Reclaiming History

by Vincent Bugliosi

  Fritz and his detectives glance at one another. Oswald curses both agents with a string of profanities. Hosty tries to calm Oswald down, but only manages to whip him into a frenzy.

  “My wife is a Russian citizen who is here legally and is protected under diplomatic laws from harassment by you or anyone else from the FBI,” Oswald argues, his face flush, his voice quivering. “You’re no better than the Gestapo of Nazi Germany! If you want to talk to me, you should come to me directly, not my wife.”635

  Fritz jumps in and tries to soothe Oswald with a calm voice. Hosty has struck a nerve, and Fritz doesn’t want to lose the trust he’s been working hard to establish with Oswald. The fact is, Fritz doesn’t like it one bit that the federal agents are horning in on his investigation. Anyone in law enforcement knows that when you conduct an interrogation with large groups of people present, you decrease the likelihood of satisfactory results. But, under the circumstances, Fritz knows he’ll have to put up with the unwelcome company.

  “What do you mean, he accosted your wife?” Fritz asks, thinking he meant some kind of physical abuse.

  “Well, he threatened her,” Oswald snaps. “He practically told her she’d have to go back to Russia. He accosted her on two different occasions.”636

  Agent Hosty had indeed spoken briefly to Marina, and at somewhat greater length to Ruth Paine, early in November when, in the course of trying to determine where Lee and Marina were living, he located the two women living together out in Irving. But he’s never laid eyes on Oswald before, and knows him only from the FBI file, which has been building up ever since he attempted to defect to Russia in 1959.637

  What strikes Hosty at the moment is the realization that it might have been Oswald who had left an angry note for him at the FBI office about ten days earlier. The note was unsigned, but Hosty recalled that it stated in no uncertain terms that Hosty should not “bother my wife,” and threatened to “take action against the FBI” if he didn’t stop.638* At the time, Hosty, who was juggling thirty-five to forty cases simultaneously, had no idea who had written the note and simply put it in his file drawer. Now, it seems Oswald may have been the author.

  Oswald asks Fritz to take off his handcuffs.

  “That sounds reasonable,” Hosty quickly interjects, hoping to buddy up. Oswald can only glare at him.

  Detectives Sims and Boyd look at Fritz. They know who’s in charge here. Fritz tells them he wants Oswald to remain in handcuffs, but tells the detectives Oswald’s hands don’t need to be cuffed behind his back. As they make the adjustment, Oswald starts to settle down.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he says to Captain Fritz. He turns to Agent Hosty, and offers an apology, “I’m sorry for blowing up at you. And I’m sorry for writing that letter to you.”

  Hosty now knows that Oswald was the author of the note. Captain Fritz and the detectives in the tan Stetson hats are wondering just what kind of relationship exists between Oswald and FBI agent Hosty.639 As Oswald begins to relax, Captain Fritz turns back to the matter at hand. “Do you own a rifle, Lee?”

  “No,” Oswald says dryly. “But I saw Mr. Truly, my supervisor at work, he had one at the Depository on Wednesday, I think it was, showing it to some people in his office on the first floor.”

  “Have you ever owned a rifle?” Fritz asks.

  “Oh, I had one a good many years ago,” Oswald says. “It was a small rifle, a twenty-two or something, but I haven’t owned one for a long time.”640

  Hosty is eager to find out about Oswald’s contacts with the Soviet embassy in Mexico City, which were discussed in the communiqué received by his office that morning. Now that Oswald is somewhat relaxed, Hosty decides to broach the subject.

  “Ever been in Mexico City?” Hosty asks, interrupting Captain Fritz’s line of questioning.

  Oswald hesitates for just a moment, one of the few times he doesn’t have an immediate answer.641

  “Sure,” he says. “Sure, I’ve been to Mexico. When I was stationed in San Diego with the Marines, a couple of my buddies and I would occasionally drive down to Tijuana over the weekend.”642

  Hosty knows he dodged the question, but lets it go, for the moment.

  “You said you have a wife who is a Russian?” Fritz asks.

  “That’s right,” Oswald says.

  “Have you been to Russia?” Fritz asks.

  “Yes,” Oswald replies, slightly annoyed. “My wife has relatives over there, and she and I still have many friends.”

  “How long were you in Russia?” Fritz asks.

  “About three years,” Oswald says, growing increasingly edgy every time Agent Hosty asks a question.

  “Ever own a rifle in Russia?” Fritz asks.

  “You know you can’t own a rifle in Russia,” Oswald smirks, figuring that Fritz probably knows nothing about life in the Soviet Union. “I had a shotgun over there. You can’t own a rifle in Russia.”643

  “Do you have any political beliefs, Lee?” Fritz asks.

  “No,” Oswald replies, “but I’m a supporter of the Castro revolution.”644

  Captain Fritz picks up a piece of paper from his desk that was found in Oswald’s wallet.

  “What is the Fair Play for Cuba Committee?” he asks.

  “I was the secretary of that organization in New Orleans a few months ago,” Oswald says.

  “What is the organization about?” Fritz probes.

  “Why don’t you ask Agent Hosty?” Oswald replies.645

  Hosty is itching to grill Oswald about his Soviet contacts in Mexico City and can’t understand why Fritz is fooling around with this line of questioning. He jumps in.

  “Mr. Oswald, have you been in contact with the Soviet embassy?”

  The question instantly unnerves Oswald.

  “Yes, I contacted the Soviet embassy regarding my wife,” Oswald snaps back. “And the reason was because you’ve accosted her twice already!”646

  Oswald is growing steadily out of control, and Captain Fritz knows it. Hosty’s questions continually undo the calm and talkative demeanor Fritz is working hard to establish. Hosty presses Oswald further—this time, too far.

  “Mr. Oswald, have you ever been to Mexico City? Not Tijuana; Mexico City?”

  Oswald jumps up like a live wire and slams his manacled fists down on the desktop.

  “No! I’ve never been there!” he shouts. “What makes you think I’ve been to Mexico City? I deny it!”647

  Oswald is shaking and starting to sweat. Hosty has hit a raw nerve. Fritz works quickly to soothe Oswald.

  “All right, all right, let’s calm down,” Fritz says. Oswald sits back down, smoldering, and Hosty wisely retreats to a corner of the office to scribble notes. Fritz steps out to take a phone call. That’ll give Oswald a chance to cool off, he thinks.

  A detective approaches the homicide captain and tells him that an eyewitness to the Tippit shooting, Helen Markham, may have to be taken to the hospital to be treated for shock. Markham has been across the hall, in the burglary and theft office, for over an hour. The prospect of having to face Tippit’s murderer in a lineup has her teetering between vomiting and fainting.

  Captain Fritz can’t have his key eyewitness leaving the premises, not yet anyway. He needs an identification as soon as possible. Fritz carries some ammonia, which he keeps in the office, across the hall to help get Markham back on her feet. He instructs officers to take her down to the first-aid room in the basement, to get her away from the noise and excitement, and call him when she’s ready.648

  Detective Leavelle follows her downstairs and tries to calm her down. Markham’s biggest fear is that Oswald will be able to see her during the lineup.

  “Aw, he ain’t going to see you,” Leavelle tells her. “All you have to do is just stand there and you’ve got to say just one word—repeat the number over the man’s head that you saw shoot the officer. That’s all you’ve got to do. Say one word.”649

  3:14 p.m.

  In the morgue at Parkland Hospit
al, Dr. Earl Rose commences the autopsy on Officer Tippit. Measuring Tippit’s height at five feet eleven inches and estimating his weight at 175 to 180 pounds, he finds four separate bullet entrance wounds in Tippit’s body, two in the right side of his chest, one in his right temple, and a fourth superficial wound to his left rib. (The bullet had hit Tippit’s uniform button and the button had prevented it from penetrating deeply.) There was extensive damage to the brain and penetration of the lung and liver with massive hemorrhaging. The three bullets entering Tippit’s chest and temple had not exited the body and were removed by Rose, who listed the cause of death as “gunshot wounds of the head and chest.” Rose found “no powder tattooing at the [wound] margins,” tattooing or “powder burns” being the term used to describe an embedding into the skin surrounding the entrance wound of splayed grains of burned gun powder exploding from the muzzle. The absence of powder burns in this case indicates that although Oswald shot Tippit at close range, the revolver’s muzzle was probably never closer than three feet.650

  3:15 p.m.

  From Air Force One in flight, twenty-eight minutes after the plane left Dallas, President Johnson makes his first telephone call as president, to the mother of his murdered predecessor. The conversation, taped by the U.S. Signal Corps, is to Rose Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, but put through the White House line. Above the static and the sound of the jet engines, the president, his wife, and Mrs. Kennedy shout out their words:

  Voice: “AF-1 [Air Force One] from Crown [a code name for the White House]. Mrs. Kennedy on. Go ahead, please.”

  Sergeant Joseph Ayres [chief steward on Air Force One]: “Hello, Mrs. Kennedy. Hello, Mrs. Kennedy. We’re talking from the airplane. Can you hear us all right, over?”

  Rose Kennedy: “Thank you. Hello?”

  Ayres: “Yes, Mrs. Kennedy, I have…uh…Mr. Johnson for you here.”*

  Rose Kennedy: “Yes, thank you.”

  LBJ: “Mrs. Kennedy?”

  Rose Kennedy: “Yes, yes, yes, Mr. President.”

  LBJ: “I wish to God there was something that I could do and I wanted to tell you that we are grieving with you.”

  Rose Kennedy: “Yes, well, thank you very much. That’s very nice. I know. I know you loved Jack and he loved you.”

  Lady Bird Johnson: “Mrs. Kennedy, we feel lucky—”

  Rose Kennedy: “Yes, all right.”

  Lady Bird: “We’re glad that the nation had your son as long as it did.”

  Rose Kennedy: “Well, thank you for that, Lady Bird. Thank you very much. Good-bye.”

  Lady Bird: “—thought and prayers—”

  Rose Kennedy: [weeping] “Thank you very much. Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.” [She hangs up.]651

  At Parkland Hospital, two of Parkland’s surgeons, Drs. Malcolm Perry and Kemp Clark, hold an impromptu press conference. Dr. Perry bears the brunt of the questioning, manfully trying to impart what he knows in response to a hysterical crossfire of badly put questions. Before he can finish one answer, he is interrupted by another question and another. Answers about complicated medical procedures are shouted down by questions the doctors aren’t able to answer. They don’t really know how many times the president was struck nor from which direction. Perry can’t really answer those questions but thinks the wound in the throat they enlarged for the tracheotomy was an entrance wound.652 As to the bullet wound to the right side of the president’s head, Perry doesn’t know if that wound and the wound to the throat “are directly related” (i.e., caused by one bullet) or if the two wounds were caused by “two bullets.” Though Perry’s conclusions were not categorical, in the headlong rush to print it would be reported by some in the media that at least one of the shots definitely came from the front, not where Oswald was believed to be, to the president’s right rear.653

  At the Eastman Kodak Company near Love Field, Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrels and Abraham Zapruder meet with Phillip Chamberlain, acting laboratory manager, and Richard Blair, customer service representative. Within minutes, the laboratory begins the developing process, which will take about an hour.

  Sorrels calls his office for the first time since leaving Love Field that morning in the lead car of the motorcade. He learns that Captain Fritz has been trying to get a hold of him, that he has a suspect in custody. Sorrels hangs up and tells Zapruder that he must leave, but will contact him later about getting a copy of his film. The agent hurries out to the Dallas police car and has the waiting patrolmen take him to Dallas police headquarters.654

  3:30 p.m.

  Across town, six plainclothesmen move quickly toward the small ranch-style, brick home at 2515 West Fifth in Irving. The Dallas police detectives had been waiting up the street for nearly forty minutes until the three Dallas County sheriff deputies arrived.655

  Detective John Adamcik and Deputy Sheriffs Harry H. Weatherford and J. L. Oxford circle around toward the back door; Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers and Detectives Rose and Stovall bound up to the front entrance. The front door is standing open, screen door shut, and the officers can see Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald, a baby in her arms, watching television. Rose knocks on the door and fishes for his credentials.656

  Ruth Paine answers the door and the officers identify themselves.

  “It’s about the president being shot, isn’t it?” Mrs. Paine asks.

  “Yes,” Rose responds. “We have Lee Harvey Oswald in custody. He is charged with shooting an officer.”

  They explain that they want to search the house. Mrs. Paine asks if they have a warrant and they tell her they do not, but can get the sheriff out there right away with one if she insisted.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Mrs. Paine says, as she pushes the screen door open. “Come on in. We’ve been expecting you. Just as soon as we heard where it happened, we figured someone would be out.”657

  Guy Rose, as the senior detective, does most of the talking. Ruth introduces him to Marina, who is holding June in her arms, and explains that she is Lee’s wife, a citizen of Russia.

  Detective Stovall goes to the back door and lets the other officers in.658 They spread out and begin searching the premises.

  Detective Rose asks to use the phone and calls Captain Fritz, asking him whether there are any special instructions.

  “Ask her if her husband has a rifle,” Fritz says.

  Rose keeps the line open while he asks her, but she doesn’t understand. Mrs. Paine explains that Marina speaks very little English and offers to translate for him. Ruth asks Marina the question in Russian, then turns back to Rose and says, “No.” But then Marina says something to Ruth, who suddenly tells Rose, “Yes, he does have.”

  Rose relays the information to Captain Fritz, who tells him to gather everything they can and bring it downtown. Rose hangs up the phone and asks Marina if she would show him where the rifle is. Mrs. Paine translates the request and Marina indicates the garage.659 They go to the garage, attached to the house just off the kitchen, and Marina points to a blanket rolled up and lying on the floor near the wall. A piece of white twine is tied around one end of the blanket, the other end is loose. To the detective, it looks like something might still be there, the blanket retaining the outline of a rifle.660

  “Well, now they will find it,” Marina thinks to herself.661

  Detective Rose reaches down and picks up the blanket. It falls loosely over his arm—obviously empty. Marina lets out an audible gasp.662 About a week after arriving at the Paine residence from New Orleans, she was in the garage looking for a metallic part to put June’s crib together. When she came across the blanket with something wrapped in it, she opened it up and saw the rifle.663 She knows, now, it was Lee who shot the president. Until that moment, she had thought the rifle was in the garage, and therefore Lee couldn’t have done it. She had convinced herself that the police had come out simply because her husband was always under suspicion—something the FBI visits in November had reinforced. Now she knows better.664

  Ruth Paine looks a
t Marina and sees that she is pale white. Ruth senses what that means. For a moment, Detective Rose thinks Marina might be about to faint.

  “I’m going to have to ask both of you to come downtown with us,” Detective Rose tells them.665

  As they return to the house, Ruth Paine’s estranged husband Michael arrives. Seeing only Ruth, he says to her, “I came to help you. Just as soon as I heard where it happened, I knew you would need some help.”666

  When Michael Paine heard the news, his first thought was that Oswald could have been the one who had done it.667

  3:40 p.m.

  Captain Fritz returns to his office and resumes his methodical questioning of Oswald. “Lee, I’m a little confused about why your wife is living in Irving and you’re living in Oak Cliff. Can you tell me about that?”

  “My wife is staying with Mrs. Paine who’s trying to learn Russian,” Oswald says, gradually regaining his composure. “My wife teaches her and Mrs. Paine helps her out with our small baby. It makes a good arrangement for both of them.”

  “How often do you go out there?” Fritz asks.

  “Weekends,” Oswald says.

  “Why don’t you stay out there?”

  “I don’t want to stay there. Mrs. Paine and her husband are separated. They don’t get along too well,” Oswald answers unresponsively.

  Fritz asks Oswald if he has a car and Oswald says, “No,” adding that the Paines had two cars but he didn’t use either one of them.668 Asked about his education, Oswald tells Captain Fritz that he went to school in New York for a while, then Fort Worth, then he dropped out of high school to go into the Marines, but eventually finished high school while in the service.

  “Did you win any medals for rifle shooting in the Marines?” Fritz asks in an innocent way.

  “Just the usual medals,” Oswald says, heading off the inquiry.

  “Like what?” Fritz asks.

  “I got an award for marksmanship,” Oswald says matter-of-factly.669

  Fritz suddenly changes subjects.

  “Lee, why were you registered at the boarding house as O. H. Lee?”