The CHAIRMAN. There is a lot of other writing on this paper a lot of
doodling that someone else has done and I think the chief had better
have a new piece of paper.
Gentlemen, before you get into a discussion of this diagram with the
chief, Mr. Rankin, I must leave now for a session of the Court, and Mr.
Dulles, will you preside in my absence?
Mr. DULLES. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. I will be back immediately at the conclusion of our
session today.
(At this point, the Chief Justice left the hearing room.)
Mr. RANKIN. Chief, have you marked on a yellow sheet of paper a diagram
of the third floor of the police headquarters?
Mr. CURRY. Yes; I have, principally the north end of it.
Mr. RANKIN. We will call that Exhibit 701. Will you describe briefly
for the Commission just what you have marked on there now?
Mr. CURRY. I have a rough layout of the north end of the third floor of
the police and courts building in Dallas, Tex.
Now, this shows the public elevators, the lobby way in front of the
elevators, and then a hall that extends the length of the third floor
from north to south.
In the extreme north end there is a small press room where ordinarily
the news media stay from early morning until late at night to cover
police events.
I have also marked off the other bureaus that are located on this
floor, the burglary and theft bureau would be on the west side, and in
the northwest corner is the juvenile bureau.
The northeast corner is the auto theft bureau, the next going south
would be the forgery bureau, and then would be the homicide office
or homicide bureau, which is adjacent to a hallway, the north-south
hallway, and also the rear office is adjacent to the hall going over
to the municipal building which is immediately east of the police and
courts building.
The entrance to the homicide office is approximately 20 or 25 feet to
the entrance to this jail elevator, and it is necessary to bring a
prisoner down this hall in order to get him into this jail elevator.
Each time we--that I observed them move Oswald, they were almost
overrun by news media.
Mr. RANKIN. By overrun, what do you mean?
Could you describe with a little more definiteness, are you talking
about 4 or 5 or 10?
Mr. CURRY. I will say probably a hundred, at least a hundred that were
jammed into this hallway.
(At this point, Mr. McCloy entered the hearing room.)
Mr. RANKIN. Were some of them--I will withdraw that question.
Were some of these people from the news media from the press and others
from the radio and others from the television?
Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; that is true, sir.
(At this point, Representative Ford entered the hearing room.)
Mr. RANKIN. Chief Curry, you said that Mr. Nichols came that afternoon.
I call to your attention that we have information that he came there on
the Saturday afternoon.
Mr. CURRY. Perhaps it was, not the Friday. That perhaps was on Saturday.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. I wonder if you could just summarize briefly where we are.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. RANKIN. Back on the record.
In regard to Mr. Nichols, did you know whether or not he offered to
represent or provide counsel?
Mr. CURRY. Yes; he did.
Mr. RANKIN. What did he say about that?
Mr. CURRY. He said he didn't care to at this time.
Mr. RANKIN. What did Mr. Nichols say about providing counsel?
Mr. CURRY. He said the Dallas Bar would provide counsel if he desired
counsel.
Mr. RANKIN. That is to Mr. Oswald?
Mr. CURRY. Oswald.
Mr. RANKIN. What did Mr. Oswald say?
Mr. CURRY. He said, "I don't at this time," he said, "If I can't get
Mr. Abt to represent me or someone from Civil Liberties Union I will
call on you later."
Representative FORD. Did Nichols and Oswald talk one to another?
Mr. CURRY. Yes; he was taken to see Oswald and he talked to him.
Mr. RANKIN. And this all occurred at the meeting you have already
described?
Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir.
Mr. RANKIN. Between Mr. Nichols and Mr. Oswald?
Mr. CURRY. That is correct.
Mr. RANKIN. When you had so many people of the news media in all of
your corridors and throughout your police headquarters, did you discuss
that with the mayor or any of the other authorities?
Mr. CURRY. I don't recall that I specifically discussed this condition.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you ask for any instructions or advice?
Mr. CURRY. No, sir; I didn't.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you do anything about it that you have not already
described?
Mr. CURRY. No, sir; I didn't.
Mr. DULLES. Did it worry you?
Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; it did. I was concerned about it.
Mr. McCLOY. Did you have a definite system of checking credentials of
these people as they came in?
Mr. CURRY. On a particular incident that had occurred previous to this,
such as the school integration, we had a plane to fall there one time
and we have a regular set up for disaster, whereby the press identify
themselves in order to get into a certain area, and their credentials
were being checked.
Now, I have heard it said, not to my knowledge can I tell you this,
that Jack Ruby at one time or sometime during these preceding days, had
been seen there and apparently had some press credentials but I was
never able to establish that.
Mr. RANKIN. You have checked into it?
Mr. CURRY. I have inquired into it or had it inquired into.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you find out in that regard?
Mr. CURRY. I couldn't find out where he had received press credentials
from anybody.
Representative FORD. Were any press credentials found in his effects?
Mr. CURRY. No; not to my knowledge.
Mr. RANKIN. When you were having the difficulty with the media that you
have described, did you do anything about adding additional guards or
anything about additional security?
Mr. CURRY. No; we had two men, two uniformed officers right at the
homicide door to keep anyone from going in there.
As I recall, there was a sergeant, and a couple of reserve officers
at the public elevators here, and there were a couple of reservists
at this end of the hall to keep them from overrunning into the
administrative offices.
Mr. RANKIN. I offer in evidence Exhibit 701, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DULLES. Is that the chart?
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. It will be admitted. This is a chart of the third floor.
Mr. CURRY. Of the police and courts building.
Mr. DULLES. What is the other word?
Mr. CURRY. Police and courts building.
Mr. DULLES. It will be accepted.
(The chart referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 701 for
identification and received in evidence.)
Mr. RANKIN. Have you done anything to change your procedures in
regard to security or how you would handle prisoners in light of this
difficulty you had with the media?
Mr. CURRY. The city manager and I have discussed the possibility that
we are going to in the near future build a new police building.
Mr. RANKIN. Who is the city manager?
Mr. CURRY. Elgin Crull. He made this statement that when and if we
build another building, it will be so designed that the prisoners will
not have to be brought through where the general public are permitted
or where the press would be permitted. That there will be two sets of
halls or hallways where they will be brought down in the rear hallways
and admitted into the offices for interrogation.
Mr. RANKIN. What did you say about that?
Mr. CURRY. I heartily agreed with him.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you made any other plans for change of security?
Mr. CURRY. I have talked to my staff and said if we were ever faced
with a thing of such magnitude again that we would not permit the
press to come into the building. We would designate a place outside
for them and we would just have to take the heat that was given to us
by the press for not permitting them in there, but in view of what had
happened that we would never permit this to occur again.
That we would permit them to have representatives but they would
be required to choose their representatives to be present, say, in
these hallways or inside the buildings, and the rest of them would be
excluded.
And regardless of how they treated us in the press for this decision,
that is the way it would be in the future.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you do anything about appearing on television during
this time?
Mr. CURRY. They had these cameras set up in the hallway, if I can have
the exhibit I will show it to you.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes. That is Exhibit 701.
Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir. They had cameras set up right here, two or three
cameras.
Mr. RANKIN. Have you marked that with the word "cameras"?
Mr. CURRY. Yes. And on an occasion or two as I was walking from the
homicide office back to my office they would stop me here and try to
interrogate me or interview me and they would have the cameras turned
on me.
Mr. RANKIN. What would you do?
Mr. CURRY. They would besiege me with questions about how the
investigation was proceeding, and I would on occasion or two I told
them I thought it was proceeding very well, that we were obtaining good
evidence to substantiate our suspicions, that this was the man that was
guilty of the assassination.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you tell them what evidence you had?
Mr. CURRY. I told them on one occasion we had a rifle that had been
partially identified by his, as belonging to him.
Mr. RANKIN. When did you do that?
Mr. CURRY. I believe that was on Saturday, I think.
Mr. RANKIN. About what time of the day?
Mr. CURRY. I don't recall exactly. I think it was in the afternoon. It
might have been Friday night.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you tell them about any other evidence that you had?
Mr. CURRY. I don't recall, sir, whether I did or not. There was so much
confusion that I can't recall exactly the times and exactly what was
said. I think this is documented, perhaps.
Mr. RANKIN. Where?
Mr. CURRY. On the TV film.
Mr. RANKIN. I see. Did you give out any interviews to the newspapers?
Mr. CURRY. I don't recall giving any interviews to newspapers.
Mr. RANKIN. Any news releases?
Mr. CURRY. Not that I recall.
Mr. DULLES. Do you recall having told them that you had sent a radio
order out to surround the book depository?
Mr. CURRY. I didn't do that, sir. That was one of my inspectors, I
believe that gave that order. I was riding in the Presidential parade
and approximately a hundred feet, I guess, ahead of the President's
car, and when we heard this first report, I couldn't tell exactly where
it was coming from.
Representative FORD. What report are you talking about now?
Mr. CURRY. A sharp report as a firecracker or as it was it was the
report of this rifle.
We were just approaching an underpass, and there were some people
around on each side of the underpass, up in the railroad yards, and
I thought at first that perhaps this was a railroad torpedo, it was a
sharp crack.
Inspector--no, it wasn't Inspector, it was Lawson of the Secret Service
and Mr. Sorrels of the Dallas office of the Secret Service, and Sheriff
Bill Decker and myself were in this car.
Mr. DULLES. I may be anticipating.
Mr. RANKIN. That is all right, go right ahead.
Mr. CURRY. I said what was that, was that a firecracker, or someone
said this. I don't recall whether it was me or someone else, and from
the report I couldn't tell whether it was coming from the railroad yard
or whether it was coming from behind but I said over the radio, I said,
"Get someone up in the railroad yard and check."
And then about this time. I believe it was motorcycle Officer Chaney
rode up beside of me and looking back in the rear view mirror I could
see some commotion in the President's car and after this there had been
two more reports, but these other two reports I could tell were coming
behind instead of from the railroad yards.
Mr. RANKIN. What do you mean by reports?
Mr. CURRY. Sharp reports as a rifle or a firecracker, and looking in
the rear view mirror then I could see some commotion in President
Kennedy's car.
Mr. RANKIN. You could distinctly hear and tell that the two later
reports were from behind?
Mr. CURRY. Behind.
Mr. RANKIN. Rather than front?
Mr. CURRY. That is right.
Mr. RANKIN. You weren't sure whether the first one was from behind or
in front?