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 January 21, 2012, 01:10:12 AM
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In case you haven't read it. As a guest, you are not allowed to view links.
Register or Login REPORT OF CAPT. J. W. FRITZ, DALLAS POLICE
DEPARTMENT
INTERROGATION OF LEE HARVEY OSWALDWe conducted the investigation at the Texas School Book Depository
building on November 22, 1963, immediately after the President was shot
and after we had found the location where Lee Harvey Oswald had done the
shooting from and left three empty cartridge cases on the floor and the
rifle had been found partially hidden under some boxes near the back
stairway. These pieces of evidence were protected until the Crime Lab
could get pictures and make a search for fingerprints. After Lt. Day,
of the Crime Lab, had finished his work with the rifle, I picked it up
and found that it had a cartridge in the chamber, which I ejected.
About this time some officer came to me and told me that Mr. Roy S.
Truly wanted to see me, as one of his men had left the building. I had
talked to Mr. Truly previously, and at that time he thought everyone was
accounted for who worked in the building. Mr. Truly then came with
another officer and told me that a Lee Harvey Oswald had left the
building. I asked if he had an address where this man lived, and he
told me that he did, that it was in Irving at 2515 W. 5th Street.
I then left the rest of the search of the building with Chief Lumpkin
and other officers who were there and told Dets. R. M. Sims and E. L.
Boyd to accompany me to the City Hall where we could make a quick check
for police record and any other information of value, and we would then
go to Irving, Texas, in an effort to apprehend this man. While I was in
the building, I was told that Officer J. D. Tippit had been shot in Oak
Cliff. Immediately after I reached my office, I asked the officers who
had brought in a prisoner from the Tippit shooting who the man was who
shot the officer. They told me his name was Lee Harvey Oswald, and I
replied that that was our suspect in the President's killing. I
instructed the officers to bring this man into the office after talking
to the officers for a few minutes in the presence of Officers R. M. Sims
and E. L. Boyd of the Homicide Bureau and possibly some Secret Service
men. Just as I had started questioning this man I received a call from
Gordon Shanklin, Agent in Charge of the FBI office here in Dallas, who
asked me to let him talk to Jim Bookhout, one of his agents. He told
Mr. Bookhout that he would like for James P. Hosty to sit in on this
interview as he knew about these people and had interviewed them before.
I invited Mr. Bookhout and Mr. Hosty in to help with the interview.
After some questions about this man's full name I asked him if he worked
for the Texas School Book Depository, and he told me he did. I asked
him which floor he worked on, and he said usually on the second floor
but sometimes his work took him to all the different floors. I asked
him what part of the building he was in at the time the President was
shot, and he said that he was having lunch about that time on the first
floor. Mr. Truly had told me that one of the police officers had
stopped this man immediately after the shooting somewhere near the back
stairway, so I asked Oswald where he was when the police officer stopped
him. He said he was on the second floor drinking a coca cola when the
officer came in. I asked him why he left the building, and he said
there was so much excitement he didn't this there would be any more work
done that day, and that as this company wasn't particular about their
hours, that they did not punch a clock, and that he thought it would be
just as well that he left for the rest of the afternoon. I asked him is
he owned a rifle, and he said that he did not. He said that he had seen
one at the building a few days ago, and that Mr. Truly and some
employees looking at it. I asked him where he went to when he left
work, and he told me that he had a room on 1026 North Beckley, that he
went over there and changed his trousers and got his pistol and went to
the picture show. I asked him why he carried his pistol, and he
remarked, "You know how boys do when they have a gun, they just carry
it."
Mr. Hosty asked Oswald if he had been in Russia, He told him, "Yes, he
had been in Russia three years." He asked him if he had written to the
Russian Embassy, and he said he had. This man became very upset and
arrogant with Agent Hosty when he questioned him and accused him of
accosting his wife two different times. When Agent Hosty attempted to
talk to this man, he would hit his fist on the desk. I asked Oswald
what he meant by accosting his wife when he was talking to Mr. Hosty.
He said Mr. Hosty mistreated his wife two different times when he talked
with her, practically accosted her. Mr. Hosty also asked Oswald if he
had been to Mexico City, which he denied. During the interview he told
me that he had gone to school in New York and Fort Worth, Texas, that
after going into the Marines, finished his high school education. I
asked him if he won any medals for rifle shooting in the Marines. He
said that he had the usual medals.
I asked him what his political beliefs were, and he said he had none but
that he belonged to the Fair Play For Cuba Committee and told me that
they had headquarters in New York and that he had been Secretary for
this organization in New Orleans when he lived there. He also said that
he supports the Castro Revolution. One of the officers had told me that
he had rented the room on Beckley under the name of O. H. Lee. I asked
him why he did this. He said the landlady did it. She didn't
understand his name correctly.
Oswald asked if he was allowed an attorney and I told him he could have
any attorney he liked, and that the telephone would be available to him
up in the jail and he could call anyone he wished. I believe it was
during this interview that he first expressed a desire to talk to Mr.
Abt, an attorney in New York. Interviews on this day were interrupted
by showups where witnesses identified Oswald positively as the man who
killed Tippit, and the time I would have to talk with another witness or
to some of the officers. One of these showups was held at 4:35 pm and
the next one at 6:30 pm and at 7:55 pm At 7:05 pm I signed a complaint
before Bill Alexander of the District Attorney's office, charging Oswald
with the Tippit murder. At 7:10 pm Tippit (sic) was arraigned before
Judge Johnston. During the second day interviews I asked Oswald about
the card that he had in his purse showing that he belonged to the Fair
Play For Cuba Committee, which he admitted was his. I asked him about
another identification card in his pocket bearing the name of Alex
Hidell. He said he picked up that name in New Orleans while working in
the Fair Play FOr Cuba organization. He said he spoke Russian, that he
corresponded with people in Russia, and that he received Newspapers from
Russia.
I showed the rifle to Marina Oswald, and she could not positively
identify it, but that it looked like the rifle that her husband had and
that he had been keeping it in the garage at Mrs. Paine's home in
Irving. After this, I questioned Oswald further about the rifle, but he
denied owning a rifle at all, and said that he did have a small rifle
some years back. I asked him if he owned a rifle in Russia, and he
said, "You know you can't buy a rifle in Russia, you can only buy
shotguns." "I had a shotgun in Russia and hunted some while there."
Marina Oswald had told me that she thought her husband might have
brought the rifle from New Orleans, which he denied. He told me that he
had some things stored in a garage at Mrs. Paine's home in Irving and
that he had a few personal effects at his room on Beckley. I instructed
the officers to make a thorough search of both of these places.
After reviewing all of the evidence pertaining to the killing of
President Kennedy before District Attorney Henry Wade and his assistant,
Bill Alexander, and Jim Allen, former First District Attorney of Dallas
County, I signed a complaint before the District Attorney charging
Oswald with the murder of President Kennedy. This was at 11:26 pm He
was arraigned before Judge David Johnston at 1:35 am, November 23, 1963.
Oswald was placed in jail about 12:00 midnight and brought from the jail
for arraignment, before Judge David Johnston at 1:36 am.
On November 23 at 10:25 AM Oswald was brought from jail for an
interview. Present at this time was FBI Agent Jim Bookhout, Forrest
Sorrels, special agent in charge of Secret Service, United States
Marshall Robert Nash, and Homicide officers. During this interview I
talked to Oswald about his leaving the building, and he told me he left
by bus and rode to a stop near home and walked on to his house. At the
time of Oswald's arrest he had a bus transfer in his pocket. He
admitted this was given to him by the bus driver when he rode the bus
after leaving the building.
One of the officers had told me that a cab driver, William Wayne Whaley,
thought he had recognized Oswald's picture as the man who had gotten in
his cab near the bus station and rode to Beckley Avenue. I asked Oswald
if he had ridden a cab on that day, and he said, "Yes, I did ride in a
cab. The bus I got on near where I work got into heavy traffic and was
traveling too slow, and I got off and caught a cab." I asked him about
his conversation with the cab driver, and he said he remembered that
when he got in the cab a lady came up to who also wanted a cab, and he
told Oswald to tell the lady to "take another cab".
We found from the investigation the day before that when Oswald left
home, he was carrying a long package. He usually went to see his wife
of week ends, but this time he had gone on Thursday night. I asked him
if he had told Buell Wesley Frazier why he had gone home a different
night, and if he had told him anything about bringing back some curtain
rods. He denied it.
During this conversation he told me he reached his home by cab and
changed his shirt and trousers before going to the show. He said his
cab fare was 85 cents. When asked what he did with his clothing, he
took off when he got home, he said he put them in the dirty clothes. In
talking with him further about his location at the time the President
was killed, he said he ate lunch with some of the colored boys who
worked with him. One of them was called "Junior" and the other one was
a little short man whose name he did not know. He said he had a cheese
sandwich and some fruit and that was the only package he had brought
with him to work and denied that he had brought a long package described
by Mr. Frazier and his sister.
I asked him why he lived in a room, while his wife lived in Irving. He
said Mrs. Paine, the lady his wife lived with, was learning Russian,
that is wife needed help with the young baby, and that it made a nice
arrangement for the both of them. He said he didn't know Mr. Paine very
well, but Mrs. Paine and his wife, he thought, were separated a great
deal of the time. He said he owned no car, but that the Paines have two
cars, and told that in the garage at the Paine's home he had some sea
bags that had a lot of his personal belongings, that he had left them
there after coming back from New Orleans in September.
He said he had a brother, Robert, who lived in Fort Worth. We later
found that this brother lived in Denton. He said the Paines were close
friends of his.
I asked him if he belonged to the Communist Party, but he said that he
had never had a card, but repeated that he belonged to the Fair Play For
Cuba organization, and he said that he belonged to the American Civil
Liberties Union and paid $5.00 dues. I asked him again why he carried
the pistol to the show. He refused to answer the questions about the
pistol. He did tell me, however, that he bought it several months
before in Fort Worth, Texas.
I noted that in questioning him that he did answer very quickly, and I
asked him if he had ever been questioned before, and he told me that he
had. He was questioned one time for a long time by the FBI after he had
returned from Russia. He said they used different methods, they tried
the hard soft, and the buddy method, and said he was very familiar with
interrogation. He reminded me that he did not have to answer any
questions at all until he talked to his attorney, and I told him again
that he could have an attorney any time he wished. He said he didn't
have money to pay for a phone call to Mr. Abt. I told him to call
"collect", if he liked, to use the jail phone or that he could have
another attorney if he wished. He said he didn't want another attorney,
he wanted to talk to this attorney first. I believe he made this call
later as he thanked me later during one of our interviews for allowing
him to use the telephone. I explained to him that all prisoners were
allowed to use the telephone. I asked him why he wanted Mr. Abt,
instead of some available attorney. He told me he didn't know Mr. Abt
personally, but that he was familiar with a case where Mr. Abt defended
some people for a violation of the Smith Act, and that if he didn't get
Mr. Abt, that he felt sure the American Civil Liberties Union would
furnish him a lawyer. He explained to me that this organization helped
people who needed attorneys and weren't able to get them.
While in New Orleans, he lived at 4907 Magazine Street and at one time
worked for the William Riley Company near that address. When asked
about previous arrests, he told me that he had had a little trouble
while working with the Fair Play For Cuba Committee and had a fight with
some anti-Castro people. He also told me of a debate on some radio
station in New Orleans where he debated with some anti-Castro people.
I asked him what he thought of President Kennedy and his family, and he
said he didn't have any views on the President. He said, "I like the
President's family very well. I have my own views about national
policies." I asked him about a polygraph test. He told me he had
refused a polygraph test with the FBI, and he certainly wouldn't take
one at this time. Both Mr. Bookhout, of the FBI, and Mr. Kelley, and
the Marshall asked Oswald some questions during this interview.
Oswald was placed back in jail at 11:35 am. At 12:35 pm Oswald was
brought to the office for another interview with Inspector Kelley and
some of the other officers and myself. I talked to Oswald about the
different places he had lived in Dallas in an effort to find where he
was living when the picture was made of him holding a rifle which looked
to be the same rifle we had recovered. This picture showed to be taken
near a stairway with many identifying things in the back yard. He told
me abOut one of the places he had lived.
Mr. Paine had told me about where Oswald lived on Neely Street. Oswald
was very evasive about this location. We found later that this was the
place where the picture was made. I again asked him about his property
and where his things might be kept, and he told me about the things at
Mrs. Paine's residence and a few things at Beckley. He was placed back
in jail at 1:10 pm.
At 6:00 PM I instructed the officers to bring Oswald back into the
office, and in the presence of Jim Bookhout, Homicide officers, and
Inspector Kelley, of the Secret Service, I showed Oswald an enlarged
picture of him holding a rifle and wearing a pistol. This picture had
been enlarged by our Crime Lab from a picture found in the garage at
Mrs. Paine's home. He said the picture was not him, that the face was
his face, but that this picture had been made by someone superimposing
his face, the other part of the picture was not him at all and that he
had never seen the picture before. When I told him that the picture was
recovered from Mrs. Paine's garage, he said the picture had never been
in his possession, and I explained to him that it was an enlargement of
the small picture obtained in the search. At that time I showed him the
smaller picture. He denied ever seeing that picture and said he knew
all about photography, that he had done a lot of work in photography
himself, that the small picture was a reduced picture of the large
picture, and had been made by some person unknown to him. He further
stated that since he had been photographed her at the City Hall and that
people had been taking his picture while being transferred from my
office to the jail door that someone had been able to get a picture of
his face and that with that, they had made this picture. He told me
that he understood photography real well, and that in time, he would be
able to show that it was not his picture, and that it had been mode by
someone else. At this time he said that he did not want to answer any
more questions and he was returned to the jail about 7:15 pm.
At 9:30 on the morning of November 24, I asked that Oswald be brought to
the office. At that time I showed him a map of the City of Dallas which
had been recovered in the search of his room on North Beckley. This map
had some markings on it, one of which was about where the President was
shot. He said that the map had nothing to do with the President's
shooting and again, as he had one in previous interviews, denied knowing
anything of the shooting of the President, or of the shooting of Officer
Tibbit. He said the map had been used to locate buildings where he had
gone to talk to people about employment.
During this interview Inspector Kelley asked Oswald about his religious
views, and he replied that he didn't agree with all the philosophies on
religion. He seemed evasive with Inspector Kelley about how he felt
about religion, and I asked him if he believed in a Diety. He was
evasive and didn't answer the question.
Someone of the Federal Marshall's officers asked Oswald if he thought
Cuba would be better off since the President was assassinated. To this
he replied that he felt that since the President was killed that someone
else would take his place, perhaps Vice-President Johnson, and that his
views would probably be largely the same as those of President Kennedy.
I again asked him about the gun and about the picture of him holding a
similar rifle, and at that time he again positively denied having any
knowledge of the picture or the rifle and denied that he had ever lived
on Neely Street, and when I told him that friends who had visited him
there said that he had lived there, he said that they were mistaken
about visiting him there, because he had never lived there.
During this interview, Oswald said he was a Marxist. He repeated two or
three times, "I am a Marxist, but not a Leninist-Marxist. He told me
that the station where he debated on in New Orleans was the one who
carried Bill Stakey's program. He denied again knowing Alex Hidell in
New Orleans, and again reiterated his belief in Fair Play for Cuba and
what the committee stood for.
After some questioning, Chief Jesse E. Curry came to the office and
asked me if I was ready for the man to be transferred. I told him we
were ready as soon as security was completed in the basement, where we
were to place Oswald in a car to transfer him to County Jail. I had
objected to the cameras obstructing the jail door, and the Chief
explained to me that those have been moved, and the people moved back,
and the cameramen were well back in the garage. I told the Chief then
that we were ready to go. He told us to go ahead with the prisioner
(sic), and that he and Chief Stevenson, who was with him, would meet us
at the County Jail.
Oswald's shirt, which he was wearing at the time of arrest, was removed
and sent to the crime lab in Washington with all the other evidence for
a comparison test. Oswald said he would like to have a shirt from his
clothing that had been brought to the office to wear over the T-shirt
that he was wearing at the time. We selected the best looking shirt
from his things, but he said he would prefer a black Ivy League type
shirt, indicating that it might be a little warmer. We made this change
and asked him if he wouldn't like to wear a hat to more or less
camouflage his looks in the car while being transferred as all the
people who have been viewing him had seen him bearheaded. He didn't
want to do this. Then Officer J. R. Leavelle handcuffed his left hand
to Oswald's right hand, then we left the office for the transfer.
Inasmuch as this report was made from rough notes and memory, it is
entirely possible that one of these questions would be in a separate
interview from the one indicated in this report. He was interviewed
under the most adverse conditions in my office which is 9 feet 6 inches
by 14 feet, and has only a front door, which forced us to move this
prisoner through hundreds of people each time he was carried from my
office to the jail door, some 30 feet, during each of the transfers.
The crowd would attempt to jam around him, shouting questions and many
containing slurs. This office is also surrounded by large glass
windows, and there were many officers working next to those windows. I
have no recorder in this office and was unable to record the interview.
I was interrupted many times during the interviews to step from the
office to talk to another witness or secure additional information from
officers needed for the interrogation<<End of Transcript>>
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« Last Edit: January 21, 2012, 04:16:26 PM by Gary Craig »
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Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy
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