The testimony of Garland Glenwill Slack was taken at 8:30 a.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. Wesley J.
Liebeler, assistant counsel of the President's Commission.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you stand up for just a moment, Mr. Slack. Will you
raise your right hand. Do you 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. SLACK. I do.
Mr. LIEBELER. Please be seated, sir.
Mr. Slack, my name is Wesley J. Liebeler. I am a member of the legal
staff of the President's Commission investigating the assassination of
President Kennedy.
I have been authorized to take your testimony and the testimony of
other witnesses by the Commission pursuant to authority granted to the
Commission by Executive Order No. 11130, dated November 29, 1963, and
joint resolution of Congress No. 137. I want to give you a copy of the
joint resolution and the Executive order and a copy of the rules of
procedure adopted by the Commission governing the taking of testimony
of witnesses.
Actually, Mr. Slack, you are entitled to 3 days' notice before you
would be required to come and testify, and I realize we didn't give you
that much notice but you are also entitled to waive the notice, and I
assume that you will do so since you are here, and I assume that you
are perfectly willing to go ahead, is that correct?
Mr. SLACK. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. I want to ask you today about the possibility that you
saw Lee Harvey Oswald at the Sports Drome gun range sometime in the
month of November 1963. Before we get into that, however, I would like
you to state your full name for the record, if you would?
Mr. SLACK. Garland Glenwill Slack.
Mr. LIEBELER. Where do you work, sir?
Mr. SLACK. I work for myself. Heating contractors and real estate
development.
Mr. LIEBELER. Where do you live?
Mr. SLACK. 3130 DeLee Street.
Mr. LIEBELER. How many people do you have working with you?
Mr. SLACK. Just my wife and I now. We are on a semiretired basis. We
were in the water business and we sold out our water business to the
city of Dallas in June, and we are on a semiretired basis.
Mr. LIEBELER. In June of 1963?
Mr. SLACK. That's right; this last year.
Mr. LIEBELER. How old are you, Mr. Slack?
Mr. SLACK. Fifty-nine. No; I am 58. I will be 59, the 9th of May.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you married, Mr. Slack?
Mr. SLACK. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you have any children?
Mr. SLACK. Two.
Mr. LIEBELER. They live here in Dallas?
Mr. SLACK. No. Johnny Glenwill is a mechanical engineer. He is working
on a Government project in Richmond. Ind., and Marylyn Slack, she is
the wife of an Air Force man, Vernon Stone, stationed at Burke Burnett.
I have six grandkids. Our profession, we are in the real estate
business. We just sell what we own. We own half a million dollars worth
of property on the--on Military Parkway, and the heating business, we
only do what people can force us to do, our old friends' jobs that we
had put in 30 years ago. And we are on an area selling off all our land
around us. We subdivide and sell off 10 or 12 lots, and when we get
that finished, we subdivide another tract.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you familiar with the Sports Drome gun range, Mr.
Slack?
Mr. SLACK. Yes; quite familiar with it.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know the man who owns it or runs it?
Mr. SLACK. Yes; and I knew the man before he even took it over, the
manager of the rifle range.
Mr. LIEBELER. You knew Mr. Davis before he took it over?
Mr. SLACK. Yes; he ran a ditching machine and dug water ditches for
the water works. I didn't know that until after we got real well
acquainted, and I knew I had seen him, but I never could figure out
until "Doc" Carter and Charlie Brown, they knew my full name and found
out where I worked and who I was, and I said I knew him but where, I
didn't know.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were you out at the rifle range at any time in November
of 1963?
Mr. SLACK. Yes; we were there the Saturday before Armistice Day. We
marked it on our calendar. That was November the 9th. We were out there
late in the evening and there were not very many people there, because
we got there in the really closing time. But we didn't even shoot the
rifle because they wanted the people to go home. But we went back
Sunday for this turkey shoot.
Mr. LIEBELER. What was the date?
Mr. SLACK. Now that was the 10th.
Mr. LIEBELER. You went back to the rifle range the immediately
following Sunday, is that right?
Mr. SLACK. That is right, the 10th. Oswald was there the 10th. He was
there the 17th. The 10th was the turkey shoot. And I contacted him
three or four times trying to get him to pay a dollar and get in the
turkey shoot. Ten men were paying a dollar a shoot, and he commented he
could win the turkey but he didn't have the dollar.
Mr. LIEBELER. This was on the 10th, is that right?
Mr. SLACK. But had no direct contact no more than asked him like the 10
other fellows I talked to. That was my impression of him.
The next, the 17th, is where he and I had the run in, where he shot my
target. I paid two bits and put up a target, and before I got ready to
shoot it there would be somebody shoot a hole in it. So Lucille, my
wife, she was with me. She was keeping score. We got to noticing who it
was, and maybe he would shoot anybody's target, and I raised the devil.
I didn't see why I have to pay my two bits and pay for a new target
sheet and I'm shooting No. 9, and the rifle range operator came and
told him not to shoot my target after that, and that is how I remember
the part in his hair and the look on his face.
And I told him, I said, "You are not going to win no turkey shooting
rapid fire."
He shot rapid fire about three or four times, and they had a cap
full of shells and they were shooting--I mean he was burning up the
ammunition. And I talked about that going back to Snug Harbor, because
somebody is going to get hurt, because everybody shooting everybody's
target.
And there was a bunch of ruffians shooting pistols, and there was lots
of people. And I remember when I told him that, he give me a look that
I never would forget it. That is the only reason I remember him when
they showed him on television. It made me sick and I tried to figure
out. It took me a day to figure out where I had seen him.
I said, Lucille, we own the waterworks and we know a lot of men and do
a lot of things. We have a fish hatchery and we contacted maybe five or
six people we don't know every day, and I didn't sleep at night for 3
nights until I pinned down where we saw him.
And I went to the rifle range and these four or five other people knew
he had been there, but they were afraid to say anything about it.
But when I asked the manager, I said, "Oswald was over here," and he
said, "Yes, I know he was." And they were afraid it would hurt their
business.
And I told Charlie Brown and Doc Carter where I saw the fellow, and I
think it was; everyone doubts if they knew anything at all on him, so
they met me over there and between the three, they admitted sure.
Mr. LIEBELER. Who is this Charlie Brown that you referred to?
Mr. SLACK. He is the FBI man. He and Doc Carter, they came out two
different times and I talked to them.
Mr. LIEBELER. Carter is also an FBI agent?
Mr. SLACK. One was Secret Service and one was the FBI.
Mr. LIEBELER. You mentioned there were other people out at the range
who saw Oswald. Do you remember their names?
Mr. SLACK. No, sir; because I was not taking their names. But I do know
that they got the boy that worked on his rifle scope on Wednesday. That
was in the middle of the week, between the 10th and the 17th. They got
his deposition, because the boy, I know, put his scope on his rifle for
him.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know the boy's name?
Mr. SLACK. No, sir; I don't know his name. Never tried to find out his
name. I never talked about it, because Charlie Brown and Doc Carter
asked me not to tell what I knew, and that is all. I had nothing to
gain. In other words, they took it up, what they found, I never knew.
Mr. LIEBELER. When you mentioned this fellow that put the scope on the
rifle, how do you know? Tell us what you know about that?
Mr. SLACK. Because I read it in the paper about a week afterwards.
Mr. LIEBELER. You have no direct knowledge yourself about the scope?
Mr. SLACK. No; there were so many different fellows working on the
rifle range, there was possibly three or four boys who did it, and I
never really connected which one it would be, because I wasn't doing
any investigating anyway. See what I mean?
I felt like that knowing the guy and connecting it together, if I just
kept my mouth shut and tried to just remember seeing the fellow, there
was a lot of that done. It was done in our own family.
In other words, Vernon Stone was with me and Jimbo, he is 12 years
old, the boy, and when it dawned on me where I saw him and I knew that
I had my son-in-law take my gun, my custom-made gun out of Oswald's,
take it out of his hand and put it in the car, because I was afraid he
would steal it, and I told Vernon by long distance on the telephone,
and Vernon did too, and well, he already had made up in his mind that
he never had seen that fellow. He didn't remember anything, and Jimbo
doesn't either. He didn't want to remember.
Mr. LIEBELER. What is the incident about the rifle? Did Oswald have
your rifle at any time?
Mr. SLACK. He handled my rifle and he handled my targets, that was the
17th.