Mr. HUBERT. Let me follow this through a bit. Didn’t they, in fact, ask
you if you had heard the rumor that Oswald had been in the club?
Mr. CRAFARD. I don’t know exactly how he asked me about it, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. Didn’t he ask you, in fact, if you had ever seen him in the
club?
Mr. CRAFARD. I believe he asked me that question; yes. I believe he
might have. My answer would have been——
Mr. HUBERT. Is your statement to us if he asked you that question it
would not have recalled to your memory that someone had told you that
he had been in the club?
Mr. CRAFARD. My statement is that it did not at that time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you a little bit frightened when the FBI talked with
you?
Mr. CRAFARD. No; I don’t believe so.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you at all concerned that your flight from Dallas
might make you a suspect of some sort?
Mr. CRAFARD. I don’t believe—I don’t remember having any such belief;
no.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What was your feeling towards the FBI when they talked to
you?
Mr. CRAFARD. That they were talking to me because of the fact that I
had worked for Ruby, and they wanted to know what I knew about Ruby’s
movements in hopes that there might be something there that would help
them in their investigation.
Mr. GRIFFIN. At the time when you talked to the FBI you formed a
tentative opinion about the connection between Ruby and Oswald or the
motivation for Jack’s doing what he did?
Mr. CRAFARD. I figured, formed the opinion, myself, as far as I could
figure Jack must have been out of his mind to shoot Oswald.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was this, would you say this was a strong opinion that you
had?
Mr. CRAFARD. No. I will say that it is the sort of opinion I have now,
it has been right along ever since I found out that Ruby had shot
Oswald.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But in spite of having that opinion that there was
somewhere along the line you began to think if there could be any
connection between Ruby and Oswald?
Mr. CRAFARD. I have considered the fact that there was a connection;
yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When did you start to think about this?
Mr. CRAFARD. I imagine I more likely thought about it as soon as I
found out or just shortly after I found out that Ruby had shot Oswald.
Mr. GRIFFIN. In trying to think about that connection, have you been
thinking about this rather regularly since then?
Mr. CRAFARD. No. I have pretty well forgot just about, even, almost
forgot about it entirely.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long would you say it has been that you have been—have
forgotten about any thoughts you might have had that there could be a
connection between Ruby and Oswald?
Mr. CRAFARD. Well, I have just almost completely—I haven’t had a
thought about any of this since I appeared at the trial. I was of the
opinion that I was through with it and that I would just as soon forget
about it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about when you started to work in the oil field up
there in Michigan for the drilling company? At that time, did you
ponder from time to time whether there was any connection between Ruby
and Oswald?
Mr. CRAFARD. I don’t remember doing so; no.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Keeping these sort of questions in mind, can you tell us
when it was before today that you first remembered that somebody might
have told you that Oswald had been at the club?
Mr. CRAFARD. I know definitely that I was told by somebody that Oswald
had been in the club, but I haven’t given that fact too much thought
until we was talking this afternoon during the lunch break there, and
it seemed to me the statement had been made to me before I left Dallas.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I am asking you when you remembered that statement. Keep
in mind I am distinguishing between the time you actually heard the
statement made and when you first remembered it again.
Mr. CRAFARD. I remembered hearing the statement that Oswald had been in
the club, but I believe there was something in the news about the fact
that he had been in the club two or three times.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I see. Now, when you saw this in the news, did that bring
to you a recollection that someone had also told you this independently?
Mr. CRAFARD. I don’t recall it doing so; no.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, is it possible that the recollection that you are
giving us here is simply something that you really didn’t hear anybody
tell you but that you just read in the newspapers?
Mr. CRAFARD. It could be that it is mixed up in my own mind about the
fact that it come out that way, but I wouldn’t know for sure.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You are not sure now whether you independently remember
somebody telling you this or whether you just read about it in the
newspaper, and now are confused as to whether your source is from
somebody telling you or from the newspaper?
Mr. CRAFARD. I am almost positive that the statement was made to me by
a person, but it could have been that, like I say it could have been,
after I left Dallas, after it came out that Ruby had shot Oswald,
somebody had heard the statement over the television or read it in the
newspapers themselves, and made the statement to me that they had heard
that he had been in the club.
Mr. HUBERT. I come back to the point I made a little while ago, and I
would like you to consider it again because apparently, as you say,
you have not given this matter a great deal of thought up until now. I
suggest to you again that your reaction when you heard it would have
been quite different if you had heard that rumor about Oswald being in
the club before Ruby shot Oswald than it would have been if you had
heard it after he shot him.
Mr. CRAFARD. I believe so; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Now that reaction of yours is, I think, the key to your
recollection of it, and I suggest that you put your mind to it, Larry,
to see what—to have a recollection, if you can, which is true, of
course, but which will reflect what your reaction was. It has got to be
a different reaction between the two, and I think you have agreed with
me on that.
Mr. CRAFARD. Yes; I do. I believe that—I am not sure whether it was
hearing a statement there when it was made to me or hearing it over the
television or something like that. It was something about the statement
where I said that if he had been I didn’t know about it, and I didn’t
believe Jack did either or something of that effect.
Mr. HUBERT. Well, now, you are telling us then that at the time you
heard this you made a comment?
Mr. CRAFARD. Yes; I believe so.
Mr. HUBERT. You made a comment to the person who told you that Oswald
had been in the club?
Mr. CRAFARD. I believe so; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. And at the same time you made that comment that you hadn’t
seen Oswald in the club, you said you didn’t believe that Ruby did it?
Mr. CRAFARD. I didn’t believe that Ruby had saw him in the club.
Mr. HUBERT. That must have been then after Ruby was involved?
Mr. CRAFARD. It must have been; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. That would put it after Monday morning, November 25?
Mr. CRAFARD. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. So, according to that it couldn’t have been before you left
Dallas?
Mr. CRAFARD. According to that; yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But do you still, in light of that do you still, have the
recollection that you did hear it before you left Dallas?
Mr. CRAFARD. I am not sure.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let me ask you this, Larry: If you had heard this before
you left Dallas, was your feeling nevertheless about Ruby’s insanity
or state of mind so strong at the point when you learned that Ruby
shot Oswald that you would have regarded such a statement as being of
minimal importance or was your initial reaction to Ruby’s having shot
Oswald a sort of quizzical one in which you really hadn’t made up your
mind about the man?
Mr. CRAFARD. My original reaction when I first heard about it was the
fact I couldn’t really believe that he had done it. I just couldn’t
believe, I couldn’t make myself believe, that Jack had done it.