Part 37

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; he was. I don't remember buying him something to eat. I usually do, if they are hard up in jail at the time I buy something to eat but some of the other officers remember me buying him food but the only thing he would drink was I believe some milk and ate a little package of those crackers sandwiches and one of the other officers bought him a cup of coffee and that is all he would either eat or drink, that is all he wanted.

Mr. BALL. Now he talked to his wife and----

Mr. FRITZ. And his mother.

Mr. BALL. And his brother, Robert?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I am pretty sure he did.

Mr. BALL. Where did he talk to them?

Mr. FRITZ. I believe that would be up in the jail. He didn't want them in my office.

Mr. BALL. Do you have that jail----

Mr. FRITZ. Wait just one second. No, sir; that was in the jail.

Mr. BALL. Is the jail wired so that you can listen to conversations?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; it isn't. Sometimes I wish I could hear some of the things they say but we don't.

Mr. BALL. In other words, you don't monitor conversations?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; we let them talk to anyone they want to. If they are allowed to use the telephone, of course, they are allowed free use of it. Sometimes they do a little better than that. Sometimes they place a long distance call and charge it to the city.

Mr. McCLOY. When you went in, Captain Fritz, and you saw the site which Oswald is alleged to have fired the shot from----

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. Did you see any signs of a lunch there, a chicken there?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I will tell you where that story about the chicken comes from. At the other window above there, where people in days past, you know had eaten their lunches, they left chicken bones and pieces of bread, all kinds of things up and down there. That isn't where he was at all. He was in a different window, so I don't think those things have anything to do with it. Someone wrote a story about it in the papers, and we have got all kinds of bad publicity from it and they wrote in telling us how to check those chicken bones and how to get them from the stomach and everything.

Mr. DULLES. What was Oswald's attitude toward the police and police authority?

Mr. FRITZ. You know I didn't have trouble with him. If we would just talk to him quietly like we are talking right now, we talked all right until I asked him a question that meant something, every time I asked him a question that meant something, that would produce evidence he immediately told me he wouldn't tell me about it and he seemed to anticipate what I was going to ask. In fact, he got so good at it one time, I asked him if he had had any training, if he hadn't been questioned before.

Mr. DULLES. Questioned before?

Mr. FRITZ. Questioned before, and he said that he had, he said yes, the FBI questioned him when he came back from Russia from a long time and they tried different methods. He said they tried the buddy boy method and thorough method, and let me see some other method he told me and he said, "I understand that."

Mr. DULLES. Did you ask him whether he had had any communist training or indoctrination or anything of that kind?

Mr. FRITZ. I asked him some questions about that and I asked him where he was in Russia. He told me he was in Russia, first I believe he told me, first I believe he said in Moscow, and then he said he went to Minsk, Russia, and I asked him what did you do, get some training, go to school? I suspected he had some training in sabotage from the way he talked and acted, and he said "no, I worked in a radio factory." He acted like a person who was prepared for what he was doing.

Mr. DULLES. Have you any views of your own as to motive from your talks with him? Did you get any clues as to possible motive in assassinating the President?

Mr. FRITZ. I can only tell you what little I know now. I am sure that we have people in Washington here that can tell far more than I can.

Mr. DULLES. Well, you saw the man and the others didn't see the man.

Mr. FRITZ. I got the impression, I got the impression that he was doing it because of his feeling about the Castro revolution, and I think that he felt, he had a lot of feeling about that revolution.

(At this point the Chief Justice entered the hearing room.)

Mr. FRITZ. I think that was the reason. I noticed another thing. I noticed a little before when Walker was shot, he had come out with some statements about Castro and about Cuba and a lot of things and if you will remember the President had some stories a few weeks before his death about Cuba and about Castro and some things, and I wondered if that didn't have some bearing. I have no way of knowing that other than just watching him and talking to him. I think it was his feeling about his belief in being a Marxist, I think he had--he told me he had debated in New Orleans, and that he tried to get converts to this Fair Play for Cuba organization, so I think that was his motive. I think he was doing it because of that.

Mr. DULLES. Did he express any animosity against anyone, the President or the Governor or Walker or anybody?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; he did not. Not with me he didn't.

Mr. DULLES. Not with you?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir. He just, the fact he just didn't talk about them much. He just didn't say hardly anything. When I asked him he didn't say much about them.

Mr. McCLOY. You knew Officer Tippit?

Mr. FRITZ. I wanted to tell you one thing before I forget. One time I asked him something about whether or not, either I asked him or someone else in there asked him, if he thought he would be better off, if he thought the country would be better off with the President killed and he said, "Well, I think that the Vice President has about the same views as the President has." He says he will probably do about the same thing that President Kennedy will do.

Mr. DULLES. Oswald said that to you?

Mr. FRITZ. Either to me or someone, it could be one of the other officers who asked that question while they were talking about him.

Mr. McCLOY. Of course, you knew Officer Tippit?

Mr. FRITZ. I didn't know him. I didn't know him. No, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. He didn't work directly under you?

Mr. FRITZ. I looked at his record and saw that the chief of the personnel file and I looked at the personnel file and I talked to a number of officers who did know him and they speak very highly.

Mr. DULLES. Have you ever reviewed his record since these events?

Mr. FRITZ. I didn't exactly review it but I read a good part of it and the chief read a good part of it to me.

Mr. DULLES. The record is good?

Mr. FRITZ. The record is good. It was average, it looked better than a lot of them do. It is all right. It had the same little things that happen to most officers, maybe some little complaint about something minor, nothing of any consequence.

Mr. McCLOY. So far as you know he had no connection with Ruby?

Mr. FRITZ. I am sure he did not. I think I know what you people have probably heard. We hear all kinds of rumors down our way and I am not trying to volunteer a lot of things here. I know you have a lot of business to do, have you heard something about some connection between Oswald and Ruby and Tippit, and some fourth person. I heard some story, we didn't find any ground for it at all. We didn't find any connection of any kind that would connect them together. I can't even find a connection between Ruby and Oswald and I can't place them in the same building at the same time nor place them in the same building together, YMcA, one of them lived there and one of them was taking some kind of an athletic course there.

Mr. McCLOY. But not at the same time?

Mr. FRITZ. Well, I can't place them there at the same time; no, sir.

Mr. DULLES. Have you discovered any connection between any of your officers and Ruby?

Mr. FRITZ. Well, I think a lot of the officers knew Ruby. I think about two or three officers in my office knew him, and I think practically all of the special service officers who handle the vice and the clubs and the liquor violations, I think nearly all of them knew him and, of course, the officer knew him who had arrested him carrying pistols a time or two, two or three times, uniformed officer mostly. He seemed to be well known. It seems a lot of people in town knew him. But I never was in his place and I didn't know him. Twenty years ago I might have been in his place.

Mr. BALL. Captain Fritz, from being with Oswald for a couple of days what were your impressions about him? Was he afraid, scared?

Mr. FRITZ. Was he afraid?

Mr. BALL. Yes.

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't believe he was afraid at all. I think he was a person who had his mind made up what to do and I think he was like a person just dedicated to a cause. And I think he was above average for intelligence.

I know a lot of people call him a nut all the time but he didn't talk like a nut. He knew exactly when to quit talking. He knew the kind of questions. I could talk to him as long as I wanted to if I just talked about a lot of things that didn't amount to anything. But any time I asked him a question that meant something he answered quick.

Mr. BALL. Did you ever hear of a lawyer in Chicago that called up and offered to help Ruby?

Mr. FRITZ. Some lawyer from Chicago sent him a wire.

Mr. BALL. Did you see the wire?

Mr. FRITZ. I saw the wire; yes.

Mr. BALL. Do you know who the lawyer was?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't remember his name. I believe he probably had it delivered to the jail.

Mr. BALL. To Oswald, a lawyer from Chicago offered his services to Oswald?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes; Ruby too. But I am talking about the one to Oswald. I don't know that I would even know his name if I heard it.

Mr. BALL. We have some pictures here from the crime laboratory as we have marked Exhibits 712, 713, and 714. The witness has already identified a picture of Oswald. I show you this, Captain, can you tell me which one of these pictures on Exhibit 714 that you showed to Oswald the day when you interrogated him, asked him it that was his picture?

Mr. FRITZ. It is the one with the two papers in his hand.

Mr. BALL. The one to the right. Did you ever show him the one to the left?

Mr. FRITZ. I don't think so.

Mr. BALL. We offer 713, 712, and 714 as two pictures taken.

Mr. FRITZ. These are the pictures I told about a while ago.

Mr. BALL. They were taken by your crime lab?

Mr. FRITZ. Our crime lab took these pictures when I went over there with Mr. Sorrels.

Mr. BALL. Where were they taken?

Mr. FRITZ. In the backyard of the Neely Street address. If you will note, you will see in this picture, you notice that top right there of this shed. Of course, this picture is taken up closer, but if you step back further you can see about where the height comes to on that shed right there. Not exactly in the same position.

Mr. BALL. I offered these. (Commission Exhibits Nos. 712, 713, and 714 were admitted.)

Mr. FRITZ. It shows the gate.

Mr. BALL. Indicating the location of the picture taken--this set will indicate the pictures were all taken at the Neely Street backyard.

Mr. DULLES. You recall the date of these pictures, in April?

Mr. FRITZ. I believe they will be dated on the back of them.

Mr. DULLES. April, so the trees would be about the same.

Mr. BALL. When were the pictures taken by your crime lab?

Mr. FRITZ. I am not sure but I believe the date will be on the back of the picture. November 29, 1963. Picture made by Officer Brown who works in the crime lab.

Mr. BALL. Captain, I would like to ask you some more questions about your prisoner.

Mr. FRITZ. All right, sir.

Mr. BALL. The first day that you had Oswald in custody, did you get a notice from the FBI, any of the FBI officers that there had been a communication from Washington suggesting that you take extra precautions for the safety of Oswald?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; there was not.

Mr. BALL. Do you recall whether or not on Friday----

The CHAIRMAN. What was your answer to that?

Mr. FRITZ. I did not, I got no such instructions. In fact, we couldn't--we would have taken the precautions without the notice but we did not get the notice, I never heard of that.

Mr. BALL. Do you recall that on Friday, November 22, Wade asked you or did he or didn't District Attorney Wade ask you to transfer Oswald to the county jail for security?

Mr. FRITZ. That would be on the night of the 22d?

Mr. BALL. On the night of the 22d.

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; he asked me if I would transfer him that night.

Mr. BALL. What did you tell him?

Mr. FRITZ. I told him we didn't want to transfer him yet. We wanted to talk to him some more. We talked a little bit. He didn't actually want him transferred. He just was more or less talking about whether or not we wanted to transfer him.

Mr. BALL. Now on Saturday Decker called you and asked you to transfer him?

Mr. FRITZ. On Saturday did he call me and ask me to transfer him?

Mr. BALL. Yes, that would be the 23d.

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; he did not.

Mr. BALL. Did Chief Curry tell you that Decker had called or anything of that sort?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; when I was talking to Chief Curry on one of those conversations, I don't think it is the conversation now when he told me about the hours, I think it is another conversation, I told him, I said, "I don't know whether we were going to transfer him or Decker was going to transfer him," and Chief Curry said, "We are going to transfer him, I have talked to Decker, we are going to transfer him."

Mr. BALL. When were the plans for the transfer made?

Mr. FRITZ. When were the plans made?

Mr. BALL. Yes; do you know?

Mr. FRITZ. I don't know about that. The only thing I know is what I told you about when the chief told me about would he be ready by 10 o'clock that morning, and I told him I thought we could.

Mr. BALL. You didn't make the plans yourself?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir.

Mr. BALL. They were made by the chief?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; they were made by the chief.

Mr. BALL. When did the chief first tell you what the plans were?

Mr. FRITZ. That was on the 23d. He didn't tell me about all the plans, of course, at that time because I told you when he came up to tell us about that, when he asked when we were ready to go he told me about the armored car, that is the first I had ever heard of that.

Mr. BALL. Did you ever tell any of the press the time that Oswald would be moved?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't believe I did. I was interrogated by a bunch of them as I started to leave the office on the night of the 23d. As we started to the elevator, a group of us from my office, and some of the FBI officers, we started to the elevator some 10 or 20 reporters came up and said the chief said we were going to transfer him at 10 o'clock the next morning and if we were and I didn't talk to them so I don't think I ever said much if anything to them because I know one of them followed me almost to my parking lot, I know, asking me questions about the transfer.

Mr. BALL. At 11:15 when they left your office, do you know whether or not there was any broadcast over your radio as to your movements?

Mr. FRITZ. On our radio?

Mr. BALL. Yes.

Mr. FRITZ. I wouldn't know.

Mr. BALL. Or on any radio, were there any radio broadcasters on your floor at that time?

Mr. FRITZ. Any of those newsmen?

Mr. BALL. Newsmen?

Mr. FRITZ. Oh, yes; they might not have been on the floor but they were all down in the basement. You are talking about the morning of the 24th?

Mr. BALL. On the morning of the 24th when you were moving?

Mr. FRITZ. Any number of them downstairs. I don't remember whether there were any upstairs or not. There probably was maybe a few of them because I don't think there was any time when there wasn't a few of them up there, but we didn't leave through that hall and go through the elevator. We went through the mail elevator.

Mr. BALL. On the 22d and 23d, the third floor was full of newspapermen and photographers?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; all the time, completely full.

Mr. BALL. Had they left the third floor on the 24th?

Mr. FRITZ. A lot of them had; yes, sir. A lot of them had, and were downstairs in the basement.

Mr. BALL. How about the television cameras?

Mr. FRITZ. I noticed--television cameras, they were downstairs too.

Mr. BALL. They weren't up on the third floor?

Mr. FRITZ. I don't believe--there could have been one or two of them left up there, I don't think many of them were still up there.

Mr. BALL. Most of them were downstairs?

Mr. FRITZ. Most of them were downstairs. I wouldn't say there weren't any up there because I don't think there was any time when there wasn't at least a few of them up there.

Mr. BALL. Now, when you went down the jail elevator and you said you got out and went forward to see if everything was secure. What did you mean by that?

Mr. FRITZ. Well, I meant if everything, it was all right for us to go to our car with him. We didn't want to leave the jail office with him unless everything was all right because as long as we were in the jail office we could put him back in the elevator and if everything wasn't all right, I didn't want to come out with him.

Mr. BALL. And you went ahead, didn't you?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; first Lieutenant Swain and then I went out and then the other officers followed me with the prisoner.

Mr. BALL. Was the car there you were going to get in?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Had you reached the car yet?

Mr. FRITZ. I was just in the act of reaching for the door to open the back door, I looked at that picture, and it doesn't show the exact distance I was from the car but I couldn't have been any further than reaching distance.

Mr. BALL. When you left, or after Ruby shot Oswald, he was taken upstairs, wasn't he?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; he was. He was first carried into the jail office, you mean Ruby?

Mr. BALL. Ruby, when Ruby shot Oswald?

Mr. FRITZ. Oswald was carried into the jail office and put on the floor there. Ruby was brought into the jail office. Now I believe that Ruby was brought into the jail office after Oswald, I believe Oswald was already on the floor or behind there because I know the officers had taken Ruby upstairs went behind me and I saw them pass behind me with him to the jail.

Mr. BALL. Did you talk to Ruby?

Mr. FRITZ. Did I talk to him; no, sir; I talked to him later.

Mr. McCLOY. I wonder if at this time you would want a little recess?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I am comfortable.

Mr. McCLOY. I think we kept the chief on a little bit too long this morning.

Mr. FRITZ. If it is all right with you.

Mr. BALL. Did you talk to Ruby at that time?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; not at that time.

Mr. BALL. Later?

Mr. FRITZ. I talked to him later, probably an hour later. I guess I have the exact time here if you need it.

Mr. BALL. What did Ruby say to you, do you have the exact time?

Mr. FRITZ. Well, he told me, I told him, I, of course, wanted to know something about premeditation because I was thinking about the trial too and I told him I wanted to ask him some questions and he said, well, he first said, "I don't want to talk to you, I want to talk to my lawyers," and he said, I believe he told me too that he had been advised by a lawyer, and I asked him some other question and he said, "Now if you will level with me and you won't make me look like a fool in front of my lawyers I will talk to you."

I didn't ask him one way or the other, but I did ask him some questions and he told me that he shot him, told me that he was all torn up about the Presidential killing, that he felt terribly sorry for Mrs. Kennedy. He didn't want to see her to have to come back to Dallas for a trial, and a lot of other things like that.

Mr. BALL. Did you ask him how he got down to the jail?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes; I did.

Mr. BALL. What did he say?

Mr. FRITZ. He told me he came down that ramp from the outside. So I told him, I said, "No, you couldn't have come down that ramp because there would be an officer at the top and an officer at the bottom and you couldn't come down that ramp." He said, "I am not going to talk to you any more, I am not going to get into trouble," and he never talked to me any more about it.

Mr. BALL. Did you ever talk to him again?

Mr. FRITZ. I don't think I ever talked to him after that. I talked to him a little while then and I don't believe I ever talked to him after that. I asked him when he first decided to kill Oswald, and he didn't tell me that. He told me something else, talked about something else.

Mr. BALL. What was that time, you said you could give us the time?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I can give you the time. 3:05.

Mr. BALL. What time?

Mr. FRITZ. 3:05.

Mr. BALL. 3:05 in the afternoon?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Did you know that Archer or Dean or Newman had talked to Ruby?

Mr. FRITZ. I didn't know that they had talked to him. I knew that some officers had talked to him but I didn't know who they were.

Mr. BALL. Were there any reports given you by any one of these three men, Dean----

Mr. FRITZ. They weren't given to me. Those reports were given to the investigative team that the chief setup headed by Captain Jones and some of the inspectors and they gave me a copy. I have copies of it.

Mr. BALL. You have copies of those reports?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I do.

Mr. BALL. Do you know, did you know prior to the trial of Ruby that either Dean or Archer or Newman, either one, had claimed to have talked to Ruby about his premeditation in the killing of Oswald?

Mr. FRITZ. Well, sir, I didn't know, I wouldn't have known that. They never told me about that. I wouldn't have known. I think that maybe the chief had taken some report from Dean, but I didn't see that until, I think I put it in this book a few days ago.

Mr. BALL. Well now, did you have charge of the investigation of the Oswald killing?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. You were in charge of that?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Then all the reports would come to you?

Mr. FRITZ. Come here; yes, sir. With one exception. The reports from all those officers in the security in the basement. You see, I had nothing to do with setting up the security in the basement, that was under the security division and the chief might have given that assignment to, those are in a different book, they are in a report made to this investigative team appointed by the chief. We have their copies, too.

Mr. BALL. Well, but you had charge of the investigation of the homicide?

Mr. FRITZ. The homicide but I didn't have charge of the investigation of the basement incident.

Mr. BALL. Well, the reason for my question is that there has been some question raised as to testimony in the Ruby trial of these men, Dean, Archer, and Newman.

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I heard that.

Mr. BALL. And they have testified to certain statements made that they heard from Ruby afterward, and the question is whether or not these men have reported to you that they had heard that.

Mr. FRITZ. They didn't report it to me; no, sir.

Mr. BALL. Or reported it in writing to their department?

Mr. FRITZ. They didn't report it to me, if they reported to anyone I didn't get it. But I understand that Dean had made some kind of special report to the chief but that wasn't to me.

Mr. BALL. Did you ever know a man named Roger Craig, a deputy sheriff?

Mr. FRITZ. Roger Craig, I might if I knew which one he was. Do we have it here?

Mr. BALL. He was a witness from whom you took a statement in your office or some of your men.

Mr. FRITZ. Some of my officers.

Mr. BALL. He is a deputy sheriff.

Mr. FRITZ. One deputy sheriff who started to talk to me but he was telling me some things that I knew wouldn't help us and I didn't talk to him but someone else took an affidavit from him. His story that he was telling didn't fit with what we knew to be true.