Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (17 page)

In his testimony, Hudson plainly tried to tell Commission attorney
Liebeler that the shots came "from above and kind of behind" him, the
location of the picket fence on the Grassy Knott. Liebeler led Hudson,
saying: "And that would fit in with the Texas School Book Depository,
wouldn't it?"

"Yes," replied an agreeable Hudson. Liebeler then asked Hudson if he
saw anyone standing in the area with a rifle ". . . on a grassy spot up
there near where you were standing or on the overpass or any place else?"

Hudson replied: "I never seen anyone with a gun up there except the
patrols.''

Asked Liebeler, "The policemen?" "Yes, sir," said Hudson.

In an affidavit signed the day of the assassination, Hudson was even
more specific as to where shots came from. He stated: "The shots that I
heard definitely came from behind and above me."

Sitting near the midway point of the steps leading to the top of the
Grassy Knoll, a location "behind and above" would be the exact position
of the easternmost leg of the wooden picket fence.

Hudson said he did not know the young man who sat with him and,
apparently, the federal authorities were never able to locate him.

The third man appears behind Hudson in photographs taken in the
seconds during which the head shot occurs. He, too, has been unidentified
but, perhaps, is the explanation for one of the enduring assassination
mysteries.

In at least two photographs taken during the assassination by separate
photographers, a human figure is visible behind a low retaining wall to the
south of the Grassy Knoll pergola behind Zapruder's position. In photos
made seconds later, this figure has disappeared, leading many assassination
researchers to suspect that this figure may have been an assassin. This
suspicion was heightened when the House Select Committee on Assassinations had photographs of the figure computer enhanced and concluded that
it indeed was the figure of a person, who appeared to be holding a long
object.

With no known identity, this person was dubbed the "black dog man"
by researchers and committee staffers because in a photo taken by Phil
Willis the figure resembles a black dog sitting on its haunches atop the
wall. Closer examination of the photos, however, indicates the figure is
most likely farther back from the retaining wall. And this may provide a
partial answer to the figure's identity.

In photos of the assassination, a third man can be seen joining Hudson
and his companion on the steps of the Grassy Knoll just as the presidential
limousine arrives opposite them on Elm Street. Within scant seconds of the
fatal head shot, the third man lifts his left foot and within seconds has
disappeared back up the steps.

Life magazine, in its November 24, 1967, issue, displays the photographs of Hugh Betzner and Phil Willis and comments:

A dark shape is seen in both pictures on the slope-which has become
famous as the "grassy knoll"-to the left of the Stemmons Freeway
sign and half hidden by a concrete wall. By photogammetry Itek has
verified it as the figure of a man. Previously published photographs,
taken at the moment of the fatal head shot, show that by then he had
joined two men seen in Willis' picture standing behind a lamppost at
left. There is no evidence to indicate he was anything more than an
onlooker.

So the riddle of the "black dog man" appeared solved. It was the figure
of a man seen from waist up as he stood or walked on the sidewalk behind
the retaining wall approaching the top of the steps. Yet today many
assassination researchers still deny it was the man who joined Hudson.

Seconds later-as determined in photographs-the unidentified man
joined Hudson and companion, who were apparently unaware of the man
behind them, then turned and ran back up the steps immediately after the
head shot.

However, this explanation does not exonerate the third man as simply an
"onlooker." Who was he? Where did he come from? What did he see
both before and after he joined the two men on the steps? And why did he
turn and race back up the steps (he was gone within seconds) at a time
when everyone else in Dealey Plaza was stationary with shock?

The federal investigations could provide no answers to these questions,
so in the minds of some researchers, the "black dog man" joins the
"umbrella man" and the "dark-complected man" as one of the more
suspicious persons in Dealey Plaza.

Almost immediately after the final shot was fired, many peopleincluding policemen, sheriff's deputies, and spectators-began rushing
toward the Grassy Knoll.

Dallas motorcycle officer Bobby Hargis thought the shots had come
from the Triple Underpass because "... I had got splattered, with blood
land] I was just a little back and left of Mrs. Kennedy, but I didn't know."

Hargis stopped his motorcycle on the south side of Elm and ran up the
Grassy Knoll to where the concrete wall of the Triple Underpass connected
with the wooden picket fence on the Knoll. Peering over the wall, Hargis
looked at the crowd standing on the Underpass.

Asked if he saw anything out of the ordinary, Hargis told the Warren
Commission: "No, I didn't. That is what got me."

Hargis returned to his still-running motorcycle and rode through the
Triple Underpass. He told the commission: ". . . I couldn't see anything
that was of a suspicious nature, so I came back to the Texas School Book
Depository. At that time it seemed like the activity was centered around
the . . . Depository."

Seymour Weitzman was a college graduate serving as a deputy constable of Dallas County. He had been standing with Deputy Constable Bill
Hutton at the corner of Main and Houston when the motorocade passed.
The pair had turned to walk to a nearby courthouse when Weitzman heard
three shots, "first one, then . . . a little period in between . . . [then] the
second two seemed to be simultaneously," Weitzman told the Warren
Commission:

I immediately ran toward the President's car. Of course, it was speeding
away and somebody said the shots or firecrackers . . . we still didn't
know the President was shot . . . came from the wall. I immediately
scaled the wall. . . . apparently, my hands grabbed steampipes. I burned
them. [In the railroad yards behind the picket fence.] We noticed
numerous kinds of footprints that did not make sense because they were
going different directions ... [with Weitzman at the time were] other
officers, Secret Service as well .. .

Behind Weitzman came Dallas policeman Joe M. Smith, who had been
handling traffic at the intersection of Elm and Houston in front of the
Depository. Smith had helped at the scene of the strange seizure incident
minutes before the motorcade arrived and had returned to his position in
the middle of Elm where barricades had been placed to halt traffic.

Moments after the President's car passed him, Smith heard shots, but he
couldn't tell from which direction they came. He told the Warren Commission an hysterical woman ran up to him, crying: "They are shooting the
President from the bushes!"

Smith said he immediately went up the short street that branches off of
Elm in front of the Depository and entered the parking lot behind the
wooden picket fence. He told the Commission:

I looked into all the cars and checked around the bushes. Of course, I
wasn't alone. There was some deputy sheriff [Weitzman] with me, and I
believe one Secret Service man when I got there. I got to make this
statement, too. I felt awfully silly, but after the shot and this woman, [I]
pulled my pistol from my holster, and I thought, this is silly, I don't
know who I am looking for, and put it back. Just as I did, he showed
me that he was a Secret Service agent. . . . he saw me coming with my
pistol and right away he showed me who he was.

In 1978, Smith told author Anthony Summers that "around the hedges
[lining the parking lot], there was the smell, the lingering smell of
gunpowder. "

Smith then moved toward the Triple Underpass because it sounded to
me like they [shots] may have come from this vicinity here." In his
testimony, Smith said he saw "two other officers there," but it is unclear
if he was speaking about behind the fence or the Triple Underpass. After
fifteen or twenty minutes, Smith said he returned to the front of the
Depository, where he helped other officers seal the building.

(For some unexplained reason, at the end of his testimony Commission
attorney Wesley Liebeler suddenly asked Smith if there was any reason
why the presidential motorcade could not have gone straight down Main
Street and turned onto Stemmons Freeway on its way to the Trade Mart.
"As far as I know, there is no reason," replied Smith.)

One witness who was in a position to observe the area behind the picket
fence was Lee Bowers, a railroad supervisor who was stationed in a tower
located just north of the Grassy Knoll. Bowers told a fascinating story of
suspicious cars moving in the sealed-off railroad yards minutes before the
motorcade arrived and of seeing strange men behind the picket fence.
Incredibly, his testimony takes less than six pages of the Warren Commission volumes.

Bowers, an ex-Navy man who had studied religion at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, was working for the Union Terminal Company,
controlling the movement of trains in the railroad yards from a tower about
fourteen feet off the ground. The tower is located about fifty yards
northwest of the back of the Texas School Book Depository. A block-long
street breaks off from Elm and passes in front of the Depository, ending in
a parking lot bordered on the south by the wooden picket fence atop the
Grassy Knoll. It was the only paved artery in or out of the parking area.
Bowers told the Warren Commission:

... the area had been covered by police for some two hours. Since
approximately 10 o'clock in the morning [of the assassination], traffic
had been cut off into the area so that anyone moving around could
actually be observed. Since I had worked there for a number of years, I
was familiar with most of the people who came in and out of the
area. . . . there were three cars that came in during the time from
around noon until the time of the shooting. They came into the vicinity
of the tower, which was at the extension of Elm Street . . . which there
is no way out. It is not a through street to anywhere.

Bowers said he noticed the first car about 12:10 P.M. It was a blue-andwhite 1959 Oldsmobile station wagon with out-of-state license plates and
some bumper stickers, "one of which was a Goldwater sticker." The station wagon circled in front of the railroad tower "as if he was searching
for a way out, or was checking the area, and then proceeded back through
the only way he could, the same outlet he came into."

About 12:20 P.M., a black 1957 Ford with Texas license plates came into
the area. Inside was "one male . . . that seemed to have a mike or
telephone or something ... He was holding something up to his mouth
with one hand and he was driving with the other ..." Bowers said this
car left after three or four minutes driving back in front of the Depository.
"He did probe a little further into the area than the first car," Bowers added.

Minutes before the assassination, Bowers said a third car-this one a
white 1961 or 1962 Chevrolet four-door Impala-entered the area. Bowers
said:

[It] showed signs of being on the road . . . It was muddy up to the
windows, bore a similar out-of-state license to the first car I observed
[and was] also occupied by one white male. He spent a little more time
in the area. . . . he circled the area and probed one spot right at the
tower . . . and was forced to back out some considerable distance, and
slowly cruised down back towards the front of the School Depository
Building. . . . The last I saw of him, he was pausing just about in just
above the assassination site. . . . Whether it continued on . . . or
whether it pulled up only a short distance, I couldn't tell. I was busy.

Bowers said about eight minutes later, he caught sight of the presidential
limousine as it turned onto Elm Street. He stated:

I heard three shots. One, then a slight pause, then two very close
together. Also, reverberation from the shots. . . . The sounds came
either from up against the School Depository Building or near the mouth
of the Triple Underpass.

Standing directly between Bowers's vantage point and the Triple Underpass, the tower operator said he saw two men, but they "gave no appearance of being together" although they were only ten or fifteen feet from
each other.

Bowers described this pair:

One man, middle-aged, or slightly older, fairly heavyset, in a white
shirt, fairly dark trousers. Another younger man, about mid-twenties, in
either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket. . . . They were facing and
looking up toward Main and Houston and following the caravan as it
came down.

Bowers also saw the railroad employees and the two Dallas policemen
standing on the Triple Underpass.