Mr. JENNER. And you are a member of the Dallas City Police Force?
Mr. BIGGIO. That’s right.
Mr. JENNER. Are you in any particular division, do you have a
particular assignment?
Mr. BIGGIO. I am with the special service bureau, criminal intelligence
section.
Mr. JENNER. Now, I am Albert E. Jenner, Jr., one of the members of the
legal staff of the Warren Commission, with which you are familiar, and
this item has come to my attention recently through Mr. Davis of the
attorney general’s office of the Texas staff and while I appreciate the
fact that at the moment it is third hand or hearsay, as we lawyers call
it, I would just like to have your report on it--which we will seek to
run down--as I understand Mr. Davis and the FBI are undertaking the
investigation; is that right?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BIGGIO. I have since talked to them also.
Mr. DAVIS. Since we talked?
Mr. BIGGIO. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. You appreciate the existence of the President’s Commission
and what the President’s Commission is engaged in, in the investigating
of the assassination of President Kennedy and many members of your
force have been very helpful to us and have been appearing these last
2 weeks by considerable number. Tell us about this whole incident from
the beginning--when it first came to your attention, who brought it to
your attention and what developed thereafter?
Mr. BIGGIO. There was a friend of mine--she is a woman who I know
through my wife. She formerly was employed at the same location that
my wife is, and she called me at work following Ruby’s killing of
Oswald. She said that a friend of hers had been into a restaurant in
the downtown area and a mechanic had come in and had made mention of
the fact that Oswald drove Ruby’s car for approximately a 2-week period
that he knew of, that Oswald had brought the car there for repairs to
his garage.
The friend did not know where the garage was, did not know the
mechanic’s name. The woman who called me didn’t want to give her
friend’s name and get his name involved if she could possibly help it.
Mr. JENNER. Who was it that called you?
Mr. BIGGIO. Is it necessary for me to give that name? I believe with
the information that was given me, it will not be necessary.
Mr. JENNER. Has the information been furnished the FBI?
Mr. BIGGIO. No; it has not. I believe with the information we get to
further on it will show that her name isn’t needed.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. BIGGIO. I don’t object to giving her name except that she asked me
not to give it.
Mr. JENNER. All right; she didn’t want any publicity, is that it?
Mr. BIGGIO. No; she doesn’t want any publicity on it. I don’t know why
people are so scared of things like this, but if they get into court or
before a panel or anything like that--at any rate, her friend doesn’t
want his name used either, but I talked to my lieutenant about it,
Lieutenant Revill, and he suggested that we go ahead and write it up on
the grounds that by searching through the material in Ruby’s apartment
and also through the material that had been taken from his automobile,
we could possibly find a garage where a mechanic had done some work on
his car. We would be able to contact the mechanic in that way without
involving the two people who had called the information in.
When we did get photostatic copies of the material that had been taken
out of Ruby’s car and his apartment, we found no evidence of any garage
work that had been done or any actual mechanical work that had been
done on his car recently. So, I called my friend back and asked her
again if she could contact the man who had given her the information
and see if he would be willing to talk to us about it. She called him
back and then she called me and she said she had made an error in
saying it was in the downtown area, that the place was out on Lovers
Lane, directly across from--I have the address in here----
Mr. JENNER. Is it 5060 W. Lovers Lane?
Mr. BIGGIO. Well; she didn’t have the address itself--it was directly
across from the Jungle Hut which is in the 5000 block of Lovers Lane.
Mr. JENNER. Lovers Lane is a street name?
Mr. BIGGIO. Yes; Lovers Lane is a street. We sent an officer out there,
Detective Hellinghousen, F. A.
Mr. JENNER. Francis A. Hellinghousen [spelling]
H-e-l-l-i-n-g-h-o-u-s-e-n?
Mr. BIGGIO. That is correct; yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. Of the Dallas City Police?
Mr. BIGGIO. Yes, sir. He went to that particular area--there are two
cafes across the street there in the 5000 block from the particular
location that the lady friend of mine said. One of them was the Cafe
Coffee Shop, was the name of it--the Cafe Coffee Shop. It was closed
up at that time. Now, this took place approximately 3 weeks after the
shooting. It was closed--ordinarily through our bureau we can find
out who the owner was of such a place, because we keep the records
of everyone through the beer licenses which we have to keep in our
particular bureau, but this particular place did not have a beer
license. It did not deal in beer.
It had been closed--we couldn’t find out who the owner was, so I
sent Officer Hellinghousen and requested him to go by and talk to
the woman who had originally given me that information and see if
she would be willing to give him the same thing--the man’s name.
Officer Hellinghousen went by and talked to her and she gave him the
man’s name and at that particular time the man was attending a real
estate convention which was here and being held here in Dallas and
the word was sent to him from the company that he works for, the Bill
Hardy Real Estate Co.--word was sent to the man, his name was Chesher
[spelling] C-h-e-s-h-e-r--Bill was his first name. I believe it is
correct--William R. He lives on Lupton Street.
Mr. JENNER. Is he still alive?
Mr. BIGGIO. No, sir. I tried to contact Hellinghousen today. Mr. Davis
had gone up to talk to Captain Gannaway in regard to that report. I
had understood that Hellinghousen had written a report from what he
had learned from Mr. Chesher and I tried to contact him and could not,
after Captain Gannaway had called me, so I went out to the Bill Hardy
Real Estate Co. where Chesher works, and I talked to the manager of
that company who is Wey, Jr. The location of the real estate company is
6340 E. Mockingbird Lane. Mr. Wey informed us that Bill Chesher died
night before last of a heart attack in the hospital here. We then asked
him if he had talked to Chesher any about hearing this mechanic talking
in the cafe and he said, “No, he had heard some talk of it, though
and he knew one man who had talked to him” and he called in another
employee of the company, Mr. John P. [spelling] S-c-h-n-i-t-z-i-u-s,
who is also an employee of the Bill Hardy Real Estate Co. and he told
us that Chesher told him the same thing, that the mechanic had came
in and sat by him and it was--that it took place at approximately 10
o’clock at night. He was leaving town--he was going out of town. He
stopped there to get coffee and a sandwich and the man came in while he
was there and he had given no description of the mechanic other than
that he was short and was dressed in work clothes and that the clothes
were greasy and that’s the information that he had, and I believe the
man was telling the truth when he said he was a mechanic and that’s as
far as we have been able to go.
Mr. JENNER. What is it that the mechanic is alleged to have said?
Mr. BIGGIO. He said that Oswald had been driving Ruby’s car for
approximately 2 weeks and that he had brought the car into his garage
for repairs, but he did not mention the name of the garage or the type
of repairs, the type of automobile or anything else.
Now, we, of course--just as soon as that came through, there were
checks made on the repairs on Ruby’s automobile. His automobile was
parked regularly, just a short distance up from the Carousel Club at
the old Adolphus Hotel parking garage and also mechanical work had been
done at that location, and the only other place we can find out where
it had been to any type of garage at all was from receipts in his car
and they were apparently for gas and oil and such things as that--no
mechanical work whatsoever, so we didn’t put much stock in the report,
since it was third hand to start off with.
Also, we made an error ourselves--Hellinghousen thought when we brought
that information back about Chesher that I would write up the report
and I thought he was preparing the report, since he was the one who
actually contacted the man and no report was made, but I’m sure the
report went to the FBI, but there is no name in the original report
connecting anybody with it and there was nothing in that that we could
check on except the way we thought was through the mechanical repair
bills and they would possibly be in the car.
Mr. JENNER. You have told me all the incidents from the beginning to
the present time?
Mr. BIGGIO. Yes, sir.
Mr. JENNER. And what you and your fellow officers have done with
respect to running this down?
Mr. BIGGIO. Yes, sir. I might add that the gentlemen out at Bill
Hardy’s Real Estate Co. were very cooperative and they said they would
be willing to talk to any one of you. This lady who called me was very
worried about being called herself or about Mr. Chesher possibly being
called and him not liking it.
Mr. JENNER. Now, the lady who reported it to you, she was not
present--it had been a report to her?
Mr. BIGGIO. She was not present. That’s the reason I say it was
third-hand information. It was written up in the report that way,
although I considered her reliable. The information was third-hand
and there is no way of actually telling. We have to evaluate all the
information that comes through and that generally is the reason we make
followup investigation prior to turning in a report. In this particular
case we were to turn in our information right on through and let the
FBI do it; but as you can see, the FBI would have nothing to go on.
Mr. JENNER. Well, they have got what you reported and we’ll see what
they turn up.
Mr. BIGGIO. Well, after Mr. Davis, I believe you called the FBI this
evening, after you called them, they called me then and I gave them the
exact date of the report and what other information we found out and
they are going to run it on that.
Mr. JENNER. But you have given me now all the information you gave them?
Mr. BIGGIO. Yes, sir; and from my own viewpoint--this is just my
personal viewpoint--I don’t think there’s much to it. I think it’s just
some man in a place talking. I think Mr. Chesher was telling the truth,
but I don’t think the man who said he was a mechanic was. There is no
way we have been able to verify that.
Mr. JENNER. Well, Officer Biggio, we very much appreciate your coming
in and part of our work is running down these rumors.
Mr. BIGGIO. I know--I don’t like to turn in a report like that to start
off with.
Mr. JENNER. I appreciate it very much and thanks for coming.
Mr. BIGGIO. Does that take care of me not giving out the lady’s name
again?
Mr. JENNER. Yes; that’s perfectly all right. We don’t want to probe
into that. You have a right to read your deposition here and sign it if
you want or you can waive that.
Mr. BIGGIO. I know exactly what I’ve said and I’m sure she has taken
down the right thing. I have said nothing except the events that
happened. I’m afraid there is nothing that will be of any help anyway.
Mr. JENNER. Thank you very much.
TESTIMONY OF CAPT. GLEN D. KING
The testimony of Capt. Glen D. King was taken at 11:20 a.m., on May 28,
1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building,
Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. Leon D. Hubert, Jr.,
assistant counsel of the President’s Commission.
Mr. HUBERT. This is the deposition of Capt. Glen D. King.
Captain King, my name is Leon D. Hubert. I am a member of the advisory
staff of the General Counsel of the President’s Commission. Under the
provisions of Executive Order 11130, dated November 29, 1963, and
the joint resolution of Congress No. 137, and the rules of procedure
adopted by the President’s Commission in conformance with the Executive
order and the joint resolution, I have been authorized to take a sworn
deposition from you. I state to you now that the general nature of
the Commission’s inquiry is to ascertain, evaluate, and report upon
the facts relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy and the
subsequent violent death of Lee Harvey Oswald. In particular, as
to you, Mr. King, the nature of the inquiry today is to determine
what facts you know about the death of Oswald and the surrounding
circumstances, and any other pertinent facts you may know about the
general inquiry.
Now, Captain King, I believe that you appear here today by virtue of a
general request made to you by Mr. J. Lee Rankin, general counsel of
the staff of the President’s Commission, addressed to your chief, Mr.
Curry, asking that you appear before it. Under the rules adopted by the
Commission, you are entitled to a 3-day written notice prior to the
taking of this deposition, but such rules also provide that a witness
may waive this 3-day notice if he so wishes. Now, I will ask you to
state whether or not you are willing to waive the 3-day notice.
Captain KING. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. Will you stand and raise your right hand? Do you solemnly
swear that the testimony you are about to give in this matter will be
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Captain KING. I do.
Mr. HUBERT. Will you please state your name?
Captain KING. Glen D. King.
Mr. HUBERT. And your age?
Captain KING. I am 39.
Mr. HUBERT. Your address?
Captain KING. I live at 519 Goldwood, Dallas 32, Tex.
Mr. HUBERT. What is your occupation, sir?
Captain KING. Police officer with the city of Dallas.
Mr. HUBERT. And how long have you been so employed?
Captain KING. I was first employed on August 2, 1948.
Mr. HUBERT. And have you been with the police department continuously
since then?
Captain KING. No; I have not. I left the department in, I think it was
1950, and was gone approximately 11 months, and returned in 1951; and I
have been with the department continuously since that date.
Mr. HUBERT. Was that a resignation from the department?
Captain KING. It was a resignation from the department and I entered
into private business.
Mr. HUBERT. It was voluntary?
Captain KING. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. And did you start at the bottom, as it were?
Captain KING. Yes; as a patrolman.
Mr. HUBERT. I notice that in the report of the proceedings at which you
made a speech, I think, in Washington, there was a description of you
and your career given and I am going to read it into the record here
and ask you if it is correct.
You were introduced as follows: That you are an administrative
assistant to Chief Curry and that you are a former newspaperman,
that you were a police reporter on the Dallas Morning News when you
joined the police department in 1948; that you have served in every
division of the department until you have risen to the position you
now hold; that you had studied journalism in college at the University
of Texas and SMU; that you have attended a number of police institutes
and lectured at some of them; that you have written in the field of
political science and that you are the author of two books and numerous
magazine articles; is that all correct, sir?
Captain KING. Sir, this is correct.
Mr. HUBERT. What was your specific assignment on November 22 and for
some months or weeks or whatever it was prior to that date, the year
being 1963?
Captain KING. As the administrative assistant to the chief, one of my
primary responsibilities is press relations and public relations also.
On the date of November 22 I was asked to remain in the administrative
offices while other members of the administrative staff were going
to be absent on their assignments, and I was asked to stay in the
administrative offices.
Mr. HUBERT. I would like for you to describe for the record just
under normal circumstances just what the functions and duties and
responsibilities of your position are.
Captain KING. There are, of course, a lot of rather dissimilar or
separated functions of the office.
Mr. HUBERT. I am particularly interested in the ones dealing with press
relations and public relations.
Captain KING. As I say, the office--our office is the unit of the
department that is charged with the efforts of the department for
public relations and it is the office to which the local newsmen know
they can come to receive any assistance that they need in their work.
It is one in which they can register complaints against the department
and procedures of the department and the treatment that they receive,
or it is one to which they can come to secure information on things
they are investigating.
Mr. HUBERT. In other words, there is a setup--a central spot--where
every newsman can get the information and information will be gotten
for him?
Captain KING. This is true.
Mr. HUBERT. That’s your office and you are the head of that?
Captain KING. That’s true; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Prior to November 22, were any standard operating
procedures set up for relationships with the press?
Captain KING. Yes; we had a general order in the department which in
very brief and very general terms set forth a policy of the department
so far as their relations with the press was concerned. We had
published prior to that time a memorandum from the chief setting forth
what the policy of the department would be. Briefly stated, it was the
policy that we would render any possible assistance to the press except
that assistance which would seriously interfere with any investigation
that we had underway. This policy made it the responsibility of each
officer of the department to do this.
My office is the press relations office, but my office is not the
only place in the department where a newsman could get information.
It was the responsibility of each member of the department to furnish
to the press information on incidents in which they, themselves, were
involved, except on matters which involved departmental personnel
policies of the department, or, as I said, unless it would obviously
interfere with an investigation underway.
Mr. HUBERT. In the latter case, if it would interfere with an
investigation underway, what was the policy then?
Captain KING. If it would interfere, then it was the policy that the
information would be withheld.
Mr. HUBERT. And the press then would simply not be told or be sent
away, as it were?
Captain KING. It would be withheld from the press; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. And you say that that was the general policy, not merely
with respect to your relations with the press, but with every police
officer’s relations with the press?
Captain KING. That’s correct; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Was it your duty to enforce that policy in the event you
saw it was being disrupted; that is to say, in the event you observed
that press relationship was interfering with an investigation?
Captain KING. It would be--probably; yes, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. Now, did you have any general system of registration of the
press--I’m not speaking now of November 22--but of normal conditions
whereby identification cards and so forth would be issued?
Captain KING. Yes, sir; we have.
Mr. HUBERT. What was that?
Captain KING. We have an identification card that we have prepared,
the department prepared, and newsmen who are employees of regular news
gathering agencies in town, upon identification as such or request of
their employer actually, are furnished with the press identification.
Mr. HUBERT. I suppose that would be given mostly to local press people,
would it not?
Captain KING. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. Now, on the occasion of the President’s visit, is it
fair to state that more outside newsmen sought this accreditation or
identification card?
Captain KING. Some did seek it--yes. Very little of it actually was
done. We received a call from--at least these are the only ones
that I can recall, Mr. Hubert, that we gave the identification
to--out-of-State or newsmen who did not normally work here--we received
a call from channel 4, KRLD-TV and they said they had some people in
here from out of the city, of which I recall there were eight of these.
They were identified to us by Eddie Barker who is the news director of
KRLD, and they were furnished press cards. These are the only ones I
recall.
Mr. HUBERT. That was prior to the assassination?
Captain KING. No, this was subsequent to the assassination. These are
the only ones that I can recall that were given for newsmen who came
into town to cover this.
Mr. HUBERT. Is it your thought now that the newsmen who were not
local, who were not known to you and who did not have individual
identification cards should have not been admitted or spoken to unless
they had obtained clearance?
Captain KING. I don’t think it would have been possible from a
practical point of view--I don’t think it could have been done.
Mr. HUBERT. Would you tell us why?
Captain KING. “Why” has to include the atmosphere that existed over
there, the tremendous pressures that existed, the fact that telephones
were ringing constantly, that there were droves of people in there;
it would also have to include the fact that the method by which you
positively identify someone--it doesn’t mean--it’s not easy. If someone
comes into us with a letter from the New York Times on their letterhead
stating that this man is an employee of the New York Times, “Will you
please furnish him with identification?”, we haven’t any way of knowing
that actually this letter did come from the New York Times and that it
was not on a forged or stolen letterhead.
Mr. HUBERT. Normally you would not issue a card to such an individual
without a checkout, as it were?
Captain KING. That’s true.
Mr. HUBERT. And your thought was that checkouts were just simply
impossible?
Captain KING. They were.
Mr. HUBERT. Was any attempt made to set up a system whereby only
positively identified news people would be admitted to the areas near
Oswald?
Captain KING. I’m not sure I understand your question, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. After the death of the President, when you say that this
atmosphere and this condition developed with the press where there were
mobs of people and so forth, was there any effort made by anyone to
clear out the place, as it were, and then readmit only those who were
known to be accredited or definitely identified?
Captain KING. There were officers assigned to the area there--primarily
the third floor where the homicide office is located and where most of
the newsmen were, and they did screen the newsmen and other people who
came in there. I was not the person who assigned them out there and I
don’t actually know what instructions they were given and I don’t know
actually the procedures by which they screened them. I was inside of my
office most of the time with telephones ringing.
Mr. HUBERT. Would it normally have been your duty to screen them or to
see that they had identification?
Captain KING. No, actually it wouldn’t--I think normally it would be
the duty of the officer who was working the incident to check the
identification.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know if anyone suggested that something should be
done to correct the conditions which you have described?
Captain KING. I understand that Chief Batchelor on his arrival at the
station ordered some more men assigned up there and tightened up to a
certain extent the security that was up there, but I was not present
when this was done.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know if anyone suggested that the whole place
be cleared out completely and then readmit only those definitely
accredited individuals?
Captain KING. I don’t know of anything like that.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know of anyone who suggested that at all?
Captain KING. I don’t recall anyone having suggested that--no, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. I gather from what you are telling me that the presence
of the press and under the conditions that they were present would
be considered by you at least as a serious disruption of the normal
methods of interrogation of a prisoner?
Captain KING. I would say that nothing really that was going on there
at that time was normal.
Mr. HUBERT. Is it your opinion that the presence of the press as
they were, particularly on the third floor, when Captain Fritz was
interrogating Oswald did interfere with the investigation?