NOVEMBER 22, 1963 (Friday)
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The JFK Assassination Chronology NOVEMBER 22, 1963 (Friday) 12:00 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) Nine Secret Service agents drinking at Pat Kirkwood’s bar the “Cellar Door” in Fort Worth, Texas. Several of the women serving liquor to the agents are strippers from Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club. (Pat Kirkwood is a licensed pilot and owns a twin-engine plane. He will fly to Mexico hours after JFK’s assassination.) In Madrid, Spain today - the CIA reports hearing from a Cuban journalist who claims to have received a letter stating that GPIDEAL [President Kennedy] will be killed today. On this date, Aristotle Onassis is in Germany for the christening of his newest ship “The Olympic Chivalry .” In today’s issue of Life magazine, Clint Murchison’s lawyers, Bedford Wynne and Thomas Webb, are named as members of the “Bobby Baker Set.” Wynne is already under federal investigation concerning government funds he is receiving through a Murchison family corporation, some of which have ended up as payoffs (via Thomas Webb) to the law firm of Bobby Baker. [Baker is LBJ’s right hand man. Murchison’s empire overlaps with that of Mafia financial wizard Meyer Lansky and Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa.] HT 12:30 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) Marina Oswald notices that her husband, LHO, is still awake. 12:50 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) JFK reaches the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth. 2:00 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) Seven Secret Service agents are still drinking at “The Cellar.” 3:30 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) The Secret Service men at “The Cellar” are joking about how several firemen are the only ones left guarding the President at the Hotel Texas, in Fort Worth. 5:00 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) One Secret Service agent is still drinking at “The Cellar.” ALL AGENTS HAVE TO REPORT FOR DUTY AT 8:00 AM ON THE MORNING OF THE 22ND -- three hours from now. Lee Harvey Oswald has been awake most of the night, not able to sleep, finally dozing off about this time. Marina avoided him last night - soaking in a bath for an hour before coming to bed. 6:30 Am (Nov. 22, 1963) Marina Oswald awakens to feed her baby, Rachel, and checks on her other child, June. TDKWS 7:00 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) In Dallas, seventeen men line up before Deputy Chief W. W. Stevenson. The patrolmen are told that their function will be to “seal” the Trade Mart in preparation for JFK’s visit. Two thousand, five hundred people are expected to attend this event which is scheduled for 12:30 PM. TDKWS J.D. Tippit reports for duty. (According to one source, Tippit’s wife - Marie - visits a neighbor later this morning in tears because “on that morning Officer Tippit has told her he wanted a divorce to marry someone else.” ) Conspiracy Two Secret Service agents are at Fort Worth Police Headquarters examining two limousines which have been rented for the Kennedys and the Secret Service to use during the four-mile drive from the Hotel Texas to Carswell Air Force Base. TDKWS JFK’s valet, George Thomas, awakens the President - who is asleep in Suite 850 of the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth. TDKWS 7:08 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry appears on local television and announces that the President will be in Dallas today and that Dallas wants no incidents. Curry concludes by asking all good citizens to please report to the Dallas Police Department anyone who has voiced violent opinions against the President or who has boasted, publicly or privately, of plans to demonstrate today. TDKWS 7:10 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) Lee Harvey Oswald is still asleep ten minutes after his alarm goes off. Marina wakes him. He rushes to dress in order to leave for work. He tells Marina that she should buy new shoes for baby June. He reportedly places his wallet in a dresser drawer. It contains $170. He keeps $13.87. He leaves his wedding ring in a cup on the top of Marina’s dresser. TDKWS As JFK dresses this morning in Fort Worth, Texas, he dons his underwear and a surgical corset. He laces it tightly. He then pulls a long elastic bandage over his feet and twists it so that it forms a figure eight, then slips it up over both legs. It is finally adjusted over his hips where it supports the bottom of his torso, while the back brace holds the lower spine rigid. TDKWS 7:15 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) Lee Harvey Oswald leaves his home to go to work at The Texas Book Depository Building. He leaves his wedding ring and, by some reports, his wallet on the bedroom dresser. (The Dallas police will later claim they find a wallet on Oswald following the assassination. There is no indication that he used two wallets.) This is cited by some as evidence that he intended to shoot JFK. He does leave home wearing his U. S. Marine Corps signet ring and an identification bracelet with the name “Lee” inscribed on it. He will be wearing both of these items at the time of his arrest. LHO walks one block east from the Paine house and pokes his head into the back door of Linnie Mae Randle’s home, looking for her brother Buell Frazier for a ride to work. Both Randle and Frazier will later agree that they observed LHO place a package in the backseat. Both are adamant that the package is far too small to be even a broken-down Mannlicher Carcano rifle. 7:23 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) LHO is driven to work by Buell Wesley Frazier. They don’t talk very much during the trip. When asked what the package in the backseat is, Frazier testifies that LHO answers: “Curtain rods.” This is the package in which LHO supposedly carries the “broken down” assassination rifle. This bag is carried between his armpit and cupped hand into the TSBD. No one sees it come into the building. The rifle, broken down, can not fit under LHO’s armpit and cupped hand -- as Frazier testifies he carries it. The “Bag” is homemade -- out of brown wrapping paper supposedly taken from the TSBD. The Warren Commission does not indicate its reasoning as to when and where Oswald fashioned the paper bag from materials taken from the TSBD. Presumably he did so only after the motorcade route become known on Tuesday, November 19, 1963, and before departing for Irving after work on Thursday. According to the Commission’s findings, Oswald must have carried the paper bag concealed on his person when he accompanied Frazier to Irving on Thursday. Frazier saw no paper bag or any sign that Oswald had concealed on his person the six-foot length of wrapping paper necessary to construct a bag consisting of two sheets, each about three feet long, sealed at the edges. AATF THE CURTAIN RODS: Researchers have posed the question that, if LHO did indeed carry curtain rods into the TSBD this morning -- what happened to them? Wouldn’t they have been left in the building following LHO’s exit immediately after the assassination? DPD will eventually possess photographs of curtain rods that were dusted for fingerprints, but there is no information on the photos identifying where they were found. Following the assassination, Counsel Jenner and Secret Service Agent Joe Howlett accompany Mrs. Ruth Paine to her garage and find two curtain rods on a shelf. The rods are measured and found to be 27 1/2 inches long. Mrs. Paine maintained that only those two curtain rods had been stored in the garage and that consequently Oswald did not take curtain rods from the premises on the fatal morning. Her husband, however, is not certain of the number of curtain rods which had been stored in the garage, before or after the assassination. AATF The Warren Commission will conclude the following: “During the morning of November 21, Oswald asked Frazier whether he could ride home with him that afternoon. Frazier, surprised, asked him why he was going to Irving on Thursday night rather than Friday. Oswald replied, "I'm going home to get some curtain rods * * * [to] put in an apartment." The two men left work at 4: 40 p.m. and drove to Irving. There was little conversation between them on the way home. Mrs. Linnie Mac Randle, Frazier's sister, commented to her brother about Oswald's unusual midweek return to Irving. Frazier told her that Oswald had come home to get curtain rods, It would appear, however, that obtaining curtain rods was not the purpose of Oswald's trip to Irving on November 21. Mrs. A. C. Johnson, his landlady, testified that Oswald's room at 1026 North Beckley Avenue had curtains and curtain rods, and that Oswald had never discussed the subject with her. In the Paines' garage, along with many other objects of a household character, there were two flat lightweight curtain rods belonging to Ruth Paine but they were still there on Friday afternoon after Oswald's arrest. Oswald never asked Mrs. Paine about the use of curtain rods, and Marina Oswald testified that Oswald did not say anything about curtain rods on the day before the assassination. No curtain rods were known to have been discovered in the Depository Building after the assassination.” Frazier recalls that LHO is wearing a "gray, more or less flannel, wool-looking type of jacket". Linnie Mae Randle says "to the best of her recollection Oswald was wearing a tan shirt and gray jacket." 7:30 AM (Nov.