Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (13 page)

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, 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, an FBI report tells of Oswald statements to police while in custody. According to this report:

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.

This Coke issue is a small one, but one that is indicative of the
loopholes riddling the official story of the assassination.

The issue of Oswald's documented presence in the Depository's lunchroom, with or without Coke, is further complicated by the statements of a
Dallas deputy district court clerk. Lillian Mooneyham, clerk 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, Mrs.
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......

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 Mrs. 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 arranging boxes on the sixth floor at the same time.

Needless to say, Mrs. 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 about 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 ScottForesman and Company in the Depository, told the FBI they both ran from
the 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.

Did Oswald indeed fire the fatal shots, then stop to arrange his box
supports, then race to the opposite end of the Depository's sixth floor
where he reportedly stashed his rifle, then race silently down five flights of
stairs 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 the rear of the Depository about the time
Oswald was encountering Baker and Truly?

Also 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 asked 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
predominately 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. Most
of them signed reports to the FBI during March 1964. Oddly, the reports all
begin to sound alike in that the 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?"

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.

I saw something hit the pavement to the left rear of the car.

-Assassination witness Royce G. Skelton

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 are several roads
leading to freeway systems and an industrial area.

Atop the east side of the Triple Underpass, one has 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 when
Kennedy passed.

Foster had allowed some railroad workers, who had been repairing rails,
to remain on the underpass after checking their identity. Since the bridge
actually was railroad property and it was railway workers who walked over
to the eastern banister to view the motorocade, he did not believe they fell
into the "unauthorized" category.

He told the Warren Commission he had earlier 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. Foster told 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
location for a time until the evidence was taken away by an unidentified
man.

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.

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 assisted in indentifying 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.