concluded?
Despite the years of confident statements by federal authorities, no one
has unquestionably placed Oswald on the sixth floor at the time of the
shooting.
Dallas police chief Jesse Curry in later years admitted to newsmen: "We
don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody's
yet-been- able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand."
Oswald told Dallas police he was eating lunch on the first floor of the
Depository in what was called the "domino room" at the time of the
assassination, and there is some evidence to back up his statement.
Bonnie Ray Williams was one of the Depository workers who were
laying plywood flooring on the sixth floor that day. During the elevator
race to the first floor a few minutes before noon, Williams said he heard
Oswald call, "Guys, how about an elevator?" from either the fifth or sixth
floor. Oswald also apparently asked them to send an elevator back up to him.
Williams told the Warren Commission he thought the others planned to
gather on the sixth floor to watch the motorcade, so he returned there with
his lunch, consisting of chicken, bread, and a bag of chips in a brown
paper sack along with a soft drink. Williams said he sat on some boxes
near a window facing out onto Elm street and ate his lunch. He said he
saw no one else on the sixth floor, which was one large open area.
However he noted stacks of book cartons here and there. Becoming
impatient because no other workers had joined him, Williams threw down
the remains of his lunch and left the sixth floor at "approximately 12:20."
In a January 14, 1964, FBI report, agents quoted Williams as saying he
left the sixth floor after about three minutes. However, Williams denied
ever saying that and it is reasonable that he couldn't have eaten his lunch
in only three minutes.
At the time, the news media made a great deal of comment about the
chicken bones and lunch sack found on the sixth floor. Many people
thought this proved that a cold and calculating assassin had patiently eaten
his lunch while waiting for Kennedy to arrive.
Going down one of the elevators, Williams saw two other workers,
Harold Norman and James Jarman, on the fifth floor and joined them to
watch the motorcade. Two of these men were captured in a photograph
taken that day as they leaned out of the fifth-floor window directly below
the famous sixth-floor "sniper's" window to view the President.
Williams told the Warren Commission:
After the President's car had passed my window . . . [there] was a loud
shot-first I thought they were saluting the President, somebody-even
maybe a motorcycle backfire. The first shot-[then] there was two shots rather close together. The second and the third shot was closer together
then the first shot . . . well, the first shot-I really did not pay any
attention to it, because I did not know what was happening. The second
shot, it sounded like it was right in the building . . . it even shook the
building, the side we were on. Cement fell on my head. . . . Harold
was sitting next to me and he said it came from right over our head... .
My exact words were, "No bullshit?" And we jumped up.... I think
Jarman, he-I think he moved before any of us. He moved towards us,
and he said, "Man, someone is shooting at the President." And I think
I said again, "No bullshit?" . . . Then we all kind of got excited... .
But, we all decided we would run down to the west side of the
building. . . . We saw policemen and people running, scared, runningthere are some tracks on the west side of the building, railroad tracks.
They were running towards that way. And we thought . . . we know the
shots came from practically over our head. But . . . we assumed maybe
somebody was down there.
Norman said he and Jarman had eaten lunch in the domino room on the
first floor, then walked out the front door where they saw other Depository
employees, including Lovelady, sitting on the
Despite the years of confident statements by federal authorities, no one
has unquestionably placed Oswald on the sixth floor at the time of the
shooting.
Dallas police chief Jesse Curry in later years admitted to newsmen: "We
don't have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody's
yet-been- able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand."
Oswald told Dallas police he was eating lunch on the first floor of the
Depository in what was called the "domino room" at the time of the
assassination, and there is some evidence to back up his statement.
Bonnie Ray Williams was one of the Depository workers who were
laying plywood flooring on the sixth floor that day. During the elevator
race to the first floor a few minutes before noon, Williams said he heard
Oswald call, "Guys, how about an elevator?" from either the fifth or sixth
floor. Oswald also apparently asked them to send an elevator back up to him.
Williams told the Warren Commission he thought the others planned to
gather on the sixth floor to watch the motorcade, so he returned there with
his lunch, consisting of chicken, bread, and a bag of chips in a brown
paper sack along with a soft drink. Williams said he sat on some boxes
near a window facing out onto Elm street and ate his lunch. He said he
saw no one else on the sixth floor, which was one large open area.
However he noted stacks of book cartons here and there. Becoming
impatient because no other workers had joined him, Williams threw down
the remains of his lunch and left the sixth floor at "approximately 12:20."
In a January 14, 1964, FBI report, agents quoted Williams as saying he
left the sixth floor after about three minutes. However, Williams denied
ever saying that and it is reasonable that he couldn't have eaten his lunch
in only three minutes.
At the time, the news media made a great deal of comment about the
chicken bones and lunch sack found on the sixth floor. Many people
thought this proved that a cold and calculating assassin had patiently eaten
his lunch while waiting for Kennedy to arrive.
Going down one of the elevators, Williams saw two other workers,
Harold Norman and James Jarman, on the fifth floor and joined them to
watch the motorcade. Two of these men were captured in a photograph
taken that day as they leaned out of the fifth-floor window directly below
the famous sixth-floor "sniper's" window to view the President.
Williams told the Warren Commission:
After the President's car had passed my window . . . [there] was a loud
shot-first I thought they were saluting the President, somebody-even
maybe a motorcycle backfire. The first shot-[then] there was two shots rather close together. The second and the third shot was closer together
then the first shot . . . well, the first shot-I really did not pay any
attention to it, because I did not know what was happening. The second
shot, it sounded like it was right in the building . . . it even shook the
building, the side we were on. Cement fell on my head. . . . Harold
was sitting next to me and he said it came from right over our head... .
My exact words were, "No bullshit?" And we jumped up.... I think
Jarman, he-I think he moved before any of us. He moved towards us,
and he said, "Man, someone is shooting at the President." And I think
I said again, "No bullshit?" . . . Then we all kind of got excited... .
But, we all decided we would run down to the west side of the
building. . . . We saw policemen and people running, scared, runningthere are some tracks on the west side of the building, railroad tracks.
They were running towards that way. And we thought . . . we know the
shots came from practically over our head. But . . . we assumed maybe
somebody was down there.
Norman said he and Jarman had eaten lunch in the domino room on the
first floor, then walked out the front door where they saw other Depository
employees, including Lovelady, sitting on the
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