TED CALLAWAY
TESTIMONY OF TED CALLAWAY
Mr. DULLES. Mr. Callaway, in the absence of the Chief Justice, I am presiding over the meeting of the Commission this morning.
Would you kindly raise your right hand?
Do you swear that the testimony that you will give to this Commission is the truth, the whole truth, so help you God?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. And nothing but the truth?
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is correct.
Mr. DULLES. You may be seated. Mr. Ball, will you proceed?
Mr. BALL. Mr. Callaway, we are investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. We are going to ask you questions with regard to what you saw on the day of November 22, 1963, in Dallas. Where do you live?
Mr. CALLAWAY. 805 West Eighth.
Mr. BALL. What is your business?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Car salesman.
Mr. BALL. We would like to know something about your background. We ask most of the witnesses these questions. Where were you born?
Mr. CALLAWAY. In Dallas.
Mr. BALL. Were you raised in Dallas?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Went to school in Dallas?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. How old are you?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Forty.
Mr. BALL. How far through school did you--
Mr. CALLAWAY. Two years of college.
Mr. BALL. What college?
Mr. CALLAWAY. S.M.U.
Mr. BALL. And what did you do after you got out of college?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I worked part time as a clothing salesman downtown, and then my uncle was a painter, and I worked for him for awhile. Then I went back in the Marines for 3 years.
And I have been selling cars since '56.
Mr. BALL. You are a used-car salesman?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Where were you employed--have you had any trouble with the police of any sort?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No.
Mr. BALL. Any difficulty at all in your life?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No, sir; never.
Mr. BALL. You were discharged from the Marines, were you?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What year?
Mr. CALLAWAY. 1954.
Mr. BALL. Received an honorable discharge from the service?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. On November 22, 1963, where were you working?
Mr. CALLAWAY. At Harris Bros. Auto Sales.
Mr. BALL. And what was your job?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I was used-car manager.
Mr. BALL. Now, Harris Bros. Auto Sales is located where?
Mr. CALLAWAY. 501 East Jefferson.
Mr. BALL. Where is that from 10th and Patton?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Just one block.
Mr. BALL. One block south?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What corner?
351
Page 352
Mr. CALLAWAY. It would be on the northeast corner.
Mr. BALL. So that we can orient ourselves from 10th and Patton--I have marked this diagram as Commission Exhibit 537.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 537 for identification.)
Mr. BALL. Now, Mr. Callaway, will you, on 537, take this and mark the location of the used car lot with an "X"?
Mr. CALLAWAY. All right, sir. Right here.
Mr. BALL. The "X" marks the position of the used-car lot?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Now, Mr. Callaway, around 1:15 or so of that day, where were you?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I was standing on the front porch of our office.
Mr. BALL. That is at 401 East Jefferson?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No; 501.
Mr. BALL. I will show you a picture which we will mark as 538.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 538 for identification.)
Mr. BALL. Does this show a picture of the office?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir. That is it.
Mr. BALL. Now you went down there one day last week to have some pictures taken.
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did you attempt to stand in the same place you were at the time?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Where you were standing November 22d around 1 o'clock or so?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did you hear at that time?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I heard what sounded to me like five pistol shots.
Mr. BALL. Five pistol shots?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Five shots, yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. From the sound, could you tell the source of the sound?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir, I could tell it was back of the lot over toward 10th Street.
Mr. BALL. And what did you do?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I ran out to the sidewalk on Patton.
Mr. BALL. And what did you see?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Well, I could see I was still--before I got to the sidewalk, I could see this taxicab parked down on Patton. I saw the cabdriver beside his cab, and saw a man cutting from one side of the street to the other. That would be the east side of Patton and over to the west side of Patton. And he was running. And he had a gun in his hand, his right hand.
Mr. BALL. And how was he holding the gun?
Mr. CALLAWAY. We used to say in the Marine Corps in a raised pistol position.
Mr. BALL. That would be with the muzzle pointed upward, and with the arm bent at the elbow, is that right?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir; just like this.
Mr. BALL. I have a picture here, 539.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 539 for identification.)
Mr. BALL. When this picture was taken, did you try to represent the place you were standing when you saw the man?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. How did you get there?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I ran.
Mr. BALL. You ran from the place on the porch, is that right?
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right. From right here, to there.
Mr. BALL. Now, you were at the place shown on 538, on the porch?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. And when you heard the shots, what did you do?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I just hurried--I don't know whether I really ran or not.
But I hurried off the side of this porch and came to this position.
352
Page 353
Mr. BALL. All right. When you came to this position, you say you saw a taxicab?
Mr. DULLES. Where is this position on this chart? Right here?
Mr. CALLAWAY. It would be about right here. I come off the porch here.
Mr. DULLES. Point 29?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. You saw a taxicab where, on photo 29?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Right here.
Mr. BALL. Let's mark an arrow there, about where you saw the taxicab. The arrow marks the position of the taxicab. You saw a man?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. He was crossing Patton?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Was that to the south or the north of the taxicab? Closer to you than the taxicab?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Was he running or walking?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He was running.
Mr. BALL. And where were you when you noticed he had the gun? Or where was he when you noticed he had the gun?
Mr. CALLAWAY. When I first saw the gun, he had already crossed from here to here and was coming up this sidewalk.
Mr. BALL. Coming up the sidewalk on which side of Patton?
Mr. CALLAWAY. West side of Patton.
Mr. BALL. And did he continue to come?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. And did you say anything to him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. What did you say?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I hollered "Hey, man, what the hell is going on?" When he was right along here.
Mr. BALL. Make a mark there where he was when you yelled, "What the hell is going on?" "X" marks the place where the man with the gun was when you yelled at him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. Would you mark it on this chart, too--Exhibit 537?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Right along here about 27. I guess. That would be it. You see, here is where I was, sir. And then he was right there when I hollered at him.
Mr. DULLES. I don't get this. There is an alleyway there, apparently.
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. But here is where the squad car was.
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. And here is where the cab was.
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. DULLES. He had come all the way down?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He had come from there through this yard and cut behind this taxicab, over to this side of the street.
Mr. DULLES. So he was there, then?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No, sir. I didn't holler at him until he came up to here. He was running up this sidewalk.
Mr. DULLES. He was going south on Patton?
Mr. CALLAWAY. On the west side of the street.
Representative FORD. You saw him run from about the taxicab--
Mr. CALLAWAY. Across the street, up this sidewalk.
Mr. DULLES. About how far is that? Fifty feet or more?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Oh, it is more than that. From here down to there, I think is about 300 feet.
Mr. BALL. Mark on this diagram, which is 537, where the man was, and the course he took.
Mr. CALLAWAY. Well, now, when I first saw him he was right here. Then he came across here, down this way.
353
Page 354
Mr. BALL. Down to the point where you spoke to him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right.
Mr. BALL. What did he do when you hollered at him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He slowed his pace, almost halted for a minute. And he said something to me, which I could not understand. And then kind of shrugged his shoulders, and kept on going.
Mr. BALL. Show the course he took on the map, if you will.
Mr. CALLAWAY. All right.
Right on down here, and he cut through this front yard.
Mr. BALL. And where was he when you last saw him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Right here.
Mr. BALL. Right at that point?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Now, the first "X" marks the position of the parking lot--we will mark that 1. The place of the taxicab we will mark as 2. The place where the man was with the gun when you yelled at him, we will mark that as 3. The last place you saw the man, that we will mark 4.
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. All right. Now--
Mr. DULLES. May I ask what course he was taking when you last saw him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He was going west on Jefferson Street.
Mr. DULLES. West on Jefferson Street?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did you do?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I hollered to this guy behind--B. D. Searcy.
Mr. BALL. What did you say to Mr. Searcy?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I told him to keep an eye on that guy, I says, "Keep an eye on that guy, follow him. I am going to go down there and see what is going on." So I ran, a good hard run, from here down around the corner.
Mr. BALL. 10th and Patton?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. When you got there what did you see?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I saw a squad car, and by that time there was four or five people that had gathered, a couple of cars had stopped. Then I saw--I went on up to the squad car and saw the police officer lying in the street. I see he had been shot in the head. So the first thing I did, I ran over to the squad car. I didn't know whether anybody reported it or not. So I got on the police radio and called them, and told them a man had been shot, told them the location, I thought the officer was dead. They said we know about it, stay off the air, so I went back.
By this time an ambulance was coming. The officer was laying on his left side, his pistol was underneath him. I kind of rolled him over and took his gun out from under him. The people wonder whether he ever got his pistol out of his holster. He did.
Mr. BALL. The pistol was out of the holster?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir; out of the holster, and it was unsnapped. It was on his right side. He was laying with the gun under him.
Mr. BALL. What did you do?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I picked the gun up and laid it on the hood of the squad car, and then someone put it in the front seat of the squad car. Then after I helped load Officer Tippit in the ambulance, I got the gun out of the car and told this cabdriver, I said, "You saw the guy didn't you?" He said, yes.
I said, "If he is going up Jefferson, he can't be very far. Let's see if we can find him." So I went with Scoggins in the taxicab, went up to 10th, Crawford, from Crawford up to Jefferson, and down Jefferson to Beckley. And we turned on Beckley. If we had kept going up Jefferson, we probably--there is a good chance we would have seen him, because he was headed right towards the Texas Theatre. But then we circled around several blocks, and ended up coming back to where it happened.
Mr. BALL. And the ambulance--had the ambulance been there by that time?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Oh, yes; the ambulance already left before I ever left with the cabdriver.
354
Page 355
Mr. BALL. Did you go down to the police station later?
Mr. CALLAWAY. That evening.
Mr. BALL. What time?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I think it was around 6:30 or 7 o'clock. I remember it was after dark.
Mr. BALL. Did you go down there alone?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No. I went with Sam Guinyard, a colored porter of ours. He saw him, also.
(At this point, Representative Ford withdrew from the hearing room.)
Mr. CALLAWAY. We drove down. Officer--Detective Jim Leavelle met us, and took us into this room where they showed us the lineup.
Mr. BALL. Now, before you went down there, had you seen any newspaper accounts of this incident?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No, sir; I had been out there on the lot. I hadn't seen a newspaper, hadn't even heard a radio, really.
Mr. BALL. Had you seen any television?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No sir.
Mr. BALL. Had you seen a picture of a man?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No.
Mr. BALL. The officer show you any pictures?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No, sir.
Mr. BALL. You went into a police lineup, in a room where they had a lineup of men?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. How many?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Four.
Mr. BALL. And were they all the same size, or different sizes?
Mr. CALLAWAY. They were about the same build, but the man that I identified was the shortest one of the bunch.
Mr. BALL. Were they anywhere near the same age?
Mr. CALLAWAY. They were about the same age, yes, sir. They looked-- you know.
Mr. BALL. And you say you identified a man. How did you do that?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Well
Mr. BALL. Tell us what happened.
Mr. CALLAWAY. We first went into the room. There was Jim Leavelle, the detective, Sam Guinyard, and then this busdriver and myself. We waited down there for probably 20 or 30 minutes. And Jim told us, "When I show you these guys, be sure,. take your time, see if you can make a positive identification."
Mr. BALL. Had you known him before?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No. And he said, "We want to be sure, we want to try to wrap him up real tight on killing this officer. We think he is the same one that shot the President. But if we can wrap him up tight on killing this officer, we have got him." So they brought four men in.
I stepped to the back of the room, so I could kind of see him from the same distance which I had seen him before. And when he came out, I knew him.
Mr. BALL. You mean he looked like the same man?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. About what distance was he away from you--the closest that he ever was to you?
Mr. CALLAWAY. About 56 feet.
Mr. BALL. You measured that, did you?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Last Saturday morning?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Measured it with a tape measure?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did he have the same clothes on in the lineup--did the man have the same clothes?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He had the same trousers and shirt, but he didn't have his jacket on. He had ditched his jacket.
355
Page 356
Mr. BALL. What kind--when you talked to the police officers before you saw this man, did you give them a description of the clothing he had on?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did you tell them you saw?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I told them he had some dark trousers and a light tannish gray windbreaker jacket, and I told him that he was fair complexion, dark hair.
Mr. BALL. Tell them the size?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes; I told them--I think I told them about 5'10"--
Mr. DULLES. Did you see his front face at any time, or did you only have a side view of him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He looked right at me, sir. When I called to him, he looked right at me.
Mr. DULLES. You saw front face?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. I have a jacket here Commission's Exhibit No. 162. Does this look anything like the jacket that the man had on that you saw across the street with a gun?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes; it sure does. Yes, that is the same type jacket. Actually, I thought it had a little more tan to it.
Mr. BALL. Same type?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. I show you a shirt, 150. Does it look anything like the shirt he had on under the jacket?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Sir, when I saw him he didn't have--I couldn't see this shirt. I saw--he had it open. That shirt was open, and I could see his white T-shirt underneath.
Mr. BALL. He had a white T-shirt underneath?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes. That is the shirt he had on in the lineup that night.
Mr. BALL. Was he fat or thin?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He was just--
Mr. BALL. I mean the man you saw across the street?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Just a nice athletic type size boy, I mean. Neither fat nor thin.
Mr. BALL. What did you estimate his weight when you talked to the officer before the lineup?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I told him it looked to me like around 160 pounds.
Mr. DULLES. How fast was he going when you hailed him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Just a good steady trot, not real fast.
Mr. DULLES. He was not walking and not running--it was a trot?
Mr. CALLAWAY. A trot; yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. He stopped?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Almost. He slowed down, like a guy is trotting along, and he almost stopped, and kept going.
Mr. DULLES. And he looked at you?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. Did he say anything?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir; he said something, but I could not understand it.
Mr. DULLES. You could not understand what he said?
Mr. CALLAWAY. That is right; yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. And then did he resume his progress at a trot?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did you ever ask Searcy if he followed him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He didn't follow him.
He said something about "Follow him, hell. That man will kill you. He has a gun."
So instead of following him, he went back over and got behind the office building.
Mr. DULLES. Did he see him at any time?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes; he saw him the same time I did; yes, sir. I never could figure out why he didn't just follow that man. You could follow 50 yards behind him and keep a guy in sight. Chances are you wouldn't get killed 50 yards away.
356
Page 357
Mr. DULLES. Had you had previous military service?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir; I was in the Marine Corps 6 years, World War 11, and during Korea.
Mr. DULLES. Did you ever tangle with the law in any way?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No, sir.
Mr. DULLES. What years were you in the Marine Corps?
Mr. CALLAWAY. 1942 through 45, and then '51 through '54.
Mr. DULLES. Were you in Korea?
Mr. CALLAWAY. No, sir; I didn't go to Korea. I was at Camp Pendleton as a troop trainer.
Mr. DULLES. Off the record.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. DULLES. Back on the record.
Mr. BALL. I would like to offer to Exhibit 539, inclusive.
Mr. DULLES. Can you tell me what the numbers are?
Mr. BALL. 537, 538, and 539.
Mr. DULLES. Exhibits 537, 538, and 539 previously identified will now be admitted in evidence.
(The documents heretofore marked for identification as Commission Exhibits Nos. 537 through 539 were received in evidence.)
Mr. DULLES. Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming.
(Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the President's Commission recessed.)