The testimony of Harry D. Holmes was taken at 4 p.m., on April 2, 1964,
in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building, Bryan and
Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. David W. Belin, assistant counsel
of the President's Commission.
Mr. BELIN. Sir, would you rise and raise your right hand and be sworn.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give will be
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. HOLMES. I do, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Would you please state your name for the record?
Mr. HOLMES. Harry D. Holmes.
Mr. BELIN. Where do you live, Mr. Holmes?
Mr. HOLMES. 1711 McManus, Dallas, Tex.
Mr. BELIN. What is your occupation?
Mr. HOLMES. Postal inspector.
Mr. BELIN. For the U.S. Post Office Department?
Mr. HOLMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. How old are you?
Mr. HOLMES. I am 57.
Mr. BELIN. What is your educational background? Did you go to high
school here?
Mr. HOLMES. I graduated from high school in Kansas City, and went
2 years to William Jewell College at Liberty, Mo., and went almost
through my third year in Kansas City. Went to dental college in Kansas
City.
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?
Mr. HOLMES. Well, all that time I was working in the post office as a
clerk, and about that time the war broke out and I went into the Postal
Inspection Service in April 1942, and have been a postal inspector ever
since.
Mr. BELIN. Have you been in Dallas ever since then?
Mr. HOLMES. No; I came here July 1, 1948. I have been here ever since.
Mr. BELIN. Where were you on November 22, 1963, around noon or so. That
is the day of the assassination?
Mr. HOLMES. I was in my office on the fifth floor of the terminal
annex building, located at the corner of Houston and Commerce Streets,
Dallas, Tex.
Mr. BELIN. Houston and Commerce Streets in Dallas. Now, where is
Commerce with relation to Elm?
Mr. HOLMES. Commerce, Main, Elm--two blocks.
Mr. BELIN. So Commerce would be two blocks south of Elm?
Mr. HOLMES. That's right.
Mr. BELIN. On what corner is your building?
Mr. HOLMES. It is on the northeast corner.
Mr. BELIN. The northeast corner?
Mr. HOLMES. Yes; well, now, wait a minute.
Mr. BELIN. I mean the building itself.
Mr. HOLMES. This is the reflecting pool, and here is the underpass,
comes down like this, and this is Elm, and this is Main, and this is
Commerce, and my building is right here. Right here is the School Book.
Mr. BELIN. This is north?
Mr. HOLMES. Yes; that is "cattywampus." This would be the southwest
corner.
Mr. BELIN. All right. You have now corrected your testimony by drawing
a diagram. What corner is this?
Mr. HOLMES. Southwest.
Mr. BELIN. On what side of the building is your office where you were
sitting?
Mr. HOLMES. On the north side.
Mr. BELIN. From your office looking north, what building would you see?
Mr. HOLMES. The Texas School Book Depository Building. And I am on the
fifth floor of my building.
Mr. BELIN. Were you on the fifth floor about the time the motorcade was
coming down Main Street?
Mr. HOLMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Did you see the motorcade turn from Main onto Houston?
Mr. HOLMES. Yes; I did.
Mr. BELIN. What direction did it turn on Houston?
Mr. HOLMES. It turned north on Houston to Elm, and then turned left on
Elm.
Mr. BELIN. To go down to the triple underpass?
Mr. HOLMES. That's right.
Mr. BELIN. About how fast was the motorcade going when you saw it, if
you have any estimate on it?
Mr. HOLMES. I would say 15 miles an hour.
Mr. BELIN. Would you describe what you saw and heard then?
Mr. HOLMES. As it came out of Main Street, the President was sitting
on the right in the back seat. His wife was on the left. Governor
Connally, whom I also recognized, was sitting on the right of the
middle seat.
Mr. BELIN. Were you looking with the aid of any optical instrument?
Mr. HOLMES. I had a pair of 7-1/2 x 50 binoculars. They were
acknowledging the applause of the crowd and kind of waving, but not
standing up. This is a short block.
Mr. BELIN. From Main to Elm?
Mr. HOLMES. To Elm is really not more than a good full block, but the
motorcade turned north on Houston and went to Elm and turned left on
Elm where it started on a downgrade to what we refer to as a triple
underpass. As it turned in front of the School Book Depository, I heard
what to me sounded like firecrackers, and it was my recollection that
there were three of them.
I had my binoculars on this car, on the Presidential car all the
time. I realized something was wrong, but I thought they were dodging
somebody throwing things at the car like firecrackers or something, but
I did see dust fly up like a firecracker had burst up in the air.
Mr. BELIN. Where did you see the dust?
Mr. HOLMES. Off of President Kennedy and I couldn't tell you which one
of the cracks of the firecracker resulted in this.
Mr. BELIN. Do you have any recollection of the amount of time that
elapsed between each of the three sounds?
Mr. HOLMES. I have tried to set a time, but it just escapes me.
Honestly, I couldn't say. They were rather rapid. Say 20 seconds or
something like that.
Mr. BELIN. You mean 20 seconds elapsed between all three, or less than
20 seconds?
Mr. HOLMES. Possibly 20 seconds, or half a minute and then crack and
kind of a lapse and then another crack. I wouldn't want to swear to
that. I have tried to recall it.
Mr. BELIN. Was there more time between the first and the second one, or
between the second and third?
Mr. HOLMES. I couldn't tell you that.
Mr. BELIN. What did you see after that?
Mr. HOLMES. Mr. Kennedy leaned over against his wife, Mrs. Kennedy, as
this thing, firecracker, looked like, come out. The car almost came to
a stop, and Mrs. Kennedy pulled loose of him and crawled out over the
turtleback of this Presidential car and was almost off of the back of
the turtleback when a man from a car next to it came running up and I
never--I got the impression in one way that she was trying to help him
on the bumper.
I got the impression in another way that he was trying to push her back
in the seat for fear she would fall and hurt herself. It was so quick
that that was my impression, and in fact we discussed it. There was
several of us looking out of the window, why she was going out over
this car, and we were arguing that she was trying to help the Secret
Service man or the Secret Service man was trying to get her back in the
car, and this was our impression.
Policemen jumped off of the motorcycles that were along the route and
with drawn pistols started rushing into the crowd. I saw many people
down on the ground, and I have one particular couple in mind that I had
watched on a bench, sitting on a park bench that the man had this woman
down. I remember my impression at the time that he was trying to take a
gun away from her, or something, and by that time I decided maybe there
was a gun involved in it instead of firecrackers.
He had her down on the ground. But then it later developed that he was
trying to protect her from the shots. But then I didn't know that at
the time. And I did watch her as they got up. Then different people hid
around behind pillars in this arbor.
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you see happen?
Mr. HOLMES. Then just people went from every direction hunting around
the railroad yard and among the cars parked in the area. I saw a
policeman rushing into the School Book Depository Building.
Mr. BELIN. Was this a motorcycle policemen?
Mr. HOLMES. I did definitely see motorcycle policemen, one of--one or
two or three--with their white helmets, and these motorcycle uniforms
rushed up in the crowd with drawn pistols. And I thought maybe they
might have been shooting to frighten the people.
Mr. BELIN. Where did the noise sound like it came from?
Mr. HOLMES. It reverberated among the buildings and I couldn't tell
you. It sounded like from the crowd over there.
Mr. BELIN. Anything else happen that afternoon that you think is
important insofar as the investigation of the assassination is
concerned?
Mr. HOLMES. I watched for hours from that vantage point up there with
my binoculars, hoping I would see someone running across the railroad
tracks, or maybe that I could get word to the police as to where they
were, because it was like a birdseye view of the panorama of the whole
area.
Mr. BELIN. Did you see anyone run across the railroad track?
Mr. HOLMES. No. I saw nothing suspicious and I am a trained suspicioner.
Mr. BELIN. I want to see what the court reporter has down in her notes.
Now, what was the next contact you had with anything connected with the
assassination or the investigation?
Mr. HOLMES. I never quit. I didn't get to bed for 2 days.
Mr. BELIN. Tell us what you did that you feel might be important that
we should record here.
Mr. HOLMES. Of course I was in contact with the chief inspector in
Washington, who was listening to the radio reports, and I remember once
he called and he said, "Well, now, could the shots have come from the
terminal annex building. Has your office been shaken out, the annex."
Of course we gave that attention but there was nothing of any nature
there of any importance. I was doing all I could to help other agencies.
One of the box clerks downstairs came up after an hour or so when the
radio reports came in about the apprehension of Lee Oswald following
the shooting of Officer Tippit, and said, "I think you ought to know,
Mr. Holmes, that we rented a box downstairs to a Lee Oswald recently,
and it is box number so-and-so".
That was my first tip that he had a box downstairs in the terminal
annex. That box is No. 6225.
Mr. BELIN. I am handing you what has been marked as Holmes Deposition
Exhibit No. 1. I will ask you to state what this is.
Mr. HOLMES. That is a photo copy of the original box rental application
completed by Lee H. Oswald covering box No. 6225, which he completed on
November the 1st, 1963.
Mr. BELIN. Where it says, date of application, that you gave, is it not?
Mr. HOLMES. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. I notice over here in--a notation on the side 11-22-63, with
some initials on it. Do you know what that is?
Mr. HOLMES. Those are my initials and they indicate that I took the
original box application from the post office records on that date.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do with it?
Mr. HOLMES. I turned it over to an FBI agent at a later date. I don't
know when.
Mr. BELIN. Did any particular employee ever remember actually dealing
with Lee Oswald?
Mr. HOLMES. He could not recall what the man looked like. He couldn't
identify him from what he later saw his pictures in the paper. He could
not identify him as actually being the man that rented the box, because
I have talked to him about it.
Mr. BELIN. Now, on Deposition Exhibit 1, for the name of the firm or
the corporation, it says, "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" and "American
Civil Liberties Union," is that correct?
Mr. HOLMES. That's correct.
Mr. BELIN. And kind of business, it says, "nonprofit," is that correct?
Mr. HOLMES. That's correct.
Mr. BELIN. Then business address, there is a dash running through
there, and home address is "3610 North Beckley," is that correct?
Mr. HOLMES. That's correct. That is the address he gave as the
residential address when he rented the box.
Mr. BELIN. Then there is a signature "Lee H. Oswald," with the date of
November 1, 1963?
Mr. HOLMES. This clerk told me that the man definitely filled this
thing out himself.
Mr. BELIN. Does the clerk remember seeing it?
Mr. HOLMES. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. There is a stamp, which I assume is your post office stamp,
that says on there, "Date box opened, November 1, 1963," and the box
number is written in as "6225".
Mr. HOLMES. That's right.
Mr. BELIN. There--is there less charge for a nonprofit organization box
than there is for anything else?
Mr. HOLMES. No. That box went closed for lack of payment of rent on
December 31.
Mr. BELIN. What year?
Mr. HOLMES. Of 1963.
Mr. BELIN. After you found out that this was his box, did you keep any
surveillance on it?
Mr. HOLMES. We kept a 24-hour, round-the-clock surveillance from about
well into Sunday, I think, 3 days.
Mr. BELIN. That is the Sunday that Lee Harvey Oswald was shot?
Mr. HOLMES. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. How many box keys were given out, according to your records,
for the box?
Mr. HOLMES. One.
Mr. BELIN. Was that one ever turned back to you?
Mr. HOLMES. No.
Mr. BELIN. When was that?
Mr. HOLMES. Didn't the police have it? I saw it--yes.
Mr. BELIN. You saw it at the police department?
Mr. HOLMES. I asked them about it, and he asked could this be it? I had
taken the duplicate key with me to see if I could match it. They have
numbers on them and I did. The detective pulled it out and said, "Is
this it," in the presence of Captain Fritz, and I matched the numbers,
and it was.
Mr. BELIN. Were the numbers the same for the box number as the key
number?
Mr. HOLMES. No; it was a key number. Fritz kept it with the evidence.
Mr. BELIN. Anything else about this box or the application, Deposition
Exhibit 1 here?
Mr. HOLMES. Only that an occasional Russian newspaper was received in
that box after we began to watch it from then on until it was closed.
No first-class mail. What is "The Daily Worker," sir? It's been the
"Daily Worker," now.
Mr. BELIN. There was some newspaper that came? Well--some American
newspaper?
Mr. HOLMES. It is what used to be "The Daily Worker," came, and a
couple of Russian newspapers came there.
Mr. BELIN. Anything else?
Mr. HOLMES. From Minsk. That was her hometown, Marina's hometown in
Russia.
Mr. BELIN. Is there anything else in connection with this box and this
application that you care to talk about?
Mr. HOLMES. No.
Mr. BELIN. Then what was the next thing that you had contact with
pertaining to the assassination?