The Motorcade and the Shots

The Speed of the Presidential Car

After the assassination, reports that the President's car had stopped after the first shot was fired were interpreted in some quarters as evidence that the driver believed that the shot came from somewhere in front of the car. The Warren Report dismissed the allegation:

The Presidential car did not stop or almost come to a complete halt after the firing of the first shot or any other shots. The driver, Special Agent William R. Greer, has testified that he accelerated the car after what was probably the second shot. Motion pictures of the scene show that the car slowed down momentarily after the shot that struck the President in the head and then speeded up rapidly.

(WR 641)

This passage is found under "Rumors and Speculations," an appendix to the Warren Report which the Commission used as a graveyard for the claims of various early critics of the lone-assassin theory. One such critic, Mark Lane, testified on March 4, 1964 that he believed that the car had come to a halt when the shooting began, on the basis of statements by

... various witnesses, including Mr. Chaney, a motorcycle policeman, Miss Woodward, who was one of the closest witnesses to the President at the time that he was shot, and others. I think that is ... conceded by almost everyone, that the automobile came to — almost came to a complete halt after the first shot....

(2H 45)

According to Lane, reporter Mary Woodward had corroborated, in a telephone conversation, the statement in her story in the Dallas Morning News of November 23, 1963 that "instead of speeding up ... the car came to a halt." (2H 43)

Lane's allegation about Chaney is corroborated in the testimony of another motorcycle officer, M. L. Baker. Baker testified on March 24, 1964 that his fellow officer, James Chaney, had told him:

He was on the right rear of the car or to the side, and then at the time the chief of police, he didn't know anything about this, and he moved up and told him, and then that was during the time that the Secret Service men were trying to get in the car, and at the time, after the shooting, from the time the first shot rang out, the car stopped completely, pulled to the left and stopped. ... Mr. Truly was standing out there, he said it stopped. Several officers said it stopped completely.

(3H 266)

When he testified on March 24, 1964, Roy Truly corroborated Baker's statement.

Truly: I saw the President's car swerve to the left and stop somewheres down in this area....

Belin: When you saw the President's car seem to stop, how long did it appear to stop?

Truly: It would be hard to say over a second or two or something like that. I didn't see — I just saw it stop. I don't know. I didn't see it start up. ... The crowd in front of me kind of congealed ... and I lost sight of it. (3H 221)

Various other witnesses said that the car had come to a complete stop or almost a standstill when the noise of the shot was heard — Senator Ralph Yarborough (7H 440), for example, and Mrs. Earle Cabell (7H 487), among others. Policeman Earle V. Brown, who was stationed on the triple overpass farther down Elm Street, testified on April 7, 1964 that:

Brown: Actually, the first I noticed the car was when it stopped. ... After it made the turn and when the shots were fired, it stopped.

Ball: Did it come to a complete stop?

Brown: That, I couldn't swear to.

Ball: It appeared to be slowed down some?

Brown: Yes; slowed down.

(6H 233)

In sum, at least seven eyewitnesses to the assassination indicated that the President's car had come to a complete stop, or what was tantamount to a stop. Two of those witnesses (James Chaney and Mary Woodward) were not asked to testify before the Commission on this or on other observations of some importance reported to the Commission as hearsay (see, for example, 2H 43-45 and CE 2084). Apparently the witnesses were mistaken in remembering that the car had stopped; motion pictures, according to the Commission, contradicted them. Yet it seems clear from the way in which counsel led witnesses that the Commission had considerable resistance to inferences which might be drawn from evidence that the car had stopped at the first shot. "Stopped" was transformed into "seemed to stop" and then into "slowed down." Such leading of witnesses, which would have been challenged in a courtroom, was facilitated by the Commission's closed hearings, to which there was only one exception, by request of the witness concerned. (2H 33)

The films of the assassination have not been released for public showing, although it is possible to see the most important one, the Zapruder film — taken by amateur photographer Abraham Zapruder — at the National Archives. That film does not seem to support the witnesses who said that the car stopped dead. This being so, it is baffling that counsel conducted the questioning somewhat improperly and why the Report presents this evidence with some lack of impartiality (in a passage failing to indicate that some seven witnesses mistakenly believed that the car had stopped at the first shot). Yet in dismissing an allegation related to the source of the first shot, the same passage seemingly yields ground on the source of the third. The statement that "the car slowed down momentarily after the shot that struck the President in the head" is consistent with other evidence, to be discussed later, that the fatal shot came not from the Texas School Book Depository, as the Report maintains, but from a point in front of the car and to its right.

The Mark on the Curb and the Cut on the Face

In order to attempt to solve the mystery of the assassination, it is vital to establish the number and direction of the shots. Utilizing certain physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, the Warren Commission concluded that only three shots were fired and that they came from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, at the corner of Elm and Houston Streets. Was that conclusion based upon the conscientious and disinterested examination of all the evidence, the impartial consideration of all the testimony, and the rational, objective assessment of the information? Here is the chronology of two pieces of evidence vital to the determination of the number and direction of the shots.

November 22, 1963 Shortly after the shooting it was known that a bystander, James Tague, had been struck on the face by an apparent bullet fragment, and that a fresh bullet mark was found on the curb near the place where Tague had been standing. The Tague incident was reported to a deputy sheriff and his superior (7H 546-547), to Dallas Police Officer Haygood (WR 116) and the Dallas police at City Hall (7H 556). Although Tague went to City Hall and reported his experience, the police report on the assassination (CE 2003) does not include any affidavit from or any reference to Tague.

November 23, 1963 Two Dallas newsmen, Tom Dillard and James Underwood, took films or photographs of the mark on the curb. (Shaneyfelt Exhibit No. 26)

November 25, 1963 Dillard was interviewed by FBI Agent Kreutzer. Presumably he reported the bullet mark on the curb. However, the FBI report on the interview is omitted from the Exhibits although it was in the possession of the Warren Commission. (6H 166)

April 7, 1964 Dillard and Underwood were examined by Commission Counsel Ball, who failed to elicit by his questions information from either of the witnesses about the mark on the curb. Ball referred explicitly to the FBI interview of Dillard (6H 166); if that report included information about the mark on the curb, it must be inferred that Ball deliberately excluded this from the scope of his examination.

April 9, 1964 Officer Haygood gave testimony before Commission Counsel Belin in which he reported that a bystander was hit on the face during the shooting. (6H 298)

May 1964 Disclosures to the press indicated that the Warren Commission had concluded that the first bullet that struck the President had also hit the Governor and caused all of his wounds.

End of May 1964 Tague took films at the scene of the assassination, observed without his knowledge by unknown investigators who informed the Warren Commission of the incident. He later said, "I didn't think anyone knew about that." (7H 555)

June 11, 1964 Two FBI agents interviewed James Underwood about the mark on the curb. (Shaneyfelt Exhibit 26) The report on the interview is not included in the Commission's Exhibits. It is not known what led the FBI to interview Underwood at this time; it should be noted that Dillard was not interviewed now, perhaps because he had already told the FBI about the mark on the curb when he was interviewed on November 25, 1963.

Unspecified date before July 7, 1964 Martha Jo Stroud, Assistant U. S. Attorney for Dallas, sent a communication to the Warren Commission transmitting a photograph of the mark on the curb which had been taken by Dillard. (Shaneyfelt Exhibit 26)

July 7, 1964 The Commission formally requested the FBI to investigate the mark on the curb. (Shaneyfelt Exhibit 26)

July 15, 1964 FBI agents interviewed Dillard and Underwood and, accompanied by them, tried to locate the mark on the curb but reported that they were unable to find it. This information was sent to the Commission in a letter dated July 17, 1964. (Shaneyfelt Exhibit 26)

July 23, 1964 Tague and Deputy Sheriff Walthers gave testimony before Commission Counsel Liebeler, both reporting the cut and the mark on the curb. (7H 544-558) There is no indication in the record that Tague had been interviewed before this date by any investigative agency, although he had reported his experience to the Dallas police on the day of the assassination and apparently was under official surveillance at the end of May when he took films at the scene.

August 5, 1964 FBI Expert Shaneyfelt located the mark on the curb and removed a piece of curbing for examination at the FBI Laboratory. (15H 697-701)

August 12, 1964 In a report to the Commission, the FBI stated: "In response to your inquiry, assuming that a bullet shot from the sixth-floor window of the ... Depository struck the curb ... evidence present is insufficient to establish whether it was caused by a fragment of a bullet striking the occupants of the Presidential limousine ... or whether it is a fragment of a shot that may have missed. .." (Shaneyfelt Exhibit 27)

September 3, 1964 The FBI informed the Commission that the distance from the President's car to the mark on the curb at the time of the head shot (Frame 313) was about 260 feet. (Shaneyfelt Exhibit 36)

September 27, 1964 The Warren Report revealed that a bystander had been hit on the cheek by an object during the shooting and that an apparent bullet mark had been found on a curb nearby. The Report stated:

... the mark on the south curb of Main Street cannot be identified conclusively with any of the three shots fired. Under the circumstances it might have come from the bullet which hit the President's head, or it might have been the product of the fragmentation of the missed shot upon hitting some other object in the area.

(WR 117)

Appraisal of the Facts

It is indisputable that in a methodical, impartial investigation Tague would have been interviewed and the mark on the curb would have been examined at an early stage — certainly before conclusions were formulated about the number and the source of the shots. The evidence was known immediately to the Dallas police and sheriff's officers and almost certainly to the FBI as well, from the interview with Dillard if not from local police officers. Yet the first overt indication of FBI interest in the curb came only on June 11, 1964, and the records do not specify what provoked action at that time. It may have been the communication from Martha Jo Stroud; that too has been withheld from the Exhibits and the date is not known. Whatever that date, it is perfectly clear from the documents that it was her communication that led the Commission on July 7, 1964 to request an FBI investigation of the curb, and it is entirely legitimate to wonder if the public would have learned anything whatever about this or the Tague matter in the absence of such an external stimulus. The omission from the Exhibits of the FBI reports on interviews with Underwood and Dillard and the letter from Mrs. Stroud betrays a lack of candor on the Commission's part and perhaps an attempt to conceal its persistent inattention, and the FBI's, to vital evidence — evidence which irresistibly creates uncertainty about the actual number of shots.

If the Commission now concedes that the mark on the curb was made by a bullet, or a bullet fragment, it does so on the same undeviating assumption that the shots came exclusively from the Book Depository. To assume a priori that the mark was produced by a missile from that source, as both the Commission and the FBI did without even considering any other possibility, betrays the commitment to a hypothesis with which this evidence has little compatibility. Straining to force the evidence into harmony with preconceived conclusions, the Commission suggests two rather frail possibilities.

It suggests that a fragment from the bullet that hit the President's head might have produced the mark on the curb, ignoring the fact that two large fragments (equivalent respectively to one-fourth and one-eighth of the mass of the whole bullet) had dropped into the car without even penetrating the windshield or the relatively soft surfaces on which they were found. (WR 76-77, 557; 5H 66-74) If those fragments suffered such a dramatic loss of velocity upon impact and fragmentation, how could a different piece of the bullet retain sufficient momentum to travel "about 260 feet" farther, and to cut Tague's face and/or mark the curb?

Alternatively, the Commission suggests, the mark was made by a bullet that missed and fragmented upon hitting "some other object in the area." There is no evidence to support this conjecture. It is all but untenable, because the preponderance of testimony indicates that the shot that struck the President's head was the last shot fired.

For a proper understanding of the dilatory way in which the Commission and its servant agencies pursued the investigation of the Tague injury and the mark on the curb, one should appreciate the energy and tenacity with which other inquiries were conducted. A case in point is the report that Oswald had visited the Irving Sports Shop to have a scope mounted on a rifle. That story received a degree of corroboration from two women who gave a detailed description of a man, accompanied by his wife and two little girls, who had come into a furniture shop to inquire about the new location of the gunsmith who had formerly occupied the premises. The two women identified Marina Oswald as the woman. Marina Oswald denied that she had been in the furniture store with Oswald and her babies. Invariably taking Marina Oswald's testimony as gospel even when her story was inherently implausible or in conflict with credible and disinterested testimony, the Commission took considerable pains to disprove the story told by the two women in the furniture shop. This is seen in the following excerpt from an FBI report:

By letter dated June 30, 1964, the President's Commission requested that a check be made of the public record of births for the area which encompasses both Dallas and Irving, Texas, to ascertain the names and addresses of female babies born on October 20, 1963. It was requested that parents of these babies be interviewed to determine whether any of these families have an older female child approximately two and one-half years old and whether any of these families were in Mrs. Whitworth's furniture store in early November, 1963, and under what circumstances.

(CE 1338)

Although the FBI applied itself diligently to this assignment, no suitable family was found. But the matter is mentioned here solely to demonstrate the lengths to which the Commission went in some instances, in contrast to its inaction in others.

In the case of the mark on the curb and Tague's injury, the Commission's investigation and conclusions are inadequate and unsatisfactory. We are left with evidence of a bullet or bullet fragment that almost certainly did not come from any of the three bullets which the Commission — reasoning that only three shells were found and downgrading objective evidence of more than that number of bullets fired — concludes were involved.