1353 9 22 1978
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SS ' imposters' spotted }y JFK witnesses August 27,1978 By EARL GOLZ Warren Commission and has not been enu ui a muzzle blast." '^be DiilUs Morning Ness, 1978 interviewed by the House Assassina He said he heard two shots "and Several men posing as Secret Ser tions Committee. then there was a blend. For a single vice agents were in Dealey Plaza Arnold said he was moving toward b61t action, he had to have been firing shortly before and after President the railroad bridge over the triple dam good because I dont'think any John P. Kennedy was assassinated, The underpass to take movie film of the body could fire that rapid a bolt action. Dallas News has learned. presidential motorcade when "this guy "The next thing I knew someone Shortly before the shooting, one of just walked towards me and said that I was kicking my butt and telling me to •'ie apparent imposters discouraged a shouldn't be up there." get up," Arnold said. "It was a police- soTUier from walking behind a wooden Arnold challenged the man's nian And I told him to go jump in the fence atop the grassy knoll from which authority, he said, and the man rtver. And then this other guy — a ti.e House Assassinations Committee "showed me a badge and said he was policeman — comes up with a shotgun recently test-fired a rifle and a pistol. with the Secret Service and that he and he was crying and that thing was The soldier — and at least four didn't want anybody up there." waving back and forth. I said you can other people — say they met men who Arnold then retreated to fhe front of have everything I've got. Just point it either shov/ed identification as Secret the picket fence high up on the grassy sqmeplaceelse." Service agents or said they were. knoll just to the west of the pergola on All but one of the encounters were the north side of Elm Street. ARNOLD TOOK his film~ from the canister and threw it to the policeman. in the parking lot west of the Texas AS THE PRESIDENTIAL limousine School Book Depository Building from "It wasn't worth three dollars and came down Elm toward the triple something to l)e shot. All I wanted where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly underpass. Arnold stood on a mound of shot the president on Nov. 22,1963. them to do was to take that blooming fresh dirt and started rolling his film. picture (film) and get out of there, just ALL BUT ONE of the counterfeit He said he "felt" the first shot come let me go. That shotgun and the guy agents wore business suits. One man from behind him, only inches over his crying over there was enough to was in sportsclothes and "had dirty left shoulder, he said. unnerve me for anything." looking bands or dirty fingernails," "I had just gotten out of basic Two days later. Arnold was on a according to a Dallas policeman who training," Arnold said. "In my mind plane reporting for duty at Fort Wain- confronted him. live ammunition was being fired. It wright in Alaska. He hadn't given None of the 28 Secret Service agents was being fired over my head. And I hit police in Dealey Plaza his name and protecting President Kennedy were on the din" never told his story to authorities foot at the scene shortly before or after Arnold, then 22, said the first two "because I heard"after that there were the shooting, the Warren Commission shots came from behind the fence a lot of people making claims about pic Report said. "close enough for me to fall down on tures and stuff and they were dying "None (in the presidential motor my face." He stayed there for the dura sort of peculiarly. I just said. well, the cade) stayed at the scene of the shoot tion of the shooting. devil with it, forget it. Besides, 1 ing, and none entered the Texas School HIS PRONE position, under the couldn't claim my pictures anyway; Book Depository Building at or imme shade of a tree, may have locked away how did I know what were mine?" his story for IS years as the Warren diately after the shooting," the Warren TWO U7«F0RMED Dallas policemen Report stated. "Secret Service proce Commission and later other assassina tion researchers scanned photographs had been assigned to guard the rail dure requires that each agent stay with road bridge. The Warren Report, the person being protected and not be and movie footage of Dealey Plaza for witnesses to the shooting. however, said the two policemen — diverted unless it is necessary to jiist as fellow officers guarding over accomplish the protective assign The first two shots that Arnold heard didn't come from the Texas passes along the motorcade route — ment." were not assisted by federal agents. GORDON L. ARNOLD, the former School Book Depository Building Dallas soldier, said he was stopped by a because "you wouldn't hear a whiz go Police officer James C. White told The man wearing a lighKolored suit as he over the top of your head like that." he News that he and James W. Foster were was walking behind the fence on top of said. "I say a whiz — you don't really keeping unauthorized people off the the grassy knoll minutes before the hear a whiz of a bullet, you hear just bridge. assassination. Arnold, now an investi like a shock wave. You feel it ... You "If there was one (Secret Service gator for the Dallas Department of Con feet something and then a report agent) up there, we didn't know it," sumer Affairs, was not called by the comes right behind it It's just like ine White said. "He wasn't on that bridge, I THE CONTINUING INQUIRY know that." by a "tall and slender" man in a busi parking lot was made by Dallas ;•' , However, a railroad signal supervi ness suit who "whipped out" identifica patrolman Joe Marshall Smith. sor, who aided While and Foster in tion purportedly showing he was a identifying railroad personnel on the Smith, who is still with the force, Secret Service agent, she toP The said immediately after the assassina bridge, was under the impression that News. "a plainclothes detective or FBI agent tion he started toward the Texas School "I thought he was trying to get Book Depository Building and met a or something like that" was helping away," she said, "but evidently he the officers guard the bridge. woman who told him, "They are shoot wanted me to keep from getting away ing the president from the bushes." THE SUPERVISOR. S.M. Holland, (and pursuing the fleeing man). He The policeman checked the bushes told the Warren Commission that about identified himself, supposedly, and I next to the wooden fence atop the 90 minutes before the motorcade came took it that he was. I just figured they grassy knoll and the parking lot by Dealey Plaza he met the two police (Secret Service) were shooting back." behind it. men and the agent near the bridge. Mrs. Hill lost sight of the man run Smith and a deputy sheriff met a In 1964. Holland, now dead, was ning through the parking lot about the man in sportsclothes in the lot. Smith asked by Samuel A. Stern, Warren Com time he reached the railroad tracks drew his pistol. "And 1 thought, "This is mission assistant counsel, if he sfoke near the point where they ran across silly, I don't know who I am looking to the three together. the triple underpass. for,' and I put it (pistol) back," Smith "Two — there were two city police said. "Just as I did, he showed me that men and one man in plainclothes," Hol A RETIRED Dallas policeman, Tom he was a Secret Service agent." land said. "I didn't talk to him (the man Tilson Jr., recently told The News how The man displayed the "regular not in uniform). I talked to the city he chased a man who slid down the identification" of the Secret Service in policemen." west side of the railroad embankment "a wallet and folder," Smith said. Stem pressed further and asked if from Dealey Plaza minutes after the "I rememtier one thing, he kind of he knew what the third man's "affilia presidential limousine sped by on its had dirty looking hands or dirty tion was." Holland said he didn't know, way to Parkland Memorial Hospital. fingernails it looked like," Smith said. and Stem moved on to another subject. Tilson said the man jumped into a dark "But hell, we all have to work on a car car at the foot of the embankment near ABOUT AN HOUR before Holland or or something like that every now and the Elm Street underpass and drove then. That's what this looked like to the pohcemen were on the bridge, west toward Industrial Boulevard. Julius Hardie of Dallas was driving his me." electrical equipment company truck Tilson, who was not on duty at the time, drove after the car while his ANOTHER POLICEMAN, Sgt. D.V. east on Commerce Street and was about Harkness, told the Warren Commission to make a U-tum to the Stemmons daughter, sitting beside him, wrote down the license number. He lost the he went to the back of the Texas School entry lane when he noticed three men Book Depository Building shortly after on the bridge.