typically clean-cut, suit-and-tie Secret Service agent—this man

“had on a sports shirt and sports pants. But he had dirty fingernails . . .

and hands that looked like an auto mechanic’s hands.” Smith explains

that “we were so pressed for time,” looking into the cars, that “we just

overlooked the thing. I should have checked the man closer.”11

Three other witnesses—Jean Hill, Malcolm Summers, and soldier

Gordon Arnold—also saw what they thought were Secret Service agents

on the knoll.12 Dallas Police Sergeant D. V. Harkness talked to two men

behind the Book Depository who said they were Secret Service agents.13

Yet the Secret Service has repeatedly confirmed there were no authentic

Secret Service agents stationed in, or even near, Dealey Plaza.14 As for

the cars in the parking lot behind the knoll fence, their trunks were

never searched. And railroad workers who ran to that area, where they

thought the shots came from, noticed “footprints in the mud around the

fence, and there were footprints on the wooden two-by-four railing on

the fence.” Two workers noticed muddy footprints “on a car bumper

there, as if someone had stood up there, looking over the fence” at JFK’s

motorcade.15

Films and photos of that day confirm that most people ran toward

the grassy knoll, not the Book Depository. NBC Radio reporter Robert

MacNeil (later of PBS’s
MacNeil/Lehrer Report
) was in Dealey Plaza, and

wrote that “a crowd, including reporters, converged on the grassy knoll,

believing it to be the direction from which the shots that struck the Presi-

dent were fired.” MacNeil “saw several people running up the grassy

hill beside the road. I thought they were chasing whoever had done the

shooting and I ran after them.” 16

Anthony Summers noted that “a dozen people were actually on the

grassy knoll when the President was shot, and almost all of them believed

some of the gunfire came from behind them, high up on the knoll itself.”

Many were never called by the Warren Commission. These witnesses

included four women who worked at the
Dallas Morning News;
one of

them talked about “a horrible, ear-shattering noise coming from behind

us and a little to the right,” from behind the picket fence.17

Abraham Zapruder, filming the motorcade as he stood on a concrete

step on the knoll, testified that the shots “came from back of me.” On the

knoll steps, not far from Zapruder, Emmett Hudson said, “The shots that

I heard definitely came from behind and above me.” Photos and films

show a couple—the Newmans—and their two children on the knoll all

on the ground because, as Mr. Newman said later, “I thought the [first]

shot had come from the garden directly behind me,” and “it seemed that

we were in the direct path of fire.”18

Others in Dealey Plaza heard shots from the knoll as well. Jean Hill

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

was one of the closest witnesses to JFK when the shooting started. From

where she stood, Hill was looking at the knoll from the other side of the

street as her friend Mary Moorman took what would become a famous

Polaroid photo of JFK. Hill said, “I frankly thought they were coming

from the knoll . . . people shooting from the knoll.”19 Summers found

that “sixteen people, in or outside the Book Depository, indicated some

shooting came from the knoll. They included the Depository manager,

the superintendent, and two company vice presidents.”20

Six witnesses, including three in the motorcade, said they smelled

gunpowder around the knoll. They include Senator Ralph Yarborough,

Congressman Ray Roberts, the Dallas mayor’s wife, and two police

officers.21 Seven witnesses on the railroad bridge of the triple underpass

said they saw something that appeared to be smoke in the area of the

grassy knoll.22

It appears that those on or near the knoll tended to hear at least some

shots from there, while others farther away reported one or more shots

from the vicinity of the Book Depository. But even the number of shots

witnesses reported—two, three, four, even five or more shots—varied

widely. Several witnesses near the knoll said they heard only two shots,

perhaps indicating the number fired from there.23 In an interesting paral-

lel, investigator Josiah Thompson found that, “with no exceptions, all

those witnesses who were deep inside the Depository (either at work

or in hallways) report hearing fewer than three shots”—either just one

shot or two.24

Over the years, different investigators have created many charts, try-

ing to make the case for where most witnesses said the shots originated,

but this tactic is problematic for several reasons: Witnesses sometimes

changed or hedged their initial statements after “only three shots from

the Book Depository” became (in less than twenty-four hours) the offi-

cial story; others say authorities changed their statements to reflect that

official version; and others, like JFK aides David Powers and Kenneth

O’Donnell, say they were pressured to change their story about shots

from the knoll “for the good of the country.”

Our point is simply that there were many credible reports from the

start, including from officials and law enforcement, that some shots

came from the knoll. As events unfolded and suspicion finally fell on

the Book Depository, this evidence became a problem for officials in Dal-

las and Washington. More than one shooter would mean a much more

complicated case, with unknown suspects still at large, and no real leads.

Once a Book Depository suspect emerged who had seeming ties to both

Russia and Cuba, there were dangerous Cold War implications as well,

just a year after the tense standoff at the Missile Crisis. This accounts for

the fact that, within hours of the shooting, authorities began to ignore

or suppress evidence indicating a wider, more complicated case, even

as troubling reports of just such complexities rose through channels to

authorities in Washington. Such reports created concern at the highest

levels, especially among those who knew, or were just finding out, about

the JFK-Almeida coup and invasion plans. Because no official could

know where leads pointing toward more than one shooter might go,

both local and national law enforcement seemingly wanted to declare

“case closed” before the investigation really begun.

Even as crowds swarmed the area of the grassy knoll, a few people were

paying attention to the Book Depository. A man named Howard Bren-

nan, whose statements to authorities would be very inconsistent, later

became the star witness in making the case against Oswald. Though he

initially appeared to have gone toward the knoll after the shots, he later

claimed to have seen Oswald fire a shot from the Depository. As Anthony

Summers notes, Brennan couldn’t identify Oswald in a lineup on the

night of November 22, even though a month later he said he could, and

then, three weeks after that, said he wasn’t sure. Finally, Brennan told

the Warren Commission he was sure he had seen Oswald in the Deposi-

tory window, even though Brennan’s vision was questionable. Also, the

initial lookout for a suspect, apparently based on Brennan’s descrip-

tion of the man in the window, was for a man older and heavier than

Oswald.25 (As noted earlier, the lookout issued in Tampa on November

18 fit Oswald much more closely.)

Still, two other witnesses say they saw “a rifle being pulled back

from a window” in the Book Depository. One was
Dallas Times Herald

photographer Bob Jackson, who would later win a Pulitzer Prize for

his famous photo of Ruby shooting Oswald. The other was WFAA-TV

cameraman Malcolm Couch, who was riding with Jackson in the press

car, five cars behind JFK. Couch said he saw about a foot of rifle being

pulled back into the window. (A shooter wouldn’t need to extend the

rifle out of the window at all in order to fire at JFK—unless he wanted to

call attention to his position.) Neither Couch nor Jackson immediately

contacted police about what they had seen, which even a Warren Com-

mission counsel considered unusual, especially for a newsman. Also,

when Couch tried to tell the Warren Commission that TV reporter Wes

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Wise had seen Jack Ruby near the Book Depository “moments after the

shooting,” the Commission dismissed the statement as hearsay. (Wise,

who later became mayor of Dallas, was never called to testify.)26

In contrast to the rush toward the grassy knoll, only one policeman,

Marion Baker, headed into the Book Depository. His attention had been

drawn to it because he saw a flock of pigeons fly from the roof, and he

wanted to check it out for a possible sniper. As author Michael Benson

summarized, based on testimony and documents, Baker first encoun-

tered Book Depository manager Roy Truly, who told the officer to follow

him. (Truly initially thought the shooting had come from the area of the

knoll.) However, both elevators were stuck on upper floors, so Baker

took the stairs to the second floor, with Truly following. On the second

floor, “between seventy-five and ninety seconds after the assassina-

tion,” Officer Baker glimpsed Oswald “standing near a Coke machine

in the building’s lunchroom.” Baker ordered Oswald to “come here.”

Baker then asked Truly if he knew the man; Truly said he did, and that

Oswald worked for him. Baker and Truly then continued up the stairs.

About thirty seconds later, “Oswald was seen drinking a Coke by Mrs.

Elizabeth Reid,” who worked on that floor. Officer Baker’s initial report

stated that Oswald had been “drinking a Coke,” though those words

were later scratched out. Both “Reid and [Officer] Baker reported that

Oswald was not breathing hard.” It’s unlikely Oswald could have raced

down all seventy-two steps of the eight flights of stairs from the far

corner of the sixth floor, and gotten a Coke, in the seventy-five to ninety

seconds since the last shot, especially since the “sniper’s nest” was on

the opposite corner of the building from the stairs.27

Meanwhile, at the back entrance to the Book Depository, James Wor-

rell saw a man in a dark sports jacket and lighter-colored pants emerge

and then run down Houston Street. Worrell later told police and the

Warren Commission that the man was in his early thirties, 5’ 8” to 5’

10,” with dark hair and of average weight. Another witness saw a man

he’d noticed earlier, in an upper floor of the Depository, “walking very

fast” south on Houston Street. The man eventually got into a Rambler

station wagon driven by a black man. Two other witnesses reported see-

ing someone enter a similar car from the front of the Depository, and one

witness—a Dallas deputy—said it was driven by a black man.28

It’s easy to document the time Oswald left the Depository, because

he met newsman Robert MacNeil on his way out of the building. After

checking out the area behind the grassy knoll, MacNeil tried to find a

phone so he could file his report. He wrote that he “ran . . . into the first

building I came to that looked as though it might have a phone . . . the

Texas School Book Depository. As I ran up the steps and through the

door, a young man in shirt sleeves was coming out. In great agitation

I asked him where there was a phone. He pointed inside to an open

space, where another man was talking on a phone. . . . ”29 Within about

a minute, MacNeil found an open phone, and, as a recent article by Don

Thomas noted, “MacNeil called NBC headquarters in New York, and

the tape of the call has MacNeil saying that ‘police chased an unknown

gunman up a grassy hill.” According to phone billing records, MacNeil

made the call at 12:34, meaning Oswald left the building at 12:33 (the

shooting occurred at 12:30, and the encounter with Officer Baker hap-

pened between 12:31 and 12:32, all Central time).30

That’s the last definite timing for Oswald until his capture at the Texas