Monday,
June 8, 1964
Volume V
TESTIMONY
OF HENRY WADE
The President's Commission met at 9:25 a.m., on June 8, 1964, at 200
Present were Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chairman; Senator John Sherman
Cooper and Allen W. Dulles, members.
Also present were J. Lee Rankin, general counsel; Norman Redlich,
assistant counsel; Dr. Alfred Goldberg, historian; Waggoner Carr, attorney
general of
Henry
Wade
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TESTIMONY
OF HENRY WADE
Senator COOPER. Will you raise your hand?
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give this Commission
will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. WADE. I do.
Senator COOPER. You are informed about the purposes of this
investigation.
Mr. WADE. I know it, generally.
Senator COOPER. Do you desire a lawyer?
Mr. WADE. No, sir.
Senator COOPER. Thank you very much.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Wade, we are going to ask you generally about the time of
Mr. Oswald's, Lee Harvey Oswald's, arrest, what you had to do in connection with
the entire matter, and the press being there at the jail, and the scene-and
seeing what happened there, and the various things in regard to Mr. Dean and
other witnesses in connection with the matter.
Will you state your name?
Mr. WADE. Henry Wade.
Mr. RANKIN. Where do you live?
Mr. WADE. I am district attorney, or criminal district attorney of
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us briefly your qualifications for your
position and profession?
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Mr. WADE. Well, I am a graduate of the
Later I became a lieutenant, junior grade, served in the Pacific 2 years,
about 2 years.
Then after the war I got out of the Navy on the 6th of February 1946, ran
for district attorney in
I was elected district attorney in 1950 and have been criminal district
attorney of
Mr. RANKIN. Have you handled many of the prosecutions of that county
since that time?
Mr. WADE. Well, my office or I have handled all of them since that time.
I have had quite a bit of experience myself.
I have a staff of 41 lawyers and, of course, I don't try all the cases
but I have tried quite a few, I would say 40, 50 anyhow since I have been
district attorney.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have any particular policy about which cases you would
try generally?
Mr. WADE. Well, it varies according to who my first assistant has been.
It is varied. If I have a
first assistant who likes to try cases, I usually let him try a lot and I do the
administrative. At the present time
I have a very fine administrative assistant, Jim Bowie, whom you met and I try a
few more cases.
I guess I have tried four in the last year probably but two to five a
year are about all the cases I try myself personally.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have any policy about capital cases as to whether you
should try them or somebody else?
Mr. WADE. I don't try all of them. I
try all the cases that are very aggravated and receive probably some publicity
to some extent, and I don't try all the capital cases.
I think we have had quite a few death penalties but I don't imagine I
have been in over half of them, probably half of them.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you remember where you were at the time you learned of the
assassination of President Kennedy?
Mr. WADE. Well, they were having a party for President Kennedy at Market
Hall and I was out at Market Hall waiting for the President to arrive.
Mr. RANKIN. How did you learn about the assassination?
Mr. WADE. Well, one of the reporters for one of the newspapers told me
there had been a shooting or something, of course, one of those things we were
getting all kinds of rumors spreading through a crowd of 3,000-5,000 people, and
then they got the radio on and the first report was they had killed two Secret
Service agents, that was on the radio, and then the press all came running in
there and then ran out, no one knew for sure what was going on until finally
they announced that President had been shot and from the rostrum there the
chairman of the----
Mr. DULLES. Who was the chairman of that meeting, do you recall?
Mr. WADE. Eric Johnson. Eric
Johnson.
Mr. RANKIN. Was he mayor then?
Mr. WADE. No; he wasn't mayor, he was the president of
Mr. RANKIN. What did you do after you heard of the assassination?
Mr. WADE. Well, the first thing, we were set up in a bus to go from there
to Austin to another party that night for President Kennedy, a group of us, 30
or 40. We got on a bus and went.
I went back to the office and sent my wife home, my wife was with me.
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And the first thing that I did was go check the law to see whether it was
a Federal offense or mine. I thought
it was a Federal offense when I first heard about it.
We checked the law, and were satisfied that was no serious Federal
offense, or not a capital case, anyhow.
There might be some lesser offense. I
talked to the
Mr. RANKIN. Who was that?
Mr. WADE. Barefoot Sanders
and he was in agreement it was going to be our i case rather than his and he had
been doing the same thing.
Mr. RANKIN. Where did you talk to him?
Mr. WADE. On the telephone as I recall, in his office from my office.
I am not even sure I talked with him, somebody from my office talked to
him, because I think you can realize things were a little confused and that took
us, say, until 3:30 or 4.
I let everybody in the office go home, but some of my key personnel who
stayed there. I let the girls or
told them they could go home, because they did close all the offices down there.
The next thing I did--do you want me to tell you?
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. I will tell you what I can.
The next thing I did was to go by the sheriff's office who is next door
to me and talked to Decker, who is the sheriff.
Bill Decker, and they were interviewing witnesses who were on the streets
at the time, and I asked him and he said they have got a good prospect.
This must have been 3 o'clock roughly.
Mr. RANKIN. The witnesses that were on the street near the
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; and in the building, I am not sure who they were,
they had two court reporters there taking statements.
Mr. RANKIN. Did they tell you anything about a suspect at that point?
Mr. WADE. The Sheriff told me, he said, "Don't say nothing about it,
but they have got a good suspect," talking about the
He didn't have him there. John
Connally, you know, was shot also--and he was, he used to be a roommate of mine
in the Navy and we were good friends, and are now--and the first thing I did
then was went out to the hospital to see how he was getting along.
I must have stayed out there until about 5 o'clock, and in case you all
don't know or understand one thing, it has never been my policy to make any
investigations out of my office of murders or anything else for that matter. We
leave that entirely to the police agency.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have a reason for that?
Mr. WADE. That is the way it is set up down there.
We have more than we can do actually in trying the cases.
The only time we investigate them is after they are filed on, indicted,
and then we have investigators who get them ready for trial and then lawyers.
Mr. DULLES. Have you any personnel for that?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I have in my office 11 investigators but that is just
1 for each court, and they primarily, or at least about all they do is line up
the witnesses for trial and help with jury picking and things of that kind.
Mr. RANKIN. At this point that you are describing, had you learned of any
arrest?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; Mr. Decker says they have a good suspect.
He said that sometime around 3 o'clock.
You see, I didn't have the benefit of all that was on the air.
I didn't even know Oswald had been arrested at this time.
As a matter of fact, I didn't know it at 5 o'clock when I left the
hospital.
When I left the hospital, I went home, watched television a while, had
dinner, and a couple, some friends of ours came over there.
They were going to
At that time they kept announcing they had Oswald or I believe they named
a name.
Mr. RANKIN. Had you learned about the Tippit murder yet?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; of course, it had been on the air that Tippit had
been killed.
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I went by the
Mr. RANKIN. Was that unusual for you to do that?
Mr. WADE. It was unusual because I hadn't been in the Dallas Police
Department, I won't be there on the average of once a year actually, I mean on
anything. I went by there and I went to Chief Curry's office.
Mr. RANKIN. How did you happen to do that this time?
Mr. WADE. Of course, this is not really, this was not an ordinary case,
this was a little bit different, and I mostly wanted to know how he was coming
along on the investigation is the main reason I went by.
As I went in, and this is roughly 6:30, 7 at night--I said we ate dinner
at home, I believe the couple were out in the car with my wife were waiting for
me to go to dinner with them.
Mr. DULLES. Did you go down to the airfield when President Johnson left?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; no, sir.
Mr. DULLES. You did not.
Mr. WADE. I didn't go anywhere but to my office, then to
Mr. RANKIN. About what time was this at the police station?
Mr. WADE. I would say around 7 o'clock.
This can vary 30 minutes either way.
Mr. RANKIN. Who did you see there?
Mr. WADE. Chief Curry.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you talk to him?
Mr. WADE. I talked to him.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you say to him and what did he say to you?
Mr. WADE. Well, it is hard to remember.
I know the first thing he did was pull out a memorandum that you all were
interested in, signed by Jack Revill, and showed it to me and I read it, and
said, "What do you think about that?"
And I said----
Mr. DULLES. I wonder if you would identify this for the record?
Mr. WADE. You can get it. Let me tell you the story.
I read that thing there hurriedly and I remember it mentioned that Agenty
Hosty had talked to Revill----
Senator COOPER. Who was that?
Mr. WADE. Hosty.
Senator COOPER. Can you identify him as to what he does?
Mr. WADE. He is a special agent of the FBI, but I don't think I would
know him if he walked in here actually.
But that is his business. He
showed me that, and I read it. Now,
as far as identifying it, I have seen---I have a copy of it in my files.
You see, when they turned the records over to me and I read it and looked
it over and to the best of my knowledge was the same memorandum he showed me,
although all I did was glance at it and it said generally they knew something
about him and knew he was in town or something like that.
Senator COOPER. Who said that?
Mr. WADE This memorandum said that.
Senator COOPER. Who is reported to be quoting the memorandum?
Mr. WADE. Special Agent Hosty. Now,
I have since looked at the memorandum. So
far as I know it is the same memorandum, but like I say I read it there and I
don't know whether it is the--I don't know whether it said word for word to be
the same thing but it appears to me to my best knowledge to be the same
memorandum.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know when you first got the memorandum in your files
that you are referring to?
Mr. WADE. It was a month later. You
see the police gave me a record of everything on the Ruby case, I would say some
time about Christmas.
Mr. RANKIN. I will hand you Commission Exhibit No. 709 and ask you if
that is the memorandum you just referred to?
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Mr. WADE. Yes; to the best of my knowledge that is the memorandum he
showed me there at 7 p.m. on the 22d day of November 1963.
Jack Revill incident.oily, you all have talked with him, but he is one of
the brightest, to my mind, of the young
As a matter of fact, when we got into the Ruby trial, I asked that they
assign Jack Revill to assist us in the investigation and he assisted with
picking of the jury and getting the witnesses all through the Ruby trial.
Mr. RANKIN. Would your records show when you received a copy of this
document, Commission Exhibit No. 709?
Mr. WADE. Well, I am sure it would. It
would be the day--you can trace it back to when the newspapers said he had
turned all the files over to me and it was around Christmas as I recall, and I
believe actually it was after Christmas, but probably 30 days, but you see they
turned over a file that thick to me, I imagine.
It was of all of that, the same thing they turned over to you, everything
the police had on Jack Ruby.
Mr. RANKIN. You put a receipt stamp on anything like that?
Mr. WADE. I don't think it will show a date or anything like that on it
because they just hauled it in there and laid it on my desk.
But this was--it is in our files, and I am rather sure it is the same
time. You all got the same thing.
Mr. RANKIN. We didn't receive anything like that until the time that
Chief Curry came to testify, just for your information.
Mr. WADE. Well, I didn't know that, but now on this, this is the Ruby
matter----
Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one question there?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. Just to refresh my recollection of your testimony, did you
see this that afternoon around 5 or 6 o'clock?
Mr. WADE. Around 7 o'clock I
would say it was on Chief Curry's desk.
Mr. DULLES. Of the 22d?
Mr. WADE. Of the 22d.
Senator COOPER. I don't want
to interrupt too much, but looking at this exhibit, I note it is written, you
have seen this Commission, Commission Exhibit No. 709 signed by Jack Revill?
Mr. WADE. Yes; let me see it; yes.
Senator COOPER. Is your
recollection, was the memorandum that was shown to you by--first, who did show
you the memorandum on the 22d?
Mr. WADE. Chief Curry of the
Senator COOPER. Was the memorandum shown to you on the 22d by Chief Curry
in this same form?
Mr. WADE. To the best of my knowledge that was it now.
Now, like I said I read this memorandum, and I read the memorandum, and
asked the chief what he was going to do with it and he said, "I don't
know."
And then the next morning I heard on television Chief Curry, I don't know
whether I heard him or not, he made some kind of statement concerning this
memorandum on television, and then later came back and said that wasn't to his
personal knowledge, and I think that was--he said that what he said about it he
retracted it to some extent but I guess you all have got records of those
television broadcasts or at least can get them.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you remember whether he said just what was in this Exhibit
No. 709 or something less than that or more or what?
Mr. WADE. I don't remember.
You see, things were moving fast, and it is hard there are so many things
going on. I will go on to my story.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. I will answer anything, of course.
Mr. RANKIN. You can tell us the rest that you said to Chief Curry and he
said to you at that time, first.
Mr. WADE. I asked him how the case was coming along and, as a practical
matter he didn't know. You probably
have run into this, but there is really a lack of communication between the
chief's office and the captain of detective's office there in
Mr. RANKIN. You found that to be true.
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Mr. WADE. For every year I have been in the office down there.
And I assume you have taken their depositions.
I don't know what the relations--the relations are better between Curry
and Fritz than between Hanson and Fritz, who was his predecessor.
But Fritz runs a kind of a one-man operation there where nobody else
knows what he is doing. Even me, for instance, he is reluctant to tell me,
either, but I don't mean that disparagingly.
I will say Captain Fritz is about as good a man at solving a crime as I
ever saw, to find out who did it but he is poorest in the getting evidence that
I know, and I am more interested in getting evidence, and there is where our
major conflict comes in.
I talked to him a minute there and I don't believe I talked to Captain
Fritz. One of my assistants was in
Fritz's office. I believe I did walk
down the hall and talk briefly, and they had filed, they had filed on Oswald for
killing Tippit.
Mr. DULLES. Which assistant was that?
Mr. WADE. Bill Alexander. There
was another one of--another man there, Jim Alien, who was my former first
assistant who is practicing law there in
And I know there is no question about his intentions and everything was
good, but he was just a lawyer there, but he had tried many death penalty cases
with Fritz---of Fritz's cases.
But he was there. Your FBI
was there, your Secret Service were there in the homicide.
Mr. RANKIN. Who from the FBI, do you recall?
Mr. WADE. Well, I saw Vince Drain, a special agent that I knew, and Jim
Bookhout, I believe, and there was Mr. Kelley and Mr. Sorrels--Inspector Kelley
of the Secret Service, Sorrels,
I might tell you that also, to give you a proper perspective on this
thing, there were probably 300 people then out in that hall.
You could hardly walk down the hall.
You just had to fight your way down through the hall, through the press
up there.
Mr. RANKIN. Who were they?
Mr. WADE. The television and newsmen.
I say 300, that was all that could get into that hall and to get into
homicide it was a strain to get the door open hard enough to get into the
office.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say anything to Chief Curry about that?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I probably mentioned it but I assume you want--whether
I meant he ought to clean them out or not. I
didn't tell him he should or shouldn't because I have absolutely no control over
the police. They are a separate
entity. They have a municipality, and they work under a city manager.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say anything to Chief Curry about what should be told
the press about investigation, how it was progressing or anything of that kind?
Mr. WADE. Yes; I think that is the brief conversation, that is the last I
talked to Curry that night. I may
have talked to--but that is all I recall. I
left thereafter, and went on out to dinner.
Mr. RANKIN. About what time did you leave?
Mr. WADE. 7, 7:30, something like that.
I got home, say, 9:30 or 10, after eating dinner, and I believe I talked
to the U.S. attorney or at least I saw it come on the radio that they are going
to file on Oswald as part of an international conspiracy in murdering the U.S.
President, and I think I talked to Barefoot Sanders. He called me or I called
him.
Mr. RANKIN. I wanted to get for the record, Mr. Wade, who would be trying
to file like that.
Mr. WADE. I don't know. All I
know it wasn't me. It was told to me
at one time that the justice of the peace said something about it and another
one, one of my assistants, Alexander had said something about it and I have
talked to both of them since and both of them deny so I don't know who suggested
it or anything but it was on the radio and I think on television.
I know I heard it and I am not sure where.
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Mr. RANKIN. Can you tell us whether it was from your office or from a
Federal office that such an idea was developing as far as you know?
Mr. WADE. Well, on that score it doesn't make any sense at all to me
because there is no such crime in Texas, being part of an international
conspiracy, it is just murder with malice in Texas, and if you allege anything
else in an indictment you have to prove it and it is all surplusage in an
indictment to allege anything, whether a man is a John Bircher or a Communist or
anything, if you allege it you have to prove it.
So, when I heard it I went down to the police station and took the charge
on him, just a case of simple murder.
Mr. DULLES. Is that of Tippit or of the President?
Mr. WADE. No; of the President, and the radio announced Johnston was down
there, and Alexander, and of course other things, and so I saw immediately that
if somebody was going to take a complaint that he is part of an international
conspiracy it had to be a publicity deal rather--somebody was interested in
something other than the law because there is no such charge in Texas as part
of--I don't care what you belong to, you don't have to allege that in an
indictment.
Mr. RANKIN. What do you mean by the radio saying that Johnson was there?
Do you mean President Johnson?
Mr. WADE. No; that is the justice of the peace whose name is
Mr. RANKIN. I see.
Mr. WADE. Yes; Justice of the Peace David L. Johnston was the justice of
the peace there.
So, I went down there not knowing--also at that time I had a lengthy
conversation with Captain Fritz and with Jim Alexander who was in the office,
Bill Alexander, Bookhout because another reason I thought maybe they were going
to want to file without the evidence, and then that put everything on me, you
know.
If they didn't have the evidence and they said, "We file on him, we
have got the assassin" I was afraid somebody might take the complaint and I
went down to be sure they had some evidence on him.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you told us all that you said to the
Mr. WADE. So far as I know. I know that concerned that point, you know.
Mr. RANKIN. Well, did he say anything to you about that point?
Mr. WADE. Well, I think he asked me was that--I don't think Barefoot was
real conversant, I guess is the word with what the law is in a murder charge.
I told him that it had no place in it and he said he had heard it on the
radio and didn't know whether it would be thought
it might because some if it was not
necessary, he did not think it ought to be done, something to that effect so I
went down there to be sure they didn't.
I went over the evidence which they--when I saw the evidence, it was the
evidence as told to me by Captain Fritz.
Mr. RANKIN. This conversation you have described you had when Jim
Alexander was there and the others?
Mr. WADE. Yes; I first asked Jim Allen, a man whom I have a lot of
confidence in, do they have a case and he said it looks like a case, you can
try.
Mr. RANKIN. Is that the case about the assassination?
Mr. WADE. Yes; we are talking entirely about the assassination.
On the Tippit thing, I didn't take the charge on that and I think they
had some witnesses who had identified him there at the scene, but I was more
worried about the assassination of them filing on somebody that we couldn't
prove was guilty.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you discuss the evidence that they did have at that time
with Captain Fritz?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us what evidence you recall?
Mr. WADE. I have made no notes but roughly he gave the story about him
bringing the gun to work, saying it was window rods from the neighbor, someone
who had brought him to work. He also
said there were three employees of the company that left him on the sixth floor.
He told about, the part about,
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the
young officer running in there right after the assassination and Oswald leaving
after the manager said that he was employed there.
Told about his arrest and said that there was a scuffle there, and that
he tried to shoot the officer.
I don't know--I think I am giving you all this because I think a little
of it may vary from the facts but all I know is what Fritz told me.
He said the
They said they had a palmprint on the wrapping paper, and on the box, I
believe there by the scene. They did
at least put Oswald there at the scene.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you clarify the palmprint that you are referring to on
the rifle?
Was it on the underside of the rifle, was it between the rifle and the
stock or where was it as you recall?
Mr. WADE. Specifically, I couldn't say because
but he said they had a palm-print or a fingerprint of Oswald on the
underside of the rifle and I don't know whether it was on the trigger guard or
where it was but I knew that was important, I mean, to put the gun in his
possession.
I thought we had that all the time when I took the complaint on the
thing.
Let me see what else they had that night.
Well, they had a lot of the things they found in his possession. They had
the map, you know, that marked the route of the parade.
They had statements from the bus driver and the taxicab driver that
hauled him somewhere.
I think they varied a little as to where they picked him up but generally
they had some type of statement from them.
That is generally what they gave me now.
Mr. RANKIN. That is all you recall as of that time?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you give any report to the press then about----
Mr. WADE. No; I will tell you what happened then.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes, sir.
Mr. WADE. As we walked out of the thing they started yelling, I started
home, and they stared yelling they wanted to see Oswald, the press.
And Perry said that he had put him in the showup room downstairs.
Of course, they were yelling all over the world they wanted a picture of
Oswald.
And I don't know the mob and everybody ended up in the showup room.
It is three floors below there.
Mr. RANKIN. Still Friday night?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Mr. RANKIN. About what time?
Mr. WADE. I would say around midnight roughly. It would--it could be
either way an hour because I went down there around 11 o'clock, 10:30 or 11,
some roughly and I don't know what the time element was but I would say around
midnight.
So, they started interviewing Fritz and Curry, and I started to leave and
Fritz said, "Well, we will get --" either Fritz or Curry said,
"We will show him up down there," he said, "This is Mr. Wade, the
district attorney."
He kind of introduced me to the press.
I didn't say anything at that time but down in the basement they started
to put Oswald--I went down there with them.
They started to put Oswald in the lineup down there.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you describe that briefly to the Commission?
Mr. WADE. Well, I don't know whether you have seen--it is a room larger
than this and you have a glass here on this side. Behind that glass they have a
place out here where they walk prisoners in through there and you can see
through this side but you can't see through that side. I think that is the way
it is set up.
Senator COOPER. You mean observers can see?
Mr. WADE. Observers can see, but the defendants or suspects can't see
through or at least can't identify.
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Mr. RANKIN. Do you remember
who else besides Lee Harvey Oswald was in the showup?
Mr. WADE. No; I am just telling you about the showup room.
Now, they had had showups on him but I wasn't there at any of those, but
this was, the purpose of this, was to let the press see Oswald, if I understand
it.
And the police were yelling, "Everybody wants to see him, wants a
picture of him." They started
in the screened-in portion and a howl went up that you can't take a picture
through that screen. Then they had a
conference with, among some of them, and the next thing I knew I was just
sitting there upon a little, I guess, elevated, you might say a speaker's stand,
although there were
300
people in the room, you couldn't even actually get out, you know.
Mr. RANKIN. Did they ask you whether they should do this?
Mr. WADE. I don't think I said yea or nay to the thing so far as I know,
because it was--and I actually didn't know what they were doing until, the next
thing I knew they said they were going to have to bring him in there.
Well, I think I did say, "You'd better get some officers in here or
something for some protection on him."
I thought a little about, and I got a little worried at that stage.
So about 12 officers came in and they were standing around Oswald, and at
this time I looked out in the audience and saw a man out there, later, who
turned out to be Jack Ruby. He was there at that scene.
Mr. RANKIN. How did you happen to pick him out?
Mr. WADE. Well, I don't know. He
had--I had seen the fellow somewhere before, but I didn't know his name, but he
had a pad, and the reason I remember him mostly----
Mr. RANKIN. You mean a scratch pad?
Mr. WADE. He had some kind of scratch pad.
The reason I mentioned him mostly, I will get into him in a minute and
tell you everything about him. He
was out there about 1 minute, I would say, and they took pictures and everything
else and Oswald was here and the cameras were in a ring around him, and as they
left----
Mr. RANKIN. Excuse me. Where
was Ruby from where you told us where Oswald was?
Mr. WADE. Well, he was, I would say, about 12 feet. I am giving a
rough----
Mr. RANKIN. When. you saw him----
Mr. WADE. We went all through this at the trial, and it varied on where
Ruby was, but when I saw him he was about four rows back in the aisle seat,
standing up in the seat.
Mr. RANKIN. Were there press men around him?
Mr. WADE All kinds of press men around him, and also press men 10 deep
between him and Oswald.
Now, one of their--you mentioned the gun awhile ago---one of their
defenses in the trial was if he had a gun, he had a gun there, he could have
killed him if he wanted to. It is
the first I heard him say that he didn't have a gun that you mentioned awhile
ago. So when I got--when they got
through, they started asking him questions, the press.
Senator COOPER. Wait a minute. How
close were the nearest people in the audience to Oswald?
Mr. WADE. I would say they were that far from him.
Senator COOPER. How far is that?
Mr. WADE. Three feet.
Senator COOPER. You mean some of the reporters and photographers were
within 3 feet of him?
Mr. WADE. They were on the ground, they were on the ground, and they were
standing on top of each other, and on top of tables, and I assume in that room
there were 250 people. It was just a
mob scene.
Senator COOPER. I believe I have seen the room.
Isn't it correct that at the end where the showup is held that is an
elevated platform?
Mr. WADE. There is a platform up there where the microphone is.
Senator COOPER. Was he standing up on the platform?
Mr. WADE. No; he was not at the platform.
Senator COOPER. Was he on the floor level?
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Mr. WADE. He was in the floor level in the middle.
If I understand, that was the first or second time I had ever been in the
room.
Senator COOPER. Were there people around him, surrounding him?
Mr. WADE. People were on the floor in front of those desks.
Senator COOPER. But I mean, were they, were people on all sides of him?
Mr. WADE. No; they were all in front of him.
They were all in front of him, and you had a ring of policemen behind
him, policemen on all sides of him. It was just the front where they were, and
that is the way I recall it, but I knew they had a line of policemen behind him,
and the place was full of policemen, because they went up and it turns out later
they got all the police who
were
on duty that night. They were plain
clothes police, most of them, maybe they had a uniform or two, a few of them.
So they started----
Senator COOPER. Excuse me one
moment.
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. Can I make a
statement? I will have to go to my
office for a few minutes. I hope to
return in about 20 minutes, and I will ask Mr. Dulles to preside in my place,
and I will return.
Mr. WADE. Thank you, sir.
(At this point, Senator Cooper withdrew from the hearing room.)
Mr. DULLES. Proceed.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you proceed?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; so they said, "Have you filed on him?"
At that stage, yelling has he been filed on, and I said yes, and filed on
for murder with and they asked Judge Johnston, is there--they asked him
something.
Then they started asking me questions everywhere, from all angles.
Mr. RANKIN. Under your practice, what do you mean by file on him?
Is that something different than an arraignment?
Mr. WADE. Well, of course, it is according to the terminology and what
you mean by arraignment. In
Mr. RANKIN. I see.
You don't bring him before a magistrate?
Mr. WADE. Well, that is called--you can have an examining trial before
the magistrate to see whether it is a bailable matter.
At that time, I don't believe he had been brought before the magistrate,
because I told David Johnston as we left there, I said, "You ought to go up
before the jail and have him brought before you and advise him of his rights and
his right to counsel and this and that," which, so far as I know, he did.
But at that meeting you had two attorneys from American Civil Liberties
Mr. RANKIN. Which meeting?
Mr. WADE. That Friday night meeting, or Friday night showup we had better
call it, midnight on Friday night. I
believe it was Greer Ragio and Professor Webster from SMU.
I saw them there in the hall, and Chief Curry told me that they had been
given an opportunity or had talked with Oswald.
I am not sure. I was under
the impression that they had talked with them but, of course, I didn't see them
talking with him.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you talk to
them about it?
Mr. WADE. Yes; I told them that he is entitled to counsel, that is what
they are interested in on the counsel situation, and anybody, either them or
anybody else could see him that wanted to.
Mr. RANKIN. What did they say then?
Mr. WADE. Mr. Rankin, I will tell you what, there was so much going on I
don't remember exactly. The only
thing was I got the impression they had already talked with them somewhere, but
I don't know whether they told me or the chief told me or what.
Like I say, it was a mob scene there, practically, and they were standing
in the door when I--they were in the meeting there.
Let me get a little further and go back to--I don't know whether I
answered your question and if I don't it is because I can't, because I don't
know--I will tell you what happened the next day.
Mr. RANKIN. Let's finish with the showup now.
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Mr. WADE. Yes. They asked a
bunch of questions there. I think if
you get a record of my interview that you will find that any of the evidence----
Mr. DULLES. Which interview is that?
Mr. WADE. With the press, midnight, radio, television, and everything
else. I think if you will get a copy of that you will find they asked me lots of
questions about fingerprints and evidence. I refused to answer them because I
said it was evidence in the case. The
only thing that I told them that you might get the impression was evidence but
is really not evidence, I told them that the man's wife said the man had a gun
or something to that effect. The
reason, maybe good or bad, but that isn't admissible in
Mr. RANKIN. At that time, had you filed on the assassination?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; we had filed upstairs prior to this.
He had been filed on for murder with malice.
Mr. RANKIN. But he hadn't been brought before the justice of the peace or
magistrate yet on that complaint, had he?
Mr. WADE. The justice of the peace was there in the office and took it in
the homicide. Oswald was in
homicide, also, but he is in a separate office. Like I told you, I never did see
Oswald except in that lineup downstairs. That was the first time I had seen him.
Mr. RANKIN. Was that when you. told the justice of the peace that he
ought to have him before him to tell him his rights and so forth?
Mr. WADE. Yes; it was some time during that hour. this went on for about
an hour down there, everything.
Well, during that interview somebody said, and the thing--Oswald belonged
to, was he a Communist, something generally to that effect.
Mr. RANKIN. They asked you that?
Mr. WADE. I was asked that. And
I said, well, now, I don't know about that but they found some literature, I
understand, some literature dealing with Free
someone
in the audience would speak up and answer a question.
Mr. DULLES. You hadn't known him before?
Mr. WADE. I had never known him, to my knowledge.
He is a man about town, and I had seen him before, because when I saw him
in there, and I actually thought he was a part of the press corps at the time.
Mr. RANKIN. Were any of your assistants or people working for you there
at that showup?
Mr. WADE. I don't believe there were any of them there now.
If there is any of them, it is Alexander, because he is the only one down
there, but I think he is still up in homicide.
I will go further on that, some of my assistants know him, but he was in
my office 2 days before this with a hot check or something where he was trying
to collect a hot check or pay someone. I
think he was trying to pay someone else's hot check off, I don't know what it
was, I didn't see him. He talked to
my check section. I found this out later.
Mr. RANKIN. By "he" you mean----
Mr. WADE. Ruby, Jack Ruby.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. He was in another office of mine, since this all came out, he
was in there with a bunch of the police, we were trying a case on pornography,
some of my assistants were, and my assistant came in his office during the noon
hour after coming from the court, this was 2 or 3 days before the assassination
and Ruby was sitting there in his office with five or six Dallas police
officers. In fact, he was sitting in my assistant's desk and he started to sit
down and asked who he was and the officer said, "Well, that is Jacky Ruby
who runs the Carousel Club," so he had been down there.
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I don't know him personally--I mean I didn't know who he was. of these
things I had seen the man, I imagine, but I had no idea who he was, and I will
even go further, after it was over, this didn't come out in the trial, as they
left down there, Ruby ran up to me and he said, "Hi Henry" he yelled
real loud. he yelled. "Hi, Henry," and put his hand to shake hands
with me and I shook hands with him. And
he said, "Don't you know me?" And
I am trying to figure out whether I did or not.
And he said, "I am Jack Ruby, I run the Vegas Club."
And I said, "What are you doing in here?"
It was in the basement of the city hall.
He said, "I know all these fellows."
Just shook his hand and said, "I know all these fellows."
I still didn't know whether he was talking about the press or police all
the time, but he shook his hands kind of like that and left me and I was trying
to get out of the place which was rather crowded, and if you are familiar with
that basement, and I was trying to get out of that hall. And here I heard
someone call "Henry Wade wanted on the phone," this was about 1
o'clock in the morning or about 1 o'clock in the morning, and I gradually get
around to the phone there, one of the police phones, and as I get there it is
Jack Ruby, and station KLIF in Dallas on the phone.
You see, he had gone there, this came out in the trial, that he had gone
over there and called KLIF and said Henry Wade is down there, I will get you an
interview with him.
Mr. RANKIN. Who is this?
Mr. WADE. KLIF is the name of the radio station.
You see, I didn't know a thing, and I just picked up the phone and they
said this is so and so at KLIF and started asking questions.
But that came out in the trial.
But to show that he was trying to be kind of the type of person who was
wanting to think he was important, you know.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you give him an interview over the telephone to KLIF?
Mr. WADE. Ruby?
Mr. RANKIN. No.
Mr. WADE. I answered about
two questions and hung up, but they had a man down there who later interviewed
me before I got out of the building. But
they just asked me had he been filed and one or two things.
Mr. DULLES. It was a KLIF reporter that you gave this to, not Ruby?
Mr. WADE. Not Ruby. Ruby was
not on the phone, he had just gone out and called him and handed the phone to
me. I thought I got a call from
somebody, and picked it up and it was KLIF on the phone.
Mr. RANKIN. On the pornography charge, was Ruby involved in that?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I don't know why he was down there, actually.
But there were six or seven police officers, special services of the
Mr. RANKIN. You have told us all you remember about the showup?
Mr. WADE. I told you all, and, of course, all I know about it as far as
my interview with the press. You can get more. accurate, actually, by getting a
transcript of it because I don't remember what all was asked, but I do remember
the incident with Ruby and I know I told them that there would be no evidence
given out in the case.
At that time, most of it had already been given out, however, by someone.
I think by the police.
Now, the next morning, I don't know of anything else until the next
morning. I went to the office about
9 o'clock.
Mr. DULLES. Could I ask a question?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have any Particular transcript that you are speaking
about?
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Mr. WADE. No; I don't have anything.
The thing about it is this was taken, this was on television and radio
and all the networks. They had
everything there set up and that is the only--that is the first of, I think,
three times I was interviewed, but it was Friday night around between 12 and 1
o'clock. It was actually Saturday
morning between 12 and 1.
Mr. RANKIN. So there were a number of networks, possibly, and a number of
the radio stations and television stations from the whole area?
Mr. WADE. The whole area and it actually wasn't set up for an interview
with me. It was an interview, what I
thought, with Fritz and Carry, and I thought I would stay for it, but when they
got into the interviewing, I don't know what happened to them but they weren't
there. They had left, or I was the
one who was answering the questions about things I didn't know much about, to
tell you the truth.
Has that got it cleared? Can
I go to the next morning?
I will try to go a little and not forget anything.
The next morning I went to my office, probably, say, 9 o'clock Saturday
morning. Waiting there for me was
Robert Oswald, who was the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald. You probably have met
him, but I believe his name is Robert is his brother.
I talked to him about an hour.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you say to him and what did he say to you?
Mr. WADE. Well, we discussed the history of Lee Harvey Oswald and the one
of the purposes he came to me, he wanted his mother, Oswald's mother, and wife
and him to see Oswald.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he say this
to you?
Mr. WADE. Yes; but we had already set it up, somebody, I don't know
whether my office or the police, but he was set up to see him that morning at 11
o'clock, I believe, or 12 o'clock, some time.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you do anything about it?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; I checked to see if it was arranged.
I called Captain Fritz and told him that he wanted to see him, and he
said they were going to let him see him. I
don't know. I don't know the name,
but it was either 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock Saturday morning.
I don't know whether he had requested or not, but that was the first time
I had seen him. I don't know why he
came to my office, but I used it to try to go into Lee Harvey Oswald's
background some, and I also told him that there is a lot involved in this thing
from a national point of view, and I said, "You appear to be a good
citizen," which he did appear to me, "and I think you will render your
country a great service if you will go up and tell Oswald to tell us all about
the thing." That was part of
the deal of my working for a statement from Oswald which didn't pan out, of
course. Because I was going to
interview Oswald Sunday afternoon when we got him into the county jail and I was
going to attempt to get a statement from him.
Mr. RANKIN. Did Robert tell you anything about Lee Harvey Oswald's
background at that time?
Mr. WADE. He told me about in Europe, how in Russia, how they had had
very little correspondence with them and he wrote to them renouncing or telling
them he wanted to renounce his American citizenship and didn't want to have
anything else to do with him. He
said later that one of the letters changed some, I mean back, and then he said
he was coming home, coming back and he had married and kind of his general
history of the thing and he came back and I believe stayed with this Robert in
Fort Worth for 2, 3, or 4 months. Now I say this is from memory, like I don't
have and they had helped him some,
and said that Marina, the thing that impressed her was most your super-markets,
I think, more than anything else in this country, your A. & P. and the big,
I guess you call them, supermarkets or whatever they are.
And he told me something about him going to
Now, it seemed to me like it was a year, and he said their families, they
didn't have anything in common much, and he said, of course
I said "Do you think"--
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I
said, "the evidence is pretty strong against your brother, what do you
think about it?" He said,
"Well, he is my brother. and I hate to think he would do this."
He said, "I want to talk to him and ask him about it."
Now, I never did see him. Roughly,
that is about all I remember from that conversation.
We rambled around for quite a bit.
I know I was impressed because he got out and walked out the front of my
office and in front of my office there were 15 or 20 press men wanting to ask
him something, and he wouldn't say a word to them, he just walked off.
I told him they would be out there, and he said, "I won't have
anything to say."
Mr. DULLES. Was this the morning after the assassination?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; Saturday morning.
Mr. DULLES. About what time?
Mr. WADE. I would say between 9 and 10 is when I talked with him.
And so the main purpose in the office, we believed, the main purpose of
me and the lawyers in the office were briefing the law on whether to try Oswald
for the murder of the President, whether you could prove the flight and the
killing of Officer Tippit, which we became satisfied that we could, I mean from
an evidentiary point of view.
Mr. RANKIN. By "we" who do you mean, in your office?
Mr. WADE. Well, I think I had seven or eight in there, Bowie, and
Alexander, and Dan Ellis, Jim Williamson, but there was a legal point.
My office was open, but that, with reference to this case, there were
other things going on, but in reference to this case, this is what we spent our
time trying to establish whether that would be admissible or not.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you consult with any Federal officers in regard to how
you should handle the case or what you should say about it at any time?
Mr. WADE. No; I didn't discuss, consult with any of them. I did talk to
some of the FBI boys and I believe there was an inspector.
Mr. RANKIN. Secret Service?
Mr. WADE. No.
Mr. RANKIN. FBI?
Mr. WADE. There was an inspector of the FBI who called me two or three
times. I don't remember.
Mr. RANKIN. Did they tell you how to handle the case in any way?
Mr. WADE. I don't think so. I
mean it wasn't really up to them.
Mr. RANKIN. The only time you
ever talked to Barefoot Sanders about it was in regard to this conspiracy,
possibility of, that you have already described?
Mr. WADE. Frankly, that is
hard to say. I think we talked off
and on every day or two about developments in it, because, you see, well, I
don't know whether we talked any more but before the killing by Ruby, but we had
nearly a daily conversation about the files in the Oswald case, what we were
going to do with them. You see, they
were going to give them all to me, and at that stage we didn't know whether it
was going to be a President's Commission or a congressional investigation or
what. After the President's
Commission was set up, I arranged through him and Miller here in the Justice
Department that rather than give the files to me, to get the police to turn them
over to the FBI and send them to you all, or photostat them and send them to you
all.
Barefoot and I talked frequently, but I don't know of anything
significant of the Oswald angle that we discussed, and we spent the last 2
months trying to get some of the FBI files to read on the Ruby trial.
I mean we talked a lot but I don't know anything further about Oswald
into it or anything on Ruby of any particular significance.
Mr. RANKIN. Was Barefoot Sanders suggesting how you should handle the
Oswald case except the time you already related?
Mr. WADE. I don't recall him doing, suggesting that.
Mr. RANKIN. Any other Federal officers suggesting anything like that to
you?
Mr. WADE The only thing I remember is the inspector of the FBI whom I
don't think I ever met. I was there in the police one time during this shuffle,
and I think it was some time Saturday morning, and he said they should have
nothing, no publicity on the thing, no statements.
Now, I don't know whether that was after Ruby shot Oswald or before,
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I
don't know when it was, but I did talk with him and I know his concern which was
that there was too much publicity.
Mr. RANKIN. And he told you
that, did he?
Mr. WADE. At some stage in it. I
am thinking it was Sunday night which I know I talked with him Sunday night, but
we are not that far along with it yet. But
I don't know whether I talked to him previously or not.
Mr. RANKIN. That is the only conversation of that type that you recall
with any Federal officer?
Mr. WADE. That is all I recall. I am sure Barefoot and I discussed the
publicity angle on it some, but I don't remember Barefoot suggesting how we
handle it, but neither one of us knew whether it was his offense or mine, to
begin with, for 2 or 3 hours because we had to select it.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know what Barefoot said about publicity when you did
discuss it with him?
Mr. WADE. I don't recall anything.
Mr. RANKIN. All right.
What happened next, as you recall?
Mr. WADE. I was going home. I
went by the police station to talk to Chief Curry.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you discuss the evidence then?
Mr. WADE. Well, at that time You
see, Chief Curry knew very little of the evidence at that stage. He should have
known, but he didn't But I discussed the thing with him and I told him there was
too much evidence being put out in the case from his department, that I wish he
would talk to Fritz and have no further statements on it.
Mr. RANKIN. What did he say about that?
Mr. WADE. He said, "That is fine.
I think that is so."
Mr. RANKIN. Now, going back just a moment, you spoke out about a map
earlier that you had been told they had as evidence, do you recall, of the
parade route. Did you look at the
map at the time?
Mr. WADE. I don't think I ever saw the map.
Mr. RANKIN. You don't know what it contained in regard to the parade
route?
Mr. WADE. I was told by Fritz that it had the parade route and it had an
X where the assassination took place and it had an X out on Stemmons Freeway and
an X at Inwood Road and Lemon, is all I know, a circle or some mark there.
Mr. RANKIN. But you have never seen the map?
Mr. WADE. So far as I know, I have never seen the map.
I don't know even where it was found, but I think it was found in his
home, probably. But that is my recollection.
But I don't even know that. I
told Chief Curry this.
Then I walked out, and Tom Pettit of NBC said, "We are all confused
on the law, where we are really on this thing."
Mr. RANKIN. What did you say?
Mr. WADE. At that time I said, "Well, I will explain the procedure,
Texas procedure in a criminal case," and I had about a 10-minute interview
there as I was leaving the chief's office, dealing entirely with the procedure,
I mean your examining trial and grand jury and jury trial, I mean as to what
takes place. You see, they had all
kinds of statements and other countries represented and they were all curious to
ask legal questions, when bond would be set and when it would be done.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you discuss the evidence at that time?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I refused. You
will find that I refused to answer questions. They all asked questions on it,
but I would tell them that is evidence and that deals with evidence in the
matter.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you tell them why you wouldn't answer those questions?
Mr. WADE. I told them we had to try the case, here, and we would have to
try the case and we wouldn't be able to get a jury if they knew all the evidence
in the case.
You will find that in those interviews most, I think.
I haven't seen them. As a
matter of fact, didn't see them myself even.
But I went home that day, and----
Mr. DULLES. That day is Saturday?
Mr. WADE. Saturday; yes, sir.
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Mr. RANKIN. About what time? Do
you recall?
Mr. WADE. I guess I got home 2:30 probably. I must have eaten on the way
home or somewhere.
Mr. RANKIN. In the afternoon?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; and I know I was amazed as I walked through the
television room there and saw Chief Curry with that gun.
You see, at that time they had not identified the gun as his gun, but he
was telling about the report on it.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you just describe what you saw there at that time?
Mr. WADE. Well, I know he was in a crowd, and it seems to me like he had
the gun, but on second thought I am not even sure whether he had the gun, but he
was tracing the history of how that the gun was bought under the name, under an
assumed name from a mail-order house in Chicago and mailed there to Dallas, and
that the serial number and everything that had been identified, that the FBI had
done that, something else.
I believe they said they had a post office box here, a blind post office
box that the recipients of that had identified as Oswald as the guy or something
that received it.
In other words, he went directly over the evidence connecting him with
the gun.
Mr. RANKIN. You say there was a crowd there.
Who was the crowd around him?
Mr. WADE. Newsmen. You see, I
was at home. I was watching it on
television.
Mr. RANKIN. I see. Did you do
anything about that, then? Did you
call him and ask him to quit that?
Mr. WADE No; I felt like nearly it was a hopeless case.
I know now why it happened. That
was the first piece of evidence he got his hands on before Fritz did.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you explain what you mean by that?
Mr. WADE. Well, this went to the FBI and came to him rather than to
Captain Fritz, and I feel in my own mind that this was something new, that he
really had been receiving none of the original evidence, that it was coming
through Fritz to him and so this went from him to Fritz, you know, and I think
that is the reason he did it.
So I stayed home that afternoon. I
was trying to think, it seems like I went back by the police station some time
that night, late at night.
Mr. RANKIN. This way of giving evidence to the press and all of the news
media, is that standard practice in your area?
Mr. WADE. Yes; it is, unfortunately.
I don't think it is good. We
have just, even since this happened we have had a similar incident with the
police giving all the evidence out or giving out an oral confession of a
defendant that is not admissible in court. You
know, oral admissions are not generally admissible in
Mr. RANKIN. Have you done anything about it, tried to stop it in any way?
Mr. WADE. Well, in this actually, in the same story they quoted me as
saying, I mean the news quoted me as saying they shouldn't give the information
out, that is the evidence, we have got to try the case, we will get a jury, it
is improper to do this, or something to that effect.
So far as taking it up with--I have mentioned many ,times that they
shouldn't give out evidence, in talking to the police officers, I mean in there
in training things, but it is something I have no control over whatever.
It is a separate entity, the city of Dallas is, and I do a little fussing
with the police, but by the same token it. is not a situation where
I think it is one of your major problems that are going to have to be
looked into not only here but it is a sidelight, I think, to your investigation
to some extent, but I think you prejudice us, the state, more than you do the
defense by giving out our testimony.
You may think that giving out will help you to convict him.
I think it works the other way, your jurors that read, the good type of
jurors, get an opinion one way or another from what they read, and you end up
with poor jurors. If they haven't
read or heard anything of the case---well, not generally the same type of juror.
The only thing I make a practice of saying is that I reviewed the
evidence in
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this
case in which the State will ask the death penalty, which may be going too far,
but I tell them we plan to ask the death penalty or plan to ask life or plan to
ask maximum jail sentence or something of that kind.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say that at any time about the Oswald case?
Mr. WADE. Oh, yes, sir; I have said that about both Oswald and Ruby.
Mr. RANKIN. When did you say it about the Oswald case?
Mr. WADE. I guess it was Friday night probably.
I was asked what penalty we would ask for.
Mr. RANKIN. When the police made these releases about the evidence, did
they ever ask you whether they should make them?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; like I told you, I talked Saturday morning around
between 11 and 12, some time, I told him there was entirely too much publicity
on this thing, that with the pressure going to be on us to try it and there may
not be a place in the United States you can try it with all the publicity you
are getting. Chief Curry said he agreed with me, but, like I said about 2 hours
later, I saw him releasing this testimony.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you consult any State officials about how you should
handle either the Oswald or the Ruby ease?
Mr. WADE. I don't know. It
seems like I talked. to Waggoner Carr that night, but I don't remember.
Didn't we talk some time about it?
I don't know whether it was consulting about how to try it or anything.
But I know I talked to Waggoner's office some time within 2 or 3 days,
but I don't know whether it was before the Ruby assault or not.
But he doesn't actually----
Mr. RANKIN. Does the
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I think Waggoner will agree with that.
They don't have any jurisdiction to try criminal cases other than
antitrust, but I assume we would ask for their assistance if we wanted it.
We don't generally, and I don't, the law doesn't contemplate that.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Cart didn't try to tell you in any way how to handle
either case?
Mr. WADE. Not that I know of.
Mr. CARR. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. DULLES. May we proceed.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Wade, will you give us the substance of what Mr. Carr
said to you and what you said to him at that time?
Mr. WADE. All I remember--I don't actually remember or know what night it
was I talked to him but I assume it was that night because he did mention that
the rumor was out that we were getting ready to file a charge of Oswald being
part of an international conspiracy, and I told him that that was not going to
be done.
It was late at night and I believe that is----
Mr. DULLES. It must have been Saturday night, wasn't it?
Mr. WADE. No; that was Friday night.
Mr. DULLES. Friday night.
Mr. WADE. And I told him, and then I got a call, since this happened, I
talked to Jim Bowie, my first assistant who had talked to, somebody had called
him, my phone had been busy and Barefoot Sanders, I talked to him, and he they
all told that they were concerned about their having received calls from
Washington and somewhere else, and I told them that there wasn't any such crime
in Texas, I didn't know where it came from, and that is what prompted me to go
down and take the complaint, otherwise I never would have gone down to the
police station.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say anything about whether you had evidence to
support such a complaint of a conspiracy?
Mr. WADE. Mr. Rankin, I don't know what evidence we have, we had at that
time and actually don't know yet what all the evidence was.
I never did see, I was told they had a lot of Fair Play for
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I was told this. I have never seen any of that personally.
Never saw any of it that night. But
whether he was a Communist or whether he wasn't, had nothing to do with solving
the problem at hand, the filing of the charge.
I also was very, I wasn't sure I was going to take a complaint, and a
justice of the peace will take a complaint lots of times because he doesn't have
to try it. I knew I would have to try this case and that prompted me to go down
and see what kind of evidence they had.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us what you mean by taking a complaint under
your law.
Mr. WADE. Well, a complaint is a blank form that you fill out in the
name, by the authority of the State of Texas, and so forth, which I don't have
here, but it charged, it charges a certain person with committing a crime, and
it is filed in the justice court.
The law permits the district attorney or any of his assistants to swear
the witness to the charge. The only
place we sign it is over on the left, I believe sworn to and subscribed to
before me, this is the blank day of blank, Henry Wade, district attorney.
Over on the right the complainant signs the complaint.
We mean when we say take or accept a complaint is when we swear the
witness and we draw it up ourselves and word it and take it.
Mr. RANKIN. Is that what you did in the Oswald-Ruby case?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; we did that. Now,
as a practical matter that is not really filing the complaints.
The complaint is not really legally filed until a justice of the peace
takes it and records it on his docket.
Now, it goes to the justice of the peace court to clear the whole thing
up and his purpose, he has--the law says you shall take him immediately before a
magistrate, which is the justice of the peace.
The courts have held that it is not necessary in Texas, but there is a
statute that says that, and then he his
purpose is to hold an examining trial to see whether it is a bailable case or
not.
Then he sends it to the grand jury and the grand jury hears it and
returns an indictment or a no bill and then it is in a certain court set with a
docket number and then it is ours to try.
Does that answer some of the questions?
(At this point, Senator Cooper returned to the hearing room.)
Mr. RANKIN. Which route did you follow in regard to the Oswald case?
Mr. WADE. The same route. I
accepted the complaint on him in the homicide department, and gave it to David
Johnston, the justice of the peace who was there incidentally, or there in the
homicide department.
But I didn't actually type it up. I
don't know who actually typed it up, somebody typed it up, but we file about a
100 a year, murders "did with malice aforethought."
It was a straight murder indictment, murder with malice charge, and that
was the procedure we followed in the Oswald case.
Mr. RANKIN. Why did you not include in that complaint a charge of an
international conspiracy?
Mr. WADE. Well, it is just like I said, it is surplusage to begin with.
You don't need it. If you allege it you have to prove it. The U.S.
attorney and the attorney general had called me and said that if it wasn't
absolutely necessary they thought it shouldn't be done, and----
Mr. RANKIN. By the "attorney general" who do you mean?
Mr. WADE. Mr. Carr. And
actually it is never done. I mean,
you see that got clear, apparently you had the press writing that up, radio or
whoever was saying that was--had no idea about what murder was.
Now, to write in there, assume he was, assume we could prove he was, a
Communist, which I wasn't able to prove because all I heard was he had some
literature there on him and had been in Russia, but assume I knew he was a
Communist, can I prove it, I still wouldn't have alleged it because it is
subject actually to be removed from the indictment because it is surplusage, you
know, and all a murder indictment, the only thing that a murder indictment
varies on is the method of what they used, did kill John Doe by shooting him
with a gun or by stabbing him or by droning him in water or how, the manner
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and
means is the only thing that varies in a murder indictment, all other wordage is
the same. Does that clear that up?
(Discussion off the record.)
Senator COOPER. As I understand it, under
Mr. WADE. No, sir.
Senator COOPER. I assume that conspiracy is a crime in
Mr. WADE. Conspiracy is a crime. It
is a joining together of a group, your conspiracy where they enter into an
agreement to commit a crime,. and that is usually the one is indicted as a
conspirator, the one who doesn't participate in the crime.
Senator COOPER. My point is, though, that conspiracy is a crime under
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir; conspiracy to commit murder is a crime.
Senator COOPER. Yes. Let me ask this question.
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. As I understand it then, one of the reasons that no
warrant of indictment was rendered upon, touching upon an international
conspiracy is that there is just no such crime in
Mr. WADE. There was no such
crime. If it was any such crime it
would be a Federal rather than a State offense.
If there is such crime as being a part of an international conspiracy it
would deal with treason rather than murder, I would think.
But there is no such thing as being a part of any organization that makes
that it is a crime to commit murder. This
was a straight murder charge. If we would have had four or five co-conspirators
who conspired with him, planned the thing and could prove it we would have.
That would have been a conspiracy to, conspiracy to commit murder.
Senator COOPER. But conspiracy is not essential to the crime, to describe
the person accused as belonging to any organization?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; it is not necessary and it is entirely what they call
surplusage.
Senator COOPER. Now the last question, was there any evidence brought to
you or any evidence of which you had knowledge upon which you could base an
indictment or a warrant for conspiracy to Commit murder in this case?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; you mean parties other than Oswald?
Senator COOPER. Yes.
Mr. WADE. No. I might say on
that score, to clear that up, I haven't seen any evidence along that line. I
haven't even seen any of the correspondence that they had, allegedly had with
the Communist Party here in New York or the Fair Play for Cuba, I haven't seen
his little black book where he is supposed to have had the Russian Embassy's
telephone numbers in it which I am sure you all have gone into it.
I never did see the book, none of that.
Of course, I have been told by a lot of people and undoubtedly a lot of
it was exaggerated that he was a Communist, and you have had people say he was a
Communist who might say I was a Communist, you know, if they didn't agree with
me on something, so I have absolutely no evidence that he was a Communist of my
own knowledge, I have heard a lot, of course.
Mr. DULLES. What you are saying in this last answer relates to the
present time, not only the way your knowledge has----
Mr. WADE. At that time and up to the present.
Mr. DULLES. Rather than the day of assassination.
Mr. WADE. I have no evidence myself now that he was a Communist, or ever
was a Communist, and I never did see what evidence that they had on him there
gathered on him. I never saw any of
the physical evidence in the Oswald case other than one or two statements, and I
think I saw the gun while they were taking it out of there bringing it to
Washington, because I told them at that stage, they didn't want to take it out,
didn't want to let the FBI have it and I
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told
them I thought they ought to let them bring it on up here that night and get it
back the next night.
There was arguing over that. I
am getting off, rambling around, but their argument over that was they were
still trying to identify the gun through a pawn broker or something like that
and the police wanted to keep it but I said, "Let it go up there and they
said they would have it back the next afternoon."
Mr. RANKIN. Have you ever had any evidence that Oswald was involved with
anyone else in actually shooting the President?
Mr. WADE. Well, I will answer that the same way, I have absolutely no
evidence myself.
Now, of course, I might have some type of opinion or some connection with
reference to the Fair Play for
Mr. RANKIN. Do you have any evidence as to whether Jack Ruby was involved
with anyone else in the killing of Oswald?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I have no evidence on that.
We have some and I think you have them all, some 8 or 10 witnesses who
have said they had seen Ruby and Oswald together at various times.
Some of them were, I know one of them during the trial was a lawyer there
in Dallas, which I presume you all got his four- page statement, said he heard
them discussing killing Connally a week before then, came out to my house and
that had been sent to the FBI, and that was during the trial, and I gave him a
lie detector which showed that he didn't have, this was a fanciful thing.
That, I can't think of his name, some of you all may know it, but he is a
lawyer there in
Mr. RANKIN. You found that was not anything you could rely on.
Mr. WADE. I didn't use him as a witness and after giving him the
polygraph I was satisfied that he was imagining it.
I think he was sincere, I don't think he was trying--I don't think he was
trying to be a hero or anything. I
think he really thought about it so much I think he thought that it happened,
but the polygraph indicated otherwise.
Mr. DULLES. Did you have any other evidence than the polygraph on this
point that he was not telling the truth or that this was a fiction?
Mr. WADE. No, but I didn't--but I did see a report where the FBI
interviewed the girl that was allegedly with him in Ruby's place in October, and
she didn't corroborate all of it. I
think she did say he was in there but I am not even sure of that.
I didn't interview her but I just read a report on it.
I read where they checked with the Department of Public Safety and they
did not, were not able to---he said he reported all this to the Department of
Public Safety, and I don't think they found any record, of him reporting it.
It is very difficult to get him to come in to see me.
He didn't just walk in, this went on for a month, I kept hearing that
there was a certain person knew about it and I kept telling him to come on and
talk to me and he finally came out to my house late one night.
The reason I think he actually must have thought it was so, but--I wasn't
too interested in that theory of the case on this thing because I had a theory
on this Ruby case from the start because I, even before you are going to get
into some of these officers' testimony in a minute, but when this happened I was
going home from church, and my own mind I said I believe that was Jack Ruby who
shot him because from that Friday night, and from my theory has been from that
Friday night, when he saw him there he made up his mind, to kill him if he got a
chance and I have had that--I didn't even know about Dean's testimony which you
are going to hear today, I didn't know about his testimony until the day before
I put him on the stand because I had not been preparing the evidence, I had been
picking a jury for 2 weeks but that was my theory from the start.
We had a waitress that I think you are all familiar with that was out at
B&B Cafe at 3 a.m. on the 22d who said she served Ruby and Oswald there.
B&B Cafe on Oak Lane, I know you have got that, I have seen it
somewhere.
I don't think she was ever given a polygraph test.
You have about four homosexuals, I think that is probably the word, that
have said they have seen them
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together
places. There was some indication
that Ruby was either bisexual or homosexual, but at least, I think they
testified to that in the trial, I think by mistake.
Belli asked the man, meant to ask him another word and says, he meant to
say homicidal tendencies and he said homosexual tendencies and his one witness
said yes, sir.
That is in the record which you will get of the trial, I guess.
Mr. RANKIN. I understood you to say when you came home from church, after
the killing of Oswald that you thought it was Ruby before you had heard that it
was Ruby.
Mr. WADE. You see, they announced
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. I took my family, I was in church with the family.
I took them on home and on the way down there they kept---they didn't say
who it was but this ran through my mind, a businessman.
I said that must be Jack Ruby the way he looked.
He looked kind of wild to me down there Friday night the way he was
running everywhere, you know, and I said to myself that must be him.
I didn't tell my wife. You
can't prove that. It is one of those things, that was my theory that he was
likely the one. I couldn't, you
know, out of a million people I couldn't say he was the one but when they
announced his name I will say it didn't surprise me.
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chairman, what do you want to do about Mr. Carr?
Senator COOPER. Mr. Wade, can you name to the Commission the names of the
persons who told you or who stated in your presence that they had seen Lee
Oswald and Jack Ruby together?
Mr. WADE. Well----
Senator COOPER. Start out with the first one, his name.
Mr. WADE. If anybody would mention the lawyer's name, I know him--he has
run for the legislature a number of times.
Senator COOPER. A lawyer who lives in
Mr. WADE. A lawyer in
Senator COOPER. You can supply his name.
Mr. WADE. We can supply his name and I would supply you with copies of
his affidavit which I think you have.
Don't you have it, isn't that up here?
Senator COOPER. Without going into that in a moment, you can refresh your
recollection and supply to the Commission the name of this lawyer.
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. Had he talked to you?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. What did he say? Did
he make a written statement to you or just talk to you?
Mr. WADE. He handed me a written statement.
He said, "The day after this happened I made this," it was a
copy of a written statement, he said, "I sent this to J. Edgar Hoover in
He said, "I sent this to the FBI, to J. Edgar Hoover, special
delivery air mail within a day or two after the assassination," and he left
that and as far as I know I have got a copy of that, he left it with me.
He talked to me at length there at my house, just us, and I would say at
11 o'clock at night, it was on a Sunday night I know, but what Sunday night I
don't know. It was on a Sunday night
in February. I read that statement
over. It is a rather startling
thing. It didn't ring true to me.
It all deals with a conversation between Oswald and Ruby about killing
John Connally, the Governor of
I know enough about the situation, the Governor has practically nothing
to do with syndicated crime. It has
to be on a local, your district attorney and your police are the ones on the
firing line on that, and they discussed at length killing him, how much they are
going to pay him, "He wants five thousand, I believe or half of it now,
and. half of it when it is done."
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Don't you have this memorandum?
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. There is no use of me trying to give it to you.
Senator COOPER. I was just personally trying to get your recollection
about it.
Mr. WADE. He told' me this is what happened, and I said, "I can't
put you on the stand without I am satisfied you are telling the truth
because," I said, "We have got a good case here, and if they prove we
are putting a lying witness on the stand, we might hurt us," and I said,
"The only thing I know to do I won't put you on the stand but to take a
polygraph to see if you are telling the truth or not."
He said, "I would be glad to." And I set it up and I later ran
into him in the lawyers' club there and he handed me another memorandum which
amplified on the other one, which all have been furnished to the attorney
general or if we didn't lose it in the shuffle.
This was during the trial actually, and then when the man called me he
took a lie detector. There was no
truth in it. That he was in the place. He
was in the place, in Ruby's Carousel, but that none of this conversation took
place. He said he was in one booth and Ruby was in another booth.
Senator COOPER. Did anyone else tell you that they had seen Ruby and
Oswald talking together?
Mr. WADE. No one else personally has told me this.
Senator COOPER. You mentioned a girl.
Mr. WADE. No, I never talked to her but we had the
The other information was in your FBI reports of where people or somebody
who claimed he had seen them together in a YMCA, if I recall correctly, and
another one in a store.
The report indicated these, all these people were homosexuals as I
believe, or there was an indication of that.
I have an interview, in answering your question, in
Senator COOPER.
Mr. WADE. I believe that is his first name, and he is a lawyer there.
Senator COOPER. He is the lawyer?
Mr. WADE. That is the lawyer I am thinking about, I am trying to think of
his name while I sit here.
Senator COOPER. Have you ever talked to anyone or has anyone ever talked
to you or in your presence about Oswald and named any other person, other than
Ruby, who they claimed were connected with Oswald in the assassination of
President Kennedy?
Mr. WADE. Senator, I don't believe anyone has talked to me.
I have received, I guess 5,000 letters about this thing from all over the
country, which I have down there. I
remember somebody wrote me from
Well, I furnished this information to the investigative agencies but as
far as personally, I don't know of any. I
have had a lot of letters that said they were connected but not based on
anything.
Senator COOPER. But leave Ruby out now for a moment, did anyone ever tell
you that Oswald was connected with persons other than Ruby in the assassination
of President Kennedy?
Have you heard the names of any other persons who it is claimed had
something to do with the assassination of President Kennedy?
Mr. WADE. I don't know of any names.
Of course, like I said there was the head of the Fair Play for
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me
that they just talked like he was the biggest Communist, they had all kinds of
evidence that he was a Communist, and that he was working with other people.
I believe Captain Fritz told me once that he showed at the time that
Oswald bristled most was when they would talk about Castro.
Apparently he was more friendly to Castro than he was for instance to
Khrushchev, I am using those in broad terms.
Senator COOPER. Of course, once Oswald was killed, then your duties were
connected with the prosecution of Ruby.
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Senator COOPER. And there wasn't any occasion for you then to search
out----
Mr. WADE. I had this, Senator.
Senator COOPER. Other persons.
Mr. WADE. I had this, Senator, I had this, when he was killed and they
tried to give me the files, I told them no, to give them to the FBI because we
couldn't try him, and I went to work on Ruby and actually wouldn't know it.
From what I picked up it appeared to me there was no question that he
received his inspiration on this and maybe other help from somewhere.
Senator COOPER. That is what I am driving at here.
You know there have been statements made that other persons could have
been connected with Oswald in the assassination of President Kennedy.
Do you have any facts to give the Commission which would bear upon that
question that any person other than Oswald was in any way connected with the
assassination of President Kennedy?
Mr. WADE. I have no facts that I can give you on it.
It is one of these things, and the reason I gave you what my opinion on
the thing was, I have read what the U.S. World News and Report said the
Commission is going to say, and also this deal out in Japan, you know, where
they said that he was not instantaneous, impulsive, I believe, killer of the
President, which sounded silly to me.
I mean he planned the thing. He practiced shooting, and he had his
inspiration from somebody else. Whether
he had a--was working with someone, I don't know. I never did know, it was
rumored all over town that they had
an airplane there to carry him out of town.
I am sure you all have checked into that but I never know whether they
did or not.
There seemed to have been something misfired in the thing if there was
anybody tried to get it. I don't
think there was anybody with him in the shooting but what you are getting at is
if there was anyone back of him.
I always felt that the minimum was an inspiration from some cause, and
the maximum was actual pay, but like you asked for evidence, I don't have any.
Senator COOPER. Did you ever hear about any evidence that there was an
airplane stationed any place there?
Mr. WADE. They ran it in the newspapers that an airplane was supposedly
to pick him up but nobody ever found the airplane, so far as I know.
You have had every kind of rumor, this has been a thing that has been,
that the press has been most inaccurate in a lot of things they have reported,
and it is because of the pressure from their offices to get a Ruby story.
We have reporters down there coming down and said, "My office said
to write something on Ruby today, what are we going to write."
And it has been so very irresponsible.
Like I said, I have no evidence and the only thing where I get my
impression is reading and hearing people talking but I haven't actually figured
it wasn't any of my business on Oswald, that I had a problem, a big one of
trying Ruby and I have concentrated all of my efforts on that and when we had
anybody of this nature we would refer them to the FBI or some other agency.
Senator COOPER. Thank you.
Mr. DULLES. You referred, Mr. Wade, to some testimony or some evidence
that Oswald was at one time in the Carousel when Ruby was there.
Was that solely from this lawyer whose testimony you have mentioned?
Mr. WADE. The only one of my personal knowledge that I talked with was
from the lawyer. He told me he was
there with a certain girl, a stripper, and
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Ruby
and Oswald were in an adjoining booth. There
is lots of other people, I think your master of ceremonies, they had him on
television and said he had seen them there but later on said he hadn't when they
got to interviewing him. But my own personal knowledge that you are all
interested in was that one man who told me that.
Mr. RANKIN. Was there anyone either from the State or Federal Government
that urged you not to state a crime of international conspiracy if you found one
was present?
Mr. WADE. No; not in that light. It
is like I mentioned to you what Mr. Carr and Mr. Sanders both inquired, said
they had heard on the radio about this or talked with someone in Washington
about it, and I told them right off that whether it was so or not doesn't make
any difference. It wouldn't be
alleged. I mean if I had known he was a Communist I wouldn't have alleged it.
I mean, suppose I knew he was a Communist, and signed a statement he was
a Communist. That was a time when
the press blew up when they had nothing else to talk about at the time,
actually.
The answer to your question is "No."
Mr. RANKIN. Was any statement made by you as to whether or not there was
any international conspiracy, conspiracy with Oswald about the assassination?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I don't think there was.
I think in one of those interviews you will find that I said they found
some literature or something from the Fair Play for
Mr. RANKIN. Did anybody ask you to say anything one way or another about
that?
Mr. WADE. If they did I don't remember it.
I am sure they asked that, but I am talking about, I mean in all these
interviews, that was the thing where they were trying to prove a connection or
something, you know, and I told them I knew nothing about it.
Mr. RANKIN. But no officials asked you to say anything about it publicly
or otherwise?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; not that I recall.
Mr. RANKIN. Did anybody ask you at any time not to say that a foreign
government was involved if you found
it was or anything about that?
Mr. WADE. Your FBI man may have. I don't know. I talked to him two or
three times. I wish I could think of
his name because I don't think I ever met him. He was an inspector out of
Mr. DULLES. He is not our FBI man, he is the FBI.
We are an independent commission.
Mr. WADE. I see. But he had talked with me something, I think his
conversation, as I recall, largely dealt with the giving out of information. He
was concerned about it and so was I, and where we had the longest conversation
was, I will run through Sunday, and get me up to it real fast because I talked
to him Sunday night. We haven't covered one of my television interviews.
After I went down to the police station and I will take this real fast if
it is all right with you all, they told me that Oswald had been shot and I was
there in the Chief's office when he died, when Oswald died and the Chief says I
have got to go out here and announce it.
So as he went out for a press conference, I went down the back door, went
home and went to bed because I was tired and disappointed actually because we
got even interested in trying Oswald, and I didn't mean to have anything else
further to say.
I woke up about 5 o'clock and a national commentator was giving the
Dallas police hell, me hell, and just about everybody hell, and saying that I
had said that the case, there would be nothing further on the case, it would be
closed, in which I had never even had a television interview, I don't know where
they got it.
Somebody might have said that. I don't know but it wasn't me because I
hadn't talked to anybody.
And then I went out to dinner.and got to thinking, I said, well now, the
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I
am taking a beating, but they did have the right man according to my thinking,
so I went down to. the police station and got all the brass in there but Chief
Curry and I said this stuff, people are saying on there you had the wrong man
and you all were the one who killed him or let him out here to have him killed
intentionally, I said somebody ought to go out in television and lay out the
evidence that you had on Oswald, and tell them everything.
It had been most of it laid out but not in chronological order.
Mr. RANKIN. When was this now?
Mr. WADE. This was 8 o'clock roughly on the 24th, Sunday night. I sat
down with Captain Fritz and took a pencil and pad and listed about seven pieces
of evidence from my own knowledge and I was going to write it down.
They got hold of Chief Curry and he said no, that he had told this
inspector of the FBI that there would be nothing further said about it.
I asked Chief Batchelor and Lumpkin, they were all there, I said you all
are the ones who know something about it, I said if you have at least got the
right man in my opinion the American people ought to know.
This is evidence you can't use actually, because he is dead.
You can't try him. And the upshot of that was the police wouldn't say a
word and refused actually to furnish me any more of the details on this.
I mean what the seven points. I
went on out there in from front of the cameras and ran them through those
points. Actually my purpose in it
was, good or bad was, because the Dallas police were taking a beating because
they had solved the crime and had good evidence and I told them it was good but
I did leave out some things and I was a little inaccurate in one or two things
but it was because of the communications with the police.
I didn't have the map, incidentally. I wanted the map at that time but
forgot all about it, and I ran through just what I knew, which probably was
worse than nothing.
It probably would have been better off without giving anything, because
we didn't give what all we had.
Mr. DULLES. Do you remember the elements of inaccuracy that got into this
statement of yours?
Mr. WADE. I think I told them
about the palmprint on the bottom of the gun, that Lane has made a great issue
of and I still think I was right on it but he has made an issue.
I think Oswald snapped the pistol over there in the jail or at least in
the theater where they arrested him. There
was a question of whether the gun had been snapped or not and I was told it was,
you all may have seen the gun; I never have seen the gun.
You had---I might have at that stage said what bullets are supposed to
hit whom. That might have been somewhat inaccurate then but that is all I can
think of.
I don't think there is any basic thing.
But my purpose in that, and I know the minute I got off that television,
inspection called me and said please say nothing further about this case.
Well, you see, at that stage----
Mr. DULLES. Who was it that called you?
Mr. WADE. The inspector at FBI called me in the police station.
He was the one the police had talked to. He was the man from
But I told him what my purpose was but apparently someone told him
gathered since he had delivered a message, apparently someone had told him to
have me quit talking about it. But
my purpose on that was, I never did think that the people or the television were
giving the right facts on the thing and they were making believe that probably
they didn't have the right one, that the Dallas police had him in there to kill
him, they even had commentators saying practically that, don't you know.
So, I did that entirely--not anything for me.
You may think I wanted to be on television.
I didn't care a thing about being because I don't run for office in New
York and Washington and. other places, but I thought the police needed, because
their morale was awfully low and they were at fault in Ruby killing him.
There was undoubtedly a breakdown on security there in the basement.
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Mr. RANKIN. On the seven points were any of them that were new that
hadn't already been told to the
public?
Mr. WADE. To tell you the truth, I don't know.
I think there were some of them that hadn't been but I think most of them
had. But I couldn't see at this
stage the evidence on this thing, nobody, the situation where you had an
assassination, and a dead person and another case pending, and it was against my
interest actually, to trying Ruby, it would be a whole lot better trying Ruby if
he killed the wrong man than if he killed the assassin of the President but I
was trying to establish that this was the assassin of the President.
And I didn't give all the evidence, and I don't know whether there was
anything new or not because I didn't see much of television during all this
time. I don't actually know
everything that was given out, and there was so much in the papers that I didn't
have time to read them, so I didn't know for sure what all the police had given
out.
Senator COOPER. Substantially then, you were laying out to the public the
facts which had led you to issue a warrant for Oswald as the killer of President
Kennedy?
Mr. WADE. That was the purpose of that interview.
You also have to---I don't know where you gentlemen were, but you have to
get a picture of what was going on. You
had, of course, there in
As a matter of fact, it ran over the radio that I had been assassinated,
for 2 hours, on Monday morning. I
wasn't listening to the radio. My
wife called me up called me up and I denied it.
[Laughter.]
Mr. WADE. But you had lots of things of that kind.
And I thought you needed some type of, somebody--and your whole thing was
wrong with this whole deal, you had no one in charge of the thing.
You had the police, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Department of
Justice, my Department, Waggoner Carr's department, but no one had any say to
offer the rest of them.
Mr. RANKIN. Tell us how that affected it.
You had the jurisdiction of the crime itself.
Mr. WADE. Of the trial of the case.
Mr. RANKIN. And the police department, what jurisdiction did they have?
Mr. WADE. They had the jurisdiction, the primary responsibility for the
investigation of the assassination, and--they had the primary job of finding out
who did it and getting the evidence. They
were assisted, the Secret Service, of course, had the job of protecting the
President. The FBI, they have
criminal, pretty general, investigation, I am not sure, but they were in on it,
they were all there, and assisting. It
was a deal where nobody had any actual control over another person.
Mr. RANKIN. Had the State authorities any jurisdiction or effect on the
operation?
Mr. WADE. You mean the State?
Mr. RANKIN. Of
Mr. WADE. They actually had none. They
had no authority. The Governor has
no authority in a situation like this nor the attorney general other than in a
vague sort of way, as the police, I guess they had the police powers to some
extent of maintaining order but you didn't need the National Guard or anything.
I mean this was more dealing with a situation of information.
I think this situation is true in many States, in practically all of
them.
Mr. RANKIN. Was that confusing, did that make it harder to try to solve
the crime and handle the problems?
Mr. WADE. It did; very much so. Your
press was the most confusing thing. I mean you couldn't get in the police
station. I mean I just barely could
get into the police station myself for stomping over the press and you had a lot
of reporters, not like the reporters we usually deal with down there.
I mean we don't have trouble usually with the local press, people we
pretty well know.
We would tell them what is going on, and they will go on, but these
people just followed everybody everywhere they went, and they were throwing
police men on the corner, if he made a statement about he saw someone running
that way dressed maybe like the killer--they ran all that on.
They were just running everybody. There
was no control over your public media. It
made it
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worse
since all television networks were on the assassination all---24 hours, I mean
all day. And there was no central
thing from---there was no central person who had any control of handling the
thing that information was given out. You see they interviewed some of your
patrolmen who were giving out evidence, you know, some of your foot patrolmen on
the corner, they were interviewing anybody.
Mr. RANKIN. Would it help or hinder the handling of such a crime of the
killing of the President if it was a Federal crime, in your opinion?
Mr. WADE. Well, offhand, I think probably it would, but----
Mr. RANKIN. It would help?
Mr. WADE. I think it would help, but you are going to have the same
situation. I am thinking if you had, if it is a Federal crime, for instance, it
is still murder in
Mr. RANKIN. You need more control over the police investigation in order
to carry out your duties, is that----
Mr. WADE. Of Course; my idea if you had it to do over, it is easy to do
that, but I think you need someone where all the information is channeled
through one person. If anything is given out and getting an intelligent person,
not just a police officer, you know. Now,
your city manager of
Mr. RANKIN. Is the lawyer that you referred to in answer to Senator
Cooper's questions Carroll Jarnegan?
Mr. WADE. Carroll Jarnegan is his name; yes, sir.
Let me mention another thing for the record here, I don't know whether it
is mentioned. Saturday, most of my day was spent in talking to Dean R. G. Storey,
and the dean of the Harvard Law School, raising, wondering what the situation
was with reference to attorneys for Oswald.
Mr. RANKIN. What Saturday are you talking about?
Mr. WADE. Saturday the 23d, 1963; November 23.
I told them that, all of them, we had calls from various people and most
of them was from people here in the East calling lawyers there in Dallas rather
than me, and them calling me.
Mr. RANKIN. What were they saying to you about that?
Mr. WADE. Well, they were very upset, one, in looking at American justice
where the man didn't have an attorney, as apparently, and two, that too much
information was being given to the press too, by the police and by me. some of
them had said, and that is what prompted me probably to talk to Chief Curry
about the thing, because I had received some of those calls.
I told them they ought to appoint the president of the bar association
and the president of the Criminal Bar Association to represent him.
Mr. RANKIN. Who did you tell that to?
Mr. WADE. Told that to Mr. Paul Carrington and also to Mr. Storey, I
believe. I believe they are the two that discussed it more at length with me.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know whether anything was done about that?
Mr. WADE. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. What?
Mr. WADE. They got ahold of Louis Nichols who is the president of the
Now, I must go a little further and tell you that under
Louis Nichols, I talked to him, the president of the bar, and he was
trying
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to
get some criminal lawyer to go down there with him, and I said, "Go down
there yourself and talk to him because they are raising just so much cain about
it and see what they want and tell him you will get him a lawyer."
Senator COOPER. You are speaking now about a lawyer for Oswald?
Mr. WADE. Yes; for Oswald.
This was around noon or some time on Saturday, noon, early afternoon.
This went on all day. He called me
back and said, "I have talked to him and told him I would get him a lawyer,
that I would represent him or get him a lawyer." Louis Nichols is a civil
lawyer, not actually a criminal lawyer.
He says, "He doesn't want but one lawyer, John Abt, in
Mr. RANKIN. Who is he?
Mr. WADE. He is an attorney in
Mr. RANKIN. You said he didn't want any attorney?
Mr. WADE. Lee Harvey Oswald told Nichols and Nichols told me this.
He said that. Nichols then said he told him, along with the police they
would try to get ahold of Mr. Abt, which they did.
I think, I think maybe the press found him before the lawyers found him.
But he says something that he didn't have time or something, as I
understand it. This was all reported
in the press. He had said the second
person he wanted, Lee Harvey Oswald told Nichols the second person he wanted,
was some lawyer out in Chicago with the American Civil Liberties Union, his name
I don't know what it was, but Nichols would know.
He said, "If I can't get either one of those I will help get a local
lawyer," because that was all done Saturday, with reference to his
obtaining a lawyer.
I wanted to get that because I think you probably knew it and get it in
the record anyhow.
Mr. RANKIN. Now going back to
this telephone conversation with Mr. Cart that you referred to, do you remember
anything else that Mr. Cart said to you at that time?
Mr. WADE. I don't actually even remember, you know, he said that he had
had a call from
Senator COOPER. We will call him in a minute.
Mr. WADE. O.K.
Mr. RANKIN. Was he during that conversation saying anything to you about
not alleging it if it were true?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; it was a question of, he had heard we were going to
allege it and he asked me about it and I said it is silly.
I had heard something, I think, about it, about the same time.
And to no one, if it was part of it, no one said they necessarily wanted
to hush the thing up, but it was a situation where the minute they mentioned
what their problem was, it sounded silly to me, I said whether he is a member of
the Communist Party or not is not important in this charge.
Senator COOPER. Was there any official, anyone on your staff or any
persons charged with law enforcement in Dallas, or any U.S. district attorney in
Dallas or anyone connected with his office, to your knowledge ever suggest that
there should be a charge of conspiracy?
Mr. WADE. None to my knowledge.
Now, I will say in some of these conversations, like I said, I don't know
whether it was with Waggoner Cart or Barefoot Sanders, they said, one said,
"Well, David Johnston, the J. P. has said this," and the other one has
said, "Bill Alexander, one of your assistants who was up at the police
department said it." I asked them both about it and they both denied it.
Senator COOPER. Did anyone ever say to you in the event there was a
charge of conspiracy who would be named other than Oswald?
Mr. WADE. No; there is no other names, there is no other name that I know
of that has ever been mentioned to me as being part of the conspiracy.
The question we are talking about here, if I understand it, being that
Oswald,
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as
a part of an international conspiracy, did murder John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And
there is no other names of co-conspirators, we have had lots of leads run down
upon it. Somebody at the
penitentiary down there, a colored person, at least the word to us, that he had
told the guard he had hauled Oswald away from there, you all probably got this,
but we interviewed him down there.
He was just talking and wanting to come back to
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Wade, I don't think you have quite finished the
all of your--hour-by-hour description of what happened up through the
killing of Mr. Oswald.
Mr. WADE. I thought I had hit it. The
only thing I can't remember now is the Saturday night.
It seemed like I was down at the police station Saturday night. Why I
don't know and maybe for a short while and don't recall everything that
happened. That was Saturday, 23d of November, and there is nothing, the charge
had already been taken, and I think probably I was on my way home and just
stopped by to see what was going on.
At that time there wasn't anything going on and I went home.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you do anything more about the press and TV and radio
people crowding into the police station than you have already described?
Mr. WADE. No; you see I have been in that building probably once every 2
years.
It is the other end of town from my building. I never go up there and I
don't think it is my business what goes on up there. Maybe it should be, but I
have never been considering it. I
think I have enough problems down at my end of the street.
Mr. RANKIN. In any event you didn't do anything.
Mr. WADE. I didn't tell them anything, I could see the confusion they
were getting into but I don't know of anything that I told about, but what if I
did, I had no control over it. It
was one of those things I just figured I was the one who didn't have the say in
it.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you do on Sunday, the 25th?
Mr. WADE. Well, went to church.
Mr. RANKIN. The 24th.
Mr. WADE. I went to church, my family and I went to
Dr. W. J. Martin's nondenominational church.
It has 27 different denominations, very bright fellow, if you are in
And as I walked out somebody said they shot Oswald.
So I took--turned on the radio and took my wife and kids home, and went
down to the police station.
There were still fragments of the story coming in, and we would still get
every kind of story out of them, and we got down there at I guess 1:30.
He died and then like I said, I think all I told the press, they asked me
as I left there, a few of them what we would do on Ruby and I said we would ask
the death penalty on him, and then I left and I went home and then I followed it
that night and giving them what evidence I had.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you have anything to do with a lawyer by the name of Tom
Howard in connection with that?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; Tom Howard had filed some kind of writ of habeas
corpus, assault to murder, and I never did see him.
I saw Bob Stinson, another lawyer on a corner and he said he and Robey
were going to represent him, which, I don't think they did, but they said they
were and so I went on home, and then when he died, we had a murder case, and we
took it to the grand jury the next morning, I believe, on Monday morning and
indicted him, turned it into Judge Joe Brown's court and I was there, and as the
grand jury walked in he said, "When are you going to hear Ruby?"
And I said, "I already have got the indictment here," and I
said, then I went right back and asked the judge to transfer it over to Judge
Henry King's court or Frank Wilson's court.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know what happened to that habeas corpus of Tom
Howard's?
Mr. WADE. No.
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Mr. RANKIN. You didn't have anything to do with it?
Mr. WADE. I understand from hearsay it disappeared or somewhere down
there but we don't have anything to do with writs.
But they don't come through our office.
You see that is directed by the judge.
I heard or at least Decker or somebody told me they never could find the
writ but there was some writ for assault to murder originally issued.
And then, of course, after he died and the murder charge was filed, well,
that would actually be out of date.
Senator COOPER. Was it a writ of habeas corpus to bring Oswald before a
court?
Mr. WADE. No. Jack Ruby.
Senator COOPER. Jack Ruby.
Mr. WADE. It was actually, they have two kinds of writs, one of them is
where they set a bond on it and another one is what they have called a dry writ,
which says, "You file on him or bring him before me at such and such a
time."
Which one it was I don't know. As
a matter of fact, I thought there was a bond set on it, but I told the chief, I
said, "You can hold him, we don't want to release him until you know
whether the person dies or not because then he wouldn't be a bailable
case," assault to murder is bailable.
I never saw the writ or anything. I
just heard somebody say there is a writ on him.
(At this point, Chairman Warren entered the hearing room.)
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ever help Ruby about any of his troubles of any kind?
Mr. WADE. Not that I know of.
Mr. RANKIN. Prior to this occasion?
Mr. WADE. No; I think we have had him for a liquor violation or
something, but if we have like I
say, I never knew him. I think that
they have had some charges against him.
As a matter of fact, they had two pistol charges against him but I don't
think they ever reached my office.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know what charges they were about pistols?
Mr. WADE. Carrying a concealed weapon and if I understand the record I
think we checked it out and they dismissed them up in the police force.
There was one liquor case that was dismissed in my office by an assistant
who is no longer there which I have read the reports on and don't have any
recollection of it either way.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you know Eva Grant?
Mr. WADE. No, sir.
Mr. RANKIN. Ruby's sister. Do
you know Sam Ruby?
Mr. WADE. I knew none of them, none of the Ruby family, and didn't know
Jack Ruby. I think he claims that he
had known me or something or other but if he had, it is one of those things
where you see somebody and I didn't know his name or anything when I saw him
that night or didn't know who he was. I thought he was a member of the press,
actually.
Mr. RANKIN. Did it come to your attention that there was some claim that
Oswald was an agent of one of the intelligence agencies of Government?
Mr. WADE. I heard that talk down there.
It was talk some----
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know who was talking that?
Mr. WADE. I don't know. I
have been up here once before, and some of the press were
I don't remember, some of the press mentioned that they had two voucher
numbers in his book there that indicated he was working for the FBI or the CIA.
I know nothing about them, don't think anybody in my office does.
I think maybe Alexander mentioned it some, but Alexander is not a great
lover of the FBI. They fuss all the time openly, so I don't know.
I know nothing about it myself because I never have seen the book and I
don't know whether they have even got any numbers in there but they were
supposed to have two numbers in there as a voucher number of $200 from some
Government agency but like I say, supposed to.
I never saw it and heard it, talk, but I am sure you all know more about
it than I do.
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Mr. DULLES. By voucher you
mean an entry or something of that kind, what kind of a voucher?
Mr. WADE. I think it was called a voucher number, it was voucher 209,
which doesn't make sense. I believe
it was a low number. It doesn't make
sense for a government to have a voucher number that low.
Mr. RANKIN. What book are you referring to?
Mr. WADE. The little black book that Oswald had in his possession at the
time he was arrested.
Mr. RANKIN. That was his memorandum book, in which he had a list of
numbers of various people and addresses and so forth. is that what you referring
to?
Mr. WADE. Yes; and I never have seen the book myself. As a matter of
fact, am trying to get some photos of it, trying to but I haven't gotten them
yet.
Mr. RANKIN. Now, what agency was it rumored he was a member of?
Mr. WADE. It was rumored he worked first for the FBI and then for the
CIA.
Mr. RANKIN. Is that all you have heard?
Mr. WADE. As a matter of fact, I don't think I had ever heard that until
Waggoner Cart called me and told me--I don't think I ever heard that.
I did check into it a little, and they were talking it some, and they
have actually written it up in the newspapers by rumors or a story or
two---rumors of the thing.
Mr. RANKIN. Is that the
report by the reporter Hudkins?
Mr. WADE. I believe it is. On
the
Mr. RANKIN. Is there anything more that you know about that matter?
Mr. WADE. I know absolutely nothing about it.
I might say, I was under the impression, I think when I talked to you and
the Chief Justice before, that, you see I was in the FBI, and I was under the
impression and I think maybe I told you all that we didn't list our informant by
name. The FBI have been kind enough
to send down some of my old vouchers on paying informants back in, down in South
America, and I see that we did list them by name which I--probably may, if I
said otherwise it was just my recollection on the thing but in that case I was
listing informants from South America that we were paying when I was there.
Mr. RANKIN. There was one other report by Goulden, reporter of the
Mr. WADE. No; but I know him. He used to be a reporter in
Mr. RANKIN. Apparently it was the same thing.
Mr. WADE. Different angle.
Mr. RANKIN. From Hudkins' report that had been picked up.
Mr. WADE. He is more reliable than Hudkins but I know absolutely nothing
about that. Like I say, I have heard
rumors and conversation and I will even put it further, I don't think Alexander
knows anything about it, my assistant, although he doesn't fully admit all that.
I think he would like to talk a little about it but I don't think he
knows anything of his own knowledge.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you inquired of him?
Mr. WADE. I have asked him about it and he gives me nothing in the way of
evidence.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you prepare
the complaint in regard to Jack Ruby yourself?
Mr. WADE. I don't believe I
did. I don't believe I had anything
to do with it. If I did, my name
will show on it but I don't think I had anything to do with it.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you give any information to the press about what you had
in regard to that prosecution, and the nature of the evidence?
Mr. WADE. No; not that I know of. Of
course, they all saw it on television, you know.
We have got in--to bring you through the whole story, I said practically
nothing about this thing for about 3 weeks or a month, but we had a lawyer on
the other side who came into town and every time he was met at the airport he
would make statements.
Mr. RANKIN. Who was that?
Mr. WADE. Mr. Melvin Belli, and he had his psychiatrist on the
television, all his witnesses, said what he was going to prove and it got to a
situation where
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I
had to do a little talking in self-defense, and so we. did later on have some
statements more or less in answer to his. It
was entirely too much trying of that ill the newspapers but a situation where we
couldn't let his psychiatrist go on there and prove he had been insane on the
jury without at least our saying we had some evidence that he was sane.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you have anything to do with the preparation of the ease
for trial?
Mr. WADE. Yes: to some extent. You
see, I had four assistants to assist me in the trial.
Mr. RANKIN. Who were they?
Mr. WADE. Jim Bowie, Frank Watt, and Bill Alexander.
I read most of the reports on it. I
mean I had most of what I did was read things on it because my main job in the
trial as we started out, was for me to pick the jury, which I did, I think I
have some ability along that line, and do a great deal of the cross-examination
and the final argument. That is what
I do in the cases I participate in usually.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. Alexander spent the 2 weeks we were picking a jury in viewing
the witnesses. I never talked to any
of the witnesses. After the first
half a day of testimony, I was very disappointed in the way the witnesses were
being put on the stand; if this is of interest to you.
Mr. RANKIN. Tell us what happened.
Mr. WADE. I told him, I said, on this case we are going on this theory, I
want everybody who saw Ruby from the time of the assassination of President
Kennedy down to the time he killed Oswald, I want to prove where he was every
minute of the time that I can, and then we will take it from there and put the
films on there and show what happened. there and then afterward. We are going on
the theory that he is a glory seeker and a hero because I was convinced that was
the motive of the killing.
I put on seven witnesses, and about six of them testified against us, I
think, or made poor witnesses saying if, they saw him down in the
Some of them said they thought there was something wrong with him and
none of them were the type of witnesses that I wanted testifying for the State.
Mr. RANKIN. Who were they?
Mr. WADE. Well, you can check the first seven witnesses in the case.
You had three from the
In my office, our biggest problem was keeping the press out of the
office, and so I just would have to bar them from my office, I mean personal
property.
He wouldn't do it. He liked
to talk to them. So, I said, "Get all these witnesses in during the noon
hour and let me talk to them."
I put all the witnesses on the next morning.
I talked to all the officers, I talked to Officers Dean, McMillon,
Archer, King, never had talked with them about the case before and I talked with
them then and I put all of them on next morning.
Mr. RANKIN. Tell us what, starting with--which one did you talk to first,
Archer, Dean, or McMillon.
Mr. WADE. I think I talked to all of them at first in a body.
I talked to----
Mr. RANKIN. I see.
Mr. WADE. I had them all in there and said, "Now what do you know
about the case?" because a lot of them I didn't know what they knew.
Mr. RANKIN. What did they say?
Mr. WADE. As a matter of fact, I wasn't familiar with Dean's testimony
until he told me right there a day before he testified.
Then he showed me the memorandum that he had made on the thing.
I talked with him there and I put Archer on the next morning and McMillon
on, who stayed all day. They
cross-examined him from 11:30 until 5:30. Then
I put King on, and then Dean, I believe the next morning, and we rested.
But they told me just what they testified
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to
in the trial which I don't know whether I can give all of it but I can tell you
roughly that McMillon and Archer were partners and heard Ruby say some things,
"I hope I killed the sonofabitch."
Mr. RANKIN. When?
Mr. WADE. Within about a few seconds after the killing and then upstairs
then, "I meant to shoot three times but you all got me before I did,"
Incidentally, you may not know it but their psychiatrist corroborated that
statement.
Mr. RANKIN. Who was that?
Mr. WADE. Dr. Guttmacher on cross-examination.
We asked Dr. Guttmacher, "Well, didn't Ruby tell you that he meant
to shoot three times?"
He said, "Yes; and he told me that."
He said, "One time he told me that."
He also said at one time he told him otherwise but he corroborated that
portion of it. Then it seemed like there was something else said.
Archer said to him as he got up in the jail, "I believe he is going
to die, Jack," I may be getting these wrong, but they are roughly--he said
something about, "You fellows couldn't do it," or talking about the
police, and I believe that was Archer and McMillon.
Maybe you all being lawyers, in
Under our law if one side goes into a conversation we can bring out
anything in the conversation, the rest of the conversation.
That is a rule of law in Texas, I don't know whether it is that way
everywhere else, and so that was the theory that made Dean's testimony
admissible because had been in the jail--time varies from 20 minutes to an hour,
depending on who you are listening to.
Senator COOPER. I have to go to a quorum call.
(At this point, Senator Cooper left the hearing room.)
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Wade, could you tell us a little more clearly what was
involved in regard to this testimony? Did
the defense start introducing testimony concerning these conversations, is that
what you are telling us?
Mr. WADE. The defense cross-examined McMillon--you see McMillon and
Archer stayed with Ruby until 4 O'clock that afternoon when he was turned over
to Captain Fritz or roughly. I am
giving a rough hour of 4 o'clock.
Mr. RANKIN. Where did they stay with him?
Mr. WADE. In the jail. They
were I don't say both of them were there but they were assigned. there and
another person. The three of them or
two of them were there at all times, along with your jailers, they were inside
the jail.
During this time he went into conversations, for instance he said,
"Didn't I tell you that he left his dog out in the car?" He said,
"Yes, they did," but this is something that happened an hour and a
half after they had, been in jail.
Mr. RANKIN. By "he" there you mean Ruby?
Mr. WADE. Ruby.
And they said also, "Didn't he tell you about going to the Western
Union," and he said, "Weren't you there when Sorrels and Dean came up
there, and what was the first thing that Sorrels asked him."
Mr. RANKIN. Did they say when that was?
Mr. WADE. Well, you are going to find your time varies from 20 minutes to
an hour, depending on whether it is a defense theory or our theory, but----
Mr. RANKIN. After what?
Mr. WADE. After the killing of Oswald.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. I think Dean, I would rather you get the record, and you can
get it accurate, but I think he said it was some time before 20 minutes to 12 or
some time before 12. Well, the
killing happeneD at 11:21, I think. That
seems to be the best time, 11:21.
Mr. RANKIN. Did they describe what the conversation was with Ruby when
Sorrels and Dean were there?
Mr. WADE. They told, if I recall, what Sorrels asked him and he asked him
"What did you 40 it for, Jack?" or something; they knew that part of
it but they weren't present during that conversation between--they were in the
room
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but
I may say not within hearing distance. They heard part of what was said but not
all of the conversation.
Mr. RANKIN. By "they" who do you mean?
Mr. WADE. I am talking about McMillon and Archer.
Mr. RANKIN. What did they hear?
Mr. WADE. Well, that is all I know that was testified to.
Now, whether they heard anything else I don't know.
But that is all I know, the beginning of the conversation.
They had heard previous to this coming up there the conversation about
Jack, "I think he is going to die," and Jack answered some question, I
believe he said, "You couldn't do it, somebody had to," or something
like that. Jack Ruby, I am referring
to.
Mr. RANKIN. Where did that occur?
Mr. WADE. That occurred as they arrived on the floor where the jail is,
the fifth floor, I believe of the jail.
Mr. RANKIN. Then what else could they testify to?
Mr. WADE. That was about all we used them for, actually, that was the
last that we put on, but they asked them some questions of what happened. Didn't
he tell Captain Fritz something at 4 o'clock that afternoon, but our testimony ,
from them actually that amounted to anything quit when they came on to the floor
there of the jail. That is McMillon
and Archer. Shortly thereafter, Dean's testimony came on and only--I am kind of
anticipating your questions on this.
Mr. RANKIN. Where was Dean then?
Mr. WADE. They were in the jail. Dean----
Mr. RANKIN. Who else?
Mr. WADE. Sorrels,
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. The following day during the noon hour I found for the first
time that Sorrels was present in the jail. I
told the sheriff there I would like to talk to Sorrels and he came down there
and he and Dean and I talked in my office.
Mr. RANKIN. That is the following day?
Mr. WADE. That is Thursday before we rested the case on Friday.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us the approximate date that you talked to him?
Mr. WADE. It seems like we started on the 17th, and this was 2 weeks----
Mr. RANKIN. 17th of what month?
Mr. WADE. Of February.
Maybe we started on the 10th, because they ended on the 14th, 17th to the
14th, I would say this was around the 6th of March roughly, a day or two either
way.
I sat down there to talk to Dean and Sorrels because we was going to
put--and Sorrels showed me a copy of his report made on that incident which I
didn't keep a copy but I am sure you all have a copy of it or it will be
available to you.
I read it over, and essentially from what Dean said, and him were the
same with other than the, I think the only variance was the part which was
strong testimony where Dean said that Ruby said, "The first time I thought
of killing him was Friday night or thought about killing him was Friday night in
the lineup."
Mr. RANKIN. Sorrels didn't have that in his statement, did he?
Mr. WADE. He didn't have that in his statement, and I, to go back a
little bit, I asked Sorrels how he got up in the Jail and he said he didn't
know, and he said he didn't actually know Dean there sitting in my office.
I think he finally decided Dean was the one but he didn't know him. I
think it is pretty obvious that Dean, because they went in an unusual entrance
to the Jail from the third floor, from the chief's office, and he says there are
two guards standing on each side of him which none of the others corroborate,
unless they are talking about jail guards in the building, but there was no
police in uniform supposed to be up
on that floor but Sorrels said that he saw two police guards on each side of
him.
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But I asked Sorrels, I said, "How can you account for it?"
I had already talked to Dean. I
said, "I am getting ready to put him on the stand."
I said, "How are you going to what are you going to say if you go on
the stand on this?"
He said, "Well, I called my office in
He said, "Those were the two things I went to find out and I dwelled
on those entirely."
He said, "These other officers were there and when I left they were
still questioning," and he seed, "I couldn't say whether that
happened, I don't remember hearing it, I Just can't say that I heard it,"
and so the defense lawyers talked to Sorrels that night about testifying and
didn't use him.
Of course, I thought probably they were going to use him on this one
thing, but there were so many other things in the statement that were the same
as what Dean has testified to about, something about being a hero, Jew hero, or
something in the statement, which Sorrels had that in his statement.
He had practically everything in the statement, but this is one thing
that he didn't have in there, as I recall.
I couldn't find it and asked him about it and he said he couldn't say it.
He said there were a lot of things in there but he was interested in
knowing only two things.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you examine Dean's statement in regard to this matter?
Mr. WADE. Well, I read it
there that day. It is a very short
one, you know. Of course, there is
more than one statement.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes; did you look at his prior statements at that time?
Mr. WADE. I think I had all of his statements.
He was in charge of security in the basement.
All statements, this all came out on cross-examination, dealt entirely
with the matter of security, what was done to secure the basement.
Mr. RANKIN. Did he say anything in regard to this premeditation in the
prior statement?
Mr. WADE. I don't think he did, and I don't think he actually said
anything about how Ruby got in in that prior statement.
I may be wrong, I don't remember even going into the conversation with
Ruby.
Mr. RANKIN. What did Dean tell you at the time that you asked him about
the later statement?
Mr. WADE. He told me that he had been asked to submit a report dealing
with the security of the basement, and that that first report was the security
problem.
Mr. RANKIN. What did he say about that, the security?
Mr. WADE. Well, he said that, he told me, that when he heard the shot
that he thought a policeman had shot him because he didn't think there was
anybody else in the basement. He
said he thought a policeman had shot him, just got mad and the cop shot him for
killing Officer Tippit.
I don't know whether that was in the statement or not but he told me
that. I actually read that, that security, we were not too interested in that
because from our point of view, because there is no question the security wasn't
good. Something happened somewhere.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you learn from Dean how Ruby got into the basement?
Mr. WADE. I learned the way he told him he got in.
Mr. RANKIN. How was that?
Mr. WADE. On walking in on
But Ruby told Dean in his statement that he got in by going to the
Mr. RANKIN. Did Dean tell you why he left out of his prior statements the
statement about premeditation or prior thinking about killing Oswald?
Mr. WADE. Well, he was cross-examined about that, and told me also that
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he
wasn't asked about it. That that
wasn't part of what his report concerned. I mean, you have to keep in mind Dean
is a uniformed officer. He is a
sergeant, had nothing to do with the investigation of the crime.
He just. happened to be the one who was sent up there to show Sorrels how
to get in the jail and out, you know. He
wasn't an investigative officer.
Now, McMillon and Archer are detectives, you know, but he is not.
He is a uniformed man.
Mr. RANKIN. What did McMillon tell you about his statement?
Mr. WADE. He just told me what his testimony was.
I didn't actually talk to him over 30 minutes, I don't guess, during the
noon hour and I was talking to all of them.
I had the various statements he made, some of what he said was in the
statements and some wasn't, so I don't remember--but the same story was where he
was and what he was supposed to do and one dealt with security and the other
dealt with statement that he had made. Dean and McMillon and any of them didn't
think these statements were admissible while he was in the jail.
Mr. RANKIN. Did McMillon make a statement about premeditation?
Mr. WADE. He had in his statement that he meant to shoot three times,
which was premeditation, but I don't think he thought about it Friday night.
Mr. RANKIN. What about Archer, did he have anything in his statement
about Friday night in his prior statements?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I don't think he did.
He did have about the intending to shoot three times.
Mr. RANKIN. When Dean was telling you about this statement about planning
to shoot Oswald on Friday night, was he telling you that Ruby had told him that?
Mr. WADE. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. He didn't tell that to Sorrels?
Mr. WADE. I think he said he told it to both of them.
I think that the question on that, he said when he saw the snarl on his
face he first thought about killing him. Now
the snarl on his face could have been Friday night or Saturday night.
Mr. DULLES. That is on Oswald's face?
Mr. WADE. On Oswald's face.
And I think that, I am not sure of this, but I think that Sorrels
remembers saying something about the snarl on his face.
But I think the question was whether they were talking before the time of
the shooting of Oswald or whether they was talking about Friday night and it is
Dean's impression that when he saw the snarl on his face is when he first
thought about killing him.
I don't think he ever testified he planned to kill him or anything.
I think he said that is the first time he thought about killing him.
Mr. RANKIN. What I wanted to get clear for the Commission was whether
Ruby was telling this in answer to questions from Dean or in answer to questions
from Sorrels?
Mr. WADE. I think largely Sorrels. I
think at the end Dean asked him one or two questions, mostly about how he got
in, I think. I think that is what
Dean was asking him about. But I
think actually that this came out in the conversation while Sorrels was at least
taking the lead in questioning him.
And I think, my recollection is at the end, as Sorrels got through and
walked on over to the elevator, he asked him how he got in the jail or something
on that score rather than on this subject.
Now, Dean is under the impression that all this came out while Sorrels
was there. But I don't think
Sorrels, at least, didn't have it in his notes and I don't think he would say it
didn't happen but he didn't remember it, you know.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you make any further investigation of this addition or
change in the statements of Dean and these other people?
Mr. WADE. I don't think there is any change in the statement.
I think you are asking a kind of a misleading question.
I think that first report dealt entirely with the security in the
basement of the thing.
Mr. RANKIN. You don't think that purported to relate what the
conversation was?
Mr. WADE. Up in the jail, I don't think, you may have it there, and I may
be wrong. I never questioned him any more because like I said from the time of
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the
killing of Lee Harvey Oswald I thought that Friday night was the time, in my own
mind, that is what I thought, he had thought about killing him. I don't say he
said he would go arm himself, but in my own mind I had that feeling all along
and I thought it was the first time he had thought about it, that is where I
discounted all the other theories there was a connection between them because I
saw him there and talked to him, and saw his excited demeanor, and so you asked
me did I question him any more, he finally told me, what I actually thought were
the facts and I do now incidentally.
Mr. RANKIN. You have already testified that you thought it was Jack Ruby
before you even knew the name.
Mr. WADE. Well, you may--I may have stressed a little saying thought.
When I was driving down there they said
But in my own mind I said it must have been that Jack Ruby that was down
there the night before. I mean I was
just talking to myself, there wasn't nobody there. But like I say, one of those
things, I might be more truthful to say it ran through my mind rather than to
say I thought.
Mr. DULLES. You didn't say that to your wife?
Mr. WADE. I didn't say it to a soul.
I went down there alone. I
took her home. We don't live four or
five blocks and I drove downtown myself, and it entered my mind and I will say
when they announced it I wasn't too surprised. I mean I had or thought about him
as a possibility.
Mr. RANKIN. Now, did you get any assistance from the FBI, Secret Service,
and other agencies in the handling of these cases?
Mr. WADE. Practically none. I
never have seen the Secret Service file. This Sorrels is the only one I talked
with and I saw his report although I never did get a copy of it. The FBI let us
examine, I believe all their files, I am not sure, but we couldn't take
possession of them and we had to send somebody up there to run through them and
dictate on them, and undoubtedly they helped us some in the trial.
They helped us in this way. If
you had a witness on the stand--I was cross-examining and I would say, well now,
you talked to the FBI and he would say yes, sir, and they really picked up when
they knew they had talked to the FBI and then I would say didn't you tell them
this and they would usually admit it.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know whether the files of the
of either of these agencies or both of them were made available to the
police in connection with the two cases?
Mr. WADE. It is a one-way deal usually with the FBI, you know. They don't
usually tell you anything about their files but I say they did show us their
files on this, and whether they showed them to the police I have no idea.
I will say they turned their files to the
But that was about a week before the trial, and during the picking of the
jury when we were still going through them.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you learn anything during your investigation of the Ruby
case about the billfold and the ignition case in the car?
Mr. WADE. Of Ruby's car?
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. No.
Mr. RANKIN. That didn't come to your attention?
Mr. WADE. You know they found a lot of stuff in his car and a lot of
stuff on his person. I might say
this--there are only two pieces of evidence found on him I wanted to introduce
during the trial and until this day I never have found either one of them.
I don't know where they are. The
police say they gave them to us, and I know they didn't.
One was the receipt from the
The second one was he had in his possession a "Lifeline Deal on
Heroism," telling about everybody had to take things into their own hands
and be a hero.
We later got a copy of that because the night before the killing he gave
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that
to the Weird Beard up at KLIF, radio station, and told him that we had to have
some heroes, that was the night before the killing.
We got a copy of what the article was but one of them, two or three
copies were in his possession but I never could find one to introduce.
I never did know for sure whether to introduce it because there was a lot
of good American patriotism in the thing and, of course, there is a lot of other
that is complete hogwash, you know, and you don't know how a jury is going to
read part of it and like it and the other part not, but the title of it was
"Heroism" and he talked to the Weird Beard, this was in testimony,
that somebody had to be a hero.
This was the night before the killing.
This was in before, this was before the jury, and said he gave him an
article, the title of it was "Heroism," that he never did read.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you supplied to the Commission all the information that
you have or has come to your attention with regard to the assassination of the
President?
Mr. WADE. I don't know of anything. As
far as I know, I have. I never did
get any information on the assassination of the President. I requested them to
send it up here to begin with.
Mr. RANKIN. And all you have in regard to Jack Ruby, too.
Mr. WADE. Everything I know of.
Like I said I let them take those pictures of the physical evidence last
week, and there are supposed to be some things that I don't know where it is.
It is not in my office, I think the police have lost them actually or at
least they are up there and I don't think anybody is trying to hide anything but
it is just a situation there is so much that it just got lost in the shuffle.
Mr. RANKIN. So, far as you know it has all been supplied then?
Mr. WADE. As far as I know it has. I
don't know--I know of nothing in my files that you don't have, and if there is
you sure are entitled to have it. I
am not sure about this letter you mentioned from the lawyer, the affidavit but I
am pretty sure you all have that but I know I got that during the trial and
stuck it in my desk somewhere and I don't even know where it is but it will be
available.
Mr. RANKIN. In any of these press conferences that you have described did
you ever say anything about the type of rifle that was thought to be involved in
the killing of the President?
Mr. WADE. I think that was one of the inaccuracies that Sunday night on
the thing.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you say about it?
Mr. WADE. I think I said I thought it was a Mauser or I thought--was one
of those things I didn't know what it was. It
was an Italian gun, I think and I really thought I was giving them Italian but
Mauser is a German gun, isn't it?
But I think you have that--it was a situation, I don't contend I was
right on that because it was a situation somebody asked me that and that is what
I thought I was telling them and I never--all my information came from the
police and actually somebody said originally it was a Mauser but it turned out
it was not.
Mr. RANKIN. You learned it was not.
Mr. WADE. Oh, yes; there was no question, I am not contending whatever I
said was so on that because I got it all secondhand from someone else.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you learn that the Mauser-type rifle was similar in the
type of action to the gun that was involved.
Did that ever come to your attention?
Mr. WADE. I think someone told me that but I am not an expert on guns. I
don't believe I ever saw this gun except from a distance.
I think that Saturday night--Friday night, the 22d when they were taking
it to
Mr. RANKIN. In your testimony you were not entirely sure as to whether
Chief Curry had the gun during the press conference?
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Mr. WADE. No; I am not. I remember seeing some officer wave that I gun
around. I was tying it into Chief
Curry but it could have been the day before, because that gun actually should
have still been in
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. I am deducting, I think probably that I saw someone else with
the gun, rather than Chief Curry.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you in any press conference describe anything about
paraffin tests?
Mr. WADE. I told them they
gave him paraffin tests. I believe
that---I am not positive what I told them, but what I was told, they found
paraffin on one hand---powder showed positive on one hand.
I don't know which one, but I remember the police told me the paraffin
test was positive on one hand. I don't know which hand.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you indicate what that meant in terms of the effect on
crime or its investigation?
Mr. WADE. Well, of course, it meant that a man had fired a gun if they
find powder on his hands. I assume I have told them that. I think that was
Sunday night when we were laying out the evidence, so far as I know.
I don't think that was prior to his being killed. It was, it shouldn't
have been done, but I think that was Friday night.
Mr. RANKIN. That is all I have, Mr. Chief Justice.
Mr. Dulles has a few questions.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dulles, do you have some questions you would like to
ask Mr. Wade?
Mr. DULLES. Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Ford, believing I was the only one
going to be here during the interrogation--during the entire session this
morning--gave me a few questions and asked me to tell you he was very sorry he
could not be here today, but he will be here tomorrow.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. A great many of these questions have already been covered. I
will just run over them briefly.
You have testified as to a telephone call that the attorney general
received from
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I believe we have covered that all right.
I was trying to think. In the course of this thing, during all this
investigation, I have talked to Cliff Carter in the White House, or at least he
used to be but I don't think we talked then on it.
I think it was later, the next day, and then 2 or 3 days later, as I
recall, but I believe right after they got back to Washington, I got a call from
Cliff Garter wondering whether they had the person, or something, but Cliff was
one of President Johnson's aides.
Mr. DULLES. Yes.
Mr. WADE. And I have talked with him later, I think, on, I don't know, I
don't think it concerned any of these problems, but I am just talking out loud
with you, but we have covered that fully and, I believe, the attorney general
told you that he had talked to somebody in the White House about it and called
me, I think that is where he told me where he had----
Mr. DULLES. There were no other messages other than these messages that
you mentioned with Cliff Garter, is that right?
Mr. WADE. Yes; I talked to him, but I don't think it concerned this
problem. I think it was on a--as a matter of fact, I think it was after Ruby had
shot Oswald when I talked to him, but it is one of those things 1 can't
remember. I hope you don't think I am trying not to tell you, I don't mind
telling you anything, but talking to you that I got a call every 5 minutes, and
so I don't know, mostly the press calling, you know.
Mr. DULLES. Was the conduct of the investigation of the assassination
hindered by any possible overlapping of jurisdiction between Federal, State, and
local authorities? You have dealt
with that in a general way. Do you
have anything more to say on that point?
Mr. WADE. Well, I think the investigation of the assassination was
carried on in a rather cooperative manner between all the agencies concerned.
I think this cooperation was more than generally you would have.
It was born out
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of
a feeling that all the agencies were to some extent on the spot, I think, your
FBI, your Secret Service. I think
that bred cooperation rather than antagonism.
I don't know of any antagonism. I
think the biggest fault with the investigation was your press and television.
I don't think there is any question that you people up here deal with it.
But you take a chief of police, a little chief of police, or a little district
attorney down there who is not used to having all, everybody, calling you all
hours of the night and asking you questions, and then if you sneeze, write a
front page story about what you said, with no way to deny it, you know, and I
think the press was the biggest thing that caused--I don't think they ever ought
to have been in the police department to begin with.
I would have liked to have kept them out of the courtroom.
The judge announced that he was going to have them in the courtroom, but
I was instrumental in keeping them out.
Mr. DULLES. When we were in
Mr. WADE. I don't know how they got in.
I don't see how they could run those big cables right through the chief
of police's office there without somebody giving them permission.
However, I have no way of knowing how they got in.
Mr. DULLES. It was suggested to us that the chief of police was out at
the airport and did not get back, and found them in there when he got back at 3
o'clock.
Mr. WADE. How they got in I have no idea, but the whole mechanics of the
thing--for instance, in the homicide office, the whole office
you probably have seen it--I don't imagine it is as big as this room. It
is cut up into little offices.
Mr. DULLES. I was in there; yes.
Mr. WADE. If you know, when I Went into the office, went into that office
there Friday night, you had to push people back to open the door to get out.
You had police having to move the crowd, and they were just stacked down
that corridor, and it was a situation that should not have developed.
Of course, you have a situation where the press yell that the American
people have a right to know their President had been assassinated.
I don't say there are not two sides to the situation, but I think when
they get to interfering with the processes of law there is bound to be a middle
ground or some way to work it out. I
can't solve it.
Mr. DULLES. So far as you know, have all documents of any evidence, of
any kind whatsoever, collected by State and local authorities in Texas been
turned over to the Federal authorities and the President's Commission?
Mr. WADE. So far as I know they have.
We have either sent it to the Commission or to Mr. Waggoner Cart, and I
assume whatever he gets he sends to you all.
I don't know of any documents; I don't know whether--you don't have a
transcript of the trial, but that will be testimony.
The CHAIRMAN. How long was the transcript, Mr. Wade?
Mr. WADE. I don't know how many pages.
I don't think--we don't have our copy of it. We ordered a copy, and
so---he filed a pauper's oath, so I don't have any idea how long it will be.
It was about 2 weeks of testimony, an argument, and also 2 weeks of
picking the jury. They took all that
down, all questioning of prospective jurors, so all that will be in the
transcript.
The CHAIRMAN. Will that all be in the record on appeal?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Have they made any extra copies, do you know?
Mr. WADE. I know they are making some extra copies that have been bought
by individuals, I believe Life magazine, some of those magazines have ordered a
copy.
The CHAIRMAN. I see; yes.
Mr. WADE. We are having to pay for ours.
We are having to pay for ours, and, of course, we will handle that, we
will use that when briefing our case on appeal.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know what it will cost?
You don't know that yet?
Mr. WADE. I think--we think---our copy will be $3,000.
I mean I have got that figure in my mind, because the Commissioners'
Court kicked about us having
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to
pay court reporters who are working for the county, but I think the court
reporters wrote the law, but I have got in mind $3,000, but that is a copy.
The original usually is twice that much, but of course, a copy is all you
would want. But you can write Mr.
Jimmy Muleady. He is the official
court reporter of that court.
Mr. DULLES. You have testified with regard to the Hudkins and Goulden
rumors that the FBI or CIA or some other Federal agency might have employed
Oswald. One or the other of those
correspondents indicated that he got his information from some high official
that he refused to identify--he or they--refused to identify.
Do you know anything about that?
Mr. WADE. No; Hudkins, as I recall, wrote in his article
I don't know who the high official is, but I imagine they are basing it
on me or the police or someone Hudkins
put in his article, you know he wrote all this stuff, he is a wild writer, and
he said, "Henry Wade said he doubted whether it would be public
information" or something.
Well, he came running into me one day there and said, "Now, I have
got all kinds of evidence that he is working for the FBI."
And I said, "Well, fine, I have none myself," and he said,
"What would you think about it?"
I said, "Well, you are getting onto a situation that I don't know
whether it ought to be public information or not."
I mean, I asked, suppose he did, I don't know whether it would be
something that ought to be written or not, well, more or less trying to get him
not to write the article, and I said, "Assuming it is so, I don't see you
are doing any good writing it."
So he quoted from that. That
is all the conversation I had with Hudkins, and you can get that--I haven't seen
the Goulden article, and didn't talk with him. I haven't seen Joe Goulden--I
assume it is Joe Goulden. He left
But the high official, all I can tell you anything on that, I have
absolutely no evidence myself or any personal knowledge that he worked for the
FBI or any Federal agency, and the only thing I have heard are rumors on the
subject, and none of them that has got anything to base it on that I know of.
Does that cover that?
Mr. DULLES. That covers that.
You referred to the statement attributed to. you made prior to Oswald's
killing that the case against him was closed.
I understand you say that was not correct, you did not make that
statement.
Mr. WADE That is right. To
the best of my knowledge, I never said that. I mean that is what burned me up
more than anything, more than any other statement on television when I saw it.
I had not been on television. They
have written this in the
Mr. DULLES. Do you know whether any other
Mr. WADE. I don't know whether anybody did.
They quoted the chief of police. They quoted Fritz on it, and then they
started quoting me on it, which is all saying that. But so far, to the best of
my knowledge, I never told anybody the case was closed, and I really think that
Fritz must have said something about it, and then people think the captain of
detectives and the district attorney and the chief are all about the same, and
it finally drifted over to me because I left the police station and never had a
word to say until that night when I was on television.
Mr. DULLES. Do you know whether there were any official transcripts made
of
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254
the
various interrogations of Oswald from the time he was captured to the time of
his killing?
Mr. WADE. If there are any, I have never seen them.
I have asked for them, but you are dealing with a man who not only
doesn't make transcripts, but doesn't even make notes.
Captain Fritz is the one who interrogated him most of the time, and if
you--if there is any written evidence of what he said it must be from the FBI or
the Secret Service or someone who interviewed him.
I assume they make a record of what he said to them.
Mr. DULLES. If any transcript was made we would have had it, would we
not? So far as you know?
Mr. WADE. The only thing I know I never have seen one, and I don't have
one of an interview, and I don't know of any--you should have it, but you are
dealing with Fritz there who interviewed Ruby, and Melvin Belli went right into
the conversation with Ruby, and Belli at 4 o'clock that afternoon made
everything admissible, and we couldn't get a thing, couldn't put Fritz on the
stand because he couldn't remember anything that was helpful.
I mean, he could remember Ruby rambling around the situation, but I don't
know of any transcript like that that I have that you don't have.
Mr. DULLES. In your talks, going hack to your talks, with Mr. Carter at
the White House----
Mr. WADE. Garter; yes.
Mr. DULLES. Garter--did any questions come up in these conversations
about not raising the issue that he was a Communist or that there might be a
conspiracy or something of that kind?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; that conversation, I'm rather sure sometime Friday
afternoon, and he called me and said, "Are they making any progress on the
case?" You see, Cliff Garter
and I are close. personal friends. I
have known him, and they were all upset, and I said, "I don't know. I have
heard they have got some pretty good evidence."
I think that is the only conversation I had with him.
Somebody told me, Mr. Carr, I believe, or Barefoot Sanders, that they had
had some conversations with some Washington officials, and I have got an
impression it was the State Department, but it might have been--that
they--concerning the international conspiracy angle.
I didn't discuss it because it was silly, I mean the whole thing was a
silly deal.
I mean, if you would prove he was a Communist, suppose he gave a
statement he was a Communist, I wouldn't have put that in a murder charge
because I had to prove it.
Mr. DULLES. That is all I have, Mr. Chief Justice.
The CHAIRMAN. I think that is all, Mr. Wade. Thank you very much for your
cooperation.
Mr. WADE. I appreciate what you all are doing and your problems you have
got up here. I know if I were in your place I would hate to listen to somebody
like me talk 5 hours.
The CHAIRMAN. All right. We will recess until 2 o'clock.
(Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the President's Commission recessed.)
This is the interview from 11/21/93, in which Dallas
district attorney,
Henry Wade corroborated Governor Connally's claim that the bullet which
fell from his thigh, was retrieved by a nurse in the operating room.
If anyone has doubts about its validity, they can go to the DMN website
and for $2.95 get their own copy. Wade's corroboration is the final nail
in the coffin for CE399. It absolutely could not have been the same one
that wounded Gov Connally.
The Dallas Morning News
`Make sure conspiracy count is not in the indictment'
Wes Wise
Published: November 21, 1993
`Henry Wade was Dallas County district attorney at the time of the
assassination of John Kennedy. Had Lee Harvey Oswald lived, Mr. Wade would
have prosecuted the alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy. Following are his
recollections of that day 30 years ago, Nov. 22, 1963, as recorded on
videotape for the Oral History Project of the Dallas County Historical
Foundation. The interviewer is Wes Wise, a former Dallas television
personality and mayor.
MR. WADE: I was over at the place where he was supposed to make his
speech. It was a non-partisan event. We were waiting for Kennedy. I,
incidentally, personally knew Kennedy well and was a strong supporter of
his, always had been. . . . I was at his inauguration. When he was running
for office here, I was chairman of a meeting they held to try to get him
elected. That wasn't popular particularly here in Dallas. I wasn't at the
head table; I wasn't invited. About 100 or so members of the press came
running in. Then you heard rumors somebody shot at him off Stemmons
Freeway. We heard everything for a while. Somebody had a radio; (people)
were listening to it. Finally, they had a prayer and announced he'd been
shot and carried to Parkland and was dead.
Q: What did you do as Dallas County district attorney at that point?
A:A group of us had rented a bus to go to Austin to another party for
Kennedy that night. The first thought in my mind was that Barefoot
Sanders, the U.S. attorney, had a big case on his hands. I went on back to
the office, and Barefoot called me. He said, `We've checked, and under
federal law the most we can give whoever killed the president is five
years in the pen for assault on a federal official. This is going to be
your baby. It'll have to be tried in state courts." That's when I got
serious. I thought up 'til then it would be tried in federal court. He
(Sanders) looked it up in the law books. There wasn't any law against
killing the president of the United States.
I called a number of my assistants together. We went down to the sheriff's
office where they were interviewing some of the witnesses, and talked with
police, sent an assistant up to work with police. At that time we had no
idea who did it. I also went out to see (Gov. John) Connally, but he was
in the operating room. Some nurse had a bullet in her hand, and said this
was on the gurney that Connally was on. I talked with Nellie Connally a
while and then went on home.
Q: What did you do with the bullet? Is this the famous pristine bullet
people have talked about?
A: I told her to give it to the police, which she said she would. I assume
that's the pristine bullet.
Q: In those first hours, it's easy to see how there would be mass
confusion. But how did you first coordinate with Chief (Jesse) Curry,
police chief of the city of Dallas?
A: At that time, the police and everybody were trying to find out who did
the shooting. Homicide was taking a lead in it over at the School Book
Depository, where I believe they found three shells. They also had called
the roll of all the employees, and the only one missing was Lee Harvey
Oswald. And they had a witness or two who saw him run out of the building
before they called the roll.
Q: At this stage, did you and the police chief say, one of us has to be in
charge here? Or, who was in charge? Or was there anybody in charge?
A: Well, everybody was working together. But as you're probably aware, the
district attorney doesn't go out on his own and make investigations of who
did it. We look at the evidence and see if what they got is enough to file
a charge. We didn't have anything to do with the investigation of who did
it.
Q: How did you first learn of the capture in the Texas Theater? How did
you learn of the shooting of Officer (J.D.) Tippit?
A: You had all kinds of reports from press. Any police officer on the
street who opened his mouth, you'd see it on television in five minutes.
Just after I got home, at 5 or 6 o'clock, I got a call from Cliff Carter
at the White House, Cliff Carter was a friend of mine who worked with
President Johnson. It had apparently come over television that Oswald was
going to be charged as part of a conspiracy with the Russians in killing
President John F. Kennedy. He said the president was afraid tha t would
hurt international relations quite a bit with Russia. I told him that
everything you allege in an indictment you've got to prove, and if you
allege a conspiracy, you're going to have to prove it. This appears to be
more a conspiracy, if with any foreign country, with Cuba, because he
(Oswald) had loads and loads of propaganda from the committee to support
(Fidel) Castro. . . . Cliff Carter was an aide to Johnson. I knew him
personally and I knew Johnson personally. I worked in his (Lyndon
Johnson's) campaign in 1937 in Austin when I was in college, and he got
elected to Congress.
Q: Did you, at that point, take a different attitude toward the
assassination picture? You knew this was one of his top aides.
A: The only thing he was afraid of was that we would file he was part of a
Russian conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. I told him that wouldn't be
done. Then I got a second call, that the president wants you to go down
and make sure this conspiracy count is not in the indictment, because the
press has already said it's in there. I went down to the homicide division
of the Dallas police. I guess there were 300 or 400 members of the press
down there with cameras, and it was a madhouse down there.
Q: Of course this is the image everyone remembers from having seen it on
national television. The impression was that there was so much mass
confusion that, again, nobody was really in charge. Would that be fair?
A: I think you had everybody working together, but there was nobody
appointed in charge unless they appointed themselves.
Q: You were the spokesman on some occasions when the TV cameras were on.
Correct?
A: Some of the time. I did once or twice, mainly because Dallas was taking
a beating from the national media. (Someone) had announced that it was
H.L. Hunt and his crowd that did it _ the right wing. I went into homicide
and talked to Oswald for five or 10 minutes. He wouldn't say anything
other than `I want a lawyer" and `police brutality." He had a cut on his
eye that happened at the time of his arrest in that theater. I was
receiving a lot of telephone calls to get him a lawyer. But he named a
lawyer in New York. He said he's my lawyer. I called him in New York, and
later one of my assistants talked with him, and he said I'm not
representing Oswald. Then I got the president of the Dallas bar and the
president of the criminal bar to agree to go see him and offer to find him
a lawyer. It probably was either late that night or the next morning when
they got to talk to him, and he said he didn't want to talk to them. He
kept mentioning this lawyer in New York City that had represented the
civil liberties union and some people to the left in the spectrum.
Q: During that brief time you were in on the interrogation, who was
interviewing him and what did he say?
A: (Dallas Police) Capt. (Will) Fritz was there, and somebody from the FBI
was there, and somebody from the Secret Service. They'd been talking to
him for four or five hours. I asked him several questions, and the only
thing he would say was `police brutality" and `I want my lawyer" and named
him, in New York City. The cameras at that time had big lights on them,
and they were flashing lights through the glass doors trying to get a
picture of Oswald. I said why don't you put him in a lineup and let the
press look at him, cause he was charging police brutality. They supposedly
had checked the credentials of all the press that went in there. We had
filed on him for the murder of Tippit about 7, but it was about 11 before
we filed on him on th e other one. They did that; they put him in a lineup
downstairs, when they looked at it and saw it was not a serious wound.
They (press) asked me what kind of a gun it was, and I said it was foreign
made. I didn't know if it was Italian or German, but it's a foreign-made
gun, but I hadn't seen it at that time.
They (press) said: `Are Russians backing this?" I said, I understand they
found all this pro-Castro literature. I said I didn't know the name of the
organization. I was walking, and as I was getting out of the place,
somebody rose out of the audience and said, `Henry, the name of the thing
is Fair Play for Cuba." As I was gradually moving toward the door, this
guy that had stood up ran up to me and he said, `Henry, I'm Jack Ruby."
And I said, `What are you doing in here." And he said, `I represent the
Jewish press," and laughed.
I knew who he was by name, but I hadn't seen him before. That was the
first time I was ever acquainted with him. Then he went further. As I got
almost out of the building, he yells from over behind the records bureau
in the Police Department, `Henry, you're wanted on the phone." I was glad
to get rid of the people where I was, and I went around there, and it was
the `Weird Beard" from KLIF. Found out Jack Ruby had called him and said,
`Do you want an interview with the district attorney of Dallas?" The Weird
Beard was a disc jockey, rather than a newsman, at the time.
Then I got out and went home, and one of my assistants called me about 11
o'clock and asked me did we want to take the complaint. And I said, `Yeah,
let's go ahead and take it, but don't have the conspiracy count in there
unless we can prove it." You know in a murder case, all you have to allege
is that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John Fitzgerald Kennedy by shooting him
with a gun. That limits how much you have to prove.
Q: Of course, you're familiar with all the remarks that were made after
that scene, and the Dallas police referred to as `Keystone Kops" by their
critics. Do you, as a district attorney, think anything would have been
different in any other city, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, etc.? Was
the good-old-boy system so deep in the Dallas County hierarchy that this
was unusual to Dallas, or do you think it would have happened anywhere in
just about the same way?
A: You mean the investigation?
Q: What you just described. Here's a man who comes in and describes
himself as representing the Jewish press and he has nothing to do with the
press, he's a nightclub owner. Here's the Weird Beard getting you on the
telephone, and I understand how it was done, you were handed the
telephone. But that seems unusual. It will seem even more unusual to
people who are looking at this tape 100 years from now. So do you think
this would have been any different anywhere else?
A: Well, probably not. Things are handled differently in some cities, for
instance, New York City, where I worked in the FBI, all the homicides are
handled out of the district attorney's office. I think they (Dallas
police) did an excellent job finding out who did it in a matter of hours.
Q: The interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald, he has been described as being
extremely cool and collected during this interrogation. In the brief time
that you saw him, was that the way you recalled him?
A: Yeah, you see the press were interfering, yelling and screaming and
throwing lights on there. I saw immediately it wasn't the time to try to
interview him. I set 2 o'clock Sunday when he was down at the county jail
for an interview with him. Of course, he never made it to the county jail,
where we could keep the press out of the whole building.
Q: But you would say he was cool and collected?
A: Well, he was excited, and he looked like he felt he had accomplished a
lot. But there was no way to interview him in those small quarters with
cameras shooting lights through the glass door.
Q: Much of the criticism of the interrogation was that it was not
tape-recorded. Did anybody suggest that?
A: I worked with (police Capt. Will) Fritz and he was probably the best
person I ever worked with in finding out who done it, and the poorest
person I ever worked with for taking notes. I don't think the police had
recorders back then. Of course, what he said wasn't admissible anyway.
Q: Looking back on it now, is there any possibility that Oswald could have
been engaged in a conspiracy with Ruby in the assassination of the
president?
A: You're asking me something I would have to conjecture on. I feel like
Oswald is the one who did all the shooting. I think there were three shots
fired, maybe some echoes heard. I don't think there was any conspiracy
with Oswald. The only thing I can say is that there is absolutely no hard
evidence that there was any conspiracy.
Q: You feel like you had enough evidence to convict Lee Harvey Oswald.
A: Yes.
PHOTO(S): Henry Wade.
Copyright 1993 The Dallas Morning News Company
Contact Information tomnln@cox.net
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