Warren Commission (12 of 26): Hearings Vol. XII (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (12 of 26): Hearings Vol. XII (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Mr. STEVENSON. I believe, as I remember, he did say that the message
that he got was that an anonymous caller had notified the FBI.
Mr. HUBERT. All right; go ahead with it then.
Mr. STEVENSON. They had discussed the possibility of transferring
the prisoner in an armored car due to these threats. I walked in the
office, in the chief's office while that was being discussed, and the
chief asked me what I thought about it.
I told him I thought it would be a good idea, in view of the threats.
Chief Batchelor went to his office to contact one of the local
armored truck operators, who was, I believe, a Mr. Fleming, and made
arrangements to get an armored truck. I remained around the office on
the third floor, and I believe Chief Batchelor and I made another trip
down in the basement before I went after some coffee.
Chief Batchelor advised Chief Curry he had ordered the armored truck
and told Chief Curry, he and I were going to the basement and look the
area over. We went to the basement, and Captain Talbert had set up,
what we thought, was a very good security.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you see it yourself?
Mr. STEVENSON. Yes; I saw the officers, where they were distributed.
Mr. HUBERT. Would you state then for the record just what you saw, what
you stated you considered to be good security? And it might be that you
will want to use that chart to indicate what you mean.
Mr. STEVENSON. He had placed officers--he had not stationed them
definitely, but he had officers there checking everybody that came
into the basement. He had officers down there that searched the entire
basement area, searching cars, on top of the heat conduits, and so
forth. He had officers on the ramp up here.
Mr. HUBERT. Wait a minute, you say, "up here"?
Mr. STEVENSON. At the top of the Commerce Street ramp.
Mr. HUBERT. How many officers did he have there?
Mr. STEVENSON. I don't know just how many. He had some reserve and
regular officers. And Captain Arnett advised us, I believe it was on
this trip, that he had been instructed by Captain Talbert to move all
of the people to the southside of Commerce Street, permit none of them
to congregate on the city hall or Police and Courts Building side of
Commerce, and that he had done that. We observed that the crowd was
across the street. He had an officer stationed up here at the top of
the Main Street ramp.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know that officer's name?
Mr. STEVENSON. Vaughn, I believe it was.
Mr. HUBERT. I wonder if you would write his name there in your own
handwriting.
Let the record indicate that Mr. Stevenson is writing the name of the
Officer Vaughn on Exhibit 5050.
Can you tell us what officers you saw in the basement area?
Mr. STEVENSON. At that time when I was down there, I cannot say other
than that I did see Captain Talbert. He was all over the area.
Mr. HUBERT. What time was this, about, again?
Mr. STEVENSON. This was around 9:45, I guess. As best I recall the time
on that.
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