The testimony of James Lehrer was taken at 10:45 a.m., on July 24,
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. Will you please stand and take the oath? 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. LEHRER. I do.
Mr. LIEBELER. My name is Wesley J. Liebeler. I am an attorney on the
staff of the President's Commission investigating the assassination of
President Kennedy. I have been authorized to take your testimony by the
Commission pursuant to authority granted to it by President Johnson's
Executive Order 11130, dated November 29, 1963, and joint resolution of
Congress, No. 137. Under the Commission's rules governing the taking of
testimony, you are entitled to 3 days' notice and to have an attorney
here if you want to, and you are entitled to the usual privileges and
rights concerning self incrimination and that sort of thing as far as
answering my questions are concerned. I know that you have not had 3
days' notice of this, but I understand that you are here voluntarily
and that you are prepared to proceed without an attorney; is that
correct?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. Please state your name.
Mr. LEHRER. James Lehrer [spelling], L-e-h-r-e-r.
Mr. LIEBELER. When and where were you born?
Mr. LEHRER. May 19, 1934, Wichita, Kans.
Mr. LIEBELER. Where do you live?
Mr. LEHRER. Dallas; 3709 West Beverly.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you outline your educational background for us,
please?
Mr. LEHRER. High school, graduate of Victoria College, University of
Missouri.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did you major in at the university?
Mr. LEHRER. Journalism.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you presently employed by the Dallas Times Herald?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. How long have you worked with them?
Mr. LEHRER. Nearly 3 years.
Mr. LIEBELER. What is your job over there?
Mr. LEHRER. I am a reporter.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you cover a specific beat?
Mr. LEHRER. I cover the Federal beat, labor, and politics--some
politics.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did you do before you went to work with the Dallas
Times Herald?
Mr. LEHRER. I was with the Dallas Morning News about 2 years.
Mr. LIEBELER. Before that?
Mr. LEHRER. I was in the Marine Corps. I went there directly from
school into the service.
Mr. LIEBELER. And then you came to work for the Dallas Morning News?
Mr. LEHRER. I did.
Mr. LIEBELER. Then you went to work for the Dallas Times Herald and you
are employed by them now?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. I have received information that you were in the office
of the Dallas Times Herald on the morning of November 28, 1963; is that
correct?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Would you tell us when you got there and what you did
that morning and what you saw?
Mr. LEHRER. Well, it was Thanksgiving and I got there about 7 or 7:30,
something like that, and I don't remember specifically any stories
that I worked on on that day. It was just a routine day, not a routine
day--a holiday is not routine, because you don't work the whole day on
a holiday, so I only worked until around noon that day.
Mr. LIEBELER. You got to the office about 7 o'clock?
Mr. LEHRER. About 7 or 7:30--something like that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know Hunter Schmidt, Jr.?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes; I do.
Mr. LIEBELER. Is he also employed as a reporter by the Dallas Times
Herald?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. And he was at that time?
Mr. LEHRER. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you see him in the office that morning?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER. Are you familiar with the fact that a story appeared in
the Dallas Times Herald on this day concerning a gunshop in Irving,
Tex., at which Oswald was supposed to have had some work done on a
rifle?
Mr. LEHRER. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were you aware of how that story came into the office of
the newspaper?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes; in a general way. The desk, or the city desk, which
consists of the city editor and the assistant city editor or the
rewrite staff--somewhere they got a tip that there was a fellow in
Irving who had mounted the sight or knew something about it. It was
given to Hunter to check out. I happened to be sitting over there. I
do not normally work physically on the city desk, but all of us had
been working on the assassination aspects and it had been a lot of my
responsibility in particular, because so much of it was on my beat at
that time, and somebody said they got this guy and they gave it to
Hunter to check out and I was sitting right next to Hunter and when he
checked it out--in other words--when he called.
Mr. LIEBELER. What did he do--do you remember?
Mr. LEHRER. Well, he just--he was talking to somebody on the telephone
and he was given the checkout and he had the man's name before he
called and he called somebody on the phone and I was doing something
myself--I wasn't writing a story, but I was sitting there and he was
talking to this guy, talking to somebody on the telephone, let's put it
that way, and when he got through he said something about, "Yeah--this
is it; that's right."
Or, it was words to that effect, and then I looked at his notes, you
know, and said, "That's a hell of a story," or something like that, and
about that time somebody said, "Don't talk about it, write it." So he
gave it to, I think it was--I'm not sure about this, but I think it was
in a general story of the assassination developments of that day, which
we were running every day, and I think a rewrite man may have taken the
notes and written the story. I don't recall seeing Hunter write the
story.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you know the name of the man that Schmidt was talking
to?
Mr. LEHRER. I can only assume it was Ryder.
Mr. LIEBELER. What leads you to that assumption?
Mr. LEHRER. Well, it was just circumstantially--I believe it was. I
mean, he was given this name and the information that this man is
supposed to have mounted the sight on Oswald's rifle.
Mr. LIEBELER. And the name he was given was Dial Ryder; is that right?
Mr. LEHRER. That's right; that's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And he was told to check that story?
Mr. LEHRER. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And he proceeded to do it?
Mr. LEHRER. He proceeded to do it. He dialed a number and got
somebody on the line and started talking and when he got through,
he said, "That's right." I looked at his notes--I don't have a
specific recollection of what the notes said, but I remember that he
had some quotes there, I mean, he had some information in the notes
that verified the story, and at that time--one of the reasons I was
interested in it--I was working on the story we finally ran the next
day on the FBI looking for where Oswald might have possibly test
fired this rifle, so that was one of the reasons I was particularly
interested in it, because I wasn't coordinating our assassination
coverage, but I was vitally involved in it, I would say, at that time,
and I was working on this, and I think he gave the notes to a rewrite
man. I'm not sure, but I don't know what happened after that.
Mr. LIEBELER. In any event, you have the specific recollection that
Schmidt engaged in a conversation over the telephone for some period of
time at a time when he was supposed to be checking out this story of
the gunsmith in Irving?
Mr. LEHRER. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. After this conversation was over, he indicated to you
that the story checked out?
Mr. LEHRER. That's right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Subsequently that day the story, in fact, appeared in the
newspaper, indicating that there was evidence to show that Oswald had
taken his rifle to this particular gunshop.
Mr. LEHRER. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Have you discussed this situation with Schmidt recently?
Mr. LEHRER. No; actually, I talked to him about it briefly this morning.
He was somewhat--he didn't recall who was sitting next to him and I
told him I had, because I didn't think there was any problem, and
I just mentioned that. Now, the FBI--one thing--as far as that's
concerned--and as far as the fact that somebody might think that Hunter
and I got together on this--the day the FBI got this, and apparently
it was sent down by the Commission who said, "Check this out"--that
Ryder apparently--there was some question about it--and the FBI came
up there and a guy by the name of--well, there were two agents from
Oklahoma City who were working a special on the assassination at that
time--just the assassination story. It was Petrakis and some other
guy--I don't remember the other guy's name, but they came up and talked
to Ken Smart. You see, there was no byline on the story and they said,
"Who wrote the story?" and Smart apparently said he didn't know and
they went back and looked in the files and that indicated who wrote
it and so Ken came over to me and showed me the story with Petrakis
and this other guy there, and he said, "Did you write the story?" And
I said, "No, Hunter Schmidt wrote the story"; that's how they found
out Hunter even wrote it--where he got the information was when I told
him and so then we talked about this thing briefly, you know, and Ken
said, "Apparently Ryder is saying that he didn't talk to anybody at
the time," and I told Smart and Petrakis and this other fellow here
that I was sitting right next to the fellow and that he was talking to
somebody and I assumed it was Ryder and then I hadn't even mentioned it
to Hunter, because Hunter was not in the office that day and Petrakis
finally got ahold of him at home on the phone, I believe, or talked to
him later and Hunter didn't even know until this morning.
As I say, then Hunter told me that--it was you, I believe, that told
him that there was a witness who could verify that there was such a
conversation and he said, "Who is that, what are you talking about?"
And he said, "Why didn't you tell me before?" I said I didn't think
there would be any problem--I just mentioned it to Martha Jo in passing
here one day.
Mr. LIEBELER. You say this morning Schmidt told you he had been over
here last night and he had been questioned?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did he tell you the details of his experience last night?
Mr. LEHRER. A little bit.
Mr. LIEBELER. He told you that Mr. Ryder had been in here?
Mr. LEHRER. Yes; that Ryder was here.
Mr. LIEBELER. But in point of fact and indicating for the record,
the way the information came most recently to my attention, that you
had overheard this, because Mrs. Martha Jo Stroud, an assistant U.S.
attorney in this office, told me that you had come over here after we
had asked Schmidt to come over and testify.
Mr. LEHRER. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you mentioned to her in passing that you thought
probably we wanted Schmidt to come over so we could ask him about this
newspaper story that was written in connection with the Irving Sports
Shop; isn't that right?
Mr. LEHRER. Well, specifically, when Martha Jo called Hunter and told
him that somebody from the Warren Commission wanted to talk to him on a
certain day, Hunter came over to me and said, "Somebody from Washington
is coming in," and you know, I didn't know that anybody was coming in.
You know, you are unannounced on your trips here and this is part of my
responsibility to cover Warren Commission people when they come and I
try to do it, and I said--we discussed, "Maybe they want to talk to you
about this deal, because the FBI had talked to you before," and so the
next day when I was down talking to Martha Jo, we were talking about
it and I indicated to her this was probably what it was. I told her
what it was probably about and I said there was no problem--I was just
sitting there and just sitting there very casually.
Mr. LIEBELER. You don't have any doubt in your mind whatsoever that
Schmidt actually talked to Ryder that morning, do you?
Mr. LEHRER. No.
Mr. LIEBELER. You are aware of the fact, of course, that Ryder denies
talking to this man?
Mr. LEHRER. That's what I understand.
Mr. LIEBELER. And you have no information that would suggest any reason
why Ryder would deny this?
Mr. LEHRER. I can't think of any reason unless he denies the
information, if he just denies the technicality that he didn't talk
to a newspaperman or didn't talk to Schmidt specifically, that's one
thing; if he's denying the whole bit, that's conceivable.
Mr. LIEBELER. No; he doesn't deny the whole bit, he just denies that he
was the one that gave that story out.
Mr. LEHRER. I see; I don't know what it could be in that.
Mr. LIEBELER. Can you think of any reason why Schmidt might be lying
about it?
Mr. LEHRER. No; he had nothing to gain by it. It was just a story, and
my goodness, we were working--I mean--there were a multitude of stories
and a multitude of checking out and we were deluged just like everybody
was with rumors and things of this and that and he would have no reason
to write something that wasn't true. The fact is, he didn't even have
his name on it, so he didn't have anything to gain by it.
Mr. LIEBELER. All right, thank you very much.
Mr. LEHRER. Thank you.
Mr. LIEBELER. We appreciate your cooperation.
Mr. LEHRER. All right.