by Jim Marrs
Those elevators . . . were both on the fifth floor, they were both even. And I tried to get one of them . . . it would have been impossible for [Oswald] to have come down either one of those elevators after the assassination. He had to use the stairway as his only way of getting down—since we did see the elevators in those positions.
Truly yelled, “Bring that elevator down here!” to no avail and Baker said, “Let’s take the stairs.” Moving up the stairs behind Truly, Baker said he noticed a man walking away from him through a glass window in a door near the rear second-floor landing. With drawn pistol, Baker confronted the man and ordered him to come to him. In a handwritten report to the FBI on November 23, Baker stated, “On the second floor where the lunchroom is located, I saw a man standing in the lunchroom drinking a Coke.” However, the words “drinking a Coke” were scratched out in this initial report and there was no reference to the Coke in his Warren Commission testimony.
Truly said the man he recognized as Oswald “didn’t seem to be excited or overly afraid.” He told the Warren Commission he noticed nothing in Oswald’s hands, but this was months later, after many discussions with federal authorities.
Baker turned to Truly and asked if the man was an employee and Truly replied he was. Baker then turned and continued his race for the roof.
Oswald apparently simply sauntered down the steps and out the front door of the Depository.
Mrs. Robert Reid, clerical supervisor at the Depository, was standing with Depository officials in front of the building at the time shots were fired. She then turned and ran into the building to her second-floor office. She told the Warren Commission:
I looked up and Oswald was coming in the back door to the office. I met him by the time I passed my desk several feet and I told him, “Oh, the President’s been shot, but maybe they didn’t hit him.” He mumbled something to me, I kept walking, he did too. I didn’t pay any attention to what he said because I had no thoughts of anything of him having any connection with it at all because he was very calm. He had gotten a Coke and was holding it in his hands. . . . The only time I had seen him in the office was to come and get change and he already had a Coke in his hand so he didn’t come for change.
Like Baker, Mrs. Reid reenacted her movements for the Warren Commission on March 20, 1964. She said it took approximately two minutes to move the distance from where she heard the final shot to the point she met Oswald.
As can be seen, the issue of the Coke becomes critical here.
It strains one’s imagination to believe that anyone could fire on the president of the United States, then run to the opposite corner of the sixth floor—where the rifle was discovered a short time later—stash the weapon, race down five flights of stairs with heavy fire doors on each floor, and show no sign of exertion or anxiety when confronted by a policeman with a drawn pistol.
This scenario becomes absurd if the purchase of a Coke from a vending machine with its attendant fumbling for pocket change is thrown into the time frame.
Baker told the FBI the next day that Oswald was “drinking a Coke” when he saw him but then deleted any reference to the drink in his Warren Commission testimony. Truly, months later, said he did not notice anything in Oswald’s hands. But Reid said Oswald was holding a Coke when she saw him seconds after his encounter with Baker.
Even the accused assassin had something to say about the soft drink. In Appendix XI of the Warren Report, Dallas homicide captain Will Fritz reported on his first interview with Oswald about an hour after his arrest at the Texas Theater. Joining Fritz shortly after 3 p.m. were FBI agents James P. Hosty and James W. Bookhout. Fritz quickly got to the point, asking Oswald where he was when the president was shot. According to Fritz:
He said that he was having his lunch about that time on the first floor. . . . I asked Oswald where he was when the police officer stopped him. He said he was on the second floor drinking a Coca-Cola when the officer came in.
In their FBI report, Hosty and Bookhout confirm this conversation by noting:
Oswald stated that he went to lunch at approximately noon and he claimed he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch.
On November 25, Agent Bookhout filed a report reiterating this account:
Oswald stated that on November 22, 1963, at the time of the search of the Texas School Book Depository building by Dallas police officers, he was on the second floor of said building, having just purchased a Coca-Cola from the soft drink machine, at which time a police officer came into the room with pistol drawn and asked him if he worked there.
It also should be noted that Captain Fritz’s notes of his interrogation of Oswald, released only in the 1990s, said that Oswald “claims 2nd floor Coke when off[icer] came in.”
In light of all this information, it seems clear that Oswald indeed was holding a soft drink when confronted by Officer Baker, which leaves a run across the sixth floor to stash the rifle and a stampede down the wooden stairs in time to purchase a drink almost outside the realm of possibility. The Coke question may seem a small one, but it also indicates the loopholes riddling the official story of the assassination and the lengths the federal government took to obscure certain issues.
The problem of Oswald’s documented presence in the Depository’s second-floor lunchroom, with or without a Coke, is compounded by accounts of someone seen on the sixth floor long after Oswald should have been gone. Clerk Lillian Mooneyham of the 95th District Court told the FBI that she watched the motorcade move west on Main from windows in the Dallas Criminal Courts Building, then ran with two others to the west side of the building. She heard an initial shot, which she took to be a firecracker, followed by a “slight pause and then two more shots were discharged, the second and third shots sounding closer together.” According to an FBI report of January 10, 1964, Mooneyham said, “I left Judge [Henry] King’s courtroom and went to the office of Judge Julian C. Hyer . . . where I continued to observe the happenings from Judge Hyer’s window.”
The FBI report continued:
Mrs. Mooneyham estimated that it was about four and a half to five minutes following the shots fired by the assassin, that she looked up towards the sixth floor of the TSBD and observed the figure of a man standing in the sixth floor window behind some cardboard boxes. This man appeared to Mrs. Mooneyham to be looking out of the window; however, the man was not close up to the window but was standing slightly back from it, so that Mrs. Mooneyham could not make out his features.
Adding support to Mooneyham’s account of a man standing in the “sniper’s nest” window minutes after the shooting are photographs taken about that time by military intelligence agent James Powell and news photographer Tom Dillard.
Dillard, who was riding in the motorcade, said he took a picture of the Depository facade seconds after the last shot was fired. Powell estimated his picture was made about thirty seconds after the final shot.
A comparison with photos taken just prior to the shooting led photographic experts of the House Select Committee on Assassinations to conclude, “There is an apparent rearranging of boxes within two minutes after the last shot was fired at President Kennedy.” Obviously, Oswald could not have been in the Depository lunchroom meeting Baker and Truly while at the same time arranging boxes on the sixth floor.
Needless to say, Mooneyham was never called as a witness before the Warren Commission. Her credible testimony remains buried in the Commission’s twenty-six volumes.
A further point here is that several Depository employees, including Billy Lovelady and William Shelley, were on or near the back stairway of the building just after the assassination. No one heard footsteps or saw Oswald racing down the five flights of stairs for his encounter with Baker and Truly.
Recall that Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles, who worked for Scott-Foresman and Company in the Depository, told the FBI they both ran from th
e building down the back stairway after viewing the assassination from their fourth-floor office window. Neither encountered Oswald on the stairway or remarked of hearing footsteps on the old wooden stairs moments after the shooting. These were the same creaky stairs that Oswald would have had to rapidly descend in time for his meeting with Officer Baker.
Adams told the Warren Commission that upon arriving on the first floor she saw fellow Depository employees Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady. The authors of the Commission’s report tried to dismiss the time frame of Adams’s testimony by stating, “If Miss Adams accurately recalled meeting Shelley and Lovelady when she reached the bottom of the stairs, then her estimate of the time when she descended from the fourth floor is incorrect, and she actually came down the stairs several minutes after Oswald and after Truly and Baker as well.”
In 2011, author Barry Ernest interviewed Garner, the office supervisor over Adams, Elsie Dorman, and Styles, in 1963. She confirmed that Adams and Styles both left the fourth-floor window immediately following the shooting. “I remember them being there and the next thing I knew, they were gone,” she recalled. “They left very quickly . . . within a matter of moments.” Garner said she followed the women and stood at a vantage point where she could see the back stairs. She heard Adams and Styles moving down the stairs. Asked if she saw Oswald on the stairs, Garner laughed and told Ernest she “felt sure she would have remembered it if she had seen Oswald anywhere earlier that day, based on his later notoriety and the fact it would have made an impression on her mind.”
Of great importance, however, Garner said she did recall a policeman on the stairs, who could only have been Officer Baker. Garner’s recollection was supported by a letter accompanying Adams’s signed deposition to the Warren Commission sent by assistant US attorney Martha Joe Stroud on June 2, 1964. The last paragraph stated, “Miss Garner, Miss Adams’ supervisor, stated this morning that after Miss Adams went downstairs she (Miss Garner) saw Mr. Truly and the policeman come up.”
Could Oswald have indeed fired the fatal shots, then stopped to rearrange his box supports, then raced to the opposite end of the Depository’s sixth floor, where he reportedly stashed his rifle, then raced silently down five flights of creaky stairs unnoticed by the office workers only to be discovered calmly standing by a soft drink machine by Baker and Truly less than two minutes later?
Or was it someone else who fired, then arranged a “sniper’s nest” before quietly slipping out of the Depository about the time Oswald was encountering Baker and Truly in the second-floor lunchroom?
Also standing on the steps of the Depository was Joe R. Molina, the company’s credit manager. Like most everyone else, Molina thought the shots came from west of the building.
In 1964, Molina specifically requested to testify to the Warren Commission because of what happened to him after the assassination. Molina said about 1:30 a.m. on the Saturday following the assassination, he and his family were awakened by Dallas police, who began searching his home. Molina told the commission, “They were looking for something . . . they sort of wanted to tie me up with this case in some way or another and they thought that I was implicated.”
He said he was questioned about his membership in G.I. Forum, a predominantly Hispanic group actively working to help veterans, and was told to report to Dallas police headquarters later that day. Molina was kept waiting at the police station most of the day, then learned that his name had been given to the news media by Chief Curry, who described Molina as someone associated with “persons of subversive background.” Unable to get a retraction from the Dallas police, Molina asked to testify to the Warren Commission in an attempt to clear his name. But the damage had already been done.
On December 13, twenty-one days after the assassination, Molina was told that the Depository’s credit system was to be automated and that he was to be replaced. He said the action came as no real surprise because the company had been receiving hate mail and phone calls accusing it of hiring communists.
Despite assurances from Depository officials that Molina’s firing was not connected to the events of the assassination, it appears obvious that Joe Molina, too, became one of its victims.
Many Depository employees went outside to view the motorcade. Several, such as Bonnie Richey, Sharon Nelson, Stella Mae Jacob, and Gloria Jeanne Holt, were prevented from entering the Depository when police sealed the building. They did not return for work that day. Most Depository employees signed reports to the FBI during March 1964. Oddly, the reports were all worded alike and agents apparently never asked critical questions such as “Where did shots come from?” “How many shots?” or “Did you see the effect of any shot?” Most apparently were simply asked, “Did you know Lee Harvey Oswald?” and “Did you see any strangers in the building that day?”
As the evidence quickly piled up against Oswald and the Depository became the center of the investigation, the authorities, news media, and public soon forgot the initial focus of attention in Dealey Plaza—the Triple Underpass.
The Triple Underpass
On the west side of Dealey Plaza is a large railroad bridge that spans the three main downtown Dallas traffic arteries of Commerce, Main, and Elm Streets.
Since all three streets converge under this concrete bridge, it quickly became known as the Triple Underpass. To the east of the underpass is Dealey Plaza and downtown Dallas, while on the west there are several roads leading to freeway systems and an industrial area.
Atop the east side of the Triple Underpass is a panoramic view of Dealey Plaza from a position about fifteen feet in the air.
This was the position of about a dozen men on November 22, 1963, as they stood along the eastern edge of the underpass to watch the presidential motorcade approach and pass beneath them.
Dallas policeman J. W. Foster was one of two police officers assigned as security guards atop the Triple Underpass. His orders were to prevent any “unauthorized” personnel from standing on the railroad bridge under which Kennedy passed.
Foster had allowed some railroad workers, who had been repairing rails, to remain on the underpass after checking their identities. Since the bridge actually was railroad property and it was railway workers who walked over to the eastern banister to view the motorcade, he did not believe they fell into the “unauthorized” category.
He told the Warren Commission he earlier had prevented some people from standing on the bridge—one of these was AP photographer James Altgens.
Foster said as the motorcade approached he was standing just behind the line of railway workers, about ten or eleven of them, when he heard what sounded like a large firecracker. He moved up to the concrete railing to get a better view. He said he saw “the President slump over in the car, and his head looked just like it blew up.”
From his vantage point—above and directly in front of the car—this trained and experienced police officer may have been one of the best witnesses to what actually happened at the time of the shooting. However, neither in his report of December 4, 1963, nor in his April 9, 1964, testimony to the Warren Commission was he asked to describe in detail what he saw.
Warren Commission lawyer Joseph Ball did ask Foster his opinion as to the source of the shots and Foster replied, “It came from back in toward the corner of Elm and Houston Streets [the location of the Texas School Book Depository].”
Foster said he ran from the underpass toward the Depository building, where he watched the rear exits until a sergeant came and told him to check out railroad cars in the nearby switching yard. However, Foster said he went instead to the front of the Depository and told a supervisor where he was when shots were fired, then “moved to—down the roadway there, down to see if I could find where any of the shots hit.”
He was successful, telling the Commission he “found where one shot had hit the turf.”
Foster said he found where a bullet had struck the earth just beside a manhole cover on the south side of Elm Street. Foster remained at this loca
tion for a time until the evidence was taken away by a man in a suit, later identified by the Dallas police chief as an FBI agent.
The spot where Foster found a tear in the grass was near where witness Jean Hill was standing at the time of the assassination. Shortly after the shooting, she was questioned by Secret Service agents, one of whom asked her if she saw a bullet land near her feet.
Foster’s counterpart on the west side of the Triple Underpass was Officer J. C. White. White said he was approximately in the middle of the underpass when the motorcade passed below, but that he didn’t see or hear anything because a “big long freight train” was moving north between him and Dealey Plaza. Oddly, close scrutiny of films and photographs taken that day show no such freight train moving at that time.
But if the stories of the two Dallas policemen on top of the underpass seem strangely incomplete and sketchy, this was not the case of the railroad workers standing over the motorcade. These workers not only heard shots from their left, the direction of the infamous Grassy Knoll, but also saw smoke drift out from under the trees lining the knoll.
Smoke on the Grassy Knoll
About forty witnesses on or around the infamous Grassy Knoll said they heard shots or saw smoke in that area. Most were ignored by the Warren Commission.
Sam M. Holland, a track and signal supervisor for the Union Terminal Railroad Company, told the Warren Commission he went to the top of the Triple Underpass about 11:45 a.m. that day. He said there were two Dallas policemen and “a plainclothes detective, or FBI agent or something like that” there and that he helped identify the railroad employees. He said by the time the motorcade arrived, other people were lining the Triple Underpass, but that the police were checking identification and sending them away.
