Mr. BURLESON. Did you see it after you got the paper on the morning of
the 22d before Jack called on the 22d?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes, I did.
Mr. BURLESON. And Jack was talking about it at that time?
Mrs. GRANT. He was.
Mr. BURLESON. And would you relate at this time some of the things you
recall he said at that time about the Bernard Weissman ad.
Mrs. GRANT. Well, the first thing he asked was if Pauline is going to
take over—she was the manager, and do this and do that and get the
napkins and all of this stuff connected with the club and then he said,
“Did you see the ad?”
Mr. BURLESON. This was before the President was shot?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes. It so happened that that whole page was like on the
back of a section—it seemed to me anyway that it was that way and it
was open right on my bed—that section, anyway, was opened at that time
for some reason or other.
Mr. BURLESON. What did Jack say when he called you about the ad?
Mrs. GRANT. At that time he said, “Did you see the ad?” And I said,
“What ad?” He said, “About the President?” And I said, “Yes.” It said,
“Welcome, Mr. Kennedy,” and he didn’t say too much then. He said some
words in regard—like what do you think of it, so I said, “Oh”——He said,
“Did you read it?” And I says, “Yes, yes.” You know, I wanted to get
away.
Mr. BURLESON. Had you really read it?
Mrs. GRANT. Even if I did, I’ll be honest about it, it didn’t appear to
me to be bad or good because I didn’t read all the way down and think
about it and I didn’t study it like maybe I did later.
Mr. BURLESON. Anyway, go back to what he said then.
Mrs. GRANT. Well, he said, “Read it.” He says, “I’ll call you later.”
And he was in the Dallas Morning News, I think, at that time.
Mr. BURLESON. He said something to lead you to believe that?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes; well, he said—it seems to me, “I’m in the News, and
I’m going to Toni Zoppi’s office,” which was somewhere in the building,
and “I’ve got to pick up a pamphlet.”
Mr. BURLESON. Toni Zoppi being the entertainment editor or amusement
editor of the Dallas Morning News?
Mrs. GRANT. That’s right; and Jack had given him an ad a week before
on a certain entertainer and that’s the fellow that made the remark,
but that was Del Mar—Bill DelMar or DeMar or something like that, and
Jack wanted it because, I guess, the entertainer wanted all this stuff
back—that’s what we call writeups.
Mr. BURLESON. When was the next time, then, that you heard from Jack;
was that after the assassination?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes.
Mr. BURLESON. And at that time what was Jack’s state as you recall it?
Mrs. GRANT. Well, I was hysterical myself. He must have been crying,
from his voice.
Mr. BURLESON. At the time that he called, did you know that President
Kennedy had been assassinated?
Mrs. GRANT. Oh, yes; because Pauline had called me and on my clock it
was about 25 to 1.
Mr. BURLESON. What was Jack doing—saying—or was he crying?
Mrs. GRANT. Well, when Jack called it was after 1 again.
Mr. BURLESON. How was he—was he upset or normal?
Mrs. GRANT. Oh, he was upset.
Mr. BURLESON. What did he say?
Mrs. GRANT. He says, “I’m in the Dallas Morning News,” and I could
hear—it wasn’t distinct, but he says, “The people are all around here,
the phones are ringing like hell and everyone is canceling their
subscriptions and their ads—big ads from all over the State,” and he
said, “Did you read it?” And so I read it again.
Mr. BURLESON. While he was waiting?
Mrs. GRANT. No; but I mean since then—I looked at it—I’ll be honest
about it, I didn’t comprehend it.
Mr. BURLESON. Okay.
Mrs. GRANT. You see, I didn’t comprehend it.
Mr. BURLESON. Tell us what else he said.
Mrs. GRANT. Well, Jack said something about John Newman, the fellow
that takes the ads there and he says, “You know, Jack, I have to take
orders from my superiors,” and Jack, whether he told me that night or
later on in the afternoon— he said, “What are you—so money hungry?
That you have to take $1,500 for an ad?” Jack knew a full page cost
approximately that—I mean, he is well aware of that.
Mr. BURLESON. Let me bring you forward a little bit on these occasions
that you told the FBI about in these statements where Jack spent this
time with you at your house—would you watch television during this
period of time or some of the time?
Mrs. GRANT. Well, he didn’t. I had watched it a great deal that
afternoon on a Friday, and he came over—it seems to me when he left the
News he came over and came back later on with a lot of groceries and by
that time either I saw Curry or somebody else on the television and he
was saying, “We got the right man.”
Mr. BURLESON. Did Jack see that?
Mrs. GRANT. I don’t know—I really don’t know. I tell you—usually under
those pills, I thought I heard it plenty that day, and we got sick when
we were talking about that.
Mr. BURLESON. Did you and Jack talk about Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mrs. GRANT. He had made very few remarks— he says, “He’s a creep.” You
see, “a creep” is a real low life to Jack and “what a creep he is,” he
says, and he was sick—he went in the bathroom.
Mr. BURLESON. Did he actually vomit?
Mrs. GRANT. He did not—he was sick to his stomach and he cried, he
looked terrible—he just wasn’t himself, and truthfully, so help me, I
remember even my mother’s funeral—it just killed him. He said this,
“Someone tore my heart out,” and he says, “I didn’t even feel so bad
when pops died because pappa was an old man. He was close to 90.”
Mr. BURLESON. What did Jack have to say about President Kennedy?
Mrs. GRANT. Oh, all I know is that it just killed him. I’ll tell you
the truth—he sat there like it wasn’t worth life—like he thought they
were out to get the world, the whole world, and this was part of it.
Mr. BURLESON. All right. He was very respectful of President Kennedy as
a man and as a President?
Mrs. GRANT. Oh, he admired him—he thought this man was a great man
of courage. If I said anything like I said there—something about
his brother and integration, he said, “This man is greater, than
Lincoln”—the same night.
Mr. BURLESON. Did Jack ever have an occasion to say anything to you
about a letter that was in the newspaper that was written by some man,
purportedly to President Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline?
Mrs. GRANT. I don’t know about that, but the week—the same week of
the assassination—I think it was Monday or Tuesday—it was that week,
there was a picture of the President sitting behind the desk just like
you are and John-John was sitting at the front and you could see him
playing around, I think it was his father’s feet, and he called it
his house—I think, let me put it this way: My brother says, “This kid
don’t know his father is the President and the father don’t act like
a President.” He meant that he was just like a good guy—like acting
ordinarily, like he wasn’t of wealth or power—he was just like the
average young man and Jack looked at him as even being much younger
than he was.
Mr. BURLESON. But you don’t know anything about such a letter being in
the paper that Jack saw?
Mrs. GRANT. I don’t know—if he did, I don’t know it. I’ll tell you, I
don’t know about that picture—it was the first week that I was home.
Mr. BURLESON. On Saturday, the times that Jack was in your house, do
you recall if he watched any television?
Mrs. GRANT. No—very little. Saturday he came in with three pictures,
and at the left hand corner, they were postal card pictures and he told
me what he did. He went home and he couldn’t sleep—he got Larry out of
bed and George Senator, and I thought he was nuts, I’ll be honest with
you about it, so help me.
Mr. HUBERT. Who?
Mrs. GRANT. I thought my brother Jack was plain nuts.
Mr. BURLESON. Is that when he went out in the middle of the morning and
took the pictures?
Mrs. GRANT. That’s right; and he didn’t know exactly where he saw
it—that was the worst part of it and Larry told me that later on when
they found him, he came back to it and they drove around and waited for
daylight and he showed Larry how to take the pictures.
Mr. BURLESON. You are talking about the “Impeach Earl Warren” sign?
Mrs. GRANT. That’s right—all of this got in Jack’s mind that some
Communist—no, no—he didn’t use the word “Communist”. I think he said
“Some outfit or some lousy guy,” or something was putting up signs like
that.
Mr. BURLESON. Did Jack tell you what he was going to do with this
picture?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes.
Mr. BURLESON. What?
Mrs. GRANT. First, he showed it to me—three little pictures.
Mr. BURLESON. You actually saw the pictures?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes—I saw them—they are postal cards—laying out on my white
table. They were this big (indicating).
Mr. BURLESON. These are pictures of “Impeach Earl Warren” signs?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes; and they looked like the American flag.
Mr. BURLESON. And it was on this Polaroid film?
Mrs. GRANT. The camera is still at my house, so that’s the same camera,
I’m sure.
Mr. BURLESON. All right.
Mrs. GRANT. It was like a postal card picture. It seems to me in the
left hand corner was that, and at the bottom it said, “Belmont—Impeach
Earl Warren,” and a box number and it said, “Belmont, Massachusetts.”
Mr. BURLESON. What did Jack tell you as he showed you those pictures?
Mrs. GRANT. He called Stanley because he had a lot of faith in him.
Mr. BURLESON. Stanley who?
Mrs. GRANT. Stanley Kaufman; an attorney. This is another wonderful
American, and he said, “Stanley,” and he told him about the pictures
and then he talked to me, he says, “You know what, I went down to the
post office and the newspaper box—the post office box——”
Mr. BURLESON. The newspaper box of Bernard Weissman’s ad?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes—“It’s so stuffed with mail,” he said to the clerk, and
you can find out now which clerk this is, and on the 23d he was there
at 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning and Larry and Senator should know the
time—I really don’t know that—but it seems to me that’s what he said.
First of all, he figured that a gentile is using that name to blame all
this on a Jew—about that ad, and then he analyzed the ad on Saturday
and he saw the black border.
Mr. BURLESON. Will you tell me what Jack said he was going to do with
these pictures?
Mrs. GRANT. He talked to Stanley and he was going to take them to the
FBI—Monday, the first thing.
Mr. BURLESON. Was he also going to take them to Mr. Gordon McLendon who
was the operator of KLIF?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes; he said he was going up there that night. Whether he
did or was there or not, I don’t know.
Mr. BURLESON. Did he mention at that time—did he mention Mr. McLendon’s
name, that Mr. McLendon does these editorials on radio station KLIF?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes—he was very close to Gordon.
Mr. BURLESON. All right.
Mrs. GRANT. In fact, I think he called Gordon from my house. He was
there—and on Saturday he spent a long time with me and he called many
people.
Mr. BURLESON. And he was quite upset over these pictures and signs?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes.
Mr. BURLESON. Now, let’s come forward to where we were talking about
this Al Gruber.
Mrs. GRANT. Yes—Al.
Mr. BURLESON. Or it’s possibly Alex Gruber.
Mrs. GRANT. Yes; it’s Al Gruber—his nickname is Musty.
Mr. BURLESON. And there was something about a dog?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes.
Mr. BURLESON. Now, is this the dog that Jack was having someone build a
crate for?
Mrs. GRANT. That’s right; or buy a crate or something.
Mr. BURLESON. And that he could ship this dog to Al Gruber in a crate?
Mrs. GRANT. It seems to me when Al was here when I was in the hospital,
Jack had promised him a certain dog, I don’t know which one it is, and
not a dog, but a certain dog, because Jack had a lot of dogs. His dogs
just had puppies, I think, in the last month and Al had talked to—Jack
had talked to Andy Armstrong—Andrew—and said something about getting a
crate and Al wanted this dog.
Mr. BURLESON. Now bringing you forward a little bit to this episode
that you and Jack had the trouble over that ended up in going to Rabbi
Silverman and that you touched upon?
Mrs. GRANT. Well, he went to Rabbi Silverman because we weren’t talking
for about 2 weeks. This was previous to the operation.
Mr. BURLESON. All right; and did Rabbi Silverman talk to you?
Mrs. GRANT. Yes.
Mr. BURLESON. Had Jack complained to him that he couldn’t get along
with you or something?
Mrs. GRANT. Well. I don’t know exactly what Jack said—the rabbi, you
see, didn’t tell me, but I told the rabbi about this money deal. Of
course, I didn’t tell him that I didn’t go to the hospital on all these
times that I had made arrangements with the doctors and backed out.
Mr. BURLESON. Now, you were asked some questions concerning Jack’s
political beliefs or political leanings or political philosophies or
political—anything that had to do with politics, did you ever hear Jack
saying anything about being a Democrat or a Republican or being a right
wing or left wing—he didn’t get involved in politics?
Mrs. GRANT. Now, this is it—my older brother knew a lot of Democrats
and it seemed that we followed in their footsteps, because this is what
I heard as a child—that the Democrats are for the poor people, so we as
poor people went along with them, but we were never the kind that I was
to go out and get votes or boast about a fellow—me and Jack—never.
Mr. BURLESON. You don’t know if Jack worked in any type of political
movement?
Mrs. GRANT. Not to my knowledge. My older brother did—he was a Democrat
and he worked for Governor Horner.
Mr. HUBERT. Who is the older brother?
Mrs. GRANT. Hyman.
Mr. BURLESON. Now, I think you also told me that Earl Ruby’s wife had a
great admiration for President Kennedy also?
Mrs. GRANT. Truthfully, Earl couldn’t get out of her sight unless she
OK’d it, but she was such a great admirer, and you know how much time
he spent down here and money and Earl said she never said a word—she
just loved him.
Mr. BURLESON. You mean loved the President?
Mrs. GRANT. The President—the late President. They’ve got
pictures—little pictures before the assassination—they had all of those.