Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (10 page)

In 1970, McGann was killed in a West Texas gangland-style slaying.

Oliver also said that two weeks prior to the Kennedy assassination, she
was visiting in Ruby's club. There she met a man whom Ruby introduced
as "Lee Oswald of the CIA." She later recognized Oswald when his
picture was broadcast following the assassination.

She also said David Ferrie was in Ruby's club in late 1963, in fact, he
was there so often, Oliver mistook Ferrie as an assistant manager of the
Carousel Club.

A friend of Oliver's also knew of Oswald being in Ruby's club and
spoke openly about it. According to Oliver, her friend disappeared and
she "decided it would be in her best interests not to say anything." She
remained quiet until the mid-1970s when she was located and interviewed
by Shaw and, later, by Texas newsmen.

Although Beverly Oliver was the object of a secret briefing by HSCA
attorney Robert Tannenbaum on March 17, 1977 (a transcript of this
briefing was accidentally leaked to the newsmedia), there is no mention of
her or her film in the Committee's report.

Obviously it is highly suspicious to researchers that one of the closest
witnesses to the assassination and a witness who claimed to have been with
both Ruby and Oswald prior to November 22, 1963, was never located or
identified by federal authorities.

A few feet to the west of Oliver were two women-Mary Moorman,
who took a photograph at the moment of the fatal head shot that may have
pictured the gunman on the Grassy Knoll, and her friend, Jean Hill, who,
like Willis, claims to have seen Jack Ruby in front of the Texas School
Book Depository at the time of the shooting.

Ironically, neither Moorman nor Hill, probably the closest witnesses to
the fatal head shot other than Brehm, were there to see Kennedy. Both
women had come to Dealey Plaza to take pictures of a Dallas police
motorcycle officer. Hill had just moved to Dallas from Oklahoma and
Moorman was showing her the city, as well as trying to get her a date with
the policeman, who was escorting the motorcade.

The women were stopped by a policeman at the corner of Elm and
Houston and prevented from entering the grassy triangle in the plaza. However, after some flirting, the officer allowed them through and they
took up a position on the south side of Elm midway between Houston and
the Triple Underpass.

Hill, who said she was getting in a "cops and robbers frame of mind"
hoping to date the policeman, noticed a van with writing on it saying
UNCLE JOE'S PAWN SHOP was allowed through the police lines and drove in
front of the Depository and behind the concrete pergola on top of the
Grassy Knoll. She thought this was suspicious since no one else had been
allowed into that short street in front of the Depository. She jokingly said
to Moorman: "Do you supposed there are murderers in that van?"

As the presidential motorcade turned onto Elm, Moorman began taking
snapshots with a Polaroid camera and handing the photos to Hill, who
applied fixative and put them in the pocket of her red-cloth raincoat.

Hill said Kennedy was smiling and waving to a crowd of people on the
north side of Elm. She told this author:

I knew he'd never look our way because all the people were on the other
side of the street, so I jumped out into the street and yelled, "Hey, Mr.
President, look this way. We want to take your picture. " As he began
turning toward us, he was hit. Then a bullet hit his head and took the
top off. Mary fell to the ground and shouted, "Get down, they're
shooting!" But being young and dumb, I kept standing for a minute
trying to see where the shots came from. It was eerie. Everything seemed
frozen. I saw a man fire from behind the wooden fence. I saw a puff of
smoke and some sort of movement on the Grassy Knoll where he was.
[She later pinpointed this location as about fifteen feet north of the
eastern corner of the wooden picket fence-the exact location of the
figure discovered in Moorman's photograph.] Then I saw a man walking briskly in front of the Texas School Book Depository. He was the
only person moving. Everybody else seemed to be frozen with shock.
Because of my earlier thoughts, I became suspicious of this man and
thought he might be connected with that truck I saw.

Hill said she heard between four and six shots altogether and then ran
across the street in an effort to locate the men she had seen. She didn't find
them, but she claimed that on the following Sunday morning she recognized TV photos of Jack Ruby as the man she had seen in front of the
Depository. Minutes after the shooting, Hill said she was standing just
west of the Depository when she was taken into custody by two men who
identified themselves as Secret Service agents.

Meanwhile, a Dallas reporter had talked with Moorman and taken her to
the sheriff's office. Here she was later joined by Hill who said their
photographs had been taken by federal authorities.

Directly across Elm from Hill and Moorman was the Newman family.
Bill Newman, his wife Gayle, and their two small children were standing west of the Stemmons Freeway sign directly below the Grassy Knoll.
Newman told sheriff's officers:

We were standing at the edge of the curb looking at the [president's] car
as it was coming toward us and all of a sudden there was a noise,
apparently a gunshot. . . . By [the] time he was directly in front of us
.. . he was hit in the side of the head ... Then we fell down on the
grass as it seemed that we were in direct path of fire. . . . I thought the
shot had come from the garden directly behind me, that was an elevation from where I was as I was right on the curb. I do not recall looking
toward the Texas School Book Depository. I looked back in the vicinity
of the garden.

A bit later, during a television interview, Newman was apparently the
first person to speak of the Grassy Knoll. When asked where the shots had
come from, Newman responded: ". .. back up on the, uh, knoll .. .
what you call it. "

Another witness was far above the crowd in Dealey Plaza. He had a
bird's-eye view of the assassination. Jesse C. Price was the building
engineer for the Union Terminal Annex, which is the southern counterpart
of the Texas School Book Depository. The building stands at the corner of
Houston and Commerce. Price said he went up on the roof to get "a better
view of the caravan." While sitting on the edge of the building's roof
overlooking the plaza, Price heard shots ". .. from by the . . . Triple
Underpass.'.'.

In an affidavit signed that day, Price stated: "There was a volley of
shots, I think five and then much later . . . another one." He said the shots
seemed to come from "just behind the picket fence where it joins the
underpass."

Price also said he saw a man, described as young, wearing a white dress
shirt, no tie, and khaki-colored pants, running behind the wooden picket
fence "towards the passenger cars on the railroad siding ..... with
something in his hand "which could have been a gun."

Price was never called to testify to the Warren Commission.

Despite the contradictions of evidence and testimony of those in Dealey
Plaza, one fact seems inescapable-most of the witnesses in the crowd
believed shots came from the Grassy Knoll.

However, it is certain that at least one or more shots were fired from the
red-brick building at the northwest corner of Elm and Houston-the Texas
School Book Depository.

I thought at the time the shots ... came from a point
to the west of the building

-Depository employee Dorothy Ann Garner

Overlooking Dealey Plaza at its northeast corner is the seven-story
red-brick building which in 1963 housed the Texas School Book Depositorywhich had almost nothing to-do with Texas public schools.

The Depository was a private company that acted as an agent for a
number of book publishers, furnishing office space and providing warehousing, inventorying, and shipping.

School systems would place orders with the publishers for textbooks and
the publishers would send the orders along to the Depository, where about
a half dozen young men acted as order fillers-locating and collecting the
books as per each order.

On November 22, 1963, one of these order fillers was Lee Harvey
Oswald.

Oswald and his wife, Marina, had separated at the time he left for New
Orleans in the spring of 1963. They reunited in that Louisiana city, but in
September, it was decided that since Marina was about to have a baby, she
would return to Texas with a friend, Ruth Paine, while Oswald continued
his activities-reportedly a trip to Mexico City.

When Oswald arrived back in Dallas on October 3, Marina was living in
Irving, a suburban city west of Dallas. She was staying in the home of
Michael and Ruth Paine-they, too, were separated at the time-and over
the weekend of October 12-13, Oswald had arrived there to visit. During
this weekend, Mrs. Paine said she gave Oswald, who had no driver's
license, a driving lesson in her car.

About a week before, Oswald allegedly had returned from his trip to
Mexico City. However, there continues to be much controversy concerning-this journey.

On Monday, October 14, Mrs. Paine drove Oswald to Dallas, where he
rented a room at 1026 N. Beckley Avenue from Mrs. A. C. Johnson for
eight dollars a week. Oswald had filled out applications at the Texas
Employment Commission and reportedly was looking for work.

That same day, Mrs. Paine mentioned Oswald-and the fact that he
needed work because his wife was about to have another baby-to neighbors, including Mrs. Linnie Mae Randle. Mrs. Randle mentioned that
Wesley Frazier, a younger brother who lived with her, worked at the
Texas School Book Depository and that a job might be a available there.
Marina Oswald, who was present at this gathering, reportedly urged Mrs. Paine to check into the job possibility. Mrs. Paine agreed and called
Depository superintendent Roy Truly that very day.

Before the Warren Commission, Truly recalled getting a call from a
woman in Irving who said she knew a man whose wife was going to have
a baby and needed a job. Truly agreed to talk with the man.

Mrs. Paine mentioned her call to Oswald later that evening and the next
day, October 15, Oswald interviewed with Truly for the job. Oswald
began working as temporary help the next day. Truly said the fall was their
busiest time of year. Truly told the commission:

Actually, [it was] the end of our fall rush-if it hadn't existed a week or
two longer [than usual], or if we had not been using some of our regular
boys putting down this plywood, we would not have had any need for
Lee Oswald at that time, which is a tragic thing for me to think about.

Oswald was paid $1.25 an hour to fill book orders. Once he had been
shown the procedures, he worked on his own. Truly described Oswald as
"a bit above average" as an employee. Co-workers said Oswald was
pleasant enough, but kept mostly to himself.

During his first week at work, Oswald got acquainted with Frazier and
soon asked Frazier to drive him to Irving to visit his family. Frazier, who
had only started working at the Depository the month before, said he was
eager to make friends in Dallas. So Frazier agreed and, in fact, gave
Oswald a ride to Irving every weekend prior to the assassination-except
one when Oswald told Frazier he was staying in Dallas to take a driving test.

On Sunday, November 17, Marina Oswald had Mrs. Paine call a Dallas
telephone number Oswald have given her. When she asked for Lee Oswald,
Mrs. Paine was told there was nobody there by that name.

The next day, Oswald called the Paine home and angrily told Marina he
was using a ficticious name at the Beckley Avenue address and not to call
him there.

On Thursday morning, November 21, Oswald reportedly asked Frazier
to drive him to Irving after work because he wanted to get some curtain
rods to put in his Beckley Avenue apartment. According to this curtain rod
story-only Frazier and his sister claimed to have seen Oswald with a
package and their descriptions were inconsistent and vague-Frazier's
sister saw Oswald the next morning place a paper-wrapped package in
Frazier's car and Frazier noticed the packet as the pair drove to work.
Frazier later said Oswald told him it was the curtain rods. He also said he
would not be riding to Irving as usual, but he gave no explanation,
according to Frazier. Frazier said once at the Depository, Oswald got out
of the car and walked ahead into the building carrying his package with
one end gripped in his right hand and the other tucked under his right arm,
parallel to his body.

Most researchers who have studied the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle claim that, even disassembled, the barrel is too long to carry in this position.

When Frazier entered the building, he could not see Oswald and never
knew what became of the "curtain rods."

When questioned by the authorities about what he had taken into the
Depository, Oswald denied the curtain rod story, saying he.only carried his
lunch to work.