Author: United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy
John F. (John Fitzgerald)
1917-1963 — Assassination
Oswald
Lee Harvey
Warren Commission (02 of 26): Hearings Vol. II (of 15)
Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.

INVESTIGATION OF
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY

HEARINGS
Before the President’s Commission
on the Assassination
of President Kennedy

Pursuant To Executive Order 11130, an Executive order creating a Commission to ascertain, evaluate, and report upon the facts relating to the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy and the subsequent violent death of the man charged with the assassination and S.J. Res. 137, 88th Congress, a concurrent resolution conferring upon the Commission the power to administer oaths and affirmations, examine witnesses, receive evidence, and issue subpenas
Volume
II
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON, D.C.

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON: 1964
For sale in complete sets by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C., 20402

PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION
ON THE
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

Chief Justice Earl Warren, Chairman

• Senator Richard B. Russell
• Senator John Sherman Cooper
• Representative Hale Boggs
• Representative Gerald R. Ford
• Mr. Allen W. Dulles
• Mr. John J. McCloy
• J. Lee Rankin, General Counsel
• Assistant Counsel
• Francis W. H. Adams
• Joseph A. Ball
• David W. Belin
• William T. Coleman, Jr.
• Melvin Aron Eisenberg
• Burt W. Griffin
• Leon D. Hubert, Jr.
• Albert E. Jenner, Jr.
• Wesley J. Liebeler
• Norman Redlich
• W. David Slawson
• Arlen Specter
• Samuel A. Stern
• Howard P. WillensA
• Staff Members
• Phillip Barson
• Edward A. Conroy
• John Hart Ely
• Alfred Goldberg
• Murray J. Laulicht
• Arthur Marmor
• Richard M. Mosk
• John J. O’Brien
• Stuart Pollak
• Alfredda Scobey
• Charles N. Shaffer, Jr.

Biographical information on the Commissioners and the staff can be found in the Commission’s Report.

A Mr. Willens also acted as liaison between the Commission and the Department of Justice.

Preface

The testimony of the following witnesses is contained in volume II: James Herbert Martin, who acted for a brief period as the business manager of Mrs. Marina Oswald; Mark Lane, a New York attorney; William Robert Greer, who was driving the President’s car at the time of the assassination; Roy H. Kellerman, a Secret Service agent who sat to the right of Greer; Clinton J. Hill, a Secret Service agent who was in the car behind the President’s car; Rufus Wayne Youngblood, a Secret Service agent who rode in the car with then Vice President Johnson; Robert Hill Jackson, a newspaper photographer who rode in a car at the end of the motorcade; Arnold Louis Rowland, James Richard Worrell, Jr., and Amos Lee Euins, who were present at the assassination scene; Buell Wesley Frazier, who drove Lee Harvey Oswald home on the evening of November 21, and back to work on the morning of November 22; Linnie Mae Randle, Buell Wesley Frazier’s sister; Cortlandt Cunningham, a firearms identification expert with the Federal Bureau of Investigation; William Wayne Whaley, a taxicab driver, and Cecil J. McWatters, a busdriver, who testified concerning Oswald’s movements following the assassination; Mrs. Katherine Ford, Declan P. Ford, and Peter Paul Gregory, acquaintances of Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife; Comdr. James J. Humes, Comdr. J. Thornton Boswell, and Lt. Col. Pierre A. Finck, who performed the autopsy on the President at Bethesda Naval Hospital; and Michael R. Paine and Ruth Hyde Paine, acquaintances of Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife.

Contents

COMMISSION EXHIBITS INTRODUCED

Hearings Before the President’s Commission
on the
Assassination of President Kennedy

Thursday, February 27, 1964—Afternoon Session
TESTIMONY OF JAMES HERBERT MARTIN RESUMED

The President’s Commission reconvened at 3 p.m.
Mr. Dulles. Gentlemen, the Commission will come to order.
Are you ready to continue the testimony, Mr. Martin?
Mr. Martin. Yes, sir.
Mr. Dulles. Will you carry forward, Mr. Redlich?
Mr. Redlich. Mr. Martin, I would like to hand you a group of newspaper clippings which have not as yet been introduced in evidence and I would ask you to look through them and to pick out any which you feel create an image of Mrs. Marina Oswald which you feel does not conform to the reality of her personality, as you know it, and ask you in regard to each one to tell us in what respect the facts as reported in each of these clippings do not conform to the real person as you know her.
Mr. Dulles. I assume we can avoid repetition, can’t we?
Mr. Redlich. Yes.
Mr. Dulles. Incidents here have been touched on in other papers and we don’t need to touch them again.
Mr. Redlich. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
During the intermission we have gone through all of the newspaper clippings and eliminated the duplicate stories and hope to eliminate duplicate facts as we go along.
Mr. Martin. Well, this one is inaccurate that it doesn’t have anything to do with her image, so to speak. It says she spent Christmas——
Mr. Redlich. For the sake of the record if we are going to have comment on them I would like to have them introduced as evidence because the record wouldn’t state what they are about.
Are you going to make comment?
Mr. Martin. Do you want me to?
Mr. Redlich. If you are going to make comment about it, if you feel there is some inaccuracy here then I would like to introduce that in evidence, since apparently you are.
Mr. Martin. It is inaccurate as far as the date in the article is concerned.
Mr. Redlich. The witness has handed to us a newspaper story which we have marked as Commission Exhibit No. 328.
Mr. Dulles. Could we have the inaccuracy mentioned here?
Mr. Redlich. Yes, the headline of which is “Mrs. Oswald Will Bare Life of Mate” and I request it be admitted in evidence.
Mr. Dulles. Any objection?
Mr. Leech. No.
Mr. Dulles. It will be admitted.
(The document referred to was marked Commission’s Exhibit No. 328 for identification and received in evidence.)
Mr. Redlich. I show you Commission Exhibit No. 328 and ask you if there are any inaccuracies in that statement.
Mr. Martin. “Mrs. Oswald and Her Children Now Make Their Home at an Undisclosed Hotel” which is inaccurate—”and it was in that motel room, somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that the youngest Oswald child spent her first Christmas. There was a tree, toys and even a visit from Mrs. Oswald’s brother who lives 30 miles to the north in Denton, Tex.”
That was the inaccuracy that she spent Christmas not in a motel but in our home.
Mr. Dulles. That is about from 3 o’clock in the afternoon as I recall until 7:30 in the evening.
Mr. Martin. No, sir; that was Thanksgiving.
Mr. Dulles. That was Thanksgiving. Spent the whole day of Christmas in your home?
Mr. Martin. Well, she lived there. She was at our home 24 hours a day.
This one—
Mr. Redlich. The witness has produced before the Commission a newspaper story which we have labeled as Commission Exhibit No. 329, the headline of which reads, “Money Gifts to Tippit’s Near $200,000 Mark.”
Mr. Chairman, I request that Commission Exhibit No. 329 be admitted in evidence.
Mr. Dulles. Any objection?
Mr. Leech. No.
Mr. Dulles. It shall be admitted.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 329 for identification and received in evidence.)
Mr. Redlich. Mr. Martin, I hand you Exhibit No. 329 and ask you if it is inaccurate in any respect.
Mr. Martin. The article states that Mrs. Shirley Williamson, a Fort Worth housewife, who felt compassion for the widow, Mrs. Oswald, and the two babies said the fund for the Russian-born widow had reached $76,000.”
The fund that Mrs. Williamson collected amounted to some $2,600. That was her total. That is the inaccuracy there.
Mr. Dulles. Is she referring to the funds she collected or the whole collections?
Mr. Martin. Her funds. This has come up numerous times. We even called her about it one time. She had given out press releases that she had collected personally, I think, in excess of $8,000, whereas what she was doing was adding what she had collected to what had already been sent to Marina, and saying that she was holding that money.
Mr. Dulles. But even that total is exaggerated, is it not?
Mr. Martin. At that time, yes.
Mr. Dulles. The total collections?
Mr. Martin. At that time, yes.
Mr. Redlich. Mr. Martin, this article also makes reference to the fund on behalf of the wife of Officer Tippit with which, of course, you have no connection.
I would like to ask you, however, whether at the time you extended the offer to Marina Oswa