Mr. RANKIN. Was any statement made by you as to whether or not there
was any international conspiracy, conspiracy with Oswald about the
assassination?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; I don't think there was. I think in one of those
interviews you will find that I said they found some literature or
something from the Fair Play for Cuba at his home, something to that
effect. If I did anything, that was all that was said, in one of those
interviews.
Mr. RANKIN. Did anybody ask you to say anything one way or another
about that?
Mr. WADE. If they did I don't remember it. I am sure they asked that,
but I am talking about, I mean in all these interviews, that was the
thing where they were trying to prove a connection or something, you
know, and I told them I knew nothing about it.
Mr. RANKIN. But no officials asked you to say anything about it
publicly or otherwise?
Mr. WADE. No, sir; not that I recall.
Mr. RANKIN. Did anybody ask you at any time not to say that a foreign
government was involved if you found it was or anything about that?
Mr. WADE. Your FBI man may have. I don't know. I talked to him two or
three times. I wish I could think of his name because I don't think I
ever met him. He was an inspector out of Washington.
Mr. DULLES. He is not our FBI man, he is the FBI. We are an independent
commission.
Mr. WADE. I see. But he had talked with me something, I think his
conversation, as I recall, largely dealt with the giving out of
information. He was concerned about it and so was I, and where we had
the longest conversation was, I will run through Sunday, and get me
up to it real fast because I talked to him Sunday night. We haven't
covered one of my television interviews.
After I went down to the police station and I will take this real fast
if it is all right with you all, they told me that Oswald had been shot
and I was there in the Chief's office when he died, when Oswald died
and the Chief says I have got to go out here and announce it.
So as he went out for a press conference, I went down the back door,
went home and went to bed because I was tired and disappointed actually
because we got even interested in trying Oswald, and I didn't mean to
have anything else further to say.
I woke up about 5 o'clock and a national commentator was giving the
Dallas police hell, me hell, and just about everybody hell, and saying
that I had said that the case, there would be nothing further on the
case, it would be closed, in which I had never even had a television
interview, I don't know where they got it.
Somebody might have said that. I don't know but it wasn't me because I
hadn't talked to anybody.
And then I went out to dinner and got to thinking, I said, well now,
the Dallas police did have a breakdown in security here, and they
are taking a beating and I am taking a beating, but they did have
the right man according to my thinking, so I went down to the police
station and got all the brass in there but Chief Curry and I said this
stuff, people are saying on there you had the wrong man and you all
were the one who killed him or let him out here to have him killed
intentionally, I said somebody ought to go out in television and lay
out the evidence that you had on Oswald, and tell them everything.
It had been most of it laid out but not in chronological order.
Mr. RANKIN. When was this now?
Mr. WADE. This was 8 o'clock roughly on the 24th. Sunday night. I sat
down with Captain Fritz and took a pencil and pad and listed about
seven pieces of evidence from my own knowledge and I was going to write
it down. They got hold of Chief Curry and he said no, that he had told
this inspector of the FBI that there would be nothing further said
about it.
I asked Chief Batchelor and Lumpkin, they were all there, I said you
all are the ones who know something about it, I said if you have at
least got the right man in my opinion the American people ought to know.
This is evidence you can't use actually, because he is dead. You can't
try him. And the upshot of that was the police wouldn't say a word and
refused actually to furnish me any more of the details on this.
I mean what the seven points. I went on out there in from front of
the cameras and ran them through those points. Actually my purpose
in it was, good or bad was, because the Dallas police were taking a
beating because they had solved the crime and had good evidence and
I told them it was good but I did leave out some things and I was
a little inaccurate in one or two things but it was because of the
communications with the police.
I didn't have the map, incidentally. I wanted the map at that time but
forgot all about it, and I ran through just what I knew, which probably
was worse than nothing.
It probably would have been better off without giving anything, because
we didn't give what all we had.
Mr. DULLES. Do you remember the elements of inaccuracy that got into
this statement of yours?
Mr. WADE. I think I told them about the palmprint on the bottom of the
gun, that Lane has made a great issue of and I still think I was right
on it but he has made an issue. I think Oswald snapped the pistol over
there in the jail or at least in the theater where they arrested him.
There was a question of whether the gun had been snapped or not and I
was told it was, you all may have seen the gun; I never have seen the
gun. You had--I might have at that stage said what bullets are supposed
to hit whom. That might have been somewhat inaccurate then but that is
all I can think of.
I don't think there is any basic thing. But my purpose in that, and I
know the minute I got off that television, inspection called me and
said please say nothing further about this case.