Mr. DULLES. I wonder if you would identify this for the record?
Mr. WADE. You can get it. Let me tell you the story. I read that thing
there hurriedly and I remember it mentioned that Agent Hosty had talked
to Revill----
Senator COOPER. Who was that?
Mr. WADE. Hosty.
Senator COOPER. Can you identify him as to what he does?
Mr. WADE. He is a special agent of the FBI, but I don't think I would
know him if he walked in here actually.
But that is his business. He showed me that, and I read it. Now, as far
as identifying it, I have seen--I have a copy of it in my files.
You see, when they turned the records over to me and I read it and
looked it over and to the best of my knowledge was the same memorandum
he showed me, although all I did was glance at it and it said generally
they knew something about him and knew he was in town or something like
that.
Senator COOPER. Who said that?
Mr. WADE. This memorandum said that.
Senator COOPER. Who is reported to be quoting the memorandum?
Mr. WADE. Special Agent Hosty. Now, I have since looked at the
memorandum. So far as I know it is the same memorandum, but like I
say I read it there and I don't know whether it is the--I don't know
whether it said word for word to be the same thing but it appears to me
to my best knowledge to be the same memorandum.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you know when you first got the memorandum in your files
that you are referring to?
Mr. WADE. It was a month later. You see the police gave me a record of
everything on the Ruby case, I would say some time about Christmas.
Mr. RANKIN. I will hand you Commission Exhibit No. 709 and ask you if
that is the memorandum you just referred to?
Mr. WADE. Yes; to the best of my knowledge that is the memorandum he
showed me there at 7 p.m. on the 22d day of November 1963.
Jack Revill incidentally, you all have talked with him, but he is one
of the brightest, to my mind, of the young Dallas police officers.
As a matter of fact, when we got into the Ruby trial, I asked that they
assign Jack Revill to assist us in the investigation and he assisted
with picking of the jury and getting the witnesses all through the Ruby
trial.
Mr. RANKIN. Would your records show when you received a copy of this
document, Commission Exhibit No. 709?
Mr. WADE. Well, I am sure it would. It would be the day--you can trace
it back to when the newspapers said he had turned all the files over to
me and it was around Christmas as I recall, and I believe actually it
was after Christmas, but probably 30 days, but you see they turned over
a file that thick to me, I imagine. It was of all of that, the same
thing they turned over to you, everything the police had on Jack Ruby.
Mr. RANKIN. You put a receipt stamp on anything like that?
Mr. WADE. I don't think it will show a date or anything like that on it
because they just hauled it in there and laid it on my desk. But this
was--it is in our files, and I am rather sure it is the same time. You
all got the same thing.
Mr. RANKIN. We didn't receive anything like that until the time that
Chief Curry came to testify, just for your information.
Mr. WADE. Well, I didn't know that, but now on this, this is the Ruby
matter----
Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one question there?
Mr. WADE. Yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. Just to refresh my recollection of your testimony, did you
see this that afternoon around 5 or 6 o'clock?
Mr. WADE. Around 7 o'clock I would say it was on Chief Curry's desk.
Mr. DULLES. Of the 22d?
Mr. WADE. Of the 22d.
Senator COOPER. I don't want to interrupt too much, but looking at
this exhibit, I note it is written, you have seen this Commission,
Commission Exhibit No. 709 signed by Jack Revill?
Mr. WADE. Yes; let me see it; yes.
Senator COOPER. Is your recollection, was the memorandum that was shown
to you by--first, who did show you the memorandum on the 22d?
Mr. WADE. Chief Curry of the Dallas police.
Senator COOPER. Was the memorandum shown to you on the 22d by Chief
Curry in this same form?
Mr. WADE. To the best of my knowledge that was it now.
Now, like I said I read this memorandum, and I read the memorandum, and
asked the chief what he was going to do with it and he said, "I don't
know."
And then the next morning I heard on television Chief Curry, I don't
know whether I heard him or not, he made some kind of statement
concerning this memorandum on television, and then later came back and
said that wasn't to his personal knowledge, and I think that was--he
said that what he said about it he retracted it to some extent but I
guess you all have got records of those television broadcasts or at
least can get them.
Mr. RANKIN. Do you remember whether he said just what was in this
Exhibit No. 709 or something less than that or more or what?
Mr. WADE. I don't remember. You see, things were moving fast, and it is
hard, there are so many things going on. I will go on to my story.
Mr. RANKIN. Yes.
Mr. WADE. I will answer anything, of course.
Mr. RANKIN. You can tell us the rest that you said to Chief Curry and
he said to you at that time, first.
Mr. WADE. I asked him how the case was coming along and as a practical
matter he didn't know. You probably have run into this, but there is
really a lack of communication between the chief's office and the
captain of detective's office there in Dallas.
Mr. RANKIN. You found that to be true.
Mr. WADE. For every year I have been in the office down there. And
I assume you have taken their depositions. I don't know what the
relations--the relations are better between Curry and Fritz than
between Hanson and Fritz, who was his predecessor. But Fritz runs a
kind of a one-man operation there where nobody else knows what he is
doing. Even me, for instance, he is reluctant to tell me, either, but
I don't mean that disparagingly. I will say Captain Fritz is about as
good a man at solving a crime as I ever saw, to find out who did it
but he is poorest in the getting evidence that I know, and I am more
interested in getting evidence, and there is where our major conflict
comes in.
I talked to him a minute there and I don't believe I talked to Captain
Fritz. One of my assistants was in Fritz's office. I believe I did walk
down the hall and talk briefly, and they had filed, they had filed on
Oswald for killing Tippit.
Mr. DULLES. Which assistant was that?
Mr. WADE. Bill Alexander. There was another one of--another man there,
Jim Allen, who was my former first assistant who is practicing law
there in Dallas and frankly I was a little surprised of seeing him
there, he is a real capable boy but he was there in homicide with
Captain Fritz. They were good friends.
And I know there is no question about his intentions and everything
was good, but he was just a lawyer there, but he had tried many death
penalty cases with Fritz--of Fritz's cases.
But he was there. Your FBI was there, your Secret Service were there in
the homicide.
Mr. RANKIN. Who from the FBI, do you recall?
Mr. WADE. Well, I saw Vince Drain, a special agent that I knew,
and Jim Bookhout, I believe, and there was Mr. Kelley and Mr.
Sorrels--Inspector Kelley of the Secret Service, Sorrels, Forest
Sorrels.
I might tell you that also, to give you a proper perspective on this
thing, there were probably 300 people then out in that hall.
You could hardly walk down the hall. You just had to fight your way
down through the hall, through the press up there.
Mr. RANKIN. Who were they?
Mr. WADE. The television and newsmen. I say 300, that was all that
could get into that hall and to get into homicide it was a strain to
get the door open hard enough to get into the office.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say anything to Chief Curry about that?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I probably mentioned it but I assume you
want--whether I meant he ought to clean them out or not. I didn't tell
him he should or shouldn't because I have absolutely no control over
the police. They are a separate entity. They have a municipality, and
they work under a city manager.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you say anything to Chief Curry about what should be
told the press about investigation, how it was progressing or anything
of that kind?
Mr. WADE. Yes; I think that is the brief conversation, that is the last
I talked to Curry that night. I may have talked to--but that is all I
recall. I left thereafter, and went on out to dinner.
Mr. RANKIN. About what time did you leave?
Mr. WADE. 7, 7:30, something like that. I got home, say, 9:30 or 10,
after eating dinner, and I believe I talked to the U.S. attorney or at
least I saw it come on the radio that they are going to file on Oswald
as part of an international conspiracy in murdering the U.S. President,
and I think I talked to Barefoot Sanders. He called me or I called him.
Mr. RANKIN. I wanted to get for the record, Mr. Wade, who would be
trying to file like that.
Mr. WADE. I don't know. All I know it wasn't me. It was told to me at
one time that the justice of the peace said something about it and
another one, one of my assistants, Alexander had said something about
it and I have talked to both of them since and both of them deny so I
don't know who suggested it or anything but it was on the radio and I
think on television.