Legacy of Secrecy (25 page)

gunman to his wife, saying he must be a Secret Service agent. This gun-

man was at the far left end of the Book Depository, away from the far

right end that would later be called the sniper’s nest. In the sniper’s nest

window, Rowland saw a man with a dark complexion.6

Also in Dealey Plaza was Carolyn Walther. By the time she glanced

up at the Book Depository, in the area of the sniper’s nest she saw two

men, one with a gun. “I saw this man in a window, and he had a gun in

his hands, pointed downwards. The man evidently was in a kneeling

position, because his forearms were resting on the windowsill. There

was another man standing beside him, but I only saw a portion of his

body because he was standing.” She thought, “Well, they probably have

guards possibly in all the buildings,” so she “didn’t say anything” to

anyone at the time. She observed that “the man behind the partly opened

window had a dark brown suit, and the other man had a whitish-looking

shirt or jacket, dressed more like a workman that did manual labor. It

was the man with the gun that wore white.” She also noticed that one

of the men had a “darker complexion, perhaps a Mexican.”7

Ruby Henderson was also one of the spectators in Dealey Plaza, and

just after 12:24 PM (Central), she looked up at the windows of the high-

est floor of the Book Depository, in which people were visible. As she

later told the FBI, she saw two men, one wearing a white shirt and

one a dark shirt. The man “in the white shirt had dark hair and was

possibly a Mexican, but could have been a Negro as he appeared to be

dark-complexioned.” She couldn’t see the other man very well, but said

both “were standing back from the window and . . . working” on some-

thing, even as they were “looking out the window in anticipation of the

motorcade.”8 In light of Walther’s and Henderson’s accounts, it should

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be noted that Oswald was wearing what was described as a “reddish”

shirt that day at the Depository.9

Meanwhile, Anthony Summers writes that on “the sixth floor of the

Dallas County Jail,” an inmate named John Powell was “in custody on

minor charges.” However, he had “an ideal vantage point for observa-

tion of the [sniper’s nest].” Powell “and his cellmates watched two men

with a gun in the window . . . ‘fooling with the scope’ [on a rifle].” Powell

said that “one of the men appeared to have darker skin.”10

Just down the street from the Depository was the area known as the

“grassy knoll,” topped by a picket fence, behind which was a parking

lot usually used by Dallas deputies (it usually required a key to enter

and leave). Behind the parking lot were a rail yard and a small tower.

Inside the tower, Lee Bowers had noticed unusual activity behind the

picket fence. First, he had seen a dirty 1959 Oldsmobile station wagon

driven by a middle-aged white male enter the parking lot just before

noon. As the vehicle drove slowly around the lot, he noticed it had out-

of-state plates and a GOLDWATER FOR ’64 bumper sticker, but the

car soon left. As Bowers stated later that day to police, “at about 12:15

another car came into the area with a white man about 25 to 35 years old

driving. This car was a 1957 Ford, black, 2-door with Texas license. This

man appeared to have a mike or telephone in the car. Just a few minutes

after this car left at 12:20 PM, another car pulled in. This car was a 1961

Chevrolet Impala . . . white, and dirty up to the windows,” as if it had

driven a long way. “This car also had a GOLDWATER FOR ’64 sticker

[and] was driven by a white male about 25 to 35 years old with long

blond hair. . . . He left the area about 12:25 PM.”11

Two minutes later, a young soldier named Gordon Arnold was walk-

ing behind the picket fence, in the parking lot, when he was confronted

by a man “who showed me a badge and said he was with the Secret

Service, and that he didn’t want anybody up there.”12 However, there

were no Secret Service agents stationed there, or anywhere else in Dealey

Plaza. They were all either in the motorcade or at the Trade Mart, site of

JFK’s upcoming speech.

Just before JFK’s motorcade arrived, Bowers, in the railroad tower,

saw two men behind the picket fence. Summers quotes his description:

“One was ‘middle-aged’ and ‘fairly heavy-set,’ wearing a white shirt

and dark trousers. The other was ‘mid-twenties in either a plaid shirt or

plaid coat. . . . These men were the only strangers in the area. The others

were workers that I knew.’”13 Bowers later told the Warren Commission

that “they were standing within 10 or 15 feet of each other” and were

looking at the approach of JFK’s motorcade, “following the caravan as

it came down” toward the grassy knoll.14

As JFK’s motorcade entered Dealey Plaza, the huge throngs that had

packed downtown Dallas became smaller. Riding in the back seat of

the limo with Jackie, President Kennedy must have felt very pleased

that a city with such a conservative reputation had turned out in such

numbers. John Connally was riding in the limo with his wife, in the

seat ahead of JFK and Jackie, and he later said there had been “a quarter

of a million people on the parade route.” JFK had stopped the motor-

cade twice—once to shake hands with a little girl holding a sign that

said: PRESIDENT KENNEDY . . . WILL YOU SHAKE HANDS WITH

ME? and another time to speak with a nun and her group of schoolchil-

dren.15

William Greer, the driver of JFK’s limo, later said that when they turned

toward the book depository, “he felt relieved. He felt they were in the

clear, the crowds were thinning, and while he didn’t relax, he did

begin to feel relieved.” He then made the turn onto Elm, in front of the

Depository.16

In the limo, Nellie Connally had been delighted by the crowds, and

she told JFK, “Mr. Kennedy, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.” JFK

replied with his last words: “That is very obvious.”17

In, and on the running boards of, the limo directly behind JFK’s were

eight Secret Service agents and two of JFK’s closest aides, Dave Powers

and Kenneth O’Donnell. Powers and O’Donnell are certain the first shot

came from the right front of their limo, from the grassy knoll. Powers

felt they were “riding into an ambush,” so it was quite logical that JFK’s

limo driver, Greer, slowed down. Secret Service Agent Lem Johns, two

cars behind Powers, is also certain the first shot came from the grassy

knoll.18 As the famous Zapruder film shows, JFK emerges from behind

a sign, clutching his throat. The wound, just below his Adam’s apple,

will be described as a small entrance wound by one of the first doctors

to see it.19

John Connally, hearing the first shot, turns to look at JFK, as Con-

nally clutches his Stetson hat in his right hand. Moments later, Connally

himself is hit in the back by a bullet that smashes his fifth right rib, exits

his chest, shatters his right wrist, and buries itself in his left thigh. Dave

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Powers will later stress to us that “the same bullet that hit JFK did
NOT

hit John Connally,” something Connally and his wife will always say

as well.20 According to Connally, “because of the ‘rapidity’ of the shots,

‘the thought immediately passed through my mind that there were two

or three people involved, or more, in this.’”21

Secret Service Agent Glenn Bennett, riding with Powers and

O’Donnell, sees “a nick in the back of President Kennedy’s coat, below

the shoulder. He thought the President had been hit in the back.”22 Agent

Bennett is correct, and JFK’s coat and shirt will be found to have bullet

holes in them almost six inches below the top of the collar.23 A shot is also

fired that completely misses JFK and his limo; it strikes a curb and kicks

up a piece of concrete that hits bystander James Teague.24

Finally, Powers and O’Donnell see the horrible, fatal head shot that

shatters JFK’s skull. Both are certain it came from the grassy knoll, as is

Secret Service Agent Paul Landis, who is in the limo with them. Landis

says he “saw the President’s head split open and pieces of flesh and

blood flying through the air. My reaction at this time was that the shot

came from somewhere toward the front . . . along the right-hand side

of the road.”25

Motorcycle patrolman Bobby Hargis, riding behind and slightly to

the left of JFK’s limo, was splattered with JFK’s blood and brain tissue.

A piece of JFK’s skull, from the back of his head, was thrown onto the

median lawn to the left of Patrolman Hargis. Both the blood splatter on

Hargis and the skull fragment indicate JFK’s fatal head shot came from

JFK’s right front, from the grassy knoll.26 From his vantage point in the

railroad tower, Bowers said that “when the shots were fired at the Presi-

dent, in the vicinity of where the two men I have described were, there

was a flash of light . . . or smoke.”27 In the motorcade, Jackie tried to crawl

back to retrieve a piece of JFK’s brain or skull on the trunk of the limo,

before being pushed back in by Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who had

sprinted from Powers’s limo to aid her. JFK’s driver finally picked up

speed and began rushing toward Parkland Hospital.

Chapter Ten

The immediate aftermath of JFK’s murder, from the time the shots rang

out in Dealey Plaza until Oswald’s arrest one hour and twenty minutes

later, is one of the most intensely analyzed time spans in recent history.

Hundreds of authors have written about it, government committees

have examined and reenacted the sequence of events, and thousands

of documents about it are among the four million–plus pages of declas-

sified JFK files at the National Archives. The following is not intended

to be a definitive account. Instead, it focuses on credible evidence, most

obtained by government investigators, that was overlooked, ignored,

or suppressed in the rush to solve JFK’s murder in a way that would

avoid a confrontation with the Soviets and not cost the lives of Com-

mander Almeida, his allies, and family—or cost certain officials their

jobs or political futures.

Even as the motorcade’s lead car picked up speed to leave Dealey Plaza,

heading under the railroad bridge of the triple underpass toward the

Stemmons freeway and Parkland Hospital, several of its passengers

focused on the grassy knoll and the rail yards behind its picket fence

and concrete terraces. Secret Service Agent Forrest Sorrels, in charge of

the Dallas office, said that he “looked towards the top of the terrace to

my right, as the sound of the shots seemed to come from that direction.”1

Dallas Police Chief Curry, driving the lead car, radioed to “get a man on

top of that triple underpass and see what happened up there.” Sheriff

Bill Decker, sitting beside Sorrels, sent the order to “move all available

men out of my office [and] into the railroad yard to try to determine

what happened in there.”2

Patrolman Hargis, covered in JFK’s blood, parked his motorcycle and

headed up the grassy knoll.3 Dallas Deputy Sheriff Harold Elkins said he

“immediately ran to the area from which it sounded like the shots had

been fired. This is an area between the railroads and the Texas School

Book Depository,” where the knoll is.4 Dallas Deputy Harry Weatherford

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“heard a loud report, which I thought was a railroad torpedo, as it

sounded as if it came from the railroad yard” and after hearing two

more shots, he began “running towards the railroad yards where the

sound seemed to come from.”5

Just after the shooting, off-duty Dallas policeman Tom Tilson was

driving near the knoll. Journalist Anthony Summers writes that Officer

Tilson “saw a man ‘slipping and sliding’ down the railway embank-

ment from behind the knoll.” The man was “38-40 years, 5’ 8” . . . dark

hair, dark clothing,” and resembled Jack Ruby (whom Tilson, like many

Dallas policemen, knew). The man “had a car parked there, a black car.

He threw something in the back seat and went around the front hur-

riedly and got in the car and took off.” Tilson attempted to follow the

car, but lost it. Shortly after, a car with a stolen Georgia license plate

was reported speeding through downtown Dallas.6 A witness on the

roof of the Terminal Annex Building, J. C. Price, told the sheriff’s office

he saw a man running through the rail yard “after the volley of shots.

This man had a white dress shirt, no tie, and khaki-colored trousers.

His hair appeared to be long and dark and his agility running [meant

he] could be about twenty-five years of age. He had something in his

hand [that] may have been a head piece” or “might have been a gun.”7

Deputy Seymour Weitzman ran to the knoll after hearing the shots. A

railroad worker there told the Deputy he “thought he saw somebody

throw something through a bush,” and pointed out an area of the fence

“where there was a bunch of shrubbery” as the place he thought the