November 22nd and The Warren Report

because of the following special program sunday with jack benny ted mac in the original amateur hour the 20th century and mr ed will not be seen today but will return next week at their regular times on most of these stations you are watching an official reenactment of the murder of president john f kennedy filmed from the window where the alleged assassin crouched and through the telescopic sight of his rifle this is a cbs news extra november 22nd and the warren report here is cbs news correspondent walter cronkite november 22nd president john fitzgerald kennedy was shot to death in full view of hundreds of spectators watching him in a dallas texas motorcade 48 hours later the man dallas police said shot the president lee harvey oswald was himself killed by jack ruby in full view of millions of americans watching television this bizarre sequence of double killings raised great questions who actually fired the shots that killed kennedy why did ruby shoot oswald was there a conspiracy were right-wingers involved was it a russian plot a cuban plot the new president lyndon johnson ordered these questions answered he appointed a commission of seven prominent americans to investigate the whole affair he literally drafted supreme court justice earl warren as chairman this committee labored ten months took testimony from hundreds of witnesses then brought forth a document close to a thousand pages the report is signed by earl warren chief justice of the united states richard b russell senator from georgia john sherman cooper senator from kentucky hail boggs representative from louisiana gerald r ford representative from michigan alan w dulles ex-head of the cia john j mccloy diplomat and presidential advisor president johnson received that report on thursday he specified that it be made public today at 6 30 p.m eastern daylight saving 30 cbs news will reveal the substance of that report during this two-hour broadcast there will be no commercial announcements months ago long before the commission finished its work cbs news set out to interview the key witnesses who appeared before the commission those officially involved in the warren commission's investigations the fbi men the secret service agents in all propriety declined to talk before our cameras but the dozens of ordinary men and women whose lives had become deeply involved but the story of the president's death told us basically the same stories that they told the warren commission among these witnesses the wife the mother the best friend the boarding house keeper the police chief the boss the fellow workers the girls who took a picture the governor the rifle range manager the bus driver the cab driver the woman who saw a policeman tippet shot the clerk who spotted a suspect the officer who captured lee harvey oswald the assassination of president kennedy was inevitably a mystery story on a grand scale on the scene covering the events of those dark days with cbs news correspondent dan ratt during the last five months cbs news has been filming interviews with people involved in the kennedy and oswald murder stories all of these people were principal witnesses for the warren commission the cbs news interviews were conducted by eddie barker news director for cbs affiliate krld tv in dallas he too was an on-the-scene reporter for radio and television during those days the story is essentially that of two men whose paths came a fatal 270 feet apart on a friday afternoon last november one man was president kennedy halfway through a triumphant tour of texas he had decided on the trip against the advice of some texas friends who thought he might not get a warm welcome but the texas trip had gone well there had been wildly enthusiastic crowds in san antonio houston and fort worth and even in dallas where political feeling ran strongly against mr kennedy the magic of his name and the prestige of his office brought out a huge warm crowd among that crowd was a man named gospel a man who all his life had stood a little apart from society he had served in the marines then suddenly gone to russia defected then changed his mind with financial assistance from the american embassy he returned 32 months later with a russian wife marina he had trouble getting a job and got involved in a pro castro movement in new orleans last november oswald was working in dallas in a building beneath which the presidential motorcade was to pass what was oswald's background few people really knew among those called for warren commission testimony on the subject were oswald's wife his mother and mrs ruth payne in whose home marina oswald and her children stayed first with eddie barker the mother margaritas he was a happy lucky youngster actually he had a dog he had a bicycle he belonged to the y he used to go to the bar and go swimming i knew many a time while at work he'd come in to see me from the y ring and wet and be in the wintertime and i'd tell him he was going to catch cold because his hair was still wet like all boys he wouldn't dry himself thoroughly he loved to play monopoly he knew any and everything there was to know about animals he studied animals was often in the zoo and as we know he was picked up in the bronx zoo while in new york uh playing hooky from school and i consider that normal also playing hooky from school many many boys do this we know and it's sad and unfortunate that lee was deprived of his father and he was born two months after his father had expired but we must understand that lee had two brothers so he was not raised just with the woman alone mrs oswald how old was lee when he went in the marine corps elie was exactly 17 years old when he went in the marine corps he enlisted on his birthday mrs oswalt why do you think your son went to russia i think my son was sent to russia you see lee knew russian fluently read and write he filed an application for albert schweitzer school and on the application i have an original application it stated that i speak and write russian where did he learn this this is what i was going to tell you he learned this while in the marines because lee was in the marines and only out three days when he went to russia so lee had to learn this while in the marines what did you think about your son marrying a russian girl well to me a russian girl any foreign girl a negro or just any human being live and breathe just like i do and so it made no difference to me that he married a russian girl i believe that lee was told to marry the russian girl he probably loved her and was going with her because he knew her six weeks when he married her but i think that he had orders from the state department to marry the russian girl mrs oswald do you feel that your son was an agent of the cia yes it's not that i feel that he was an agent of the cia it's because i have so much correspondence with the state department plus the letters that lee wrote to me from russia that indicates that he wasn't an agent of our government definitely did he ever animate to you in any way that he was an agent of the government no and there again this is lee's disposition he wouldn't tell a mother that he was working for the government possibly he might think that i might give the secret away i'm under the impression that when you are a cia or any uh undercover agent then naturally you're a little secret about it and the boy wouldn't tell me that this mrs oswald's opinions about her son and his career are the same she says she expressed to the warren commission the two most important questions she raises are what was oswald doing in russia and was he at any time an agent of the united states or the soviet government there are other interesting and vital questions involved in this matter of oswald's relations with our government in order to leave russia he borrowed 435 dollars from the state department in order to get a new passport he needed to repay it he repaid it in full while working sporadically at a dollar fifty an hour barely enough to support his family and in june of last year oswald applied for a passport to various countries of europe including russia he received that passport in just one day with his record how did he get one so fast we'll have the war in commissions answers when the report is made public in an hour and a quarter now for more testimony from witnesses who appeared before the commission and were interviewed later by cbs news here again is dan rather lee harvey oswal lived last november in a dallas boarding house under an assumed name his family lived in a dallas suburb in the home of their best friend mrs ruth payne what did she think of the oscars in the spring i felt that that he didn't care that i all i knew really about him was that he wanted her to be sent back to the soviet union and she didn't want to go and it was knowing this really that led to my first inviting her to stay with me feeling that it was somehow inhospitable not to offer her an alternative when she didn't want to go back and i thought very ill of him that he was wanting to send her back as you look back on your uh knowing lee harvey oswald did he ever appear to be irrational in any way how would you describe him in that sense i would say he never appeared to be irrational no i i thought of him as a an unhappy person a person dissatisfied with the life he was leading and with the society he was in i think he had been just as dissatisfied in russia as he was here as i understand that the rifle that he used in the assassination of the president was stored in your garage is this correct well from what's happened since i judged so uh i didn't know that he had a gun i would have not wanted him to keep it here if i had known the rifle which oswald carries so proudly in this photograph was italian war surplus bought by oswald under an assumed name from a mail order house the rifle and the scope site cost him 19.95 his wife had good reason to remember it he uh come in the house 11 30. he was so pale nervous and don't talk i said what happened to him and he said he told i tried to chat general walker and i asked him who who is general walker and he told me he was fascist and ask him if he had wife and children and say no he's single he said but this does not make a difference this is not way to show for wrong or right hold wrong right and he told me if hitler was shot before war this was better for most people did you ever see the wreck yes but i you know i fear the fear to take this rifle i just saw you know in the corner i never don't touch this rifle did you see the pistol yes where did he keep the pistol in his room and he don't like if i clean his roman he don't want if i see everything what he have in his room and he'll keep closed in the spring of 1963 oswald signed his membership card in the fair play for cuba committee with an alias this was in new orleans where he had found a job and to where he had moved marina he spent hours passing out pamphlets on new orleans streets for the fair play committee but he lost his job and in september only two months before the assassination mrs payne drove the family back to dallas i thought of him as a dissenter a pamphlet passer person not contented with society as it was nor with himself nor his uh i don't know the credit he was getting for being the sort of person he was i think he felt he wasn't noticed or given sufficient uh credit his uh wife complained of him as uh having an overblown opinion of himself and i think he did he was not a particularly capable person and he certainly had very little training so that he was not able to get jobs that interested him he was lucky indeed to get any job he argued some with his wife i never saw him violent with her he was here a guest and recognized that fact polite to me at all times and i could see that he cared about marina a great deal i really felt that she was his only human contact of real value to him he was by himself a great deal he didn't try to make friends but he valued his closeness with morena and knew that she was a good wife for him during the last weeks of his life oswald lived in this rooming house a few miles from downtown dallas the housekeeper mrs roberts recalled her lodger well tell me about the first time you ever saw o.h lee well he came in in the afternoon around four uh between three and four o'clock we i wanted to rent a room i had one little small room this little eight dollar room and he taken it and raised his 0-8 league what did he say when he came in when i see the room that i had for rent and i showed him knowing when i just washed the ramp and he taken it she won't be closer to his work but he didn't have the job then at that texas bookstore he got it that day him went to work next morning did he pay his rent on time oh yes i'll accept but one week in and that was when uh on our mister's day and he come back in and says i had a long weekend which is on tuesday and paid his rent he always paid on monday afternoon when he come in what did you talk to him about when he paid the rent well i'd just uh take it and i'd say thank you and he'd turn and walk off and never say nothing now you didn't get a good grudge out of you those stories raise some more questions with which the warren commission report will deal did he own the rifle and pistol used in the double murders did he actually try to kill retired general edwin walker oswald got a job in the texas school book depository on the corner of elm and houston streets there have been published reports supposing that he may have been planted in that building by conspirators who wanted him there where he could fire the president or to get others in positions to do so but these witnesses before the warren commission told another version of how and why oswald was employed mrs payne who knew odds will needed a job mrs lenny may randall who knew where he might get one from roy s truly at the texas school book depository mrs payne did you help him obtain the job that he had at the texas school book depository well it came about through a coincidence i was having coffee with a neighbor marina was there also lee had spent a week unsuccessfully looking for a job in dallas and this was a monday and my neighbor and i marina were all talking about this difficulty how hard it was for him since he for one thing was not able to drive couldn't get too good many jobs might be available and a third neighbor who was there suggested that there might be an opening at the school book depository i did not know there was a job open there but since my brother had got work there i thought there might be another opening there when lee called at the house that evening monday evening i told him about this possibility and he applied the next day and was accepted so he came down and filled out an application i interviewed him he seemed to be uh well-mannered quiet and intelligent young fella he stated to me and also put on his application that he had been serving in the marines and had an honorable discharge he was in good physical shape had been in no trouble and needed the job needed to go to work to support his family so i told him that uh after talking with him that we had some temporary work but i would try him on it if he cared to go to work in the warehouse the question basic in those interviews is how did oswald come to be in a position where he could shoot the president of course that question is bound up with the much larger one concerning a possible conspiracy by others to have oswald or to help him perform the d the war on report will answer lee harvey oswald was known to the fbi in dallas and fbi agent james hostie had visited marina just a few weeks before the assassination according to one explanation published after the shooting that check for the fbi was considered a routine one not connected with the approaching trip of the president but was information about us will passed on by the fbi to the secret service only the warren commission report can answer that was fbi information an aussie given to dallas police eddie barker asked police chief jesse curry had the dallas police department uh ever heard of lee harvey oswald prior to november we didn't we did not have any um information on this man in our criminal intelligence file and that's normally where it would have been and our subversive file as we refer to and captain pat gunaway dallas police intelligence officer first time i heard the name lee harvey oswald was on the afternoon of the 22nd of november 1963. a most obvious question why weren't the dallas police warned about oswald and did the fbi and secret service exchange information about oswald the warren report must answer these questions and go on to the larger subject of the whole process of protecting the president during his texas trip and other trips including the rules and the roles of local police the secret service which has always had the primary duty of guarding presidents and the fbi their roles and missions in relation to what happened in dallas are expected to result in recommendations for changes in the way presidents are protected since he lived in dallas not far from his job at the book depository and his family lived 15 miles away with mrs payne out in the suburb of irving oswald used to ride out to the payne home on friday nights with a fellow worker wesley frazier he usually stayed in irving during the weekend and returned to the book depository with frasier on monday mornings but one week in november his routine changed he come to me thursday november the 21st and asked me could he uh ride home with me that afternoon and i said well yes and i said well why are you going home this afternoon and he replied that he wanted to go home and pick up some curtain rods where he could put some curtains up in his apartment and i said oh very well and then i said uh well will you be going home with me tomorrow also and he said no he said he wouldn't be going home with me on the 22nd so he told you that he wanted to come out there and pick up some curtain rods this was on thursday morning yes and at that time he told you that he would not ride home with you friday night right why did oswald want to go to irving thursday what was in the parcel he carried on the evening of november 21st president kennedy arrived at the texas hotel in fort worth where he was to spend the night before continuing on to dallas and austin the next morning and lee osborne was with his wife and children in irving the next day was november 22nd few americans would ever forget where they were and what they were doing that day when the warren commission started trying to reconstruct the who what when and where of that black friday in dallas these were the key witnesses police chief curry in the lead car the presidential motorcade texas governor connolly who was with the president in the car behind three of the men at the book depository james jarmon harold norman and bonnie ray williams all three of them would be watching from the fifth floor as this dramatic picture taken a few moments after the assassination later showed howard l brennan who was standing across from the book depository he saw the fatal shot fired from a sixth floor window mary moorman and gene hill the two young dallas women who wanted a snapshot of the president and got one exactly when the shooting started police officer james foster who was on guard at the railroad overpass and the voices of dallas policemen for every time a radio message went between the squad cars and the headquarters it was tape recorded lee harvey oswald was driven from suburban irving to downtown dallas the morning of november 22nd by his co-worker wesley fresher they talked about the rain and they talked about babies oswald had a package of what he said were curtain rods as oswald and frazier drove and talked president kennedy was talking at a breakfast in fort worth introduced myself in paris by saying that i was the man who had accompanied mrs kennedy to paris i'm getting that somewhat that same sensation as i travel around texas nobody wonders what lyndon and i wear mr president we know that you don't wear a hat they couldn't let you leave fort worth without providing you with some protection against the rain like i'll put it on in the white house on monday if you'll come up there you'll have a chance to see it there outside the sun was about to break through the drizzle from fort worth the kennedys flew to dallas with them was governor connolly the story he told the warren commission he repeated to eddie barker how about the plane trip over from fort worth to dallas were you uh with the president during yes uh i was with the president from the time he arrived in san antonio on the 21st uh traveling the car with him at all times and miss connolly and i did and we flew over from fort worth with him and he he was jubilant about the reception he had you see at fort worth this was the third stop we'd made and uh we were all eagerly awaiting arrival in dallas which we didn't talk about much as you well know because it's not a very long flight in the 707 from from dallas from fort worth to dallas almost half of the presidents in this century have been targets for would-be assassins but to president kennedy this was a risk that had to be taken and arriving in dallas he took it he loved to mingle in crowds it seemed to give him new spirit and sustenance and he thought a president should see and be seen by the people he did not want risk to force him into a closed protected automobile and since the rain had stopped there was no other reason for using one so in an open convertible the kennedys sat on the back seat the connelly's on the middle or jump seat and the motorcade stopped we received as warm as enthusiastic as spontaneous a reception as we did in any city in the state and it was really wonderful to the point where just as we turned down by the courthouse nelly turned around and and said to the president uh she she was so impressed by the warmth of the reception she turned around and said to the president but you can't say that uh that dallas doesn't love you too and uh he said no i think that's a and all words to that effect everything's in good shape traffic's moving well crime is not any crowd on the side of the street good crowd along the edges of the barricades well it was me that had made the remark this remark well in five minutes we'll have it over with meaning that we were five minutes away from the trademark i noticed this one man on the sixth floor of the texas bookstore and by himself well he uh left the window a couple of times in the course of uh seven eight or ten minutes the time was almost 12 30 the motorcade would turn and turn again at the book depository there three of the employees were watching from windows on the fifth floor oswald according to dallas police was one floor above hidden behind a stack of cartons right across the street was a low concrete wall and there mr brennan was sitting he would see the president clearly and also see the book repository having made the turn the motorcade would go on down elm street here two young women waited with a polaroid camera and they would have their pictures just seconds after the president passed from there the motorcade went beneath the railway overpass on that overpass was dallas policeman james foster he had already checked the identity of the men working on the overpass the motorcade made the first turn i figured the president was getting close it wouldn't be too long before i get to see the president and when he turned uh down houston street well i saw him and he seemed to be very happy cheerful and he was enjoying the applause and the cheer that the people were giving him then uh the motorcade got to l and it turned and started towards the uh triple underpass the failure that he was waving at people as he was buying you know whatever occasionally he would burst his hair back the last thing i saw the president do was put his head back and the only comments that we made about the president was that his tan was beautiful and also his house was looking good that day i made the remark that matt that's a beautiful car isn't it and hank said yes it is as i sure would like to have something like that in just about that time we heard the sirens and everything began to pick up and everyone was so excited and as they came down the motorcade came down the slope uh we all got caught up in this the thrill of going we're going to see a president and i stepped out into the street so i took the camera and aimed it oh focused it and stood there and looked through it for quite a few seconds because i wanted to be sure that they were looking at me and uh as i followed it for oh so many seconds and then i did take the picture just as the shutter snapped there was a shot and this is what mrs moorman found in her polaroid camera i heard this shot and i say shot because i immediately thought it was a shot i immediately thought it was a rifle shot i've hunted a great deal in my life i fired a rifle many times and and i thought it was a rifle shot uh why i don't know but i immediately thought uh of an assassination attempt uh it's the only thing that crossed my mind uh fear just uh swept through me and i i may immediately thought of him of course i was sitting on the jump seat uh in this seven passenger car immediately in front of him and i turned thinking that the shot had come from back over my right shoulder and i turned to look in that direction i think motivated by two things first to see if i could see where the shot came from see if i could see anything unusual but equally or more important to me at that moment in my thought processes was a desire to see him see if anything had happened see if he was all right so i turned and i obviously saw nothing but a a tremendous crowd of people from from where we had just come and i saw nothing unusual nothing out of the way except people also had startled looks on their faces they were turning they were looking uh and i didn't catch him in the corner of my eye so i was in the process of turning to my left to look back over my left shoulder to see if i could see him in the back seat and that's when i felt the impact of the bullet that hit me there was no there was no great pain uh uh associated with the the bullet that hit me notwithstanding it went in my back shoulder and came out my chest right here i felt as if someone had just hit me in the back a sharp blow with a doubled up fist it was an impact rather than any sort of of a searing pain it more or less knocked me over uh at least enough to where i looked down and of course i was i was covered with blood and frankly thought that i had been fatally hit i i said as i recall my god they're going to kill us all so there was no there was no thought in my mind really but what this was an assassination a tip i did not hear the second shot the one that hit me i understand there's some uh some question in the minds of the experts about whether or not we could both have been hit with the same bullet and that was the first bullet uh i just don't happen to believe that i don't believe it i will believe it because again i heard the first shot i recognized it for what i thought it was i had time to turn uh to try to see what had happened i was in the process of turning again before i felt the impact of a bullet now obviously if the bullet that hit me hit me before i could hear it i was never conscious of the sound of the second bullet at all i never heard the second bullet after i said my god they're going to kill us all i of course didn't know that they'd actually hit the president because i had not seen him he had not said a word we had a second shot and that's when i recognized all the people started falling on the ground so we said well someone's shooting at the president and then at first we didn't believe because it just seemed so untrue you know and then uh the uh the other fella uh harold norman said yes i believe it's been chatted and i think everybody then knew that this was not firecrackers or torpedoes up in the railroad yards but that it was shots then i whirled around and fell on the ground and i told my friend i said gent those are shots they're shooting go down and some people were falling to the ground and pushing their children and covering them but before the third child was fired i told the guys that i you know believe this shot came from a building above us and uh eventually i guess they agree with because one guy said i believe you're right and i said i know i'm right because i could hear something sound as though the holes were hitting the floor and i could hear the projection of the rifle it was clicked like that you know then after all that uh i noticed monterey had uh some debris in his head james german said that uh he um i had this uh cement in my head and that he saw that you know so therefore that was caused by some kind of uh loud sound or something that took the old building to make this fall down to my head and therefore we decided it really came from sixth floor because the only floor above us was the sixth floor about this time i looked back in the rearview mirror and i could see that there was some commotion in the president's car and about that time one of the i could see that it was speeding up also and about that time uh nelly pulled me down into i had turned again in reaction to this this bullet and it turned facing my right she pulled me over into her lap and put her head down on top of mine and just kept uh kept talking to me and and saying you're gonna be all right you're gonna be all right i was conscious the whole time i never lost consciousness and i was lying there and heard the third shot now it takes a long time to tell this eddie but this all happened as you well know in a matter of seconds i heard the third shot very distinctly i heard it hit i assumed that it hit the president it obviously did i looked directly across and up possibility of a 45 degree angle and this man same man i had saw prior to the president's arrival was in the window and taking aim for his last shot after he fired the last or the third shot of he didn't seem to be in a great rush hurry he uh seemed to pause for a moment to see if for sure he accomplished his purpose and he brought the gun back to rest in upright position as though he was satisfied his arm flew up and you know his hair kind of jumped and uh it heard that the president's head just exploded but i did not see it hitting but i heard it hit and uh you obviously again if you ever done any firing uh even at 200 or 300 yards when you fire a rifle uh at a deer uh you you know from the sound of that shell the whine of it whether or not it hit its target or whether it didn't makes a difference sound well obviously the bullet the third shot hit something and it was very obvious after that because the evidence was splattered all over the car and all over my clothes and all over nelly and and so there was there was no question about what had happened i my eyes were open i was conscious i saw the two secret service men in the front seat i heard what they said what did they say uh roy kellerman who was in the right front uh between the the second and the third shot between the time i was hit and between the time the third shot uh both the driver and roy were looking back into the back seat to see what had happened this was all again happening in a matter of seconds and they they both had a look of almost consternation on their face roy in the right seat turned around on a radio communications obviously working something on his on the panel of the car and said get out of the line or something to the driver words to that effect get out of the line and then he said apparently over the radio get us to a hospital quick we saw the people's writing and some people with hollering and everything you know like that and the policeman seemed like they was confused because they were running in the wrong direction they were running towards the uh railroad tracks officer foster was there any doubt in your mind about the direction from which those shots came also though not up to i had moved to the railway uh there was no doubt that the shots were coming from back to the northern cage on houston the secret service man asked me for a description i gave him a description of a man in his early 30s wearing light khaki colored clothing high five foot nine or ten weighing 170 pounds about this time one of my motorcycle officers rode up the side of me and and i asked him what had occurred back there if that was shots and he said yes and i said was anybody hit and he said yes i'm sure they were and uh so i told on the radio and told my dispatcher to notify parkland hospital that we were in route code 3 to stand by for an emergency entrance to parking hospital all the emergency equipment offers industrial boulevard so we immediately pulled out of the caravan and began picking up speed the car never stopped did it no the car never stopped and about this time um i lost consciousness uh i was not conscious on the ride to the hospital which is only a matter of about six or seven minutes can you give us any information as to what happened to these people out here i came to again apparently the the breaking action uh of the car brought me back to consciousness and nelly uh later told me of course that we had a very wild ride and apparently we were traveling at a very very high rate of speed down the freeway to the hospital uh it was a it was a time of of just unbelievable uh stark tragedy uh you uh so many things go through your mind uh at that moment uh that i think it's probably impossible to relate at any future time all the things that you thought i i know i thought again i rather assumed without knowing that the president had been fatally wounded uh and i rather assumed that that i had been and so constantly there was going through my mind thoughts of nelly of the children of what she'd done and it's uh really difficult i think to try to explain uh all the things that you wonder about all the things that you concern yourself with out of time like that i lit some candles and marina asked me if that was a way of praying and i said that it was although even then i felt that he was mortally wounded and then we heard that he was dead and marina said to me what a terrible thing this is for jacqueline kennedy and for the children now they will have to go out without a father because i think about jackie know about her children you know this when this happened and i think about her looks like this happened with me maybe you know my intuition told me that i was just i feel it looks like this happened with me you know mother's day just with children no father yes you're saying that when you saw this you thought you know you put herself in her position did you uh ever have a thought at this time that maybe lee had killed the president rude payne told me somebody from in the school school book depository president and you know my heart go down because i think you know just one thing maybe this was late and i go in garage i know just rifle was over there and i saw this blanket and i said oh that's good it's not play but marina oswald was wrong the blanket in which lee kept his rifle was indeed there in the garage but the rifle was not it took a bit under six seconds to assassinate the president of the united states it took the warren commission 10 months to measure out those seconds bit by bit much of their work centered on the question was it really oswald who fired the rifle even if oswald owned the rifle even if he went home to get it thursday night did he fire the weapon at the present there are other questions about the shooting exactly how many shots worth and did they all come from the school book built the police say the rifle was in a sixth floor window a window behind the president yet some witnesses believe they heard shots from in front of you there was what appeared to be a bullet nick in the windshield of the limousine and parkland hospital doctors were quoted to say they thought at least one bullet entered mr kennedy's neck from the front studiously scientifically the warren commission tried to answer these questions tried to sift fact from rumor and theory this is a film made for the commission in december a reconstruction of the crime at the scene of the crime in this film and for the film investigators sat in the car exactly where the president and the governor sat the car was driven over the exact route at the same speed and in the window where lee oswald is said to have waited a cameraman waited with ozil's sunset for a moment a tree is in the way now must be when the first shot was fired at exactly this point the investigators halted the car chalk was used to mark the spots where the bullet struck then the line of fire and every length and angle of every possible shot from the window was measured exactly fbi secret service and military experts applied their years of training and experience in measuring those chalk spots again and again the bullet angles were measured the chalk spots were redone the chief justice earl warren went to dollars himself in june went to the window and warren personally looked through the rifle site all this mattered because if there were any shots from the overpass if there were more than three shots then oswald had to have had an accomplice so some big questions which the warren report will answer in the coming hour where did the bullets come from how many were there these questions of direction and number of bullets which struck president kennedy and governor connolly are matched in importance by the whole matter of speed and firing could oswell fire a bolt-action rifle fast enough to hit moving targets in a few seconds could anyone operate such a rifle with such deadly accuracy in so short a time these matters have been widely discussed the world over for 10 months the warren commission had the benefit of the best ballistics experts in this country we'll have their conclusions a little later the experts can check and measure but eddie barker talked to two men who told the commission they actually saw oswalt with a rifle in his hands they are malcolm price supervisor of a sports rifle range outside of dallas and garland slap who practiced there mr price is examining another italian carcano rifle the same make and model as arsenal's cbs news had this rifle brought out to the rifle range miss price when was the first time you saw lee harvey oswald out here at this rifle range uh it was the first day that we were open here and uh it came in just about closing time it's about dusky dark and requested that he be allowed to fire his rifle and uh also he was looking for someone to set the telescope for him did you said it yes i did he was quite talkative to me when we were discussing uh his rifle and uh his telescope but as far as being an outright conversationalist or talking to any of his neighboring shooters he didn't he kept strictly to himself except for one time and uh he was shooting next to a fellow the name of garland slack well we were shooting the targets and i was still working on a precision gun that i was building and uh someone else kept shooting my target before i ever got of bullet in i'd noticed with the spotting scope that there'd be one or two holes and uh that happened not only one time but about three times so i went to floyd and told them i'm paying two bits for targets and putting them up somebody shooting a hole in before so we got to look as it was and it was this far that turned out to be oliver what did you say to oswald well i just killed him like i would anyone else i uh you don't just make a man mad to stand there with a high-powered rifle you kind of got approaching either school if i was knowing the kind of a guy he was i probably wouldn't say anything but i made a remark he's not getting any pride or not gonna win a turkey by rapid fire and shooting someone else's target what did he say to you and uh he he never said anything to me now you say that he was shooting rapid fire how rapid fire was he shooting well for instance he was shooting sex six times say in seven or eight or nine seconds this could be fired quite rapidly it's very very possible to fire the gun at a fairly rapid pace uh it is club fed and uh as quick as you can work that bold well it's it's very very easy to fire rampant with it it takes a little practice though you have to be as good as a snapshot to uh bolt your rifle and then aim it although oswald had considerable rifle training in the marine corps he was rated a good but not excellent shot mr price and mr flack say that they saw him practicing fast firing shortly before the assassination the question for the warren report could he have fired three shots in about five seconds dan rather continues as the police and investigators for the warren commission reconstructed the dallas story oswald fired his rifle from the sixth floor of the school book depository building yet a few minutes later possibly less than two minutes later he was stopped by an armed policeman and identified by his own boss on the second floor and the other side of the building the policeman's name was marion baker i heard those shots come off and they seem like there's high and they were directly ahead of me and uh as i tried to figure out which where they came from and the building that i had in mind was directly ahead of me and that was the texas book depository building as i entered the building there i asked some of the people that were standing around there were where the stairs or elevator was and uh there was a man spoke up and said he was the building manager and he'd kill me i realized that he didn't know the layout of the building so i ran in with him just a matter of seconds after the third shot and we ran across the shipping room floor stopped at the elevators and uh we couldn't get that service elevator working and he said well we use the stairs and he turned around immediately went up the stairs we ran on at the first flight to the second floor and the officer looked in the snack bar adjacent to our office and i ca i kind of looked off to the right over through a doorway and saw an image of a man walking away through that doorway uh and when i got to the doorway he was on down there a little bit and i hired at him and asked him to come back the officer with me had a gun in his hand and uh he threw the gun towards the middle of oswald and he looked probably a little startled like anybody else would if you just put a gun this time i call it once which i thought was natural but uh i turned around and asked him if the man worked for him and if he knew him and he said yes he works for me and i i know it and uh at that time uh the man never did say anything i never did say anything further to him uh i turned around and went on upstairs the third floor officer baker as you uh think back now to november 22nd would you uh hazard a guess as to the time you heard these shots and the time it took you to get into the building and go up the stairs and the time when you first saw lee harvey oswald i believe excuse me from time did i heard those shots and time i ran into that building entered the lobby and uh made it up to the second floor it was approximately a minute and a half to two minutes and that would be pretty close to it in your testimony before the warren commission was this reenacted this timing yes sir it was would you tell me how you did it well we went back to the same day that we figured which what i did at that particular day and we tried to get to the spot where i thought i first heard the shots and from there we took it and we did everything we reenacted the whole situation there the entrance into the building and the talk we had between the building manager and myself and then we went on back through the building and we tried to get the service elevator down and we then went on up the stairs and that i believe somewhere around a minute and a half was our timing on as you recall it does that seem like a reasonable length of time for him to have been able to do those things um he could have done it if he'd have been awful fast or if he'd uh pre-planned it by the way but the ceilings are low on each floor and the and the stairways do not have too many steps on them in possibly less than two minutes could oswald have left the window hidden the rifle crossed the room and gone down four flights of stairs could anyone do that the warren commission considered this one of the more important questions it had to answer investigators came to the school book building with stop watches and critical eyes patrolman baker as he has said reenacted his movements for them and those movements were timed again and again zero seconds the shooting begins the stopwatch starts the secret service agent gets up and starts across the room he moves quickly along the rows of school books he has to go all the way to the opposite corner of the building he gets to the opposite corner of the building he hides the rifle where dallas police say they found it then downstairs down four flights to the snack room remember this is where the assassin had been at this window he would have had to rise to go across this the sixth floor to hide the rifle in those boxes in the far corner and then to go downstairs down four flights of stairs to where the lunch room was a minute a minute thirty two minutes all the difference between innocence and guilt between a case closed and an unknown assassin still at large not only police and government agents traced that route chief justice warren and some other commission members did it for themselves their printed report will reveal their conclusions on this all-important point the final warren commission report has been printed newsmen have had their copies all weekend and a half hour from now the findings will be released to the public we will report them to you at that time meanwhile cbs news will continue with the stories of key witnesses who testified before the warren commission including the cab driver who took oswald home the woman who saw officer tippett's murder and the officer who captured oswald but first station identification in the last hour cbs news has brought you the story of the kennedy assassination as told by witnesses who appeared before the warren commission the official stories are detailed in the printed commission report which will be released in a half hour from now the stories these witnesses have told cbs news are in essence the same as those they told the commission through witnesses interviewed by eddie barker we have followed president kennedy from the corner of elm and houston streets in dallas to the announcement of his death at parkland hospital now we are about to follow another man from that same dallas corner to that same hospital and his death his name lee harvey oswald dan rather reports this is the way police reconstruct ozil's movements after he was found in the lunchroom of the book depository building after building manager truly and policeman baker had left him and ran up the stairs oswald walked past the company's main office on the second floor the same floor in which he had just been questioned he walked across to a larger stairway leading down and took those stairs outside to elm street now began the chase the people involved were cecil mcwaters he was a bus driver and at this moment was going west on elm william whaley a taxi driver he was waiting for a pickup at the greyhound station a waitress miss helen markham when she entered oswald's life she was on her way to work and ted callaway who was a used car dealer the time was about 12 32 or slightly later the warren commission will establish the exact time police had not yet sealed off the book depository building had not yet been timed considering the confusion and lack of knowledge about where the shots came from oswald was able to walk out by simply walking out he started up elm street along this route at field street he got on a bus for these people out here president i do not know the seriousness of it officers are now surrounding and searching the building first depository store on the corner of element c 12 40. where did this happen at field the main simmons and the triple underpair the traffic could come to a standstill which is almost uh even with griffin street here well that's when uh someone came up and knocked on the door of the bus although this is no bus stop here knocked on the door of the bus and i opened the door and a man got on the bus and uh paid his fur and i wouldn't be positive but i believe that he sit down on uh on the second seat on the right hand side of the bus there eddie we reached this point here traffic could come to a standstill in other words uh uh we were sitting here and uh traffic was stopped and there was a lady that was sitting behind me here which was going to union station catch train uh one o'clock train and she asked me if i would uh give her a transfer and she decided she'd just walk on down to the station which is seven or eight blocks from here and uh i gave her a transfer and she got off and at the same time the gentleman that i picked up back up at uh murphy street back here in other words he got up and came up and got him a transfer and got off at the same time in which that was the only two transfers that i put out uh coming through town and which uh later they uh identified the police identified to transfer as the ones that uh that they got on oswald when he was arrested no they do not have the suspect by this time most of dallas most of the united states knew of the tragedy that had struck the motorcade and had begun to fear how great a tragedy it was oswald entered a cab well he just looked like an ordinary working man he was small and on gray work clothes brown shirts and silver stripes and a work jacket he said he got in said he wanted to go to 500 block north beckley so i come on the way we're going now and turn right on this signal light onto jackson street i come on here to austin street turn left on this light to off to the wood what did you talk to him about as you came around here well i didn't talk very much i didn't know the president was shot at that time and the police cars and sirens was running all around this end of town making a lot of noise so all i said to him was i wonder what the hell all the commotion is and they said to town he didn't answer me so i didn't say any more to him i figured he wanted people that didn't want to talk he had something else on his mind what time did you log the fact that this man got in your cab i believe it's somewhere between 12 15 and 12 45 i never log exactly on the money that's always approximate time well now you uh say that uh when he got in back there at the bus station and you started across here about how long did it take you to make this run well approximately approximately somewhere between six and a half and eight minutes mr whaley when you went up to the warren commission what were they more interested in than anything else any particular area of your testimony well yes sir in the time element and what i put out on my sheet they won't know why i approximated my time and i explained to them that i put the trips down as every 15 minutes that's for an hour which is usually the run of it you can't put them down exactly to the minute because you'd have to stop on in traffic or be writing while you're moving and that's dangerous so i just approximate mine it runs on the 15 minutes now he lived right here in this place right here in the same block right here at 10 18. the house right there that house right there but he didn't say anything about getting out no sir and he wasn't looking at it as we passed and bought along right in here he asked me said he didn't ask me he just said this will do fine right here but the cars were parked like this and i waited a lot past the last car and pulled over to the curb which was the intersection of neely and north and north beckley and uh did you tell him how much the fare was no sir i didn't he just looked at the meter and his 95 cents he handed me a dollar opened the door and got out walk around the front of the cab and crossed street and that's the last i saw him i went all about my business oswald had gone about four blocks past his boarding house now he began walking back dallas police already were broadcasting a description of their houston is suspects to be an unknown white male approximately 30. slender build high five could be armed with what is thought to be a 30 caliber rifle no further description at this time our information 12 45 kkb 360. as watching as the world turns it comes on from 12 30 to 1. and the uh they've been on a few minutes and they say that a special bulletin here is a bulletin from cbs news in dallas texas three shots were fired at president kennedy's motorcade in downtown dallas the first reports say that president kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting well i was listening i had the television on listening trying to find out what play happened to president kennedy when he came in it must have been a for one o'clock because he come in and you don't have to tell everything to blink on that way i was trying to clear it up and he come in and he wasn't running he's just in a fast walk well when he came in that day and you were trying to fix the television set did you uh say anything to him about the president being shot or not no sir i just said oh you're sure in a hurry and he didn't answer me didn't say that when he went out he went out walking fast the same way and i was still listening there and broadcasting about president kennedy oswald left the boarding house and started walking southeast where exactly he was going nobody have information that the governor was here but we do not have any information as to extent of injury for your information on the fifth floor of this uh bookstore company down here we found empty rifle hulls and uh looked like the man had been there for some time we're checking it out now 10 49 112. at 10th and patton mrs markham saw oswald approach well this man was walking along the sidewalk of 10th street this police car was uh driving very slow down 10th street what happened well the man kept walking that's like i say with his hands down in his head he i didn't pay him don't mind i didn't care this police car kept coming on coming on and finally he stopped and the man stopped and uh whether the man the policeman say come over to the car talk to him i don't know but he went was he on the driver's side or on the other side on the other side and did he stick his head in the window yes sir he folded his hands like this he put him in through the window up on the window and he leaned over like this what do you remember about this man was he a big man or a small man no he wasn't a very big man he was short kind of showing herself when i was he still standing there when officer tippett got out of the police car well he got you know taken out got out of the window put his hands back down to his side and stepped back that two steps the policeman calmly opened the door he calmly crawled out and i for me i didn't pay no attention because i was you know talk friendly uh and he the policeman walked to the got to the even the front wheel on the driver's side and this man shot him in the wink of your eyes just bang bang bang and what did this man who had shot the officer what did he do as soon as he had shot him did he move back or did he run or what no he he didn't uh break out run fast he walked fast down the side back towards me and then he seen me and then he done like this of course i did too and then i sat my hands upon my foot but i couldn't scream i couldn't move but what does it do did he say anything at all to you he did not all right so i could tell you i closed my eyes and my hands right there and then i stayed a few minutes and i was going to see if he's gone or coming after me or what and i hope my fingers and i look he was trotting off down across the slot up here then he wasn't even out of sight he saw me go to the placement he could have killed me too i knew i had to get help for this month and i knew this police car all police cars got radios in them and i just i'll do what i can to get help for this man and i around the corner ted callaway was tending to business at his used car lot well eddie i was uh quite upset and excited i guess over the shooting of the president and i was just standing on the front porch of our used car lot office and uh i heard some shooting what sounded me like five shots coming from the back of our office in the direction of 10th street over here and uh as soon as i heard the shooting well i come running off the porch out here on the patton street out here on the sidewalk and i looked up the street toward that's 10th street right there and i could see this uh man running across the uh sidewalk and back of the taxi cab over to the other side of patton street right here where was he holding this gun when you saw him i didn't notice the gun until he was on the other side of the street and running in this direction well now when he came down here and you say he stopped where about uh over there in front of that house yes sir about 40 45 feet away uh i could see clearly had this pistol and what we used to in the marine corps called the raised pistol position and uh he was he wasn't on a dead run but a good fast trot and i noticed that he was very pale he was just deathly white and uh i hollered at him i said man what in the hell is going on and he almost stopped and said something to me which i could not understand and uh faced in my direction still with a pistol in this position and then continued on down jefferson and a good fast crop down not down jefferson down pat what did you do mr calloway after this man ran around the corner where did you go i ran down the direction of the shooting down toward patton and 10th street and when i rounded the corner i could see a squad car there and by this time there's two or three or four women had uh gathered around and i saw officer tippets laying in the street uh i could tell by looking at that he was dead he was laying on his pistol he had drawn his pistol his strap on his holster was uh unsnapped and uh i imagine that he had drawn this pistol while he was falling because it was he was laying on under his left side so i i took the pistol from under him and laid on top of the hood of the squad car and then i ran to the squad car and called in on the radio and told me that an officer had been shot and they said that someone else had already reported so for me to stay off the air a witness to the murder a witness to the murderer's flight this is what mrs markham and mr callaway say they are does the warren commission believe them and what are the other questions raised when oswald left the boarding house where was he heading why did policeman tip it stop him or was it oswald who stopped tippit was it really oswald who shot tibbett if so why after the tidbit shooting lee rv oswald remained free but he remained hunted what happened to him next the warren commission and cbs news learned from the two people most instrumental in hunting oswald down one of them was a clerk at a shoe store his name johnny brewer the other was a policeman nick macdonald ozil had taken off down a side street and across a back alley pausing at his claim to reload his revolver he knew the hunters were closing in police cars seemingly were everywhere one that we have an officer involved in a shooting at 10th and patton we don't know the extent of it yet two five johnny when was the first time you saw lee harvey oswald uh i saw him at friday afternoon of november 22nd he walked into the lobby in a store how far in did he walk out there john well just a few feet he was standing right about where those tennis shoes are right there just about five feet from the door there what made you suspicious of this man who walked into the lobby well right after a president have been shot they broadcast a description on the radio of this man uh five eight five nine hundred fifty pounds and his eyes will match the description and well just a few minutes before he walked in the lobby on the radio they had a bulletin that a officer had been shot here in oak cliff and he walked in he matched description he looked scared just the way he stood there you were standing right here behind me standing right here on the counter listen to the radio and where did he walk to how far into the lobby did he come he walked right into the right-hand side of the lobby there just a few feet from the door and stood there looking at the shoes there were there are a lot of police cars yeah there is a lot of police cars uh there were some cars coming up jefferson street they made that u-turn there and went back down jefferson and when they did oswald turned and walked up to the theater when he went out the lobby and toured the theater i walked out to the sidewalk and watched him go in then uh i walked up to the theater and asked miss postal there the cashier she had sold a ticket to this man wearing the brown sports shirt you know his description uh she called the police and the butch stayed there at the front exit and i went back down by the stage the back exit and waited there until the police came what happened when the police came well uh just before the police got there they turned the house lights on the theater and uh i looked out the curtain and saw ozil and he stood up and walked to the aisle there and then turned around and sat back down almost where he had been sitting then i heard this noise outside and opened the door and the police grabbed me and asked me what i was doing there and i told him and they asked me if the man was still in theater i said yes they asked me to point him out so uh couple three other uh policemen himself walked out and uh pointed to him and officer mcdonald he was the first one to him he approached him and oswald stood up well i entered the theater from the curtains on the left side of the screen and uh the georgia uh johnny brewer from the shoe store and a couple other officers on the stage and he had pointed into the direction of the rear theater and said that was a man that we were looking for sitting at the rear theater alone and i spotted the man that he was talking about did you have your gun drawn no i did and uh as i walked up to the aisle uh oswald was sitting in the second seat the third row from the rear the second seat from the right center aisle the seat right over this seat right here what happened then well uh let me let you use my pistol okay you know and go through it a little bit make sure it's empty so okay don't have an accident and he had it tucked in his belt on the right side like this yes of course he had that shirt over it but that will surprise him he was wearing a brown sports shirt is that right yes and he was sitting in that seat there with his hands in his lap and as i was as i walked up to the aisle i turned in the aisle i said get on your feet and he stood up immediately he brought this right hand up to his chest did he say anything when you as he was bringing his hands up he brought the other one up to eye level he said well it's all over now that time i was reaching this way and his hand got in front of mine owned a pistol my hand grabbed the pistol in this manner and he hit me with that left hand to the nose and when he did i came back and hit him like this he slapped the pistol i turned the pistol around and i got my hand on the butt came over like this was holding him with this hand i handed this pistol to an officer that was out in the aisle austin mcdonnell i've always heard that the gun that lee harvey oswald had in his hand misfired is that correct well it didn't actually miss fire uh if you'll it i'll show you the position my hand was in whenever it snapped on me the fleshy part of my hand between the thumb and forefinger was between the hammer and the firing pin hit the skin and then struck the primer which slowed the action down it sort of pinched that fleshy part of my hand in there so actually your skin got between the hammer and the primer yes and it didn't get the full force of the firing pin consequently the shell didn't go off i believe that's what saved my life had you ever seen him prior to this day here in this day ever in my lifetime here the flight of lee harvey oswald was ending an hour and a half was there any connection with the president at this time it's my understanding the police came out to the house in the afternoon of the 22nd and asked if they could search and i said uh said that lee harvey oswald was in their custody for shooting an officer and i said that most of their things were in the garage and went out with them to show the things they asked if he had any guns and i said i thought not translated the question to marina who said that she had seen the butt end of a rifle in a blanket role that she indicated on the floor perhaps two weeks back and she had known that he had a gun thought it was there but when they picked up the blanket roll it was empty when you went down to the police station and you were asked to identify this man in alignment how did you identify i want to be sure so uh i looked him over i looked taller but that man i noted with that man because i couldn't get mines off of it and uh i kept looking at him and uh i had him turn to the side then back and then i knew it was him because the way he looked yes sir i saw him that night in the police line up by they asked me to come down police headquarters and i identified him in the lineup as the man that i had seen running with a pistol in his hand did you have any trouble identifying him in the lineup none whatsoever did he look as pale that might as he had the the after no sir no sir no he didn't but he was the type of an individual that once you see him you never forget him why do you say that there was just something outstanding about him i guess under the circumstances uh i paid especially close attention to him especially him with that gun in his hand you know but i had no trouble at all in picking him out of the lineup i positively know nothing about this situation here i would like to have a legal representation well i was questioned by judge however i uh protested at that time that i was not allowed legal representation during that that very short and sweet hearing uh i really don't know what what the situation is about nobody has told me anything except that i'm accused of of uh murdering and i know nothing more than that and i do request no i've not been charged with that in fact nobody has said that to me yet the first thing i heard about was when the newspaper reporters in the hall uh asked me that question you have been said what sir you have nobody said what okay man okay so what did you do the turmoil in the lineup room had long before been taken over in the police station corridors everyone was there wanting to see oswald wanting to be shown the rifle a police officer brought the rifle out foreign made the press was told reporters were asking questions newspaper photographers were hustling for better angles television cameramen repeating pictures and one interested bystander was just looking on that friday night his name jack ruby chicago-born ruby was a dallas nightclub owner he had been a beer joint he had a beer joint downtown where girls did the scriptees dances on stage he didn't belong in the police station especially at a time like this what then was he doing there did he know oswald two more questions for the warren report to answer these scenes we have witnessed the scenes of oswald being interrogated exhibited and harried by policemen cameramen and reporters please led the warren commission to still another question how was oswald treated in jail was he given all his civil rights in dallas eddie barker asked that of the man most responsible police chief jesse curry lee harvey oswald granted all of his civil rights during his confinement in the city jail yes sir i believe that he was we did have some calls uh from outsiders uh as to whether or not he was being accorded his civil rights and uh we contacted the uh the head of the dallas bar association at that time was lewis nichols and he well i believe that he was one of them that called and said they had had some inquires and so we invited him to come down and talk to lee harvey oswald he didn't appear to be scared he didn't appear to be fearful he seemed to know at least as far as i could tell that at some point if he wanted a lawyer he'd get one and if you can observe a man in jail that's whether he's scared or not he didn't appear to be scared to me maybe i was more scared than he was being there but in any event he was quite calm he discussed his problems and when i uh concluded my interview with him and satisfied myself that no one was mistreating him and he could he hadn't asked for a lawyer and he could get one if he wanted it why as i was leaving why he uh reclined back on his back and lay back down there with his hands behind his head looking up and that was the last i saw unfortunately oswald's need for a lawyer soon ended instead of law there was one man's impulse or one man's plot for the climax of a conspiracy more questions for the warren commission to answer in just a few moments the next day sunday oswald is required by texas law was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail as all the world knows and as much of america witnessed the man who had shown up friday evening showed up again this is the basement floor of the dallas the city hall and that's a scuffle on the basement floor it seems to be concerned for targets it is now 15 seconds after 6 30 p.m eastern daylight time sunday september the 27th as of this moment the report of the president's commission is public record for the next half hour we will search it for answers first must come the answers to the two great overriding questions who killed john f kennedy the commission answers unequivocally lee harvey oswald was oswald acting alone or was he a member of a conspiracy the commission answers he acted alone but such answers of themselves carry no conviction they must be buttressed by incontrovertible evidence and in supplying that evidence the commission was obliged to answer a host of lesser questions those posed earlier in this program as well as others raised by the commission itself in the course of its investigation could it be shown beyond a reasonable doubt for example that the weapons used in the murders of president kennedy and officer tippett were the rifle and gun owned by oswald the report cites evidence that oswald owned the murder right the mail-order purchase slip for that rifle was in his handwriting marina oswald testified he owned the rifle she photographed him holding it with his camera oswald's palm print was found on a surface of the gun equally detailed evidence linked oswald with the revolver that killed officer tippet why did oswald break his routine and go home to irving on a thursday night well again the commission's answer is unequivocal he went home expressly to get the rifle he had secreted in the garage he had at least an hour to do it and mrs payne says that late thursday night she found the light burning in the garage and says the commission it was that right disassembled which he carried in a paper parcel into the texas school depository building friday morning the parcel he called curtin ross the shots all the shots came from the texas school depository says the report it cites evidence like that of hank norman earlier in this program well i was uh looking out the window and uh the first shot was fired well it you know i didn't take much of it because it kind of you know shook the building a little bit really it was just that powerful then after the second shot was fired while i saw the people they were all falling on the ground and i told one of the throws i said that shot came from this building and uh then by the time i got to in the third shot and one of the guys told him so i believe you're right man i said i know it did and then i could you know also hear the whole empty holes hitting the cartridges hitting the floor and i could hear the rejection of the rifle whatever it was out of and um first thing we thought is we better get out from here because i know i didn't want to be involved in things like that because i didn't have anything like that on my mind i mean you know i was according to the commission report the experiment with the shells and rifle was repeated for members of the commission all seven of the commissioners clearly heard the shells dropped to the floor painstaking second by second reconstruction of the assassination and analysis of the wounds shows unmistakably the commission says that all the bullets came from that window quote accumulative evidence of eyewitness firearms and ballistic experts and medical authorities demonstrated that the shots were fired from above and behind president kennedy and governor conley more particularly from the sixth floor window of the texas school book depository building end quote and the commission cites a wealth of evidence including an eyewitness we heard earlier putting lee harvey oswald in that window i looked directly across and up possibility of a 45 degree angle and this man same man i had saw prior to the president's arrival was in the window and taking aim for his last shot after he fired the last or the third shot of he didn't seem to be in a great rush hurry he uh seemed to pause for a moment to see if for sure he accomplished his purpose and he brought the gun back to rest in an upright position as though he was satisfied the commission believes that oswald probably fired three shots but that only two struck home three empty shells were found by the window all fired according to ballistic evidence from the rifle linked to oswald one bullet and two large bullet fragments were found and these two were definitely fired by that rifle the commission isn't sure which of the three missed but it believes that the first one to take effect struck president kennedy in the back of the neck passed through the throat then went completely through governor connolly's upper body and wrist it was the next hit the commission finds which caught the president at the back of the skull and caused the massive fatal brain damage the commission notes governor conley's insistence that he was hit by a separate bullet i hate to put myself in a position of arguing with ballistics experts and so forth but i know i know a little something about firearms and a little something about velocity of bullets and and the speed of sound is compared to it and i know when i hear a shot and i have time to uh turn and react and not only turn one direction but attempt to turn in another direction before i feel the impact of anything i know that bullet wasn't in transit that long that's all is to it nobody ever convinced me otherwise but the commission finds the evidence against the governor's theory strong exhaustive tests and expert testimony have convinced the commission that oswald had time enough to get off three shots with with his bolt action rifle and was marksman enough to hit the president twice at that range using a telescopic sight but the commission discards the testimony of malcolm price and garland slack who said they saw oswald actually practicing on a rifle range outside town oswald was in mexico at that time says the commission just a case of mistaken identity that would tend to clear up another puzzling question mr price had said oswald reached the range by car land at this time according to ruth payne's testimony he had not yet learned to drive the price and slack are among many witnesses whose testimony was investigated and then rejected by the commission now the report carefully reconstructs oswald's movements arriving at much the same picture that we saw before in the cbs news program reenactments prove the report says that oswald did have time just enough time to fire the shots secret the rifle and get down to the second floor cafeteria and uh as we approached the second floor he uh continued on around towards the third floor and i i kind of looked off to the right over through a doorway and saw an image of a man walking away through that doorway and when i got to the doorway he was on down there a little bit and i huddled at him and asked him to come back and uh so as he approached me this building manager who is mr truly later i founded out his name and uh i turned around and asked him if the man worked for him and if he knew him and he said yes he works for me and i i know him and uh at that time the man never did say anything i never did say anything further to him uh i turned around and went on upstairs at the third floor this man that you saw later turned out to be lee harvey oswald yes sir he did an official reenactment showed that oswald could have gotten from the window to the lunchroom in one minute 14 seconds and the report goes on quote the minimum time required by patrolman baker to park his motorcycle and reach the lunchroom was within three seconds of the time needed to walk from the southeast corner of the sixth floor down to the stairway to the lunchroom the time actually required for baker and truly to reach the second floor on november 22nd was probably longer than in the test runs the building itself the commission reports was not sealed off until at least seven minutes after the assassination oswald had time to get out the report finds no time discrepancy also the commission says oswald had time enough to get to his boarding house by bus taxi and foot where was he going when he left the boarding house well the commission doesn't know but it does say quote his general description was similar to the one broadcast over the police radio and that placement tippett did stop oswald not the other way around it oswald tip definitely says the commission nine eyewitnesses placed oswald at the scene of the crime two actually saw him commit the murder one was mrs mark this man came over to the police car folded his hands like this lean over in the police cross stayed there just a very few minutes he they got back put his hands down taking you back two steps back and this and this policeman calmly opened the car door he calmly crawled out of this car and started around in front of the car whether he had a gun i don't remember that anything and just as he got even with a front wheel this man shot him across the hood of the cross this footnote the commission is satisfied that it was lee harvey oswald who tried to kill general edwin walker on the night of april 10 1963. we come now to the second overriding question the warren commission must answer was there a conspiracy against the life of john f kennedy on page 21 it is stated and we're quoting here from the commission report the commission has found no evidence that either lee harvey oswald or jack ruby was part of any conspiracy domestic or foreign to assassinate president kennedy the commission also notes in its phrase and we're quoting here because of the difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty perhaps we should repeat that phrase because of the difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty the possibility of others being possibly involved with either oswald or rookie cannot be established categorically unquote from the warren commission report but says the report if there is any such evidence it has been beyond the reach of all investigative agencies and sources of the united states and has not come to the attention of the commission now one of those questions which might have indicated a plot the commission considers them all the curious circumstance of article having a job in a building uh right over the parade route the commission found that he got that job after the president's dallas trip was announced but before the motorcade route could possibly have been chosen in fact before it was even decided where the president would be going in that motorcade now the report examines ozil's trip to russia his attempted trip to cuba his attempt to start a chapter of the fair play for cuba committee and report concludes that these were manifestations of oswald's own warped and dissatisfied personality quote the commission has found no evidence to show that oswald was employed persuaded or encouraged by any foreign government to assassinate president kennedy and despite marguerite oswald's testimony the report adds there was nothing to support the speculation that oswald was an agent employee or informant of the fbi or the cia or any other governmental agency where then did oswell get the money to pay back the state department the commission made a detailed study of oswald's income and outcome it says that he lived frugally had nothing but coffee for breakfast a sandwich for lunch and that he could have saved that amount of money now what about the passport he got in one single day the warren report says this is routine time and that oswald was handled routinely now as for learning russian in the marine corps the commission says he did this entirely on his own now we come to a part of the story that i remember vividly the questions why was ruby at the jail on friday night did ruby know roswell the warren commission exhaustively probed reports that ruby and oswald had been seen together before the investigation says the study in all but a few instances where the commission was able to trace the claim to its source the person responsible for the report either denied making it or admitted that he had no basis for making the original allegations now those few instances the report indicates were probably simple cases of mistaken identification the other question what was ruby doing at the jail friday leads to a far bigger one why did ruby kill austin that question is not specifically answered in this report what answers there are here are those that emerge from the commission's reconstruction of ruby's weak so let's reconstruct that weekend thursday night ruby's activities are normal for him he visits his two nightclubs he dines with his financial angel he bounces a noisy patron friday ruby is at the office of the dallas morning news facing his weekend advertising when the assassination story breaks ruby appears according to one witness obviously shaken there is a dazed expression in his eyes according to this witness he decides to close his clubs in mourning the commission does not accept a report that ruby was seen at parkland hospital shortly after president kennedy was brought in now ruby begins a tangled two-day series of local and long-distance calls to people relatives acquaintances to discuss the assassination a sister describes him as completely unnerved and cried on friday night ruby attends a memorial service at a synagogue but he later shows up at police headquarters and actually participates in the press conference questioning of australia later according to the commission report ruby wanders around dallas talking to acquaintances about the assassination he is incensed by friday's blackboard newspaper ad attacking president kennedy and by a billboard that says impeach earl warren ruby says according to a committee witness this is a direct quote this is the work of the john birch society or the communist party or both and he does some ineffectual detective work trying to track down the source of the newspaper ad incidentally the commission says that this ad was the work of some independent right-wingers who had big plans for infiltrating the existing far-right movements and taking them over for their own product on saturday ruby watches a rabbi eulogizing the late president on television then ruby visits the scene of the murder and he boasts to a friend that he's been acting like a reporter saturday night ruby is depressed again he criticizes two other nightclub owners for staying open after the assassination and ruby says i've got to do something about this though it's unclear whether he means the competition or the killing saturday morning jack ruby's testimony to the warren commission says and i quote i saw a letter to carolyn two columns about a 16-inch area someone who had written a letter to carolyn the most heartbreaking letter and continuing to quote jack ruby's testimony to the warren commission i don't remember the contents alongside that letter on the same sheet of paper was a comment in the paper that i don't know how it was stated that mrs kennedy may have come back to the trial of lee harvey oswald suddenly the feeling the emotional feeling came within me that someone owed this debt to our beloved president to save her the ordeal of coming back unquote from jack ruby a little later that morning ruby kills lee oswald what happened to lee harvey oswald in the dallas police jail says the warren commission all available evidence indicates that oswald was not subjected to any physical hardship during the interrogation sessions or at any other time while he was in custody the commission finds that oswald's bruised eye and slight cut were indeed the result of that scuffle with officer mcdonald inside the theater but the commission does indict the dallas police for permitting and us of the press for creating the bedroom that existed in the dallas jail during oswald's last two days of life that jammed carter full of lights cameras and shouting reporters and that leads to the next great question who is responsible for the murder of lee harvey oswald jack ruby of course did it the mission points out that millions of people saw him do it on television but how was he able to do it in the midst of a crowd of police in the very basement of police headquarters once again the commission assigns the blame to the police department and to the press and by press the commission certainly includes radio and television first says the warren commission report responsibility for arsenal's safety during the transfer was never clearly assigned result confusion again a quote the failure of the police to remove ozil secretly or to control the crowd in the basement at the time of the transfer were the major causes of the security breakdown which led to oswald's death then the report goes on to add that the commission believes that the news media as well as the police authorities who fail to impose conditions more in keeping with the orderly process of justice must share responsibility for the failure of law enforcement which occurred in the connection with the death of oswald police chief curry failed to restrain the newsman the commission indicates and the newsmen failed to restrain themselves reporters according to the commission report displayed a regrettable lack of self-discipline disobeying police orders shouting questions at oswald and constantly pursuing public officials the report concludes the promulgation of a code of professional conduct governing representatives of all news media would be welcome evidence that the press had profited by the less of dallas the lesson doubts if you had to go through this again what would you do differently well that's a difficult question for me to try to answer i can very definitely say this that i'm afraid that i would be criticized again but probably it would be from the news media because i wouldn't let them inside the city hall that same combination of journalistic insistence and official indulgence according to the warren report spawned much of the confusion and many of the discrepancies that have plagued the story ever since and we quote the commission report in their efforts to keep the public abreast the police reported hearsay items and unverified leaves further investigation proved many of these to be incorrect some examples a deputy constable who never handled the rifle and only saw it lying here in the book depository called it a german mouser and the press and the district attorney were saying mauser the rest of the day there was no name on that gun which was actually the italian carcass on the sixth floor of the depository the police found some chicken bones and said oswald had been eating them he hadn't bonnie ray williams had a bit earlier the police said that in oswald's room they'd found a map with the motorcade route marked that map actually was marked according to the warren commission the places where oswald may have applied for jobs once the district attorney gave a news conference and told us oswald had caught a taxi cab driver and gone to oak cliff a stenographer misunderstood and wrote in the transcript that oswald had caught a taxi cab driver daryl click i remember reporters scurrying around for the rest of the day trying to find that non-existent mr cliff the press may also be partly to blame partly responsible for the persistent rumor that there was a second assassin shooting from the railroad overpass two reporters said they had seen a bullet hole through the front windshield of the presidential automobile the warren commission says that it wasn't a hole but a little nick caused by a piece of bullet striking the inside of the windshield the fbi found lead on the inside only now what about the doctor at parkton hospital who reportedly said the president was wounded in the front actually the doctor told the commission and a newspaper report agrees that he said only that the bullet could have entered from the front but because of the president's condition and their desperate haste the doctors never turned him over never saw the similar wound where the bullet actually entered from the back now the report asserts that there were two witnesses who saw the rifle being fired from the book depository no witnesses who saw any rifle anywhere else the commission report goes on to add that on the overpass were 13 railroad men and two policemen and that all of them say there were no shots from that overpass the impression of the shots from the overpass as the report may have been the result of an echo one final question of conspiracy the fbi knew of oswald's dubious background knew he was in dallas but the dallas police were not worn the dallas police department uh ever heard of lee hervey oswald prior to november so we didn't we did not have any uh information on this man in our criminal intelligence file and that's normally where it would have been in our subversive file as we refer to the dallas police were not warned the commission found because the secret service was not worn the secret service was not worn because of insufficient liaison among the federal law enforcement agencies one of the three great flaws which the warren commission believes contributed to the death of president kennedy in the commission's words quote there was insufficient liaison and coordination of information between the secret service and other federal agencies necessarily concerned with presidential protection although the fbi in the normal execution of its responsibility had secured considerable information about lee harvey oswald it took an unduly restrictive view of its in in preventive intelligence work prior to the assassination a more carefully coordinated treatment of the oswald case the report goes on by the fbi might well have resulted in bringing oswald's activities to the attention of the secret service continuing the quote the criteria and procedures of the secret service designed to identify and protect against uh persons considered threats to the president were not adequate prior to the assassination continuing the quote the effect the secret service largely relied upon other federal or state agencies to supply the information necessary for it to fulfill its preventive responsibility unquote in some respects the commission says advanced preparations for the president's trip were deficient it lists failure by the secret service to spell out responsibilities of local police and others inadequate secret service procedures for spotting an assassin in the building and poor seating arrangements in the presidential car but the commission adds within these limitations the agents most immediately responsible for the president's safety reacted promptly at the time the shots were fired and the commission warned soberly consistent with their high responsibility presidents can never be protected from every potential threat so says the commission lee harvey oswald shot president kennedy but apparently not as part of a conspiracy then why the answer the commission suggests is largely psychological quote the commission could not make any definitive determination of oswald's movies it has endeavored to isolate factors which contributed to his character and which might have influenced his decision to assassinate president kennedy these factors were his deep-rooted resentment of all authority which was expressed in a hostility toward every society in which he lived his inability to enter into meaningful relationships with people and a continuous pattern of rejecting his environment in favor of new surroundings his urge to try to find a place in history and his despair at times over failures in his various undertakings his capacity for violence as evidenced by his attempt to kill general walker his avowed commitment to marxism and communism as he understood the terms and developed his own interpretation of them this was expressed by his antagonism toward the united states by his defection to the soviet union by his failure to be reconciled with life in the united states after his disenchantment with the soviet union and by his efforts so frustrated to go to cuba and the warren report concludes each of these contributed to his capacity to risk all in cruel and irresponsible actions two further impressions are inescapable from even a casual reading of the commission report first oswald was a liar during the few hours between his arrest and his death he was repeatedly interrogated the commission report reveals that he lied on important matters of substance he lied about his rifle his revolver his movements the documents found on his person second no investigation could have been more painstaking than that carried out by this commission every resource of criminology was called into play ballistics tests analysis of the guns themselves handwriting analysis the blanket in which the rifle was wrapped the photographs and the documents linking oswald to the crime and earl warren was not too dignified to race down the stairs at the depository building watch a matching his time against hospitals in the end we find confronting each other the liar the misfit the defector on the one hand and seven distinguished americans on the other and yet exactly here we must be careful that we do not say too much oswald was never tried for any crime and perhaps therefore there will forever be questions of substance in detail raised by amateur detectives professionals skeptics and serious students as well for the warren commission could not give lee harvey oswald his day in court in the protection of our laws suspects are not tried by seven distinguished americans their cases are heard under law by 12 ordinary citizens if it had not been for jack ruby's revolver in the basement of the dallas police station 12 such citizens would have heard the evidence would have heard osville if he had chosen to speak that jury would have represented our judgments our conscience and in the end would have spoken for us now we do not have that reliance we must depend upon our own judgments and look into our own consciences the warren commission cannot do that for us we are the jury all of us in america and throughout the world on monday november 25th 1963 lee harvey oswald was buried in a plain wooden coffin as he was lowered into his grave his secrets were buried with him in washington that day there was another funeral this has been a cbs news extra november 22nd and the warren report this program has been produced by cbs news which has sole responsibility for its content and editing this is the cbs television network

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Length: 118min 30sec (7110 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2010