Mr. LAWSON. I don't believe it would have been starting out.
Mr. DULLES. I was talking about it at the time of the shooting.
Mr. LAWSON. No, sir; I have no idea.
Mr. STERN. Could you now just very briefly and generally summarize the
security arrangements at Love Field and your participation in them.
Were they under your control and supervision?
Mr. LAWSON. Yes, sir; they were under my control and supervision.
We held our police meeting at the airport last because of problems
involved in finding an area big enough for his motorcade to start
and the planes to park and so forth. This was not actually resolved
until the day before he arrived, and that is why the police meeting
was held at that point quite late. But arrangements were made to have
the general public contained behind a chain link fence which is there
anyway, and any overflow general public to be in a parking lot a little
ways further away from the President, if there was not enough room
behind this chain link fence. Police were along both of these fences to
keep the people in their place.
There were two service roads which came in between these two general
public areas. We closed off one and used the other because it was the
only service road that most of the wings from the Dallas Air Terminal
were able to use, catering trucks going together, airplanes, mechanics
and people being ferried, crews being ferried and so forth so we
couldn't cut it off directly.
However, these roads were to be shut off when his plane touched down,
and kept shut off until after his motorcade departed inward, and then
they were to be used again while we were gone and then just before we
returned to the airport they were to be shut off again.
Mr. STERN. What about police on buildings?
Mr. LAWSON. Police were requested on the wing of the air terminal that
came out closest to where he would stop, and police were requested to
be on the air cargo building to the rear of this crowd area, which is
a little higher than the small building, the customs building. Any
policeman on the air cargo building would be able to control anybody on
the roof at the customs building.
Mr. STERN. Were these police stationed to watch the crowd, to watch
persons who might be on the roofs of these buildings, to watch persons
who might be in these buildings? What was their function?
Mr. LAWSON. The police on the building tops were to make sure that no
unauthorized people were on the building tops, and to watch generally
anything else that they could watch, that they were keeping their
building top clear. And there were police along the fences to watch the
crowd and to keep the people from coming onto the field who were not
supposed to. There were detectives to be assigned throughout the crowd,
to mingle with the crowd so that the people in the crowd would not know
they were detectives.
Mr. STERN. Was there any particular check of offices inside the
buildings which might present a vantage point overlooking the place
where the President was to land and be received?
Mr. LAWSON. No, sir.
Mr. STERN. Were there such overlooking places?
Mr. LAWSON. There wouldn't have been except in a certain wing way up to
the right of where he landed, quite a ways away.
There wasn't any building directly in front on the side where he would
come off the plane and walk down. There would be a building to his
right at the very end of a wing that came out, and there was police
on that. The crowd behind the fences would go over to the customs
building, and no one would be able to see out of this one-story customs
building. And behind that was the air cargo building where a policeman
was requested on top. The police were then also requested all the way
along our exit route along the parking lots and the runways as we went
out of the airport and the motorcycle escort vehicles were waiting down
closer to where we made our exit, again because of the room factor.
Mr. STERN. Did you confer with Air Force representatives who had
responsibility for the President's plane and the Vice President's plane?
Mr. LAWSON. Yes, sir. I learned that they had been in for a general
meeting of their own the morning of the 13th that I had not been aware
of, but because of the Presidential trips the week before he came to
Dallas, he went to Maryland and he went to New York and he went to a
couple places in Florida, they were not able to send someone out to
help with setting up the airport as soon as was usual.
And because of a personal problem, the one that was to arrive on
Wednesday morning, didn't arrive until Wednesday evening. I was quite
certain that the area that we were being provided by the local airport
was not going to be sufficient for our motorcade formation, the parking
of three jet planes and so forth. But being a layman, I couldn't really
impress them that this was so. But when the Air Force people did come
in, they agreed that as set up it would not work, and Mr. Sorrels and
the assistant airport director were able to get some extra space from
a couple of companies nearby there, and it was able to be worked out,
still really not enough room but it was adequate.
Mr. STERN. Ultimate responsibility for determining those
arrangements--whether those arrangements are adequate is with the Air
Force, is that right?
Mr. LAWSON. I don't really believe I understand your question. Would
you make it again please?
Mr. STERN. You were concerned that the arrangements were not adequate.
Mr. LAWSON. Yes.
Mr. STERN. But you had to have the Air Force recommendation to
straighten things out with the local authorities?
Mr. LAWSON. Well, I know the size of the planes because I have the
dimensions of them that I take with me on a trip, and other things, and
also from past experience. However, they make measurements and they
know their own FAA rules, Air Force rules as to how close you can park
jet planes to one another, what the turning radiuses are and so forth,
so I was certain that the room that we had been provided wasn't enough,
but I was also quite certain that when the Air Force got there, they
would bear me out, which was true.
Mr. STERN. If the Air Force is satisfied with the arrangements though,
is that the end of it?
Mr. LAWSON. Only for certain things. They would say if they definitely
had enough room to park, how they would be parked, how they would
come in, how they would go out and so forth. But again final security
responsibility would be up to us. If it is an area where you can't
possibly fit the press area in, the motorcade can't line up, the people
can't come out without creating a lot of confusion so that you can't
tell what is going on, then it delves into security, because the more
confusion you have the worse off you are security-wise.
Mr. STERN. I think we might touch briefly on press arrangements.
Will you tell us, if you know, how the final arrangements for the
President's visit were announced, and particularly the motorcade route.
Mr. LAWSON. I know from reading in the paper how it was announced but
I do not know who announced it. I believe it appeared in the Tuesday
morning paper. That would have been the 19th I believe. There was quite
a bit of speculation before that perhaps the motorcade would go here
and perhaps the motorcade would go there, but I believe that the one
that was finally used was put in the paper on Tuesday morning, the 19th
from my recollection. Let me make sure that Tuesday is the 19th.
Mr. STERN. It is the 19th. Had there been a meeting on the 18th at
which this was considered?
Mr. LAWSON. Yes, sir; there was a meeting late in the afternoon of
the 18th, in a private club in Dallas that I arrived at late. The
meeting was called primarily as I understand it because of the various
political groups that wanted certain things, and what Washington
wanted, and there were various problems to work out as to who got
tickets, who sat at the head table, who rode in what cars and so forth.
And the local host committee had designated a certain individual to be
their representative there, and then these other groups also had people
represented. Mr. Puterbaugh, for example, the liaison man that went
with me from Washington, was there. And I had just come from going over
the route with the police earlier that afternoon, and I told them as a
point of information that this was the route as we had it now, unless
it was changed later.