Mr. RANKIN. Who were interrogated, but, of course, we didn't cover any
1,200 men.
Mr. DULLES. Did you cover all those that were present that morning?
Mr. CURRY. I believe we asked anyone in the police department who knew
Ruby to let us know about it. And then I think anyone that knew him,
the names were turned over to those people here. We covered all that
such an inquiry would reveal but we didn't purport to cover--well, we
covered something like a hundred out of 1,200.
We requested by departmental order any police officer who knew Jack
Ruby make it known to us, and then he was interrogated about it.
Mr. RANKIN. Of those interrogated that would probably include all of
those present the day of the shooting of Oswald, the morning of the
shooting of Oswald at the time of the transfer?
Mr. CURRY. I believe it would.
Mr. RANKIN. All that we knew were present at all, and beyond that, too,
have been interrogated.
Mr. CURRY. Yes.
Mr. McCLOY. When Officer 78, that is Tippit was directed to the Oak
Cliff area that was simply because the Oak Cliff area was sort of a
center of activity at that point?
Mr. CURRY. At that time.
Mr. McCLOY. It wasn't--it wasn't because you were trying to or had any
idea that the suspect might have been there?
Mr. CURRY. Not from the Presidential shooting, but we were sure that
the suspect in the Officer Tippit shooting was in the central area.
Mr. McCLOY. But Tippit was still alive on the first direction to him to
go out there?
Mr. CURRY. That was because some of the squad had been moved out of the
Oak Cliff into the Dallas area. You see, this is across the river.
Mr. McCLOY. What is the Oak Cliff area?
Mr. RANKIN. I think that ought to be clarified. Chief Curry, wasn't
your testimony that Tippit was in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas?
Mr. CURRY. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And then he was directed to move to the central Oak Cliff
area?
Mr. CURRY. That is correct.
Mr. RANKIN. Move in closer, and so he was in it, his regular beat, as I
understand it, was in the Oak Cliff area, isn't that right?
Mr. CURRY. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. And is Oak Cliff a suburb or what is it?
Mr. CURRY. It is not exactly a suburb, but it is physically separated.
It used to be a separate municipality and some years ago----
Mr. RANKIN. Where does it lie?
Mr. CURRY. It lies west of Dallas proper and across the Trinity River
and the only means of going to Oak Cliff, going to and from Oak Cliff
is by means of viaduct so there is a physical separation between Oak
Cliff and Dallas, and some of the squads had been pulled out of the Oak
Cliff area and to come over to the Elm and Houston area to assist in
the investigation of this shooting, and it would be normal procedure as
squads go out of an area for the squads further out to move in in the
event something does happen in this area they would have a squad that
wouldn't be so far removed from it.
Mr. DULLES. This direction had nothing to do with any suspicion that
you might have had that the assassin might be going into this area?
Mr. CURRY. No, sir; none at all.
Mr. DULLES. It was purely a maneuver to cover an area which had been
evacuated or been left uncovered because of the assassination and the
reassignment of squads?
Mr. CURRY. The reassignment of squads, that is right.
Mr. McCLOY. Because of the withdrawal of people of the Oak Cliff area
into the Houston Street area?
Mr. CURRY. That is correct. So we pulled some of the squads further
assigned to the area into the most central area to cover anything that
might happen so they would be in position to go out or come in.
Mr. McCLOY. That does clear it up.
Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us on the record what was normal procedure
that you just spoke about?
Mr. CURRY. Normal procedure would be when we have a great number of
squads on assignment in an area, in their particular district, as
squads go out of service, say they are checking out, to haul prisoners
into the jails or they are on calls, it just is automatic they are
instructed in school when they go to school if the adjoining squad goes
out of service, doesn't stay, say he adjoins you on the east, don't
go to the far west side of your district, go to the east side of your
district where you could be on the west side of his district, so if
something else occurs in his district you would be in a position to
answer the call.
Ordinarily it is not necessary for us to, so that squads go to getting
out of service, to go and rearrange squads.
In this particular instance, when he asked 81 and 78 if they were in
central Oak Cliff they said yes, but they were moving there because
this would be a normal thing to do, to move into an area where other
squads had gone out of service.
Mr. RANKIN. You told us about your efforts to try to determine whether
subversive groups or groups that might have an interest in making
trouble for a trip of the President were going to try to do anything.
Would you tell us what you did about that in more detail?
Mr. CURRY. I gave you a copy of this, and I would like to read it for
the record, if you would like me to.
Mr. RANKIN. We will offer that.
Mr. CURRY. All right.
This is a copy of a report submitted to me by Lieutenant Jack Revill,
criminal intelligence section of the special service bureau.
Mr. RANKIN. I will hand you Exhibit No. 710 and ask you if that isn't a
copy of what you are referring to.
Mr. CURRY. Yes; it is.
Mr. RANKIN. You won't have to read that. Chief, if you will just
describe in a general way what was done that you know about and then I
will offer that to show what it proves.
Mr. CURRY. In essence, this report says prior to the announcement of
the President's visit, there were rumors he would visit Dallas and
because of these rumors the intelligence section increased its efforts
in attempting to get data concerning not only extremists and subversive
groups.
Mr. RANKIN. How do they do that?
Mr. CURRY. They usually have an informant inside the organization.
Sometimes it may be one of our own men.
Mr. RANKIN. I see.
That was with regard to the persons listed on that Exhibit 710?
Mr. CURRY. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know of any other efforts besides that?
Mr. CURRY. No, sir; these are all that I know of except we did in one
instance go to the cities outside of Dallas, towns outside of Dallas
to talk to some people that had rumored that they would do something
to embarrass the President. These organizations are listed as the Ku
Klux Klan, the Indignant White Citizens Council, National States Rights
Party, the John Birch Society, Dallas White Citizens Council, Oak Cliff
White Citizens Council, General Walker group, American Opinion Forum,
Dallas Committee for Full Citizenship, Young Peoples Socialist League,
Dallas Civil Liberties Union, Texas White Citizens Council, and Black
Muslims.
Mr. RANKIN. I will hand you Exhibit 709 which you have furnished us
this morning, and ask you, can you tell us how you got that exhibit?
Mr. CURRY. This exhibit was a report that was submitted to me from Jack
Revill, who is a lieutenant, in the criminal intelligence section.
Mr. RANKIN. That is the same man who is referred to in Exhibit 710?
Mr. CURRY. Yes, it is; their assignment is to keep track of these
groups that we have talked about, possible subversive or extremist
groups and try to know something about their plans, their movements.
Mr. RANKIN. How did you get that information described in Exhibit 709?
Mr. CURRY. It was given to me on November 22d at 2:50 p.m., or shortly
thereafter, but I mean the information came to him at that time, and he
passed it on to me, later that day.
Mr. RANKIN. Would you tell us how you secured Exhibit 711?
Mr. CURRY. This is a report from Officer V. J. Brian, B-r-i-a-n, who
is a detective in the criminal intelligence section, and was present
when Lieutenant Revill, when the information submitted was given to
Lieutenant Revill.
Mr. RANKIN. I would like to offer Exhibits 709, 710, and 711.
Mr. DULLES. They will be admitted.
(The documents referred to were marked Commission Exhibit Nos. 709,
710, and 711 for identification and received in evidence.)
Mr. RANKIN. Mr. Chairman, I think we should have a recess now until 2
o'clock.
Mr. McCLOY. One more question.
Was there any talk that you heard around before the, after the
apprehension of Oswald and his time set for his removal from police
headquarters to the jail, was there any talk that you heard in the
corridors or elsewhere about lynching or possible lynching?
Mr. CURRY. No, sir. The only information I had was that the FBI,
someone from the FBI passed the information to the city hall during the
night that they had had a call that said, I believe the FBI sent this
call, that there was a group of 100 who would take that prisoner away
from us before he got to the county jail.
Mr. McCLOY. But this came from outside the jail?
Mr. CURRY. Yes; outside.
Mr. McCLOY. You never heard any threats uttered within the jail?
Mr. CURRY. No.
Mr. DULLES. Another general question: Have you any comments or anything
you would like to say about the cooperation between the Dallas police,
the Secret Service, and the FBI during this period immediately
following, prior to and immediately following the assassination?
Mr. CURRY. No, sir. We have always had the best of cooperation between
both of these Federal units, and all other units of the Federal and
State government. I feel sure that they thought this information was
important to us, they probably would have given it to us. But we
certainly have not had any trouble with the FBI or with the Secret
Service in any of our past associations.
Mr. DULLES. I was going a little further. I mean, was the cooperation
whole-hearted and open and frank as far as you could tell?
Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; as far as I could tell, it was.
Mr. DULLES. Was there any problem created because of the possible--not
conflict of authority, but question as to who had responsibility of
particular areas here as between you as chief of police and the Secret
Service and the FBI?
Mr. CURRY. Prior to the President's visit, no; there was nothing there.
Mr. DULLES. Prior to or subsequent to?
Mr. CURRY. Now, subsequent to that, we felt this, that this was a
murder that had been committed in the county, city and county of
Dallas, and that we had prior, I mean we had jurisdiction over this.
The FBI actually had no jurisdiction over it, the Secret Service
actually had no jurisdiction over it. But in an effort to cooperate
with these agencies we went all out to do whatever they wanted us
to do that we could do to let them observe what was taking place,
but actually we knew that this was a case that happened in Dallas,
Tex., and would have to be tried in Dallas, Tex., and it was our
responsibility to gather the evidence and present the evidence.
We kept getting calls from the FBI. They wanted this evidence up in
Washington, in the laboratory, and there was some discussion, Fritz
told me, he says, "Well, I need the evidence here, I need to get some
people to try to identify the gun, to try to identify this pistol and
these things, and if it is in Washington how can I do it?"
But we finally, the night, about midnight of Friday night, we agreed to
let the FBI have all the evidence and they said they would bring it to
their laboratory and they would have an agent stand by and when they
were finished with it to return it to us.
Mr. DULLES. An agent of the police force, you mean?
Mr. CURRY. An agent of the FBI.
Mr. DULLES. FBI?
Mr. CURRY. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. There was no agent of the Dallas police that went to
Washington with the evidence?
Mr. CURRY. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. RANKIN. Did that work out all right so far?
Mr. CURRY. Well, not exactly, because they were to give us pictures of
everything that was brought to Washington, and Fritz tells me that some
of these little items that it was very poor reproduction of some of the
items on microfilm.
Subsequently they photographed these things in Washington and sent us
copies, some 400, I think, 400 copies of different items. So far as I
know, we have never received any of that evidence back. It is still in
Washington, I guess.
Perhaps the Commission has it.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes; the Commission is still working with it.
Mr. CURRY. Yes.
Mr. RANKIN. But apparently the FBI tried to carry out their agreement
with you, didn't they?
Mr. CURRY. Yes; they did.
Mr. RANKIN. And it is a question of whether or not their reproductions
were as good as you would like to have?
Mr. CURRY. There were made, some of them, in the office down in Dallas,
they were in a tremendous hurry to get all of these items to the
laboratory here in Washington, and our only concern was this, that if
this case is tried in Dallas, we need the evidence to be presented here
in a court in Dallas and we were a little bit apprehensive about it if
it gets to Washington will it be available to us when we need it. If we
need somebody to identify, attempt to identify the gun or other items
will it be here for them to see?
And that was our only concern.
We got several calls insisting we send this, and nobody would tell me
exactly who it was that was insisting, "just say I got a call from
Washington, and they wanted this evidence up there," insinuated it was
someone in high authority that was requesting this, and we finally
agreed as a matter of trying to cooperate with them, actually.
Mr. DULLES. Have you any more questions?
Mr. McCLOY. Not at this stage.
Mr. RANKIN. Shall we convene at 2?
Mr. DULLES. Mr. Murray, do you have any?
Mr. MURRAY. No, thank you.
(Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the President's Commission recessed.)