The Day Kennedy Was Shot (83 page)

“What's the matter?” he said. “Aren't you happy here?” Kilduff said that indeed he was; he would like nothing better than to continue serving the President, but he had been told that one man had to be cut from the roster. “Forget it,” the President said. “I'll take care of this when we get back from Texas.”

Kilduff sat at his desk wondering who had won this tiny political battle in a world of politics. Kennedy was gone and so, except for the sufferance of Lyndon Baines Johnson, was everyone else. On the plane this afternoon, Malcolm Kilduff had tried to bridge the gap between the rancorous Kennedys and the bustling Johnsons. He had run the errands faithfully, delivering messages and responses to messages.

At one point, he had paused beside the seat of Kenneth O'Donnell. A few feet away was the casket containing Kennedy. The appointments secretary had taken Kilduff by the arm and pointed to the broad back of Lyndon Johnson. “He's got what he wants now,” O'Donnell murmured. “We take it back in '68.”

The office lights remained on. No reporter buzzed Kilduff or asked for an anecdote to sweeten a bitter story. There was nothing to say and no one to whom to say it. Kilduff got his jacket from a rack and put it on. He glanced at one of those smiling photos and said a silent “Good-bye.”

The room was twice as long as it was wide and, when the lights went on and the two doors were flung open, it was as though sluice gates had been lifted. A swirling foam of faces poured in. The tide knocked over chairs. A small table was slammed into an abutment. A one-way screen, behind which witnesses might study a suspect, was rolled to one side and came to rest against a wall. Uniformed policemen walked backward before the wave yelling: “Take it easy! Take it easy!” Men with still cameras took positions along the side walls or down front. A television camera in the rear lifted one large dark eye above the crowd.

The voices became a bedlam. The demands and complaints blended into a solid roar of incomprehensible sound. The police assembly room was filled in a minute and the wave seemed to curl backward, shoving those at the doors out into the hall. There was a rostrum up front and Assistant Chief Charles Batchelor stood on the low platform and shouted for order. He could not be heard. In the hall Lieutenant T. B. Leonard, leaving for home with Lieutenant George Butler, stood on tiptoe. Batchelor saw them and motioned wildly for them to come in and assist him. Jack Ruby, pressed against the little table at the abutment, climbed on it and crouched with his back to the wall. He could see over the heads, and he was only eleven feet from the rostrum. The sound was deafening, and the press shouted to itself to keep quiet.

On the third floor Fritz said he wanted all of
his
men in that room, and they dropped their assignments to hurry down. Chief Curry was worried, tossed between duty and a public
image. He sensed that the two were not compatible. The dour expression was on the little man. He saw Detectives Sims and Boyd flanking Oswald, and the chief said: “Don't let anybody get near him or touch him. If anyone tries to, I want you fellows to get him out of there immediately.” Curry laid good groundwork for his defense. In the third-floor hall twenty minutes ago, when the press conference had been suggested, he had asked Wade: “Do you think this is all right?” The district attorney had shrugged and said: “I don't see anything wrong with it.” Curry had held up both hands for the press to be quiet, and he had said: “——anything goes wrong with his being down there—if there's a rush, he's immediately going out and that's it. Now, do we understand each other?” The reporters shouted: “Right! Yes! Right!” One more thing: the chief did not want the prisoner to stand up on the rostrum. “Put him down in front of it, on the floor, and put a guard of men around him.”

There was a mutual distrust among the savages. Oswald, standing quietly between the detectives, understood the situation. This was not one more lineup; it was a press conference. It may have been pleasing to him. He uttered no protest. The press conference was the only way in which he could restore contact with the world. He could use it to serve his ends, as the police were using it to serve theirs, and the press hoped it would satisfy theirs.

In the front of the assembly room, Wade sat on a desk, dangling his legs. He was a man almost impervious to danger, but he had an uneasy feeling that there was no way out of this room. It was a mob, pressed face-to-face. Without the pencils, the pads, the portable tapes, and the cameras, the faces might have been cast in a motion picture about a lynching. They were angry faces, and they pressed forward and receded in waves. The district attorney shouted to a policeman: “You'd better get some officers in here to protect him!”

The tall solemn figure of Captain Will Fritz could be seen in
the hall. He tried to elbow his way into the room, but he failed. A dozen detectives, preceded by the chief, forced their way into the front of the big room with Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a bobbing figure in a vortex of police helmets and ten-gallon hats. Wade saw them coming and waved the reporters back from the rostrum. He saw one lined face above the crowd, over in a corner, and absentmindedly wondered where he had seen it before. It was probably some local reporter or radio commentator. In the hall, Will Fritz still hoped that Curry would put Oswald up on the stage. He would be out of arm's reach of the press, and besides he could be yanked offstage into the prison admitting office in a trice. Curry told the police to put Oswald down front. The wall of protection around the prisoner kept the reporters three feet away.

The inner circle of policemen began to jostle policemen already in the room. There wasn't sufficient space to step out of the way. A roar of sound enveloped the room as the crowd saw Lee Harvey Oswald. Still cameras were held overhead and aimed in the direction of the protective circle around the prisoner. The place smelled of stale sweat and fetid breath. When the prisoner was in front of the lectern, the press yelled to the police: “Down in front! Down in front! Let's get a look at him. Is this the guy, chief? Did he do it? We can't hear anything. Hey, Oswald, why did you shoot Kennedy? How about a statement?”

Ruby, crouched on the little table, saw the police guard flex their knees and he studied Oswald closely. There was a purplish bruise under one eye. The prisoner had not uttered a word, but the nightclub owner interpreted Oswald's expression as being “proud of what he had done.” He thought that the suspect was smirking. Oswald acknowledged the greeting of the mob by raising both manacled hands over his head. Jack Ruby saw it as a clenched-fist communist salute.

In a doorway, Gregory Olds watched. He could hear unintelligible shouts. Near the director of the Dallas branch of
the American Civil Liberties Union stood a law professor from Southern Methodist University named Webster. Another authority on law, Greer Ragio, stood nearby. Henry Wade noticed them and cupped his hands to ask Chief Curry about Oswald's civil rights. The chief said that “those people” had been given an opportunity to talk to the prisoner.

“Well, I was questioned . . .” Oswald began. The crowd yelled: “Louder! Louder!” The cordon of policemen around the prisoner began to tense. They looked for a nod from someone to take the prisoner out of the room. “Well, I was questioned,” the prisoner said louder, and his voice began to crack with the volume. “I was questioned by a judge.” The crowd began to grow quiet. Those who continued to yell “Louder!” were told to “Shut up!”

Every eye was on Oswald. He could read the expressions. They were not friendly to his cause. The objective press was subjective. It was a hanging jury. “However, I protested at the time that I was not allowed legal representation during that very short and sweet hearing.” They had no time for his protests or his sarcasm. “Did you do it?” they yelled. “Did you shoot the President?”

“I really don't know what the situation is about,” he said calmly. “Nobody has told me anything except that I am accused of—” The voice faltered. “—of murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that. I do request someone to come forward to give me legal assistance.” No one stepped forward. His problems about lawyers were not their concern. What they came for was
the story.
It wasn't Tippit; it was Kennedy. The press was determined to try anew, before this man was yanked offstage.

“Did you kill the President?” It was a simple question and it ran through the room from a dozen lips. Oswald shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “I have not been charged with that. In fact, nobody has said that to me yet.” He was in a position
to appear aggrieved. “The first thing I heard about it,” he said, almost plaintively, “was when the newspaper reporters in the hall asked me that question.”

“You have been charged—” “Nobody said what?” “Sir?” said Oswald. “What happened to your eye?” “When were you in Russia?” “Mr. Oswald, how did you hurt your eye?” The press in the rear began to shout to the press in front to repeat the questions and answers. Oswald said: “A policeman hit me.” Some of the reporters, crouched low in the front line, began to cramp. A few straightened their knees furtively. The chief nodded to a detective.

Oswald was grasped by the arm. The press conference was over. The cordon was tight around him, and the police began to propel the suspect toward the door. A radio commentator held a microphone to his lips and said: “That was Oswald, Lee Oswald, who was charged with the murder of the President of the United States, although he said he did not know it. He's being taken back upstairs, he's being taken back upstairs for further investigation, as Henry Wade pointed out earlier.”

The interview was a failure. The big question had been answered with “No.” His plea for counsel was a legal complaint and added no substance to the material of the story. The press might have protested that the interview was a mockery, but they had made a fiasco of it and they were silent. Some left the room running to file late stories. Others remained because they saw Henry Wade remain. It was possible that something could be salvaged by staging a conference with the district attorney.

Wade was accustomed to the give-and-take of reporters. He could handle “the boys.” As the chief law enforcement officer of Dallas County, his concern would have to be with possibly prejudicing the rights of the defendant to a fair trial. He could snap “No comment” to any question which held a hint of danger. He lowered his head as he sat on the edge of the desk and swung a big foot off the floor.

”He's been formally charged in Precinct Two of Dallas County Judge David Johnston,” he said in the toneless tone of one who has been through this situation many times. “He's been taken before the judge and advised of his rights. He's been charged with both killing Officer Tippit and John F. Kennedy. . . .” The reporters formed a tight scimitar. “Can you tell us any of the evidence against him so far, sir?” The D.A. shook his head. “No. We are still working on the evidence. This has been a joint effort by the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Dallas Police Department, the Dallas Sheriff's Office, my office, and Captain Will Fritz has been in charge of it.”

All the credits had been pronounced. Some of the reporters wrote them. Some stared dully at the man. “What does he tell you about the killing of the President? Does he volunteer anything or what has he got to—?” “He denies it.” “Was he charged with the President's killing?” All of the networks remembered Oswald shouting that he had not heard that charge. “11:26
P.M.”
Wade said. “11:26 he was charged on the latter charge. . . .”

“Do you have a good case?” “I figure,” said Wade, squinting, “we have sufficient evidence to convict him.” He could have chosen to ignore the question. “Are there other people involved?” “There is no one else but him.” The reporters were still copying the words when the district attorney said: “—he has been charged in the Supreme Court with murder with malice. The charge carries the death penalty, which my office will ask in both cases.” For a time it appeared that Mr. Wade could anticipate the kind of material the reporters hoped for and enunciate it without waiting for a question. “Is there a similar federal charge?” “I don't know of any.”

The pencils and pens were whirling. “Well,” said Wade, “there is a lot of the physical evidence that was gathered, including the gun, that is on its way by Air Force jet to the FBI crime lab in Washington. It will be back here tomorrow. There are some other things that is going to delay this for probably
the middle of next week before it's presented to the grand jury.” Someone asked about witnesses. “We have approximately fifteen witnesses.” “Who,” said a reporter, trying to complete Wade's sentence for him, “identified him as the killer of the President?” “I didn't say that,” the district attorney snapped. “What did they do?” “They have evidence which indicates his guilt.” “Do you have anything to indicate why the man killed the President, if he so did?” “Well,” said Wade, “he was a member of the movement—the Free Cuba movement.” “Fair Play for Cuba,” said Ruby. He had heard it on the radio. “What's the make of the rifle, sir?” “It's a Mauser, I believe.”

“Does he have a lawyer?” “I don't know whether he has or not. His mother has been here and his brother has been here all afternoon.” Sometimes the leonine face came up, and the D.A. studied the faces around him as a gambler might a marked deck. “Does he appear sane to you?” “Yes, he does.”

“Why do you think he would want to kill the President?” Motive is important, but the D.A. decided to forget it. “The only thing I do,” he said with exaggerated patience, “is take the evidence, present it to a jury, and I don't pass on why he did it or anything else. We, we're just interested in proving that he did it, which I think we have.” The questions dragged on. Some involved vital statistics. Others asked about the gun which was alleged to have killed Officer Tippit.