Mr. FRITZ. I remember telling him that someone told me that and I might
have told him that two people saw him because not only Frazier but
Frazier's sister saw that package, you know, and I did question him
about that.
Mr. BALL. Did he say anything like this? "He might be mistaken or
perhaps thinking about some other time when he picked me up."
Mr. FRITZ. That is probably right.
Mr. BALL. Do you remember that?
Mr. FRITZ. I don't remember it this time but if it is in that note that
is probably right.
Mr. BALL. On the curtain rods story, do you remember whether you ever
asked him if he told Frazier that he had curtain rods in the package?
Mr. FRITZ. If I asked him what, please, sir?
Mr. BALL. Did you ever ask Oswald whether or not he had told Frazier
that he had curtain rods in the package?
Mr. FRITZ. I am sure I did but I can't remember that right now. But I
am sure I asked him that because I must have asked him that because I
asked him a lot of questions, I asked him if he was fixing his house, I
remember asking about that, and he said he was not.
Mr. BALL. He said he was what?
Mr. FRITZ. He was not.
Mr. BALL. He said he was not fixing it?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Do you know what he said in reply to your question?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't remember what he said about that.
Mr. BALL. Was he questioned about post office boxes that morning?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I did, I asked him about those post office boxes,
because the postal inspector had told us about those boxes, and Mr.
Holmes did most of the talking to him about the boxes, and he knew
about the boxes and where they were, and he said he had, and I asked
him too if he had ordered a rifle to be shipped to one of those boxes,
and he said he had not, to one of those box numbers.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him why he had the boxes?
Mr. FRITZ. He told me that he had, one of the boxes, if I remember
correctly, he never admitted owning at all. The other box he told me he
got his, he kept to get his mail, that he said he got some papers from
Russia and correspondence with people from Russia and he used that box
for his mail.
Mr. BALL. How long did you talk to him this morning of November 24?
Mr. FRITZ. Morning, well, let's see, I am not sure what time we started
talking to him.
Mr. BALL. 9:30.
Mr. FRITZ. 9:30, we talked to him then until about--I have the exact
time here.
Mr. BALL. Can we cut it shorter, your records show 11:15 in your office.
Mr. FRITZ. Here it is, 11:15.
Mr. BALL. Is that right?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. First of all, I am going to go through some generally without
identifying the particular place but just the subject matter.
In an interview with him you did ask him about the pistol, didn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. Which pistol, the one he shot Tippit with?
Mr. BALL. The one he had with him when he was arrested.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I asked him about it, yes, I did.
Mr. BALL. You asked him when he got it and where he got it?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he bought it in Fort Worth about 6 or 7 months ago.
Mr. BALL. How long ago?
Mr. FRITZ. 6 or 7 months.
Mr. BALL. Did he tell you where in Fort Worth?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; he wouldn't tell me.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I asked him.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. He just wouldn't tell me.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him why he had five live .38 caliber bullets in
his shirt?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes; in his pocket?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. No; I didn't ask him that.
Mr. BALL. You didn't ask him that?
Mr. FRITZ. No.
Mr. BALL. Now you did ask him about the photograph, his photograph, the
photograph that was found in his garage?
Mr. FRITZ. That is right.
Mr. BALL. That shows him with a rifle and pistol?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. He said it was not his picture at all.
Mr. BALL. You did ask him if he had purchased a rifle from Klein's
store in Chicago, Ill., didn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes; I did.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he did not.
Mr. BALL. You did ask him how he explained the photograph, didn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. How he explained the photograph?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. I asked him about the photograph and he said someone else
took it. It wasn't his picture at all. He said someone in the hall had
taken his picture and made that photograph.
Mr. BALL. In other words, he said the face was his face but the picture
was made by somebody superimposing his face?
Mr. FRITZ. That is right; yes.
Mr. BALL. He denied ever having lived on Neely Street, did he?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; he did.
Mr. BALL. And you asked him also if he had ever owned a rifle?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he had not. He said a long time ago he owned a small
rifle.
Mr. BALL. What size did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. He didn't say. He said small rifle.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him if he kept a rifle in Mrs. Paine's garage at
Irving, Tex.?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; and I asked him if he brought it from New Orleans
and he said no.
Mr. BALL. Did you ask him where he kept, if he did keep a rifle in a
blanket?
Mr. FRITZ. I asked him if he kept it in a blanket and he said no.
Mr. BALL. Didn't you tell him someone told you he had kept it there?
Mr. FRITZ. Someone told me he had a rifle and wrapped in a blanket and
kept it in the garage and he said he didn't. It wasn't true.
Mr. BALL. Did he at any time tell you when you asked him if he owned a
rifle, did he say, "How could I afford to order a rifle on my salary of
a dollar and a quarter an hour," something like that?
Mr. FRITZ. I don't remember that.
Mr. BALL. You asked him whether or not he shot President Kennedy,
didn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did he say?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he did not.
Mr. BALL. And you asked him if he shot Governor Connally?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; he said he didn't do that, he said he didn't shoot
Tippit.
Mr. BALL. With reference to where he was at the time the President was
shot, did he tell you what floor of the building he was on?
Mr. FRITZ. I feel sure that he told me he was on the second floor.
Mr. BALL. Look at 136B.
Mr. FRITZ. All right, sir.
Mr. BALL. The second paragraph down, 136B.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; second floor; yes, sir. He said he usually worked
on the first floor. I asked him what part of the building at the time
the President was shot. He said he was having lunch at about this time
on the first floor.
Mr. BALL. In his first interview you say that Hosty asked him if he had
been to Mexico.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes; he did.
Mr. BALL. He denied it. Did he say he had been at Tijuana once?
Mr. FRITZ. I don't remember him saying he had been at Tijuana.
Mr. BALL. What did you remember him saying?
Mr. FRITZ. I remember him saying he had been to Russia, told me he had
been to Russia, and was over there for some time, and he told Hosty
that he had a record of that, knew he had been there, told him a number
of things so far as that is concerned.
Mr. BALL. What did he say about Mexico?
Mr. FRITZ. Mexico, I don't remember him admitting that he had been to
any part of Mexico.
Mr. BALL. What do you remember him saying?
Mr. FRITZ. I remember he said he did not go to Mexico City and I don't
remember him saying he ever went to Tijuana.
Mr. BALL. In your report at 138E you have made a statement there of the
conditions under which this interrogation proceeded, haven't you?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes; I did.
Mr. BALL. Will you tell us about that. You can describe it either as
you state it here in your own words, but tell us what your difficulties
were?
Mr. FRITZ. I can tell you in just a minute. My office is small as you
know, it is a small office, it doesn't have too much room to begin with.
With all the outer office full of officers who all wanted to help and
we were glad to have their assistance and help, and we appreciate it,
but in the hallway we had some 200 news reporters and cameramen with
big cameras and little cameras and cables running on the floors to
where we could hardly get in and out of the office.
In fact, we had to get two police officers assigned to the front door
to keep them out of the office so we could work.
My office is badly arranged for a thing of this kind. We never had
anything like this before, of course. I don't have a back door and I
don't have a door to the jail elevator without having to go through
that hall for 20 feet, and each time we went through that hallway to
and from the jail we had to pull him through all those people, and
they, of course, would holler at him and say things to him, and some of
them were bad things, and some were things that seemed to please him
and some seemed to aggravate him, and I don't think that helped at all
in questioning him. I think that all of that had a tendency to keep him
upset.
Mr. BALL. What about the interview itself?
Mr. FRITZ. Now the interview itself inside, of course, we did have a
lot of people in the office there to be interviewing a man. It is much
better, and you can keep a man's attention and his thoughts on what you
are talking to him about better I think if there are not more than two
or three people.
But in a case of this nature as bad as this case was, we certainly
couldn't tell the Secret Service and the FBI we didn't want them to
work on it because they would have the same interest we would have,
they would want to do anything they could do, so we, of course, invited
them in too but it did make a pretty big crowd.
Mr. BALL. Did you have any tape recorder?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't have a tape recorder. We need one, if we
had one at this time we could have handled these conversations far
better.
Mr. BALL. The Dallas Police Department doesn't have one?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I have requested one several times but so far they
haven't gotten me one.
Mr. BALL. And you had quite a few interruptions, too, during the
questioning, didn't you?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; we had quite a lot of interruptions. I wish we had
had--under the circumstances, I don't think there is much that could
have been done because I saw it as it was there and I don't think there
was a lot that could have been done other than move that crowd out of
there, but I think it would have been more apt to get a confession out
of it or get more true facts from him if I could have got him to sit
down and quietly talked with him.
Mr. BALL. While he was in your custody up to this time at 11:15, when
he left your office what precautions did you take for his safety in
custody?
Mr. FRITZ. In custody. We took all kinds of precautions to keep him,
anyone from hurting him. We had an officer go with the jailer and back
and we did everything we thought we could do.
As I told you a while ago we even put officers on the stage with him
and when we couldn't do that put officers at the end of the stage with
him so they could get quickly to him if anybody tried to hurt him or
molest him.
Mr. BALL. In your office you always had officers with him?
Mr. FRITZ. Always, right near him.
Mr. BALL. When you went down this crowded hallway, how did you protect
him?
Mr. FRITZ. There were officers went with him each time.
Mr. BALL. How many?
Mr. FRITZ. From three to six.
Mr. BALL. And in the jail, what did you do?
Mr. FRITZ. In the jail, I don't know. I didn't handle the jail.
Mr. BALL. You didn't handle the jail?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't handle the jail. I am sure though they used
more than average precautions up there.
Mr. BALL. When you left at 11:15, what was your purpose in leaving at
11:15?
Mr. FRITZ. To transfer him to the--you are talking about the 24th?
Mr. BALL. On the 24th, yes.
Mr. FRITZ. To transfer him to the county jail.
Mr. BALL. Had you been requested by Sheriff Decker to transfer him
there before?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir. I had talked to the chief about transferring him
down there. The chief had called me on the 23d, on the 23d, I can't
give you the exact minute, probably a little after noon, he had called
me and asked me when we would be ready to transfer him and I told him
we were still questioning him. We didn't want to transfer him yet. He
said, "Can he be ready by about 4 o'clock? Can he be transferred by 4
o'clock?" I told him I didn't think we could.
Mr. BALL. That would be Saturday afternoon?
Mr. FRITZ. That would be the 23d, would be Saturday, yes, sir. Then he
asked me could he be ready by 10 o'clock in the morning, so I could
tell these people something definitely, and I felt sure we would be
ready by then. However, we didn't, we ran overtime as you can see by
this report, an hour and a half over, when they come over to transfer
him.
Mr. BALL. Why did you say you would not be ready by 4 o'clock on
Saturday?
Mr. FRITZ. We wanted to ask him some more questions, to get more
information.
Mr. BALL. Did you consider transferring him at night?
Mr. FRITZ. At night?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. During the night on Saturday night, I had a call at my home
from uniformed captain, Captain Frazier, I believe is his name, he
called me out at home and told me they had had some threats and he had
to transfer Oswald.
And I said, well, I don't know. I said there has been no security
setup, and the chief having something to do with this transfer and you
had better call him, because--so he told me he would.