Mr. ROWLAND. But a lot can happen in that much time.
Mr. SPECTER. When you saw him, you told her about him, and then did she
look in the direction of the man?
Mr. ROWLAND. After she pointed something else out to me she looked in
that direction.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you then look back toward the direction of, to the
window where you had seen him?
Mr. ROWLAND. Yes; I even pointed to it with my wife.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you look back at the same time she looked back?
Mr. ROWLAND. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And when you looked back what, if anything, did you
observe in the window?
Mr. ROWLAND. There was nothing there then.
Mr. SPECTER. Following that did you and she have any additional
conversation about this man in the window?
Mr. ROWLAND. We talked about it momentarily, just for a few seconds
that it was of most likelihood a security man, had a very good vantage
point where he could watch the crowds, talked about the rifle, it
looked like a very high-powered rifle.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you mention that to your wife?
Mr. ROWLAND. Yes; I did.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you described as fully as you can everything you
discussed with your wife at that juncture?
Mr. ROWLAND. I think so.
Representative FORD. Was there anybody else standing close to you as
you had this conversation with your wife?
Mr. ROWLAND. There was a policeman about as far as me to the flag.
Representative FORD. That is about how many feet, would you say?
Mr. ROWLAND. Twelve, thirteen feet.
Representative FORD. There was no one between you and the policeman in
that line of vision?
Mr. ROWLAND. No.
Then there were three or four colored men just behind the elevator, and
a couple on the elevator that had come up through the sidewalk. This
was a distance of--this was on the opposite side of us about 15 feet,
just a little further than the officer.
Representative FORD. There was no one closer to you and your wife than
10 to 15 feet?
Mr. ROWLAND. That is correct. That is one of the main reasons we
selected that spot.
Representative FORD. Did it ever enter your mind that you should go and
tell the policeman of this sight or this vision that you had seen?
Mr. ROWLAND. Really it didn't.
Representative FORD. It never entered your mind?
Mr. ROWLAND. I never dreamed of anything such as that. I mean, I
must honestly say my opinion was based on movies I have seen, on the
attempted assassination of Theodore Roosevelt where they had Secret
Service men up in the building such as that with rifles watching the
crowds, and another one concerned with attempted assassination of the
other one, Franklin Roosevelt, and both of these had Secret Service men
up in windows or on top of buildings with rifles, and this is how my
opinion was based and why it didn't alarm me.
Perhaps if I had been older and had more experience in life it might
have made a difference. It very well could have.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Rowland, did the man with the rifle have any
distinctive facial appearance such as a mustache or a prominent scar,
anything of that sort which you could observe?
Mr. ROWLAND. There was nothing dark on his face, no mustache. There
could have been a scar if it hadn't been a dark scar. If it was, you
know, a blotch or such as this, there was nothing very dark about the
color of his face.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. Rowland, will you recount as precisely and as
specifically as you can, the exact conversation between you and your
wife from the time you first noticed this man until your conversation
about the man concluded, indicating what you said and what she said in
language as closely as you can recollect it?
Mr. ROWLAND. That is a whopper.
I am almost sure I told her or asked her, did she want to see a Secret
Service agent. She said, "Where," and I said, "In the building there,"
and at that time she told me to look--I remember what she was looking
at. Right directly across from us in this plaza in front of the pond
there was a colored boy that had an epileptic fit or something of this
type right then, and she pointed this out to me and there were a couple
of officers there and a few moments later they called an ambulance,
this is what she told me to look at then, and we looked at this for a
short period of time, and then I told her to look in the building, the
second floor from the top and on that end, the two open windows, is I
think what I said, and I said, "He is not there now."
I think that is what I said. She said, "What did he look like," and I
told her just that--I gave her more or less a brief description of what
he looked like, open collared shirt, light-colored shirt, and he had a
rifle, I described the rifle in as much detail as I have to you to her.
Mr. SPECTER. You described the rifle to her in as much detail as you
have to us?
Mr. ROWLAND. Yes.
And then she said something about wishing she could have seen him but
he was probably somewhere else in another part of the building watching
people now. Then we were discussing again, just preceding that we
were discussing the event with Mr. Stevenson, this was about 2 weeks
beforehand, this was fresh on our mind, and right after that we started
discussing that it was a security man.
We were looking around, we became very security conscious. We noted
that policemen, I think there were maybe 2, maybe 3 on the viaduct
itself; some 20 or 30, I would say 20 to 25 policemen being in that
immediate area.
Representative FORD. About what time, as you can best recollect, did
this conversation with your wife take place?
Mr. ROWLAND. About 5 minutes until about 22 after. I think I again
looked at my watch.
Representative FORD. After you and your wife looked up and saw that
there was no one in the window, did you ever again look at the window?
Mr. ROWLAND. Yes; I did, constantly.
Representative FORD. And as you looked at the window subsequently did
you ever see anything else in the window?
Mr. ROWLAND. No; not in that window, and I looked back every few
seconds, 30 seconds, maybe twice a minute, occasionally trying to find
him so I could point him out to my wife.
Something I would like to note is that the window that I have been told
the shots were actually fired from, I did not see that, there was
someone hanging out that window at that time.
Representative FORD. At what time was that?
Mr. ROWLAND. At the time I saw the man in the other window, I saw this
man hanging out the window first. It was a colored man, I think.
Representative FORD. Is this the same window where you saw the man
standing with the rifle?
Mr. ROWLAND. No; this was the one on the east end of the building, the
one that they said the shots were fired from.
Representative FORD. I am not clear on this now. The window that you
saw the man that you describe was on what end of the building?
Mr. ROWLAND. The west, southwest corner.
Representative FORD. And the man you saw hanging out from the window
was at what corner?
Mr. ROWLAND. The east, southeast corner.
Representative FORD. Southeast corner. On the same floor?
Mr. ROWLAND. On the same floor.
Representative FORD. When did you notice him?
Mr. ROWLAND. This was before I noticed the other man with the rifle.
Representative FORD. I see. This was before you saw the man in the
window with the rifle?
Mr. ROWLAND. Yes. My wife and I were both looking and making remarks
that the people were hanging out the windows. I think the majority of
them were colored people, some of them were hanging out the windows to
their waist, such as this. We made several remarks to this fact, and
then she started watching the colored boy, and I continued to look, and
then I saw the man with the rifle.
Representative FORD. After 12:22 or thereabouts you indicated you
periodically looked back at the window in the southwest corner where
you had seen the man with the rifle. What happened as the motorcade
came along?
Mr. ROWLAND. As the motorcade came along, there was quite a bit of
excitement. I didn't look back from then. I was very interested in
trying to see the President myself. I had seen him twice before but I
was interested in seeing him again.
Representative FORD. Did you notice a sedan come by with any officials
in it at the outset of the motorcade?
Mr. ROWLAND. The first car in the motorcade was, I think it was, a
white or cream-colored Ford. This appeared to be full of detectives or
such as this; rather husky men, large men.