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Why did Roy Truly bring a rifle to work?


Guest Mark Valenti

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Guest Mark Valenti

According to some eyewitness accounts, Oswald was quoted as saying (during interrogation),

"I observed a rifle in the Texas School Book Depository where I work, on Nov. 20, 1963. . . . Mr. Roy Truly, the supervisor, displayed the rifle to individuals in his office on the first floor. . . "

Does anybody know why Roy Truly brought his rifle to the Texas School Book Depository two days before the assassination? Was he just a hunter showing off a piece of equipment to his friends? Does anyone think this may have triggered an idea in LHO?

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Roy Truly's later testimony to the Warren Commission (7H 381-382):

Mr. Ball: Your testimony is filed in volume 28, I believe, of the Commission here. There are certain matters which have come to the attention of the Commission since then that I would like to inquire about, and that's the reason we are taking your deposition, which will be in addition to the testimony you have already given.

Do you recall anytime that you saw any guns in the Texas School Book Depository Building?

Mr. Truly: Yes; I did.

Mr. Ball: Prior to November 22, 1963?

Mr. Truly: Yes; I saw two guns on November 20.

Mr. Ball: Whose guns were they?

Mr. Truly: They belonged to Mr. Warren Caster.

Mr. Ball: Now, before inquiring into the circumstances of seeing two guns that belonged to Mr. Warren Caster on November 20, 1963, I'll ask you whether or not you ever at anytime before that time or after that time saw guns in the Texas School Book Depository Building?

Mr. Truly: Never before.

And:

Mr. Ball: Before the assassination, was there any other occasion besides the one we are inquiring about, when you saw guns in the Texas School Book Depository Building?

Mr. Truly: Never.

Mr. Ball: On November 20, 1963, you saw two guns owned by Mr. Warren Caster, can you tell me where and when and the circumstances under which you saw these guns?

Mr. Truly: It was during the lunch period or right at the end of the lunch period on November 20. Mr. Caster came in the door from the first floor and spoke to me and showed me two rifles that he had just purchased. I looked at these and picked up the larger one of the two and examined it and handed it back to Mr. Caster, with the remark that it was really a handsome rifle or words to that effect, at which time Mr. Caster explained to me that he had bought himself a rifle to go deer hunting with, and he hadn't had one and he had been intending to buy one for a long time, and that he had also bought a .22 rifle for his boy.

Mr. Ball: Did you handle the .22 rifle?

Mr. Truly: Not that I recall.

Mr. Ball: You did see it, though?

Mr. Truly: I did see it.

Truly's testimony can be read here: http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol7/page381.php

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According to some eyewitness accounts, Oswald was quoted as saying (during interrogation),

"I observed a rifle in the Texas School Book Depository where I work, on Nov. 20, 1963. . . . Mr. Roy Truly, the supervisor, displayed the rifle to individuals in his office on the first floor. . . "

Does anybody know why Roy Truly brought his rifle to the Texas School Book Depository two days before the assassination? Was he just a hunter showing off a piece of equipment to his friends? Does anyone think this may have triggered an idea in LHO?

The guns - one gun was a Remington, single-shot, .22 rifle, and the other was a .30-06 sporterized Mauser (7H387, emphasis added) - belonged to Warren Caster, the manager of the Dallas office of the South-Western Publishing Company, which had its offices on the second floor, room 203, of the TSBD.

Caster testified that he bought them on his noon-hour lunch break on Wednesday, November 20, the .22 being for his son's Christmas present. He also stated that "as I entered the Texas School Book Depository Building on my way up to the buying office, I stopped by Mr. Truly's office, and while I was there we examined the two rifles that I had purchased" (ibid).

Caster's "we examined" the rifles, and Oswald's interpretation that "Truly ... displayed" them pretty well square up if LHO /a/ recognized Truly better than he did Caster (it is noteworty -?- that he didn't mention Caster as one of the "individuals"); /b/ he did not know who owned the guns; and/or /c/ was just passing by during the course of these events. At this juncture, as far as I'm aware of, there's no indication that Oswald shared Truly's confidence in any way and would have been invited into the office to see or handle the weapons.

According to Caster's testimony:

Mr. Caster
. Well, I'm not really sure who was there. I think you were there, Bill, and Mr. Shelley was there---and Mr. Roy Truly. The only people that I know about, in any event, were there; there were workers there at the time, but I'm not quite sure how many. I couldn't even tell you their names. I don't know the Texas School Book Depository workers there in the shipping department

Mr. Ball
. In that office, though, Truly's office, how many were there?

Mr. Caster
. We weren't in Mr. Truly's immediate office, we were just there over the counter.

Mr. Ball
. In the warehouse?

Mr. Caster
. We were there in the hall--just right there over the counter in front of the warehouse; that's right.

Mr. Ball
. And did you take the guns out of the carton? ....

Caster said didn't know TSBD shipping people's names, of which LHO was one, so it is reasonable to conclude that LHO didn't know Caster either, but not impossible that he did.

Despite being asked twice, however, Caster never did say how many people were there, nor did he say (nor was he asked) if LHO was among them. The only two people he identified by name were Truly and Bill Shelley, who also said that he'd seen the guns and had handled the .22 Remington, but not the Mauser, which "had been converted. It was a foreign make converted to a .30-06" (and was in a carton like new? See 7H390).

Shelley also said that this was the only time he had ever seen guns in TSBD before or since November 22 ... not, in any case, through May 14, 1964, the date of his testimony.

According to Caster, he took the guns home at the end of the day (Wednesday), and never returned with them to the TSBD. Shelley did not claim to see the guns after Caster had left the first floor.

I don't think it "triggered" (pun intended?) any idea in LHO's head other than to remember he'd seen the guns. If he provided any further detail about the weapons or the people in the office, it is lost to history.

Also employed by South-Western Publishing were Gloria Calvery, Carol Hughes and Karen Westbrook (all of whom were outside during the shooting), as well as Karan Hicks (who was alone in the office). Caster was 35 miles away in Denton at North Texas State University, now the University of North Texas.

Of course (and for what it may be worth), we have only Caster's word that he took the guns home, and the reports of several law enforcement types that a Mauser was found ....

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Also employed by South-Western Publishing were Gloria Calvery, Carol Hughes and Karen Westbrook (all of whom were outside during the shooting), as well as Karan Hicks (who was alone in the office).

Hicks was outside with Calvery, Westbrook, and Carol Reed. The employee who was alone in the office was Carol Hughes.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol22_0342b.htm

From the testimony of Geneva Hine about Hine's activity right after the shooting:

Miss HINE. . . . I knocked on the door of Lyons and Carnahan; that's a publishing company.

Mr. BALL. What did you do then?

Miss HINE. I tried the door, sir, and it was locked and I couldn't get in and I called, "Lee, please let me in," because she's the girl that had that office, Mrs. Lee Watley, and she didn't answer. I don't know if she was there or not, then I left her door. I retraced my steps back to where the hall turns to my left and went down it to Southwestern Publishing Co.'s door and I tried their door and the reason for this was because those windows face out.

Mr. BALL. On to Elm?

Miss HINE. Yes; and on to the triple underpass.

Mr. BALL. I See.

Miss HINE. And there was a girl in there talking on the telephone and I could hear her but she didn't answer the door.

Mr. BALL. Was the door locked?

Miss HINE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. That was which company?

Miss HINE. Southwestern Publishing Co.

Mr. BALL. Did you call to her?

Miss HINE. I called and called and shook the door and she didn't answer me because she was talking on the telephone; I could hear her. They have a little curtain up and I could see her form through the curtains. I could see her talking and I knew that's what she was doing. . . .

Hine could hear Hughes talking on the phone, but Hughes couldn't seem to hear Hine calling and calling and shaking the door.

Also, despite Hughes's vantage point from a window overlooking Elm Street and the underpass, she was not called to testify by the Warren Commission. In her FBI statement she says "I was standing looking out this window when President John F. Kennedy was shot." Incredibly, not a single word follows about what she saw.

Also odd is the statement of Vida Lee Whatley, on whose door Hine knocked, not knowing if Whatley was there. While seemingly everyone else from the building was watching the motorcade, Whatley says she left the building at 12:15, and when JFK was shot "I was shopping on Elm Street and was walking between the Moses and Kress Stores when I heard a pedestrian remark that the President had been shot."

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol22_0355b.htm

Apparently not seeing the president that day, going right by her workplace, was no big deal to Whatley. But I hope that whatever she bought (if anything) was worth missing the crime of the century.

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Also employed by South-Western Publishing were Gloria Calvery, Carol Hughes and Karen Westbrook (all of whom were outside during the shooting), as well as Karan Hicks (who was alone in the office).
Hicks was outside with Calvery, Westbrook, and Carol Reed. The employee who was alone in the office was Carol Hughes.

http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol22_0342b.htm

Mea culpa! I think that for some reason, her unusual first name just stuck out in my mind. Anyway, the point was primarily just to name the other South-Western Publishing employees. None of them had anything to say about either Truly or Caster.
From the testimony of Geneva Hine about Hine's activity right after the shooting:

Miss HINE. . . . I knocked on the door of Lyons and Carnahan; that's a publishing company.

Mr. BALL. What did you do then?

Miss HINE. I tried the door, sir, and it was locked and I couldn't get in and I called, "Lee, please let me in," because she's the girl that had that office, Mrs. Lee Watley, and she didn't answer. I don't know if she was there or not, then I left her door. I retraced my steps back to where the hall turns to my left and went down it to Southwestern Publishing Co.'s door and I tried their door and the reason for this was because those windows face out.

Mr. BALL. On to Elm?

Miss HINE. Yes; and on to the triple underpass.

Mr. BALL. I See.

Miss HINE. And there was a girl in there talking on the telephone and I could hear her but she didn't answer the door.

Mr. BALL. Was the door locked?

Miss HINE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. That was which company?

Miss HINE. Southwestern Publishing Co.

Mr. BALL. Did you call to her?

Miss HINE. I called and called and shook the door and she didn't answer me because she was talking on the telephone; I could hear her. They have a little curtain up and I could see her form through the curtains. I could see her talking and I knew that's what she was doing. . . .

Hine could hear Hughes talking on the phone, but Hughes couldn't seem to hear Hine calling and calling and shaking the door.

Also, despite Hughes's vantage point from a window overlooking Elm Street and the underpass, she was not called to testify by the Warren Commission. In her FBI statement she says "I was standing looking out this window when President John F. Kennedy was shot." Incredibly, not a single word follows about what she saw.

Also odd is the statement of Vida Lee Whatley, on whose door Hine knocked, not knowing if Whatley was there. While seemingly everyone else from the building was watching the motorcade, Whatley says she left the building at 12:15, and when JFK was shot "I was shopping on Elm Street and was walking between the Moses and Kress Stores when I heard a pedestrian remark that the President had been shot." http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol22_0355b.htm

Apparently not seeing the president that day, going right by her workplace, was no big deal to Whatley. But I hope that whatever she bought (if anything) was worth missing the crime of the century.

As to Whatley, she was not alone in her nonchalance over the President's visit, so I don't put much issue to that. Jack Cason left TSBD to go home to lunch, didn't care much about seeing no President. Matter of fact, he heard on the radio that JFK'd been shot, then stopped at a store before continuing home (CE1381 p18). Of course, he may not at the time have drawn any connection between the TSBD and the shooting, as Whatley might not have either. Warren Caster went to the dentist rather than see Kennedy; me, I'd rather do anything than go to the dentist!

Helen Palmer took the day off, but in her "defense," she went to Love Field to watch JFK land and went back to the TSBD when she heard about shooting (she couldn't get in, but stuck around for a while anyway @ CE1381 p71). But for some real fun, consider the actions of Madie Belle Reese and Ruth Dean:

At approximately 12:10 PM, on November 22, 1963, I, accompanied by Mrs. Ruth Hilliard Dean, left the Depository building by the main entrance and
took up a position on the second step from the bottom to the right or west side of the main entrance
of the Depository building . Mrs. Dean was standing directly to my left at the time of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and
we both heard the three shots
.

Following the shooting,
I and Mrs. Dean remained in front of the building for about five more minutes and then walked up to the National Bank of Commerce, 914 Elm Street,

where I completed some personal business
and then returned to the Texas School Book Depository. (
, emphases added)

Talk about nonchalance: watch the President get shot, then go deposit your paycheck! Ruth Dean merely said:

On November 22, 1963 at approximately 12:35 P.M. I was standing on the front steps of the Texas School Book Depository building with Mrs. Madie B. Reese, also an employee of Macmillan, to watch the motorcade bearing President John F. Kennedy pass by the building. As the motorcade passed by
I heard three shots and observed the President slump over in the aumnobile
in which he was riding.

I was not acquainted with Lee Harvey Oswald, and saw no individuals in the Texas School Book Depository who attracted my attention in any way. Following the assassination, I left the building at about 2:00 P.M. (
, emphasis added)

Other than that, no, there's not much else to tell, eh?

As to Hughes, you note:

From the testimony of Geneva Hine about Hine's activity right after the shooting:

Miss HINE. . . . I knocked on the door of Lyons and Carnahan; that's a publishing company.

Mr. BALL. What did you do then?

Miss HINE. I tried the door, sir, and it was locked and I couldn't get in and I called, "Lee, please let me in," because she's the girl that had that office, Mrs. Lee Watley, and she didn't answer. I don't know if she was there or not, then I left her door. I retraced my steps back to where the hall turns to my left and went down it to Southwestern Publishing Co.'s door and I tried their door and the reason for this was because those windows face out. ...

Mr. BALL. Did you call to her?

Miss HINE. I called and called and shook the door and she didn't answer me because she was talking on the telephone; I could hear her. They have a little curtain up and I could see her form through the curtains. I could see her talking and I knew that's what she was doing. . . .

Hine could hear Hughes talking on the phone, but Hughes couldn't seem to hear Hine calling and calling and shaking the door.

Also, despite Hughes's vantage point from a window overlooking Elm Street and the underpass, she was not called to testify by the Warren Commission. In her FBI statement she says "I was standing looking out this window when President John F. Kennedy was shot." Incredibly, not a single word follows about what she saw.

Once again rising to the defense, consider that if Hughes had been looking out the window and had seen Kennedy's head get blown off, she might well have been upset. Some people react to upset by getting on the phone, and if that was the case with her, it is very possible that between the shock and upset and concentrating on the phone call, she really could not hear Hine knocking at the door.

As to the FBI statement, nothing is "incredible" when it comes to their selective hearing and/or reportage. After all, J. Edna had already told them what had happened almost before it had happened, so if she didn't see Lee with the gun or had seen someone shooting from elsewhere, then obviously she didn't see anything of note. Why take up the WC's valuable time with such drivel? After all, there was a crime to solve!

By March 20, Hughes' traumatic(?) experience watching Kennedy get shot was reduced to this:

On-November 22, 1963 I went to south window near my desk which overlooks Elm Street to watch the Presidential Motorcade pass along Houston and Elm Streets.
I was standing looking out this window when President John F. Kennedy was shot
. I was alone in the office as all the other people had gone to the street to watch the Motorcade pass.

I did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at that time. I do not know Oswald but I had seen him in the building several times prior to this day. I do not recall seeing any strangers in the building on November 22, 1963.

I remained In my office until about 1:30 P.M. when I left for the day and went home. (
, emphasis added)

... and, well, that's about it, nothing out of the ordinary at all. Why do you ask?

(Just for the sake of saying so, the deal about "the lights going out" at the TSBD is derived from two incidents, one being that an elevator did not run when it was supposed to have, and the other being Geneva Hine's comment about how she'd been answering phone calls. The "lights" she was referring to that "went out" were the lights on the phone, not those in the building.)

All of this goes to show that Lee Oswald was the only TSBD employee who was NOT excited about the President's visit, which was in and of itself quite unusual, even suspicious. In fact, it's so clear-cut based on that alone that LHO did it, that I'm amazed we're even having this conversation!

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  • 5 years later...

.....But for some real fun, consider the actions of Madie Belle Reese and Ruth Dean:

At approximately 12:10 PM, on November 22, 1963, I, accompanied by Mrs. Ruth Hilliard Dean, left the Depository building by the main entrance and
took up a position on the second step from the bottom to the right or west side of the main entrance
of the Depository building . Mrs. Dean was standing directly to my left at the time of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and
we both heard the three shots
.

Following the shooting,
I and Mrs. Dean remained in front of the building for about five more minutes and then walked up to the National Bank of Commerce, 914 Elm Street,

where I completed some personal business
and then returned to the Texas School Book Depository. (
, emphases added)

Talk about nonchalance: watch the President get shot, then go deposit your paycheck!

Ruth Dean merely said:

On November 22, 1963 at approximately 12:35 P.M. I was standing on the front steps of the Texas School Book Depository building with Mrs. Madie B. Reese, also an employee of Macmillan, to watch the motorcade bearing President John F. Kennedy pass by the building. As the motorcade passed by
I heard three shots and observed the President slump over in the autonobile
in which he was riding.

I was not acquainted with Lee Harvey Oswald, and saw no individuals in the Texas School Book Depository who attracted my attention in any way. Following the assassination, I left the building at about 2:00 P.M. (
, emphasis added)

Other than that, no, there's not much else to tell, eh?

According to Ruth Dean, she and Madie Reese wanted to "hurry" to get to the bank before it closed to make the deposits for the day. The FBI report stated that Dean was a receptionist, but Dean told Larry Sneed

that she was the bookkeeper and cashier for MacMillan Publishing Company. She said that she "had not planned to see the parade" and "seeing President Kennedy just didn't mean anything to me."

Dean told Sneed that she was standing on the front steps of the Depository with Madie Reese and Billy Lovelady(!) when the motorcade came by. She remembers seeing Lovelady because the two of them were

joking prior to the motorcade's arrival.

Although the FBI report above stated that Dean was not acquainted with Lee Harvey Oswald, she was familiar with him, having run into him in the freight elevator in the past. Dean told Sneed that

"Oswald was not there on the steps, as some people have claimed."

In the last paragraph of Sneed's interview, Dean claimed that her witnessing of Kennedy's murder "did not affect her in any way."

http://books.google.com/books?id=cRjFn0fsiaYC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=ruth+dean+larry+sneed+no+more+silence&source=bl&ots=dwGnoeG3Vx&sig=t5AD-kVTxeiBDJeq15_Bn66Essc&hl=en&ei=mXA1ToLcFK-x0QH9zJDYBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Edited by Michael Hogan
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Texas is not your usual sort of place, as almost every pick up truck down there has a Winchester Model 94 on the gun rack in the truck over the back glass.

Guns are normal in Texas and nobody pays any attention to guns everywhere.

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So the title of this thead is wrong, and Truly didn't bring the guns to work, Warren Caster did.

Has anybody read Caster's oral history at Sixth Floor?

And does anyone know if he was related to Berry Caster who worked with Bill Randle and was with him on the day of the assassination?

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So the title of this thead is wrong, and Truly didn't bring the guns to work, Warren Caster did.

Has anybody read Caster's oral history at Sixth Floor?

Yeah, that was figured out five years ago. (the title of the thread is wrong)

What makes you think Caster's oral history is there?

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Of course (and for what it may be worth), we have only Caster's word that he took the guns home, and the reports of several law enforcement types that a Mauser was found ....

And what has always bugged me about this is Arnold Rowland's description of the rifle he saw firing from the window.

Mr. SPECTER. Can you describe the rifle with any more particularity than you already have?

Mr. ROWLAND. No. In proportion to the scope it appeared to me to be a .30-odd size 6, a deer rifle with a fairly large or powerful scope.

Mr. SPECTER. When you say, .30-odd-6, exactly what did you mean by that?

Mr. ROWLAND. That is a rifle that is used quite frequently for deer hunting. It is an import.

( 2 H 170 )

BTW, the rifles were brought into the building on Wednesday the 20th. If my memory serves me correctly, that's the day that a Dallas Police patrol car allegedly saw "men with rifles" behind the picket fence.

“Two days before the assassination, two Dallas police officers were making their usual rounds on patrol. As they entered Dealey Plaza, they observed several men engaged in target practice with a rifle. The men were situated behind the wooden fence on the Grass Knoll. By the time the policemen reached the area the men had vanished, apparently leaving in a car parked nearby.”

MICHAEL KURTZ in his book, “Crime of the Century” (second revised edition) citing an F.B.I. report dated 11-26-63.

“That same morning [Wednesday, November 20, 1963], in the center of Dallas, two police officers on routine patrol entered Dealey Plaza, through which the presidential motorcade would pass on Friday, and noticed several men standing behind a wooden fence on a grassy knoll overlooking the plaza. The men were engaged in mock target practice, aiming rifles over the fence, in the direction of the plaza. The two police officers immediately made for the fence, but by the time they got there the riflemen had disappeared, having departed in a car that had been parked nearby. The two patrol officers did not give much thought to the incident at the time, but after the assassination of the President two days later, they reported the incident to the F.B.I., which issued a report of it on November 26. For reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained, the substance of the report was never mentioned in the F.B.I.’s investigation of the assassination and the report itself disappeared until 1978, when it finally resurfaced as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.

JOHN DAVIS, in his book, “Mafia Kingfish”

Edited by Gil Jesus
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Guns are normal in Texas and nobody pays any attention to guns everywhere.

And for that reason I find nothing sinister with Oswald carrying a gun into a theater.

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So the title of this thead is wrong, and Truly didn't bring the guns to work, Warren Caster did.

Has anybody read Caster's oral history at Sixth Floor?

Yeah, that was figured out five years ago. (the title of the thread is wrong)

What makes you think Caster's oral history is there?

Because there is a list of people who have given oral histories to the Sixth Floor and I thought I saw his name on the list.

I was wrong however, it is the widow of Jack Cason.

Interviews by Name | The Sixth Floor Museum

Gladys Cason

Cason was the widow of Jack C. Cason, who was president of the Texas School Book Depository in 1963. The Casons, a conservative family, feared for President Kennedy's safety during his visit to Dallas. Recorded September 29, 2005.

BK

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An interesting sidebar to Warren Caster.

On the day of the assassination, he was not at work at the Southwestern Publishing Company inside the Texas School Book Depository. He was at the North Texas State University in Denton, having lunch there with Dr. Vernon V. Payne.

( CE 1381 )

Three weeks earlier, student members of the Young Republican Club at NTSU had heckled UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson during his speech at the Trade Mart and upon leaving the building the Ambassador had been spat on and hit with a picket sign.

This "club" was a known satellite of the strident and blustering far-right wing agitator General Edwin A. Walker.

Walker made it known at every chance that he regarded JFK as a gutless "Commie-symp" intent on handing the country over to his Kremlin masters.

The Dallas Secret Service learned from the Dallas Police, who received information from a student informer, that some of Walker's Denton "troops" were planning something for Kennedy's Dallas visit.

One of the suspects that the Dallas Secret Service identified from the Stevenson incident was alleged to have remarked that he and others planned to "drag his [ Kennedy's ] dick in the dirt."

Pictures of this student and others who had been involved in the October 24 fracas were circulated to all security personnel at the Trade Mart and a "trip file" was prepared on each subject for use in any future Presidential visits.

( McKnight, Breach of Trust, pg. 249 )

I find it interesting that the very man who brought two rifles into the building just two days before the motorcade, used as an alibi, the very University from which students aligned with General Walker had made threats against the President.

And on TOP of all of that, none of these students were placed under surveillance or taken into custody before the Dallas motorcade.

No investigation was ever done to determine Caster's political views, the views of Dr. Payne, or if either had any connection with the Young Republican Club or with General Walker.

Edited by Gil Jesus
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