The testimony of James Robert Underwood was taken at 11:25 a.m., on
April 1, 1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office
Building, Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. Joseph A. Ball,
assistant counsel of the President's Commission.
Mr. BALL. Mr. Underwood, will you stand up and be sworn?
(Complying.)
Mr. BALL. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give
before this Commission shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I do.
Mr. BALL. Will you state your name, please?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. My name is James Robert Underwood.
Mr. BALL. Your occupation?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I am the assistant news director of KRLD-TV and radio in
Dallas.
Mr. BALL. On November 22, 1963, you were in the motorcade, the
Presidential motorcade?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes, sir; I was three cars behind the President.
Mr. BALL. Who was in the car with you?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. There was a photographer from channel 5, WBAP-TV, whose
name is James Darnell, and a photographer from the Dallas Morning
News--I know his name but I can't think of it right now----
Mr. BALL. Tom Dillard?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; Tom Dillard, and a photographer from the Dallas
Times-Herald whose name is Bob Jackson, also a photographer from
WFAA-TV and I do not know his name. I heard it but I don't remember it.
Mr. BALL. There was a driver, also?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; the driver I later found out was a member of the
department of public safety.
Mr. BALL. You are a photographer, also?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes, sir; I wear many hats in my business but one of
which is news photographer.
Mr. BALL. Did you have your camera with you that day?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. BALL. What is your experience; where were you born; where did you
go to school; how did you get to get the experience that fit you for
your present job? Just in your own words, tell me something about
yourself.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I was born in Oklahoma City, Okla., in 1922; I served in
the Marine Corps from 1940 until 1943, almost 4 years, and after that
I attended the University of Tulsa and after that I worked--I began
working in radio as an announcer while I was going to college. When I
got out of college, I went to Corpus Christi, Tex. That was about 1947
and I became program director and news director of a radio station in
Corpus Christi and I stayed there until 1950 when I went to a station
in Jacksonville, Fla., where I was also program director and news
director, and in 1953, I came to Dallas, and I worked for a year and
a half for WFAA-TV as an announcer, then I freelanced in television
and radio from September of 1954 until November--and I have to count
for a minute--6 years this November that would be until November 1958
when I went to work for KRLD-TV and Radio News and shortly thereafter
I became assistant news director but I earned part of my living, I
still freelance in television which is all freelance in television and
I have a regular job which entails every type of reporting, including
photography which I enjoy doing.
Mr. BALL. On the day of the assassination, you were in the motorcade
with these men you mentioned and you think your car was third behind
the Presidential car?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; and I thought it was six or seven. I shot sound
on film of the President's arrival and Vice President's arrival at
Dallas Love Field the morning he came in on the 22d and then I took off
the rather cumbersome sound on film equipment and took my hand camera
because I had an assigned place in the motorcade and I could not tell
out there because of the many people I could not tell what position
we were in. I could not see that far ahead to determine exactly where
we were in the motorcade, although I knew we were in the front of it.
The motorcade stopped once on the way downtown, this was briefly, and
I jumped over this side--we were in a convertible--and ran toward
the President's car and I was aware of the crowd and the motorcade
immediately started and I ran back to the convertible, not wanting
to be left, and looking afterward at the films that I took there,
I could then count the cars there. I realized we were three behind
him, according to my movies we took. When we turned onto Main Street
downtown and headed west toward the scene of where the assassination
took place, either the regulator or the mainspring in my camera broke
and I was without a camera. I knew that we had two men, at least two
men on the parade route who were on the street and would be filming
the motorcade as we came by and I hoped to exchange my broken camera
for one of theirs because I knew I could make more use of the one that
would operate. The only problem was we went down Main Street so rapidly
it would have been impossible to get anything from someone standing on
the street and at Main and Record one of our men was stationed and I
tried to holler at him my camera was broken and I wanted to switch and
I started to and there was no point in it because we passed there that
rapidly. I thought it was the fastest motorcade that passed through a
crowd; this was really moving, as far as I was concerned. Then, we came
to the scene where the shots were fired. Do you want me to go on?
Mr. BALL. From the time you turned, tell me what you observed after you
made the turn at Main and Houston to drive north on Houston.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. After we turned onto Houston Street, the car I was in
was about, as far as I can remember, about in the middle of the block
or a little bit north of the center of the block, which is a short
block, when I heard the first shot.
Mr. BALL. Between Main and Elm?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; between Main and Elm, closer to the Elm
intersection, Elm and Houston intersection, when I heard the first shot
fired. I thought it was an explosion. I have heard many rifles fired
but it did not sound like a rifle to me. Evidently must have been a
reverberation from the buildings or something. I believe I said to one
of the other fellows it sounds like a giant firecracker and the car I
was in was about in the intersection of Elm and Houston when I heard a
second shot fired and moments later a third shot fired and I realized
that they were by that time, the last two shots, I realized they were
coming from overhead.
Mr. BALL. You realized they were coming from overhead and that would be
from what source?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. That would be from the Texas School Book Depository
Building.
Mr. BALL. It sounded like they were coming from that direction?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes, sir; the last two. Now, the first was just a
loud explosion but it sounded like a giant firecracker or something
had gone off. By the time the third shot was fired, the car I was in
stopped almost through the intersection in front of the Texas School
Book Depository Building and I leaped out of the car before the car
stopped. Bob Jackson from the Herald said he thought he saw a rifle in
the window and I looked where he pointed and I saw nothing. Below the
window he was pointing at, I saw two colored men leaning out there with
their heads turned toward the top of the building, trying, I suppose,
to determine where the shots were coming from.
Mr. BALL. What words did you hear Bob Jackson say?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I don't know that I can remember exactly except I did
hear him say words to the effect that "I saw a rifle" and I looked at
that instant and I saw nothing myself. If he saw a rifle, I did not.
Mr. BALL. At that point when you looked, where was your car?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Our car was in the intersection, in the intersection of
Elm and Houston Street.
Mr. BALL. Had it made the turn yet?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. It had partially made the turn or had just begun to make
the turn. Frankly, I was looking up and around and I saw at the same
time people falling on the ground down the street toward the underpass
and my first impression was some of these people falling to the ground
had been shot.
Mr. BALL. Did your car stop?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Our car stopped and the minute it stopped I leaped out
of the car.
Mr. BALL. Where was your car when it stopped?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Right in the intersection, perhaps just past the
intersection, turned onto Elm.
Mr. BALL. Did you get out before the car parked along the curb?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes, sir; the minute it stopped, I leaped over the side.
Mr. BALL. What did you do?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I left my camera in the car, the camera that was broken,
and ran as fast as I could back toward the man we had at Record and
Main in order to get a camera. There I was without a camera; the only
thought I had was to get a camera.
Mr. BALL. Did you get one?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; I ran the full block back to Main Street and our
man there, name of Sanderson, was running down Main toward Houston. He
was running to meet me, although he didn't know what was happening and
that my camera was broke. Suddenly, motorcycles and sirens had been
turned on police cars and were all headed toward Main. I met him just
around the corner on Main past Houston and grabbed his camera and said,
"Someone had been shooting at the President." I didn't know this but I
assumed it happened. I took his camera and got back to the scene. When
I got back to the scene, most of the people in the area were running
up the grassy slope toward the railway yards just behind the Texas
School Book Depository Building. Actually, I assumed, which is the only
thing I could do, I assumed perhaps who had fired the shots had run in
that direction. I recognized at least a dozen deputy sheriffs running
also in that area--it seems to me that many, and I ran up there and
took some films and they were running through the railroad yard and
they very quickly found nothing and I was having, frankly, a hard time
breathing because I had done more running in those few minutes than I
am used to doing. I gasped out to a couple people--I don't know who
they are--that I thought the shots came from that building and one of
the fellows in the car with me said they had seen a rifle barrel in the
building.
Mr. BALL. This group of men were deputy sheriffs?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. For the most part, yes; I don't think I could
recall--Lemmy Lewis I see in my mind, but I am not sure Lemmy was
there. This was a kaleidoscope of things happening. In my business, you
need to make a quick appraisal of what is happening if you are going to
shoot pictures of it. I was confused and out of breath and unbelieving
of what happened.
Mr. BALL. Where did you go from the grassy slopes?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I went from the railroad yards--actually, I was back in
the track area--I went immediately with these men at a run to the Texas
School Depository.
Mr. BALL. Which entrance?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. The front entrance.
Mr. BALL. On Elm?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; and I ran down there and I think I took some
pictures of some men--yes, I know I did, going in and out of the
building. By that time there was one police officer there and he was a
three-wheeled motorcycle officer and a little colored boy whose last
name I remember as Eunice.
Mr. BALL. Euins?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. It may have been Euins. It was difficult to understand
when he said his name. He was telling the motorcycle officer he had
seen a colored man lean out of the window upstairs and he had a rifle.
He was telling this to the officer and the officer took him over
and put him in a squad car. By that time, motorcycle officers were
arriving, homicide officers were arriving and I went over and asked
this boy if he had seen someone with a rifle and he said "Yes, sir."
I said, "Were they white or black?" He said, "It was a colored man."
I said, "Are you sure it was a colored man?" He said, "Yes sir" and I
asked him his name and the only thing I could understand was what I
thought his name was Eunice.
Mr. BALL. Was he about 15?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I couldn't tell his age; looked to me to be younger. I
would have expected him to be about 10 or 11 years old.
Mr. BALL. Then what did you do?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I stayed in front of the building; actually, I stayed in
the intersection of Elm and Houston and took movies of police arriving
and fire--and I think some fire equipment arrived on the scene, one
firetruck or two firetrucks, I'm not sure, and I just shot some general
film on the area. I have since searched that film to see if I could see
any face in it that would have been important to this.
Mr. BALL. Leaving the building?
Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes; but I haven't found any except that of officers
arriving and just people generally in the area; none of it, though,
that you could--I spent several days at this, I guess during January
when things had calmed down. I was on the side street of the building,
around the front of the building and in the intersection for the next
10 minutes, then I went across the street to the courthouse and phoned
several news reports to C.B.S. in New York and described what was
taking place in the building at that time. There were firemen with
ladders in front of the building and officers running in and out and
they cordoned off the building and kept the spectators out of the
building, but there was quite a time lapse between the time the shots
were fired and the time anyone checked the building. The main effort
was to run to the railroad yards instead of the School Book Depository.
Mr. BALL. I think that's all. Mr. Underwood, this will be typed up and
you can waive signature if you wish or you can sign it if you wish.
Mr. UNDERWOOD. I don't have to sign it. I will waive signature.