Southwestern Publishing Doors Locked, Someone Inside. With View of Elm Street.

[Benjamin Cole]

OK, some repetition here, but an interesting topic.


The Carol Hughes-Southwestern Publishing story just get better and better.

Many JFKA researchers know that Warren Caster, asst. manager at Southwestern Publishing, brought two rifles into the TSBD on Nov. 20, during the lunch hour, and then into his offices.

One of the rifles was a "sporterized 30-06 Mauser." Sporterized Mausers almost always have scopes on them. 

Upon entering the TSBD on Nov. 20, Caster showed the rifles to Roy Truly, and a couple other guys. The rifle were in cartons, but they were removed from the cartons.

Then...

Mr. BALL. What did you do with the guns after that?

Mr. CASTER. I put them back in the cartons and carried them up to my office.

Mr. BALL. And what did you do with them after that?

Mr. CASTER. I left at the end of the working day, oh, around 4 o’clock and took the guns in the cartons and carried them and put them in my car and carried them home.

Mr. BALL. Did you ever have them back in the Texas School Book Depository Building thereafter?

Mr. CASTER. They have never been back to the Texas School Book Depository Building since then.

Mr. BALL. Where were those guns on November 22, 1963?

Mr. CASTER. The guns were in my home, 3338 Merrell Road.

Mr. BALL. I think that’s all. This will be written up and you will be asked to come in and it will be submitted to you for signature and you can correct it if you wish.

Mr. CASTER. That’s all right.

Mr. BALL. Any corrections you make, make them in pen and ink and initial it and sign it. I want to thank you very much for giving this testimony.

Mr. CASTER. I thank you very much.

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In other words, Caster took two cardboard cartons of rifles home that night, but obviously, no one checked if both cartons had rifles in them.

OK, to sum up

1. On Nov. 22 Southwestern Publishing office worker Carol Hughes said she sat in her second-floor office as JFK went by, and she had a bird's eye view of the motorcade. Hughes says she witnessed the assassination.

2. Three shots as loud as a "cannon" are heard inside the TSBD on the second floor by Geneva Hine, a regular second-floor veteran worker of the TSBD.

BALL. Did you know they were shots at the time?

Miss HINE. Yes, sir; they sounded almost like cannon shots they were so terrific.

Louder than other people say the shots were on other floors, possibly indicating proximity.

3 Hine told the WC she wanted to gain access to the Southwestern Publishing Co "because those windows face out" onto Elm and "on to the triple underpass."

4. An unidentified woman, probably Hughes, is seen in the Southwestern Publisher's office in the immediate aftermath of the JFKA after the TSBD by Hine, but Hughes refuses to open the locked door.  Hughes is seen through a curtain, her outline. She is heard by Hine talking, and thought to be talking on the talking on the phone. There may be others in the office unseen, of course. Yes--this is the same office into which two cartons of rifles arrived on Nov. 20.

5. In the immediate aftermath of the JFKA, Hine calls to Hughes several times and "shakes" her office door (assumably by the doorknob), which Hine testified was locked. But Hughes did not respond.

OK, so presumably Hughes hears three loud "cannon" shots, witnesses an assassination and almost immediately hears the voice of Geneva Hine imploring her to open the door...but Hughes does not.

4. The woman in the publisher's office, likely Hughes as no strangers are seen that day inside the TBSD, then leaves the premises one hour after the JFKA, and is not searched.  Could she have shells, or a dis-assembled rifle under a fall-weather coat? Who knows?

5. Hughes' office is never searched, let alone dusted for prints. Hughes is never tested for gunshot residue, ala LHO. It may even be possible a credenza or other furniture with a false bottom was inside the publisher's office. Though unlikely, another person could have been in the Hughes office. Since the publishers' offices were not searched, perhaps if there were another person in the office he put on a suit and left the building later in the hub-bub, assuming the role of a Secret Service or police official.

6. Curiously Hine apparently does not know Carol Hughes by name, despite knowing other publishers offices workers by name on the second floor. Was Hughes a recent hire?

7. Whatever happened to Hughes? Where did she work before?

To be sure, nothing dispositive here.

But...based on same-day evidence, Hughes should have been detained.

---30---

Geneva Hine worked accounts and phones at the TSBD.

Testimony to WC---

After the shots 11/22 Hines---

"went down it to Southwestern Publishing Co. door and I tried their door and the reason this was because those windows face out.

Mr. BALL. On to Elm?

Miss HINE. Yes ; and on to the triple underpass.

Mr. BALL. I see.

Miss HINE. And there was a girl in there talking on the telephone and I could hear her but she didn’t answer the door.

Mr. BALL. Was the door locked?

Miss HINE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. That was which company?

Miss HINE. Southwestern Publishing Co.

Mr. BALL. Did you call to her?

Miss HINE. I called and called and shook the door and she didn’t answer me because she was talking on the telephone; I could hear her. They have a little curtain up and I could see her form through the curtains. I could see her talking and I knew that’s what she was doing and then I turned and went through the back hall and came through the back door.

Mr. BALL. Of your office, the second floor office?

Miss HINE. Yes; and I went straight up to the desk because the telephones were beginning to wink; outside calls were beginning to come in.

---30---

So, after the JFKA there is someone in the Southwestern Publishing office who will not answer the door despite repeated calls to her through the door, and the door being "shook."  That publisher's office has windows facing Elm Street and with a view to the triple underpass.

There is no indication that the multiple publisher's offices within the TSBD were ever searched, nor a roll call done of their employees.

If the shots on 11/22 were so loud they shook the TSBD, and sounded like cannons---what would a girl in the publisher's office be doing talking on the phone and ignoring people imploring her to open her door? Sheesh, the publisher girl could naturally assume people at her door are warning her of a building emergency.

Loud explosions, people shaking your door and calling to you.

And with a window onto Elm, did not the girl stick her head out of the window and witness the motorcade and this the JFKA?

Well, human nature is inexplicable. Maybe nothing there. But sure is odd. 

---30---

After searching through many of the statements of the Book Depository employees that can be found in Commission Document No. 706, it would appear that the girl who was on the telephone in the second-floor TSBD office of the Southwestern Publishing Company just after the assassination occurred on 11/22/63 was 27-year-old Mrs. Carol Hughes of Garland, Texas.

In her March 20, 1964, statement to the FBI which appears on Page 47 of CD706, Mrs. Hughes says she "was alone in the office" at the time of the Presidential shooting.

---30---

Interesting---
Not to belabor a point, but....

Here, in part, is the WC testimony of James Jarman, who was on the fifth floor during the JFKA, and had extensive military service in the US Army:

Representative FORD. Where did you think the sound of the first shot came from? Do you have a distinct impression of that?

Mr. JARMAN. Well, it sounded, I thought at first it had came from below. That is what I thought.

Representative FORD. As you looked out the window and you were looking at the President’s car.

Mr. JARMAN. Yes, sir.

Representative FORD. Did you have a distinct impression as to whether the sound came from your left or from your right?

Mr. JARMAN. I am sure it came from the left.

Representative FORD. But your first reaction, that is was from below.

Mr. JARMAN. Yes, sir.

Representative FORD. When the second shot came, do you have any different recollection?

Mr. JARMAN. Well, they all sounded just about the same.

Representative FORD. You distinctly recall three shots?

Mr. JARMAN. Yes, sir.