The Witnesses
What they saw then. Who they are now.
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“I TOLD HIM ON THE WAY DOWN, ‘LEE, IF ANYBODY shoots at you, I hope they’re as good a shot as you are.’ Meaning they’d hit him and not me. And he kind of laughed, and he said, ‘Ah, you’re being melodramatic,’ or something like that. ‘Nobody’s going to shoot me.’ I could see Jack [Ruby] when he came out of the crowd with that pistol, but it took a little less than a second and a half, or like two seconds, for that to take place. You can’t do too much in that length of time. I had jerked on [Oswald] to pull him behind me, but I was so close to him, instead of moving him, I just turned his body, and instead of hitting dead center, the bullet hit about four inches to the left of the navel. He never said a word all the time. I know it’s been said many times that he made some dying declarations, but if he made any dying declarations, he made them after I locked him in the morgue.
“If Chief [Jesse] Curry had followed my suggestion that morning, it wouldn’t have happened. I told him, ‘You know, this elevator from the jail stops right here on the first floor. We could take him off here on the first floor, put him in a car on Main Street, and be in the county jail before any people realized we’ve even moved.’ And his answer to me was, ‘Leavelle, I’ve given my word they can film the transfer, and I’m going to keep it.’ If he’d have followed my suggestion, why, we’d have got him down there safely, we’d have got him in the county jail without any problem, we’d have got him to court without any problem, we could have got him convicted and got the death penalty on him, and he could still be down there on death row with appeals pending, thirty-five years later.”
Waggoner Carr
80, Austin
Then Attorney general of Texas
Now Semi-retired lawyer
“PRESIDENT KENNEDY CAME UP TO ME AND SAID, ‘Waggoner, I just wanted to tell you how delighted we are at the reception we’re getting in Texas; it’s just wonderful.’ He added that he heard I was going to leave them to go speak in Dumas but that I was rejoining the party that night in Austin at the final stop, the big deal of the whole tour. I said, ‘Yes, sir. I’ll see you tonight in Austin.’ Then I got into the private plane to fly to Dumas, and of course they left to Dallas. Then, when I landed in Dumas, I was told that the president had been assassinated. Which was unbelievable because I’d just shaken his hand and talked with him. And unbelievable also that such a thing could happen in Texas. I flew back to Austin to my office to be ready in case any legal problems came up.
“I spoke with President Johnson on November twenty-fifth. The attorney general of Texas has the power to investigate such crimes, and the president told me to do what I had to do to uphold the law of the State of Texas. I proposed holding a court of inquiry in Texas, and he agreed and asked me to hold a press conference but not answer any questions. I called a conference for the Texas press in Washington. Well, the world press showed up. I read the statement announcing that Texas was convening a court of inquiry and walked out without taking questions. I was followed by all these hostile voices. ‘Are you really the attorney general of Texas? You son of a bitch from Texas. What are you running for? Why don’t you answer our questions, you son of a bitch.’
“Shortly after the president appointed the Warren Commission, he made it clear he needed to centralize the investigation and suggested that I cooperate with the commission—the limitation of my investigation would stop at the state line. I decided to follow his wishes. Otherwise, between Texas, the FBI, and the Senate all conducting investigations, it would have been a fourteen-ring circus.”
Nellie Connally
79, Houston
Then First lady of Texas
Now Volunteer charity fundraiser
“I LOOKED TOWARD THE SOUND [OF A SHOT], which is where the president was, and I saw his hands fly up to his face, and then I saw him sink down. Shot number one. John Connally was trying to see him—he looked to his right, and he couldn’t see the president. John was afraid they were shooting, and he turned left to see if he could see him, and in the process of turning back John was shot. Second shot. I pulled him down in my lap because I didn’t want them to hurt him anymore. I didn’t want them to shoot at him anymore. And while I had him in my lap, there was another shot. And my reaction to that was: bloody matter all over the car, it fell all over us. Third shot. John had his hat in his hand. He always had that hat somewhere. He had the hat in his hand when I pulled him over and crouched him down, and he was holding that hat up against him. We closed that wound that would’ve killed him before we got to the hospital. I didn’t know we were saving his life.
“I think that they ought to let the president rest in peace.…people still want to argue about a lot of things. John said, ‘You know, in this country no one could have kept a secret like this all of these years.’ And they couldn’t.”
Red Duke
69, Houston
Then Chief resident surgeon at Parkland hospital, Dallas
Now Professor of surgery at UT-Houston Medical School
“WHEN I SAW MRS. KENNEDY WITH ALL THIS blood and other tissue on her dress, on her suit, I knew we were in trouble. I put on a pair of gloves, walked on around behind the president, and three other fellas were working on this hole in his neck. I saw this huge wound in his head. Somebody said there’s a guy across the hall who needs some help, so I went across the hall and there was one intern just standing there—he was as white as his coat. But right quick I knew what the problem was. A large sucking chest wound—there was a big hole in this patient’s chest. I don’t know when I figured out it was Governor Connally. So I got that stopped up and put a chest tube in him, which would allow him to breathe. Got IV’s in him. We took him upstairs and [Dr. Robert Shaw] operated on him. I stayed with him. We did not have intensive care units in 1963, so we kept him in the recovery room. I never left. I just slept right there. The first time I went upstairs Sunday morning—the first time I ever left the recovery room and went upstairs to make rounds on all the other patients—Oswald got shot, and we went through that same loop again. It was one of those moments when you felt like there was a great pall, a cloud that descended upon where we were. In fact, my three-year-old daughter, whom I didn’t see until Sunday night, she prayed a prayer—my wife told me this—she said, ‘The world is dark, and we are very sad. Amen.’”
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