Part 28

Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one question before that. Were you present when any members of Oswald's family, his wife, his mother, saw him or talked with him?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir; I was not.

Mr. DULLES. Do you know whether any of your officers were?

Mr. CURRY. I understood they were brought to the third floor of the city hall and were placed in a room, and that if any of them were present it probably would have been Captain Fritz.

Mr. DULLES. He would know about it?

Mr. CURRY. I believe he would, yes.

Mr. DULLES. Thank you.

Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us what Officer Tippit's reputation was with your police force?

Mr. CURRY. He had a reputation of being a very fine, dedicated officer.

Mr. RANKIN. How long had he been with you?

Mr. CURRY. I believe he came to work for us in 1952, after he had had service in the paratroopers, I believe, and he had made several jumps into Europe. He was raised in a rural community, and he was very well thought of by the people in the community where he grew up. He was a rather quiet, serious minded young man. He seemed to be very devoted to his family, and he was an active church man.

Mr. RANKIN. What was his rank?

Mr. CURRY. Patrolman. He was not a real aggressive type officer. In fact, he seemed to be just a little bit shy, if you were to meet him, I believe, shy, retiring type, but certainly not afraid of anything. I think in his personnel investigation it showed that during, as he was growing up, sometimes his shyness was mistaken for perhaps fear, but that it only took a time or two for someone to exploit this to find out it wasn't fear. It was merely a quiet, shy-type individual.

Mr. RANKIN. Was there any record in the police department of any disciplinary action toward him?

Mr. CURRY. The only disciplinary action ever taken was he was given a day off one time because he had missed court on two occasions.

Mr. DULLES. Missed what?

Mr. CURRY. Missed court.

Mr. RANKIN. He had been unable to testify or something?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; in city court they have to appear 1 day a week. They are notified each week to appear but they are told on one day will be their court day and if any cases coming up it would be that time. And on two occasions he failed to appear. I think one time he forgot it and I think another time he said he was tied up on a radio call or something and didn't notify him and it is just a departmental policy if you miss court twice you are given a day off for it.

Mr. RANKIN. Was that the penalty that was imposed?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, it was. He took it in very good graces, he didn't feel like he was being mistreated.

Mr. RANKIN. That was the only disciplinary action against him?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; there was one other complaint in his file, where he had stopped a lady and given her a ticket and also had given her, he gave her two tickets, one for no operator's license, and after he had issued the tickets she found her driver's license, and she called to him across the street, and said something about she found her license and he told her okay, show it in court, but she thought he was being rather abrupt and discourteous to her, she felt like he should have come back over and taken this ticket for driver's license and destroyed it.

Under our rules and regulations you cannot destroy a ticket; if it is destroyed it has to be accounted in our auditor's office and that was the only complaint in the years on the force.

Mr. DULLES. A rumor reached me that Officer Tippit had been some way involved in some narcotic trouble, I don't know what the foundation of that is. Do you know anything about that at all?

Mr. CURRY. Nothing whatsoever; no, sir.

Representative FORD. You mean you know nothing about it or you checked it out and there is no validity?

Mr. CURRY. This is the first I ever heard of it that he was involved in any narcotics.

Representative FORD. But your records, so far as you know, would not indicate such?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir.

Mr. DULLES. Thank you.

Mr. McCLOY. Did you, so far as you know, did Tippit know Ruby?

Mr. CURRY. I don't believe he did. I am sure he didn't. He would not be the type I think that would even have any occasion to know him because some of the officers that we found that did know him, either worked in the area where he had a night club or some of the officers that worked in the vice squad who had occasion to go in and inspect these cases or a few officers we found they went out there for social purposes, outside their regular duty.

Tippit, for a number of years, had been assigned out in Oak Cliff. I don't think he had ever been assigned in an area where Jack Ruby--well Jack Ruby did live in Oak Cliff but I am sure, to the best of my knowledge, Tippit never had any occasion to be around Jack Ruby.

Mr. DULLES. Was Tippit at the time he was killed on a regular assigned assignment or was he just roving in a particular area?

Mr. CURRY. On this particular day, now he had been assigned to Oak Cliff for several months farther out than he was, but when this incident occurred at the Texas School Book Depository, this is customary policy in the police department if something happens on this district and tying up several squads that the squads from the other district automatically move in in a position where they can cover off or something else might happen here, much the same as fire equipment does, this is automatic.

Mr. RANKIN. Will you explain that further?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; say two squads were to get a call in an area, and this area here, say they had a big fire or something, they brought two or three squads in here from adjoining districts, then automatically these squads out in these other areas would begin to cover off or get in a position to where if instead of staying out here on the far side of this district, they would perhaps move into this district right here where they could answer here, here or over into here. This is just automatic patrol policy.

On this particular day, some of the squads in this Oak Cliff area had been ordered over into the Dallas area, this Texas School Book Depository, and some of these other outlying squads then, I think we have this on a radio log, I don't know whether you have this or not, were 78 or 81.

Mr. BALL. Why don't you read it in the record, a definite order for Tippit to come in there.

Mr. CURRY. Right here. This would have been at approximately 12:45, I believe. Here is the description came out at about 12:45. The dispatcher put out a description of attention all squads.

Mr. DULLES. What do you mean by description?

Mr. CURRY. Of a suspect.

Mr. DULLES. I see, description of Oswald?

Mr. CURRY. Yes.

Mr. RANKIN. What are you reading from, Chief?

Mr. CURRY. This is radio log record from the Dallas Police Department, as recorded on November 22.

Mr. RANKIN. Is that from Commission Document 728?

Mr. DULLES. I want to correct my question, it was a man seen leaving?

Mr. CURRY. It was a description of a suspect.

Mr. DULLES. You didn't know it was Oswald?

Mr. RANKIN. Will you tell us what the rest of that notation is?

Mr. CURRY. Dispatcher put out this description, "attention all squads Elm and Houston, unknown white male person approximately 30, slender build, height 5 feet 10, 160 pounds, reported to be armed with what is believed to be a .30-caliber rifle. Attention all squads, the suspect is believed to be white male 30, 5 feet 10 inches, slender build, armed with what is thought to be a .30-30 rifle, no further description at this time."

This was at 12:45 p.m.

Mr. RANKIN. What channel are you talking about?

Mr. CURRY. Channel 1.

Mr. RANKIN. You had more than one channel?

Mr. CURRY. Two channels.

Mr. RANKIN. Yes.

Mr. CURRY. Someone came in, they didn't identify themselves and came in and said what are they wanted for, and they said signal 19 which is a shooting under our code involving the President.

Representative FORD. Did Tippit's motorcycle have channel 1?

Mr. CURRY. He was in a squad car and most of our squad cars have channel 1 and 2, but they stay on channel 1 unless they are instructed to switch over to channel 2.

Mr. DULLES. He did have channel 1?

Mr. CURRY. Yes. Now within the minute of broadcasting, a little further on, squads 102 and 233 checked out at Elm and Houston, 81 came in the district squad, that was an Oak Cliff squad. He said "I will be going north from Industrial on Corinth." That means he was leaving the Oak Cliff section coming toward the downtown section of Dallas.

Representative FORD. By he who do you mean?

Mr. CURRY. The man assigned to district 81, and I don't have his name but it would be on our records.

Then Tippit was working 78 and he along with district 87, which is further out in Oak Cliff, at about 12:45, between 12:45 and 12:46, the dispatcher sent out this message to him, "87-78 moving into central Oak Cliff area."

Now the central Oak Cliff area would have been the area nearby where this shooting occurred.

Representative FORD. Shooting of Tippit?

Mr. CURRY. Shooting of Tippit occurred. I am sure--a little later on here, he says "you are in Oak Cliff area, are you not," and he said "at Lancaster and 8th", that would be just several blocks from where this shooting then occurred.

Mr. McCLOY. This is Tippit's reply going in?

Mr. CURRY. Yes.

Mr. RANKIN. The next sentence also says something, Chief?

Mr. CURRY. And the dispatcher told him, "You will be at large for any emergency that comes in." In other words, he was one of the remaining squads in Oak Cliff that was in service.

Mr. DULLES. What does that mean, scout around the area?

Mr. CURRY. Anywhere in that central area, Oak Cliff.

Mr. McCLOY. Did he reply to that?

Mr. CURRY. He said "10-4".

Mr. RANKIN. What does that mean?

Mr. CURRY. It means message received.

Mr. RANKIN. Doesn't that mean approval?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir.

Representative FORD. These are transcriptions of communications back and forth?

Mr. CURRY. That is recorded on our radio there in Dallas.

Mr. RANKIN. Is there a tape recorder on that?

Mr. CURRY. Yes; and it is kept for a permanent record.

Mr. RANKIN. Was there any other shooting in this particular area where Officer Tippit was that morning, do you know?

Mr. CURRY. Not to my knowledge.

Mr. DULLES. Is that 10-4 message the last message you received from Tippit?

Mr. CURRY. As far as I know that is the last word we heard from him.

Mr. McCLOY. Was this description of the suspect the first description that went out?

Mr. CURRY. As far as I know, it is.

Mr. DULLES. That was at 12:45, as I recall.

Mr. CURRY. Approximately, yes.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. RANKIN. When did you first learn of Officer Tippit's murder?

Mr. CURRY. While I was out at Parkland Hospital. That is after we had taken the President there and the Governor, and we were waiting there.

Mr. RANKIN. Now, on these showups for Lee Oswald, did you have any special security arrangements about bringing him in among all this crowd of news people?

Mr. CURRY. We had some police officers bringing him down. I was there, Captain Fritz went, I don't believe he went inside the door. He went to the door, I believe. There were several officers there, yes.

Mr. RANKIN. Was this more than usual?

Mr. CURRY. Perhaps so; yes. Ordinarily there would have been maybe a jailer and a jail guard with the prisoner. And there would have been the detective out with the witnesses.

Mr. RANKIN. Were you disturbed about the security for Lee Oswald with all this crowd?

Mr. CURRY. Not at that time. I really didn't suspect any trouble from the news media. I thought they were there doing a professional job of reporting the news and I had no reason to be concerned about the news media.

Mr. RANKIN. Did it concern you that there were so many additional people to try to keep track of as well as----

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; it did.

Mr. RANKIN. What did you do about it?

Mr. CURRY. I didn't do anything about it but I was concerned about it. I was thinking that we were going to have to, in the event we have had an incident like this occur again, that we would have to make some different arrangements for the press. We couldn't, when I say the press, the news media, we couldn't have the city hall overrun like this.

Mr. RANKIN. Did it occur to you to do anything about stopping it right then?

Mr. CURRY. No. I didn't discuss it with any of my staff that we should clear all these people out of here and get them outside the city hall.

Mr. RANKIN. You gave no consideration to that kind of approach?

Mr. CURRY. Not at the time.

Mr. RANKIN. Now after the interrogation of Oswald, did you make some decision about moving him?

Mr. CURRY. Not at that particular time. It is customary after we file on a person that he be removed from the city hall.

Mr. RANKIN. What do you mean by file on a person?

Mr. CURRY. File a case against him and that is necessary to go to the district attorney's office usually, and in this case the district attorney was there and we filed it at the city hall because the district attorney was with us.

Mr. RANKIN. A criminal complaint?

Mr. CURRY. A criminal complaint. After we file this complaint it is customary for the prisoner to be transferred from the city to the county jail and to remain in custody until he makes bond or is brought to trial.

Mr. RANKIN. That is a regular practice?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir. These transfers are usually made by the sheriff's office, sometime during the morning.

Mr. RANKIN. By the sheriff's office you mean it is the sheriff's responsibility?

Mr. CURRY. Routine transfers are made. It is not a hard and fast custom. Many times we will take the prisoner to the sheriff.

Mr. RANKIN. Who decides which way you will do it?

Mr. CURRY. It is left up to the bureau commander.

Mr. RANKIN. What do you mean by the bureau commander?

Mr. CURRY. That is handling the case.

Mr. RANKIN. Who would that be in this case?

Mr. CURRY. In this case it would have been Captain Fritz.

Mr. RANKIN. And he decides then in all cases of this type whether or not the police will take him across to the sheriff's jail or the sheriff will come and get him?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; ordinarily it wouldn't even come to my attention how it was handled.

Mr. RANKIN. Did it come to your attention this time?

Mr. CURRY. It did this time. I had asked, it seemed to me like it was on Saturday after he had been filed on late or early Friday morning, the news media many times had asked me when are you going to transfer him and I said, "I don't know."

Mr. RANKIN. What do you mean by "early Friday morning?"

Mr. CURRY. I mean early Saturday morning. Late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

Representative FORD. Where do you actually do this filing?

Mr. CURRY. Ordinarily our detectives would go down to the courthouse which is right near where the President was assassinated and file it in the district attorney's office. However, in this case the district attorney and also his assistant was up at the city hall with us, and we drew up the complaints there at the city hall.

Mr. RANKIN. Who do you mean by we?

Mr. CURRY. When I say we, I mean the Dallas police officers and the homicide officers working in this case.

Mr. RANKIN. I see.

Representative FORD. What evidence did you have at that point?

Mr. CURRY. I couldn't tell you all the evidence. I think Captain Fritz can tell you better than I. Captain Fritz just told me on Friday afternoon he said, "We have sufficient evidence to file a case on Oswald for the murder of Tippit." Later on that night, somewhere around midnight, I believe, he told me, he said, "We now have sufficient evidence to file on Lee Harvey Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy."

He told me he had talked it over with Henry Wade and with the assistant district attorney and they agreed we had enough evidence to file a case, and a decision was made then to file the case, which we did.

Representative FORD. At that time you had the rifle, did you not?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir.

Representative FORD. Who made the original identification of the rifle, the kind of rifle that it was?

Mr. CURRY. I don't know, sir.

Representative FORD. It was reported that the original identification was a 7.65 Mauser. Are those reports true or untrue?

Mr. CURRY. I wouldn't know, sir.

Representative FORD. You don't know?

Mr. CURRY. I don't know.

Representative FORD. Do you know when it was finally determined that it was not a 7.65 Mauser?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir; I don't know that.

Mr. McCLOY. As far as I know there was no police report that it was a 7.65 rifle.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. RANKIN. Chief Curry, do you know of any police records of your police department that showed that this weapon that was purportedly involved in the assassination was a Mauser rifle?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir; not to my knowledge.

Representative FORD. All of your records show affirmatively it was the Italian rifle?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir. That is correct.

Mr. McCLOY. While we are waiting for Mr. Rankin to continue his examination, let me ask you this question, Chief.

Did you, prior to the assassination, know or hear of Oswald?

Mr. CURRY. Never.

Mr. McCLOY. Didn't hear that he had been--there was a defector named Oswald in the city of Dallas?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. Never heard of his name?

Mr. CURRY. We didn't have it in our files.

Representative FORD. Was there anything in your files that Lee Harvey Oswald had been involved with the Dallas police force?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir.

Representative FORD. No record whatsoever?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir.

Mr. DULLES. Was there any record of his having made a trip to the Soviet Union and returned?

Mr. CURRY. Not in our files.

Mr. DULLES. And returned to Texas?

Mr. CURRY. We didn't have anything in our files regarding Lee Harvey Oswald.

Senator COOPER. Could I follow up on that, did you have any record of any individuals, persons, in Dallas, or the area, who because of any threats of violence against the President or any Communist background required you to take any special security measures?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; when we have notables, celebrities visiting us, there are some groups in Dallas that are known to be extreme rightwing and extreme leftwing groups. We try to keep track of these people and what their plans are. We have been able to infiltrate most of their organizations.

Senator COOPER. Now prior to the President's visit, did you take any--did the Dallas Police force take any special security measures about any persons that you might suspect of possible violence?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; we kept some people under surveillance or groups under surveillance. We had prior to this visit, we had some information brought to us, I don't know who brought it to us, that there was a man in Sherman or Denison, who said that he is going to see that the President was embarrassed when he came to Dallas.

Senator COOPER. Who was that man, do you know?

Mr. DULLES. We have a Secret Service report, I believe with regard to this case. Here is one from the chief of police of Denton, Tex.

Mr. CURRY. Yes; we had some information that the students at North Texas were planning some demonstrations.

Senator COOPER. My question is, did your police force take any special security measures about anyone that you felt might be capable of violence against the President?

Mr. CURRY. Not at this particular time, because we had reports from the different groups, and we had information from inside these groups that they were not planning to do anything on the day the President was there. We knew that General Walker was out of the city, and we knew that his group that sometimes put on demonstrations.

Senator COOPER. When you say planning, you are not limiting it to any violence, but you are talking about any possible demonstrations?

Mr. CURRY. Yes; demonstrations.

Senator COOPER. I want to come back to that point later, but I want to ask this, outside of what you had in your police files, your records, did you know yourself, or did you know whether anyone in authority in the police force or anyone in the police force, to your knowledge, had any knowledge of the presence of Oswald in Dallas?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir; I have asked my criminal intelligence section, which would have been the persons who had knowledge of this.

Senator COOPER. Had anyone informed you that he was working in the Texas School Book Depository Building?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir.

Mr. DULLES. Had he ever tangled with the Dallas Police in any respect of which there is any record?

Mr. CURRY. We have no record at all of him.

Representative FORD. Did the Secret Service people inquire of you as to your knowledge of these various groups that you had infiltrated?

Mr. CURRY. I don't remember them specifically asking me what were these groups planning to do.

Representative FORD. Did you volunteer any information on it?

Mr. CURRY. I think perhaps we told them what we had done. They were aware of the fact that we did know the plans of the various organizations, and I know we sent Lieutenant Revill and a couple of his men up to Denison, or Denton, to talk to a man that had purportedly said they were going to embarrass the President and had made some remarks about it and after we talked with him he said, "I won't even be in Dallas. I was just popping off. I will assure you I am not even going to be down there. I don't want any part of it."

Then some of the study group in North Texas, we had an informant in this group, and they had decided they would be in Dallas with some placards to express opinions about the President or some of his views. Some of these people were arrested after the shooting because we were afraid that the people were going to harm them. They were down around the Trade Mart with some placards.

Senator COOPER. I have a couple of more questions.

Do you remember the full page advertisement that was in the Dallas paper?

Mr. CURRY. I saw it; yes.

Senator COOPER. Directed against the President of the United States?

Mr. CURRY. Yes.

Senator COOPER. What date did you give that statement in making any kind of preparations for his visit?

Mr. CURRY. In the first place, I didn't think it was very appropriate, it makes us apprehensive, a little more apprehensive of the security of the President, but we were doing everything that I knew we could do to protect him. I will never forget that as we turned to go down toward that underpass the remark was made, "We have almost got it made," and I was very relieved that we had brought him through this downtown area, and were fixing to get on this expressway where we could take him out to the Trade Mart where we had a tremendous amount of security set up for him.

Senator COOPER. Since the assassination, have you had any actual factors or any evidence or information of any kind which would indicate that any person other than Oswald was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir; I have not.

Mr. DULLES. Was any investigation made of, I believe it was Weissman, or somebody by that name, who inserted this advertisement to which Senator Cooper referred, was any particular investigation made?

Mr. CURRY. Not any investigation by us.

(At this point, Representative Ford withdrew from the hearing room.)

Mr. McCLOY. I have one question.

Did you since the assassination or before have any information or any credible information which would indicate that there was any connection between Ruby and Oswald?

Mr. CURRY. No, sir; we were not able to establish any connection between them.

Mr. McCLOY. You made a thorough investigation of that?

Mr. CURRY. Yes, sir; we made every attempt to prove or disprove an association between them, and we were not able to connect the two.

Mr. McCLOY. Do you intend to ask the chief about the General Walker episode?

Mr. RANKIN. Yes; and also about the Ruby episode.

Mr. McCLOY. I think that is all I have at the moment.