Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (8 page)

Danny G. Arce, who had been working in the Depository, also was standing
near Truly and Campbell. He told the Warren Commission shots "came
from the railroad tracks to the west of the Texas School Book Depository."

Truly said after the initial explosion, everything seemed frozen. Then
there were two more explosions, and he realized that shots were being
fired. He saw the President's car come to a stop.

Another Depository employee saw a bullet hit the street at the time of
the first shot. Virgie Rachley (by the time of her Warren Commission
testimony she had married and was Mrs. Donald Baker) was a bookkeeper
at the Depository. She and other workers were standing near Truly and
Campbell in front of the Depository facing Elm Street. She told the
Warren Commission:

... after he passed us, then we heard a noise and I thought it was
firecrackers because I saw a shot or something hit the pavement. . . . It
looked just like you could see the sparks from it and I just thought it
was a firecracker and I was thinking that ... somebody was fixing to
get in a lot of trouble and we thought the kids or whoever threw it were
down below or standing near the underpass or back up here by the sign.

Mrs. Baker told Commission attorney Wesley Liebeler that the stray
bullet struck the middle of the southmost lane on Elm Street just behind
the presidential limousine.

Truly said the crowd around him began to surge backward in panic. He
became separated from Campbell and quickly found himself back on the
steps of the Depository. Moments later a motorcycle policeman pushed
past him and ran into the Depository. Truly caught up with him in the
lobby and they went toward their encounter with a Depository employeeLee Harvey Oswald.

Campbell ran with many others to where he believed the shots had come
from, "... near the railroad tracks located over the viaduct on Elm
Street. "

Mary E. Woodward, a staff writer for the Dallas Morning News, had
gone to Dealey Plaza with four co-workers to get a look at the President
while they ate lunch. As the limousine passed, she and another writer who
had seen Kennedy during the final weeks of the 1960 campaign, commented on how relaxed and robust he appeared. Standing near the Stemmons Freeway sign located down the slope to the west of the Depository,
Woodward heard a "horrible, ear-shattering noise" coming from behind
them and to their right. She thought it was some sort of joke, a car
backfiring perhaps.

She saw both the President and Mrs. Kennedy look around as if they,
too, had heard the sound. The presidential limousine came to a halt. Then
Woodward heard two more shots, coming close together, and the President
slumped down in the car. A woman nearby began weeping and cried,
"They've shot him!"

Mrs. Gloria Calvery and Karen Westbrook, both employees of a publishing firm with offices in the Texas School Book Depository, had gone out
during lunch to see the President. They were standing almost halfway
between the corner of Elm and Houston and the Triple Underpass. Both
heard the first blast and saw Kennedy struck by a bullet just as the
presidential limousine got directly in front of their position. Neither were
questioned later as to the direction of the shots.

A. J. Millican, a co-worker of Howard Brennan, had no difficulty in
determining where the shots came from. Millican told authorities that day
he was standing on the north side of Elm Street about halfway between
Houston and the Triple Underpass. He said he noticed "a truck from
Honest Joe's Pawn Shop" park near the Depository, then drive off about
five or ten minutes before the President arrived. He told sheriff's deputies:

Just after the President's car passed, I heard three shots from up toward
Elm right by the Book Depository Building, and then immediately I
heard two more shots come from the arcade between the Book Store and
the Underpass, then three more shots came from the same direction only
sounded further back. It sounded approximately like a .45 automatic, or
a high-powered rifle.

Millican, who provided perhaps one of the clearest descriptions of the
firing sequence and the location of the shots, was never interviewed by nor
called to testify to the Warren Commission or the House Select Committee
on Assassinations. He died in 1986, apparently having never been questioned by anyone.

However, his supervisor, Sandy Speaker, said his entire work crew was there and they all corroborated Millican's story. In an interview with
this author, Speaker said:

I was the superintendent of construction for the Republic Bank project at
the time. Millican and also Howard Brennan were working for me. We
were fabricating plumbing piping for the Republic Bank Building under
construction at the west end of Pacific Street [north of the Texas School
Book Depository]. Millican and the whole crew had knocked off for
lunch and were by the Depository building to watch the parade. I hadn't
gotten there when [the motorcade] passed. I was less than a half-block
away and heard the shots. I heard at least five shots and they came from
different locations. I was a combat Marine with the First Marine Division in World War 11, hand-to-hand combat, missions behind enemy
lines, and I know what I am talking about. I've said for years there were
more than three shots fired.

John A. Chism, along with his wife and three-year-old son, were near
Millican, standing directly in front of the Stemmons Freeway sign. They
said the first shots were fired just as the President got in front of them.
They saw Kennedy slump to the left and into his wife's arms. Mrs. Chism
told Dallas authorities that day: "And then there was a second shot that I
heard, after the President's wife had pulled him down in the seat. It came
from what I thought was behind us [the Grassy Knoll] and I looked but I
couldn't see anything."

Chism also looked behind him at the sound of the shots, then, as he
again looked forward and saw "the motorcade beginning to speed up."

Jean Newman was a twenty-one-year-old manufacturing company employee who came to view the motorcade in Dealey Plaza. She told sheriff's
deputies she was standing between the Stemmons Freeway sign and the
Book Depository when the shots were fired. She stated: "The first impression I had was that the shots came from my right." To her right was the
Grassy Knoll.

Also near the Stemmons Freeway sign were two of the most suspicious
characters in Dealey Plaza that day. Despite their activities and the fact
that both were captured in several photographs made at the time, this pair
was never mentioned publicly until the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation in the late 1970s.

About the time that Kennedy was first hit by a bullet, two men standing
near each other on the north sidewalk of Elm Street acted most strangelyone began pumping a black umbrella while the other waved his right arm
high in the air. These and subsequent actions by this pair aroused the suspicions of researchers over the years, yet the initial federal investigation
ignored both men. Their activities are known only through analysis of
assassination photographs.

As Kennedy's limousine began the gentle descent into Dealey Plaza, a
man can be seen standing near the street-side edge of the Stemmons
Freeway sign holding an open umbrella. He holds the umbrella in a normal
fashion and the top of the umbrella almost reaches the bottom of the sign.

In photos taken minutes before Kennedy's arrival, the umbrella is closed
and, immediately after the shooting, pictures show the umbrella was
closed again. The man's umbrella was only open during the shooting
sequence. Furthermore, as seen in the Zapruder film, once Kennedy is
exactly opposite the man with the umbrella, it was pumped almost two feet
into the air and then lowered.

At the same time, the second man-in photos he appears to be dark complected, perhaps a black man or Hispanic-raised his right hand into the
air possibly making a fist. This man was located on the outer edge of the
Elm Street sidewalk opposite the umbrella man, who was on the inner edge.

The man with the open umbrella was the only person in Dealey Plaza
with an open umbrella. Under the warm Texas sun, there was no reason to
carry an open umbrella at that time.

Two main theories have emerged concerning the "umbrella man" and
his activities that day. Assassination researcher Robert Cutler has long
maintained that the umbrella may have been a sophisticated weapon that
fired a dart or "flechette" filled with a paralyzing agent. Cutler's theory is
supported by the 1975 testimony of a CIA weapons developer who told the
Senate Intelligence Committee that just such an umbrella weapon was in
the hands of the spy agency in 1963.

Charles Senseney, who developed weaponry for the CIA at Fort Detrick,
Maryland, described a dart-firing weapon he developed as looking like an
umbrella. He said the dart gun was silent in operation and fired through the
webbing when the umbrella was open. Senseney said the CIA had ordered
about fifty such dart weapons and that they were operational in 1963.

Cutler theorized that the umbrella was used to fire a paralyzing dart into
Kennedy immobilizing him for marksmen with rifles. He claims this
theory accounts for the small puncture wound in Kennedy's throat described by Dallas doctors, but which was altered by the time of the
Bethesda autopsy. According to Cutler, this dart explains Kennedy's lack
of motion during the shooting sequence. Since such a weapon existed and
since both the actions of Kennedy and the "umbrella man" were consistent with the operation of such a weapon, Cutler's theory cannot be
completely dismissed.

However, most assassination researchers prefer the alternative theory
that both of these suspicious men may have been providing visual signals
to hidden gunmen. This theory suggests that Kennedy was killed by a
crossfire coordinated by radiomen. The two men, who were among the closest bystanders to the President when he was first struck, gave signals
indicating that he was not fatally hit and therefore more shots were needed.

A fascinating twist on this latter theory came from researcher Gary
Shaw, who said the two men may have been providing Kennedy with a
last-second sign of who was responsible for his death. Shaw recalled that
throughout the planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion, CIA officers had
promised an "umbrella" of air protection of the Cuban invaders. This
"umbrella" failed to materialize because Kennedy refused to authorize
U.S. military support for the invasion. According to Shaw's theory, the
man with the open umbrella symbolized the promise of an air-support
"umbrella" while the dark-complected man may have been one of the
anti-Castro Cuban leaders known to Kennedy. Thus, in the last seconds of
his life, Kennedy may have seen the open umbrella and the face of a
Cuban he knew was involved in the Bay of Pigs and realized who was
participating in his death.

But this is all speculation. The existence of the "umbrella man" and the
dark-complected man is fact. Even their activities after the assassination
bear study. While virtually everyone in Dealey Plaza was moved to action
by the assassination-either falling to the ground for cover or moving
toward The Grassy Knoll-these two men sat down beside each other on
the north sidewalk of Elm Street.

Here the dark-complected man appears to put a walkie-talkie to his
mouth. In a photograph taken by Jim Towner, what seems to be an
antenna can be seen jutting out from behind the man's head while his right
hand holds some object to his face.

Several photos taken in the seconds following the assassination show
both of these men sitting together on the Elm Street sidewalk. Moments
later, the man with the umbrella gets up, takes one last look toward the
motorcade still passing under the Triple Underpass, and begins walking
east in the direction of the Depository. The dark-complected man saunters
toward the Triple Underpass passing people rushing up The Grassy Knoll.
He can been seen stuffing some object-the walkie-talkie?-into the back
of his pants.

Despite the suspicious actions of these two men, there is no evidence
that the FBI or the Warren Commission made any effort to identify or
locate them. Offically they did not exist. Yet over the years, this pair
became the focal point of criticism by private researchers. Researchers
claimed the lack of investigation of these men was indicative of the
shallowness of the government's handling of the assassination.

Once the House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed, researchers urged an investigation of both men. The Committee finally
released a photograph of the "umbrella man" to the news media and urged
anyone with knowledge of the man to come forward.

Coincidentally-if it was a coincidence-the "umbrella man" suddenly
was identified in Dallas a few weeks after this national appeal. In August 1978, a telephone caller told researcher Penn Jones, Jr., that the man
with the umbrella was a former Dallas insurance salesman named Louis
Steven Witt. Jones contacted some local newsmen and together they
confronted Witt, who then was working as a warehouse manager. Witt
refused to talk with newsmen but acknowledged that he was in Dealey
Plaza on the day Kennedy was killed.

Jones later wrote: "I felt the man had been coached. He would answer
no questions and pointedly invited us to leave. His only positive statement,
which seemed to come very quickly, was that he was willing to appear
before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in Washington."

Witt indeed appeared before the Committee during its public testimony.
His story was comic relief compared to the intense scrutiny of witnesses
like Marina Oswald and Warren Commission critics. His story was facile
and improbable and when the umbrella that Witt claimed was the same one
he had had in Dealey Plaza in 1963 was displayed, it suddenly turned
wrong-side out, prompting one Committee member to quip: "I hope that's
not a weapon."