Warren Commission (15 of 26): Hearings Vol. XV (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (15 of 26): Hearings Vol. XV (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Mr. HUBERT. But they weren’t visible?
Chief BATCHELOR. No.
Mr. HUBERT. So far as you know, Sheriff Decker did not know that there
was a change of plan from the use of the armored car to the use of the
homicide car?
Chief BATCHELOR. I don’t know whether he was called after the change of
plans or not.
Mr. HUBERT. This was not announced?
Chief BATCHELOR. He knew he was to have some men at the gate to open
the gate to the jail driveways of the county to let this armored car
in, and the instructions were for Lieutenant Pierce, who drove the car
out, was to get out around in front, to take this truck on beyond and
not go in, drive right on down Houston Street with it. And whether
Sheriff Decker was ever told of the change of plans or not, I don’t
know, but I kind of doubt it.
Mr. HUBERT. Chief, do you know of any type of pressure of any sort
whatsoever which was put upon the police department or any member of it
to allow free press coverage of the transfer?
Chief BATCHELOR. If you mean that any individual or any press group
came and pressured anyone into that, I don’t know of any. Just the
general pressure of the whole press barging in there and being in there
was about the only thing.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know of any pressure put upon you or anyone else by
officers or officials of the city higher than you to allow the press to
be present in the way they were?
Chief BATCHELOR. No, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. What is your estimate of what the number of press people
and the general condition created by their presence, contributed to the
failure of security? Of what the presence of the news media and the
number of them contributed to the failure of security?
Chief BATCHELOR. Of course if we had taken him out in secret without
anyone knowing about it, including the press, it is possible that this
might not have happened. But I can’t say that the press caused any
breakdown in security. From what we know now, believing that Oswald
came in the Main Street entrance----
Mr. HUBERT. You mean Ruby?
Chief BATCHELOR. I mean Ruby came in the Main Street entrance, our
weakness in security lay in allowing him to come down that ramp in the
first place.
Had the press not been in the basement at all, and assuming that Ruby
slipped into the basement, then he might have been detected more
readily.
If people had not been standing across the Main Street ramp, there
would have been no place for him to screen himself. But the actual fact
of the press being there is hard to say that this caused the breakdown
in the security, in my opinion.
Mr. HUBERT. As I understand it, you were--when I say you, I mean
the police department and of course including you--you were aware
of threats being made or having been made toward Oswald, isn’t that
correct?
Chief BATCHELOR. Yes; I was aware of it.
Mr. HUBERT. As I understand it, the threats were in the nature of mass
action rather than single-man action?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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