1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000 The Texas School Book Depository Building, Dallas. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:07,000 From this sixth-floor window, Lee Harvey Oswald 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:11,000 allegedly fired the shots that killed the President of the United States 4 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,000 on November 22, 1963. 5 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,000 Lee Harvey Oswald, a figure of mystery, 6 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,000 murdered before he could reveal what he knew. 7 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:24,000 While the truth about him remains obscure, the myths abound. 8 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:26,000 He was the average Joe, that was all. 9 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:29,000 He was behaving like someone who was belligerent 10 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,000 and not showing any remorse for anything he had done. 11 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,000 He was a nice fella, seemed like. 12 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:37,000 Very courteous, nice like a kev. 13 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:39,000 Oswald was the perfect patsy. 14 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,000 He looked guilty, not just of the murder, but of anything. 15 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:48,000 A very sullen, dark kind of a man 16 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:50,000 that I wouldn't want to be friends with. 17 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,000 He seemed to be such a nice man, and everybody thought he was. 18 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,000 And he appeared to be, because he was very good with children. 19 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:02,000 They started making a villain out of a man who genuinely was probably a hero. 20 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,000 Lee Harvey Oswald is a question mark to history. 21 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,000 The debate is often raised, 22 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,000 was Lee Harvey Oswald alone as the assassin, 23 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:29,000 or was he part of a conspiracy? 24 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:33,000 The question is never raised, is it possible he didn't do it at all? 25 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:39,000 Six weeks before the assassination, Oswald had taken a low-paid job 26 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:43,000 as an order filler at the school book depository in downtown Dallas. 27 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,000 Because of his impoverished circumstances, 28 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:49,220 Oswald was living in the modest town of 29 00:01:49,220 --> 00:01:51,220 Oak Cliff, four miles out of town. 30 00:01:51,220 --> 00:01:54,220 Although married with two young daughters, 31 00:01:54,220 --> 00:01:58,220 weeknights were spent alone at this CD rooming house 32 00:01:58,220 --> 00:02:00,220 at 1026 North Beckley, 33 00:02:00,220 --> 00:02:04,220 where Oswald had mysteriously registered under the name of O.H. Lee. 34 00:02:04,220 --> 00:02:09,220 Most weekends, however, he visited his Russian-born wife Marina 35 00:02:09,220 --> 00:02:12,220 and their baby daughters, who lived on the far side of town 36 00:02:12,220 --> 00:02:14,220 in the Irving district of Dallas. 37 00:02:14,220 --> 00:02:18,220 Unable to drive, he would hitch a lift with a fellow worker 38 00:02:18,220 --> 00:02:22,220 to this house, where his family lodged with the woman who had befriended them, 39 00:02:22,220 --> 00:02:24,220 a Quaker called Ruth Payne. 40 00:02:24,220 --> 00:02:28,220 The idea of his having shot the President skews whatever one thinks, 41 00:02:28,220 --> 00:02:32,220 it seems to me, and we forget how ordinary he was, 42 00:02:32,220 --> 00:02:37,220 or how he would play with his children and with mine at the house on weekends. 43 00:02:37,220 --> 00:02:43,220 And my main memory of him is of his watching the football games 44 00:02:43,220 --> 00:02:47,220 on Saturday and Sunday, and he enjoyed watching the games. 45 00:02:47,220 --> 00:02:51,220 He seemed concerned about his little girls, very much so. 46 00:02:51,220 --> 00:02:53,220 Oswald loved being the family man. 47 00:02:53,220 --> 00:02:56,220 The colleague who drove him out to see them at weekends 48 00:02:56,220 --> 00:02:59,220 and lived only a few doors away witnessed that affection firsthand. 49 00:02:59,220 --> 00:03:01,220 Buell, Wesley Frazier. 50 00:03:01,220 --> 00:03:03,220 He liked children very much. 51 00:03:03,220 --> 00:03:06,220 That's one of the things that I could get Lee to talk about. 52 00:03:06,220 --> 00:03:09,220 When Lee came home with me on Friday afternoon 53 00:03:09,220 --> 00:03:12,220 and rode back with me on Monday morning, 54 00:03:12,220 --> 00:03:15,220 I never saw him or did anything with him at that time, 55 00:03:15,220 --> 00:03:18,220 but evidently the children in the neighborhood, 56 00:03:18,220 --> 00:03:20,220 all of them at one time or another, 57 00:03:20,220 --> 00:03:24,220 seemed to find their way up to the Payne house where Lee lived 58 00:03:24,220 --> 00:03:27,220 to play with him and his daughter. 59 00:03:27,220 --> 00:03:31,220 On November the 21st, I was working at Texas School Books' Pod story. 60 00:03:31,220 --> 00:03:34,220 Oswald came up to me and he asked if I could ride home with him, 61 00:03:34,220 --> 00:03:36,220 and I said, sure. 62 00:03:36,220 --> 00:03:38,220 And then a little bit later I realized it wasn't Friday. 63 00:03:38,220 --> 00:03:42,220 And the next time I saw him I said, well, today's not Friday, Lee. 64 00:03:42,220 --> 00:03:45,220 And he says, I know that. He says, thirsty. 65 00:03:45,220 --> 00:03:47,220 He says, Marina has made some curtains for me 66 00:03:47,220 --> 00:03:49,220 and they have some curtain rods out there. 67 00:03:49,220 --> 00:03:51,220 And he says, I'm going to get the curtain rods 68 00:03:51,220 --> 00:03:53,220 to put the curtains up in my apartment. 69 00:03:53,220 --> 00:03:55,220 I said, okay. 70 00:03:55,220 --> 00:03:57,220 He had never come out without asking permission before, 71 00:03:57,220 --> 00:04:00,220 besides the fact that it was a weeknight. 72 00:04:00,220 --> 00:04:04,220 And he arrived actually, I was out of the house when he arrived. 73 00:04:04,220 --> 00:04:08,220 I was grocery shopping. We bought a lot of groceries. 74 00:04:09,220 --> 00:04:12,220 And then he was there already playing with his children 75 00:04:12,220 --> 00:04:15,220 on the front lawn when I arrived, about 5.30. 76 00:04:15,220 --> 00:04:22,220 As we went by each other, I said, very happy, 77 00:04:22,220 --> 00:04:25,220 in Russian, our president is coming. 78 00:04:25,220 --> 00:04:27,220 And he just sort of brushed on by 79 00:04:27,220 --> 00:04:30,220 without saying anything or no really reaction, 80 00:04:30,220 --> 00:04:32,220 in a way that was typical of him. 81 00:04:32,220 --> 00:04:34,220 So I gave it very little thought. 82 00:04:34,220 --> 00:04:36,220 He often didn't respond very much. 83 00:04:36,220 --> 00:04:39,220 But I think that evening he was especially quiet at dinner. 84 00:04:39,220 --> 00:04:41,220 And he went to bed very early. 85 00:04:41,220 --> 00:04:45,220 On the morning of the assassination, Oswald overslept. 86 00:04:45,220 --> 00:04:47,220 Leaving money in his wedding ring behind, 87 00:04:47,220 --> 00:04:50,220 he hurried down the street to secure his ride to work with Frasier. 88 00:04:50,220 --> 00:04:53,220 Under his arm, he carried a brown paper package. 89 00:04:53,220 --> 00:04:57,220 Did this contain the gun that killed the President of the United States? 90 00:04:57,220 --> 00:05:00,220 The first time I saw the package, it was on the back seat of my car. 91 00:05:00,220 --> 00:05:02,220 And I just glanced at it. 92 00:05:02,220 --> 00:05:04,220 And I asked, I said, what's that, Lee? 93 00:05:04,220 --> 00:05:06,220 And he said, that's curtain rods. 94 00:05:06,220 --> 00:05:08,220 You remember I was going to bring them? 95 00:05:08,220 --> 00:05:13,220 The length of the package that I saw that morning 96 00:05:13,220 --> 00:05:18,220 was roughly two foot long, give or take an inch or two. 97 00:05:18,220 --> 00:05:22,220 And it was made out of the same type of packing material 98 00:05:22,220 --> 00:05:27,220 that you would find in any company that packed materials for shipment. 99 00:05:27,220 --> 00:05:31,220 It was just the brown paper and the tape that you would normally find. 100 00:05:31,220 --> 00:05:33,220 Nothing unusual. 101 00:05:34,220 --> 00:05:39,220 What we actually talked about that morning was that I mentioned, 102 00:05:39,220 --> 00:05:42,220 I said, President Kennedy is going to be coming to town today. 103 00:05:42,220 --> 00:05:44,220 And I said, you know, I've never seen a president. 104 00:05:44,220 --> 00:05:47,220 I said, I sure would like to get a chance to see him up close. 105 00:05:47,220 --> 00:05:50,220 But at that time, I didn't know that the motorcade in which he would be riding 106 00:05:50,220 --> 00:05:52,220 would come right by where we worked. 107 00:05:52,220 --> 00:05:56,220 He did not make any comment at all about where the president was coming to town. 108 00:05:56,220 --> 00:05:59,220 It didn't seem to interest him one way or the other. 109 00:05:59,220 --> 00:06:02,220 I parked in the parking lot, and I was driving. 110 00:06:02,220 --> 00:06:06,220 I parked in the parking lot at Texas School of Depository. 111 00:06:06,220 --> 00:06:12,220 Lee got out of the car, took the package that he said contained curtain rods, 112 00:06:12,220 --> 00:06:17,220 and he put one end of the package in the cup of his hand 113 00:06:17,220 --> 00:06:20,220 and the other up under his armpit. 114 00:06:20,220 --> 00:06:22,220 He put the package under his arm that way, 115 00:06:22,220 --> 00:06:26,220 and he walked off toward Texas School of Depository up on Elm Street. 116 00:06:26,220 --> 00:06:29,220 The package could not have contained Oswald's rifle. 117 00:06:29,220 --> 00:06:32,220 Even when dismantled, it was three feet long. 118 00:06:32,220 --> 00:06:35,220 The Warren commissioners who investigated the assassination 119 00:06:35,220 --> 00:06:38,220 ignored Frazier's unswerving testimony 120 00:06:38,220 --> 00:06:41,220 insisting the weapon had been smuggled into the depository 121 00:06:41,220 --> 00:06:44,220 in Oswald's brown paper parcel. 122 00:06:44,220 --> 00:06:47,220 Harold Norman, another of Oswald's co-workers, 123 00:06:47,220 --> 00:06:51,220 also found nothing unusual in his behaviour that morning. 124 00:06:51,220 --> 00:06:58,220 I saw Oswald about 30 minutes, I'd say, before the motorcade was coming through. 125 00:06:58,220 --> 00:07:03,220 And the reason why I remember seeing him is because 126 00:07:03,220 --> 00:07:06,220 he's an autofiller and I'm a checker, 127 00:07:06,220 --> 00:07:11,220 so I have to check the orders and make sure that they go out correctly 128 00:07:11,220 --> 00:07:13,220 to where they're supposed to go. 129 00:07:13,220 --> 00:07:19,220 But meantime, after I seen him on the first floor, I didn't see him anymore. 130 00:07:19,220 --> 00:07:24,220 As far as eyewitnesses go, there was a woman named Carolyn Arnold 131 00:07:24,220 --> 00:07:29,220 who spoke to Oswald on the second floor moments before the shooting. 132 00:07:29,220 --> 00:07:32,220 Now, the motorcade was running six minutes late. 133 00:07:32,220 --> 00:07:35,220 Oswald, had he been up there, would have had no way of knowing this. 134 00:07:35,220 --> 00:07:37,220 He would have been up there on the sixth floor. 135 00:07:37,220 --> 00:07:40,220 He would have been waiting for at least 10 or 15 minutes 136 00:07:40,220 --> 00:07:44,220 in that so-called sniper's perch to shoot at President Kennedy 137 00:07:44,220 --> 00:07:49,220 as he either came toward the depository or as he went toward the triple underpass, 138 00:07:49,220 --> 00:07:51,220 one way or the other. He would have had to be up there at that time. 139 00:07:51,220 --> 00:07:54,220 He wouldn't be in the lunchroom on the second floor. 140 00:07:54,220 --> 00:08:00,220 Now they are waving and here comes Jackie, waving by, and Mr. Kennedy. 141 00:08:00,220 --> 00:08:07,220 President Farr is now turning onto Elm Street 142 00:08:07,220 --> 00:08:11,220 and it will be only a matter of minutes before he arrives at the trademark. 143 00:08:11,220 --> 00:08:15,220 It appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route. 144 00:08:15,220 --> 00:08:18,220 Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route. 145 00:08:18,220 --> 00:08:22,220 There's numerous people running up the hill alongside Elm Street. 146 00:08:22,220 --> 00:08:25,220 Stand by just a moment, please. 147 00:08:25,220 --> 00:08:27,220 Put me on, Phil, put me on. 148 00:08:27,220 --> 00:08:29,220 The motorcade is coming by here. 149 00:08:29,220 --> 00:08:31,220 A presidential car coming up now. 150 00:08:31,220 --> 00:08:33,220 We know it's a presidential car. You can see Mr. Kennedy's pink suit. 151 00:08:33,220 --> 00:08:36,220 There's a Secret Service man spread eagle over the top of the car. 152 00:08:36,220 --> 00:08:38,220 We understand Governor and Mrs. Connolly are in the car, 153 00:08:38,220 --> 00:08:40,220 with President and Mrs. Kennedy. 154 00:08:40,220 --> 00:08:42,220 We can't see who has been hit, has anybody been hit, 155 00:08:42,220 --> 00:08:44,220 but apparently something is wrong here. 156 00:08:44,220 --> 00:08:45,220 Something is terribly wrong. 157 00:08:45,220 --> 00:08:47,220 I'm in behind the motorcade, nothing to follow them. 158 00:08:47,220 --> 00:08:49,220 It looks as though they're going to Parkland Hospital. 159 00:08:49,220 --> 00:08:52,220 And just now we've received reports here at Parkland 160 00:08:52,220 --> 00:08:55,220 that Governor Connolly was shot in the upper left chest, 161 00:08:55,220 --> 00:08:59,220 and the first unconfirmed reports say the President was hit in the head. 162 00:08:59,220 --> 00:09:02,220 That's an unconfirmed report that the President was hit in the head. 163 00:09:02,220 --> 00:09:03,220 A priest has been ordered. 164 00:09:03,220 --> 00:09:06,220 Emergency supplies of blood also being rushed to the hospital. 165 00:09:06,220 --> 00:09:07,220 Just a moment, just a moment. 166 00:09:07,220 --> 00:09:08,220 We have a bulletin coming in. 167 00:09:08,220 --> 00:09:10,220 We now switch you directly to Parkland Hospital 168 00:09:10,220 --> 00:09:13,220 and KBUX News Director Bill Hampton. 169 00:09:13,220 --> 00:09:17,220 The President of the United States is dead. 170 00:09:17,220 --> 00:09:20,220 It's official, as of just a few moments ago, 171 00:09:20,220 --> 00:09:23,220 the President of the United States is dead. 172 00:09:26,220 --> 00:09:29,220 What I remember is being told that it was an oral report 173 00:09:29,220 --> 00:09:33,220 rather than a visual one, that the President had been shot. 174 00:09:34,220 --> 00:09:38,220 And then it was really quite a while later 175 00:09:38,220 --> 00:09:41,220 that we heard that he had died. 176 00:09:41,220 --> 00:09:45,220 And when I first heard that he'd been shot, 177 00:09:45,220 --> 00:09:48,220 I went and got a little votive candle and lit that, 178 00:09:48,220 --> 00:09:50,220 and Marina said, is that a way of praying? 179 00:09:50,220 --> 00:09:53,220 And I said, yes, that's sort of my way. 180 00:09:55,220 --> 00:09:58,220 We were both just very distressed, 181 00:09:58,220 --> 00:10:02,220 and, you know, let lunch sit on the table, 182 00:10:02,220 --> 00:10:04,220 let lunch sit on the table. 183 00:10:04,220 --> 00:10:08,220 Neither interested in eating as we followed the coverage. 184 00:10:08,220 --> 00:10:12,220 A little later on, life went on, we had children to take care of, 185 00:10:12,220 --> 00:10:16,220 and she was hanging out some laundry on the back line 186 00:10:16,220 --> 00:10:20,220 when I heard on the TV that the shots were thought to have been fired 187 00:10:20,220 --> 00:10:23,220 from the school book depository building. 188 00:10:32,220 --> 00:10:35,220 Now riding the back trails of Texas, 189 00:10:35,220 --> 00:10:39,220 a former Dallas motorcycle officer recalls a remarkable encounter 190 00:10:39,220 --> 00:10:42,220 he had within 90 seconds of the assassination. 191 00:10:42,220 --> 00:10:46,220 The first policeman into the depository was Marion Baker. 192 00:10:46,220 --> 00:10:49,220 I worked for the Dallas Police Department as a motorcycle officer 193 00:10:49,220 --> 00:10:51,220 and signed the motorcade that day. 194 00:10:51,220 --> 00:10:56,220 I was approximately five or six cars back from the lead car of the motorcade. 195 00:10:56,220 --> 00:10:59,220 I had gone to the police department, 196 00:10:59,220 --> 00:11:02,220 and I was about to get on the lead car of the motorcade. 197 00:11:02,220 --> 00:11:05,220 I had gotten about halfway between Maine and Houston 198 00:11:05,220 --> 00:11:08,220 when I heard these three shots. 199 00:11:08,220 --> 00:11:12,220 And immediately I knew they was in front of me and high. 200 00:11:12,220 --> 00:11:16,220 And as I looked up, I saw this huge flock of pigeons 201 00:11:16,220 --> 00:11:19,220 flying from the top of this building. 202 00:11:21,220 --> 00:11:25,220 I rode my motorcycle over to the corner of the intersection, 203 00:11:25,220 --> 00:11:30,220 and then ran into the building, which took me a very few seconds to do this. 204 00:11:30,220 --> 00:11:33,220 When I got through the front doors into the lobby of the building, 205 00:11:33,220 --> 00:11:36,220 I asked where the elevators or the stairs would be. 206 00:11:36,220 --> 00:11:39,220 And one man spoke up and said, 207 00:11:39,220 --> 00:11:42,220 I'm Mr. Trulli, I'm the building manager. 208 00:11:42,220 --> 00:11:45,220 And he said, come on officer, I'll show you. 209 00:11:45,220 --> 00:11:48,220 So he and I continued onto the back of the building 210 00:11:48,220 --> 00:11:52,220 and up some stairways at the back of the building to the second floor. 211 00:11:52,220 --> 00:11:56,220 As we came out on the second floor, 212 00:11:56,220 --> 00:12:02,220 I saw through a doorway, a window in this doorway, 213 00:12:02,220 --> 00:12:05,220 a man, a movement. 214 00:12:05,220 --> 00:12:10,220 So I went over and opened up the door, and this man was walking away from it. 215 00:12:10,220 --> 00:12:14,220 And the next room I later found out was a coffee room. 216 00:12:14,220 --> 00:12:19,220 As seen earlier by his fellow workers, Oswald was still alone in the lunchroom. 217 00:12:19,220 --> 00:12:22,220 I called to the man, and he turned around, 218 00:12:22,220 --> 00:12:24,220 and Mr. Trulli was there beside me, 219 00:12:24,220 --> 00:12:27,220 and I asked him if he knew this man or if he worked there. 220 00:12:27,220 --> 00:12:29,220 He said, yes, he does. 221 00:12:29,220 --> 00:12:32,220 He was calm, ordinary, you know. 222 00:12:32,220 --> 00:12:35,220 He didn't look excited or anything like that. 223 00:12:36,220 --> 00:12:39,220 In order to fire the shots from the sixth floor, 224 00:12:39,220 --> 00:12:42,220 Oswald needed to squeeze his way out of the sniper's perch, 225 00:12:42,220 --> 00:12:46,220 pick his way between stacks of books to the far side of the building, 226 00:12:46,220 --> 00:12:48,220 hiding the gun en route, 227 00:12:48,220 --> 00:12:51,220 descend four flights of stairs to the lunchroom unobserved, 228 00:12:51,220 --> 00:12:55,220 and yet appear calm and unruffled in his encounter with Officer Baker, 229 00:12:55,220 --> 00:12:58,220 all within 90 seconds. 230 00:13:00,220 --> 00:13:03,220 Less than 15 minutes after the shooting, 231 00:13:03,220 --> 00:13:07,220 the police were broadcasting a wanted description that closely fitted Oswald. 232 00:13:07,220 --> 00:13:10,220 Who provided that description is not known, 233 00:13:10,220 --> 00:13:13,220 but it led to the immediate arrest of Oswald lookalikes, 234 00:13:13,220 --> 00:13:16,220 even in Fort Worth, 30 miles away. 235 00:13:37,220 --> 00:13:41,220 Meanwhile, the real Oswald had made his way to a taxi rank 236 00:13:41,220 --> 00:13:44,220 at a very short distance from the depository, 237 00:13:44,220 --> 00:13:48,220 and after politely offering the first cab in line to another passenger, 238 00:13:48,220 --> 00:13:51,220 had asked to be driven to the street where he lived in Oak Cliff. 239 00:13:51,220 --> 00:13:55,220 At his lodgings, he rushed to his room, collected a jacket and revolver, 240 00:13:55,220 --> 00:13:59,220 and was last seen by his landlady shortly after 1 p.m., 241 00:13:59,220 --> 00:14:03,220 standing at the bus stop outside 1026 North Beckley. 242 00:14:06,220 --> 00:14:10,220 A mile from Oswald's rooming house in another part of Oak Cliff, 243 00:14:10,220 --> 00:14:14,720 a 244 00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:18,720 ! 245 00:14:19,220 --> 00:14:22,220 I was standing here on this corner, 246 00:14:22,220 --> 00:14:25,220 waiting on the track, 247 00:14:25,220 --> 00:14:28,220 so I said, go down there and catch my bus to go to work, 248 00:14:28,220 --> 00:14:31,220 and a man come walking down the sidewalk, 249 00:14:31,220 --> 00:14:35,220 and a policeman came, and I could not get across. 250 00:14:35,220 --> 00:14:39,220 The policeman in a patrol car was Officer J.D. Tippett. 251 00:14:39,220 --> 00:14:42,220 According to Helen Markham's account, Tippett stopped his car 252 00:14:42,220 --> 00:14:46,220 and got out to continue his conversation with the man on the sidewalk. 253 00:14:46,220 --> 00:14:50,220 Just as the policeman got in front of the hood of the car, 254 00:14:50,220 --> 00:14:53,220 the man shot him three or four times, 255 00:14:53,220 --> 00:14:58,220 and then he put his gun back in his pants. 256 00:14:58,220 --> 00:15:02,220 He ran over here, and I put my hands, I seen him coming, 257 00:15:02,220 --> 00:15:06,220 I just put my hands up on my face like this. 258 00:15:06,220 --> 00:15:10,220 I waited for a few minutes, and I opened them up, 259 00:15:10,220 --> 00:15:13,220 and I pulled them down. 260 00:15:13,220 --> 00:15:17,220 And he looked at me, and I looked at him, and I never said a word, 261 00:15:17,220 --> 00:15:21,220 and just like a flash of lightning with big glassy eyes, 262 00:15:21,220 --> 00:15:25,220 he ran off across the field, after that lot there, 263 00:15:25,220 --> 00:15:31,220 down right across there, went over the fence and down the alley. 264 00:15:31,220 --> 00:15:35,220 With Helen Markham, car dealer Ted Calloway 265 00:15:35,220 --> 00:15:38,220 was to become a principal witness for the Warren Commission. 266 00:15:38,220 --> 00:15:41,220 At a police identity parade later that day, 267 00:15:41,220 --> 00:15:46,220 they both picked out Lee Harvey Oswald as the killer of Officer J.D. Tippett. 268 00:15:46,220 --> 00:15:51,220 I was sitting in my office when I heard what sounded to be five pistol shots 269 00:15:51,220 --> 00:15:55,220 coming from behind my office in the direction of 10th Street. 270 00:15:55,220 --> 00:15:58,220 Well, I jumped up, ran out to the sidewalk, and as I did, 271 00:15:58,220 --> 00:16:02,220 I saw a man jump through the hedge carrying a pistol, 272 00:16:02,220 --> 00:16:05,220 and he angled across the street to the sidewalk 273 00:16:05,220 --> 00:16:10,220 and continued to run in my direction, holding his pistol. 274 00:16:10,220 --> 00:16:13,220 When he got almost directly across from me, 275 00:16:13,220 --> 00:16:16,220 I yelled at him, hey, man, what the hell is going on? 276 00:16:16,220 --> 00:16:20,220 And he had his pistol right here, and he nearly stopped, 277 00:16:20,220 --> 00:16:22,220 and he turned in my direction and said something, 278 00:16:22,220 --> 00:16:24,220 but I couldn't understand what he said. 279 00:16:24,220 --> 00:16:28,220 So he continued walking down Patton Street. 280 00:16:28,220 --> 00:16:29,220 I called to a friend of mine. 281 00:16:29,220 --> 00:16:32,220 I said, follow that guy. See where he's going. 282 00:16:32,220 --> 00:16:36,220 The different routes taken by the fleeing assailant 283 00:16:36,220 --> 00:16:40,220 are not the only contradictions in the accounts of these key witnesses. 284 00:16:40,220 --> 00:16:49,220 He was wearing a light shirt, a brown jacket, and a light gray trousers. 285 00:16:49,220 --> 00:16:55,220 He was wearing a black pair of trousers, a white shirt, 286 00:16:55,220 --> 00:17:02,220 and either a real light tan or a light gray Eisenhower-type windbreaker. 287 00:17:02,220 --> 00:17:10,220 He was a short man, tiny, small, and with a rudy complexion. 288 00:17:10,220 --> 00:17:15,220 He had real fair complexion, dark hair, 289 00:17:15,220 --> 00:17:20,220 and I found out later, the reason he had such fair complexion 290 00:17:20,220 --> 00:17:22,220 is that he had killed the police officer, and he scared the death. 291 00:17:22,220 --> 00:17:25,220 He was as pale as a ghost. 292 00:17:25,220 --> 00:17:29,220 This man has devoted more time and energy than anyone 293 00:17:29,220 --> 00:17:33,220 to investigating the murder of Officer Tippett in Hope Cliff. 294 00:17:33,220 --> 00:17:38,220 After 12 years, researcher Larry Harris has uncovered important new evidence. 295 00:17:38,220 --> 00:17:42,220 The Warren Report concluded that Oswald had been walking east on 10th Street 296 00:17:42,220 --> 00:17:45,220 at the time he was encountered by Officer Tippett, 297 00:17:45,220 --> 00:17:49,220 and yet virtually all of the police, FBI, and Secret Service written reports 298 00:17:49,220 --> 00:17:54,220 from that weekend stated clearly that the man had been walking west on 10th Street, 299 00:17:54,220 --> 00:17:56,220 the opposite direction of Oswald. 300 00:17:56,220 --> 00:17:59,220 One of the witnesses to so state was Jim Burt, 301 00:17:59,220 --> 00:18:02,220 who was located on the corner of Denver and 10th Street. 302 00:18:02,220 --> 00:18:06,220 He sat on his front porch and stated he watched the man walking west on 10th Street 303 00:18:06,220 --> 00:18:09,220 up to the point where he encountered the police officer, 304 00:18:09,220 --> 00:18:11,220 and this is the man who did the shooting. 305 00:18:11,220 --> 00:18:14,220 The fact of the matter is that after 25 years, 306 00:18:14,220 --> 00:18:18,220 it's unclear just what transpired during the shooting here at 10th and Patten. 307 00:18:18,220 --> 00:18:21,220 One of the witnesses not known to the Warren Commission 308 00:18:21,220 --> 00:18:24,220 was a woman named Aquilla Clemens who was located in a house 309 00:18:24,220 --> 00:18:26,220 on the opposite side of the street. 310 00:18:26,220 --> 00:18:30,220 She came out immediately after the shooting and said she saw two men, 311 00:18:30,220 --> 00:18:34,220 one of whom was short and chunky, standing near the police car, 312 00:18:34,220 --> 00:18:37,220 and these men ran off in opposite directions. 313 00:18:37,220 --> 00:18:42,220 The bullets recovered from Tippett's body could not be traced to Oswald's revolver, 314 00:18:42,220 --> 00:18:44,220 nor apparently to any other revolver. 315 00:18:44,220 --> 00:18:50,220 There were references on the police radio tapes to an automatic weapon, two references. 316 00:18:50,220 --> 00:18:55,220 This is highly significant because Oswald was carrying a six-shot revolver, not an automatic. 317 00:18:55,220 --> 00:19:01,220 According to the Warren Report, Oswald continued on in a westerly direction toward the Texas theater 318 00:19:01,220 --> 00:19:05,220 and was able to reverse a six-block distance unimpeded, 319 00:19:05,220 --> 00:19:09,220 even though Jefferson Boulevard was swarming with police cars and bystanders 320 00:19:09,220 --> 00:19:14,220 searching for the suspect and closely scrutinizing any single white male 321 00:19:14,220 --> 00:19:17,220 that would have been walking in the area. 322 00:19:24,220 --> 00:19:28,220 An agitated figure was seen to dodge into the Texas theater 323 00:19:28,220 --> 00:19:31,220 without paying and disappear into the upstairs balcony. 324 00:19:31,220 --> 00:19:35,220 Butch Burrows was the ticket collector on duty that day. 325 00:19:35,220 --> 00:19:43,220 We were playing two movies called War as Hell with the Oldie Murphy 326 00:19:43,220 --> 00:19:46,220 and Cry Battle with Ben Hepplin. 327 00:19:46,220 --> 00:19:56,220 And we started the movie at one o'clock, and I was carrying candy behind the candy case. 328 00:19:56,220 --> 00:20:03,220 And he also slipped in around 21 and... 329 00:20:05,220 --> 00:20:07,220 1-7. 330 00:20:08,220 --> 00:20:14,220 According to the official record, 1-07 was the time at which police officer Tippett was slain. 331 00:20:14,220 --> 00:20:18,220 Tippett's police comrades gave him a hero's funeral 332 00:20:18,220 --> 00:20:23,220 with all the pomp and ceremony that the city of Dallas could provide. 333 00:20:32,220 --> 00:20:36,220 Mrs. Tippett became a very wealthy woman. 334 00:20:36,220 --> 00:20:39,220 She was a very good woman. 335 00:20:40,220 --> 00:20:44,220 Mrs. Tippett became a very wealthy widow. 336 00:20:44,220 --> 00:20:49,220 Donations poured into Dallas for the family of the police hero 337 00:20:49,220 --> 00:20:55,220 slain in the line of duty confronting the presidential assassin, Lee Oswald. 338 00:21:01,220 --> 00:21:07,220 Here in Dallas, the man all America is looking at at this time is 24-year-old Lee H. Oswald 339 00:21:07,220 --> 00:21:10,220 being interrogated at the Dallas City Police Building. 340 00:21:10,220 --> 00:21:14,220 At the time of his arrest in the theater in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, 341 00:21:14,220 --> 00:21:18,220 he was subdued after killing a Dallas police officer with a snub-nosed revolver, 342 00:21:18,220 --> 00:21:21,220 struggling with another officer striking him with that pistol. 343 00:21:21,220 --> 00:21:23,220 And during that struggle, he was heard to shout, 344 00:21:23,220 --> 00:21:28,220 It's all over now. I've got me a president and a cop, and I'll try for two more. 345 00:21:28,220 --> 00:21:30,220 A fanatic in every sense of the word. 346 00:21:30,220 --> 00:21:33,220 MacDonald Yelper helped the other officers in the theater, 347 00:21:33,220 --> 00:21:36,220 and I managed to subdue the man, disarm him, and handcuff him. 348 00:21:36,220 --> 00:21:40,220 We asked him why he shot the officer, and he made the statement, 349 00:21:40,220 --> 00:21:42,220 I haven't done anything to be ashamed of. 350 00:21:42,220 --> 00:21:46,220 This is all the information we got out of him on the way downtown. 351 00:21:46,220 --> 00:21:49,220 After we pulled into the basement and set up the wedge, 352 00:21:49,220 --> 00:21:53,220 we told him we would hold him in such a way that if he did not want his picture taken, 353 00:21:53,220 --> 00:21:58,220 he could duck down below the level of the outside guys walking around him 354 00:21:58,220 --> 00:22:01,220 and get into the station without anybody taking his picture. 355 00:22:01,220 --> 00:22:04,220 And here again, he says, I haven't done anything to be ashamed of, 356 00:22:04,220 --> 00:22:08,220 and we did not try to hide his face in any way as we went in on the elevator 357 00:22:08,220 --> 00:22:11,220 up to the third floor and sent him into interrogation. 358 00:22:13,220 --> 00:22:17,220 Except for the arresting officers, I was the first investigative officer that talked to him. 359 00:22:17,220 --> 00:22:21,220 He said he hadn't shot anybody, hadn't shot an officer or anybody else, 360 00:22:21,220 --> 00:22:25,220 and the only thing that he would admit to was hitting an officer in the mouth. 361 00:22:25,220 --> 00:22:27,220 He said, no, a cop in the mouth is the way he put it. 362 00:22:27,220 --> 00:22:29,220 He said, I will admit to a pit and a cop in the mouth, 363 00:22:29,220 --> 00:22:33,220 but he said, I won't admit to shooting anybody. 364 00:22:33,220 --> 00:22:41,220 And his answers that he would give to questions were, as almost like they'd been rehearsed. 365 00:22:41,220 --> 00:22:44,220 Sir, I work in that building. 366 00:22:44,220 --> 00:22:45,220 Were you in the building at the time? 367 00:22:45,220 --> 00:22:48,220 Naturally, if I work in that building, yes, sir. 368 00:22:48,220 --> 00:22:50,220 Did you shoot the President? 369 00:22:50,220 --> 00:22:54,220 No, they've taken me in because of the fact that I lived in the Soviet Union. 370 00:22:54,220 --> 00:22:56,220 Did you shoot the President? 371 00:22:58,220 --> 00:23:02,220 The prime piece of evidence against Oswald seemed to be the antiquated bolt-action rifle 372 00:23:02,220 --> 00:23:06,220 discovered on the sixth floor of the depository 30 minutes after the assassination. 373 00:23:06,220 --> 00:23:12,220 However, both the FBI and the Dallas police were unable to positively tie the weapon to Oswald. 374 00:23:12,220 --> 00:23:16,220 This became a matter of increasing embarrassment to Police Chief Jesse Curry. 375 00:23:16,220 --> 00:23:19,220 Chief, we understand you have the results of the parapin test, 376 00:23:19,220 --> 00:23:23,220 which were made to determine whether Oswald had fired a weapon. 377 00:23:23,220 --> 00:23:26,220 I understand that it was positive. 378 00:23:26,220 --> 00:23:28,220 What does that mean? 379 00:23:28,220 --> 00:23:30,220 It only means that he fired a gun. 380 00:23:31,220 --> 00:23:34,220 Was there powder burns or powder marks on his cheek? 381 00:23:34,220 --> 00:23:36,220 I don't know that. 382 00:23:36,220 --> 00:23:38,220 I don't know about the untainted. 383 00:23:38,220 --> 00:23:41,220 That he fired a gun, Chief, not the rifle or the pistol. 384 00:23:41,220 --> 00:23:43,220 That's right. 385 00:23:44,220 --> 00:23:47,220 As the police tried to build a case against Oswald, 386 00:23:47,220 --> 00:23:50,220 officers were dispatched to question his wife, Marina. 387 00:23:50,220 --> 00:23:53,220 They were led by Detective Gus Rhodes. 388 00:23:53,220 --> 00:23:57,220 We drove to the 6th Street address in Irving, the address of Ruth Payne, 389 00:23:57,220 --> 00:23:59,220 and walked up the wall. 390 00:23:59,220 --> 00:24:01,220 As I approached the door, a voice said, 391 00:24:01,220 --> 00:24:03,220 Come on in, I've been expecting you. 392 00:24:03,220 --> 00:24:05,220 Questions that I asked Marina, I said, 393 00:24:05,220 --> 00:24:08,220 Does your husband own a rifle? 394 00:24:08,220 --> 00:24:10,220 She said, yes. 395 00:24:10,220 --> 00:24:12,220 I said, Do you know where it is? 396 00:24:12,220 --> 00:24:13,220 She said, yes. 397 00:24:13,220 --> 00:24:15,220 I said, Can you show it to me? 398 00:24:15,220 --> 00:24:16,220 She said, yes. 399 00:24:16,220 --> 00:24:18,220 She motioned for me to follow her. 400 00:24:18,220 --> 00:24:20,220 She directed me into the kitchen part of the house, 401 00:24:20,220 --> 00:24:23,220 where she opened a door that goes into a garage. 402 00:24:23,220 --> 00:24:28,220 She pointed out in the garage to a rolled up blanket that was laying out there, 403 00:24:28,220 --> 00:24:31,220 and she said, being interpreted by Ruth Payne, that's his rifle. 404 00:24:31,220 --> 00:24:36,220 The officer picked up the blanket roll and just hung over his arm. 405 00:24:36,220 --> 00:24:42,220 That was the point at which I felt that he could have been the one that killed the president. 406 00:24:44,220 --> 00:24:49,220 I had this flawed feeling of what they need to know. 407 00:24:49,220 --> 00:24:51,220 I'm going to help them know whatever they need to know. 408 00:24:51,220 --> 00:24:53,220 We're going to get to the bottom of this. 409 00:24:53,220 --> 00:24:57,220 But that was the first I had any inkling that he'd even had a gun. 410 00:24:57,220 --> 00:25:01,220 If I had a rifle, just a fact that you people have been given, 411 00:25:01,220 --> 00:25:03,220 but I fanically deny these charges. 412 00:25:03,220 --> 00:25:07,220 These basic fundamental hygienic rights, I mean like a shower. 413 00:25:07,220 --> 00:25:13,220 These people have given me a hearing without legal representation or anything. 414 00:25:13,220 --> 00:25:16,220 I didn't shoot anybody, not you. 415 00:25:16,220 --> 00:25:19,220 I'm just a pasty. 416 00:25:20,220 --> 00:25:25,220 There is no official record of Oswald's many hours of interrogation. 417 00:25:25,220 --> 00:25:28,220 I was in the process of transferring him. 418 00:25:28,220 --> 00:25:33,220 I had a short conversation with him and said, Lee, if anybody shoots at you, 419 00:25:33,220 --> 00:25:37,220 I hope that they are as good a shot as you are. 420 00:25:37,220 --> 00:25:41,220 Meaning that I hope that if they shot him, they'd hit him and not me. 421 00:25:41,220 --> 00:25:45,220 He kind of laughed and said, well, you're being melodramatic about it. 422 00:25:45,220 --> 00:25:47,220 I don't think anybody's going to shoot at me. 423 00:25:47,220 --> 00:25:51,220 I said, well, in the event that they do shoot at you, you know what to do. 424 00:25:51,220 --> 00:25:53,220 You will be on the floor immediately. 425 00:25:53,220 --> 00:25:56,220 However, I didn't realize that just two or three minutes later, 426 00:25:56,220 --> 00:25:59,220 somebody would actually be shooting at him. 427 00:25:59,220 --> 00:26:05,220 Even in Oswald's dying moments, the authorities desperately tried to rest a confession from him. 428 00:26:05,220 --> 00:26:08,220 A surgeon Paul Peters, of Parkland Hospital, explains. 429 00:26:08,220 --> 00:26:13,220 There were secret service men intermingled with the operating room personnel, 430 00:26:13,220 --> 00:26:17,220 as there were dozens of people in the operating suite at that time. 431 00:26:17,220 --> 00:26:21,220 And some were dressed in green clothes as the surgeons, 432 00:26:21,220 --> 00:26:25,220 so as to be indistinguishable from operating room personnel. 433 00:26:25,220 --> 00:26:33,220 And since it was known by those in the operating room that he was under little or no anesthesia, 434 00:26:33,220 --> 00:26:40,220 two or three people shouted in his ear, did you do it? Did you do it? 435 00:26:40,220 --> 00:26:47,220 Which led me as a layman to speculate that perhaps a full-fledged confession 436 00:26:47,220 --> 00:26:52,220 might not yet have been obtained from Mr. Oswald. 437 00:26:52,220 --> 00:26:56,220 Determined efforts by the Dallas police and the FBI in Washington 438 00:26:56,220 --> 00:27:00,220 had still failed to tie the prized rifle to Oswald. 439 00:27:00,220 --> 00:27:03,220 However, a smudged palm print was discovered on the weapon, 440 00:27:03,220 --> 00:27:06,220 hours after a mysterious visit to the funeral home, 441 00:27:06,220 --> 00:27:10,220 where Oswald's body had been taken by mortician Paul Groody. 442 00:27:10,220 --> 00:27:13,220 I had gotten to the funeral home with his body, 443 00:27:13,220 --> 00:27:16,220 something in the neighborhood of 11 o'clock at night, 444 00:27:16,220 --> 00:27:21,220 and it is several hour procedure to prepare the remains. 445 00:27:21,220 --> 00:27:28,220 And after this time, some place in the early, early morning, agents came. 446 00:27:28,220 --> 00:27:33,220 Now, I say agents because I'm not familiar at the moment with 447 00:27:33,220 --> 00:27:38,220 whether they were Secret Service or FBI or what they were. 448 00:27:38,220 --> 00:27:45,220 But agents did come, and when they did come, they fingerprinted. 449 00:27:45,220 --> 00:27:49,220 And the only reason that we knew they did, they were carrying a satchel 450 00:27:49,220 --> 00:27:55,220 and equipment and asked us if they might have the preparation room to themselves. 451 00:27:55,220 --> 00:28:01,220 And after it was all over, we found ink on Lee Harvey's hands, 452 00:28:01,220 --> 00:28:06,220 showing that they had fingerprinted him and palm printed him. 453 00:28:06,220 --> 00:28:11,220 We had to take that ink back off in order to prepare him for burial 454 00:28:11,220 --> 00:28:14,220 and to eliminate that ink. 455 00:28:14,220 --> 00:28:19,220 When we removed the casket from the little chapel, 456 00:28:19,220 --> 00:28:22,220 there wasn't any way that the help and I could handle it, 457 00:28:22,220 --> 00:28:25,220 since there were only two of us. 458 00:28:25,220 --> 00:28:27,220 We decided the best thing to do. 459 00:28:27,220 --> 00:28:30,220 I solicited the newsmen that were there, and I asked them, 460 00:28:30,220 --> 00:28:32,220 would you mind helping me? 461 00:28:32,220 --> 00:28:36,220 And they volunteered and came over and carried the remains, 462 00:28:36,220 --> 00:28:40,220 the casket to the coach and then from the coach to the tent 463 00:28:40,220 --> 00:28:43,220 after I drove over to the gravesite. 464 00:28:46,220 --> 00:28:50,220 There were enough policemen there, one behind every tombstone, 465 00:28:50,220 --> 00:28:54,220 because they just didn't know what was going to be the next thing to happen. 466 00:28:55,220 --> 00:28:58,220 When the minister was through with a few brief words, 467 00:28:58,220 --> 00:29:03,220 the family then was given the privilege of, as in the business, 468 00:29:03,220 --> 00:29:09,220 we call it the last leave, they had the opportunity to look at the body of Lee Harvey 469 00:29:09,220 --> 00:29:17,220 for a brief moment, and Marina, the wife, got up and patted his body and caressed him. 470 00:29:17,220 --> 00:29:21,220 Then she reached down and took a ring off of her finger, 471 00:29:21,220 --> 00:29:26,220 and actually it was two rings, and tried to place it on Lee Harvey's fingers, 472 00:29:26,220 --> 00:29:29,220 because this was the ring that was their wedding band, 473 00:29:29,220 --> 00:29:34,220 and I helped her because she was shaking and very nervous. 474 00:29:34,220 --> 00:29:40,220 Marina took a handful of dirt and made the sign of a cross on that grave. 475 00:29:40,220 --> 00:29:45,220 And then the family departed and went back to a protective custody. 476 00:29:48,220 --> 00:29:52,220 But the man given such a simple burial in Rose Hill Cemetery 477 00:29:52,220 --> 00:29:55,220 was far more complex than portrayed by history. 478 00:29:55,220 --> 00:29:57,220 Oswald was a pretty interesting fellow. 479 00:29:57,220 --> 00:30:01,220 He's not nearly the one-dimensional character that the Warren Commission has painted him to be. 480 00:30:01,220 --> 00:30:05,220 He was in the Marine Corps and did very well. He had a high security clearance. 481 00:30:05,220 --> 00:30:08,220 He was stationed over at Sugiy. He was a radar operator. 482 00:30:08,220 --> 00:30:12,220 In fact, he was one of the guys that would track the U-2 flights over Russia. 483 00:30:12,220 --> 00:30:16,220 So it's not like he was the perennial loser that we tend to have this image of him now. 484 00:30:17,220 --> 00:30:24,220 Some of the key pieces of the Oswald puzzle lie not in Dallas, but down in New Orleans, 485 00:30:24,220 --> 00:30:27,220 where he spent significant periods of his life. 486 00:30:33,220 --> 00:30:37,220 In an unbroadcast interview with a local radio and television station 487 00:30:37,220 --> 00:30:42,220 only months before the assassination, Oswald spoke about his life. 488 00:30:42,220 --> 00:30:46,220 I was born in New Orleans in 1939. 489 00:30:46,220 --> 00:30:51,220 For a short length of time during my childhood, I lived in Texas and in New York. 490 00:30:51,220 --> 00:30:56,220 During my junior high school days, I attended Beauregard Junior High School. 491 00:30:56,220 --> 00:30:58,220 I attended that school for two years. 492 00:30:58,220 --> 00:31:03,220 Then I went to Warren Eastern High School, and I attended that school for over a year. 493 00:31:03,220 --> 00:31:09,220 Then my family and I moved to Texas, and I came to the school. 494 00:31:09,220 --> 00:31:14,220 Then I entered the United States Marine Corps in 1956. 495 00:31:14,220 --> 00:31:19,220 I spent three years in the United States Marine Corps, starting out as a private, 496 00:31:19,220 --> 00:31:24,220 working my way up through the ranks to the position of buck sergeant. 497 00:31:24,220 --> 00:31:28,220 And I served honorably, having been discharged. 498 00:31:28,220 --> 00:31:33,220 He had an honorable discharge, and then just a few weeks later wound up in Russia, 499 00:31:33,220 --> 00:31:36,220 saying that he was going to renounce his American service. 500 00:31:36,220 --> 00:31:40,220 And it's interesting that after he had supposedly said that, 501 00:31:40,220 --> 00:31:43,220 he was given a dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps. 502 00:31:43,220 --> 00:31:46,220 It's fascinating that when he did go over to Russia and was introduced to the woman 503 00:31:46,220 --> 00:31:52,220 who later became his wife, his Russian was so good that she thought he was a Russian. 504 00:31:52,220 --> 00:31:54,220 So we suspect that he was trained. 505 00:31:54,220 --> 00:32:01,220 And it is known that the military in this country had training programs for defectors. 506 00:32:01,220 --> 00:32:04,220 And we suspect Oswald was in that program. 507 00:32:04,220 --> 00:32:06,220 We don't know it, but we suspect it. 508 00:32:06,220 --> 00:32:10,220 A glimpse into his true role in Russia may have been revealed by the hesitant way 509 00:32:10,220 --> 00:32:14,220 in which he described his relationship with the American Embassy there. 510 00:32:14,220 --> 00:32:16,220 I worked in Russia. 511 00:32:16,220 --> 00:32:20,220 I was under the protection of the... 512 00:32:20,220 --> 00:32:24,220 That is to say, I was not under the protection of the American government, 513 00:32:24,220 --> 00:32:28,220 but that is, I was at all times under the protection of the American government. 514 00:32:28,220 --> 00:32:33,220 But that is, I was at all times considered an American citizen. 515 00:32:33,220 --> 00:32:37,220 At no time, as I say, did I renounce my citizenship 516 00:32:37,220 --> 00:32:39,220 or attempt to renounce my citizenship. 517 00:32:39,220 --> 00:32:44,220 And at no time was I out of contact with the American Embassy. 518 00:32:44,220 --> 00:32:50,220 It's quite possible that his mission in Russia was sponsored by the U.S. State Department, 519 00:32:50,220 --> 00:32:55,220 which did participate in some fake defector programs back in those days. 520 00:32:55,220 --> 00:32:58,220 It's entirely possible, and it certainly would fit with the kind of person 521 00:32:58,220 --> 00:33:00,220 we think Lee Harvey Oswald was. 522 00:33:00,220 --> 00:33:03,220 One person with no illusions about Oswald's role 523 00:33:03,220 --> 00:33:08,220 launched his own investigation into the Kennedy assassination in 1967. 524 00:33:08,220 --> 00:33:12,220 The former district attorney of New Orleans, Judge Jim Garrison. 525 00:33:12,220 --> 00:33:15,220 He was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency. 526 00:33:15,220 --> 00:33:19,220 And he was obviously drawn into a scapegoat situation 527 00:33:19,220 --> 00:33:23,220 and made to believe ultimately that he was penetrating the assassination. 528 00:33:23,220 --> 00:33:26,220 And then when the time came, they took the scapegoat, 529 00:33:26,220 --> 00:33:30,220 the man who thought he was working for the United States government, 530 00:33:30,220 --> 00:33:32,220 and killed him real quick. 531 00:33:32,220 --> 00:33:38,220 And then the machinery, disinformation, machinery started turning, 532 00:33:38,220 --> 00:33:44,220 and they started making a villain out of a man who genuinely was probably a hero. 533 00:33:47,220 --> 00:33:50,220 Six months before the assassination, 534 00:33:50,220 --> 00:33:54,220 Oswald had taken a mundane job with the Riley Coffee Company. 535 00:33:54,220 --> 00:33:58,220 But it seems his real activities were centered a few blocks away. 536 00:33:58,220 --> 00:34:02,220 From a small office on the corner of Lafayette and Camp Street, 537 00:34:02,220 --> 00:34:07,220 Oswald managed a local chapter of the Pro Castro Fair Play for Cuba committee. 538 00:34:07,220 --> 00:34:12,220 Operating from an adjoining office was a sinister figure named Guy Banister. 539 00:34:12,220 --> 00:34:17,220 About Guy Banister, it's difficult to say much about him 540 00:34:17,220 --> 00:34:21,220 because he always stood in his shadows and pushed someone else to the front. 541 00:34:21,220 --> 00:34:24,220 He was a strongly disciplined man, 542 00:34:24,220 --> 00:34:29,220 perhaps the outgrowth of his many years as a special agent in charge 543 00:34:29,220 --> 00:34:32,220 of the Chicago office of the FBI. 544 00:34:32,220 --> 00:34:35,220 But he was a key man in the assassination. 545 00:34:35,220 --> 00:34:40,220 And that's clear from the fact that Oswald's sheep dipping, 546 00:34:40,220 --> 00:34:46,220 his being portrayed as a communist, was done out of Guy Banister's office. 547 00:34:46,220 --> 00:34:51,220 So he was sheep dipped for months as a communist by giving literature, 548 00:34:51,220 --> 00:34:54,220 Lee, hand this out today, this is your assignment. 549 00:34:54,220 --> 00:35:01,220 I came across the fact that Oswald, a private in the Marines, had taken a Russian examination. 550 00:35:01,220 --> 00:35:04,220 And I knew the privates did not take Russian examinations 551 00:35:04,220 --> 00:35:06,220 unless they were connected with intelligence. 552 00:35:06,220 --> 00:35:10,220 So that caused me to be curious about 544 Camp, 553 00:35:10,220 --> 00:35:14,220 which was the address stamped on one circular 554 00:35:14,220 --> 00:35:17,220 that they gave out one time before, obviously, Banister told them, 555 00:35:17,220 --> 00:35:19,220 Lee, no more addresses. 556 00:35:19,220 --> 00:35:24,220 It turned out that was a side address of Guy Banister's private detective agency. 557 00:35:24,220 --> 00:35:27,220 Well, I went down there to look at it, 558 00:35:27,220 --> 00:35:31,220 and I found myself not merely outside of Guy Banister's office, 559 00:35:31,220 --> 00:35:34,220 but across the street from Naval Intelligence, 560 00:35:34,220 --> 00:35:37,220 across the street from Secret Service. 561 00:35:37,220 --> 00:35:40,220 Around the corner was the Crescent City Garage, 562 00:35:40,220 --> 00:35:42,220 the garage for the intelligence community. 563 00:35:42,220 --> 00:35:46,220 And then two doors away, the Riley Coffee Company. 564 00:35:46,220 --> 00:35:48,220 I used to be in the FBI. 565 00:35:48,220 --> 00:35:50,220 I knew people in Naval Intelligence, 566 00:35:50,220 --> 00:35:53,220 and they were either across the street, around the corner, 567 00:35:53,220 --> 00:35:55,220 the whole intelligence community was there. 568 00:35:55,220 --> 00:36:00,220 And right in the middle of it was Guy Banister having Oswald sheep dipped as a communist. 569 00:36:00,220 --> 00:36:02,220 You're a Marxist? 570 00:36:02,220 --> 00:36:06,220 Well, I have studied Marxist philosophy, yes, sir, and also other philosophers. 571 00:36:06,220 --> 00:36:07,220 But are you a Marxist? 572 00:36:07,220 --> 00:36:11,220 I think you did admit on an earlier radio interview that you consider yourself a Marxist. 573 00:36:11,220 --> 00:36:14,220 I would very definitely say that I am a Marxist. 574 00:36:14,220 --> 00:36:18,220 That is correct. But that does not mean however that I'm a communist. 575 00:36:18,220 --> 00:36:20,220 What is the difference between the two? 576 00:36:20,220 --> 00:36:22,220 Well, there's a great deal of difference. 577 00:36:22,220 --> 00:36:28,220 Several American parties in several countries are based on Marxism, such as Ghana. 578 00:36:28,220 --> 00:36:32,220 Certain countries have characteristics of a socialist system, 579 00:36:32,220 --> 00:36:35,220 such as Great Britain, with its socialized medicine. 580 00:36:35,220 --> 00:36:38,220 These then are the differences between an outright communist country 581 00:36:38,220 --> 00:36:42,220 and countries which adhere to leftist or Marxist principles. 582 00:36:42,220 --> 00:36:47,220 In your work with the Fair Play for Cuba committee, what are you advocating? 583 00:36:47,220 --> 00:36:52,220 We advocate restoration of diplomatic trade and tourist relations with Cuba. 584 00:36:52,220 --> 00:36:58,220 Most lunchtimes, Oswald would leave work and stroll down Magazine Street 585 00:36:58,220 --> 00:37:04,220 to the Crescent City garage, where government agents parked their cars and had them serviced. 586 00:37:04,220 --> 00:37:10,220 One such agent was observed contacting Oswald by the owner of the garage, Adrian Alba. 587 00:37:12,220 --> 00:37:17,220 During his lunch break, Oswald often sat in this office browsing through gun magazines 588 00:37:17,220 --> 00:37:21,220 and chatting to Mr. Alba, who was also a keen rifleman. 589 00:37:21,220 --> 00:37:27,220 Oswald showed particular interest in how to go about ordering guns through the mail. 590 00:37:27,220 --> 00:37:31,220 The authorities tried to tie Oswald to the ordering of the assassination weapon 591 00:37:31,220 --> 00:37:34,220 by a coupon allegedly found amongst his possessions, 592 00:37:34,220 --> 00:37:38,220 torn from a June issue of one of Alba's gun magazines. 593 00:37:38,220 --> 00:37:43,220 Oswald, however, had ordered his rifle from a February issue of the magazine. 594 00:37:44,220 --> 00:37:47,220 When the president ends up being assassinated, 595 00:37:47,220 --> 00:37:50,220 and the scapegoat grabbed by the federal government, 596 00:37:50,220 --> 00:37:53,220 and killed before anything can be done to help him, 597 00:37:53,220 --> 00:38:00,220 turns out to be the man that Guy Bannister has been the tutor of all the time. 598 00:38:00,220 --> 00:38:04,220 You have to conclude that Guy Bannister was a key man in the assassination, 599 00:38:04,220 --> 00:38:11,220 and possibly the most important man that we encountered in our whole investigation. 600 00:38:11,220 --> 00:38:15,220 But he's been dead so many years, it's a little hard to question. 601 00:38:18,220 --> 00:38:22,220 Clinton, a sleepy country town 130 miles from New Orleans, 602 00:38:22,220 --> 00:38:27,220 and the unlikely venue for the further sheep-dipping of Agent Oswald. 603 00:38:28,220 --> 00:38:33,220 Less than three months before the assassination, he arrived here with two strangers. 604 00:38:33,220 --> 00:38:37,220 During his brief stay, he made several attempts to get a job, 605 00:38:37,220 --> 00:38:40,220 in particular the local state hospital. 606 00:38:40,220 --> 00:38:45,220 He is well remembered in neighboring Jackson by the town barber Edwin McGeehy. 607 00:38:45,220 --> 00:38:50,220 It was a lazy afternoon, traffic was slow, 608 00:38:50,220 --> 00:38:53,220 and all of a sudden this stranger walks in the door, 609 00:38:53,220 --> 00:38:55,220 and asks, how about a haircut? 610 00:38:55,220 --> 00:38:58,220 I said, fine. I got up, he sat down, 611 00:38:58,220 --> 00:39:02,220 and we started chatting, and I said, how you doing? 612 00:39:02,220 --> 00:39:06,220 He said, fine. He said, do you know, I'm looking for a job. 613 00:39:06,220 --> 00:39:11,220 And he says, do you know anything about it, do you know any place where I can get a job? 614 00:39:11,220 --> 00:39:15,220 I said, the only place we have is East Louisiana State Hospital. 615 00:39:15,220 --> 00:39:18,220 But I said, do you know anybody can help you get on? 616 00:39:18,220 --> 00:39:20,220 And he says, I don't know of anybody. 617 00:39:20,220 --> 00:39:21,220 He says, I'm from New Orleans. 618 00:39:21,220 --> 00:39:24,220 And he said, I don't know anybody can help me. 619 00:39:24,220 --> 00:39:29,220 Well, I said, I can direct you to our representative, Mr. Reeves Morgan's house. 620 00:39:29,220 --> 00:39:35,220 And he jumped when I said, it was a mental institution. 621 00:39:35,220 --> 00:39:37,220 He really, he just jumped like that. 622 00:39:37,220 --> 00:39:42,220 And he says, do they have all kind of jobs there, like electricians? 623 00:39:42,220 --> 00:39:46,220 He said, things like you say would make you remember him. 624 00:39:46,220 --> 00:39:49,220 That was my distinct impression. 625 00:39:49,220 --> 00:39:54,220 And he just didn't need a haircut. I don't know what he was up to. 626 00:39:54,220 --> 00:39:58,220 Oswald could not drive, but nonetheless he took to the back lanes 627 00:39:58,220 --> 00:40:04,220 and found his way to the remote homestead of the local state representative, Reeves Morgan. 628 00:40:04,220 --> 00:40:07,220 Well, I was in the house there burning some trash. 629 00:40:07,220 --> 00:40:12,220 I had the fireplaces accumulated and heard a knock on the door. 630 00:40:12,220 --> 00:40:16,220 I got up and there was a young fella. 631 00:40:16,220 --> 00:40:20,220 I invited him in and he said he wanted a job over at the hospital. 632 00:40:20,220 --> 00:40:24,220 He understood they had a vacancy over there in the electrical department. 633 00:40:24,220 --> 00:40:27,220 He seemed like a nice young fella. 634 00:40:27,220 --> 00:40:32,220 About like the average fella, maybe better than some of them. 635 00:40:32,220 --> 00:40:37,220 I went to lunch on the day of the assassination around at my mother-in-law's house. 636 00:40:37,220 --> 00:40:40,220 She invited us to my wife and I to eat. 637 00:40:40,220 --> 00:40:43,220 And his picture was flashed on the TV. 638 00:40:43,220 --> 00:40:47,220 I said, my goodness, I said, I know that fella from somewhere. 639 00:40:47,220 --> 00:40:51,220 I said, that's the same guy that was here. 640 00:40:51,220 --> 00:40:54,220 And Lee Harvey Oswald. 641 00:40:54,220 --> 00:40:59,220 He said he introduced himself as Oswald, Lee Oswald, he said. 642 00:40:59,220 --> 00:41:06,220 And I called the FBI man down there and he said he knew he'd been up here already 643 00:41:06,220 --> 00:41:09,220 and that's the last I ever heard of them. 644 00:41:09,220 --> 00:41:11,220 I said, surely they'll be by, you know. 645 00:41:11,220 --> 00:41:14,220 I kept looking from day and they never did come by. 646 00:41:14,220 --> 00:41:17,220 And I thought that was strange. 647 00:41:17,220 --> 00:41:25,220 The reason why they wanted to get Lee Oswald into the Jackson State Mental Hospital 648 00:41:25,220 --> 00:41:33,220 was so that with a change of a document or two and picking up a doctor to testify for the government, 649 00:41:33,220 --> 00:41:35,220 they could make him appear to be insane. 650 00:41:35,220 --> 00:41:40,220 He was utterly sane, just as he was absolutely non-communist. 651 00:41:40,220 --> 00:41:43,220 But in the sheep dipping programme that was underway, 652 00:41:43,220 --> 00:41:47,220 it was important to try and make him appear to be crazy. 653 00:41:58,220 --> 00:42:01,220 Vitterly protesting her son's innocence to the last, 654 00:42:01,220 --> 00:42:06,220 a forlorn Marguerite Oswald believed Lee had been grossly misrepresented to the world. 655 00:42:06,220 --> 00:42:12,220 Lee Harvey Oswald, my son, even after his death, 656 00:42:12,220 --> 00:42:18,220 has done more for his country than any other living human being. 657 00:42:21,220 --> 00:42:26,220 Three weeks after I buried Lee Harvey Oswald, 658 00:42:26,220 --> 00:42:28,220 the Secret Service came to me and they said, 659 00:42:28,220 --> 00:42:33,220 Paul, did you see any scars, such as the scars on his wrists, 660 00:42:33,220 --> 00:42:37,220 where he was supposed to have tried to commit suicide in Russia? 661 00:42:37,220 --> 00:42:41,220 And I said, of course, I wasn't looking for the likes of this. 662 00:42:41,220 --> 00:42:48,220 And really in my own mind did not feel as though I remembered much about this, 663 00:42:48,220 --> 00:42:51,220 but didn't remember seeing any marks of that kind. 664 00:42:51,220 --> 00:42:55,220 And the Secret Service agent told me at that time, 665 00:42:55,220 --> 00:43:00,220 well, Paul, we just don't know who we have out there in that grave. 666 00:43:01,220 --> 00:43:04,220 That mystery did not end with Oswald's burial. 667 00:43:04,220 --> 00:43:09,220 Lingering doubts about the identity of the person buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Fort Worth 668 00:43:09,220 --> 00:43:14,220 prompted Oswald's widow, Marina, to have his body exhumed in 1981. 669 00:43:15,220 --> 00:43:20,220 Being of Russian background and not truly trusting the American, 670 00:43:20,220 --> 00:43:23,220 she often wondered if his body was really there. 671 00:43:23,220 --> 00:43:29,220 So when it came the opportunity to possibly bring his body to the surface, 672 00:43:29,220 --> 00:43:33,220 she was most interested to know, is his body really there? 673 00:43:33,220 --> 00:43:37,220 Had somebody taken his body from the grave after the burial had been made? 674 00:43:37,220 --> 00:43:40,220 Well, that was her motive partly. 675 00:43:40,220 --> 00:43:43,220 And then too, I think she was interested to make sure 676 00:43:43,220 --> 00:43:48,220 that this was really Lee Harvey Oswald that was still there in that grave. 677 00:43:49,220 --> 00:43:54,220 At the time of the 63 of the burial time, 678 00:43:54,220 --> 00:43:59,220 I put Lee Harvey Oswald in a steel reinforced concrete vault. 679 00:43:59,220 --> 00:44:02,220 That vault was hermatically sealed. 680 00:44:02,220 --> 00:44:07,220 The vault is guaranteed not to break, crack or go to pieces. 681 00:44:07,220 --> 00:44:11,220 It's heavy concrete with steel in it, with an asphalt lining. 682 00:44:11,220 --> 00:44:17,220 And when I opened the grave in 81 and found that that vault had been broken 683 00:44:17,220 --> 00:44:23,220 and the bottom of the vault was the part that was broken, the top was still intact, 684 00:44:23,220 --> 00:44:29,220 I noticed at that time that the casket had been disturbed. 685 00:44:29,220 --> 00:44:34,220 I questioned in my own mind what had been going on. 686 00:44:35,220 --> 00:44:39,220 When I opened that casket the first time, 687 00:44:39,220 --> 00:44:43,220 I sent my wife, Virginia, to Marina to tell her, 688 00:44:43,220 --> 00:44:47,220 yes, there is a body in that grave because that was her concern. 689 00:44:47,220 --> 00:44:50,220 And then we did go to Baylor. 690 00:44:50,220 --> 00:44:57,220 There was an examination by a medical person who was a forensic pathologist. 691 00:44:57,220 --> 00:45:02,220 And she determined that the body had been taken. 692 00:45:02,220 --> 00:45:07,220 And she determined that, yes, these were the teeth of Lee Harvey Oswald, 693 00:45:07,220 --> 00:45:13,220 but it took two years for her to make that determination before the report was actually done. 694 00:45:13,220 --> 00:45:15,220 The findings of the team are as follows. 695 00:45:15,220 --> 00:45:22,220 We independently and as a team have concluded, beyond any doubt, 696 00:45:22,220 --> 00:45:25,220 and I mean beyond any doubt, 697 00:45:25,220 --> 00:45:30,220 that the individual buried under the name of Lee Harvey Oswald in Rose Hill Cemetery 698 00:45:30,220 --> 00:45:34,220 is, in fact, Lee Harvey Oswald. 699 00:45:34,220 --> 00:45:38,220 At this point in time, we hope that this puts the matter to rest 700 00:45:38,220 --> 00:45:46,220 without any further speculation being raised as to the identity of the individual at Rose Hill. 701 00:45:46,220 --> 00:45:51,220 Oswald's dental record was used to confirm the identity of the exhumed body, 702 00:45:51,220 --> 00:45:55,220 but once again the official version does not tell the whole story. 703 00:45:55,220 --> 00:46:01,220 Paul Grudy, an experienced mortician, made one vital observation that confounds their findings. 704 00:46:01,220 --> 00:46:04,220 He speaks about it here for the first time. 705 00:46:04,220 --> 00:46:11,220 Of course, I was the one that had to handle the body in the morgue at Baylor. 706 00:46:11,220 --> 00:46:18,220 And as we removed the body from the casket or at least worked with the body, 707 00:46:18,220 --> 00:46:24,220 I could recognize that this clothing was the clothing that I had put on that body. 708 00:46:24,220 --> 00:46:29,220 And yet when I saw the head of this body, 709 00:46:29,220 --> 00:46:34,220 and it was removed from the casket and removed from the body 710 00:46:34,220 --> 00:46:37,220 in order that they might x-ray it and take pictures, 711 00:46:37,220 --> 00:46:41,220 I could see that there was no autopsy on that head. 712 00:46:41,220 --> 00:46:48,220 When an autopsy is done and the skull is cut in order to remove the cap, 713 00:46:48,220 --> 00:46:50,220 in order to remove the brain, 714 00:46:50,220 --> 00:46:56,220 there is a distinctive line of where all the fissures and all of the skull has been parted. 715 00:46:56,220 --> 00:47:00,220 Now, it's going to cause a bit of a mark. 716 00:47:00,220 --> 00:47:03,220 No matter what you try and do, it's going to show. 717 00:47:03,220 --> 00:47:08,220 And knowing that I handled the body originally and there was an autopsy on that head, 718 00:47:08,220 --> 00:47:11,220 and now to see that there was no autopsy on the head 719 00:47:11,220 --> 00:47:16,220 made it in my mind pretty clear that something had transpired that had caused this. 720 00:47:16,220 --> 00:47:23,220 And I feel as though someone had gone to the cemetery, off hours, 721 00:47:23,220 --> 00:47:30,220 had taken the head of Lee Harvey Oswald, that now was dead. 722 00:47:30,220 --> 00:47:35,220 How he got that way, I don't know, but at least it was the head, 723 00:47:35,220 --> 00:47:40,220 and had brought the vault to the surface as best they could, 724 00:47:40,220 --> 00:47:48,220 the vault being a heavy item as it is, a tripod lifting the body and the vault out of the grave. 725 00:47:48,220 --> 00:47:57,220 In the process, the bottom of the vault fell, breaking the vault, causing the casket to deteriorate to a degree. 726 00:47:57,220 --> 00:48:02,220 Then, of course, removed the head of the one that was there that had been autopsied, 727 00:48:02,220 --> 00:48:07,220 and put this head in its place so that we would find the teeth of Lee Harvey Oswald. 728 00:48:07,220 --> 00:48:10,220 That's my theory. This is what I think happened. 729 00:48:10,220 --> 00:48:17,220 Whoever caused that was the same faction that caused the assassination in the first place, 730 00:48:17,220 --> 00:48:21,220 but in my mind a cover-up had taken place. 731 00:48:23,220 --> 00:48:28,220 Lee Harvey Oswald was not the individual who assassinated President Kennedy, 732 00:48:28,220 --> 00:48:33,220 nor was he the individual responsible for Policeman Tippett's death. 733 00:48:33,220 --> 00:48:43,220 I want to know why, after 25 years, the federal government of this country maintains that Oswald and Oswald alone was responsible for these murders. 734 00:48:44,220 --> 00:48:57,220 The individual that I know is Lee Harvey Oswald, I don't think had in him to be a person capable of committing such a crime as murdering the President of the United States. 735 00:48:57,220 --> 00:49:08,220 I'll always believe that. The sight I saw to him was a very kind and loving man, and that's the way I like to remember him. 736 00:49:10,220 --> 00:49:17,220 Lee Oswald was totally, unequivocally, completely innocent of the assassination, 737 00:49:17,220 --> 00:49:38,220 and the fact that history, or in the rewriting of history, and disinformation has made a villain out of this young man who wanted nothing more than to be a fine marine, is in some ways the greatest injustice of all.