And I assumed he knew that I was with him. That is when he talked to
Chief Curry and Chief Curry come back and said he needed the report
from me, too.
Representative FORD. When did this conversation take place?
Mr. BRIAN. The date I don't have any idea. Probably 2 or 3 weeks, I
will tell you----
Mr. DULLES. 2 or 3 weeks what? After November 22?
Mr. BRIAN. No, sir; before the date I wrote the report, because I
messed around there for another couple of weeks and then I walked in
the office one day and he said, "Chief Curry wants it today," and I
said, "All right, I will write it," and I sat down and wrote it, and
I believe the next day or the day after that he brought it, came up
here, and all this come out in the paper about making a statement and
me backing the statement up in Dallas, I don't know whether it came up
here or not.
Representative FORD. Who prompted this conversation that you have been
describing?
Mr. BRIAN. In our office that day?
Representative FORD. Yes.
Mr. BRIAN. I am trying to think what brought it on. Somebody, there was
a statement in the paper or something that said that--anyway, somewhere
down the line it came out, it said it wasn't right what Lieutenant
Revill had said.
And I said, "I know it is right, I was standing there," and that was
about the extent of that.
And then he said, "Well, I will need"--he talked to Chief Curry, I
guess, and they decided they needed a report from me on it, and then
I finally wrote the report and he brought it up here. I guess it was
just in the course of a conversation more than anything. I don't think
anybody prompted it, really.
Representative FORD. In this Commission 711 you actually typed it out
yourself?
Mr. BRIAN. Yes, sir.
Representative FORD. Are you a fairly accomplished typist?
Mr. BRIAN. No, sir. I can type fairly well. I am not a touch typist. I
can't copy, but I can type fairly well typing something I don't have
to copy off of a sheet of paper. In other words, I have to look at the
keys to type it.
Representative FORD. Did you have to rewrite this a second time on the
typewriter?
Mr. BRIAN. Yes, sir. I made several strikeovers and some other stuff,
and typed it, I had to type it over again.
Representative FORD. In other words, you typed it out once, and then
retyped it yourself?
Mr. BRIAN. Yes, sir; I typed it twice. The first time everything wasn't
right in there and the spelling and the strikeovers and stuff, and not
being an accomplished typist I still don't like to throw things out,
you know, that don't look too bad so I typed it over again.
Representative FORD. But after you typed it over the first time did you
show it to somebody else?
Mr. BRIAN. I believe Lieutenant Revill looked at it and called a bunch
of mistakes to my attention.
Representative FORD. What kind of mistakes?
Mr. BRIAN. Well, I don't know. There were some strikeovers and some, a
couple of misspelled words, I believe, and I don't have a copy of the
one that I copied from so I couldn't say, but I did have to type the
report over.
Representative FORD. But these mistakes that were pointed out by
Lieutenant Revill, were they mistakes of substance or just mistakes
involving spelling and the like?
Mr. BRIAN. Well, what do you mean by substance now?
Representative FORD. Well, I mean as to the precise things that you
said as to what transpired?
Mr. BRIAN. I don't believe there were. I am trying to recall what I had
to add that took place there, and----
Representative FORD. It is important whether or not any statements of
facts were altered or whether the changes were simply typographical
errors or otherwise.
Mr. BRIAN. I will tell you one thing that I recall he called to my
attention was 2:05 p.m., I believe, and I told him, I said I can't put
that in there because I don't know what time it was, and I don't. I
don't have any idea of what time it was, and he said, "Well, all right,
leave that out," but I think the substance was probably the same in
both reports. In fact, I am sure the substance was probably the same,
because it was, the grammar was changed in some places, some spelling
was changed, and some strikeovers were changed, and I think probably
the second report was copied, that one was copied partially from the
first one and then I made some changes.
Representative FORD. While you were in the process of discussing this
with Lieutenant Revill he didn't show you his report, Exhibit 709?
Mr. BRIAN. I don't know whether he did or not. I don't believe that he
did. I don't believe he did.
Representative FORD. Had you seen it before?
Mr. BRIAN. I have seen the report.
Representative FORD. Did you see it before you typed this up?
Mr. BRIAN. I don't recall seeing it. I may have, but I don't recall it.
Now, he has got something in there that I don't have in mine, I know
about him saying that Hosty knew that Oswald, I believe, was capable of
assassinating the President, but I didn't hear Hosty say that.
Representative FORD. When did you learn that that statement was in
Revill's statement?
Mr. BRIAN. Just to be truthful, I don't know.
Mr. RANKIN. Did Lieutenant Revill ask you to include in your statement
that Hosty had said that Oswald was known to be capable of being an
assassin?
Mr. BRIAN. No, sir; he asked me if I heard him say it and I told him
no, but I don't believe he asked me to include that in the report.
Mr. DULLES. You told him, no.
Mr. RANKIN. When was that?
Mr. BRIAN. Probably the day--now, this all happened in the course of a
week's time and the conversations are hard to put on a day or time, I
mean when you don't think--I didn't think all this was real important,
and so I didn't try to backlog it to where--it was probably the day,
probably about April 20, along in there.
Mr. RANKIN. Before or after you wrote your report?
Mr. BRIAN. In between the first report and the second report I imagine.
Mr. RANKIN. I am not quite clear about how you happened to make this
report in that I understood you to say that there were some newspaper
accounts about it, and the lieutenant said, well, he had said what was
true and something like that. Can you tell us what happened?
Mr. BRIAN. Well, now, to go back. We were in the office talking and I
don't know how long this was because it may have been 2 days, 3 days,
2 weeks or 3 weeks, before I wrote that report, we were sitting in the
office, and I don't recall whether it was a newspaper account or what
it was, but anywhere somewhere down the line he got--somebody said that
it wasn't the truth and he was lying or something and he was sitting
out there talking and he said, he said he wasn't lying about it and I
told him, I said "I know you are not lying because I stood there and
heard you."